Picking Stones Chapters 17 & 18

"Highway" & "Arrival"

Highway

Headlights illuminated the asphalt that was instantly consumed by front bumper. The blue hood of the car just barely poked out from above the gray leather-wrapped steering wheel. It was dark on the road. Hundreds of red taillights ducked and dodged between the lines. I clutched the rental’s wheel tighter, knuckles white.

A bend in the highway came up as the car seamlessly rolled along, drifting away from Hartford and onward to Massachusetts, to Portland. I finally picked something, my first move. That meant Nim’s turn was next. Butterflies swarmed my chest. It was a familiar feeling of fear, but this time, there was a difference. There was excitement too.

I didn’t go to the wakes. Neither for Orla nor my dad’s friend. Dad was disappointed, said I didn’t care about anybody but myself. To a certain extent he was right. I’m sure my coworkers all thought I was a huge you-know-what for skipping out on Orla’s wake in order to squeeze in what seemed like a totally last-minute vacation. My boss mentioned the bad timing. “Horrible,” to be exact. I didn’t care, he still approved the time-off request.

The rental was overpriced, so was the hotel, so was the whole thing. For some strange reason, money didn’t matter for once. It didn’t matter how much I was spending on this trip. I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe my subconscious knew I didn’t have much time left before the game was over. That had to be it.

The game. The game of Nim. It flashed before me. The bone white card. Sixteen matches waiting to be picked. They were tossed onto a green table, wood stems with red tips, all arranged in perfect order. One on top, then three, then five, then seven. Nim made the first pick, giving me the card. Peter said the player who went first was at an advantage. Nim went first. I guessed the second move was me picking Maine, for the retreat, for the vacation. It had to have been. So, it was Nim’s turn again. What did I have waiting for me in Portland?

Giving me the card was his turn. Me choosing to go on this trip was mine. Two matches down, right? Nothing else was picked between the card and this trip. Nothing else was taken. Now it was Nim’s turn, the mogwai’s turn. I shuddered.

I didn’t want to end up like the shoemaker in Peter’s story. Was there any way of stopping it? The person picking the last match loses. With two matches gone there were still fourteen to go in the hellish game I was playing against something I couldn’t see.

Reality seemed to be a little hazy. Did that ever happen to you? As my mind spun further down the game’s rabbit hole, I became extremely conscious of my breathing. I was drifting someplace, somewhere. Breathing was more conscious, seemed slower sometimes. Every now and then my vision would narrow, zoom in on something. Time seemed to stop and I’d be extremely aware of me being, well, me. I could see the dust floating through the rays of sunlight poking through the blinds. My breathing would sound like a giant’s breath. Then I’d snap out of it immediately and normalcy returned.

Like right then. Head jolted back and I remembered I was on the road, careening off to the side of the highway to avoid crashing into the guy next to me, to avoid hitting the guy in front of me. Tires screeched. Did I hit my head? No. Hands shook. This was why I didn’t drive. I sat there for a while. Where was I?

Oh that’s right. I was going on vacation. Playing a strategy game to the death versus an invisible entity.

The sign in front of me showed that Worcester was fifty miles out. I heard it was a decent place to stop on the drive. I shouldn’t have left so late, but I couldn’t help it. Something told me I couldn’t wait a single second longer. I was supposed to leave in the morning, three days after Orla died. But no. I decided to leave an hour to midnight. I had to go right then and there.

It was past one now, sleep was calling me. I’d stop in Worcester. Find a rest stop there and knock out in the car till morning. The temperature was dropping. It would be a long night.

Half-moon glowed behind a cloudy veil, casting an orange shade over the dark highway. I thought about the highway and how it was built so long ago. Although, when you think about it, was it really all that long ago? The 50s seemed like yesterday to some people. The last ten years of my life had felt like one. By that math, seventy years could feel like the passing of seven to some. Two generations. That’s nothing, it goes by way too quick. Four generations and you’re just coming out of the 1800s. A generation before that and there were people alive who knew guys that fought in the American Revolution. It might have felt like yesterday to them. Was it always like that? Would it ever slow down?

I thought of the highway and how I had started in Queens before going over the bridge to Westchester that suddenly turned to Connecticut and Massachusetts. Further up it would connect New Hampshire to Maine. How did it all get there? Yesterday it was woodlands. It’s a miracle any of it worked. All this poured asphalt and concrete that connected thousands of miles of the country together.

I wondered who did it. What were their names, the laborers. How many of them died doing it? How many divorced their wives and missed their kid’s baseball games and drank themselves to death? How many died doing it while still pushing their kids into the same trade? It was an honest living after all. To top it all off they got no credit in the build. Instead, they’d get some ungrateful governor spending tax dollars to install their name on all the signs that littered the scenic byways.

It really was a miracle. Any of it. The highway. Public sewers. Clean water.

Worcester was close. A shadow ran across the length of my rear-view mirror. Whatever was following me in New York had taken the trip to New England. The hairs on my neck turned up, but I managed to shake them down as I pulled into the rest area.

Pick Your Poison, a sign next to the rest area’s building read. It was a picture of a cigarette and a bottle of tequila. Coincidental choice of words.

I darted through the shady building and made way to the empty bathroom. The automatic lights took a second or two too long to turn on, so I was in the blackness for what seemed an eternity, feeling the presence of something else in there. Showered in fear, I tried hard to squeeze something out while feeling the eyes of thousands of demons and shadow people swarming behind me. I splashed water on my hands and face without daring a glance up at the mirror; I couldn’t afford to get a glimpse of whatever had been in there with me.

Water sprayed my jeans and an exquisitely placed wet spot trickled down my leg before I finally jumped out of the bathroom. A girl around my age stared at the spot with a smirk as I held my head high at the vending machine. The TV was on, and I heard a commercial for a lottery playing. Several people gawked at the screen, but I didn’t bother looking.

Outside, the cold nipped at me. I wasn’t sure if I’d manage a second of sleep in the car. The trees shook from the hard wind. Leaves scattered around me. I took a seat on a splintery bench in front of the building and listened for cars flying down the highway. I heard nothing.

The card was in my hand now. I stared at the three blood-red letters. NIM. Pounding on my forehead. I just didn’t get it. Eyes closed. Behind them I saw Death. He was sitting across from me at a poker table, hood covering his face. A bony hand stretched from outside his long sleeve and started tapping on the green table. Eleven matches were set in order for the game, five missing between the top, second, and last lines. I reached and he reached and matches were picked and picked. We were having a great time. With a hearty laugh I reached over the table and grabbed the last match. As I did this, I realized what I had done. All blood had poured out of my face. Cold and pale, I looked up at Death in panic and watched him pick up his scythe.

“Any last words?” Death asked.

“No,” was the best I could offer.

With one swift swipe of the scythe, it slashed at me and woke me up from my dream. I had fallen asleep on the bench, head hanging backwards off the backside of the bench. I faced the glass door of the rest area’s entrance. In the dark reflection of the glass, I saw a bus driving past the building. It was all gray, with a mist that seemed to surround it. My head hung backwards, and I watched in slow motion as the bus’s long white advertisement sailed past the door. Three red block letters were printed on it. NIM.

I choked and tried to dart my head up for a better look, but I was frozen, locked in place in a moment of sleep paralysis. The engine heaved and exhaust billowed out the tailpipe. The clutches of paralysis let go, and I bolted off the bench to get a better look, but the ghost bus was already down the exit, on the highway and out of sight into oblivion.

---

Arrival

Air from the harbor floated around me. The streetlight looming above had crystallized salt caking its metallic exterior. In the distance were the sounds of banging buoys and dock bumpers. A horn blared somewhere far away.

It was cold, colder than at home. The sun was bright and warmed my cheeks and the exterior of my navy windbreaker. Clouds dotted the blue sky. Two ospreys flew over the bay. Across it were houses lining the shore. Vessels peacefully bobbed in the water and clanged against the pier. I had been in Portland for about fifteen minutes. The salty air swarmed into my lungs and filled me with strange hope.

My phone’s screen read seven. Beth’s face smiled up at me. Seeing her face made me sick. I set my coffee down on the brick sidewalk; hot steam wafted from the open cup filled to its brim. The white heat came to life on the coffee’s surface and released into the world around us. It was the first thing I did when I arrived in the city, quickly finding refuge in the coffee, I needed it to wake me up. I took it black, no sugar. The lid was off to let it cool down. I had yet to take a sip but desperately needed one.

I lifted my phone and took a photo of the view. Another osprey flew across as I did this and I got a miraculous shot of the bird mid flap, gracefully gliding just above the water with its reflection shining on the blue just below it. I found the photo in my saved images and selected it as my new lock screen. Goodbye, Beth. For good. The new photo shone brightly. It was perfect. “Not half bad, huh?” I said to myself.

Another osprey, wait, a whole flock of them, took flight. I jerked my phone, took a step forward to try for another picture-perfect picture. My foot felt the knock first. I looked down and saw the coffee cup tipped over. The hot coffee was now forming an icy puddle across the red bricks. “Come on, man!” I screamed. Just what I needed to kick off the trip.

The card buzzed inside my pocket. I groaned and bent over to swipe the empty cup off the ground, hearing two cracks in my lower back in relief then in pain.

Check-in time at the hotel was set for four. It wasn’t close to mid-morning yet and I was running on no sleep. The car had proved fruitless as a makeshift bedroom, its cold interior was not a refuge from the light of the darkness of the night.

As much as losing the coffee hurt, I was fine. The tides coming in and out of the bay were therapeutic, and looking out to sea always calmed me. It was a funny thing to think about. Back in New York, I was surrounded by water. I lived on an island, worked on an island, but always felt trapped in a landlocked wasteland. It was a shame I never bothered taking advantage of the good qualities the city had to offer.

Feet walked over the brick sidewalk and made way down the street. A mix of tourists and workers were scattered on either side. I cut left and up a half block before cutting another left. The city was gorgeous. Brick buildings accompanied brick sidewalks with some brick roads in a few places. There was a lot of red and a lot of history around me. I was thankful I had come. Thankful, in a way, for Nim. Without the entity-demon-ghost, I wouldn’t have been here. But without a coffee, I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d last. Finding a good coffee shop to sit in had become essential.

Thrift store. Record store. Comic shop. I mentally noted a few decent looking bars and walked through oncoming traffic to step out of the way of the wet construction of a new “high rise” going up. The nipping cold felt rejuvenating on my cramping legs.

By a miracle, the sidewalk led me straight to a coffee shop. A flat white awning and matching panels clad the exterior. I grabbed the door and held it open for a woman who swiftly walked in without a thank you. How sweet.

Aromas of the baked goods and fresh coffee grounds floated in the air. The ceiling was high, with white walls scaling up toward them. The walls were covered in paintings hanging two feet apart from each other. They were impressive. It must be nice to be gifted.

One painting stood out. It was a man. He was standing with his back to the viewer as he stood on a rocky cliff looking out on a deep blue ocean. A lighthouse was off the shore on its own island alone in the far-right corner. They were both alone, the man and the lighthouse. I wondered how lonely they both were. Below the painting was a price tag, a few hundred bucks. Figured as much.

Guilt swam into my conscious. It was a great thing to have work on display, even if it was just a random coffee shop in Maine. Good on the artist for chasing a dream. Unfortunately, my jealousy had come along for the trip too. With regret, I tried shaking it off and boarded the coffee line behind the woman who hadn’t thanked me for holding the door open.

My turn came suddenly and without warning.

“Hey, what can I getcha?” In front of me was a woman with black curls falling on the sides of her face. Her warm smile was quickly turning to a look of confusion as she watched me start to panic. She tried again. “Need a sec?”

“No, no!” I shouted. The walls rattled, I think several paintings might have fallen, turning the art into shredded canvas. “I’m ready.”

“Okay, what can I getcha?” she said with a smile.

“A large, iced coffee. Please.”

“In this weather?” Were we already joking?

“Yep,” I said and offered up a laugh. “I’m checking into my hotel this afternoon, so I got some time to kill. I figured I could sit here, enjoy the art.” I motioned with my arm to the art on the wall, as if the girl-behind-the-counter didn’t know about the art that hung on the walls at her place of work. Why was I talking so much? She doesn’t care what you have to say, I reminded myself.

“Oh, that’s great!” she said, “Well, welcome to Portland. Where are you traveling from?” Here eyes were gray, but they had depth. I noticed a thousand icicles in each one.

“Queens, uh, New York.”

“Oh, cool. I love that city.”

Ice scooped, fell into plastic cup. She started pouring the brown liquid into my soon-to-be cup. I smiled in agreement, even though I disagreed with her. “We have books over by that table. Feel free to read one while you wait,” she said and handed the coffee to me.

“Thanks.”

That’s it? Will, you idiot.

“What time is check-in?”

She was continuing the conversation. My heart started beating a bit too fast. I needed to remain calm. The line was growing behind me, there was simply too much pressure.

“Uh, four.” No smile. Why me?

“Ouch. Well, feel free to stay as long as you like! We close at six.” She flashed another smile.

“Hopefully I don’t have to stay that long,” I said. What is wrong with me? Wait, she laughed. I guess my words struck a chord, whatever that means. I lifted my coffee to her and shot toward the table with the books and cursed God for making me so awkward.

A book was picked. Well, maybe it picked me. Coincidentally, it was the same book the girl named Whitney had been reading at the bookstore in Greenpoint. The one with the Spartan on the cover. What were the chances?

---

It was almost afternoon. Lower back pain accompanied by lower butt numbness was increasing by the second. No matter how much effort went into reading the book, which wasn’t much, I had failed to read more than six pages. Instagram scrolling and a bombardment of texts from Phil and my mother got in the way of that.

Phil, ready to buy a first-class ticket up here, ultimately decided to stay home for me to “have my moment of peace alone.” I can’t say I wasn’t relieved.

My mother was, on the other hand, horrified at the notion that I had up and gone to “no-man’s-land” for no reason. Oh no, my phone was ringing. She was calling me. Heart pounded as I picked up the phone. I needed to offer up a valid excuse to have gone there, otherwise there’d be panic in her house till my return.

“First off, just cuz a place is outside of Queens doesn’t make it no-man’s-land,” I said. The city was huge, but small in the eyes of my parents, maybe mine too. “Secondly, it’s for work, Mom.”

“For work?” Relief washed out of her voice and into my ears.

“Yes,” I said, waving my arm around to paint the picture to myself. “They sent me up here for some client relation BS.” It was the best thing I could think of.  I looked around at the store, enjoying the paintings hanging on the walls. A local artist searching for their dream. Such a juxtaposition from the world I lived in, even as I was teetering on both sides of reality and the unknown in the confines of that tiny coffee shop.

“Oh, it’s just, why didn’t you say that before?” Mom laughed heartily, another sign of her relief. She was almost giddy. “And, you know, I just thought. Work never sent you out of the city before.”

“I know.”

“Maybe you’re going to get a promotion. Wouldn’t that be nice?” She laughed again. I almost felt bad lying. We hung up.

Taps on my shoulder. Two taps. I almost jumped. Spinning around, I saw her, the girl behind the counter.

“Didn’t mean to spook you,” she said. “Although, ‘tis the season.” Halloween was a few weeks away. She giggled, I politely returned it, hiding the panicked heartbeats leaping out of my chest. “I had some free time, so I figured I’d write you a list of my favorite things to do in here.” Her smile was so wide, so welcoming. My eyes caught the extension of a hand holding a little bone white card. Fingers touched fingers; a bolt of static shock exchanged between two lifeforms.

“Thank you,” I choked out.

“I overheard you talking about your business trip on the way over here, sorry if it’s dumb, but you can always use a few suggestions between meetings, right?” She began to inch backwards toward her fort of machinery and coffee beans.

“Oh, no no. I was just telling my mom that so she didn’t ask too many questions about my trip, she can, uh, be a little difficult. Oh, gosh, I hope that didn’t come out wrong. “I mean, she’s awesome, but it’s easier to tell her I’m here for work and didn’t just come up here for some crazy last-minute trip that I didn’t plan at all. I—, ugh, I must sound crazy. I’m not, I’m, I’m going to stop talking now and graciously accept your list of things to do.” I tried to laugh in an attempt at acting cool.

“I get it,” she said. Her eyes twinkled whenever she spoke. “You only sound a little crazy, but isn’t everyone?” She laughed. My eyes crossed between every phase of laughter, confusion, fear, and acceptance. I laughed. “Yeah, I think everybody is a little crazy,” I said.

“That’s a great book by the way.” She was pointing to the book I was pretending to read.

“Totally. I’m hooked.”

She was already back behind the counter, a barrier separating us. I should have asked for her number. I had a list of things to do and no one to do them with. “Thanks for this,” I held up the list. “I really appreciate it.”

Before she was able to welcome my thanks I pushed the door open and stepped out into the strange city. I needed to get out of there. It had gone perfectly, though. Maybe I could go back the next day, or the day after, and ask for her number. But I couldn’t do it now. I left in a rush. Forgetting to even glance at her list. If I had, I would’ve seen that the first thing she had written on it was the same trail the hiking app had advertised to get me to Maine in the first place.

---

Thank you for reading. If you’re enjoying this book and would like to support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

You can also buy me a coffee. Or, actually no, just a coffee please.