Losing Charity

Losing Charity - 28

"If that's settled, let's get started," says Gordy. "No time like the present."

"Started on what?"

"Improving your life."

"There's nothing wrong with my life."

Obviously there is, or I wouldn't be talking to an imp on a hot plate – which I'm pretty sure I'll need to wash thoroughly after he leaves. But I'm automatically defensive.

"Sure. Whatever." He waves his hands dismissively. "Look at this dump."

"My apartment is kind of crappy," I admit.

"I'll say. You want a better one? Mansion? Penthouse? Cool brownstone? I'll get right on it!"

"I'd settle for an elevator and a doorman."

"Thinking small, but can do."

"No, wait! Don't poof me into some new apartment!"

"Poof  you?"

"Weren't you about to?"

Gordy shakes his head. "You've confused me with a genie."

"Oh. Sorry."

"You want a new place, I can make it happen. But it won't be instant. It's best to go with the grain, so to speak. Through regular channels. Something comes available that wasn't before. That sort of thing."

"So no poofing?"

"Oh, I can poof! Don't get me wrong. That mascara you lost two weeks ago? It rolled under the fridge. I can poof that into your hand right now, no problem."

"It's under the fridge? I was going crazy looking for it."

"But poofing something big? Altering the normal flow of reality that much? That can attract the wrong sort of attention." He points toward the ceiling. "It invites problems we don't want."

"Okay. Good. No poofing."

"Now, should you say to me, 'Gordy, you handsome devil, I want to live in a fabulous penthouse with a view of the park. Make it happen!' then, wouldn't you know, I have an inside line on just such a place of that nature which has recently come available."

"You do?" I say. "Can I see it?"

"You saw it Friday night."

I shudder. "I'm never going back there. Forget it." I scowl.

"Right. Bad memories. I get it. We'll defer that for now."

"Let's."

"Doorman and elevator, then," says Gordy. "I'll start with that. You want to stay in Manhattan, I assume? Although I hear Brooklyn is up and coming."

"There's the commute though," I say.

"The commute to what?"

"Er..." He has me there. I have nowhere to commute, because I have no job. Unless you count the occasional catering gig. Which I don't.

"Anyway, we'll stick with Manhattan. You like this end of the island? SoHo, Tribeca, the Village – any preference?"

"Wow, any of those would be great," I admit. "But I can't afford a decent place even if you find it."

"Details, details," says Gordy. "You think I've never done this before? Believe me, my organization has extensive contacts in the New York real estate world. The right place will fall into your eager little hands all wrapped up in a bow, just as soon as you say the word."

"What word?"

"Well, please is nice. But what I mean here is, if you give me the green light, the go, the command to upgrade your living situation, I'll make it happen."

"But what if I can't—"

"Ah! Ah! Forget can't. There is not can't. There is only want or don't want. Do you want it to happen, Charity?"

I hesitate. This experience feels unreal to me. A cigar-chomping imp? Get a grip, Charity! 

Have I well and truly lost it? Has failure after failure and disappointment after disappointment finally broken my mind? Is Gordy an outlandish mental construct my poor little brain dreamed up as a coping mechanism?

I recall reading about that happening to some people in a psych course I took. Displacement response to trauma. Or something. 

I didn't do too well in that class.

The fact this isn't the first time I've interacted with the little guy isn't reassuring.

Because the first time was part of a total trauma. The date was real, even if the details of how it ended are a little unclear.

Gordy, as I recall, didn't show up until after Peter was dead. After the trauma, when the shock set in.

Isn't it likely that I fled from Peter's place and blocked out the memory of it the last couple of days because PTSD? And his body is still up there in that horrible room, waiting to be discovered? There will be police, an investigation, questions I can't answer, a story no one will believe. Because I barely believe it myself.

Unless Gordy took care of it.

Cleaned up the mess.

Just like he said.

Gordy is looking at me with a knowing little smirk on his face, like he's reading my mind.

Is this little imp some weird way of me trying to make sense of a horrific, terrifying, traumatic, really bad situation?

I wish I'd paid more attention in that psych class.

Odds are that I'm nuts. That the police are trying to track me down right now. That I'll be taken in for questioning about Peter's death, sweated under the hot lights, beaten with a phonebook. Whatever it is they do to get a confession. Then trial of the century, sent up the river, fry in the chair.

No they don't do electric chair anymore. It's all lethal injection now.

I hate needles.

Actually, I'm not sure New York even does that. So maybe life behind bars, then. Wearing orange, which is so not my color. Living in a noisy cell, where the scenery never changes.

Which, frankly, might be an improvement from where I live now.

All this churns around in my head. This is all a fantasy, I decide. I need ... something. Help. A lawyer. A shrink. Anti-psychotics.

Still, he says he can find me a better apartment.

That's worth a shot.

"Do it," I say.

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Losing Charity © Dan McGirt 2020. All rights reserved.

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