He shuddered, felt something inside him well up, and when Harry opened his eyes again, he wasn’t in the retirement home anymore, he was back in the old living room. But better than that–he wasn’t old, either. No he was young again, like he’d been in the picture–strapping young factory worker in his early 30’s, newly married after the war to his old high school sweetheart, his best friend and strange love, Wilbur, standing beside him, and there, on the sofa, was his son. His only son, no more that five or six, just sitting there with a happy grin on his face, without a care in the entire world.
“There he is, Harry, your boy.” Was it Wilbur speaking? Was it Mr. Elroy? Harry was beginning to wonder if there was even a difference between them at all. “This is what I was talking about, Harry, when I mentioned my other projects. See, it wasn’t just you that I wanted–not that you wouldn’t have been…delicious on your own.”
Harry felt an odd clarity returning to him, and he could almost remember what had happened to him, what Mr. Elroy had done to him or whatever this thing was, if it was even human at all. He looked up at his friend from his memory, but it was… wrong. His teeth shouldn’t be that sharp, or his jaw that distended, looking over at his innocent little son like he was nothing more than a snack. Then, just as quickly as it had come over him, it passed, and it was just his best friend again beside him…but the lingering sense of unease persisted.
“Excuse me, for that, Harry,” Wilbur said, “I can get over excited before a meal, sometimes.”
“What…What the fuckin’ hell are you?” Harry asked, a quaver in his voice.
“Something very old, Harry, with a much longer memory than you can possibly understand,” Wilbur said, “But that has nothing to do with you and your son, now does it? See, I know how disappointed you are, seeing that your son has grown up and become just the sort of person you despise, no better than the managers at the factory, the ones who wouldn’t bother listening to the warnings from the union. No better than the mealy mouthed fuckers at the department of labor, denying your claims, or the fuckers at the bank, who took this house from you when you needed it most, those asshole doctors who took not just one, but two of your loves far more early than they ever deserved to go.”
None of what the thing was saying could possibly be true–Harry knew that, for the moment. But as he spoke, memories flooded into him, as real as anything he had ever truly experienced, and along with them came an anger. A deep, bitter resentment at everyone who had ruined his life. He’d had…such promise, and he’d lost it all to fate. He could have been somebody, if it wasn’t for the fuckers of the world like his son had somehow managed to become.
“But we can fix it, Harry, don’t you worry. We can make sure your boy grows up to be exactly the sort of man you can be proud of.”
Harry felt everything in the memory spring to life around him, looked over, and the look in his son’s eyes–it was awe. He was just staring at Harry, smoking his cigar, standing with his best friend, and it seemed to stretch for…so long, somehow, and then it was gone. They were back in the retirement center, but not everything was the same. No, now his son was sitting there, still in a suit, sadly, but now he was smoking a cigar, the same brand Harry always smoked, looking at his dad beside him with the same awe and thrill as he had in the memory. “Well, I hope you’re liking it here, dad. I only want the best for you, you know that,” Peter said, taking a draw off his cigar, adding his own smoke to his father’s in the air. “It seems like they’re treating you well, though.”
Harry didn’t know what to say. He just looked up at Mr. Elroy standing beside him…but what was he even supposed to think? The real him, the kid that was growing more and more distant with each passing moment, was horrified, and couldn’t bear the thought of this monster doing to his father what had been done to him. But this new person he was becoming, with all of these vivid memories…he was thrilled…and he wanted to see more. He wanted his boy to become exactly the kind of man he was, to lose…everything, and be swallowed up and spit back out again.
“I can assure you that your father is very much enjoying his place here, isn’t that right, Harry?”
Harry nodded, and cleared his throat, “Yeah, yeah, it ain’t…home, but it’s alright.”
They all chatted for a few minutes, and Harry couldn’t tear his eyes away from his son’s cigar. The boy had always been obsessed with them as a kid, he’d always thought that when he could smoke them, then he’d be a real man, just like his dad was. Fuck, the first time he’d caught him with one, he’d had to give him a spanking (Patricia had demanded it, and he wasn’t about to contradict her word on household manners) but afterwards, he’d taken him for a ride in the truck, out of town a ways, and shown him the right way to do it, how to cut the cap off (or bite it off, if you were in a pickle), how to light it, how to hold it. He’d inhaled too much, and ended up having to throw open the passenger door and vomit on the side of the road, but it wasn’t like Harry hadn’t done the same thing when he’d smoked his first one too!
Bracken's Corner 