Redemption (complete short story)

"Slow down, Howard. We’re already late and it won’t help if you get pulled over for speeding,” Chuck pleaded.

“What are you worried about? They’re not going to ticket you,” Howard spat back, annoyed at being told what to do. “Plus, they have speed cameras now—so I’ll get a ticket and a $75 fine. Big deal. I pay more to detail the car every week."

“You’re going to get us killed, man.”

“When did you turn into such a whiney little girl? You want me to drop you at the next corner and call you an Uber--or your mommy? I’m sure they both obey the speed limit,” Howard chuckled.

“Look out!” Chuck yelled as Howard stomped on the brakes just shy of rear-ending a Lincoln Town Car that stopped short at a yellow light.

“Goddamned idiot!” Howard yelled. “Who the hell stops at yellow lights? Now we’re stuck here!”

As he said that, a man emerged from the grass divider that formed the median between the North- and South-bound Park Avenue lanes and began wiping at the spotless windshield with a filthy rag. Enraged, Howard opened his window and yelled obscenities at the man, telling him to get the hell away from his car. The man continued wiping the spotless windshield, smearing it with oily residue from the filthy, once-white cloth after looking at Howard in seeming incomprehension. Howard then reached into his pocket and pulled out some loose change and bills he had received for a liquor purchase earlier and threw it at the man, hitting him on the chest with coins and folded bills. The latter stopped his attempts at wiping the windshield and staggered, barely able to keep his balance while bending down to pick up his wages for the cleaning service. Chuck noticed that the man was not wearing any shoes or a winter coat despite the 20-degree temperature. He hoped the man would find shelter for the night or he might well freeze to death. But he said nothing to his friend, knowing the response he was likely to receive if he did.

“Filthy bastard,” Howard fumed as the light finally changed and he peeled out, burning rubber for at least fifty yards while passing the slow-moving Town Car and giving its driver the finger. “You can’t drive or walk even in Midtown anymore without tripping over the lower end of the gene pool these days.”

“The guy’s just trying to get by. You didn’t have to throw the money at him.”

“Like I was going to let him touch me!” Howard scoffed. The city’s lousy with these parasites. You can’t walk on the sidewalk without being harassed by aggressive panhandlers. And a car like mine is a magnet for the bastards.”

“Why do you even own a car living in Manhattan? You must pay more for garage space than I do for my apartment in Astoria.” Chuck said.

“I paid more for my outfit than you pay for your apartment in Astoria for the year. Buying my garage spaces by work and by my condo cost me more than you’ll pay in rent in the next five years. You can’t leave a Ferrari on the streets, even if there were any place to park it!”

“But why do you even own any car? Don’t you have a driver assigned to you?”

“Yeah, work provides me with a driver on call. That’s fine for transportation to and from the office and routine trips around town, but this is a status symbol to impress clients, just like the TOPDOG vanity plates. This Ferrari 812 set me back more than $370, 000. And it’s worth every penny to see my competitors turn green, to say nothing of its effect on women,” Howard said looking at Chuck with a lecherous grin.

Chuck said nothing, just shook his head, wondering what had happened to his old college roommate in the several years since he had last seen him. Had he known about his transformation, he would gladly have taken a cab or the subway to their friend’s party.

“Well, we’re almost there. I’ll park in the garage in the middle of the block and you can help me carry the liquor in—it’s a short walk to her building.

Howard parked, took his ticket from the attendant, and winced as he heard his car screeching on its way to a spot in the nether regions of the garage. “I hate having to let these idiots touch my car, but what can you do?” He said, frowning, then gave Chuck a plastic bag with three bottles of Dom Perignon P2 and took a second identical bag himself which he had pulled from the car’s diminutive trunk.

“What did these set you back?” Chuck asked, curious.

“$370 each,” Howard responded, grinning.

Chuck whistled.

“I’m fortunate to be able to buy what I like, and I like my Dom.”

“But we’re only going to be maybe twenty people celebrating her birthday. Did you really need to buy a half case?”

“You can never have too much bubbly. Plus, I like Monica. She’s a good kid and I have not seen her for years. I was surprised when she sent the invitation to her party. She, you, and I used to be close in college but then grew apart, which is why I called you up, hoping she had also invited you. She brought back some pleasant memories,” Howard said. Then, turning to Chuck as they walked side by side towards Monica’s building, he added. “Look, I know I can be a bit of a dick. I don’t mean anything by it. I’m in a highly competitive business surrounded by pretentious idiots and I guess it rubs off. I catch myself sometimes, like just now. I’m sorry. I really don’t mean anything by it, and I’m not as big an ass as I must seem to you right now. Please don’t mention anything about my stupid car or the cost of this ridiculously over-priced champagne. She won’t notice or care. I bought it precisely for that reason as I know she’d refuse to accept an expensive birthday gift, but she won’t have a clue as to what the champagne cost so I can do something nice for her and just give her what she will think is a simple silk scarf as her gift. Despite all appearances to the contrary, I am really not trying to impress her or you and know that even if I were you’d just see me for the ass I’ve made of myself.”

Chuck was taken aback by this and said nothing, but he smiled. Perhaps there was hope for his friend yet, he thought.

They soon arrived at Monica’s address. It was a modest-looking four-story brownstone building, albeit in a pricey neighborhood. A row of doorbells in a polished brass plate in which the names of tenants were engraved showed Monica’s apartment was on the fourth floor. They pressed the doorbell button and a woman’s voice came over the intercom.

“Who is it?” She asked.

“It’s Chuck and Howard,” Howard answered.

“Come un up guys!” came the cheerful reply accompanied by a buzzing sound inviting them to enter.

There was no elevator. They walked up the four flights of stairs and found their friend waiting for them on the top landing. “By golly, you’re both still alive,” she quipped. “Never would have known it from the complete lack of communication!” She then hugged them in turn.

“We know, we know,” Chuck and Howard both answered at the same time, sheepishly. “But look, we come bearing olive branches in the form of libations. These are from both of us, and we had to carry them for miles through the bitter cold fending off other winos just for you.” Howard said, extending his bag of champagne bottles to her, as Chuck did the same, then squeezed Chuck’s arm hard as the latter opened his mouth to object that he had nothing to do with the gift.

“It is good to see you both,” she said smiling, hugging, and kissing each man again. “Your being here is the best present you could have given me today.” She then waved both men into her apartment where more than a dozen guests were already gathered, some of whom were known to both men, and others they met for the first time.



A short time later, while mingling and chatting with the gathered guests, Howard noticed a woman sitting off in a corner of the large living room watching him intently with a half-smile. She was in her late twenties or early thirties, dressed in a simple black dress and black shawl, her long, lustrous vantablack hair flowing in generous undulating curls all about her. He gravitated towards her and asked her “Can I get you a drink?” taking a sip from his champagne flute.

“I’m fine, thanks,” she responded with a smile.

“Do I know you,” he asked, genuinely curious.

“No, but I know you,” she replied, in a vaguely feral voice dipped in honey, her large, black eyes looking at him intently, reading him.

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” he chuckled, taking a seat beside her.

“I only believe what I see, and read,” she responded, her voice wrapping itself around him, drawing him to her like a moth to a flame.

“So, you’ve read about me, have you? The Time Magazine piece? Forbes?”

She laughed, in response, a slightly disquieting sound, like pan pipes blown off-key. “Not that kind of reading,” she said, crossing her legs and broadening her smile.

“What other kind is there?” He asked, puzzled.

“Oh, lots of other kinds,” she sighed in response.” Auras. Eyes. Body language. Souls.”

“So, you read souls, do you?” He said, amused.

“I read a great many things, souls among them, yes.”

“So, oh most alluringly mysterious one, what do you read in mine?”

“Darkness. Light. Ambivalence. Complexity. You are an enigma.”

“Well thank you. I do try,” he said grinning. He had no idea what game she was playing but was enthralled by her approach and drawn to her for reasons he would not have been able to articulate. She was lovely, true, but not as lovely as some of the other women he had been speaking to when he noticed her. There was just something about her. Maybe Chuck would need to take an Uber home after all if this played out right.

“So, am I an enigma you would care to further explore?”

She laughed, her smile widening. “Perhaps, but not in a way you’d like”

“I’m nothing if not open to new experiences,” he said, a thin smile on his lips as his eyes slowly roamed over her body.

“Are you sure?” she asked coyly.

“Absolutely!”

Wordlessly, she reached out her right hand slowly, as though to caress his cheek, and placed her palm on his forehead. His world went black. He floated as though in an isolation tank devoid of sound, sight, and any other sensory input. It might have been minutes, hours, or days—he could not tell before he began to discern a glimmer of light at the edge of perception, growing steadily stronger, larger, closer like a silent approaching freight train in a dark tunnel. Then it struck him like lightning hitting roiling waters in an ocean storm. Images burned into his retinas in a glorious blaze—his life flashed before him much too fast to follow, yet vivid, real, intelligible like a strobe light illuminating snapshots of his life—all of it, all at once. The images overwhelmed him yet left behind a clear record of the debits and credits he carried in his soul. Every kind act and deed done. Every instance of selfishness, hubris, and betrayal. His egotism and narcissism left exposed, wrapped around the core of his better nature like the thick insulation on a high-tension power line extending before him growing ever thicker in time from the cradle towards the grave. Then, just as suddenly, he awoke to see Monica, Chuck and about a dozen other people hovering over him.

“Someone call 911” he heard Chuck say.

“No,” he replied. I’m all right. I must have just fallen asleep.

“You were thrashing about and screaming,” Monica said. You gave us a hell of a scare, and we could not wake you. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine now. Your friend must have hypnotized me.”

“What friend?” Monica asked.

“The raven-haired beauty that touched me on the forehead and made my lights go out.”

“Man, how much champagne have you had?” Chuck chuckled. “You walked away in the middle of a conversation, sat down on that loveseat not more than ten minutes ago by yourself and zoned out. We laughed and wondered if it was something we’d said.”

“I was talking with a beautiful woman dressed all in black on that loveseat for at least fifteen minutes. Then she touched me on the forehead and the world went black. After that my life flashed before my eyes.”

Monica said nothing, but her expression changed, and she stared at him open mouthed. Eventually she asked, “What did this woman look like?”

“She was beautiful, maybe in her late twenties, no make-up and none needed. She wore a simple black dress and had huge black eyes and the blackest, most lustrous wavy hair I’ve ever seen. Although she was sitting down, I could tell it would have hung below her shapely ass had she been standing. Come on folks, she was right there,” Howard said, emphatically pointing at the empty seat next to him on the couch.

“I told you, “Chimed Monica’s roommate, a freckled redhead with a look of concern on her face. “I saw her the night they delivered the couch, and twice after, just sitting there, exactly as Howard described her. You would not believe me. We should never have bought the damned thing.”

“Stop it, Cindy,” Monica snapped. “That’s just the power of suggestion. No sooner did the antique dealer mention that the couch was from pre-colonial Salem, Massachusetts you got it in your head that it belonged to a witch. No witches were killed in Salem—just innocent women. And I doubt any of them could have afforded a piece like this.

“I know what I saw. And now it’s not just me,” Cindy insisted.

“Yeah, champagne and the power of suggestion—perfect together,” Monica scoffed.

“Hey, nobody told me this chair was an antique. I came to it because of the beautiful woman sitting on it by herself despite the lively conversation to offer her a drink she declined.”

“All I know,” Cindy said, “Is you’d better get rid of the damned thing or find yourself another roommate.” With that, she walked off.

Walking back to their car later that evening, Chuck questioned Howard again about his experience. “Are you sure you’re alright? I’m not a doctor, but maybe you should see one tomorrow, Howard. That kind of a vivid experience and our not being able to wake you through what seemed to be a nightmare is not normal. You may have suffered from some type of seizure.”

“I’m in perfect health. No doctor can help me with what I saw. I know the experience was real. Witch. Angel. Figment of a guilty conscience, it makes no difference. I don’t need to go into therapy to deal with this, whether it’s the universe sending me a message or my subconscious mind. I’ll deal with it in my way and in my own time.”

They reached the parking garage, and, after paying the obscenely large fee for three hours of parking, were once again on their way back, driving South on Park Avenue. As Howard approached 61st. Street, where he had previously been accosted by the homeless man, he slowed down, pulled over to the right lane, and parked by a hydrant telling Chuck he would just be a moment. He got out of the car and crossed over to the neatly trimmed grass divider where the homeless man lay shivering on a plastic sheet covered by cardboard. “What’s your name?” Howard asked the man, squatting next to him.

“S-Steve” the man answered with a shiver-induced stutter.

“How did you end up on the streets, Steve?”

“My wife left, took my two kids when I got fired for the last time for drinking on the job.”

“Would you like a second chance, Steve?”

The man just looked up at him, sitting up with some difficulty to look Howard, squatting beside him, in the eye. “I’d do anything for a chance to get them back.”

“If you mean that, I will help you.” He took off his new tan cashmere coat, bought at Sachs Fifth Avenue the week before at an absurd price, and fished in his pocket for his wallet. From it, he removed all the cash, about $1, 200, and a business card, putting both in the coat’s right pocket. “Stand up,” he told Steve. When he shakily did so, Howard helped him to put on his coat, then took off his shoes—the man seemed to also be a size 12, or close enough that it would make little difference--and asked the man to put them on. He then took out his cell phone and called his driver, telling him to come to Park Avenue at 61St. Street and pick up a man called Steve and take him to the nearest hotel to Howard’s Wall Street office and help him to check in, charging the room to Howard’s account. Then, turning back to Steve, he told him “I’m going to give you a second chance. On your right pocket, you’ll find my business card and enough money to go on a bender for the rest of the month. Or you can wait here for about twenty minutes and a man will come to pick you up and take you to a hotel near where I work. Tomorrow I will meet you there by 9:00 a.m. Get cleaned up and get a good night’s sleep. If you are there and sober tomorrow morning, I will take you to buy some clothes and check you into rehab myself. If you can stay clean, I will then offer you a job at my company—nothing fancy, probably the mail room or maintenance, but honest work that will pay you a living wage and get you on the road to maybe getting your family back. The rest is up to you. Will I see you tomorrow, or will you just keep walking your current path?”

The man began to weep openly, “I’ll be there. I swear I will.”

Howard patted him on the shoulder, saying “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” He then walked back to his car, his toes already aching from the cold in his silk socks.

“What was that about?” Chuck asked, adding, “Do you think giving that man your expensive coat and some money will change anything?”

“I guess that’s up to him,” Howard answered, carefully pulling out of his spot, the gas and clutch pedals feeling awkward and strange under his shoeless feet. “All I can do is try to return a kindness.”

“What kindness?” Chuck asked.

“The one done me tonight by a beautiful woman I fear long dead. A simple chance to turn my life around by showing me what hangs in the balance. A reminder that, there but for the grace...”

“You’re looking for a simple way to buy redemption, Howard. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Maybe not. And maybe it’s too late for me for redemption in any case. All I know is I mean to try, not just by giving Steve a second chance, but in what I do from this point on. I may fail—just as Steve may fail. But I will at least try to recalibrate the balance for the next time my life flashes before my eyes. I did not much like the movie. I intend to change its ending, at least, since I can’t do much about the first and second acts that are already in the can.”

Chuck had no response to make as Howard drove his blazingly fast red Ferrari at the speed limit on a road no longer for him paved with gold or cluttered with the detritus of humanity—just a simple road, little different from that traveled by all others, looking forward to the ride and no longer afraid of its final destination.