First Line/Last Line

This is apropos of nothing, but I thought I'd post it anyway. It was written in response to an assignment on another site; we were given the first line and the last line, and the rest was up to our imagination. This was my entry:

He was running the vacuum cleaner when the phone rang. It was a big vacuum cleaner, one of those Shop Vac jobs, meant for industrial use in some plant where hazardous spills were common, or in a garage or machine shop where there were always metal shavings and bits of scrap scattered around on concrete floors, and it was loud. And of course the game was on, college hoops (it was almost Tournament Time and things were really heating up), turned way up; between the screaming of the vacuum and the screaming of the announcers he didn’t hear the phone for the first dozen rings or so. Or rather he heard it but it didn’t really register. Then suddenly the ringing was in his head, and he shut the vacuum cleaner off and picked up the phone.


“Hello?”

“Hey.”

That voice. Just like that. Just like always, quiet, serene, inviting, with just that timbre, that undercurrent that hinted at desire and sex and intimacy and desire again, the subdued enthusiasm still there, restrained, elegant, but there like the lights of a Broadway marquee on a dimmer switch, just waiting for someone to push the button to the top. He almost dropped the phone.

“Hey,” he replied. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I was just thinking of you. It’s been awhile.”

“Yeah, it has.” Great. Just thinking of you. Like a doll you used to play with when you were a little girl, then lost somewhere, you don’t remember how, and forgot about, then suddenly remembered because you missed it for some stupid reason. Great. “What have you been up to?”

"Work, mostly. And Mom is sick again.”

“Is she? Bad?”

“Pretty bad. She’s been in the hospital a couple times the last few months, and now she’s on oxygen at home.”

“That sucks.”

And just like that they were talking again, just like they always had, about the mundane things of life at first, and some of the not-so-mundane, and then music, and movies, never sports, the cats (both had died, just weeks apart), the peccadilloes of various friends from their former circle (it’s amazing how quickly a circle can fall apart when one link in the chain breaks), some politics, more music and movies, and of course books. Two hours. He had muted the television as soon as he knew it was her, telling himself that he’d watch with one eye while she was talking–it was the Biggest Game of the Year, so far–but after a couple seconds he wasn’t really watching anymore, and not really thinking about it, although he left the TV on anyway, finding comfort in the light, and besides, he did manage to sneak a peek or two when the conversation waned, but for some reason he forgot immediately what he had seen. They talked just like they always had, casually, familiar, about just about everything, two people who genuinely liked each other, and they laughed quite a bit. The inside jokes were still there, the little things only they would know, and he found himself growing warm as he heard them. It really had been a very good time.

“Listen,” she said, “I gotta work in the morning and it’s getting late.”

“Me, too.”

“Ummm … listen, maybe … ”

“No, not right now, anyway.” He was surprised at how firm his voice was. “Please. Listen, it’s just not something I want to even get into right now.”

“I know, you told me once you never read old newspapers, either, remember? When we were talking about your other ex-girlfriends. I never thought that would apply to me.“ She was laughing. He was grateful. He laughed too.

“Me neither. But it’s got to be that way. At least for now. You understand.”

“I do.”

They were quiet for a second, then stumbled through their I-gotta-goes and talk-to-ya-soons, laughing a little, finally saying see ya, and they hung up. He went to the kitchen and picked out his biggest rocks glass and filled it with ice and four fingers of Scotch. He was surprised his hand wasn’t shaking. He was surprised he wasn’t sad. He was surprised he wasn’t angry. He was surprised how he remembered everything, everything, like a movie he’d seen a hundred times, every line memorized, every shot, every shading, he could play it back in his head at will, everything that is except the bad part, the ending that was supposed to be happy, but someone hadn’t gotten the word, and the Director had flubbed it just when it all looked so perfect. He couldn’t remember the ending at all, no matter how hard he tried, nor the parts leading up to it, when the story was waning, and taken a wrong turn, and everything had just gone to pieces. He tried, but he just couldn’t see it. The Scotch, he thought, would help, and as he poured his second one he could hear the little voice in his head warming up, the one he trusted, the one that had told him to end it in the first place, because it had all gotten so bad, and no one was happy, not him, not her, and he waited to hear, even though he knew already what the voice was going to say. When it spoke, finally, halfway through the third drink, it was as he thought. He would never go back there again.