Feels wrong going in.
Not in the usual "overwhelming sense of dread" way, just incorrect. Turning left when you should have turned right. Wake early. Make breakfast. Watch the minutes vanish. Drive. All of it. Wrong.
Catch my reflection in the doors as I walk in. Look away. Scan my key fob. Clock in. Down the hall I can see my office and the overhead flourescents are on. My supervisor stands in the doorway speaking to my office-mate and a small panic breezes over me.
Something's wrong...
It dissipates but I note its presence. Everything's fine, even though it feels wrong.
Did I forget something?
Am I avoiding something?
I assume I'll figure it out soon or forget the feeling entirely. Once the day has applied a little heat. A little pressure. Coal into, well, broken coal.
The supervisor leaves, distracted in morning conversation somewhere down the hall and I slip into my office.
"Why are these fucking lights on?" I say.
My office-mate, Elise, turns slow in her chair and deadpan; "I don't know but it's gotta stop. Turn them off. Right now."
I do and turn on the dim lamp, set my bag of bullshit-that-I-never-use down in a chair next to my desk, turn on my computer, and sit. Where I will mostly remain for the rest of the day.
"How was your weekend?" she asks.
I only half hear her. It doesn't register. Everything feels wrong.
"...better than 'meh'?"
"What?"
"I asked you how your weekend was. Was it 'meh'?"
It takes me a second to remember what she's talking about. An app on my phone. Tracks my moods. Helps with not getting stuck in the 'I always feel awful' trap when I can look back and see the data that says that isn't true. Except, most days I log as 'meh'. Middle of the road. Feeling nothing. I must have talked about it at some point. Fucking memory is fading.
No, I did. I remember talking about it.
Was my weekend 'meh?'
At first I can't quite pull together whatever happened. Years of alcoholism, depression, and a recent bout of covid have all taken their part in destroying my memory. This is probably the best it will ever be again.
Eventually the weekend slides back into place. I had an okay couple of days. Meeting people. Visiting friends. Exploring new places.
No, no, not okay. Those days were 'good'.
I'd been opening email to stall while I sorted it out.
"No, actually, it was really good. I think I even logged both days as 'good'."
"Wow. Maybe you're coming out of the depression."
"Let's not count our chickens," I say, half joking. "Two good days, that means I'm bound for... let's see." I turn my chair to face her, but I'm looking away, running the numbers. "Last summer I had two incredible weeks. Just... beautiful weeks. I've never felt more alive or happy or thankful. I can't express it. I felt so fucking happy. Then, I had eleven months of goddamn misery. So..., let's do the math. Two days of happiness, that equals... a month of misery? A few weeks?" I'm smiling. I'm serious, but I'm smiling.
She nods. "Makes sense to me," she says and turns to her computer. "I touched a stingray. A starfish. A shark..." She goes on.
I assume that at some point we'll hate each other, but for now it was a nice part of my day. Come in. Hang out. Crack jokes and speak in characters. Do some work and go home. It made the day tolerable. I was lucky that we had ended up sharing an office. But I did assume we would someday hate each other. I have nothing to base that on, in fact my time around Sacha would even make the argument that it would never happen. But if I expect the worst, I can't be let down. I tell myself, anyway.
The morning is slow. Monotonous, as per usual. I'm filling out federal reports. I'm scanning. I'm printing. I'm listening to the phone intercoms beckoning for so and so to come to whichever office. So and so to pick up whichever line. So and so, whichever whichever whichever.
Eventually, lunch. Chicken. Cauliflower rice. Verde. Microwave, two minutes. Stir. Bring it back to my office, close my laptop, feet up on the desk, eat. It's one of a few mile markers in my day. I come in and I think "make it three hours to lunch." Then "make it two hours to go outside." Then "make it two and a half hours to go home." Each day. Over and over. I try not to think about that part. But I feel it. Some great call to run. To disappear. I feel it here. I feel it always, everywhere. I try not to think about it.
"You want to go do an apartment inspection with me?" Elise asks, staring at her screen.
"When?"
"Twelve-thirty. Gotta leave in a few minutes."
"I'm on lunch."
"Well, hurry up."
* * *
Drive 20 minutes out. It isn't Albany, but it's basically Albany. All of this is. All of this unending same. It's raining. Grey. Wet and broken concrete sidewalks. Houses wearing peeling paint. I'm sitting in my car waiting for Elise to show up. I don't know the landlord. I don't want to be first to talk. I don't want to talk at all. I have the wipers off and the rain isn't heavy enough to make a sound, but I can't see through the windshield. Under a thin layer of anxiety (I don't know these people. I don't want to talk. I don't want to wait. What if someone speaks to me? What if this isn't the right house? What if I lose this job? I'm going to starve. I'm going to lose my home. My car. I'm too old to start again. I'm going to die alone. I'm going to die alone starving and hiding in the woods and no one will find me for weeks...I'm), I'm at peace.
She pulls up behind me. I crack my door and wave, but she doesn't react. I open my door and stick my head out. She nods. I close my door. I'm getting fucking rained on. Happening a lot lately. In the side mirror I see her get out of her car and I get out of mine. She has a pile of shit in her hands. A phone, more than a few keys & bullshit on a keyring. Just a pile. For whatever reason I focus on it for a second. For whatever reason my brain decides I need to keep a note of that. For whatever reason, if there ever is one.
"(She says something I don't hear)."
"(I say something that doesn't even register)." I'm thinking about the house we're standing in front of. How it seems as though it may sink into the earth. I wonder if it will take us with it. I hope it takes me with it.
"Well, let's see," she says.
The front door opens and a large and unhealthy man lumbers out. "You here to look at an apartment?" he asks.
Elise responds. I don't want to talk.
"Yeah, we just have to do an inspection."
"Landlord ain't here," he says. "Maintenance man's here."
"Well, we're meeting the maintenance man, so that works," she says.
I'm caught up in thinking about his diabetic legs. Will mine become that? Will I become this? Is he happy? Does he have regret? I'm sure. I do. I'm sure he does. I notice my mood drop a little and try to stop thinking about it. Elise is already halfway through the door and I follow.
A thick stink of mold and mildew fills the air. For a second I think it's cat piss, but it isn't sharp enough. I wonder how the condition of the roof is. Is it rain damage? Do the people here smell it? Are they sick? Mold almost killed me once. Will it kill them?
"Do you have your work phone on you? Do you remember which apartment it was?" she asks.
"No and no idea."
"I'm gonna grab mine out of the car." She walks away and I lose a moment or two because now she's back and looking through her work phone.
"Maybe I have it in my email," I say. I open my phone. Log in. It takes forever. No apartment number. "No, I don't."
"Hmmm," she says.
She looks at the apartment door next to us, and walks down the hall a little ways. It's dark. We stand there while she continues going through her phone. I find myself texting someone about Kenny Rogers. Someone else about pro-biotics.
The smell. The dark. The rotten yellow paint on every wall. "This is how movies start," I say. It isn't even the full thought I wanted to get out, but I guess it was enough.
Elise laughs.
"Umm, what do we do?"
"I don't know. I'm just here."
We walk up a thin and steep staircase that feels soft in a bad way. Unstable. Only fading daylight up here. No light bulbs at all. Three apartments. 2, 3, and 4. I didn't notice the number downstairs, but it must have been 1.
2 has a sign on it that says "Closed for Caffeine Maintenance" with a cartoon cat laying over the row of letters. We're looking for the maintenance man. I make a note of the sign and walk down the hallway. The doors to 3 and 4 face each other. I pick something up in 3. Some feeling.
"I think it's this one," I say.
"We can't just knock because you have a feeling."
"Okay, but I think it's that one."
She looks at it. "Maybe I can call the office."
We head back downstairs and stand in front of what I now know is 1. Elise is on the phone. No one is picking up. She tries number after number.
"Maybe something happened," I say. "Some disaster while we were gone. I woke up feeling very unsettled this morning."
"Maybe," she says, dialing someone else.
I go to look through the glass of the front door for no real reason and as my face gets close, the door bursts open and I jump back in time to not break my fucking nose.
"Maintenance man?" she asks.
"Yeah," a young man says. He reminds of an old co-worker I didn't like.
We inspect the apartment. It smells worse. A layer of cigarette smoke on top of the mold and mildew. I check the windows, I pretend I know what I'm doing. Faucets. Outlets. I think I would kill myself in this apartment and then I think that that's ridiculous. It's a roof. It can be a home. It could be salvation for someone and that's why we're here. To make sure we can get them something up to some livable standard. A small wave of shame rolls over me for my first reaction and I let it dissipate.
Elise tells the maintenance man what needs to be fixed. A window lock. Then she explains some of the paperwork we'll be sending to the rental company. I haven't said a word. I just pretend I know what I'm doing. Pretend I'm important.
We leave the building back into the rain and toward our respective cars.
"I'm going to Target," she says, letting me know to take my time getting back to the office.
"I'm going to get stuff at the gas station," I say. I wasn't planning on it, but I guess I was now.
* * *
I grab a redbull. A cookie. Wander around for a minute. A man tries to walk out with an armload of food and an iced tea.
"Excuse me!" a cashier calls out.
The man acts like he had forgotten. I know the act. I've been there. He walks to the counter and sets everything down, fumbles around in his pockets and finally says he has forgotten his wallet and walks out. When I get to the register his things are still piled behind the counter. Small piles. I consider just buying them and giving it to him but I look around through the windows and I don't see him. If he's outside when I'm done, I'll go back.
The cashier makes a snide comment, gloating to a customer that she knew he was a thief. I want to throw my fucking red bull at her. I don't. I pay for my things, and walk out.
The man is nowhere. Gone. I walk around the corner of the building and I don't see him. I walk to the corner of the road and look up and down the sidewalks, but I don't see him.
The man is nowhere. I've been there. I imagine I'll be there again.
I go back to my car. Drive back to the office. Write this.
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