The Man in the Black Jacket

A snippet of the life of Carl, who catches a brutal case of the Mondays.

            The phone ruined it all. More specifically, a phone call. Carl answered it because he hated when other people ignored his phone calls and he regretted it the second he heard the other line.

            “Carl, you need to come home right now. Like, fast.”

            Carl groaned. Of his three roommates, Claire always seemed to be the one who found trouble. Even when she tried to avoid it, which was most of the time, the big issues managed to find out Claire like a trip wire to send everything to hell.

            Carl tossed on his black North Face softshell and scooped up his phone and keys. In a routine perfected over countless Fridays, Carl made it to the train station in under six minutes. In under ten he made it to the transfer to the brown line, and by the time he hit half an hour he stepped off the car and started for his home. Glancing at his iPhone to check his time, he glanced up a second too late to avoid another dirty blonde in a musty-smelling black coat and the two caught each other with their shoulders. Both men dropped their phones and bent over to scoop them up. They smiled, apologized, and went on their separate ways.

            About halfway home Carl noticed that the phone in his hand felt different and took one look at it before realizing what happened. In his embarrassed haste he grabbed the other man’s phone and the that stranger grabbed his. I have no time for this, Carl thought as he jogged back to the station with a faint glimmer of hope that the other guy noticed the same thing and thought the same way.

            The stranger did not. After fifteen minutes of waiting, Carl thought of a new way to look. He dialed the number on his phone to ask the man where they could meet up to trade phones back. A genius idea really, if he could be so bold as to applaud himself.

            No one answered, so Carl left a message and walked home. Only a matter of time now until he got that phone back. In the mean time, he would try and solve Claire’s problem.

            When he got home, he found the house surprising empty of smoke or standing water and eventually found Claire in her bedroom, busily typing away at her laptop.

            “Oh hey,” she mumbled. “What’s up?”

            “You called me,” Carl answered, trying to cover up his surprise.

            “Yeah? You already fixed it though. You want a trophy?”

            Carl tried to think if he did anything since getting home, but the only thing he could come up with was taking his shoes off and dropping his messenger bag by the door. Unless Claire’s problems were muddy floors or a distinct lack of clutter he failed to see how he fixed anything. “Oh. Right. Well I’ll be in my room then.”

            Claire gave him a once over then nodded and waved her hand at him to go away. Carl never made it to his room though. The yellow post-it on his door begged him to come over in wide, loopy girlscript. He almost walked past it, briefly considered the possibility of a carbon monoxide leak as a cause for Claire’s erratic behavior, then decided to visit Kristin.

            “Going to Kristin’s!” he shouted on his way out the door. He moved just a bit too fast to hear Claire call back, “You already told me that ten minutes ago!”

            Kristin lived a few blocks away. When Carl arrived he hit the buzzer and got no response. He tried it a second time to similar results. Just as he made his third approach, a thirty-something mother of one from down the hall came down the street. She recognized Carl and let him in after he explained his issue and in gratitude the young boy offered to carry the woman’s groceries up the three flights of stairs between her and home.

            The shifting sack of groceries tumbled precariously with each stair, so that Carl struggled immensely by the time he made it to the last flight. Not wanting to look weak in front of Kristin’s neighbor, he steeled himself and marched right up the stairs. Two steps from the top his toe caught the edge of the step and he stumbled a bit. Carl managed to catch his footing but saw inside the bag, at what appeared to be the standard ingredients that he thought went into the production of crystal meth.

            Suddenly worried that he might be considered an accomplice for his showing of kindness, Carl hurried to the door and practically dumped the groceries on the counter before sliding out the front door.

            Shaken, but not enough to send him from the apartments, Carl walked to Kristin’s door and walked in without knocking. He figured she would understand that drug dealers warranted a brief lapse in judgment regarding common courtesy.

            At least, he assumed she would understand common courtesy until he looked around the family room and noticed a selection of clothes that confused him. First was the North Face softshell on the couch"the same as his. Then there was a grey button-down the same as his, his undershirt, and finally his jeans. This cotton paper trail led to Kristin’s bedroom, which he pushed through the door into only to see the stranger nestled between Kristin’s legs.

            He replaced me, Carl thought. It seemed so obvious, and rather than cause a scene, Carl retreated from her room and ultimately from the apartment itself. Only when he reached the front door did he feel a twang of hatred towards his certainly now ex-girlfriend. A quick self-assurance that she would die shortly in a meth lab explosion eased that pain, and he set about planning his revenge on the stranger as he walked home.

            He only just pulled out the stranger’s phone when a speeding sedan threw a puddle into the air, soaking completely. Carl coughed out the water from his mouth then hurriedly dried off the phone to assure his shot at revenge. Once complacent with that it would survive, he continued his walk home.

            Two blocks away he decided that he would return the favor for this punk. “You stole my identity. Now I’ll be you,--“ he flipped through the phone for a minute to find the name of his new persona, “Jeff.” Unfortunately for Carl he stopped reading there and did not notice the content of the next text message in line, whose contents would soon reveal the critical flaw in this plan. Instead, he grinned like an idiot and marched on towards his house with wild ideas of revenge spinning in his mind.

Author's Note

Just a first draft and likely something that could be part of a much larger story. I already have ideas for Jeff's story, Kristin's story, Claire's story, and a continuation of Carl's story. For now I'm just looking for ideas regarding the style and voice of the piece. Does it make sense? Does it flow well?

Any critique is welcome!

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

As I read this - my continual thought was "dang, poor guy" - but the other things I noticed were some wonderful descriptions. The dirty blonde in a musty jacket. "Loopy girlscript" little bursts of description that flesh out the story and give it depth. There is a touch of wry humor as well - the ex girlfriend meeting her demise in a meth lab explosion. And the teaser at the end. I want to know what the text message read. Well penned. I write poetry because I am lazy, and poetry is like carbing out. A quick fix. Stories take time. Precision and patience. Well penned.