Vacation Read online

  Vacation

  a novel

  Jeremy C. Shipp

  Vacation © 2007

  by Jeremy C. Shipp

  Published by Raw Dog Screaming Press

  Hyattsville, MD

  First Edition

  Cover: M. Garrow Bourke

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-933293-40-0 / 978-1-933293-41-7

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2007924257

  www.rawdogscreaming.com

  For those I love.

  I’d like to thank everyone who’s ever inspired me, encouraged me, and offended me. I’d attempt to list them all, but I only have a page’s worth of space. Instead, I’ll do my best to acknowledge many of those who have supported me and my writing.

  Thanks to Phillip Brugalette and Susan Straight for their invaluable mentoring.

  Thanks to my Dad for reading my manuscripts and always believing in me and my work.

  Thanks to my brother Joshua—the only person in the world who’s read everything I’ve ever written, published and otherwise.

  Thanks to my brother Jacob for his ever-present willingness to listen to me ramble about my story ideas.

  Thanks to my life partner Lisa for loving me and appreciating my writing with such depth and passion.

  Thanks to my Mom for her unconditional support even though most of my stories are too disturbing for her to enjoy.

  Thanks to my extended family members and friends who have blessed me with words of respect and optimism.

  And thanks to John and everyone at Raw Dog Screaming Press for this opportunity and experience.

  Prologue

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Johnson:

  I’m writing this to inform you your son is dead.

  At least, that’s what you’ll call it.

  “Bob, Linda,” your best friends will say, because, god, what else can they say? “Your son’s been gone for a year, and I hear he hasn’t returned to the check-in. What happened?”

  “He’s dead,” you both will say with droopy puppy dog eyes. And behind these 20/20 little actors, the truth—and I speak from experience—will yank apart the lobes of your brain and crap guilt into your conscience.

  For a while. But that won’t last, will it? What the fuck does? (Mom, if you’re reading this, sorry about the language, but I’m assuming dad will read it first, and black out everything you’d find offensive. Or, everything he’d find you reading offensive.) Eventually you’ll convince yourselves that your son really is dead. A crazed terrorist wrote you this letter. A crazed terrorist who sliced the ears off of bunny rabbits until I agreed to give them every tiny detail about my tiny life that only I would know, so the terrorist could use this information to write you this bogus letter and hurt you, and convince you both (for a while) that I’m still alive, and I’m still on vacation. And I’m not coming back.

  But.

  To be completely honest—something I’m still working on—this isn’t really about you. It’s about me. Me, Me, Me. Yes, it’s true, behold that selfish bastard you always feared your only begotten son would become. Returning home, I’d only humiliate you. Shame you. In front of all those strangers you care more about than your friends.

  So this letter. It’s not an apology. Not even an explanation as to why your son has abandoned the only home he’s ever known. I need to see this story on paper. A place outside of my own pesky brain. I need these words to vacate me, so that I can get on with my life.

  So that I can say goodbye.

  Part 1

  Marvin Blackrow. Even now his name stuns me like a soft kick in the balls. But back then, I’m scribbling on the overhead scanner minding my own business, and Marvin Blackrow with his upside-down tie and missing buttons, raises that curled hand of his. Curled like a claw. Or a wilted flower that you don’t feel like watering.

  “Yes, Marvin?” I have to say.

  He stands and adjusts his coat, making it more lopsided. “I don’t understand.”

  I ask him what exactly he can’t wrap his scrawny little mind around. That’s what I want to ask.

  “You see.” He puts his hands flat on his desk and leans forward like some detective interrogating a criminal. “If Sarah represents the ultimate truth, then how can she die at the end? How can truth die?”

  “It can’t, but if you hadn’t noticed, Mr. Blackrow, she’s a human being.”

  The class laughs. They’re on my side. They don’t like him either.

  Marvin doesn’t flinch, the way I would. He says, “No she isn’t, Mr. Johnson. She’s a fictional character. And as a fictional character, she does indeed have the power to represent ideas. I simply don’t understand how truth can die. Even in the metaphorical sense. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I don’t think you’re right either.”

  “Now, Mr. Blackrow, you’re the one I don’t understand.”

  “What I mean is there may be an alternate symbolism that makes more sense than what you’ve written on the board.”

  Sarah represents the ultimate truth. I know this. I know this because I’ve read essays on the subject. Essays written by the author of this very novel. But I don’t tell him. Instead, “And would you care to share with the class this alternative symbolism you’ve come up with?”

  “I don’t have any.”

  “You don’t.”

  “No.” And he doesn’t say this as if he’s been defeated. On the fucking contrary. He’s saying that he doesn’t need an alternative. Because I, his teacher of English, am obviously wrong.

  He sits again.

  Something inside me spontaneously combusts, and I say, “I’d like to speak to you after class.”

  “Are you talking to me?” Marvin says.

  “Yes, Mr. Blackrow. Obviously you.”

  “Not so obvious.” He leans back. “You weren’t looking at me when you said that.”

  I’m reminded again why I’ve never asked him to stay after class before this.

  The little shit scares the shit out me. Not a little.

  But I’m a teacher—his teacher—and I’ve got my pride. So after class, without any idea of what I’m going to say, I open my mouth and hope for the best. “Mr. Blackrow. You know how much I appreciate questions from the class. At times I have to beg for participation. But your questions. They’re not very…” I know thousands but I can’t find the right word.

  “Helpful?” Marvin says.

  “I wish, Mr. Blackrow, that you would trust me. I know these books like the back of my hand.”

  “You realize, that saying is in actuality a masturbation joke.”

  A sigh escapes my nose. I don’t let myself scream. “That’s enough. You can go.”

  But he doesn’t move a muscle, the way I would. “Before I go, I have a real question for you.”

  “What’s that, Mr. Blackrow?”

  “I was wondering why, for a guy your age, you keep looking at the female students the way you do.”

  Yeah, he’s shocked me, like an exploding Bunsen burner would shock me. You expect to see fire, but not this much fire.

  “I could get you expelled,” I say. “Suspended, at least.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He doesn’t frown, or smile. “I know who your father is.” Then he leaves.

  And that little bastard has brought me to tears.

  We say Frankenstein when we’re referring to the monster, but Frankenstein’s the scientist. These things happen. We look at the created long enough and can’t help but mistake it for the creator. For the Father.

  For Mr. Johnson Senior, Education Expert Extraordinaire.

  So, as Mr. Johnson Junior, I end up with my own office and my own desk and my own sense of self-importance, because, as you know, I’m there writing lesson plans for Englis
h teachers everywhere. Writers may think their words are important, but I’m the one who decides what those words mean. Whose words are worthy.

  I’m a literati god.

  Then why aren’t I happy as an endorphin-pumped clam?

  My hand answers by making like a tarantula and fangs one of the Pax pills rolling around my desk drawer. I eat the kill.

  Hillary, my girlfriend, tells me that I’m blessed. That’s the word she uses. I’m blessed to have this life of mine with a shit-load-paying job, and a hot girlfriend (she doesn’t say this, but it’s assumed), and a father who can get me this shit-load-paying job, and, consequently, a hot girlfriend. But to me, it seems like cheating. And I’m a cheater. I’m a cheater who knows he’s a cheater and does nothing about the cheating.

  I tell myself that Hillary’s insistence on the word blessing is one of the reasons I don’t love her anymore.

  “Mr. Johnson,” my secretary says. “Your noon appointment is here to see you.”

  Great. I love talking to appointments. “Send him in.”

  This man enters, who I don’t recognize, but who says, “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Johnson.”

  “Good to see you too.” My pupils bounce. “Mr. Greenfield. Now what can I do for you?”

  “Actually, the question is, what can I do for you?” His smile tightens. “I’m with the State School Board, and I’d like to hire you as—”

  “Mr. Greenfield, I only recently started this job.”

  “And we at the Board feel your talents are being wasted here. Your new salary—”

  “I’m flattered by the offer, but I’m just now getting settled. I’d like to stay here for a while.”

  His smile loosens, as if a puppeteer released a string. “Sleep on it. I hope you’ll reconsider. We’d be blessed with you on our team.”

  And that’s all they want, really. Me on their team. My name on their roster. This is a competition we’re talking about after all. They wouldn’t be blessed. They’d win games.

  I tell myself that Hillary’s insistence on the word blessing is one of the reasons I don’t love her anymore, because I don’t want to admit that I never did.

  Another Pax rolls down my throat.

  Pax means peace. It doesn’t make you feel any more alive. Remember, the dead are peaceful.

  Thirty-five is a good number. Not too young that I won’t appreciate the experience and not too old that I won’t fall on my ass and get hauled off to some hospital bed. So it’s decided.

  Thirty-five.

  The truth, though, my thirty-fifth birthday’s in two days, and I can’t wait anymore.

  I need a vacation.

  The Vacation.

  “Oh my god, I’m gonna miss you.” Hill wraps her legs around my waist and locks me with her shoes—those oversized clown shoes (“but they’re not for clowns,” she insists) popular among all the women her age. Girls. She’s twenty-one.

  “I’ll miss you too,” and I’m not lying.

  “You have to do everything,” she says, still trapping me on the side of the bed. “Even if you don’t think you want to do it, you have to. I did everything and it was great.” You see, Hillary went on her Vacation when she turned eighteen, the exact moment she was legally allowed to make that decision.

  “I’ll do as much as I can.”

  “Everything.” She releases me finally, but this free man has nowhere else to go. “I’m, um, not quite sure how to say this,” she says. “But…this is your year. If there’s anything you want to do with…anybody, you should be able to do it. I won’t be mad.” And it’s fairly certain to me that she’s not so much giving me permission, as herself.

  I don’t care.

  “I love you, Bern,” she says.

  “I love you too.” Now I’m lying.

  The Vacation means different things to different people. To some, it’s a chance to learn about other cultures. To have sex with exotic people. To have a more platonic adventure. To make memories that will last a lifetime. To me, it’s all about having a year to myself. A year for that stranger I should care about at least as much as my so-called friends.

  Inside my assigned changing cubicle, I do the obvious.

  Change.

  The way all tourists change.

  We change our clothes. Our hair, perhaps. We might start wearing hats, and ordinarily we hate hats. We change our shaving habits, eating habits, sleeping habits. We even change our attitude.

  We do all this because we know that where we’re going, we don’t belong.

  The Tourist belongs. We slip on our travel gear and metamorphose into the justified voyeur. Even the leaves on the trees become precious as the line between mundane and exotic disappears, like the imaginary line between two reunified countries. We’re grown up toddlers, exploring the world again for the first time, over and over and over, because every day is a new birth, which means death is the farthest thing from our happy-go-lucky psyche.

  At least, standing there naked with four naked Mr. Johnsons surrounding me, that’s what I’m hoping.

  After a minute, I’m outside in the Waiting Room, with all my fellow walking advertisements. Me, I’m Pepsi all over. Pumpkin head in front of me, he’s Macintosh. The woman with black hair and a nice ass. She’s a Pax whore.

  This will all change, of course. A new day means new government-issued clothes. Tomorrow I’ll be the Pax whore, even more than I already am.

  The woman with the nice ass turns around. She looks at me like I’m a ghost. A ghost of someone she used to know and wished dead a few times but then felt a little guilty when I did pass away. A little.

  “Mr. Johnson?” she says.

  “Yes?” I meet her eyes, and she doesn’t look away, the way I would.

  She’s familiar. If she were music, she’d be a song you start humming out of nowhere.

  And usually when you do recall the song’s origin—if you do—it’s no big deal. No relevant revelation. Oh yeah, you say, it’s that so-&-so band I used to listen to. I had shitty taste in music back then. Or, oh yeah, telejingle. Every once in a while, though, you say, Holy Jesus, my mom used to sing me that song when I was a kid. Or, god damn, I wrote that song for my first love.

  Or, the woman says, “It’s me, Mr. Johnson. Marvin Blackrow.”

  Part 2

  Yeah, Marvin’s shocked me, like a nipple slip at an award show would shock me. You expect to see skin, but not this much skin.

  I say, “You’re…”

  “A woman. Yeah. Since two years ago. Biologically, since two years ago.”

  “Well…” My vocabulary plays dead.

  “It’s a strange coincidence, don’t you think?” She picks at the smiley Pax clam on her chest, but it doesn’t frown. “You and I, choosing Vacation the same year.”

  “It is.” I look at my watch, even though there’s a clock on the wall right in front of me.

  “What Tour number are you?” she asks.

  “Three.”

  “Me too.”

  “That’s…” and I can’t think of anything else to say but, “good.”

  I’m waiting in the Waiting Room, like I changed in the Changing Room, pretending to read a book, and I tell myself Aubrey’s the reason I started collecting gold.

  Aubrey. Au.

  Dad, if you still don’t understand, get mom to explain it to you. She’s the scientist.

  Before Vacation, you can’t go to the world, so you bring the world to you. My microcosm glimmers in the theoretical guest room of my home-bitter-sweet-home with an invisible unwelcome mat guarding the doorway.

  Once, when I first start dating Hill, I let her in. And she stands there, mouth a big O like some cartoon character while thousands of golden Hillaries gape back at her, in coins, bars, jewelry, pottery, furniture—and she falls in love.

  “You Argonaut you,” she says.

  Literary—I like that.

  So we make love on the golden fleece.

  Years ago, this collection (whic
h is a nice way of saying obsession) of mine starts out innocently enough. I become aware that the price of gold is being suppressed, and that as soon as this suppression bursts, the market will climax. At that point, I’ll dump all this booty on the rest of the world, simply to make more money that I don’t need.

  That’s my initial plan anyway.

  You start out by purchasing plain gold bars. But then you learn that for virtually the same price you can buy coins. And not just coins from your own country. You look at the various designs—the zodiacs, the panda hugging that last piece of bamboo with his dear life, tsars and emperors, kings and queens, leaders and politicians (sometimes mutually exclusive)—and you feel connected to the world. Things escalate. Before you know it, hours die at the hand of online auctions, where you’re duking it out with Hercules for a brooch shaped like a fly, or a 500 year old cane, or a bracteate of Odin, or an Egyptian mummy ring, or an Incan plate that somehow survived the Conquistadors, or a cauldron decorated with Celtic figures designed by some Nazi wacko who happened to like mythology, or, or, or. And it’s all gold. All the time. And for all the diversity in my golden world, in my golden room, it takes a backseat (or gets kicked out of the moving car, where it tumbles down the road until it hits a mailbox) to the sameness of it all.

  Whether or not I’ll sell out during the economic orgasm, your golden child doesn’t know.

  I tell myself Aubrey’s the reason I started collecting gold, because I don’t visit her grave anymore.

  “This is it, folks. The beginning of the best year of your lives! They make me say that.” We laugh like schoolgirls. “My job—according to the job description—is to show you the world and impart my knowledge on said world. And boy howdy, they’ve pumped me with so many useless facts, I don’t know where I keep it all. Seriously though. I’ll do my darndest to stay out of your way and let the good times roll. Because, honestly, I’m no fun. I’m downright boring.” This is Jack, our Guide. As his name suggests, he’s what you’d consider an everyman, and therefore not like any man you’ve ever met. You want to be his friend. You want him to like you. And more than anything, after Vacation you never want to see him again.