Night Seven (A Short Story)
Roger always sits in my chair, which annoys me endlessly. It has been said many times that that chair—by the window, facing the bookcase—is mine. Day after day, I sit in that chair and write my stories and read my books. And every time I get up, Roger takes my seat. He really has no respect for anyone else. This is just one of the things that makes him unbearable.
Candace won’t say it out loud, but she’s also annoyed by Roger. He lives in my house, but we didn’t really invite him. Because I have a big heart, I let him stay one night when he had nowhere else to go, and that one night turned into forever. Candace is afraid of him, which I understand. Before he got his act together, he was a criminal running from a police officer who happens to be my friend, Henry.
Henry knows Roger lives here now, considering he stops by every day as if he doesn’t have his own life. He knows I’m busy around the clock, but he always comes to bother me anyway. Obviously, Roger makes himself scarce whenever Henry comes around, bad blood and all that.
Today I am especially busy, typing away at my new book. It’s a sequel to another of my most famous crime novels, Night Seven. I’ve managed to make myself one of Chicago’s most anticipated new novelists in just a few short years, and I don’t intend to stop. So as I work away, as usual, Candace prepares a turkey sandwich for me. When she brings it to me, I am especially grateful because I feel like I haven’t eaten in months.
“Thank you, Candace,” I say through mouthfuls of turkey. “I felt like my intestines were eating each other.”
Candace smiles one of her famous half-smirks, her right dimple forming like a cute birth mark. “I’m always happy to feed the creative machine.”
She laughs and walks away, her golden-blond curls bouncing. Her hair always looks effortless and glowing, like her personality. I’m extremely grateful to have someone as lively as her watching out for me.
“You better stop looking at Candace like that, man,” Roger says. He’s sitting across the room on the couch, watching t.v. “You know she’s my girl.”
I scoff, unable to control myself. Sometimes I just can’t around Roger. “Okay, Roger. If you really believe that. I guess you have to have something to live for, even if it’s a false hope.”
Roger rolls his eyes and shakes his head, already bored with the conversation probably. It’s how he is. Uncaring and easily bored.
I go back to my writing, but at this point I’ve exhausted all my ideas for the day. If I keep going now, my words will turn mechanical and floppy, and no writer wants that, no matter how badly they want to get it done. I shut my laptop, deciding I’ll just hang with Roger and Candace for a while, maybe wait for Henry to stop by.
I watch t.v. with Roger for a few, listen to him hopelessly try to flirt with Candace, and witness her refusals and insults. About an hour later, Roger says he’s going out. I don’t ask where he’s going because part of me doesn’t want to know. I imagine it’s somewhere dark and dangerous, somewhere he used to hang out. Right when he leaves, as if on cue, Henry shows up.
He walks in the door without knocking, which is unusual, as Henry is a polite, by-the-book kind of guy.
“Where’s Roger?” He asks, frantically looking around.
Confusedly, I say, “I don’t know. He left. I didn’t ask where he was going.”
Henry turns his focus to Candace, who has just appeared beside me. “Do you know where Roger went? Did he say anything to you?” he asks.
Candace looks frightened, as she always does when anything suspicious happens with Roger.
“What’s wrong, Henry?” I ask. “Did something happen? Why do you need to find Roger so badly?”
Henry’s eyes widen. He is about to tell me something very important. I know because he pauses for what seems like whole minutes before he opens his mouth ready to speak again. And right when does, there’s a knock at the door.
I watch the bright sunlight pour in, the only light I’ve seen in hours it seems like, since we always keep the blinds shut.
I squint from the sunlight, seeing my daughter, Elizabeth peeking her head around the door frame.
“Hi, honey. I’m kind of in the middle of something,” I say. I don’t want to tell her to leave, but I hope she sees that something very important is happening.
She looks around the room wearily, as if she’s confused. Then she looks at me and smiles. “Well, I was thinking I could make you lunch and visit for a bit.”
She lets herself in, placing her coat on the rack by the door. I glance between Henry and Candace and Elizabeth, trying to decide what to do. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is heading for the kitchen.
“Oh, honey, Candace already made me a turkey sandwich,” I say, catching her arm. “Thank you, though.”
She looks at the floor, smiles kind of crookedly, then looks back up at me almost sympathetically. “Well, you’re a grown man. You’ll need to eat a bit more than that.”
She heads off for the kitchen, and I look back at Henry apologetically.
“It’s alright,” he says, suddenly calm. I’m astonished at how fast he transformed. “It can wait.”
He turns to leave, and before I can catch him, he’s already made his way out the door. I look at Candace, but she just shrugs, like she isn’t interested in the conversation anymore.
I head to the kitchen and take a seat at the table. “Elizabeth, you interrupted something very important. Henry was about to tell me something about Roger. I think something might have happened.”
Elizabeth stops what she’s doing at the counter and stands there for a minute. “This doesn’t get any easier.” She says.
“Elizabeth, this is not the time for vague and random statements. I’m really worried. We should call Henry.”
Elizabeth sits down across from me just as I’m about to reach for the phone on the wall. She puts her hands on mine, bringing them together and squeezing them tight.
“You want to know what happens to Roger? And Candace and Henry?”
I just look at her, unsure what she means. Does she know something about it?
She licks her lips. “Roger never really got clean. He had been secretly still in the drug business the whole time, only pretending to have gotten better. Henry had just found out and was crushed because he started to really have hope that Roger was going to turn his life around. Eventually a big showdown happened and Henry arrested Roger. Roger ended up in prison, Candace never came to visit him because she was afraid of him, and Henry only came a few times throughout the years just to see him. He stayed in prison for the rest of his life.”
I gawk at her, unable to speak. She says all this as if it has already happened. Even though I am annoyed by Roger, I do not wish any of this to happen to the people I love. It sounds horrible.
“What do you mean by all of this, Elizabeth? Is this a joke?” I ask.
She shakes her head, not seeming phased by any of this. She looks…as if this is the most normal thing to have been said. “No, it’s not a joke, Dad. It’s an award-winning story by a famous man.”
