“I Forgive You” by Francis Bryan
fiction
Photo by David Cleofas Avila
Plain envelope. No return address. My name scrawled in red ink like the sender was drunk or desperate. It’s familiar, though. A ghost. Inside: one sentence. I forgive you. The words burn. Acid on skin. I read it three times. Shake the envelope for anthrax. Forgiveness always carries a price.
Who sent it? Could be a prank. Some kid fishing my name from a phonebook. Why me?
What if it’s not a prank? What if someone knows? It’s heavy. I read it again. Turn it over for clues. Find none. I grab a cold one. Toss the letter onto a pile. Magazines, flipped photos, pills. A mess I can’t clean. I spot a note under a faded Lisa Frank panda magnet, its sparkle dulled by time: “Come home before 2:00, Frank.” Chest tightens. It can wait. Can’t miss ’80s night.
The drive’s fifteen minutes by County Road 19, but I take SR-15A. Ten more minutes of traffic and cops. Quiet roads feel like traps.
The Pig buzzes with ’80s night. Hanoi Rocks’ “Tragedy” hits as I walk in. Smoke. Sticky floors. The air itself feels guilty. Clinique perfume catches my nose. Sharp. Familiar. A couple of coeds thumbtack dollar bills flinging them skyward. A brunette in a pink crop top and ripped jeans, her oversized pink beret slipping down, eyes sparkling with gold glitter.
“Lemme show you.” I approach her. She’s got a small pimple on her lower lip. A tiny flaw. Thumbtack through the bill, quarters for weight, quick fold. Bar origami. Up it goes. The girls cheer.
“Nicely done.” She winks.
Ceiling’s a constellation of dollar bills. Probably enough to cover this month’s rent.
“Sonny,” I say, extending a hand.
“Cindy.” Green eyes, the kind you see once and think you’ve known forever, lock on mine.
“You remind me of someone.”
“God how many times have you used that one?” She laughs. She’s got a small gap between her front teeth. A skinny kid with shaggy hair drapes an arm around her. Young-dumb swagger. Like looking at myself twenty years ago.
The General plays video poker at the bar’s end. “Sonny? Haven’t seen you around.” He waves to CJ, the burly bartender. “Look who came back.”
“Got anything new?” I ask.
“That we do, my friend.” CJ pours a thick, dark-brown lager. He blows off the foam and slides the pint across the bar. “That there is Old Foghorn. 10% alcohol. Guaranteed to fuck you up.”
Sweet caramel with a fruity back bite.
“Not bad, CJ. Not bad at all. Put it on my tab.”
The General shakes hands. Tall, still athletic, horn-rimmed glasses two sizes too small. Camo shirt, cargo shorts, and always that blue beret.
“Bad trip to the VA, man. Doc asking me about that day. How I felt then. How I feel now.”
“Which day was that?” CJ chimes in.
“The day I got the letter.” His voice cracks.
“Six months in Chu Lai my damn mail finally arrives. Didn’t even remember what home smelled like. My wife, that beautiful whore, writes to tell me she’s pregnant. It’s Billy’s baby.” He sobs. “Billy, man? My best bud.”
“Damn,” I whisper.
“I find out she dies in childbirth four months later, man. You know how I find out? Billy. Son of a bitch sends me a note. That’s twice my life ended holding a cheap piece of paper while choking in the bush.” He chugs the rest of his beer. “So, I tell the doc I’m still pretty pissed. Pissed. Confused. Dead. I don’t know anymore.” CJ sets another beer down. The General snatches it and hobbles away. “I’ll let you girls gossip.” He drifts toward an empty table in the back.
“Got a strange letter today myself,” I tell CJ. “One line: I forgive you.”
“From who?”
“No return address. Nothing.”
“Gotta be a prank. Drink up and forget it.”
But I can’t. Driving home, I whisper “I forgive you,” testing the words. They taste like ash. Cindy’s Clinique haunts me. I take 15A slow again. Crawling with cops. County Road 19’s off-limits.
Back home, a folded shirt sits on the bed. I collapse onto the Serta. Thoughts spinning.
I dream of a woman I can’t name. Brown hair, pink lipstick. Her laugh echoes. Fades. A child yells “Daddy!” Eyes wide like he sees a ghost.
A faint whiff of perfume lingers, like she was just here. The pillow beside me is dented, still warm. Someone watching me sleep? The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” blasts me awake at 7:00 a.m. I don’t set early alarms. Groggy. I dress. In the kitchen, another note under the panda magnet: “Eat something that isn’t frozen.” A turkey sandwich sits in the fridge foil-wrapped like a school lunch. Smells like someone else’s hands. I take it anyway.
I stumble into the office at 10:30. Desk bare. Just a stack of envelopes. A file tabbed “Parsons Contract.” Too neat. Too clean.
Old man Deacon storms in.
“Goddammit, Frank. You missed Parsons.”
Frank? The name stabs, but I don’t flinch. Frank died long ago.
He snatches the file. Skims it. Snaps it shut.
“Late half the time, miss meetings, but the work’s flawless.” His eyes sweep my office: law journals, a dusty copy of The Stranger, a crayon Pikachu drawing taped to a file cabinet, facedown picture frames. I focus on the drawing. My hands shake.
“You okay, Frank?”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t lose yourself, man.” He leaves. I’m already gone.
Later, I eat lunch in the park behind the office. A mother pushes her son on the swing. A man joins them. “Daddy!” the boy yells. His laugh cuts through my chest.
I trace “F&M Forever” carved into the picnic table. Familiar. A wound. “F?” “Frank?” “M?” The sun cuts through last night’s chill.
Another envelope arrives that afternoon. Typed, no return address: She forgives you. Clinique clings to the paper. I throw a glass across the room. It shatters a vase holding three dead roses. Glass, petals, and blood. My foot’s cut from stepping on a shard.
In the bathroom, I find gauze, rubbing alcohol, tampons. A second toothbrush with worn bristles. I toss it and bandage my foot.
I grab a beer. Drive 15A past the County Road 19 sign. Slam it too fast. Toss the empty at the sign like it could break the past. A child laughs in the darkness.
The Pig is nearly empty. A few townies play video poker. The General throws darts in the back. Lines up each shot with sniper’s precision.
“Shitty day,” I tell CJ. “I’ve got a stalker or something.”
“No shit.” CJ opens the cooler and rummages through the selection of foreign beers. The ice breathes on the bar in front of me. “Check this out. Just came in.” CJ produces a frosty dark bottle. “Sammichlaus. Brewed one day a year in Austria.”
Rich molasses, and caramel. Toffee. Sweet. Bitter. Goes down smooth. Nasty aftertaste.
Cindy walks in. Clinique snakes up my nose. Was it her, or the letter? What’s the difference? Pink beret slides down her face.
“Godamn car won’t start. Get me a Zima, CJ.”
“I like your beret.”
“Thanks. It was my mom’s.” She adjusts it. “Keeps me grounded, you know?”
“It matches my friend over there.” I point to The General now sleeping in a back corner.
“But does he have the matching lingerie?” She leans in, tugging my flannel sleeve. I smile, feeling her fingers on me.
“Oh my,” I laugh, clutching my chest. “Let’s hope not.”
“Let me get you a real drink, babe. Hey, CJ,” I yell. “Bring this beauty a Blue Moon.”
“Orange with that?”
“Of course, my man.”
“Here you go,” CJ says.
Cindy grabs the beer and takes a sip. “You’re here a lot, aren’t you?”
“Pretty much every night ’til close.”
“Sonny, right?” she asks.
“Last time I checked.”
“What do you do when you’re not sitting here drinking all CJ’s beer?”
“That’s an interesting question. I work at a law firm. Paralegal.”
She pulls a pack of Marlboro reds from her purse. Slips one between her fingers. Lights it. Takes a drag. Leans back. Blows the smoke right at me. Slow and teasing.
“You’re way too serious for a place like this, aren’t you?” She blows my way. “Jobs pay the bills. You don’t seem like a 9-5 guy. What turns you on?”
“Writing. Always wanted to be a writer. Tried it for a while. Something happened. I stopped.”
“Writer, huh? Like newspapers?”
“Fiction. Books.”
“Anything I’d know?”
“Nothing they’d teach in college, honey.”
“So, why’d you quit?”
I shake my head. “Can’t remember. Sounds stupid, but I woke up one day, and the words stopped coming.”
“That’s sad.” She fidgets with a silver ring on her finger, slowly twisting it. Pulling it up and down. Almost taking it off before sliding it back down to her knuckle. “I’m studying art. Want to paint the world someday.”
“You will,” I whisper.
CJ casually walks over to the jukebox. “Closing Time” by Semisonic soaks the air. His ritual. Every night at 1:45.
I sing along to the opening lines that I had heard so many times these past few years. The lights come on and there’s nowhere to hide. In the mirror, I see stubble, stains on my flannel, purple bags under my eyes. Who is this sad man? Cindy glances at her watch.
“You can stay here as long as you want. Have a couple beers on the house,” CJ says. “You too, buddy.” He leans closer. “It’s just good to see you trying to get out there again,” he whispers.
Stragglers stumble into the hot Florida night. CJ is locking the door when a short, round, middle-aged black man bursts in.
“Now hold on there,” he says. “It’s time to go to work.”
“Come on in, Supersoul,” CJ says, locking the door behind him. Supersoul goes behind the bar, grabs a rag and a bottle of 409, and begins wiping down the counters and tables.
Behind the bar now, I open the cooler.
“You mind?”
“Only if you’re not grabbing me one,” CJ says from the other side of the bar. I grab two Sierra Nevadas and hand one to CJ.
“Cindy?”
“Sure, why not.”
Supersoul wipes the bar with 409. Chemical sting cuts through the beer. Lemony. Sterile. Wrong.
“What’s his deal?” Cindy asks.
“Well, sweetheart, that there is Supersoul.”
“Supersoul?”
“Yeah. Lives down at the Hotel Putnam. Lost his wife a few years ago and hasn’t been able to hold a job. CJ here lets him come in and clean up every night in exchange for beer and cigarettes.”
“I can’t tell if that’s generous or cruel.”
“Probably a little of both.” I shrug. “I guess you could say it’s a symbiotic relationship. We help each other out around here.”
Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” fills the room and my soul. “Shadows of a man a face through the window. Crying in the night. The night goes into…” I whisper along to words carved on my heart. Someone pounds on the door.
“Cindy!”
“Jason, my boyfriend.”
CJ lets him in. The kid stumbles. Drunk.
“You got a Pabst back there, brother?”
“Pabst, huh?” I toss him a can. He slams it.
Supersoul mops up muttering about messes. I’m too tired to care. Silence permeates the bar as people fade, pass out, and leave. Cindy squirms on her stool.
“I gotta tinkle.” She goes back around the corner to the ladies’ room.
Drain my beer. Tell CJ I’ll grab another six pack from the back. Hallway reeks of bleach. Cindy steps out of the restroom. Eyes glassy. Breath sharp.
“My writer man,” she whispers. There’s a hint of snow under her nose. “Here.” She pulls a clear vial out of her bra. “Have a taste.”
She crashes in for a kiss. Beret grazes my cheek. Body presses closer. Tastes like beer, cigarettes, and perfume. Intoxicating. This is what I’ve been waiting for.
“Special K,” she purrs unscrewing the cap with a pink star on it. She pours a short line on her index finger. Holds it to my nose.
I inhale. The drug, the perfume, the memories hit at once. Heaven. Numbness pushes away pain. We’re floating.
Pull her closer. My hands slide down her hips. We dance to a song that isn’t there. Swaying back and forth. She brushes my lips. Teasing.
“I love you, Mandy,” I whisper.
She drifts away. “Hmm?”
“What the fuck, Cindy.” Jason stumbles back. Grabs her. The General, alert and standing by, rises.
“We’re out of here,” he slurs as he drags Cindy towards the door.
“Let’s call you guys a cab,” I say.
“Fuck you. Drunk bastard.”
I block the door. Red light. White Mustang. Crash. Glass. Crayons. Coloring. Green eyes wide with panic. Screaming. A boy shouts “Daddy!” Silence.
“Don’t do this again,” I sob. Grab him by the collar. “Take the goddamn taxi you motherfucker.” I spit in his face. “You won’t ruin things this time.”
“Don’t ride with him,” I tell Cindy. “He’ll kill you.”
I collapse to the cold, grimy floor. The last thing I see is The General standing over me.
“You did good, Frank,” he says tipping his beret. Fade to black.
I wake up at 5:46 p.m. Head foggy. Whole day gone.
In the hallway, I trip over small black-and-red Nikes. Memories surface. I can’t throw them away. He might come back. I grab a Coors from the fridge. Huh? Fully stocked with deli meat, condiments, eggs, cheese. You know, real food.
The mail sits neatly stacked. Ikea catalogue, Ford Credit notice, a white envelope addressed in red crayon.
Bracing myself against the edge of the table, I sit and pick the letter up. I flip it over. This one is sealed with a Pokémon sticker on the back. Charizard.
I cautiously peel the sticker off. The letter is neatly folded inside. I take it out, unfold it, scan the page. One line in crayon scribbled in the center: He forgives you.
I drop the letter. Slam my beer. Run to the sink to vomit. Chest hurts and head aches. Vision blurs. Can’t see straight.
The phone rings. A woman’s voice on the machine. “Good evening, Frank. This is Dr. Conroy. I have to cancel our appointment for tomorrow. Hope you’re doing that writing exercise we discussed last time. Call me back to reschedule.”
“I’m okay. It’s okay.” I grab my keys. Gotta get to The Pig.
Storm’s coming. I drive down 15A. Heart skips as I pass County Road 19.
The Pig looks abandoned. A dark neon pig scowls at me. Doors locked. Lone light on inside. Lonelier outside. Supersoul sits on the curb slowly rocking back and forth to music only he hears.
“Hey, man,” Supersoul says. “CJ fighting with the boss. Came down here and started yelling. Money gone. Couple of missing kegs,” he mumbles. “It’s bullshit, man, I tell ya. No beer for Supersoul. He rubs his finger together motioning for cash. “Come on, man. Five dollars?”
“I got a better idea.” I help him up. “Come on.”
We return fifteen minutes later. Each of us swig from 40s of King Cobra. Cindy and her boyfriend cross the parking lot holding hands.
“Bar’s closed, man!” Supersoul yells. Cindy shrugs as they walk away. She doesn’t recognize me.
“Who am I?”
“Hey, man,” Supersoul says. “Meant to say something last night. Don’t that girl look like Mandy?”
My hands shake. I drop the bottle. Shatters against the cold, wet pavement.
“You hearing me, Frank? Looks like Mandy.”
“Frank?”
“Oh, sorry man. Fucked up. Sonny.”
Confused. Need sleep. Eyes heavy. Nerves shot. I reach into my wallet and hand him a fifty.
“Oh, shit, thanks, my brother,” he mumbles, hugging me.
“No. Thank you.”
“No sweat, no sweat.” He pockets the bill as I walk back to my truck. “Hey, Sonny. Remember, some messes clean easy. Others, they stick with you.”
Rain pounds the windshield. I drive slowly, feeling disaster around every corner. The air suffocates. Florida heat mixing with the rain.
I turn around. Time to take County Road 19.
Heart tries to escape. I put my hand over my chest to hold it in. This is the road. Narrow and quiet. No traffic. Trees crowd me. Box me in like a casket. A child screams.
That’s when I see it. Just past the curve. A rusted guardrail twisted at the end like a broken rib. Patchy grass. The shoulder worn bare. The scene cracks my chest open. Bouquets of silk flowers rot in the dirt. A child’s Pikachu drawing laminated in plastic. A red balloon clings deflated to a stick. Tiny sneakers wait for feet that won’t come. “F&M Forever” carved into the tree. A eulogy.
I pull my truck to the side of the road. Get out. Her face flashes. Laughing. We’re at the bar. My breath isn’t coming to me. Like sucking it through a straw. We’re on the road. A folding chair amongst all of the flowers and toys. Tommy drops his coloring book. All the remnants of lost life. I go to pick it up. A framed photo was on the seat: me, her, the little boy. All smiling. All sunlit. Headlights. Crashing. Crying.
I step towards the flowers. Knees tremble. Can’t breathe. Pinned to the back of the chair flapping in the breeze. A note. One line in my handwriting: We forgive you.
“Mandy and Tommy,” I whisper to the darkness. Forgiveness always carries a price.
Back home the letters sit on the table. The flipped photos stare back. I reach for one, hand trembling, then stop. Not yet. I grab a beer and step into the rain. Cold on my neck. I look to the sky. Let the rain in. Sigh. I have nothing left to write.
A graduate from the University of Central Florida, Francis Bryan’s stories explore memory, obsession, and the tension between longing and regret in compressed, atmospheric forms. You can follow him on X @sonny_1313.
A former Peer Support Specialist with a B.A. in Psychology from Sonoma State University, having experienced psychosis as a teen, later diagnosed with schizophrenia, David Cleofas Avila writes and makes art and music to better square away the sequelae of life. Residing in the Susan Fleming family collection, curated by L. Marx, David’s art has been priced by Ames Gallery, recognized at the National Arts and Disability Center UCLA, and published in Peatsmoke Journal, Gabby & Min, NUNUM, and Harpur Palate. The artist’s poetry has been published in Oddball Magazine, eMerge Magazine, The Poetry Cove, Flora Fiction, and Breath & Shadow.