The following is an excerpt from End Man, a new novel that I'm revising. In the excerpt there is a line from Hamlet that figures largely in story, which is about a young man who suffers from Dromophobia (the fear of crossing streets). What is missing in the quote and what would that absence tell you about the young man?
Raphy continued down Fairfax and crossed Sixth. On the opposite side of Fairfax, a number of people stood in front of Nevin O’Moore’s, an Irish pub with enough character to have kept it operating for a half-century. Sidewalk gatherers smoked, traditional and vapes, tossing their smoldering butts and disposable e-cigs in the gutter. Rock ‘n’ roll poured out the open door, and not a phone visible, an anomaly for sure.
He stopped to listen to a song about falling and rocked his body to the music’s beat. How he would have liked to walk in the door, but the pub was on the forbidden side.
He gazed at the street, which would remain a flat concrete thoroughfare unless he attempted to cross it. Such action would prompt the boulevard to change itself into a canyon of limitless depth. If he stepped or skated over the curb, the canyon’s black tongue would wrap about and swallow him as a frog would a fly. It mattered little that two-ton vehicles raced along on its concrete bed or pedestrians crossed at every corner. It mattered even less his fear was diagnosed as a form of agoraphobia intensified by panic attacks:
“We call it dromophobia,” explained Dr. Cow, “the terror of crossing streets.”
“But it’s not all streets.”
“Unfortunately, in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders, it’s the best we’ve got.”
But that he could name his fear or trace it to its source mattered not at all. For twenty-two years, his phobia had confined him to the square mile formed by the intersection of four venerable Los Angeles thoroughfares: Fairfax, Wilshire, La Brea and Beverly. The WFBL Quadrangle, as unpronounceable as inescapable.
Sometimes, he teased himself by pretending he might just, might just—he lifted a foot and peeked over the curb into the depths of the canyon. That mile fall was an illusion, but so intense as to make him dizzy. He stepped back.
To others, his limits might seem like the solitary confinement prisoners endured in the nation’s penitentiaries or the technolepers in their island colonies. But he had long recognized his square-mile deprived him of almost nothing.
Shelter, food, clothing, art, entertainment. How many cafés or specialty food stores or discount clothiers did he need? He had his mall, park and theater complex. He had his Farmers Market and Thursday night karaoke. He had sidewalks and parking lots aplenty to skate. Like that tide-pooled fish, who knew every grain of sand and strand of kelp in his shallow, Raphy knew every inch of his snow globe prison: the dog that barked from the high window, the pothole unfilled for years, the stalwart bellman and old Two Bags, the recyclable collector in perpetual motion. If wanderlust struck, he could just set out into the world on his computer. He whispered the line he had memorized from his high school play. “I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space.”
What longings he had were the usual of young men, and he had decided time and chance would one day satisfy them.
Nor was it a lifetime sentence. The painting was progressing nicely, and when he finished, when the last stroke met the canvas, when the last image had dried, he could dance across his quadrangle.
Raphy continued down Fairfax and crossed Sixth. On the opposite side of Fairfax, a number of people stood in front of Nevin O’Moore’s, an Irish pub with enough character to have kept it operating for a half-century. Sidewalk gatherers smoked, traditional and vapes, tossing their smoldering butts and disposable e-cigs in the gutter. Rock ‘n’ roll poured out the open door, and not a phone visible, an anomaly for sure.
He stopped to listen to a song about falling and rocked his body to the music’s beat. How he would have liked to walk in the door, but the pub was on the forbidden side.
He gazed at the street, which would remain a flat concrete thoroughfare unless he attempted to cross it. Such action would prompt the boulevard to change itself into a canyon of limitless depth. If he stepped or skated over the curb, the canyon’s black tongue would wrap about and swallow him as a frog would a fly. It mattered little that two-ton vehicles raced along on its concrete bed or pedestrians crossed at every corner. It mattered even less his fear was diagnosed as a form of agoraphobia intensified by panic attacks:
“We call it dromophobia,” explained Dr. Cow, “the terror of crossing streets.”
“But it’s not all streets.”
“Unfortunately, in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders, it’s the best we’ve got.”
But that he could name his fear or trace it to its source mattered not at all.
For twenty-two years, his phobia had confined him to the square mile formed by the intersection of four venerable Los Angeles thoroughfares: Fairfax, Wilshire, La Brea and Beverly. The WFBL Quadrangle, as unpronounceable as inescapable.
Sometimes, he teased himself by pretending he might just, might just—he lifted a foot and peeked over the curb into the depths of the canyon. That mile fall was an illusion, but so intense as to make him dizzy. He stepped back.
To others, his limits might seem like the solitary confinement prisoners endured in the nation’s penitentiaries or the technolepers in their island colonies. But he had long recognized his square-mile deprived him of almost nothing.
Shelter, food, clothing, art, entertainment. How many cafés or specialty food stores or discount clothiers did he need? He had his mall, park and theater complex. He had his Farmers Market and Thursday night karaoke. He had sidewalks and parking lots aplenty to skate. Like that tide-pooled fish, who knew every grain of sand and strand of kelp in his shallow, Raphy knew every inch of his snow globe prison: the dog that barked from the high window, the pothole unfilled for years, the stalwart bellman and old Two Bags, the recyclable collector in perpetual motion. If wanderlust struck, he could just set out into the world on his computer. He whispered the line he had memorized from his high school play. “I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space.”
What longings he had were the usual of young men, and he had decided time and chance would one day satisfy them.
Nor was it a lifetime sentence. The painting was progressing nicely, and when he finished, when the last stroke met the canvas, when the last image had dried, he could dance across his quadrangle.
His mother had promised.