by Joe WHITLOW

He’d lived in Man­hat­tan his en­tire life, and he still liked the place. It was the two mil­lion oth­er Man­hat­tan­ites Har­ry couldn’t stand any more. There were just too damn many peo­ple in the city. You couldn’t get away from them, even in your own apart­ment. You heard their ar­gu­ments through the walls, smelled their spices through the vents, suf­fered their in­tru­sions when they came to bor­row your corkscrew. Every­where. Al­ways. Peo­ple. He’d had enough of them.

Which is where the ge­nie lamp came in. It was a birth­day gift from his kooky aunt Mag­gie, un­doubt­ed­ly pur­chased cheap in some dingy pawn shop. He’d prompt­ly parked it on a clos­et shelf and for­got­ten about it.

Maybe that tar­nished old hunk of junk was the an­swer to his problem. 

Har­ry re­trieved the lamp from its shelf and set to rub­bing it. Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, a cloud of smoke be­gan pour­ing from the spout, form­ing a cloud. The cloud ex­pand­ed un­til… poof. 

The “ge­nie” was dressed in a cheap suit and wore a gaudy gold ring on one pudgy fin­ger. He looked like a cross be­tween a gang­ster and a per­son­al in­jury lawyer.

“What can I do ya for, boss?” 

Har­ry was skep­ti­cal. “You re­al­ly a genie?”

“Ful­ly li­censed in New York and New Jer­sey. Name’s Lou.” The ge­nie held out his hand.

“Har­ry,” Har­ry said, shaking.

“So, what’ll it be Har­ry? You got two wishes.” 

“Shouldn’t it be three?”

“This is a New York sto­ry, Har­ry, not a fairy tale. Two wish­es, take ’em or leave ’em.”

“Can I spread them out at least? Make one wish now and one later?”

“That’s al­lowed. But you’re stuck with me un­til you make the sec­ond wish. I don’t go back in the lamp un­til then. And once I go back, I’m out­ta com­mis­sion for at least a hun­dred years.”

Har­ry con­sid­ered this. For his first wish, he de­sired to find him­self on a de­sert­ed is­land where he could en­joy some soli­tude, for a change. He’d pre­fer hav­ing the is­land all to him­self, but if it was a choice be­tween one ge­nie and two mil­lion Manhattanites….

“It’s a deal.” 

He told Lou about the de­sert­ed is­land. “It should come with ameni­ties like satel­lite TV, an end­less sup­ply of high-end scotch and pre­mi­um ice cream, and all the Lee Child nov­els.” He’d use his sec­ond wish when he was ready to re­turn from this par­adise, if ever.

Lou snapped his fin­gers. “Done.”

Har­ry looked around. Apart from a new book­case full of Lee Child nov­els, noth­ing had changed. “What about the island?”

“You’re on it. Manhattan’s an is­land, tech­ni­cal­ly. I just… mod­i­fied it.”

And that’s when Har­ry no­ticed it, a sound you nev­er, ever heard in Man­hat­tan — si­lence. He drew the blind to look down on an emp­ty side­walk, a street filled with stopped cars, a city bus idling at the curb with its doors open and no pas­sen­gers. Twi­light Zone stuff.

“You didn’t.” 

Lou shrugged. “Modifying’s eas­i­er than mak­ing. You learn that quick, in this business.”

Har­ry got a gleam in his eye. His crazy sum­mon-a-ge­nie idea had ac­tu­al­ly worked. The peo­ple were gone!

Lou con­tin­ued, “Satel­lite remote’s on the side ta­ble, ice cream in the freez­er, scotch in the liquor cab­i­net, Lee Child in the book­case. Now if you’ll ex­cuse me, I could use a nap.”

In min­utes Lou was asleep on the fu­ton, snor­ing like a buzz saw. Har­ry, mean­while, pro­ceed­ed to down a pint of pre­mi­um ice cream and sev­er­al shots of high-end scotch. Then, fly­ing high on liquor, sug­ar, and the thrill of be­ing alone, he de­scend­ed in­to Man­hat­tan, and pro­claimed it his.

Over the next sev­er­al weeks, Har­ry fell in­to a rou­tine. By day he roamed the city, swig­ging scotch and rev­el­ing in his alone­ness, in the free­dom to move, the abil­i­ty to take a breath with­out feel­ing like he was com­pet­ing with two mil­lion peo­ple for the same oxy­gen. Evenings, he re­turned home to feast on ice cream, ca­ble TV, Lee Child sto­ries, and more scotch. Ex­cept for the snor­ing, Lou pret­ty much left him alone. It tru­ly was par­adise on earth, for a while. But earth­ly par­adise is hard­ly the re­al thing. It’s an im­per­fect place, where even a guy who’d had enough of peo­ple can be­gin to miss them. Sure, Har­ry had his ameni­ties, and Lou for com­pa­ny, but they weren’t quite the same thing as two mil­lion neigh­bors. To his great sur­prise, Har­ry dis­cov­ered that Man­hat­tan was a hol­low and un­sat­is­fy­ing ver­sion of it­self, ab­sent its noisy, smelly, in­tru­sive mob. Har­ry de­cid­ed it was time to bring the peo­ple home. One evening, be­tween swigs of high-end scotch, he told Lou he’d made a decision.

“I’m red­dy use my sec’n wishlou.”

The ge­nie looked up from a Lee Child nov­el. “You’re drunk, Har­ry. As your ge­nie, I ad­vise you to wait un­til your mind is clear to make your wish. You can’t un­make a wish, so you need to be sure.”

“I’m to’ly sure.”

“We’ll dis­cuss it in the morn­ing when you’re sober.” Lou said good­night, then stretched out on the fu­ton and fell in­to a deep sleep.

Har­ry be­gan click­ing through the chan­nels, but he could hard­ly hear the TV over Lou’s snor­ing. “Damn I wish you’d qui’snorin,” he grumbled.

Lou, with his spe­cial ge­nie abil­i­ties, could de­tect a wish even in his sleep. He im­me­di­ate­ly stopped snor­ing, and his eyes sprang open. 

“Aw crap,” Har­ry said, re­al­iz­ing he’d screwed up. “I din’ mean that.”

“Sor­ry, Har­ry. Your fi­nal wish is grant­ed. Now it’s time for me to go. So long, boss.” Lou snapped his fin­gers, dis­ap­pear­ing in a puff of smoke just like the one he ar­rived in. 

Har­ry sighed, belched, then tipped back his bot­tle of high-end scotch, on­ly to dis­cov­er that it, too, was empty.

Filed under Fiction on April 26th, 2024

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