Apartment Seven Read Online Free PDF Page B

these things.
    The past, my memories, they were there too, waiting in the dark.
    In one strange, frightening and oddly beautiful moment, I see it, all of it. Everything at once plays before me like a film projected onto a giant screen. My childhood…the woman I almost married…the children I never had…the life I never led…
    An impish little boy, just a wisp of a thing, plays outside a house I recognize as the one I grew up in. No more than six or seven, he’s all scraped knees, big ears and bigger brown eyes. Decked out in a cowboy hat and boots his father bought him while away on one of his many business trips, the boy plays Cowboys and Indians, his holster and gun belt cinched around his waist, his plastic six-shooter in one hand and a rubber hunting knife in the other. As he crouches down in the modest yard and pretends to check the ground for evidence of the Apache warrior he’s tracking, something changes in him. It’s as if in that very moment he realizes just how alone he is. How alone he always is. He sinks to the ground, goes limp, and stares at the dirt.
    A large white and gray cat emerges from the nearby woods and joins him.
    “Buddy!” I gasp, wishing I could scoop him up in my arms like the little boy does, holding him close and listening to his comforting purr. But instead I recall with horrible clarity the pain of that isolation, of never having many friends, of spending so much time by myself or playing with Buddy, creating people and worlds, stories and adventures to distract me from the awful loneliness.
    In an instant, I see my father, a sweet man with a big laugh and a kind, though battered heart. A salesman, he spent his life traveling and hustling, doing his best. Even now, when I think of my father, I see wrinkled suits, stained ties, worn shoes and a weary smile. I remember awakening some mornings to see comic books or other presents at the foot of my bed, the signal that he’d returned from the road, and how even before I’d look at what he’d brought me I’d jump from bed and dash down the hall in the hopes of catching a glimpse of him—or better yet, experiencing one of his all-encompassing bear hugs—only to be stopped short by my parents’ closed bedroom door.
    I also remember a broken man addicted to the painkillers he’d been prescribed after he fell on an icy sidewalk and damaged his back. I see a man stumbling about, falling over, crawling along the carpeted floor in our living room searching for pills he swore he’d dropped there, and how he’d make me help him move all the furniture so we could look under it just to be sure. I remember him sitting alone very late at night in a dark kitchen, drinking and weeping, and how I’d stand in the doorway to my bedroom in my pajamas and watch him. I’d cry too, but quietly, so my father wouldn’t hear. In those moments, I never felt closer or more connected to this sad man who wanted so desperately to pay attention to me, to be my friend and father, but who no longer possessed the ability to be either, destroyed by pills, booze and never-ending bouts of self-loathing.
    And then, my mother, she’s there too. A quiet and dignified woman, a factory worker who slaved for hours slumped over a machine stitching fabric. Pretty, reserved and anxiously thin, I remember her as a woman for who pain, disappointment and the helplessness born of both was a cross she bore in silent desperation. I see her reading to me at bedtime, stories and newspapers and anything else she thought might be of interest or in some way better me. When I remember those times I cannot recall much of what she read but instead think about the time we spent together, and how I felt special and necessary and profoundly loved, if only in short intervals.
    But mostly I remember my mother sleeping a lot and how she was often overcome by migraines. I remember her going to bed for hours at a time, and sometimes for entire weekends, tucked away in their bedroom, where I