On a random “spotlight” search today, an old short story popped up from a composition class I had back in ‘07. On a whim, I opened the file and re-read the whole story. It was weird how much it transported me back in time to a completely different place in my life. Now I’m out of school, working in a tremendous array of fantastically different arenas, feeling generally fulfilled, but NOT DOING ANY CREATIVE WRITING!!! Back when I was unemployed, I was running a lot. While I ran, I thought a lot. One thing I thought about a lot was the fact that I really want to write a novel. Before I die, that is. Sometimes I think about how I have no specific dreams in life, other to be happy, and to do a lot of things, and to stop hanging art with push-pins before I turn 35. But then this idea happened, and it made me feel determined, and it was good. So there, now I have a dream: I will write a novel before death’s clingy fingers pull me deep into the underworld. And, on the off chance that I have an untimely death (knock on wood), I will try to keep writing and thinking creatively so that somebody can compile a “Best of” biography and sell it alongside Justin Timberlake’s first Christmas album. (Get it?)
Anyway, here’s the story from back in ‘07.
GARY AND ME
average.
Sitting in her cubicle at the Lucky Day Poultry Distribution Center, Bridget Frey pondered the irony of her working area’s shape, which was unmistakably rectangular. It was almost noon on the first Friday in February, and Bridget was looking forward to the weekend. She had no plans or dates, or numbers of people to call in order to make plans or dates, or people to ask for their numbers in order to call them, in order to set up plans and dates with them. Nevertheless, she felt this would soon change. She could smell it in her lukewarm hazelnut roast, could feel it exuding from the small baggies of steak and steak sauce inside of her lunch sack. It was something or someone wonderful, peeking out from behind the door of her future. An invisible doorbell was buzzing.
Perhaps it was a mystical force of nature, calling her to wake up from her uninteresting life. Not that her life was less interesting than the average person’s – it was the same, she thought. Bridget looked average, ate average food, passed the same average day doing menial average work, and lived in an average homogeneous apartment. But it was so wrong – Bridget wasn’t really average at all. She was 26 years old, working a desk job at the chicken slaughterhouse off of Rt. 99 in New Baltimore, waiting for it all to fall into place. And today, she thought, her waiting was nearly through.
point of departure.
At 5 o’clock, Bridget collected her horse charm bracelet and car keys from the hook where she kept them, dangling like dreams above her head all day. She hadn’t eaten all of her steak at lunch, so she shoved what remained in her purse for the drive home. Taking the fire escape (a secret indulgence of hers), Bridget paused to appreciate the view. The sun still hung above the vast city’s horizon, turning the whole sky pink in its pre-spring glory. The lucky feeling was only growing stronger.
When she got into her little grey car (it had been a gift from her uncle, who lived all the way across the country), she turned on the radio. It was tuned to a station that didn’t play music, just had people talking. Bridget’s favorite show was on – it was called ‘Anecdotes with Anne’. She liked Anne’s encouraging voice to accompany her home after work everyday, liked the way it made her feel worldly and connected. Today Anne was telling stories about mistakes famous cooking show hosts made on TV. “One time,” said Anne, “Julia Child dropped a whole chicken on the floor during a demonstration of coq au vin. But then she just picked it up and dusted it off, readjusted her false teeth right in front of the camera and said, ‘It’s okay. No one’s looking.’”
Bridget didn’t care about Julia Child, but she laughed at the idea of a dirty chicken carcass getting turned into coq au vin. It reminded her of work, and made her aware that she wasn’t at work. Driving in the heavy Rt. 99 rush hour traffic, she suddenly felt very antsy and panicky. The Blue Rock Bridge was in front of her, and stagnant cars stretched out all the same as the sun melted off to the west. Out of the passenger side window, a little blue cloud hung motionless, taunting her. Nothing had changed yet!
Bridget decided she shouldn’t take the bridge, not today. Below her, a little road that paralleled Rt. 99 glinted in the final moments of dusky light. A few cars in a cooperative little line moved like beads on a string. It looked peaceful down there, and Bridget decided she could not stand another moment of waiting.
At the next exit, she veered right. Descending violently around the circular ramp, she found herself beneath the bridge. Now she was on the charming little road! The blue cloud was still to her left, but now it had become wispy, more translucent. She knew she was going in the right direction.
illumination.
From below, Rt. 99 looked entirely different. The bottom of the bridge was rusted to a deep orange. Gazing up at it, Bridget noticed a set of billboards she had never seen before. Illuminated by spotlights and set against the magical purple twilight, each board seemed charged with color. She stared, and as she advanced towards them, one board in particular caught her eye.
Bridget stared into the giant face of a man. At least five times the size of her own body, his eyes smiled out at her, and his big black nerd glasses reminded her of circus hoops. Not just any hoops, though – hoops she wanted to leap through. The sign was advertising state-covered psychiatric counseling, and it read, ‘Gary Bouchard, M.D., Come talk to me!’
Bridget was transfixed. He looked tremendous up there, and by what felt like gravitational pull, Bridget pulled off to the side of the road. Had she found what was missing? Was it Gary Bouchard, M.D.? It had to be. Why else would she have taken this route? She needed to talk to Gary. Writing his 1-800-number on the inside of her wrist (with a Sharpie so it wouldn’t rub off), Bridget felt warm with relief. Tomorrow it would begin.
determination.
The day after Bridget fatefully found Gary on the billboard, she woke up early to call him. Behind gentle grey haze, the sun seemed to be harvesting up its energy for a dramatic breakthrough. Bridget stood by the sink and dialed the number off of her arm. The faucet dripped. She held her breath.
When a recording asked her to dial 1 for English, she wasn’t shocked – she knew it might take some work to get to Gary. She listened intently and left her name and address. Later that week, forms came in the mail. She filled them out and sent them back in an envelope with a festive spring stamp. Finally, a woman called her back and asked her if she would like to set up an appointment to be screened. Yes! She most certainly would! And just like that, the date was set for February the 18th, which was a Tuesday, which also happened to be Bridget’s lucky day of the week. Everything was in order.
first impressions.
On the day of the appointment, Bridget arrived early. She parked her car in an underground garage across the street from Gary’s building, which was big and box-like and made of concrete. Above the entrance it read NEW BALTIMORE MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR’S ASSOCIATION in gilded bronze. Bridget wished she had a camera to capture the monumentality of the place, but she hadn’t one, so she took a mental picture instead. This was it! Pulling open one of the thick iron double doors, she stepped forward into what felt like destiny.
Inside, everything was sterile. The carpet was that non-color, the one where if you put your face really close you see that it’s really little loops of every color, but combined they add up to nothing. To her left was a waiting room, crowded with predictable crazy-types: a young blonde woman with a lumpy paper bag, an old lady with her head tilted way back off her neck and a lazy eye rolling in Bridget’s direction. By a tall metal coat rack in the corner of the room, a haggard man with a cane and a white eye patch muttered swear words under his breath – he made Bridget uncomfortable, so she looked away. In front of her, a receptionist chewed gum. Bridget hurried forward to meet her.
“Hello, I have a 3:30 appointment with Gary!” The receptionist looked up blearily.
“Name.” She looked back down, flipping through a National Geographic. On the next page was a picture of a little black baby swaddled in brown cloth. She had already looked at this issue a number of times, but there was nothing else to read, nothing else to distract her from the psychos.
Standing in front of the desk, Bridget was distraught at having been so easily overlooked. Printed next to the baby’s shiny little face was an ad for a collection of Encyclopedias. Bridget wondered if the receptionist shared her love for words and cuteness?
“Oh, well, my name is Bridget! Oh, and my last name is F-R-E-Y. But it’s pronounced like a French fry, not like a fray in a hem, or to fight in a fray!” Bridget wanted the receptionist to like her so that she might put in the good word with Gary. Her nametag said Sheri. Bridget thought about complimenting the lone ‘I’ at the end, thought about calling it quirky. But just like that Sheri was pushing a clipboard stacked with forms at her, with one of those tiny little golf pencils rolling hazardously around on top. Sheri was rushing for a reason– she didn’t want to look at Bridget, felt she had no reason to.
“Gary’s running late. Fill one of these out.” Bridget started to reach forward, but before she could steadily grasp the hefty weight of it all, the whole thing tumbled off of Sheri’s counter and onto the nubby non-colored floor.
“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry!” Kneeling to the floor, Bridget desperately attempted to shove the jumbled papers back in order, trying to be quick enough to salvage her first impression on Gary’s receptionist. But, when she popped back up from the ground, Sheri had already averted her attention back to the National Geographic. Snapping a bubble between her teeth and without shifting her vision, she pointed left to the waiting room. Ashamed but determined, Bridget clutched the clipboard of forms to her chest. Sheri sighed, hoping this was the last patient, and that the remaining 1.5 hours of her work day would go by without any trouble.
importance.
Sitting in the waiting room, Bridget turned her attention to the stack of blank forms in her arms. She loved filling out paperwork – in fact, paperwork was what she did best. Success in her job was largely dependent on her extreme aptitude for flawlessly filling out forms. On Gary’s form, Bridget’s life could be just as fresh and charming and mysterious as her loopy cursive could convey. She focused, and began.
NAME: Bridget M. Frey
GENDER: F
AGE: 26
ALLERGIES: Penicillin, Peanuts, Shirley Temples
REASON(S) FOR VISIT: Afraid of going another day without seeing Gary!
Bridget figured it was best to keep her answers short–she could delve in deeper once she got to know Gary more. Everything she wrote was true, but not overstated. She brought the form back to Sheri and then sat in the waiting room some more, watching the blonde woman to her left pull at the tips of her hair.
After flipping through ancient copies of People and Us Weekly for what seemed like forever, Bridget was manic with anticipation. She stared at the clock on the wall, watching the seconds tick slowly away. Finally, she was called out of the waiting room.
“Bridget Fraaaay.” Sheri’s nasally voice came over the room’s little intercom.
‘It’s Fryyy,!’ Bridget thought to herself. But Sheri’s ignorance didn’t phase her. It was her turn. She was finally walking down the hall, about to come face to face with Gary. Finally. The lucky feeling was back.
Bridget came to the door with ‘GARY BOUCHARD, M.D.’ in black letters on it. She reached for the knob. The metal felt cool against her clammy palm. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped inside.
Gary sat in a big red chair, right in front of a window which faced out over Rt. 99. Illuminated from behind, his bald head glowed pink on the top like the baby Jesus’ cheeks do in those little manger scenes. He was beautiful – smaller than Bridget had expected from the giant billboard, and frail. As she stood, hovering in the doorway like a child with her mouth open in awe, Gary motioned for her to sit.
lies / wishes.
Gary started off asking all the typical introductory questions, ones that were easy to answer but revealing. As Bridget spoke, he wrote in brief spurts on a leather-bound pad. Bridget was an anxious girl, he thought – very nervous, very sweaty.
“So, Bridget. You say you live here now, but where were you born?” His voice was even-toned, as though he was trying to coax a cat out from under a bed. Bridget felt silly – felt boring.
“I was born here, in New Baltimore.” She wished she had been born somewhere interesting, like China, or Iceland. Gary made a note.
“Mhmm. Alright. And do you have a job in the area?” He looked up from his pad, one of his bushy grey eyebrows inquisitively raised.
“Well, yeah. I mean, yes, I do. I work at a chicken factory.” Bridget thought of her cubicle – of how insipid and tedious it was. She felt like she was disappointing Gary. Did she even have a case for being here?
“Oh! Interesting. And do you work with the slaughtering?” Gary’s interest had been piqued. Suddenly he was eyeing Bridget, peering at her intently from behind his coke-bottle glasses, pen poised in ready position at the left-hand corner of a fresh sheet.
Bridget was getting more and more uneasy. Of course she didn’t work with the slaughtering. She was a paperwork kind of girl, good with categorizing data about chickens but bad with killing them. But then suddenly she wished she did work with the slaughtering. Wouldn’t that be something to tell Gary about!? All those bloody chickens, piled and stacked around this heartbreakingly young girl in rubber gloves, holding a giant butcher’s knife. The image was so clear. Before she could stop herself, the words were pouring out.
“Oh, well… yes. I do. I DO work in the slaughterhouse. And it is so terrible… what I have to do is… every time a chicken comes along strapped down to the conveyer belt, I have to smash its neck and get its head off.” The words were just rolling off her tongue, so tragically perfect that she couldn’t help but continue. “And, sometimes they don’t die right away, too, and I feel so guilty… I just don’t know what to do anymore! It’s so hard making a living of killing chickens!”
It was beautiful. Gary wrote furiously. Bridget thought he must be writing about how brilliant she was, how she was so unique and above-average, killing chickens every day and living to tell the tale.
After Bridget finished describing all the horrible implications of her life at the slaughterhouse, she didn’t want to stop. She thought of more stories she could tell. Gary asked about her love life. She told him about Jim, her ex-boyfriend, who had left her for a woman he’d met at the Laundromat. But she didn’t tell Gary that last part – instead, he had gone to war in the Middle East, his legs had been blown off in a freak gun powder accident, and then he’d died of gangrene. Gary’s pen barely ever stopped scribbling. Bridget was his new star, or so she believed.
———————————————————–
truth.
As Gary sat in his red chair listening to Bridget banter, he wondered what he’d do later. Having long since grown weary of taking notes, he had started to doodle a picture of a bird eating a worm. It was coming along quite well – the bird was wearing a little hat, and the worm had arms, which were comically thrown up in the air as the lower half of its body disappeared within the bird’s beak. Gary’s work day was long, too long, and he was sick of listening to Bridget’s horrible stories. ‘Where do all these crazies come from,’ he thought to himself.
Out at her desk, Sheri was just finishing up a little snack of pretzel sticks, counting down the minutes until she could get the hell out of the office and home to her cats. The volatile man with the eye patch still sat in the waiting room, and although he hadn’t had an appointment that day, Sheri didn’t have the energy to try and kick him out. Plus, he’d looked frenetic all afternoon, peering around with his good eye shiftily. As soon as Gary finished up with his last patient she could leave, and security would take care of him. She was just waiting it out.
Back in Gary’s office, Bridget was recounting a brief story about her mother, who once forgot her in a wholesale grocery store. Now the old lady lived in a retirement home outside of New Baltimore, and suffered from Alzheimer’s.
“She used to tie me up and beat me!” Bridget started to think of what else – about how tragic it would be if she’d been orphaned – but Gary had to cut her short. Her time had run out.
destiny.
As Gary walked Bridget to the door and into the hallway, his receptionist was making her way towards the back door. Gary started to hand her Bridget’s folder, but she only looked in disbelief at him. It was 5:03pm, three minutes later than she was supposed to work until. She resented Gary, resented the depressing psychos that dragged themselves in and out of his office every day. She wouldn’t work in this hazardous shithole if she wasn’t being paid – unlike Gary, Sheri had obligations at home that needed attending to.
Begrudgingly, Gary watched his surly receptionist disappear. Outside, the New Baltimore rush hour traffic was picking up – Rt. 99 would be hell if he didn’t make it out of here soon.
In the waiting room, the man with the eye patch still sat. He’d been sitting there all day, waiting for the receptionist to call his name, which was Joe. But she never did, and now she was gone. He was filled with a terrible rage.
Turning to Bridget, Gary shrugged. “Receptionists! Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em,” he sighed. Bridget was filled with joy. She loved that Gary already liked her better than Sheri. Maybe this whole thing would be easier than she thought! The two proceeded down the hall together, Gary to put away Bridget’s file, Bridget to get her green windbreaker from the coat rack in the waiting room.
Just then, Joe was standing up. He fists were shaking. His mouth was dry. All he had wanted was to see Dr. Bouchard, but nobody even cared. All he wanted was some fucking respect. He heard people coming down the hall, heard Bouchard’s voice. His rage exploded. He couldn’t control himself.
As Bridget and Gary emerged from the hallway, Gary turned left to Sheri’s desk, which was littered with pretzel salt. Bridget turned right, searching for the coat rack – but where had it gone? She thought she remembered it being right in the front of the little room, by the clock she had stared at for so long, next to the man with the cane and the eye patch.
Crouching in the corner, Joe’s vision had gone blurry. He held the coat rack above his head like a harpoon, with the sharp end pointed at Bridget. Even though it was Gary who he wanted, Bridget was in the way. There wasn’t time to stop.
fate and circumstance.
As Gary struggled to understand the categorization of Sheri’s poorly labeled filing cabinet, a scream blasted his ears. He jumped back in surprise – it had come from the waiting room! Terrified, Gary hunched to the ground and cowered below Sheri’s desk.
With the bloodied coat rack still in his hands, Joe stood motionless above Bridget’s body. He had punctured her chest, and now she lay writhing on the floor. A pool of crimson seeped in a radiant circle around her, and as the carpet soaked it up, the non-color changed to a deep purple.
As Bridget bled out, she couldn’t figure out what had happened. Everything had been going so well. Now, she was down here on the floor. A strange man in a white eye patch bent over her and held her hand.
“Wrong place, wrong time…” Joe murmured to himself, getting up to leave.
Gary held his breath. Still under Sheri’s desk, a crystal of salt on the floor pierced his finger. He heard someone running past him, felt the ground shake as the door to the parking lot slammed.
Standing up, Gary hoped he was now safe. Tentatively creeping towards the waiting room, he saw the dark red stain spreading along the floor, where Bridget’s body lay. She was dead.
Except for outside noise coming from the Rt.99 rush hour traffic, everything in the office was silent. Twilight crept in through Sheri’s window. Cars drove in little lines. ‘Anecdotes with Anne’ was just coming on, and the clouds hung small and opaque in the sky.
It was ten past 5pm, meaning the nighttime spotlights under the Blue Rock Bridge had just come on. Everything was the same. Everything was different. Gary began to weep.
