An Unextraordinary Lemon-less Life

Chapter 2

I woke up like I was being shocked, screaming and gasping for air. Like when you dream that you're falling off a cliff, except like three hundred times worse. It happens pretty often. I get a lot of nightmares. They're pretty much the same every time. It starts with me and my dad standing in this massive white room with no windows and no doors. Only, I don't know what my dad looks like, so my subconscious gives him the face of ex-president, Herbert Hoover. When I was younger, I had a thing for presidents and Herbert Hoover was my favorite; I couldn't tell you why, but now I can't stand him.

Dad/Herbert Hoover is talking about baseball, listing off random statistics and names of players. This is all being recited in a monotone, never-ending list. I figured the reason it was baseball was because that was always something I saw fathers and sons bonding over when I was a kid. Something that I never had a chance to experience.

He never looks at me. No matter how loud I yell or how hard I cry. This is the part of the dream that feels like it goes on forever. Until I am laying in an ambulance alone and unable to move. So I just lay there until Dad/Herbert Hoover shows up and attempts to defibrillate me. I keep trying to move and I yell at him to stop, but he keeps doing it until I eventually wake up in a sudden jolt, dripping with sweat and my heart beating faster than humanly possible.

I would go to counseling, but I have no money.

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My life is unimportant and uneventful, for the most part. There isn't anybody that I truly care about, and I like it that way. Caring is the worst. It sets you up to believe in something better, but always ends up failing you. I used to care about my mom and look how that turned out.

It's 7am. Time for work.

There's an empty divot on the right side of the bed. I guess Tuesday was here last night. She always leaves right after we have sex. She's never asked to stay, not that I would let her. She's nice enough, but I wouldn't want her to experience one of my nightmaric episodes. I don't exactly remember why we started doing this, but I think we're both equally messed up not to care.

She's a pretty girl; a little too thin, but she has big brown eyes and a tiny nose that slopes up in the front. She lets her long, bright red curls run wild and she always wears chipped black nail polish and t-shirts with funny phrases on them. She'd probably be a catch if she didn't look so damn depressed all the time. Tuesday lost her twin brother last year and we met in mandatory group therapy. I asked her to coffee after her first meeting and we talked for about twenty minutes before going to my apartment to have sex.

Although we never talk about it, I think we are the most important people in each other's lives. Probably because we don't have anyone else, but more because we are the only constant in a world that's always changing. I would never let myself truly care for her, because then she'd leave—like everyone always does—and I'd be alone again. I suppose she feels the same way, but I guess I will never know for sure.

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I'm the manager of the local movie theater. It's not glamorous, or even fun, but it's bearable and it pays the bills. The people are alright, as far as people go.

There's Sully, the head custodian. He's the only employee who's been here as long as I have; a miserable four years. He doesn't ever talk, which I like, and he's huge, which scares away the riff-raff who usually hang outside the theater.

Next, there's Jen. Jen is a single mom. She's bitterly sweet, and talks in a high-pitched voice that carries through the room. She's young, around my age, but she seems a lot older. I guess having a kid at sixteen forces you to grow up a lot. I have a soft-spot for Jen, mostly because she reminds me of my mom.