Vacuous

Just a short piece. My first prose in a long time.

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“You want to know something, kid?” Gregory slurred, a scanty giggle working its way into his tone. “You’re top shelf.” He emptied his glass and looked at me, “and don’t you ever let anyone tell you different.”

I nodded and refilled his glass, watching the level of the sickly ocher liquid rise. With a start he reached out and grabbed my arm.

“Look at me, kid.”

My eyes slid from the glass to his face. His body was peculiarly distorted in the haze of smoke and the malodorous vapors that rose from glasses. Squinting, I could see that a faint film of tears had enveloped his eyes as he stared at me.

Gripping my shoulders, he shook me slightly. “Don’t you ever let them tell you different. Do you hear me, boy? You go out there and you tell them. You tell them all that Greg said—” he paused to wipe the small trickle of sweat from his forehead, “you tell all those fuckers out there that Greg said that you’ve got something special.” A few drops of liquid leaked from his tear ducts, mingling with the sweat that already shone on his wrinkled face. “You’re gonna win someday, kid. Promise me you’ll tell them all I said it. You’re gonna win.”

I gripped his hands and met his eyes. “I promise.”

He began to sob—the tears filling the crevices that time had etched on his face. He put his head in his hands, making a poor attempt to muffle his sobs. With a small squeeze of his shoulder, I grabbed my coat and left for the evening.

Stepping outside, I pulled my coat tighter and watched my breath billow outward as I walked. The route was perfunctory to me—I allowed my mind to meander. She would be home waiting for me. Surely she would be awake and splayed across the bed, her pallid body anticipating my alcohol-tinged exhalations. I would tell her what Greg had said to me—I would tell her that he sees something in me—that my thoughts are not as mechanical as my stride.

I would not mention the four scotches that I had poured him myself. I would not mention that Greg is old and senile and pathetically optimistic when inebriated.

He was brilliant once but his mind now fades from acuity to the inane. He is a piano that transmogrifies from note to note. With every great crescendo of his intellect he is only silenced more profoundly.

I tell myself that his belief in a pitiable boy like me is misplaced. Though I pray (to a god in whom I don’t veritably believe) that it is in his moments of perspicacity that he sets his eyes upon me and speaks.

My movements are emotionless. Five steps. Apartment 3F. Flaking paint and a splintered banister.

My bed is a pithy dictionary entry—eidetically recalling the state in which I had left it that morning—(adj.) vacant [1. without an occupant having no occupant or contents 2. lacking expression showing no signs of thought, intelligence, or possessor].

Were a surgeon to cleave my sternum apart, it would surely reveal a cavity.