My concentration is limited. Always has been. The mind just jumps and crackles. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Johnston, would flip a math problem at me. I’d answer straight away, but it was too quick for the teacher. She’d scowl. “This was for the whole class!” But 42 times 15 is only 420 plus 210, so any fool would know the answer. Mrs. Johnston, with her ironclad rules, was the beginning of learning to live with idiots.
While everyone else sat open mouthed, I’d asked her when she got divorced. Anyone could see she no longer wore a ring, the pale circle still visible, and irritability scratched with an emotional chisel on her face.
Fortunately, the principal’s office was only a short distance and I’d count while I ran down the hall, always trying to beat my record and ducking so as not to be seen as I passed the windowed doors on the classrooms.
In high school I was so smart I think it scared the teachers. “What year did Charles Lindbergh fly his famous solo?”
“May 21, 1927. It was Saturday and in case you’ve forgotten, his middle name was Augustus.”
“What is the boiling point of water?”
“It depends on the altitude, or didn’t you know that?”
“How much is a dozen?”
“Twelve unless it’s a baker’s dozen and then it’s thirteen.”
Oh, yes, I saw them standing together and whispering about me. They had no idea who they were dealing with. I heard them say I was a dreamer and a problem and short on concentration. Mrs. Roddenbach, the French teacher, spoke French that sounded like a dog barking. I told her so. Doing her a favor. Her angry voice also sounded like a dog barking. I asked if she could do an imitation of a cat barking.
Now that I’m out of school, nothing’s changed. It’s called life.
I work three jobs. Tried working two, but that meant I’d be in one place too long. I’d work four jobs, but a man has to sleep sometimes. Three to four hours will usually do. In the morning, I do sprints in the yard before my first job.
I read short books and watch short movies and my preference is to date short women who aren’t squeamish about copulating on the first date. That hasn’t happened in a while. Sometimes I think that’s never happened. An active mind plays tricks.
First date should be a cup of coffee or a short movie. So mostly I hookup on the fly. Actually, I don’t hook up. The few women around here don’t seem to have much time, but when time is short I do my best work.
Yes, there have been some what I call minor social problems, but that’s what life is all about. Blink of an eye and things change for the worse. At least that’s my experience.
Merriann, her mother chose the name and the spelling, is my current hookup. Maybe I should say, was. I dove into that for a couple of days, so I’m ripe for a change. Her boyfriend treats her like crap, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Her problem, not mine. And besides, that was years ago. Dreams fade, but they don’t die. At least not in my case. Fresh as yesterday.
A co-worker said I was sharp as a tack and he wanted to pound me into a wall.
I think I was in Merriann’s bedroom the last time her boyfriend came in as we were just finishing. Fortunately, something attracted his attention and he hesitated. I sometimes get confused. Today is Wednesday. I don’t like chocolate as much as vanilla.
Merriann told him she was about to take a shower. She declined his offer to join her. Good thing. Small shower would have been crowded with three.
Don’t think I’ll go back. No chance of that, anyway. Right now, it’s Sunday and I’m in a coffee shop and have my eye on one of the three women who look like they just finished twisting in knots through a yoga class and decided to celebrate with double whip cream lattes and gingerbread muffins, each the size of a Florida grapefruit.
I think they called the little one June. Must be about five two. The diamond ring sparkles when she moves her fingers, or picks up her coffee cup. Her fingers twitch a lot and she has enough crumbs on her lips to make another muffin. She’s crossed her legs and uncrossed them twice in the thirty seconds I don’t like twitchy women. Short kind of pageboy hairstyle.
Already decided. Too much trouble. That was last week, I think.
Time for my second job. Big retail store, like Walmart, but not Walmart. A closed company, you might say. Best and fastest worker they’ve got, which makes the others hate me. I always finish a lot more than any of them. Sammy, who’s worked there for fifteen years, even told me to slow down, if you can believe that. According to him, some other employees complained. I asked him who. Said he couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me. He has an annoying stutter. Well, how many complained? He shrugged. I told you I’m surrounded by idiots. He didn’t think I meant him, so he agreed with me.
When I’m not working at my other jobs, I go to the back and help out in the garden. I should say I used to do that. The assistant manager told me not to. He said union rules say I have to take a twenty-minute break. Then he laughed. We don’t have a union.
What am I supposed to do? Stand around? Go hang out with lame brains? I count the assistant manager in that group.
My mother told me a long time ago, “Harold, you’re too damn smart for your own your good. You’re going to end up working for idiots.” My mother was long on advice and short on compliments, but prescient.
Today is my day off, and by that I mean from all three jobs. Sundays are horrible. But, this Sunday I’ll meet Jessica at The Proud Bean. Ever heard such a ridiculous name for a coffee shop? Ever heard of a dead object being proud? Maybe it was named after the manager, a woman named Alice, who for all I know was raised by a family of retarded bears, until they got fed up and kicked her out of the cave. Two words describe the outside of her. Sloppy, fat. The inside of her is even easier. Only takes one word. Vapid. She talks like a human, but that’s where the comparison comes to a dead end. She uses the word, like, as library paste to connect the random pages of her frivolous thoughts.
Now Jessica is a different story. She’s wickedly smart and clever. This morning, over coffee, and thank god, far away from Alice, the human void, Jessica is telling me about her latest conquest. “It was good sex,” she says matter-of-factly. I shake my head, as if this is the dumbest thing I’ve heard since I checked CNN.
She notices my look of disrespect. “Well” she says, “What am I supposed to do, wait for a reincarnation of Einstein? Anyway, what do you care?”
“I care about VD,” I say, “And so should you.”
“He wore protection.”
“Over his whole body? People sneeze and cough and have sores all over.”
“I had him gargle with anti-septic mouthwash and rubbed sanitizer over his entire body.”
“And he still wanted to do the humpback donkey?”
She shrugged. “Turns out he was a clean freak anyway. He’s the one who suggested the sanitizer, right after the hot shower. And we didn’t actually do the deed.”
“He had this arrangement in his apartment. We sat on opposite sides of the bed and he hung a shower curtain in between. We could only see milky images of each other.”
I have my doubts. “What was his name?”
“We don’t give names! Too risky.”
I gave her the look I give my assistant manger, a look that said eating a dead rat with chocolate sauce would be more appealing than what you just told me.
“He’s a confirmed voyeur,” she says, as if I couldn’t figure that out.
I really didn’t tell you about Jessica, I mean what she looks like. Short, with cropped mousy brown hair and a body that makes you think her family owns the anorexia gene. Besides her startling intellect, the physical traits are what I most admire about her. No temptation resides in that waif of a body and Wa-Wa the monkey lady has a better chance at being a model. Although, these days I have to say the definition of beauty is changing rapidly. Tattoos used to be for whores and sailors. Maybe they still are, judging from the way women dress these days.
Also, Jessica lies. I admire the cognitive wit it takes to do that convincingly.
Did I tell you I always wear a coat and tie to work? Pisses my co-workers off. They think jeans ripped at the knees and off the shoulder t-shirts with pictures of marijuana are fashion statements. Insanity, if it’s possible to be off your rocker without a rocker. The manager doesn’t mind the coat and tie.
So, Jessica is my salvation. She carries on a conversation, which aside from fictional descriptions of her tawdry hook-ups, is rather interesting.
She could teach physics, but not because she learned from a professor who’d been lecturing for thirty years and never had an original thought.
Matter of fact, she dropped out of high school, but she tells me when she was granted her first two patents for medical equipment, four or five huge companies wanted to snap her up. She didn’t fall for that scam. “Come work for us and we’ll put you in a mental holding cell until you run out of ideas.” Now she has her own bike shop, she says. Not a repair shop. You’ve seen all those electric bikes? She says she made her first one ten years ago. Now she’s working with two free thinkers to perfect a self-charging battery. She says you can leave your bike in the garage for a year and when you come back, it’s still fully charged.
I drink coffee. Did I tell you that?
She wants to know why with a brain like mine I’m still working three jobs. I want to know why it’s any business of hers. She says I could make a fortune working in her lab, turning out batteries. I tell her I’ll think about it, but I doubt my current employer will release me.
How do I know everything Jessica says is the truth? How does anybody know that about anybody? But, in this case, I know she’s taking vast liberties and prevaricating like a brown chameleon on a green leaf. Still, it is a relief to meet her for coffee on some of my free Sundays. Her banter entertains me. She is smart. That’s not a lie. And she’s not dangerous, or at least I don’t think so.
The perfect woman for me. Entertaining conversation once in a while. Bright. Witty. Somebody else takes care of her.
Matter of fact, a van just pulled up. Winston, the tall, friendly attendant just came through the door. Usually he dresses in a clinically white uniform, but for these outing he dresses more normally. Today, he picks me up in slacks and a bright yellow polo shirt.
“Hey,” I say, “don’t grab my elbow like that….Ok, I’m coming, I’m coming.”
“See you next Sunday,” Jessica says, staying seated and sipping her coffee.
As we’re driving away, I see another guy leading her out to another unmarked van. Must be her boyfriend or maybe her battery partner.
I really admire her intellect.
Did I tell you I drink coffee?
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