It's Only Temporary

by Eric Shapiro

  I look to my mom for an inevitable second opinion. She nods. “He’s right. But don’t be naive, either. There could be lots of crazies out there.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I say.

  Or at least as fine as I can be.

  4

  “There could be lots of crazies out there.”

  Great. Just do this right. You have three quick stops to make before you get on the freeway, all of them local.

  Before entering my hand-me-down ’93 Ford Explorer (affectionately nicknamed “The Horse”), I check out the sky. Since word of the end got out, there’s been talk about the weather. There’s always talk about the weather, I guess. Even when we’re all gone, the cockroaches will be bullshitting about the wind chill factor.

  The sky is royal blue. Weeks back, some predicted rain. Others predicted wind. Some said fog. Snow. Hail. Sleet. Mist. Anything that evokes doom has been predicted. The truth is that this day is sublime. I don’t even require a jacket.

  I crank the engine on, toss my weapon into the passenger seat. Its scraped metal catches the sun. I turn on the radio. Static on most channels, but the classic rock station has blessed us all with round-the-clock psychedelics: Zeppelin, Hendrix, Morrison, The Grateful Dead, Franzschubert. I predict that every song I hear will be fueled by manic ambition. Anything to lift us from the darkness.

  After I pull out of the driveway, I stop in the street and look at my house. The words “so long” drift from my lips. I depress the gas pedal and become one of the crazies out there.

  5

  My first stop involves marijuana. I don’t really have to stop for this, but I do so for sentimental reasons. I pull up behind my high school, in the parking lot next to the soccer fields. This is where my friends and I smoked every morning before homeroom during our senior year. I want the experience to be all pink with nostalgia, but it’s dark black. There’s no soothing me. My nerves are chewing each other up.

  The marijuana should fix that—to an extremely limited extent. It doesn’t make the pain go away; it just makes it difficult for me to string too many thoughts together. That makes moment-to-moment existence marginally more bearable. (The pressure of today will most likely crush the margin, but I’m trying to ignore that.) I sprinkle some opium on the weed. This, of course, enlarges the distance between me and reality. A couple years ago, right before winter break from college, I swore off chemicals of all kinds. I was determined to clean myself up en route to the real world. Silly me for assuming there would be one.

  Instinct leads me to duck down below my car windows. Then it occurs to me that nobody who saw me would care. I haven’t left the house in over two weeks, so I’m slightly behind on the latest etiquette.

  I step outside and smoke up. Nobody’s in sight. Force of habit leads me to feel vulnerable, but that feeling passes once the chemicals hit my brain. “I am smoking weed and opium right now,” I say out loud, too loud, pronouncing every word with arrogant meticulousness. “I am smoking weed and opium, and I now intend to piss on the wall of my school.”

  There’s liquor in my belly from last night. I’ve been using it to fall asleep. I spray dark urine on the school’s red brick wall. My pants and boxers are around my knees. Fuck any onlookers. If they’ve never seen anything this strange, then they will in just eight short hours anyway.

  I want the act of pissing to free me. I want to feel spirited and rebellious and juiced-up and strong, but I feel like a weak little flea. Just as I start to envision fleas, the opiates redirect my thoughts: Go see Uncle Joey.

  Uncle Joey isn’t my uncle. He’s merely the owner of Uncle Joey’s Diner, one of the hotspots in my little town. The man is a harrowing denial case. He’s carrying on like nothing’s changed. He opens shop at six a.m., throws some eggs on the stove, twirls around the OPEN/CLOSED sign, and goes to work. (Fortunately for everyone, he stopped accepting money around ten days ago. That’s the only indication that he knows what’s up.) I’ve eaten there a few times in the past six weeks. Uncle Joey does a reasonably good job of approximating the atmosphere of an actual, non-doomed restaurant. One day, this illusion was cracked when one of the patrons started raping his wife in a corner booth, but Joey chased them off with his shotgun. Minor disturbance.

  I like Uncle Joey. Despite the recent absence (or fading, I guess) of pupils in his eye sockets, I’m not afraid of him. And just in case I do become afraid of him, I’ve got Dad’s pistol on me. I stuff the piece in my pants before leaving my car. Its cold steel offends my relatively warm dick.

  “Hi, Uncle Joey,” I fake-smile as I pull up a stool.

  “Well, hello there, Sean! I haven’t seen you in a while!”

  The old man is screaming at me, but I’m used to it. It’s his way of showing affection. I yell back, “Yeah! I haven’t seen you either!” but he doesn’t get my joke.

  “What can I get for you today?”

  “Just something to get my sugar up. Maybe a blueberry muffin.”

  “Mmmm, sounds good. Coming right up!”

  I turn around. There are not many others in attendance. Scattered couples and loners. It occurs to me that I could shoot everyone here and no one could ever touch me for it. I wonder how the bureaucrats in Heaven would handle that case: “Gee, this is a tough one we’ve got here. He was a saint throughout most of his life, but he went fucking ballistic on the last day. Should we send him back to Earth for another try? Oh, wait! There is no more Earth!”

  A muffin is in front of me. It looks like a bruised, bleeding fist. I lift it from its plate and rise from the stool. “Not gonna stay here today?” Uncle Joey asks me.

  “Nah, I’m in a hurry. Thanks.”

  “You sure you don’t want a glass of milk?”

  That sounds good. I tell him so.

  I return to my seat. The weed-and-seeds combo is doing a nice job. Everything is liquid. Namely the milk that Joey places in front of me. I pick up the cold glass and start moving toward the door.

  “Hey!”

  My heart snaps. I spin around. Joey has daggers where his eyes belong. He says, “You’re not gonna steal my glass, are you?”

  Suddenly I’m screaming. Everyone’s looking at me. They’re not shocked or offended or anything; they’re just looking. I go, “You’re not gonna ever need this fucking glass, you fucking idiot!”

  Uncle Joey is reaching down behind the bar. That’s where he keeps his shotgun. I throw the glass of milk right at him. Maybe it hits his face, maybe his chest. I hear it break on some part of him as I run out the front door.

  6

  Given my little outburst, it’s a good thing I planned on stopping by the Meditation Circle. Something resembling guilt is circling my brain. (It’s closer to regret than out-and-out guilt.) I shouldn’t have thrown the glass, but then again the fucker could have shot me. Whatever; I’m an asshole. I hope I didn’t hurt him. Today is a day for virtue, not sin. Hence my decision to visit the Circle.

  The Circle is over at the local library. They pushed all the bookshelves to the walls to create a wide-open space. In that space, at any given time, three hundred or so of my fellow townspeople can be found holding hands. They engage in group meditation for a while, then stop and trade thoughts and fears, then engage again. I’ve avoided the scene until now. My mother tried to encourage me to go, but I told her my hands were too sweaty to partake.

  Right now, my hands have crumbs and blueberry on them, but I’m sure nobody will mind. I wipe them on my pant legs, stash the gun in the glove, and head inside.

  Fact: Even in the final hours, libraries remain quiet.

  Everybody’s eyes are closed. Some faces are divided by tear streaks. The fluorescent lights make the tears glow. A few heads are thrown back, but most hang down. I don’t know what the protocol for inclusion is, but there’s no time for politeness. I step between two little boys. My brother and sister come to mind. The opiates sweep them away.

  The next thing I know, I’m in my least favorite place: my head. It’s louder
than a construction site in here. My eyes are closed tight, and my eyeballs are making an asserted effort to break through their lids. I picture open mouths and sharp teeth. Don’t panic, I tell myself. Then my chest starts to tighten. What am I doing here? I belong among the people I love. Stop it. You love all people. No you don’t! You’re so full of—

  A female voice interrupts my introverted nightmare. “Does anybody want to share what you experienced?”

  The whole room stirs.

  You could imagine my surprise when the little kid to my right starts talking. Cute kid: glasses, striped shirt, messy hair. Probably knows what being picked on is all about. In a chirping, tiny voice, he goes, “I saw lots of bright lights.”

  The lady speaks again, and this time I’m able to locate her. She’s an aging hippie, in her early forties. A modest potbelly sticks out against her faded purple top. Her smile brings her whole face to life. She says to the kid, “That’s good. Any neat colors?”

  I picture red, yellow, green, blue, purple.

  The kid says, “Like mostly gold.”

  I realize that nobody is still holding hands except for me and the kid. Instinct tells me to let go, but when I try to he holds on tighter. Suddenly I feel very protective of him.

  “Gold. Mmmm, that’s a nice one. Where do you think it came from?”

  “I think from this man standing next to me.”

  Have you ever had six hundred eyes staring at you? I don’t recommend it. A thunderstorm erupts in my chest. Even though I regret yelling at the diner, I feel like doing so again. After all, it felt good at the time. I should say to them, “You fucking maniacs! How can you all stand here like this? How can anybody do anything?”

  But of course I would never do that. Some of these people know my mother.

  I smile and shrug. The hippie lady looks at me. “Have you joined us here before?”

  “No. First time. My mother—”

  A voice that I can’t locate chimes in: “His mother is Rena from the hair salon.”

  “Oh,” says the hippie, “I thought you looked familiar.”

  Never too late for some small talk, huh?

  “I just wanted to stop by and see what this is all about.”

  “It’s all about whatever you want it to be about.”

  “Oh, that’s pretty cool.”

  I know she’s gonna say it before she does: “What do you want it to be about?”

  Human nature is some vicious beast. Despite the extremity of the circumstances, social conditioning leads me to be shy. I reach inside and try to break through. The awkward silence is of epic proportions. The little kid pumps my hand. I look at his face. He seems to feel protective of me, too.

  I look back to the hippie. “I want to experience something grand.” Some mutters and nods. These people actually understand me. And even if they don’t understand me, they’re at least validating me. My chest unwinds.

  “Go on,” the hippie says.

  “Well, there’s a lot of grandness in the world. Buildings and statues and skyscrapers”—it occurs to me that skyscrapers are buildings, but I’m doing okay otherwise—“and political ideas and religions and great works of art, and all these things are wonderful, but I can’t feel them. I mean, I can feel them, but they don’t reach all the way in. And I want to experience something that reaches all the way in.”

  Many of the elders seem impressed. I’ve always wanted to give a lecture.

  “And this thing that’s about to happen, it certainly reaches all the way in. It rattles all of us very deep. But it’s not grand. It’s not grand because it’s dark. It’s twisted and ugly. And grand things are full of light. They’re exciting, not depressing.”

  The hippie is falling in love with me. “Would you mind telling us what kind of a ‘grand thing’ you’re looking for?”

  I saw that one coming also. Something inside me wants to plead the fifth, but something stronger persists: “Well, I’m only twenty-three, and I never got a chance to feel like a person.”

  The kid holding my hand doesn’t know what I mean, but he’s listening.

  “I never got a chance to have an identity. I mean, I think I have virtues. I think I’m a bright kid, and I like to draw and paint, and I think I’m pretty nice and I make people feel good about themselves, but I never got a chance to do anything. I never had my turn.”

  This isn’t sufficient. The hippie’s eyes are thirsty. She wants to know “like what?”

  So I say, “And I think if I had had my turn, I could’ve been pretty good. I could’ve been a leader or a known artist or something. And maybe that would have been grand. To give the grand thing instead of just receiving it. That would reach all the way in. Not because it would make my ego feel good. Well, it would, but …”

  That gets an unexpected laugh.

  “… more importantly, it would be good for other people. Their lives would possibly be enriched, even if only for a second. And that would be powerful. Not just for me, but for the ones I’m touching.”

  I’m worried that I sound like an egomaniac, so I throw on some humility: “The thing is, people have touched me a lot, and I used to take that for granted. And I hate myself for taking it for granted and never giving anything back. Because if I’d just been able to give something back, I think it could have been special. But no, I had to waste my time doing drugs and hanging out with my friends and thinking about girls. Once in a while, I gave a dollar to a homeless person, or sent my grandmother a card, but that was it. And I’m pissed. I’m fucking pissed, and I guess I feel guilty and helpless.”

  My use of the f-word seems to surprise only me. People are busy registering what I’ve said. I never thought I’d say fuck loudly in a library, and I can’t say that I’m touched by the honor.

  The hippie goes, “Perhaps you’ve done something grand just now?”

  I smile at her. Sweet lady. It’s good of her to try to placate me. But I can’t accept that.

  “That wasn’t grand. I’ve got so much more in me. And pretty soon there won’t be a me. And what am I supposed to do then?”

  “You’re still here now …”

  Many smiles and nods.

  “You can still do something.”

  I wonder if the little boy feels me shake.

  The hippie lady stares at me, into me, through me, and asks, “What are you going to do with the rest of your time?”

  I tell the hippie lady, and the boy who’s got my hand, and all the others, and all the world, “I’m gonna go see this girl I know. I’ve been angry with her for a while, but I’m gonna go see her anyway. And I’m gonna love her. I’m gonna love her so much that all her pain and fear will go away.”

  7

  As it turns out, my confession is among the least melodramatic. I stick around and listen to some others. There’s an aging cancer survivor who laments about the irony of dying so soon after she was cured; a mustached tough guy who says he really wants to kill his sister-in-law before the day’s out, but he’s forcing himself not to do so; a traumatized twenty-something (who I actually knew back in high school when she wore a miniskirt and threw around pompoms) who says she “feels responsible” for the end of the world. I leave right after that one. No time for glaring ridiculousness.

  On my way out the door, I feel a hand tug at my back pocket. I turn around to see my little friend with the glasses and the stripes. He asks me if I’m gonna kiss the girl that I’m visiting. I laugh out loud. This laugh is real.

  “Why? Do you think I should?”

  The kid nods quickly. “Is she pretty?” he wants to know.

  I put a hand on his shoulder and lean in close to him: “This girl’s prettier than anybody you’ve ever seen.”

  The kid’s mouth drops open. He says, “Then you should definitely kiss her.”

  “The question is not whether I’ll kiss her. The question is whether I’ll be able to stop kissing her.”

  “That’s true,” the kid says, as if he knew I would com
e up with that.

  “Wish me luck?”

  “Good luck.”

  We hug each other. See you next lifetime.

  8

  I met Selma in my dorm hallway. She was wearing her pajamas. I was waiting behind her to use the water fountain. It was the middle of the night. When she was done drinking water, she turned and faced me. Her face was peaked yet amazing. We’d never seen each other before, yet she spoke to me like we went way back:

  “Can you feel my forehead and see if I’m hot?”

  My response didn’t require much introspection. “Yeah, sure.”

  Twelve words between us, and already I was touching her.

  She was hot. Temperature-wise and otherwise. I resisted sharing this pun with her. I just told her she was hot. I gave the h-word a little emphasis to flatter her subconscious. The next thing I knew, we were walking to the campus convenience store. I treated her to orange juice. She thanked me with a high-five, told me she was a Political Science major. I told her I was an Art major. She didn’t mock that like most people do. No little jokes about how I’d end up poor.

  In fact, she dug my work. In greater fact, she made my work better.

  We became attached. Worshipped one another. Talked nonstop. Argued. Debated. Begged. Pleaded. Swung on the swing-set at the park. Ate off each other’s forks. Check-listed every cliché.

  She was the second female I’d ever met who told me I was good-looking on a daily basis (the first one gave birth to me). She had a thing for touching my cheeks. Not squeezing them like a psychotic relative, just touching them with quiet curiosity. This got annoying when I hadn’t shaved. Otherwise, I let her leave her prints all over me.

  Her body was a masterpiece. She liked to be on top. I swooned over the slight protrusion of her ribcage, the paleness of her skin. Not pale like paper, more like white rose petals. Her nipples were nearly flesh-tone. I’d never seen that before. One of them always got slightly harder than the other. I equated this to the fact that she was left-handed (don’t ask me why). She wore button-down shirts. I liked asking her to unbutton them in front of me. She always obliged. Even if we were in the hall.