And to you? What about you? his passenger asks.
Henry imagines that this writer is trying to squeeze out a dramatic chapter title from him. He’s lazy, Henry thinks. All this time asking me for answers: he should be able to figure it out for his goddamned self. I’m tired of carrying him. Doing the heavy lifting.
You wanted to know what I’m thinking, Henry says. That’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking it’s weird these people are having just another day.
When you’re not, says the biographer.
Henry has already parked his car in front of the store and turned off the engine. He looks out the driver’s-side window and watches the spaces start filling up, people fishing in pockets for quarters now necessary to visit downtown.
When I’m not, Henry says.
The customers—these last cherished customers—are again annoyingly unremarkable in their demeanor and in their purchases and it occurs to Henry that this is the way all things highly anticipated end up. The way Christmas Eve is so much better than Christmas Day. He had thought the sale would draw in old friends, acquaintances at least, people who would appreciate the gravity of the situation. People who would know what it meant to have this store close. But then everything is possible on Christmas Eve.
Mr. Beardsley is busy with the agent representing Schmidt and Logan, keys are turned over, papers, file folders, murmured reminders to call about this and that over the next few days. The building owner is there, too. But Henry sees them as outlines of human beings, mouths moving, hands shaking, backs patted, fingers pointing toward the door, the men standing aside so the agent, the only female, can be the first out—gentlemen all. But this is a black-and-white cartoon to Henry…like stills on a drafting table at Disney—stage one, before they are handed over to the next animator to be filled in with color and life. Their movements are the stills—piled on top of one another—flipped by the thumb to show the action, moving clumsily because, after all, it is stage one of animation.
Then Mr. Beardsley is approaching. “Henry? It’s time to go.”
“Can I…ah…can I just have a moment?” Thankfully Mr. Beardsley sees that this is a difficult and meaningful request and so says nothing but retreats to the others and ushers them all out.
The racks are still filled. Not to brimming, no. A lot has sold. The herd has been culled, Henry thinks. As he looks around it seems the remaining clothes are calling out to him. The tweed jackets bending at their patched sleeves to wave. The shirts, those classic oxford cloths, intertwine arms and drink toasts like lovers do to each other at champagne-fueled weddings. The pants bend at the knees and look like they, too, are moving, dancing? Or are they all beckoning? Begging him not to leave. Not to leave them alone. Not like this.
And then Mr. Beardsley is calling from the front door: “Henry? It’s time, son.”
He takes one last look around and knows the clothes were pushing him out. Pushing him on. Waving goodbye. Making it all right for him to go out into the world.
“Where do you want to go?” Celeste asks. She is waiting for him on the sidewalk. Mr. Beardsley is turning the key in the lock and Henry is watching, wishing Celeste would also take in the enormity of that key turning that one last time. But how could she know?
Mr. Beardsley knows. He turns from the door and smiles at Henry and nods. He passes Henry wordlessly and pats him on the back one last time. Before getting into his car he says, “I’ll call you before I leave and we can get a beer, okay?” and Henry says “Yeah, sounds good” and Mr. Beardsley is off.
“So where should we go?” Celeste asks, slipping her arm into the crook of his.
“I don’t care but first I’ve got to go do something,” he says. It is only a few minutes after five o’clock so he has time.
“I know. I’ll come with you,” she says.
He is too exhausted, too drained, too preoccupied to say no or to come up with an alternative and, anyway, she is instantly in the seat next to him in the Jeep. The seat where the biographer sat only hours ago.
“Don’t forget to put your seat belt on,” she says, fastening hers into its docking station.
He looks out the windshield before starting the car up and there it is. Without exclamation of the point. Without the finality of a dot. Entirely without punctuation. The sign he had—for years—tucked neatly into the corner of the front window. The three words a swift superlative: existential and morbid and yes yes hopeful. Capitalized to boot.
Everything Must Go
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0644-5
EVERYTHING MUST GO
Copyright © 2006 by Elizabeth Flock.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Elizabeth Flock, Everything Must Go
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