Nothing to Get Nostalgic About

By Eddie Brophy

Charlie Harris is haunted. Haunted by addiction, haunted by depression, but more than anything he is a man haunted by his childhood. For years, Charlie had successfully used his relationship with his past and with fear to his advantage. He became a successful and award-winning author by confronting the tangible terrors of a divisive world of eco

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atmosphere Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781636495927

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NOTHING TO GET

NOSTALGIC ABOUT

EDDIE BROPHY

atmosphere press

Copyright © 2020 Eddie Brophy

Published by Atmosphere Press

Cover design by Josep Lledó

No part of this book may be reproduced

except in brief quotations and in reviews

without permission from the publisher.

Nothing To Get Nostalgic About

2020, Eddie Brophy

atmospherepress.com

For Dylan and Ryder.

The two of you have given me

Both the privilege of fatherhood,

And the courage to step into the darkness

And come out a survivor.

I love you.

I

BURNHAM COUNTY, MAINE. MARCH 21ST, 2018-

I do not think you ever outgrow your fears. Just the opposite. I think your fears develop right along with you. When age begins to diminish fear's power over you, it figures out a way to burrow itself deep into the recesses of your subconsciousness. Fear never takes the wheel, so to speak. It is never the driver, always the passenger, and navigating the course. 

I never conquered my fear of the dark; that fear just simply evolved in the subtlest of ways.  When I was four, the dark represented the total absence of bodily and emotional security. A vast abyss that masticated rather than devoured, beginning with the perversion of your sense of security and ending with the larceny of your sanity.  At seven, the dark itself could no longer hurt me; rather, it corroborated with the nefarious individuals who used the dark to travel incognito and manipulate my naively developed trust of a once formidable foe.

At seventeen, the fear became more existential. Dark. Absence of light, absence of life, absence of love, loneliness. At thirty, the dark is now an amalgamation of every single one of those things. The dark represents a loss of security from its potential to corroborate with all these entities who harbor a desire to murder me and my family, the loss of a faith in humanity brought on by a sad and lonely man who started as a scared little boy.

That's how fear stays with you. I come from a school of thought that, no one knows you better than your fear does. How else does it manage to compete with feelings and senses that are far more, rewarding, should I say? Like, the first time you ever experienced the orgasm that followed a masturbatory act. Surely, that would be something that could dull the power of fear.

Then what happens if a seemingly innocuous discovery of one's own body at say, ten, or maybe twelve, goads you into destructive patterns of overindulgence.  Your ability to appreciate the persuasive nature of a vice while still succumbing to it despite your best interests, perhaps that might be a bit fearful for you? The pursuit of an initial sensation to the point of complete and utter destruction, be it of one's own self or of trust—the trust of self, or the trust of loved ones. One sip. One sip and you'll lose your boy. One sip and you'll lose all of it.

However. One sip. And you'll stop seeing your father. He can't hurt you anymore. One sip. His voice will no longer resound from synapse to synapse until it tremors from your tear ducts and cascades down your pockmarked cheeks, down to your trembling nicotine-stained fingertips. One sip becomes two. Two reaches for a refill, and enough refills empty a bottle. The dark. The fear. The sobriety, the inability to reconcile with what emerges from the darkness to take you.

It'll masticate you rather than devour. And once it is done, it'll come for him. It'll rape him of his innocence and demoralize the integrity of his smile. It'll come back for you. If you're not accounted for when it returns, it'll settle for him. Little Dylan. You are not a survivor; you're simply delaying the inevitable. Make it easier for yourself; you still have a choice. You cannot protect him. You are simply too haunted. Let us take our bounty.

Charlie! His wife shouted.

Monster-check! Come on!

The frenzied mind of a tortured writer cried out all over a word document as a thirty-year-old man introspectively stared into an abyss in the form of damaged laptop screen hanging on by an actual thread of its innards. Charlie Harris carefully lowered the dilapidated screen down on the keyboard, his face moistened by the mere thought of challenging his gravest fear.

Charlie! She yelled.

He's waiting for you!

Charlie sat up from his leather desk chair and exited what appeared to be his office. As he closed the door behind him, he fiddled in his pockets for a few moments before pulling out a small key. Pleased with his discovery, he padlocked the door shut and briskly ran up an adjacent spiral staircase to his infant son's nursery.

Wobbling against the bars of a wooden crib was his towheaded, blue-eyed baby boy. The baby immediately squeaked and giggled at the sight of his father, who was giving him a toothy grin from behind the whiskers of his unkempt beard. He wrapped his arms around his son's tiny body and kissed him squarely on the crown of his head. He knelt to get directly at eye level with his baby.

All aboard the Sandman Express! He hollered.

Choo-Choo! Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga. Choo-Choo!

Alright, buddy. Charlie smiled.

Got to sweep this place for monsters before I lay my favorite little guy down.

He then motioned to his son's closet door before knocking three times.

What do you think buddy? He asked.

Any monsters in here?

His son remained vigilant over his father in case a monster did emerge from the closet. Charlie nodded at Dylan, who mimicked his father endearingly. Charlie then pulled the doors wide up and announced,

Nope! No monsters in here!

Charlie then pointed under the crib.

What do you think? Charlie asked.

His son was now bobbing back and forth, squeaking and cooing. Charlie carefully kneeled down on the carpeted floor, scanning the nursery and admiring the commitment to infantile cheerfulness, save for the plush Beetlejuice mixed in with the rest of the conventional stuffed animals and the Freddy Krueger autograph resting on a shelf among other framed photos of dead grandparents and early milestones.

He then turned his attention to the skirt of the crib and started peeling it back carefully. He lifted his head up to address his son after he saw two orange eyes staring past the darkness at him. Seemingly transfixed, Charlie stared into what felt like a waking nightmare when a mouthful of rotten enamel smiled at him.

No monsters under here. Daddy. Something hissed.

Charlie distanced himself from the crib in a feverish panic. His baby boy was still standing and now appearing alarmed by the sight of his fearful father.

If he can't have you, the voice snarled,

We'll settle for him. Chooooooo…. Chooooooooo

It sang as a bloodied and festering arm began to stretch from underneath the crib toward the baby. The fingers attached to the mutilated hand danced up the bars like a spider.

Dylan, he cried.

Dylan was in tears when Charlie lunged his body toward the arm to prevent it from harming his son, slamming his face into the bars and knocking himself out cold. Dylan's cries carried out of the room with deafening decibels of fear as Charlie was sprawled across the floor, as the carpet absorbed a pool of blood underneath his skull.  His eyes were now squinting as if to focus on the lighting fixture above him, forcing himself to come to.

Are you fucking drunk? she shouted.

Charlie managed to finally see clearly, only to find his wife Lorraine attempting to soothe their startled baby while Charlie laid motionless beneath them.

I can't fucking believe you would do this to us, she scolded.

You promised!

Charlie massaged the wound on his forehead, rubbing his thumb against the trickles of blood on his fingertips before stumbling to his feet to address his wife.

You know what, she shouted.

Get the fuck out. Get the fuck out of my house!

It would not matter if he were sober; she would always think he was drunk. It reminded Charlie of when he as a teenager and everyone would accuse him of being on drugs. You run away from one small town out of fear of being stigmatized by your family, only to wind up in another small town to be stigmatized for what you look like. All teenagers go through a myriad of identities; Charlie was not the exception. He felt the most comfortable looking like a musician in the last era he remembered fondly. Namely, because it was before Rachel was dead and Janet went AWOL.

Unfortunately, you cannot walk out into the world without succumbing to the court of public opinion and the incessant need to label what you cannot understand. Charlie always feared being alienated because of the unpleasant details of his past, and then he entered high school. Now, he was the creepy, heroin-using Kurt Cobain kid. Charlie was never able to decide if it was a matter of not wanting to disappoint the status quo. After all, his honorary new title was not nearly as bad as the one he left Bear Hills with. Eventually, he wound up abusing the same substance he was often rumored to be abusing.

Long after he had cleaned up his act, his fleeting romance with drug abuse just seemed to follow him everywhere he went. It made him feel like a microcosm, but then he discovered a more socially acceptable vice in his twenties. Unfortunately, it’s socially acceptable until the disease part kicks in, and then he became the creepy alcoholic Kurt Cobain kid. That is how it felt every time he sensed Lorraine’s lack of faith or trust in him, scrutinizing his every move. He knew for his own kid, and for the sake of restoring that trust, that he needed to reach out to his sponsor.

Unfortunately, his sponsor must have failed to pay a phone bill or eight because his phone is disconnected. The only other place Charlie could think to find him was at a meeting, something that was not exactly Charlie’s style. The best thing to come out of it was a chance meeting with a former writing professor named James Conroy. When he struck up a conversation with the former academic, two things were given to him. A phone number, and an insistence to refer to the man as Jimbo.

Charlie found it relatively strange for someone who had previously been such a highly revered teacher to adopt a nickname that made him more townie than scholar. Before long, he discovered that his new sponsor and his drunken alter-ego, as he was referred to it, i.e. Jimbo, had destroyed James Conroy, the man who once upon a time was one of the most revered professors at Southern Maine University. He’d taught a myriad of philosophy courses in addition to creative writing. He was also the president of the campus magazine where Charlie was first published. There were even rumors that he was on track for tenure. Then he lost his daughter to drug addiction, to opiates.

After that, he went on a path of self-destruction and destroyed his promising career, his marriage, and was well on his way to reaching the destination by destroying his liver. That did not seem to be the case when they first met in A.A., but afterwards, based on subsequent phone calls any time that marriage, parenthood, or his past made drinking feel like the only viable option for solace. The phone calls stopped, and apparently so did Jimbo’s last refuge…the meetings at the church about a fifteen-minute walking distance from where Charlie and his family lived. Charlie was surprised not to find Jimbo holding court among the other men who seemed less melancholic when he regaled them with his sordid tales of his drunken antics.

One was a retired police lieutenant who frequently answered the calls about Jimbo’s public drunkenness and disturbing the peace.  While Jimbo never explained how the officer he used to drive crazy became one of his closest confidants, Charlie chocked it up to it either being an A.A. thing, or maybe Jimbo had eventually endeared himself to the old timer.

Charlie’s ass had barely reached the hard plastic of those chairs usually reserved for school children when the meeting’s self-proclaimed elder statesman barked something from under his Bruins cap.

You must not own a calendar, he grumbled

Charlie turned to see the curmudgeon still scrutinizing the person currently speaking.

It’s HER anniversary, he shrugged.

If you’re looking for your sponsor, I’m sorry to say you’re looking in the wrong place

Charlie quietly nodded and stood to his feet before tapping the man on his shoulder as a gesture of thank you.

Congratulations on your award, the man praised

Jimbo hasn’t shut up about it since he found out.

As Charlie exited the basement of the church, he could not help but have a sense of humor about how many package stores were within a proximity of a place where people were trying to get clean. That was not Jimbo’s M.O. though, he would not be the kind of guy to fall off the wagon and grab a six pack to take it back home without an audience. Charlie had walked for a few blocks when he spotted a few guys congregating outside the back door of a V.F.W. hall smoking butts and figured it had Jimbo written all over it.

The lighting was terrible; none of the televisions looked like they had been manufactured in the modern age, but sure enough, there was Jimbo, knocking back whiskey shooters, addressing the room…well, a couple of Vietnam vets and a few younger guys playing pool from the bar. 

I didn’t know you were a vet, Charlie remarked,

Jimbo slowly sat up and out of his stupor and smiled as he grabbed Charlie by the back of his neck with his calloused hand and pulled him in for a hug. He then leaned in and whispered something in Charlie’s ear,

See the kid working the bar? He pointed,

Lifelong Yankees fan. I found that out after I overheard him talking shit about our Sox on the last packie run I made, he whispered

Needless to say, he laughed, Blackmail, and a room full of devoted Sox vets is an instant in!

He then motioned for the bartender and winked,

Two whiskey shooters and beer. He then turned to Charlie.

Want anything?

Charlie laughed,

I’m two months sober, he insisted,

Three whiskey shooters, Jimbo requested.

Didn't you just say you came from a meeting? Jimbo scoffed.

Jimbo received his drinks and handed one of the shooters over to Charlie,

Only because I couldn’t find my sponsor, Charlie laughed.

Jimbo clinked the two glasses against Charlie's and motioned to drink.

Hi, my name's Jimbo, he laughed.

I'm an alcoholic, and I approve of this uh, political message.

The two men knocked their drinks back with conviction before exchanging a fit of laughter. Jimbo leaned into the bar and breathed through the dark nature of their meeting in a trailing laugh.

Ah, Jimbo echoed

So, how are you doing Chucky? Big day tomorrow!

Charlie reluctantly sighed before signaling to the bartender for another drink,

She kicked you out again, didn't she? He inquired.

Charlie nodded sadly.

You saw him again, Jimbo pressed.

Didn't you?

Charlie began to sink in his chair while Jimbo ruefully pressed on about the specter haunting his friend.

Does this have anything to do with tomorrow? He asked.

You get to walk across the stage of your alma mater, not just a guy who had all the odds stacked against him when he was a struggling student, he started,

and now you’re the guy who gets to come back as a hero who not only graduated, but as a literal figure of folklore. Here's Charlie Harris! Everyone!

Jimbo stood to his feet while Charlie hid his face behind the palms of his hands. Jimbo was now holding up his beer and making a scene before motioning to his mortified friend.

This here, he continued,

Is Charlie Fucking Harris. As a published author of many fine tales of the macabre, you might otherwise know him as E-H Ramsey,

Jimbo paused to let out a deplorable belch.

However, as of tomorrow, He rambled,

This man is finally going to own his birth rite and his rightful place in this pretentious little coastal town and not only reveal that he IS Charlie Harris but will do so with the prestigious Meredith Gunning Literary Award of Excellence.

Jimbo paused for a few moments to the sound of crickets.

And also, there's money involved, and he'll buy us ALL a round of shots!

The pool players placed their cues on the green, approached the bar smiling, and reaching for their drinks

See, Jimbo assured Charlie.

It's THAT easy.

Charlie gave Jimbo a grave stare before removing a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his flannel and motioned that he was heading outside. Jimbo nodded while taking another swig of his beer. He then held up two fingers at the bartender, then turned them to motion for a cigarette break.

Watch our beers! He requested.

I don't want any funny business out of you, mister!

The bartender just shook his head and smiled at the two and gave Jimbo the finger, who was staring back with a toothy grin and a cigarette dangling from his teeth.

Charlie leaned against the brick exterior of the building, physically trying to fight off a shiver from a typically cold evening in Maine. Jimbo did his lamest attempt at moon walking before laying back on the brick exterior and groaning.

Oh, come on, he pleaded,

If you lose your sense of humor all you'll be left with are actual thoughts. And who needs that, Chucky boy? 

Charlie just shook his head, took another drag and smiled some more.

How do you always manage to stay so amused all the time?

Jimbo removed another cigarette out of his pack and lit it with the one he was previously smoking.

It's like I said, Chucky. He breathed.

The day you stop laughing is the day you can't manage to do anything else but cry about this lottery called life. You know all about that; you were dealt a pretty shit hand. Unlike say...well, that guy right there.

Jimbo motioned to an older drunk outside of the club in a car, slumped over on the dashboard.

This fear you still have? He smiled,

You may think it'll kill you. You may think it will ruin your marriage, or corrupt your child...but when we are done tonight? You will wake up probably sleeping in the parked car in your driveway waiting for her to cool off. She might still be mad. But she is not one to let you piss away this legacy you are trying to carve for yourself, so she'll let you back in and you'll shower and before long? You'll be addressing hundreds of people in a packed auditorium about why you never became one of these dope fiends here in good old' Burnham County. That is not to say you're taking advantage of her forgiveness. It's a learning curve. You need to learn how to battle your demons and she needs to learn how to let you. It's a tough compromise, but if you both think the family is worth it? Then you'll figure it out. He concluded.

Charlie tossed his cigarette to the ground.

I always regretted never taking one of your philosophy lectures, Professor, he gushed, Why did you give it up?

Jimbo appeared irritated, but also knew that this was the relationship he had with Charlie as both a friend and former student.

Like you? he sighed,

"Bereavement wasn't brief; it became a slow and tedious process. When my Linda died? That was it for me, man. I swear, Burnham County is where ALL of us sad pricks run to, thinking we can put a distance between ourselves and the pain.  I was fortunate that I got through those years when you were a student. Maybe it was fate that we met? Maybe you are cursed? I just remember one minute I was teaching a lesson about Kafka and the next?

I delivered a drunken lecture on the virtues of indifference. My role as the town alcoholic bodes better for me now that people don't harbor a lot of expectations about my place in this life. Do you remember what you said to me the first time we acknowledged each other in A.A.?"

Charlie nodded.

I told you, he started.

That my gravest fear was no longer not feeling like I belonged to a family, or anything else. It was realizing when I did, that someday mortality would have the final word in how long I could appreciate it.

Jimbo smiled at him and poked his chest.

I WAS a good- he paused, I was an EXCEPTIONAL father. I had to be. My dad was such a piece of shit. And how did the world reward my ability to conquer and break the cycle of abuse? It fed my Linda to a different kind of abuser. Heroin. I buried my fucking princess at fifteen years old, man. While Rain may never understand this irrational fear in your head about trying to kill yourself to save his life? I get it. There isn't a day that goes by where I didn't wish the needle went into my veins instead of hers. Is that how you got that, uh,

he began pointing at the wound on Charlie's forehead. Charlie frowned.

Monster check, he curtly answered.

Jimbo nodded like a man who had been there before.

She's also pretty pissed that I stopped taking my meds. Charlie divulged.

Jimbo's eye bulged out of his head and he slapped Charlie hard against his chest.

YOU TOOK YOURSELF OFF YOUR MEDS?! Jimbo scolded.

You can't do that, Chucky! Remember what happened to me when I did that?

Charlie immediately started laughing.

Yeah, he answered.

You called me up because you were out of your mind driving all over the white mountains trying to find a toilet. Not just ANY toilet. THE toilet. He laughed.

And do you remember what happened? Jimbo begged.

You shit your pants, Charlie giggled.

Jimbo's face became deathly serious.

That's not funny, he asserted.

Charlie gave Jimbo a sincere stare.

With those fucking doe eyes, Jimbo complained.

I still can't believe you told Facebook, Charlie snickered. Jimbo tossed his arms in the air, You threatened to tell Facebook first! He argued.

Like the sniveling little politician that you are, you were trying to blackmail me into getting back on my meds the same way you blackmailed that poor bastard who likes the Yanks?

The two men stood laughing for several moments.

How is the new book coming? Jimbo asked.

Charlie took a few moments to smoke another cigarette,

You know someone sent me those tapes. He answered.

And you still don't know who? Jimbo asked.

Charlie shook his head emphatically.

I mean, they were in Donald’s…her case worker's possession, initially, he started.

But surely he had to turn them in, considering it was a criminal investigation. Jimbo took another drag of his cigarette, Have you listened to them yet? He asked.

Charlie shook his head again.

I had to install a padlock on my office, he revealed.

It's bad enough that I have to give up my pen name and subsequently my anonymity to beat all these tabloid websites to the punch. God forbid anyone find out what’s on those tapes, what she said about everything that happened to us. The book is coming along, though. I was hoping I'd find you in attendance so you could hear me read the first couple of chapters I have finished for it.

Jimbo appeared maudlin and stymied by an invisible deterrent.

You know I would, he assured,

I just. I don't want to show my face on that campus any more than they'd want to see my face there. Any chance you'll be attending tomorrow night's meeting? He asked.

Charlie nodded.

A sign of good faith to Rain, he answered.

I was sober for two months. God, what a fucking nightmare of a two months it was. It's weird; I felt like going stone cold sober would've erased all of the dark thoughts I was having, not exacerbate them. He pleaded.

It's another component to the disease, Jimbo warned.

That's why you can't take yourself off your meds. Why did you?

Rain wants another baby, Charlie lamented.

Unfortunately, when you're on those meds, the first thing to go ISN'T the crippling depression. It's the ability to climax, followed by your sex drive. He sighed.

She's starting to think that either I'm not attracted to her, or that I don't love her. Neither are the case. I just feel, he trailed…

Like the more kids you have, Jimbo encouraged.

The greater the chance I pass on this curse…just like he warned, Charlie mumbled.

He TOLD you?

Jimbo grabbed Charlie by the shoulders and tried to shake the gossamers away.

He’s DEAD Charlie. Unless you are suffering from the DTs or something man, I don’t know how he could be saying ANYTHING to you, Jimbo joked.

Feeling like even Jimbo was starting to become dismissive, Charlie maneuvered his body away from Jimbo with an accelerated stride in his step. Jimbo now found himself talking to Charlie's back.

Send me your chapters! He shouted.

Charlie waved to him without turning back.

Hey! Jimbo called,

Do you need me to call you an Uber?

Charlie, without missing a step, simply answered,

I walked here. I'm always walking in the dark.

Jimbo chuckled to himself before shaking the cold off his body.

Poet to the very end.

He then stumbled his way back into the bar while chanting ‘Yankees suck!’ just to be a ball buster; surely that got him more free drinks as per his unspoken agreement with the bartender. Charlie drunkenly meandered the cobbled roads of the quaint town of Burnham County, entertaining morbid thoughts and wrestling with his legitimacy as a writer. As he passed by a local cemetery, he stopped and shed a tear at the thought of his own headstone. What would it read? He wondered to himself. Here lies a mediocre storyteller. A gin blossom with an affinity for suicidal ideation? The man who ruined his son's life?

As he bowed his head and wept quietly, a child's voice resonated in his ears.

Come find me, Charlie.

Charlie's face revealed the dread of an otherwise unwanted memory.

Come dig me up, Charlie!

The sound of a past he continued fighting through was something he couldn't outrun, but Charlie did so anyway. The cold air got into his lungs as he breathed heavily, and with every spring, it felt as though they had turned into two cinder blocks weighing him down and crushing his chest.

When he made it to the intersection of Lochelt Ave and Barrett Rd, he paused long enough so the blood would stop rushing to his head. As he lifted the cumbersome weight of his head to face the icy fog permeating around him, he noticed a parade of dead friends following behind a necrotic old Indian that regarded him like a leper, despite their own respective festering sores and lacerated appendages. Survivor's guilt was as real to him now as it was when he was a young boy.  If his head was a cemetery, his fear was exhuming all the ghosts from their final resting places.

Charlie told ghost stories to earn a buck, and it wasn't a bad living. The problem with it was feeling as if he owed a debt to the debt every time he did. Time seemed to always stop when Charlie thought about the past. Even though there was never anything to get nostalgic about. He walked up his driveway and juggled for the keys in his pocket. He approached a black Chevy Cobalt with two magnetic stickers, one that read Support Halloween, and the other the logo of his favorite comedy Ghostbusters. He struggled trying to unlock the driver's side door for several moments before falling into his driver's seat and lifting his frail body into a ball.

He assumed he'd surely freeze to death but snuggled himself in a pile of flannel shirts he pulled from his back seat.  For as long as he could remember, he hated the idea of sleep. When you were asleep, you let your guard down. He learned this when he was five. Bad things always seemed