Stash Box

I stretch and feel my spine groan and pop with the weariness of a much older man. Waking is my least favorite part of the day, recently the lowest point in a mire of low points that make up my daylight hours. I have not been on a winning streak, illustrated further this morning by turning over to find my phone woefully dead, my soft pack of cigarettes empty, and my head already splitting. I typically wake before the hangover sets in and set to work on my next buzz. Alas, no phone, no alarm, no luck.

I walk clumsily into the kitchen, tripping over dirty clothes, beer cans, and candy wrappers. “Austin’s endless forms of filth”, my roommate West would call it. I pour a mug of room temperature sludge from West’s fancy coffee maker, then retrieve my gin from the freezer and pour some into a plastic cup with a squirt of lime juice. Breakfast.

Phoneless, I flip through a week-old newspaper as I alternate beverages. I’ve got a habit of buying newspapers when I’m feeling drunk and optimistic. Tomorrow’s the day, I’ll think, I will wake up and read the news like my dad does before setting out for a productive day of whatever the hell real adults do. Without fail, as the moon and stars fade from sight, so too do my hopes of productivity and assimilation. Newspapers are, in fact, quite boring, and I always feel like I’m missing context. It feels like I’m jumping into a TV show six seasons in.

I set the newspaper down, finish my gin, and hope against hope that I have something leftover in my stash box. I fish a beautifully ornate cigar box, the kind that truly fantastic cigars come in, out from behind the sofa. I open the lid and cannot believe my eyes. My baggie of weed, which had scarcely more than a gram left yesterday morning, is full. There is a bag of pills, oxys by the look of them, and a small container of yellow powder.

Where in the hell did this come from? I go to send a text West, but remember my phone is dead. Damn I wish my phone was charged. Just as I think this, my phone vibrates. I look down, full battery. There is a text from West, reminding me to take out the trash. I roll a joint with the mystery weed, put some jeans on, and go outside, still scratching my head from the surprise box of drugs.

It is raining hard. Our apartment dumpster is quite far from our exit, and I really don’t feel like getting soaked. Immediately upon thinking this, the rain stops. Instantly, the grey gloominess turns to a nice, sunny spring day. In the middle of February. Again, what the hell is happening? I shake my head, thoroughly flummoxed by the strange morning I’ve had so far. I light my joint and walk the trash can to the dumpster. The sun feels amazing on my back. I’m starting to feel sufficiently stoned, and there is no sign of a hangover.

As I walk back, I resign to not waste this good feeling playing the

hermit. I’ll visit my favorite haunts, maybe even get a coffee and stop by the bookshop if I have any cash in my wallet. I extinguish my joint, and allow the high and good feeling to take me over as I recross the threshold. I find a relatively clean pair of jeans, a wrinkled white button up, a decent pair of shoes. I find my wallet and open it to find it nearly bursting with twenties and hundreds. The mouthwatering excitement mixes with a growing sense of derealization in a strange, but not unwelcome feeling.

As I walk the stonecast from my apartment to downtown, I try to piece together what had happened the night before. Though I drink copiously and take drugs with very little caution, I don’t black out often. Honestly, I wish I was spared from memory a bit more frequently. Could I be missing a few hours from last night? I don’t know how I would have gotten my hands on a few thousand dollars and a box full of my favorite chemicals. I certainly remember coming home from the bars, discouraged at not having found a woman to bring home. I remember laying in bed and checking my dating apps. Could I have gone back out?

I can smell my favorite cafe, Yousef’s, as soon as I turn onto 8th. The aromas of espresso, cardamom, and harissa blend beautifully with the smoke from the old arab men who splay across benches and tables outside and argue politics over coffee and cigarettes. I wish I’d stopped for a pack first.

“My friend,” one of the men says, “do you smoke these?” He is holding a soft pack of camel unfiltered.

“Umm. Y-yes,” I stutter. I shake myself. “Yes I do. Almost exclusively.”

“You must take them,” he says with a smile, “They gave me the wrong pack at the store.”

The man continues to smile and hold out that pack as I meet his gaze, mouth agape. I think for a moment that perhaps I’m on a prank show, then remember that most of those target celebrities instead of random unemployed drunks.

“Thank you. That’s too kind,” I say, accepting the pack.

“It is my pleasure. You are a good man, I can tell,” the man says as he pats my hand.

I enter the coffeeshop, and the typically surly owner calls out to me.

“Austin! I just knew you would be here. Tall breve with cardamom is on the counter. No charge.”

“Ah. Thank you,” I say. Not nearly effusive enough a response to this kindness but I am getting freaked out now. I have spoken with Yousef a number of times, but we are not close friends. I’m surprised he remembers my drink order, much less my name. I collect my coffee and take it outside. I sit on a bench facing the road, and watch the cars go by as I light one of the gifted cigarettes. I take a few puffs and try to forget about all the weird shit. A car alarm is going off, kind of ruining the peaceful scene. I wish someone would shut it off. Immediately it stops. The strange feeling of losing touch with reality gives me a chill. I’d love an explanation as to what the hell is going on today.

Just then, a section of newspaper from the old men catches the wind and smacks me right in the face. As I am about to stand to return the paper, I look down and notice my full name on the front page.

“Austin Reeves has gained full omnipotence” the headline reads. I do not remember what that word means. I read further.

“Omnipotence means being all-powerful…” Ah. What?

“In a rare phenomenon which in no way proves or disproves the existence of a God, nor confirms or denies the randomness of the known universe, a local unemployed man has been granted omnipotence for an undetermined period of time. With this power, he can do as he pleases and what he pleases will be so.”

My heart is racing now. If I’m to believe this, all I have to do is think of something and it will happen. Screw it, let’s try this out.

I peer into the window of Yousef’s and see a man eating a lemon poppyseed muffin. I want one, and one appears in my hand. I take a bite, it is delicious and very much real. I look to the road and see a yellow Jeep. I turn it into a double decker bus. Now I’m grinning. Either I have gone fully, irreparably insane, or I have mystical powers. Regardless, I’m going to enjoy myself. I look at the shoe shop beside Yousef’s and it turns into a bar before my eyes. I stand up, light another cigarette, and enter the bar. It’s dimly lit, lined with a few booths, an impressive amount of stocked bookshelves, a fine pool table, and the largest selection of liquor that I’ve ever seen. A beautiful woman stands at attention behind the bar.

“Ok if I smoke in here?” I ask.

“Please. Whatever you like,” she says. Her voice is low and soothing.

“I’d like a drink with whisky. Something amazing. And an order of fries with malt vinegar.” She smiles and nods.

As I wait for my drink and snack I survey the place. It is my dream bar. The art on the walls feels familiar and warm. It smells like vanilla pipe tobacco and coconut. The only thing missing is company. At this point, I don’t know why I’m surprised when people start to trickle in. I suppose I’d summoned them. As the beautiful bartender brings my order, a small group of attractive, well dressed grad students by the look of them ask to join me. With a grin, I gesture for them to sit.

“How cool is this place?” one of them asks.

“It must have just opened, have you seen it before?” Another asks me.

“It just opened today, as a matter of fact,” I say. “I did a bit of design work for the place. Glad you like it.”

The next few hours are a gleeful haze of the most unbridled hedonism I’d ever partaken in. The bartender became a purveyor of not just amber liquids, but various forms of powders and more powerful elixirs. By three o’clock, I find myself nearly unable to hold my head up with intoxication, fully clothed, laying in a hot tub that had been delivered and set up at the request of one of my new friends.

The patrons become more and more impressed and taken with my ability to get them whatever they desire. The room is now filled with rare foreign snack foods, newly adopted puppies, and favorite childhood toys. I am like a skinny Santa Claus with cocaine. More importantly, these people love me. They think my stories are hilarious. They think me to be witty and interesting. I feel none of the usual pity or derision from any of them.

I let my head lay back and look up at the ceiling. It has been painted to look like a canopy of trees, identical to the heavy woods of my childhood summer camp. My head swims, and I wish I was a bit less high. Of course, just as I think this I regain a bit of consciousness.

“Friends,” I say, with my head still laid back. “I think I’d like a bit of solitude to dry off. There’s a change of clothes for each of you in the restrooms and you’ll find that my number has been added to your phone. Austin Reeves. I hope we can do this again sometime.”

I listen to them all leave, speaking in a drunken hush about the insane party they’d just attended on a Wednesday afternoon. I let myself float in the water, thoughtless, and felt a sensation of peace and contentment that I had not felt since I was a young boy. And yet, I must admit, just as I’d felt when I was a child, there was something missing. Nothing seemed to propel me forward, yet I had no desire to stay in the same place.

I exit the hot tub and summon a warm, dry bathrobe. What’s next? What is it that I want to do with this newfound power? Wordlessly, the bartender brings me a spiked coffee and a cigarette. I think of my goals, usually a topic I avoid like poison. I’d always wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write an acclaimed novel. A manuscript appears in front of me. I smirk and drag on my cigarette.

Then my mind wanders, as it often does, to Rachel. I’ve been pining after Rachel for years. We are close friends, but there is something more there. After a few nights of partying, we’ve parted with a short, sweet kiss. Out of fear, and a sense of something like reverence for her, I’d never tried to take it further. This is what I want the most. I want Rachel. I summon a nice pair of trousers, a pressed shirt, and a hip, tweed jacket.

Once dressed, I walk purposefully towards the art gallery where Rachel works. She majored in art in college. We’d lived in the same dormitory, which quartered all of the fine art students, musicians, dancers, theater majors, and various other unemployable eccentrics. I used to get back from parties and find Rachel quite sober in the art studio on the main floor, creating deeply moving and exquisitely strange paintings. She’d listen to me ramble about her art, and on more than one occasion when I drank too much would stop her work to take care of me or put me to bed. Yet, she never seemed to mind. She told me everyone had their ways of dealing with pain, and at least mine made me a better dancer.

I arrive at the art gallery and peer into the window. Rachel is helping a potential customer. She is pointing at the painting in the middle of what I know to be an impassioned lecture. She’s supposed to be selling art, but I know from our conversations that she’s shit at it, giving far too much detail about the works and even criticisms. She’d rather the art go to the right person than the first person, she’s told me.

Her light brown, curly hair falls halfway down her face. Her eyes, a grayish blue, are wide open and alight as they always are when she discusses art. My heart is beating too fast. What do I say? What do I do? If I just walk in and think of us being together will this mystical power make her run into my arms? The thought of this disturbs me. I step back into the alleyway, to avoid Rachel spotting me lurk in front of her window. Maybe if I brought flowers it would be enough to show my intentions are no longer just friendly. Or a gift? A bouquet of wildflowers and a small box appear in my hands. Wait. I’m too stoned for this. If I’m doing this, I need to be sober.

And just then the strangest feeling I’d ever felt creeps down from my forehead, spreading out the rest of my body. It’s as though the chemicals are being vacuumed out of my body. I am suddenly, shockingly sober. I realize I have not been completely sober in maybe three? Four years? Not since a brief stay in the hospital my fifth year of college.

I shake off the unpleasant physical sensation and peer back around the corner into the window of Rachel’s gallery. The realization hits me. I can’t have her. Not like this. I cannot use the power to trick Rachel into loving me as I love her. It would never be real. She’s not a glass of whisky or a box full of pills to be summoned at my will. What was I thinking? I abandon the plan, walking down the alley, then out onto the next street as a familiar feeling of shame and panic takes me over.

The panicked feeling increases, though I’m far from the gallery now. This feeling, the dryness in my mouth, the churning in my stomach, the swimming fluish feeling in my head, is what I remember feeling like when I’m not using or drinking. It occurs to me that I could wish this feeling away, or just reach in my pocket for a pill or a joint, but I don’t. I keep walking until I reach Hewitt Park.

Hewitt Park has always been a haven for me. There is a creak running through it with several romantic footbridges. The fescue grass is soft, excellent for napping. There is a tall climbing tree that I used to disappear into as a child, and a small gazebo I used to sneak into to smoke weed during college. Several years ago, the city poured new concrete around the old light posts and I’d marked it with my initials. The bench nearest this inscription is my favorite place in the world to sit and think.

I sit on the bench and reach in my bag for my cigarettes when I see the manuscript. I decide to open it. I read one paragraph and am in awe. It’s my tone, my voice, but of such a quality that I’ve never read. It’s simple prose but just after a paragraph I’m hooked. I keep reading the uncanny novel, and hot tears form in my eyes. After a few pages I’m shaking and crying and for some reason I’m desperately angry. I didn’t write this, couldn’t write this. It’s better than anything I’ve ever written and I hate it. I close my eyes and the manuscript burns to ash in my hands.

“Hey, you okay, man?” I look up to see my roommate West looking down

at me with concern.

“Oh yea, man,” I say, obviously lying. “Want to sit?”

He sits down and looks me up and down. “Nice suit, man. Did you just set a book on fire?”

I laugh. Almost without thinking, I tell him the truth of my day, finding the money, the drugs, stopping the rain, the newspaper, turning the shoe store into a bar with a hot tub. Then the manuscript. And Rachel. I summon an apple to prove it to him. I hold my head in my hands.

“So you are omnipotent, and you never considered stopping climate change?” West says softly. The thought had never occurred to me. How had that never occurred? I shake my head.

“World hunger? Peace in the Middle East? Any of that cross your mind?” West’s voice is a bit louder now. I shake my head again.

“But you turned a small business into a pleasure den and made it sunny outside?” West says, clearly frustrated at my selfishness.

I nod.

“Well you make a shit god, Austin. No surprise there,” he says.

I think of the world and its ills. I think of ending global warming but I’m not sure how to phrase it. Global hunger seems easy enough. I focus on wanting everyone in the world to have their needs met. I’m unsure if it worked. I want a coffee, and one for West, too. Nothing happens.

“I think it’s gone now,” I say to West. He nods.

“That’s probably for the best,” he says, placing a hand on my shoulder. I can’t argue with him on that.

I check my wallet. The cash is still there. I think of the stash box, and wonder if it is still full. The wind has picked up, sounding an orchestra of rustling leaves in Hewitt Park. The sun is disappearing behind gray clouds. The panicky feeling has subsided some. I remember this, too, about being sober. Feeling lucid and clear. Feeling okay. I set out to buy flowers for Rachel, but somewhere along the way I change paths to check on my stash box.