Not Dark Yet

By Gary E. Carter

A pledge made in college between two friends becomes a harsh reality three decades later when Henry calls unexpectedly upon Charlie to honor their pact to exit the planet on acceptable terms. The feisty Henry is determined to control his final days in order to maintain his dignity and minimize the impact on his wife, teenage son, ailing mother and friends. A veiled ulterior motive is to force Charlie to accept his own unavoidable fate and fully embrace the time he has left.

 

When Henry's summons arrives, Charlie is treading water in "an inert state" brought on by the abrupt departure of his wife and loss of his job. Henry's condition compels his friend into action, and the duo undertakes an often darkly humorous process as Henry, a landscape architect, proves adept at keeping things in semi-perspective while utilizing his sardonic wit to smooth away the jagged edges.

 

An unsettled Charlie bounces back and forth between despair and disbelief as Henry's partner-in-crime, always accompanied by classic rock tunes of their younger days. Helping along the way are Joanne, a committed hospice worker with whom Charlie clashes over Henry's needs and desires, and Pete, a friend to Henry and an innkeeper who lost his partner after a long illness.

 

Set in the mountain town of Asheville, Not Dark Yet is a moving tale that digs deep into the power of friendship and acceptance of what Henry acknowledges, channeling Jackson Browne, as "the one dance you'll do alone."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Back Nine Books
• Release date: May 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223265573

Gary E. Carter

Based in North Carolina, Gary Carter’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in such outlets as Nashville Review, Sky Island Journal, Deep South Magazine, Steel Toe Review, Dead Mule, Santa Barbara Literary Journal, Main Street Rag and Delta Poetry Review. He’s also the author of a novel, Eliot’s Tale, and a collection of short fiction entitled Kicking Dante’s Ass. Author Photo: Nick King Cover Photo: iStock.com/Kenneth Canning

Book preview

Chapter 1

It was a moment I guess I had known could come, but never actually believed would come. I had, in fact, long ago filed away somewhere in my memory bank the long and disjointed discussion, fueled undoubtedly by wine and weed and immature philosophical ramblings, that led to the promise that culminated in this moment.

But now I sit looking at the screen of my laptop and hear the voice behind the words there, see the intense face of the boy then, man now, who I guess qualifies as my best friend since he has hung with me longer than anyone else, all those other individuals who I might have called friends only to realize later they really were only acquaintances, those people who drift in and out of our lives, sometimes offering influence and amusement, but often leaving behind nothing but a ghostly image. Our relationship has been on and off again over thirty or so years, separated by geography and forked paths, but always somehow finding its way back, even if only as a phone call to check in. Usually we manage to find ourselves in the same place at the same time at least once or twice a year, which allows us to reestablish contact in a way that is easier than imagined. There is indeed something about shared history, even far removed, that can be uniting and serve as the basis for ongoing affection and connection. There’s a comfort of sorts that’s different from day to day manifestations, from the relationships that color our regular lives. Maybe it’s the distance, the not knowing too much that builds and maintains the bond, that says I know enough about you, you know enough about me.

I’ve come to the realization, finally, that I struggle with relationships, and that my life to date has been transfigured and transformed by my willingness, sometimes forced, to accept what others give without always demanding what I really want. I was afflicted somehow, either by genetics or early training, to be happy by making other people happy, or at least attempting that task. I’m a pleaser, albeit not a very successful one based on my track record. Henry knows that about me; he has, in fact, always made fun of me for it and tried to talk me out of it. For the same reason, he also knew I would honor our long-ago promise, not just out of a sense of loyalty, but because it’s what I do.

His note is short and direct, just like Henry. It’s businesslike about a topic that is brutal and harsh, which is not like Henry. But as I read it again, I realize it’s the only way he could express it and also the reason he decided to put it in writing rather than try to speak it aloud. Even with letters reduced to the flat black of the screen, the words themselves are rigid, edged even darker:

Charlie: As always, I hope this finds you alive and kicking. In particular, I hope the wounds are beginning to heal from Jenny’s departure, which, admit it or not, was the best thing for you. You devoted yourself to her, and she cheated on you. End of story.

Now another story: I told you a couple of months ago that I was sick. Well, I was. But now I’m dying. No reason to bore you with the details, so let it suffice to say that a tumor discovered at the base of my spine proved to be a dark and lethal form of cancer. I have been subjected to any and all reasonable forms of treatment, but now the death sentence finally has been pronounced by an asshole doctor who kept smiling, kept assuring even when he knew the truth. For that, I hate him because had I known the whole truth sooner, I would have planned my last days better. As it is, I have reflected and reacted, and dealt with things as best I can. There is only so much I can do for Sara and Sam, as you can imagine, soft heart that you are.

But for me and for them, there is one thing I can do. You know what that is, and you will recall the promise we made to one another many moons ago when the concept of dying was just that. I remember we fired up a nice fat doobie that night in that shit-hole apartment of ours—seems like Dark Side of the Moon was playing, appropriate—and somehow our talk came around to the ways we’d like to die or not die. I know I had just seen my grandfather waste away to a bony mess from lung cancer, turning him into a remnant of a man I had loved and admired. It had made me resolute to go out with some sort of dignity and control, if indeed I was in a situation to do so. That’s when I promised you, and you promised me, that if and when the time came we would help each other exit this mortal sphere in the right way.

Well, my friend, that time has come for me, and I’m calling on you now. I need you here soon. Not for long, but soon, because I’ve been given a guess on the timing, and I don’t want to lose control of this. Who would have guessed I wouldn’t even make it to 60?

Henry

As hard as I try, I find it difficult to accept what I’m reading. The Henry Forrest I know is as vibrant and vital a human being as walks the planet. He has been since I met him deeply committed to his chosen endeavor—land planning and landscape architecture—and has used his skills not just to make money but to make a difference. While working for various clients and building a successful practice, he has always made time for public work, both paid and unpaid. His pen has scratched out designs for parks and playgrounds and neighborhood gardens. He has helped small towns without real budgets rediscover their souls and revive themselves. And from this, Henry has always taken the greatest joy. For him, the money he made was just for the things needed, not desired. His desires flowed from his hands through his pen and into the ground.

Not that there weren’t other loves in his life. Henry had married his college girlfriend a year or so after we graduated. Barbara was a wonderful person, but while they seemed well-suited when young, they found they wanted different things in different ways. Not that they didn’t function well as a couple, but, at some point, the essence went out of the relationship and they parted on friendly terms.

And then, after a long time alone, Henry met Sara and, as he described it, he was made a complete person. She adored Henry, admired his good works and supported him without question. He returned that love without reservation—I envy him all this—and was indeed made whole by her and within her. When Sam’s arrival surprised them fifteen years ago—she was 36 and had been told she probably couldn’t have children, while Henry was 44 and content—their completeness took on an entirely new and intense dimension. For Henry, his son was a miracle, something unimagined into which he threw himself with reckless abandon. His love of Sam was fierce, and the pride and joy came through clearly with every story he told of his son. Seeing them together, maybe on one of our fishing outings or camping trips, was to be witness to a connection and continuum of souls.

As I think this, I cannot even imagine how Sara and Sam are reacting to what is happening to Henry. For that matter, I’m having trouble sorting out my own feelings, though there certainly is a sense of horror at the furious ravage of the disease. And I’m already trying to reckon with the loss of Henry, which seems beyond imagination.

Henry has always been a life force, one of those people who believe without question that how you live each hour is the sum of your life. Buddhist thought always has fascinated him, particularly the concept that there is this moment and nothing else. That a moment is here, then gone, never to be recovered. That the past is the past, that the future is where the promise lies. Unfortunately, his future now has been foretold as if the doctor had flipped the death card from the tarot deck.

I can think of little to say in response, except to tell Henry I need to wrap up a couple of things and I’ll be on my way. His response is immediate, as if he was sitting at his computer waiting for my reply. He tells me to hurry.

Chapter 2

Idon’t know why I told Henry I needed to wrap up some things when the truth is I have existed, more or less, in an inert state for nearly a year. Inert in the sense that I have felt suspended within my own life, without motion or purpose. It began with my wife of twenty plus years informing me coldly she wasn’t sure she loved me any longer and certainly didn’t care about me, at least not enough to soldier on in a relationship she classified as claustrophobic and demeaning.

There was no mention of anyone else—that truth came later from a mutual friend who felt compelled to make certain I was aware of the situation in order to save me embarrassment, as if having to sit through that revelation wasn’t humiliating enough. My wife—the Jenny to whom Henry alluded with a note of good riddance—took it upon herself to inform our two sons, both grown and gone, of her decision, though she at least spared them any gory details. It was, as one reported back to me, as if he was talking to a woman he didn’t know who was embarking on a new life. My younger son, always the more sensitive soul, said via telephone from Chattanooga, Jesus, dad, I felt like someone had kicked me hard right in the nuts. All I wanted to do was curl up on the floor until the pain stopped.

There was little I could offer him in the way of comfort, except to assure him I was fine, was dealing with the change and would find my way out the other end of a dark tunnel. Unfortunately, that has proven more difficult than I anticipated.

And it was compounded when my job went away during yet another economic purge for the overall welfare of the bank. After thirteen years of faithful service—and I truly mean faithful—the bank determined it needed to shed employees as part of a retrenching effort to stop the bleeding from stupidity that has been well reported and revealed. When the rumors of pending layoffs began to circulate, one guy I knew said he was gone because he was over fifty and, if it desired, the bank could hire two twenty-five-year-olds with fresh financial degrees for less than it was paying him, and eliminate most of the benefits for which he was eligible. He described it as walking around with a target on his back. And he was proven correct a couple of weeks later when the branch manager invited him in for a chat, and then I followed after he exited the premises under the watchful eye of a security guard, giving me a knowing wink and nod.

Damn it, Charlie, I don’t know what to say, except what I’m supposed to say, Edgar the branch manager told me point blank. The people pulling the strings are the same stupid, greedy bloodsuckers that caused this mess in the first place, and keep doing it. It’s wrong as hell, but there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

As always, I accepted my fate with what I considered dignity, though it took me at least a couple of weeks to fully comprehend the upheaval in my life. Sure, I had severance for nine months and benefits for a year, but the truth was I suddenly didn’t have anything else. I liked my job as a lending officer, happy in the belief I was helping people with their lives and never the least bit concerned with moving up the ladder. In fact, the joke in our little branch office became the nearly constant rotation of new faces, usually with fresh degrees, who cycled in as trainees and then out to the next stop on their perceived road to the top. The rest of us—the grunts who really did the work—reached a point where we barely acknowledged them, paid little attention to them and their dictates, and sure as hell didn’t give them a party when they departed.

I didn’t get a party either, at least not the day I was hustled out the door by a blank-faced security guard who handled his duties with dispatch, making certain I didn’t have time to sabotage the computer system or take a piss on the pending paperwork in my desk drawer. I stood for several minutes in the parking lot, trying to fully take in what had just happened, making brief, cheerless eye contact with Elaine and Georgia, two of the tellers, through the glass at the drive-through window. Everyone knew what was going on, which was evident by the shuttered, down-turned expressions that implied, please don’t let me be next.

I learned more of the details two days later when the core staff, both the departed and the retained, gathered surreptitiously in a corner of the bar at Chili’s for drinks and quiet conversation. Our little branch in our little town had lost roughly a third of its workforce, which seemed drastic. But the word was that disgorged bankers were now littering the streets in Charlotte where the big boys were shedding bodies with mechanical efficiency. Those at our branch who were holding on to their jobs, including Elaine but not Georgia, professed to feeling for the first time as if they were expendable, and acknowledged the fear that came with it. Those who had been sacked tried to keep smiling and assuring the others we would be just fine, when we knew we were facing a dim future with age and experience now working against us in an economy that was undergoing radical change.

I walked out of the bar that night wearing a pretty good buzz and escorted Elaine to her car. I could tell she also was feeling no pain, but knew she only had a few blocks to her house. Are you going to be alright, Charlie? she asked, two fingers lightly touching my arm.

I gave her the same reassuring smile I’d worn in the bar. Absolutely, I lied. If anything, this is a kick in the ass that might make me think about doing something different with my life.

She studied me for an instant, but didn’t say anything else except good night. As she drove away, I realized how little I really knew about her and her life, even after working around her for at least ten years. And while I might run into her around town on occasion, the primary connection between us was severed, and she was now another acquaintance, another of those people who is in your life and then fades away. As I headed home, maneuvering carefully in that way you do when you know you probably shouldn’t be piloting a vehicle, I found myself reflecting on faces I had known that no longer existed except in memory. With that came a creeping sense of melancholy that laid the foundation for the sense of inertness that hounded me.

Henry, however, was still real, and, while I struggled with the raw grimness of his message, I knew I had been called, probably at the right time.

Chapter 3

I’m just outside of Raleigh as the sun arches up over the pines, headed west on I-40 and flying low. Sleep had not been easy to come by, even after a couple of stiff shots of bourbon, and around five I realized Henry’s message and plight had made me uneasy and itchy to get moving. I gave up on sleep, got up and packed, and hit the road in the dark, turning off the radio and letting the hum of the tires and hiss of moving air accompany my thoughts, which admittedly are dim and scattered.

The one constant was the recurring thread in my head of an old song by Gram Parsons that I’m pretty sure Henry had first played for me, way back when we handled vinyl platters as if they were ancient scrolls containing mystical truths. Henry loved music and was the kind of guy who was always searching for something new, but, more importantly, something that moved him or soothed him. For me, he was a never-ending source of arcane knowledge and new sounds that converted me over time into someone for whom music was interwoven into my life. I can still hear a certain song and, more often than not, have some memory or image attached to it, know when I heard it or where or who I was with, or how it made me feel at a certain moment.

Right now, the chorus churning through my head, in Gram’s frayed tenor, repeats, In my hour of darkness, in my time of need, oh lord grant me vision, oh lord grant me speed. By the time Henry had discovered the classic album that ended with this song, Gram was long gone, a victim of excess and some kind of internal sadness Henry had recognized immediately, saying, Damn, that is one hurting soul.

And now Henry is a hurting soul, facing his hour of darkness. But I’m afraid it’s me who is going to need the vision to find some way through uncharted territory, though I’m willing to bet the ever organized and methodical Henry has mapped out a plan. The question will be whether I have the guts and fortitude to do what I think Henry wants.

Right now, I don’t even want to dwell on what this might involve, so I push my faithful old Accord up toward warp speed, believing I’m on a willed mission that will render useless a state trooper’s radar as I blow past. Or maybe I just don’t give a shit about the minor inconvenience of a speeding ticket, finding suddenly that my inert state might be lifting as a true purpose confronts me. It’s enough to make me crank up a collection of classic Motown tunes that finally drive Gram from my head and power me forward.

In fact, at some point, maybe around Statesville, I must have lapsed into that unconscious state in which you drive steadily but without any awareness of the process. Music is swirling around me, and my brain is whirling with thoughts that spin with dervish fury, sometimes gone before I can fully grab onto them. As a result, I’m suddenly just a few miles outside of Asheville with the rim of the morning sun ablaze in the rear window, setting fire to the reds and golds of the trees, reminding me it’s the first day of October, one of my favorite months

For some reason, I’m hesitant to just appear at Henry’s door, even though I’m expected. I call Henry’s cell with a certain reluctance, unsure exactly how I will react when I hear his voice, wondering if the pain will be evident in each word.

About damn time, Henry bellows in my ear. Don’t you understand I don’t have time to be sitting on my ass waiting on you to show up? I’ve got important shit to deal with.

Then, before I can respond, he cackles in a way that yanks me back years and makes me believe this is all a very sordid joke. I try to fire back. Well, excuse me, but I can’t just drop everything because you have a few issues.

He cackles again. Issues? You call dying an issue? Hemorrhoids are an issue, Charlie. Dying is—well—it’s—

Henry pauses, a silence with meaning. Come to think of it, maybe it is just an issue, one more damn thing to deal with and be done with.

Another pause and I’m boxed in, without any idea how to respond. In all my thoughts since Henry contacted me, I realize I’ve given little consideration to the protocol of confronting the subject of death with a dying friend. Do I try to keep it light and easy, gloss over, at least for a moment, the mind-bending seriousness of what’s in front of us? Or do I play it straight, take direction from Henry?

He’s waiting me out this time, or that’s how it feels. Then he again beats me to the punch, and I think he knows he’s letting me off the hook. So, where are you?

I give him an approximate location and ask what he wants me to do. His voice gets quieter as he tells me that Sara will be leaving in about an hour for a function at Sam’s school, and that it would be better for me to arrive while they’re both out of the house. We have things to discuss, Henry tells me in a flat tone. But he brightens up and advises me to head into downtown, take a stroll, grab an early lunch and check out the young hippie chicks. You’ll swear you’re having a 1971 flashback, he says. Just don’t think they’ll have any interest in a straight-looking old fart like you, he says, and don’t stare at them so hard you scare them. I assure him I understand. The call ends with Henry telling me he’s glad I’m close.

Not long afterward, I’m parked in a booth in a little bistro Henry heartily recommended, facing down a sandwich for which I find little appetite and paying virtually no attention to the fuzzy-haired waitress attired in a gauzy skirt and tie-dyed top, other than to note with some wonder the thick crop of raven hair under her arm as she approaches with a tray perched on her shoulder. Instead, I’m replaying the conversation with Henry, looking for some hint in his words or inflection as to what awaits me. Unfortunately, there are no hard clues that reinforce any conclusions, so I just wait.

Chapter 4

No more than an hour later, I’m parked just down the street from Henry’s house, trying to make certain Sara is gone, but as much to give myself some time to make sure I’m composed and ready to face Henry. I envision the moment when I see him, wondering how his physical appearance will differ from the last time we were face to face, which I realize now was nearly two years ago. Too long for friends to be apart for no good reason, except lost in things of life that seemed important at the time. I try to imagine how his hand will feel when I take it—will it be the same strong grip or a soft press that reveals fragile bones? More than anything, I know I will look into his eyes because that’s one place where Henry could never hide his feelings. Dark deep blue, they could radiate warmth or flash with stone-cut sharpness, but there was always something there, some revelation of the spirit within.

I look at the house, which I’ve seen a hundred times but probably never studied hard. In the past, it was Henry’s house, and he was at home inside, secure in a place that fit him and, when Sara came, fit her and now Sam. For Henry, he told me once the house had transformed with Sara’s arrival from a building that sheltered him to a sanctuary that fed and comforted him.

I see a fairy-tale cottage perched at the end of a winding street, the yard in the back sloping upward into the soft folds of a green-shrouded mountain. The house always seemed too quaint for Henry, a man of modern tastes in many things, its walls of ancient gray stone whose irregular shapes had been stacked by skilled hands into jigsaws that would stand long enough for any of us. While his neighbors probably termed it a rustic mountain cottage, Henry deemed it prehistoric based on the stone, dredged from a river after tumbling from resting places a thousand years removed. But he loved the place at first sight, though he admitted it was not the charm of the bones but the grace of the land on which it sat. In the gentle slope shaded by dense hemlocks, Henry saw at initial glance a natural setting in which he would paint with greenery a private landscape worthy of Monet. And he had done so over the years, bit by bit, foot by foot, though never with a true plan. Rather than the steady splashes of Monet, Henry assaulted the ground like Pollack, trying and failing and trying again until the earth gave in to his will. A rhododendron bush now sprawling wide and taller than a man might have tried its roots in two or three other spots before it finally fit the vision in Henry’s head. I had always admired his tenacity, his unwillingness to just let it be if it wasn’t exactly right—that’s why clients loved his vision and paid him what he was worth. But I realized now that his work was done, the garden was finished, a labor of love left as a memory of the man whose eyes and hands had shaped it.

For some strange reason, I recall the first time I came across Henry. It was not an auspicious meeting; it was, in fact, rather tense and unpleasant with me as the stranger and interloper. I arrived with a friend at a brooding old house a few blocks off campus in Raleigh, probably a week or so after Halloween, based on the carved pumpkin that had begun to cave in on itself as the flesh softened. My friend’s name was Susie, and even in this time when memory sometimes fades, I remember her vividly since she had taken pity on me for some reason and without warning one evening stripped off her clothes and encouraged me to explore every inch of her. Barely nineteen and without much prior experience of note, I didn’t even know where to start, was, in fact, shocked into a state of reverence by the sight of her, a thin wisp with dark hair hanging straight past her waist. But as I sat frozen in a chair, it was the thatch of black curls in front of my face that mesmerized me. She moved forward, took my hands and placed them on her tiny hips, pulled herself closer. With one hand she gently touched the back of my head and began to slowly rub my nose into those curls. With that, she began an act of instruction that even now amazes me in its quiet care and innocence. Before that night was done, Susie had revealed mysteries that honestly changed me.

But on this particular evening, we were just two good buddies out for some fun, and this house was the place, according to Susie whose friend lived there with at least seven or eight other students. Giving some sort of secret knock, we were examined by a single eye peeking through a slit in a red cloth hanging over the window in the rickety door. Apparently deemed safe, we were admitted by a mammoth fellow who literally enfolded Susie while she tugged on his scraggly beard. She yelled an introduction but I didn’t really catch the name because music was blasting at a sonic level that made the worn wood floors