You Don't Always Get What You Want
by Nico Grey
I
He glared at the computer monitor in frustration. It stared back impassively.
The words simply weren't coming.
Edison Russell bit back the invective that was forming deep in his chest. He knew it wouldn't do any good. And he wasn't about to give the monitor the satisfaction of knowing that it was getting the better of him.
It was an unfamiliar situation. Ever since he had closed the previous chapter on his life as an investment advisor six years earlier, the words had rarely stopped flowing. They hadn't even slowed down very often. But Ed had been staring at the computer monitor for most of the time since he had woken up. The few words that had managed to materialize on the screen during that time had disappeared much more quickly than they had appeared.
Ed was rarely at a loss for words. It was a point of pride with him that whatever the occasion, however challenging the circumstances in which he found himself, words never failed him. Comprehension, understanding, even reason might fail from time to time. But Ed always had words to describe what he had experienced, what he was feeling, and what he might do about it.
Perplexity. That was a good word. It was also a word he hadn't used in many months. It certainly described how he was feeling at the moment. But it wasn't a word that had any place on his computer screen. He was struggling to capture a much more positive vibe there. And that positive vibe just wasn't happening for Ed.
He shoved his chair away from the computer desk and leaned back. He glanced peevishly around his dimly lit study. There certainly wasn't any inspiration waiting for him there.
The faint light filtering through the lone window in the room surprised him. He didn't realize it had grown so late. Or perhaps not, he concluded on more careful examination. Clouds had rolled in during the day and snow was drifting lazily down. A modest amount had already accumulated on his back lawn.
Ed checked his computer monitor. It was only a few minutes past one o'clock. December 15. He paused for a moment and tried to recall what had happened to November.
It took a little longer for Ed to put the pieces together. December 15. That meant that Christmas was just ten days away!
He wondered briefly whether or not he had enough supplies in the house to make it through the holiday. Reluctantly, he concluded that he probably hadn't. And that created a dilemma.
The closer it got to the holiday, the more people would be bustling around the stores, trying to finish their last-minute Christmas shopping. For Ed, that would be irritating. He had become a little too comfortable with sparsely populated streets and stores during the past two years, even during the holidays. That first COVID Christmas, and even during the shopping season the second year, most people preferred to stay home rather than risk contracting the virus.
That scourge had been a blessing for Ed. Whenever he needed something from the outside world, he would nip quickly out of the house, drive into town, quietly complete his business while avoiding contact with anyone, then return home.
But in 2022 the world had slowly started to return to normal. People were spending more time outdoors. Whenever he did venture outside, Ed noticed that streets and stores were much busier than they had been during the previous two years.
He was slowly adjusting to the idea of e-commerce. But as he did some quick calculations in his head, he wasn't certain that he could depend on it this time for what he needed. With so much stress on the delivery system in the final days before the holiday, he simply couldn't be sure that an order would arrive on time.
Ed sighed. He wasn't eager to venture out into the community. But he wasn't such a misanthrope that he couldn't endure casual conversation with other adults... as long as they didn't become too intrusive. And a Thursday afternoon prior to the final week of holiday shopping seemed like his best chance to make the purchases he needed— with the least possibility of uncomfortable social interactions.
He checked the clock again, then reluctantly began to draw up a brief list of the things he would likely need to survive for the next couple of weeks.
Ed felt exhausted. He was grateful that his shopping list hadn't required a trip into Brattleboro. Fortunately, Antioch was large enough, for a small town, to provide basic necessities.
Grocery shopping, as well as brief visits to the local hardware store and drug store, had done nothing to instill the holiday spirit in Ed. It felt like the crowds of people in those stores had been extracting the life from him, one cheerful holiday greeting at a time. He was already eager to return home.
He groaned as he contemplated two more stops that he really didn't feel he could, in good conscience, avoid. He parked his Ford Bronco in front of the post office and slipped inside for a book of stamps. His final stop was just a few more storefronts down from the post office.
Ed walked with his head down. He still remained alert, his senses probing, taking in his immediate surroundings. But he avoided eye contact with the few people on the street at that hour.
Those that he encountered during his brief walk had the air of people too intent on their own chores to actually appreciate the holiday season, which suited him perfectly. Although Ed did notice what appeared to be a boy loitering around outside his destination.
Ed checked his watch. He was sure that he had left himself enough time to complete his chores before schools released for the day. It only added to his unease that the boy had noticed his approach and appeared to be paying him particular attention.
The boy was small. Definitely too small to be a mugger, Ed concluded. He didn't look to be much more than ten years old. But he assumed that the kid was probably a little older than that. Children didn't usually start rebelling against authority enough to do things like skip school until they were twelve or thirteen— at least not in his experience.
Ed made it a point to become deeply involved with his cell phone— and to clutch a hand protectively over his wallet— as he slipped past the kid and through the store's doorway. It gave him a mild sense of satisfaction that the kid appeared frustrated by his sudden distraction.
Chester Jordan, or Chet as he was known to his intimates, was one of a very small number of people in Antioch with whom Ed had bothered to cultivate any sort of relationship after Vic's death. Part of his motivation was that Chet's business was one of the few local enterprises that sold a product in which Ed had any particular interest, beyond necessity.
But more significant was that Chet was a seventh-generation Vermonter and understood the importance of the personal boundaries that were so important to Ed. Chet looked up and offered a brief nod when Ed came into his store, then left his customer to take care of his own business until he asked for assistance.
As always when he visited, even when he was pressed for time, Ed spent a few minutes checking out the latest periodicals. He knew that he could find anything that interested him online, but there was something atavistic about the appeal of sorting by hand through newspapers, magazines, and books, that spoke directly to Ed's soul.
He picked out a couple of journals to which he had been considering submitting work, just to get a sense of their current format. Then he wandered over to the greeting card section.
Ed didn't know why he bothered with Christmas cards. He never received any. Since Vic had passed three years earlier, he never even saw Christmas cards in his house. But he felt a sense of obligation to children and possible grandchildren, even if they never bothered to think about him.
That thought brought him back to the present with a jolt. Emily and the kids had never actually said anything about grandchildren, but he realized that it was possible he had a grandson or granddaughter that was already as old as the kid lurking in front of Chet's store.
"Did you get what you want?" Chet asked when Ed approached the cash register and presented his handful of cards and magazines.
" I can't think of anything else," Ed decided. "Say, would you mind if I slip out through your back door? You appear to have a hoodlum hanging around out front."
Chet was used to Ed's idiosyncrasies and took the warning in stride. "Little fellow? Dark brown hair down past his shoulders?"
Ed grunted. "That's the one."
Chet nodded. "That's Lester Bowman's boy. Lately he's been out on the streets during the day at least once or twice every month. When the library isn't open, he hangs around here. Decent enough little guy for an habitual truant."
"Well, he looks dangerous to me," Ed observed.
"He won't cause any harm," Chet said. "Just a little too inquisitive sometimes. There's something going on in Lester's home and little Eric is looking somewhere else to find what he needs."
Ed grimaced. "Well, it sounds like you have it all well in hand, Chet. Do you mind?" He gestured toward the back door.
"Not in the least," Chet allowed. He thought for a moment. "Happy holidays, Ed."
But Ed was already halfway down an aisle and well on his way to freedom.
Ed unpacked and stored his groceries when he arrived home, then inspected the remainder of his purchases. Medicines went into the bathroom cabinet, and a few items were stored on the workbench in the cellar.
Before taking his time to review his latest reading material, Ed decided to get his holiday greetings out of the way.
He really didn't know why he bothered. Emily had taken Danny and Meghan almost all the way across the country eighteen years ago and he hadn't seen any of them since. After a few years of trying to stay in touch, he had even given up on that. He sent the kids birthday gifts every year until they became adults. He continued to send Christmas cards without really understanding why he did.
Perhaps it was a feeling of obligation for having helped to bring them into the world— even if they no longer preferred to have anything to do with him, and hadn't since before they were teens. Still, Ed sent his annual Christmas greetings with a check— he really didn't trust Emily to forward the cards if he had simply included cash— out of some misguided sense of parental duty.
At least sending checks helped assure him that his son and daughter were still alive. The checks always cleared quickly— well, with the exception of Danny's checks four and five years earlier. Ed had dreaded asking what that had been about, and both checks had cleared eventually.
With the cards addressed and ready to go into the mail, Ed collected the reading material he had purchased and settled into a recliner. If Trenton Dyce couldn't find his creative muse, at least Ed Russell could begin thinking productively somewhere outside the fiction box.
Ed woke up just before his alarm sounded at six o'clock, as if it were any day. He prepared his customary breakfast of coffee, scrambled eggs, and toast, and was sitting in front of his computer at seven o'clock. He powered up the machine, endured the start-up routine, then navigated briskly to his work folder as soon as the mandatory nonsense was complete.
He opened a document about early agricultural practices in Vermont. It looked like it was written in a foreign language. Ed couldn't find any narrative thread in the text that made sense to him, even after working on it for the past four days. It felt like whoever had written the story must have been living in another body.
Ed shook his head. Last night, his thoughts had been flowing fairly well when he stopped working. Twelve hours later and he couldn't put together anything coherent.
Frustrated, he opened a photo essay about the Appalachian Trail in Vermont. It was something that he had been preparing as a side project. The hiking season was still months away, but Ed understood that journals willing to consider such submissions often required that much notice before they went to press. And with the narrative outline completed, and the selection of images narrowed considerably, he thought that it was a story almost ready to write itself.
Forty minutes later, Ed was still staring at the computer monitor. When he blinked, he was surprised to discover that it hadn't moved. It was a measure of his frustration with himself that he never even considered opening his Trenton Dyce work folder. He almost gave up entirely and launched a solitaire application.
After almost a decade of writing professionally, Ed had accumulated a handful of tactics for dealing with writer's block. But there was something about this challenge that felt like he would need to find something extra. Most temporary cases of writer's block arose from psychological distractions; something burdening his mind, or issues in his life that couldn't simply be ignored. There was something about this creative fatigue that felt like it originated in his soul.
Ed stood and strolled to the window. There was enough snow on the ground outside to ruin a good walk, but not quite enough for snowshoes or skis. Besides, he could hear the sounds of snow machines in the distance, already upsetting the tranquility of a pristine winter landscape.
' Who goes snowmobiling at nine o'clock on Christmas morning?' he wondered. The increase in the number of people who hadn't grown up in Vermont, but were now full-time residents, had changed the local culture dramatically.
Ed could feel a rant building in his head, so he turned away from the distraction outside. He padded over to the cooktop and set a kettle to boil. It was awfully early in the day for tea, but he felt that he needed something to calm his nerves.
He put his tea on his desktop and gave it a minute to cool, idly scrolling through screen icons and opening the e-mail application. Ed was surprised to find two messages waiting for him. It was a rare day when he received that many messages. And he really couldn't think of anyone that would message him on Christmas.
' I should have known!" Ed groaned. One message seemed innocuous enough. It looked like a friendly greeting from a woman who occasionally corresponded with him about his writing. The other bore the annoying-by-design e-mail address "LivingMyBestLife@sincity.mail.com". There was nothing, Ed concluded, more likely to ruin a peaceful Christmas morning than a message from his blatantly self-satisfied ex-wife. He considered the possibility of fortifying his tea before drinking.
Ed couldn't see the point in ruining a good holiday by leaving his ex-wife's message to have the final word in his mind, so he opened it first. The message from "EduK8R4Life" would have to wait, he decided. Maybe that message would help take some of the edge off whatever annoyance his ex-wife was visiting on his Christmas.
Three minutes later, Ed sighed. It was no better than he had expected. But at least it wasn't any worse. Emily was berating him for "thoughtlessly" burdening her again with the chore of forwarding his Christmas cards to Danny and Meghan.
He took a moment to wonder why the kids weren't with their mother for the holiday. He and Emily, while they were together, had always spent Christmas with either her parents or his. But apparently their children were elsewhere if Emily had to "forward" the cards.
She also spared a few thoughts for his "meanness". Danny and Meghan were both adults, in their late twenties now and with families of their own. The least someone who had been so successful financially could do, she lectured him, is gift them more than a measly five hundred dollars apiece once every year.
Danny and Meghan had their own families? Ed raised an eyebrow at the computer screen. He decided that it was probably good news, even if they hadn't a good example in their own parents to guide them.
Finally— Emily's main plaint, he was sure— was the suggestion that it would be much easier for her if he just sent cash. . . or a check endorsed to her that she could cash and send electronically to the kids. If he expected her to be his delivery person, that was the considerate thing to do!
Ed wondered where Emily had learned about electronic payments. He was sure that it must have happened recently. She had never made the suggestion to him before.
He decided to ignore her message. One thing he had learned while living eight years with Emily is that there was no point in arguing with her. She had her own agenda. If it didn't align with his plans, the only thing to do was to let it go. Even something as simple as a return message to wish her a happy holiday could extend the debate for weeks.
Ed didn't dwell on Emily's intrusion. Life was less stressful that way. Instead, he opened the message from his second correspondent.
After four years, he still didn't know her name, he mused. They had met online, in a forum about writing fiction. She had revealed that she had a deep interest in life in northern New England. Some of his comments in the forum about Vermont society before the American Revolution had piqued her interest.
When she discovered— Ed still wasn't sure how it happened— that he sometimes wrote LGBT fiction, that intrigued her further. And since she was never too intrusive or demanding, Ed hadn't minded maintaining a sporadic correspondence.
Her latest message was typical. It was brief and to the point. Recently, she had run across an issue of Vermont History Journal that included a submission titled, "The Mysterious Girl-Boy: Gender, Sexuality, and Madness in Victorian Vermont", that led her to wonder whether Ed knew anything about the history behind the story. And while she was glancing through the latest issue of Vermont Magazine that morning, it reminded her to get in touch with him. She concluded with a cheerful, and brief, wish that he have a happy holiday.
Ed decided that waiting to read her message had been a good decision. It gave him the opportunity to consider her correspondence without being pressured immediately afterward by Emily's complaints.
It also gave him a bit to think about. He couldn't recall hearing anything about the story from the Vermont History Journal that she cited. And while he didn't think it likely that Chet Jordan kept old copies of the Journal lying around his store, Ed thought that it wouldn't hurt to check. Chet would probably have the latest Vermont Magazine, which sounded like good reading. A trip into town would provide an opportunity to get away from the idiots racing around on their snowmobiles. And since it was Christmas day, there wasn't much likelihood of running into many people out and about.
Chet Jordan's store and a small convenience market were the only businesses open in Antioch on Christmas day. The convenience store was open because there were always just enough people in town that needed one or two emergency items to justify paying someone to keep the lights on. Chet's store was open because Chet really had nowhere else to be. His shop and its place in the community had become his whole life.
Chet and his wife Sandra had raised three children in Antioch. But their son and both daughters had left the area decades ago, after finishing college. When Sandra passed away, it left Chet with little else in his life beyond the family business. He was dedicated to the store and to his community, planning to keep the shop running as long as he could open the door every morning. Then, unless one of the children returned to Antioch or Chet could find someone to take it over, Jordan's Books, News and Stationers would go the way of far too many family-run businesses in small town Vermont.
Ed wasn't surprised to find Chet alone in his shop. There hadn't been anyone out on the streets during the brief drive. He assumed that most were either celebrating the holiday at home with family or had travelled out of the area to spend the day with extended families.
Chet's greeting was a bit more than his customary mild acknowledgement. Ed didn't bristle. He understood. It was Christmas and Chet was alone in Antioch.
Ed declined Chet's offer of a hot drink and made his way to the racks of periodicals. The latest issue of Vermont Magazine was still in stock. He was surprised to also find the most recent edition of the Vermont History Journal.
"When did you start carrying this?" Ed waved the thick journal in Chet's general direction.
" I have a customer that asked me for it. I order a couple when it publishes every six months, just in case someone else in town is interested." Chet cocked an eyebrow in Ed's direction. "You wouldn't be thinking about submitting anything to them, would you?"
"Hmmm? Oh, no," Ed shook his head. "I was just curious. Someone mentioned it to me recently."
"You been talking to Judy Mitchell?" Chet wondered.
"I don't think so," Ed couldn't recall even hearing the name. "Who's she?"
" She teaches social studies at the elementary school. Fifth and sixth grade," Chet informed him. "Has a real interest in state and local history. I thought maybe she had her hooks into you." He chuckled.
" It wasn't her," Ed said. "Just someone I correspond with online. She referenced an article that was something about a transgender child in Vermont, maybe a hundred years ago. I was wondering if it was in the current issue."
Chet shrugged and gestured toward the journal. "Help yourself. If it isn't in that volume, maybe I could help you find it and order it in." He quietly started doing some housekeeping around the front of the store.
Ed scanned the volume for a few minutes, but without success. So he turned his attention to the rest of Chet's selection of magazines and journals. When he found himself leafing through the pages of an older volume of the New England Journal of Medicine, he realized that it was probably time to go home.
"More of a JAMA guy?" Chet queried when Ed brought the Vermont Magazine and a couple more periodicals that had caught his attention to the front of the store.
It took Ed a moment to decipher the question. "No. Not really into medical journals at all," he said. "When that article on toe fungus started to seem interesting, it felt like time to go home."
Chet chuckled. "What did bring you out on Christmas?" he wondered.
"I just wanted some peace and quiet," Ed told him. "Some idiot was running his snow machine all over my neighborhood and I needed a break."
Chet shook his head sympathetically. "Could have been Les Bowman. He's always outdoors doing something. And he does live out your way."
"I wish he had stayed indoors," Ed grumbled. "It's Christmas, for heaven's sake!"
"Not really Les' style— doing the family holiday thing," Chet clarified. "Ever since Carla left them, it's just been Les and Eric. And he really doesn't have much in common with the little guy, aside from their name."
Chet snapped his fingers. "That reminds me!" he reached under the counter. "I think I found the Vermont History Journal that you want, if you don't mind slightly used. Little Eric comes in here to read whenever the library isn't open, and I give him the run of the place.
"That Judy Mitchell got him turned on to Vermont history," Chet explained. "There's a story in here about a 'mysterious girl-boy' and Victorian sexuality in Vermont," he offered the periodical to Ed. "I think Eric is probably through reading it."
Ed shrugged and accepted the volume, although it did cross his mind to wonder what a young boy might have done with it. Hopefully he was just into it for the Vermont history and didn't get overly excited about a "girl-boy" and "Victorian sexuality".
He paid for his purchase and started for the door. But the view through the glass brought him up short.
"Uh, Chet," Ed warned, "I think there may be some gang activity going on in front of your store."
True to form, Chet didn't let Ed's alarm worry him. "That same little guy that was out there last week?" he asked.
"Could be him," Ed allowed. "Can't tell without seeing the hair. He's wearing a hoodie."
Ed studied the view through the front door cautiously. "You wouldn't mind if I slip out the back way again, would you?"
"Oh, Ed," Chet couldn't help laughing. "Eric isn't going to give you any trouble. And I would appreciate it if you could ask him to come in for some hot cocoa. He shouldn't be out there in just a hoodie in the middle of winter."
Ed eyed Chet skeptically. He didn't complain, but he hoped that Chet understood the sacrifice he was making. All he wanted was to get back home without any personal involvements. . . and maybe to find a little peace and quiet waiting for him when he got there.
It didn't help that the boy locked eyes on him as soon as Ed opened the door. It felt even less comfortable when the boy noticed that Ed was looking at him and his expression turned hopeful.
"Mr. Jordan says you should get inside and out of the cold," Ed stated brusquely. "He has some hot cocoa for you." He pushed past the boy and hurried to his Bronco.
Ed was relieved to arrive home without further human interaction; less so when he opened the Bronco's door and heard snowmobiles whining in the distance. With the noise impossible to ignore, he didn't even attempt to start any work.
He had never really considered the need before, but with most of a winter still ahead, Ed did some research online to learn more about noise cancelling headphones and white noise generators. He had a sense that he might need something to block out neighborhood distractions before the winter was over.
As he sat back in his recliner and began leafing through the Vermont Magazine, Ed found himself wishing that on just this one Christmas he had been able to get what he wanted.
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