He called me late one afternoon just as I was getting back to my apartment. I took the last three steps of the staircase in one elongated stride, pausing briefly in front of my door to soothe the pain caused by the swinging grocery bags clinging to my forearms. The ringing in my pocket began as I fumbled to fit my keys in the lock, the bags doing their best to pull my hand from its course. They’d become so tangled around my arms and each other that when I finally managed to fling open the door I determined that I had no time to shed them on the counter before the call went to voicemail. Not wanting to deal with the nuisance of calling someone back, I shuffled over to the couch, dropping into its plush relief, and allowed the bags to rest atop the cushions. I fingered my phone out of my pocket and answered, relieved to feel the cool rush of blood once again circulating through my arms.

            Immediately after hello I dropped my phone into one of the bags, the two-finger grip proving itself insufficient. His voice was muffled by the plastic of the bags and the produce. I fished around for a couple of seconds, straining to hear his voice, finally managing to lift it from between a head of lettuce and some tomatoes.

            “I didn’t catch that, you fell into the bag.”

            Otis’ laugh flowed smoothly through the receiver.

            “I’m sure I did. I just wanted to call you before Mom so that you don’t get any ideas about skipping out on me. She can fill you in on the details and whatnot. That’s kind of her hat anyway.”

            “What would I want to skip out on?”

            Otis had already hung up. Quick and to the point as usual. I sat for a moment on the couch, running the brief conversation over again in my head. If Otis was worried that I might flake on him, even though he expressed his worry in his standard unbothered manner of speaking, then he must have a pretty good reason. And if he had a pretty good reason, he was right to leave the task of my recruitment up to Mom. I stood and hobbled over to the counter, placing the bags on top for removal. Some of the straps, now thin and tightly wound, needed to be yanked apart. Upon snapping the last of the strands my phone rang again.

            “Good. You talked with Otis already. So what do you think? You gonna take a plane? No, right? Well, if you’re going to drive then you’ll have to leave pretty early, or better yet the day before. That’s good. That’ll give us all more time together. I think the drive is about 15 hours for you. Wait. Let me check. Honey…How long is the drive for Russell down to Myrtle? Your father says it’s about 15 hours. What? He’s says it’s about 15 hours assuming you don’t get lost along the way. He won’t get lost. He’s got a GPS. And you should bring a couple pairs of shoes in case we decide to go on a walk…”

            She continued to talk and plan and give me advice on what I should pack for the trip. While Otis was stuck in the grocery bag I was able to decipher a couple of phrases that, with the new revelation that I would be traveling to Myrtle Beach, allowed me to piece together what I was being roped into. Otis was getting an award, for something or other, and the celebration was being held down in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We used to go down there to visit my grandmother, usually for just a few days during the summer. We would golf as a family most days and I would accompany them to the course, though I never played. I’d tell my parents I was content to hang around the club while they golfed, but once they teed off I would wander through the wooded parts of the course, collecting golf balls lost to the brush. I considered myself a collector of rare artifacts, and the balls were magical orbs that granted me powers of invisibility or mind reading. To this day, I still have a shoe box full of golf balls crammed in my closet. With every move or spring cleaning, I contemplate tossing them, but I’m never able to.

            Once my father got wise to my golf day activities, he forced me to stay at grandma’s condo. He said she’d feel less lonely with me to keep her company, but really he didn’t like the idea of me roaming around the course and potentially bothering some of the club’s more easily perturbed guests. Grandma and I didn’t offer each other much in the way of company. She was old enough that activities like talking or playing cards were no longer in her wheelhouse. This was fine by me since I had never been able to answer any of her questions with much more than an I’m not sure or a maybe and I also never had thought of a question I’d really wanted to ask her. We’d spend our days together on the couch watching television, the rhythmic huff-and-puff of her oxygen tank counting time for us.

            I’d overheard conversations between my parents about how close she was getting to the end. I found it unnerving to share the couch with her and her oxygen machine that was counting down her time. I didn’t want to be there the moment she passed over. As I sat there on the couch with her, I wondered if the oxygen machine would continue to click along even if her lungs were no longer working. Was it possible that I could sit next to her all day only for the rest of the family to come home and realize that she’d been dead for hours? The thought made me shudder. In order to combat this most unpleasant possibility, I’d watch her instead of the television. Sometimes I’d fall into a trance staring at her motionless body and her face that never registered any change. One day, we were both going through our usual routine: her looking at the TV, but not really watching, and me staring at her to make sure she was still present. All of a sudden her eyes shifted and locked with mine. I was so shocked by the connection I felt to her that I turned to face the TV without uttering a word. After a few minutes I glanced over at her, but she was once again absorbed in her own world. 

            “. . . and this award that he’s getting. Oh. One of 30 people! He’s a 30 Under 30. A 30 Under 30 Realtor, Russell. I never dreamed I would be a mother to such a spectacular son. To two spectacular sons.”

            “Yeah. Big honor that is. I never thought I’d be brothers with, ehh, someone this spectacular. And I didn’t get the chance to tell him, he hung up so quick I couldn’t say much at all, but I was telling him that I might have to stay up here because getting down there might be hard . . .”                        

            “Ohhhh, cuh-mon. Listen here Russell George Howard. Otis took a plane aaalll the way from Japan to California, then another acrooosss the country, all to see you graduate the eighth grade. He circumnavigated half the friggin’ globe for you. And you won’t come down to Myrtle Beach for him?”

            “I never said I wouldn’t come. I just don’t know if . . . how can I get down there, even? You know the car’s not been driving so well. There’s this click-click sound, it might fall apart on the way . . .”

            “For god’s sake, Russell. This can’t be about Ruth. It’s a big state. You won’t see her.”

            “Yeah. No. I know. That’s not why. That’s not the point. That’s something else.”

            “You’re something else. You’ll be there.”

            In my family, there’s only one way to show your support, and that’s with your presence. It means that driving 800 miles to spend one night at the Whispering Pines Country Club supporting my brother and 29 other under 30s, for an award which really is not all too noteworthy in my mind, just to turn around the next day and drive another 800 miles back, is, in fact, not too much to ask. It’s just what you do.

            And I know I won’t see Ruth. What really worries me is the post-award ceremony social hour in a room full of realtors. 29 of the best realtors under 30 with their bright smiles, all bearing down on me with questions about what I’m doing, what I’m going to do, and how do I feel being the younger brother to someone as spectacular as Otis? I wouldn’t be surprised if after a few minutes with me even their glistening grins began to crack. The issue is I’m always having two conversations: one with the person in front of me and one with myself about how the conversation is going. I worry over words both said and unsaid. I’m constantly self-editing my past answers. Even responses to questions that I’ve fielded hundreds of times come out sounding garbled and mixed. It’s always been excessively challenging to tolerate myself while talking to other people.

            And I have this twitch. I can’t stop my left hand from doing this thing where my thumb runs up and down the other digits, from pinky to index and back again. The longer a conversation goes on and the more I feel myself stumbling, the faster my fingers twitch. Up and down. Again and again. My hand becomes a fiddle. Strumming until my skin breaks. On days that I’ve been extremely talkative, not of my own volition of course, I’ll have rubbed a layer of my skin clean off, revealing the smooth and pink layer beneath.

            Otis isn’t like this. He’s got his own set of oddities, but none of them affect his social acumen. With him, I can have a conversation without feeling swaddled by my own mind. It’s nothing in particular that he does, but he bears this always-at-ease disposition toward everything. He brings out the dimples in people.

            My mother ultimately got her way, though it was hardly a challenge since I am quite pitiful when it comes to negotiating. I took her advice and left the day before the ceremony. I’ve been driving a little over six hours, and though I’m not lost yet, I’m certainly on my way to becoming fully lost. My phone’s GPS has been having trouble the past half-hour as I’ve entered the mountains. I knew this might happen, so I did my best to memorize the basic route, but that’s not too valuable in my hands. My father is the only person I know who’s fluent in highway signage. All he needs to get somewhere is a general idea about his destination in terms of cardinal direction, and a sign. I did not inherit this trait, which makes it all the more likely that, soon, I will become fully lost. Even though she knows better, my Mom suggested I take a plane. A flight to Myrtle would circumvent my navigational issues as well as the made-up car troubles, but I’d much rather take my chances driving down using my Dad’s method. I’ve never flown in a plane and I’ve no intention of starting now. If the Wright Brothers had gone door-to-door selling vacuum cleaners instead of creating the art of flight, then I’d be doing just about the same in life.

            As someone who is afraid of flying, you’re told by everyone that planes never crash. Except sometimes they do. At least in a car crash, you’ve got a chance of living. Your body could be maimed and shattered, but you’ll still be alive. No one survives a plane crash. Worse yet, you have to share the experience of dying with a bunch of screeching strangers. I’ve spent hours worrying over what that moment feels like. The moment death enters the room and guides you out of life. I’d like, if I can, to experience, and maybe even enjoy, that moment alone. At the same time, though, there is something beautiful about spending your final moments plummeting toward Earth and seeing it as few people ever do. This of course assumes that you have the wherewithal to compose yourself and accept that death is coming, and it also assumes that you don’t die in the explosion or you aren’t sucked up into the propeller and shredded into human goo. And above all, it assumes that the plane crashes, which I don’t want it to, and if I don’t want that outcome, then why even risk it?

            Nobody in my family can trace this phobia, but it’s never been enough of an issue to warrant a deeper conversation. It came up briefly last summer when my girlfriend Ruth invited me to stay with her for a few days. When planning the trip, I had the choice between 20 hours aboard a train and a three-and-a-half hour plane ride. I chose the train.

            After a long trip that last nearly a full day and included a two-hour layover in DC, I exited the Florence Amtrak station and hovered a bit until I saw Ruth waiting in her car. She didn’t get out to greet me. Just waved me over. Ruth sat passenger side. The guy in the driver’s seat introduced himself as Jay and gave me a firm handshake. I sat in the center seat so I could poke my head up front if there was any conversation, but neither Ruth nor Jay had anything to offer, so I sat back and stared ahead at the road. Once we pulled into Ruth’s driveway, Jay hopped out and walked inside her house like it was part of a plan. Ruth held me back so we could talk. She was quiet. I met her silence with my own, looking at her and waiting to hear what she was planning to tell me. 

            “So, listen. That was Jay.”

            I looked at her waiting for more because this information could certainly not be all she had wanted to tell me.

            “Jay. My ex-boyfriend, Jay. He’s now my full-on boyfriend again, Jay is.”

            “You keep on saying Jay.”

            “Yes. Because Jay and I are back together. And I know that’s awful and you took a train all the way down here, but we hung out yesterday and I just felt an emotional rush when I was with him and I don’t know, but I think I want to be with Jay now, and I’m sorry, but can you blame me?”

            “No. I don’t. I can’t, really. Emotional rushes can do that.”

            “I know and I’m really so sorry, but this is the right thing to do. Telling you in person. I know it.”

            I continued to nod along as she apologized some more because that seemed to be the quickest way for me to excuse myself from the car. Stepping out of the car wasn’t so much an escape as it was a trap. I had nowhere to go. I was, for the time being, stuck in South Carolina. I accepted Ruth’s offer to spend the night on a couch in her house, skipping dinner to avoid whatever that would have been, and the next morning Jay drove me back to the train station. As I gathered my bags from the car, he tried to communicate some helpless remorse about the situation.

            “I know this isn’t cool for you. I’m sorry. But, Ruth is just so . . . captivating. Like, once she’s a part of your life, it’s real hard to let her out of it. You know?”

            He said this while leaning against the car and staring off beyond me. I waited to see if he had anything else to say, but he just clapped me on the shoulder and extended a hand. I shook it and thanked him for the ride, my left hand fiddling furiously in my jacket pocket. I couldn’t help thinking that maybe if I’d taken a plane and gotten in sooner none of this would have happened, and I wouldn’t have had to endure the conversation in person.

            Otis drove all the way down to the train station in DC to pick me up about a day after he dropped me off at the one in Cleveland. There were tickets that took me all the way back up, but the transfer in DC would have made me wait another 18 hours because of how infrequently they ran. I texted him the bare details of the breakup the night before:

Ruth got back together with her ex. (His name is Jay) Can you pick me up at Union Station sometime tomorrow?

___

Sure. What time?

            Once we were both in the car, Otis offered support in his typical way. He treated the breakup like one of those things that just kind of happens sometimes, which sucks, but sucky things happen. It felt good to not talk about it, but still know that Otis acknowledged the shittiness of the situation. We had a seven-hour drive ahead of us, and Otis stocked the car with plenty of chewables to keep our mouths occupied. I immediately stuffed five sticks of gum in my mouth and proceeded to add another piece each time the mass lost its flavor. He was already chewing on a mouthful of sunflower seeds when I got in the car, spitting the shells into a Styrofoam cup that he lodged in one of the cupholders.

            We contentedly chewed for a while, the only noises in the car the smacking of my mouth and the pitooing sound Otis made whenever he shot shells into the cup. After he finished the bag he opened a pack of Starbursts, handing me the reds and pinks, keeping the yellows and oranges for himself. He has this habit of not eating the Starburst, claiming that chewing the candy hurt his teeth, instead opting to suck on each square for a few minutes before spitting the shapeless remains into the spit cup.

            The gob of gum in my mouth got so large that I had to take it out to speak. I opened wide and reached in with two fingers, surgically removing the mass.

            “Just chew them like a normal person. They look disgusting.”

            He always waited a couple extra moments before responding. 

            “That’s disgusting? Look in there. There’s seeds and spit and other bits of mouth detritus. If anything, the color makes that mess a little better to look at.”

            “Yeah, well, that’s cardinal sin number one: never look directly in a spit cup.”

            He sat with this for a moment.

            “Sometimes you can’t help it. You catch a glimpse every once in a while.”

            I wanted to annoy him. The gob of gum had become an entire pack’s worth at this point, and I stuck it smack onto the front window. Instead of grossing him out, he laughed.

            “You’re an idiot Russ,” he said through a grin.          

            Otis knew that the look of the gob on the windshield would ultimately bother me much more than him. I immediately regretted sticking the wad there. The wetness around the bulbous, brainy blob slugged down the glass, leaving behind a slimy trail. I wiped the windshield off with a rolled-up sleeve, unsticking the wad and jamming it into the spit cup.

            We were driving through a midway town with nothing really except for the people who lived in it when Otis wondered aloud, “What do you think it’s like growing up in a place like this? Think it’s hard to socialize?”

            We drove by a house whose lawn was so overgrown the old car sitting out front seemed to have sprouted from the earth.

            “It’s probably easy to be a recluse.”

            “I know you’d try to be one, but you still have to eat. No delivery around here. You gotta go out and get your food.”

            “I get my own groceries,” I said defiantly, then after a few moments, “I haven’t seen a grocery store. Do you think there even is one?”

            He shrugged at this.

            I pressed on. “How far do these people have to go to get their food anyway? Or is it like, it’s so far that if they forget something from the Faraway Market, like butter or eggs, are they just like, aww fuck, I guess I can’t bake anything this week?”

            He played along. “And there’s no CVS, just some mom and pop spot that has medicine that only kinda fixes what you got? Cold medicine that unclogs only one nostril.”

            He said the last part in a nasally voice, and I cracked a smile. He’s always quick and confident. It’s part of why he makes me feel so at ease. No matter what I say, he’s going to say something that makes us both sound good.

            Otis will be my only solace in a room full of 29 other under-30s, their families, and my family. As much as I’d like to, I can’t stay strapped to him the whole night. I’ve got to be prepared to make a little small talk. Just the thought of this ties my tongue and shakes my stomach. I shove this thought from my mind since I’d rather deal with it unprepared than stew about it for the next eight hours and still end up tripping over words.

            The GPS still isn’t working, but I should be getting close to an area with at least a little bit of reception soon. The town I’m in resembles the one Otis and I drove through, in the way that all small, mid-state towns resemble one another. The gas station has old pumping units. Front yards are riddled with clutter. Some houses look uninhabited, but there are cars out front that say otherwise.

            I wonder if the townspeople are close. They have to be, right? Maybe because the town is so small, everyone is close. Maybe they get together for holidays. Is it even possible for kids to trick-or-treat around here? The houses are kind of too far apart, and who’s to say every house is handing out candy, or even putting a Take-One bowl on the stoop? Maybe they put on events for special birthdays, like the oldest woman in town’s or the identical triplets’. Does everyone get an invite? What about exes? Do they go to their past lovers’ weddings? What about funerals? Death probably has a big impact when there are so few people. How do people find out when someone dies? How long does it take to find a decomposing body in a house? Does the deceased’s dog die, too? Or does the dog hold out as long as it can until it’s forced to rely on its carnal instincts and eat their owner’s corpse, which is all for naught because eventually they’ve eaten the body down to the last bone and they end up dying anyway?  

            ...

            ...

            Do they drink?

* * *

LIQUOR STORE. It’s one of those stores that’s so aptly named you wonder if the lack of creative titling is a product of an uninspired town or an uninspired owner. Or maybe it was just the cheapest sign. The lot in front of the store has no delineated spots, so I park in front of the door. I figure now is a good time to get Otis a gift since I need to figure out exactly where I am.

            The windows and doors are covered almost completely by old alcohol advertisements for brands I’ve never heard of. One for Winding Hills Whiskey depicts a dapper man in a lush, crimson room sitting in a comfortable, plush chair. The man is being side-hugged by a woman leaning on the chair’s arm, his arm wrapped around her waist, gently cupping her upper thigh while she hands him a glass of whiskey. The tagline: “Wind down your night with the best.”

          Another sign with frayed edges shows a ghost holding a bottle of something green while leaning against a tombstone. The ghost is flanked by a more curvaceous ghost who’s rubbing the—I guess—male ghost’s shoulders. “So good you’ll want to take it to the afterlife!” 

            There’s also a piece of paper taped to the left door with the words “USE OTHER DOOR” scrawled on it in sharpie. The other door has got its own piece of paper that reads “PULL HARD,” written in the same crude handwriting.

            The sign isn’t kidding. I give the door a good jerk, which gets it out of its rooting, then another equally hard pull. A warmth leaks out from the store’s innards. The opening to the store is slight. I have to slide in sideways. The air inside is thick, muggy almost. The store is carpeted with what has to be the same carpet that was originally put down, right after the roof and the walls. It’s burgundy and riddled with yellow and brown stains from years of clumsy patrons. Lining the wall to my left is a row of freezers, broken up in the middle by a freezer slot which has been converted into what I’m guessing is some sort of side room. After the door, the freezers continue all the way down the left side and across the back wall. The right wall offers nothing of interest, only more advertisements. There are two shelving units parallel to the back wall, which effectively create two rows in the rear of the store. The closer of the two units is pushed against a center island with a single register.

            No one is at the register. They must be in the side room. I have to pull the door closed behind me, realizing once I do so how effectively the ads are at keeping sunlight from illuminating the store. Except for a few thin streams of sun light, the store is exclusively lit by the cool glow of the freezers and the overhead fluorescents, which are burning much dimmer than their usual blinding white. The lights that work best are all on the outer edges of the ceiling, but even they don’t hold much light. They more flicker, or beat with a discordant rhythm. The center island is darker than any other part of the store.

            Closing the door was definitely not a good idea. The smell of warm, dried liquor mixed with something rank has nowhere to escape, so it lingers. It doesn’t force me to cover my nose or anything, but I make a conscious effort to breathe only through my mouth. It feels unnatural. I sound like I can’t catch my breath. I stride toward the center island to ring the little bell that sits between the register and a Take-a-Penny-Leave-a-Penny tray. There’s a faint gurgling sound, like a drain unclogging, coming from inside the island. As I step up to ring the bell, I notice movement inside the island. I jump back and a high-pitched squeal escapes me. Someone is there: an old woman. She’s sitting on a milk crate. Her total non-reaction to my appearance makes me feel foolish for the noise that just escaped me. She stands up the only way she can, slowly, and shuffles a bit behind the counter while wiping at her eyes with a sleeve. She coughs once. Then again into her elbow. That must have been the sound before. She’s got a little cold and her sinuses are acting up. I kind of point all around the store and ask, “Do you got Jameson or something like that—a whiskey?” She gestures limply toward the back wall. 

            The wood under the carpet is warped, which I add to the mental list of things that are off about this place. I know it’s a small town, but I’ve got to believe that there’s somebody around who’s trying to maintain things. Make sure everything is at least marginally up-to-standard, whatever the standards are for liquor stores. It feels strange, stepping out of a beautiful day and into this half-liquor-store-half-bog. I walk along the left wall toward the back, idly glancing in the freezers. Even though she told me where to go, I still walk through all liquor stores like I’m just browsing. The first time I bought booze was after I turned 21, so I had every right to be there, but I felt watched. I still do. I thought part of what made me look not guilty was a passive interest in every row of alcohol, and if I played the part, then the possibility of me being confronted and labeled underage was drastically reduced.

            I moved along with my perfected interested-but-not-too-interested browsing walk until I get to about the area the old woman gestured to. I glance back at the center island. I can’t see her. She probably sat back down on her milk crate, fatigued by old age and whatever is ailing her. She can’t be the only person working in this store. How did she get stuck with this job? Does she not have a husband or daughter or son or any grandkids who can work here while she sits at home instead? It’s sad that she’s stuck here alone all day, waiting until she can leave. This air can’t be good for her. I’ve been walking through it for all of five minutes and I’ve started to hunch over, my jaw slack so I can continue to breath through my mouth.

            *tsk* A familiar sound shakes me. I’ve been staring at the shelves of alcohol without really looking. There’s no Jameson, just more brands I don’t recognize. Jameson because it was the “first drink” my brother had on his 21st birthday with our father, which also turned out to be my actual first drink. *tsk*

            Again, the sound. I know it, but I can’t place where I know it from. 

            *tsk* “It’s all right, you know. What you’re feeling.” *tsk*

            I have to stop looking at the shelves so I can respond. “I’m sorry?”

            “It’s all right.” *tsk* It’s coming from the center island. The old woman. Her voice is slow and raspy. I strain to hear her and step on the tip of my toes to see if I can see her, but the island is out of view. She’s guessed my predicament, maybe, through some sort of grandmotherly sixth sense for trouble in young folk.          

            “Yeah . . . hmhm . . . yeah, no Jameson. I guess y’all must have sold out, or maybe I just don’t see—”

            *tsk* “It’s all right. It’ll pass with time. *tsk* The feeling. *tsk* Eventually, you learn. With time it becomes obvious . . . *tsk* eventually.” *tsk* 

            I don’t really know what she means, but then it hits me. I realize where I know the sound from. She’s making it while talking, maybe because she’s sick, but this sound, it’s like she’s slurping. Like there’s a pool of saliva that’s collected in her mouth while talking. Gregory Chimes from 4th grade had this issue where his tongue was too big for his mouth, or he just couldn’t talk right, and because of this, he had to slurp up a bunch of saliva mid-conversation, and if he didn’t and kept on talking, he would end up drooling streams from his garbled mouth.

            I wait because it sounds like she should have more to say. My mouth is noticeably moist, and I try breathing through my nose, but blood rushes to my head and I have to steady myself against the shelf. I go back to breathing through my mouth. She does say more, but only after catching her breath. 

            *tsk* “And if it doesn’t pass, well, that’s fine, too. You learn other ways. *tsk* You change a little so you don’t have to change a lot.” *tsk*

            I notice for the first time that some of the bottles on the shelf are half-empty. Some are almost completely gone, nothing more than a few warm drops at the bottom. I can’t believe I didn’t notice until now, but at least every third bottle has been tapped.

            *tsk* “I know the feeling. I’ve become very acquainted with it, alone all the time. *tsk* But you wean yourself from it and then you forget how to feel that way, not that you want to once it's gone.” *tsk* 

            Boxes of 30-racks in the freezer have been opened, and there are empty cans stuffed between the unit’s crevices. The lights in the store are beating even slower and more dimly now. Every bit of light and sound seems to be centered on the island. I hear her shuffle a bit on her milk crate and I’m worried she’s coming to try and help me.

            “I think I’m fine back here. I’ll just pick something that has a good label.” 

            I glance over the shelves and grab what looks like a full bottle of something with my left hand and start to make my way to the register. The bottle is plastic and sticky by the top and I clutch it tightly. I find that I’m hugging the wall as I walk slowly back toward the register, trying my best to stay in the light. The old lady must be sitting on her crate. I can’t see her. The weight of the store’s air mixed with my altered breathing pattern has left my arms feeling heavy and numb. I fumble for my wallet until I reach the island. She’s not there. I peer over the top of the counter, but all I see is her milk crate and a stain on the floor that looks fresh.

            The side-room. It’s the only place in the store she could be. The door is still slightly ajar, but now there’s light. A dim one. The ten steps it takes me to reach the door take almost a minute. I feel the need to keep checking behind me as the darkness continues to expand throughout the store. I push the door open with an outstretched leg and wait a moment before crossing the plain. It’s not really a room. Stuffy like a closet, but the edges of the walls are lined with dirt seeping in from outside. The old lady is there, slumped on another milk crate and a couple of boxes, her body barely sustained by the makeshift chair.

*tsk*

            I try waiting for her to speak. The room has all the qualities of the rest of the store, except it's all crammed into a tighter space. She’s still not saying anything.

            “I . . . I need to pay.” 

            She turns her head toward me, then looks up with these deep blue eyes that are made even more profound by the red hot rings that flame out from the irises. Her hand slowly reaches toward mine, the one with the bottle, and takes hold of my wrist.

*tsk*

I think she wants to be helped up, but she doesn’t say anything and I can’t bring myself closer to her. Her eyes have locked me to my spot.

*tsk*

She opens her mouth to say something and when nothing comes out I try to do the same, but nothing comes out of me either. 

            . . .

            *tsk*

            . . .

            *tsk*

            . . .

            *tsk*

            . . .

            “I don’t know what to do, how to help you. I can’t . . . what do you need? Tell me. I can try, but I don’t know. Help me try.”

            She still hasn’t moved. Her mouth hangs open, but her eyes seem to smile. It looks like she’s about to respond, but when she tries to speak, she stops. *tsk* She tries again but it’s become too much. It starts at the corners of her mouth. A drop on the left side, then a streak falls over her chin. It’s welling up faster than she can suck it back, saliva now steadily streaming out of her mouth.

*tsssk* 

            I only see them out of the corner of my eye. Bottles strewn about the floor, but they don’t really look like bottles. They shimmer under what little light there is. Their figures sponge-like, leaking globs that I can’t quite make out because my eyes are trapped by hers. The neck of the bottle is getting crushed under my grip. The cap is gone and liquid is sloshing out as my hand vigorously shakes.

*tsssk*

Her mouth is overflowing and her eyes seem split. The stark blue center is being overtaken by a red shroud. Now her eyes well up and streams begin pouring from them. Her neck, her arms, her legs, her entire body is being consumed by a liquid sheen.

*tssshhhk* 

            The bottles on the ground beat with the same rhythm as the lights. They secrete a juice of their own. The whole room is beating. She raises her other arm and reaches toward my face.

*tssshhhk* 

She tries standing, but can’t support herself and falls toward me. I yank my arm free with ease and break for the door. I crash into the frame, barely pushing it from its mooring. I push with my whole body against a door that doesn’t want to budge. The lights are going dark. I push harder. The bottle is crushed and completely empty and I can’t let go. I force my body through the door after it’s opened just enough, banging my nose as I fall outside.

            From the car, the store looks innocuous. Blood from my nose steadily drips onto my lap. My left hand quivers, still clutching the bottle. I turn on the radio to hear someone’s voice, but I don’t drive away because the door is still open, if only just a bit. I’m motionless watching the door, waiting for it to move. Fresh air fills me up and makes me feel good inside. The door wiggles, from the wind maybe, then a little more, then it’s shut, and I’m alone again.