4.
Gregory had to be at work at eight. I had to be in at noon, which meant I either went with him and hung out four hours early, or I walked in later. On the couch, at seven thirty, with a hangover and an almost total sense of displacement, I decided I would walk in.
“How long do you think it’ll take to walk to the mall from here?”
“I don’t know. Never done it. Forty-five minutes maybe?” Gregory said.
“Okay. I’m going back to sleep.”
“Sleep tight big guy. I’ll see you later.”
"Later man.” I went back to sleep.
Well, I tried to. I closed my eyes, but I was too drunk to sleep somehow. The world spun and my head ached and my stomach churned. I couldn’t remember what I had drank or where we had finished the night, or anything after going to the second bar, really. My wrist hurt, and for whatever reason, I wanted to fuck someone. Bad. I hoped the two weren’t related. I sunk into the couch. It was old and beaten.
After what may have been hours or minutes I rolled over and opened my eyes. I stared at my reflection in the television. I could see my face clearly. This was it. My first morning single. The first morning that waking up happy, that having a good day, that changing things was in my control.
“Oh fuck you, you optimistic shit,” I said, pulling the blanket off of me. “Stupid fucking make my life better bullshit.” I sat up. The world took a second to catch up to my head. I couldn’t focus. I wondered what my ex was doing, and then didn’t care. Against all recommendations from my stomach, I stood up. I wobbled myself into the bathroom, on the other side of the couch. The bathroom was small. More like a bathcloset. The toilet was at the end of it and I walked up to it and leaned over, resting my head against the wall. I unzipped, pissed and didn’t think anything had ever felt better. My knees were collapsible, but held up. The threat was there.
When I was done I walked back to the couch, and fell onto it and tried to piece the night back together.
There was nothing there.
I needed to fuck someone.
The morning droned by as I stared at the off television and occasionally at the clock. When it was eleven I decided I should get up and get ready for work.
Bachelorhood took control. I put on pants, shoes, and left the house.
5.
I stood behind the register. I worked in the hardware department. Hammers, drills, and shit like that. I didn’t do much, even, and especially in, busy times. The way it worked was there were salesmen for the hardware department. Guys who made a commission off of whatever they sold. Gregory was a salesman. The salesmen usually wanted to cash people out so they could collect on it. For most of my time, I ended up sitting behind the register reading a copy of “The Old Man and the Sea” that someone had left behind and making dick jokes.
I usually answered phones.
The phone rang.
“Sears hardware.”
Someone mumbled something.
“One moment.”
“Anthony,” I said to one of the salesmen. “it’s for you.”
Anthony walked his fat ass around the counter and took the phone. “Sears hardware, this is Anthony, how can I help you?”
He gave me a look as he realized it wasn’t for him and I just didn’t want to deal with customers.
“Tough shit,” I said and walked away to sit on a riding lawn mower.
Anthony clicked away at the register, looking something up for the customer. A few people straggled through the hardware department. Browsers. I put my feet up on the seat of another tractor.
“Hey man,” Gregory said as he walked up from around the corner.
“Hey.”
“You just get here?”
“Yeah. A few minutes ago. How‘s it been?”
“Dead,” he said. “I’ve been hanging out in electronics with Chris all day.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah. He said he might come over to the apartment later. I told him we were roomies and that we should have a get together and celebrate tonight.”
“Didn’t we celebrate last night?”
“He said he’ll buy some whiskey and rum.”
“Celebrating it is then.”
“Hey, did you see the new girl at the hair salon?” he asked.
“No, I haven’t been down that way yet.”
“Well, when you do, peek your head in. Make an appointment or something. You’ll be glad you did.”
“She cute?”
“Dude,” he smiled. “Yes. I mean, like all of them there are, but, yes.”
“Okay.”
Move your feet,” he said. I did and he sat down in the mower next to me. “I shit everywhere this morning.”
“Fucking whiskey.”
“Seriously,” he said.
6.
Gregory had said he had invited a few more people over, so we spent the evening moving all of the boxes into my bedroom and attempting to make the apartment look as if it wasn’t a store room for a homeless shelter.
Afterward, I took a shower, got dressed in my finest evening wear (my outfit from yesterday, as all of my other clothes were still packed and I was lazy), poured a glass of lemon vodka and sat on the ruined couch staring at the blank television and waited for people.
The vodka continued to be the worst thing I had ever tasted and the LED numbers on the clock sometimes forgot to change. Gregory eventually sat down next to me. He had crisp khaki pants on and a white button down shirt. His hair was gelled and he stank of Drakkar Noir.
“You getting dressed?” he asked.
“I am dressed.”
“Really? Didn’t you wear that yesterday?”
“Yeah?”
“We have people coming over. You don’t want to look like a scumbag do you?”
“We have Chris and a few other retards from work coming. I don’t really give a shit. They all know me. They know I don’t gel my hair and wear fucking Drakkar Noir.”
“Well, I might not have told you some things.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I invited Lauren.”
“Who?”
“Lauren, you know, the new girl at the jewelry counter?”
“Oh, yeah. So?”
"So, she might come over.”
"Not really my type. Besides, she’s like sixteen. Not going to dig through my boxes and get dressed up for that.”
“Well, she might bring friends. She said she might.”
“Like who?” I asked.
“Dude, I don’t know, friends.”
“A bunch of fucking high school girls? Wonderful. All they do is fucking cackle and cry and shriek.”
“Wow dude. What’s up your ass?”
“I don’t know.”
“Trying to get you laid.”
“With underage girls? No thanks.”
“Goddamn it. You know, for someone always trying to be optimistic, you got a shitty fucking attitude. No, not fucking underage girls. I saw her talking to the girl at the hair place, and I invited them over. That’s all. Jesus. Way to ruin the fucking surprise. Now fucking get dressed.”
“Oh,” I said. “Wait, how old is the girl at the hair place?”
“Twenty.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, fucking ‘oh‘. You’re welcome. Now, get dressed.”
I got up and went to my bedroom. My six or seven small boxes were everywhere. I still didn’t have a bed or furniture, so, if things got out of hand, or in hand I guess, I would have to come up with a plan.
I dug through the box marked “CLOTHES” and pulled out a crumpled black button down shirt. I put it on. It smelled strange. Like mildew.
I walked back into the living room.
“Hey that’s better already. Take care of your hair and you could probably be done with it.”
“Do we have any air freshener or anything here?”
“Why? Does it smell bad in here?”
“No, my shirt stinks of mildew.”
“Oh, fuck. Well, you want to use my cologne?”
“We can’t both smell like high school freshmen.”
“Fuck you dude. Chicks love Drakkar.”
“Sure,” I said.
“I’ve got a little Stetson left if you want that.”
“Whatever.”
“All right.” Gregory got up and went into his room.
A car pulled into the driveway.
“Someone’s here,” I said.
Gregory came back out and tossed me the bottle. “Go get in the bathroom, turn the shower on hot. Leave the curtain open, let it steam up. While your in there, hang your shirt on the door and do your hair. The steam from the shower will freshen the shirt, and if the girls come while your in there, they’ll think you just showered. Spray the cologne on, and put the shirt on and then spray that. You’ll probably be good after that.”
“Christ, that makes sense.”
“Go!”
I went into the bathroom and turned the shower on and began to follow the directions. I heard the living room door shut, but with the shower going, couldn’t hear much of anything else. Steam filled the bathroom and I wet my hair, towel dried it a little, gelled it into something I thought cool guys who didn’t care would do, let steam fill the bathroom while I drew dicks in the steam on the mirror.
7.
Chris sat on the floor and commandeered three quarters of a large mushroom pizza while Gregory and I sat on the ruined couch watching a bootlegged copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
8.
The sun was high and hot as shit as I walked to work the next day. Sweat poured over me and even though I was wearing a tee-shirt and shorts with my work clothes in a backpack, I was fairly certain I was going to fucking smell later. All day protection, my ass.
To get to the mall from the apartment I had to first walk a half mile toward town, turn left, and then a half mile toward the high school where the roads became less like a Normandy and more like long years of arsenic poisoning. The rich neighborhoods. Thinner roads without yellow lines. Stop signs every fifteen feet. Tall, sprawling white houses with red doors and black shutters and grass lawns three fifths of an inch high. They were fortresses. Pristine, polished, and imprisoning. I had had a fear of wealth from a young age, and that eventually became distrust and disdain. I was a class-ist, and I was proud of my poverty in the face of such flagrant displays of debt. I didn’t owe anybody shit and I was free.
I walked sweat drenched through enemy territory until at the end of the neighborhood I came to the foot trails. The trails ran behind the local YMCA, about two miles or so deep into the woods, and incidentally, right up to the mall if you took the right branches of the trail.
Beside the smell, the lack of cars, and the shade from the bastard sun, the trails offered something to me that no other leg of the journey could. A sense of adventure rarely felt since childhood, something I had been desperately craving since beginning my slow death crawl toward this whole “adult” thing. Since the strangling monotony of the relationship. Since I realized “Fuck, I’m not a kid anymore.”
Shadows and shattered light danced on the floor of leaves and needles and dried mud around me as the breeze blew through the trees in whispers and creaks. This beautiful haunted wood. This last paradise before the nine hour ache. The air, cool and soft chilled the sweat on my skin, now drying or retreating. Soon the sound of the road faded and only the trees spoke. I breathed deep and for the first time since leaving the house, looked up from the ground. The forest was beautiful, as forests tend to be. Greens, browns and majesty. I looked up through the net of branches above me at the perfect blue and loved. It, this walk, was peace. I knew I would look forward to this from here on out.
“Is this right?” I thought aloud to myself.
What?
“This. This life I made now.”
Are you happy?
“Yeah, I think so.”
Do you miss her?
“No.” I thought about it. “No, not at all really. Is that fucked up?”
I don’t think so, but you know, what the fuck do I know?
I crossed over a wooden bridge spanning a small brook. The water lapped up under it and made a beautiful soft clap each time it struck the bottom of the bridge. I stopped and stared at it. The water was clear and I wanted to lay down in it. I was hot.
“I might be dry by the time I get to work.”
Don’t be a fucking retard. Walk. You’re going to be late.
“Yeah.” I kept walking.
I daydreamed through the rest of the walk. About this new life. About this new space I had. About what sort of life I wanted to carve out for myself. About all of the feats I could conquer. Music. Writing. Women. I wanted to be the envy of all men. I thought then that I could be. I thought then that I would be.
9.
“James, take your break.”
“Okay,” I said. It was six. I still had three hours before close. I was hungry and didn’t have any cash but I had worked out a deal with one of the burger jockeys in the food court that they would slip me meals if I occasionally looked away while they shopped. Seemed fair to me.
I clocked off on the register and walked out of my C-shaped desk to the middle of the store.
As I turned the corner toward the exit into the mall, I saw the girl from the hair salon walking toward me.
I was instantly nervous. She bore a vague resemblance to Ashley Judd, I thought. Far too pretty for me to taint. Far too pretty to allow me to taint her.
We walked closer. Closing the gap.
I kept looking at her eyes. I didn’t want to. I just, did. They were smoky. Sleepy. Inviting.
She smiled.
I almost pissed.
“Your shoe’s untied,” she said.
“I uh, you…” I looked down. My shoe was untied. “Oh.” I stopped and knelt down and looked at her as I tied it. “You saved my life.”
She laughed and walked and I watched her tight black pants stretch mercilessly across her ass with each stride.
What the fuck? You saved my life? Fucking idiot.
I got up and walked ashamed to the food court. I got my burger, and took the long way around the store back to the break room. I sat down and unwrapped my black market burger and watched the news. A famous basketball player is acquitted of a rape charge.
Gregory came in.
“Hey, hey, Champ. How’s it hanging?”
“Fucking awkwardly.”
He laughed. “What’s that mean, like, in a hook shape?”
“No man. I talked to the hairdresser.”
“The hot one?”
“Most of them are hot, here.”
“True. The braids, the boobs, or the smolderer?”
“Smolderer?”
“Yeah,” he said, “You know, her eyes are all smoldering and shit. The smolderer. You know. Smolderer.”
“Well, that one I guess.”
“Really! The new one! That’s the one I was telling you about! No shit!”
“Oh, yeah, right on. She’s a fucking bone shaker.”
“Bone jerker,” he said.
I gave him a polite laugh. “I mean, like, she fucking makes me shiver she’s so fucking gorgeous.”
“Dude. I know. I just meant…”
“I know what you meant.”
“I want her to jerk me off.”
“I got it,” I said.
“I bet you do, you old dog, you. So what did you say?”
“I fucking froze man. I didn’t know what to do. I told her she saved my life.”
“Did she?”
“Nope.” I took a bit of my burger. “Just told me my shoe was untied.”
“And then you told her she saved your life?”
“Yep.”
“Wow.”
“I know,” I said.
“Better than nothing though, I guess, right? I mean, at least you talked to her.”
“Christ, I wished I hadn’t.”
“Well, you did. Shake it off. You broke the ice. Now plan out the next move and get on that shit. Before I do.”
“Sure.”
Next move, I thought. Fuck.
I finished out my shift in shame. Gregory went home at seven and I realized I didn’t have a ride home.
10.
I stood outside of Sears. The night was cooling, but still plenty warm. I stared over the embankment where the trail head lied waiting, blanketed in darkness and probably rapists and tigers for all I knew.
Rape tigers or… the long way? The long way was almost four times the length of Rape Tiger Alley. I would have to walk almost the entire perimeter of the town.
“Later man,” Chris said, waving as he walked out of the building.
“Later,” I said by reflex. “Wait. Chris.”
He turned. “Yeah?”
“Is there anyway you could give me a lift? Gregory took off, and I don’t want to walk. I’m lazy as fuck, I know, but, you know.”
He grimaced. “I’m sorry man. I have to meet my sister. I really have to leave now. I’m already late. I’m sorry man.”
“Yeah,” I said. It’s fine. That’s cool man.”
“Normally I would man, I promise. Any other night.”
People left the store and walked to their cars. Each a missed opportunity while Chris continued wasting his precious fucking time.
“No, it’s cool man. Go.”
“I can give you cab fair.”
“Aren’t you going to be late? Go.”
“Yeah. Okay, well, sorry again man.” He turned away and walked into the parking lot.
“Fuck,” I said.
“Hey,” someone said behind me.
I turned around. It was the hair dresser. My throat closed up. My joints tightened. “Hey.”
She smiled at me and walked away, to the parking lot.
She smiled at me and that was enough. I walked home, though I don’t remember which way I took.
She had smiled at me.
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