My chest clenches and my stomach bottoms out as if to say,  ‘Are you sure?’ But I feel sure. Making some decisions today, no doubt about that! Not thinking about certain things today, no doubt about that!

I look at my face in the bathroom mirror, sallow and grayish, my teeth browning in the cracks, a kind of a low gum line on the bottom incisors, a kind of chapped, painted look to the lips, actual countable pores on my forehead, divided by a real wrinkle that starts between my once lush and still-masculine brows and tapers out halfway to my scalp. A not too unattractive face, when seen in my memory or maybe from afar (though when I see it reflected in windows, the eyes seem exceptionally beady and the jaw stern). Never mind. I’m not distracted by these things anymore. I tape a pillowcase over my mirror using packing tape from a time in my life when I needed it, when I moved and sent packages. There’s a chunky white substance in the corner of the pillowcase, which I tell myself is laundry detergent (flashing back to middle school, Megan Lambert, tall and beautiful, laughing and turning red, saying that the stain on her cardigan was in fact laundry detergent, not semen, haha, what a joke. I’m like her now. Laughing. Haha).

I take a trash bag into my bedroom and go through my clothes: too small, hole, out of fashion, too bold, too ratty. It fills, and I put it in the hallway outside my apartment, and go back to my bedroom with a new bag.

I throw away a pair of brown loafers with holes in the bottoms, almost completely crystalized with sidewalk salt – last year’s winter boots. I still have my cross-country shoes from high school, fifteen years old, but lightly worn. I hold them and close my eyes, visualizing their value in terms of use and pleasure. They go in the bag.

I toss a pair of stained underwear, and think about how I’m going to buy myself an attractive, soft pajama set. That’s the kind of stuff I like now. A fourth trash bag of my clothing goes into the hall, to be taken downstairs in the morning when I’m feeling more rested.

 

I visualize myself getting coffee with Sarah tomorrow, really bonding and getting to know each other, breaking out of this two-year pattern of drinking, complaints, and misunderstandings. Maybe we could go out for breakfast, play cards, really listen – or better, not have anything to say. We could just exist together.

I text to see if she wants to get breakfast. ‘Can’t really spend money on restaurants right now but I have some beer I could bring over if you want.’ The true opposite of what I’d planned, almost as if she’s willfully unable to see how nice it might be: the silent, guileless pancakes.

‘What if we just got some coffee somewhere? We could play cards.’

‘Don’t really like cards and honestly can’t spend money on coffee.’

Well, okay.

I’m angry for a second, feeling that it must be a deep lack of imagination that holds Sarah back from fully understanding how wonderful my proposition is, and that I, if I am really in a position of being honest with myself today and every day moving forward, don’t really need to be around people with that kind of stubborn lack of imagination, that inflexibility and unwillingness to let me take control (no one ever wants to do what I want to do, and I’m so permissive, so ‘Oh okay!’ all the time, so ‘Tell me about your day’ all the time, that again and again I end up doing things I don’t want to do: acting the therapist, toeing my limit with alcohol even though I’m visualizing tea, pretending to be grateful at my workplace even though I want to be home). But, I don’t need to feel this way. I want to be happy, and  I want to nurture my friendships, and I want to be happy to see Sarah, so that’s what I’m going to do.

I think about offering to buy her coffee, but then I feel like that’s what she was angling for, and I’m not going to do that (be manipulated) anymore, so I let the text hang.

I am looking at clothing I could buy for myself and thinking about making some kind of salad when Sarah texts ‘actually p bored rn can I just come over tonight?’

‘Oh okay!’

I try to relax. I’m not drinking before she arrives, despite having several nice IPAs on hand from my recent Peapod order, and I have made a mustard vinaigrette to go on a spinach salad that we might share.

She shows up an hour after her text with four warm beers in her backpack. ‘What’s with the bags outside?’ she asks. ‘Oh, just doing a little house cleaning,’ I say. She raises her eyebrows and nods, stepping over two boxes that I have filled with knickknacks from the living room, and a filthy rolled-up carpet.

She offers me a beer and asks for a cigarette. I give her one, ask if she wants anything to eat, indicating the salad in a large bowl on the counter. She says, ‘No, I’m not going to eat that. I’m good.’ I nod and say, ‘Cool,’ and put it back in the fridge uncovered. We sit in momentary silence. She blows breath out of her mouth, puffing up her cheeks either like a monkey, or like someone with deep world-weariness.

‘Sooo, how are things with you?’ I ask.

She makes an immediate mistake, thinking that, again, I will be interested in hearing a story featuring coworkers and family members I do not know.

I don’t even try to listen, I just sit, grunting occasionally, ‘Oh, yeah, Chris, he sounds awful,’ trying to stay conscious, drinking quickly, hoping it might unlock some latent interest in the narrative. I try to interject, to change the subject to something broader that I might be able to participate in, but my attempt is reaching (‘That’s like that one movie’). She veers to a dark topic, a trauma that her college friend, clearly suicidal, suffered years ago.

I want to ask her opinion on the clothing that I want to order, but we’ve never done that before. I think: I really like Sarah’s clothes, that is something I value about her, taking after a suggestion from an article I read online about how to get along with people. Focus on their strengths. Sarah pauses to take a drink and say, ‘Ugh, anyway.’

I take my opportunity.

‘So I think I’m going to get some new work clothes – and maybe just some new clothes in general.’

‘Oh,’ she says. Incurious, flat.

‘Yeah, I was thinking that if I’m going to be committing to a new job that I’m not really that hot on, I should at least enjoy some of the perks.’

‘They offered you the job?’

‘Not yet, but I thought it would be a good idea to get myself in the right headspace to accept the offer when it comes.’ This sounds reasonable to me. Almost true.

‘I can’t really afford clothes right now,’ she says. ‘I bought these socks a few months ago, they’re really expensive, but I wear them like three times a week.’

I look at her socks and tell her she’s mentioned them before.

‘But whatever,’ I say, ‘I’m not rolling in money now or anything, but all of my clothes are too tight and have holes and stains.’ This she knows, so I don’t know why she’s looking at me like I’m the fucking king of France. ‘And I want to get a few new things. I don’t know,  I feel like it might help.’

‘Sure, why not, if you have the money and you don’t have any student debt or bills, why not?’

I stare at her.

‘Can I show you what I’m thinking of getting?’

I recognize that she can’t actually say no, even if that’s what she wants. Even if all parts of her are screaming no, she can’t actually say no.

She makes a face close enough to a nod and doesn’t verbally object, so I get my laptop. I wanted her to say yes. I wanted her to want to help me with this. This should be fun. I would be more than willing to help her cultivate a more professional appearance, if that’s what she wanted. Working on a project or a problem is something friends do together, to help them bond.

I show her a plaid smock, thick tights, a cardigan, an oversized turtleneck sweater, a button-up shirt, fake suede gloves. She manages an ‘Oh, that’s cute’ to the button-up. ‘I’m horrible with clothes,’ I say. ‘I really need a new coat, too, but I’m at such a loss.’

She says the clothes are fine, and then goes on to tell me that  I shouldn’t worry about it. She mentions maybe waiting until I get the job offer to buy the clothes, and I say, ‘But you think I should get these?’ She says, ‘Yeah, they’re fine. I mean, if you can afford them.’

The night is not going as planned. We drink all of the beers, and switch to a bottle of cooking sherry that I keep in a cabinet by my spices. I’m not sure if it’s even alcoholic, but it tastes alcoholic, especially in my mouth the next morning. She still wants to talk about whatever friend or family member with whatever drug problem, and I lean forward and say, ‘So you guys were pretty close, so that’s why you’re taking this so hard.’ I put my hand on my chin and furrow my brow. ‘This is really affecting you on a day-to-day level.’

‘Well, I mean, no, we weren’t that close, it’s just on my mind.’

‘Is it on your mind because you feel that Chris isn’t taking your criticisms of his management style the right way? And you feel some connection there, between your cousin’s frustrations and your own?’

‘I mean, now that you mention it.’

‘I think the best thing to do in these situations is to just take things as they come. Take it more in stride. You’re going to be fine, none of this is a big deal, you can’t control other people – you could adopt that as a mantra.’

She launches back into the same old story from the top, and  I catch a glint of my laptop on the kitchen counter, calling to me. I should pull the trigger on those dresses. The last thing I remember doing with a clear head is thinking about pulling the trigger.

 

In the morning, in bed with only my pants on, fragments come back. Sarah talking about how some event came right before her ‘promotion’; how some argument between her and her other friend was when they both got their ‘promotions’; the slug in my gut swirling around, gurgling things to me about ‘promotions’ and a secret voice whispering to me that I am not going to get a promotion, that my promotion is the one that should be in quotation marks.

Sarah talking about her fabled student loans again while I pulled the trigger on some new dresses for my new lifestyle.

Some garbage stories about people I don’t know, flaccid pickings at gossip, rote monologue, hollow martyrdom. Little digs. Everyone taking little digs.

A pounding in my head like something wants out. A memory of how I wanted today to feel, that memory transposed on top of what’s really happening: not getting calm pancakes with Sarah, but hating her deeply, blindly, a barfy feeling as I’m still trying to make the dream possible: still might finish my cleaning project, still might sign up for that yoga class, still might, still might. I step into the shower and almost faint, an image of taking the day by the throat and bashing its head against the wall floating in my mind.

 

Some hours pass. I put on a coat and other necessary winter gear and leave my apartment. The sun is shining even though it’s incredibly cold. I go to the park across the street where the high school has its gym classes. I walk the concrete path around the park, lined with trees, circling a small baseball field, a basketball court, a defunct community garden. As I walk I feel like the scenery is coming at me, rather than me walking through it. I can barely feel my body moving, trees coming at me, feeling the 3D space, a gray stumpy tree shifting and gliding past me, movie-theater roller coaster, rounding the corner of the track, watching the garages, back porches, dumpsters, wires shift in and out of view. Almost transcendent. Feeling myself finally calming down. Feeling my face relax to the point where I can’t even feel my face.

I see a dog in the park. I see kids playing on the playground in their puffy coats, parents or maybe nannies on the benches watching, talking.

I walk the track over and over, thinking about my situation. Assessing my life. Where will I go and what will I do?

I almost feel like I’m flying, light and easy.

I walk for maybe forty minutes in this circle, until a woman in a polo shirt with a whistle approaches me, smiling.

‘How we doing today?’ she asks, and I wonder if it’s really that easy to get people to engage with you, if relaxing really is the key to socialization.

‘I’m doing well,’ I say, not wanting to stop, feeling myself almost try to walk past her, but her stepping in the way of my path, me pivoting, slowing, reluctant.

‘So we’re doing okay today?’ she asks, again, the tone in her voice has force, I recognize it as malevolent almost immediately. I start to get nervous.

‘Yeah, we’re doing fine today.’ Haha.

‘Been doing a little bit of drinking today, maybe?’ she asks.

‘Drinking? Oh, no, for sure not. I’m just clearing my head, going on a walk in the park,’ I say. Then, like maybe it will make a difference, I point over my shoulder and say, ‘I live right there.’

‘Seems like you’ve been walking around in circles and stumbling a bit for almost the past hour,’ she says. I notice a family in the playground behind her. The son throwing a lackluster snowball, his puffed suit moving unnaturally, his mother watching with tight lips. I know she did this to me. Fuck you, I think. Fuck you.

‘Stumbling, I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘I had a long, stressful week at work, and I’m just getting some exercise.’ It sounds completely reasonable to me, as it comes out. The intonation is perfect. If we were on the phone, with this kind of intonation, this kind of diction, I could get her to give me her checking account number, maybe some health details, depending on context.

But we’re not on the phone, and the context here is clear: she, in a white thermal under a baby-blue Chicago Parks District polo, a whistle and keycard lanyard, and those noisy kinds of jogging pants, fogged breath coming out of her, a tight, unforgiving braid almost at the crown of her head, and me in my brown men’s overcoat with the lining hanging out the bottom, sweatpants and cheap snow boots – though I would think she might respond to the sweats, find some affinity there – and my hair still clearly uncombed and freezing in parts from my shower even though it’s mostly underneath my dollar-store stocking cap. The context is clear. If only I still had my glasses. It’s amazing what a person can get away with when wearing glasses.

I imagine her getting a walkie-talkie call about me – the creepy stumbling man/woman – and looking down at me from her window in the field house, and deciding that she was going to just nip it, just come down here and take me out, get ’er done, as they say, and then her hustling down the stairs, body in full motion, a little articulation of the elbows, a little pneumatic pump of the arms. Nothing really that my ultra-smooth cadence can do to convince her of my innocence in the matter.

‘Well, maybe you want to get your exercise somewhere else, and you can come back to the park when you’re feeling better.’

‘I’m feeling fine, miss,’ I say, ‘but I also don’t want to cause any trouble’. The feeling of relaxation in my body is so profound as I say this that I almost start laughing. I feel light. I feel that it would not be completely out of the realm of possibility for me to daintily raise my hand and give this park ranger a cupped and not too hard slow-motioned slap across her face.

I find it odd that neither of us is leaving and neither of us is talking, and it makes me smile.

‘Oh, yes, right,’ I say, remembering that I’m the one who is supposed to leave. She works here. I think toodle-oo, but don’t say it, and I walk off towards Augusta, the opposite direction of my apartment. Possibly she thinks I was lying about living nearby, but this is one of those small things that everyone is always encouraging everyone else not to worry about too much – who cares what she thinks of my apartment? Her mention of alcohol does make me want to stop by the local winery for a bottle of their finest, but maybe I should take a hawt bawth instead, what do you think, Chancellor? Oh, Madame, a hawt bawth would be lovely, but I do on occasion wonder if you’ll be lonely tending to your own bawth. Will you not be there with me to draw it, sir? Ah, Madame, I would be if it were now, but so many things can happen between the promenade and m’lady’s bawth, that promises cannot be made, and wishes might be left unfulfilled.

A light snow begins to fall, little pieces of it kissing my cheeks, my lips, sweet lover, in my hair, cooling my anxiety sweat, making the wetness of my socks in these boots with the hole a little more festive. I take a deep breath, imagining it filling up my brain, then chest, then stomach, and I let it out through my mouth.

The liquor store isn’t open yet. I walk aimlessly a while longer, between that space where it would be a gift from the sweet Lord Jesus to run into someone I knew and get some spiced hot cider, and it being the worst because I’m not wearing underwear and didn’t brush my teeth because I was afraid of the taste of the water. Aimless, giddy dread fills me. I could swoon. I remember that my new clothes arrive on Thursday, and I say, ‘Oh, well that’s nice,’ out loud, to no one.