IT'S IN THE NUMBERS

“Look, I dunno what to tell ya, Clarke. Economy ain’t perfect, and the stock interests change overnight. You can’t predict this shit.” said the man over the cell phone.

“Yes, you can, Dan. I’m tellin’ ya. It’s all in the numbers, you just gotta count’em up then calculate how it’ll rise the followin’ day.” Clarke said.

“That’s what you said last time. And the time before that. And before even that! And what the fuck happened? They all dropped, and you lost you’s over half a million dollars over the course of a month!”

“That’s all minor miscalculations, Dan.”

“Minor? You’re down the fuckin’ hole, Clarke! You realize how much money you owe?”

“I get it, I get it. It’ll all be paid off.” Clarke said.

“Oh really? Lemme look then. 10,000 dollars to the bank, 15,000 in loans, 4,000 to me, 2,500 to your brother you ‘borrowed’ from… oh, and get this.”

“Dan! I got it now.” Clarke interrupted.

“This ain’t a game, Clarke. Owin’ this much money back ain’t a fuckin’ joke. Even the IRS’ll have wet dreams takin’ everything from you.” Dan said.

“Look, I’ll make it up to ya; I got a stake in this huge stock of no. 2 pencils. School shit, always on demand. Can’t possibly fail, hear what I’m sayin’? It’s up at seventeen percent right now.” Clarke said.

“Seventeen? Why the hell haven’t you sold it yet?”

“I’m waitin’ for it to go up to thirty. It’d really help if you shared in the investment, that way it’s a win-win.” Clarke said.

“Are you crazy? No one’s gonna pay that much money on fuckin’ pencils, Clarke! You’d best sell it now, or you’re screwed!”

“In the numbers, Dan. Trust me.”

“No. Forget it. Ya know what? I’m done. Fuck you and fuck your fuckin’ numbers! I’m through stickin’ my neck out for yous. I got a family to feed, and so do you. Find yourself a new consultant to screw, cause you and me are history. Capice?”

A sudden click sounds over the phone. Dan had hung up before letting Clarke have another say.

“Dan? Dan! Damn it!” Clarke hung up the phone in frustration.

Clarke took a quick glance out the window of his and his family’s Long Island apartment. Most that occupied the view was the neighboring building of the same complex; but just beyond the corner, he could make out the iconic skyline of Manhattan in the horizon. The very sight of it made the skin under his scruffy brown beard chafe, to which he stressfully scratched. How can it be so hard? He’s only ever invested in what he believed were essential stocks. The competition can’t be that fierce. Thoughts that made Clarke’s nights more and more restless, making the massive loss of money and gargantuan debts he owed so much bigger. This didn’t bother him, though. His confidence in the numbers and that big payout outweighed all the strain in both his finances and relationships.

He soon broke his gaze from the window and read the digital clock on his laptop’s screensaver. It was 3:47 pm. Clarke then suddenly jolted back and scrambled to log back on. He frantically input his password incorrectly three times, which only made him panic more. When he finally input it correctly, he opened up Mozilla Firefox and impatiently waited for the page to load. He had the local stock exchange website set as his homepage. He then clicked on the stock he had invested in to see if it had gone up. It had fallen by one percent, which made Clarke’s heart skip a beat. He quickly recomposed and said to himself, “It’s okay. It’s in the numbers. It’s in the numbers… it’ll go back up soon.” Clarke remained still in his seat, never breaking his sight from his laptop monitor. He pushed away the empty pen holder and New York Giants bobblehead, further across his oak desk. He wished for nothing to stand in the way of him and his laptop, as if it added more to the stress he had watching the stock prices fall. He only occasionally grazed his finger over the track pad to prevent the device from falling asleep.

It seemed like hours had passed, then Clarke’s attention was stolen by the sound of the front door opening. In came his wife Francesca and their 6-year-old son Randy. He then glanced at the clock on the monitor: 4:10 pm. He looked back at his family and shot them both with a welcoming smile.

“How was school?” he asked.

“Honey, it’s Saturday. We were at my mother’s.” Francesca said.

“Oh, right. Did you have fun, buddy?”

“Yeah. Grandpa showed me how to take a guy’s finger off!” Randy said excitedly.

“Really? How’d he do that?” Clarke asked, looking to Francesca for the answer.

“Dad just showed him that stupid ‘remove your finger’ trick.” she said whilst rolling her eyes.

She then gently pushed on Randy’s shoulder, motioning him to his room to change out of his outside clothes. Off he went, like a rocket to his room. After hanging her coat on the rack, Francesca walked over to kiss Clarke on the cheek.

“Whatcha up to?” she asked.

“Nothin’ much.”

“Oh no. No! Not again, Clarke! Are you serious?” Francesca interrupted.

“It’s different this time, Franny. Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t you start that with me! You promised you’d stop with this stock market shit!”

“I did! This is the last one, I swears it!”

“That’s what you said last time. And the time before that.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it. Don’t need to hear it again today.”

“Oh? Dan chew your ass out again?”

“He’s not a problem anymore.” Clarke said.

“He cut you loose, didn’t he?”

Clarke was speechless, no more words would come out for fear of what his wife would say next.

“God, Clarke! Where’s the line gonna be drawn? After you spend our son’s college tuition? After we’re out on the fuckin’ street? We can’t even afford groceries anymore without takin’ out another loan, for God’s sake!” She continued.

“It’s doing good right now. Look.” Clarke said.

Francesca undid the ponytail in her brown hair and looked at the laptop screen. What was sixteen percent subtly dropped to thirteen in seconds. It was then Clarke saw the once brilliant sparkle in her big brown eyes had erupted into flames, it seemed. Her natural pouty lips folded into a nasty scowl that would scare even the Sopranos shitless.

“Yeah. Real good.” she said.

Clarke looked over and saw the drop, making his chest run cold as ice. He then tried to appeal to Francesca, only to be met with colder silent rejection as she walked off. Guilt fell in his stomach like a piano smashes through the roof in the old cartoons. The numbers continued to fall as he watched for the next thirty-seven minutes, extinguishing Clarke’s hopes more and more. Finally, as the stock was teetering on four percent, Clarke hesitantly decided to withdraw his investment to save what funds he had left. As painful as it was, relief then washed over him. Like a massive weight was lifted from his chest and he could finally breathe fresh, beautiful air. He heard Francesca walk back into the living room, and without turning around, he gets her attention.

“I withdrew it…”

He turned around and saw her slowly smile in approval.

“Thank you.” she said.

A knock soon sounded at the door. Clarke got up to answer it while his wife and son watched in curiosity from the adjoining hallway from the living room. He looked over to them, then opened the door to two male strangers wearing medical nurse garments.

“Hey, Mr. Bellucci. How’re you feeling this afternoon?” the younger, taller nurse said.

“Don’t know why you’re asking. He hasn’t spoken since he came here.” the shorter, older nurse said.

Confused, Clarke looked over to the inside of the apartment, but his family was nowhere to be seen. As if they fled in terror to hide from home invaders. The nurses then showed themselves inside and guided him to the couch.

“He’ll talk eventually. Gotta give it time.” the young nurse said.

“Whatever you say. Go on and take a seat, Mr. Bellucci. Time to take your medicine.”

Clarke is then seated on the couch and suddenly given a shot with a syringe through his upper right arm. He wanted to say something, but it seemed as if the meds kicked in almost immediately. The apartment was no longer an apartment anymore, fading into a dark, dull room with hard concrete walls where once there were picture frames adorning a brilliant, yet cheap, wallpaper. The only furniture was not of a fake leather couch with a coffee table adorned with coasters, a potted plant, and the TV remote in front of it, but more of a yellowed toilet with a rusty metal frame bed as a worn mattress and a set of chain linked cuffs for restraining the limbs lay upon it. Clarke’s clothes changed from the casual red t-shirt and blue jeans to patient garb, the type used for mental patients. All while Clarke remained silent, baffled by the sudden shift in reality. Could it be a dream? The smells of cheap air fresheners were replaced with the equally as cheap aftershave from the nurses, and the sounds were of nothing but the echoed murmurs of neighboring patients across the hallway outside. He spoke, but his lips remained still. As if he were trapped between worlds, unable to break the veil. Unable to free himself from a self-imposed Purgatory.

The nurses then departed the room and locked the door with the drugged Clarke inside. As they walked through the hallway, they discussed more about him.

“Man’s a lost cause.” the older nurse said as he adjusted his glasses up his crooked nose.

“We’ve had worse, Carl. Clarke Bellucci is one of the better ones, I’d say.”

“Better? Son of a bitch murdered his own wife and kid over his gambling addiction, Ben.”

“Stock market is cutthroat. Takes even big corporations down, but he could be way worse.” Ben said with his wide hopeful eyes flaring.

“Stocks, casinos, the lottery… they all breed the same litter of shit. Just another ‘get rich quick’ lie.”

“People will learn the lesson eventually.”

“Won’t bring back that poor kid and his pretty mother, unfortunately.”

Silence fell over the hallway as it echoed with the voices and sounds of other trapped patients. People trapped in their own illusions as the past returns to haunt them without cease.