The Fifteenth of June

by Brent Jones

A flicker of hope flashed across her face.

  “But I’ve made my choice.” He paused. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll go,” she managed with a slight nod. The door shut slowly behind her.

  Drew fell back on his mattress, thankful for the familiar silence.

  *

  Several hours passed and Drew awoke to darkness. He slowly got to his feet and turned on the kitchen light. In the absence of a lamp, it would do. He pulled the cold Chinese food from the refrigerator—pork and pineapple fried rice—and relocated to the balcony. Using his thumb and forefinger, he shoveled bits into his mouth. Ethnic cuisines wafted into his nostrils from adjoining units, pairing offensively with the scent of trash below. Drew felt no less invigorated to consume his dinner. He leaned over the railing. Miniature people scurried between high-rise units, corner stores, transit stops, and fast food joints. Horns and sirens blared in the distance. An old bum pushed a shopping cart through a nearby parking lot. It was Saturday night and the people of Palmer Heights were alive.

  A starry night sky blanketed the distant skyline. Palmer Heights was within city limits, but it was a neighborhood that most—especially young professionals—seldom ventured to. To move here was social suicide. What the Indiscreet Elite called “settling.” But Drew didn’t care. It was home now. It was where he was supposed to be.

  Drew finished his food, tossed the container off the balcony, and returned indoors. He slid a large cardboard box in front of his rocking chair and took a seat. The flaps of the box were opened, revealing a treasure trove of books, charging cables, playing cards, glass pipes, and a single framed photo of Heather. He gripped the frame, shut his eyes, and then dropped it on the floor.

  Drew closed the flaps, placed his laptop on its surface, lifted its screen upright, and clicked a familiar icon on his desktop. A small light illuminated next to his webcam. His face—complete with scruff, chapped lips, and dark circles—appeared on the screen. He took a deep breath and clicked the red record button at the bottom of the application.

  “Hi,” he began. Drew caught his crooked posture in the video preview and adjusted himself on the chair. “It’s been a little while now, I guess. A few days at least, right? Well, I’m—I’m going to keep this one short. I need to go pick up a bottle of something and, uh, the store closes in an hour or so.” Drew glanced at the on-screen timer. Twenty-six seconds of his life digitally captured. “So,” he continued, “Heather just left. I, uh, I hope I’m not making a mistake.” Thirty-four seconds. “I wish sometimes I could see myself the way she sees me. It’s like no matter how bad I fuck up, she never gives up on me. But I feel . . . nothing for her. Just emptiness. I’m ready to leave her in the past.”

  After his mother died, Drew was taken to see a number of counselors. Sadness Doctors, he had dubbed them. They were supposed to make his sadness go away. But it seemed to Drew, even then, that the Sadness Doctors were more interested in getting money out of his father than helping him.

  Except for the last one, who Drew encountered just shy of this tenth birthday. A heavyset woman with curly hair, a slight accent, and crooked teeth. Her breath smelled like coffee. She didn’t smile much. But Drew had clung to her every word. To this day, he couldn’t recall her name. He simply remembered her as Coffee Breath. In their first session together, she had encouraged Drew to keep a diary. Somewhere he could write down his thoughts. “You need to live your truth,” Coffee Breath had told him, “and the more honest you can be with yourself, the more alive you’ll start to feel.”

  Drew never really grasped what that meant—living his truth—even as an adult. But in that first session, she handed Drew a lined notebook and a pencil. He sat staring at a blank page, unsure of what to write. “Describe whatever comes to mind,” she had coaxed.

  He ended up writing a short story about meeting a bear in the woods. The bear seemed scary at first, but it turned out he wasn’t so bad. The bear even shared a bit of his honey with Drew before returning to his cave. He never saw the bear again. The moral of the story, in his young mind, was to avoid getting too close to anyone. Sooner or later, people would leave his side, taking their honey with them.

  He had tried to share his writing with Coffee Breath, just as he was accustomed to showing his schoolwork to teachers, but she refused to look at it. “These are your special moments, Andrew,” she had explained. “And no one else gets to experience them—no one but you.”

  “Then why write them down?” he had asked.

  “Because it’s only when you become aware of yourself—your thoughts, your choices, and your feelings—that you can begin to take ownership of your life.” She had spoken softly and slowly to Drew, as adults do when reasoning with a child. “Your life is made up of small and special moments. And when you learn to capture those special moments, both the good ones and the bad ones, you begin to live with purpose. Otherwise, your life will just be a series of passing seconds and minutes. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” But he hadn’t understood a word of it.

  “Good. Don’t let anyone steal your special moments, Andrew. No one can take them from you.”

  At the end of the session, Russell returned with Logan in tow. When he had asked Coffee Breath how it went, she mentioned the diary. Russell picked up the lined notebook despite Coffee Breath objecting. He read Drew’s entry about the friendly bear and anger rushed across his face. He tore the book in half and tossed it in the trash can. “Bullshit,” he had called it. “I’m paying you this kind of money to write fairy tales with my son? What the hell is wrong with you? Why aren’t you fucking quacks fixing him?”

  That was the last Sadness Doctor Drew ever saw.

  Eighteen years later, Drew still kept a diary—and no one knew. Not his father, not Neil or his brother, not even Heather. He kept his thoughts private, just as Coffee Breath had taught him to. As a kid, he wrote on scrap pieces of paper, as a teenager it was hardcover journals and cassette tapes, and as an adult, it was videos on his computer. Hundreds of video files now spanned his collection, arranged in reverse chronological order, dating back for years. Some of them were as short as two minutes. Others carried on for an hour. It depended how much private time Drew could muster—and how much had happened since his last recording.

  Two minutes and forty-three seconds had elapsed in the video. Drew returned to reality and looked straight into the camera—as if to make eye contact with his digital self—then continued.

  “The thing is, I’m an asshole. And I know it. I—I don’t mean to be.” He shut his eyes, allowing himself a moment to collect his thoughts before continuing. “I know I’ve said this before, but I’m not sure I ever really loved Heather. She’s a great girl, don’t get me wrong. Even when we first met, she liked me. And girls, women, whatever, don’t usually notice me, so I, uh, played along I guess. Pretended, which is all I’ve ever really known how to do. I figured at some point I’d start to feel something for her. But five years passed and nothing changed. It’s like no matter what, I always just feel the same. Just cold and distant most of the time. And being with me is ruining any chance she has of finding real happiness.” What do I know about real happiness, anyway? “I hope that one day she finds someone who loves her. Someone . . . who isn’t like me. When it comes down to it, I’ve always treated her like more of a roommate than anything else.”

  The fifteenth of June was coming, and the thought of it struck Drew all at once.

  “She usually comes with us to see Mom every year. I don’t relish the thought of entertaining Logan on my own. He’s such a smug, arrogant prick. Thinks he’s so much higher and mightier than the rest of us.”

  Three minutes and fifty-two seconds.

  “I’d swear Logan blames Dad for Mom’s death.” Drew bit his fingernails as he spoke, unaware he was doing it. “Oh, uh, I saw Dad this morning. He’s coughing pretty bad. I know his health hasn’t been great, but . . . I don’t know.”

  He released a deep breath. Four minutes and eigh
teen seconds. “Oh, I almost forgot. Neil took home some chick from the bar last night.” Drew laughed to himself as he recalled the hazy details. “She comes up to our table, right?” He used his hands to imitate a pair of melons on his chest. “So, basically all Neil does is introduce himself, grab her ass, and off they go. No idea how he does it.”

  Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

  “I mean, I dated Ashley for a bit before I met Heather. But I’ve never really been all that forward with women. There was Julie at senior prom. But, uh, I never really got any practice talking to women as an adult.” He looked hard at himself in the video preview. Probably because I’m goofy looking. “But I’m okay with being on my own. I mean, I kinda like the idea of being alone. Takes the pressure off.”

  Even after all these years keeping a diary, Drew often felt as though he was lurking in the shadows, describing his own life from a distance, unsure what was worth noting. Should he share his thoughts and feelings, or just stick to facts? How honest should he be? He wanted to like himself, after all.

  Five minutes and two seconds.

  “Well, those are my updates. I hope Heather forgives me. I don’t . . . I don’t want her back. I just want her to be okay with us being apart. It’s what’s best for both of us.” Is it? “She deserves to be happy.” Don’t I? “And, uh, not that I believe in God or any of that life after death stuff, but I’m not really sure what my next move will be. I—” Drew hesitated. His next thought felt too raw to speak out loud. “I wish Mom could somehow talk to me. To tell me what my life was supposed to be. What I need to do next. Like, my destiny . . . or something like that.”

  Five minutes and fifty-two seconds.

  Drew stopped the recording and watched as his laptop processed the file, encoding it to his hard drive. There it was—a video file named after the date and time. A moment of his life captured, likely never to be heard or seen again. Just soulless fragments of data stored within a conspicuously labeled folder: Special Moments.

  He sat back on his chair for an instant, rocking it, enjoying the fortified solitude of his domain. He glanced at his boxes and wondered if he should start unpacking. I should probably get some furniture first. He glanced down at the discarded frame beside his chair. He slowly brought it to his face and scrutinized the photo of Heather, examining her features, confirming his emptiness. He undid the four clasps on the back of the frame and gently removed her portrait. Beneath it was an old black and white photo, creased, torn, and yellowed, which captured him blowing out five candles on a magnificent cake—double chocolate, homemade, and shaped like a race car. His mother had her hands outstretched, holding the cake in front of him, beaming him a wide and joyous smile.

  Drew closed his eyes and went back in time. Things were simpler. His mother was alive. His father was happy and healthy. And Logan was too young to be condescending. He stood up and grabbed his keys and wallet. He took off in search of his favorite bottled mistress, making sure to lock the door this time.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  Drew awoke Monday morning on his bare mattress to synthetic chimes. He grabbed his phone from beside his head and swiped the noise away. Lesser men might have lingered in bed after what his liver had processed overnight, but he had always been an early riser, no matter how little he slept or how much he drank. He walked from his living room to the bathroom and trimmed his overgrown stubble into something uneven, albeit intentional, before hopping in the shower.

  His bedroom was empty aside from the closet, its floor piled high with wrinkled garments. Throughout his years in sales, he had acquired an extensive wardrobe. It wasn’t that Drew prided himself on appearance—most of his professional attire was cheap and poorly fitted—but he did pride himself on sealing the deal.

  Sales had always felt like a game to Drew. A chance to prove that he wasn’t totally inept at conversing with others, even if he didn’t enjoy it. It was also a means to quantify his success, as if each sale validated that he wasn’t a complete antisocial outcast.

  He chose a striped shirt and solid gray slacks. He walked into the kitchen and glanced at the counter—a plate, a knife, a plastic straw cut in half, and a small mountain of white powder. It called to him.

  He thought of the day before, setting out to pick up a few essentials for his new home—groceries, soap and toothpaste, toilet paper, and half a gram of cocaine.

  “Bro, I’m not your fucking dealer,” Neil had said when Drew showed up at his door.

  “I know. But you’ve got some. Hook me up.”

  He motioned for Drew to keep his voice down. “I stock coke for the ladies. Some of them want a bump before we get busy.”

  Drew hadn’t wanted to beg. “Can you help me out this one time?”

  “Fine.” Neil vanished into his condo and returned seconds later. “Here you go,” he said, placing a small baggie in Drew’s hand. “This is good shit, bro. Enjoy.”

  Drew handed Neil forty dollars.

  “You’re short.”

  “I’ll get you the rest,” he said.

  Drew returned to the moment, straw in hand. Do I wanna get fired from this job, too? Before I’m even hired? He pushed the desire for a pick-me-up from his head. He grabbed a couple of cereal bars from the cupboard and sprinted out the door.

  *

  Drew pulled into a parking lot in front of a long stone building. It had once been home to a large retailer but had since been bought out and rebranded. Erected across a strip of freshly cut grass were dozens of street-facing signs with neon lettering, announcing, Job Fair Today.

  He looked up at a banner stretched above the main entrance indicating that this was now Transtel, A Global Leader In Communications. More like the only call center outside of India.

  The building was quiet except for murmurs that seeped through a glass pane that overlooked the call center floor. Workstations were plastered with vibrant motivational gibberish—quotes about teamwork taken out of context from the Dalai Lama, and uplifting phrases starting with each letter of words like attitude, positivity, and happiness. College students, single moms, retirees, and other members of society’s most disenfranchised answered calls with insincere enthusiasm. Drew took it all in with cynicism.

  A mousy voice arose from over his shoulder. “Are you here to speak with a hiring manager?”

  Drew spun around to find a middle-aged redhead, cross-eyed with thick glasses, and one disproportionately large front tooth. “Uh, yes, I am.”

  “Okay then, sir,” Bucktooth said, leading Drew down a wide corridor. “Right this way.”

  He followed her into a waiting area. Colorful plastic chairs lined the outside of the room, most of which were filled with anxious job seekers waiting to plead their cases. Most of them looked as unhappy to be there as they were unqualified to do much else.

  “Have a seat, sir,” Bucktooth said.

  Drew nodded. “Of course. Thanks.” He chose the closest empty chair.

  Assigning nicknames to perfect strangers was not only a fun way to pass time, it was also a lot easier for Drew than learning given names. He glanced around the room and caught sight of a mass of skin and bones—a woman no older than Drew. Bones wore a lounge dress and her arms were covered in track marks and tattoos. She brushed a strand of greasy hair from her sour face with a trembling hand.

  A few seats to his left sat a young female blowing bubbles in her gum and reading a magazine—something about lip injections. She looked to be barely out of high school. She wore excessive makeup and kicked her feet back and forth, listening to pop anthems through earbuds. It’s gonna be hard for Bubbles to afford cosmetic surgery working here.

  “Daddy—” A shrill whimper pulled Drew’s attention to the far end of the room. There sat a young father, desperately working to calm his restless son. The man had a bushy mustache and sported an ugly wool sweater—the type worn as a gag to Christmas parties. His son, a boy no older than eight, wriggled in his seat, pleading for them to go home.<
br />
  “Daddy needs to speak to someone about a job, Braden.”

  “But how come it has to be now?”

  “Because. Someone is here to speak with me today, and I’ve got nowhere else to leave you.”

  “Can’t Mommy come get me?”

  “No, Braden. We won’t be seeing Mommy for a little while.”

  “But Daddy,” he whined. He started bawling and Mustache cupped his hand over the kid’s mouth.

  Bucktooth returned with a clipboard. “Name?”

  “Drew Thomson. That’s Thomson without the pea.” He stood and extended his hand to shake hers but was interrupted.

  “How much longer will it be?” Bubbles asked.

  “Not long now, miss.”

  Drew sat back down. “I’m sorry, I thought this was a job fair of some kind?”

  “Oh, sir, it is,” Bucktooth replied. “Didn’t you grab a brochure on the way in?”

  “I can’t say I did.”

  “Well, just ask on your way out—I’ll get you one. For now, let’s get you in front of a manager. Training starts next week.”

  The rapid clip-clop of heels shifted their focus to a woman entering the waiting room. She was in her twenties and had vivid green eyes. Her dress contoured to her figure, and her presence commanded attention. Drew couldn’t help but stare.

  “You here to see a hiring manager?” Bucktooth asked her.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said with the kind of energy one might exude after winning the lottery.

  “Name?”

  “Kara Davenport.”

  Bucktooth examined Kara from head to toe.

  Jesus. Even Bucktooth wants to bone her.

  “Have a seat, miss. You’ll be called in shortly.”

  Kara sat next to Drew. She reached into her handbag and pulled out her phone long enough to silence its ringer. She gently placed her bag by her feet and smoothed out her dress with manicured hands before turning to Drew. “Hi,” she said.

  Why is she talking to me? “Hi,” he replied.