Single-Digit/Secretarial

"Hi, how are you? My name's Elliot, and I'm with the Cub Scouts of America. We're...we're selling uncut cocaine to get to the jamboree."

If this were a movie, it would be Michael: The Home Entertainment Years, and it would open on a shot of two hands with dirty fingernails typing in a lunatic hybrid of single-digit and secretarial styles. There would be no sound save the clackety-clack rhythm of the keys. It would be dark. That would be your second clue, after the dirty fingernails, that this is now.

Then is me standing ten feet behind a lonely bus stop on the last morning of February. I'm incongruous in a black leather overcoat in the middle of a picture that appears lightly bleached due to the fine layer of frost that covers everything. From my vantage point, I can see all the way down the main road to the railway station. There are no buses in the near future.

If you look closely at the bus stop, you can see that the glass is all smashed and the timetables are gone. There is a woman standing there smoking a cigarette. A few minutes later, another woman comes along, followed shortly thereafter by a couple. They all smile and exchange greetings. There is no subtlety in the comparison between plural and singular. You can't hear me laughing, but if you're really paying attention, you might notice the condensation rising from my mouth in irregular bursts.

My thought, the punchline of my private joke, it's three words: Sexual Harassment Panda. You either get that reference or you don't.

Eventually, we get on the bus and the bus drives away. It is not particulary sweeping or epic.

A short while later, I'm standing outside the home entertainment store with Claire. We are co-workers who have yet to hold a meaningful conversation. We smile and mutter greetings and exchange awkward banter. I'm funny, but not that funny. The manager, who has the keys, is late. How funny I am is inversely proportional to how late he is. It's very cold.

Later still, the manager shows me how to count money in an office that really isn't any warmer than the last morning in February. There are no chairs. For some reason, the Home Entertainment People are not fans of sitting down. I'm wearing my best blank face. Matt, the manager, says to me: "If I'm saying anything you already know, just tell me and we'll move on."

And you don't hear me say it, but if you're good at reading facial expressions, you might translate mine as being roughly equivalent to the sentence: "I believe I recall the basic arithmetic of my childhood."

Even later, in a coffee shop, the woman behind the counter asks me if I want a small or a large cappuccino. When I say I want a large, she laughs as though I have just said the funniest thing she has ever heard in her entire life. For a moment there is silence and everybody looks up at us. The old man closest to me looks expectant, as though I might share my magical formula for instant laughter. I frown at him and he smiles. He has no teeth. I take my hilarious beverage to a table and drink it, glancing at my watch now and then because I only have twenty minutes. Nobody pays any more attention to me except a girl whose eyes cut sideways as she goes by. It's a look that says she might fuck me, but she'd be gone in the morning. Actually it's not, but Monday afternoons are so empty that sometimes it's all I can do to fill them with idle fantasy.

Back amongst the Home Entertainment People, I am the only one without a uniform. They are Corporate Blue, whilst I am Nihilist Black. If you're looking closely, you might detect a hint of smugness in my slight smile. They are babbling about nothing, like the adults who "wah wah wah" in Charlie Brown cartoons, until they start talking, for some reason, about how many letters there are in the alphabet. Matt says: "Twenty-two."

I say: "Tell me you're joking."

And Dan says: "How many is there? Thirty-six?"

And I look at them and I'm actually a bit horrified. Claire finishes serving her customer, and I say: "Claire, how many letters are there in the alphabet?"

And she says: "I don't know, thirty-two?" and laughs.

I say: "There are twenty-six," and they all look at me. I say: "I'm the freak," and I'm actually a little bit surprised.

The end would be like the beginning. It would be now again. It would be the fingers with the dirty nails typing single-digit/secretarial in the room with the light off and the door and the curtains closed. It would not be particularly sweeping or epic. If it were a movie, I mean.