Tuesday morning and there I am in the office again. It’s so early. I’m numb. Lois chirps her usual “Good morning.” I sip my coffee. It’s the cheap stuff from the deli near the corner, but it does its job, this ambrosia of the nine-to-five stiff. Mr. Manager struts past, coffee mug adorned with the colorful corporate logo in hand. He knows I’m here, he knows we’re all here, but doesn’t look over.

The monitor flickers to life and the computer is resurrected. Scanned for viruses? Check. Printer online? Check. System services ready? Check. Ready to embark on eight synapse-sucking hours of work? Check.

It’s after lunch when my personal line rings. That’s an infrequent occurrence. Last time it was my Mom, maybe four months ago, to tell me that our dog Dag had died. Poor old loyal and happy Dag. To be a dog with a loving family. Maybe that’s what I’ll wish for my next life - to be walked and pet and fed. To have someone pick up my droppings from the sidewalk. I pick up the receiver.

“I have a severe complaint about your work ethic, young man. No personal calls.” Gretchen. It’s a voice that makes my heart take its first beat of the day.

“What time do you get out?”

“Not soon enough.”

“Too true, but make it five and meet me at the Bean House at five-thirty.”

“The Bean House?”

“It’s where I work. It’s in the neighborhood. You’ll have some coffee, I won’t, and we’ll hang out. There’s also this cool retro movie place down here. They’re showing some stuff I’ve never even heard of, but sounds kind of interesting.”

I’m at a loss, which doesn’t come as a huge surprise. Where’s my clever when I need it? “Sounds like a plan.” I slap myself on the back of my head.

How can I do this? How can I burst the bubble around me? How can I break the routine? I know I have to leave work by 5:04 to catch the train. I know what I will miss on the tube tonight. I know what time I have to go to bed to at least feel halfway alive in the morning, which is better than halfway dead. That does not take into account if insomnia strikes and I’m up in the middle of the night. I’ve lived in one direction now for so long that it’s difficult to fathom a change in the order of things.

What the hell is my problem? Oh, that’s right, I’m thinking again.

“Great.”

“One last thing. How did you get my number here?”


* * *


The downtown train was behind schedule. It’s after five-thirty when I walk into the Bean House. Gretchen is at a table toward the back with a coffee and a book. She stands as I approach and we hug.

I order a coffee. She discusses her book. It’s a collection of short plays by Tennessee Williams. She talks about "Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton" and the movie it became called "Baby Doll." I remember it from a theater class long ago.

She talks with an edge, with knowledge, with a passion. It’s mesmerizing. I try to converse and keep up, so I toss out details about books I’ve read lately. We sit and drink coffee and discuss literature, and film, and culture. I feel whole, happy, forgetting about the drudgery of work and computers and the apartment and the TV.

After the coffee we leave and next we are at the movie theater. The marquee advertises its films in vivid red block letters, far from the all-conquering multiplexes and their digital formality.

The cinema is presently in the middle of a Terrence Malick retrospective. Last week was "Days of Heaven." Next week, "The Thin Red Line." It’s "Badlands" now, so choose that over the other non-Malick films on the bill. We sit in the darkness illuminated only by the screen, and watch the lovers on the lam. I try to concentrate on the images, but I am acutely aware of Gretchen next to me. I look over at her a couple times. I try to time my glances to occur after an intense sequence or during some of the dark humor. This is less to gauge her reaction to the moment than to see her face. Her dark eyes are filled with frames.

After the movie is over and we are outside, I check my watch and realize my pattern is broken. I do so with a queasy guilt and shake it off.

“Drink? There’s a decent lounge around the corner.”

Coffee, a movie, drinks. It’s a regular date, except this cannot be a date. Here are cousins, also old friends. We only seek sociable comfort – platonic companionship in the big city. I make myself know this. I thrust any deplorable thoughts to the contrary into a black hole under my brain, choke it down through my system and drown it in stomach acid.

Before I know it I’ve said yes and there we are at the bar. I scan at the crowd. Bryan Ferry croons from the juke. The TV flashes the same news broadcast I’d watch right now under different circumstances. I see the talking heads and the Chiron Generator images and closed captions scroll at the bottom of the screen. I see this story is about malpractice at a hospital. Something went wrong. Some surgeon took out the wrong kidney.

Gretchen regards me with a grave expression. I perform a patented uncomfortable shift in my seat.

“What is it? What is it that you don’t say?”

“Huh?”

“It’s all over your face sometimes. You get distant. You get this, I don’t know, this... downhearted look.”

Should I blow this off? Hell, I don’t know how to respond. Do I want to divulge my litany of woe? That I may have a heartbeat but I feel like I just simply exist? I take up space and oxygen and food and that I pay rent and pay my fare for my commute? That my world is silent but my thoughts howl? How convoluted.

“Is it her?”

“Her?” I play it clueless against this question. Perry’s same curiosity flickers in my mind. And her visage from the past plummets in from memory. I am reticent at first, but Gretchen's stillness welcomes my words. And I speak and I tell Gretchen that I got over her, but what she took left a void. I am as rational as possible. I take aim at self-deprecation. I know she is still around somewhere, I say, but that’s okay. Some people thought I moved here to pursue her. That was not the case. This city offered so many more possibilities than where I was - possibilities that have yet to come to fruition. I say, “The friends I knew here are essentially gone.” That they reside in their dependable worlds, secure within familiarity. The new friends I made are transient. They too had lives that began before I arrived and those lives continue while I remain.

Then is when I tell her that nothing fits. Nothing works. This becomes a confessional. My babble overrides logic. I can’t cork the torrent though I know I should. I don’t want this affliction – this encumbrance - on anyone else. This is my mind, my life and my fault.

But I can’t stop. And she listens with compassion and empathy.

I stop abruptly. I force a grin. “What can ya’ do?”

Gretchen doesn’t offer me inane advice. She doesn’t offer condolences. She only reaches across the table and takes my hand. I guess I failed at the self-deprecation. People claim to not want pity when it concerns their deepest emotions, or their trampled dreams and spirits, but they lie. Her unspoken sympathy is the loveliest thing I have seen in years. One hand in hers across the table. I take a drink with the other. My heart races but I squeeze her hand. She does not pull away. Some people can accept damage.

“It’s getting late. At least late for you, young man, with a school day at the office tomorrow. So, finish that up and walk me home.”

The weeknight streets here in this trendy section of the city are busy. We walk toward her place, ten minutes away. Our banter is sedate, but I try to inject humor to relieve the earlier tension of my sob story. I don’t think I am successful with the wit. A shroud of sadness hangs over us. It’s not a baleful sadness, like an unexpected death or the painful end of a relationship. It’s mutual feeling – a bond.

Then we are outside her building. Gretchen jingles keys in her hand. We stand face to face. It’s silent and intimate and awkward and we realize it. This reminds me of what it’s like after a funeral, after being next to death and we realize our own mortality. We yearn for a touch, physical intimacy, sex. It’s only human, desire and need and frailty all at once. We need to cement the fact that we are still here, a reaffirmation that we are still alive. I came to terms with my death long ago. But some spiritual resurrection strikes me as unexpected.

“I’ll call you. Maybe we can get together later in the week.”

“Or the weekend.” Why am I being standoffish?

“Yep. The weekend. There’s a couple other cool clubs to check out. Some aren’t quite so, um, dark.”

The talk dwindles. We are silent with the noise and life of the city all around us. Shadows falling, roaches in the baseboard, rats in the sewers.

I stay because it helps me feel.

“Goodnight.” We move in for a hug, and neither of us lets go. She pulls her head back from my shoulder and I look into those eyes. The stare lasts forever in the span of a few seconds. Her eyes move toward mine. And I move in to her, and our eyes close and all that exists is the touch and press of our lips. It becomes forceful. Her tongue slides into my mouth and mingles with mine. My hands on her waist, her hips, her arms around me, roving up and down my back. I feel myself stir. There is damage here but I cannot, and will not, stop. The guilt I know I should negate right now is not there. I am enlivened, charged, erect. This sin is a stampede of hormones and craving.

And we part. I step back, my arms fall limp to my sides. Gretchen backs to the gated apartment door with an uneasy, enchanted smile. What the hell was that? Whatever it was comes to me like a menacing stranger. Shock? Passion? I feel it and I make myself fight it. I give her a similar smile and wave and walk and I hear the keys open the gate and it closes and I am gone into the night.

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