Chapter 20 - Transitions

A few days after the new year, Jeremy received his first-ever check for a piece of fiction he'd written. He'd had stories published before in small magazines -- fanzines, really -- which paid in copies of the magazine to show off and distribute to friends. But this was real money.

And it was real money, a check for $480 - almost as much money as Jeremy made in a week. More money than he'd ever seen in a paycheck, thanks to taxes. He threw himself into writing, spending long hours at it every night. Inevitably, one day the second week of January, he stumbled around so sleepily one morning that he ended up being late for work.

It actually wasn't the first time he was late. Despite his vow to be early every morning -- which he broke often, but which did usually keep him coming in at least on time -- Cecilia had let pass silently two occasions on which he had walked in a minute or two after eight o'clock. Today, she couldn't have ignored it even if she wanted to, as he came in nearly twenty minutes late.

"Jeremy, you're late," was all she said.

"I know. I'm sorry. I --"

"I don't even want to hear it," she said, holding up her hand to stop his excuse.
Later in the day she called him into the conference room. She slid a piece of paper across the desk.

"What's this?"

"It's an acknowledgment that you came in late today after a warning and that you're aware that as a consequence you'll be suspended for a day."

Jeremy's eyes narrowed. "What if I refuse to sign it?"

"Then I'll have to fire you."

Jeremy's eyes widen, but Cecilia just nodded to indicate that yes, he had heard her correctly.

He signed the paper.

"I wish you had picked a better time. We're already shorthanded tomorrow. Francine is still sick."

"I'm sorry," he said, sounding as miserable as he felt. "Maybe I could come in tomorrow and take off another day for the suspension."
Cecilia thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "I think we're both better off if we get this over with. Please, Jeremy. You have to stop doing this."

"I know."

"I'm afraid you're going to be docked a quarter-hour pay for today, too."

They sat a moment in silence, then Cecilia said, "Well, I guess we'd better get back to work," and left.

Jeremy followed shortly after. He felt miserable, tired and not wanting to be there but also guilty at putting everyone under the gun tomorrow working with two people out. And at the same time feeling put upon, unfairly singled out for punishment for something that happened to everyone once in a while. He hadn't been late in two months!

So after work he went home and wrote a story about a guy who gets fired from his job and decides to go back and kill his supervisor and as many other people he can take out before they come and get him. The character was nothing at all like Jeremy, a beer-drinking redneck in his late 40s with a wife and two kids and a gun collection that would make the NRA proud, and the job and supervisor were similarly dissimilar.

The story is told from mister disgruntled former employee's point of view, and without actually quoting thoughts manages to get the reader inside the head of this guy, which is a very uncomfortable place to be, not just because he's crazy and full of rage, but because he's so ordinary, and Jeremy hoped the reader would begin to feel that the guy really had been screwed over, and if his reaction was a little over the top -- OK, way over the top and obviously unacceptable behavior, to say the least -- nonetheless they could almost understand how he felt and why he ends up doing what he's doing.

Except he doesn't do it. On his way to work, he stops at a convenience store to fill up his tank, because he's almost out of gas. And he goes inside to get a cup of coffee to steady his nerves. And a guy comes in and points a gun at the cashier and says "Gimme all your money."

The cashier gives the robber all the money in the register, but the guy insists that he open the safe.

"I can't, man. Only the manager can do that."

"Open the goddamn safe, motherfucker, or I'll blow your fucking brains out."

And mister disgruntled finds himself holding his gun pointed at the robber, saying, "drop the gun and step away from the counter." And the robber instead turns and points the gun at him, and they both shoot.

He wakes up in a hospital. He's a big hero. The cashier told the police -- and TV news -- that he'd have been dead if it hadn't been for the good samaritan who stopped the robbery. Everybody wants to talk to him. Everybody wants to be his friend. One of the reporters always tracked down the fact that he just lost his job, and viewers have started raising money for him and two different men who own companies have left messages about the possibility of employing him.

So he's lying there in the hospital bed and he realizes that he was crazy. He's glad that he didn't kill his coworkers and end his life in a blaze of terror.
But on the other hand, if he hadn't planned to do that stuff, none of this would have happened. So is he a good guy? Or a bad guy? How does he live with the knowledge of what he really had planned that day when people tell him what a hero he is?

Jeremy wrote the whole thing in one long night of more-or-less continuous writing, stopping only to eat and go to the bathroom. He finally finished about 10 a.m. -- and fully realized the irony that by now he'd be at work if he hadn't been suspended from his job.

He wondered how much longer he'd be working at the library anyway. If he could make $500 just from one story, he should be able to make more money writing than he made at the library.

He saved the story, printed up a copy to read later, and went to bed. He set his alarm for 2:00 p.m. -- he'd just sleep a few hours, then get up for a while and try to go to bed at a more-or-less normal hour that night.

But when he got up at two, he had another idea for another story.

* * *

On his nightly walks to the park, on the nights when Liliana wasn't there, Jeremy often stood in front of the stone doorway and looked out at the fountain and tried to remember exactly what Liliana had said and how she moved her hands. He wanted to be able to do the spell himself, to go into her world. He wanted to surprise her with a visit for once, to be able to decide when he wanted to see her instead of just waiting for her to decide she wanted to see him.

It wasn't that he was dissatisfied, he told himself. It was just that it was such a wonderful place. It was the realm that was the basis for fantasy novels and fairy tales, he knew, but it didn't seem unreal. Indeed, it seemed more real than the real world, which seemed dull and colorless ever since he had come back.

Most of the stories that he wrote involved that touch of strange that had become so much a part of his own life that he no longer even thought of it as "fantasy." Ghosts, elves, magic in various forms, creatures who shouldn't exist. He never wrote about anything he actually knew to be true -- he only wrote about Liliana in the series of sonnets he had dedicated to her, which was now up to three dozen -- but he had a sneaking suspicion that many of the things he made up weren't made up at all. Ghosts, for instance. He had never seen a ghost, and if you had asked him a year ago he'd have said that although he wasn't at all sure that ghosts didn't exist, he thought most supposed hauntings were bogus and that he was leaning toward unbelief rather than belief.

Today, it was rather the opposite. He still believed that many -- perhaps most -- supposedly true stories about ghosts were either misunderstandings of perfectly ordinary phenomena or simply made up tales to get attention. And he wasn't absolutely sure that ghosts did exist. But he was definitely leaning in the direction of believing that there was probably something out there that at least resembled the common idea of what a ghost was, whether it was actually the troubled soul of someone who'd died and was unable to transition properly to the next world or not.

He was almost certain that there were unicorns. And he had a pretty good idea where he might find one, if he could only figure out how to open the door.

He got another check -- a smaller one this time -- and then two rejections in a row. Suddenly the idea that he could just quit his job and be a writer didn't seem to be quite so simple.

And just as he was realizing that, the unthinkable happened. He stayed up until 4:00 a.m. writing a story, somehow went to bed without setting his alarm, and woke up to the phone ringing at 8:45 a.m.

"Hello?" Jeremy answered, still half asleep and not fully realizing the full meaning of the time displayed on the clock."

"Where are you?" it was Cecilia.

What a stupid question, Jeremy thought. She'd called him at home.

"I . . . um. I can be there in an hour."

"Don't bother."

There was a long silence. Jeremy was fully awake now. He didn't want to believe he'd heard what he'd just heard.

"You mean . . . ?"

"Jeremy, you were suspended less than a month ago. Not even three weeks ago. Even if it wasn't six months, if it was two or three, I could argue for another suspension, a longer one perhaps, but as it is . . ."

As it is, he was fired. That was that. He'd really screwed himself up this time.

"Oh, my God," he moaned.

"I'm sorry," said Cecilia, sounding distraught herself. Then she seemed to gather herself together, because her voice became very clear and cold. "You brought it on yourself, Jeremy."

She hung up the phone. He sat there in bed, holding the empty receiver. He wanted to cry.

He wanted to tell Liliana what had happened. But he didn't even know when he would see her again. She couldn't be there to comfort him, to support him. What good was she? Why did he have to fall in love with someone who couldn't do anything for him except give him sex?

And the stories, he reminded himself. You know it's because of her that you have the stories.

Yeah, well, I'm going to need better ones and more of them. Cause now they're all I've got.