A Cup of Tea

by Joseph Isaacs 

a cup of tea  

Better than expected.

I stared at the title.

“Happy?” I said to my type writer, but it failed to answer. “Seriously, what is this happy shit?”

I love my editor, but seriously, write something happy? I’ve always expected the worst and I’ve rarely been disappointed.

I glanced over at Clarence’s photo as if expecting him to answer.

“Calm down, Jed!” he would have said. “You can do happy.”

But happy had died with him.

I looked at the paper, blank of all but title, and I knew whatever I was about to write was going to be some contrite shit. Happy. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts. Okay, I can do happy. Omelets. Omelets are happy. What the hell am I going to write about an omelet?

At that moment the doorbell rang. I pushed up from my desk, which creaked like my back, like my legs, like my heart, and opened the door, expecting someone to try to sell me a security system.

It was a hippie with the what you call them—fear-locks or dread- braids or something. You know the knotted, tangled look.

“Uncle Jed,” the hippie said. “Can I stay here awhile, my parents kind of kicked me out.”

“Oliver?” I inquired stupidly.

 I didn’t know Oliver that well. I don’t know anyone in my family that well as we are estranged.  I was surprised he even found my address. He had one of those hiker backpacks with him with a sleeping bag tied to the bottom.

This was going to suck.

 “Well, if they kicked you out, why do you think I would kick you in?”

“Well, you and I have something in common.”

“Oh,” I said. “Oh.”

I had come out of the closet when I was seventeen and my parents had kicked me out of the house too. Those were a tough couple of years.

Oliver put his filthy backpack down on my pristine couch.

“Cup of tea?” I asked Oliver.

“That would be great,” he said, tying his scaredy-locks into a pony tail. “I’m sorry I came unannounced. I couldn’t find your phone number.”

 “I don’t want to inconvenience you. It’s just. I don’t have anywhere to go.”

I shrugged. “It’s a big house since Clarence died. Stay as long as you like.”

I stared down at the words taunting me from my typewriter. Better than expected.

Decaf

by Joseph Isaacs

decaf 

If you think it’s easy being a fictitious character think again. Sure, we aren’t real. But that’s what hurts the most. We’re sort of like Pinnochio, I want to be a real boy. But I am not.

I can shoot out a dozen bad guys with my AK-47. I can wear sun glasses and slow walk away from an exploding building. I sleep with at least a dozen anatomically impossible women a day (it’s amazing what they can do with special effects these days). And so, what? I don’t feel a thing.

My author tries. She tries to torture me. Make him uncomfortable, make him weep, make his girlfriend, his dog, and his best friend die. Well, thanks a lot! But the truth is, I don’t really feel any of it.

I’m too busy with the next scene, the next sequence. I can never just truly be, you know.

Take today. Today I was in a romance. This voluptuous woman is waiting for me to tear her shirt off. But I’m just not feeling it, you know? She says, “What’s wrong? Is it me? Am I poorly written?”

I say, “No darling. It’s not you. Your beautiful. Your bodice is entirely revealing. Your long blonde hair cascades nicely down your slender shoulders. It’s just. It feels contrived you know?”

She sat down next to me on the railing of the pirate ship and pulled out a pack of Camels and offers me one. She lights us both up and takes a puff.

“You get used to it,” she said. “Do you know how many bodices I’ve had ripped off me? How many throbbing manhoods I’ve had thrust inside me? I feel like a cheap whore. But the truth is, I still feel it. I still get turned on, my heart still breaks, I still fall in love.”

“With me?” I ask, surprised. “You’re falling in love with me?”

“Well, yeah. I mean I was written that way. But its more than that, you know? I mean here we are on this pirate ship in the middle of this fictitious ocean. The stars are out. Yeah, the constellations are all wrong, the north star ought to be north, for Christ’s sake. But this is the only world, we’ll ever know, you know? This is it. Our shot. We don’t get another.”

I exhale through my nose. “You’re pretty smart for a ditsy blonde heroine.”

“Hey, don’t stereotype. You’re pretty sensitive for a muscle-bound idiot who does his own stunts.”

So there we are. Two fictitious characters, not even plausibly constructed or realistic, falling in love in a make-believe pirate ship. But then she gets cut! The script writer tosses the whole fucking scene. I’ll never see her again in all likelihood.

But there is this. I feel it.

French Press

by Joseph Isaacs

black coffee 

“I don’t understand,” Robert said. “We were having fun.”

I chuckled. “I’m still having fun.”

The water had begun to boil. I ignored it.

It was time for something less comfortable, I thought, slipping off the night gown. I stood for a moment, completely nude, regarding my unremarkable body in the mirror, before donning my wedding gown. I had become quite proficient at putting it on and it hardly took me anytime at all, all the while Robert pointlessly screaming for help, his voice harmonizing with the boiling kettle, as he squirmed against the ropes.

I turned off the burner. “Stop struggling,” I advised him. “It will only make the ropes tighter. You’ll get those awful red lines in your wrist. Now how many creams and sugar would you like?”

I’d drawn the curtains almost fully closed, but I left it open a crack. Where was the excitement if no chance that I might get caught? A sliver of sunlight blinded him.

 “Why are you doing this, Susan?” he cried. They always cried so much! It was part of what made it fun.

“Call me Mother.”

“You need help, Susan. This isn’t right.”

I shrugged. “Why do people always say that? I’m just different. Everyone leads their life the way they choose. This is how I choose to lead mine.” I poured the hot water into the french press carefully. I had to be careful. I already had a number of stains on the dress from previous weddings. I turned the dial on the timer for five minutes. It clicked away.

Robert was squirming, trying fruitlessly to untie the knot. Part of me hoped he would. Part of me hoped the police would burst in and stop me. Part of me knew what I was doing wasn’t right. Yet I couldn’t stop. I opened the curtain, just a little more.

Then with a sigh, I went back to murder.

“I’ll give you your coffee black,” I said. “We all drink black coffee eventually. We try to hide it with milk. With sugar. But it’s all black in the end.”

 I liked philosophy. But my guests were always too scared at this point to have proper conversation. It was a shame, because Robert had quick wits. I had enjoyed talking to him about Zen Buddhism. He was into Mindfulness. A good practice to be sure. I took a deep breath now, savoring this moment. Then the timer went off. I plunged the coffee and poured it into my black Darth Vader mug. It had been a prank gift from my sister, but it was my favorite mug.

Father took us to see Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back seventeen times when we were children. It was his favorite movie. He didn’t like the first and third ones. “I tire of the constant need to pretend that the heroes win. Death wins in the end, children. Death.”

My father liked philosophy too.

I added no cream or sugar. Just a little bit of Mother’s special powder. It would bring on the sleep. It didn’t matter if he screamed. The kitchen was sound-proofed.

I brought the coffee toward him. I tried to give him a sip but he kept his lips sealed and bucked so the black liquid spilled burning his chest. He screamed as the boiling hot liquid hit his bare skin. He was quite muscular and handsome. Almost a waste to do this one.

“Will you stop making all that noise?” I asked. “You’re hurting my ears.”

“I don’t want this,” he said. “I too have a right to lead my life the way I want don’t I?”

This stopped me short. He had an excellent philosophical point. I liked death, he liked life. Who was to say which of us was right?

I sighed again. I was I was getting tired of the game. It was too easy. There were so many bodies in my basement and the stench was unbearable. And you couldn’t even go down their without tripping or slipping on something.

It had gone on for far too long. I had hoped the police would have arrested me by now, but they were too stupid. I missed my old prison. I considered releasing Robert but then shook my head. No good would come of it.

“Just drink,” I said, trying once again to let him drink.

He refused again, bucking and screaming as more of the coffee hit his chest.

The coffee was all spent so I put another kettle on. I opened the curtain a bit wider. I could now see the neighbor’s house. Old Cynthia was looking at me.

Then she disappeared. I imagined her calling the police on me. Maybe they’d get here in time to save poor Robert? I doubted it.

I stared at a picture of my father, sister, and I at the lake. I used to fish when I was a child.

“Let the small ones, go,” father used to say. I missed father. He had been a good man when his mind was straight. He couldn’t help what he did either, any more than I could.

Or could I? We are all in charge of our own destinies, he used to say. Was it true? I doubted it. I opened all the curtains fully now. Why? I’d never done this before. But I liked it! I felt the thrill of getting caught. I imagined the police thumping on the door, demanding to be let in. What would I do then? Offer them some coffee, mayhaps?

 Light now streamed into the living room. Robert was crying softly. I felt a pang of sympathy. He did indeed like his life.

I dumped the grounds from the French Press in the sink and prepared a new batch.