Darkness and Light

Richard Capogrosso
Jul 20, 2017 · 11 min read

External Affairs — Book III — Continued

CC0 Public Domain

As the winter of 1930 approached, Theodore Weston didn’t know how he could ever continue on. A little more than a year ago, he would have probably wondered how life could get any better, but that year seemed many lifetimes ago. Back in the summer of 1929, Theodore had been married to a pretty girl named Millie, he was making good money working on Wall Street and he and Millie had just bought their first house in suburban Connecticut.

Then the lights went out. Millie got sick with cancer and the world seemed headed in a never ending downward spiral. The stock market crashed, people lost their jobs in staggering numbers, wealth was obliterated in equally incomprehensible fashion. While aware that these things were happening, Theodore had neither the time nor desire to focus on any of them. His sole purpose was to take care of Millie. That and briefly take care of his mother, who lost her mind after her husband, a disgraced banker, committed suicide following the crash, and then died herself several months later.

Millie too died, in early November 1930, leaving Theodore with the memories of a life together, so full of joy and promise, and the stinging reality of that life now gone. In the days and weeks following her death, Theodore considered joining her in the afterlife. He had no children, no parents. The only family he had was a younger brother, Michael, who had become a local thug, working for a bootlegger in town, as both distributor and muscle. The consolation he gave Theodore after Millie’s death was to deliver a case of bootleg whiskey to his door with a note saying it would help.

It didn’t help, but as the grey November skies rolled in, Theodore allowed the possibility that it might. That winter he stayed in his house most of the time and drank. His only venture to the outside world was his daily pilgrimage to Millie’s grave, which he did each day without fail. He would stand there, staring at the cold stone, telling her how much he missed her and how sorry he was. Occasionally on these outings he would buy a few groceries, but he barely ate anything. He stopped shaving, he washed infrequently and the house began to fall into ruin.

When the booze ran out, Michael dutifully replaced it. Michael didn’t know how much money his brother had, but he knew he had plenty. This was true. Before the crash, due partially to instinct, partially to the knowledge he would need cash to take care of Millie, Theodore removed all his money from the stock market and the bank, and locked it away in a safe buried underneath the floor of his basement. Michael did not know this either, but he suspected something like that. With their parents gone, and Theodore now a widower, if anything were to happen to Theodore, like drinking himself to death, any inheritance would go to Michael.

That was the direction things were heading by March 1931. All throughout the decaying house sat empty liquor bottles. Theodore had become a gaunt, sunken-eyed fragment of his former self, with a long, scraggly beard and a pervasive filth that permeated and emanated from his body and his surroundings. He was like a bum, a hobo, like so many other Americans at that time, the big difference being that Theodore went nowhere. Instead of tramping the roads, he stalked around his domain, bottle in hand, talking to the walls and cursing the God that had brought this crushing weight down upon him.

It would have ended this way, had it not been for Millie. She apparently had other plans.

On a frigid night in March, he was up into his attic, a poorly insulated inner shell of his home, stuffed with memories of he and Millie, their furniture, photographs, books, their bed. He’d put it all up there to forget. Now he stumbled around up there drunk each night to remember. He remembered her face, her body, her smile, her laugh. He would remember her death, that she was gone, and he would lift the bottle more and more. There was a single window in the attic and Theodore would pace back and forth in front of it, like sea captain’s wife, staring out at sea, wondering whether the spouse would return. Here, Theodore already knew the answer.

On this night, a full moon struggled to light the sky behind a gathering of dark clouds. Theodore stood in front of the window, his breath floating around him in puffy wisps, as he finished off another bottle of Michael’s moonshine and looked out at the heavens, wondering where Millie was in all that dark space, if she was one of those tiny lights shining up there. There was one in particular that he focused on, and in his mind, the star became Millie, waiting patiently for him out in the cosmos.

He would see her again, wanted to believe he would see her again when his time on earth expired. Then he thought that time could be tonight, and maybe it should be. It would be easy. Open the window, slither out onto the ledge. It was certainly high enough, he thought. A few seconds of the wind rushing past, then…..darkness. Darkness with Millie waiting on the other side.

A gust of wind blew and the house creaked. Theodore darted his head around the room, as if afraid that someone would discover him with his dark thoughts. When he turned back to the window, the clouds had been blown away and the moon lit up the night, shining directly into the window. Brightness hit him like the sun and he shut his eyes and looked away. When he looked back, the night sky had been dimmed by the burst of moonlight and the bright light that was Millie was gone. Theodore looked frantically up into the darkness, but he couldn’t see her any more.

He was furious. He thought the moon was God yet again taking his Millie away from him.

“YOU!” he screamed at the moon shining upon him. “You took her away! You always take her away! What more do you want from me?!” With all the force left in him, he threw the empty liquor bottle at the window, which exploded in a shower of glass and moonlight. As the window fell apart, a great gust of air blew in, an unnatural blast of cold air so intense it knocked Theodore back. He stumbled, knocking his head into a wooden post. He tried to keep his footing, moving a few steps forward, but the room started spinning, his vision blurred and he crashed forward onto the floor.

Theodore would never fully understand what happened next, but he knew what he believed. As he lay there, blood in his hair, surrounded by broken bits of glass and memories, he would swear he felt a gentle touch on his head, a soft hand stroking his greasy, matted hair. He looked at the moon which continued to relentlessly pound him with light. Then he saw Millie. She was wearing the same tweed skirt and cream colored sweater from the first day he met her. She had a strange look on her face. Her eyebrows were creased and she didn’t look particularly happy. Before Theodore could say anything, she said,

“What are you doing Theo?”

Theodore blinked feverishly, tried to say something, but all he could manage was a hoarse, “Millie?”

“Is this how you keep your promises?” she said to him.

He wanted to touch her, reach out and hug her, but he was still so groggy. He couldn’t move. He looked up at her and said weakly, almost crying, “I’m just…..just……so…..tired, Millie.”

“I know. This must have been hard on you,” she said evenly. “No picnic for me either.”

“I……I……know,” said Theodore.

“You can’t keep doing this. You won’t last.”

He looked up. The moon seemed to be shining right through her. Wind blowing in from the broken window lifted her hair, fanned it out. It floated above and around her soft face, catching the rays of the moon until her face itself looked as if it was giving off its own light. Then she started floating too. Her body lifted slowly, billowed like a sail on a soft summer wind. She hovered over Theodore.

“Sleep, Theo. Rest. You deserve to rest. But when you wake up, you’ve got work to do. You promised me,” she said.

Theo was able to lift his arm, slowly, painfully. He reached out towards the floating, incandescent image, managed to say, “Millie…….I……miss……you,” but then his head felt so heavy, as if a terrible weight was pressing down on it. His arm fell, his head dipped and as the world faded to black, he wondered if he would ever see light again.

Bursts of cold air rushed through the window the next morning. They fell upon Theodore, hitting him with a gentle slap. His body came to life before his mind, as the cold pierced him, through his skin, seeping into his bones and he began to shiver. The convulsions eventually shook him awake and he opened his eyes to the smashed window. The morning sky now looked back at him.

“Millie,” he heard his voice say, with his headed matted down to the floor. She was here. She came through that window and…….saw me……spoke to me. She saw me……..like…….like this. “Oh, Millie,” he said and with a strained effort, heaved himself up to a sitting position so that he was facing the window. His body was still shivering as cold continued to pour in, and he wrapped himself tight to try to stave it off. As a small puff of clouds moved slowly past, he said, “Millie, I let you down.” Then he looked around the room, at all the bits and pieces of the memories he stowed away up here, fragments of his former life.

He found a framed picture of her, sitting lifelessly under a table with some old books. Her piercing eyes looked back at him, and her smile was tentative, unsure. She never liked having her picture taken, but Theodore always convinced her, saying she was too beautiful to not have it taken. He stroked the glass looking down at her, as if maybe that would make her appear again. It didn’t and wouldn’t, and he knew this, but still he continued stroking the unyielding surface, wishing for a softness that was gone forever.

She was here.

“Millie,” he said once more, “I’ll never let you down again.”

The first thing Theodore did when he went downstairs was to find some trash bags and throw in every liquor bottle that was lying around the house. Bottles that were still full he emptied and tossed those in too. Then he ran a hot bath, took off all his clothes and threw them in one of the bags. After a good long soak, he did his best to cut his hair, which did not go well, but he thought it would do until he got to a barber. He shaved off his beard, but he left his bushy mustache. It was a new day and he needed a new look.

Once dressed, he again stalked through his house, but now he was clear-eyed, refreshed and without a bottle in sight. All the accumulated filth and debris that had built up over the last few months he stuffed in bag after bag, which were then dragged one by one out to the street until they made a mountain by the curb. He wanted to set fire to the entire wasteful pile, but left it there as a monument to a part of his life he wanted to forget, until the garbage men would come to cart it away forever.

By the time Theodore finished, it was nearing noon, and he decided to take a walk through the town. It was still quite cold and the wind blew at him as he moved through the streets. Not much going on, he thought as he walked. Many of the businesses were gone. Buildings were boarded up and storefronts sat vacant. Signs that read “Bank Owned” or “Foreclosure” dotted many of the lawns that he walked past. America, the America Theodore had known most of his life, was on its knees.

After walking for a while, he came to a church, where a line of at least fifty people stood outside. This seemed strange. Churches were usually open all hours of the day. People didn’t have to line up to go to mass. He walked closer and saw that most of the people were very poorly dressed and dirty. Some of the women were holding small children, equally dirty and ragged. When Theodore got closer, he asked one of the men what was going on.

“Free soup day,” the man said. He looked and smelled, Theodore thought, much the way he must have hours ago. Then the man added, “But we’ve been waiting here close to an hour and they won’t open the doors.”

Theodore nodded at the man and said, “I guess I’ll wait too,” and walked towards the back of the line, but once there, he kept walking. He walked around the church up a long driveway that led to the back. There he found a priest talking earnestly to a thickset man in work clothes and cloth cap.

Theodore heard the priest say, “If you would just give me to the end of the week, I know money is coming through from the diocese.”

The man replied in broken English and an accent Theodore couldn’t quite place, “Can’t do it. Boss says no credit. I get money or I leave.”

The priest looked exasperated. He was an older man, gray wisps of unkempt hair blowing in the cold air. Theodore walked up.

“Hello Father,” he said and gave a brief nod to the man. “You know you have a line of fifty or more hungry people out front.”

“I know, I know,” said the priest. “I don’t have the money to pay for the food. Collections have been down, the heating bills have been higher than usual. I’m waiting for money to come from the diocese, but it hasn’t yet. Which I’ve been trying to explain, but…,” and his voice trailed off.

Theodore turned to the man. “You know those people are hungry back there, don’t you?”

“Ahhhh,” said the man throwing up his hands. “Everybody hungry. I got family too. I go back without money, I’m out of a job.”

Theodore turned back to the priest who gave him a look of resignation.

“How much is it?” Theodore asked.

The priest told him.

Theodore pulled out his money clip, peeled off an amount equal to double what the priest had told him and handed it to the delivery man. “Paid in full this week, and next week. If you pocket the extra, I’ll see to it that you are out of job.”

The man looked stunned, blinked several times, then said, “Y……es……..yes, sir.”

“Good, now start bringing the food inside.”

The priest put a hand on Theodore’s shoulder. “Son, I don’t know what to say, except thank you. Thank you for helping me.”

Theodore turned to the priest and shook his head. “Father, let’s get these people fed and then we can talk about how I can really help you.”

To Be Continued…….

External Affairs is a serial story currently consisting of three books. A link to the prior chapter, which has links to each of the other chapters, can be found below. If you enjoyed this story, please consider clicking on the heart. Feedback is always welcome. Thanks for reading.

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Richard Capogrosso

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Literally Literary

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