Last Call
Dedication
To my long suffering family the many hours away, pecking one finger at a time on a key board and many countless hours of daydreaming have finally produced something. I thank you for your patience and lending an ear on occasion.
Also to my reader, without you this work would never have been recognized as art. Thank You.
This book is a pure work of fiction. Names, Characters and incidents are purely from the authors imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any, locales, events, or persons-alive or dead are purely fictional.
All rights to reproduce this work in any format including scanned copies and electronic copies are reserved by the author.
Copyright © 2007 By Adam C. Powers
Cover photo and art Copyright © 2009 By Adam C. Powers
To purchase large quantities of this book
Please Contact: Adam C. Powers
AuthorAdamPowers.Gmail.com
Or see my web site at www.AuthorAdamPowers.com
Last Call
James Locke
Chapter One
“What the hell kind of fate is this?” I said it shaking my head as if waking from a terrible nightmare.
The walls in the room seemed to be melting down, and at the same time everything was spinning around me. I clutched my chest. A fiery pain started to climb its way up from my stomach, like a demon drawing up from the depths to snuff out my breath. I looked for help, in the dimly lit room, as I started to lose feeling in my lower extremities. When I stopped moving my head, the room continued to move, sliding around me. I tried to call out, but I seemed to have lost my ability to speak, along with my other senses. The effort wasn’t much use anyway, the people around me continued to talk and carry out their last minute efforts to get some ass before closing. Just when I thought that I couldn’t consciously bear any more pain, it became worse. My stomach now felt like it was on fire, not like I had a few too many, but kind of like swallowing a nice tall glass of gasoline and dropping a lit match down my throat. I looked down at my arms lying at either side of my legs wondering why I couldn’t will them to cover my ears. I questioned myself and my own sanity for a second, then thought, I most assuredly did will them to it, but they just laid there like two stumps of wood. This realization came to me as suddenly as the sounds from the band downstairs floated through the room. The music I usually enjoyed on Friday nights became an unbearable roar in my head, like I was strapped to the tracks of a train tunnel.
I looked down at the empty glass sitting on the large, square, coffee table in front of me. It appeared as though it were melting onto the surface when my vision began to fade in and out of darkness. The same sensation I had a moment earlier, as I looked around the room.
The funny thing is, I was feeling fine a few minutes ago. That is, until I finished the last of my Grey Goose and Red Bull, and contemplated how screwed up the day was, that I had just laid behind me. I opened my mouth again to yell for help. Nothing came out, as if that bitch, fate herself had me by the vocal chords, telling me I’m not getting away from this one.
Maybe if I can lean forward and fall off this damn couch someone will notice something is wrong with me! I thought quickly.
I tried to move and actually leaned forward a little-before clutching my stomach-as a sudden metallic taste filled my mouth at that same moment. I know this taste well. I’ve been hit in the face enough times to know what the taste of blood is, but where is it coming from? This question removed my mind from the excruciating pain in my abdomen for only a fraction of a moment. I tried to spit some of the crimson out of my mouth hoping to show some sign that I needed help-now-but even my tongue seemed involuntary at the moment.
It all started when I sat down on this sofa in the upstairs lounge of my favorite club, with my last drink in hand, and my day behind me. It was over alright, and it wasn’t the ending I had in mind. There were no answers to any of the day’s questions. Especially the one question I wanted answered the most.
I’ve read somewhere that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. I don’t know about that, but my day is starting to come back to me, like it’s on rewind.
Chapter Two
My name’s Jack, when I woke up this morning……being damn near dead at the end of the day was the last thing I would have expected in my life.
This is my story, the story of one day on this spinning ball of endless directions. I’m thirty five and I’m in pretty decent shape for a desk jockey, or at least I was until a moment ago.
It all started out as………..“Just another day in paradise”
“Good Morning Sarasota, its 84 degrees and looks like it’s going to be another sunny day in paradise,” the radio DJ spoke as I awoke with his voice rolling through the speakers of the clock/radio that sat in its place on the nightstand next to my bed.
I rolled over and threw my whole arm across the bed, barely slapping the button on my clock radio, turning it off just as the morning show was coming back from their commercial break. I rolled back to the center of the bed with my face pressed into a pillow and my arms splayed out. The last thing I wanted to hear was another obnoxious radio show host first thing in the morning, and I wasn’t ready to get up. I’m never ready to get up, actually. It was my favorite radio station or I would have had the regular alarm on, that and the fact that my clock radio comes with that damn annoying high pitch scream. The one that they call an alarm. One of my ex girlfriends bought it as a gift for me, a couple years ago, in the hopes that I would think of her first thing in the morning when it went off, at least that’s what she said when she gave it to me. Personally I think it was a precaution to keep me from waking up with breakfast cooked by another woman, I never did. I have to say that I’ve done it in the past, I cheated once, but after I saw the effects of what it did, I made the decision right there that I’d never hurt anyone that I cared about, like that again.
Who gives their boyfriend a Clock Radio as a gift anyway though?
My apartment ain’t too bad when compared to the average bachelor pad. I dated an interior decorator recently. She pretty much purchased everything for me. On my credit card of course, and then designed the whole thing, this after dating for only a month. I guess she saw a future together that I missed somehow. Now she had great taste compared to the one that gave me the clock radio. It was near the end of our relationship when she went out on the limb to tell me in her words, “That she chose the design specifically because it fit the both of us, her being contemporary and me being more Zen.” It wasn’t too long after that, she moved in with me. She was a great girl. It just ended up moving too fast. She was the first and last girlfriend to live here since Juliet. What ended it were the mornings that I would wake up being just barely out of that state of deep sleep. I would feel her next to me in bed and roll over to place a soft kiss on her forehead. That’s when my eyes started pull open from the depths of night. I would see her there, where Juliet used to be, and would stop short of kissing her. I would roll back onto my side of the bed as the feelings all came back, riding the waves of my memories. I couldn’t kiss her the same way in the same moment. I felt as though I were replacing Juliet, or maybe replacing that moment I had with her. I never meant to recreate those moments, or wanted to, even if it was, when I was barely conscious of it.
I rolled to the side of my bed and sat up sliding the radio button over to CD to start my day.
I pushed my covers down and kicked down my sheet before I threw my legs out of bed sitting up, slouched a little from exhaustion. A quick thought to the muscle pain from yesterday at the gym quickly vied for my attention. I was trying to keep up with this gorgeous brunette on the indoor track, painfully and unsuccessfully. I’ve never been much of a runner. I’ve been running with her for a few weeks now since we met. She recently moved to the area and just started there at the gym, so I felt compelled to welcome her. I know most everyone at the gym, but it was especially important for me to get to know her. I smiled at the thought as I ran my fingers through my short brown hair.
I rubbed my aching calf and grabbed the end of my toes as I straightened my legs over the edge of the bed. I stood up and started my way across the wood floor, dragging my feet with a sweeping sound every step to my bathroom. I passed my hanging boxing bag on the way slapping it with an open hand. It swung slightly from a short chain in the ceiling as I kept walking. It’s the only abuse I give it anymore. A few years back when I was working the door as a bouncer at the Club I used to lay my hands on that bag quite a bit. I used it to stay in shape and stay sharp for the job. There were times back then that the bag was the only way to let go of things I couldn’t get off my mind. That, and the fact that I was in desperate need of always being ready for a fight when I was working nights back then. I made quite a few friends at the club and got to know a lot of good people, but there were also the few that came there looking for trouble when they shouldn’t have. I don’t ever remember anyone getting the better of me back then. It’s hard to win a fight with a man that has nothing to lose, and at the time-I had-nothing to lose.
Every step, hurt like a bitch. I guess it’s the small price I have to pay for going after her, I thought.
I reached inside my bathroom door to the left for the switch giving it a flick, it branded the room in violent light. My ex that decorated the condo seemed to think that we needed enough light in the bathroom to land planes. The thought that crossed my mind, was that she remodeled the bathroom with his and hers sinks to seal the deal for us. I looked up at the fan in the ceiling when I didn’t hear a loud sucking sound coming from it. That was a sound that I’ve grown used to since the remodel.
“Damn thing must be broken.”
The fan was my idea during the remodel, she never liked it. She always complained that it made too much noise, but it was my apartment and I got my damn fan in the end.
I winced for a second as I stepped over the small tile ledge outside my shower. I grabbed at the towel bar to help support my weight. The pain suddenly brought back a memory of a girl I dated in high school. That was the last time I did any running like this.
My freshman year I took track, even though I hated running, just so that I could get closer to a junior that I wanted to go out with. The athletic, smart girl-you know the type-the one that gets straight A’s and takes track because she’s tall and fast. Last I heard from her, she ended up with an athletic scholarship to one of the Florida universities.
I’ll never forget the way she used to wear her hair. She kept it wrapped up tightly in a ponytail when she was running track, but the moment it was all done and over, she would bend over and pull it out, shaking her head a little and running her fingers through it, many of the golden blonde strands resisting her efforts and sticking together as if she just got out of the shower. I would see that scene every time she had track, because I was right there. And when she stood up with her hair down she would smile with those sparkling blue eyes she had. They were the kind of blue that didn’t even have a name.
Later that year I finally took my chance to talk to her, we ended up dating for about six months. She was quiet and sweet. She didn’t have many friends, but that was okay with me, I had enough friends for the both of us. We were always bumping into somebody I knew, wherever we went.
We were together until I caught the eye of one of the cheerleaders in school and I broke up with her shortly after that. That was probably one of the only breakups I have ever had where I think I totally broke a girl’s heart. I’ve learned to break things clean lately, but I still regret hurting her to this day. I think it really devastated her. I dated plenty of other girls before her, but she was different. She was the first girl I ever really had a serious relationship with. I felt bad at the time about how it ended, but this was high school, and dating the cheerleader was a big deal. After cheating on my girlfriend to be with her I regretted it for the rest of my high school days.
I twisted the crystal knob in the center of the wall bringing the high powered spray down to a slow trickle from the shower head. I reached for my towel that hung on the bar behind me, my hand waving around like a blind man. I finally turned around sliding the glass door open and noticed that the towel that always hung there was gone.
“Damn, I must have thrown it in the laundry the other day,” I said to myself stepping out of the shower.
I stepped out and grabbed a towel from the bar that was on the wall at the far end. I started to dry my face as I looked in the mirror. It was fogged up and I expected that, but what I didn’t expect was my name shining through the dim image of myself returning.
Chapter Three
It looked as though someone took their finger and carefully wrote the message that I was reading.
JACK!
REMEMBER ME
It’s been so long since I had a woman over that I didn’t recall who it could have been, although at this point trying to recall that in a moment like this wasn’t really an easy task either. I looked away then looked back at it, as if, maybe it were all in my head, but it was still there, only now it was starting to fade ever so slightly with slight drops of condensation rolling through the second pair of words as the temperature in the room cooled. This is where the questions began.
Was the note asking me if I remember her, or telling me to remember her, I asked myself, whoever she is.
A thought came to mind suddenly, just when my pulse started to become erratic-and the room suddenly boiling-no answer came with it.
It could be an old message from one of my ex’s, I thought.
The fan would have kept the humidity down low enough that I would never have seen it until today when the damn thing went on the fritz. I took my towel and wiped it clear looking into the mirror at my face, and forcing the question from mind.
“Don’t start to crack now Jack you have a vacation coming up,” I said to myself shaking my head.
I just need to make one more sale before I have enough money to get out of here for a while.
I walked out of my bathroom and over to my closet in the bedroom pulling open the sliding glass door. My closet is mostly filled with designer button up dress shirts and slacks-my work clothes. You’re probably thinking I have good taste, but I can’t take credit for this either. My wardrobe is due to the influence of another woman that took me shopping on more than a few occasions.
“Someone making the kind of money you make should dress the part especially since you’re in sales,” she used to say. Her Motto was, “Make the first impression count.”
I can still see her saying that with her hard nosed expression of directness across her face, the one that was only softened by her smile. It showed the deep down sweet girl, still inside.
I grabbed a pair of slacks and a grey dress shirt with a gold silk tie. This is my uniform, due to working in sales, most people would think stock broker by the way I dress. Actually it’s high end automobiles.
The clothes make the man Dianne used to say and I have to say I have learned that’s at least partly true, a lot of my best sales are to women and I know that sex sells. Besides that, it doesn’t hurt to make sure that some of my customers are fully satisfied by taking to them to dinner to celebrate their purchase of a new car.
This is typically how my day begins and today was no different.
I walked down the stairs of my villa and took a quick turn around the corner to my kitchen grabbing my keys and blackberry off the marble countertop. I reached up and opened my cupboard taking out my favorite mug. It’s a white mug with writing on it, like you would see at a souvenir shop outside some tourist attraction. It’s more than just a coffee mug to me. It’s a memory of a woman that I basically put it all on the line for. The one I finally settled down for. Her name was Juliet and it was hers, it’s faded now, but you can still make out the letter “I” with a faded heart and the words San Francisco on the side. It’s one of those things, just one of those things that I think I’ll keep it until it doesn’t hold my coffee any longer. It’s the last thing of hers that I still have. I’m feeling better these days, but I still miss her. Quite a few women have asked me why I keep the old faded thing, but I never go into it with them. I’ve never told anyone it was hers, or the story of how it ended up in my cupboard.
When Jules found out she was sick and knew she didn’t have much time left, she decided that what time she did have left she wanted to use living life to the fullest and I was going to make that happen if it cost me every penny I had. She always loved seeing the golden gate bridge in the movies and wanted to see it for real, but never took the time off from work to do it. I’ll never forget the Wednesday afternoon I took her to lunch at her favorite little Italian bistro, a little hole in the wall place, our best kept secret. She was still feeling all right at the time, but was depressed that day with everything that she was going through and all the medical decisions we were suddenly forced to make. She was unusually quiet as we sat there after ordering our meal. I took her hand in mine across the small little round table and reached into my back pocket pulling out the tickets for a flight that was leaving Sarasota International three hours from that time, bound for San Francisco
I reached across the counter grabbing my coffee pot from its holder before filling my mug and taking a small drink of the tar black liquid. I turned and walked down the hallway to my front door opening it to grab the morning paper. I took a few steps back into my villa and sat down to the glass top table in my living room, setting my coffee in its usual place, opening the paper.
Of course nothing new in town this weekend, I thought to myself bouncing my view around the ad’s and articles on the pages. I almost always end up at the Gator Club anyway.
I walked out of my apartment with briefcase in hand and turned locking my door. I looked across seeing my favorite neighbor opening her door to get her paper. Her door was directly across from mine only ten feet or so. They cram these building so close together in Florida that you could stand outside your door and spit hitting your neighbor’s building.
She stepped out the same time every morning, wearing a different little sheer nightgown every time. She wasn’t too hard on the eyes, for a forty plus married woman. She had long blonde hair with auburn strands, and the body of a model, well maybe a centerfold. The only thing taking away from her beauty was the occasional shiner, or bruise on her delicate little arms.
“Morning Mrs. Gilman,” I smiled trying not to pay too much attention to her newest bruises. She bent down slowly and grabbed the paper off her door mat with her cleavage heaving against the silk that kept it penned up. She looked up with a coy smile, wearing the same dark glasses she wore every morning.
“How’s Jackie today?” She started to stand up slowly, deliberately giving me a full view.
“Just another day in paradise they say,” I replied. I took two steps closer to her while leaning forward looking at the parking lot for her husband’s classic Corvette. He wasn’t exactly the friendly type.
Relieved to see that it wasn’t there I took a couple more steps closer and took a drink of my coffee with one hand on the handle of my briefcase, “I know this is none of my business Mrs. Gilman, but why do you stay with him?”
I’m not sure why I said it, but today seemed a little different from the average right from the start. Usually I’m not that forward with people, unless I’m selling a car, that is.
She lowered her designer glasses with one long French manicured finger nail. I could see where she spent considerable time this morning covering the bruises, “I’m still waiting for my knight in shining armor,” she replied. And with that she turned back inside with her paper in hand, looking over her shoulder before closing her door. I smiled as I stood there a moment longer then turned towards the parking lot taking another drink of my morning coffee.
I shook my head slightly as I walked. I hate to see a woman getting slapped around. It pisses me off sometimes how this world plays people’s fate like a tragedy.
I stopped a moment and reminded myself that I wasn’t any knight by any standard, besides I accepted the simple fact that some women are exactly where they want to be, for better or worse. It’s truly a waste of a beautiful woman. But, then again I don’t mess around with married women either, it’s a rule of mine. It leads to far too much drama for a guy like me. I’m just looking to enjoy what’s left of this life lately. I finished talking myself out of taking another opportunity for trouble and unlocked my car with my keyless entry as I crossed the parking lot.
There’s my true love anyway, I thought as I walked around the passenger side of my new Lexus IS 400 coupe.
The hot Florida sun was gleaming off of the pitch black paint. I just had its monthly detail job done the other day. I took a good look at the glossy black finish and smooth lines with a feeling of satisfaction. Growing up I never had much, my father left us when I was only eight. I still remember the last thing he said to me before he walked away.
“Son, listen up now, and never forget this,” he said kneeling down in front of me with his bag hanging from his shoulder. It was his briefcase, and it was supposed to be his last sales trip-he was right-it was, he just never came back from it. “Never put everything you have on one bet, or in one person, you will always lose in the end-and sometimes-just sometimes, you lose everything,” he said flatly as he looked at me. He was starting to tear up after he spoke, and I didn’t understand why at the time. I just stood there in front of him with Mom looking down at us from the entrance way of the house. He gave me a hug that lasted a little longer than usual, and left. I never saw him again.
My Mom struggled to just pay for the basics after he left, occasionally an envelope came in the mail with some cash, but after a while even that ended and we were left to make ends meet on our own.
I remember working my ass off for my first car and it wasn’t much, an old beat up Ford Taurus. I was thrilled to have it even though it broke down more often than I got to drive it. It wasn’t until I was working at the dealership that I could finally afford one of these cars and I’ve loved them ever since.
It’s been fifteen years now since I started there at the dealership. I still remember those early days. I was working at a little kiosk in the mall, selling cell phones and pagers when they were just starting to become main stream. I was approached by a beautiful older woman looking to get a new phone. I made the sale and then she made her sale, selling me on the idea of working for her at the dealership. Her name was Juliet, she was the first and last woman I fell in love with, and I fell hard, too hard. She was the owner of the dealership that I now own. She gave me a job, and I gave her everything I had-then I lost her-I lost her the moment I really let her into my life. Funny thing is I never planned on falling in love. Much less, ever getting married or settling down with one woman. I saw what happened with my parents and I was determined I wouldn’t let that ever happen to me.
We were together for five years, four of them we lived together. We had just made plans to get married when it happened. I proposed to her three weeks before finding out that she had breast cancer that quickly spread through her body. I know it was better for her not to suffer for long, but sometimes a part of me wishes I had more time with her. The only woman I ever truly wanted-for life-and she was gone, she faded away right before my eyes.
It was a long time before I began to date again, and it was about that time that I came to the realization that my father may have been a coward, but he was right about one thing. Never invest too much in anyone, because you’ll end up losing it all. That’s also when I realized that life is too short not to enjoy it.
She left the dealership to me, even though she had a sister that survived her, but that’s a whole other story. I haven’t spoken to her since her sister’s passing, except through our lawyers. More importantly though, Juliet left me with memories that I will never forget.
I opened the door of my car and got in, putting my coffee in the console. I was expecting to hear the Metallica beating its way out of my speakers that I had cranked up on the drive home yesterday, but their dark heavy metal sounds were not playing as expected. What I heard was a song that I’ve heard more than few dozen times on the radio in the past. It was a song called “I alone” that was sung by a rock band called LIVE. I knew the song well enough because of the dark lyrics. The lyrics spoke of love, hate, temptation, and…obsession.
Maybe I switched it over from the CD changer, to the radio, last night without realizing it, I thought casually glancing down and hitting the CD button on the stereo.
The same song started to replay itself from the beginning, rolling up from a light slow tone, to a hard fast and thrusting in your face chorus, I Alone Loved You! That’s when I realized that it was already set on the CD changer option.
I don’t even own this album, I thought looking at the CD deck in my dash. I never really liked the song or the band, so how the hell did it get there.
The reality of it hit me like a smack in the face with a cold chill as I continued to listen. I cranked my neck hard, whipping my head around, and looking over my shoulder into the back seat to see if anything was damaged. Everything was just as immaculate as I left it the night before. I turned just as fast looking down at the seat next to me where my briefcase lay. I picked it up, quickly looking underneath then leaned forward looking down at the passenger floor, the mat was still covered with the paper liner from the detailer. It was just as gleaming white as it was when it was put there, without so much as a crinkle where someone could have placed their feet on it.
I sat back in my seat trying to accept that this was really happening as I retraced the steps I took the night before. I got in my car leaving work and I remember having my Metallica CD in the changer. I remembered that, because I played “Unforgiven” on the drive, it was one of my favorite songs. I hit the skip button on the player with my right hand expecting to hear a different song, but it was the same, then I hit it again to track three with the same song playing on track three. I started to poke the button hard until I came all the way back to the beginning, the whole CD repeating the same song on every track. I began to listen to the song as I contemplated how it got there. The lyrics which I never cared enough to listen to before, now started to have meaning as they told of unrequited love and obsession. It continued to repeat the words, I alone love you, over and over.
As I listened, I thought about the odds of getting a CD that wasn’t mine, in my player, without someone breaking in. There’s just no way, and if someone did break into my car, why didn’t they just steal it. I mean this is a fifty thousand dollar automobile. I hit the CD eject button and it stood there hanging outside the mouth of the player like it was teasing me.
I pulled the CD from the player and realized that it was a blank CD that was burned with that song on it, over and over again. No writing on the label other than the manufacturer’s name, laser printed into the white decal on the top side. I flipped it over and looked at the shiny metallic. Not a scratch on it, as if it were brand new.
Nothing got stolen and my car is still in one piece, I thought to myself hoping that I could rationalize this in some way.
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