Chapter 1
As I slumped down the corridor toward the break room, I reflected on the pathetic state of my life. It wasn’t surprising in the least that a customer would respond to me in that fashion. In fact, I almost came to expect it. One day it would be my mother, anther day it would be the postman the waitress, the apartment manager…it was likely to be just about anyone who came into contact with me. I had come to refer to my malady as “The Plague.” Oh yes, it had reached catastrophic proportions. It was as if stupidity grasped on to them and kept them wrapped tightly in its clutches until they managed to escape my presence. I was paranoid, perhaps, but in light of previous events, I could hardly be blamed for suspecting and preparing for the worst.
To give you a better understanding of the manifest stupidity that preceded my excursion to the break room, I offer here, as an example, a conversation that took place between myself, and my boss, Mrs. Caffey, some weeks earlier.
Mrs. Caffey (I hated calling her that. It made her seem as though she was my first grade teacher.) had noticed that I was a little bit edgy at work and that my sales figures had dropped significantly over the past month. Subsequently, she called me into a meeting to discuss the problem. When I come to think of it, the whole thing felt like a parent-teacher conference. Mrs. Caffey began with a short analysis of the last month and indicated her concern and her willingness to help in any way possible to resolve my problems. I initially claimed that my problems were of a personal nature and that I would handle them privately. I then promised not to let the personal things interfere with my work nor my attitude at work. Mrs. Caffey listened quietly, but her motherly instincts got the better of her and she persisted.
“Listen, O’Reilly, she said, “I’m your boss. You can trust me. If there is something in your life that not right I can help, I think you ought to tell me.”
Her eyes twinkled gaily in expectation of some deep dark secret that I might confidentially trust to her care. I decided (ignorantly in retrospect) to come clean and tell her my concerns.
“Mrs. Caffey,” I could see her edge anxiously forward, “I guess I’ve just been a little lonely lately and working all these nights isn’t helping my social life any. I guess I feel like I am getting older and, well, nothing is happening.”
I said the words with as much honesty and straight forwardness as I thought prudent, but the instant they escaped my mouth, I knew they had innocently betrayed me.
Upon speaking the words, I could see the evil talons of stupor and idiocy reach up and grasp tightly to Mrs. Caffey’s mouth and force it into a clown-like grin, and then it spoke.
“So you’re not getting any. I might have suspected it. Well, O’Reilly, sexual frustration is something many people deal with on a regular basis. I have this therapist that is just wonderful. I can give you her name. She’ll cure you in a heartbeat.”
“I don’t think you understand, Mrs. Caffey,” I blurted as I tried to prevent her from getting too carried away. “I think I just need a few nights off so I can date a little but and, you know, get into the single scene, that’s all.”
“You know, Carl, impotence is a curable thing. You don’t have to be embarrassed or shy. Why, with the techniques they have nowadays, you’ve no reason to worry at all. You’ll be back in commission in no time.”
“Mrs. Caffey! Mrs. Caffey!” I tried to stop her from continuing but the evil stupid beast had overwhelmed her and she rambled on about therapists and psychoanalysis and recovery. It was painful to behold really. I tried one last desperate attempt to shock her into intelligence. I stood abruptly and calmly proceeded to tell her that impotence was my concern but that virginity was. I then told her a few evenings off each week might help me resolve that concern. Her reply was as I expected.
“Carl,” she said with all tenderness and love, “have you been in to see a medical doctor about this virginity thing.”
In a span of five minutes, I had been transformed from a lonely, decent moral guy into a carousing, active, impotent hustler in need of a psychotherapist. Before the end of the day, I had received condolences from my male co-workers and evil glares from the females who thought me deserving of my fictitious infirmity.
I only mention this story to give you a brief understanding of the confusion that clouded my mind as I walked sluggishly to the break room. I also mention this particular story, because it adequately represents the myriad of other instances that I could have chosen. For instance, my apartment manager thought I dealt drugs because I asked him for a parking space. My mother thought I abused animals, and my next-door neighbor was convinced I was a multimillionaire on the run from the IRS. The list was enormous. “The Plague” was alive and well.
I reached the break room and immediately fell into the cushions of the rickety couch that gracefully adorned the wall opposite the refrigerator. I closed my eyes briefly in the hopes that my day hadn’t actually begun, and that I might just have dreamed it all. I remained in blissful peace for a few minutes before Jeremy tripped into the room struggling to light a cigarette.
“He, Captain, what’s up?” he murmured as his mouth tried desperately to keep the cigarette still enough to light. Jeremy had been stricken by “The Plague,” but it was harder to distinguish it with him. Chronic stupidity wasn’t a big leap for hi, but he too, felt its effects. He believed me to be a Vietnam was vet. It never occurred to him that I was exactly 4 years old when the war ended, and I couldn’t possibly have been there. My military career, however, was a direct result of my innocent comment that I liked the Doors. He took it from there.
I replied that nothing was up, and that I hoped he would keep the captain stuff between us only, as I didn’t want others to know. He nodded eagerly and blew a cloud of smoke high into the air.
“So, Captain, you doing anything tonight? Me and Charles are thinking about going to that club on 15th and Simon. Maybe you could go with us.”
It was Friday and Mrs. Caffey was gracious enough to give me the night off-I told her I had a session. I really didn’t like hanging out with Jeremy, but since nothing was planned, and I didn’t want to rot away at home, I gave him as encouraging a reply as I could.
“Maybe.” I said as I forced my lips into a faint smile of enthusiasm.
“All right, we’ll see ya there, Cap.” He blew another cloud into the air and stumbled back on to the sales floor.
Before Jeremy’s smoke had time to settle on the breakroom décor, Janice Thorogood whispered through the door growling feverishly.
“Carl, that woman is killing me today. I swear I’m gonna have a nervous breakdown. I swear it.”
My repose was thus disturbed, so I asked the inevitable question. “What did she do to you, today?”
“Are you taking her side, Carl? I knew you would. You Communists are all alike.”
She continued on and on. I closed my eyes and prayed once again that it was all a dream.
posted by Cool Dad @ 2:42 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home