Echo of the Mind

Short story about a young man who has everything - it seems - except the girl of his dreams - a girl whose biggest thrill is deadly.

A cool breeze was just starting to lift off the Atlantic to give some relief at the end of a hot New Jersey afternoon. This was invitation enough to bring out the early evening drinkers to the Ocean Club down the avenue from Point Pleasant. Guy loved this time of day. He knew, as he rolled his Ferrari F430 Spider into the parking lot, that the women’s heads would turn. He would leap out over the door without opening it, and the gentle wind would just catch his expensively-coiffured shock of straw-coloured hair, ruffling it and making him look even more interesting. If that was possible, with his tan good looks, Versace jeans and the fact that he’d arrived in a diamond-graphite coloured car that cost more than some people paid for an apartment.

Dino had his Long Island Iced Tea, mixed just the way he liked it, with extra Sour, by the time he reached the bar. He raised the glass, already steamed with condensation, and took a long, satisfying drink before he spoke.

"How’s it hanging, Dino?"

"Just fine, Mr Richards, just fine. How’s things with you?"

"You beat me to it, Dino." He put his glass down carefully on the bar and pushed his Ralph Lauren shades up into his hair. "Just fine." He cast his gaze round the bar. "Usual crowd in here this evening?"

"One bit of class out there on the veranda. I thought you’d have already noticed her."

"I certainly did, my man," he said, with a twisted grin. "Just wanted to check I wasn’t dreaming. I didn’t want to ask you to pinch me." He collected his drink and set off towards the striking woman standing out on the veranda, sipping a cocktail and staring out over the breakers.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey yourself."

Guy hesitated, as if tangling with a problem. "I know you must get this all the time, but – has anyone ever told you that your God’s own spitting image of Julia Roberts?"

"Happens all the time," she said, over the rim of her glass. She was weighing him up, he sensed.

"You’re not Julia Roberts, are you?"

"Ssh!" she grinned. "No-one’s supposed to know. I’m incognito."

He held out his hand. "Guy Richards."

Her long eyelashes fell and rose slowly before she placed a delicate hand in his. "Evelyn Turner."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Evelyn."

"Nice car you got there."

"I like to think so." Guy realised the parking lot was not visible from this side of the club-house. "You noticed when I drove up?"

"Yeah." There was a tiniest flash of her tongue as she took another sip of her drink. "I like fast cars."

"Maybe you’d like to get better acquainted with it?"

"Maybe I would."



That was the trouble with Ocean Avenue. It ran along the New Jersey coast which, at that point, was dead straight. So the road was dead straight. No reason to slow down, hold the car back.

"Faster," Evelyn breathed.

Guy liked to open up the Spider whenever he could – he loved the thrill of the wind dragging at his hair as much as anyone could. But there was a time and a place. Now late at night was one thing. But Ocean Avenue was not the place, with the local townships nearby and all, and after a long evening drinking. If a blue-and-white caught them, he’d get more that a ticket for speeding. DUI and he’d be in jail.

He nudged the accelerator downwards then eased back a little.

"Faster!" Evelyn demanded.

"We’re doing one hundred and ten now," he grimaced, trying to still sound calm.

Evelyn was laughing now. "Is that all? Surely this thing can go faster?" It was like a lover’s request.

Guy pounded down on the accelerator and the Italian engineering roared with delight. "There’s a red light!" Guy yelled into the slipstream.

"Jump it!"

There was no traffic, either approaching or crossing. Guy decided to go for it.

Just as they reached the point of no return, a car pulled out in front of them.

Guy would have hit the horn if hadn’t been wrestling with the wheel. He also toe-poked at the brake. The anti-lock would not have given up traction easily but he wanted all the control he could hang on to, and not to turn the vehicle into a sliding one-fifty mile an hour coffin. Rubber screamed. The car slammed into the sidewalk and tipped at a crazy angle, tires off the tarmac, before crashing back down. It careered on, snaking this way and that as Guy strangled the speed out of his mechanical pet, lest it turn and roll and bite him, and it finally slued to a halt almost half a mile beyond the intersection.

He was dazed, exhausted, soaked in icy sweat, when he realised the beautiful woman next to him was laughing.

"You enjoyed that." He wasn’t sure whether he intended it as statement or a question.

She was panting like a race horse, just coming down, her own spittle on her cheek. "That was magnificent," she gasped, and huddled against his shoulder, closed her eyes.



"I used to come here when I was a boy," he told her. It was the latest of a number of dates they’d been on in quick succession after that first night and slept together. Always she wanted him to push the Spider to the edge of its capabilities. Artfully, for a change, after picking her up from the Ocean Club, he’d headed inland east of New Brunswick to some woods. He thought if he could get her out of the car and maybe just walk, she would calm down a little. Not that her excitement wasn’t infectious. On the contrary, it seemed to seep from her into him. Just that, sometimes, a little quiet was also nice. The woodland was a favourite place from his childhood. At the end of a path there was a clearing with a high, rocky point, from which it was easy to see the skyscrapers of Manhattan, clustered like blue-grey shapes, more than twenty miles away. He took her there now, and showed her the view.

"D’you ever go to the Big Apple?"

"I used to," she said. "I used to love going up the WTC, to the observation deck, and tell myself, ‘Hey – I’m a quarter of a mile off the ground.’ It was such a thrill. I always thought it was a shame you couldn’t lean right out over the edge, because of all the fences and everything. To stop the jumpers."

"Well, you don’t want to go too crazy jumping round here. The cliffs here are only about fifty feet but you’d do bad things to yourself if you stepped off one."

"Really?" She seemed to find the place more interesting.

"I used to come here with my Dad," he said. "He was more like a big brother to me than a father. We used to play a game in the Fall. Just a silly game. We’d try and catch the leaves as they were falling. One at a time. It was crazy. Such a simple game. But we’d have hours of fun playing it."

"What happened to him?"

"He died when I was a kid." Suddenly, he couldn’t say anymore. He wanted to say that his Dad was his best friend. He wanted to say after he’d gone, he was all on his own and nothing made much sense for a while. He even remembered how lonely he he’d felt back then. In his mind’s eye, he saw a solitary kid, quiet and abandoned with no toys and no friends and nowhere he belonged. But it just sounded corny so he kept silent, pushed it all back down inside.

"I can think of a game," she said, suddenly animated. She pulled her silk scarf from around her neck and abruptly tore it in half, giving two long strips, "Come here."

He was standing right next to her anyway but he moved closer. She took one of the strips, folded it over then placed it across his eyes, and tied it behind his head.

"What are you doing?" he said. "Hey!" She suddenly spun him round, several times, then let go. "What gives?"

"Hold on," she said. "I’m just putting my blindfold on too… There. Neither of us can see!" She took his hand and started dancing him around. "Don’t take it off," she sang out, "don’t take it off."

"What are you playing at?"

"Know which way your facing?"

"Not a clue!"

"Run!" She screamed, "Run!" She grabbed his hand again and dragged him into a stumbling trot. "Come on, come on, come on, faster, faster!" she kept yelling at him.

He staggered trying to keep up with her. "It’s dangerous!"

"I know. But it makes you feel alive! Run!"

He plunged headlong in total blindness, the ground constantly leaping up to hook at his feet. He could feel she was tripping and bumping into him but still upping the pace, laughing wildly. Something snagged his foot and he fell full length, she landed on top of him. Winded, he tugged off the silk blindfold, just in time to see her do the same.

They had fallen at the very edge of the cliff.



After that, Guy didn’t know where to go out with Evelyn. He had been really scared after the woods episode. He called in at the Ocean Club without making a prior arrangement to meet her. He was just beginning to relax, thinking he would have his evening to himself, when she arrived, carrying a purse, ordered a drink. "Come walk with me on the beach," she said. He followed her down the wooden steps from the veranda onto the sand. There was nothing much of any threat down there. Unless she planned taking a swim, in which case he’d certainly not join in.

It had been a blast knowing her though. He wanted to please her. By the time they had walked fifty yards and she’d said nothing, he found himself wishing she’d suggest something. Eventually, he spoke.

"You like danger, don’t you?"

"It’s a turn-on, isn’t it?"

He surprised himself by laughing. "Yeah. Yeah it is."

"I knew you did. That’s why I do it."

"Do what?"

"All of it. For you. To give you a thrill. You like a thrill, don’t you?"

"But somebody could get hurt."

"Of course they could. It wouldn’t be a game without all the parts."

"What game?"

"Like playing with your Dad. But it’s not a game unless there’s danger. Didn’t your Dad like danger?"

He saw a shy little kid in his head, without a Dad. "You didn’t know my Dad. Nobody did."

"Wouldn’t you like to play another game right now?"

"What sort of game?"

"With two friends of mine." She reached into her purse and pulled out a gun. "With my two friends, Mr Smith and Mr Wesson." He stopped in his tracks. She handed him the revolver and paced out ten steps. "How good a shot are you?"

"What?"

"How good a shot? You could hit me at this distance, right? Then I’ll go a little further." She took another ten paces.

"I haven’t fired a gun since I was a kid."

"Don’t worry. I don’t want you to hit me! I want you to miss. But you got to see how close you can get."

He held the dull metal object in his hand.

"I can’t."

"Go on," she begged. "Think of the thrill. You don’t have to aim all that near to me."

"I can’t," he said again.

"But I want you to. It excites me. And I know it excites you. Look how we make love afterwards. Isn’t it always great? Because you feel so alive?"

He hesitated, lifted the weapon, then lowered it again. "But not like this, Evelyn. I can’t do something like this. This is too much."

She stood a second, as if waiting to see if he might still take the challenge. Then she came over to him. "If you can’t give me a thrill, then how can you expect me to do anything for you?"

Something stirred in the far reaches of his mind but he pushed it deep back down. "I can’t," he said, as much to himself as to her.

"Maybe you and I should call it a day," she said. "It was fun for a while. But you’re not alive anymore." She reached out for the gun. It was as if she had already made up her mind. He didn’t want to lose her. Suddenly, another idea seemed to occur to her. "I tell you what. I’ll give you one more chance. If you’re too scared to shoot at me, shoot at them!" She indicated the gathering of people on the veranda at the Ocean Club. "Do you think you could hit anybody at this distance?"

Before he could stop it, an image leapt up like vomit from his inner being. A young man, standing outside a sleazy dive, his clothes worn to rubbish, knees through on old jeans stiff with dirt, his yellow hair greasy and matted with neglect. Inside the bar it was noisy and bright with neon, people having fun, friends enjoying each other’s company. Outside, the scruffy young man, alone, in the dark, and shivering with cold, his skin pale and ingrained with dirt. How he longed to have someone to talk to, how he longed to have enough money to share a beer with someone – anyone – and if he could make contact with female company, that would be wonderful. He’d feel alive. All he had, in the pocket of his rough jacket, was the Smith and Wesson.

"Go on," she said. "You can’t hurt them. They can’t even feel you. Go on."

The yellow-haired man raised the gun and took aim at the crowd.

He could feel himself squeeze the trigger.

The End