You Are My Sunshine

 

  **************************************

 

At 7:30 am Brian walked into Vangard.  No one seemed to be around yet.  That was good.  He could go to his office without explanation and get started with the day and with the rest of his life.

 

He checked his e-mails and dealt with a few that needed his attention.  There, that wasn’t so hard.  He picked up the files on the latest accounts.  He started leafing through the latest Liberty Air proposal when his mind began to wander - to Justin, to Rage.

 

“You’re back.”  Cynthia snapped him out of that place he didn’t want to go.

 

“Yeah.  Miss me?” 

 

“Always,” she joked, “although my day is much less complicated when you’re not here.”

 

“Are you implying that I am high maintenance?”

 

“Well, if the Prada fits ...” she teased.  “Do you want to go over today’s agenda?” she asked, returning to her all business voice.

 

“Give me ten minutes and then we will,” he said.

 

Cynthia stepped out, and Brian released the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding.  He had handled that very well, almost like normal.  It was 8:15, only eight hours and forty-five minutes to go.  He hoped he had enough energy to last that long.

 

**************************************

 

“Michael’s on line one,” Cynthia said over the intercom.

 

“Shit,” Brian thought.  “Now it starts.”  He had shut off all the phones at the loft and had not even checked for messages.  He knew what they would be and who they would be from - Michael and Lindsay.  He had been afraid that one of them would come to the loft to check on him, but thankfully they hadn’t.  Maybe they had understood that he needed to be alone.  But now they had caught him.

 

“Put him through,” said Brian.  “Hey, Mikey.  What’s up?”

 

“Where have you been the last two days?  We were worried about you.”

 

“Think I can’t take care of myself?”

 

“You were pretty wasted when I took you home from Babylon.”

 

“A couple of days of R and R have fixed me up just fine.”

 

“Brian, I know this must be very hard ...”

 

'Shut the fuck up,' Brian willed silently.  Aloud, he said, “I don’t want to rehash it all.  It’s over and done with.  I’m just dandy.”

 

“But ...”

 

“I said I don’t want to talk about this!”  Brian could feel the rage starting to well up from deep inside.

 

“Will you come to Woody’s after work?” Michael asked.  “I think we should talk.”

 

“If the spirit moves me.  Bye, Mikey,” and he hung up before Michael could ask him to do any more impossible things.  “Cynthia, if Michael calls again, I’m in a meeting.  Understand?”

 

“Sure, boss,” Cynthia replied, wondering what was going on.

 

Brian looked at the clock.  11 am - six hours to go.

 

**************************************

 

Brian met with Gardner Vance about the latest Liberty Air proposals.  They were pretty good, if he did say so himself.  Gardner was satisfied and didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.  Brian felt that he was getting through the day in quite a satisfactory manner.  As long as he didn’t allow his thoughts to wander, he would be all right.  He hadn’t felt the rage since Michael had called.  2:20 pm - three hours to go.

 

**************************************

 

A while later one of his assistants stuck his head in the door.

 

“Got a minute, Brian?” Kevin asked.

 

“What is it?”

 

“I had an idea for the ‘Glow’ makeup campaign, and I wanted to run it by you.”

 

“Let’s hear what you’ve got,” said Brian.

 

“Well, you know the print ads feature the ‘Glow Girl’ at the beach, at a barbecue, etc. with lots of sunlight, the makeup making her appear to glow.”

 

“Yeah,” said Brian, “so...”

 

“Now they want some thirty second TV shots, so I thought if we took the same ideas, but show the ‘Glow Girl’ getting ready to party - the makeup taking her into the evening, but maintaining the sunny daytime glow.”

 

“I like it.”

 

“One other piece to add.  Listen to this,” and he fumbled with a tape recorder.  “I was watching the George Clooney movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ and I heard this song.  Thought it would fit perfectly, but do it in a little less country style.”  He hit the play button, and Brian’s heart stopped.

 

                                          “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,

                                           You make me happy when skies are gray.

                                           You’ll never know dear how much I love you.

                                           Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

 

Brian sat frozen in his chair, as the words swept over him.  He knew he had stopped breathing and he felt like his heart was going to explode.  He had to stop those words.  He grabbed the tape recorder and threw it at the far wall with all his might.  Rage coursed through his veins as he watched it shatter, pieces of plastic flying in all directions.  Thankfully the music ceased.

 

“Get out!” Brian snarled.

 

“What did I do?” Kevin started to ask.

 

“Out! Now!”  Brian pushed him toward the door, slamming it behind him and locking it.  He pounded his fist against the door wanting to rip it to shreds along with every other thing in his office and his life.  He slumped down against the door, fighting back the tears of pain and rage.

 

“Fuck!  Where did that goddamn song come from?  Sunshine!!!  My only sunshine,” he moaned through gritted teeth.

 

Just then he heard Cynthia on the other side of the door.

 

“Brian, Brian, are you all right?”

 

“Yeah,” he gasped, trying to focus on her voice.                                               

 

“What happened?  Kevin is freaked.”

 

'So am I,' Brian screamed inside his head.  Out loud he said, “Just a minute, Cynthia.”

 

He adjusted his tie, stood up ramrod straight and unlocked the door.  With every ounce of resolve he possessed, he opened the door and motioned Cynthia to come in.

 

She looked at him tentatively, taking in the clenched jaw and the eyes like black cinders.

 

“Tell Kevin to get back in here,” Brian ordered.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Do I look the least bit uncertain to you?”

 

“I’ll get him right away,” she said and hurried out.

 

Brian walked over to the dent in the wall, picked up the remains of the tape recorder and extracted the tape.  As he dropped the useless machine into his wastebasket, Kevin appeared in the doorway.  He stood there, unsure of his reception.

 

“I hate that fucking song,” Brian stated by way of explanation.

 

“I kinda figured that out,” Kevin ventured.

 

“Well kinda find another song about the sun that isn’t that one,” Brian ordered.

 

“Consider it done, and I’m sorry.”

 

“Sorry’s bullshit.  Just do as I asked.”

 

“No problem,” said Kevin, as he backed out of the office.

 

Brian closed his door and collapsed into his chair.  3:15 pm - two hours left.

 

**************************************

 

Everyone left him alone for the rest of the afternoon.  That was fine with him.  He had scared the shit out of them and himself.  He groaned at the irony.  He was so scared and angry that he had managed to scare everyone else.  They would be very careful around him from now on, and that was a good thing.

 

At 5:30 sharp, not a second sooner, he walked out of his office.  For the last two hours he had refused to give in to the overwhelming desire to run back to the loft and curl up with a bottle of his old friend, Jim Beam.  He had survived the day, somehow.

 

“Good night, boss.” Cynthia said rather warily, as he passed her desk.

 

“Yeah, see ya tomorrow,” and he was gone.

 

**************************************

 

Brian drove in silence to the loft.  He knew he couldn’t go to Woody’s tonight.  As soon as the loft door closed behind him, he grabbed a bottle of Beam and took several gulps.  His stomach flipped in protest, but it stayed down.  Years of practice, he grinned humorlessly to himself.

 

He took off his suit jacket and fished something out of his pocket.  He walked over to the stereo and popped in the tape.  He rewound it to the beginning of that cut and stopped.  He took another swig of the liquor and pushed “play”.  He slumped back on the couch and listened to the whole song, the refrain that Kevin had played for him repeating after each verse.

 

“The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping

I dreamed I held you in my arms,

But when I woke, dear, I was mistaken,

And I hung my head and I cried.

 

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,

You make me happy when skies are gray.

You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.

Please don’t take my sunshine away.

 

I’ll always love you and make you happy,

If you will only say the same.

But if you leave me, and love another,

You’ll regret it all some day.

 

You told me once, dear, you really loved me

And no one could come between,

But now you’ve left me to love another.

You have shattered all of my dreams.

 

In all my dreams, dear, you seem to leave me.

When I awake, my poor heart pains,

So won’t you come back and make me happy.

I’ll forgive, dear, I’ll take all the blame.”

 

Brian remembered hearing this old song in his childhood, and he had never paid much attention to it.  It was just another sappy song that his mother had liked.  Now, as he listened, it seemed like the lyrics had been written solely for him.  The words:  ‘I dreamed I held you in my arms”, “If you leave me and love another”, “Come back and make me happy”, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine”.  Fucking words!

 

The rage that had boiled through Brian the last few days started to ebb away.  He could feel it dissipating with each chorus of the song, but it was replaced with great sorrow and longing.

 

“You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.”

 

Brian closed his eyes and listened to the words over and over again.  He could still hear them in his mind long after the tape ended.  Sleep finally took him and he dreamed of holding his Sunshine in his arms once again.

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