He looked like his namesake, Teddy Roosevelt, but as if someone had hit him on the head with a hammer a few hundred times, squashing him. What would normally be a barrel chest was more of a keg’s stomach; he was also shorter than most men, standing 5’6″ in socks and weighing 280 pounds.
He wore thick glasses, and carried most of his life in a messenger bag that he brought with him everywhere. The most recent issues of comics were in there, comics of heroes that he had seen at a distance from the street. He read their exploits religiously.
It started to rain. Teddy ducked into the nearest open door, a bar with huge mahogany doors thrown open to the springtime air. It smelled dark inside, and as he came in he saw a short corridor, with an unmanned coat collector’s booth on the side. The corridor was lit by torches.
The name of the place was The Rack, and he was more curious than scared. The music coming out of the speakers was 60’s and 70’s rock, not loud, but a guilty pleasure of his. He went forward into the room.
The dance floor was huge but empty, but people were seated in different corners at booths. Some were alone, drinking what looked like coffee. Some were pairs or small groups.
“Free coffee?” asked the bartender, knocking him out of his reverie.
“Huh?”
“We just got some machines. We’re testing ’em out. Want some free coffee?”
“Coffee? Uh, yeah, sure.” He walked up to the bar and thought about negotiating the stool, but changed his mind.
“Latte or espresso or just a plain old coffee?”
“Oh, a latte.”
“Mind you, this ain’t Starbucks.” The bartender walked over to the machine and started working. Teddy happened to look over to see a man coming down the stairs. He caught the man’s eye, and the man examined him for a moment. He tilted his head, and came right toward him, walking across the hard wood of the dance floor with an intent to talk to him.
“Here’s your latte. Let me know if I did it right.”
Teddy was caught in the man’s gaze, watching the man move. He moved like a panther, and Teddy’s hackles went up. He hadn’t heard the bartender, and he swallowed as the man came within speaking distance of him.
“Hi, you’re new here, aren’t you?”
Teddy nodded, swallowing. Up close, the man had blue eyes, was bald – a shaved head – and wore a black t-shirt with the name of the bar over his chest.
“Good, I’m glad we’re getting new people in here.” Then the man walked away, toward the other end of the bar, just under the stage.
Teddy breathed, and glanced at the bartender, who watched him go. “That’s the owner.”
“He scared me.”
“He scared me too when he interviewed me, but he’s really a nice guy.”
Teddy nodded, taking his latte, and he went to find a nice quiet alcove. He could sit in the half-dark, reading his comics, and nobody would bother him.
That’s exactly what he did. The latte grew cold as he was enraptured in JLU. He heard a noise and looked up. The man was standing not a few feet away, his back almost totally toward him.
“You know, I can help with your eyesight,” the man said, turning slowly to him.
Teddy pulled off the glasses, and the man became a blur. “I’ve been wearing glasses since I was four. There’s nothing they can do, they said.” He put them back on, and the blob resovled itself into the man. this time, though, he was comfortable with him.
“Yet the world doesn’t help, giving you smaller and smaller print to read, so your glasses don’t help.”
Teddy sighed. That part was true. However, he knew that something given always had a price. “How much?”
“Freebie,” said the man. “If it works, you come back. And if you come back, then I might have to ask for something.”
“So what do I need to do?”
“Drink this.” The man held out a wine glass with red liquid. “It’s not palatable, but it’s tasty.”
Teddy gave him a look. “Do you really think I’m going to drink something mysterious from someone?”
“I own the bar,” said the man. “I was just shut down for a week for someone selling drugs out of my bar. Do you think I’m actually going to give you something that would hurt you?”
Teddy glanced at the cup. “What’s it like?”
“It’s thick. But it tastes like chocolate.”
Teddy held his hand out. What’s the worst that could happen? If the man was out to kill him, it would, at the very least, make his life interesting for the duration. The man placed the glass – it was room temperature, and heavier than wine.
He sniffed it. It had a scent of iron. Like blood. “Taste it,” the man encouraged him. Teddy tipped the glass back and sipped it. It DID taste like chocolate, and…apple pie? His mother’s apple pie to be specific. He drank it again. And then more, and then quickly – it tasted wonderful. He didn’t realize for a minute he was sucking the rim of the empty glass.
“Wow,” he said, and looked up at the man. No, he hadn’t changed. “Wow, this was awesome.”
The man smiled at him. “Come back tomorrow. Without your glasses.” Then the man walked past him, heading toward the other side of the bar.
Teddy stared at the glass. He kind of knew he was dismissed, and he hoped the rain would have stopped.
He started walking back to his apartment that he shared with three roommates who had different sleep and job schedules. Eric had day classes and a normal schedule. Dean worked at night so he could be at the beach during the day, and looked it. Teddy was the responsible one, the one who calculated all the bills and paid everything on time. Teddy worked second shift at the local hospital as a janitor, and had Tuesdays and Wednesdays as his weekend.
He got home, and no one was awake, though he knew Dean was there. Teddy checked the mail – no bills and nothing for him – and headed off to his room, where he performed his usual routines for bed.
The next morning, he heard the alarm and hit the snooze button automatically. He was awake, but his eyes were closed. His dreams were about that mysterious man, offering him glass after glass of that wonderful concoction, and his mother offering him apple pie oozing the same red stuff from the wineglass.
He opened his eyes and put his hand out for his glasses on the nightstand–
The clock said 0802. It flipped to three. He watched it flip. He pulled back his hand, and stared at it.
No longer was his arm a stick and his hand a blob, as it normally looked like in the morning. No longer was the clock a blob of light.
He looked around the room. He could read the words on the movie posters in his room. He could see the doorway, where the door met the doorframe. He could see light coming from the spot between the doorway and the doorframe. He saw his closet. He saw his bed – he could see the tiny piles of lint on his blanket. He plucked one and stared at it. He touched his face…
He burst out of his room to shock Dean, eating his normal breakfast of peanut butter and Special K. “Look!”
“Look…” he mumbled, staring up at Teddy.
“Look at me! Up here!” He pointed to his eyes.
Dean squinted at him. “Where’s your glasses?”
“I don’t need them anymore! I’m cured!” He picked up the Special K box and started to read. “‘100% of your daily vitamins.'”
“Uh, yeah.” Dean kept eating. Teddy fought down an impulse to smash him in the face. Instead, he concentrated on the good.
It was amazing. His whole world changed. He could feel the wind on his face. He could see things so clearly, so perfectly. Even at work, he felt so free. A couple of people noted, especially those he had dinner with; and as soon as his shift was over, he took a bus back to The Rack.
This time, the place was loud, noisy; the bouncer looked him over curiously. “Sure you wanna go in there?”
“I want to talk to the owner,” he said.
“Wait right over there,” said the bouncer, pointing to the corner of the building, as he hit his Bluetooth.
He paced a little, and then he saw the man come out. His heart sang, strangely enough, and he was filled with gratitude. As soon as he got there, he barely kept himself from hugging the man. “Thank you so much,” he said.
“It worked, didn’t it? But it’s only temporary, you see.”
“Temp…temporary? For how long?” He was deflated, his hopes dashed.
“Could be a week, could be a month. You also probably feel more powerful than before. Stronger.”
He remembered lifting the heavy laundry bales tonight, as if they were nothing.
“And faster.”
He got through his floor in record time, but he thought it was because of his excitement at being able to see.
“And angrier.”
“Huh, what?” Again, he thought about the urge of smashing Dean across the face. He felt that he could do it, too. Eric had said nothing to him, waking up as he was leaving the house.
“I can see by the look on your face that that’s right.”
“I – uh, well, yeah.” He flushed red.
The man said, “Look, Teddy, I wanted to help you, and I think I did, now you need to help me.”
Teddy looked up into the man’s eyes. “What…do I need…to do..?”
“Follow me,” the man said, and started walking into the alley on the side of the building. He walked all the way down to the back, and with one hand pulled down the fire escape ladder.
“I can’t go up there.”
“One flight.”
Teddy jumped up and grabbed the first rung. He tried to haul himself up, but it didn’t work, and he let go. The man caught him before he hit the ground.
“Let me help.” He put both hands on Teddy’s waist and lifted him up as if he was nothing. Teddy’s feet found the bottom rung, and his hand grabbed another rung. He climbed up.
Up there was a chair on the fire escape. Before he could ask what the chair was doing there, the man told him, “Sit down.”
He sat before it even registered that he was supposed to sit. He looked up at the man. The man knelt beside him. “This won’t hurt. You’ll like it.”
“I’ll like it,” he murmured, and the man tilted Teddy’s head to the side.
Teddy didn’t fight it. He felt a prick on his neck, and then warmth…it was wonderful, the feelings he was getting. He moaned, looking up at the stars, thinking now, that he would be flying among them like the heroes of his books, and this was the most wonderful feeling he had ever known in his life.
There was a moment when someone said, “Drink” and held some liquid to his mouth. He tasted the chocolate apple pie again, and started lapping it up, then sucking. This was the best he’d ever been, with this man he would do anything for…and he didn’t even know his name.