He sat anxiously puffing on a cigarette waiting for the bus. Sure visions, recollected from Saroyan, played through his mind until the calm flash of the red light from his phone alerted him of a new message.
He skugged his aluminum ginseng and opened the word processing program. The text he had been nervously waiting for would wait until after the transfer. He would read it, he thought, while he sat behind the sand colored buildings in the valley of desolation, smoking another cigarette perhaps.
Or maybe he would take it up her apartment stairs and read it within the corridors of where the proposed party was meant to be held.
A girl, also waiting at the bus stop, approached the man and made an apropos comment on the weather.
Looks like rain. She said to the leaves blowing in the street.
Looks like weather. The guy came back with, rather surprisingly jovial to the cold drizzle.
“Not bad either, if you don’t mind getting wet.” He added, and then smiled real wide, creasing his face from his forehead to his chin. The girl half smiled her right face and cocked her head. She mumbled something under her breath. He thought she said shame in you.
Then the bus pulled up.
He shoved his phone into his pocket and took one final slug of his nearly full beverage before chucking it into the garbage. Damn. No drinks allowed. He thought again about the tea party later and remembered Prokofiev, nearly in verbatim entirety as he loaded his bike onto the front rack of the bus, boarded and then swooped an arm flashing his ID to the driver.
The seat was uncomfortable with his lap on his back. He returned to his smart phone typing. The screen was frozen to working properly so he was required to reboot. Hm. Maybe they should change it to the intelligent phone – there is the ubiquitous “tell” for marketers and it is not as presumptuous (therefore less monomers) and maybe some slogan like –“it’s smarter than the average phone, because really who doesn’t know how to A. fucking look at a map, B. memorize a telephone number C. e-mail your friends with photos or alerting the myspace paparazzi you imagine exists only for you, five days after scarffing the plate of scampi and pasta and banging the hottest girl you’ve ever picked up in a hotel lobby or not interrupt yourself with facebook updates “…dude check this shit out...BRB”. Better yet they should call it the slightly more affordable than cha-cha-ing on beer pong night. They should call it the rumble-rhamba phone and not place such aptitude on how well you get from place to place, how often you text your friends and how fast you can sell your date to a cock slamming sex fiend with a charge card and shopping cart only one click away.
With less emotion to concentrate on writing he opened his messages. Pizza hut - junk mail.
Nothing from the expected. The ride was making him nauseous. Or maybe it was his back.
The tunes he had been listening to were a small collection of recorded thoughts he had imagined expressed what he was feeling. There were many new and those of the old were in need of a decent listening to, for the editing of corrupt files.
It seems appropriate to mention that at this moment he was hearing one of the damaged files.
He couldn't look up and was not watching where the stops were taking him.
He waited through his usual dismount at Boseman and Law, along Law and onto Emberg towards Gemler, towards her apartment. He licked his dry lips and took a deep breath past Aspen. He raised his superfluous sunglasses and next his arm. He pulled the yellow “stop requested” cord.
As he moved to the front of the bus his eyes roved over the oval overhead mirror reflecting the mirror through lenses of the driver’s sunglasses. He thanked the driver, removed his bike then flexed hard his corrugators. He let the glasses fall into place over his eyes.
Inside the old black cat meowed from somewhere. He has a fancy for opening cabinet doors and crawling inside them while everyone is away for the day. It is safe to say that he enjoys the darkness and might feel safe. When someone is around he will lap them and bite for attention.
Quite frequently the man would recline supine and let the cat rest on his chest covering his sternum and gently massage the head face and neck muscles of the worn out ass hole of a feline. Perhaps it is pertinent to add that the cats name is Bastard and at that very moment relaxed into a slope not unlike a hole in the cushions of the couch. He nestled and wedged. His awkward body lay like a ka-bob impaled skewered ham in a similarly supine reclined position to lap at his remaining nad tissues.
As well as the balls he had no front claws.
The man grew dizzy and joined the lackadaisical animal in the sofa to chase toward the illusion. Time grew dim. He suspected nothing but still felt that intolerable weight in his chest that rose to his head and flushed his cheeks.
Was it rage or anger, jealousy or something more mild mannered? Anxiety, Panic, Frustration? Nobody ever suggested embarrassment or humility. Those and fear are incompatible for the prognosis. For fears are the equivalent laziness and sadness and pain. Fear is the unknown. Sometimes when asked a question, not having the right answer was almost always a fear, and most always when occurred, was an embarrassment. How should one reply when “not a thing” is the wrong emotion, the incorrect answer, the x and not the big O. How does one offer the wrong life to the one they are in love with?
Chuck’s phone went off again. He decided to go for a walk.
Aluminum Ginseng.
It didn't seem like the same old shit, it was the same shit.
The store sold him so much junk muffins and peanut butter snacks mocha beverages and an occasional pack of cigarettes. He has been checking into the same gas station for the past year on work days to get food. He didn't eat right. To do so would require a visit to Messler’s Café and fear of being friendly to the waitresses bothered him.
He hated to make her jealous because he hated the feeling of himself being hated. He hated hate and was probably further along the path to acceptance than most people would admit to recognize.
He recognized the guy behind the counter and the objects he placed on it. He remembered the lyrics to another song, “you've got to know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em…”
It was not anything new, just an old song with a new meaning.
He entered his same for digit pin that has been his pin since he first opened an account. Financial disgraces and location changes inspired by thrifty pilgrimages caused him to switch banks.
He declined the same plastic smiley faced bag that he always had and removed his items from the counter. “You never count your money when you're sitting at the table...”
Avoiding a fresh puddle from the mornings hail he pushed his bike along the sidewalk towards work.
Outside, the message eventually came, after an hour and fifteen minute call distraction with a client. So read the message. It is important to mention that the evasive encryption of words expressing the same routine thoughts that reproduce themselves weekly in her messages was flatulently splattered on the screen template. There was nothing but bland tasteless white with spackled black stain lettering or maybe it is like pigeon poop fallen soundlessly to the earth to smatter the fool taking shade beneath the tree.
There is a lag in the time her messages are sent and the time he receives them on his phone. The message was there in his inbox online, but it would not alert him on his phone for another two hours. He idles himself before his first thoughts with time under the coordinators presence. He could feel her eyes roll up and around her head to revolve in their sockets somewhere a foot above her skull as if her third eye was a security camera hidden behind the large convex mirror in the corner of the gas station and he was the spectacle in the reflection.
They made small talk regarding the life and times related issues and how the world would change if the people closest to us were not faithful.
“You mean to say you pulled a muscle this morning blow drying your hair? You need a rub down. He spoke.
“So let me get this straight,” she replied. “You have been starving yourself and now your stomach has shrunk and you feel gross when you eat?”
“Yeah. Maybe you need a pill.”
“I just took two before I came up here.”
It might be interesting to know that the secretary has an accent so some of her words come out thick and special but perhaps accidentally so. At this moment in time she fluctuates in syllables and sounds over the receiver in both.
He inhales deeply and without hesitation lets her know that he is suffering still from nausea and his head is throbbing. She loosens her jaw and stares at him not blankly but patiently. He might have smiled but thought nothing more. His client walked in from the gusty outdoors fifteen minutes early and brackened out a story of his overzealous punctuality.
At this moment the secretary headed towards the break room, retrieving an ice pack for her sore trapezium muscles. In the time from then to then she had confessed her amiability for inebriated eating.
He remembered being back at the apartment, the bottle of booze in the fridge. She must have gone back to the apartment and had a glass last night before bed. He could see the decrease in volume. From there he confused her for a hypocrite because of her ineffability pertaining to his permission request to nip that same bottle before Tuesdays show. She held double standards because he was diseased with alcoholism and could be scorned. She was not a ”hypocrite”, not to be doubted.
The client completed his spiel and sat quietly onto the most comfy couch in the world.
Part 3
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