My Shorts 2019 - 2. MS19 - An Upstanding Man

Rudolf Steiner was a man stuck in a rut. As a thirty-three-year-old gay man, he felt like love had left him years ago, and he had resigned himself to die alone and unwanted. Rudolf spent his days working as a middle manager in a call center, a corporate drone with no hope of advancement. He made enough to keep himself comfortable in his one-bedroom apartment, with a bit of savings, and lonely dinners out on occasion.

Tonight, was his weekly dinner out, but his usual spot was closed for health code violations. Instead, he went next door to the Korean restaurant Soul of Korea. Rudolf finished up his dinner of spicy pork Bulgogi with a side order of Kimchi Dumplings and walked over to the front counter to pay his bill.

“Have a good night, and here’s your fortune cookie.” The hostess handed him one of those cheesy fortune cookies that you usually find in a Chinese takeout establishment.

“Thanks.” Rudolf accepted the offered cookie and walked out the door. He cracked it open and read the fortune inside. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

“Seriously? That’s even cheesier than normal.” He tossed the wrapper and the fortune into the trashcan while he devoured the cookie part. It was stale.

~.~

As he walked down Franklin St. back towards his high-rise apartment, Rudolf passed several barkers trying to entice people into their clubs. The crowds in front of them were getting thick and forced him to cross the street.

He saw another barker up ahead of him, a large powerfully built African-American with thick dreadlocks and a Cajun accent. The man was handing out flyers which advertised the strip club across the street in a colorful array of pictures and promises of the best girls in the city. Most simply tossed them on the ground, unheeded. Rudolf was about to pass the man, when something made him look up and lock eyes with the barker.

“Here you go, my good man. Two-for-one drink specials all night long.” His accent was thick but pleasant.

“Thanks.” Rudolf took the flyer, nodded to the man, and continued down the road. After he walked a few steps, he looked at the flyer and stopped dead in his tracks. There was no advert on it, but instead it simply said The Green Door.

Rudolf turned around, looked for the African-American Cajun man, and was surprised to see he was no longer there. The discarded flyers still littered the ground, and a few people were crossing the street with them in hand.

“He must have gone into the building here to get something.” Rudolf, being curious, walked into the building the Cajun had stood in front of.

The building was a historic location for the city of Tampa, filled with a mix of businesses on the first two floors and residences on the remaining three. Its real brick façade had weathered over the years, giving it a beautiful aged looked, and a nice patina to the copper plates. An elevator bank of two sat at the back of the lobby, with branching hallways to the first-floor offices, café, and mailroom.

There was no door attendant in the lobby, nor security. Rudolf walked off the first two floors unmolested, to no avail. He spent the next forty-five minutes searching the resident floors and was about to give up. He turned into the last hallway, not expecting anything, and stopped where he stood. Before him was a green-colored door. It was the only door in the short hallway, and it was missing the usual nameplate with an apartment number and a resident’s name.

Rudolf trembled as he approached the door as a fit of anxiety came over him. He didn’t stop, and when he got to the door, he knocked on it four times.

“This was a mistake. I need to get home.” As he turned to walk away, he heard the deadbolt open and saw the doorknob move.

The door opened but a crack as a warm sliver of golden light streamed out, along with a rush of frigid air.

“Enter… and close the door.” It was a raspy voice that sent a chill down Rudolf’s spine.

He looked back the way he had come, and for a split-second thought about running; however, a voice deep inside compelled him to walk in. With a calming breath, Rudolf pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The door shut on its own.

~.~

The golden light enveloped Rudolf as he shuffled forward, barely able to see. It was cold in the room, a deep bone chilling cold, and the scent of orange blossoms and old books hung in the air. He was a dozen paces into the room when the voice spoke to him again.

“Why are you here?” The raspiness of the voice still affected him, and he shivered for reasons other than the freezing temperature in the room.

“I… I… was given a flyer…” Rudolf stammered. His hand brushed against a wooden dining chair.

“Sit… Rudolf Steiner…”

He did as he was told. Rudolf squinted against the light trying to see his surroundings. “How… how did you know… know… my name?”

“All will be revealed in time.” Each time the voice spoke, it came from a different direction. Rudolf felt as if he was being circled by a predator. “Now tell me… why are you here?”

“I… I… said why. The Cajun man gave me a flyer…” Despite his unease, Rudolf was becoming annoyed. “It said, The Green Door.”

“That…” The voice paused. It sounded as if it was a foot away from him. “… is only a starting point. It’s not a why. I ask again, why are you here? I will not ask a fourth time.”

Rudolf was quiet and let out a frustrated breath. He hugged himself trying to get warm. “I don’t know why I’m here… I was curious… never done this before.” He was shivering uncontrollably now and was losing feeling in his hands and feet. “Can you turn the heat on? I’m about to freeze to death!”

In an instant the room went from a sub-arctic temperature, to a normal Florida one.

“Finally, some honesty…” The voice was farther away and to the right. “… Mr. Steiner. Now we shall talk… a cup of hot tea is on the table before you. Drink it.”

Again, he did as he was told. Rudolf didn’t dare argue or ask where the table came from. The tea was just the right temperature, flavored with lemon and honey. He felt the lingering chill leave his body.

“Good. Tell me Mr. Steiner, do you like your lot in life? Or do you feel like the deck is stacked against you?”

Rudolf pondered the question for a moment. He had the feeling the voice already knew what he felt in his heart. “No… I don’t like my life. I’m tired of it. I deserve better than this!” With each word anger and frustration came out. “All my life, every time I’ve tried to get ahead, every time I put myself out there, every fucking time I try to do something to better my life, something happens to fuck it up. It’s always something beyond my control, and not my fault. I’m not in denial about it either. Driving home from work, the car gets hit by a drunk that runs a red light, I lose my fucking job because I have no way to get to work on the other side of the county with piss poor public transportation. That sort of shit.” He paused as he ran a hand down his face. “Why do you want to know? It’s not like I can do anything about it.”

“You’re wrong, Rudi. There is something you can do about it.” The voice was clear now and came from directly behind him.

Rudolf jumped as he felt a hand on his shoulder and threw himself from the chair onto the floor. He looked back to where the voice and the hand came from. There was no one there. “Why can’t I see you?”

“You’re not meant to, Rudi.” An invisible hand came with the voice and pulled Rudolf to his feet, placing him back into the chair. “I am going to give you a choice.” The voice was now in front of him. “I have in my power the ability to fix your life. Where you’ll have the man of your dreams, a job that is meaningful, and a life of good fortune.”

“What’s the price?” Rudolf’s tone was noncommittal. “As they say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Unlike the voice that only sent a shiver of fear through him, the laughter the voice gave now frightened him to his very soul.

“That Mr. Steiner, is the crux of the situation. Take my offer, and there is a price to pay. Don’t take my offer, and you’ll live the rest of your pathetic life an unwanted man, cursed to live misfortune.”

“I’m cursed?” The surprised was clear on his face. “How… Why?”

“No fault of your own.” The voice purred. “You see that is the cost. You will get the life you were supposed to have had, and someone else gets the misfortune. It’s the same deal one of my brethren gave to another, and you were the randomly unfortunate soul to receive the consequences.”

Rudolf sat stunned. His mind ran a thousand miles an hour. Hope of getting out of his cesspool of a life blossomed in his chest, only to be crushed by his morals. “How can I doom someone else to what I’m going through? That would make me a monster, and I wouldn’t wish this upon my worst enemy.”

“Is that your answer?”

He nodded yes. “It is. My answer is no. I don’t accept the offer.”

“You’re a good, upstanding man, Mr. Steiner.” The voice was full of warmth and did not make him fearful this time.

~.~

The light in the room, faded to a normal level, showing Rudolf that he sat in his apartment. The chair he had been sitting on was gone, and he now sat on his old stained couch. He didn’t know how he got home. “There must have been something in that food I ate. Or some LSD in the fortune cookie.”

“Rudi, who are you talking to?” A voice came from the bedroom.

Rudolf stood and looked towards the opened bedroom door. His high school crush, Jonas Brill, stood in the doorway, naked.

“Rudi, are you talking to yourself again?” Jonas walked over and embraced Rudolf, pulling them close together. He kissed the stunned Rudolf. “What’s gotten into you tonight? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Come to bed, it’s cold without you.”

“Alright…” Rudolf felt lost; unsure of what was going on. He followed Jonas towards the bedroom, stopping briefly at his desk to drop off his wallet and keys, and to plug in his phone. He spied a Hallmark greeting card on the desk, addressed to him, sitting among the day’s mail. He picked it up and opened it. It was a plain white card, with bold green writing on the inside.

“Good things come to those who wait and are of good moral character. Enjoy your life Mr. Steiner.”

The End