Stranger Study

Linda Johnson:

Linda is a 21 year old mother of a 3 year old son, Dylan. Linda became pregnant with Dylan in May of her Senior year of high school. Luckily, Linda was not showing yet as she took her diploma from Mrs. Stark, the Superintendent of her high school: Oak’s Bluff High in Rhode Island. Her friends, family, and teachers were unaware that Linda, the smart, responsible, polite girl was hiding a secret under her white and blue graduation robe. Linda left Oak’s Bluff right after graduation. She did not tell her parents where she was going; they thought that she was heading over to URI for summer classes; however, instead of enrolling in classes, Linda used the registration money for a one bedroom apartment located in the city of Hartford. Linda’s parents never forgave her for her “betrayal.” They were a small town family with small town values. No daughter of theirs would bear a child out of wedlock. Needless to say Linda has lost all contact with her parents. She has been erased from the family portrait that sits above the mantle place in the Johnson family household. Her name is no longer spoken in Oak’s Bluff besides for the occasional hearsay at Sunday Mass. Linda has been self-sufficient for the past three years. Right after she moved to Hartford she found a job as a bank teller at the Trust Bank in Hartford (Linda was always good with money). Her and Dylan still live in the same apartment, but its not the shabby black hole that it had been three years prior when 18 year old Linda first moved in. It was reformed, quaint, but comfortable. It was a home. The notches in the door frame show how much Dylan has grown since she took him home for the first time when he was just four days old. Despite the fact that Linda is happy, she is alone. She no longer has any familial ties, no close friends, or husband. She is going to be okay though, she has Dylan he is what she lives for. If she is having a rough day it is Dylan that knows just how to make her smile. But not even Dylan can rejuvenate her when she finds a small lump in her right breast.

Edward Finnegan-

Edward, Eddie for short, is sixteen years old. He is lives with his mother and father in a large apartment located in the upper east side of New York City. Eddie’s family is extremely wealthy because his great grandfather Albert was the first to invent birth control. Eddie sometimes wonders why he was ever born. If his father was the heir to a birth control empire, why had he not just fed his mother the magic pills and spared the world of another worthless waste of space. Eddie has been addicted to sleeping pills for the past three years. The sleeping pills had been prescribed to him by his psychiatrist Dr. Sandburg after the normal psychotherapy had not soothed Eddie’s nightmares. Eddie is numb now. I guess you could say the sleeping pills did their job because Eddie is always sleeping, and by that I mean he is a constant state of slumber, indifferent to everything around him, stuck in a cloud floating above the ground. Eddie goes to visit Dr. Sandburg every Tuesday and Thursday right after school. Every Tuesday and Thursday he lays down on the brown leather couch in Dr. Sandburg’s office his starchy dress pants never crease, it is almost as if he levitates above the couch, almost as if he is unable to grasp his bearings. Dr. Sandburg sure does earn his 150 dollars per hour. For the two hours Eddie levitates above the leather couch Dr. Sandburg plagues him the two same questions. He asks “Had any nightmares lately?” Eddie lethargically responds no. “What do you dream about Eddie?,” Dr. Sandburg asks. “Nothing,” Eddie responds almost zombie-like. Then Dr. Sandburg usually closes his notebook, clicks shut his ball-point pen and dozes off in his big arm-chair. Eddie uses this time to break into the little pharmacy Dr. Sandburg keeps behind a glass paneled armoire. He always takes two bottles of pills, just enough to do the trick, and just enough to go unnoticed by the slumbering therapist. Eddie fears life without the pills. They may make him a zombie, but they stop him from thinking of that night, the night his baby brother was taken.

Sandy Feldman-

Sandy is 73 years old. He lives in Florida in the Beachside View Retirement community. His face is a plethora of wrinkles and his bushy black eyebrows offset his dark brown eyes. He is pretty clean cut, but his unruly eyebrows cannot be tamed. He was married once; however, his wife Moira of 50 years past away a few months after Sandy’s 71^st birthday. He has five kids: Gregory, Gill, Grace, Garrett, and Gerdie. Sandy spends most of his days playing chess, and he is the best chess player in the entire community. Some might say that he has had a pretty full life. He had a wife who loved him, five kids, the house with the picket fence, and now lives comfortably off his pension (He was a Senior Tax Analyst at H and R Block for 30 years). Sandy would agree with these people. He knows that he has lived a fantastic life. Everyone loves Sandy, especially the ladies. The women of the community follow him around in their motor scooters, whistling and giggling to each other. The speed walking crew led by Ms. Woodward make sure to pass by Sandy’s condo during their hour long sessions. They all get dolled up, wear their best track suits and spray on loads of Red Door Elizabeth Arden perfume. Sandy is happy. His kids are frequent visitors except for Gerdie, his youngest, the “world traveler.” One Tuesday afternoon during the regular chess session Sandy becomes seriously disturbed. His two friends Melvin and Arthur, who happen to be only a year older than Sandy, are having an obscure conversation. Although Sandy is deep into a chess match with Mr. Ling, the second best chess player in the community, he can’t help to be distracted. “Well, I got a plot over in Daytona,” Melvin says, “I’m going to head back to Missouri when I kick the bucket,” says Arthur…After the match, which Sandy won by the skin of his teeth, he heads back to his condo and takes a load off on the couch. Something seems to be shining from the bookshelf in his living room. When he goes over to see what it is he realizes it is his high school yearbook. It creaks when Sandy opens it. It hasn’t been opened in years (Sandy likes to live in the present, not reminisce in the past). He stumbles upon this one picture of the girl he never got; Gwendolyn Brooks, the most beautiful girl in his senior class. Sandy is happy, but he knows there is something missing.

1 Comment Add your own

Trackback this post  |  Subscribe to comments via RSS Feed