Written July 22, 2020

Norton watched bubbles rise up in streams through the amber liquid sitting before him on the counter. The entire bar seemed to have this slowness, this viscosity. It did not only serve beer. It was drenched in beer. Honeyed light filled every corner of the stuffy room. There was always a vague haze that lensed one’s eyes like smoke, but no one could determine exactly where it came from. People spoke in low tones, their faces close together not for fear of being heard, but because the space encouraged this kind of intimacy. Two strangers could speak to each other and share life stories, their darkest secrets, until the bar closed in the wee hours of the morning and the haze was reluctantly replaced by reality.

This bar was the only place that Norton let himself relax. He had just graduated college. In a couple of months, he would be in business school. But Norton was not one to think about the future. Even if he was thinking about this goals, he would quickly ground himself. He viewed the future in the same light he viewed another drink. Who knew what could happen in the time between asking for a drink and the moment a sip is taken? There was no way to know. Perhaps the surest thing in the world was the path those minuscule beer bubbles would take in their journey to the surface.

In the midst of the rowdy customers of the bar and the silent ones with melancholy eyes staring into enigmatic space, Norton was like a granite block. His angles were clear cut and unmoving, his gray eyes rarely doing their job as windows to his soul. Norton’s lips moved unwillingly when he spoke, the corners peeling themselves away from each other before the rest of his mouth followed. A friend had once told him that he was the deadest living person he had ever met. This had made Norton laugh a short, dry laugh, his face becoming another man’s for a moment and then settling back into its original countenance. There were times when Norton wanted to escape himself. But then he would come to his senses. It was better to avoid self reflection. Easier. Norton rolled around the remaining beer in his glass and sighed. Tomorrow was another day to be seized. 

A man in a dripping raincoat sat on the barstool next to Norton, slapping his sopping hat on the counter and loudly asking for a brandy. He rocked his girth back and forth to settle into the seated position and looked at Norton. Norton looked back, making an attempt at a half smile and quickly giving up. The man did not seem to mind Norton’s awkwardness and instead grinned widely. “I know you,” he declared.

“I’m afraid I don’t know you. I’m sorry,” Norton said flatly.

“I think you do. Norton, is it?”

Norton nodded.

“We went to high school together, remember?”

Norton did not remember. The man’s face was largely inhabited by a beard, so it was difficult to tell his age. Norton looked at his pudgy red nose and large, watery eyes and tried to coax a response from his mind without success. “I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” the man said, picking up his brandy and taking a swig. “I guess you never lost that habit. So you don’t remember me? Too bad. Well, here’s the big reveal—I’m Jared Linfield. Ring a bell?”

Something settled into place in Norton’s mind. “Oh, yes. Jared. How have you been?”

“Neither here nor there, I guess.”

Norton noted the misuse of that phrase. “I see,” he said.

“You don’t look to happy. Are you in college?”
“I graduated. I’m going to business school.”

“Now it’s my turn to say I’m sorry.”

Norton frowned slightly, putting up a hand to get the bartender’s attention for another beer. “Don’t be. I want to go.”

“Who wants to go to business school?” Jared asked with a guffaw.

Norton turned back to Jared and frowned deeper. “I just said that I do.”

Jared squinted into Norton’s eyes and waggled his finger. “No. I don’t think that’s true.” Picking up his brandy and staring into it with a smile, he continued slowly, “I don’t think that’s true at all.”

Norton ran his hand through his hair and yawned, hoping that if he acted more boring than usual Jared would go away. He did not, so Norton tried making small talk. “What have you been doing?” he asked, expecting that the answer would be pretending to look for a job after having graduated college.

“Traveling,” Jared answered.

“That must be a pleasant reprieve.”

“From what?” Jared looked at Norton as if he truly did not know what he meant.

“College.”

Jared’s face slowly lifted in a smile, then broke into laughter as he held his significant paunch. “Buddy, I didn’t go to college.”

Norton could not say that he was surprised, so he nodded, thankful that they would not have anything to talk about. But his relief had come too soon. Jared was insistent upon making conversation.

“Regardless of whether I went to college, it was a great experience.”

“I’d imagine so.” Norton was kidding himself. He had no imagination.

“I don’t think you can.” It was as if Jared could read Norton’s mind.

“You don’t think I can?”

“No.”

“Imagine?”

“No. No one can. Not until they see the things I have for themselves. Not until they’re on a mountain feeling a blizzard rise up through the soles of their feet and engulf everything in a power only wielded by Mother Nature herself.”

For a flashing instant Norton could see Jared fade away and go to that mountain in his mind, and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to join him. Norton squinted deeply into Jared’s eyes as if he could extract the memories of his travels from his brain. He thought about all the delicate threads of color intertwining with each other, forming coils of feeling in Jared’s skull cavity that could never be destroyed. In his heart, Norton always knew that business school could not give this to him. The culture and beauty of the world needed people to touch its raw face, needed people to truly experience plummeting headfirst into its madness without knowing what the fall entailed or how it would end.

Norton looked at his reflection that manifested dully on the grimy bar counter. “Why are you back in the States?” he asked Jared without looking up.

In Norton’s peripheral vision he could see Jared slowly scratch his head. “There’s a sheerness about the planet, Norton. There’s a sheerness that pummels you like hail.” Norton looked up at Jared when Jared looked at him with a wan smile that seemed out of character. “Sometimes you just need to slither back into your cave like the coward that you are.”

Norton did not know what to say. He looked around at the people in the bar, their faces mottled with dull lighting and shadows, and he realized that everyone there was seeking shelter from the hail. It was so obvious. But the thought had clearly been buried beneath fear or pride, which perhaps were one and the same. There were traces of both in the bar-goers’ faces. Norton could see that now. He could see it in his own face, even through the dirt and scum on the counter.

It was then that Jared did something unexpected. “Have you ever made a pact with the devil?” he said, grabbing Norton’s arm and squeezing it firmly. Jared’s face was so near Norton’s that the latter could see the details of his iris, the outreaching folds of brown and gold flecks like the rays of a miniature sun shrouded by smog. 

“I don’t know.” Norton felt his lips and tongue moving but could not be sure he said the words.

Jared leaned back, smiling wryly. “I do. I know, Norton. You have.”

Norton swallowed the lump lodged in his esophagus, but it did not go away.

“Business school. That was your pact.” Jared rubbed his nose roughly and gave Norton a sideways glare. “Let me ask you something. Where are you going?”

Norton was silent.

“What are you doing after business school?” Jared said ‘business school’ as if it was a dirty phrase that needed to be spat out, that belonged on the grubby counter with Norton’s reflection.

“I don’t know,” Norton said from the muted depths of his cave. 

Norton thought he saw Jared smile wider. “Let me ask you another thing. Why are you going to business school, Norton?”

Norton did not answer.

“Is it because you’re passionate about it? Are you passionate about entrepreneurship? About helping people? Are you? Speak, man, speak!” Jared’s voice got steadily more booming with each sentence. His entire body appeared to grow taller and broader until he towered over Norton.

Norton, who did not realize that he was gripping his glass, slammed it on the table so that the beer and its bubbles spilled on the counter, further warping his reflection. “No, no, I don’t do it for any of those reasons. I do it because I don’t know what else to do. I feel safer in a rut, and that’s where I am. That’s where you are too, Jared, whether you like it or not. We’re all in a rut, in a cave—whatever you want to call it. We’re all cowards hiding from hail.” By the end of his righteous monologue he realized that he had stood up and screamed, something that he had never done in his entire life. He had gotten the attention of everyone in the bar, and for a moment he expected applause. But there was none. Eventually the ambience of conversation grew and settled into its original volume.

Jared was grinning wider than ever, and when Norton looked back at his face he was laughing heartily. “Norton,” Jared exclaimed, punching his shoulder, “I always knew you had it in you. I always knew you could yell and get a little crazy, you dumb stiff!” He laughed again.

Norton and Jared sat down simultaneously, never losing eye contact. Jared sighed. “In all seriousness, though—you’re right. So what if I could give you an out? You don’t like being in a rut, do you?”

Norton looked at the spilled beer on the table and frowned. He was still so young. Still so young, and already so tired. Exhaustion was a horrible thing. It crept up on people like the death of a camel. Someone could be riding through the desert in search of an oasis, and in an instant their camel would collapse beneath them, dead. Norton wondered if he was the rider or the camel in this scenario. Suddenly he remembered that Jared had asked him a question. “An out? I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, I’ll explain. What if I told you that I wanted to make a pact with the devil and could guarantee you a place in heaven?”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

Jared frowned. “You ever heard of metaphors? What do they teach you in school? This is the perfect example of why you should take my place and I should take yours.”

Norton looked at Jared quizzically. “I hope I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Please tell me what you think I mean,” Jared said, folding his arms over his chest and leaning sideways against the bar counter.

“You’re saying that you want to go to business school and if I give up my place to you you’ll give me a ticket to—”

“Delhi,” said Jared, his wide eyes conveying every ounce of seriousness he could muster. “I will give you a ticket to Delhi. You can go where you want from there.”

Norton squinted at Jared. “Why do you want to go to business school?”

Jared inhaled and answered after a pause. “Because I’ve traveled in search of enlightenment, my friend.” He leaned in, continuing in a whisper, “And the journey is not for weaklings. It’s not for meek souls. I admit that I am one. I want out. But you say you want that life. I’m saying you can have it for free. No strings attached. No worries. I know you have the money to do it from those fancy temp jobs at those fancy corporations. You’re stingy. You always have been. Even since high school.”

“And how will you get into business school without applying? Without even having gone to college?”

Jared leaned back and smoothed his shirt. “I have connections. Don’t worry about me. In fact, don’t worry about anything. You’re a free man.” He paused. “If you agree, that is.”

“This has all the marks of a scam.”

“Hey,” Jared said, holding up both hands. “It’s your first lesson for this kind of life you claim to want. Blind faith. You’ll never survive without it.”

“A few minutes ago you asked me why anyone would want to go to business school.”

“I wanted to convince you that you don’t want to be there. And you don’t. Mission accomplished.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because we’re both in the same dilemma,” Jared answered slowly. “Total freedom and total captivity are really the same thing. One just sounds better in conversation. I’ll let you decide which.” He offered his hand to Norton. “Besides,” he concluded, “What do I get out of this? Not money. Not fame. Think about it. You’re a businessman. This looks like a pretty good deal to me.”

Norton had never taken a leap. Not literally. Not figuratively. He had never had the opportunity to fall on his feet or his face for this reason, and since he was desperate for experiences he would settle for either one. This was all it took for Norton to justify shaking Jared’s hand and ending his pact with the devil. It was final. There was no going back. He would be one of those rugged backpackers with long hair and dirt on their hands.

Jared handed Norton a one-way plane ticket to Delhi for the next day. Norton never knew that such a simple thing could make him so elated.

When the two men exited the bar, it was still drizzling. Norton thought that this was a good sign. The hailstones were melting. He allowed himself to imagine a sunrise in a far off land, where, after a storm, some drops of water pattered down in gentled bouts from the branches of a tree. Norton would be sitting on a bench watching as ripples made their way across a puddle’s surface, the rays of the sun warming his bones and soul. And everything would line up. The ripples with the wind and the sun with the trees and the stirrings of Norton’s heart and mind with the raw purity of the world. Never had the unknown looked so beautiful.

Out of the Hail and Into the Rain © Safira Schiowitz