|
|
My Name is Hemingway
By Michael P. McManus When Eddie O’Brien woke up on Saturday morning he felt well-rested. But moments later he had the feeling that something had gone wrong. It felt tangible and annoying like a fly that keeps landing on the back of the neck. Eddie quickly reasoned that his burgeoning uneasiness had no basis for fact. Still he remained cautious. He looked around, wondering if someone might be hiding in his bedroom. But that was unlikely. No, that was impossible. He had invested in a state-of-the alarm system, one with all the bells and whistles, one that could detect a gnat in flight, or so the alarm salesman had told him. Because Eddie considered himself a man who would never become preoccupied for long periods on what he considered useless thoughts, he rubbed his eyes, turned on his side, and looked out the window. The ringing phone startled Eddie. He picked it up off the nightstand and glanced at the caller ID, which displayed, unknown caller. He answered anyway. "Hello?” “Hem. How grand of you to answer. What are you doing?” The soft-spoken male voice slurred its words. “Hem? Who is this? How did you get my number?” “This is Scotty. What’s chapping you this morning? Your number? What kind of question is that? What’s wrong with you? You must have gotten tight last night. I know that I did.” Eddie hung up. Troubled again, he turned back to the window. Outside, a clear blue sky brightened the frost-covered grass. He heard faint bird song. A squirrel scampered up an oak trunk, stopped ten feet high, and jerked its tail like it had been pulled by a string. The combination of all these things should have acquiesced into a whole that made him feel happy. But they did not. Eddie was an unusually happy individual. He loved to smile and laugh. He felt these things made one live longer. If he carried a chip on his shoulder, it weighed no more than a cotton swab. Having just turned fifty-four, he believed this was the happiest time in his life. He owned a brick, two-bedroom house at the end of tree-lined Cul-de-Sac in a suburb outside of Philadelphia. He never intended to move away. He had six-figures in his bank account. And parked inside his garage was his latest feel-good toy: a two-week old, silver Range Rover. He believed it would never get stuck in the snow. Eddie worked as the regional finance manager for a large corporation specializing in loans for high risk capital ventures. He was respected and appreciated by his peers and subordinates. He was paid well and his substantive end-of-the year bonus checks had kept him debt-free for several years. And though he had never married, he had loved many women and this made him believe that he had done the best he could in matters of the heart. This morning, however, what little happiness he felt had left him like blood flowing from a cut. This was one day when he should have had nothing to worry about, other than what college football games he would choose to watch on his big-screen television. He did not feel sad, either. But definitely not happy. He felt not centered. It was a term that he had borrowed from Zen Buddhism. He often enjoyed using it when he did not feel quite appropriate. That was it, he thought. He did not feel quite appropriate. The term had a melancholy ring that made him feel almost jovial. But why, he asked himself as rolled from bed, had he wakened to such an obtuse, uneasy state of mind? When Eddie planted his left leg on the carpeted floor, he winced. The pain shot through the area around his left knee. This was strange because he was a runner who had not run in a week. But he had been running for the last fifteen years and he had experienced only the minor soreness that sometimes comes the day following a run. After Eddie’s last physical, his doctor told him he had the heart of a thirty-year old man. This pleased Eddie because he took pride in his appearance and health. He weighed a solid, one-hundred and sixty-five pounds. Now as he had tried to get up, the knee made him sit down on the edge of the bed. When he reached down to rub the painful place, his hand recoiled as if he had placed it into a bucket of hot water. “What the hell,” he said out loud as his heart began to race. He stared a moment, then he reached back, rubbing his fingertips across the crescent-shaped scar below the kneecap. The skin there tingled. This was bizarre because Eddie had never had surgery or any accidents. Well, that was not entirely true. Once on a skiing trip to Big Sur, he had taken a nasty spill. He suddenly recalled the mountain slope, the cool clean air, and the deep snow. He had lost his balance cornering through a steep turn, tumbling for twenty yards before he stopped with his right arm pinned behind his back. A local doctor later placed his broken wrist in a cast. But never his knee. No, never his knee. Below the large scar were tinier ones stippled there like pepper-shot. Eddie tried to stand up again. This time the pain was gone. As he walked around his bed, he passed the large mirror that sat on top of his mahogany dresser drawers. He stopped, terrified at what he saw. He was not there. There was the reflection of a man, but it was not him. Or was it him? How could he have changed? Was he still sleeping and dreaming himself into an imagined, conscious state? A big-boned, barrel-chested, broad-shouldered man looked back at him. He had large hands and a prodigious belly. The man in the mirror had deep-set, serious eyes. He had a snow-white beard to match his hair, which was thin and parted on the side. He had one more new scar. This one was on his forehead above the left eye. When Eddie O’Brien raised his left hand, the man in the mirror did the same. He looked away, glancing down at his stomach spilling over his boxers. It was the same stomach he’d seen in the mirror. Eddie O’Brien now estimated that he weighed at least two hundred and thirty pounds. He was also taller – three or four inches taller – than the day before. He was correct in assuming that he had grown to six-feet tall. As he stood there contemplating what had happened, or what was happening, he felt compelled to walk to his closet. He watched his bare feet move as if they were being pushed or pulled. He tried to stop walking but he was unable to do so. His eyes grew wide with the conflicting sensing of fear and ambiguous amazement. He reached in the closet, pushing aside some shirts until he found a pair of Khaki pants. Never before had he owned such pants, but now they hung from a hanger. He put on the pants. Then the compulsion came on him again. Eddie knew what he was doing, but felt he could not stop it. He was of two minds. The first moved him along. The second stood watching in the background, too paralyzed to change anything. He put on a gray and black flannel shirt, tucking it down into his pants. He found a wide weathered black belt. He put it on outside the belt loops, cinching it tight. Eddie looked down at the belt. He fingered the buckle, knowing he should take off the belt and snake it through the loops of his pants. Eddie knew he wanted to do this, but the other mind would not let him. Sitting inside the Range Rover, Eddie did not know where he would go. He looked around. The neighborhood looked the same. Winter was coming and the oak and maple trees had lost most of their leaves. The morning sky had turned gray and it was cold to look at. Eddie watched a flock of blackbirds move across the sky. They appeared to move as a single unit, shifting left and then right before settling down into the branches of a large oak tree. Eddie saw how the tree was no longer bare. The bird’s arrival had given it more life than it had had moments before. This was meaningful to him, though he was not certain why. He enjoyed watching the sky and the birds and wondering how he could capture it so it would never leave him. He realized that he had never thought like this before. And for a moment, these awakenings became points of light in the darkness. Before driving off, he took from the overhead console, a pair of round, wire-rimmed spectacles. He put them, believing that they gave him an odd, if not somewhat noble look of distinction. The young girl working behind the counter at the convenience store smiled at Eddie as he walked in through the double-glass doors. She was thin with long brown hair, blue eyes, and a wonderful ruddy complexion. She was chewing gum and from time to time, her thin delicate lips parted as if she might begin to sing. Eddie had noticed all of these things about her and suddenly he was very fond of her. “Cash or charge for the gas,” she asked with both hands facing down on the counter. “Charge,” Eddie replied. Before he finished speaking, he felt alarmed because he could not remember if he had brought his wallet. He reached back. There it was in his pocket. He pulled out a Visa card and gave it to the girl. “Hemingway, huh? You guys related or something?” “What?” Eddie asked, alarmed again. The girl was looking at the name on the credit card. “Your name. Ernest Hemingway. Now that is awesome. Are you guys related or something?” “Or something?” Eddie grinned. Why did he feel empowered? The girl blushed, brushing back her hair. “I’m studying creative writing over at Temple. I love Hemingway. His writing is so powerful and monumental in scope,” she said, trying to act much more mature than she had moments before. “Isn’t it pretty to think so,” Eddie said, not knowing why he said that. “That is so cool,” the girl said looking into Eddie’s eyes. “I loved The Sun Also Rises. Are you really related to him?” Eddie wanted to tell her his real name. He swayed back and forth on the balls of his feet. He wanted to tell her everything that had happened to him. But he could not. As he tried to tell her the truth he said, “I could be. What do you think?” That was not what he wanted to say, but it was what came out of the side of his mouth. “Maybe you are him,” she said emphasizing the last word of her sentence. “Maybe you have come back to teach me something about writing and other things.” She winked at Eddie and then she began to blush again. “You’re nothing but a wide-eyed puppy,” he said enjoying the attention. “But what could I possibly teach you?” Just then the credit card receipt came spitting out of its machine. She tore it off and put it on the counter. “I’m Sue. I live on campus. I work here three nights a week. The nights change, but it’s always three nights a week. I usually get off around ten. Sometimes a little later. It all depends.” “On what?” Eddie asked as he leaned forward to sign his receipt. He had intended to sign Eddie O’Brien in large, cursive letters. Then he would know that he was still dreaming. By signing his real name, he could bring back his life. That was what he had intended. But as he wrote, mentally spelling out the letters to his name, he was horrified to see Ernest Hemingway emerging on the slip of paper. “On lots of things. Some nights, I have to wait for someone to pick me up.” She took the receipt from Eddie’s hand, making a point to let her fingers linger a moment on his skin. “I don’t mind waiting for someone to pick me up.” Finished speaking, the girl stared into Eddie’s eyes. She was no longer blushing. "Perhaps I should keep that in mind on those nights that I cannot sleep. Many nights I cannot sleep because I remember things that should not be remembered. Maybe that is part of my compensation for not living a good life.” Where in the hell did that come from? Eddie thought. The girl sighed. “Yes, I hope you do remember that,” she said. “And check the back of your receipt, please.” Eddie O’Brien walked outside into the cold, clear air. He smiled after looking at the back of his credit card receipt. Written in red ink was a telephone number. I’m thirsty, he thought to himself, and I want something cold to drink. This thought came to him after he had been driving around for two hours, during which time he continued to try and determine why he was trapped inside a dream. On one occasion he stopped in the Wal-Mart parking lot. He pulled out his wallet to study what was in it. A Hemingway driver’s license had Eddie O’Brien’s home address. I am O’Brien, Eddie thought, alarmed. That is my address. This is my life. It can’t belong to anyone else. But the driver’s license, the credit cards, and most appallingly the Range Rover’s vehicle registration all confirmed that Eddie O’Brien no longer existed. A few minutes later he spotted a bar with a leaping, neon marlin over the front entrance. He parked and went inside. He had not had a drink in over twenty years, but now he knew he needed one in the same way a priest needs his religion. He believed a good stiff drink might snap him out of his dream and bring him back to the surface like a miner coming up out of a mine. "What’s yours?” the bartender asked as he cleaned the top of the bar with a white cloth. "I want a daiquiri made with lime and grapefruit juice, maraschino, and a double shot of white rum.” “Sure thing. You look familiar. Do I know you?” “My name is Hemingway,” Eddie O’Brien replied, noting the confidence in his own voice. “Got it. Hey, is this one of those Havana Daiquiris? I saw something about those the other night on the travel channel. The show was about old Hemingway haunts. You know, the writer. You sure look like him. Do you know of him?” “Which question would you like answered first?” “Yeah, right. The daiquiri.” “Yes it is.” “And the second?” “Yes, I know of him.” “How is the drink?” “Perfect. You’re hired.” Just then the door to the bar opened and in walked a small man wearing a black suit with a thin red tie loosened at the collar. He sat down one stool over from Eddie. In moments the bartender had brought him a glass of red wine. “Thanks, Steve,” he said. “Sure thing, Wally.” The man sipped his wine and stared over at O’Brien. He continued to stare until Eddie looked back at him. “Good luck,” Eddie said. The man drew back, startled at the introduction. “With what?” “With whatever you’re trying to figure out by staring at me.” “The Eagles are looking good. Are we going to the Super Bowl?” the bartender asked, shifting the conversation away from Eddie’s remark. “We have a chance. A damn good one if McNabb keeps playing well. That is the secret. The quarterback must play error-free and the defense must not allow good field position.” Eddie drank four drinks in one hour’s time. As he started drinking his fifth, the suited man began to stare at him again. His face had flushed from drinking the wine and as he leaned forward across the bar, Eddie believed that he might fall from his bar stool. If he does, Eddie thought, I’ll be damned if I try and pick him up. “Is there some kind of convention in town?” Wally asked. He seemed sincere in his probe. “It is a big town. If you wanted to find a convention, then you could find one. Just drive around and look.” “No. No. No. I mean a Hemingway convention. The kind where men dress up like him and the winner gets some type of minor prize like the complete Nick Adams stories. Come on. Come clean.” “Wally teaches a class on comparative literature over at Temple.” The bartender chimed in with his noncommittal, well-rehearsed bartender type of talk. “He is not a big Hemingway fan. He will tell you that straight up. Won’t you, Wally?” Wally nodded. He took a drink from his glass. A thin sliver of wine ran down the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with the back of his left wrist. “Hemingway was nothing but a braggart. A bully. A newspaper reporter who got lucky. His prose belonged in the newspaper. Not in novels.” Eddie tried to fight the anger that he felt. He had never read Hemingway. So why was he feeling so incensed? What did it matter to him what some professor, half-cocked on cheap wine, thought about Hemingway’s prose? But no matter how hard Eddie tried to stop feeling that way, he continued to become infuriated with the idea that a person would attack Hemingway’s life and art. “Do you write?” Eddie asked without turning his head. “Yes, of course. Poetry.” The professor was pleased that the conversation was now turning towards what he believed would become an academic exchange of ideals. “That’s impressive,” Eddie replied, speaking from the corner of his mouth. “Now there is something a man should be proud of. Poetry. I bet you are quite accomplished.” “Mind you,” the professor said, agitated at Eddie’s sarcasm, “I have published in over one-hundred journals. I have received Fellowships and awards. I am tenured and well-received by my peers.” “Here. Here.” Eddie raised his glass and toasted into the mirror behind the shelved bottles of liquors. “Here is to the professor and his poetry. Here is to his tenured world. Here is to his peers. All two of them.” “I knew it,” the professor said. “A bloody Hemingway conventioneer. And one who would not know a poem from a mole. Please share one line of poetry with us. Or is that too much to ask?” Eddie shrugged his shoulders. He took a long gulp from his drink. The bartender and the professor stared at him, waiting for some kind of response. “Poetry?” Eddie said as if he were talking to himself. “Yes,” the professor said, uncomfortable with Eddie’s discourse. “Sure. Poetry.” Eddie replied. “Well?” the professor said, his voice rising to angry shrill. “Crawl under the outhouse if you want to see the moon,” Eddie said. The bartender laughed. A contemptuous look appeared in the professor’s eyes. He grimaced as if a sharp pain had gone through him. “That was good,” the bartender said. “Are you ready for another drink?” Eddie answered by pushing his empty glass forward across the bar. The professor shook his head. In his mind he was attempting to understand the meaning of what Eddie had said. “Who are you?” The professor asked. “My name is Hemingway,” replied Eddie without any hesitation. The alcohol had made it easier for Eddie to believe who he had become. “And I am Nick Adams,” the professor cried. “No, you are not. Nick Adams could handle his liquor. I believe the only thing that you can handle has been limp for quite some time.” “Show me,” the professor sneered. “Show you what,” Eddie said before taking a sip from his new drink. “Your driver’s license. Or any other identification that will prove you to be a fraud.” Eddie shrugged as he tossed his wallet onto the bar. “Go find what you need,” he said, suddenly feeling alive and joyous. As he thumbed through Eddie’s wallet, the professor’s eyes grew wide. At first he was tentative when looking through the contents, but he soon began to tug at the deeper partitions, trying hard to find something that would justify his reactions. “Well, Wally?” the bartender asked after a few moments. “This guy has problems. All of his identification shows him to be Ernest Hemingway. He must be obsessed. Who would go to these lengths? It is a sickness, I tell you, a sickness!” “Maybe you should cap it a while,” Eddie said. “Or what is going to happen?” the professor challenged as he slammed down Eddie’s wallet near his daiquiri. “A lesson in social readjustment will be in order.” “He's right, Wally. Give it a break. Call it quits.” “Do you know what I think, Mr. Hemingway?” "Tell me, Pal. Tell me what you think. I can’t wait to hear it.” The professor gulped the last of his wine. He leaned over as if he intended to whisper. But his voice was loud and contemptuous. “I’ll tell you what I think, Mr. Big-shot Hemingway. I think Martha Gellhorn was a slut. That’s right. A nice sloppy slut who serviced many a man in uniform when you were not around. Did you know that she was the only wife who left you? Do you know why? It was because you could not please her. Now go ahead and write something clean and well-lighted about that.” Eddie sat there. He had never been a violent man. He was never inclined to raise his voice over anything. He preferred a non-confrontational existence. Things were better that way. No one would ever get hurt. But now no matter how much he tried to suppress what he was feeling, that strange immediacy for who he had become overpowered his will. In a series of staggered movements, Eddie used his right backhand to hit the professor in the face. Eddie then stood up and assumed a boxer’s stance over the professor’s body. He felt alive standing there, ready to brawl even though the only things Eddie had ever fought in his life were traffic jams on his way to work. “Now get up you rummy,” Eddie said moving his large hands in front of his face as if he was looking for an opening to slip a punch. “I’m through,” the professor said. “I am not a fighter. Tell him, Steve. Tell him I am not a fighter.” “He’s right, Mr. Hemingway. He likes to run his mouth, but he is right. He’s not a fighter. I think you better leave the bar now. I don’t need any more trouble. Would you please leave now, and we can act like this never happened? The police don’t treat things like this very well.” Eddie nodded and finished off his drink. He paid for his tab and left a twenty-dollar tip. He smiled as he walked out of the bar, surprised at how easy it was for him to hold his liquor. Early the next morning, Eddie woke up suffering from a gargantuan hangover. He had spent the previous night drinking straight whiskey and, staring out his living room window at the trees and the sky beyond them. At one point he had felt compelled to write something about what had happened to his life. But as he sat there with a legal pad on his lap, the words would not come out of him. He felt alone, emptied of everything that he had ever known and experienced. And, he had reasoned, who would believe his story? Eddie wanted to be Eddie again. Why had God done this to him? he thought wistfully while sitting on the edge of his bed. He stood up, put on his bathrobe, and looked into the mirror. Nothing had changed from the previous morning. It was his house but he was not in it. Oh, he was, but how to come to grips with who he was? Everything had become myopic. It was like trying to look through a pair of binoculars that had steam over the eyepieces. They could be wiped cleaned. But not this. I cannot be Hemingway, he thought. I must not be him. I must be Eddie O’Brien and I will drive to a friend’s house and tell them what has happened. Then they will believe me. But he knew that they would not be able to change who he had become. Eddie began to shake. Everything that he had loved was behind him. He believed none of it would ever come back. That strange immediacy had started inside of him again. He fought it, but Eddie O’Brien had become a cardboard figurine standing in the pouring rain. No, no, no, Eddie thought. It can’t be. It can’t. He had never owned one in his life. But there it was in the corner of his closet. Eddie felt desperate. He tried to run from his room, but calm, measured movements took him to his closet. He reached inside and brought out a Boss double-barrel shotgun. He opened the breach so he could see if it was loaded. It was and he closed the breach and carried the gun into his living room. Outside it had begun to snow. In his life, Eddie O’Brien had loved a good snowfall as much as he had loved anything. He felt his voice rising in his throat and for a moment, Eddie believed that he would be able to scream. But he heard only the metallic clicks made when he pulled back the hammers. Then he took the shotgun and placed the barrels of it in the center of his forehead. He could feel the little circles where the metal rested on his skin. He leaned forward, resting the stock on the carpet. He trembled as his thumbs slid down to the triggers. Suddenly, Eddie was able to speak. He knew that he had become himself again. Adrenaline surged though his body. This made him believe that he might break free from what was happening. “Hemingway, you coward,” Eddie cried out as he struggled to keep his balance. “I swear to God I will kill you!” |
|