Completely Normal Eric

"Hello, I can't come to the phone right now - so please leave your name, message, and phone number after the beep and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!"

*beeeep*

"Hey, it's Eric."

I didn't know an Eric. I'd never heard the voice before.

"I guess I missed you… *huff*… I'll hit ya back, bro!"

*click*

I'd been screening my calls since breaking up with the latest headcase I'd been inadvertantly drawn to. Another girl I thought I could heroically "rescue", who told me straight off that she wasn't any good and that I shouldn't bother.

That's like the 21st century siren's song, you know? "I'm on meds."

Dashed against the rocks again.

But enough about my trainwreck of a love life. Back to Eric.

What struck me right away was that Eric didn't say what he was calling about, who he was looking for, or how to get in touch with him. Normal, of course, if he'd dialed a wrong number and thought the other party already knew it all.

I kind of wanted to check the caller ID and tell him he'd dialed wrong. It's just this weird tick I have, where the minute someone needs help I'm cutting out my kidney for them.

The phone rang again.

"Hello?" I grabbed the phone before the first ring ended.

"Hey, bro!!" it was this Eric fellow again.

"Eric?"

"Yeah, what's up? What's going on? Your machine picked up."

I chuckled.

"You have the wrong number."

"Is this 259-[not posting my number]?"

"Yeah, that's my number, but you still have the wrong one."

"Gosh, I don't think so bro. Is this Tim?"

Yes, yes it was. I was a bit shreweder than that, though.

"What is this about, by the way?" - I'm pretty clever.

"Aw, man, I got some of your mail and before I knew it was yours, I opened it. It's a phone bill, soooo…."

I sucked my teeth. "So it had my number on it."

Yikes.

"ZACT-ly." He laughed a sort of half-Stoner laugh, and I caught myself chuckling along with him.

"I'll drop it in your box, bro, just wanted to get in touch first so you know it's out there. Not something you want in the hands of some fiendish dude."

He ended on a nefarious-sounding deep bass voice, and I laughed again.

"Yeah, thanks, that'd be cool. Eric, was it?"

"That's right, Tim!"

"Thanks, Eric."

I checked the mailbox a few hours later, but when I got to the gazebo my apartment complex placed the boxes in, I saw Eric approaching.

I figured it was him, because he looked just like he sounded. Tall, fit, sandy blonde hair kind of spiked up, tan with just enough stubble to look unkept but not enough to look threatening. He was wearing a striped t-shirt over a white long-sleeve, a pair of immaculate blue jeans, and new-ish sneakers.

I'm half-kidding, that was how he looked - but the real clue was the opened envelope in his hand.

"Eric!" I pointed at him with that false sort of familiarity you show toward old friends you'd forgotten.

"Timm-ayy!" he did it back.

I held my hand out, and he slapped the letter into it with a flourish. Then he backed away, pointed to the sky, locked eyes with me, and did a weird little back-and-forth dance.

"Mission accomplished, achievement unlocked!" he kept the laughs coming as I allowed him to high-five me. Something I usually loathed and regarded as peonic.

"Well, thanks."

"No problem, bro. The Universe is right, again."

I smiled at Eric, and he mirrored the expression.

"You take care, now." I pointed at him again, and turned to leave.

"You do the same!"

All the way back to my apartment, I knew something was bothering me about the guy, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I'd expected some subhuman wretch that would've made painful conversation… someone who'd hang onto the letter in clasped hands while wringing out every moment of my life they could possibly steal.

But Eric was normal. Completely normal. So hey, no harm done.

There was another message when I got home, and for a second I thought it was him again. It was like a confirmation that - yes - I knew everything.

Instead, it was a message from the Ex.

"You know…" she paused and took a deep breath, "You know, I wasn't going to call again, but this is just ridiculous. WHAT DID I DO? If you can tell me what I did, then we can talk about it and work it out. It's not fair that you won't talk to me, and I know you WON'T, that you're CHOOSING not to, because I drove by and your CAR is still-"

*beeep*

Cut off. So sad! Ha.

Oddly enough, I was disappointed that it WASN'T Eric. Call me crazy ("You're crazy!") but the fact he'd let everything go so easily made me feel kind of slighted. Like *I* was the subhuman wretch that *HE* was glad to get away from.

After busying myself around the house for as long as I could, I checked the caller ID and rang him back.

"Yooo." was the greeting.

"Eric! What's up?"

"…" dead air, then "Tim?"

"Yeah, weird, I know."

"Not at all, not at all, what's poppin'?"

"Oh, yeah, I don't know. Just hanging out and I figured I'd thank you again, but maybe with like a Beer or something."

Silence.

"I'm not gay or anything." I add, slapping my hand to my forehead the minute it came out of my mouth.

"Nothing wrong what that," Eric finally replied, "But yeah, it crossed my mind, bro!"

We both laughed.

"A well-lit place with plenty of people!" I chuckled.

"Yeah, no, that's great. Sure, all signs point to yes!"

We made plans, Eric and I, to meet that night and share a pitcher or something. There was a bar nearby, and as it turned out we'd both been there once or twice. Walking distance would prevent us from wrapping ourselves around telephone polls or, maybe worse, spending the night in a cell with God-knows-who.

The bar was this little squat building tucked behind a few trees just off a main highway. Cops would actually park outside on weekends and just catch an endless string of drunk drivers the minute they turned the ingition.

The inside of the place was just a big hollowed-out shell with an aging wooden bar and scattered metal tables with folding chairs.

Real low-brow… but in a pinch, good enough to get drunk and do some virtual bowling.

"Hey-heeyy!" Eric met me with a huge bear hug and shook my hand. Both were crushing grips that just made me feel like a weak little kid.

We took a table near the back and got to talking.

For every strange or horrific story I had about my life, Eric could only relate something completely awesome that happened to him.

I fell down the stairs as a kid and broke my arm. At the same age, he was the youngest person to break some track and field record. I'd been hit by a car no less than three times, and he'd pulled a girl from an overturned SUV.

He wasn't just normal, he was perfectly normal.

I was getting kind of embarassed by my own life story, honestly. Maybe it was the drink, but as far as I know I only had a slight buzz going at this point… I don't know.

I excused myself to use the restroom, only partly because I had to piss. The rest was just to get away from a conversation that had me feeling like a fool.

I shared the row of urinals with some crusty old dude who kept clearing his throat like it was full of gelatin. I ignored him for the most part, but it was difficult in the echo chamber of tile.

When he went to leave, I caught sight of something disconcerting.

He was missing a hand.

There was only a stump. Nothing beyond the wrist. My blood ran cold as he walked over the sink, washed… washed what? I felt like I was going to throw up and pass out, possibly not in that order.

No hand! Nothing. A STUMP.

These thoughts kept gnawing at me… turning my stomach… making me tremble in fear…

But why? I'd seen people with missing limbs before. I wasn't judgemental like that. What was it about this guy that made me so uneasy?

I hated him. Wanted to throw him into some bottomless pit where I wouldn't have to look at the horrible stump ever again.

Returning to the table where Eric sat, I started to feel calm returning to me. My hands stopped trembling and my stomach settled.

"Long pit stop, bro!" Eric chirped, "Must've stopped to change the tires, huh?"

He smirked, and I laughed again. It was an easy sort of laugh, nothing like the forced behavior I always had to show in other relationships. Friendships. Whatever.

I'd almost forgotten the incident in the men's room when I saw… IT… across the room.

Just staring at me.

When I noticed, it looked away, toward the bar… but I know it was staring at me.

This… it was like a person, but… smaller. A short, squat human being in perfect miniature clothes, with its own drink at its own table and…

That's how I felt in the moment.

I don't know why I had that reaction.

He was just a "little person"… I…

Yeah, I don't know. I had this gut thing, like… fuck, I KNOW this isn't right, and I KNOW what you must think reading this, but… I just didn't even register him as human.

You have to understand this was not a conscious thought - this was an animal reaction. Something deep in the pit of my mind that just TRIGGERED and couldn't be overruled.

I averted my gaze and concentrated on Eric again.

"What's up, bro?" He asked, tonguing his sparking, pearl-like teeth, "I got something stuck in there, or what?"

"Nah, nah," I shook my head, "Just thinking. I'm a million miles away, don't mind me."

Eric seemed a little creeped out, and I couldn't blame him. It wouldn't be long before this sustained glance would cross the line into leering, and then it would rapidly approach the realm of frightening.

I forced myself to look away.

A row of tremendous, fat women with titanic asses lined the bar. I could scarcely see the stools for all the flab that cascaded forth. The backs of their necks looked like hot dog packages… those with short hair, anyway. The rest had ratty, tangled, greasy hair that…

No.

I closed my eyes and pressed the lids with my thumb and pointer finger.

They were fine. Nothing out of the ordinary. God, if I'd SAID anything about it, quipped about "Fat Girls Drink Free" or something, it would have made absolutely no sense.

They weren't rail thin, just… average. Nothing to worry about.

I got up from the table abruptly.

"Bro?" Eric asked.

Eric.

Completely normal Eric.

"I have to go." I didn't make any attempt at tact.

Looking at Eric, just being around him, was having some sort of strange effect on me. It was like the longer I looked at his perfectly symmetrical face… brown eyes with flecks of gold… chin line and cheek bones like a fucking comic book hero… the longer I looked at him, the worse it got.

Even as I'd glanced at him to say I was leaving, the girls at the bar erupted in laughter at some unknown, shared joke, and it sounded like a great raucous bellow from the fleshy throats of some group of bovine abominations.

It was nothing like Eric's laugh.

I turned and searched for the exit's location, unsure of even THAT. Passing by me, an emaciated, gray-skinned FREAK of a person with wiry, louse-filled beard looked me up and down as if *I* was the one who needed help.

I shoved past great lumbering beasts… hideous, cackling hags… people with twisted up noses, lopsided eyes, row upon row of blackened, rotting teeth…

I screamed whenever one would try to approach me, raising my hands as if I was actually going to claw at their flesh like some kind of maniac.

Stumbling into the parking lot, I found myself disoriented and weak… my stomach pitched and raged as I struggled to suck in every putrid, foul-tasting breath.

I remembered Eric's breath - I didn't even notice it at the time. I'd been sitting within a radius of sweet, almost lavender breath and now my lungs felt like they were burning… my irritated windpipe seemed to swell.

"Hey, there." The voice sounded like a Gorilla being fed through a wood chipper, in slow motion and cranked to the highest volume setting.

"HEY!" it repeated, louder.

I turned to face a Police Officer… his uniform straining and tearing from the massive, wart-covered girth contained within. His face was a series of fat folds, out from which peered beady eyes with the emptiness of some pre-historic evolutionary mistake. Yellow-brown teeth, large and square, clacked against each other as the words belched forth.

"Where are you going tonight?"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to-"

I took a swing.

"GET AWAY! WHERE'S ERIC?"

Before I knew it, I was on the gravel, face down, with the titanic lard-creature ontop of me. The cold grip of handcuffs pinched my wrists.

"ERIC!" I hollered, "ERIC! ERIC!"

And there he was, in the doorway. The other things… large and small… issued out of the building around him with dim eyes, some spidery and rotting… others bloated and covered in cancerous wounds.

Why didn't he stop this? Why didn't he help me?

How could he look at me like… like…

The cop walked me to his cruiser, and… and I saw it… right there in the back seat.

The most hideous, deformed, and depraved-looking THING of all… something with such thick, oily hair and such glassy, misplaced eyes. I could scarcely believe it could even SEE, and yet it met my gaze perfectly.

I begged for mercy, thrashed wildly as the cop forced me into the back seat with that bent and atrophied mockery of a living thing… but once I was inside, I was alone.

I let out the most gut-wrenching, lung-emptying howl as I realized it had been my own reflection.

I ended up sitting… waiting… in a room kept bare for "my own safety". I knew I'd get a phone call. One phone call. When? How long until I got to make the call? I needed to get to a phone.

I needed to hear Eric's voice.


Trivia:

  • This story was written as an answer to stories featuring a deformed and/or disabled person as an antagonist, in the end portraying the judgmental main character as the "monster".
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