By David Lusk

I was full of that uncanny sensation you get after a nap on a late Sunday afternoon, when you wake to darkness giving way to light, and you think for a moment that it is Monday morning and you’ve overslept for some important engagement. This was combined with the sensation of waking to a room and a situation where you know you don’t belong.

When I awoke, I found myself in a strange room full of dust and silence. There was a roll top desk and a wooden chair in one corner of the room, piled with papers. Some type of dim lighting played across the space. It took a moment before I realized that the source of this illumination was a gas light; shadows leapt upon the walls with my smallest movement. The walls themselves were covered in dark wood paneling on one side, and wallpaper of a baroque design on the other. The furnishings did not seem aged, but the feeling of the room was antique.

As my mind started to clear, I began to sit up and heard springs creak underneath me. I was on a brass bed with all the linens turned up underneath me. I felt the softness of a down pillow and the richness of a thick coverlet. None of the furnishings were mine; this was not my space at all. Then, from an obscured end of the room, I heard someone clear their throat.

I realized then that I was not alone. Across the way, hidden in shadows, the figure of a man sat on a type of sofa by a darkened window; the silhouette of his head turned not toward me but toward the street below. In a sonorous tone that sounded somehow distant, he spoke.

“Hello, Bill. I expect you’ve had some rough shakes.”

The voice made little attempt at modulation, though it implied a tone of sympathy. The figure made no movement toward me, and, rapidly alert, I was watchful for any sudden movements. This stranger in the room also did not belong, and he called me by a name other than my own.

“I’m not Bill…and who are you?” I sat up fully now, trying to shake the cobwebs from my head.

“I call all my friends Bill; I hope we can be friends,” the voice spoke sadly. “No offense intended. What’s your name, pard?”

“My name is David,” I said with some hesitation. “Where is this place, and how did I get here? And who are you?”

There was a soft low chuckle in reply, full of sadness and joy, but no malevolence. Somehow against all instinct, this was my beginning of trust for the stranger. As if somehow I knew him already.

“Those are questions and inquiries with a lot of answers,” the man in the shadows began, “but I’ll lasso ‘em if you’ll give me permission, and time, for my elocutions.”

I noticed that the man’s vocabulary was superb, but his language and syntax were as archaic and antique as the roll-top desk in the corner. I felt a pack of cigarettes in my pocket and saw something that looked like an ashtray near the bed on which I sat.

“Mind if I smoke while you tell me?”

“Suit yourself. And help yourself to the libations,” the figure gestured to a cabinet on my side of the roll-top desk; it looked something like a modern day mini-bar, but the design and craftsmanship were of some other ornate era.

“Whiskey and water we have a plenty, and you may find other accommodations as suits your taste; but I disremember exactly the inventory.”

I lit the cigarette in my mouth and watched as the coal flared up on the end. It was a bad habit I needed to quit; I didn’t need to add to it with drinking. But I remembered my manners for a moment.

“Thank you, no; perhaps later. However, if you would care to enlighten me about my situation, please continue.” I found myself somehow nearing an approximation of his pattern of language in my reply; I didn’t know where that came from or why. But it didn’t strike him as odd; or if it did he made no mention of the fact. Instead he cleared his throat and spoke from his shadowy perch.

“You asked ‘where is this place?’ That is more than I know, and I have pondered the question myself, many times. It seems as much like my apartment in that bright and dirty town of four millions as like to any other place I ever was; but there is no exit, no friends come to call, and I have no means of telephoning.”

At this I glanced at the walls of this place and realized, for the first time, that there was no door. My nervousness, in spite of my initial trust, began to return. The shadowy man continued.

“I glance outside these windows and I see the carriages and the horses and the people I knew and loved - those teeming millions of the city. But they seem shadows of themselves, as though seen through a stereoscope or a magic-lantern picture show. I call to the street but no one answers hello.”

“So, you’re telling me you don’t know where we are?”

“I am telling you, Bill, that this is the damndest sight I’ve ever seen. It looks like my place, my town, my New York; but it is not.” He finished with what seemed to be a sigh. “I wish I could tell you more. I’ve been known as a good judge of a man’s character, and you seem to deserve better than my poor explanations. But I am as mystified as you are, sir. My apologies; looks like the house wins.”

I resisted an immediate impulse to explore the room, to find some hidden door, to look out the darkened window where the stranger sat in shadows. I forced myself instead to sit and listen. It seemed that the shadowy figure had a tale to tell, and I waited for it to unspool.

“You asked me also how you got here to this place, and I am unsure of that as well. I have been here myself for time that stretches on into time, and I wonder if it is some purgatory I’ve been condemned to haunt for my many sins. If there is an answer to our equation, to our mystery as to why you are here, perhaps it lies with you.”

“Me? What do I have to do with anything?”

“How should I know?” the man in the shadows laughed. “What do you have to do with anything indeed? Perhaps you’re a restaurateur come to collect his bill, or maybe you’re a young man in love with the unrequited, or maybe you’re fresh from some eastern school full of naiveté and idealism ready to be crushed by the realities of the world. How should I know?” he repeated. “Though by the looks of you, I’d reckon you more for a westerner. Something on the order of a cowpuncher; I’ve never seen a shirt quite like that, but those denim trousers I recognize. Where’s your Stetson? Where are your boots and spurs and other accoutrements of the trade?”

I glanced at my clothing almost involuntarily. I was wearing a black cotton t-shirt, a pair of blue jeans, and an old pair of sneakers. I realized he’d essentially said that I looked like a cowboy because of my pants, but I was missing the rest of the uniform.

“No, I’m not a…cow-puncher,” I answered. “I’m a writer.”

“Ah,” he said, with slightly more enthusiasm in his voice than before. “What do you write then? What’s your line? I do a little piddling with the pen myself from time to time.”

I thought of my poor output as a writer and considered how best to answer. I’d written everything from essays to poetry, from short-fiction to a couple of attempted novels. I’d written a couple of plays. But almost the only thing I’d ever had published were articles and columns in newspapers.

“I guess you’d say I’m a journalist who aspires to write fiction. I’ve written some poetry and some other things too.”

“A rolling stone, like me. I knew I’d like you Bill. Have a drink if you like.”

His insistence on calling me Bill would have irritated me with almost anyone else; but, somehow, coming from this strange voice in this strange place from those strange shadows, it all seemed to be perfectly natural and comfortable and right. All of that was strange enough.

“Thank you, no; maybe later. You still haven’t told me who you are, sir.”

The figure in the shadows still made no effort to rise or to turn his gaze away from the window. I could see from his silhouette in profile that he continued to watch whatever was happening on the outside. He answered slowly and carefully when he did answer; I merely sat and listened and smoked my cigarette.

“Who am I? That’s a question many a man doesn’t bother to ask himself. People will say, ‘who’s that fellow?’ and the answer comes back, ‘That’s Sam.’ Or George, or Bill; as though someone’s name is the calling card that answers all questions, that satisfies all comers, and satisfies the man with the bill of fare himself,” he answered, with what I began to detect as a soft southern drawl effected by travel. The man in shadow continued.

“He’s likely to think of himself that he’s George, a banker, married to SallyMae Sue – she who was once the golden haired delight of all the young men of Eastaboga, Alabama, now the afterthought of the light in George’s eye and the lift in his step. George is father to three tow-headed urchins who occasionally caterwaul for candies and make life a miserable joy. He winds his watch every day at three and gets up every morning at six without fail because that’s what George does. He carries a black umbrella on rainy days and wears a bowler on days when it don’t. He finds himself having a drink a little more oftener than he should, perhaps, but that’s alright, that’s just George.” Here he paused, and for the first time, I broke in on his train of thought.

“That’s great for George, but it doesn’t tell me who you are,” I said, as patiently as possible.

“That’s true. Who I am now is open to debate. Who I was might be too, I suppose. I was a banker in my time - or a teller at least. I was married and I was a father of sorts. I’ve been on the trail and I’ve been in jail. I’ve been south, west, and east and I found that the money’s in the east. I took up writing here and there, and I made it pay.” Here there was another pause, and I saw him shake his silhouetted head.

“The damned money, that’s all it got to be about; writing for the damned money to pay the creditors and the collectors and your cousin’s sister’s brother. But when it was real, Bill? When it was true? That’s when you knew that the money didn’t make a damn,” here, he stopped to consider his words.

My cigarette had gone out during his speech. I lit another and simply said, “I think I will have that drink.”

“Help yourself, there in the little cabinet.”

I walked over to the cabinet, opened the door and found an unlabeled decanter of what appeared to be Scotch. I poured a very small amount into a glass, also from the cabinet, and glanced at the man in the shadows. I could see him no clearer from this angle; rather, the way the light played in his direction it seemed that he was almost insubstantial. As if he almost wasn’t there. He seemed to be a shade among shadows. But if I had any doubts, his voice came across the room again.

“Of course,” he began again, “that doesn’t tell you much about my habeas corpus or pedigree. Sydney’s the name, Dave. It’s a pleasure. I’d shake your hand, but I’d best keep my mean elevation on a level with the divan.”

“Alright, Sydney. Nice to meet you,” I said, “and it’s good to talk with another writer. But I’m still at a loss.”

“How’s that pard?”

“As to where we are.”

“Where we are? I reckon that depends on where you find yourself.”

I had nothing to add, so I sipped the Scotch; it was the smoothest I’d ever tasted. It didn’t burn at all. It occurred to me that I was in the strangest scenario of my life; apparently sealed in a room with no exits, with a man who appeared to prefer to observe from the shadows and converse. I fought the urge to seek a way out, once again; there seemed to be something more to learn from the conversation, something valuable to gain. Some inner voice told me: Listening is the way out. After a moment of silence, Sydney asked a strange question.

“At the risk of sounding rude…your shirt is odd, your haircut is unlike any I know of, and your shoes aren’t like any I’ve ever seen before. They even look futuristic somehow. I’d say that makes you something out of H.G. Wells, or maybe Mr. Mark Twain. You’re from some other time, or some other place, unless I miss my guess; call me Shamrock Jolnes. Are you a Connecticut Yankee come to point out the failings of my Court?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “At first, I thought this was a dream. Maybe it is, still. But whatever this is, it has to do with you and with me. The only thing I see we have in common is that we’re writers.”

“Not so, Bill. We’re both human beings. That’s what makes the whole world kin.”

“Well,” I answered, “what would I know that you’ve written, Sydney?”

“You wouldn’t know any of my literary aspersions by Sydney. I went by a nom-de-guerre, a pseudonym, an alias. The people out there,” he gestured toward the window, “would call me O.Henry. Maybe you’ve heard of me.”

At this, I almost dropped the empty glass I was holding and placed it slowly on a night stand next to the bed. I fumbled for another cigarette and lit it. I looked again at the man in the shadows, and he seemed even less substantial than before, as though he were vanishing slowly without a trace.

“Or maybe you haven’t heard of me,” he drawled. “Maybe in your time, or your place, they’ve forgotten me already.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of you,” I answered meekly. “I’ve read almost everything you ever wrote, so far as I know.”

“Really? I’m honored. I thought some of that truck would be lost to the ages.”

“Sydney…” I thought aloud. “Sydney Porter. O.Henry. Well I’ll be damned.”

“Let’s rethink our phraseology on that one, Bill,” he chuckled, “circumstances considered.”

Our phraseology? Damned? I wondered now if I was dealing with a spirit. O.Henry – Sydney Porter – had been dead since 1910 or thereabouts; at least, he had been dead in my time.

“I don’t know how to ask this, but…are you…” I left the thought hanging in the dusty air as the gaslight flickered on the wall.

“Am I…?”

“…are you…deceased? Where I’m from, you’ve been dead for many years.”

“I think I must be,” he answered, with a matter-of-factness that surprised me. “I remember going to the hospital. I told them I didn’t want to go home in the dark. They turned up the lights for me. But…I’m still not really home, am I?”

“I don’t know where you are,” I answered, with complete honesty. “I don’t know where we are. May I ask your feelings on…life after death?”

Sydney lowered his head; somehow I thought I detected a smile in the shape of his silhouetted face. He certainly had a smile in his tone, when he quietly answered in a fairly strange fashion:

“I once had a dog,

His name was Rover.

And when he died,

He died all over.”

As he recited the little poem, I could hear that smile in his voice and a bit of wistfulness as well. He continued. “I’ve been here for what seems like a long time, and I’ve had plenty of time to think. Maybe our souls are connected with memory, somehow, or with what we leave behind when we’re ‘dead all over.’ I’d begun to think that, just perhaps, this purgatory was tied to my literary life. That the critics were dismembering me in some analytical autopsy, or that I was being disremembered and somehow that has kept me here. Or the novel I never finished needed finishing. I’d sure like to be going on to see little Margaret, and the folks back home. I promised to take her fishing, but I never made it home. Do you think people have forgotten me Bill?”

“I don’t know how to say this, Mr. Porter…”

“Call me Sid.”

“…I’m afraid that you have been forgotten, by and large.”

“Oh?”

“When I was young, your stories were taught in schools everywhere. Everyone knew the story of “The Ransom of Red Chief.” Everyone had read, and loved, “The Gift of the Magi.” Your short stories were read and appreciated. Literary analysts examined their merit. Now…well…they don’t do that anymore. Your stories aren’t taught, and they seem to be rarely read. They recognized your genius at one point – one of our greatest honors for a short story writer is called the O.Henry Prize. It’s sort of the Pulitzer for short stories. But…you fell out of fashion, I’m afraid.” Here there was a pause.

“Like an ugly necktie left too long in the drawer…” he thought aloud. “I guess I thought the humanity I wrote about wouldn’t change much over time. I guess…”

“It’s not that human nature changed…” I struggled for an explanation.

“Then what did?”

“I…think…maybe you became a reminder of a past in America that many in Academia would prefer to forget. You grew up during and after the Civil War…whites wanted to keep blacks and other minorities down and ‘in their place’…where I come from, things are different now - for the most part. The races have equal standing under the law. All races.”

“Well…that’s…good! Good! But what has that got to do with my stories?”

“Some of your stories - too many for modern critics, perhaps - make references to other races in ways that a lot of modern readers find uncomfortable. You use words like ‘coon,’ and ‘red man…’ and others. Modern readers…don’t like that.”

“Oh,” this seemed to hit Sydney hard. He thought for some moments, and then answered slowly.

“That’s just the way people talked in my day. I thought nothing of it in terms of posterity or in terms of…hatefulness. Why, just have them look at my work! I’m for the little man every time!”

I nodded.

“I know. That’s true,” I said. “But I suppose you left too many people in my day with the impression that you were for the little man - as long as he was white.”

“Claptrap, criminal slander, and libel! I never did mean any such thing. Maybe I had a little fun at the expense of the Negro, or the Indian, but I had a little fun at the expense of the Irish and the Germans and everyone else as well! And poor people and rich people and men and women…because they’re all just people in the end. You asked before why we’re here, and I did not answer you. Why we’re here? I don’t know; I never pretended to know, but I think it has to have something to do with the human condition.”

“And that is?” I asked.

“Thatis generally hard, and harsh, and mean. The human condition, I mean. Take a look around. You won’t have to go far to see sickness and dying and death, greed and poverty and suffering, and for what? A few years of activity, a flurry, a whirligig of nonsense that no one understands beyond getting his next plate of beans. Pass the plate, Reverend, folks is hungry!”

He paused here, once more, and sighed. It seemed that this kind of discourse tired him. But when he resumed, he returned to his previous, softer, cadence.

“When you draw your character and make him come to life, the story doesn’t come from making him skip to your loo; it comes from having him open right up and speak for himself. He’s alive and he’s got something to say, and folks who hear it can tell a fair note from a foul; they know when it’s true, and so do you. And then…and then, when you can coax out a little fellow feeling from your reader, for this one, and that one, for someone they wouldn’t give a damn for before, why, that makes the whole world kin Bill. It makes the whole world kin.” He stopped and we both pondered his words for a time.

“You don’t have to sell me Mr. Porter. I think you’re one of the greatest writers in American literary history,” I offered. “But I’m afraid I’m in the minority now. Others just don’t remember.”

In the silence that we suffered next, at first there seemed nothing more to say. But then, an idea occurred to me.

“But I remember…I have read your wonderful tales. I can share them with other people. I can talk about them. I can write about them. That’s something, anyway.”

“But do you understand, Bill? Do you follow me? It’s not the answers; no, it’s the questions! The very same questions you asked me! That’s what I’m telling you Dave, those are the questions. They’re the only ones that matter, anyhow.”

“Questions?”

“Who am I? Where are we? Why are we here? Nobody knows, but everyone’s asking. Is there an answer? Maybe there’s a hint of an answer in those exceptions to what we call ‘the human condition.’ Those diamonds hidden in the hills that you stumble upon by chance, those bright flashes of sunlight; those keep us moving and going and caring for something. The shop-girl who is rescued by the millionaire? It happens, if not often enough. The pure laughter from recognizing the humanity we all share, when the boy turns out to be more than the kidnappers bargain for? The couple who want a divorce so badly, but then realize they can’t live without one another? The couple whose love for each other turns out to be stronger than their desire for worldly things? We’re a race of con-men and kidnappers and shop-girls and millionaires and what-not – a human race - but we also know that shining wonderful happiness called love! And those moments when we see ourselves as we are? Those moments are when we recognize a light and a love inside of us all.”

It seemed for a second that I could see his face in the shadows, as though he had become tangible for the briefest instant; then, he sank bank upon the divan.

“That’s what I have to tell them,” I said. “That’s what I’ll have to try and make them see. It’s not much, but…I guess it’s something.”

“That’s more than something. You’d do that, Bill?”

“I think I have to. Something is telling me to do it.”

“Well.” He said, hesitatingly. “Well. Yes, that’s more than something.”

Then, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, there was an indescribable and barely audible sound. We both turned to look as one wall of the apartment seemed to dissolve into a bright light. Radiance poured out, suffusing the room, driving the shadows from every corner, and finally I saw Sydney Porter – O.Henry – the man. He was astonished and as wide eyed with wonder as a child on Christmas morning.

“Well, if it ain’t the Gift of the Magi,” Porter whispered in awe. Finally, in that radiant glow, I could see his face. It was the face of a man who had lived too much, too hard, and too short. But in his face were traces of humor and joy. There was warmth radiating from that glowing light, but there too was warmth in Porter’s face. And he was listening to voices from beyond that light, calling him to come.

He stood up from his seat on the divan and faced the glowing doorway where the wall had been, and I could see hundreds, perhaps thousands of figures on the other side of the light. They were calling softly. I thought I even heard a girl’s voice calling, Daddy…

“Well Bill, it looks like this is the way out. Maybe a remembrance from you was that’s all that was needed. I think I hear the conductor calling, and I don’t want to miss this train.” He shook my hand; and, as wraithlike as he had seemed before, his handshake was a tangible thing.

“Good luck… pard,” I said, with a wistful smile.

I watched him step forward into that bright light, where welcoming figures gathered around. Against the brilliance of the light, the figures all looked like shadows; but I knew in my heart of hearts that there was nothing of darkness in them anymore. I watched as long as I could, and before the end I saw what could only have been the silhouette of a little girl reaching for Sydney Porter’s hand.

As they disappeared into the glow, I felt a longing to join them but knew somehow that this was impossible. Slowly, the brightness faded. For a brief moment in time, there was nothing but the darkness of the paneled wall again, the flickering gaslight reflecting on the decanter of Scotch and playing across the piles and piles of paper on the dusty roll-top desk. I returned to my seat on the big brass bed, hearing the creaking of the springs. Somewhere, outside the darkened window, I heard the clip-clop of horses’ hooves on pavement and the sound of carriage wheels turning and the voices of people milling; the teeming crowd of four million were preparing for another day in the big town.

Then, even this began to grow fainter and dissolve into a low morning light as the sounds began to fade.

I had that uncanny sensation you get after a nap on a late Sunday afternoon, when you wake to darkness giving way to light, and you think for a moment that it is Monday morning and you’ve overslept for some important engagement. I felt my head swim; and as it did and then cleared I found myself in my own room, sitting on my own bed.

There was an empty glass on my night stand, and two cigarette butts in the ashtray. Where the walls had been paneled and papered before, now there was sheetrock. Where before had stood a doorway of light, now were clothes on their hangers in the closet where the door stood ajar. And there, next to the clock radio, was a small hardbound volume.

I opened it to the cover page, and saw this, imprinted there:

THE WHIRILIGIG OF LIFE

By O. Henry.

*****

Copyright 2009 David Lusk