The Sister City Initiative
Jon Thorpe
Published by Jon Thorpe at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Jon Thorpe
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
I.
“Do you know what I think?”
“Do tell. I haven’t the foggiest idea.”
“I think this: why don’t you just go far away and think about your life for a little while?”
“Come again?” John asked as he looked up from his nearly empty bowl of instant macaroni and cheese and caught his wife’s cruel eyes.
“I said that you should go far away and think about your life for a while.”
“Why? Why should I go far away?”
John’s wife shrugged her shoulders. John looked down into the stained florescent orange bottom of his bowl. He picked up his spoon and began to stir the remaining noodles randomly around.
“Jesus Christ,” John’s wife said with anger and stood and left the kitchen. Moments later John heard the television pop to life.
John stood and walked to the sink and looked out the kitchen window into the back of the neighborhing apartment building. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He ran his right hand through his thinning black hair.
John walked to the table and picked up his bowl. He returned to the sink, rinsed out the bowl, and placed it in the rack to dry. He fished the pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and lit a smoke and stared out the window.
A light went on in the apartment directly across from him. He watched the beautiful young woman enter her bedroom and take off her shirt. She walked to her window and closed the curtains. John felt the blood begin flowing to his crotch.
John extinguished the cigarette by dipping the burning tip into the water pooled at the sink's bottom. He tossed the damp butt into the garbage and walked into the living room.
“What are you watching?” John asked and his wife shrugged her shoulders.
“Nothing.”
John glanced at the television. People in clown costumes were frantically attempting to complete an obstacle course by crawling on their bellies over shards of broken glass.
“This is insane,” John commented.
“I could care less what you think.”
“Well I think I’m going out,” John said flatly.
“Then I do care. I’ll see you later.”
“I promise you I'll think about my life for a little while.”
“Good. Please go.”
John picked his jacket off the hook by the front door and put it on. He placed his hand on the doorknob and paused for a long moment.
“I thought you said you were leaving,” John’s wife said with no discernible emotion.
“I am.”
John turned the knob and opened the door a crack.
“I love you,” he said softly before opening the door full.
His wife offered up no response.
II.
John left his building and took a left and walked half a block to the corner pub. He ordered a beer and took a stool at the wooden counter by the window so he could watch the streetcars rumble by. He picked up a left behind copy of the evening paper and scanned the sports section. He took a sip of beer.
“How’re you doing John?”
John turned his head.
“I’m doing all right Charles. And you?”
“I’m fine.”
Charles smiled at John and the smile lasted so long that John began to feel uncomfortable. Charles held a mug of beer in his right hand and his eyes motioned towards the empty stool next to John.
“Would you like company?” Charles asked and John looked at the empty stool Charles would certainly occupy in a moment and let out a small sigh. Charles’ smile faded when he noticed John’s reaction.
“Look,” Charles said, “I don’t mean to impose. If you want to be alone. . . .”
“It’s okay,” John answered. “I suppose I could use the company.”
Charles’ smile returned and he sat down next to John and made himself comfortable.
“I haven’t seen you in here in a while,” Charles said.
“I haven’t stopped coming here.”
“Well, I haven’t noticed you then.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“It doesn’t? Why not?”
“Because I’ve become quite anonymous.”
Charles let out a small laugh.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Charles asked.
“I’m talking about what I’ve become. I think at this stage in my life I'm truly a non-entity.”
“A non-entity?”
“Yes.”
“When did this happen?”
John took a sip of beer and shook his head.
“I don’t know,” John answered. “Maybe recently, but when I think about it, I realize it’s been happening for some time. I think the process is almost complete. Maybe it is complete. Maybe it’s just cyclical though and now I'm emerging out the other side and beginning to become noticed again.”
“Could I get one of those?”
“One of what?”
Charles motioned to the cigarette smoldering in the ashtray. John nodded. He reached into his shirt pocket and handed the pack to Charles.
“I also need a light,” Charles said.
“Of course you do,” John responded as he handed Charles his lighter. "You're the kind of guy that always needs a light."
III.
John returned to his apartment. He felt a little drunk. The television was still on and his wife slept in a fetal position on the couch. John placed his jacket back on the hook and walked into the kitchen. He filled a glass with sink water and watched the woman in the window give a delicate blow job to a man almost twice her age.
IV.
John woke a little earlier than usual. He washed up and ate a simple breakfast. As John tightened the knot on his tie before leaving his wife stirred on the couch.
“What time did you get in last night?” she mumbled.
John turned and looked at her and then glanced at the television. An infomercial was showing the refined qualities of a kitchen knife that could cut through a steel garbage can.
“What was that?” John asked as he watched the celebrity knife demonstrator begin to slice through a cinder block.
“I asked you what time you got in last night?”
John looked at his wife. She sat up a little against the far arm of the couch.
“Late.”
“Where did you go?”
“Down to the corner.”
“Did you think about your life?”
“I did.”
“Good.”
“I saw Charles last night.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say anything about me?”
“About you?”
“Yes, about me.”
“I don’t recall him mentioning your name. Not once.”
“Is that so? I can't believe it. It wouldn't be like Charles to not mention me.”
“Charles is an ass.”
“He’s nice. He's always nice to me when he comes into the restaurant.”
“What does that mean?”
“What do you mean what does that mean? It means exactly what it sounds like it means. Jesus Christ. You read too much into everything.”
“Well he’s still an ass.”
“Don’t you have to go to work now?”
“Do you work tonight?”
“I do. But don’t you have to go to work now?”
“I do. I’m leaving.”
“Good.”
John took his jacket off the hook and put it on. He turned to look at his wife and saw her staring at him. John did not break her gaze and many seconds of silence passed before John broke the silence.
“Who are you?” John asked with no irony.
“What?”
“Who are you?”
Hatred flared in her eyes and then subsided.
"I'm not who you want me to be," she answered. "I'm not that person anymore."
"Then who are you?"
"I'm my own person now. You don't know that person. You'll never
know that person."
John's wife turned her attention to the television. The celebrity knife demonstrator had given way to a sitcom star making an impassioned plea enlisting your help to support starving children in Africa for less than the price of your daily cup of coffee.
“Fuck you John,” John’s wife said flatly.
“Of course. That's how it always is. Fuck me.”
"Stop your whining and get the fuck out of here. I want to be alone."
John put on his jacket and left the apartment.
V.
A light fog had filled the city. John made his way to his streetcar stop across from the corner pub where a small crowd of waiting people had gathered. A mustached man holding a thick bundle of pink leaflets mingled with the crowd and passersby. He held a leaflet out to John.
“Help support Proposition 521,” the man said as John took the pink piece of paper.
“What’s Proposition 521?” John asked.
“It’s the Sister City Initiative.”
“The Sister City Initiative?”
“Do you realize we’re the only city of our size not to have a sister city?”
“And?”
“And if we pass Proposition 521, we’ll create the Department of Sister City Development to help us find and attract an appropriate sister city.”
“What difference does it make if we have a sister city or not?”
“What difference does it make? Come on! It has everything to do with our city’s reputation! Don’t you understand how the nation perceives us? Not just the nation, but how the world perceives us if we don’t have a sister city? It’s like we’re isolated, cut off, an island! We’re seen as alone and provincial and afraid.”
“And having a sister city will change all that? Come on now. I certainly can't believe it's that simple.”
“It’s certainly a step in the right direction. It’ll show the world that we’re ready to join the global community, that we’re primed to become an international player.”
“So we need to create a new municipal bureaucracy to find a sister city? Isn’t this something the mayor could do on his own? Or some private organization?”
The mustached man shook his head.
“You’re sounding like part of the problem and not part of the solution,” the man said with a sudden, rising bitterness in the timber of his voice that made John think that if the conversation continued on this path much longer the two might come to blows. “If you’re happy with how the city’s perceived, fine, don’t support Proposition 521. Continue in the demise of our once proud city’s reputation.”
“You haven’t answered my question. And there's no reason to get upset.”
The mustached man nodded.
“I know. I’m sorry," and he dropped his head in apology before looking back at John. "It’s just that, and I really hope you understand that, you know, this issue’s real important to me. I really want us to have a sister city. The problem, right now, is that all the good sister cities are taken. There’s not too many good ones left. So, we need to be really proactive, get on the ball, maybe even woo a good sister city away from her current relationship. This job’s too big for the mayor to handle right now. Hell, he doesn’t even back this proposition. He claims to be consumed with crime and jobs and so forth. So that’s why we need the department. We need an organization focused solely on the task at hand which is to get us not just any sister city, but a really good sister city.”
John looked at the pink paper in his hand.
“Just tell me you’ll read the information and think about it,” the mustached man said.
“I’ll think about it.”
The mustached man smiled.
“Good. You’ll see. If this passes, we’ll get a sister city. I'm certain of it. Things will be different. We’ll have a true partner in the world. It’ll be a good thing. We won’t be a joke anymore because we’re alone. Other cities will take notice of us, respect us, give us our due. Remember that and remember to vote and support Proposition 521 on election day.”
John heard the rumble and then the whine of the approaching streetcar.
“I’ve got to go,” John said and he folded the pink paper four times before placing it is his jacket pocket. He waded into what had become a large crowd gathered at the stop and waited his turn to board.
VI.
“You should leave her, you know that, don’t you?” Nancy asked John in the Chinese restaurant around the corner from their office building.
John took a bite of egg roll and washed it down with a cup of black tea. He wiped his lips with the back of his right hand and nodded.
“I know I should leave her, I know.”
“She’s not good for you. She’s making your life a living hell. You've become emasculated.”
“Again, I’m aware of that.”
John noticed Nancy begin to play with her wedding ring.
“Relationships are hard,” John said. “They’re difficult to get out of, even when they’re nothing more than shattered bits and pieces.”
“You should leave. It’s obvious she doesn’t love you anymore. At least from everything you've told me.”
“I’m not so sure of that.”
“Well, maybe she loves you, but she’s certainly not in love with you.”
“That’s possibly true.”
“You deserve better.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“What’s keeping you in this thing? Why are you holding on so tightly to something that's so obviously decaying? Think rationally John. You know you're being absurd.”
John finished his egg roll. The waiter came by and removed the plates. John leaned back in the booth and let out a long breath.
“I still love her. I'm still in love with her. I’m certain about that. It’s hardly a compelling justification I admit, but it’s all I have. It's all I have to hang my hat on. When I really think about it, my relationship with her it what defines me, gives me my identity, it’s the only context through which I can begin to understand my life.”
“That’s bullshit. You’re relationship, it’s ruining you.”
John leaned forward and looked into Nancy’s green eyes.
“I understand that,” he said. “I’m completely aware of what it’s doing to me, but right now, I don’t know, maybe I’d rather exist in this misery than face the possibility that life outside of this could be even worse.”
“It couldn’t be worse.”
“That’s what you believe.”
“That’s what I know.”
“If you don’t leave her, she’ll leave you. She's primed to leave you. You can bet on that. Take the initiative. Be a man, Jesus Christ.”
"You have to understand something Nancy."
"And what's that?"
"It's the most important thing, I think."
"Go ahead."
"This narrative, these things I tell you, they are all filtered through my own sense of self-pity, through my own interpretive subjectivity."
"Which means?"
"Which means no full picture is being drawn here. My wife, to you, is a fragment. You don't know who she truly is. My descriptions are quite prejudicial. You’re smart. I’m sure you’re well aware of it. I hope you’re taking that into account, at least when you’re offering up advice."
"Bullshit."
"It's not bullshit. It's the truth."
"Well I don't care. If what you've told me even carries a hint of truth, you should leave her. She's a bitch John. She's a bitch to you. She obviously hates and resents you."
The waiter returned and placed their respective lunch specials in front of them.
“More Diet Coke?” the waiter asked Nancy and Nancy shook her head.
“I’m fine.”
The waiter nodded and turned his attention to the other patrons in need of his services.
John finished his garlic beef and Nancy finished her cashew chicken. Nancy excused herself to go to the restroom. John reached into his jacket pocket and fished out the pink leaflet. He unfolded it and began to read through it.
“What’s that?” Nancy asked as she took her place across from John.
John extended the leaflet and Nancy took it but did not read it.
“It’s about Proposition 521,” John answered.
“Proposition 521?”
“The Sister City Initiative.”
Nancy nodded.
“I see,” she said as she handed the leaflet back to John.
“Some guy gave it to me on the street this morning.”
“It’ll never pass.”
“You know about this?”
“I’ve seen their commercials late at night, after the talk shows are over.”
John paid the bill and they left the restaurant. A light drizzle was falling as they made their way down the street back to their office.
“Do you ever regret sleeping with me?” Nancy asked and John, after a moment’s pause, nodded.
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I believe it’s kept us from being as good as friends as we could be.”
“You believe that?”
“I do.”
As they approached the entrance to their workplace Nancy slipped her arm through John’s. Their pace slowed and Nancy leaned over and gave John a gentle, knowing kiss on the cheek.
VII.
John left work late. He stopped at a small bar close to his office for a few drinks before stopping by the small French bistro where his wife served as hostess. The evening was cold and wet and John pulled up his jacket collar as he stepped from the streetcar. He turned right and then left down a small alley. The alley was dark but towards the alley’s end he made out the warm glow of the bistro’s lights before he heard the happy chattering of the patrons inside.
John entered. His wife was talking on the phone behind her hostess stand. He stood there for a long moment before she looked up and noticed him. She said a few last hurried words into the phone and hung up before John approached her.
"Hi," John said.
“I told you never to come here again,” she stated softly under her breath. “I’m working.”
“I thought I’d come in for a drink and a little dinner.”
“Well go someplace else then.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you here.”
“Don’t be melodramatic.”
“Get out.”
John glanced around the bistro. He saw the chef sitting at the bar, a thick bandage wrapped tightly around his head, drinking from a glass of beer. John had a sudden epiphany.
John’s wife moved out from behind her hostess stand and he felt her fingers dig deep into his left arm.
“I’m going to get the manager if you don’t leave,” she said.
“And what will he do? Toss me out for trying to sit down and have a meal?”
“You’re harassing me, that’s what’s going on. I can’t do my job. You’re interfering with the restaurant."
“I’m doing no such thing.”
"And besides that John, no one here likes you. No one wants you here. When you’re here you make everyone uncomfortable. They feel sorry for me and they're very protective. Do you understand that. They’re all very protective of me.”
“Well fuck you.”
“And fuck you. Now get out before I have you taken out of here.”
“I know you’ve fallen in love with someone else.”
John braced for a slap but no slap came. John looked in his wife’s eyes and they returned nothing. He let out a breath and nodded.
“All right, I’ll leave,” he conceded. “I just wanted to see you, that’s all.”
John’s wife stood on her toes and whispered into his ear: “Stop being a little desperate shit. Be a man for once. Can’t you just be man?”
"You know, that's the second time someone's told me that today."
"Get out John. It's over."
John left the bistro and made his way through the alley. He lit a cigarette and turned right and then walked on for a block or two to a small Irish pub. John took a seat at the bar and ordered a Guiness and a shot of Jamesons. After repeating this combination a few times John felt steeled enough to return home but decided to have a few more.
Eventually John took a seat in the back of a streetcar and stared out the window. The lights inside flickered on and off and in moments John could see through his own reflection.
VIII.
John hung up his jacket. He walked into the kitchen and filled a glass with water. He looked across at her window but there was only a black rectangle tonight. John felt exceptionally drunk, everything blurred vividly at the edges. He walked into the living room and sat down on the couch with his water. He turned on the television and sat through the talk shows. He wanted to see the commercial promoting the Sister City Initiative but the commercial was nowhere to be found this night.
IX.
John’s wife did not return home. John attempted to negotiate this absence in his life as best he could. Each night after work he stopped at the corner pub and got rip-roaringly drunk. One night Charles and John entered into another conversation on John’s growing anonymity. The conversation started off friendly enough but degenerated when Charles took to mocking John and his relationship with his wife and John responded by punching Charles in the nose, knocking him to the floor. As John moved to pounce on Charles the pub’s patrons intervened and held an infuriated John back.
“I’ll fucking kill you next time!” John shouted as two men helped Charles to his feet. Blood streamed from Charles’ nose. “You hear me asshole! I’ll fucking kill you!”
X.
A little over two weeks after John battered Charles, John sat on the couch and watched the election returns. To the great surprise of the anchorman, Proposition 521, the Sister City Initiative, squeaked out a victory. John sat up on the couch as the station switched over to Proposition 521’s headquarters. The small crowd was cheering raucously as a sad display of confetti and balloons fell from the ceiling. The mustached man who had handed John the leaflet approached the podium and gave a surprisingly rousing speech on the effects the initiative’s passage would have on the city’s future.
“We will no longer be anonymous!” the mustached man shouted and the crowd let up a roar. “We have taken our first steps into a larger global community! We will no longer be alone!”
John stood and walked over to the television and switched it off. That morning he had waited in a very short line at the polling station. When it was John’s turn to vote, he punched only one circle on his ballot.
John walked into the kitchen and looked at her window. There was nothing to see. There had been nothing to see for quite a while. There had been no light in her room for weeks. John wondered if he had imagined the whole voyeuristic experience.
XI.
John was surprised by how fast a sister city was found. He was under the impression such a task would take the Department of Sister City Development years to complete. But a mere two months after the department was put in operation dignitaries were flown in and a great ceremony headed by Mayor Cranley Handiman was held on the steps of city hall.
The sister city was an old city with a rich history and the industrial center of an emerging regional economy. The sister city had a celebrated symphony and ballet, along with many other fine cultural attributes, including a famed museum which housed two Rembrandts and a Picasso. However, the sister city was also known, at least historically, as a wellspring for constant rebellion and revolution. The sister city’s current government had a reputation for corruption, and a recent wave of kidnappings had seriously depressed the sister city’s attempts at creating a burgeoning tourist industry.
But none of this mattered to John as he stood before city hall and applauded as the agreement codifying the new relationship was signed.
XII.
John waited for Nancy at the café two blocks from her apartment. It was a late Saturday evening. Rain fell. John sipped from a bottle of beer and smoked a cigarette. Nancy entered the café and closed her umbrella. When she saw John she smiled and took the seat across from him.
“I’ve had enough,” he said flatly and her eyes opened with surprise.
“Enough of what?”
John stamped his cigarette out in the ashtray and shook his head.
"I've quit my job."
"What?"
“I gave them my resignation letter yesterday.”
“Why?”
“I’m leaving.”
“You’re leaving?”
“That’s right. I’m leaving.”
“And where are you going?”
“I’m moving to our sister city.”
Nancy let out a sharp laugh.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“I’m dead serious.”
Nancy shook her head but the smile remained.
“This is insane!" she shouted and then she paused and the smile faded. "You are serious, aren’t you?”
John nodded.
“When are you leaving?”
“Wednesday.”
“Just like that?”
“That’s right.”
The waiter approached their table. Nancy ordered a pot of tea.
“I need to get out of here,” John said. “This place is driving me insane.”
“I understand you needing to go away, but quitting your job, moving to another country . . . you don’t even speak the language.”
“I’ll learn.”
The waiter returned with the tea.
“I can’t believe this,” Nancy said with a touch of exasperation in her voice.
“I want you to come with me.”
Nancy looked at John. He could sense a moment of deliberation within her, but he knew it would pass.
“You know I can’t come with you.”
“Why not?”
“My life is here. For better or worse, it's right here.”
“But we’re both unhappy here. You know that. I know that.”
Nancy reached out and touched John’s hand.
“It’s not that simple,” she said and John felt a sudden surge of emotion swell within him.
“We could leave all of this behind. We could start a new life, both of us.”
“It would never work John. You know that.”
“I’m so alone Nancy.”
And it was upon uttering these words that John lost control of his emotions. The tears started forming in the corners of his eyes, and once they began to stream down his face he let out a sharp, piercing, miserable sob. Nancy glanced nervously around the café. The other patrons took keen notice of them.
“Tend to your own lives,” Nancy snapped at the patrons angrily. She came around the table and wrapped John in her arms. He was speaking almost inaudibly, mumbling words with great rapidity, vomiting them out between sobs. But Nancy could not make out any of the words and so all their meaning was lost on her.
All she could do was hold on until it was over.
XIII.
John did indeed leave the following Wednesday and moved to the sister city. John’s wife, unaware of his move and coming to believe she had made a terrible mistake in leaving her husband, coincidentally began a desperate attempt to get in contact with him. After calling him nonstop for several days and receiving the message the phone line had been disconnected, she mustered the courage to return to the empty apartment.
John’s first few months in the sister city were almost idyllic. The exchange rate was so favorable that John wanted for nothing. He took an apartment in what had been a famed bohemian quarter and read books on the great dissidents and intellectuals that had once haunted this vibrant little corner of the world. He drank glasses of good, cheap wine by his kitchen window and took in his wonderful view of the city's river. He took language courses during the day and wrote Nancy quite regularly. The frequency of his letters eventually tapered off, but they never quite stopped. Nancy wrote him back initially, abut after the first few letters she stopped responding altogether.
John did have a brief romance with a young woman ten years younger than him, but this relationship ended with a great deal of bitterness, leaving John to explain to the police, in his broken comprehension of the language, as to why he was covered with severe bite marks and was bleeding from the mouth.
John made friends with the owner of an Italian restaurant on his street, and the two became regular drinking buddies and for a time the restaurant was a wonderful place for John to spend his free time. He was welcomed there and treated with grace and warmth and respect.
Six months into his stay John was mugged late at night in front of the city’s Romanesque cathedral. John’s attacker pulled a knife on him, and after taking his wallet, plunged the blade deep into John’s stomach. John did not die in front of the cathedral, but was rushed to the university hospital for treatment. Although John initially stabilized, a severe infection developed and John, unresponsive to the administered antibiotics, died a painful and miserable death. He was buried in the foreigner’s cemetery. His gravesite lacked any distinction.