Where the hell did his
gloves go? There was an anathema of things going wrong and things
going right. Earlier that day he'd been pulled over for speeding--the
third time this week--on account of a wily, suspiciously hard of
hearing mechanic who, upon handing our hero a large list of tasks
performed or needed to be performed on his truck (brake fluid
streamlining? Initial response system upgrade? Flester bolts
tightened?) with an exorbitant number at the bottom, seemed a bit too
confident exclaiming "She'll really run now!" and now his
speedometer was entirely unpredictable and incorrect, Sean guessing
there was maybe some kind of exponential relationship between the
wheels and needle with no real way to tell.
"Where did I
put my gloves?"
"And that's
why I feel like... you kind of lack direction."
Certainly not in
his pockets, but they couldn't be far, he just had them.
"You know what
I mean?"
"Yeah, I lack
direction. Can you help me look for my gloves instead of just walking
ahead like there's no problem here?"
"What's your
five year plan?"
It was below
freezing and the sun was out, making the snow even brighter than
white. Why did he buy white gloves for the winter?
"Are you
listening to me?"
"Yes! Yes, I
am! You're trying to break up with me because I dropped out of
college and my hands are cold."
"I am not
breaking up with you. Is that what you think?" He was walking
away now, tracing his steps. He was trying to remember if and when he
took his hands out of his pockets or put them in or if he grabbed
something from his pockets or not but these things are quickly
forgotten, like he never did them. "Why do you have to make
everything into a problem?"
"I was
kidding, Sarah! Fuck." She stood there sad while he walked away.
He was very confused, about more than his lost gloves certainly and
started looking into the trees like maybe he accidentally threw them?
Sean knew Will (he
preferred to be called William, but no one did, mostly because they
thought he was trying to sound smart--he wore non-prescription
glasses and this is a 34 year old man) from years ago, they met on
the street when Sean asked for a cigarette or "anything else you
have" and Will had a cigarette. Will didn't smoke, though. And
neither of them were going anywhere, Will was on his front porch
enjoying the sun and crimeless neighborhood he lived in and Sean had
been fighting for time off from work and recently received it because
he got fired for not flushing and then talking about it, the watery
consistency and greenish color, using offensive language to a
customer. Sure, it was a customer he knew kind of but that didn't
matter much apparently.
Sean and Will
bonded profusely on the porch that day mostly because Will was kind
and easy to talk to and too shy to ask this innocent stranger to get
off his porch so he could maybe enjoy a few moments of peace before
engaging once again in the attritious act of being around his
roommates who seemed to always be playing the roles of good roommates
which made Will feel ever more like he needed to reciprocate that
role. Sean talked a little about himself, but asked a lot of
questions too, and Will was kind of delighted to be able to converse
without any expectation. So they were both very open, talked a little
bit about a certain city they'd both lived in, why they'd left, good
places to eat, what they were doing with themselves. And they
exchanged numbers because there was going to be an interesting artsy
music show nearby which Sean knew about because his ex-girlfriend
kept him on this weird art collective of ambiguous membership
listserve despite repeated attempts, including a dreaded first phone
call after the breakup, to remove him from this list. It was mostly
crap he didn't care about about people hundreds of miles away in
Missouri somewhere.
A few days before
Sean lost his gloves he was quickly drinking big gulps of wine with
Sarah and Noelle and Lucas and Will in the living room of Lucas's
well-kept expensive apartment. Sean didn't know how Lucas had enough
money to pay for all this crap or how he had time to clean
(constantly?) and hang up nice pictures.
"But I'm
saying that's not the point. Because in order to even be in office
you have to be someone who's willing to fight to the death."
"And that's
bad?"
"No, but the
way it's--"
"So don't even
try?"
"No! I'm just
saying it's hard!"
"Of course it
is!"
"Yeah, I think
politics are important, but I have zero inclination to get involved."
"Where's the
bathroom?"
"You just want
to listen to music all day?"
"By the
kitchen."
"Does Marie
still have that CD I gave her?"
"Well, I want
to have fun at least."
"You gave
Maria a CD?"
"But it's not
all fun fun fun."
"Obviously it
takes discipline to like... live correctly."
"Marie."
"Is there any
more of this? I like it."
"What?"
"Marie, not
Maria. I gave Marie a CD."
"Do people
still use CDs?"
"I know..."
Why do otherwise
nice apartments always have tiny kitchens? Because the architects
assumed only one person will ever be cooking at any given time?
Kitchens are where things happen, you don't need another room. Sean
fit as much wine as he could into his mouth. As he brought the bottle
from his mouth it revealed a stoic cat sitting serenely on top of
Lucas's fridge. Looking down at him. The bathroom was probably bigger
than the kitchen and had a beautiful heavy tight sound-proof door.
There was a switch for a fan that sucks and one that blew hot air and
Sean turned them both on before finding the one for the light and
there were two others he didn't get to yet. His poop was swift with
little worth mentioning. The wine drunk was stirring up some stuff he
had been purposefully avoiding dealing with by drinking wine. He
wiped to the best of his ability and exiting ran into Sarah and
kissed her.
"Did you see
the cat?"
"Oh, no."
And then, "Do you want to go soon?"
"Yeah."
Okay, so with that
goal in mind, a few minutes later Sean abruptly stood up after Will
asked a question in a conversation he didn't really like, that
confused him, bottle in hand, and stumbled to the coatrack thing. He
felt like Will was leading him along just now, arrogantly but
politely trying to get certain answers out of him or criticize him
somehow but he was being obscure, like he was using an obsolete form
of communication for no reason and then Sean's keys were absent.
"Whare army
keys?"
"What?"
"Where are my
keys?"
"I don't
know."
Then to the group
(third time's the charm): "Where are my keys?"
Everyone looked at
each other. "I have them," said Will. "You can stay
here tonight." Sean thought Will was making a scene because he
let Sean go all the way to the door and grab his coat and address the
whole group.
Sarah said "I
can drive."
"I'd like to
have you guys over tonight."
Sean was in Will's
lap rubbing his hair. "Aw, you want to cook us breakfast?!"
to instant retaliation. Reaching from the cartoon cloud of dust Will
tried to hand Sarah the keys and Sean snatched them but Will held on
and they fought and neither was sure how earnestly the other was
twisting and punching. "Can we have pancakes!?" And
suddenly there was space between them like they were ready to start
kung-fuing each other and they laughed out of breath.
"See you
later."
"Bye."
Cassandra was a
little bit boring and ugly, but otherwise a really great person to be
around and she had an adorable pretentious way of wearing black. They
were making a cake for someone Cassandra really cared about and Sean
didn't really but he understood the sentiment and thought baking a
cake would be kind of a fun thing to do because he did zero baking in
his everyday life.
"Why do you
stack your books like that?"
She turned and
looked at them like she hadn't noticed that they were not vertical
like most, but horizontal then just piled as high as possible, even
though half of them were upside down to read.
"I don't
know," back to the cake. Sean enjoyed sitting in her bedroom
reading whatever book he felt like and would often have five or so
books beside him and switch at random because this is what one had to
do around boring people, get creative.
"Motorcycles
are cool," he stated having just come across that word.
"Yeah."
She actually absolutely loved motorcycles and wanted one badly, but
in order to get a license one had to have a driver's license first
and she didn't trust herself in a car. To be responsible at all times
for the lives of others while in control of a two ton chunk of metal
was not something she was jonesing to do. She was too sensitive for
that, too kind.
One day Sean left
to go start an apprenticeship at a metalsmith's shop in Vermont so
that was the end of that.
A few months in to the
relationship of Sean and Sarah, it was a lovely overcast day walking
the strip of shops where one could purchase delicious fruits and
coffees and pastries and sandwiches and trinkets and clothes and then
sit outside and just enjoy them and feel good with whoever you want.
"Do you like
these things?" she said.
"Yeah, they're
all right."
"I don't know
how I feel about them."
"You don't
have to feel anything about them."
"Uh huh."
"It's not your
responsibility to have an opinion about everything... despite social
and cultural pressure."
"Yeah, I
know. You don't think I know that? You think I care about those
things?" Here the conversation stopped but Sean felt it was kind
of lingering and she was waiting for him to say something to say
something back so she was right and maybe make him feel bad for being
"preachy" too while we're at it. Her side itched and she
was thinking of how she kind of sounded like her mom who learned in
late life that being somewhat drunk all the time was actually pretty
cool.
And now that he
paid up the ass for his truck to run better (faster in any case) than
it was when new he was stuck behind an overcautious driver,
presumably far too old to even drive., their senses failing.
"But what do
you believe in?"
"Lucas! What
kind of question is that?"
"Well, what
are your values? What do you care about?"
"Twenty miles
per hour is grossly more dangerous than speeding here." He tried
to let it lie, but
"Sean, I want
to know... I know you already but I want to hear you put it to
words."
"I'm a white
man and things are confusing. There."
"Oh, come on!"
"What?"
"You must have
some convictions."
"...everything
changes? Is that good enough for you?"
"Getting
there..."
"Because it's
not like I'm some spastic... apathetic irrational thing like afraid
to do anything serious. I'm just trying things. And I don't see the
point in putting all this crap to words! It's hard, it's convoluted.
And words don't do anything."
"Words don't
do anything?"
"You know what
I mean."
"The
Declaration of Independence."
"...I want to
pass this asshole so bad."
Will thought of his
shoelaces, he needed new ones because on his boots there are pivoting
metal hooks for placement of the laces above the holes, only they
didn't really pivot and they cut the lace over time and wore it away.
Another thing on the long list that always renewed itself so,
"Oh, can we
stop in here?" And they did and when they walked in a man with a
fat head and crew cut said "hi" under his breath surrounded
by a mountain of cheap cheap products: phone chargers and batteries
and thread, you could only see his head behind this stuff 360 degrees
around him. Will didn't enjoy the process of shopping as a pastime,
he wanted minimal time in public places as possible, so his eyes
entered selective mode which if kept up for more than four minutes
made his head hurt like it did in a museum.
"Just these?"
"Yeah."
And the guy hit buttons, his hand obscured by products. "You
like this job?"
"Sokay."
"How old are
you?" Who knew why, but he wanted to somehow reach out to this
man. Who is that really? What does he like to do? Does he have a
family? What's his shirt say? He felt a need for the little details
like Will's own shoelace situation, to converse totally freely.
"Too old."
And out of politeness Will paid and thanked the man and left.
He sometimes felt
like this lifeless thing people made to push around or make do what
they wanted, an empty body, and the only thing he could do was try to
refute that. Out in Vermont there wasn't much to do aside from create
drama, pour molten metal and do drugs. On a walk one time (drunk) all
alone, his feet against dry worm-covered cement he couldn't stand the
brightness of his own reflection because back again back again to
this: Everyone he'd known, his memories ceaselessly feeding him and
still making more, and cats. If only people were more like cats. But
he didn't want a cat because you have to feed them and that's
expensive and if you move you have to figure out what to do with the
thing.
Sean liked Kristin
because she was kind and understanding and funny and not too tall
like Sarah was. It was warm and damp and the trees looked greener and
sagged and there was an unnoticeable fog waiting for them always far
off. Sean was somewhat lost in pastoral reverie, his mind bouncing
wherever when she said,
"Look.
Gloves."
They were as wet as
they could be, half buried in the mud stomped down for months with
some tiny important ecosystem formed on the buried part. "They're
mine. I lost these forever ago..."