Clover & 4th
CLOVER & 4th
I arrived back in my office after lunch. As I rounded my desk to sit down, I noticed an envelope in my chair. I picked it up and placed it on the desk in front of me. I had a sense of foreboding as soon as I saw the envelope.
I looked at it, laying there on my desk on top of the clutter of papers that were scattered about my desk. It was a regular letter-sized envelope. The flap was not sealed or folded in, and my name “John Carruthers” was typewritten on the front, along with the phrase “Personal and Confidential,” which was bolded and underlined.
I slid the envelope back and forth, not wanting to open it, and not knowing why. I pushed it to the side and thumbed through a stack of paperwork to find a letter that I had been reviewing for a client. I found it and began to read it, trying to focus on the task at hand. Instead, I found my thoughts and my gaze drawn back to the envelope.
Finally, giving up on the idea that I could put off opening the envelope and actually get some work done, I reached for the envelope. It slipped out of my hands and dropped to the floor. When it landed, the paper inside had started to come out of the letter. A yellow corner poked out of the envelope.
I picked it up off of the floor and let the paper slide out onto my desk. Maybe if I didn’t touch it, it would go away. After a few seconds of wishing, I realized that it wouldn’t go away on its own. I also realized that I was being silly. It was a stupid piece of paper. Probably just some note from somebody else in the office. What was I scared of?
I unfolded the paper to see what it was. Centered on the piece of paper was the following, “It is in your best interest to meet me at the corner of Clover and 4th today at 4:00. Don’t worry, you may not know me, but I’ll know you. If you arrive as suggested, I will make my presence known to you.”
I turned it over to make sure that there wasn’t anything on the other side. There was no signature and no other words on the page. That was the extent of the message and I didn’t know what to make of it. Some person thought I should meet him, or her, at an intersection just a few blocks from my office. No reason given, no identification provided. Just a suggestion. And, apparently, it was somebody who knew me.
Now that I knew what the envelope contained, I was able to put it to the side and focus on my work. I reviewed the letter I had picked up a few minutes before and gave it to my secretary with some changes. At 2:00, I met with a client I was representing in a lawsuit against a rental car company. At 3:00, I had a short meeting with the partner who supervised my work. And at 3:45, as I sat at my desk trying to decide what needed my attention most in the hours that remained in the day, I found my attention drawn back to the envelope and the message it contained.
It was time to make a decision. If I wanted to see what the note was about, I’d need to leave within a couple of minutes. I picked the note up again and looked at, trying to get a sense, a vibe from it. I got nothing more than the vaguely unsettling sense of foreboding I had felt when I had first picked up the envelope.
I decided that I wanted to see what the note was all about. After all, what could happen to me, what could go wrong, if I met some stranger on the corner of Clover and 4th in broad daylight, in the middle of the afternoon?
I let my secretary know that I would be running a short errand and expected to be back within a half hour or so. I walked out of the building and headed towards the suggested destination. When I got to the northeast corner of the intersection, I stopped and looked around. Traffic on Clover, which ran north to south, whizzed through the intersection, while the drivers in their cars on 4th sat patiently waiting their turn. There were a few pedestrians standing at the other corners, but I was alone on my corner.
I looked at my watch. It was 3:58 p.m. I glanced at my watch a moment later as it went from 3:59:59 to 4:00:00. Just as the digital numbers made the switch, an old man walked up to share the corner that had been mine for the last couple of minutes. He looked at me and said, “Good afternoon, son. Glad to see you could make it.”
At least that’s what I think he said. It was difficult to tell for sure with his lips, wrapped around his toothless gums, smacking together with each syllable.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Well, it looks to me like it’s your time.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s your time to cross to the other side.”
“No, it isn’t. It says ‘Don’t walk.’ Why did you give me that note?”
“Because it’s your time, John.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“John,” he said, looking up at me for the first time, “it’s your time to cross to the other side.”
The light bulb went off in my head with a blinding flash. Oh my God. This old man was trying to tell me it was my time to die, like he was the Grim Reaper or something. He didn’t have a scythe with him, he wasn’t wrapped in a dark cloak, and he didn’t tower over me like the depictions of the Grim Reaper I had seen ever since I was a child. Instead, he was a stooped old man, hobbling along on a cane.
“You’re kidding me . . . wait a sec, how’d you get that note into my office?”
“When you get to the other side, you’ll understand everything. But, now, it really is time.”
With that, he disappeared. I looked around. I thought it was odd that there was still nobody else at the corner of the intersection where I stood. I glanced across the street to the northwest corner, noticing briefly that the sign still said ‘Don’t walk.’ It was probably the longest ‘Don’t Walk’ sign in the history of traffic.
I was about to look back to the spot where the old man had stood just seconds before, when I saw a child I knew standing on the corner, facing me and about to step into the street. It was my eight-year-old son, John, Jr.
What was he doing there? Why was he stepping out into traffic? Where the hell was his mother? Cars were speeding through the intersection as they tried to beat the light before it turned yellow and then red. Just as it turned yellow, John, Jr., stepped out into the street and took three steps. I yelled “stop” at him and dashed out into the street. Just as I did, a Hummer, one of those six ton monstrosities that define the excess of American consumerism, bore down on the crosswalk.
Just before the Hummer struck me, my final thought was that the old man was right. I would be crossing to the other side. In my last second of life, I looked up to see if John, Jr., was okay. He wasn’t there anymore. After I crossed to the other side, I learned that he was never at Clover & 4th that day.
****************
So, the point of this story was to write a story about somebody who receives a note that says "It is in your best interest to meet me at the corner of Clover and 4th today at 4:00." Try as I could, I was unable to come up with a happy version of such a story. So, this was my effort.
I arrived back in my office after lunch. As I rounded my desk to sit down, I noticed an envelope in my chair. I picked it up and placed it on the desk in front of me. I had a sense of foreboding as soon as I saw the envelope.
I looked at it, laying there on my desk on top of the clutter of papers that were scattered about my desk. It was a regular letter-sized envelope. The flap was not sealed or folded in, and my name “John Carruthers” was typewritten on the front, along with the phrase “Personal and Confidential,” which was bolded and underlined.
I slid the envelope back and forth, not wanting to open it, and not knowing why. I pushed it to the side and thumbed through a stack of paperwork to find a letter that I had been reviewing for a client. I found it and began to read it, trying to focus on the task at hand. Instead, I found my thoughts and my gaze drawn back to the envelope.
Finally, giving up on the idea that I could put off opening the envelope and actually get some work done, I reached for the envelope. It slipped out of my hands and dropped to the floor. When it landed, the paper inside had started to come out of the letter. A yellow corner poked out of the envelope.
I picked it up off of the floor and let the paper slide out onto my desk. Maybe if I didn’t touch it, it would go away. After a few seconds of wishing, I realized that it wouldn’t go away on its own. I also realized that I was being silly. It was a stupid piece of paper. Probably just some note from somebody else in the office. What was I scared of?
I unfolded the paper to see what it was. Centered on the piece of paper was the following, “It is in your best interest to meet me at the corner of Clover and 4th today at 4:00. Don’t worry, you may not know me, but I’ll know you. If you arrive as suggested, I will make my presence known to you.”
I turned it over to make sure that there wasn’t anything on the other side. There was no signature and no other words on the page. That was the extent of the message and I didn’t know what to make of it. Some person thought I should meet him, or her, at an intersection just a few blocks from my office. No reason given, no identification provided. Just a suggestion. And, apparently, it was somebody who knew me.
Now that I knew what the envelope contained, I was able to put it to the side and focus on my work. I reviewed the letter I had picked up a few minutes before and gave it to my secretary with some changes. At 2:00, I met with a client I was representing in a lawsuit against a rental car company. At 3:00, I had a short meeting with the partner who supervised my work. And at 3:45, as I sat at my desk trying to decide what needed my attention most in the hours that remained in the day, I found my attention drawn back to the envelope and the message it contained.
It was time to make a decision. If I wanted to see what the note was about, I’d need to leave within a couple of minutes. I picked the note up again and looked at, trying to get a sense, a vibe from it. I got nothing more than the vaguely unsettling sense of foreboding I had felt when I had first picked up the envelope.
I decided that I wanted to see what the note was all about. After all, what could happen to me, what could go wrong, if I met some stranger on the corner of Clover and 4th in broad daylight, in the middle of the afternoon?
I let my secretary know that I would be running a short errand and expected to be back within a half hour or so. I walked out of the building and headed towards the suggested destination. When I got to the northeast corner of the intersection, I stopped and looked around. Traffic on Clover, which ran north to south, whizzed through the intersection, while the drivers in their cars on 4th sat patiently waiting their turn. There were a few pedestrians standing at the other corners, but I was alone on my corner.
I looked at my watch. It was 3:58 p.m. I glanced at my watch a moment later as it went from 3:59:59 to 4:00:00. Just as the digital numbers made the switch, an old man walked up to share the corner that had been mine for the last couple of minutes. He looked at me and said, “Good afternoon, son. Glad to see you could make it.”
At least that’s what I think he said. It was difficult to tell for sure with his lips, wrapped around his toothless gums, smacking together with each syllable.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Well, it looks to me like it’s your time.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s your time to cross to the other side.”
“No, it isn’t. It says ‘Don’t walk.’ Why did you give me that note?”
“Because it’s your time, John.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“John,” he said, looking up at me for the first time, “it’s your time to cross to the other side.”
The light bulb went off in my head with a blinding flash. Oh my God. This old man was trying to tell me it was my time to die, like he was the Grim Reaper or something. He didn’t have a scythe with him, he wasn’t wrapped in a dark cloak, and he didn’t tower over me like the depictions of the Grim Reaper I had seen ever since I was a child. Instead, he was a stooped old man, hobbling along on a cane.
“You’re kidding me . . . wait a sec, how’d you get that note into my office?”
“When you get to the other side, you’ll understand everything. But, now, it really is time.”
With that, he disappeared. I looked around. I thought it was odd that there was still nobody else at the corner of the intersection where I stood. I glanced across the street to the northwest corner, noticing briefly that the sign still said ‘Don’t walk.’ It was probably the longest ‘Don’t Walk’ sign in the history of traffic.
I was about to look back to the spot where the old man had stood just seconds before, when I saw a child I knew standing on the corner, facing me and about to step into the street. It was my eight-year-old son, John, Jr.
What was he doing there? Why was he stepping out into traffic? Where the hell was his mother? Cars were speeding through the intersection as they tried to beat the light before it turned yellow and then red. Just as it turned yellow, John, Jr., stepped out into the street and took three steps. I yelled “stop” at him and dashed out into the street. Just as I did, a Hummer, one of those six ton monstrosities that define the excess of American consumerism, bore down on the crosswalk.
Just before the Hummer struck me, my final thought was that the old man was right. I would be crossing to the other side. In my last second of life, I looked up to see if John, Jr., was okay. He wasn’t there anymore. After I crossed to the other side, I learned that he was never at Clover & 4th that day.
****************
So, the point of this story was to write a story about somebody who receives a note that says "It is in your best interest to meet me at the corner of Clover and 4th today at 4:00." Try as I could, I was unable to come up with a happy version of such a story. So, this was my effort.
posted by Sparky at 6:01 PM
1 Comments:
"H-m-m-m! I'm not sure about this one Mark...throughout, I had the strongest feeling that I had read this somewhere else! It had a "Stephen King-ness" about it."
You know, there probably is something to this characterization. However, it was by no means intentional. The thing was that with the prompt given ... a note that says "x." It was really the only idea I could come up with. I tried to come up with a way to have it be something like an old girlfriend, or an individual who had information regarding a case, or something like that, but I couldn't come up with anything that interested me. This was what interested me. But, you're right, it is sort of Stephen King-esque.
The other point you make later on ...
"other than when you write as "Mark" you are terrific!"
is actually even more valuable. One of the things that interests me most about writing at this moment is the idea at trying different genres. I always wonder why authors get stuck in the same type of story. Your comment above suggests one of the reasons -- we write in the voice that we are comfortable in. When we try something different it becomes forced.
"I know what it is..it lacks "passion"...this isn't your genre perhaps? I say this because so much of what you post on the various boards is so effortlessly eloquent and compelling...the conviction and sincerity is palpable, and it draws the reader in"
I think that one of the issues with these short stories that I post here is that they are things I write with relatively little thought. When confronted with the prompt, I think about it, I stew on it, I spend a lot of mental time thinking about what I want to do with the prompt. Then, once I come up with the approach, I write it and then post it here. The concept that it lacks passion or sincerity is probably one of those things that could be fixed in a rewrite. One of the things I thought about, but didn't fit into the story, was the idea that this guy would be horrified that he'd never see his wife and kids again. But, I didn't get to it.
"...oh, I don't know what I am trying to say here"
I think you said exactly what you thought, which is exactly what I want to hear.
Thanks.
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