Jeff Strand - Dweller

He looked at the letter again, as if the message might have changed.

“-doesn’t meet our present needs. We wish you the best of luck with Mom amp; Runts, and if you create other projects in the future, please feel free to send them.”

They’d put the wrong letter in his envelope.

Holy shit.

He quickly hurried into the kitchen and picked up the telephone. He dialed the number on the letterhead and chewed on his fingernails-a habit he just now acquired-while he waited for the receptionist to put him through to the secretary who could answer his question.

The secretary’s intern answered, and apologetically explained that the secretary had left early today and that he wasn’t sure how to research the issue, but that she’d be back tomorrow-no, wait, she’d be back the day after tomorrow, and if Toby called then, she’d happily answer his question.

Toby led Owen a few miles into the forest, and his friend joined him in several minutes of the loudest frustrated bellowing that Toby had ever engaged in.

He felt better when they were done.

The secretary apologized-she had indeed put the wrong letter in Toby’s envelope, and his letter had gone to the creator of Mom amp; Runts.

Toby’s letter was also a rejection, but without the offer to review future projects.

Toby ‘n’ Owen, a wacky strip about two aliens stranded on Earth, fared no better.

“You believe in me, right?”

Yes.

When Toby checked the mail, there was a self-addressed stamped envelope inside.

The Blender, a small-press magazine, had bought one of his comic strips for five bucks.

He practically danced the entire way to Owen’s shelter.

1985. 40 years old.

The woman in turquoise, who said her name was Sarah Habley, looked at the linoleum floor and shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she spoke. “It’s been almost four years, and I still cry at weird times, just out of nowhere. I feel like I should be over it by now. Not missing him, but crying over him like that. And that part I can deal with, I guess, but sometimes I can only remember him the way he was at the end, not the way he used to be. I can look right at our wedding pictures and still only remember those last few months.”

She didn’t cry now, though she held a Kleenex and twisted it between her fingers. “Tom was able to joke about it. ‘I’ve got stomach cancer? Gee, I guess I shouldn’t have eaten so much cancer.’ If he knew that I was still crying and dwelling on the bad times, he’d be devastated. That’s all I have to say, I guess. I’m glad to be here.”

The other people in the circle nodded sympathetically. The leader, a middle-aged man, looked at Toby and gave him a kind smile. “Your turn.”

“Oh, I pass.”

“At least tell us your name.”

“Toby.”

“And, Toby, how long were you married?”

“I wasn’t. I-I’m in the wrong room. I came for the artists’ meeting.”

“That’s in 301.”

“Yeah, I think my flier had the wrong number. I just thought it would be kind of-you know, terrible to walk out on people sharing cancer stories. I’m sorry. Please skip me.”

The leader gave him a very strange look. “Uh, you don’t have to stay.”

“I’m fine.” The only way Toby thought he could feel more awkward was to get up and have all of these people watch him sheepishly slink toward the door. He’d actually figured out that he was in the wrong room before the group had started speaking, but he’d been transfixed by Sarah, who’d seemed to be silently trying to talk herself out of bolting for the exit.

When he got called on, he momentarily considered making up a story about how his wife died of cancer, just to avoid admitting that he was in the wrong room. But if he were found out, then they’d think he was the kind of sicko who got his cheap thrills by attending meetings of people whose spouses succumbed to cancer and pretending to be one of them, which was a pretty bizarre thing to do.

The leader mercifully moved on to the next person. Toby sat there for the rest of the meeting, trying not to fidget and trying not to stare.

He thought maybe he was in love with her.

He wouldn’t share this information with her, of course. There weren’t many better ways to terminate a potential romance than by walking up to her and saying, “I think I’m in love with you.” Just feeling that way probably made him kind of creepy.

Still, he’d never seen anybody who captivated him in quite that way. Was it her sadness? He didn’t think so. He could walk into any bar and see a lot of sad women.

Toby sat there for the rest of the meeting, trying to listen in a caring manner to the other participants. The stories were even more depressing than he would have expected, given the subject matter, and more than once he had to wipe away an embarrassed tear.

“Okay, we’ll see you next week,” said the leader. “Thank you all for coming.”

Everybody stood up. Toby had to go over and talk to her. He just had to. This was unquestionably one of those “do this, or regret it for the rest of your life” moments. As she slung her purse over her shoulder, he walked across the room and offered up a feeble smile.

“Hi,” he said.

Sarah looked wary. “Hi.”

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. You know, about what happened to your husband.”

“Oh. Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“I’m not trying to hit on you,” he clarified. “This would be the most inappropriate place ever for that kind of thing.”

“I appreciate that, too.” She smiled, just a bit. “The funeral would probably be worse, though.”

“Yeah.”

Say something better than “Yeah,” moron! Be witty! Be charming! Be clever!

Toby said nothing else.

“So you’re an artist?”

“Yeah. I apologize for being a dumb-ass and disrupting your meeting. I’m a dumb-ass a lot, but not usually at quite this level.”

Don’t talk about being a dumb-ass!

“It’s okay.”

“Good.”

“I need to get going. Best of luck with your art.”

“Thanks.”

There was no possible way to justify continuing the conversation further, and so Toby let her go.

“Philosophical question,” said Toby, reclining in the beanbag he’d dragged out to Owen’s shack. Owen had made a big slit down the side, but it was still usable for now. “What do you think is a worse way to die? Cancer, or being devoured by somebody like you?”

He broke his Slim Jim in half and tossed a piece to Owen, who caught it in his mouth.

“I’m going to go with cancer. In fact, I would say any kind of cancer. No offense, I’m sure your jaws hurt like hell, but it can’t possibly compare to a slow, lingering death.”

Owen did not seem to have taken offense.

“It’s hard for me to even conceive of what she went through. I mean, I haven’t seen pictures of the guy, I never got to meet him, I don’t even know what color his hair is, but it just seems like an unimaginably awful way to go. How do you deal with somebody you love dying that way? With you, it’s just gobble, gobble, gobble and it’s over.”

He nibbled the Slim Jim and then tossed the rest of it to Owen.

“And it’s not the whole ‘her husband died of cancer’ thing that fascinates me about her. The whole room was filled with people whose husbands and wives died like that. I dunno, I just looked at her and…it’s hard to explain, but you know what I mean, right? Are you getting tired of hearing me talk about her?”

The next Saturday at 1:00 P.M., Toby sat at home in his living room, extremely aware that the meeting had just started. The support meeting was weekly. The artists’ meeting was monthly. He had no legitimate reason to be in that building.