Greg Goble: The Collected Works

Betrayal: A short story

Betrayal

The Prologue (a dialogue)
The pessimist: The glass is half empty.
The optimist: The glass is half full.
The purist: Who cares? Eventually the glass will be completely empty.

Coffee: hot; black; pure. That was a constant, even now, when everything was about to change. He sipped at it – bitter; hard.
“How’re ya doin’ this mornin’ ?” asked number 834-57-3819. He might have had a name, he might have a real number, but it didn’t matter. He was just another digit in a sequence. Once, there had probably been a number one that was now lost in a stack of paperwork in a basement right next to a pile of left socks.
“So what’s yu’re name?”
He spat out his number. Paused. “Cass.”
“As in Caster?”
“No. As in Cassius.”
The man swiveled his stool to face Cass. The number’s hanging beer belly grazed Cass’ arm as it looked at him.
“W’ll nice to meet ya Cass. My name’s Phil. So Cass, you goin’ on vacation?”
“More of a business trip.”
“So you live here then huh?”
I recently moved here from New York.” He probably should have just said yes; 834-57-3819 might have left him alone then.
“Whydya come here from New York?”
“A waitress.”
“How’d that happen?”
The memories seemed to flood back in real time.



* *


Cassius Arnold Altmen sat down at table twelve of “The Grillin’” restaurant on the Eighty-First floor. He fanned out his sport coat as he took his seat, feeling the weight of a book in one of the inside pockets and the bag of Cherry flavored Halls in the other. He always had the book; he always had the Halls. The host left him staring at a menu and sipping at a black coffee.
“What can I get you today?”
Wow! The waitress had legs a mile long, and a body he couldn’t stop staring at. She stood there, her pen quivering just above the small notepad, her hips cocked to one side resting her curves. She threw back locks of golden hair with a toss of her head as he continued to stare. Focus he had to remind himself. Order before you get caught. “Yeah. Can I have this?” He pointed to a picture that was on the page he was open to in the menu.
“The Classic Grillin’ burger?”
He tore his eyes away from the line of her neck and cleavage, and sure enough that was what the caption below the picture said. Just a glance before he was drowning in the smell of perfume wafting from her slender collarbone. “Uh, yeah.” Was all he could manage to stutter as he tried to shake himself free of the trance she had put him in.
“All right. I’ll get that right out to you.”
Damn! It was just as nice to watch her walking away.
He leaned back in his chair and tapped at the book through his jacket as she wandered into the back and disappeared. He fingered the bag of Halls through the material, wondering if he could ask her out. He knew what he wanted; he wanted to have her in the back of his car, giving her the old Stradlater. And why not? He’d been stuck at a desk, watching the moral fiber of the country deteriorate year after year behind a cloud of conspiracy and cover-up. He needed to dive in headlong for once; shake things up a little. For some reason that thought drew his fingers to the edges of the travel-worn novel.
All right. Ask her out when she brings out the food. No wait don’t, that’s crazy. If she says no, then there’s still a whole meal to get through. Just sip at the coffee and try to look swav. Hurry! Sip! Here she comes.
Cass took a sip of his coffee, keeping his eyes up just enough to watch the sway of her hips and the line of her leg muscles below the uniform skirt.
“There you go.” She said, and set a plate with what he had probably ordered in front of him.
“Thank you.” OK, move things around, grab the ketchup, and don’t eat until she leaves. Can’t be seen eating this; only the cough drop.
She walked off, waiting on other tables and putting in orders. Every time she was out of sight he ate hurriedly at his meal. Every time she was around he tried to look casual, sipping at his coffee with what he hoped was placidity.
She’s gone. You’ve only got a couple of bites left. Finish the burger, but just pick at the fries. And get that cough drop out, now. It’s gotta look like you’re real casual about having them around, but it has to be obvious that you have them. And for godsake don’t cough, then she’ll just think you’re sick. She’s got to understand the underlying innuendo. He reached into his pocket and removed a single cough drop from the bag and placed it next to his plate on the table. A hint of hot/cold vapor-scent escaped into the air. He savored the sensation with a flare of his nostrils before finishing the sandwich. Then there was nothing left to do but fiddle with the old eagle print quarter he managed to keep with him.
He flipped it between his fingers, rubbing the tips over each groove and cut. Cass kept this one relic of the old America. This was a union of states, not the promotion of a new Articles of Confederation. The majestic Eagle flew with all of America watching in awe. It soared in its mission, ready to sacrifice itself to unify the republic. It was a kamikaze of loyalty. But like its physical counterpart the winged beauty was being driven to extinction.
She’s coming, put the quarter away. He tucked the quarter into a pocket as she walked up.
“Is there anything else?” She asked with a smile.
Don’t answer right away. Look at her like you’re trying to decide. Good. Now, reluctantly. “No, I don’t think so…” Don’t make the pause too long. “…although.”
“Yes?”
Yeah yeah yeah, nervous, nervous, whatever; go for it. “ I think I should take you out to dinner this evening.” Good. A little bold perhaps, but good. Now reach out and grab the cough drop. Unwrap and insert in mouth before you put your foot there. Let that idea take effect. Don’t start chewing it right away, let her know that you know how to use it.
“I’m sorry, I really can’t.” It looked like she was trying to give a sympathetic look and get back to being professional all in the same moment. “Here’s your check, I’ll come back for it in a couple of minutes.
Well that was a perfectly good waste of a Cherry Halls. He bit down hard, collapsing the candy into tiny shards of vaporous medicine.
His coffee sat in front of him. Half empty; cold.
He set down as close to exact change as he could find and left. Screw her, she doesn’t get a tip.
It never worked, none of it, not once. He had tried every approach he knew to meet women. He gave up a long time ago on the nice guy approach. Girls didn’t want nice guys, they wanted someone who was going to take advantage of them and tell them what to do and where to do it. They wanted all the opposite things that they ever said they wanted and they expected men to know that, to just know it. The whole thing drove him crazy. He couldn’t stand it anymore. He was a just another social security number with no future and no one to share anything with.
He stared out his office window, eighty-four floors above the New York City pavement. He felt as though it was all crumbling beneath him; floor below floor falling freely away from his feet. Like everything around him was collapsing in on itself with no way out; walls encasing and crushing him. He could always jump through the glass and escape the falling walls. There’s an idea. Jump out the window because you’re not dying fast enough in here. Do you realize that the ground would be coming up to meet you at thirty-two feet per second for every second you were falling? Of course you do. He could almost feel the wind pulling at his skin and clothes. He could close his eyes and see floor after floor disappearing above him. The air would rush through his nostrils faster and faster as he came closer to his own mark of imperfection far below. The images flashed through his head one after the other, and the thought of his stomach free falling with him, made him nauseous and sent a shiver coursing through him. He would fall in a rush of maddening speed. His heart would pound against the air. He was staring at his own demise, watching himself descend to a horrible death on the ground below.


* *


And then he was in Boston; sipping at a black coffee in a tiny café tucked into the white hallway, watching the world pass by. He reminisced about the phone call that seemed to have come a lifetime ago. It had come in that blur of suicidal contemplation; had taken him out of his pathetic misery and turned his mind to beneficial thoughts. The voice on the other end of the line spoke as though it held a picture of Cassius’ mind. The voice had told him what he already knew; that the death of one man would stop it all. It had told him he was going to become a part of the plan to eliminate that man. He wasn’t the only one involved, but he had been told that he would get the clearest shot. He had been told he would not be able to meet the other conspirators. The less you know, the less you could ever tell. That was what he had been told. It was going to happen in LA, but he needed to come here first to put everything in order. He watched person after person rush toward their gates, scrambling to make their flights. He had to wonder if any of the people he was watching right now were a part of the plan that had been put together. He gave a look over at 834-57-3819 and wondered if he could be a part of the montage, collected to carry out the assassination. The blank expression, and the stream of unintelligible ramblings quickly convinced him otherwise.
Fifteen days after arriving in Boston, his preparations had been completed. Everything was set for Los Angeles.
In 1860 Lincoln was elected; then shot. In 1960 Kennedy was elected; then shot. In 1980 Regan was elected; then shot. The man’s death was inevitable, he had a triple zero factor working against him. Cassius Arnold Altmen was simply going to take fate into his own hands. It was, after all, his namesake privilege to do so.
He sipped at the coffee in front of him, thinking about the victory that this would be for the common man. He pictured all those nameless numbers cheering for him when it was all over. They would understand - even if he was caught afterward - they would hail him as a hero among men. Even 834-57-3819, who threatened to bend the metal legs of his barstool with his girth, would be saved and would be in awe of him. He patted the lumps in his jacket and looked down at the cup.
Coffee: half-full
There was however, a drawback to getting the kill shot. He was also the fall guy; the patsy. He glanced at his watch; it was almost time to go save the withering nation.
He glanced down at the coffee cup again: poured the rest into the waste can. He set it back down on the bar: empty. That was always how the cups ended up anyway.
He meandered down the hallway, passing the numbers that he would change irreversibly. They were all slowly filling into his nice, spacious back seat. And he was going to fuck them in a way they would never forget.
A PA kicked in. “Now boarding American Airlines flight 11 with service from Boston to Los Angeles.”
Stop reveling and get on the plane. You’ve got a job to do.

posted by David Fuchs (Greg Goble) @ 3:58 PM