feet wide, arms up, looking from side to side. Silence. A faint breeze stirred the evening, swirling about me. I was still for a long time. Scarcely breathing. Nothing.
Then, from very far off, came the faint sound of receding footfalls. Not those of anyone trying to flee or be stealthy—just a man walking away. I craned my neck from side to side, trying to determine from which direction they came. I was sure it was right and then left. I stood upright, looked down at the whiskey bottle in my hand. The amber liquid was dark in the pale light of the shop’s sign. I backed up against the bricks and felt them on my skin, cool and crumbling. I took a sip of scotch. It wasn’t so foggy tonight. I could see three orbs in either direction. They shone like angry eyes, frowning at me half-naked and frightened and alone in the night.
I went back inside. I poured a tall glass of liquor and a small glass of water and placed three pills on the table. I gathered up the papers strewn about the place and stacked them in an uneven pile in a corner. As I rose, looking down at my notes and observations and scribbled theories, I thought that maybe I’d never touch them again. “Can’t help you now, Eddie,” I said in a slow whisper. Can’t do anything but try to help myself.
I gulped scotch and took little sips of water and tried not to think about anything. Every time I made a connection, it only confused me further. The man in the blue suit with the piercing eyes … he had looked at me like one stares across the ring at his opponent, not like one examines something new. Watley hadn’t seemed the least bit surprised by me showing up at his door. He seemed more like he had been waiting for it. Becca was lying about her lover. I was just trying to survive each day. Just trying to have a few dollars and a bed.
Before I joined the army, I had tried my hand at a few other things and failed like a champion. I worked in an office for a few months once. Or maybe it was weeks. Strapped to a desk and making phone calls and filling out forms, trying to get a few orders filled each day. Paper. The company sold raw paper to manufacturers. We’d sell the pulp that they would turn into cardboard boxes or posters or toilet tissue or whatever else. The management used to extol the virtues of our lowly enterprise, pouring aphorisms about greater good and necessary service and other such bullshit down on our heads. “Remember, everything you buy comes packaged in paper. Every idea is written down before it’s carried out.” I was twenty-one years old when I took that job and twenty-one when I quit.
I was a cog. I couldn’t take it. If everyone in the company were essential to every part of the company as they would preach, fine, but anyone could be one of those everyone, and I could not. I stole pens and a coffee mug and left. Everyone wants to think of themselves as honest and good, but Number One comes first. Always. The person who tells you they are truly honest, truly pure—that person has just lied and torn their own ethos apart. Sure, I don’t want to hurt anyone who doesn’t hurt anyone else, but I’ll take your bread if you won’t realize it’s gone. I too must eat bread.
For months I did nothing. My parents would call me and ask how life was and I would be as pleasant as I could force and then get off the phone. I lived not fifteen miles away from home yet hardly ever saw them. It was not for lack of love for them that I became a recluse; it was because of the confusion and disgust I felt with myself.
On my darkest days in those early years, nothing filled me with more revulsion and ennui than the knowledge that my self-loathing and listlessness were entirely not unique. My father had given me his old car. It was a reliable but wretched gray sedan with scratches all along the left side and a muffler that coughed and wheezed until I got into fourth or fifth gear. But it was my home on wheels. My room with a view. I would stuff
Then, from very far off, came the faint sound of receding footfalls. Not those of anyone trying to flee or be stealthy—just a man walking away. I craned my neck from side to side, trying to determine from which direction they came. I was sure it was right and then left. I stood upright, looked down at the whiskey bottle in my hand. The amber liquid was dark in the pale light of the shop’s sign. I backed up against the bricks and felt them on my skin, cool and crumbling. I took a sip of scotch. It wasn’t so foggy tonight. I could see three orbs in either direction. They shone like angry eyes, frowning at me half-naked and frightened and alone in the night.
I went back inside. I poured a tall glass of liquor and a small glass of water and placed three pills on the table. I gathered up the papers strewn about the place and stacked them in an uneven pile in a corner. As I rose, looking down at my notes and observations and scribbled theories, I thought that maybe I’d never touch them again. “Can’t help you now, Eddie,” I said in a slow whisper. Can’t do anything but try to help myself.
I gulped scotch and took little sips of water and tried not to think about anything. Every time I made a connection, it only confused me further. The man in the blue suit with the piercing eyes … he had looked at me like one stares across the ring at his opponent, not like one examines something new. Watley hadn’t seemed the least bit surprised by me showing up at his door. He seemed more like he had been waiting for it. Becca was lying about her lover. I was just trying to survive each day. Just trying to have a few dollars and a bed.
Before I joined the army, I had tried my hand at a few other things and failed like a champion. I worked in an office for a few months once. Or maybe it was weeks. Strapped to a desk and making phone calls and filling out forms, trying to get a few orders filled each day. Paper. The company sold raw paper to manufacturers. We’d sell the pulp that they would turn into cardboard boxes or posters or toilet tissue or whatever else. The management used to extol the virtues of our lowly enterprise, pouring aphorisms about greater good and necessary service and other such bullshit down on our heads. “Remember, everything you buy comes packaged in paper. Every idea is written down before it’s carried out.” I was twenty-one years old when I took that job and twenty-one when I quit.
I was a cog. I couldn’t take it. If everyone in the company were essential to every part of the company as they would preach, fine, but anyone could be one of those everyone, and I could not. I stole pens and a coffee mug and left. Everyone wants to think of themselves as honest and good, but Number One comes first. Always. The person who tells you they are truly honest, truly pure—that person has just lied and torn their own ethos apart. Sure, I don’t want to hurt anyone who doesn’t hurt anyone else, but I’ll take your bread if you won’t realize it’s gone. I too must eat bread.
For months I did nothing. My parents would call me and ask how life was and I would be as pleasant as I could force and then get off the phone. I lived not fifteen miles away from home yet hardly ever saw them. It was not for lack of love for them that I became a recluse; it was because of the confusion and disgust I felt with myself.
On my darkest days in those early years, nothing filled me with more revulsion and ennui than the knowledge that my self-loathing and listlessness were entirely not unique. My father had given me his old car. It was a reliable but wretched gray sedan with scratches all along the left side and a muffler that coughed and wheezed until I got into fourth or fifth gear. But it was my home on wheels. My room with a view. I would stuff
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