“Number ONE in acquisitions!” Brent screamed at the top
of his lungs, “Let’s see you assholes take that away from me. Come on! Come at me with your best shot!”
Brent stood on the ledge of a Wall Street high rise wild
eyed and sweating. Small bubbles of
white spittle clung to the corners of his mouth as he raged. He HAD been number one in acquisitions for
his company and his heady nature caused him to gamble one too many times. In his recklessness, he had lost everything
for his clients. He was a laughing stock
on the trading floor. He knew he could
never face his wife again let alone his parents whom he had taken
responsibility of care. They all
depended on him and he let them down.
His hands were shaking as he held the cool marble edges
of the building. He couldn’t stop
yelling into the spring air, unsure if anyone could hear him…unsure if anyone
even cared. He was now stalling what he
had started no completely convinced he wanted to jump.
To his right, Brent heard an office window open. He couldn’t see who was there, but started
screaming he was “number one” even louder.
He looked more closely and saw a woman leaning halfway out of the
window. She was plain. He would have never noticed her in
passing. Her hair was pulled back to the
nape of her neck in a severe bun so that her fleshy neck looked as if it had a
tumor growing from it. He noticed how
her ample waist spread out on the sill like a comfortable blanket wrapped in a
polka dotted candy wrapper. Seeing her
there caused Brent to stop screaming.
Paranoid, he thought the woman was with the police and
started to inch further to the left.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you…doesn’t look like you
have much ledge left,” the woman said.
“Hey man, just cause I’m fat doesn’t give you the right
to call me a pig. I have feelings too
you know!”
“Well….aren’t you with the police?” Brent questioned.
“No you dumbass, I’m not.
I work in this office and all this damn yelling is really making it hard
to concentrate.”
“I should just fucking jump then is that what you’re
saying? You want me to jump?” he said
with heated passion.
“Man, it doesn’t matter what I want or what I think. I just opened the window to see what all this
“number one” bullshit was about.
Seriously—does it matter that much?
Being number one?”
Brent stood there quiet, his body starting to
slacken. Did this woman have a
point? What was he throwing his life
away for, because he failed? Brent
wasn’t sure anymore. It all felt like a
horrible dream.
He was startled by the shrillness of the woman’s
voice. “Hey…dude…I’m gonna leave the
window open for you. Just stop
screaming, ok? I just can’t take it
anymore. If you jump, that legacy is on
you. If you don’t, you can come in, I’ve
got doughnuts. Crème filled and
everything.”
“What’s your name?” he said.
She put her heavy body back through the window and Brent
suddenly felt alone and very near the reality of his situation. It wasn’t a great time to remember he was
afraid of heights. He inched along the
ledge carefully and only let out his breath when he felt the lip of the sill
under his dress shoes. He eased a leg
back through the window, balanced there awkwardly he imagined, and moved the
rest of his body through. He let out a
heaving sigh. He turned and there was
Janet standing in her polka dot dress.
Her face was full of Boston Crème doughnut, the chocolate smeared over
her upper lip, smiling. She picked up
the box and extended it out towards him.
Brent reached out and took the lemon filled jelly
doughnut. He bit into it with
gusto. The powdered sugar sprinkled down
on his black suit. He smiled with her
ready to not be number one.
Teeth Meet Nail
by Ally Malinenko
“Call my name.”
“What?” I say, sleepy into the phone. I fumble for the clock
on the nightstand.
3:11
Jesus Christ.
“What?” I say again.
“Call my name.”
“Danielle….It’s late.”
There is nothing but silence on the other end.
My throat is foggy and I cough to clear it. “Danielle.”
“Call my name.”
“Go to sleep.”
“You won’t play?”
Her voice is light, soft. I can picture her face, her long
dark hair. The way it used to fan over my pillow, over my own face at night.
I used to sleep soundly, buried in that hair, like a bird in
a nest. Then, something changed. And it started to choke me, twisting its way
into my mouth.
Suffocating.
“Danielle…”
“Do it.”
I sigh.
“Call my name,” she says again, sing-songy, letting the words
just hang there.
“Ninety to nothing—”
“Watch me run,” she says before I can.
“I have to go now.”
“No,” she says. I hear that tears quiver inside her. It makes
me wonder about the last time I went to the ocean.
“Is he there?” she asks.
“No.”
Her indignation is put on. It’s Cherry-Coke flavored.
“He’s on call tonight.”
“Sure…..ugly girls know their fates.”
“Are you finished? I want to go back to sleep.” This is, of
course a lie. There is no way I’m going back to sleep.
“Wait….”
“What?”
“Just wait…” I hear a click and know that it’s the sound of
her placing her fingernail between her incisors and biting down. When she
fishes the loose nail from her tongue, because Danielle doesn’t spit, heavens
no, anything but that, her words are momentarily garbled. “You missed a good
show tonight.”
“I’m sure I did.”
“You did.” She says this with conviction as if to remind me
that I’m missing out on a lot of good shows these days. I stretch and scratch
my stomach.
“Big house?”
“Yeah. Martin says he wants to add another performance.”
“Good.”
“Good?” Her voice rises at the end and I hear another click
as teeth meet nail.
“Yeah, good for you.”
“Ah,” she says exhaling. “Good for me.” Then after a pause, “I’m assuming you know about Layla.”
“I heard.”
“Are you coming to the service?”
“Probably…I don’t know.”
“You’re not going to go? I think you should go.”
“I’ll think about it.” I roll over, my back sore. The bed
feels hot. I lay a hand across the empty mattress and wonder what Paul’s night
is like. Has he saved any lives? Has he dipped those hands into the blood of
another human? Why would anyone want to
be a doctor? I asked him that when we first met. He laughed, taken aback by
my question and in his surprise his eyes lit up. That was the first time I had
seen him like that. Do you want to save
lives? I asked him. Are you doing
God’s work? He cocked an eyebrow at the mention of a deity. Jon, he said to me, I’m undoing God’s work. God
made disease and death. Decay. Rot. I preserve. I fight to keep life. I’m a
most unholy crusader.
He reached across the table of that posh restaurant – more
expensive than I could ever have afforded and brushed his fingers over the skin
of my hand, so lightly like it was only the thought of physical touch.
And, he asked, what about you? Why do you act? Because you
want to know every life you could have lived? Or because you’re afraid of this
one?
“Layla was your friend,” Danielle whispers through the phone.
“You can’t abandon all of us.”
I can hear that she’s crying. She probably knows that I know
this and expects me to comment.
“I’m going to go. It’s just… you know…. I hate funerals.
They’re so depressing.”
“No time for the dead in that fancy new life.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Don’t bring him.”
“Danielle…”
“I’m serious. I hate the way he looks at us. Like we’re
vagabonds. Druggies. Freaks. Like he wouldn’t lay his doctoring hands upon us.
Don’t do that after we lost our Layla.”
“Stop it.”
“It’s true.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I don’t need to. His name is
Paul. That’s all I need to know.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means ‘small.’ Small Paul.
Is that what he is?”
“Goodbye Danielle.” I pull the phone away from my ear and I
can hear her calling my name. Jon, wait.
Jon, wait…I’m sorry. Her voice is tiny and airy like an evil pixie. I bring
it back to my ear and I hear her whispering, “Please don’t hang up. Come on
Jon, don’t hang up on me.”
“I’m tired,” I say. “I want to go back to sleep.”
“What time is Prince Charming back?”
“Usually around 7 or 8 in the morning. He goes right to bed
then.” I think about Paul climbing into bed next to me. How he will fit his
body against mine. How the smell coming off him will be the hard soap from the
hospital. Clean. Bleached. Raw but still Strong. Behind that will be the faint
sterile scent of the rubber gloves he pulls on and off each day. The powder he
uses to keep away irritation. He will snore. His arm, over my waist will be
heavy with the weight of a night spent pulling the dead back from the brink.
Pulling and succeeding. Pulling and failing.
“I knew you would come out. I’m not stupid. I knew it…us….we wouldn’t last… I just didn’t
expect it to be with a straight.”
“Danielle…”
“You know what I mean.”
I count ten seconds. I’m about to tell her I have to go but
she beats me to it.
“Anyway, I have to run.” She’s light and breezy as if it was
the middle of the day and we were normal still.
“Okay.” I give her this. She needs it and I understand that.
“Call me later.”
I nod and then remember she can’t see me and instead say,
“Sure.”
“Call my name….” she sings it. High and light. She has a
beautiful voice. For a moment it melts inside me and I sink into the mattress. Suddenly
all I want is for Danielle to sing to me. I think of her pressed against me.
How light her arm always was around my waist. “Call my name….here I come. Your
last ditch lay, will I never learn…”
She laughs at the end. “Ciao, darling.”
I listen to the dial tone before I drift off.
