Innocent Encounter
trange that I found myself that cold, dark, autumn evening, half-drunken on my wearisome journey home, traversing the barren streets of the silent town beneath a horrendous downfall of rain and dead, dampened leaves. My wife would be asleep, I knew, as she always was, and this particular night I was later than usual. My ride had departed early, forgetting me to the thought of his own bed, whereas I found myself alone, bereft of umbrella or rubber soles, and no way home but a solitary stumble through the rivery streets. Indeed it was an odd night, that one?one I shall certainly never forget?the wind howling between the old buildings, all closed up to the storm, and the rain slamming into the bricks neatly as darts striking a bull's-eye. The town seemed drearily desolate, and I passed quietly through, the seemingly sole personage amid nature's wrath.
My mind filled itself with thoughts of home and my lovely wife. They were drunken thoughts. As I carried on through the night's wet gloom, head down, hand's tucked into the pockets of my slacks, my feet splashing through muddy puddles of standing water, I half-thought, half-dreamt of slipping into a warm bed and making long, passionate love to her, though such thoughts were absurd as she was then eight months pregnant.
Not that my wife ever involved herself in sexual activities of late anyway. She had been acting unusually strange for such a long time. The doctor swore it to be a predictable result of the pregnancy, and I, therefore, being certain of the doctor's knowledge, ignored my wife's odd conduct and fulfilled all her peculiar desires. More often than not, though, it ended in total frustration, my mind mixed with feelings of unparalleled love for her and a preposterous desire to wring her neck for acting so confoundedly odd.
But I was good at avoiding it. Before she even became pregnant, I had begun spending time at the bars. Many nights, after long days at work, I would stop home to see her okay, then head out to a local tavern. There I would sit, drunkenly conversing with others I came to call my friends, though in truth they seemed at the time nothing of the sort, and anything but similar to me, being losers whose wives cheated on them, and them too dumb to realize it. At first I went there only three or four nights a week, but eventually it grew into habit, and I found myself visiting the bars frequently, if not every evening. Seldom did she wait up for my return, as I tended?perhaps purposefully?to be considerably drunk upon arriving home.
Hence I found myself that dark, cold evening, half-drunken on my way back from the tavern, when I happened upon a stranger named Marcus McComber. The moon's usual luster was hidden behind innumerable layers of black clouds, and Marcus, of rather average height and build, perhaps exactly my size, with hair the color of my own, stood leaning his wet forehead against a wooden lamp post on a dark, unfrequented street corner. His clothes were soaked and he wore no jacket. His chest heaved rapidly, as if he was short of breath, and often he would lift his head to look nervously about. He appeared terribly frightened and upset, so I walked toward him.
"Hello, my friend," I yelled drunkenly, still some distance away, and he jumped as if noticing a snake in his pants. He stayed silent though, and searched all around for the source of the voice calling. Being beneath the lamp's light, his eyes must not have adjusted very quickly to the surrounding darkness. I'd bet his heart nearly came to a halt when I appeared out of the rain and shade like some apparition. I would like to have that chance once more. "Hello," I said again.
"Who are you?" he questioned loudly. His eyes darted back and forth, though I knew he could see nothing beyond the small circle of light given off by the lamp. His wet hair was matted down against his forehead and with his fingers he would incessantly brush it away from his eyes. "Who, who are you?" he asked again.
"The name's Edward," I answered. Then?not yet knowing his name?asked, "And who might you be, standing here alone this late night in such nasty weather?"
And he told me his name, though rather softly so only I might hear. From up close I could see he was undoubtedly scared, as if afraid someone searched for him, or so I guessed by his nervous, twitching manners and quiet words. He seemed to have been running, his breaths deep and fast. I am not sure why, perhaps because he appeared so similar to myself, but something in me developed a strange liking for the man, and I became desperately curious to hear his story and discover the reason for his fright. As I said, my wife was surely in bed, asleep for the night, and an extra five minutes would make no difference.
"My lover is dead," McComber told me eventually, after some minor convincing on my part. "She took her own life only hours ago." He spoke hurriedly, but with an overwhelming sense of despair and denial. More than just raindrops were dampening his face. "She's dead!"
I could only stare for a second in disbelief and sorrow. "Why I'm sorry," I added, though in truth was more curious than anything. After all, what did it matter to me that some stranger's lover died? "Would you like to talk about it?" I asked, truly hoping.
"She slashed her wrists," he said, hesitantly, as if saying too much would get him into trouble, his eyes darting from me to the darkness. The rain pounded us, the only two people visible in the dead, dark town, me too drunken to actually notice, and him too worried. "When I went there tonight," he continued quickly, shivering from either the cold or his nervousness or both, "when I stopped by, there was a letter on the door and I read it and replaced it because it wasn't for me at all and then I noticed the lock was unlatched. So I stepped in, trying to make little noise, and my heart was going so fast and I was so scared because of what I read in that letter. I searched for her through the whole house, since she told me to come at that time, and found her dead on the bathroom tiles, a carpet of blood all over her body.
"Well I got out of there in a hurry," he continued, "because I was in trouble. Hell, I wasn't even supposed to be there, and if anybody finds out I'll sure damn well be a dead man."
"Oh, you're talking crazy now," I told him, feeling pity, "there is no reason why anyone would be angry at you for being there."
"Oh you don't think so?" he asked sarcastically, an awkward, frightened smirk on his face. "I'd be willing to bet her husband wouldn't be all to pleased. And he's a mean man, he is."
"Your lover was married?!"
"Yeah!" he laughed, though the smile was short-lived. "Been married for six years. Her husband's a loser, though. Doesn't care about her. Never spends any time with her. He's just one of those drunks who hangs around bars drinking all night and coming home real late and all. But she says he'd flip if he was finding out about us."
"I know the type," I commented, thinking of all the idiots I talked to at the taverns. I really thought them the most stupid people I had ever met. "He probably doesn't suspect a thing," I added, feeling drunkenly sorry for the fellow before me.
"No," Marcus said, "he has no idea. He doesn't really know all that much about anything. She always said you could tell how stupid he was just by looking at him, being always drunk and all. But I have yet to see him, so I really couldn't tell you."
"Well I am confused then," I said. The drenching sheets of rain sliced through us, yet we simply stood there. McComber seemed to have calmed a bit, yet continued to look around more than he might have otherwise. "I am really confused. If he suspected nothing, or even if he maybe suspected but did not know, well then why would she kill herself?"
"Well that is just it," he told me. "There was one thing driving her insane. Her baby."
"Her baby?"
"She was pregnant."
"Pregnant?" I asked, seeing the new twist in the story.
"And he didn't know."
"You mean to tell me she was pregnant and hadn't told him?"
"Oh no!" he said. "She told him!" He checked to both sides and behind, then quietly leaned in and whispered just loud enough for me to hear over the sound of rain striking the streets and puddles we stood in. "What she wasn't telling him was that he wasn't the father. I am! She went crazy deciding whether or not to tell him."
"And you're thinking that's the reason she killed herself, because she couldn't tell him she was pregnant with another man's child, that she had been having an affair while he was never home? That's the reason you think she killed herself?"
"I know it is!" he yelled. "That letter! That letter I said I read. The one on the door. Well that was to her husband, and she wrote in it exactly that. That she couldn't bare to tell him but knew he had to know, so she was going to kill herself. And now he's gonna read that letter and come after me!"
"It's doubtful," I said, though knew myself I would certainly go after him if it were me. "Besides, he doesn't even know your name, does he?"
"No," said Marcus McComber, staring down at the puddles near his feet, "but he knows there is someone else now. At least, he will know when he gets home. Unless he's more of an idiot than I thought." He looked up quickly as a door slammed somewhere in the hidden distance, the sound muffled by the pouring rain. "But that's why I've got to get out of here!" He started to turn, but then stopped. "It has been nice talking to you," he said, oddly enough. "And one other thing: if you happen to see a crazed man coming this way and shouting my name, point him in the other direction. Thanks."
Without a further word, he took off running through the streets, his head down, hair plastered against his forehead. I never saw him again. A shame it is, really, because he was an interesting man. I would give anything to find him now. Later the next day I returned to that street lamp in hope of discovering him again, but my eyes haven't fallen upon him since he vanished behind a dark building on that cold, wet street corner.
Yet at the moment, when he was gone, I felt?aside from my drunkenness?no sadness or sorrow. The problem was not my own, and life would continue on. So out of the lamplight I walked, my head down and hand's in my pockets, alone again in the terrible wind and driving rain, going in the opposite direction of McComber. My face went numb sometime earlier, but only then did I realize it. The streets were empty and bare and black all the long way home. The entire scene seems lucid and eerie still, as if it were a dream.
And I say it strange that I found myself that cold, dark evening, traversing the streets and talking with the man McComber, because upon arriving home that evening I noticed a small letter attached to my unlocked door. I, however, was tired, and my mind was drunkenly empty, so I stepped inside and crawled into bed, certain that my wife lay asleep on the other side. I awoke the next morning with a terrible need to go to the bathroom. After all, I had much to drink the night before.
Back to the archive 
Return to.... SSC