Spin

White. Harvey hated mornings, especially those first moments when his eyes opened to the same blank space. It wasn’t a pure white void, but one tinged with decades of dust and smoke, a subtlety he would never notice. With nothing to see, it was the only time of day he didn’t have to fight his failing eyesight; however, in its emptiness, he wasn’t always sure if he had awakened to life or death. It usually took a car horn or a passing siren to disrupt the silence that held him in semi-consciousness, confirming he was still part of the living world. The ceiling stared down, waiting for him to make a move—something that often took a long while. Annoyed, he reached over to the nightstand for the glasses that allowed him to function and took inventory of his senses and joints before concluding he was well enough to get up. Five-thirty-three, the old flip clock said. Another day had begun ahead of the alarm, this time by an hour. 

“Jesus Christ,” Harvey growled, throwing a harsh glare at the clock as if warning time itself to stop disfavoring him. Deep sleep had eluded him for years; cursing the clock had become a staple of his daily routine. 

The day ahead would be the same as those that came before and all that would follow. Harvey’s actions, interactions, and even thoughts would occur at their well-established times, over and over, day after day. Monotony failed to frustrate him; quite the opposite. He was a man who desired nothing more or less than what he was accustomed to, and at 86, the less mental energy devoted to change, the better. Harvey’s life had been lived, and he was eager for it to end.

Slowly sitting upright, he waited a few moments to allow the blood flow to adjust. Each year, it seemed, his body took a little longer to start, requiring more energy to stand, sit, navigate stairs, and even perceive what was happening around him. This weighed heavily on his mind, for despite the challenges of old age, he had remained fully functional and, most importantly, self-sufficient. How much longer would that last?

Harvey shuffled into the kitchen, where he sat staring at the air until the clock caught up with his usual schedule. As he showered, replaced his hearing aid, combed the little hair that remained, and dressed, the pre-war building came alive with the sounds of neighbors and clanking radiator pipes. Finally, Harvey took his hat and coat and rode a groaning old elevator to the street, still irritated that another day had begun without his permission. 

Outside, the city offered the wail of distant sirens, garbage collectors filling their compactors without concern for spillage, and street cleaners weaving around parked cars that should have been elsewhere. From above, as ever, came the constant chatter of Coney Island seagulls. Noise was the price of admission to city life, but for native residents like Harvey, each sound was a normality to remain aware of and yet deaf to at all times.

Paying no attention to the sharp bite of the morning air, he traveled down the sidewalk slowly until his joints relaxed and he found a steady and comfortable stroll. At the corner of West 16th and Neptune, a young woman engrossed in her phone collided with his shoulder and passed by without a word. Stunned, he steadied himself and watched as she crossed the street, her head still down. How, he wondered, were the streets not dotted with human roadkill? 

The Turtle Diner had gone through a dozen different owners and years of inconsistent business but refused to let go of the neighborhood. This was good news for the herd of sleepless senior men who used its early shift to enjoy newspapers, eggs, and old-man banter. Harvey took his regular seat at the counter and found a handkerchief in his pocket to manage the sniffles triggered by the street-to-diner temperature change.  

“What do you say, Tony?” 

He turned his head to see an empty counter stool. It had been vacant for weeks, but whether due to habit, age, or an aversion to acceptance, he still took it for granted that Tony would be there, waiting for a coffee refill. It was a punch in the gut, a harsh reminder that his longest and dearest friend would never sit by his side again. 

Tony had been as constant in Harvey’s life as the diner. Their experiences together could fill volumes, but the friends rarely took the time to recall them. School days, stealing fruit from street vendors, standing as best men for each other, and even joining the army together—the memories weren’t always readily available, and refreshing them required too much time and effort. When a remember-when moment arose, it was typically one of their many days in the stands at Ebbets Field, which their minds had recorded in vivid detail and could easily recollect. The two best friends had spent more than seventy-five years by each other’s side, and when Tony died, so too did a large part of Harvey.

“Well, finally, somebody sent me a gentleman,” a gum-chewing waitress declared in her best Mae West. She never missed a morning at the counter, where she enjoyed making the senior men smile.  

“Morning, Lainie. You get prettier every day. Better watch yourself around these old goats. Now, how about two eggs over easy, white toast, and sausage links? And steal me just a strip or two of bacon, would you? Really crispy.”

“What, is this your year to live dangerously?” she asked, scribbling the order on her pad. “I’ve said it to each of you here at one time or another. A man your age shouldn’t be eating all that salt and fat.”

“What would you have me eat? Fruit? Cottage cheese?”

“Be a nice change. Give those arteries of yours a break every once in a while, is all I’m saying.”

“I appreciate you, sweetheart, and when they make bacon-flavored oatmeal, we’ll talk. Any fresh coffee for me? I’ll wait until you brew a new pot if need be.”

“Darlin’, you know I always have fresh coffee.” She placed a cup and saucer before him and filled it as a kitchen bell rang. “I’ll put your order in.”

From the opposite side of Tony’s empty stool, Jack, another eggs-and-toast regular, cleared his throat to attract Harvey’s attention.

“Every damn morning, it’s sweetheart this, darlin’ that, and Lainie, you’re so pretty, I’ll wait for fresh coffee. It’s just sad. And you a widower.” Jack laughed while loading a triangle of toast with scrambled eggs. “Why bother? You’re too damn old, and you ain’t that good-looking.”

“Jackie, I’ll have you know in my day, I made many a beauty blush. They used to follow me down the boardwalk.”

“Well, thank you for sharing that fascinating piece of ancient history. In this century, no woman wants a man a hundred and fifty years old.”

“Eighty-six. And I wouldn’t laugh if I were you. Have you looked in the mirror? You’re only a hearing aid behind me.” Harvey added milk and sugar to his cup. “And you got egg on your shirt.” He didn’t dislike Jack, who had been an uninvited tagalong for over fifty years. Harvey did his best to tolerate him but saw no reason to deepen their friendship. There was no replacing Tony.

“Christ,” Jack hissed, reaching for the napkin dispenser. “Listen, we can get them opening day tickets I mentioned. The radio said to get them fast before they sell out. Raised the prices, too.”

“Yeah, one good season, and suddenly the Cyclones think they’re the ’86 Mets. April is a long way off. Who knows where we’ll be by then? And what do you get? Stairs, foul language, girls dressed like floozies, overpriced food. I don’t know, Jackie. It’s not fun anymore.”

“Just what else have you got to do?  I say come the spring, and we’re still living, we’re going to opening day. I happen to enjoy the floozies. I’ll get the tickets, and you’ll pay me back.”

Harvey looked off and shook his head. 

“Doesn’t feel right without Tony.” 

Each day, if the weather allowed, and with an abandoned newspaper from the diner, Harvey would walk to a tiny park and find his favorite bench, away from the busy street. There, he could enjoy the Daily News without interruption until his tolerance for reports about the world inching toward complete chaos ran out. It was the worst of times, he often thought to himself. Basic civilities were falling like dominoes and would never return. Harvey distrusted the world and had long since lost his faith in people. Between Tony and his wife, Vivian, he felt balanced, or at least sufficiently distracted, but now, without them, he had become a cliché, the crotchety old man grousing about life. He was even tired of himself. But there was a finish line somewhere, and he took solace in its certainty. The best thing about the world's future was that he wouldn’t be around to see it.

Once he finished frowning at the paper, Harvey walked to the other side of the tiny park, where several concrete tables were inlaid with checkered tiles. Even on such a chilly day, an assemblage of elderly men played chess for hours, each laser-focused on the silent game. Harvey didn’t know any of them well and made no effort to. As far as he was concerned, they were interchangeable dinosaurs from the last of the city’s rent-controlled apartments who devoted their days to diners and chess. Depending on his opponent, he played only one match a day, which lasted from 30 minutes to an hour, from opening move to checkmate. And though he had a talent for chess, he rarely allowed himself a victory in deference to those who needed it more. 

A cloud of steam erupted from the coffee maker as the telephone rang. Harvey cringed, certain the voice he would hear was his son’s. He was the only one who called anymore, and always for the same reason. Harvey slowly prepared his coffee, sat at the table, and took a sip before reaching for the old wall-mounted telephone. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, Pop.”

“Jason. To what financial foolishness do I owe this call? I still haven’t hit the lotto, you know.”  

“That’s not fair. Why are you always-”

“Speak up, son. I’ve got you on my good ear, but you still have to meet me halfway.”

“I was asking why you’re always so grumpy.”

“I’m old; it’s what we do. I’m busy in the kitchen, Jason. Can I talk to you later?”

“Well, I just called to say hi and to share some news.”

“Oh? What’s that?” 

“I’m moving out west. New Mexico, Pop. Albuquerque.”

“Albuquerque, did you say? What’s wrong with Baltimore? I thought you liked it there.”

“It’s alright. I’ve never been out west, though, and the opportunity may never come again.”

“Christ, I can’t even spell Albuquerque. But good for you, I guess. Should I expect a visit before you go?”

“There’s no time. I’m packing up now, trying to get out of here as soon as possible. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier; I just kept forgetting. But listen, when I’m all settled, you’ll come for a visit.”

“The hell I will. I’m eighty-six. I could have a stroke and fall into a cactus. That’s no way to go.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Listen, Pop, while I have you on the phone, I have to tell you, uh, this move is, well, it’s costing a lot more than I anticipated.”

“There it is.” Harvey let out a faintly audible laugh. “Jason, you’re well over fifty, I think, and you still don’t have your own money. Do you see what’s wrong with that? I’m not sure I can help you out. I live in New York City. Do you know how much they charge me to stay alive up here?”

“So go somewhere else.” 

“How’s that?”

“I say live somewhere else.”

“No, thank you. I was born in this city, and I will die in this city.” 

Harvey drank his coffee as repeated promises of a quick payback were made. Each knew it wasn’t true; his son had never made good on a loan. Finally, for the sake of his lunch, Harvey told Jason he would consider how much he could send, and the call ended without any inquiry into how he was or even the slightest expression of gratitude. Typical. Were it not for Jason’s financial troubles, they would almost certainly have been estranged. But what would happen, he wondered, when nothing was left to give? Even before Vivian’s death, the phone only rang when a rent payment was needed or the car had to be repaired. Harvey loved his son, but couldn’t afford to be his father.

The tuna salad in the refrigerator neither passed nor failed the smell test, but regardless of whether it was good or not, it was going to be lunch. Two slices of bread were toasted, the coffee cup was refilled, and the television was tuned to his favorite game show. It was a standing lunch date that he never missed. Harvey found it all insipid—essentially Hangman with applause—but didn’t tune in for the game. Instead, his loyalty was to the silent, glammed-up woman who earned her salary by revealing letters in the puzzle, smiling, and posing with jet skis, dining sets, and cars. Without the tall, sculpted hair and prominent bosom, the woman bore an uncanny resemblance to his late wife in her younger years. By the show’s end, he was wiping away a tear and scolding himself. What good was watching when it always ended in sorrow? Without Vivian, Harvey had nothing. He felt imprisoned in his own life. Why should he have to go on?  

He experienced it before—an almost aggressive yearning for his life to end. At the time, on the other side of the world, death was everywhere he looked; he even carried out orders to cause it. Ending other lives was his duty. But the more death he witnessed or inflicted, the harder it became to hide his despair. To friend or foe, the end came in a variety of presentations. Noisy, rainy, sweaty, burning, muddy, bloody.  Some were clean kills, swift, while others redefined torture. A hole in the chest, a hole in the head, missing limbs, shattered skulls. Death had come for so many without reason, yet it never came for him. It stalked and taunted, always just a few steps behind, knowing that the paranoia it caused would chip away at his will to live. As Vietnam killed his heart and mind, Harvey prayed to be released from life. The closest he came was when a soldier walking ahead of him pulled two grenade pins simultaneously and awaited a self-granted discharge. The explosion sent Harvey into a deep ditch as the fragments of a man whose first name he never knew rained down. A mortar attack followed almost immediately, and by all expectations, his life should have ended. Yet Death didn’t take claim in the jungle. Nor did it claim him in a South Vietnam evacuation hospital. His body was peppered with shrapnel, several ribs were cracked, and his right tibia was broken in half, but still no death. Instead, he suffered, disoriented and in agony from ceaselessly pulsating wounds. Days later, he would awaken to a Purple Heart pinned to his pillow and a trip home. 

Back in Brooklyn, his body healed, but intense and violent dreams refused to allow his mind to mend. All the horrors of his tour had been seared into his memory, leading him to believe that reliving them repeatedly was his punishment for going to war, for following orders. Finally, when Tony returned, in one piece but also burdened by the pain of his experiences, the darkness began to lift. They had each other, as always, for commiseration. The flashbacks faded, and he discovered a completely new life with Vivian. 

But he and Death never made peace. A year before losing Tony, Harvey would lose his wife.  

“I think my time is coming,” she whispered. “I think I can feel it.”

“Not yet, it’s not. I’m supposed to go first, Viv.” 

“Harv, it’s going to happen when it happens. To me, to you, to the man next door. We all have a time. When you’re supposed to go, you go. No sooner, no later.”

Vivian’s time came a week later. After fifty-three years of marriage, one son, and one massive stroke, she was gone before the ambulance arrived to take her to the hospital just a block away. Her death came without pain or commotion; like everything else, she made it look easy, slowly fading like a beautiful sunset. Vivian departed with the same quiet grace she displayed every day of her life. 

Mourning had just begun when a virus and its attendant isolation enveloped the world. Day by day, Harvey wondered what would finally take him. The illness seemed the perfect vehicle for his departure, but it passed by, leaving behind the suffering of solitude to take its toll. 

Cut off from the world, flashbacks began again, not of war but of stolen love. Triggers surrounded him. Every surface of the apartment had felt her touch, every street her step, and the sand that slipped through her toes and the brine she liked to wade in stretched further than he could see. He often heard her calm voice and saw her everywhere—the long silver hair, kind face, thin frame, loving eyes, and wrinkled, crepey skin. Hers was a beauty that only grew with each passing year. But recollections were only temporary comforts, and even when the quarantines were lifted, Harvey was left despondent and cursed with wounds far worse than those he received in war.

In the late afternoon, without fail, the ocean beckoned. It was an easy walk to the beach, so Harvey strolled along the boardwalk before trudging through the sand to his favorite spot on the water, where the rocks and remnants of a crumbled jetty provided a place to sit. The cold didn’t faze him. He sought peace there, however temporary, while gazing at the horizon, watching the waves break, or studying a blurry, distant freighter. He would sit motionless with his eyes closed, meditating, trying to feel the earth's rotation. After a long while, he took a deep breath, and she was there.  

“Vivi, my love. I can’t wait. I’m no good for anything anymore. I’m alone now, slow, and my hearing… Why hasn’t it happened? There can’t be anything left to do. Our son is going off across the country, not that it will be any different than when he was a few hours away. Jason will never come home, and the only use he has for me is money, of which there isn’t very much. Tony is gone now, so I’m left with Jack, and you know how that is. Without you, everything has been harder than I ever could have imagined. I’m an old man going through the motions and getting angrier each day. Maybe that’s just long-life fatigue. But God, this place. I tell you, something bad is happening, something really bad. People are changing in all the wrong ways.” Harvey shook his head and watched the surf for what felt like hours before heading home. 

On the boardwalk, he found an empty bench to catch his breath and brush the sand away from his feet.  

“We had our first date here,” he heard her whisper.

“I remember. Everything was different. But they still have our ride.” Harvey smiled, looking up at the Wonder Wheel.

“Where we had our first kiss. At the top.” 

“Why do you think I wanted to ride it three times that night?”

“And your proposal. You took me up in the air to ask me to be your wife. And let’s not forget, I went into early labor waiting in that line. We used to laugh that Jason was afraid of heights even before he arrived. But you and I kept going back, didn’t we? Up in the air—that was our place. Up above the world.”

Harvey fought back tears. 

“There was never a day when I didn’t love you, Vivi. I want to go. I want to be with you again. Up in the air.”

“I told you it would happen in its own time.”

“I’m so tired. Miserable. I’m ready now.”

“That decision isn’t yours. And it isn’t mine. When you’re supposed to go, you’ll go. In the meantime, you’ve got your diner, park, and the ocean. The Wonder Wheel. And all of our memories.”

 Harvey was jolted from his daydream by the expletive-laden outbursts of passing teenagers, each vying to be heard above the others. He wiped a handkerchief across his eyes and began his walk home, stopping for a hot dog along the way.

Every night was the same. An old record played while Harvey snacked on crackers and finished reading the news. Three hours in front of the television followed—a police drama, a courtroom drama, the lottery drawing that yielded nothing in his favor, and finally, a hospital drama, all of which he washed down with half a bottle of wine, sometimes more. Afterward, in his blue boxer shorts and white t-shirt, he went to the bedroom where Cervantes was waiting and drowsily chipped away at the chivalrous virtues and windmills until his yawns became too frequent to concentrate. He closed the book and rummaged through the nightstand's top drawer filled with antacid tablets, rubber bands, nail clippers, rogue paper clips, pencils, loose change, old subway tokens, and batteries until he found what he needed. Pulling a tissue from its box, he wiped away the dust before reaching into the lower drawer. 

He liked how heavy the firearm felt in his hand. It was heavy. A fitting quality, he thought, as it, too, received a good polishing. He released the empty cylinder and blew a few short bursts of air into its hollows. One bullet. With his eyes closed, in it went. Firmly holding the gun with one hand, he used two fingers to spin for that evening’s chance and blindly snapped it back into place. It was a gruesome game, but if he believed his wife’s words, there was no chance involved in the bedtime gamble he had taken every night for nearly two weeks. None of it mattered. The outcome wasn’t up to him, nor was it up to the gun; an empty click meant it wasn’t his time, and he would have to endure another day. He placed his glasses on the nightstand and positioned the end of the short barrel at his temple. His hands trembled, but no more than usual. Then, finally, he took a long, slow, deep breath. 

Black. Harvey looked forward to closing his eyes each evening. The darkness allowed nothing, no loss or regret. In a void, an empty man didn’t feel inadequate. He wasn’t broken. There was nowhere better. And as his final act of what might easily be his last day, entirely free of fear or hesitancy, he crooked his trigger finger.