White

         “…no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed;

              as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences…”

                                                                  Moby Dick

                                                                  Herman Melville

                                                         3:13 a.m.

I smell smoke.

It isn’t Marlboro smoke. It’s acrid, tart, grasping. Not like the cigarette smoke that I enjoy so much. Beautiful smoke, filling my leathered lungs with smooth, substantial, toxic vapors, tickling my chest, calming my ever-active mind. Tendrilled wisps of white fairies curling toward the ceiling or the sky, dancing erotically until they disappear, dissipate, disengage from this earthly realm.

I open my eyes, horrified at what I see: thick, white smoke entering unbidden under the bedroom door. A crackle enters my consciousness, and I know it for what it is.

Two thoughts cross my mind as I jump up and slip on my trousers and sandals, both thoughts warring with each other for supremacy.

My house is well and truly on fire.

I am probably going to die.

                                                    **************

                                                          3:14 a.m.

The hallway leading to the kitchen is filled with white smoke. My eyes burn, but my lungs are surprisingly unaffected. I reflect that smoking cigarettes prepared my lungs for this assault, and I laugh out loud. Take that, Linda! Maybe I’m going crazy, like my ex-wife always said I would. Maybe the smoke is causing me to hallucinate, for I swear I hear her voice, chiding me for smoking too much, drinking too much, and eating too little.

My fingers trace the left wall of the hallway, searching for the kitchen entrance. Peeling paint flakes off and becomes embedded under my fingernails, sending bolts of pain through my hand and arm. I should have repainted the house long ago. When Linda left me, I just kind of gave up on house maintenance. Now I’m paying for it.

I knock a picture off the wall. I know which one: a photo of Linda and me, when things were still good between us. The tinkling sound of glass breaking comingled with the sound of something crashing. It sounds like the armoire in the old master bedroom. It hasn’t been used since Linda left. I wonder if Linda still remembers those beautiful nights in our bedroom. I can’t sleep there any longer. Linda didn’t want the armoire. Said I should give it to one of my girlfriends. That hurt.

I bend down to pick up the photo, folding it up and stuffing it in my back pocket. It’s effectively ruined now, but I don’t care. If I’m going to die, I want what Linda and I once had to be with me.

I remember where we were in that photo. Lake Bowie. I had won a writing contest, and I was happy and feeling generous. All of this was before I became full of myself. The cabin was nice enough, but Linda spotted a scorpion. She refused to set foot in the cabin until I had cleared it out. I spent three hours checking everything for scorpions. I didn’t find any, but I did kill a few spiders and tossed out the carcass of a dead mouse. I didn’t tell her about that. We had a hell of a good weekend in that cabin. Our souls twinned and twined and twirled and twisted, only to become unraveled somewhere along the way.

The door jamb leading to the kitchen interrupts my musings. My pulse, already sending blood to my body at warp speed, quickens even more. My face feels hot, like it did one long-ago week when I had a severe bout of flu. Linda took care of me then. Gentle touches, cool rags to the forehead, soothing murmurs.

Linda was at her best when someone needed her. I never got that until years after the divorce. I asked her once when she thought I was at my best. Sleeping, she said. I pretended it was a joke.

I turn left, seeing the kitchen in my mind. My hip rams into the kitchen island. I curse, but not much. My lungs are beginning to rebel. They feel achy and heavy, like I had run a 100-meter dash after smoking a pack of Marlboro Reds. I’m gasping for air now, and I feel dizzy. Panic can’t be far behind.

The dining room table accosts me next, but not badly. I run the palm of my right hand along its contours, feeling for the end so that I could take – I think – three medium steps to the living area. Is it three? Or four? I can’t remember. My mind won’t focus, won’t see what it has always seen for the past twenty-three years.

My hand finds a rubber spoon, but in my effort to grab it, I knock it off the edge of the table. I hear myself whimper in frustration, surprised that I do so. Me? Whimper? Well, yes. I need that little rubber spoon. It was Janice’s spoon when she was little. Still is hers, I suppose.

She was so cute, trying to use that spoon. For a few moments, she was successful, but frustration would set in. The spoon would be abandoned for fingers. I can still see her food-smeared face as she shoved in mouthfuls of buttered macaroni and sweet potato. I would wipe her mouth, which she hated.

The divorce hit her hard. We shared custody, but that ended when she went to college. Linda used to come over often during those early years after the divorce. We would have meals together, watch Janice play, and reflect on where it all went wrong. It was always a short discussion. We both know what went wrong.

Linda doesn’t visit me any longer, but the spoon is my constant companion, along with my guilt. Janice, like her mom, chides me for such things. It’s cute when she does it. Not so cute when her mom does it.

I fall to the floor and scrabble around, almost desperate to feel the soft rubber in my hands again. I don’t much care if I die right now, as long as I have the spoon with me.

Janice. At least I didn’t screw her up. She rebelled against me, though, going for a STEM degree instead of following her path to literary glory. She has the skills. And the pedigree. But she’s great at math and chemistry. I suddenly get the irony. Chemistry. I was more interested in chemicals and chasing skirts than developing a strong relationship with her mother.

Fort tents. Pizza for breakfast. Loud arguments with Linda on such matters. She accused me of not being a parent and I accused her of being a tyrant.

I find the spoon and cradle it against my chest. I wish it were Janice, but the small, rough, piece of rubber will have to do. Maybe I’ll just stay here and think about Janice as the smoke suffocates me. I can feel it getting stronger. I close my eyes because they burn so much. My chest constricts. Breathing is a chore now. I wheeze, cough, spit up phlegm that tastes weird, like cream gravy seasoned with gunpowder.

Linda let me have the spoon as long as I let her have the Elmo. God, that thing is so ragged! Linda washed it, sewed it up, took care of it after the divorce, but it still looks old and tired. Like Linda does now.

I see her from time to time, usually in the supermarket. She looks worn out, hard, frayed. Metal fatigue. I chuckle at the thought, and then I start crying at the thought. I know in my heart that I’m responsible for that. The sparkle in her eyes are gone, replaced by something dull and muted, a sort of pale fire. Her smile is not as genuine; it’s more like she’s trying on a new and uncomfortable dress and can’t decide on how to feel about it. I don’t ever touch her when I see her. She might break, and cleaning up the pieces would be something I’m not equipped to do.

                                                    **************

                                                             3:16 a.m.

I crawl toward what I think is the opening that leads to the front room, and freedom. I find the opening and pull myself up. The smoke is thicker, but I can’t crawl much because of my knees. Every time a knee encounters the floor, it feels like a sledgehammer blow to them. The pain reverberates though my body, leaving me quivering and shaking. Getting old sucks.

I take three steps and stumble over a bookcase that has fallen. So, it wasn’t the armoire. I feel for a way around the bookcase and the books, regretting – for the first time, mind you – my profession. The books I read, the books I write, hell, they might just be my undoing.

That’s where the trouble started. I became famous. A popular author that everyone wanted a piece of. Lectures, book signings, talk shows. I still mentally kick myself when I think of sleeping with all those women in all those cities. Starstruck college girls intent on living out a fantasy. Middle-aged Literature professors wanting to screw a real-life author instead of lecturing on dead ones. The occasional bar hookup. The less occasional hooker.

Linda, I know, suspected, but she never said anything, never confronted me. I think she blamed herself, thought that she was lacking in some fundamental way. My expectations of her were unrealistic. I wanted her to be a dutiful wife during the day and a dirty whore in bed at night.

It all came crashing down one October night. My agent came to our house, drunk and disheveled and generally looking like hell. She yelled out that she couldn’t live without me, that our love-making was transcendental, blah, blah, blah.

Linda took it like a champ, and then she took herself and Janice away. The woman has class, though. She never denied me visits with our daughter, even going so far as to allow joint custody. The pizza for breakfast thing still bothers her. I don’t get that.

I stumble over books. So many books! Why the hell do I have so many copies of my own books? I lean against a wall, despite feeling the heat that’s there, the heat that increases, telling me that the fire will soon break through to this area.

I put my ear to the wall I had been leaning on. I can hear the pop of flames, their tongues licking at the walls like a slavering beast, ready to devour. I think of all those women I slept with. I wonder who the beast was, them or me. I open my eyes again and see white. Nothing but white. It seems impenetrable. Like love. Like hate. More monsters to overcome, or give in to. I remain undecided on which action to take.

                                                     **************

                                                              3:17 a.m.

I claw at the front door, doing a poor job of unbolting locks and unsliding chains. The door isn’t hot, thankfully, but it’s white and insurmountable and implacable. Like the smoke. Like everything.

I’m knocked backwards by a tremendous force, skidding on my butt across the floor until I’m stopped by the bookcase. A dim figure strides in, lifts me up, carries me outside. An oxygen mask is put over my face and a blanket is wrapped around me. It’s cold as hell out here. Firemen are spraying great quantities of water on my house. The fire doesn’t seem to abate.

Smoke pours out of the shattered front door, white plumes billowing out with increasing fervor. I cough up more of the gunpowder gravy and I spit it out, and then I replace the mask. Droplets of condensation form inside the mask. My lungs feel good now, and I want a cigarette, just so they don’t get too comfortable.

Linda drives up and jumps out of her car. She rushes to me and suddenly stops, not knowing what to do now that she sees that I’m alive and ok. But I know what to do. I stand and hug her. It’s the least I can do, I know. The very least.

                                                       **************

                                                            5:10 a.m.

The fire is out, but smoke continues to make its presence felt. The firemen douse the embers, and even the smoke decides to give up in the face of several hundred gallons of water. I watch all of this with Linda. She holds my hand. It isn’t as soft as it used to be.

She drives me to her house. Classy, like I said before. She had moved after Janice graduated high school to be nearer her work. All the way across town. A long drive, alone with a woman who should hate me, and with thoughts that I hate to think.

“You can sleep in Janice’s room until you find a place,” Linda said. Her voice was strained. Not indifferent or angry or loving. As if it were being filtered through all the years of dealing with the shit I handed her.

“Thanks. I’ll be out in less than a week. Promise.”

Jesus! I just used the “p” word! I bet she’s wondering how I have the gall to use that word after I had broken practically every promise I ever made to her. I’d feel better if she would reach over and slap me. She doesn’t. I’m a little disappointed.

Another mile goes by before she speaks again.

“How did you get out?”

A simple question. A complicated answer is needed, but I don’t supply her with the truth. I lie.

“Just felt my way through the smoke.”

“God! I saw that smoke! It never seemed to stop.”

She’s not wrong. I never want to see that much white again in my life.

“I didn’t think I could overcome it, but I did, somehow.”

I fiddle with the rubber spoon before stuffing it in my front pocket. The house was gone, but I had a rumpled photo and a rubber spoon.

Linda laughs lightly. A different kind of laugh. Like she used to laugh.

“Well, you did better than Ahab. He never could beat the great white beast.”

I nod, impressed by Linda’s reference. She never evinced a great interest in classic literature when we were married. I wonder if “Moby Dick” was a recent thing, or had she always liked the book and I never listened to her?

You know what? I don’t want to know the answer because either one would hurt, and I’ve had enough hurt for one night. Not the physical kind, mind you. The other kind. The kind that stays but doesn’t leave a visible scar. You know what I mean.

Linda makes me eat a sandwich before I take a shower and go to bed. I make myself drink three whiskey-and-sodas. She doesn’t say anything about that. Not tonight. Not after the fire.

I fall into Janice’s bed and stare at her old posters. Jimi Hendrix. Jimmy Page. Jim Morrison. She always had a thing for musicians named “Jim.” I leave a lamp on. I check to make sure I can get out of the window without falling over something, and I implore Linda to do the same.

She sits on the side of the bed and strokes my hand. She used to do this to Janice when Janice had a nightmare. Just sit with her and stroke her hand. Something so simple but it always worked with Janice. I’m starting to realize what a genius my ex-wife is.

“Do you think we still have a chance?”

I ask her this because a) I’m still not thinking straight and, b) the whiskey-and-sodas were very strong. More like I waved some soda over the whiskey glass. Yeah, it was all whiskey and no soda. Might as well confess. It’s that kind of night.

Linda laughs and smiles at me, but the smile is sad and grim. Her fingers stop stroking my hand. Instead, she clasps it with both of hers. They’re hot and rough and, somehow, unemotional. I don’t feel Linda. I feel a stranger that is familiar to me.

“Our ship is the Pequod. It sank. There are no survivors.”

I know exactly what she means.

She walks away and shuts the irritatingly white door.