Zachary Karabashliev - 18% Gray

Under the principle of backward time, everything has already happened.

*

America is still one of the few places in the world where a person can make a decent living with honest work and perseverance. I did it otherwise. Here is what happened. After the choking incident, Ken and Linda became more frequent visitors to the bar. Something like a friendship started to form between us. And while she was still reserved, or maybe embarrassed by the episode, Ken stared at everything I said with his blue eyes wide open and a smile ready to glide toward his old-fashioned sideburns at any moment. When I talked to him, he had the annoying habit of moving his lips, as if he were listening to me with them.

One evening, Ken showed up earlier than usual, looking nervous and excited. Linda arrived at the regular time and they withdrew to their table in the corner. Ken never stopped glancing at me, as if he were afraid I might leave. Then they left. I was surprised later to see him entering the bar just before closing time. He said he had something important to tell me. The information he wanted to share with me was “extremely important.” I kept on doing what I was doing — closing the bar and listening to him inattentively. Ken was the chief buyer for an upholstery-producing factory, how important could that be? It was a small business, quite conservative. The son of the owner had just taken over the company and had been promising serious changes. No one, however, expected them to be this serious, said Ken, signaling to me to come closer and listen carefully. As far as I knew, Ken didn’t drink, which made this otherwise inebriated gesture somehow significant. I leaned over the bar.

“Don Simons,” whispered Ken, “the new boss, has signed a contract with Honda.” I didn’t know what to say, so I shrugged.

“Well, good.”

“For supplying the interior upholstery of the new cars made here for the American market.”

“So?”

“Don signed the contract for the new model, which means that we have to increase our production by at least five hundred percent. He doesn’t have that much capital. That’s why he’s selling the business to an investment company in Cleveland.”

“What do you mean, selling it?”

“I mean, selling it — with all its assets.”

“What about you? What about the workers?”

“Listen. Only a few people know this, believe me, only a few. You don’t need to know how I know it. What you need to do tomorrow is go to the closest stock exchange, or do it over the Internet. Now. . listen to me carefully. The investor company is called INSTALLMATIC. Buy as much stock in INSTALLMATIC as you can. Their index is. . get something to write with. . their index on the New York Stock Exchange is JPI. You got it? JPI. So right now, their stock is selling at about four dollars a share. The day after tomorrow they will be worth at least three hundred percent more. At least. Zack, you understand? Do this. Do it for yourself and your wife.”

“And how about you?” I ask. “Are you gonna do it?”

“No, I can’t. If they catch me, I’ll go to jail. This is no joke.” I start wiping the counter for a while.

“Ken,” I say. “I have a better idea. I’ll scrape together some money, but I don’t have a lot. If you lend me some, I’ll buy stocks for you, then we’ll share the profit.”

“Three hundred percent, Zack. I’m telling you.”

After closing the bar, I went home and spent a sleepless night. Without telling Stella, I gathered up everything we had in the bank. I pawned the car and the few valuables we owned. Before noon I had eleven thousand dollars, with which I bought shares of INSTALLMATIC. I borrowed twenty more from Ken, bought more shares and started waiting. The next day, Don Simons announced the sale of his company. The shares went up. Not by the predicted three hundred percent. Five hundred.

Two days later I sold the shares, walked into the photo store on High Street and bought all the photo equipment I needed. And for Stella, I bought the biggest easel from the art store. I went home and told her everything. That night, we went to a fancy restaurant, we ate the most expensive steaks, drank expensive wine, expensive cognac, and champagne as the city lights sparkled in the quiet waters of the Ohio River. We went home late, staggering and undressing each other up the stairs. We made love slowly and passionately, falling asleep embracing, woke up, and made love again. We were winners. It was delicious.

*

— aren’t you sometimes afraid that this will remain here between us? all of these words, thoughts, silences. . all this will remain unshared?

— is that why you’re taking pictures of me?

— maybe

— no, i’m not afraid.

*

I catch up with a red pick-up truck. In its bed, two plastic black and white bags, whipped by the wind and speed, violently beat the crap out of each other. After a few moments of combat, one prevails and the other flies out and sticks to my windshield, right under the left wiper blade. I turn on the wipers to shoo away the intruder and switch on the radio, hoping to distract myself from my thoughts. I search the stations and I pause at a country song, “pray, pray, pray” sings the man, lamenting over his nights without his beloved woman. I step on the gas so I can pass the red pick-up. Just a second before I leave it behind, I notice the weathered bumper sticker that reads PRAY. What is this? Yet another coincidence? Or yet more proof that everything is just a set up. Why did I have to listen to country, a style I never liked, and what are the odds of hearing and seeing the same word at the same time in the middle of the desert? Do these coincidences play into the backward time I was thinking about before I caught up with the red pick-up? Is it possible that this synchronicity is another reminder (like confusing déjà vu ) that I don’t think straight? What is straight, anyway?

I take the exit toward a small town. I need to eat something. At the second light, the street narrows — one of the lanes is under construction and some pipes jut out of the asphalt. I drive slowly past sign that reads MEN AT WORK. Then I see the men at work. My eyes are drawn to one guy, who is ferociously beating the asphalt with a sledgehammer. I’d like to be a worker now, too; with a sledgehammer and an orange helmet; with a sweaty, once-white T-shirt and jeans worn out in the crotch. I want to take a hammer and beat the earth with it until it cracks open and I find Stella. Then I won’t mess up my head with theories anymore.

On the desolate, squalid town square I spot a Mexican cantina and pull up in front of it. Fans, hanging from the ceiling. turn in the air slowly, a boom-box plays corridos , and the smell of burned grease fills the room. A customer in a plaid shirt and suspenders, with a mustache and a white sombrero, sits under a faded, fly-specked Frida reproduction and eats a fat burrito. Two chubby kids with backpacks lean over quesadillas and drink from a Fanta bottle with two straws. Behind the counter, a dark Mexican smiles at me, his hair bluish-black like a crow’s feathers.

“A-a-a-a, señor, cómo estás?”

“Nada,” I reply and start reading the chalk-written menu above his head. I don’t feel like talking to Mexicans right now.

“No, no, no, no, no-o-o-o-o, amigo. Cómo estás mean How are joo. You don’ say nada . Nada mean nothing . OK? You gotta say, Muy bien, gracias! Y tú? Da means, a-a-a, I am well. How about joo? When joo say nada , joo say nothing . OK, now again: Amigo, cómo estás?”