Storymania - Title Box

Steven Carl Gilbreath

(816) 674-6339

2014 South Mill Street

Kansas City, KS 66103-1812

Missing

By Steven Carl Gilbreath

�� Last week it came to me that about two years of my life are missing.� I didn�t lose them on purpose and they didn�t go by accident.�

My body was aching back then as I sat in the movie theater with an ass numbing that was heading down my legs.� I knew a girl once who said she thought guys who sat alone in theaters were pathetic.� Anyway, I closed my mouth and turned my head and watched the couples in the flickery dark.� They nuzzled up against one another, eating popcorn from tubs and chittering like horny squirrels.�

Middle row, middle seat was my place and I had waited until it was thick with leaving bodies to stand up.� In the press of the crowd I could hear them grunt simple �liked� �didn�t like� phrases.� I am well on my way to finding out that two years or so are gone.�

�� You know my car is always cold but I never turn on the heat.�

There�s nothing in my little half fridge at the tiny apartment I rent except packs of ketchup and mustard and I was starving.� In five minutes I�m at the grocery store, wheeling a rickety cart, carefully maneuvering through all the brown boxes of stock strewn in the aisles.� A stock guy is on a cell phone standing in my way.� I guess he didn�t see me so I squeezed around him for a can of ravioli.�

�� That�s when I saw them.� Two young girls and a guy and� I know them.� Their faces register but I�m helpless on where I should know them from.� It seemed silly not to know.� They passed me and pairs of eyes passed over mine.� Then they wheeled their food-filled cart out of sight.�

�� Standing in the aisle with only two cans of ravioli in my cart, I tried to place them.� I couldn�t go down another aisle and have them see me again not remembering.�

�� David?� David, I thought that was you.� came at me from behind and made my shoulder twitch.

�� As I turned, two slim arms swallowed me up.� I don�t like to be touched.� She was pretty, though I had no idea who she was.�

�� God, it�s been a couple years.� How have you been�you look good.�

�� Fine, uh thanks,� I said.� She stared, like she was waiting for something.

�� Well I graduated in December and I�m working over at Sprint.� What are you up to now?� I figured you left town already.�� She smelled like potpourri.

�� No, I�ve been working mostly.� Two jobs, like 80 hours a week.� I�ve got some debt to clean up.�� I read a ravioli label.

�� You should take care of yourself though.� Get out sometimes, you promise?�� Her eyes must have gotten bigger.

�� There was 20% more in the can.� I looked up at her nose.� �Oh yeah, I do.� Every chance I get,� I lied.

�� She was playing with her hair real nervous.� �Well, my friends are waiting in the frozen-food section.� I hope I get to see some more of you,� Here she paused and looked at my cart.� �Give me a call and we can go do something.�

�� Sure.� Yeah thanks.� Good seeing you again.�� Not using a name was getting tricky.

�� You too David.� Bye!�� And she left my aisle.

�� As I took out the cans and placed them on a shelf that held cookies, the memory loss stuck out like the electronic coupon dispensers.�

�� Three apartments in two years, no real friends, and a job working at a warehouse that sold office furniture is my life.� The gaps I fill in with video games and television.� Most of this life I remember as a single unending day.

It is not the two years.� Those are right before this day when I was still at college.�

I know that I graduated, had classes, made acquaintances, but that seemed to be all.� Everyone had known my name and yet I couldn�t remember theirs.� Assignments done at 3 a.m., research papers slapped together� in short order, classes sat through� hour after hour.� It was all gone, poured out of my ears I guess.� I am too young to lose two years, years that should have molded me into a responsible� whatever.�

�� I left the store, no longer hungry, and turned on my car heater.� The smell was like dead flowers stuck in mothballs.�

�� I drove and drove.� Not with a destination, but just unable to turn toward that cramped apartment.� It was Tuesday and I had to be up early for the morning shift, but I let the car and endless highway drive me.� My mind was banging about, held up and alert by the obnoxious heat.� Don�t remember any other cars, or signs, or even road, washed out by the thumping of the cuts on the shoulder.� The pretty girl�s face rolled across my eyes back and forth like windshield wipers.� Eventually it faded and I tried to see how far back the missing memory went.� When I pulled off the road three blocks from my parent�s driveway many hours after I started, the sun was rosying up the sky.

I knew I hadn't been� home since my graduation party.� That night too was now a blurry mash.�

�� Sleep was uneasy and I dreamt of a large parking lot.� It was so large that I couldn�t find my car in it.�

The car was too hot when I woke up from a tapping on my window.� It was my mother and she was wide-awake.� Her little hatchback was behind mine; she must have been on her way to work.

�� After I had groggily rolled down the window she said, �Are you all right?� What are you doing here?�

�� No, I�m okay.� It was late and I didn�t want to wake you guys up.�

�� I didn�t know you were planning on coming down,� but that�s all right.� She said, the look on her face made me nervous. �I don�t like you driving in the middle of the night though, you know that.�

�� And through the fragments of hole-poked thought I had it.� Her name is Julie.� Julie S-something.

�� I guess I said part of that out loud because my mom said, �What are you mumbling sweetheart?�

�� I didn�t answer, and three blocks later I was out of the car and in the house, taking a shower.

S-something.�

Later I met Dan and James, two lifelong friends still living in town, for a movie.� They know better than to touch me.