The Anonymous Man Read online

  But in the next moment, once this wave of initial exuberance had faded, it hit him that he was completely and utterly alone. Wifeless, friendless, family-less. Lifeless, for that matter. Literally. A person completely and irrevocably shut off from the rest of humanity. There was no one who knew him, no one who loved him. Not here, not in this house in Endicott. Holly was more than three hundred miles away. And Jeff, well, he didn’t think that Jeff really cared about him. All Jeff cared about was getting the insurance money so that he could make his escape to the wide open, deserted lands of Wyoming, Utah, Montana or whatever desolate fucking place he wanted to go.

  Jeff had softened the troubling prospect of becoming an invisible man this way: Jerry didn’t need or want a new identity because he had Holly. Once the insurance company paid off the policy, Holly would join him and take care of all his needs forever after. The cost to Jerry, if he could call it that, was that he would have to live under Holly’s yoke and whim the rest of his life. But she’d certainly have to comply with her part of the deal, Jeff assured him, and interact with the world on his behalf, in order to satisfy his needs. If she didn’t, she risked losing everything she had as well. Jerry could simply turn her in, and blow the cover off their crime. By bringing them in and cooperating with law enforcement and the insurance companies, his lawyer could probably convince the DA to give him a favorable plea. But for his sudden awakening of conscience, his lawyer would undoubtedly argue, the DA and the victims in this case, Global Life and Casualty Insurance Company and all their policy-holders and the people who owned shares in their company, would have remained none the wiser and would have suffered a loss of four million dollars. He might even walk away with probation and maybe even a little money in his pocket.

  Not that he would ever need to make such a deal, Jeff had added with a laugh. After all, Holly loved him, and he loved Holly, and that was all the motivation in the world she required to take care of his needs.

  Jeff also reminded Jerry that going anonymous meant exactly that: he must become truly dead. There could be no contact with anyone from his former life.

  Now, alone in the house, thinking about all that, the certainty of his situation hit Jerry full force, making him a little light-headed, woozy. He was a little shaky on his feet as he returned to the kitchen after exploring the rest of the house to assure himself that he was alone. Jerry stood there for a time, considering his predicament. He was unable to shake the reality of what he and Holly and Jeff had just pulled off. It rode over him like a wave of grief and continued to oppress and overwhelm him. At the time, they had planned the scheme, and even during his fake funeral, the consequences hadn’t seemed all that important. But now that it had come to pass, Jerry felt horrible that he had so callously tossed aside all connection to family, friends, and the memories of his former life. He wondered if this was what gangsters went through after ratting out their colleagues entering the federal witness protection.

  But even those rats retained their identities.

  Now that he was anonymous, without an identity or a name, like George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life, it was as if he had never been born.

  But that thought didn’t make Jerry feel so good. He sat at the kitchen table and stared out the window looking across a gloomy, narrow driveway at the clapboard house next door.

  He felt alone, alone as he had ever felt.

  Anonymity, he thought, was something like being dead.

  Chapter Twelve

  Fifteen minutes later, Jerry was still sitting at the kitchen table ruminating upon his situation in the glare from the old-fashioned light fixture in the center of the ceiling. And finally, he considered what had been truly nagging at him for the last couple of years, if not longer: did Holly love him anymore?

  In raising the question, he had to consider a possible answer—that she didn’t. That possibility made Jerry dizzy with grief and longing. After a time, still suffering and sick, he reached into the front pocket of his jacket and felt for the pre-paid cell phone.

  Jeff had initially refused Jerry's request for it. There’d be too much temptation to use it, he had argued. But Jerry stood his ground and insisted that he needed some easy and ready way to communicate with them, just in case. After mulling it over for a day or two, Jeff relented with strict instructions that it could only be used in an absolute fucking emergency, as an absolute last fucking resort.

  Despite Jeff’s admonition, it took every ounce of Jerry’s resolve not to take out the cell phone right then and there and call Holly and tell her how sorry he was for letting their love dwindle and forgetting how special she had made him feel. But realizing that at bottom, Jeff’s warning was sound, that it could endanger their ultimate plan, Jerry managed to take a few deep breaths to gather his strength and refrain from calling Holly despite how badly he needed to hear her voice, and despite how badly he needed to say hello to her followed by the inevitable, I love you.

  What she would say in response, Jerry had no idea. It had been so long since he had confronted his fear that their love was over, had left it to fester like an unclean wound, he didn’t care what she might say. He simply needed an answer. Bringing it up and putting it on the agenda for discussion seemed just plain necessary. Inexorable.

  Finally, with trembling fingers, Jerry removed the cell phone from the pocket of his jacket and placed it on the kitchen table. He stood, took the jacket off and hung it on the back of the old, rickety wooden chair, then walked over to the refrigerator. Opening it, Jerry saw three lonely bottles of Beck’s Ale on the center rack from a six pack left over from three weekends ago when he had returned to the apartment with a suitcase and two boxes of clothes and various toiletry and kitchen utensils. Jerry removed one of the bottles, opened it with a can opener on his key chain, took a sniff of the dry, “skunky” smell of the ale, then took a long swig. It was cold and felt good going down his throat.

  For a moment, he forgot his disorientation and loneliness. Just what the doctor ordered. He suddenly decided that everything was going to be alright, that they had done it, pulled it off, and were going to fool the insurance companies into handing over four million dollars, enough money for a lifetime. There would always be the fear of getting caught, but that fear, Jeff had assured them, would diminish to next to nothing over time. Until, one day, it would be completely forgotten.

  And he felt good about being anonymous, totally invisible, a literal nonentity in the rat race of mankind. Off the grid, as it had been termed in a book he had read some years ago, the title of which he could not recall, but had intrigued him because it concerned a guy who had escaped the human illusion that life had meaning.

  Jerry shook off the thought and after resisting another urge to call Holly, he lifted his suitcase and carried it and the bottle of Beck’s back into the bedroom. He switched on a glaring ceiling light and, after tossing the suitcase on top of the bed, sat on the edge of it with a glum feeling returning to his gut as he took another swallow of beer. It was dreadfully quiet in the house, and that only enhanced his loneliness. He needed a cat or dog or something to keep him company over the next long weeks; but Holly didn’t like animals, so pets of any kind, even tropical fish, had always been taboo. She had explained in a long tearful soliloquy one night years ago not long after they had first met, when they were still at Harpur College, that her alcoholic father had stomped her pet beagle, Sammy, to death upon returning home after a several day’s binge and tripping over the hapless creature.

  After a few moments remembering that odd talk about her murdered beagle, and how it explained somewhat the person Holly had become, Jerry took off the shirt and pants and underwear he’d been wearing for two straight days and walked naked into the bathroom. After a long, hot shower, he pulled out some fresh underwear from the dresser and a brand new sweatsuit and ripped off the tags. As he slipped into them, Jerry was disgusted by their sheer size and volume, large swaths of cloth that were required to cover, as Jeff had aptly put it, his fat haunches
and ass. Then he vowed, in the next days and weeks before Holly came down to join him, to do something about that. To slim down, to become desirable again.

  Jerry returned to the small, square living room just off the kitchen and found the remote on top of the old, nineteen-inch color TV he had taken from the guest room of the house in Buffalo. Jerry sat on the sofa facing the TV stand, stretched out his stubby legs, and, after another swallow of beer, pointed the remote at the TV and clicked the power button. The application for cable service would have required that Jerry reveal a name, bank account, job, and credit card, none of which he had or would ever have again. And it seemed ridiculous, if not risky, to attempt to put a personal item like that in the name of Anonymous, LLC. So it was agreed he’d have to be content watching local stations until Holly came down.

  It was a couple minutes past six by then, just in time for the local news. On the first leg of careers which they hoped would land them in some bigger market someday soon, two young anchors, an attractive and chirpy male and female duet, reported the news of the day, the typical assortment of house fires, car accidents, a drug-related gang killing in Binghamton’s inner city, a plant closing in Johnson City laying off fifteen more workers, and some farcical local political intrigue.

  Every now and then, Jerry glanced across the room into the kitchen, at his jacket hanging lopsided on the back of the chair, and thought of the cell phone on the table. He could easily get up, walk over there, grab the cell phone then press in Holly’s cell number. When she answered, he would apologize for calling, for putting them at risk, but tell her that he simply had to call and tell her how desperate everything seemed without her now, that he feared she didn’t love him anymore, that he was truly and irrevocably lost without her. That he loved her, would always love her. That he needed to hear her musky laugh as she assured him that he was being foolish in a tenor and tone that demonstrated she was being truthful, genuine. That she truly loved him. Wasn’t that what their love-making the other night had meant?

  But then, Jerry worried that if he placed that call, she wouldn’t say any such thing, but instead be angry at him and scold him, tell him that he was being a stupid fool. And then, hang up on him.

  Jerry fell asleep on the living room couch with the TV a low mumble in the background while still considering using the cell phone. He woke up with a start, oblivious, sometime during Double Jeopardy. But he quickly remembered where he was, his predicament. Holly was over three hundred miles away, and he had no idea what she was up to.

  Just then, the cell phone let out the chime he had programmed into it: Take Me Out to the Ball Game. His heart thumped and he lost his breath. Who the fuck could that be? He jumped off the sofa and scurried into the kitchen and grabbed the phone. Finally, he opened the lid and looked down at the number blazing up at him, starting with a strange area code and seven digits Jerry didn’t recognize. Despite that, he clicked the “talk” button.

  “Hello?”

  On the other end, a woman’s voice whispered, “Joe?”

  “Hello?”

  In the next moment, the caller hung up.

  After a time, Jerry snapped the cell phone shut. He placed it on the kitchen table in the cold, silent apartment and stared at it for a time waiting for it to ring again. The light from the ceiling fixture glared down at him. It was a bright, unnatural, cold as moonlight. Who was that woman? He hadn’t recognized the voice, and she had asked for Joe. But the phone didn’t ring, and the apartment remained silent, lonely.

  It had been a false alarm. A wrong number.

  Jerry walked back into the living room and found that he was trembling, like a boy afraid of an empty house, full of ghosts.

  After a time, he fell to his knees and wept.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once the wrong number incident wore off, Jerry spent the next hour or so of his first night in the house in Endicott in restless agitation, trying to stave off incessant doses of fear and loneliness. Finally, tired of feeling miserable, he squeezed into a pair of jeans (and got pissed that they didn’t fit, too tight, a 42 waist, and still too tight!) and a dark navy blue Michigan sweatshirt, and decided he needed to get out of the house. That despite all the self- loathing over his weight, he was starving and needed to find a decent restaurant for a chicken Caesar salad or even something more substantial. And being around other people might do him some good. Anything was better than being cooped up alone and miserable in this house.

  Half way up Vestal Parkway on the way to SUNY Binghamton, he found a family diner that looked clean and appetizing. Instead of a salad, at least on his first night alone, he rewarded himself by ordering a thick, juicy burger and a chocolate shake. While waiting for the food, he began to feel better about his predicament. What was he fretting about anyway? They had pulled it off, the perfect crime and his exile to Binghamton was only temporary. Holly would be joining him soon and he resolved, at least after this meal, that he would slim down by the time she got down there. Tomorrow, he’d stock up on some healthy food from a local supermarket, vegetables, fruits, and low carb foods, and finally follow that diet in a book he had bought a few days before they had faked his death. Part of the change, his new life as an anonymous man, was to slim down, get healthy. Like Jeff challenged, dramatically change himself. Not to mention that cooking would save him money so that he would not spend the entire five-thousand-dollar allowance Jeff had given him on expensive fattening dinners at local diners, national chains, or fast food restaurants, no matter how good the food tasted.

  “You gotta work on making that cash last a few weeks,” Jeff had scolded. “Spend frugally, avoid going out too much to restaurants, and certainly stay away from bars and things like that. Keep a low profile. The last thing we need is you getting yourself arrested for DWI.” Jeff had leaned forward, and after looking around to confirm that Holly was out of earshot, added this advice in a low, secretive voice: “Keep indoors as much as you can. Buy yourself some decent porno movies and jerk off until your dick starts bleeding.” Jeff hadn’t been smiling while giving him this advice, but glared at Jerry as if he had grave concerns about his co-conspirator’s ability to hack it alone on the lamb.

  Waiting for his milkshake, Jerry assured himself that Jeff had nothing to worry about. He’d get used to living alone, without Holly, without the prospect of any regular companionship in the short term at least. He simply needed to find something to occupy his time. He should get back into drawing storyboards for his comic book. He vowed to start reading again, sci-fi being his favorite genre, or maybe even learn how to play the guitar which was something he had always wanted to do after giving it a short try in his sophomore year of college. Jerry also vowed to spend some of his time exercising. Buy a set of barbells and set them up in the living room. Do some running around the neighborhood; get in shape.

  The waitress, a pretty, thirty-something brunette, with a husky voice and narrow, intense eyes, finally delivered his burger and chocolate shake, and Jerry felt disgusted with himself. He pushed them away, but after a minute or so, he could not help himself. He drew the straw sticking out of the shake near and sucked in the sweet, thick, cool liquid. Fuck it, he thought, tonight I deserve a treat to celebrate my death. Tomorrow will be the first day of the rest of my life. He took another sip of the deliciously creamy and fattening milkshake.

  During the rest of that dinner, Jerry’s mood continued to brighten and he began to feel downright good about his prospects.

  What was he complaining or worrying about? In this present state of anonymous existence, he was without a care in the world, totally free. How could that be bad? By the time the waitress brought Jerry his check, he smiled up at her.

  “You win the lottery or something, bud?” the waitress asked, scowling down at his happy face. “Or you just happy to see me?”

  “A little bit of both,” Jerry said, knowing that his flirting was all too obvious.

  She left him with a wink and a cock-eyed grin as she went off t
o serve other customers.

  On his way out of the restaurant, Jerry picked up a free weekly newspaper off the counter by the register, the Tri-Cities Arts & Leisure, and started leafing through it as he waited to pay his check. It published the usual assortment of avant-garde liberal shtick, articles about global warming, demonizing the Republican right, attacking the war on terror and reviewing the newest alternative rock releases as well as local community theater productions.

  But what Jerry spotted on the back pages immediately drew his interest. There was a separate section several pages long printing line after line of advertisements for sex talk with 800 and 900 numbers, local numbers for gays or bisexuals or swinging couples, plus several columns of short escort/hooker advertisements in concise little boxes, some of them including photographs of the girls offering these services.

  Jerry took the weekly out with him to the Malibu and continued studying the back sex ads section. The idea of meeting some professional stranger for sex that night, instead of walking the mall in search of a guitar or some boring book, was instantly appealing. He needed something to take his mind his loneliness, especially this first night alone. He dreaded the thought of being alone in that house, entirely separated from everyone. Anonymous and invisible to everyone. What harm could there be in filling this time with paid sex except the couple hundred dollars it would cost him? Of course, there was the ever-present problem of contracting an STD, but if he wore a condom, and stuck to kissing and screwing, he assured himself he’d be okay.

  After reading through several of the escort ads, Jerry focused on this one:

  “Exotic, exciting, pleasurable, call Jade.

  Locally, outcalls only 24/7, 200, no tips 333-8112.

  There was a small, blurry photograph next to the ad depicting “Jade” and Jerry was immediately intrigued. Jade looked just like Holly. In fact, she could have easily passed for her sister, or even twin, straight down to her short, blonde hair, and the slant of her eyes as she looked out aggressively at whoever had taken the photo.