I preface in this way because the events I am soon to describe will not bear the indulgences I've submitted these first, fawning impressions. They are not filled with silken curtains and soft, rosy clouds of accusation. But here I'm doing it again. Just read and see, please. Sorry. (Ack! "Don't apologize. Don't explain." That's the push.)
Michael's place. I'd like to say I tripped, fell, stumbled into its darkness and relief because the feeling I was carrying reeked of same-day deja vu. But I wasn't that out of it. I know as I sat there, thinking over the recent events, I fancied myself much more haggard and run out than I was. I remember imagining myself a wreck, unable to keep myself composed, getting all sloppy on Mike. The reality, of course, was not so dramatic. We had a few beers, had a sobering conversation, and I fell asleep on the couch again. I'd tell you about Sunday, but it's boring. I resolved to stay at Mike's for awhile and get my head on straight. In fact, not much happened for a few days. Maybe I shouldn't put your consciousness to my time frame. Allow you to get sucked up in my narrative. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do when you tell a story, right? But is that what I'm trying to do?
Anyway, Monday. Because the boring makes the bitter and the bright that much more delectable. Now that I think about it, boring and bitter are nearly synonyms. At least I've seen them dance together across my desk, my fingers, my bad-posture back, my unnecessarily furrowed brow. Really, I took my work too seriously. It was a nothing job with nothing pay. Okay, the pay paid for my nightly shelter, but as that wobbled the job seemed all the more superfluous. It wasn't uninteresting work at first, but it was tedium creeping and crawling through my soul as I sat there and rotted.
I worked at a small publishing company. It was surprising the kind of work we did. A lot of tourist gloss, but also a novel or two. We even got someone wanting to do a foreign language dictionary, though we turned her down because we didn't have the right templates. I was the in-house copy editor. Sounds kinda glamorous, but it's not. It didn't involve any real editing. What it did involve was schlecking through whole manuscripts for typos, or searching the pages for words to go in an index. Scanning a book for indexing takes days. It made my head spin. And because I was the low head on the totem pole, I was always doing odd jobs for people. "Dub, copy this!" "Make a xerox!" "Bind this for me, Dub!" Of course, these weren't simple requests. There was all this fancing taping and ordering and checking that went into copying or binding. Parts of the job I did like: writing flap copy and assisting on photo shoots. When you're reading a book in a mega-chain word and caffeine stop and you wonder who comes up with the lame-brain summaries on the backs of books? That's done by grunts like me. Oh and those covers are all contracted out too. That's why sometimes the girl is blonde when the heroine is very specifically brunette. Funny that. Haha.
I don't remember much of the stiffs working above me. Mostly power paint-suit women, single or singular. I guess it's unfair to call them stiffs. But they didn't do much for me. I did a lot for them, but not like that. The few other guys who worked there would always talk about going out and flirt with the women, but they were all in their thirties and, frankly, I wasn't used to that. Mostly I remember the order that seemed to rain down on me, politely but pointedly. I remember the copy machine jams. I remember the stiffness after sitting there all day. I could never figure out why sitting there all day was different from sitting in school all day or sitting at home all day. The chairs couldn't have been that bad. But the work was draining, which pushes the flesh sorely against that which holds us up. I used to go home and stretch out, and Sarah would come and rub my back and caress my legs until I felt alive again.
Against my better judgment (This was the sloppiest I got, the most I let my emotions spill over. Maybe that's regrettable), I told Michael this. He laughed and gave me a beer. I was getting tired of drinking.
Three days of this and I was going crazy. Normalcy is over-rated. I guess really I was missing Sarah, but it felt more like wanderlust than nostalgia. Mike's words had been playing through my mind for entire work days. I'd even imagined tacking up a bumper sticker with his words like some people do. I could just see my co-workers reaction if they saw that put up over my work space: "Why not quit your job?" They should make mugs out of that. T-shirts. Hand-outs on team building days. It could be a goal of the executive types. Why not quit your job? Here's why! Maybe that's the kind of reverse pyschology that never works.
By Wednesday, the whole situation had me in a funk. In college, if I'd felt like this, I'd go have a few drinks with the guys and assuage that way. Drinking with Mike wasn't having that effect, though. It was weird, like there was no release. I don't think I opened up enough to him. It wasn't like we didn't share interests. Mike was really conversant in really any topic you could dream up. I think the dissonance lay in the fact that he was so straightfoward. He was very blunt about his opinions and values. I was always more round-about, and it made me feel supercilious. He was so unflappable, and I just felt like I was blowing in the wind so much. I still hadn't talked to Rafi. I knew I was putting it off now that I'd fallen into the normalcy of routine. Putting a few back with a buddy was thus no longer a solution (maybe that was a positive development), so instead I went for a jog.
I always feel like a stick when I wear shorts. My legs are gangly and I feel like I stick out in all kinds of directions. I don't usually feel like that. It's just the exhibition of it. Once I get moving, I feel much more fluid. That day, the faces flowed past me and I felt my muscles unwind over the steady rhythm of my drum-beat, loping steps. I was no longer the set upon thing I was at work. I played the predator and chased always the next thing I came across, leaping from one pursuit to the next. I chased leaves and plastic bags, squirrels and shadows, mine and others, children and mothers, and women who were yet to be mothers. One such young woman I followed for an awkwardly long amount of time. I get discomfitted when my game begins to be mimicked by reality. I'm not really chasing anyone; I'd much rather prefer them to quickly pass me by, or I them. This particular young woman would not be discontinued, however. It was like she was reading my mind and staying a step ahead of me. She would turn at exactly the forks or intersections I wanted to take. Of course, I'm pig headed, so I refused to change my course just because hers remained irritatingly consistent with mine.
She wasn't the worst person to be following. I was still put out, but I began to (re)evaluate her out of forced familiarity. She seemed like any other jogger I'd come across, but at second glance she was a little more winsome than you'd expect. She wore bright blue running shorts over guardedly wide hips and a surprisingly plain white shirt. Even soaked with sweat and clinging desperately to her body, it seemed more conservative than what most joggers were wearing in the heat. Her inky black hair was pulled back, but gave the impression of buoyancy born of thick, lusty curls. She turned to look back at me, and I almost ran into a trashcan as I recognized that profile.
Surprised Jugglers
Originally uploaded by Batram
"So, Dub, are you going to come run with me, or are you working on your stalking skills. If it's the latter, you really need to keep practicing."
"Sophie! What are you doing here?"
