A Good Deal
by Chris Yodice
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
It was well into the evening when the man in the corner rose for the first time, but this night would not see full dark. The curtains remained open, so the bright indigo sky glowed in full view through the front window.
The man took the several steps to the bedroom and pushed the door open softly. He closed it behind him, not allowing the latch to click, but turning and holding the knob, releasing it only when the door stood fully closed. The man walked between a blowing fan and Michael’s prone body. When he passed, the stream of cool air was interrupted, but even this did not account for the new warmth in the room.
Michael had been on the verge of sleep, a dream just beginning to form, Valerie in bright stripes, yellow and green, the boys in matching royal blue. They were young.
He woke as the man sat down.
“Hello, Michael,” the man said.
Michael looked at him. “Mr. Rodman,” he said.
The man looked no different from the last time Michael had seem him. That had been nearly thirty years before.
“You’re wearing the same hat,” said Michael.
At this, Mr. Rodman smiled and, for the first time since arriving at the house, removed the hat from his head. His hair was thick and dark; Michael’s had been the same when they met.
“You had to come?” asked Michael.
“I didn’t,” said the man. “But I try to when it’s almost over.” He continued. “Your family is well. How are you feeling?”
“Satisfied,” said Michael.
“I’m glad.”
“And it all continues when I’m gone?” asked Michael.
“Until the end,” said Mr. Rodman.
Michael’s eyes narrowed, his brow lowered. He had always believed that — fantastic as it was — he had made a very real trade; this he never questioned. But while he trusted Rodman — as he did most people through his lifetime — he would be lying if he didn’t admit that sometimes, late at night or when his mind wandered from whatever mundane work lay on his desk before him, he didn’t wonder if there was some trick yet to be revealed: a twist ending that would leave him reeling, set to the sound of a low and menacing laugh, building slowly and ending raucously.
“And the end is?” he asked. His heart beat faster.
Michael looked at the man. There were no flickering shadows on his face, no beginnings of a devilish transformation. There were only a few seconds of silence between inquiry and response. But in that silence rose a red wave of concern that carried with it more doubt than Michael had felt in all of these years combined. Questions swirled within the foam and spray: about what he had really agreed to — and who this man was that he was in league with. More than all else — what would become of his children?
The wave crested as Michael stared.
Mr. Rodman smiled again. The smile had a reassuring look to it, a look that might have been accompanied by a comforting touch, perhaps the laying of a hand on a thin and sickly forearm. But there was no touch.
“The end is many, many years from now,” Mr. Rodman replied. “There is no deception here. I am hoping that you have found all to be fair.”
Michael exhaled and thought back to their first meeting. His memory had always been good; even in the throes of illness, it remained strong. Even so, he had considered that moment often over the years and found that he remembered it differently at different times. Sometimes he believed they had met on a dark corner; sometimes in a bright studio. There were times he thought it was in the summer; then he’d swear it had been snowing. His remembrance of the conversation, however, never faltered. He knew it word for word.
It was a time when Michael Albene was a name that was beginning to be known, to be spoken of with respect in elite circles. A time when he had been a young father with a young family.
Michael remembered exactly what he had been thinking of when Mr. Rodman had approached him. (His memory of the man himself — and of the man’s hat — was also impeccable.) Valerie had been sick and Mary, as always, was home with her. The boys were toddlers. And he had been out for too many nights in a row. Mary did not complain about this; it was in service to his art and she fully supported his aspirations. She, perhaps even more than he, wanted him to succeed. But when he had spoken to her last on the pay phone in — where had it been again? — he had heard his daughter’s ragged cough in the background and, as he hung up, her small and hopeful voice: “Is Daddy coming home?”
He was not. Not for hours, and — if all went well — he would soon be gone for days.
Valerie’s words echoed in his head as he considered the irony of things “going well” and the price he would pay for all he had ever wanted.
It was then that the strange man appeared. He said nothing at first and handed Michael a business card. The card was mostly white space with only four type-written words, three of which comprised his name and one, as they said in the old days, his game:
BEAUMONT RICHARD RODMAN
DEALS
It was the 1980s, first names were in fashion, and Michael was almost somebody. Even so, he addressed this stranger formally from the start. It wasn’t just the hat and suit that encouraged this, nor was it Michael’s penchant for politeness. The man had a gravity about him.
“Can I help you, Mr. Rodman?” Michael asked.
“On the contrary” — the man’s voice was quiet but clear — “perhaps I can help you.”
Michael was used to being solicited by people advancing overtures and agendas. In years prior, these had excited him, clichéd introductions notwithstanding. That was before he was considered even “up-and-coming” and each approach brought with it new possibility for sensation and success. Now, however, his career trajectory was in upward motion, and there was little more assistance he needed there. Besides, in this moment he had other worries. Worries with echoes. He parted his lips, intending to end this conversation before it began.
Mr. Rodman spoke first. “My proposal is not about that.”
Michael remained quiet, curious. He had not voiced his thoughts.
“My proposal is about what you really want,” the man said. He looked directly into Michael’s eyes, and Michael felt a sudden flush. The gravity that he had sensed earlier in the man had morphed into an otherness.
What Michael really wanted was to be home, but it was more than that. Eyes still meeting Mr. Rodman’s, he thought of the children: how they ran to him when he came in the front door, how they lightened the house with words and sounds he had never heard and had never known how much he needed to hear, how he missed them. He remembered Valerie’s cough and thought of how vulnerable they were now and how vulnerable they would remain into adulthood and beyond. In this moment, he did not care about art; he did not want to create, promote, or succeed.
“I want Valerie to be okay. I want them all to be okay.” Then he added, “Always.”
Mr. Rodman nodded as if he already knew. “And what are you willing to give?”
The question was not hypothetical; Michael was sure of this. He felt as if his surroundings had fallen away and this discussion was occurring in a dimension he had not known existed. He wondered — just for a moment — if everyone was given a choice like this in their lifetime. If others, standing on their own personal precipice, were presented a similar opportunity to make a trade. He wondered if such a thing was a privilege or a burden, the choice a chain that would bind and weigh on him for the rest of his days. No matter, Michael knew his answer. For his children, there was nothing that he wouldn’t give.
“Anything, I think,” Michael said. Then, more confidently: “I am willing to sacrifice everything else.”
“I can give this to you. A promise that they will be better than ‘okay.’ They will not be immortal.” Mr. Rodman’s tone implied he thought this clarification should be unnecessary but that it didn’t hurt to make sure there were no misunderstandings, as if every once in a while he was faced with buyer’s remorse from someone who expected a bit too much. “But they will be happy and healthy, and you will never see them suffer unduly. They will experience a bite of the flu bug here and there. A minor heartbreak maybe. But you will get what you say you want.
“And in return, you will give up all the rest. What you so wanted before. Your dreams. Your art. Any glory that may have come. You will descend from your rarefied air and you will not thrive or shine. You will simply be.”
Under Mr. Rodman’s gaze, Michael once again felt certain that this offer was real.
“And what do you get out of this?” Michael asked.
“You wouldn’t understand,” the man said. He raised his hand and waved his fingers briefly. “But my cut doesn’t come from you. There is no giving up of the soul. I have no interest in your death and no investment in your afterlife, if there is indeed an afterlife at all.”
Here, his face opened and closed almost at once, as if he knew something that he was not telling.
Mr. Rodman continued. “Consider this as the start of the equation only. The universe applies its own formula, and my benefit comes to me many steps down the line.
“As far as concerns you, you simply give up this for that. Afterward, you live with it in whatever manner your makeup allows.”
The man’s expression darkened for the first and only time. “Such a trade can drive some men mad.”
* * *
Back in the bedroom, Mr. Rodman replaced his hat on his head and rose to leave. Michael was older now and would never again rise from where he lay, but he had never turned mad. He considered what to say next.
Mr. Rodman spoke as if he knew this. “No words necessary,” he said. “Ours was business, and now it’s done.”
Michael thought of his family sitting in the room beyond. They were sad now, but they would get past this. They would remember him well and speak of him fondly — this was another aspect that had not been bargained for, but he knew it would be so. They were healthy and would remain healthy. He had sudden pictures in his head of them with children and grandchildren, all laughing. Michael did not know if these were actual scenes of the future afforded him by Mr. Rodman or if they were of his own envisioning. They seemed so real.
His own children might say he was an artist once; or they might not. They might keep and cherish the painting on the living room wall or it might get lost and thrown away. It didn’t really matter to him. He had loved his time with the three of them and he had ensured their happiness: their lives would be long and peaceful; they would suffer no tragedies. They had opportunity before them and could attain great success of their own if they tried hard enough. Such achievement was to be up to them — and isn’t that what any good father would teach his children?
If he had done nothing else in the world, he had secured these things, had bought them with his own obscurity and the quiet bewilderment of others who wondered why he had wasted such artistic promise, who wondered why he had just stopped. No one he had never met would call him an inspiration or a game-changer without whom art would never have been the same. There would be no million-dollar bids for his work; there was, indeed, barely anything left to bid upon. Nor was this important.
Michael closed his eyes, content.
He had made a good deal.
Copyright © 2022 by Chris Yodice
