FOURTH MOVEMENT

I woke up the next morning, and to be honest, I felt better than I had any business feeling. I think a part of it had to do with it being well past ten o’clock when I did, and whenever I sleep in, I feel like I just put one over on somebody. If I did, I’m sure it didn’t counterbalance all of those overnighters in college. I counted myself lucky that I didn’t have a vodka headache, because I remember how nasty they could be. I was also lucky that some snow fell overnight, and the sky was a deep, pregnant gray blanket that promised even more of the white stuff for us. It was really pretty, actually, and I was thankful that the sun hadn’t come out to blast my virgin eyes with its harsh glare.

Anyway, I pulled myself out of bed and, as has been my habit lately, made straight for the Cuisinart coffee-maker in the kitchen, and slapped the ‘on’ button. Then, I turned around and retreated to the bathroom, because my bladder was full and throbbing.

After I took care of that little problem, I went over to the sink, to make my teeth all bright and shiny. First, I rinsed, because, as I said before, I hate the taste of yuck mouth in the morning. I swished around a good, healthy dose of Scope in the old eat-hole, tilted my head back, and gargled a good one.

I spit it out, and then I rubbed my tired eyes for almost a minute. They were itching terribly this morning, even though I couldn’t feel anything in either one, like a stray dog hair for example. Maybe it was the alcohol. You can blame anything on alcohol, from being too tired to go to work in the morning, to making passes at your boss’s wife at the Christmas party, to beating your own wife at home. It's the perfect scapegoat. Usually, it deserves what it gets, too.

Finally, I opened my eyes. If you’ve ever rubbed your eyes really vigorously after sleeping, you know that when you open them, it’s very hard to keep yourself from snapping them back shut. It hurts, and your vision is weird and spotty for a minute or so afterwards. But this was something that, I’m sad to say, is a habit of mine.

So I opened my eyes. They were pointed in the direction of the mirror.

What they saw made them open nice and wide.

Someone was staring back at me, and mimicking perfectly every movement I made. The trouble is, I’m quite used to this someone being me.

This time, it most certainly was not.

My new reflection was a man about my age, I guessed. He had less hair on his head and more on his face. He had a scar on his left cheek. He wore a suit coat, and was dressed pretty impeccably. He was even kind of handsome, really.

For some reason, this didn’t frighten me too much at first. In fact, it was kind of neat to see someone who most certainly was not me doing so perfect an imitation of what I was doing. I gave a big smile, pointed at the mirror with my left hand and wiggled my index finger with my right hand, a ‘no-no’ gesture. My new mirror buddy kept perfect time with me.

I laughed. And my odd reflection laughed. It was kind of funny, you know. I already felt, at least a little, anyway, that I was in the early stages of a mental breakdown, and this was just a little more proof, perhaps. But this was fun proof!

Even still, I didn’t care for the idea. I stopped laughing.

My reflection did not.

My reflection laughed even harder, if anything. He brayed. His hands were on his hips and his head was thrown back. Tears were running down his eyes, but those eyes were wide open and full of black malice. They were evil eyes, and not the kind we affectionately consider the property of mothers with naughty children. These eyes were evil evil, bad evil. This was bad enough alone. My face suddenly flushed with fear, not just the fear of my mirror being haunted or possessed, maybe not even that at all, because such a thing was impossible. Rather, it was that maybe I really was losing my mind. Maybe Ben Ramsey’s ropes are becoming untied, and that hot-air balloon that is my mind is going to fly away and never come back to earth. Maybe I was taking my first few steps towards the funny farm.

Total panic came when I actually started hearing the laughter. I moaned in terror and I ran out of the bathroom. On the way out, I ended up striking my right shoulder on the door frame, and I kept moaning, though it had nothing to do with pain. I ran to the living room sofa, sat on it, and buried my face in my hands. I didn’t cry, but I sure as hell felt like it.

The laughter faded away, like a radio station leaving its broadcasting area. But I even heard that. I felt terrified of myself. I had to listen carefully to make sure it was over.

When I was satisfied that it was, at least for now, I stood by the coffee-maker, and I stared at it intently, until it finished. And when it did, I drank four cups, one right after another, and I drank them black. I hate black coffee, can’t stand how sharp and bitter it is. This time though, I was willing to make an exception. If there ever was a morning that was worth four consecutive black cups of joe, this was most definitely it. The alternative was running to the liquor cabinet again, and that was definitely not a good idea, not right now.

Unfortunately for me, that much coffee in such a short period of time made me really have to piss again. It also gave me a hell of a headache, and made me pretty wired to boot, as if I needed extra anxiety at a time like this. I hoped that maybe it would help, maybe it was just fatigue, I told myself, but even then I couldn’t go in there alone. I walked down the hall to my bedroom and yanked the alarm clock out of the wall. I took it to the bathroom, carefully avoiding direct eye-contact with the mirror as I fished around for the power outlet (which, lucky me, was next to the mirror, and on the opposite side, even better). I managed, though, and I flipped on the radio. Flashing 12:00s and a Christmas ad greeted me, and here it was not quite December yet. The noise was a welcome distraction though, regardless of what it was.

I turned the shower on, and then the ventilation fan, because I like my showers very hot, but I don’t like my mirrors very foggy. As I waited for it to warm up, the mirror kept scratching at me from the back of my mind, or rather, what I saw in the mirror. I surprised myself by turning around and facing the mirror straight on, both totally expecting to see myself, and totally mortified that I might not.

Thank God, this time, sanity won the battle. It was my own miserable mug staring back at me. I ran my right hand through my hair, and the Ben Ramsey reflection ran its Ben Ramsey right hand through its Ben Ramsey hair. What a relief it was. It made me feel a lot better. The relaxed smile on my face was returned by the mirror-Ben.

But I dared not laugh at it. Not a chance in hell of that happening. I’d respect it, that’s all.

I peeled off my underwear and stepped into the steaming shower, trying hard to retain that relief, and trying very hard to forget all about it.

While I was showering, I recalled a little idea of mine from before my nightmare, and that was the idea of taking a nice, week-long siesta to the tropical southern shores of Florida. I believe I mentioned earlier that I was pretty well-stocked financially, both because my income well exceeded my mere basic requirements (now that I only had to provide only for Watson and myself), and also because while I don’t live a frugal existence, I am pretty careful about my spending habits. Therefore, I could well afford to go down there, soak up some sun, and have a little fun, maybe even tell everyone to lighten up, like Sheryl Crow says in that one terribly overplayed song of hers. I know I could certainly use a little lightening-up, and if a week down in the Keys couldn’t do that for me, I guess I’m a hopeless case.

The sounds of the radio lulled me a bit, and of course, I wasn’t really in any hurry, so I stayed in the shower a good twenty-five minutes or so. When I finally got out, dried up, and performed my entire post-shower routine, it was already going on eleven-thirty. Thankfully, the mirror behaved itself this time.

I’m a careful person by nature, so the first thing I always do when I plan something that requires a significant amount of time and money is to take stock of how much of both I have and how much I can afford to spend. In this instance, I had plenty of both. I didn’t really feel like making reservations at a hotel though, so I decided to just find one when I get there and be done with it. It wasn’t a terribly busy time of year right now, and that shouldn’t be a whole lot of trouble. It was just a matter of throwing together a week’s worth of clothes, tossing it into the car, and taking a nice, long, stress-free ride down Interstate 95.

So, I spent much of the next two hours doing this. It didn’t even really take me all that long, really. I took my time, and tried to enjoy it. When I was younger, going on car rides was a huge deal for me, a thrill my brother Barry did not exactly share. For me though, even now it was exciting.

I already had enough clothes ready to go. I didn’t have anyone else to worry about, except for Watson, and he wouldn’t be any trouble, either. There’s an old lady who lives across from me, Esther Harrison. Esther has to be close to eighty, on which side I can’t tell. She’s a widow of nearly fifteen years, and very little of her family still lives locally. Therefore, she gets most of her human contact at weekly bingo games at the Legion’s club or Moose lodge, and she is almost fanatical about it. And as almost always seems to be the case with such people, she absolutely adores animals. Watson was no exception. She gladly agreed to keep an eye on him for me, and I paid her fifty dollars for the favor. She refused it at first, until I reminded her that fifty would buy her a whole free weekend of bingo. She accepted, and if it was out of good grace or merely to slake her thirst for her one passion in life, I’ll probably never know. Anyway, I gave her Watson’s food, and his leash, gave her a quick run-down of his eating and exercising needs, and then walked back to my apartment to load my luggage into my car.

I mentioned my older brother a little ways back, but it wasn’t until now that I actually thought of him. As I said earlier, most of my drive would be a straight shot down Interstate 83, connecting to Interstate 95 after Baltimore, and the only challenge involved is getting to that point. Barry lives just outside of Richmond, Virginia, and I thought this might be a nice time to see him. I hadn’t since my son died.

So, as the clock inched towards one in the afternoon, I double-checked everything to make sure I had it all, then I closed up shop and started my car. It was down to the good old South for me.

Of course, it wasn’t until I was on the road that I thought to call my brother and make sure he’d actually be there. Luckily, that wasn’t going to be a problem. As it so happened, he was in the midst of a small vacation of his own, not as long or as involved as mine, but well-appreciated nonetheless. And yeah, it’d be great to see you, Benny-boy! We’ve all missed you!

I wouldn’t say I was extraordinarily close to him or his family. Unlike me, Barry’s family was close and happy. His wife Michelle was a striking woman (they married before Alice and I, and I’m ashamed to admit, I was quite jealous of Barry for finding such a wonderful woman), and he had three kids, two girls and a boy, ranging in age from six to fourteen. Chad was the little brother, and he was almost as devastated as I was when his cousin died, the two were inseparable when together.

It would be nice to see them all again. Maybe having a little family around is just what I was missing. When I left my little apartment on Jasmine Beach Road (as if there were a beach within a hundred miles of Harrisburg), I left with a smile born of anticipation. It was the first time in recent memory that I felt good times were ahead.