I do not wake in the morning to the sound of fine china and silverware clinking together on a serving tray held in the capable hands of Barrington; my batman, my butler. I do not wake up to the smell of hot-buttered croissants, strong Colombian coffee and my freshly ironed copy of the New York Times. I do not prop myself up on the fine duck feather pillows in their Arabian silk covers as Barrington lowers the tray into my lap.
I wake in the morning to the sound of an argument upstairs; the rasping, cheap scotch cry of Make my goddamn breakfast, you slack bastard!
I wake up to the smell of other people’s cooking and the musty scent of sex in a room with poor ventilation. It’s the first day of Summer but the sky is still that anonymous, amorphous shade of gray it’s been since forever. It’s raining, too, and I don’t know her name, the woman lying there without the bed covers.
On the thrift store bedside table is a plastic tumbler either half-full or half-empty of beer and cigarette stubs and then I stare up at the ceiling and I can’t remember when I started to smoke. I raise a hand to my face and feel the beard and wonder how I got here.
Not life. I don’t mean some grand metaphysical question. I know full well my story, my life.
The things we do to ourselves.
I merely mean, How’d I get home last night, with her in tow.
I climb out of bed and walk into the shower, closing the mould-spotted plastic curtain and seeking some sort of answer in the steam, as though the solution will appear in the hot white empty space before my eyes.
Between my ears.
I wash everything twice and make a mental note to check the woman’s identity -- from her purse if not her person -- like a homicide detective in the bedroom.
The scene of the crime.
Back in the bedroom I check my bedside clock with the cracked face and the radio not-tuned to static. I grope about on the floor still naked in the five a.m. half-light, trying to find a clean pair of underwear. As I find them and pull them on, I go blind. The woman from the bed has her hands over my eyes.
“Guess who?” she purrs.
“I wish I could,” I say.
Her hands drop away.
“Prick,” she mutters. She reaches for her cigarettes, her lighter. In the brief firelight, that hot flickering that comes into the world so quickly and just as soon is gone -- like sex, like love -- I see I’m wearing her underwear. I just shrug, pull on my pants, my shirt, my jacket. I say something vague about letting herself out, and leave for work.
Stepping out into the cold Ontario morning.
Stepping out to make a killing at the office.
“Hola, Gary.”
I was sitting in the break room, waiting for the bell. It’s curious, you know, how much your place of employ can feel like school. Life broken up into portions like different courses on the one microwaved Styrofoam plate.
Everyday the TV dinner.
“Hey, Gabriel,” I said, sipping apple juice as I listened to the machinery warming up, revving up, speeding up outside the Plexiglas window -- frosted opaque and hiding the Floor from view. “How about those Warriors, huh?”
