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Whatever Karsen is living, it’s not the dream. The job, the car, the high-flying lifestyle, it’s nothing without Karsen.

Or is it?

Finding Karsen

by Gabriel Merithew

The white noise chatter of early-day conversation hangs thick in the warm ambiance of Callie’s. To be sitting in a coffee shop wearing a suit, with the black Lexus gleaming in the rain outside, this was the kind of thing he dreamt of back in the days when he and his brother would pour over stock charts before school. Today his suit was still thrifted and the recently purchased car was very much second hand, but this was still the dream. Cam felt the emptiness of the seat beside him as he forced the appropriate state of mind to come forward, smiling politely at the crisply-dressed woman opposite him.

“You’ve heard the whole, ‘tell me about a time when you dealt with a difficult situation’. Instead, I’m going to ask that you tell me about a time when you solved a real problem.” The woman didn’t break his gaze even to blink. It was a power move, this he knew. He wasn’t about to let her sleek black bob and perfect makeup dissuade him from nailing the meet. “Not like when Albert’s bagels were all out of ‘plain’ so you took the chance on an ‘everything’. A real problem. Go.”

Cam was finding his seat wildly uncomfortable, but fought the urge to shift his position. He was ready for this. “A company-wide blackout in an investor meeting. That was certainly a problem.”

“Certainly,” the woman echoed.

“My partner wasn’t there that day. I had to hold up a lighter while we reviewed the terms of our first round of funding from our investor – who wanted to be pretty hands-off about the whole thing. They were young guys like us, except they had trust-funds. And by the end of our lighter-lit meeting I’d not only negotiated a larger initial investment, I also convinced them that they didn’t need a seat on our board. Yeah, not the brightest on either side, but what can I say? We were kids.”

The coffee-fueled discussion with Cam’s prospective employer continued in an orderly fashion. The woman was impressed with his accomplishments in regards to his young age, though not entirely impressed with his lack of a college-degree. But when it came time to wrap up, Cam knew he’d at least get a follow-up phone call the next morning.

Standing to leave, Cam felt a buzz in his pocket, ignoring it long enough to shake his interviewer’s hand and receive the first smile she’d given him. But when she turned to leave, he pulled out his phone just in time to see his brother go to voicemail. He mumbled to himself that if he gave a shit about being his brother he would’ve been here today, instead of locked inside their parent’s home shooting ungodly amounts of god-knows-what into his arms.

With a combination of post-interview highly-caffeinated euphoria and a hint of that awful emptiness, he shoved his phone back into his pocket, uttering a quick and quiet ‘fuck you’ to the bubble reminding him he’d missed yet another call, and then walked outside into the rain.

…

The parking lot of the bank was indistinguishable from the parking lot of the local health-food store. Cam hated that he worked in a strip mall. An issue that further held him back from brushing away yet more tears and opening the car door.

It usually took about fifteen minutes of crying while sipping on tequila in a water bottle before he could go inside. His coworkers were used to him being late for work. Everything about this was the norm. The Lexus was his solace, the bank branch was his prison, and his brother was dead.

Cam pressed the ‘play’ button and the voicemail recording began again.

“The day has come. He’s fucking dead. Your mother had to be the one to find him. And you’re a thousand fucking miles away pretending you don’t even know him. Well guess what, he died wearing those five hundred dollar fucking headphones that you bought him – and the laptop? The laptop was beside him. And…” His father’s voice morphed into choked sobs, then steadied itself. “You shit all that useless crap on him like he was a fucking dog that needed a shiny new toy. I don’t even know why I think you deserve to know. Just… Fuck. Don’t bother calling back. I’ll see you at the funeral. Bring a fucking iPad to set at your brother’s feet.”

After all this time it still cut him deep to hear his father’s voice. He was on better terms with his mother these days, which meant the occasional phone call with traditional denial and empty words, but this was the last thing his father had said to him. One last spiteful jab as if he didn’t need a reminder that he had been, and continued to be out living life while his brother rotted away. Before death and now after. He hated his dad for kicking him while he was down, knowing damn well how much he and Karsen loved each other, and how hard it had been for Cam when he dove off the deep end, leaving him here, alone. This was it. Here in the strip-mall parking lot. This was everything they’d dreamt of. It wasn’t much of a dream anymore.

Leaning on the horn he lowered his head and screamed bloody murder into his crotch while the commotion of the horn turned a few heads. And when he’d finished, he smiled sarcastically at his reflection in the rear view mirror and shoved his phone into his bag. He thought of smuggling in the bottle of tequila, then remembered he still had five of those shooters in his desk. That would get him through to lunch.

He stepped out of the old Lexus and sniffed loudly, positioning his face to suit the identity of a successful banker.

Another day living the dream.

…

“It suits you.” Jamie said loudly over the live jazz in the other room.

Cam scoffed. “And what is that?”

“Success in every form of the word, baby.”

“Yeah sure, look who’s talking you Armani-motherfucker. I can barely recognize you.”

“Only way to fly. Hey, can I get you anything?” Already a little unsteady, Jamie stood and motioned to the bar, gleaming red and gold in the dim light.

“Two of everything, please.” Cam said, grinning as he downed the last of his Old Fashioned.

“I’m getting you another one of those, then I’m cutting you off, you thirsty little booze gremlin.”

Cam smiled and leaned back into the soft black velvet of the wing-back. It seemed like forever since he’d been out and about. He only drank alone these days, never deviating too far from the norm of work-home home-work. It was a nice change of pace.

Jamie looked great. But the scene was still out of a fever dream, little annoying friend Jamie ordering him an Old Fashioned at the bar like a grown up. The same kid who would always hog a majority of their make-believe construction company. Cam never got to drive the big tractor.

It had been out of the blue, that text from Jamie, requesting a meetup while he was in town. Cam counted four years since Jamie and his ex found their soulmates in each other. He had yet to decide if that fact was going to make tonight uncomfortable. If he didn’t already have a buzz on, he might’ve wished for a more active meeting like a hike or a mountain bike ride. Giving them something to do amongst all the catching-up.

The speakeasy was becoming crowded. It was jazz-night after all. The coat-check was brimming with various snow-dusted attire, and rosy cheeked patrons were milling about, snapping up all the available chairs. 

“So you just left me there to die.” Jamie slid back into his seat across from Cam.

Cam grinned. “What?”

“I said can I interest you in some Ketamine?” Jamie handed over his phone and a hundred dollar bill. On the screen were two large lines of tiny white crystals.

Cam grinned and took it, rolling up the bill and turning away to make the first line disappear. He could never quite get used to the tickle in his throat. He straightened and held out the phone to Jamie who lifted a hand. “Not a chance man, that’s all for you. My treat. My thank you for coming out with me. It’s been too fucking long.”

Cam was taken aback, but obliged, turning once more to snort the last of the Ketamine before anyone paid too much attention to the activity.

“You knew I was going to die.” Jamie wasn’t smiling. His face had become stony.

Cam stiffened in his chair. The mention of death was going to be a bit of a sore subject as Jamie well knew. Why would he say that?

“All I ever wanted from you was a hug.”

The jovial hubbub of the bar was melting away into a soft steady hum. Cam’s heart pounded against his eardrums. Of course he recognized Karsen’s voice. His brother’s sweet, sad voice. Soft and contemplative.

And then there was a hand on Jamie’s shoulder and his smile returned as if the last thirty seconds had never happened.

“You got this seat?” A large woman in a frilly black dress nodded towards Cam’s seat.

“All yours.” Jamie motioned casually to Cam’s seat, still very much occupied.

“Dude.” Cam said incredulously. Jamie didn’t respond, his gaze firmly on the bartender who was shaking a chilled drink.

The large woman stepped forward and grabbed the chair, turning it around to face the table where her bubbly friends sat.

“All I ever wanted from you was a hug.”

Cam looked down to see that he was seated on nothing at all. But he could still feel the smooth velvet.

“All I ever wanted from you was a hug.”

Karsen’s voice was growing louder. A tipsy patron laughing hysterically, stumbled sideways into Cam and, passing right through him, hit the wall with a thud.

“Hey! What the… Jamie?”

“All I ever wanted from you was a hug.”

It was the ketamine. Of course it was. But his brother’s voice, it had to be real. His whole world was melting away.

“Karsen! Can you hear me?!”

Cam fell forward onto the floor at Jamie’s feet. But this wasn’t Jamie, it was his brother. Somehow, his brother.

“Karsen?”

Jamie’s eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped sideways.

“We could’ve been together forever!” Karsen’s voice was a deafening shout from Jamie’s lips.

“No! We can’t. Because you gave up on me.” Cam was on the verge of tears. He felt the hard surface of the floor and the prickly sensation of tears sliding down his face. “We had it all planned out, you and I. We would go to school together. Become the best at our careers together. Raise our kids together. And you went and gave up on me.”

“You gave me a pair of headphones when all I wanted was a hug.”

Overcome with grief, Cam fell forward onto Jamie, hugging him tightly, afraid he might melt away like everything else. He felt the syringe in Karsen’s arm digging into his own, and he only held tighter.

“Dude, you okay?” Jamie patted him on the back. “I’m really sorry about Karsen.”

The chatter returned as suddenly as it had dissipated, in a wave of voices and clinking glasses. But Cam didn’t move, still holding Jamie as tightly as he could. “No. No. Please no.”

“Hey, it’s gonna be okay.”

Cam’s sobs only came harder and faster. All eyes were on the two of them.

“Did you find him?” Jamie asked softly, hugging him back.

“All he ever wanted was a hug.”

Jamie wrapped his arms around Cam. “Then come here.”

…

The engine of the Lexus hummed softly in the chilly dawn. Across the parking lot, a man unlocked the doors to the supermarket. Opposite him, an open light flickered on. The sun was peeking out from behind the grey clouds. Cam considered crying or screaming like he usually did, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a hand on his shoulder, keeping him upright and steady.

This was the first morning in a long time that he didn’t want a drink.

The End