Winter Greens

Sartre once noted that the universe is devoid of signposts. The unsettling comfort of an existence completely lacking anything resembling guidance or direction was appealing to me until I discovered life outside of dormitories and regulations enforced by totalitarian regimes.

Sophie, a barista at the local café, mentioned to me over a cigarette that life without signposts is mostly absurd. And I guess I believed that for a while too.

Ade’ met me for coffee the other day. I had recently lent him my copy of Dr. Thompson’s experimental analysis of the American dream, and in light of my friend’s unique position as a journalism student, I was curious as to his opinion of Gonzo’s school of thought.

“Maybe a little overrated,” he said, sipping a slightly bland cup of El Salvador. I don’t remember the region. “That being said, Hunter S. Thompson was revolutionary, no doubt. I mostly agree with his tactics, and I fucking loved the piece on the Kentucky Derby.”

“You would,” I remarked. “Don’t take that the wrong way. It was my favorite bit, as well.”
Ade’s glasses slipped a bit down his nose, and he pushed up the brim and gave his nose a quick tap. I think this coffee must be laced. I don’t tell anyone about my rampant paranoia, at least not anymore.

Elle tells me it’s irrational. “That’s silly,” she’d say, striking a match to light her impeccably rolled spliff. No one follows you. That’s the point of living in a big city. You blend in with the crowd and get lost.”

And I know that this is true. Just last night on the way to a card game with some of her ex-coworkers a city cop shone his headlights directly into a car making an illegal u-turn. A little red pinto or something, driven by a woman with unusually distinct hair, even visible at night inside her car as it spiraled out in clumps from her head. She pulled behind us after the law enforcement passed, driving erratically, and passed us, pulling into an alleyway. Maybe paranoia is in the air in this town, or maybe she was really guilty. The glimpse of her eyes I managed to catch revealed the crazed look of a felon on the run, but I could be wrong. The point is, she got away, for whatever that was worth. Rack up another victory for disorganized crime. Or socio-political disestablishmentarianism, depending on your point of view.

But I can’t shake the feeling that someone or something is attempting some sort of voyeuristic, non-verbal communication with me. Maybe it’s just that the subtleties of spoken language seem less subtle to me, somehow. Maybe it’s just a warped psychological second-guessing I apply to myself and the way I read the signs, or lack thereof, constantly bombarding me like gamma radiation.

All that to say, I didn’t tell Ade about my suspicions that there might be illegal narcotics in our ceramic mugs. Never mind the fact that employees of the city’s water company were recently exposed for being in on an international cocaine ring. And never mind the glassy distance in the marketing executives’ eyes as they dart from shimmering coffee urns to glinting reflections on silvery patio furniture. And never mind the distinctly bitter post-nasal drip creeping up the back of my throat. And never mind the way my hands erupted sporadically into Parkinsonian tremors. Or the speed at which my mind processes millions of firing synapses as I involved myself in conversation and introspection simultaneously. Or the intense desire to chain smoke Pall Malls.

I wiped my finger under my nose and said, “Do you think Thompson was usually on as many drugs as he claimed to be in Vegas? I mean, aside from the ether.”

“Oh, I doubt it. I mean, despite the drug culture he was immersed in, there was no way he could possibly have compiled coherent notes, much less—“

“But that’s the point, he didn’t have coherent notes.”

“Well, no, not for Fear and Loathing, but for the greater body of his work, he probably just, well, you know, smoked a little grass and drank a lot.”

I sipped at my cooling coffee, frustrated at its lack of intensity. I should have gotten espresso. But I don’t trust espresso, or the baristas who prepare it, or the machines they use to make the stuff.

We caught the train heading north from downtown after a bit. The concentration of non-verbal communication on board the generally silent Metra is overwhelming sometimes. The book readers are always fascinating, prominently attempting to display the knowledge they are ingesting, which usually takes the form of mass-marketed spy novels and the like. But there’s definitely a message being sent by the literature chosen for train rides.

The car was packed, and an obese man sat across from us, wearing pants easily two sizes too small for his bulging waistline. The zipper sagged down to the middle of his fly, and instead of exposing embarrassingly colored underwear (which I came quickly to wish was the case), his pimpled and hairy upper crotch gaped open at us. I nudged Ade.

“You think he feels a draft?”

Three businessmen in suits and ties laughed loudly on the opposite side of the train. They couldn’t possibly have heard me.

Laughter in public makes me nervous, especially when it is clearly derisive and mocking. Most laughter sounds this way to me from a distance, and my immediate inclination is to check my stride and lower my eyes. It seems logical that it is directed at me.

The self-importance of the men laughing gave me a measure of security, however. They continued talking loudly, and I ignored their financio-babble.

A girl with dark hair and glasses dressed like a college bookseller in a navy jumper and black stockings kept bumping into me as we were standing on the packed rush hour express. I figured at first it was just the swaying of the train racing down its tracks. But with each run-in she inched closer to me and lingered longer at the point of contact, her unremarkable ass edging up slowly but surely to my hip. I caught her glancing at me, not directly, but through the dirty reflection of the windows. She turned her eyes away quickly, an obvious admission of guilt. I should have done something, but I endured the uncomfortable closeness for another twenty minutes until she disembarked to transfer.

I suppose that it’s because I wasn’t raised in a large city that I have a larger sense of personal space than most people tend to allow me. A coworker (for two unceremonious weeks until she quit) named Karen used to practically rub noses with me every time she spoke. She was also close to twice my mass, and I could always smell the distinct aroma of over-boiled asparagus on her breath. I mentioned this to Elle, and she reminded me of the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine dates a man Jerry dubs as a close-talker. After that it was all I could do to keep myself from calling her that to her face. Further support for my paranoid theories transmitted itself to me via the Fox network, when the very episode made a rerun appearance the next night. I neglected to mention my feelings on this supposed coincidence to Elle.

Disembodied evidence like this frustrates me because I can’t respond any coherent way. I much prefer the kind of subtleties that come from actual people, because I am afforded the opportunity to add subtleties of my own to the conversation (or lack thereof, as the case may be).

Elle was waiting for us on the couch at our apartment, smiling sweetly as Marty wagged his stump of a tail.
“Some chick named Erica called for you. Does she work with you?”

“Yeah, she’s the boss’s new secretary.” I laid my coat on the orange step ladder in the middle of the living room. It had been there for probably two months now, used last to take down Christmas decorations in mid-February. “Did you take a message?”

“She said you left something.”

I stepped into the other room to make a call while Ade joined Elle on the couch to watch Simpsons reruns and fill the air with as many types of smoke as possible.

“Erica, it’s Chris.”

“Yeah, hi. You left your briefcase in the hallway. I thought you’d want to know.”

“Alright, thanks,” I said, strolling back into the living room. “I gotta go downtown again, left my journal at work.”

“Can’t it wait til tomorrow?” asked Elle. Marty looked up inquisitively from her lap.

“I wish it could. I’ve got to type a few things up to turn in in the morning, though,” I said, throwing on my jacket. “Keep the couch warm for me.”

“Love you, babe,” she said mid-inhalation, smoke rolling out of her nostrils.

“Love you, too.”

I headed back to the train station, my feet weary and my head spinning with a contact high. I lit a cigarette on the platform in front of the no-smoking sign.

When the train finally came, I found a seat across from a scraggly teen who hadn’t showered in weeks. His face was sunken and aged, and he blinked and squinted constantly. When he lifted a black sleeve to scratch his arm, at least a dozen infected needle-holes were visible.

I closed my eyes, pretended to ignore the stagnant presence of society’s underbelly. I hoped it wasn’t a prediction of my own demise. I was reminded of high school health class where they teach you about cannabis, and how it’s a gateway drug. It looked like this kid had found the gateway to hell, complete with Dante’s warning across the top.

I dozed off with the rhythmic clatter of the train’s wheels against the tracks, and woke up, staring strait ahead into blue eyes. Sitting across from me, clad in beatific sheets of pure white was a girl with a book in her hand. I didn’t even bother to glance at the gold-lettered title. Instead, I looked out the window and smiled as I played my favorite game: piecing words together on billboards until they spelled a message. It’s the best way I know to read the signs.