by Ben Tigert
The living room light was off. It was never off. It was always on, along with every other light in Grayson’s house. But even with all those other lights on, it was still painfully obvious that the front living room light was off. Grayson is our town’s enigma. Every town has one I’m sure. The woman who walks the highway to town twice a day. The old man who wears a coat in the summer time and always sits on the same park bench. Grayson kept his lights on. All of them. All the time.
I first saw the lights when my family and I moved here three years ago. It seemed a little odd at the time, but I hardly gave it a second thought. After a few days, I finally realized that that man never turned any light off. Of course, by this time that house had piqued my curiosity. I couldn’t quite bring myself to knock on that door, but I really wanted to know. Why in the world would anyone leave all his lights on day in and day out? I asked my mother and father (I still lived at home then) if they had any idea what would posses someone to do this. They hadn’t a clue. Eventually I began to ask some of the people who had lived here a lot longer than I had. I heard rumors, stories, lies, fantasies, children’s daydreams. He was a mad man. He was afraid of the dark. He was growing marijuana and needed the lights to keep his plants healthy. I heard so many different stories, I finally just stopped asking.
I lost interest after a few months. That is until one grey afternoon last fall. I was outside in the yard, raking. I had brought the paper out with me and decided to take a short break and look over the front page. As I sat down, I happened to cast a glance toward that house. Lit up as always. At that moment I decided I was finally going to discover the truth behind the lights. I sat down the paper and walked toward the road. I crossed it and looked at the mailbox in front of the candle that was this house. “M. Grayson” At least now I knew whom I would be addressing. I walked through the dying grass of the front yard, up the weathered stone steps, and finally across the beaten wooded slats of the porch. The warm heart pine door seemed oddly inviting and in conflict with the rest of the entranceway. I knocked, there was no bell. I heard no steps, I knocked again. Footsteps, slowly coming my way. The door slowly opened.
“Mr. Grayson?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s me.”
“Sir, I hope you don’t think I’m rude to ask this, but my curiosity is killing me.”
“Ask what?”, he requested, more softly than I expected.
“Well, why do you keep your lights on?”
Mr. Grayson is an elderly man of thirty-five. He is probably about six foot one, but he stands half-stooped, as if perhaps in a constant state of prayer. His still brown hair is greying before it’s time. His eyes are dark, but they do not seem to have been created this way. Rather, it is as if they have slowly faded. His face is still kind, and his manner is soft if somewhat abrupt at times. He slowly rubbed his forehead as he stood deep in thought pondering my question. He finally said,
“Come in. Have a seat.”
I did as he asked and this is what he told me.
“You may find this hard to believe, but in the past 4 years that I’ve kept these lights on you’re the first person who has actually cared enough to ask me about them. Oh sure, I’ve heard the murmuring at he the grocery store, at the post office, well, everywhere really. It didn’t really ever bother me. I guess I just figured that they’d be so busy making up their own answers that they’d never get around to trying to find the truth. And I was right, until you came here today. Anyway, back to your question. I’m going to have to go back a few years here so just bear with me. Twelve years ago last month, I met a girl named Danielle Kimberly. I’ll never forget how I met her. I was fresh out of college...God, twelve years...sorry. It just gets to me sometimes. Like I said, I was just out of college and was working a desk job at Brinkley Industries. Yeah, the one on 5th and Gavin. I loved my work. Well, I loved the money anyway. The job wasn’t bad. It’s what I had always told myself I wanted, but soon I became, you know, bored with it all. The paper, the meetings. Anyway, one night I was sitting down at Bernie’s having a few drinks. By the way, Bernie’s wasn’t then the trash-filled hole it is now. It used to be a sorta classy little place. But not so classy as to where you couldn’t come in alone and throw back a few. Like I was saying, that’s what I was doing that night. It had been a long day at work and I was ready to look at other options. I had just entered into a vary deep dialog with myself on the merits of cattle ranching somewhere far away from here. It was beginning to sound like a pretty good idea actually. Well, suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by a waiter. He said there was an urgent phone call for me. I of course got up and took the call. It was Mary Ainsworth, she was my neighbor back in Colorado. She said someone had run their car into my yard and was stuck. So I decided to postpone my career planning and go dig a car out of my grass. I drove home expecting to find a drunk old man who decided to forget the whole designated driver thing and try to drive himself home. No, I wasn’t really upset. My yard wasn’t really anything special. Just a few square feet of grass. But when I got there, I saw a stunningly beautiful young lady standing by a car in my yard and crying uncontrollably onto the trunk. She somehow managed to introduce herself. I can still remember what she looked like that night. Long blonde hair, hazel eyes that somehow changed color with her every feeling. And of course, she was soaking wet from the rain. Before I could get over my surprise of seeing her and not some drunk, she threw herself on me, still sobbing but trying to fit in an absurd number of apologies in between gasps and whimpers. I told her it was okay, the damage really wasn’t anything a little time couldn’t fix. But despite my assurances, she begged me to let her repay me. I could tell she was young, about my age, and she had no more, and probably less, money than I did. We finally settled on her taking me out to lunch one day. So we did, and we immediately hit it off. We became good friends in a matter of days, and for a year or so our relationship was totally platonic. But eventually our feelings became romantic. We had already met each other’s parents, turns out we didn’t grow up but about eight blocks from one another, so that was out of the way. We had been great friends so we already had a great relationship. It was so perfect then. I can’t describe what I felt with her...it was so...so...sorry, got emotional again didn’t I. You didn’t come for that, you wanted to know why I leave my lights on. Don’t worry, I promise I’ll get to that soon. Anyway, after dating for about three years I decided to ask her to marry me. She said yes. I knew she would, and yet somehow, I just couldn’t believe it. We got married on June 29, 1990, in Boulder, Colorado. We both loved the mountains so it only seemed fitting. We moved into this house two years later. We were so in love, or I was. Sometime in our third year of marriage, Danielle met Brian Eaton. He was a mid-level manager where she worked, down at Leverton’s. I don’t know exactly when the affair began, but thinking back I realize that she became distant. She suddenly seemed detached but, somehow, still loving. Looking back now, it’s painfully obvious. But feelings, love especially, have a way of changing the way you see everything, particularly the object of that love. At 5:34 PM, on August 9th, 1994, Danielle told me that she was leaving me. I had just gotten home from work. She was sitting on the edge of our bed by her already-packed suitcases. She was crying. When she looked at me, I didn’t see any contempt or hardness in her soft hazel eyes. Only pain. She told me she didn’t love me like a husband anymore. She wanted to be with Brian. By now I was crying too. I tried to get angry, but I couldn’t. I lay face down on my bed and just cried. She tried to console me, I told her just to go. I couldn’t take it. But when I heard the front door open, I lept up and ran to her. I held her in my arms one last time and said, “Just in case you ever want to come back, I’ll leave a light on for you.” She thanked me, truly I believe, and walked to his car. I cried again. When I awoke the next day on my tear stained couch, I thought about the previous night. I thought about her for five days. I lost my job. For some reason, they think it’s okay to fire you when you don’t show up for work for a week. Oh, don’t worry, they rehired me a few weeks later. I explained everything to my boss, he’s a great guy, and he helped me get my job back. Anyway, on the fifth day, I ran around the house turning on every light I could find. And I never turned them off. I just want to be sure she gets the message. The electrical bill? Oh, it’s high. I can afford it now though. Well, I hope that answers your question. You have a nice day.”
And with that, he showed me to the door, and shut it just as quickly behind me.
The whole right side of the house is dark now. Somehow I knew that the living room light wasn’t a fluke. Over a week or two, I’ve noticed the other lights as well. A bedroom, a parlor, the kitchen. The house fading as slowly as a fond dream. I don’t like to think about Grayson. How he could be so intent on that one woman, I just can’t understand him. Not that I’m some big philanderer, on the contrary. But life goes on. We all lose people, lose possibilities, lose opportunities. But life always seems to fill that void if you let it. Sometimes though, maybe we just can’t accept the new things we’re offered, I guess.
I pray for Grayson some. He’s not the kind of guy you can befriend, so I try to help him anyway. I thought about trying to take him out one night with the guys and me. Let him have some fun again. But I know it wouldn’t really help him. It scares me to think what will become of him.
The whole house is dark now. The change was so gradual, and I’ve been so busy that I just noticed it. But looking at it now, I can’t describe what it’s like. That lantern of a house has been a fixture of this neighborhood since I’ve lived here. Now the whole community seems empty without it.
They found Grayson yesterday. When he didn’t show up for work or answer the phone, his boss got worried. The police say they’re investigating, but I don’t know why. I know what he died of, and I hope I’ll meet her at the funeral.