Saturday Night Ritual

It had been raining and there was a cold wind gusting when the strange ritual took place once again. It was Saturday night, the ritual always occurred on Saturday night.

 

                                                          ***

The 1930 Buick pulled up to the damp pavement next to a crumbling abandoned brownstone. The building was partially concealed within the clutching fingers of gray mist. The chauffeur opened the door. The gray haired man nodded absently at the man beside him and got out. He hesitated seemingly trying to remember something that happened a long time ago. He shook his head to clear the obscure images, but they persisted and his mind wandered to the past. It had been years ago, so many years ago. He came across her name accidentally in the telephone book when he was looking up another number.   

 

His mind returned and he looked up at the old building hidden in the haze. He quivered slightly then walked up the brick stairs to the front door. He pushed a cracked button. The faded name under the button was Laura Ricci. His mind drifted into an inner fog again as his hand dropped after pushing the button to the apartment.

                                                          ***

“Yes, who is it?” A female voice asked.

 

“It’s Henry, Henry Herman.”

 

“Oh.” The voice stated in a hesitant manner.

 

After a few minutes, he heard a click and the front door creaked opened. He walked into a bleak entry hall. It smelled of ancient memories and unfulfilled dreams. Pealing and faded crimson wallpaper clung loosely to the walls. Four beaded mahogany chairs with cracked dark brown leather seats huddled next to the walls as if trying to find comfort. He walked silently on a narrow strip of faded red and gray carpet punctured with small black cigarette holes. He pushed an ivory button on a dull bronze plate. An elevator grate groaned open. Like a looming coffer, it opened to swallow his body inside its screened chamber. He paused for a few seconds then slowly stepped inside. The ancient metal cage with its dull green patina closed around him. He pushed a ceramic button that said floor five. He waited nervously as the elevator gradually ascended into the darkness that loomed above him. He had the feeling that the eyes of an accusatory specter watched him from some hidden lair in the darkness. It was blaming him. The cold darkness clouded his mind. His twisted memory coiled around his mind like an ancient motion picture reel.

 

                                                          ***

 

She was twenty-three, blond, lithe and beautiful, with an air of melancholy about her. He was a man of thirty with a handsome face and sharp features. There was a sophisticated manner about him. She was unsure and shy. He was confident and outgoing. A trio was tenderly playing, These Foolish Things Remind Me of You. It was a song, which would play over, and over in his mind forever.

 

They sat on red leather stools at the garish neon lighted bar. He was waiting for a table. She was waiting for someone else. The conversation started but he couldn’t remember how. She told him she was a paralegal for Davis, Smyth, and Howard in the building next door. He said he worked in the next building on the sixth floor.

 

“You must work for Grayson and Fillmore, attorneys at law.”

 

“Yes, I just became full partner a week ago.”

 

“Aren’t you awfully young to be a full partner? In the law firm in which I work, most of the full partners are fifty or older.”

 

“Yes, that is not unusual.”

 

I am a paralegal at the firm at present. I am working on my law degree at State. I will graduate in June and take the bar at the end of summer. I figure it will take me thirty years to become a full partner, if ever.” She then said shyly, “I’m Laura Simpson.” 

 

“I’m glad to meet you Laura Simpson. I’m Henry Herman.”

 

She appeared relaxed, but an underlying anxiety to her otherwise unworried manner was evident to him as he shook her delicate hand.

The conversation went from careers to private lives and eventually to vacation spots they visited as children. He found out they both liked the eastern seaboard. She went to the shore occasionally as a guest of a girlfriend from school. His parents owned a large home on the shore. He spent almost every summer there. She grew up in New Jersey. Her father was a CPA for a small firm. He grew up in upper New York State. His father was a wealthy corporation lawyer.

 

After about fifteen minutes of conversation, a dark young man appeared and put his hand on her shoulder.

 

“Laura, our table is ready.”

 

“Oh thank you, I’m famished. Adamo this is Henry Herman, he works for Grayson and Fillmore. Mr. Herman this is my fiancé Adamo Ricci III, he is a venture banker for the Bank of Italy.”

 

Adamo had slick dark hair combed straight back, dark small eyes, and a pencil mustache. His mouth was characteristic of an arrogant and possibly ruthless man. He eyed Henry suspiciously then shook his hand limply with no enthusiasm. Henry grew up with his sort, no ambition, unreliable and arrogant. When they left, Adamo whispered in Laura’s ear. He then looked over at Henry and laughed. The two then left to go to the dinning room. Laura glanced back at Henry with a wrinkled forehead, shook her head, and frowned.

 

Henry and Laura met often at the same bar after work, listened to their song, and talked well into the evenings. It was a month later that she invited him back to her apartment. One thing led to another and they ended up in her bedroom. He fell in love with the beautiful, strange melancholy young lady.

 

Henry eventually proposed to her and offered her a five-carat blue diamond ring one night after work. The song These Foolish Things Remind Me of You, was playing softly in the background again.

 

“Henry, I can’t marry you.”

 

“I love you darling and you will never want for anything, you must marry me.”

 

“I am sorry Henry, it is impossible.”

 

With tears streaming from her eyes, she got up and ran out of the bar. Henry was devastated as he sat cemented to his chair.

 

Every day for the next two weeks, he went to the bar to find her, but she never returned. He called her apartment but always got a busy signal. He eventually tried to contact her at the law firm, but was told she was no longer with the firm. In desperation, he tried to contact Adamo Ricci at the Bank of Italy. He was informed he had left months ago, and would not be returning to the bank. He eventually stopped trying to locate the beautiful shy lady, and immersed himself with his work and new clients. He never saw Laura again.

 

It was fifteen years later that a newspaper article stated that an Adamo Ricci III was killed in an automobile accident in Milan. It was reported that his wife had been hospitalized with major injuries. The accident was reported to have been suspicious, but nothing ever came of the investigation.

 

Mr. Herman’s mind painfully started crawling back out of the dark past to the present as the cage reached the fifth floor. His mind jerked back to the present as the elevator creaked to a jerking stop.

 

The grate gradually opened and disgorged Henry into a dimly lit hallway. He proceeded slowly down the narrow hall wrinkled with faded red carpet dotted with dull gray doors crawling silently out of its walls. The doors contained tiny peepholes in their centers. They peered accusingly at him with their one myopic eye as he slowly edged forward. He came to room 513 hesitated for a few moments and then knocked. His mind clouded over and wandered again. He detected the faint emanation of a song, These Foolish Things Remind Me of You.                                                                  

 

                                                            ***

 

A far away voice asked; “are you Henry Herman who worked for Grayson and Fillmore, attorneys at law.

 

“Yes,” he stated as he pushed on the door. It opened with an ancient groan.

 

“What do you want Mr. Herman?” The voice asked in a low whisper.

 

“I don’t really know.”

 

He stepped inside the faintly lit room. The dim moonlight, the only light in the room, filtered though old discolored lace curtains on the opposite end of the room. The moonbeams outlined an umbra. He slowly closed the door and walked into the room.

 

“Laura Simpson?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“It has been many years.”

 

“Yes.” The voice answered sadly.

 

“I read in the paper about fifteen years ago about an automobile accident, was the person killed the Adamo Ricci that I meet years ago?”

 

“Yes. I married him six months after our last . . . our final night together.”

 

“Ah. Were you happy?”

 

“No. It was not a happy marriage. I was actually forced into marrying Adamo by his family. I knew too much about the business and they would not let me leave.”

 

“But you stayed with him for almost twenty years?”

“In name, yes. We were never a real married couple and never even consummated our marriage vows. He was gay. Our marriage was just his means into the elite and polite society where all bankers were married and none were gay.”

 

“My God how horrible!”

 

The umbra quivered then gradually floated toward him in the dimness. He felt a strange magnetism between them. The air became musty and thick. When she reached within ten feet of where he stood, she sat down. “Please sit in the chair by your side Henry. We can talk some then you must leave.”

 

“Why Laura, why must I leave?”

 

“It is too late for us.”

 

Henry tried to see her face through the dimness of the room. Instead, he only heard the melancholy and hopelessness in her voice.

 

“You can not say that, you don’t know, I don’t know.”

 

She changed the topic of conversation and asked him about his career and what he had been doing for the past many years. He felt the distance widen between them. As the minutes crept by, it became a chasm. He told her he had never married. When she asked why, he said it was because of her. She gasped and the thick dark air surrounding the room stirred. He then heard her softly crying.

“Laura, I’m sorry,” he stated as he started to get up and move toward her.

 

“No. Don’t Henry. Please stay where you are. I am the one who is sorry Henry. I loved you and still I left you. You must go now, please!”

 

He slowly rose from the chair. “Can I see you again?”

 

“No, I don’t think that would be wise Henry, I’m so sorry.” He sensed she said that through salty tears running down drawn cheeks.

 

Henry sighed and slowly turned toward the door. When he reached the door, he hesitated. “Laura, can I phone you?”

 

There was a long pause and then she said; “yes, now please go!” As he went out of the door into the hall, the music that had been playing faintly in the far distance of the room suddenly ceased.

                                       

                                                            ***

 

When he got back in the old Buick, his mind traveled back to over fifteen years ago. He remembered that he had called Laura every Saturday at 7:00 PM. They talked as if the old times had never faded into cold dark memories. He remembered the day that he called and the phone rang over, and over but no one answered. He panicked and had his chauffer drive him over to her apartment that Saturday night. Before he started to go upstairs, he stopped and talked with the manager. He found that Laura had gone and would not be back. 

 

He was awakened from his dream state when the old black Buick stopped abruptly in front of a four-story building. It sat tall and stark inside an ominous eight-foot chain link fence. It was partially hidden in the dark mist and was surrounded by large gloomy pine trees.

 

“Mr. Herman, we are home,” the chauffeur stated as he got out of the car.

 

He jerked completely awake from his clouded thoughts. He looked at the man in a vague manner, nodded sadly, and got out. The man that had been next to him in the car got out the other side. He went around to where Mr. Herman stood silently and took his arm. Another man dressed in white came up and took Mr. Herman’s other arm and the two ushered him to the front door.

 

Mr. Herman looked distantly at the man and then said sadly; “she vanished you know.”

 

“Yes Mr. Herman, I am so sorry.”

 

The chauffeur looked at the man in white when he came back after a short time. “What is this all about Davie? Every Saturday night for the last three months, we have gone through this same routine. I don’t understand.”

 

“I assume that when Harvey retired and you took over, he didn’t tell you about the situation.”

“No sir, he just told me to pick up this the old black 1930 Buick at the garage every Saturday night. He told me to pick up an elderly gentleman here and take him to an old abandoned brownstone apartment.”

 

“Well, it’s a long story, but I’ll make it short. Mr. Herman became a lawyer for the mob in his middle years and got involved in a mob hit. The hit was on an influential Italian Don. However, his son Adamo Ricci III and his wife Laura Ricci were blown up instead. Laura was Mr. Herman’s first and only love. He went insane when he found out he had been partially responsible.

 

We have a contract from his old law firm, that pays full room and board as well as an extra million dollars a year, to perform the once a week Saturday night ritual. The old brownstone apartment has been abandoned for years. However, the elevator is kept in shape so that he can use it. He takes it up to the fifth floor and goes into a room. Actually I don’t know what he does in the room.”

 

“Man that is weird.”

 

“Yes Peter, life is weird for many of our patients. Will I still see you next month?”

 

“Yes sir, I’ll be here.” He then looked up at the old sanitarium enclosed in a cloak of hopeless darkness. He shuddered and slowly drove away.      On the way back to the garage, he passed the old abandoned brownstone that he would probably continue to visit for countless Saturdays. He slowed down this time, and looked up to the fifth floor. He thought he saw a woman bathed in moonbeams looking out a window. He slammed on the brakes and looked up again, there was no one there. As he drove away, the old car radio started playing, These Foolish Things Remind Me of You.

BIO: James G. Piatt earned his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University. One of his MA concentrations was in Existential Literature. He earned a doctorate from Brigham Young University. Among other things, he was a college professor. He is now retired and spends his summers along a river, reading, writing, and penning poetry.  Word Catalyst Magazine, Caper Journal, Everyday Weirdness Magazine, The Cynic Magazine, Clockwise Cat, and Suspense Magazine have published his short stories. He has had eight non-fiction pieces published.