Pajamas, khakis, and navy and plum-colored underwear clash astride a haphazard pile. My little room smells of armpits and staleness. Soft blue sheets are strewn on the floor and the pillow is perpendicular to the frame, lying like some victim.
Credit cards eye me with interest and increasing warnings. Statements are stacked up on my desk.
On top of all this four cans of half-empty Diet Pepsi line my desk, the rings still testaments to my caffeine fixes.
I really vow to clean things up. Then superiors email me. Demand quick edits to the latest manuscript I’ve been working on. A historical novel, this time. They point out commas and semicolons I missed, along with some historical error I failed to see. So what if Nicholas II died in 1918, and not 1917? What if I failed to use an Oxford comma?
At least I didn’t get saddled with vampires this time. They always kill or fuck too many people in every fucking manuscript.
So holed in my room, lights off for concentration, I pour over the manuscript again, scrolling with frenetic motion. My computer freezes, freezes. A circle swirls with uncertainty. I imagine words like termination, not up to snuff, learning curve. My fists clench. The circle swirls, the screen stays frozen. Propelled by something unseen, I punch the wall. And again. The computer starts again, leaving an echo in my hands and a trace of shame and fright.
I vow to seek out anger management too. I can do this. I must. It’s not the first time this has happened, and I deflate thinking of the other things, the other triggers. The neighbor masturbating next door, the parties from nearby units to which I’ve never been invited, even the way someone on the street laughed.
I can’t think of the shame all day.
So I pour through the manuscript again. And I get about halfway in, missing commas filled in, a few bad metaphors stricken too, metaphors that were seemingly buried in the Garamond jungle. A couple other typos and misspellings as well. Ones my superiors didn’t see. I’m even feeling something calm, almost soothing now, a sense that I’m building something grand, something masterful with each error slain.
Of course, it’s someone else’s manuscript. But maybe, just maybe I can achieve too.
Early in the afternoon, my father calls, my cell phone resonating to the tune of the Imperial March. He wants to talk about his latest girlfriend, number fifty-something, I think. He also wants to know if I’m coming to visit soon.
“Just for a week, son?” he says.
“I’ll come soon,” I say. “I promise.”
“You promised last week,” he says. “Your dad loves you, you know. Dad has always been there for you.”
I try to contain the invectives that tug and taunt. Kiss my ass. Leave me the fuck alone. And stop criticizing my every choice, the way I walk, the fact I prefer lavender dress shirts. The fact that I pause when I form a sentence. The fact that I’ve spent more time with Mom than you.
“I’ve just been busy,” I say. But I know his spiel. I can do anything I want in a mere twenty minutes if I just push, push, push myself.
“You’re always busy,” he says, laughing.
“It happens."
“You know I want you to be the best,” he says, his voice softening. “The world’s a rough place. You need to kick some ass.”
I hate when he pulls out the softness. It’s a weapon, and yet it strikes me every time.
“I promise,” I say, the words deflated and empty. “I’ll be there.”
“Good,” he says, although I can feel the sharpness return. I know his hazel eyes are bearing into me, even through electronic and geographical walls.
I continue on with the manuscript, get up and walk around a few times. I assess the scheme of things in the living room and kitchen. I wish I could paint the walls a more pleasant color. But the landlord wouldn’t go for it. Especially not lavender. The fridge could use more veggies. Maybe some hummus. Something that resembles order, confidence, and I smile, thinking of buying these things instead of bags of Lays that make my body look like a balloon, blown-up. Might as well cut down on the Diet Pepsi too.
Possibilities, anyhow.
Just as I get back to work, the neighbor in the unit to my right pounds at the door. I don’t know his name, since we’ve really never talked. He says I’m being just a tad loud.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know I was.”
“Well, it’s not a big deal,” he says, adjusting his retro fedora, which I want to knock off his head. “But I can hear your footsteps.”
He assesses me with those almond-shaped eyes, that half-birthed mustache. He makes these little humming sounds. I don’t know if he’s whistling Sinatra or his own hipster’s national anthem, but he’s taking in my living room, the paper towels, the oak coffee table that leans precariously, all of it. It’s like I’m naked and he’s measuring my size or something.
“Well, I do walk,” I say. “But I’ll keep it down.”
“They’re just a little loud,” he says. “A clickety-clack, you know? Maybe try for a nice click, click, click.”
I can hear him fart through the walls on occasion too. On top of the masturbation. But I don’t comment on that. I already punched a wall. No need to poke the bear too. I just apologize with something that sounds like profuseness. He nods and retreats back into his sanctum.
I vow to clean things up, but I need just one five o’clock glass of Riesling on the deck outside my room. Not Merlot, not Cabernet. Both too sharp. Riesling is a good, light happy libation, a pleasing color to the eye too.
Cue a little Beethoven on Spotify for good measure. A little pastoral pleasure. I lean over the railing, smile, closing my eyes for a moment. I feel the breeze on my pale skin and imagine something other than a puke green and brown colored apartment building. I’m walking through a countryside on a bright summer’s day, hand in hand with some fraulein. Maybe we’re talking of dark things, but I think not. I think we’re confessing all sorts of dreams. I’m telling her of my desire to be the next Richard Ford, the next Joyce Carol Oates, and she’s telling me to relax, to live, to color outside the lines just a little. And she has a husky German accent that adds to the allure.
Of course, she could be French. But a fraulein goes well with Riesling.
She starts telling me of stealing mannequins and painting Hitler mustaches on buildings for the fun of it, when my phone pings with some alert. She continues. Something about climbing to the top of some great cathedral and looking down for the thrill. But there’s another alert. Some piece of bad news in the world.
I go back in pour a second glass, inhale, and exhale. Of course, the railing’s covered with dust. I brush it aside and look into the vast swath of late afternoon sky. Take another swig, raise the glass to the sky, the shadows falling upon me. I close my eyes again and try to find that beautiful fraulein. More stories about stolen mannequins, please.
It’s hot. I’m sweating.
I’ll clean up. Soon.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
