Biography

Daniel graduated Magna Cum Laude from Brown University in 2010. At Brown, he studied Comparative Literature and Philosophy, but mainly worked toward the goal of becoming a fiction writer. He helped found a literary journal called The Round, whose goal was (much like that of Literary Laundry) to get young writers to respond to and work in the larger literary tradition, and thereby renew the conversation of art across time. Daniel spent the last year in Argentina writing his first novel. At present, he is working toward getting it published.

Call Me Circumstance

(The home of Robert Stanfield. It is completely dark except for some light coming in under the front door, which reveals the shoe of a man seated next to it. His outline is partly visible, and one of his hands can be seen lifting a glass to his mouth, as he takes slow, deliberate sips of something amber-colored. His other hand remains unseen.

After a few more moments, some steps can be heard coming down the hall. Then they can be heard stopping. A key fumbles in the lock, the door opens, and Robert Stanfield enters, flipping on the lights. He continues into the middle of the room at a brisk pace, without noticing the man seated by the entrance. Only now can we see his unseen hand, and that it is holding a gun across his lap.

The apartment is small and ordinary and mostly undecorated. The kitchen is connected by a short hall to the living room, and the bedroom is connected to the living room by a door in the back, behind the sofa. The sofa, on which Stanfield has just casually tossed his coat, looks old but comfortable, dirty but homey, and in front of it there is a small coffee table with many papers and left-over’s; one would think from the food and food wrappers strewn across it that a bachelor lives here. The same from the beer bottles and the generally disorganized, disinterested appearance of the place. On the other side of the coffee table, opposite the side of the front door, there is another chair, like the one the gunman is seated in. They both seem to be dining room chairs, but as far as one can tell they belong to no dining room table, as the kitchen is empty aside from the dishes left out on the counter.

Both men are around their mid-forties. Robert Stanfield is an unimposing fat man with glasses and inelegant clothes that hang floppily off his frame. The gunman is a skinny, pale man dressed in elegant, slim-fitting black. His coat is hung neatly over the back of his chair; a backpack and a bottle of expensive whiskey lie at his feet. He continues sipping slowly from his drink as he begins to speak.)

GUNMAN: Robert Stanfield?(Stanfield turns instantly around; the gunman shows him the gun.)I recommend that, for the time being, you do not make any quick or sudden movements. I also recommend that you keep silent, just for the time being that is. I can’t command that you do either of these things, but I can recommend them, and so I do.(Stanfield throws his hands in the air out of fright)Hmm, well, I didn’t recommend that, but that’s fine, that’ll have to do…(Stanfield begins to lower his hands and then recalls himself, hoisting them even higher than they were before)Anyway, you’ll notice I took the liberty of relocating a couple of chairs from the kitchen. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought it might make you more comfortable. Please,(He motions to the chair across from him, at the other side of the coffee table) take a seat. I’m just recommending it…

(Slowly, Stanfield takes a couple steps backward and sits down on the chair. He does so awkwardly, as he is shaking horribly, and under his large, unsturdy weight the chair almost topples over.)

GUNMAN:The thing is I get very nervous, Robert Stanfield. I’m a very nervous person, generally speaking. Hence the drink(He takes another slow, deliberate sip.)And so I recommend that you don’t startle me in any way, either by moving or interrupting me or what have you. I’m already a rather shaky person, and with my finger on the trigger… well, you get the idea. I’m also easily affrighted. I’m generally speaking a very frightened person. No doubt you can relate, Robert Stanfield…

STANFIELD:(With incredible fear, trembling and stammering awfully)Who are you? W-w-what do you want with me?

GUNMAN: Yes, yes, hold on, I’ll get to that in a moment. I have a few more recommendations to make first. I can’t call them rules because… well, you’ll see. Anyway, for the moment I recommend you just listen. I’m going to say my piece and then you are going to say yours, that is, if you have a piece to say. Now, first thing’s first.(He sets the glass down cautiously in his lap, reaches carefully into his pocket with his empty hand, and pulls out a list)Ah, there it is. Now remember, these are all recommendations, not rules… The first is regarding who I am; I am not going to tell you who I am. I don’t recommend asking either; on top of nervous and shaky and easily affrighted, I’m also rather sensitive, and I don’t recommend getting under my skin, as it were. But I’m getting ahead of myself… The recommendation is just this… Call me Circumstance, for I am here to kill you.(Stanfield’s eyes bulge, along with his whole body, as if he were about to scream or dive away like an animal into some hole)Wait, wait, what I meant to say is I am here toconsiderkilling you. I haven’t decided yet. That’s the point you see. You, Robert Stanfield, are at the whim of circumstance.

STANFIELD: Circumstance? But what are you – I don’t – what do you want with me?

GUNMAN: Yes, you’re right, I’m getting ahead of myself again, aren’t I? Look, the gist is this: you, Robert Stanfield, are a victim of circumstance. That is not to say you’ll necessarily die of it, but that is to say you shall be subject to it. Or rather, as you have been subject to it your whole life and you just didn’t know it, that is to say you shall now come face to face with it. Look at me, Robert Stanfield –(He smiles excessively, rather ridiculously, showing all his teeth, like he would for a camera) –this is the face of circumstance. It’s the face of this particular circumstance anyway (all circumstances are particular, after all…) But there I go again, getting ahead of myself…(He reverts his attention to the list and solemnly, speedily, begins to recite its points.)I do not recommend screaming, standing, interrupting, or lunging. I do not recommend personal questions, personal affronts, personal anything really. I do not recommend cell phones –on that note, why don’t you take yours out, turn it off, and put it on the floor(Stanfield proceeds to do so)– there you go, thank you very much… I do not recommend imbecility, ugliness, or utter complacency, as they all offend my taste. I do not recommend tapping or ticking or touching generally, as they all make me nervous. I do not recommend speaking loudly, or overmuch, but I do not recommend silence either, as we are going to have a conversation. You see, Robert Stanfield, you are at the whim of circumstance; I may decide to kill you, I may not. The conversation is your chance to prove you should live. You have till twelve, midnight, and then… I know it’s all a little contrived but – does it matter? That it should be contrived is a matter of circumstance like any other, sort of the way the lottery is contrived by some invisible corporation acting the part of luck or fate (as we’ll see, they’re really the same thing…) That someone turns the wheel or pushes fortune’s button does not mean that the outcome is anymore than a matter of chance…

STANFIELD: I – I don’t understand. What do you – I still don’t –

GUNMAN: Yes, yes, you’re right. Yet again, I see I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s my nerves you know, I’m really very sorry about them. They make me ramble on top of everything else… Let me be brief: I am here representing circumstance. It could just as easily have been a drunk driver in his car or a bolt of lightning, but it just so happens to be me. It also just so happens to be you, Robert Stanfield. It might’ve been someone else, but it isn’t. You may ask ‘why me,’ ‘why me,’ but your question is no less vain to me than it is to the bolt of lightning or the drunk in his car going at 95 miles an hour around a curve, as one waits so patiently by his red light… As blind as love may be, I tell you justice must be more so. In this regard, I am as much a representative of justice as I am of circumstance, for really they are the same thing; at least they are held on the same principle, that all men are treated equally, no matter who or what they are. A just deck is one dealt out at random, by the order of chaos, and, well, these are the cards you were dealt, Robert Stanfield… Anyway,(he double-checks his list)yes, I think that about covers everything. Oh, but about chaos – seeing as I’m more or less a representative of that as well, in so far as circumstance is just the, shall we say, the implementation, manifestation, materialization, shall we say, of chaos, I might as well add, in this regard, that’s why I can’t give you rules, but only recommendations. Chaos has no rules, obviously, otherwise it wouldn’t be chaos, and so it wouldn’t make sense, you see, if I were to implement, institute, mandate any. Recommendations on the other hand…(He double-checks his list again)Well anyway, that’s the gist… You’re free to do what you want, but I can’t guarantee I won’t kill you for it. It’s one of those risk-reward things really… Anyway, you must have questions. Ask away, Robert Stanfield, ask away… Or at least, I mean, that is what I would currently recommend, given, of course, obviously, as I said, that I am giving recommendations and not rules…

STANFIELD: So – so you – you actually want me to call you Circumstance?

GUNMAN: Yes, Circumstance is a little awkward, isn’t it? You can call me plain old ‘sir,’ if you prefer that. Sir is short for Circumstance, after all…

STANFIELD: But – but I still don’t –

GUNMAN: Call me sir, Robert Stanfield.

STANFIELD: Oh, yes, okay sir…

GUNMAN: Thank you. Now, what was it you were going to say, Robert Stanfield?

STANFIELD: Oh I – sir I still don’t – I don’t understand why…

GUNMAN: Why what?

STANFIELD: Why – why you chose me? I’m not – I’m not worth it sir, I – I don’t do anything, I don’t bother anyone… I barely even exist sir really. What could you want to kill me for? I’m not worth it – I –

GUNMAN: Don’t worry, it wasn’t anything personal, Robert Stanfield. I chose you totally at random, be at ease.

STANFIELD: Be at ease? But I don’t – what if I’d been home, what if –

GUNMAN: Well, then, I guess you would have answered when I’d knocked, and then you’d have let me in, and then we’d be at pretty much the same point we’re at now, just a little bit ahead of schedule…

STANFIELD: But – but what if I’d screamed? What if I’d called the police? Aren’t you – aren’t you afraid – what if you get caught?

GUNMAN: If you had screamed you would probably be dead, Robert Stanfield. The same if you called the police. You’re still free to do either, but of course I can’t recommend it. And about getting caught, I wouldn’t concern myself about that if I were you. Your concern should be death – survival and death. If you die and I get caught, you don’t really stand to gain anything from it, or at least I don’t think so. Again, it’s a risk-reward, cost-benefit thing. I’ll let you do the analysis…

STANFIELD: But I don’t – I don’t understand though, sir. You – you just came over at random?(The gunman nods casually as he sips another slow sip)But – but I don’t… Do you do this often then? Are you – do you…?

GUNMAN: I plead the fifth. Besides, I told you already, Robert Stanfield, I don’t recommend personal questions… But whether it’s the first time or the five millionth, it doesn’t really matter as far as you are concerned. It’s still just circumstance to you – to you, I say. Note that, Robert Stanfield, note it well. For me it may be something else entirely…

STANFIELD: But listen sir, I – you shouldn’t be here, sir. I have a girlfriend and she’s supposed to be coming over soon… I – you – I really think you should leave before she gets here, sir…

GUNMAN: Come on now, Robert Stanfield, don’t be ridiculous… First of all, if you did have a girlfriend, and she did come over very soon, while I was still here, well, that would just be an unfortunate circumstance for her, as I would probably be caught off guard and have to kill her immediately (I wouldn’t want to be outnumbered, you know, and I do get very nervous as I said…) But besides, you don’t have a girlfriend Robert Stanfield. How do you think I know your name? I looked around a bit before you got back tonight, flipped through some letters, magazine subscriptions and such, and I found no traces of a girlfriend anywhere. Besides, it’s not very believable in principle… I mean, just look at this place! Just look atyourself, Robert Stanfield! No, no, it was a good try, but… I’m impressed with your audacity under the circumstances, but no, I’m afraid I’m not really convinced.

STANFIELD: But – but I do have a girlfriend, sir. Her name’s Mary.

GUNMAN: Her name’s Mary? Of all the names in the book, you pick Mary, Robert Stanfield?(He shakes his head and laughs)Come on now, Robert Stanfield…

STANFIELD: But – but her name is Mary! She has a key, she’s coming over soon…

GUNMAN: Why would she come over so late? It’s after 10:30. No, no, I’m really not convinced…

STANFIELD: She’s getting drinks with some girlfriends, she’s – I swear sir, she’s –

GUNMAN: Right, well, anyway, this is a good place to start. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself, Robert Stanfield. Tell me about your life, that way we’ll know better where we stand in terms of your keeping it or not…

(An awkward pause, in which the gunman takes several more slow sips, and Stanfield merely watches him, shaking)

STANFIELD: Well, what – what do you want to know?

GUNMAN: Why, whatever you think I should know, Robert Stanfield. It’s just a recommendation, after all…

(Another pause, much the same as the first.)

STANFIELD: Well… Most of my friends call me Robbie…

GUNMAN: You have friends? Who call you Robbie? But you’re fat.

STANFIELD: But – but what does that have to do with it…?

GUNMAN: Well, anyway, I’m still going to call you Robert Stanfield, Robert Stanfield, as I highly prefer that to Robbie. Robbie is, well, Robbie is not sosuitable, shall we say, as Robert Stanfield.

STANFIELD: Oh, okay, sir…

(Yet another awkward pause, this one longer than all the rest so far. Stanfield looks around rather desperately, and the gunman sighs, as if for pity’s sake.)

GUNMAN: Look Robert Stanfield, you are losing time. As I said you only have till twelve, that’s about…(With a flick of his arm, he slides up the sleeve of his gun arm and checks his watch. With another flick, he slides the sleeve back down)Oh, just about eighty minutes.

(Stanfield looks somewhat panicked again. He glances around, as if for something to talk about, but seems to come up short.)

GUNMAN: Look, I’ll tell you what, Robert Stanfield, to make you more comfortable, why don’t I just place my gun on the floor, out of sight. That way you won’t see it, and you won’t feel as much pressure to save your life… Oh, and this way I won’t get so nervous either – you’re not the only one who’s nervous around here, Robert Stanfield, let me assure you of that…(He leans over and, very slowly, very gently, rests the gun behind his backpack. Stanfield’s eyes watch the gun with great care as it descends and disappears.)See! Vanished! Now we’re just two strangers getting to know each other, nothing to worry about except life and death…(The gunman smiles, kindly at first, and then a little awkwardly, as the silence continues afterward, with more strain. He looks at his watch again.)Look, Robert Stanfield, let me help you. There are two arguments people in this situation usually would be inclined to make. The first is that they have so much potential for good, they’re such good, productive, and beneficial people, that it would be a crime to part them from the society they benefit. Now, I must admit off the bat, I don’t think that would be the best line for you to take, Robert Stanfield. I saw somewhere around here something to indicate that you work at a bank, is that correct?

STANFIELD: Yes, I…(Sadly, as if confessing)I’m a teller at HSBC…

GUNMAN: Yes, you see, a teller at HSBC is not exactly, it’s not exactly, well, shall we say,irreplaceable. Many people can do what you do I imagine. Many can probably do it better, and need the work more. You’re a source of unemployment for the needy, Robert Stanfield, you drain the economy’s resources… As it happens, I read this article just the other day about a study aimed to calculate the worth of a human life to our economy. The study came out to something like ten million dollars, or something like that, for the more useful people I mean. How much do you think your life is worth, Robert Stanfield? I dare say ten million is a little steep, a little generous, wouldn’t you say?(Stanfield remains silent, sullen)Do you have life insurance, Robert Stanfield?

STANFIELD: What? No, I don’t, why – why does it matter if I have life insurance?

GUNMAN: Because it would probably mean you had people who depended on you… people who had benefitted from your life, and who would benefit now from your death. As it is though, well, it doesn’t seem to make much difference if you die or not… Oh but that reminds me, while we’re on the subject, have you any friends, family to speak of?

STANFIELD: But I already told you – I have a girlfriend, her name is Mary.

GUNMAN: Right, Mary. Sweet, celestial, nonexistent Mary.

STANFIELD: She’s – she’s existent…

GUNMAN: Right, right… And is she pretty, your Mary?

STANFIELD:(With emphasis) Ithink she’s beautiful…

GUNMAN: Well then, she can probably do without you, Robert Stanfield. As we established a minute ago, you’re fat. And ugly.

STANFIELD: She doesn’t think so. She loves me… She says to me that I’m beautiful, that I just don’t know it, that if only I believed in myself as much as she did… She loves me, she…(sadly, bashfully)she wants to marry me…

GUNMAN: What?(He cuffs his ear as if he hadn’t heard)

STANFIELD:I said she wants to marry me…

GUNMAN: Are you implying that you do not want to marry her? I must say I’m rather skeptical, Robert Stanfield… Beggars can’t be choosers, you know…

STANFIELD: No, sir, I know, I just… I want to get married, I just… I’m afraid… I’m afraid I’m not good enough…

GUNMAN: Well in any case, the crucial point with this line of argument is that you would have to be irreplaceable. And I regret to say, Robert Stanfield, it doesn’t seem you are. Your friends, if you really have any, might miss you for a month or two, but that’s all. They’d be fine without you. Society as well. Might even say you’d be fine without you, Robert Stanfield… Speaking of which, why don’t we try the so-calledspirituallife? What’s your average day like? Your average week?

STANFIELD: Well – well which do you want, my average day or my average week?

GUNMAN: Why don’t we start with your average day. We can extrapolate from there…

STANFIELD: Well – well I get up at six forty five every day, I have a quick breakfast while I watch Sportscenter, and then I go to work.

GUNMAN: How do you get there?

STANFIELD: I take the bus…

GUNMAN: How long does it take?

STANFIELD: About half an hour I’d say…

GUNMAN: And what do you do during this half hour? Don’t spare me the details, Robert Stanfield, I assure you they’re the best part…

STANFIELD: What do I do? But – but it’s a bus sir. I guess I don’t really do anything…

GUNMAN: You just sit there?

STANFIELD: I guess so sir…

GUNMAN: Anyway, pray continue, Robert Stanfield. You get to work and then what? What do you do? Pray continue…

STANFIELD: I – well then I go to work sir…

GUNMAN: Right, and what does that consist in, Robert Stanfield? Remember, Robert Stanfield: details, details, details!

STANFIELD: Well, usually I help people make deposits and withdrawals, if they don’t have their bank cards or don’t know how to use the ATM machines… If it’s a complicated transaction I help them with it…

GUNMAN: And these people – what are they like? Are they annoying?

STANFIELD: Annoying? I don’t know sir. I guess they can be… Usually they’re older, they’re uncomfortable with the machines, so they prefer to go to a teller… They’re also a little spacey, you know, so one has to walk them through it more…

GUNMAN: Yes, yes, I see. And how long do you work for?

STANFIELD: Well, I – my lunch break is from twelve thirty to one.

GUNMAN: And where do you go? What do you eat?

STANFIELD: Oh usually I just go to a nice mom and pop’s shop around the corner. They have good sandwiches and pizza, and they know me there, they call me ‘Robbie,’ get me the usual, you know… There’s a diner with good burgers and omelettes nearby too… Sometimes I bring my own lunch and eat it there, but it’s best to get out of the bank for a little while, if you can I mean, sir…

GUNMAN: Yes, I see. So you go back to work and…

STANFIELD: And then I work till six. My hours have gotten longer lately. The bank’s open six days a week now…

GUNMAN: I see. And then what do you do? You go home?

STANFIELD: Well on Mondays and Wednesdays I stick around for a seminar. Next month I’m actually being promoted to Assistant Branch Manager, and I’m being trained for the position…

GUNMAN: You need to be trained for that?

STANFIELD: Oh, yes sir. You need to be trained to be a bank teller too. Most people don’t know that…

GUNMAN: I see… And how long have you been a bank teller, Robert Stanfield?

STANFIELD: Just about fifteen years. But I’ve been at branches all over Brooklyn – Fort Greene, Park Slope, Williamsburg – they move you around for security reasons...

GUNMAN: And what did you do before then?

STANFIELD: I spent a few years bartending in the city. In Manhattan I mean.

GUNMAN: Did you like it?

STANFIELD: Oh, I had a blast sir. Those were some of the best years of my life really… I was out till all hours, met interesting people, played softball in the Park on weekends… I had a blast sir.

GUNMAN: Then why’d you stop, Robert Stanfield?

STANFIELD: Oh, well, as a bank teller I get benefits…

GUNMAN: Ah yes, benefits… Anyway, go on, Robert Stanfield, on Mondays and Wednesdays you stick around for a seminar. Then I take it you bus your way back home?

STANFIELD: Yes sir.(Stanfield nods)

GUNMAN: And then I take it you have dinner?

STANFIELD: Yes sir.(He nods again)

GUNMAN: And you watch TV with your dinner?

STANFIELD: I… sometimes I do…

GUNMAN: For how long?

STANFIELD: An hour or two, I guess sir. It depends what’s on… If there’s a good game on I’ll usually watch that…

GUNMAN: I see… And then what? You go to sleep?

STANFIELD: Well on Mondays and Wednesdays I’m pretty tired so…

GUNMAN: Right, I see. So we can check spiritual life off the list then…

STANFIELD: What? But no sir, I – I do other things too… Those are just my Mondays and Wednesdays –

GUNMAN: When you’re pretty tired.

STANFIELD: That’s right sir… On other days though –

GUNMAN: You’re a bundle of energy?

STANFIELD: Well no sir, but –

GUNMAN: You’re brimming over with life?

STANFIELD: Well I – I don’t know if I’d say that sir…

GUNMAN: Well, what would you say then, Robert Stanfield?

STANFIELD: Nothing sir, just – just that there are other things I do sir…

GUNMAN: Like what? Anything of value? Anything that makes you irreplaceable?

STANFIELD: Well I –(Perking up, as if a light bulb went off in his head)– there’s my mother – my mother needs me. She’s lonely and sick and she doesn’t have anyone to eat dinner with, so I eat dinner with her – every Sunday, I eat dinner with her, Thursdays too sometimes. That’s where I was coming from tonight. She lives out in Westchester, so it’s not an easy trip, but I make it all the same, you see, because she needs me… She says I’m the only thing in the world she has left, the only person who cares if she lives or dies… On Sundays, we watch wrestling together. Can you believe it? I mean we don’t always watch wrestling – we usually flip through the channels to see what else is on – but if there’s nothing else we’ll just watch that… It’s a nostalgic thing, you see. When I was little, I loved wrestling, and she’d take me to Madison Square Garden to see the fights. She took me to Wrestlemania one year, we saw Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage… She said she hated how barbaric and carnival-like it all was, but she still went all the same, just to please her little boy… I remember one year she even drew up a big Hulk Hogan sign for me to carry and everything… She’s an old woman now but she still watches wrestling with me on Sundays. Can you believe that? All just to please her little boy…

GUNMAN:(Murmuring, musing, pensive)Hmmm, and just how old is this old mother of yours, Robert Stanfield?

STANFIELD:(With excitement, as if he were proud, or suddenly winning the argument)She just turned eighty. It was actually her birthday just last Sunday. I took her to a nice place, got her cake and champagne, she wore her old silk gloves from the fifties… Back at the house we watched wrestling together, on the new flat screen TV I got her… She cried, she was so happy…

GUNMAN: She’s eighty, you say? Then she’ll die soon anyway, Robert Stanfield. Your service to her would soon be rendered irrelevant, if it isn’t already…

STANFIELD:(Almost pleading now)But there’s still Mary! Mary needs me, Mary –

GUNMAN: Right, Mary… Mary, Mary, Mary… I noticed you take Noxycut. That’s a weight loss pill, isn’t that right?

STANFIELD: What? But what does that have to do with anything?

GUNMAN: Nothing, I was just thinking… And those pills at the back of your desk drawer, Prosolution I think they were called… What are those for? Something, shall we say, to make youbigger?

STANFIELD: What?(He seems to shrink in his chair)I don’t know – I don’t know what you’re talking about.

GUNMAN: Sure you do, Robert Stanfield. But don’t forget to call me sir.

STANFIELD: But – but, sir, I don’t understand what that – what do they have to do with anything? I don’t understand, sir…

GUNMAN: Sure you do, Robert Stanfield, sure you do. I was thinking about Mary again, sweet, celestial… All right, maybe I was being unfair. Maybe she does exist. Maybe she’s an ex-girlfriend, your only ex-girlfriend, the only person who ever loved you, or something like that. But come on now, Robert Stanfield, she doesn’t exist in your lifenow. First of all, you didn’t even mention her once in the little summary of your day to day…

STANFIELD: But – but you didn’t ask sir! You didn’t –

GUNMAN: Secondly, and more importantly, Robert Stanfield, no one who takesthosepills has a girlfriend. One only takesthosepills so as to be able to get a girlfriend, and even then… Besides, I stole a quick glance at the websites recently visited on your computer and, well, you can imagine what I found…(Stanfield gets awkward again, almost seems to shrivel up in his large frame as he tries to sink and shrink into his chair)Oh, don’t be embarrassed, Robert Stanfield, the point is just that I don’t think anyone with a girlfriend would watch as much porn as you do. I didn’t mean to get so personal, Robert Stanfield, I really didn’t. For my own part, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with porn. We have divergent tastes, but what of that? What’s important is having taste in the first place, that’s what’s really important in all this…

STANFIELD: Look, sir, I look at a lot of porn, it’s true, I admit it. But it doesn’t mean I don’t have a girlfriend, it just means that… I use it to…(even more awkward, embarrassed, ashamed than before)I use it to understand, you know, to be better…

GUNMAN: Instructional, I see.(He nods. Then another slight, but salient pause)Anyway, you see the problem, don’t you, Robert Stanfield? You’re not really worth saving. But then there’s the other argument, the one I think is much more suited to you, namely that you’re not worth killing either. I mean, who would want to kill someone so sad, pathetic, and irrevocably useless as you are? What’s the point, what do I have to gain by it, you might ask. You’re so irrelevant I might as well let you live. After all, you never got a break, did you? You never got what you wanted. Wouldn’t it be wrong, unfair, for circumstance to dispatch you so easily, with so little to show for your brief time on this earth? Wouldn’t it be strange, silly even, to remove something from the world that has so little impact in it? As you said yourself, Robert Stanfield, you barely even exist! Surely I can’t really be so depraved as to want to kill someone who is so nearly dead already… I ask why let you live, but the better question, you might say, is why end your life in the first place? Why kill someone so hardly worth killing…?(A pause, in which the gunman takes his last sip from the glass, bends over to pick up the bottle, and refills it. He puts the bottle back down and crosses his legs, taking another slow, sinister, and deliberate sip as he does so.)Would you like to take this line of argument, Robert Stanfield?

(Robert Stanfield looks straight into the gunman’s eye, for the first time it seems, and considers deeply, profoundly. The gunman grins at him, as if they’re finally coming to an understanding. The pause continues some time more, until at last –)

STANFIELD: No.(Decisively at first, and then less so)That is, I mean… no, sir, I would not take that line of argument.

GUNMAN: And why not, Robert Stanfield?

STANFIELD:(After some more deep, profound consideration)I would not like to say my life was useless, sir. Mary wouldn’t want me to, she’d want me to believe –

GUNMAN:(With great disappointment, maybe even anger)What! Mary again? You really aren’t going to let that go, are you, Robert Stanfield?

STANFIELD: Well, as I said – as I said, sir, she loves me. Maybe she’s the only one who really does, maybe I’m irrelevant and useless to everyone else in the world, but maybe one person’s love is enough… maybe that’s enough to make a life worth living – worth saving, I mean… Just a little bit of love from someone else to make you think you’re worth something in this world even if you’re not…(The gunman makes a gagging sound, as if he’s disgusted. Then he looks again at his watch and sighs, as if he is bored.)What? Maybe it’s an illusion, maybe you’re still not worth anything in the end, in the grand scheme of things I mean, but isn’t it all an illusion in the grand scheme of things? That is, isn’t everyone’s life irrelevant, useless… meaningless?

GUNMAN: Now you’re talking sense, Robert Stanfield… But do still call me sir, please.

STANFIELD: Well, so – sir I mean – if all life is irrelevant then it shouldn’t matter much if mine is or isn’t.

GUNMAN: Again, you’re right about that, Robert Stanfield. You’re right about that…

STANFIELD: Well, no, what I mean is, well, I’m supposed to prove to you my life is worth saving, but there’s no standard for that, since no life is really worth saving, not in the grand scheme of things… But so, well, shouldn’t it be enough if I need me? What difference does it make if anyone else values my life, I value it, shouldn’t that count for something? It’s a bad life maybe, but it’s my life all the same… And if the reason I value it is Mary, shouldn’t that be enough? Shouldn’t that little bit of love Mary has for me and that I have for her be enough too? I mean, she’s so good, she’s so noble and kind and beautiful, what if I just want to spend more time with her, what if she just wants –

GUNMAN:(In anger, flailing his arms about, spilling whiskey over the sides of his cup)Do you think circumstance gives a hang what Mary wants, or what you want for that matter? Good god, Robert Stanfield! What I thought that little fat head of yours was on the verge of realizing was that there is no line of argument you can make, no convincing word you can lay claim to. Circumstance cannot be convinced one way or another, it is just circumstance. Can you convince a bolt of lightning or a drunk driver whom you never knew existed till the moment his car crashes into you? Can you convince the cells that spread into cancer? No, you cannot, Robert Stanfield. You cannot do anything…(He takes a more vigorous, hazardous swig of his whiskey, as if out of spite. Then he refills his glass again, muttering – )Good god, Mary doesn’t even exist!

STANFIELD: What? But I thought –(Growing frantic)I thought you said –

GUNMAN: Please do call me sir, Robert Stanfield…

STANFIELD: But you said –

GUNMAN: Call mesir, Robert Stanfield!

STANFIELD: Sorry, sir, but I thought – sir, I thought you said we were having a conversation so that I could convince you I should live…

GUNMAN: Circumstance is a liar, Robert Stanfield. You can never trust it.

STANFIELD: But you said – but sir you said –

GUNMAN:(He sighs heavily, loudly, cutting Stanfield off)I’m sorry, Robert Stanfield, I really am. My nerves got the better of me just then. I told you I was nervous, I’m a nervous wreck really, and well…(He takes another sip, this time with slightly more control)What I said, Robert Stanfield, was that you were at the whim of circumstance, and that by the end of this conversation I would have decided, one way or another, according to my whim. I did not say that decision would be made according to logic, that you would be able to prove to me by some Robbie-like, bald-headed philosophy of yours that you deserved to live… My decision has nothing to do with that, that is why I said you were at my whim. It’s a matter oftaste, Robert Stanfield, a matter of taste…(With sudden, recaptured energy)Think about that study again, that ridiculous, insipid study… Ten million dollars! Ten million dollars for every single human life, regardless of how puny, pathetic, ugly… Ten million dollars! Good god! It should be a matter of quality, not of quantity. A matter of taste, Robert Stanfield. It shouldn’t be objective, it shouldn’t be pecuniary, it shouldn’t bedemocratic.It’s revolting! That’s the problem with morals, they’re all so unaesthetic, so plain, so – so – one-dimensional! But there I go again, I diverge, I get ahead of myself… It’s my nerves, you know, my nerves, my nerves…(Slowing down, bracing himself, taking a breath)Anyway, the point is this: whether you will live or not is to be decided based on whether I wouldlikeyou to live, not whether or not youshould.And I must admit, for the moment I am not sure how much I like you, Robert Stanfield. I mean, why should I really? You’re fat, ugly, a little stupid, useless, disgusting and even rather sappy. You can’t have known how much that last bit would offend my taste, but, well, there you have it. I neglected to mention I’m rather picky as well, circumstance is always picky, though it may not seem like it on the surface of things… It’s all a matter of taste, Robert Stanfield, a matter of taste…

(A long, solemn pause. The gunman looks at his watch, and Stanfield eyes him carefully, fearfully. At length – )

STANFIELD: May I ask a question, sir?

GUNMAN: You may do whatever you like, Robert Stanfield. I mean that. As I said way back when, all I can give you are recommendations, not rules. But don’t get on my nerves, I really very strongly recommend you don’t do that…

STANFIELD: Well, sir, I – I just wanted to know what…(He points, but the gunman only gives him a puzzled look in return)You know, what, what…

GUNMAN: Don’t be bashful, Robert Stanfield, you may say it…

STANFIELD: I just wanted to know what – you know, what time it was, sir…

GUNMAN: What time? Oh…(He checks his watch again, as if he can’t see what that has to do with anything. He sighs and yawns as he speaks)It’s 11:08. I suppose you better get to work, Robert Stanfield, you better get to work…

STANFIELD: Yes sir, well, sir, that is… I – I know you don’t recommend personal questions, but, well, may I ask you, sir, why do you do this? I mean, why do youpersonallydo this? I’m only asking because maybe, maybe if I understood that we could talk more openly, more comfortably, like strangers getting to know each other… Like you said, I mean, sir.

GUNMAN: Hmmm…(He muses, murmuring)You would like to know why I do this, Robert Stanfield? You would like to know the real,personalreason why I do this?

STANFIELD: I would. That is, I think I would, sir.

GUNMAN: I can’t quite tell you that, Robert Stanfield. As you rightly pointed out, it is a personal question… But what I can do, what I will do, is give you a couple possible explanations, and leave it to that little fat head of yours to sort out which is which…(He uncrosses his legs, and leans forward, with eagerness it seems. He coughs and clears his throat.)So why do I do this? It has to do with good and evil,Robert Stanfield, good and evil. The first, more interesting possibility is evil… But you know what, will you be a dear, and turn on the light in the kitchen? That way I can turn off the living room light. It’s directly over my head and I feel all of a sudden as if I’m in the spotlight, all my pockmarks and blemishes can be seen. I know I’ve been cruel to you for being ugly, but that was unfair, I’m not exactly Prince Charming myself, I can relate… Will you be a dear and turn on the other light, so I can turn this one off? I prefer to be in shadow anyway…(Stanfield hesitates)It’s a recommendation, not a rule, Robert Stanfield, I won’t bite or shoot my gun while you get up, and have your back toward me…

(Stanfield hesitates a moment longer, then he goes slowly to the kitchen, sporadically, cautiously, looking back over his shoulder at the gunman as he does so. He stops and turns on the light. For a moment it is very bright, and more of the details of the men and furnishings can be seen. Both simply seem uglier, less romantic. The gunman stands up, takes a step across the front door, to where the light switch is, and, after eyeing Stanfield a moment, perhaps to see if he can trust turning his back to him, he proceeds to do so. He turns the main light off, so that he is now in a darker corner, and returns to his seat. Stanfield stays where he is a moment, but the gunman motions, cordially, courteously, to his seat. Stanfield reluctantly comes back to it. They both sit down.)

GUNMAN: So where were we, Robert Stanfield? Ah yes, evil! And taste! Of course! Let me explain…(He coughs and clears his throat again as before)In a word, perhaps I do not want to be likeyou,Robert Stanfield. Let me explain… It is commonly thought that men do evil so as to gain power. In my own opinion it is quite the reverse, or at least it should be anyway. One should gain power so as to do evil, not the other way around. Evil is thrilling, Robert Stanfield, it is incredible, it is…beautiful.Consider, Robert Stanfield, just consider.(He suddenly stoops over and reaches into his backpack, continuing to speak as he digs and delves.)I am an ugly man, Robert Stanfield. I’m as ugly as you, I’ll be the first to admit it. But just consider – ah!(He pulls out a black, ballpoint pen and holds it out in front of him.)Consider this pen, Robert Stanfield. Consider it closely. It’s just a regular pen, isn’t it? But let’s say I twirl it round my finger?(He does so, slowly at first, then more quickly.)Let’s say I toss it up and down, up and down.(He does so, proceeding to grin.)Let’s say I just hold it out in front of you to see what destiny will be written by it?(He stands up and goes closer to the table, holding it out in front of Stanfield’s face, before his eyes.)Consider it closely, Robert Stanfield. Is it still just a regular pen? In my hands, in this situation, is that all it is? No, Robert Stanfield, no! In my hands, it has weight. It has substance, force,meaning.In this situation, under thesecircumstances, everything seems to have meaning. The pen, the glass of whiskey in my hand, the gun under the seat, the backpack… everything is incredible, magical, full oflife!As a villain, I can do anything I want, touch anything I feel like, and it becomesmagnificent. But inyourhands, Robert Stanfield…(He tosses the pen to Stanfield, who catches it and looks down at it in his palms.)In your hands it’s just a regular black ballpoint pen no one gives a hang about. In your hands it is ugly, in your hands everything is ugly. That’s why it’s a matter of taste, Robert Stanfield. Evil makes a man free. It makes him beautiful!

(Stanfield looks more closely at the pen. He tries twirling it, but his fingers are fat and clunky and he cannot do it. The pen falls to the floor and he looks more sadly at it. Meanwhile the gunman retreats, taking back his seat by the door.)

GUNMAN: That is what evil does, Robert Stanfield. It separates a man like me from a man like you. Look at you, Robert Stanfield. Just look at you! We are not so dissimilar really. I am ugly, insecure, frightened. I look at porn. But in this situation we are polar opposites.We are as different as men and animals! Don’t you see? The freedom evil gives! Usually, I can’t decide on anything. I’m a nervous wreck as I said, logistics foul me up left and right, get in the way, make my life a stutter. Consider, just consider! A murderer makes lots of decisions, everyone knows that, lots of very difficult, logistical decisions. Would you like to know which one was most difficult for me tonight? What do you think? Where to go, what street to take, what gun to use? No, no, none of that nonsense was difficult in the least. Would you like to know what wasreallydifficult, Robert Stanfield? Would you? Well, I’ll tell you –I couldn’t decide what to wear! I spent hours in front of my closet, taking clothes out, trying them on, putting them away, trying them again… I mean, what does one wear when one is going to kill someone? Black, you’ll say, but what kind of black? It’s never so simple as just black! Does one dress fancy or plain, comfortable or noticeable? What’s the temperature, is it sweater weather, scarf-weather or… Does one take an umbrella? Just because one is a murderer does not mean that one does not get wet, Robert Stanfield! You’d think it an irrelevant question when it comes to killing someone, but it’s not, it’s not irrelevant at all. Every other decision must be made of necessity, according to logic, reason, probability, what have you, but this… This is a matter oftaste,ofpersonaltaste, Robert Stanfield. One must get it right, one must make it perfect… I must have spent a whole two hours deciding just whatshoesto wear tonight! Another hour deciding what kind of whiskey to bring! I was going to bring music (classical settles my nerves as well), but I couldn’t decide whether to play Bach, Mozart or Chopin! There were all these possibilities, nothing was quite suitable, nothing just quite right… Do you see how I usually am, Robert Stanfield, do you see now? I’m usually all out of sorts, nervous, frightened, ugly, likeyou… But here, with this fear in your eyes, with this evil at my side, I can do anything I want. I canbeanything I want. I can be perfect! As circumstance, one isalwaysperfect…

STANFIELD:(After a pause in which Stanfield considers, deeply, profoundly, in his Stanfield way)So – sir – you do this to be evil. And you want to be evil to be beautiful? I don’t think I – I must not…

GUNMAN: That’s one possible reason why I do it. I’ll tell you the other momentarily, Robert Stanfield –

STANFIELD: But – but sir, I don’t understand – shouldn’t you know what to wear by now? That is, I mean, if you do this often…

GUNMAN: I beg your pardon? What is it you’re saying?

STANFIELD: That is, I mean, shouldn’t you have a routine? Shouldn’t you have at least your whiskey picked out now?

GUNMAN: Are you trying to imply something, Robert Stanfield?

STANFIELD: No, sir, of course not, sir. I’m stupid and useless and irrelevant as you said, I just… Well, I just want to know if this is the first time or… As you said, this would make you a murderer sir…

GUNMAN: Listen, Robert Stanfield, I don’t care for your implications one bit. I don’t recommend them in the least, implications are not suitable for you. First of all, as I’ve said, whether this is the first time or the fifth millionth should make no difference to you, Robert Stanfield. The outcome would still be your death.

STANFIELD: Well yes sir, that’s true but… but well, what if this is your first time? I mean, you are still a man I think, aren’t you? You might… You might not be able to…

GUNMAN: Able to what, Robert Stanfield? Able to what?

STANFIELD: You know, sir, it’s like you said, you’re like the drunk driver… But the drunk driver still can still swerve, can’t he? What if he swerves, what if he doesn’t, well, what if he doesn’t want to kill anybody… what if he’s afraid?

GUNMAN:(After a pause in which the gunman stares at Stanfield attentively, with some surprise, as he drinks his whiskey and ponders.)I must admit I’m rather impressed, Robert Stanfield. Much more audacity then I’d have given you credit for. You even used some of that bald-headed, Robbie logic of yours. Calling me out on my routine, saying I should have my whiskey picked by now… You even accused me of a conscience! Quite clever, quite the detective I dare say! But you’ve forgotten one thing: I might have been lying this whole time. I might not be doing it for the reason I said at all. Do recall the nature of our little guessing game, Robert Stanfield… I never said that itwasthe reason I do this, I said itmightbe the reason.

STANFIELD: But, well, sir, I guess I must still not understand it… That is, and I don’t want you to take offense but… Well, sir, you’re still just as ugly as I am, aren’t you?

(Suddenly the gunman stoops back over the side of his chair, and picks up the gun. Stanfield watches with great fright, shrinking in his chair and stammering, over and over, “What I mean is – what I mean is…” The gunman stands up and goes to the coffee table, slowly setting the gun down on its surface. He smiles at Stanfield.)

GUNMAN: Would you like me to put the difference to you another way, Robert Stanfield? Don’t worry, I won’t kill you for saying that, it was offensive, but luckily circumstance cannot be offended anymore than it can be convinced. No, really, I assure you. It is just circumstance. Does the bolt of lightning hear your curses, does the drunk driver out of earshot care if you call for his punishment and death? No, we are all but different circumstances, we have no mind for the ‘why me’s’ or ‘why you’s’ of bald-headed Robert Stanfields. I assure you I am not offended, I’m really not, I can assure you… But anyway, let me put it to you this way, a thought experiment, if you will… This whole time, thiswholetime, the gun has been at my feet. It’s been far from you, but not that far. You could have tried tricking me when you went to turn on the light, or you could have tried to pick up your phone when I had my back turned… But you didn’t dare risk it, did you? Risk-reward, risk-reward, it tells everything about a man, doesn’t it? For instance –(He starts sliding the gun forward along the table, toward Stanfield)for instance, what if I leave the gun a little closer to you? What if I leave it on the table?(He continues to slide it slowly, slowly forward, toward Stanfield)Will you make a lunge for it then? Will you risk it? What if it’s almost halfway between us?

(Halfway between them on the table, he lets go of the gun, and begins to withdraw his hand. Then he begins to withdraw entirely, returning, slowly, to his seat.)

GUNMAN: There’s a certain type of man, aheroI think he’s called, who believes circumstance is so much on his side that he would dare risk it all in its clutches. James Bond or Batman, for instance. He would make a lunge for it right now. He’d assume circumstance, luck, fate, whatever you want to call it – it’s all the same really – he would assume it was on his side, and he would act accordingly. But you, Robert Stanfield… Circumstance is never on your side, is it?

(The gunman sits back down in his seat. There is a long pause during which Stanfield looks unflinchingly at the gun on the table, and the gunman looks unflinchingly at him. While both are silent, still, the tension mounts. At length – )

GUNMAN:You won’t risk it, will you, Robert Stanfield? You won’t risk getting shot in the struggle. You won’t risk wrestling with death. You can, if you want. I give you the chance. Circumstance is at your disposal. Will you lunge for it?

(Another long pause, in which Stanfield looks at the gun, and the gunman looks at him. They remain, but both look ready to jump out of their seats and strive for the gun at any moment. The tension, the pressure mounts; physically, viscerally – )

GUNMAN:I’m not a strong man, Robert Stanfield. You’re bigger than I am. You used to wrestle. Didn’t I see somewhere around here a little trophy you won for wrestling – was it high school, college, I can’t remember… You were Robbie the wrestler back then, weren’t you? Maybe you can summon some of the old moves up to aid you… I admit I might be faster, swifter than you now but… but maybe that’s a risk worth taking… Besides I’ve been drinking, I’m nervous, shaky, unsteady. You’ll have more control, you’ll be able to think more clearly, you might be able to outwit me. You might be able to get the gun first, you might just be able to shoot it… What do you think, Robert Stanfield? What will you do? Risk-reward, risk-reward. Cost-benefit analysis. Will you risk your life to fight off death?

(A third pause, as before. This time the gunman looks at his watch and, after waiting another moment or two, starts back up toward the table. Slowly, slowly – )

GUNMAN: You see what I mean, Robert Stanfield? You see what a nothing you are compared to circumstance? Pathetic! You’d rather play my game, leave your fate in hands other than your own. Well, so be it…(He bends his hand over the gun, lets it linger)Last chance, Robert Stanfield…

(Stanfield stares at the gun, but makes no movement. The gunman picks it up in a quick little swing of his hand and returns to his seat nonchalantly. This time, when he sits back down, the gun remains in his hand.)

GUNMAN: Well then! Was that not beautiful, Robert Stanfield? No, I suppose it couldn’t have been to you. But to an audience, oh what it might have looked like! What tension there might have been each inch the gun slid forward, each instant we were silent and one of your last might have ticked! We might have been painted, Robert Stanfield, by a great painter. “Robert Stanfield and the Gunman” – imagine it! Covered in gigantic shadows and chiaroscuro, we would have been beautiful, Robert Stanfield. We would have been so grotesque and terrible that we would have been beautiful… But anyway, shall we move onto possible reason number two?

STANFIELD:(Bending his head, embarrassed, ashamed, afraid)I don’t know – I – I really don’t know sir… I don’t know how much more of this I can handle…

GUNMAN: Oh come now, Robert Stanfield! I did tell you one possibility was good, the other evil. I got antsy, I got ahead of myself, I gave the evil explanation first… But why don’t we try the good one out now? Yes, why don’t we give good its due? It really is very possible I do all this for good, you know. For charity you might say. But let me explain, let me be more particular: perhaps I do this foryourgood, Robert Stanfield…

(Stanfield looks up, surprised, possibly hopeful)

GUNMAN: Now, I don’t mean you deserve to die and I’d be doing you a favor or anything like that… What I mean is this, that maybe as afraid as you are of death, you are more afraid of life… Maybe I’m here to give you courage. Surely that last little exercise was to give you courage? I confess you rather wasted it but… But as a wise man once said there’s no such thing as courage unless there’s fear as well so… Well, so maybe I am here to bestow on you a great gift, the gift of the fear of death… I know what you’ll say, Robert Stanfield, you’ll say you were already afraid of death, that all your life you’ve been afraid of death. But you haven’t been, not really. Would someone who was afraid of death let his life look like yours? Would he let it slip away and drain like yours? Would he let all his hours pass on earth with nothing to show for them but food and beer, TV and porn? Would he really be content as a teller, as a dreamless, disgusting, and probably disliked bank teller? God no, Robert Stanfield! You think you know the fear of death but here – let me show it to you. Let me show you what the fear of deathreallylooks like!

(He lunges up from the chair, steps swiftly to the end of the coffee table, and holds out the gun, pointing it directly at Stanfield. Stanfield’s eyes and body bulge again, like an animal’s about to dive into its hole. The gunman pulls the safety, releasing it.)

GUNMAN: My finger’s on the trigger, Robert Stanfield. My finger’s on the trigger, the safety’s off, and my hand is shaking. Look at it – it’s shaking terribly, isn’t it? It’s my nerves, I told you about my nerves! You never know what might happen with them! I’m sweating too, I feel that I’m sweating, my hand might slip, my finger might slide, it’s already somewhat of a strain to keep my wrist still… Do you see how I’m shaking? My whole arm! Look at it! I could kill you any moment without even meaning to!

STANFIELD: Oh god, sir! Please don’t! Please –

GUNMAN: Robert Stanfield, you are face to face with circumstance, looking down the barrel of its gun… Look at it, Robert Stanfield! It is pointed at your head, now at your heart. Your life could very well end any moment. Just a little slip of the finger, just a little strain of the wrist, and you could very well die, Robert Stanfield…

STANFIELD: Please sir! Please!

GUNMAN: Do you want to live, Robert Stanfield? Why do you want to live? You cling to life like an animal, Robert Stanfield, not knowing why… Now I ask you, plain and simple, why do you want to live?

STANFIELD: Please sir – I – I just… Oh god, sir!

GUNMAN: Why do you want to live, Robert Stanfield? I ask you why! Answer me! My hand is shaking, my nerves…

STANFIELD: Please sir, I – just give me another chance –

GUNMAN: Why? Tell me why!

STANFIELD: Please sir just let me live, I’ll live better I swear it. I swear it sir… Please just… just let me live sir…

GUNMAN: Tell me why. Tell me why or I’ll shoot. I’ll kill you right now, Robert Stanfield –

STANFIELD: But you said –

GUNMAN: I said circumstance was a liar.

STANFIELD: But you –

GUNMAN: Tell me why!

STANFIELD: I just… Please, I just… I’m still young, I can still… Please sir, I can still… I swear, just give me another chance… I’m too young, my life… my life…(He stammers, starts to weep, groans and sobs inarticulately)

GUNMAN: Your life! Your life has been a waste, Robert Stanfield. You’re like the brat who wants his toy back after throwing it out, just because he sees his neighbor playing with it… Don’t act as if this were a tragedy, Robert Stanfield, I can assure you it’s nothing of the kind…

STANFIELD: But I’m still young! I’m only forty-four! I still – there’s so much I – so much I could still…(He starts weeping again, groaning and sobbing)

GUNMAN: Oh, don’t give me this cut off in the prime of your youth nonsense.(He mimics, mocks him)“I had hopes, I had plans, you’re stealing my life…” Good god! People always act as if it’s some great tragedy when the unexpected happens, when life is suddenly cut short by circumstance, but I assure you the greater tragedy is what a waste life was beforehand. Just take the earthquake in Japan, or the one before that in Haiti… People talk as if the leveling of homes, the destruction of families, the sudden unexpected death of thousands, as ifdisruptionwere the only tragic thing in the whole world! As if the world itself wasn’t tragic, as if the vast majority of lives are not ugly and unaesthetic and wasted! As ifstagnationwere a thing to be blessed and counted on! They watch the news, see the pictures of abandon and brokenness and tell themselves to be grateful, to thank their lucky stars that circumstance has not swept them away as it has so many others… They content themselves, glut themselves,gorgethemselves on their mediocre experience on earth, all for the pure, simple, stupid reason that at least it gets to keep on going… Good god! They cling to life not as men and women, but as beasts and animals! For what they don’t realize, what you don’t realize, Robert Stanfield, is that life is often as tragic as death. Often it is more so, as in your case it is… Yes, Robert Stanfield. Would you like to know what your tragedy would really be if circumstance swept you away at this moment? It wouldn’t be your death, your death would be a standard affair really. It would be your life, Robert Stanfield, your dull, dreary, stupid, stunted life…

(The gunman stops a minute, watching Stanfield weep and sob and groan. His look changes, his tone as well. He grows calmer, more collected, condescending. He shakes his head, with pity, contempt, disgust – he lowers his gun arm.)

GUNMAN:It’s a shame, a pity really. You have wasted life, Robert Stanfield. You have wasted the greatest gift circumstance ever bestowed on earth, the gift of existence… Ten billion years of cosmic off-chance and universal chaos have granted you the silly good luck of an existence, and you have wasted it… You were coming home from dinner with your mother tonight like you would any other night, thinking you would have a beer and watch TV like you would any other night, go to bed and go to work the next morning like you would on any other, never having a clue, never wondering even once what would happen if you died – if you should be hit by a car, fall ill with cancer, or run into a madman holding a gun… I bet you told your mother you’d see her Sunday, that you’d bring her cake from her favorite bakery, certain that you would, as if life were something owed to you, something guaranteed on the dotted line… I bet you walked home with something like happiness in your heart, wagging your fat tail like a dog as if you were not walking through the valley of the shadow, as if you were not ever at the mercy of circumstance and its sweeping, sudden, circumstantial death-winds…

(Stanfield still weeps, but more softly, sadly. The gunman checks the time and then starts around, suddenly turning back to his seat. He switches the safety lock back on.)

GUNMAN: But cheer up, Robert Stanfield. It’s only 11:43; I’m not going to kill you, not yet anyway.

STANFIELD:(Perking up slightly, but still weeping)I don’t understand, sir, I don’t… Why did you…? Why would you…?

GUNMAN: I told you. I was bestowing a great gift, the gift of the fear of death. You’ve had the rare opportunity to come face to face with it, Robert Stanfield, to brush up against circumstance and see how thin the thread of your life is cut… As I’ve said, you might come out of this alive, you might get lucky… You might have a second chance. Maybe that’s the real reason I have come – to give you a second chance… After all, this might all be an act, the gun might not even be loaded… Let us suppose I decide in seventeen minutes not to kill you, or let us suppose I never even had plans to. Let us suppose, in a word, that circumstance is satisfied with one of those so-called “near-death experiences”… Will your life be more precious to you? Will you treat it with more respect? What will you do with it? Yes, what will you do with your life, if circumstance leaves you alone…? Tell me, Robert Stanfield, tell me what you will do if you live, if you go out tomorrow to a new day, fresh with the knowledge that all of your life is a near-death experience, that you walk through the valley of the shadow, and the winds of chance are ever gusting on your shoulder… Tell me, Robert Stanfield, what will you do with your life? What will you do with this great gift?

STANFIELD:(Considers, deeply, profoundly. A long pause, in which the gunman watches him expectantly, and Stanfield seems to look up, in the clouds. At length, nodding with decision – )I am going to propose to Mary. I am going to ask her to marry me.

GUNMAN: What? That’s it?

STANFIELD: I love her. I should marry her.

GUNMAN: But that’s it? That’s all you’d do with a second chance at life, you’d ask some dubiously existing girl to marry you?

STANFIELD:(Smiling, imagining it to himself)This is the first time someone will look at me and smile. Not the first time, but you know… I could probably count the number of times I’ve made people smile like that on one hand… But even if I did it all the time, even if I could make the whole world smile, it wouldn’t mean half as much, not even half as much, as that one moment when I could do it for her… I can just imagine it. I’ll have hardly done anything at all and yet she'll look at me and give me this deep smile and make me feel like I've done something right. Like everything in the whole world is right, even if only for a moment…

GUNMAN: I don’t – what are you – you can’t be serious, Robert Stanfield!

STANFIELD: I am serious. We should marry. We love each other, we make each other happy. That’s what counts. I’m not going to be afraid anymore…

GUNMAN:(Rubbing his forehead, aghast, puzzled, frustrated. He checks his watch.)Good god… This is – this is even worse than I expected… This is – I don’t even know what this is! Blasphemy’s too kind a word really…

STANFIELD: I’ve always been afraid I wasn’t good enough, that if she loved me there must be something wrong with her, that no one like her could ever love someone like me… But that’s stupid I realize now. She makes me happy. I make her happy, or at least I try to. That’s what counts, right? That’s the best anyone can do… Besides, if I’m worthless, so what? She’s not worthless – she’s a teacher, she touches people’s lives… She has plans, ambitions, wants to start a charter school… Maybe I help her be better at it. That is, maybe we both do. Maybe we make each other better…

GUNMAN:(After rubbing his forehead again, considering the puzzle deeply)Is this your attempt at some kind of ploy, Robert Stanfield? Is that what this is? Something to convince me she’s on her way home, and that I should leave? Surely you don’t really think I’m so easily duped, do you Robert Stanfield? It’s already 11:50, and your Mary’s nowhere to be seen. What kind of girlfriend comes over after 11:50? No, Robert Stanfield, no, I’m afraid I’m still not really convinced… I admit I am rather impressed with how you won’t let this whole Mary thing go, but no, no, I’m afraid I’m not convinced…

STANFIELD:(Suddenly realizing, rather frantically – )Wait, what time did you say it was? Oh god – Mary will be here any minute! Listen sir – listen… Mary has nothing to do with this, please, it wouldn’t be fair if – she has nothing to do with this sir!

GUNMAN: But neither do you, Robert Stanfield. Neither does anyone. As I said, it’s nothing personal, you know. With circumstance, it never is.

STANFIELD: But sir, it’s not fair, she – she’s good, she’s better than I am, she’s… It’s not fair, sir!

GUNMAN: It’s actually very fair, Robert Stanfield. My selection was done totally at random, you had as little or great a chance as anyone else did. By that token, so did your dubious Mary… The only reason it seems unfair is because it’s happening to you. If it happened to anyone else, it would have been their bad luck, but as it is yours, well, you get the idea…

STANFIELD: But, but sir – be reasonable, sir!

GUNMAN: That is something I cannot be, Robert Stanfield.

STANFIELD: But sir – but sir!

GUNMAN: What? What, Robert Stanfield? You would tell me again that it’s unfair, that it’s wrong, that one shouldn’t die of bad luck? Well, and I would ask you why not. We all came screaming into this world by accident, why shouldn’t we go out of it the same? Life and death are both but accidents, both but gusts of an uncertain wind. It seems very fair to me, Robert Stanfield…

STANFIELD: But sir – listen sir… listen…(Slowing down, thinking, with deep emotion – )What if… What if you just killed me now? Kill me now, get it over with, leave Mary out of it…

GUNMAN: What? Kill you now? Come on now, Robert Stanfield, do you really think I’d fall for something like that?

STANFIELD: Fall for it? But sir I –

GUNMAN: Do you think I’d be so overwhelmed with your sweet, noble gesture that I’d just have to believe it? That I’d just have to believe this whole Mary thing at last, and run off in some kind of frenzied rush to avoid encountering her in the hall? Come on now, Robert Stanfield, I’m not so easily duped as that…

STANFIELD: What? But sir I – I swear I –

GUNMAN: Nor am I so easily impressed either, Robert Stanfield, let me assure you of that. Contrary to what most people believe, there’s really nothing so easy in the world as martyrdom… And besides, we already know full well you’re no hero, Robert Stanfield…

STANFIELD: What? But sir I – listen sir, please… please, just kill me now, sir… just get it over with… please sir, just get it over with…

GUNMAN:(After a long pause, in which he contemplates Stanfield profoundly, but ultimately shakes his head.)It doesn’t work that way, Robert Stanfield.

STANFIELD: Why not?

GUNMAN: Because circumstance does not make adjustments, Robert Stanfield. In that way, though you would call it luck, I would call it fate. Chaos and order are nothing without the other – the same with luck and fate. I told you they were the same thing, Robert Stanfield…

STANFIELD: But – but what does that have to do with –

GUNMAN: It has everything to do with it, Robert Stanfield! Everything! Do you think I really came to play the villain or the saint alone? God no, Robert Stanfield! I came for something much more grand and godlike than that… I came here to play at fate and chance, to pull their strings, and be their scourge and minster…

STANFIELD: But – but sir what –

GUNMAN: Circumstance is the bridge, Robert Stanfield. The meeting point. There coincidence is turned into fate, fate into coincidence. I am the limb of one, the hand of the other. I am the joint that makes them move together…

STANFIELD: But – but you’re a man sir! You – I don’t even know if you’ve done this before!

GUNMAN: As I’ve told you before, Robert Stanfield, it makes no difference. I will do it now, at twelve midnight, that is all that matters as far as you’re concerned…

STANFIELD: You’ll…? But you said – but you said you would decide sir…

GUNMAN: The decision was made the moment I came here, Robert Stanfield. It was decided from the beginning, from before the beginning really. It was decided from the moment fate met chance and had us as their offspring… As I said, I came to be the scourge of one, the minister of the other. Do you really think I could be influenced by what you, a bald-headed bank teller said to me? Do you really think I could be offended, that I could let your various and sundry implications get to me…? No, Robert Stanfield, no… I gave you your chances. I turned my back to you, I left the gun in the middle of the table for you… But no, you didn’t take advantage, you decided not to.Youdecided, Robert Stanfield, you did, note that well! Had it been otherwise, had you been able, you might now be the one turning coincidence into fate… But as it is, as you were not able, as you never would have been able, the task is mine… We each made our decisions, Robert Stanfield. Mine is simply the one that matters.

STANFIELD: But – but sir! You said the conversation – you said –

GUNMAN: I said circumstance was a liar, Robert Stanfield. I said you can never trust it. You must not have listened…

STANFIELD: But… But I don’t… What if you’re lying now?

GUNMAN: Well, what if I am? The decision’s been made, that much I’ll tell you truly. What the decision is, well…(He flicks his gun arm as before, lifting the sleeve, and checking the time on his watch.)You’ll find that out in about thirty seconds…

(Stanfield freezes, watches the gunman, stuck in his chair. The gunman finishes his glass of whiskey and sets it down nicely, gently, on the floor. Then he looks again at his watch. He stays like that, watching the minute hand tick, until, with fifteen seconds or so left, he stands up and points the gun at Robert Stanfield. Stanfield flinches, hides his face, looking out only of the corners of his eyes, as if he does not want to know the outcome of his own story. The gunman’s arm shakes wildly, even more wildly than before, and he is seen to be sweating, as he wipes his brow with his empty, trembling hand.)

GUNMAN: The decision is made. Here it is, Robert Stanfield…(He releases the safety, but does not shoot. He hesitates, holding his arm out. It continues to shake. He does not shoot. A long pause – )

STANFIELD: But you… You haven’t done this before, have you…? Listen sir, listen, you don’t have to do this, you don’t… If you’re afraid, you don’t –

GUNMAN: I am not afraid. I can assure you…

STANFIELD: But – but your hand sir – your hand is shaking! Your hand –

(The gun goes off, in quick succession, firing two shots. Stanfield falls back over his chair – he begins to bleed on the floor. His body spasms, his mouth gurgles, and then his limbs go still, rigid; he is dead. The gunman remains as he was, shaking, trembling. At length he goes over to the body, to examine it, it seems. He stands over it a long while, peering down, trembling and shaking as before…

All of a sudden, steps are heard down the hall. The gunman does not seem to notice, however, he is so rapt with the dead body on the floor. Now the steps are heard at the door, now a key is heard in lock. The gunman still does not seem to notice, however, not until the door opens and a slim, average-looking woman in her late thirties comes in, calling for “Robbie.” Caught off guard, the gunman turns, suddenly, savagely, instantly firing another two shots. The woman topples forward in the doorway, falling to the floor like a heap of unworn clothes. She is rigid, still. She begins to bleed as well.

After a moment in which the gunman gathers what he’s done, he rushes back to his chair by the doorway, putting the gun, the now-empty bottle, and the glass all back in his backpack. He zips it up, and puts on his coat. He goes to the doorway, standing over the scene, surveying it a moment. Meanwhile he continues to shake and tremble, now perhaps even more violently than before.

At last he goes back to where Stanfield lies dead. He bends over, pushing some of the bleeding fat of the body aside, and picks up the black ballpoint pen he had given him. He puts this in the backpack as well, slings it over his shoulder, and goes out the door, stepping over the dead woman on the floor as he does so. His steps are heard down the hall, but for a moment only, and then they are heard no more. With the two corpses lying still and silent, the curtain closes…)

THE END

The Gatekeeper

Both those who were coming and those who were going had to cross the gatekeeper on their way. The passage he guarded was at the middle of a very long road, and he did not know of any other part of the road but his own. He used to ask travelers what lay farther down on either side, but they all said his was the only gate, and eventually he had come to believe them. Now he only asked them their names and gave them what they needed, depending on where they were going. The exchange was usually brief, because the gate itself was brief, and the travelers could not stop if they were ever going to get anywhere on such a long road. Most of them were already far away and had forgotten about the gatekeeper. Some even denied the rumors and said there was no gatekeeper. Still, the gatekeeper did not mind; he was used to being alone.

There was a book the gatekeeper read from as he waited and he had been reading from this book for a long while when a traveler approached. The gatekeeper asked the man his name and the man was slow to answer.

“Death?” asked the gatekeeper. The man looked at him strangely and remained silent. “Many have said in passing here that Death comes for everyone, but he has never come for me.” The gatekeeper closed his book and continued, “They say only that he wears a watch, and that he always comes.”

The man shook his head. He held out his arms and pushed up his sleeves, revealing his wrists; he wore no watch on either arm. The gatekeeper nodded and then he sighed. “What is in the bag,” he asked the man.

“Fortune, I hope.”

The gatekeeper smiled. Then he narrowed his eyes. “No clocks?”

“I hope not.”

The gatekeeper smiled again. He reopened his book because he kept his list in between two of the pages. He took it out and wrote a name down for the man. “You will not want to come back,” the gatekeeper cautioned.

“I hope not.”

The gatekeeper slid the list back inside and closed the book. His eyebrows lifted slightly and he looked at the face of the man curiously. “What makes you go?” he asked.

“Fortune, I hope.”

The gatekeeper smiled and shook his head as if at a boy he was fond of. He raised his arm up slowly and opened his large hand. “Your bag please,” he said. The man looked sad but he did as he was asked. “Sorry,” the gatekeeper said. “You can’t take anything with you.” There was a large pile of dusty bags to the side of the gate and the gatekeeper tossed this one on top. Then he handed the man a watch. “Sorry,” he said. The man looked disappointed but shrugged a smile. The gatekeeper opened the gate with his key. “You may go now,” he said.

“Good luck,” called the man as he stepped forward.

“Not yet,” said the gatekeeper as he turned back the time on his watch.

***

There was a book the gatekeeper read from as he waited and he had been reading from this book for a long while when a traveler approached. The gatekeeper asked the man his name and the man was slow to answer. He examined his list and the eyes of the man rolled about as the gatekeeper scrolled. His fingers trembled up and down his sides and his legs seemed either about to flee or fall over. “Here it is,” the gatekeeper said. He looked up and smiled at the man. He had stopped moving. “This way,” the gatekeeper said. He opened the gate and stood aside for the man to pass.

The man stood still where he was. “Aren’t I early?” he asked.

“No, you must be on time.”

The gatekeeper continued smiling and pointed to the man’s watch. The man looked down at it and then back up at the gatekeeper. “It’s a mistake,” he said. “I must be early.”

The gatekeeper shrugged and withdrew his hand. “You may leave your bag over there,” he said.

“Can’t you check the list over,” the man said. “Isn’t it possible there was a mistake? I couldn’t have walked so quickly.”

The gatekeeper shrugged again. “There is no mistake I could have made,” he said. “If you walk on the road at all you will eventually arrive. And if you are here now, then now is the time you must have arrived.”

“I should have gone more slowly,” the man said. He dropped his bag along one of the piles on his side of the gate. “If I had stopped, I would have seen more.”

“If you had stopped, then you would not have gotten far enough to see anything.”

“But I am afraid,” the man said. The gatekeeper shrugged again but now he did not bother answering. The man sunk his shoulders and dropped his face as he stepped onto the path beyond the gate. The gatekeeper took up his list and erased the man’s name.

***

There was a book the gatekeeper read from as he waited and he had been reading from this book for a long while when a traveler approached. The gatekeeper asked the man his name and the man was slow to answer. He wore a mask but it looked less like a mask and more like a missing face.

“Death?” asked the gatekeeper.

“I am an artist,” said the man.

Something about the man was smiling and the gatekeeper thought it might be the mask that was smiling. “I must ask for your mask,” he said.

“You know it is no mask.” The man pointed to the book in the gatekeeper’s hands. “I am an artist,” he said.

The gatekeeper waited a moment looking at the man. Then he closed his book. He raised his arm up slowly and opened his large hand. “Only faces,” he said.

“And so it is,” the man answered. “May I pass?”

The gatekeeper shook his head and held his arm where it was. “You must have a face to be on that side of the road.”

“My face is on that side of the road,” the man said. “I am an artist.”

“Then count yourself lucky,” the gatekeeper answered. “None can take anything with them, and few can leave anything behind. But if you do leave something behind, then you cannot go back. For if you could go back, then you would not have left something behind.”

“I did not leave my name behind,” the man said.

“None do. That is what allows you to start over on this side. A man with nothing is like a boy.”

“But the gatekeeper gives names,” said the man. “Perhaps you can write another for me on your list.”

“It would not be your name,” said the gatekeeper. “For your name was already given to you, and I cannot remember it.”

There was no longer a smile about the man and the gatekeeper could not tell how long ago it disappeared; it seemed almost a different mask that the man was wearing. He took off the mask and turned around.

***

There was a book the gatekeeper read from as he waited and he had been reading from this book for a long while when a traveler approached. The gatekeeper asked the man his name and the man was slow to answer.

“I am still only a boy,” he said.

The gatekeeper knew that they all wanted to be boys, that they all could think they were boys. He could understand this.

“I want to return home,” said the boy. “Is this the way?”

“What home?” asked the gatekeeper. All the travelers walked on the road to get somewhere, but none of them ever walked to get home. The gatekeeper could not understand this. “You can’t take anything with you,” he said.

The boy laughed as boys do and the gatekeeper wondered if he could understand where he was coming from. “I am only a boy,” he said. “Boys have nothing.”

The gatekeeper had to give boys their things. Sometimes he did not want to because sometimes he wanted to be boy. “You want your home?” the gatekeeper asked. The boy smiled. “Take this.” The gatekeeper removed the list from the book and closed it. Then he raised it up and held it out for the boy. “Here,” he said. “Take this.”

“What is it?” asked the boy.

“It is a story,” the gatekeeper said.

“I like stories.”

“An artist wrote it a very long time ago,” the gatekeeper said. “It was about his home. Maybe it can help you find yours if you do not know where to go.”

The boy smiled and went through the gate. The gatekeeper hoped that sometime he would come back, though he did not think he would.

***

All those who had been on the road had names, but few of them were remembered and only those names that were remembered could be on the gatekeeper’s list. The list was very long, just as the road was very long, and the gatekeeper had been reading over this list when a traveler approached. He asked the man his name and the man was slow to answer. He pushed his sleeve up and revealed a watch around his wrist. He looked down at it and then he looked back at the gatekeeper. “Sorry,” said the man.

“Death?” asked the gatekeeper.

The man shrugged a smile. “Sorry,” he said. He took his other hand out from his pocket and raised it up slowly before the gatekeeper. “Your key,” said the man. The gatekeeper took his key out from his pocket and dropped it into the man’s hands. “And your list.” The gatekeeper did the same with the list. “Sorry,” said the man.

“You have been a long time in coming,” said the gatekeeper.

“So have you,” said the man. He smiled and pointed to the gatekeeper’s watch. “You can keep that,” he said.

The gatekeeper looked down at his watch and nodded. Then he looked back up at the man. “I am afraid,” he said. “I have not been on the road.”

“That is how it should be,” said the man. “Many are afraid of the gate, but crossing the gate is easy. It is the road that one should be afraid of, for it is only on the road that a traveler can fail to leave something behind.”

He smiled again and the gatekeeper tried smiling with him. Then he opened the gate with the gatekeeper’s key.

“Good luck,” said the man, as he took his place before the gate.

The gatekeeper sighed and then stepped away through the gate. The man wrote the gatekeeper’s name down on the list and turned on his watch. Then he opened his book. He had been reading from this book for a long while when a traveler approached.

Saturday Night

The boy had stayed in all day and finally the slowness of time was seeping into his limbs and stifling his youth. It had not been so unreasonable to stay in all day as it was winter, and Saturdays in the city only came alive for young people when the sun was down and there was reason to brave the cold with others. Nonetheless, the boy’s drowsiness had lasted so long that he felt for hours now as if he had just woken up, and remained in bed in hopes of drifting off between loose dreams. His dinner, a cheeseburger and milkshake ordered in from a diner on the corner, likely added to this deteriorating effect. It was his favorite diner, however, and he had told his parents that it was all he wanted. So, he thought to himself, he really should not complain.

He went to the closet to get his coat and meanwhile he told his parents that he was heading out to see some friends. They were seated in the living room and reading by a dim light but got up when the boy called out to them. They observed that it was ten o’clock and asked the boy to be home soon since it was already quite late and he was only fifteen years old. They repeated their offer to take him to a movie, and the boy thanked them again but said he still didn’t want to. Then they told him to be safe and keep warm but most of all to have fun because they wanted him to make the most of his day. He smiled but did not say anything as he wrapped himself in his new scarf and zipped his coat. They walked him to the door and hugged him one by one at the entryway before saying goodbye. Then they asked him if he wanted company while he waited for the elevator. He said he’d rather take the stairs. They smiled, a little sadly, as if at his growing up too fast, and then watched him disappear down the stairwell. They could still hear the echo of his feet pattering quickly down the steps as they closed the door and went back inside. They put on some soft classical music and did not say anything else as they sat down again to read.

As soon as the boy walked out into the street, a gust of cold pushed across his face and burned along the edges of his nostrils. He did not turn his face away from the wind, however. Instead he looked directly into its path and imagined it washing away the greasiness of his dinner and the previous hour. It slapped against his eyes and scraped at his skin, but he enjoyed the sharpness of it and felt only a little cleaner and newer from the pain. The wind was very loud in his ears and the boy liked that also because it made it harder for him to think about things. He remembered how he had almost cried earlier on the floor of the bathroom, but the image seemed far away now, and he believed the sadness was peeling off him with every one of his steps. His new scarf was very soft cashmere, like the ones worn by the popular boys at his school who were able to look older, and he liked the warm, relaxed feel of it around his neck. In middle school the boy was afraid to be seen wearing scarves, and would refuse them whenever his parents offered him one, but now they were a sign you did not care how you looked and the boy felt confident in his. It was a light brown shade, striped with different shades of red and dark autumnal yellow. It looked very good in the black wool coat he had gotten only a few months before. They both fit his body well, and he was sure he could look older in them too.

The wind died down now for a couple of blocks, and the boy could hear the sounds of the city again. He listened to the passing cars and the shaking street signs and considered the details he would tell his parents when he got home. That he had gone to the home of a friend who was having a few people over; that it had not been a party, really, but more just a casual gathering. He knew there was someone at school who lived a few blocks downtown on the same avenue, and he would say it had been there if they asked. That would make sense, the boy thought, since he often heard people talk in the halls about how they’d been there over the weekend. It would also keep his parents from having to worry. They did not like him to wander the streets at night but this, they would have to realize, was just a short walk in the neighborhood. The boy continued downtown, a little faster now.

He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket suddenly and took it out. He saw by the name on the screen that it was his cousin calling. He had told the boy earlier that day that he wanted to take him out tonight.

The boy watched the phone a moment and then pushed a button on its side to stop its ringing. Then he put the phone back in his pocket and let the call go to voicemail.

The boy did not feel bad about it. He would call his cousin back tomorrow and say he was sorry to have missed his call, that he had gotten drunk at a friend’s. Maybe he would tell him he had been busy with a girl he met, and ask for his advice because that would make him happy. His cousin did not know he was the boy’s only friend now, so he never would find out otherwise. Besides, the boy thought to himself, his cousin would understand. He did not go to school with the boy, and he would not have known anybody at one of the boy’s parties. His cousin would not have wanted to go to something where he’d be a stranger, and the cold was too rough on the boy’s bare knuckles for him to call back anyway.

The wind had risen again, so that the boy could hear it beating against the coats of the people he occasionally passed. All others looked down to avoid having the wind in their eyes, but the boy still looked straight into it, as if it was a friend only he could ever really understand. The wind was fickle and playful, and he was proud to know how to forgive it. He liked the wind very much, even when it hurt him, because it was still playful when it hurt him.

Several gusts now squeezed around the corner of a building and collided, drying the boy’s lips, and snapping at the outside of his ears with their cold. They dispersed softly afterward though, so that a quiet remained, and the boy’s thoughts were able to return to him. He noticed he was getting closer to the other boy’s house, and it occurred to him that there might actually be people going there tonight and that he could run into them. If they asked what he was doing so nearby he could say he was going to a different party somewhere else and maybe they would remember it on Monday. If he was lucky, they might also remember his bold new scarf and the way it looked under his sophisticated black coat. The only problem was that they might ask for more details about the party he had made up. Or worse, they might not ask him anything at all.

The boy decided then it was probably safer if he did not run into anyone. As a result he wondered whether he should stop someplace and stall for time, so that his story would be more believable when he got home and told his parents about it. He would not let them pity him.

The boy thought then about what he could do to make his time out longer. A movie would keep him from thinking, but he might see someone at a movie who knew him, and that would ruin his story when he told it on Monday. He could keep walking, but he now had to admit it was very cold, and he did not want to get sick.

He saw a supermarket across the street and knew no one would see him there because it was a Saturday night, and he went toward it without thinking any further. Outside the store an old man was selling Christmas trees, and the boy smelled them as he went in. The scent was sharp and crisp and it made the boy think about when he was younger and it was spread throughout his home. The smell had hung on warm air then and meant presents, but now it was carried by air so cold it seemed a lack of air, and the time for presents was over. The boy stepped into the supermarket and the doors closed automatically behind him, replacing the smell of Christmas trees with that of plastic.

The boy raised his hands to his mouth and blew into them to give the impression that it was the cold that forced him indoors. After looking around for just a moment though, he saw that there were few people in the store and concluded it was unlikely that anyone was watching. All the same he blew into his hands again and proceeded to rub the arms of his coat with his palms. As a result he soon felt much warmer than he needed to, and was forced to unzip his coat. He delicately untied his scarf, so that it hung around his shoulders at just the right length, and then he started down the second aisle from the entrance.

He walked down the aisle slowly and carefully eyed all the shelves as if he were looking for something. He examined the different cereal boxes, and for some reason they reminded him of his parents. He decided then that they had done their best today and that he did not need to forgive them for anything. The light was very artificial and everywhere it looked like a glare you could not hide from. At the end of the aisle, in the frozen foods section, one might even forget it was a night out.

The boy spent a long time in the supermarket, and soon he developed a pattern for his wandering that he thought would leave him inconspicuous. First he would go down one aisle, casually examining its contents so as not to linger over anything; then he would skip an aisle and enter the next, proceeding through it the same way he had the first aisle, sometimes pointing a careless finger at a shelf or turning a jar as if to inspect its label. Then he would double back and go down the aisle he had skipped, repeating the process from there until he had gone through all the aisles. This way it might seem to anyone watching that he was shopping with some kind of agenda or shopping list. The only aisle the boy did not go down was the cleaning supplies aisle because he believed anyone paying attention would know he did not belong there. Usually he avoided it by going down the stationery aisle an extra time and glancing at the birthday cards. Sometimes he tried the beer aisle instead, but usually it wasn’t empty enough.

The other customers there were all older and he wondered if they noticed he was younger. He hoped they did not, and he did what he could not to show his face as he passed by them. He also wondered if the store clerks reorganizing a section noticed when he passed a second time, and whether they ever saw others like him and understood. One of them eventually asked if he needed help finding anything and that was when the boy looked at the time on his phone. It was nearly midnight and late enough now for him to go home. He told the clerk no thank you and left the stationery aisle for the last time.

He felt a little hungry and thought he should treat himself to something unhealthy as it was still his birthday for a few minutes more. He went to the sweets section and took a box of Gushers from one of the shelves. As he looked at the bright yellow box with the fruit colors splashing across it, he remembered watching other little boys fight over the candy and wishing he had some for them to fight over too. The boy softly shook his head, and put the box of gushers back on the shelf. Then he looked at himself in the round mirror hanging from the corner of the ceiling and used it to tie his scarf back up the way he liked it. Afterward he zipped his coat back over his scarf. He kept looking at himself another moment and then he quietly circled around the end of the line of cash registers toward the exit. He stepped outside and quickly turned right, to go back uptown. This time he did not smell the Christmas trees as he passed them.

The boy thought about his night and how fun he would say it had been to anyone who asked. He knew it would be only his parents and cousin who did, but they would be so interested that they would be enough. He would tell his parents they ate Gushers at the party for old times’ sake, and he would tell his cousin about a girl.

The wind had joined the boy again and he smiled to himself. Then he picked up the pace of his steps because he was tired and felt he should get to bed. His birthday was over now, he told himself, and there remained no reason for him to continue his night.

Prologue

To One of Many
Or The Storyteller

 

It is an odd thing, but I find that the greatest tragedy of most people’s lives is that they are not tragic in the least. Now, at first that might not seem like such a big problem; worse things have happened, one might say, and one would probably be right. But even so, consider for a moment how awful it must be if you are one of those rather extreme and curious people whose sole dream is to be interesting, and that, try as you might, you are forced to admit in the end that you are not; that it is no one’s fault but your own; and that your story is not worth reading to anyone, not even to you.

I knew such a person once. His name was Matthew Leonard, and I ask that you read this book for him. At the very least it can be said of him that he tried to be interesting. Whether or not he succeeded, I leave up to you.

I met Matt in the fall of 2007, and I believe the manner of our meeting determined the manner of everything that came between us afterward. I was young and felt very brave in the world then, and I would not usually have noticed anyone as supremely average-seeming as Matt. He was quiet, plain in all aspects, and sad looking, though never so much as to wonder at his wounds. I have always craved personality, have rather shamelessly wanted to know all the unique and intricate ifs and thens of other people’s lives, and Matt likely would have struck me as far too one-coursed at the time. To some extent, such an instinct would have been right; he was one-coursed, perhaps, but I think it was a valiant course for all that. Many are the unsung heroes history leaves us, but far fewer and more select are those that choose instead to leave it as an unheroic song, living each moment like swans at their last, and forever composing their own requiems…

We were both at Brown University and, ironically enough, in the same intermediate fiction class. Our first assignment was to write a dream we’d had. The teacher partnered us up with someone to share our work and, quite naturally, decided to do so alphabetically. Loedel came after Leonard and so, with an elegant touch of fate in the first crisscross of our lives, Matt and I were partnered for the sharing of our dreams.

Our introduction was standard, except that we discovered we were both from New York, and lived not very far from one another. After the usual small talk, which did not interest either of us and which we were both quite bad at, we exchanged work. Even then I did not have as many dreams as I’d like to remember, so I chose one from my childhood. It was an odd dream, and I liked it for its oddity. I had dreamt that, as I was coming home late one night to my building on East End, I found a revolver lying carelessly in the middle of the street. I had rushed to pick it up, thinking it must be dangerous where it was, but before I could get there a squirrel ran out suddenly from behind a tree, picked up the gun, and shot me dead in the chest.

I always liked that dream as it won a laugh, which is rare for me, and because it made me seem naturally attuned to the chancy hand of death and the all-in-all absurdity of life. Essentially, I liked it because it made me seem a born existentialist, and as I observed Matt smile mildly, I remember guessing proudly that a stranger must have liked it too. I confess, in this regard, that I did not begin reading Matt’s own piece until I felt assured he was impressed with mine.

And Matt’s dream, well, if mine had just barely skirted the hectic surface of our human comedy, his had sounded whatever grey depths make up the curse of our silence, and it held that tragic note aloft and solitary like a dead virtuoso playing nocturnes in endless midnight. He said he had never gotten it quite right, but in my opinion those three thousand or so words came together so perfectly rough and hard that they rattled like the bones of a skeleton, and with such thick emptiness as to seep forth and almost drown you. I wish I still had them to copy here, so that my opinion might be corroborated and so that I might give you over fully the dread metaphor I read that day, but, as it is, you will have to do with my word and take my less significant description of it. Fortunately, I do remember it quite well…

A boy and an old man were walking on a deserted beach. It was cold and sad and seemed like autumn though there was no sign of it. There was no sun, but there was no sunset either. I do not think there was even a sky, only an abyss that loomed in its place, and though there was a sea, it left no waves to creep upon the shore. Still the boy and the old man walked on quietly, heading I do not know where, watching I do not know what except the distance itself, until they came, very strangely and mysteriously, upon a certain clown.

This clown was buried to his knees in the sand and appeared dismally from the knees up. His clown suit was a worn, urinary yellow, his red clown wig was knotted with sand and brown seaweed, and his red clown nose hung lopsided from his silly ruined face. When the clown saw the boy and the old man he waved his arms frantically about, welcomed them to his beach, and asked if he could perform for them. The boy asked him, noticing how he was buried, Have you been here forever? And the clown answered, Ohh yes. And you’ve been waiting for us? the boy continued. Ohh yes, the clown answered again. Pozzo’s always waiting for a friend. Your name’s Pozzo? That’s right, I’m your good friend Pozzo, just as you thoughtso! I can do such a lotso, just let me show you so good Pozzo doesn’t continue to rotso! Rotso? the boy repeated with fright, and Rotso! the clown assented, nodding fervently. Very timidly the boy then asked, Are you sad? No, the clown answered, no no no. Pozzo’s the happiest clown of the lotso!

The boy asked the old man if they could stay and watch the clown perform for them and, as the old man did not answer, the clown took leave to do so. First he told some jokes that fell flatly. Then he tried to juggle some old fruit, but as his legs were stuck and he could only flail his arms about to catch an item that strayed, he soon lost rhythm and stood watching the fruit tumble down around him; one piece of fruit, an orange it seemed, actually hit him on the wig on its way down. Though the clown was a little disgusted through all this, and a little awkward, he merely brushed it off with more of his bad jokes. He giggled terribly after each one, hehehe, hehehe, like a giddy little villain it seemed, and it was fearful to think this evil clown’s laugh was the only sound of this ethereal shore. At any rate, the clown proceeded, claiming then that he could make a nickel disappear. This he tried three times, and three times the nickel reappeared in the palm of his hand. Are you sure you can do it? the boy asked. It’s okay if you can’t. Not so, not so! the clown squealed back, as he tried again, and again the nickel reappeared in his palm. After this last failure the clown threw the coin away into the sea, and the boy felt so hollow and ugly inside that he could not watch anymore and tugged on the old man’s coat to go home. No no no! the clown squealed again when he saw this, Give your friend Pozzo just one more teeny, tiny little shotso! I promise he’ll impress you an amazing lotso… The old man still said nothing and, giving the clown another nickel as a tip for his troubles, he and the boy walked on, leaving the clown behind.

After a few steps the boy felt sorry for the clown again and he turned back, to smile at him maybe, but the clown was gone. The orange was gone, and the mound where the clown had been lodged was gone, and even his brand new nickel was gone. It was simply as if he never existed. Where’s the clown? the boy asked the old man, but the old man said nothing. Where’s the clown? the boy asked again, where’s the clown? The old man still said nothing, and now the boy understood, understood the clown was gone, understood he always would be gone, and he was afraid he would be gone too soon. He was afraid and afraid and afraid and then the dream was over.

I looked up at Matt almost dazed, as if I had been woken from his dream to another just as strange. Matt, on the other hand, looked as stolid and ordinary as he did before, with neither satisfaction nor even a tinge of curiosity in his far-looking eyes, and for a passing moment I wondered if the dream could really have been his, or if it must have been another’s.

“How old were you when you had this dream?”

“Five I think.”

“Five you think,” I repeated incredulously, and perhaps a little sarcastically. “Five. And this dream, it’s important to you?”

“It’s the most important thing in my life.”

I am sure now whatever psychological chain of cause and effect that has led me years later to take up his torch and pursue the meaning of his life as if it were my own, must have begun with this answer.

“You do not want to become the clown?” I ventured.

“I must not become the clown,” he corrected.

“You must not disappear.”

“I must not disappear.”

This exchange was whispered fairly like a secret between us, but at the moment it reminded me more of whatever sigh-like breeze might have blown forebodingly on that haunted beach of his. The classroom’s worldly buzz had fallen utterly out of our queer new sphere of metaphysics, and I doubt if we heard it at all.

“And how will you not disappear?”

“I suppose I’ll have to have a meaningful life.”

“And how will you do that?”

“I don’t know. I guess I mean to find out.” He spoke this last part cheerily and it was the first time I heard any sort of personable creature in his voice, I think.

“That will be difficult,” I said.

“Oh yes. And dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“It must be dangerous if it is impossible.”

“Impossible?”

“Well, some people say it is, anyway.”

“A meaningful life?”

“Oh yes.”

By now I suppose I missed the ease of our poor banter and small talk and I was probably trying to re-inject a dose of it into our conversation after all: “I don’t know that I’d take you for one that lives dangerously,” I said.

“Yes, I guess that’s true. But they say, don’t they, that a man can do anything if he puts his mind to it.”

“And you will do anything?”

“I will put my mind to it.”

Although it was my first glimpse into that very unusual mind of his, I knew this was no mere excuse for him, no fancy philosophical sticker he could slap on any one of his bad choices or wrong actions and save under the gallant heading of ‘meaning.’ No, I felt then this project was more to him than that, though how exactly I cannot say.

“The old man in the dream,” I said after a pause. “Is he your grandfather?”

“He’s my father.”

Now the whole Leonard clan had interest to me. I did not much mention the old man in the dream, but he had seemed throughout to brood at nothing with the intensity of a blind seer, and, though I am no interpreter of dreams, I surmised from his stern cold figure that the famous primal bout between fathers and sons was alive and well here.

“He doesn’t seem to be very interested in clowns,” I said.

“No, I guess he doesn’t.”

Matt tried to shrug this off with more than his usual impassivity and I gathered my comment had scratched along a vague scar of his. I was satisfied to know it was there and felt I could return to it in time, so for now I let it go.

“It’s Matt, right?”

“Yes, Matt Leonard. And you’re Danny?”

“Yes, Danny Loedel.” After a shared, knowing smile that appeared to augur in a new sort of intimacy and the official grand opening of our friendship, I resumed with the line I was more interested in: “Matt, there’s something terrible about this clown dream of yours.”

“Yes, that’s what my father says.”

I do not know what about this answer so surprised me, but it made me stop to reassure myself I would not trespass on whatever sacred trust it seemed he was bestowing on me. “Terrible but great,” I continued at length. “Are you thankful for it?”

“For the dream?”

“Yes.”

“Can you be thankful for a dream?”

He said this innocently, like a child that knows nothing but earnestly would like to, and so, like his pretend wise parent, I answered him, rather stupidly I think now, “You can be thankful for what it gave you.”

“For what it gave me,” Matt repeated, very gravely. Although he seemed to consider the prospect some moments, I could tell he had no need to, and that his answer had been ready from the first. “It gave me a ghost,” he said. “Can you be thankful for that, for a sort of ghost?” I told him I’d never had a ghost and Matt answered, “Not yet. Not yet you haven’t.”

I do not know if he already had a plan for his story and the part I would play in it then, or if he merely saw an opportunity to prophesy himself full throttle into my life, but either way it should be clear to the reader by now that this prophecy has since come true; Matthew Leonard is my ghost now. 

Our friendship took off slowly from there, as Matt kept to himself and was rarely one to be run into. We did not meet regularly, and we never talked regularly. I tried to occasionally, bringing up such so-called normal things as weekends and people and girls, but he only ever nodded and ‘I guessed’ at me, and I was not long in giving it up. Though the clown dream did not come up again, it was always waiting like a shadow in the background, and I, in turn, was always waiting to see what would be done for the sake of this shadow.

He was a senior when we met and graduated two years ahead of me. I saw him even less after that, but we stayed in touch in our odd, airy, philosophical way, musing together at random on the common link of our mortality, and kneeling reverentially at the temple of Meaning we hoped to build in its shade. It was three more years before we were again living in the same city, and it was at that time the story I hope you will now read began.

I do not know precisely when Matt started writing his story. I do know he had finished it by the fall of 2011, however, as it was at that time the manuscript first came into my hands. Apparently he had tried to get it published but failed, and I am now trying again for him. I hope, as I have said, that you will give him this chance. For at the end of the day, I think it is all he really wanted, and that it is all most of us really want, if we are being honest with ourselves – just an audience to say our troubles are worth having.

It should be noted before proceeding that I was left with the right to edit his work. It was nothing technically legal, but there was nothing legal to be spoken of. He was gone, and I had all that remained of him. I tried to take as few liberties as possible, and I did not do very much on the whole except fix a few odds and ends and add an alternative title to the one Matt himself had given it. His was One of Many; The Storyteller was mine. Take whichever one you please.