You Never Have To Sign

The door was always open if you knew where to look. Ivan remembered the way.

The loan shark lit a cigarette as Ivan stormed in, fuming over his desk.

"Welcome back, Ivan," the loan shark said.

"It was used up too quickly," Ivan snarled, eyes flicking from wall to wall, overwhelmed. "It only lasted a year."

Around the office were photographs or paintings of all the people the loan shark had served over his many years. Famous statesmen in dashing uniforms. Glamorous movie stars cocooned in the exploitative flashbulbs of paparazzi. Drugged-out musicians without shirts. Scholarly writers sitting behind marble desks. So many faces that Ivan recognized, but so many he didn't. Amongst the well-heeled were the shoeless. The wretched. The humbled underclass unnoticed by a wider public.

But that was the prickly beauty of this place. No barrier to entry. And no guarantees other than the feeling.

It wasn't about the outcome. It was about the sensation. The moment-to-moment divinity. Everything else was just collateral damage.

Fame and fortune: what were they against fanaticism?

The loan shark casually showed his palms in surrender. "I don't decide length. I don't decide potency. A year is more than most get. Consider yourself lucky."

Ivan looked as if he might trash the office but settled for sitting in the chair and weeping. The cries were not very becoming. He wondered how many tears of the famous, the infamous, and the fully ignored stained the leather cushion beneath him. "I want another loan. I'm ready."

Smoke curled into many shapes above the desk, some of them familiar. Ivan thought he saw a first dance at the back of a jazz club. Fifty stolen kisses after morning coffee. A stuffed elephant won at a basketball game with a wonky rim. An extra toothbrush by the sink. A gravel road leading up a mountain with fresh snow. An interrupted movie. A dish left in the sink. A restaurant bill with too many zeros. Wrinkled sheets. A pillow with a deep impression. A rose with too many thorns. A love letter, unopened. An empty bottle. A strange car in the driveway. A lie too many. A truth too many.

So many shapes in so little smoke.

"Indeed," the loan shark said. "You're paid up in full."

Ivan rubbed away a tear. He looked at the moisture and wondered how many more were to follow. The good ones and the bad. "So I can have more?"

"If you can handle the interest."

Ivan sniffed, pulling himself together in anticipation. "Depression. Bad sleep. Bad skin. Isolation. Loss of faith. Loss of sanity—"

"Don't forget the three other D's," the loan shark said. "Desperation, delusion, and despair."

Ivan gritted his teeth and dug his fingernails into his pleated khakis. He wore his nicest pants for the occasion. "I would never."

The cigarette was stubbed. "Loan approved."

"I don't need to sign for this one either?" Ivan asked.

The loan shark had perfect teeth but an ugly smile. Ivan thought it was crueler than the last time; bright white teeth, but the light refused to gleam off the enamel. "You never have to sign."

And just like that, Ivan felt the loan in his chest immediately. He gasped. It had been so long since he'd taken out the first loan he'd almost forgotten what love felt like.

He'd died and come back to heaven.

"She'll accidentally spill wine on you tonight at Adam's Ale House," the loan shark said. "You take it from there."

Ivan raced out of the office, a song in his heart, fear under his soul, speed in his feet.

The loan shark lit another cigarette. He ugly smiled to himself. Smoke billowed from his lips, and the shapes disappeared.