Unrelated To How I Felt When I Called And No One Answered

New Story! Thoughts?

I’m thinking of where I want to go and how I want to get there when I remember something that Aaron told me at lunch the other day. It was only a comment in passing, something lost between slurped Coke and laughed sentiments, and I don’t know why I remember it now because it wasn’t important, and I’m not doing anything to remind me of that conversation at lunch—I am standing on the sidewalk outside of a record store called The Record Store, and I am thinking about where I want to go and how I want to get there.

“It’d be a piece of cake, like making your own piece of cake,” Aaron had said. “When was the last time you made cake?”

I hadn’t thought of it at all at the time, instead preferring to rib him about something pertaining to his last ad pitch, which, if memory serves, failed because his shirt had a large stain on it and his tie was tied lopsidedly, and that particular combination had made him self-conscious to the point that he forgot his pitch completely. It suddenly occurs to me that, perhaps, oddly, ironically, the stain I ribbed him about was a cake stain. I’m not sure how one would get a cake stain on a dress shirt, and as far as I know, Aaron had not been to any birthday parties, not in a while. We know the same people, Aaron and I.

In my hand I hold a small plastic bag, the sort that electronics stores give you when all you buy is a CD or a DVD or something else small and disc-based. In this bag are two CDs, dutifully paid for, and a pack of gum, dutifully purloined. I make it my mission to walk out of every store in which I purchase something with a pack of gum, if it is available. It doesn’t taste better or anything like that. I don’t do it for any particular reason, other than to know that I can.

I cannot get the arbitrary thought of cake to leave my head, and so I stand outside the door of The Record Store and think about what I could possibly do with a cake. Aaron would tell me to bake it for Hannah. I would tell him no. I haven’t eaten cake since my kid brother’s birthday, and I haven’t seen him in a year and a half. How have I not had cake since then? I rack my brain and try to recall another time, but there is nothing there for me to remember.

A man wants to enter The Record Store. I step out of the doorway. My CDs are begging to be played. My gum is not begging to be chewed, though I will probably do that anyway. I think of cake and music and gum, and I decide that I may as well go home.

Home is not far, and I walk for a few minutes down the street before arriving at my apartment. It is a shithole, though I like to think of it as an endearing shithole. This is because it is my home; anyone else would call it a shithole in a non-endearing way, because, in reality, it is a shithole as the term usually applies. I live on the third floor, and the stairs, immediately inside the front door of the building (there isn’t a hall of any kind, just door and then stairs), are narrow and painted red, though the red is very old and flaking off everywhere. The girl who lives on the second floor leaves her bike in the stairwell most days. It’s not there today, which is nice.

My key sticks in my doorknob, and I am afraid, inside my gut and chest, that I will snap it off and be forced to crawl through a window. This has never happened, though the key gets stuck most every time, so I assume that it will happen sooner rather than later. I leave the window above my sink unlocked because of this. Today is not the day, and my door opens.

I toss my bag of CDs onto the couch next to my table. My table is in my kitchen, which also doubles as a living room, study room, and sometimes bedroom when I don’t want to get off the couch. I consider getting the CDs and putting them in the stereo. I get a glass of water, instead. I sit on my couch and look at my TV (which sits on my kitchen table). I glance at my watch—2:45. My kid brother should be out of school right about now. Or is it 3:45? The six years since high school have passed too quickly.

I call anyway. Two rings, and it cuts to voicemail. He must be in class. “Jake the Snake, it’s Harrison. Guess I caught you in class. Hope your phone was on vibrate or something. Wasn’t sure if you got out at 2:45 or 3:45. Anyway, I’m just calling to say hey, it’s been a while. Got The National’s new CD today. I wish you’d give them a chance, they’re great. Um—” My eyes roam around my kitchen. My trashcan is overflowing with microwave-dinner trays. My sink is filled with wine glasses. There’s a note on my fridge that I try not to look at. “Well, yeah, just calling to say hey. Hope Dad is well. Tell him I’ll try to call later. Talked to Mom lately?” I leave long messages. I rub my forehead. “Well, bud, just give me a call back sometime, whenever, doesn’t matter. You can tell me about that girl, Erica. Prom is soon, right? All right, well, I’ll talk to you later, then. Give Dad my best.”

I lean forward and slide my phone across the table. I want a drink.

I have cleared a space on my counter between the sink and the fridge. One of the CDs I bought yesterday is playing over my stereo. My oven, which I have used twice (give or take) since living here, is on. The corner store hadn’t been crowded when I went down earlier this morning. I now have two unopened packs of gum in my home.

Aaron couldn’t meet for lunch, something about going out with his work friends. He’s always working, up in that ad agency. “The deodorant won’t sell itself, Harrison,” as he tells me. “I have to con the masses into buying it, you know.” He uses deodorant in his example; in actuality, he does ads for many things. It’s a better job than my freelancing. Photography and the occasional article don’t count for shit. Jake didn’t call back last night, which is a shame, though not unexpected. We’re six years apart—I may as well be a stranger. I added another glass to my sink’s collection. Never listened to the CDs, which is why they’re playing now.

I did call Hannah, which surprised me. I stared at the note on my refrigerator for a long time. CALL HANNAH, it said. Says. It still says that. So I stared and thought and drank some wine and thought some more and finally called. Piece of cake. Three rings and I hung up. Finished the wine and went to sleep.

My laptop is open on my table. I haven’t been able to get anywhere on this article I am writing. Researching. Writing and researching, whichever. I’ve written nothing, which is the point. But my oven is on, and I am cooking for once.

I am baking a cake, which isn’t unexpected (though it is unexpected). It isn’t unexpected because after remembering my conversation with Aaron, I could not shake the idea of cake, which is stupid (and perhaps unexpected) because it’s just cake. But somewhere between finishing the bottle of wine, calling Hannah, and drinking something with vodka, I decided that cake was a good idea. If nothing else, it is something to do while I wait for sudden inspiration to write my article for me.

I want to call Hannah again.

This thought is singular and inescapable, like it has its own gravity and has torn a hole through space in my kitchen. I am staring at my oven and all I can think of is Hannah. I am baking a goddamned cake because I want to talk to Hannah. I wonder how Freud would diagnose this. Pent up sexual frustration, probably, which is fairly true.

I take the cake out to cool. I did the toothpick trick to make sure it was done. It’s a chocolate cake. I don’t like chocolate cake, but it is Hannah’s favorite. I have it in my head that I am going to make her a cake and win her back, though every cell in my body is laughing at me because of this. A guy who bakes is sensitive. My cells are crying in hysterics now. But I am calm because this could work. Music still plays on my stereo, though I’m not really hearing it.

I set the cake on the counter and step into my bedroom to grab my phone. No one has called, not even Jake. It’s 3 o’clock. I’ve wasted most of the day, again. My article is unwritten. Aaron said a while ago that he could get me a job with his company because “People who are good with words do well in advertising.” I’m not so sure that I’m good with words anymore. There’s an unopened pack of gum on my cramped desk. I take a piece.

I remember being down in Atlanta a couple years ago, sitting with Hannah on a sidewalk, late at night, because we were tired and lost after seeing some concert, and we couldn’t find where we’d parked her car. It was comical, thinking of it now, the two of us just sitting there beneath a streetlight in a city we didn’t know, wondering where her car was. I remember being worried, though not for myself. That was a good moment, my being worried for her. That was development. I remember her head on my shoulder.

The cake hasn’t finished cooling, but I flip the pan over onto a plate and let it fall. A good majority of it sticks to the pan. Half is on the plate, looking like crags and peaks of chocolate bread. There’s nothing in my sink, because I cleaned the wine glasses earlier today. I’d forgotten about doing that. I look at the crags and peaks of my flat chocolate-cake mountain, and it’s obvious that the thing is ruined. I sigh and set the plate in the sink.

I consider calling Hannah anyway. If she answered, it’d be easy to explain the last few weeks. It’d be easy to explain myself, and she’d listen because she always did. I look at the half-mess of cake sitting in my sink. The note on my fridge tells me to CALL HANNAH. I set my phone on my table. I’m not going to call, and if I did, she wouldn’t answer. She hasn’t answered in weeks.

I turn on the faucet and let the water soak into the cake. I tip the plate vertically, sliding the soggy mess into the sink. I force it into the drain, and it feels like mud.