“I’m really sorry, honey, but your father has…your dad…honey it was a heart attack. He’s dead,” she said, “Joseph, honey? Are you still there?”

“Yes, mom, I’m sorry. I just…it just…took me…how did um…when…are you okay?” Joe stammered.

Image Credit: Benjamin Earwicker

“Yes, oh yes, I’ll survive,” her voice didn’t seem quite as sure as her head. “But, dear, Joseph, I need you at the funeral. He would have wanted you to be there. He has something for you.”

Joe slowed his breathing down, closing his eyes in the ritual he had adopted that had been successful in many incidents past. He calmed down and exhaled sharply.

“Okay,” he said, “Okay. I’ll be there.”

They said their goodbyes and he hung up the phone on the wall mount just outside the kitchen. His hand lingered on the receiver for well longer than it needed to. He realized this and took it off, placing it on his hip instead; his other hand was firmly against the wall. It wasn’t until he retracted it that noticed how much it had supported him.

It’s supposed to take some time to sink in, right? He thought. I’ve only known just now, aren’t I supposed to see the body before it hits? The moment he thought of this he knew he was wrong. Joe had prepared for his father’s death for many years now. He always thought that it was sort of morbid of him to think of it often, but he understood why he had. It took a long while but he had finally come to understand that there was some unfinished business between them. For the life of him, however, he didn’t know what that was.

Joe didn’t know where to begin. He tried to think back to when he had left this house last. Sure, he had ten acres and had to tend to it, but when exactly did he have to leave the premises? And pack a suitcase no less? There was the grocery trip. That ended in disaster. When was that?

Six years ago, he remembered. And it ended in disaster.

Before then, he just wasn’t sure. Perhaps when he bought the place. Joe yanked the dusty suitcase out from the back of the closet, taking several shoes and empty hangers with it. The final thrust and the momentum of the case brought him off balance and he ended up on a single knee. He let himself stay there a second. Then he slipped down on his butt and scooted over to the wall. He sat against it, both feet on the floor, his arms on his knees.

He’s dead. I can’t believe he’s dead. Joe thought. I was wrong, it hadn’t sunk in yet, not until now. He supported his forehead with his left hand, and slowly, so slowly, started to cry. He chuckled to himself, as again, he was at a lost as to when he last cried. I just can’t remember anything, can I?

Rocky hobbled into the bedroom slowly from the hallway. The poor dog was on his last legs. The beautiful white boxer sauntered over to his pillow near Joe’s bed and lied down. Eight or nine months ago he would have happily hopped up and slept at the end of the bed like he had for the last seven years. His hips just ached too much for that now. Painful as it was though, Rocky was never without a cheery disposition.

Joe turned off the light. The small glow from the wall-outlet lamp allowed him to make it to the bed without any trouble. Before he slipped under the covers, he bent over and stroked Rocky’s back and kissed him on his head. Then, he eased onto the mattress as though there was someone there he wished not to wake. Unfortunately, Joe could never get that close, had never gotten that close to anyone. How he longed for it now.

Joe lied on his side and stared at the red digital display of the alarm clock on the night table. He recited his favorite poem over and over again in his head:

“Like me,” he said aloud. He turned over again and shut his eyes. He held his blanket close to his chest and for the second time that day, he wept.

Joe loved the internet. All of the difficulty of shopping that had frozen him in anxiety was easy to manage now. He never actually had to leave the property anymore. He paid his bills, participated in society, and could complete all of his work now through the computer. Joe was thankful to have such a fantastic tool at his disposal. However he was not sure if its presence was a Godsend or a detriment. Is it good for allowing me a semblance of a normal life? Or is it evil by keeping me from having one?

Joe had debated this often with himself. But he shook off the discussion because it no longer mattered. Joe was using the internet to get out of the house for a change, and not to keep him perfectly tucked away inside the belly of his metaphorical beast.

It didn’t take him long to determine the best mode of travel. Airplanes were out of the question. There were all too many people in a crowded, cramped space 30,000 feet from any path of escape. Then there are the airport terminals, which are even more crowded than the planes and also have no way out. Yet, the length of stay could be indeterminate on a bad day in one of those. Joe didn’t have to be a seasoned traveler to know that.

Buses were about the same as planes. Only the trip was longer and presumably smellier. He wasn’t sure of it, but he suspected it was so, and his suspicion was enough for him to stay away. Joe hadn’t renewed his license for years, so driving was not an option. He wasn’t even sure that his car would start. It had sat in the garage for quite a long time now without any kind of maintenance. He never sold it on the off chance that he would sometime have the courage enough to drive it. Yet the mere thought of encountering any type of traffic, stuck between stationary cars, kept him from doing so. What if he had an attack? How would he get out? No, it was best to avoid it altogether.

Joe rather easily accepted that he would travel by train. For one thing, he was able to secure a compartment for himself. It was not big but better than either a plane or bus. Also, he could catch a regional station that would pass through the hub, and never actually have to wait in the main terminal.

His finger hovered above the mouse for just a little bit. This was really the point of no return. If he clicked, he would leave. If he did nothing, he would stay. Joe looked at the image of the train in the upper right-hand corner of the web page. It reminded him of the first time he rode one.

They had taken the short ride to a baseball tournament in Springfield, just him and his dad. Joe was well above average on the diamond. Small as he was, he still filled the three or four spot on the line-up. He never hit the ball out of the park, but that was only a matter of feet. Sure, he always wanted to hit the homer, but he always had plenty of bases. Joe had power, but his real gift was in control. Joe could hit the ball wherever he wanted just about anytime.

There was one such occasion when his team was tied with their opponent in the last inning of the game and Joe was up to bat. He had doubled every time up before in the game and pulled the ball to left field each time. The opposing coach recognized this and pulled the first-baseman off the foul line a bit and brought the second-baseman over near the shortstop. The centerfielder moved over towards left as well effectively eliminating any place to drop the ball in. Joe saw all of this of course, everyone did. So, he decided to put the ball in the gap in right-center, behind where the second-baseman should be. This was much easier said than done, but the pitcher helped him accomplish this by throwing the ball away from him. Joe simply stepped toward it and drove the ball to the big open space in right. Joe’s team won the game.

The tournament in Springfield didn’t see such heroics however. The second game of pool play proved difficult for Joe. The opposing pitcher threw harder than any he had ever been up against and Joe was nervous. The first time up, Joe took the first pitch. On the second pitch, he pulled it to left and it landed far, far away, but foul. He felt pretty good about this, and even though there were two strikes on him, he thought he had a good bead on the pitcher. The pitcher hurled the next one, but it was too close. It was coming too fast. Joe turned a hair too late and the ball caught him on the bottom lip.

Blood poured from his mouth. Home plate was painted red and Joe went down beside it in the batter’s box. After some recovery time, Joe was back in the dugout with a fat lip and an imprint of the stitches from the ball on his face. Luckily, the ball missed his teeth and it deflected enough to reduce the amount of force of impact. It could have been much, much worse.

Later in the day, Joe was well enough to play again. He was anxious his first time up to bat. He anticipated every pitch and either fouled them off or missed them completely. Three times in a row he struck out. The last time he struck out, he tossed his helmet hard on the ground near the bench. Joe’s dad came over and offered his suggestions again.

“You’re dipping your shoulder and stepping too early,” he said.

“I know, okay, just go away,” Joe was irritated.

“I’m just trying to help; you don’t need to be so dismissive,” Dad paused. “Just don’t turn your wrists so much…”

“God, Dad, enough already!” Joe yelled as he took off his batter’s gloves and threw them down.

“Well don’t expect me to help you out again!” Dad walked off.

Joe sat at the computer, recalling the scene. Was it that simple? Is THAT what kept us at arm’s length all these years? A stupid baseball game? Joe wondered. No. But it was symbolic of our relationship from that point on. How emotionally lame am I that this was a significant turning point for me?

Joe clicked the mouse and purchased the ticket.

The cab inched slowly on the long gravel drive. Joe sat on the front stoop with his duffle bag and suitcase on either side of him. As the cab came to a stop in front of him, Joe arose and clinched his luggage. The car’s trunk opened and Joe started towards it. The driver got out and offered to help. Joe waved him off and put them in himself. He closed the lid and opened the door to the backseat. He climbed inside without a thought. As the vehicle rolled away, Joe stared out of the window at his home. As they turned onto the pavement, past the mailbox, Joe couldn’t help but think: this is the farthest I’ve been from home in over six years.

Joe’s cab arrived at the train station. He swiped his card and exited the vehicle. With bags in hand, he walked onto the platform and found a secluded spot to wait. For the first several minutes he simply stood, waiting. After some time and a quick watch check later, he figured out that he was going to be waiting for a while.

The thought of this suddenly made him aware of the people around him. There weren’t many, but he couldn’t exactly excuse himself and take off. And how was he to take off anyway? He didn’t have a car and it would take a cab longer to get there than he had to wait for the train anyway. He had gotten himself in exactly the position he had always tried so hard to avoid. He was stuck.

Of course, this was his strategy all along. In planning the trip, he had deliberately averted thinking too far into the future. He had avoided anticipating all the little details that would eventually lead to the inevitable conclusion: not to go.

Joe felt his heart beat. His breath quickened. His forehead warmed. Still, he clutched his luggage, felt the weight of them in his shoulders. He first had to stop moving his head about. All of the new information his eyes provided overwhelmed him and he had to stop taking it in. He looked down at his shoes. He bent his knees and slowly rocked back and forth with his feet together.

Brown. Creased leather. They’re squeaking quietly. Did they always make this noise? No. I’ve barely worn them. Silent all these years. Finally making a statement, he thought.

Joe next controlled his breathing. In and out, in and out. Joe intentionally kept from letting gravity take hold of the bags in his arms. He wanted the blood to flow to his shoulders. His hands were sweating and shifting now under the strain. He continued with his breathing routine and allowed his perspective to grow beyond the tops of his shoes. Soon he was looking at both his shoes and the concrete around them. Then, he saw the blackened chewing gum on the ground. Next, he gently angled his gaze farther frontward and saw the yellow demarcation before the edge of the platform. His shoulders ached now. He could no longer hold the bags and he dropped them heavily beside him. Joe kept his arms close to his sides to recover. The pain had played its part in distracting his anxiety. Joe was calm again. The panic was gone.

The narrow aisle worried Joe. He purposely stayed at an even pace to not alert him to the potential danger he faced. I was smaller then, he thought. That’s why I remember it to be more spacious. He made it to the compartment assigned to him and slipped inside. He plopped down on the seat and dropped his bags. The train started to move and a smirk made its way to Joe’s lips. I can’t believe I’ve come this far.

Joe exited the small restroom while zipping his travel bag closed. He wiped his mouth clean of the toothpaste residue and continued down the small hallway. A good-looking female edged passed him.

“Excuse me,” she said.

“You’re fine,” Joe mumbled.

Joe looked back at her as she continued in the opposite direction. His face felt flushed with warmth. He became immediately concerned of an impending attack. It’s not panic, he realized, it’s lust. Joe was turned on by the woman. Aside from television and some questionable websites, Joe hadn’t seen a flesh-and-blood woman for a long time. He smiled, still staring at her exposed long, slender legs, all the way up to her cut-off shorts. He watched her perfect curvature meet her small waist…

“Do you have a problem?” She said.

Joe was jolted out of his stare.

“Sorry, I…uh…sorry,” Joe turned and ducked into his room quickly. The woman smiled and turned back to continue on her path.

Joe arrived at the train station in much the same way he departed; he felt all eyes on him. What’s he got for me? He wondered. It was the question that helped get him through it. It was the meaning of the entire expedition. He approached the curb, waiting for the cab to arrive. He carefully avoided the gaze of anyone nearby until the cab arrived. He held tight to his luggage until he was able to mercifully place them in the trunk of the car, relieving the pressure from his shoulders once again.

I really wish I could just drive myself. He thought. Then I wouldn’t be subject to the sticky, smelly seats of these cabs. Who knows who’s been in here and what they’ve done?

Joe brought along plenty of reading material to distract him during the ride. He purposefully avoided the windows and the scenery. Information was dangerous. If he was even slightly aware of what was going on outside it could throw him into a downward spiral of anticipation. Who was that person? What were they doing? What will they be doing? What could they do? And the most important of all: What could they do to him?

Joe’s insistence on scenario could wreak havoc on his nerves. He told himself over and over again that he must put his defensiveness aside. He must allow that he couldn’t control everything. But he knew that. It’s why he tried to limit the variables to control. It’s why he stayed away. Joe was beginning to consider, though, that even his variable control was illusory. For, hadn’t the world continued on in his absence? Sure, but that’s not the point of what why he had locked himself up all this time. He didn’t care about what went on in the world; he cared about what went on in his world.

Isn’t my family a part of my world? He pondered. And didn’t my Dad die anyway? Joe knew that it didn’t much matter. He had come to terms with the fact that his need for control had more to do with his own fears than anything else.

The ‘fear of fear’. The clever psychologist had said Joe remembered. What an asshole. But Joe knew he was right.

Joe entered the hotel lobby and he was unprepared for the swath of people inside. What did he do wrong? He was so careful in his planning. How was he to know that there would be a national girls softball tournament nearby? As he creeped towards the front desk, several adolescents ran past him, nearly running into him. Others were hopping and howling on the lobby furniture.

This place is a zoo, he thought.

Most were wet or in swimming gear indicating a pool was close and a party was going on. Joe made a mental note to stay away from the pool, if he actually knew where it was located. He’d have to ask the desk clerk when he showed up.

Where is he? Joe wondered. Joe started to worry. The noise was too much. There was just too much happening; his brain was overloaded with information. Joe looked behind the desk, searching for the clerk. He turned his head from side to side to make sure other kids wouldn’t run into him. This constant rapid movement of his head caused some mild disorientation. The differences in the levels of light depending on where he looked only made it worse. No matter what he did, it seemed like he couldn’t loosen his collar enough. Droplets of sweat tingled the skin on his forehead.

The clerk arrived at the desk and Joe checked in with little recollection of the actual process. Nothing around him sounded like it should have. Children’s laughs were distant and muffled. Feet plodding across the tile in the lobby were slow and erratic. Joe’s entire field of vision was angled slightly to the left and focused on the ground.

Pant legs, shoes, and hurried children came into his bouncing, sideways view every so often as he made his way to the elevator. His bags bounced wildly at his sides and he knew that his legs hurt from the impact but he didn’t care. Sweat clung his shirt close to his chest underneath his jacket.

The bell rung at the elevator and the door glided open. A few laughing patrons slid out as Joe hastily threw himself in. His palm smashed the close button furiously.

Joe awoke hours later sprawled out on his bed. He didn’t remember how he got from the cab to the room, but he was glad that it was over. He pushed himself off of the comforter and checked the door to insure that it was locked. It was.

By now, his habit for security was an unconscious process. No matter what happened to him, doors and windows all ended up closed, locked, and sometimes barricaded. During periods of prolonged stress, there were times when he would even attempt to permanently seal the doors with cellophane or other material. Joe reflected on those episodes and shook his head. A small relapse like today only paled in comparison to the past. Tomorrow, he would leave the room and try again. No matter what, he would make it to the funeral.

Joe was up early trying to fidget his old suit on properly. His memory was good, but not nearly enough to recall the last time he wore it. He was pleased to know that it fit well enough and that it remained in style. Men no doubt had designed the garments for that expressed reason.

Joe was not eager to emerge from his room and pass through the hotel. He wasn’t certain that he hadn’t completely embarrassed himself last night. He took a deep breath and left the room. His first instinct was to find his key-card in his pocket and touch it a bit. He realized that he was facing the door again and that his fingers were on the handle.

This battle between his body’s responses and his cognitive mind was fierce. His body had just about every advantage over him. It responded much quicker than he could calculate and even consider information with his mind. And the body’s natural responses always just felt right. Even if he was doing something that he knew was completely unreasonable, the urge to continue the behavior was almost always more powerful. It was truly a triumph to have come so far.

Just a little farther, he thought.

Joe eased through the hallway and into the elevator. Every step he took was as absolutely light as he could make it. The cab was waiting in the driveway when he finally moved past the front door. He opened the door to the back, cracked his knuckles and slipped inside.

The church parking lot was strangely desolate. There were a number of vehicles there, of course, but their tight grouping compared with the immensity of the lot made it appear nearly empty.

There were only a few people waiting in the foyer when he arrived. Joe was all too aware of every set of eyes on him. They knew what coming here had meant to Joe. Not to the Joe that he knew of himself, nobody really knew that Joe. Only his mother, and especially his father knew the real Joe, the free Joe. What everyone knew of Joe was of the body, the imprisoned and isolated Joe. He would tell himself that he was too weary to worry about that now, but it wasn’t the truth. His body and brain could always find the requisite energy to fret over the eyes of others.

Even now, he was stopped, unable or unwilling to go in. A woman passed in front of him and he got a glimpse of the center aisle between the pews and how it led up to a casket in front of the altar.

One foot followed the other and before he knew it, he strode down the aisle. Sweat was gushing from his hair and his vision slanted again and became blurry. Joe felt as though he couldn’t keep himself upright. The visitors in the pews couldn’t decide if they should stand or remain seated. Mostly everyone ended up somewhere in between, but paralyzed and planted all the same.

Joe continued down the aisle, resting his hand on the backs of the pews every so often. He did so as much to stay standing as he did to propel himself forward. He wiped his forehead. He took a step. He fell to his knees.

Someone gasped, but still, no one intervened. Joe pulled himself up too fast and ended on his butt. He flipped to his hands and knees and crawled, dizzy as he was, towards the casket. When he finally made it, he put his hand on its side. Joe was careful not to put any weight on it and instead pulled his body up to his feet. He only held the casket to keep the room from spinning out of control.

Joe tried hard to focus. He wiped his brow over and over again but just couldn’t keep it dry. But he realized that it wasn’t his sweat causing the torrent; it was his tears.

He stared down at the doll in the box that looked like his dad. The makeup was obvious however subtly placed. Had there been a clear plastic sheet on the top, you could have placed the set-up on a store shelf, Joe thought.

Joe couldn’t take his eyes off of his dad’s face and his tears would not stop. His mother came up behind and stroked his back softly and handed him a folded piece of paper. It was obviously older than a few days, but not ancient. Joe unfolded it.