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The first thought I can remember is, who’d’ve thought Hell was a bar?
“Pub.”
“Wha..?”
“It’s a pub, Yank. Don’t ask me to tell you the difference, it’d only confuse you.”
He’s small, very fair, and very Irish, this man talking to me. I know I’ve seen him before, but I can’t place him. Really, I can’t place much. I just know that when I opened my eyes, I’d expected something completely different.
“Lindsey, yeah?” he asks, holding out a shot glass.
“Yeah, I think.” Okay, so I’m not feeling so witty. I have this feeling that something isn’t right, and I’m not sure I want to know.
“Deal is, Lindsey,” he starts in, filling the little glass with something amber colored and dangerous looking, “is you made somebody happy there, at the end. I’m not saying who or why, but you did it. So, now, you get to play again.”
“Play what?” My head hurts a little, and my shoulders and my chest, too. “The end of what? Where am I? How did I get here?”
“Eternal questions, those, and you’ll have to square them away, yourself. Drink.” His eyes are green, and seem very wise, even though he looks younger than me.
I drink, and it burns like whiskey for a miserable tick of the clock. Then it mellows, soothes, and relaxes its way through my whole body. I look down at myself. Why am I wearing a suit?
“Look, I appreciate the drink, Mr…”
He laughs at me. “Don’t ‘Mr’ me. I work here. You, you’re just passing through.”
I sigh and run my fingers through my hair. It slips through my fingers for a second longer than I expected. “I don’t remember how I got here. How long have I been here?”
He fills the glass again. “Drink it, and listen up. You get one choice and one chance. Not many get either, much less both. So, think, think real hard. Where do you need to be, right now?”
I drink, like he says. I think, even though there’s a new pain, more internal and more unnamable. It’s like there’s something missing, right there, below the third rib. “I…need to…”
“Have another, and concentrate. Where did you leave off?”
“Leave off?” I ask, taking the third shot with gratitude. I swallow the liquor, close my eyes and try, but nothing’s coming back.
“Yeah, leave off. Where’d you last remember being where you wanted? Think back. If you want it, it’s yours.” His eyes know, and his face has the answers. I stare, he smiles with letters and then there’s a word.
“No.”
“No?”
There’s more, lost like a forgotten script. My cue? What’s my cue? “No. I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want it, but this just isn’t where I belong.”
“Right. Good.” He finishes, grinning, practically beaming with satisfaction. “That’s where it starts. You just say that, when the time comes. Say it, just like that.”
“Say what? Wait!”
Did I get drunk? I had two drinks, no…three. Not enough to get drunk but the world just went all crazy-carousel on me, sort of jerky up and down with a fast spin that won’t let me see what’s happening. When it stops, with a nauseating suddenness, I put my hand out and see it taken by another man. He has a smiling face, too, but this one isn’t filled with footnotes of what I’m supposed to be doing. This smile is shady, hiding too much without looking like hiding. I don’t trust it. I bet this is the place.
“As I’ve been trying to tell you, that’s a decision each person has to make for himself. If you want it, it’s yours. If you don’t…”
“No. I can’t.”
The hand gripping mine tightens just a little, and the hidey-hole smile fades around the edges. “No?”
“It’s not that I don’t want it,” I say, and it sounds so right. I must have it memorized and buried. It’s something I wasn’t supposed to remember, but without the encumbrance of the rest of my life, these are the only words I have left. “This just isn’t where I belong.”
“Are you sure about that? This is everything you’ve worked for, everything you’ve wanted,” he sells, extending his arm out over a desk, towards a wall of windows and a suicidal view.
“Everything I’ve wanted...” I turn away from the merchandise, not knowing exactly what it is this guy wants, only knowing that he isn’t getting it from me. I leave the room, leave the hall and leave the building, repeating that over and over. “Everything I’ve wanted.”
Everything I’ve wanted. Where did I want to be? Where do I belong?
I say the words again, change the order. “I wanted everything.” That makes me sad, angry, and disappointed.
“Where’d you last remember, being where you wanted?”
I’m sure it’s a long walk, to wherever that is. It should be, but I round a corner and there’s a familiar door. Inside looks old, worn down and dirty at the edges. There’s an elevator, rickety and a little scary as I take it up. I know where I’m going, even if I don’t know where that is. I’m still chanting my mantra, still saying it quietly. “Everything I wanted. I wanted everything. Where was I wanted? Being where I want to be, being where I’m wanted, is everything.”
I open the door to the roof, knowing this is the right place when the wind blows my hair back. I’ve got a long sleeved white shirt on, open and messy with blood so I let it slide off of my arms. The breeze on the top of this building feels good on my bare arms and chest, even with the bruises I can see darkening on my skin.
I take a few steps forward and see another of those free-fall vistas. This one isn’t safe behind industrial glass. No, this one is open and scary and unpredictable. This one has a guardian, a sentinel standing at the edge waiting to stop me from getting too close. Silent and still as a standing stone, is this protector. Silent until I join him in his watch.
“I wanted everything,” is the only thing I say.
“Yeah, and now?” Dark voice, shadowy face and murky promises all spell danger.
“I want to be where I belong.” I step closer to the precipice, his arm stops me. “Is this where I belong?”
“I don’t know. All I can tell you is it’s where I want you to be.”
Despite the fall only a step away, and despite the pain in my face and my chest; despite the fact that what I’m doing feels hasty and reckless and not at all what was supposed to happen, that empty spot under my rib isn’t so empty anymore.
“Okay,” I say, and I’m smiling.