Making Connections (1) Jo stood there blinking for a moment, trying to focus her eyes, even though it seemed that she had closed them for the final time only a fraction of a second ago. She had closed them, not thinking of her ex- boyfriend (ex in his mind at least), not thinking of her parents (they ignored her, so why should she think about them), and not thinking of those friends and acquaintances she was leaving behind (she had no real friends and well, NOBODY liked her where she worked). She was surprised a bit in the first two cases as she certainly felt a strong passion there. Hell, she was killing herself because of David wasn't she...because he had dumped her for some creepy, slutty bitch, whom Jo had despised from the first moment they met, even before she had stolen "her man", and now he refused to take her phone calls even though she called him constantly, and by god she was going to show him what pain felt like. And her parents?? God, she hated them now, as she was sure they hated her still, not having spoken to them in a year, the last huge screaming, tossing, door-slamming session too much for all of them to ever forgive, and by god they would be sorry that they had fucked her up so bad. No, her final thoughts hadn't been about any of them. All she could think about at the last, laying there on her bed in her cheap rent- controlled apartment on the westside, listening to Elvis Costello moaning "I Want You" through her headphones (a lover's lament written by a guy for "his" women...easy enough to flop the pronouns), starting to feel her body go all dreamy and cold, her vision tunneling down to almost nothing, all she could think about when the pills she had swallowed finally swallowed her was, "where am I going to go now"..... She blinked again, her eyes finally working, and stared at the doorway just in front of her. "Tain't much of a doorway," she thought, just two big old oak doors that had seen better days, with black hinges and large, black pullrings for doorknobs, ornate but worn, with no windows or glass or nothing that would let her see inside, to what awaited her, the whole doorway lit by just a crummy 60-watt incandescent hanging from a long curved wrought iron fixture above the door, making the whole thing seem just a little too creepy to her. So this was it!?...the answer to her last, living question was THIS place? She was supposed to go through these doors...she knew it, her body knew it, her mind and soul knew it. So why wasn't she moving, opening the damn doors and stepping into her fate? Jo realized suddenly that she was shaking like a leaf, apparently being scared as shit the answer as to why she wasn't doing it. She turned away from the doors then, to see if there was anywhere else to go. There wasn't, nowhere else to go at all. All around her, in every other direction, just one step down on the stairs where she stood, was simply an absolutely, totally, incomprehensibly dark NOTHING. It was a palpable nothing (an oxymoron to be sure, Jo thought, but by god, you come here and explain it Mr. Funk and Mr. Wagnal), a thing that oozed nothingness, breathed nothingness, contained nothing but nothingness. "Crud...I aint going out in that stuff, no way Jose," she thought, still finding herself strangely intrigued by it, though. In fact, she found herself so intrigued that she decided to do a very stupid thing. Figuring out what part of her body she probably needed the least, she stuck out the pinky finger of her left hand and slowly pushed the very, very tip of it into the darkness. She felt no pain, no shocks, nothing pulling at her. She felt, well...nothing. But when she pulled it back out after a few seconds, the very tip of her pinky finger was gone. No blood, no pain, just simply gone. But even though it didn't hurt, and probably never would, even though it didn't bleed and there was no discoloration at the site, even though all those things were true, Jo felt as if she had been shot, grabbing the railing of the stairs to keep from falling, from falling into that "thing", every cell in her body screaming at her that a part of her was gone, gone forever, never to return to her or to anyplace else in any way, shape, manner or form...ever. She thunked down on the top step, dizzy and afraid, trying to catch her breath, suddenly aware that being dead (if that, indeed, was what she was) did not make her immune from things, from feelings, now "feeling" scared and confused and angry with herself for being such an incredible doofus. "Soo, I guess it's the doors then..." she muttered to herself, as she sat there waiting for her body and mind to settle down a bit, refusing to look at her finger, maybe ever again, waiting for the courage to stand, to turn, and open them. She finally did arise, turn, and move to the doors. Taking a deep breath, more a gasp than anything else, she grabbed the two ringed handles and yanked both the doors apart and open, stepping inside as she had been destined to do all along. She was in a large room, fairly dark and smokey, a long low bar to her left, a whole bunch of small tables in the middle, and a moderate-sized stage on her right. There were a few people inside, some of whom looked like they worked there, some who looked to be patrons. "Ohhhh, this is just stupid!!" she blurted, actually saying it aloud this time, nobody seeming to notice her outburst however, or at least seeming to care. She was standing in a french bistro for god's sake's, one that looked just as she had always imagined they would look, having always wanted to go to Paris and hang out in one. Is this where suicides go after they're dead...a damn, smoke-filled french bistro!?! She looked up into the rafters then, maybe thinking for a second that God or someone was going to answer her question, then looked back down, her eyes taking in the scene, the images seeming to clarify in her mind as she stared at them. There were a couple of older men at the long, slightly built bar, wearing their tams, smoking their awful French cigarettes, nursing their drinks and talking to each other, the bartender standing near to them listening, wiping down glasses. On the stage to her right, sitting on a tall, four-legged stool, was a thin, goateed, youngish man, lightly strumming and picking a mandolin, the sounds soft and sad and just right for this place, a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth, a glass of wine and an ashtray sitting on an identical stool next to him. In front of her were about 20 small tables, scattered about the rest of the floor, mostly empty, a few patrons sitting here and there throughout, just individual customers at each though, no one sitting together. A couple of mustachioed maitre-de's, their folded white aprons tied around their waists, moved unhurriedly among the tables, carrying their drinks on small circular trays that they held balanced on their fingers just above their shoulders. There, on the wall, was the huge mural of a partially naked woman in repose, done very artistically, just as she always imagined it would be, and in the corner, to complete her picture, a small fire sizzling in a small fireplace, it's light flickering throughout the room, through it's own smoke and the smoke of the smokers and the smoke of the short candles jammed into the tops of the empty wine bottles on each table. Jo glanced around quickly at the other patrons, considering herself one of them now, not making eye contact with any of the other five currently present, just simply looking. Even though there were 20 tables and only just the five customers at them, they seemed to fill the whole floor, spread about equidistantly from each other. Spread equally that is, except for an obvious hole just to her left and ahead of her. Jo realized intuitively that this spot had been left for her, left for her to fill, left open for her by someone, something, maybe even just the fates. Not wanting to fight those forces and with no reason to do anything else, she walked over to her "assigned" table and sat down, folded her hands in her lap, and waited for she knew not what. As Jo sat there, her hands in her lap, staring at nothing, feeling very confused and alone, it suddenly dawned on her that her hands were touching bare skin down there. Glancing down, she realized with a start what she was wearing...just her night t-shirt and full, white cotton panties, the only things she was wearing as the pills swallowed her. She glanced around quickly, humiliated for some reason to be seen like this, even though she was dead. No one else seemed offended, though, not seeming to even see her, immersed in their own thoughts, their own memories perhaps. "Is that what I'll look like after I've been here for a while?" she thought glumly. Like the middle-aged, conservatively dressed, professional- looking man to her right, gulping his scotch and making talking points with his fingers to himself, she guessed. Like the matronly, older woman sitting there in her floral print dress, sipping her highball, staring out into space with glassy, shining eyes, a small smile on her face, as if remembering, or imagining, a better time, a better place than this. Or like the large, athletic young man just in front of her, squeezing the life out of a beer glass as he chugged at it, the maitre-de visiting him often to replace it with a full glass, chugging that as well, his jaw set and angry, twirling a rather large pistol on his finger as he pounded his next empty glass against the blazingly white cast covering his entire leg from foot to hip, the white standing out starkly in this room and against the jet black color of his skin. Is THIS the way she was going to look soon, maybe the way she looked already, for god's sake, dazed and demented and lost?! She sat there for a time, feeling sad and sorry for herself, knowing she had no one to blame but herself, of course, it not as if someone had stuffed the pills into her mouth or anything. But dammit, why hadn't anyone noticed the signs of her disenfranchisement, her loneliness, her loss. Dammit...why hadn't David taken her calls! It was just then, though, that a maitre-de stopped by her table, startling her. "Ahhh, a drink perhaps, mademoiselle. A nice glass of wine, something stronger, some water?" Jo stared up at him, listening to him, to his slight french accent as he asked her such a mundane question, her mind so full of questions seeking answers, "what she wanted to drink" being the least of them. She stammered for a second trying to think, almost said "the usual", realized that he wouldn't know what she was talking about, so finally just said..."Could..could I get a shot of Black Velvet with a small glass of beer on the side?" "But of course, mademoiselle, we have everything here." He smiled and moved off toward the bar, putting in her order. Jo watched him go, needing to talk to him, to ask HIM questions, too stunned by his sudden appearance and his question to have asked him the first time. She sat there impatiently, awaiting his return with her drinks, wringing her hands on the table, anxious for someone to talk to, if only for a short time, someone who might know something about what was happening to her. As he returned with her drinks on his tray, she automatically reached for her purse, realized that she didn't have it, wondering if she really needed it here. "What do I owe you, sir," she asked politely as he placed small coasters down on the table and then her two drinks. "Nothing mademoiselle, these drinks have been paid for many times over." "By whom, and for what reason, sir?" The maitre-de simply shrugged, "I only know that they are, mademoiselle. Enjoy your drinks," he said with a smile, turning to leave. She saw him turning, desperately snapping out her hand to grab his arm, risking being rude, but having to know. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't go, please stay and talk to me." He turned back to her, a small smile glued to his face. "Yes, mademoiselle?" Jo struggle to get her questions in the right order, to ask them in a way that both the questions and possible answers might make sense to them both. "Wh...Where are we...I...I mean, what is the place?" "This place??" he replied, looking around the room, swinging his free arm as if to encompass it. "This is where we are, mademoiselle." "No, no...I mean what is this place about? Is it heaven? Is it hell? Is it someplace in between?? Please tell me something about it...Anything, please, I'm begging you!!" She hung tightly to his sleeve, afraid that he would leave her. He smiled still, as if he had expected this, as if he had probably heard the same question a thousand times before, which Jo knew he almost certainly had, but at the same time politely, but firmly, removing her hand from his arm. "I do not believe that this is either heaven or hell, mademoiselle, as you will probably realize eventually yourself. But as to what it is, I do not know, nor do any of the permanent staff here. We did not need to know, so this information was not, ahhh...given to us." "But where do you go when you leave here, when you are done with work? Where do you live?" "Leave, mademoiselle?? Live??", he smiled down on her, as if trying to sooth a child. "I am not alive, mademoiselle. I thought you might have realized that already." "Well, I am not exactly alive either, sir, and I am here as well. Here, with you and the others." "Oh, noo, mademoiselle. You are much more alive than me, or at least you were." Jo was frustrated, getting nowhere, trying to push toward some kind of truth here, some kind of usable information, seeing him getting anxious to move on to his next customer. "But you seem just as alive as I am, certainly you can tell me something about this place, something about what is happening to me!?" He shook his head politely at her. "No mademoiselle, I have never been alive, never in the way that you were and perhaps still are, and I can tell you nothing. I am simply..." he closed his eyes as if searching for a word, opening them as he apparently found it. "I am simply...process." "Process!?!" "Yes mademoiselle. I do what I must do, for as long as it needs to be done. I know all I need to know to do my job, and I can do nothing else. I know nothing else. Now if you will excuse me..," and with another smile he practically fled from her, to move on about his "job", leaving her stunned and confused. She sat there staring after him, no better off the before. She really hadn't thought that this was heaven or hell, and the vague feeling that this was some kind of near-death experience was rapidly fading, thinking she had been here too long for that. Too long?? She had no idea how long she had actually been here, instinctively knowing that time had no meaning in this place, no clocks, no sun, no stars, no moon to help her, no longer able to measure within herself the passing of the seconds, or the minutes, or the days since she had arrived. So, still so terribly confused, she simply sat back in her chair, sipping at her drinks, letting the uncountable time go by, staring at the mural on the wall, the fire in the fireplace. "Oh god, where am I?!?" After a time she began to wonder something else. She had never actually BEEN to a real french bistro before. Yet here it was, exactly as she had imagined it. She wondered if it was actually real at all, or whether it was simply a figment of her imagination, some construct of her mind. So, just as an experiment, for something to do, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine instead a german beerhall, concentrating hard on her ideas of one, leaving her eyes closed until finally she heard the music changing. She opened her eyes then and gasped, looking around at what she had done. The room was brighter, a bit bigger, the bar larger and more sturdy. The mural was gone, replaced by stuffed elk's heads and trophies, the fireplace much bigger, a huge fire roaring inside. The patrons seemed the same, but the maitre-de's were gone, replaced by busty, bustling beer fraus, in their thick frilly dresses and aprons, carrying their beer steins, three to a hand. This seemed rather peculiar to Jo, in that there were so few customers, but she let that pass as she looked up onstage, where a bavarian oompa band was hammering away, in their pointed mountain caps with the feather sticking up. Good lord! Had she done all this!? But the strain of holding this image in her mind was beginning make her head hurt now, and the band was beginning to irritate her with its loudness, it's heavy beat, especially the fat tuba player on the end, apparently having sex with his instrument, bouncing it up and down on his lap as it grunted and moaned. Finally, seeing some of the patrons glaring at her unhappily, and sick of this game, she closed her eyes, letting her brain relax until such time as the music changed again, the soft, sad sounds of the mandolin filling her ears. She opened her eyes, glancing around, seeing everything back as it was, turning to each of the patrons to see if she could apologize in any way for having bothered them fooling around as she had. The very first thing she noticed was that "professional man" was no longer there, having been replaced by a much older man, dressed in a light, short-sleeved shirt, buttoned almost all the way to his neck, his pants a rather horrid plaid deal, swallowing some of his Manhattan, then putting it down to finger the shotgun on the table before him. "What has happened to the other man?" she wanted to call to him. "When did you come in??" But she did not, not so much afraid of the gun, but knowing that she really had no right to bother him. Also, just then, the doors opened and someone else walked in, moving slowly into the light of the room. It was a young girl, even younger than herself, looking frail and emaciated, her hair short and a bit unclean, looking just like the poster child for bulemia, Jo thought. She stood in the doorway for a time, looking around in confusion and fear, looking much as Jo knew that she must have looked standing there before. After more uncountable time, the girl walked into the bistro and moved slowly toward a table, finally sitting down. Jo realized suddenly that it was the table where the athlete had been, another patron apparently come and gone. But both of those now gone had been there when she arrived, and who knew how long they had waited here before they had left or been taken or escaped or simply disappeared. God...she wished she had seen either of them go, it might have answered so many of the questions that she still had. Her only solace from all this was knowing that there was SOME way out of this place, for some or all of them, the idea of having to remain here for eternity holding no appeal to Jo whatsoever. She tried for a second to catch the eye of the girl who arrived, to maybe try and give her a sympathetic look. But the girl's head was down on her hands, on the table, and Jo gave up finally, leaving her to find what peace she could by herself. She sat back, working her drinks, realizing with a start that they had been refreshed, apparently the maitre-de slipping her new ones when her eyes were closed, perhaps so she wouldn't question him again. She thought about waving him over, but figured he wouldn't come to her anyway, and not even sure that she wanted him to now, slowly becoming more and more resigned to her fate, whatever that might be, her mind not wandering, not remembering, but simply going blank, sitting there sipping her drinks, feeling so alone and empty. She sat like that forever it seemed, until her trance was broken by some movement to her left. Not the normal ghost-like drifting of the maitre-des through the tables as they delivered their drinks, but something different. She glanced up finally, curious, and a bit perturbed at being disturbed. She saw it was the customer at the table to her left, waving his hand, waving it at her, it seemed, apparently as if to say hello. She stared at him closer now, having seen him countless times already, but having never actually LOOKED at him. He was a young man, a bit older than she, attractive, with a certain Oriental quality to his features, short black hair, wearing a green, tight pullover t-shirt and jeans. As she watched him, he continued to wave hello to her for a second, then stopped, picking up a small black board in his left hand and a short white stick in his right. She could see the white writing on the board...a blackboard and chalk?!? On it was written: - MY NAME IS JEREMY - She stared at it for a while, beginning to think this was ridiculous, not particularly wanting to talk right now, but if she did, well, hell, she was just going to talk. "Hello, I'm Jo, " she called out to him. He stopped smiling, slowly shaking his head, covering his ears as if to say he couldn't hear her. What?! For crying out loud, the only person who wants to talk is deaf!? But then she saw him starting to speak, then seeming to yell, no sound from his lips reaching her ears. Why couldn't she hear him, if he was saying anything at all? Was he pulling her leg? He certainly seemed sincere enough, though. She saw him erasing the blackboard now with a napkin, scribbling something, then lifting it up to show her. - WE CANNOT TALK TO EACH - To each? To each other, she assumed, the board too full for the last word, Jeremy having to write in large enough letters so she could see it from where she sat. "Well this is just crazy," she thought, suddenly intrigued with the idea of talking to him. "The hell with this!" She stood up then and began walking toward his table, determined to talk to him now, seeing him shaking his head sadly as she walked, taking six or seven steps before she realized that she wasn't getting any closer to his table. She stopped, confused, looking back at her table, stunned to find it only a foot behind her, the same distance it had been when she stood up. She looked back to him then, beginning to walk faster, taking longer strides, knowing that she was walking, feeling as if she was moving, 18-20 big steps, yet still she was no closer to him or his table, and looking back, still only that one miserable foot from her own. She stopped again, sitting down with a thud, guessing maybe they weren't supposed to talk after all, not now, maybe not ever. Glancing up, she saw him waving his small blackboard and his chalk and pointing towards her table. She looked around her table, seeing no board, no chalk, just her drinks, her candle and her napkin holder. But hey!! The candle and holder were raised a bit, raised up on a small square of wood. She moved them quickly to the side of the table closest to Jeremy, more excited than she had been since she arrived, lifting the square and turning it over, stunned and happy to see that she now held a small, framed blackboard, with two long white pieces of chalk underneath. She hurriedly wrote down what she was thinking, then held her board up for him, the candle's light now shining on its face. - WHY CANT WE TALK?? - Rather than writing anything, Jeremy simply shrugged and shook his head to indicate that he didn't know. But then he erased his board again, holding it up. - WHAT'S YOUR NAME? - She erased and rewrote hers quickly, her hand almost shaking from her sudden excitement and desire to "hear" another's voice. - SORRY, IT'S JO - Jo saw Jeremy smile and nod, then writing... - NICE NAME, THANKS - She smiled at his smile then, taking a sip of her drink, trying to think what she wanted to say, scribbling it down. - U KNOW WHERE WE ARE? - Jeremy shook his head sadly again. Jo erased and wrote.
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