Midnight

It is 7:45 PM.

I sit alone in a crowded parking lot.

Neon lights stare in as human eyes ignore.

Carts rush by and clank and clatter and crash and stop.

I taste and close my eyes.

And it is midnight.

For one second. For two. Three seconds.  Five.

I open my eyes and it is 7:46 turning to :47.

The sweetness on my lips.

In my mind, it is midnight.

Dark chocolate sends the message of pleasure my brain so desperately needs.

I recall an earlier time.

Quiet, lonely nights.

Comfort found in food alone.  Checks bounced to buy whole pizzas.

Tonight, it's midnight. For exactly 1 minute and 33 seconds, it is midnight.

The rest of the chocolate provides only momentary delight.

And midnight is gone.

By 8:03 PM I am home.

But for almost two full minutes that day, I felt pure pleasure.

Empty

He wore a simple shirt and chinos everyday.  He had four such shirts and two pairs of pants and the laundrymat was just under a mile away.  His house was a small box – an entrance right into the “living area” behind which sat a kitchen and eating area.  Two rooms and a bathroom down a small hallway.  At 6 AM sharp on Monday-Friday he opened the door to usually crisp, cool air.  His car, the aging Mercury Monarch, was serviceable and clean and he arrived at work in 45 minutes or less.  He dreamed of moving to the city.  Of a simple apartment and a walk to work.  Of a White Owl on the way home on cool nights.  Never on the way in, he doesn’t want to smell of cigar when he arrives.  On the way home.  He rarely sees anyone immediately after work, and even if he does manage to grab a fast-food dinner, so what?  If he were to see someone or have a date or event, he’d shower first, anyway. 

 

It concerned him that no one really was out downtown after about 6PM unless there was an event or something.  Kind of odd, really.  A big city with mostly empty buildings for 12, 14, 16 hours a day. 

On the Stairs

He met her on the concrete stairs in the building.  Dark.  There were lights but they never seemed to work or they would flicker in that last gasp of fluorescent life.  The concrete was cool and the halls smelled moldy.  Her scent was bright, fresh, slightly citrus.  The contrast was intense.  The two of them, well-dressed, clean, fresh.  The building old and worn and tired.  A low-rent office space for 3^rd-rate businesses finds two professionals – young, hungry, desperate for a touch.  Her heels cost two months of his office rent.  Her deep brown eyes lingered on his body…taking all of him in.  The slight, well-defined frame of his body … not large, not excessive…but commanding attention and respect.  Her tiny hands deftly unbuckle his belt…slip beneath the wool of his suit, the cotton of his best-of-both-worlds boxer briefs.  Firm, searing hot, of decent proportion. 

 

His lips meet hers and the two of them nearly lift-off, explode.  Neither really likes to be touched.  While appearing appropriate and kind, they’re not truly friendly.  And yet, in these moments, they can’t help but devour each other.  Immerse in one another’s scent, touch, taste.  It’s as if they save every sensual need for these 10 or 15 minutes of sweet escape. 

 

Her skirt is navy, light blue button-down, hair curled and cascading about her shoulders… she’s a hummingbird… dainty, delicate, tan. In 4-inch heels she’s still looking up at him.  Her energy is what he noticed.  And the way she looked amazing at 7:30 AM – perfect, everything in place…and yet, still just as perfect at 6 or 7 PM when their days as co-workers would end.  This was before now…before they had realized their mutual need for each other. 

 

She stepped out of her skirt, turned to the rail.  He nearly climbed her, his need so desperate.  Bodies now joined, pure bliss.  The feel of him inside her was almost too much, too perfect.  Their bodies made for this.  One of his hands on her mouth, her teeth gritting closely to muffle the sound… deep, urgent moans from within that sounded as soft whimpers in the cool stairwell. 

 

This was what… the fifth or sixth meeting they’d had like this?  It started as a coffee meeting one morning with the pretense of a job he could offer her. Then another coffee.  Then lunch.  At that first meeting, her hand brushed his and their eyes met and lights went on.  At the second, a knowing dance around evident desire.  

 

At the third, she thanked him with a hug that became a kiss that she said she shouldn’t have given…but that he gladly accepted. 

 

Now, this.  He thought he heard a door open from a lower floor.  No real danger, but an annoyance.  And then lost.  Totally gone.  A SWAT team could enter the building now and they wouldn’t be able to stop.  In sync.  His teeth grazing her neck.  Hand around her waist.  She clinches down, down. Harder.  Sweet hot heaven.

 

Her skirt back on, she turns to him.  He is zipped, tie straight.  Perfect.  He catches a glimpse of her ankle.  Then her eyes. 

 

Two professionals open the door to the 90+ degree heat and the glaring sun and walk in separate ways to different meetings where they will be stars. 

Monarch

The office is in a building that is 100 years old.  116 years old, really.  It’s a brick building, painted over several times.  Two quick-service restaurants are in the lower floor.  The bathrooms are only accessible with a key because a number of homeless people hang out in the small park just across the street – if the bathrooms were publicly accessible, homeless men would clean up there.  Or live there in the cold or hot weather.  Not really good for business.  But it sucks to have to tell your clients they need your key to use the bathroom.  On the plus side, it is easy to schedule a lunch very close to the office. 

 

The building smells.  Like old paper.  The businesses inside vary.  Lawyers in solo practice.  Medical billing firms.  Some very small production companies.  A jewelry repair shop.  A shoe repair shop.  The building owners also run a company that makes “smart” water, whatever that is.  You have to use the elevators to go upstairs.  This is also to protect from homeless people.  Plus, once you are on a floor, you can only exit via the stairs to the ground floor – again, for safety. 

 

The building locks at 6 and requires special entry via a digital “key.”

 

His office is 125 square feet.  The rent is very low for downtown.  The location is ideal for a number of the occupants.  Rent payment is generally flexible.  His business is somewhat slow – but the office is a nice (and mostly quiet) place for him to write, to think, and to masturbate. 

 

He started seeing clients there recently.  Clients of a vaguely defined business enterprise.  Most paid him in cash.  One particularly exasperating project earned him a year’s supply of free frozen yogurt and $25. 

 

Most of his client engagements lasted two to three months.  He couldn’t quite explain that phenomenon.  But it paid the rent and his bills.  You know food and the cost of maintaining a red Mercury Monarch. 

I used to cry

I used to cry.

I would hear a song or see a movie or watch a video and I'd cry.

I'd cry hard.

That Ed Sheeran song about the A Team would come on and I'd cry in my car and just bawl and lose it.

But, I don't cry anymore.

I'm too hardened by months of sad existence. 

I heard that song -- the one I heard when I was 16 -- "never felt, never know, never shined through in what I've shown..."

And I felt it ... the sensation, the emotion, the calm before the cry.

But, no cry.

No choice but to go on.

To move on. To keep driving. To go to "work." To do what I had to make at least some money today.

Can you be so sad you don't cry?

Can your soul die inside and never come back?

I'm not sure.

I used to want to be touched.  Now, I don't.

I want to be alone and only alone.

All day. Every day.

Forever.

Something is clearly wrong with me. 

The same things keep happening again and again and again.

So, it must be me.

I don't know what it is.

I don't know why it happens.

I know that I don't cry and don't want to be touched and I want to be alone.

I know that I'm watching my life from outside myself.

Do people know I have a dying soul?

Do people sense the rotten dark spot inside me? Is that it?

What if I can convince just one person to not see it... to look past it?

Will my soul regenerate just a bit? Can I get it back?

Every time I think about being completely happy, I think of a single moment when I was 17. 

One, single moment.  That moment was surrounded by other, very joyous moments.  But at that moment, I was completely, totally happy. 

I was innocent, young, ignorant of the perils that awaited me.

And I wonder if, if I'll ever feel that again. Or something close.

Or, if, because I don't cry, I can't be truly happy, either.

If the loss of my soul is permanent...

I used to cry.

I wrote a poem once

I wrote a poem once.

It was about fog

How the fog set in on the fields

Just as day turned to night

A road in a rural setting

Windows down in a modest car

the scent of cut grass coming through the window

The fog set in on the fields

As I drove alone

I wrote the poem

For a woman I loved

She knew I loved her,

Or, I think she did

I wrote a poem, once

For a woman I loved

And now, she's gone

And I never said those words

Just sent her the poem in an email

When I think of emailing her now,

a lump grows in my throat

I think of that poem

of the songs we both loved

Of the connection we both felt

Of the words I never said out loud

And I know I can't talk to her, can't send

her another poem

She's gone

Not just gone from me

Gone from the world

Her body rests below the earth

near one of those fields

The fog sets in as day turns to night

And wraps her in its arms

And my prayer, my hope

Is that in that fog, she hears my words

"I love you"

Have a Good Day

Dear Dad,

I hope you always have a good day.

Thank you for taking care of me.

I love you.


He kept this note, on paper shaped like a heart, in the center drawer of his desk.

He looked at it nearly every day. 

His daughter, 6, had given it to him one morning as he was walking out the door.

He had put it in the center drawer on a cold and gray day.

And forgotten it, mostly.  As bills and documents and notes filled his desk.  As he tried earnestly, then desperately to get a call back, to get an interview.

Then, one warm, bright day he opened that drawer.  And saw the note.  Remembered exactly the day she had given it to him.

He sobbed uncontrollably.  He threw the clock from his desk to the opposite wall and delighted in watching it shatter on the ground.  He threw a box of envelopes.  He pounded on his desk. He cried some more.

He knew that in just two months, all the money and all the access to money would be gone.  That the illusion of his "going to work" would be exposed.  That the only thing he had done since the writing of that note was "pretend" to work and organize funds to keep things going.  At least through the school year so that wouldn't be disturbed.

They had a summer vacation coming up.  After that, not long after that, it would be over.

By July, he'd hit 6 months of unemployment.  And the few small "client contracts" he had barely paid his office rent. 

He'd heard a news story about how people who have been unemployed for 6 months or more NEVER got hired.  It was automatic wastebasket for their resumes.  Not even an interview.  Call it unemployment discrimination or just figuring that if this person was good, they'd have gotten a job within 6 months of losing the last one.  So, out of 100 resumes received, 10-15 could be automatically thrown out just based on dates. 

He know that about three weeks after the vacation, he'd hit the 6 month mark.  He'd had exactly two interviews.  And then the letters about how better, stronger candidates had been chosen for final interviews. 

Thank you for taking care of me, she'd written.

And he had been.  For almost 7 years.  And for years before that by being a good steward of his income and managing the household finances frugally.  But now he couldn't imagine changing the lifestyle to which she'd become accustomed. 

He looked at the note every single day after the day when he cried and threw a fit. 

It reminded him to keep working, keep looking, keep fighting. It made him smile when he thought of his daughter and her love for him.  And the deep, strong love he felt for her - a love he'd never felt for anyone else. 

I hope you always have a good day.

Such a simple plea, really.  And when he returned home, he tried to make it seem true.  He hugged her and threw her up in his arms. 

He wondered if she had any idea about the sadness inside him.  Wondered if she could sense a change. 

He knew that on the upcoming family vacation, he'd be robbed of joy.  There'd be a moment or two where he'd be lost and blissfully enjoying his surroundings and the quiet family peace.  But they'd be short and at night, he'd think of returning home, of a three week limit.  Of an ugly end to a summer. 

Would school start with his daughter telling her friends My Daddy lost his job, but it's alright.  We're getting an apartment?

Would he get a call? Or a new client? Or a contract? 

Would money fall from the sky?  Would it be smart to spend $5 a week on lottery tickets or save that money for when the going got really, really tough?

Maybe he could through September?

After he started his morning with an email to each of his few clients and some job browsing and resume distribution, he'd started browsing online classifieds for women.

Maybe the comfort a woman for an hour or two would help him forget?  Or maybe he'd find someone similarly desperate and they could steal away a few times a week and escape into each other's kisses for a moment or more. 

And then, he'd send an email or two.  Maybe send and receive a photo. 

Then, open that center desk drawer and read, I hope you always have a good day.

And he wouldn't reply to the next email or he'd delete the thread and he'd circle back to the job boards and his network and see what he might work on that would allow him to keep taking care of the girl to whom he was everything. 

He began to feel tension in his shoulders and neck.  Ran the shower at night hotter and hotter.  Turned the music up in the car on the way home.  Added weight-lifting to his running routine.  Eventually, he'd end up masturbating every single day before he left his office.  And for 10 minutes, maybe 15, the stress would just float away. 

But, back in the car facing traffic, it would be back.

One month.  Two.  Then it's over. 

For now, he tucks the note back in the drawer. And opens the email about the condo where his family will be in less than seven days.  Maps out the route. And tries to forget that after the beach comes the end. 

I watch the trees

I watch the trees go from bare limbs to little buds to blooms in white and light pink and in some cases purple and even red.  Now, they are full-on green.  Filling out, fluffing up.  Dusting the air with the remnants of yellow pollen.  Making the mornings thick with heightened humidity.

The trees were still bare and cold when the job went away.  Today, they are full.  Nothing has changed.  I drive the same route each day.  Sometimes, dropping my daughter at school when it is her turn.  She doesn't know about this.  The lack of a job.  Because I spend every single day working at finding work.

I write and talk and call and email and respond and fill out forms.  My fingers nearly bleed from the typing.  My eyes growing red and weary and itchy and blinder.  As the buds turned to blooms, there were calls.  I took them.  I met a person.  An interview, I guess.  And nothing. And nothing.  My prospects now as barren as the January trees.  Obligations growing as fast as spring grass.

Yesterday, in the mail.  The mail that no one sees, it came.  My source of income for the next five or six months.  A small piece of plastic with the word "Platinum" across the front. 

It has been seven years since I've even used such a device.  As the savings ran low, I realized I needed a new option.  A good customer at the online bank, I filled out the forms, worried that they'd call to verify my employment status.  But, with an excellent credit rating and solid history of payments at this very bank and a rather high reported income (accurate in January, not so much, now), I was approved in less than five minutes.  For an amount equal to my take home for 5 months.  Which with creative accounting, I can make last at least 6 or even 7. 

So, I have that much time to find a job. And of course, if I use all of it, the proceeds from that new source of revenue will go largely to paying down the debt incurred (interest free until late next year).

My first purchase? A sandwich.  For lunch.  I have to eat and peanut butter and crackers and water is getting tiresome.  The kind I used to eat at home for a snack 30 years ago. 

But tomorrow, the bills get paid.  None have been late, yet.  I'm managing through use of savings and creative shifting of monies in various accounts. 

But the trees keep on changing.  And today I realized that soon, summer will be over, the flowers will fade, the scary decorations will be on the lawns, the leaves will turn yellow and brown and red and magic, and my lot will be the same and my time will be almost out. 

Today, though, the trees are full.  And a few months of brightness and life are ahead.

The Best Thing

The best thing about being officially unemployed with a big savings account from years of working secure jobs and living conservatively is, well, everything.

Except for watching that account get smaller and smaller.  But hey, for now, there's money.

So, you can go to a very long lunch at the Mexican restaurant just a bit from your office.  You can realize how incredibly fat everyone there is.  Disgustingly fat.  You can contemplate how they smell -- everywhere.  How they aren't fucking anybody with those bodies, just fucking their faces with nachos.

How you are fucking your face with nachos, too.  But you're thin.  Your BMI and just any plain observer would say so.

Maybe one day, if this keeps up, you will be a fat Mexican restaurant goer, too.  And you'll go with other fat people because you will all be fucking your faces with food because you can't fuck each other so there's no pressure.

But, while you're thin, you go alone.  Because you don't have a job and who wants to fuck a good-looking dude with no job? And if you go with someone who has a job, they have to get back to work and they can't drink two margaritas at lunchtime. 

For the record, I only drank diet coke on this day.  I'm not ready to be fat and un-fuckable -- yet.

So, you can watch the fat people.  And you can marvel at the delightfully thin, well-proportioned businesswoman who clearly has a job and who, of course, walks past the Mexican place but doesn't eat there. 

And you can ponder the ads for the nail salon - the ads featuring painted toes.  And you can wonder why the toes and feet aren't really that pretty.  I mean, couldn't they have gotten women with prettier feet to be the feet models for their ads? And then you can further marvel at the woman who is 50 and has big hair and is wearing sandals of some kind and has a giant bunion and her toes aren't painted and you can think that this is some huge miscarriage of justice.

And you can wear your suit and tie to "work" so you can feel professional and then you can take the tie off in the morning and jack off at your desk because no one will be coming in and because touching your dick feels good and because you can't do it with an actual person because they will find out you don't have a job and then feel like shit for fucking you and your mostly average dick that doesn't really stay hard anymore because you don't have a job so your confidence is waning even though you look damn good in your tailored suit and silk tie and soon you won't be able to buy new ties or shirts to go with the nice suits you own and you can keep wearing the suits to the office and they will wear out and then you won't be able to buy more but for now you look damn good and people check you out but you can't even get aroused unless you are alone and you are alone a lot because you are trying to be a writer or some god damn thing and you think that if you finish eating Mexican food with fat people you can walk back to your office and sit at your laptop -- the one you bought when you lost the secure job you had - and you can type a bunch of crap and people will read it and like it and then pay you or offer a book deal which never happens because no one reads a blog with 15 posts and then tells the blogger they can have a book deal and now you are wondering when this tremendously long run-on sentence may end - or, it may not -- and you contemplate Bartleby Scrivner and you're not even sure you spelled it right and you would prefer not to pretend anymore about the job thing and you really want to be doing readings of your new book that currently is just 10,000 words on your computer in some file and well, that's all for this.

And so you do write.  And you blog.  And you check your stats and discover you are getting some clicks and making some cash just by sitting there or writing snarky posts that people may even laught at.

So, yeah, it is pretty good to be unemployed and think about the big shit you took yesterday or the ulcer you may be getting from worrying but trying to not appear too worried because you don't want anyone to know but maybe if you told them they'd help you get a job but probably not because they know you and so they know why you don't have a job and why you lost the one before that.

Plus, you keep wearing suits and going to the office, so things seem fine. But if they didn't, they'd definitely not help you because who hires some unemployed, depressed bastard who needs to work real bad? No fucking one, that's who.

And so it wears on you but you've just had a big Mexican meal with fat people and taken some medicine for your seasonal allergies and you are craving a nap but afraid to take one because what if you oversleep and then miss your appointment to volunteer - that's right, you don't have a job but you fucking volunteer every week for no good reason but you do like the work but they don't know you're unemployed and so actually worse off than the people you are helping but then you do have that savings account and so despite the fact it is dwindling you feel ok and can put on a good face and all that.

Fat people. Mexican food.  Playing around with your dick at your desk.  That's why it is good to be unemployed but with some cash.

The Big Day

Yesterday, I had a meeting in the morning and a job interview at 1 PM.

Yes, I'm actively interviewing for jobs because I'm a writer, not yet an author, and all the money I make blogging just doesn't buy more than a pack of Trident.

So, the morning meeting.  Beforehand, I had a cup of coffee.  A caramel macchiato from Starbucks, to be exact.  Grande.  Very tasty.

I don't usually interact with many people during a day, so seeing 5 other people around a table at close quarters, well, it was a lot.

I did fine.  The meeting went well, lasted an hour, things were accomplished. 

Then I drove to the office.  Got stuff together, sat down, composed my thoughts, and drove to the interview.

At 1:54, I walked out the door from the interview building and got to my car.

Upon returning to my office, I was exhausted.

My coat and tie came off.  I went to the men's room and took a huge, amazing shit.  It was physically very pleasing, really.  But it exhausted me even more.

I sat back at the desk and looked at some writing.  Then nearly fell asleep.

I walked around the office to stay awake.

I thought about how being with people makes me tired and how extroverts are made energetic through the same process and I was amazed, really.  Pleased that I'd performed well and not seemed tired.  Surprised that just two events in one day totally zapped me. 

Don't get me wrong.  I enjoy the interaction.  Relish the chance to engage with people.  But it makes me tired. 

And it makes me poop -- that crazy, disgusting, amazing anxiety poop.  I got home and ate dinner and took another big ass shit. 

And then sat down in front of the TV with a diet coke and just ... well, decompressed.  Did nothing.

I awoke this morning and my stomach is still suffering from yesterday.  I'm guessing that if I actually got this jobs, there'd be two or three or even every day of a week when I'd have multiple meetings.  Would I exist in an exhausted state? Would I get used to it?  Would my body adjust?  Or, would my performance suffer with time and wear?

I'm thinking I'd need to be guarded with my non-work time.  And schedule regular vacations and even breaks in the day to regroup and re-energize.  And to poop.

Mainly to poop, which is a good time to be alone unless some dumbass is whistling in the men's room. Which is behavior I still don't understand.

That is all.

5:45 AM

The alarm sounds

5:45 AM

Which turns into 5:53 AM

A mere passage to ... 6:01 AM

And a grunt at 6:09 AM

Feet on the floor at 6:10 AM

Out of the shower at 6:21 AM

Shaved and hair fixed at 6:38 AM

In my robe at 6:45 AM

Coffee starts at 6:53 AM

Pet the cat at 6:56 AM

Take vitamins at 6:58 AM

Pour coffee at 7:01 AM

Open yogurt at 7:04 AM

Finish coffee at 7:10 AM

Brush teeth at 7:12 AM

On the toilet at 7:14 AM

Wash hands at 7:17 AM

Shirt on at 7:20 AM

Suit on at 7:22 AM

Check phone at 7:25 AM

Feed cat at 7:27 AM

Open door at 7:29 AM

Hit the street at 7:30 AM