Episode on South Street

SHORT STORY MONDAY

One of the wonders of the Internet Is that it has enabled writers to share their work even if they can not find a publication to put it in print. In 1994-95 I learned just enough html to launch a website (now located at http://www.enewman.biz/) where I deposited my favorite unpublished stories, a much better solution than having them sit in a drawer. Three have now been translated into foreign languages, and this one made into a short film.

In early October 2004 the film adaptation of this story "Episode on South Street" premiered in Erie, PA during the Great Lakes Horror/Suspense Film Festival. Co-producers Adam Fish and Matthew W. Detisch of DF Productions were thrilled about the project. The film was well received as best of show.

The story is about a somewhat disturbed young artist with obsessive compulsive disorder, and an incident that occurs one evening while working in his Philadelphia studio just off South Street.

Episode on South Street

It was close to ten o'clock when the thought first struck me: Something terrible is going to happen tonight, and the dread surged through me. I was painting in my studio late that night with two deadlines to meet and I didn't have time to work myself through another episode. No doubt the deadlines set it off.

"This is ridiculous," I told myself. "Nothing is going to happen; think about something else." But the muscles in my face were taut and my ears were hot and I couldn't think of anything else. As if a cloud suddenly hid the face of the sun, the room seemed sunk in shadow and with it, my mood darkened as well and though my movements were now lethargic and leaden, my mind raced wildly to catch hold of the terror producing thought as if it were some kind of secret knowledge.

I wonder what terrible thing is going to happen? was my next thought and in seeing the red paint on my paintbrush I knew intuitively. Something dreadful and bloody was going to happen. I took a deep breath, counted to ten slowly and tried to relax.

My mind raced on. Why are you just sitting here when someone could be out there being killed?

I'm standing in the middle of the room now, trying to decide whether I need a jacket or not. After checking the clock, I grab my leather and head out the hall to the fire escape, the quickest way down to the alley to South Street, the main strip.

It was a Friday night and a full moon; South Street is jammed with people and I'm scared.

I look at the crowds - punks, yuppies, jocks, freaks, Philly rednecks - and flee back down the alley. As I walk between the buildings a young fat teen, who is being chased by several leaner and tougher looking boys, runs smack into me. As he does so, he looks straight up into my eyes and I see down inside his soul, and I see his terror. At the same moment, he sees into my own soul, and sees a terror more terrible still... the terror of nightmares come alive, of irrational demons that compel a man to madness, to participate in terror, to be an agent of terror.

As this young kid falls backwards away from me, I wish that it were only a beating by thugs that I needed to be afraid of. I would welcome such a beating.

Instead, I am driven forward on my mission of rescue. Something dreadful is going to happen and it may be that only I can stop it.

I remember that I had forgotten to wash out my paint brush and try to return to my loft, but when I reach the staircase, I am urged to hurry back to the street. Someone is being killed. Are you going to waste time washing out brushes while someone is dying? And with the thought comes pain. It's more than I can bear. I must do something. I must act. I must save. And I am running back to South Street.

As I round the corner I am immersed in the great swarm of people flooding the sidewalks and I am fighting my way through it.

You are really acting crazy tonight I think to myself and I feel comforted by the kernel of truth in this observation. Using all my will power I manage to halt my progress through the stream of humanity and lean back against the front wall of a restaurant.

Across the street two mounted policemen are looking in my direction and all kinds of feelings erupt. First, I feel beside myself with a need to run and tell them that there is going to be a murder if something isn't done to stop it. At the same time, I fear that in my distress--along with my knowledge of this terrible thing I am trying to prevent--I will become a suspect in the crime. Next I fear that I am already acting suspicious and that the police have noticed me, that I can't give a rational account of my behavior and I have no alibi, having been alone in my studio. Most of all, I am scared.

I step away from the building and turn to my left, to return to my studio, but then the fearful thought comes again: I am abandoning a fellow human, leaving him to die. Only this time, I see an image with the thought, a large, wide knife, flashing through the air in a dark, crowded room - a bar? where? - and my fear begins to make sense. But it's such a horrible thing, worse than a murder... a madman with a knife in a crowded room.

Now I am walking up the sidewalk again trying to see more clearly this glimpse of vision, to replay it in my head. The knife: it's a deli knife. The deli! Something terrible is going to happen there. I don't know if I can handle it.

I'm running now, pushing people out of my way. It's only two, maybe three blocks up the street, and I am running hard.I can hear people shouting at me, "Hey, watch it!" and "Are you crazy, man!" as I push past them, though some people move out of my way, clearing a path for me. My heart is beating wild and my breathing is labored when I get to the front of the deli.

CONTINUED