Selling Ferdinand

Ferdinand,

All that’s left of you sits before me on the wooden table, contained between the tattered covers of your worn journal. This is the first time I've seen the small, black book outside your arm's length. I'd been curious about the contents of your book since I first saw it, but I couldn’t gather the courage to inquire any further than a single sentence. I don't know how often you reflected on that night, but it sticks in my mind.

"What're you writing?" I asked.

"Nothing," you said, "go to sleep, babe".

I'd expected that answer, but it stung. Your slicked-back hair, still wet from our shared shower minutes earlier, dripped down your strong back. I could have ruminated over the lack of information about the book throughout our then two-year relationship, but I focused instead on the water that trailed down your skin as you gazed at something out the window.

"He'll tell me when he's ready," I'd tell myself in moments like those. You would be dead before that moment ever came.

"You have twenty-five minutes left to make your decision," Manuel says.

He sits across the table from me, as expressionless and devoid of any sign of his intentions as he had been when he introduced himself earlier that day.

The doorbell woke me from another dream about you, one where we'd gotten married, where we had a dog and two kids, where we stayed in one city for more than a year. We’d done all the things you'd always shy away from in conversation.

I rolled my eyes and heaved a sigh as I realized someone had interrupted the first actual sleep I'd achieved since your death only days before. I shambled to the front door and peered out the hole. A man looked up and peered back at me as if he could see me too. Despite his height, between his pressed suit, straight face, and clutched attaché, he radiated power. I swung open the door.

“Hello?” I said

“Manuel Perez,” he said, “Have you looked in the notebook?”

“What?”

“I’ve been following Ferdinand’s work for years,” he explained, “I know of his highly guarded notebook. Have you looked inside?”

“No, but-”

He shoved the attaché into my body and I clutched it instinctively. He spoke before my anger and annoyance could bubble to the surface.

“Twenty-thousand dollars,” he said, “All yours, no strings”

“Why would you give me so much money?”

“I can go into further detail if you let me inside,” he said, “I can also tell you how you can receive eighty-thousand more”

I let him in. Was I confused? Yes. But I’m sure you would have done the same, Ferdinand. Our leaps from city to city were never cheap. I’d always told myself I didn’t mind being poor and in debt as long as I was with you. But you’re not here anymore, and there are some opportunities I can’t let slip by.

By the time we reached the kitchen, I’d got the attaché open, and I sat it on the table, next to your notebook. All hundreds, all crisp, all new. I was so sure that I would be ready to do whatever he asked.

“We’ve been waiting to get our hands on that notebook for years now,” he said, “I’ve never been so close to it.”

He glanced down at your notebook and ran a single, trembling finger across the black leather.

“You get eighty-thousand more if you give me the notebook,” he said, “Untouched. You have thirty minutes to make your decision”

“Do you know what’s in the notebook?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” he said.

I can’t help but think you’d know what to do in this situation. But now, all that’s left of you sits before me on the wooden table, contained between the tattered covers of your worn journal. There are some opportunities I can’t let slip by.