Part 55: The End

A big day starts with a big moment

Sara calls me at 8:00 AM.

All is well, but the meeting is pushed back to 3:00 PM now. Just a scheduling thing, she thinks. Nothing more.

Elysha has already left for school, which means I have the day to myself.

A long day of waiting.

I’ve read the letters and the packet. I’m still not making plans for my students. My colleagues are doing that for me since I’m unable to enter the school.

God, I miss my kids.

I decide to have the best day of my life.

Revenge. If the cowards are keeping me from a place I love, I’ll make this the best day possible. It’s a warm, spring day, on the cusp of summer.

If I can’t be at school, this is the kind of day to enjoy.

I first visit McDonald’s to see Mary, George, and my other friends. They are happy to see me again. Mary offers me a part-time job for the summer. “Earn some money when you’re not teaching,” she says.

I remind her that I’m also a wedding DJ, and someday, if I get lucky, I might make money from my writing.

Mary scoffs. She believes in sure things.

I think it’s incredible that a woman who didn’t speak much English ten years ago is now offering me a job. I promoted her to manager and trained her to run the store, and now, she’s trying to hire me.

Smart move, but I decline the offer, though a part of me wonders if I might need the job soon.

I eat two Egg McMuffins. I ordered an extra one because I deserve it.

Then I play a round of golf at Rockledge golf course. I’m paired with two women — both named Kathy. When they ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I’m a teacher, but I took a day off for a meeting this afternoon and wanted to play a little golf first. “I’m sucking the marrow from the day,” I tell them.

I don’t think they get the reference.

But I have fun playing with them. Both are solid golfers who tease each other in the same way Jeff, Tom, and I tease each other.

We tease because we love. So, too, do they.

I birdie the eleventh and thirteenth holes. Unprecedented for me.

I quintuple-bogie the fourteenth. Typical for me.

It’s a lovely morning.

When I get back home, I sit down to write. I don’t have a plan for the end of my novel, but I think I might be close. In the book, a man named Martin Railsback is a burglar who only steals things that go unnoticed by homeowners. He returns to his victims’ homes regularly, and they unknowingly become his clients.

In spending time learning about his clients, Martin sometimes finds ways to help them. He’s a thief, but he’s not a bad guy.. He actually likes his clients. But helping his clients — deviating from his routines — goes against the strict rules he has developed to protect himself. Over time, he helps his clients more and more.

Each time, things get more precarious for him.

At the end of his book, a client is in life-or-death trouble. A violent criminal has entered her home, and Martin knows it. He has a decision to make:

1. Help her and risk being identified as a burglar.

2. Call the police and hope they arrive quickly enough.

3. Walk away.

Martin chooses to rush into the house to save his client, and anything could happen.

I’m just not sure what.

This is the crazy thing that I have discovered about writing fiction:

I’m better off without a plan. This is the first book I’ve started writing without a plan. I began with a simple premise:

What if a thief only steals items that the owners wouldn’t notice are missing?

Then I started writing. I write and watch what happens. And for the first time, I’m going to finish a book.

I don’t know if anything will come of this book when I’m done, but finishing it would be amazing. It’s the first attempt at a novel that I think might have potential.

As I write, Martin is climbing the stairs to the second floor of the home, where his client – a woman named Sophie — is incapacitated and the bad guy is lying in wait.

At the top of the steps, anything could happen:

1. Martin could live or die.

2. Get caught by the police or avoid detection.

3. Be discovered by the homeowner or escape without a trace.

He’s halfway up the stairs when the phone rings. It’s Elysha, calling to check on me. I tell her I’m writing. “I think I’m about to finish the book.I’m about to find out what happens to Martin.”

“What happens?” Elysha asks. She’s been reading chapter by chapter and wants to know even more than I do.

“I don’t know,” I say. “He’s only halfway up the stairs. I won’t know until he gets to the top.”

And that was true. It was as if I were reading the book while writing it.

“I’ll call you back later.”

About an hour later, I type the words, “The End,” and then click “Control-S” to save.

I’ve done it. I finished a novel. It’ll likely require some editing, but it’s good.

I know it’s good.

I stare at those words — “The End” — and hope it’s the only thing coming to an end today.

I stare some more. I told myself that when I finished this book, I would take six months off and then start my next novel.

I look at the clock. 12:47 PM.

Elysha won’t be free to talk until 2:00 PM today. I still have more than two hours before my meeting with Paul.

I think. Then I think some more. Then I smile.

I click “File” at the top of the computer. Then I click “New.”

Why wait? Since I have the time, I’ll start my next novel. I have a premise, but I don’t have a plan. No idea where this premise might take me, but at least it’s a place to begin.

It’s apparently all I need, so I begin writing.

More revenge on my enemies. Thanks to these three paid days off, courtesy of their cowardice, manipulation, and cruelty, I’ve finished the first novel of my life, and now I’ve begun the second.

It’s unlikely that either will see the light of day, but just writing and finishing a book is an accomplishment. Many people say they want to write a book someday.

Me, included.

Now I've done it.

Maybe I’ll dedicate the first novel, currently titled “Martin,” to “The Concerned Parent Body of West Hartford.”

Or maybe Elysha.

Yes, probably Elysha.

As much as I enjoy spite and love the thought of spitefully publishing a novel dedicated to these monsters, sometimes spite must be put aside in favor of doing the more righteous thing.