TwoBusy

Sympathy for the Divided

It was an early morning meeting in a small building, hidden in a quiet corner of a quiet suburb. He was a friend of a onetime friend; we had never worked together, but he had called me the previous afternoon asking to meet and discuss a possible project. I'd agreed, and so met him in the small parking lot as he walked in — leading me through a strange and colorful labyrinth, a Virgil guiding me to some hidden circle.

We came to a wooden door, featureless but for a small sign he'd hung from the front. The nail holding it aloft was thin, and rusty.

Virgil unlocked the door, and  led me inside.

Someone was waiting. Sitting on a familiar grey-black swivel chair, in front of a familiar grey desk and a state-of-the-art computer set-up I at once recognized and knew intimately.

"Hey," he said. It was the first words he'd spoken to me, in the first time he'd seen me, in eight months.

Eight months, since I sat opposite him and his partner. Two men I'd joined in a new business, going unpaid for months, working for nothing other than the promise - the potential - of building something that might work for all of us. Two men I'd known for years before then, whom I always considered friends as much as anything else. Two men with whom I spent 18 months in a 15x15 room, sweating and swearing and cranking away, trying to make a go of it. Two men with whom I spent five years of my life trusting as much as I'd ever trusted anyone.

Eight months, since I discovered the reward of that trust.

He did not stand up. He did not offer his hand. In friendship; in anything.

I took a deep breath. This was... unexpected. He and Virgil were old friends, from decades back, but I never expected to walk in and find him waiting here.

"Hey," I said back. I kept my tone neutral.

He began to talk to me, about what had happened to the business. I had heard, of course, from other sources. Other perspectives. How what had happened to me ultimately turned out to be a matter of deck chairs on the Titanic; how within months they were looking desperately for a buyer. How the two men had argued, and fought, and nearly come to blows. Threats of lawsuits. Angry words. Bitterness. Recrimination. And finally, when a sale was on the verge of completion, one that would not leave them rich, but that would swallow their debt and allow them to walk away free... this man - the man sitting before me - launched a torpedo.

And the ship sank. Some were rescued, after a fashion, by the onetime buyer... brought on under unfavorable terms and the omnipresent threat of a global economy in the throes of a painful death. Others simply vanished beneath the waves, pulled down by the spiraling, plunging carcass of our once-mighty enterprise to the cold embrace of salt and memory.

He was a victim, he explained to me. His words flowed awkwardly, as they always have (this is what we call: irony), but in broad and irregular strokes he painted an image of his onetime partner - my onetime CEO - as the villain of the piece: a Mephistopheles in Carhartt, stroking his beard and plundering the common gold, robbing from rich and poor alike as the sails went up in flames and two kings fell to war, the house divided and all hope (the hope of us all) was lost.

I nodded and mumbled, unsure as to what he expected from me. He had once invited me to his wedding; he now could not be bothered to stand and shake my hand, or look me in the eye. I quickly forgot any illusions of regret on his part, any expression of sorrow for what had transpired and understanding of what it had cost me. After ten or fifteen minutes of listening to his rambling, I began to wonder if there would even be an acknowledgment of what had taken place, beyond how it had affected him.

Virgil looked on; an impartial witness.

It had been eight months since I'd been cast from a heaven largely of my own making. Eight months since I'd been asked to leave the last job I ever wanted, the best people I'd ever worked with, the centerpoint of my life beyond home and family. Eight months since I'd had to say to another friend, before I walked out the door for the last time, my voice unsteady and surprised, "I never thought I'd leave like this. Never."

He continued to define his victimhood. How there were so many things I wouldn't even believe. Stories that would curl my hair, drive me mad, defy my imagination. The depth of his anguish was unknowable, unfathomable, unprecedented.

Every minute or so I'd make a noise - a "Really?" or a "Wow" - and that would be enough to keep him rambling, rambling on, until eventually the steam dissipated and he was left silenced, mid-incoherent thought, unsure of where to go.

I stood there, ten feet and eight months and a thousand miles away, looking down on him. Sitting in the chair he'd taken from the office we'd once shared. Next to a desk I'd helped him assemble, and a computer I'd hopped onto and worked on during the many long days he'd been "out of the office" navigating his horrific divorce, his kids, his new wife.

The moment lingered. Then I turned to Virgil, and said, "So. This project?"

And he guided me to a small couch, and we sat and talked for twenty minutes. Discovered that my schedule would not work with his requirements. Stood, shook hands, agreed to stay in touch.

As I started to leave the room - not much larger than the room I'd once shared with two men for eighteen long months, banking on nothing but our own talent and will - my onetime president half-turned toward me. "I'll be in touch, too," he said. "Big things ahead."

I gave him a half-nod, a flat "Sounds good." Then, to the room: "See you all later."

And I walked away.

like love

she held his hand in her own small hands
as though trying to steady away the little tremors
and quakes, the voices and strange musics
that had stolen her grace and brought her to
this room
as through she were lost on a wine-dark sea
and grasping for a life-ring, or floating timber,
or anything
to keep her from the darker waters.
he thought to reach forward, to clear the twisted knots
of hair from her face
but his arm -
the muscles so bunched and tight
almost clenched in suspension -
his effort failed before he could waste it
her name dead in his throat
    {        }
then slowly        gently
she lifted his hand
and he felt something wet and quick dance
across his fingers
her name in his throat
“it tastes like love,” she said
“like salmon eggs and hot mercury”
her tongue ran over sharp teeth
                soft lips
and then she let go

Why I shouldn't be allowed out of my house

High points from my first week at the new (contract) job:

• On my first day, I realized mid-afternoon that I'd been walking around the office for more than an hour with my fly open. Which is my preferred way of making friends.
• On my second day, nobody actually spoke to me until I'd been there for 2 1/2 hours. Over the course of the day, I enjoyed a grand total of perhaps 20 minutes of human interaction. Otherwise: I was just a wee cubicle beastie, hiding away in the shadows, cranking up the iTunes through my ear buds, dutifully earning my hourly seal clubbing wage. It was something akin to working in an isolation tank, only without the hallucinogens and genetic manipulation.
• On my third day, I managed to trip and fall on the stairs. Twice. The second time, I whacked my arm against the stair rail hard enough to raise a massive bruise on my forearm.
• This was actually an improvement over the first fall, when I was walking up the stairs back to my cube while carrying a salad. Somehow, I caught my foot on a stair and tripped. I whacked my shin against the next stair up, but even more spectacularly I managed to spill approximately 1/3 of my salad - including blue cheese crumbles and reduced fat ranch dressing - on the top two stairs and the carpet on the second floor beyond.
• So I spent the next ten minutes pushing spilled romaine, carrot strips, croutons, blue cheese crumbles and reduced fat ranch dressing into my hastily-grabbed cubicle trash can.
• I also tried to scrub the dressing and blue cheese off of the carpeting with paper napkins. That worked really, really well.
• I should probably mention that the top of these stairs? Is right next to a glass-walled conference room. Which was holding a rather large meeting at the time. This is another way I like to make friends.
• On the fourth day, I was actually invited to a meeting! A team meeting! Which everyone blew off except for my manager, leaving me alone with her to try to brainstorm high-level strategies for a seal-clubbing product line that I'd had all of... um... (doing quick math) three and a half days of experience working with. Miraculously, I think I managed to come off as something other than completely stupid. (Which is, generally, how I define success.)
• And on the fifth day, I rested. Because I didn't actually begin my work week until Tuesday, which was probably just as well for everyone.

And how was your week?

(insert clever title here)

1. I'm feeling much better now. Thanks for your profound concern, you heartless monsters.

2. Speaking of terrible mistakes that I'd like to leave in the past, I also posted at DadCentric. Twice.

3. But wait! More terrible mistakes! I also badmouthed a large man from Oklahoma at Draft Day Suit.

4. And! And! And! I blew another assignment at The Whinery.

5. Jesus fuck. I also - god help me, because I clearly have issues with saying no - joined MamaPop, and made my debut in this week's MamaPop Roundtable. This week's question: what songs would play on the soundtrack to your life? (Predictably, my response went on at horrifying length and basically shocked everyone into embarrassed silence. Good job, me.)

6. In the midst of all of this posting everywhere but here, I also completed (as in, just now - while typing this - finished) the long, dull, awful freelance seal clubbing job I've been hammering clubbing away at since late March. Next week, I begin a brand new freelance seal clubbing job — which will hopefully be substantially less dull and awful.

The glass is half full, I says to myself. Half. Full.

7. But hey: enough about me! There's been some serious badass writing in the past week or so that you should check out — much of it on DadCentric. Honest to god: them guys are good.
    • Always Home and Uncool watches his daughter ride a bike. Loved this.
    • Jason watches his son confront a bully.
    • Whit weighs the pros and cons of working at home.
    • Ryan has a kid.
    • Trout Towers puts together the coolest kids' book of all time.
    • cIII's daughter turns two. Possibly the best birthday testimonial I've ever read.

8. I've been meaning to post an update about my erstwhile friend ElF. I'll try to get to that sooner rather than later.

9. Countdown to vacation: T-minus 1 month! Tick... tick... tick...

(considering that we're traveling with our unholy brood - and how well that usually goes - you can presume that ticking indicates the presence of a time bomb, waiting to explode my life into a million tiny, disgusting, vomit-covered little pieces.)

10. Countdown to TwoBusy's annual "fleeing the family to spend a weekend with friends:" T-minus 2 months. (I won't specify where I'm going, but it involves cheesesteaks and the distinct possibility that I'll be shanked by a Phillies fan.)

11. And finally, your song for the weekend. Given that my son now forces me to listen to virtually nothing but this CD in my car, I feel compelled to share the experience with you — and thus, I give you Ra Ra Riot's charming Can You Tell. Enjoy...

In the twilight's last gleaming

Oh, say: can you see? By the dusk's waning light? What so proudly we'd hailed as holiday spent with family - TheInLaws - had devolved over the course of fifteen or twenty hours (estimated) from a low-key Independence Day with family to a marathon trial of endurance... but at last (at long, long last) the event was drawing to a close. We'd come, we'd seen, and we'd been thoroughly conquered by endless hours of idle conversation and chasing the children around the yard and warm sunshine (a rarity, in this wettest of all early New England summers) and half-decent beers (that we'd brought with us) and a half-decent grilled dinner (that we'd cooked, using their ingredients) and then hosing the dirt off the kids and cleaning up the kitchen and grill and beginning the long, slow process of disengaging from grandparental clutches to return to our home, our native land.

In other words: it'd been a long day. And while I'd passed hour after hour after hour either throwing half-deflated playground balls at my offspring or debating the relative merits of the Sox/Pats/Celts with my father-in-law with relative ease... as the longest day drew to a close, I found my ease being joined by an unwelcome "un." Maybe it was the direct exposure to so much sunshine. Maybe it was the two beers I drank over the course of the long afternoon (that's right: two. I debated going for more, but decided to pace myself instead.). Maybe it was the half glass of cheap pinot I sipped with dinner. Maybe it was the cheap "steak" (it should have come with an -umm) that my FIL had picked up and I'd attempted to massage, marinate and magic back to some form of flavorful life. Maybe it was the fact that I'd had a light salad for lunch before leaving our house that day, and my body was reacting the unnatural presence of vegetable matter.

The point being: as we packed up and began strapping the kids into their car seats and preparing for the long odyssey back to Castle TwoBusy, I found my low-level, generalized and not at all unusual feeling of malaise suddenly begin to evolve into something more. Excusing myself from the driveway, where all parties had gathered to bid farewell and a happy birthday to America, I ducked inside to avail myself of my in-laws' facilities... and found that I was rapidly descending into a period of actual, legitimate unease.

When I emerged a few minutes later, shaken but not stirred, I felt a light sheen of sweat on my forehead. Something... wasn't right. I didn't know what, but something was awry. And all. I. Wanted. Was. To. Be. Home.

Quickly, I stepped into the driver's seat, shut the door, waved goodbye... and we were off. Homeward bound. Where my thought's escapin'. Where my music's playin'. Where my bathroom and new bed lay waitin' silently for meeeeeee.

A few minutes into the drive, TheWife asked if I was okay. Apparently, I was being even quieter than usual. "I'm not feeling great," I said. "Okay," she replied. "Let me know if you need me to drive."

I shook my head. No need. This was an easy drive - three sections of fifteen minutes on three different highways, and we'd be home. Quick. Easy. Painless. No worries. I trusted that she'd take my silence and stoicism as testimony to my immense verility and strength of character, and pressed the gas a bit harder to accentuate my point.

Fifteen minutes in, as we rode the offramp from highway number one to highway number two, I found that I had begun sighing. Not in the sense of "I am filled with ennui" sighing, or "I am so disappointed that we didn't spend more time at TheInLaws' house" sighing, or "Gosh, hard to believe that yet another Independence Day is drawing to a close" sighing, but in the sense of "there's some kind of enormous pressure building inside of me, and this sigh is an attempt to somehow release that pressure before things devolved into a Mount Saint Helens scenario."

TheWife eyed me warily. "Are you okay?" "I'm fine," I responded. "Just want to get home." I said it in tight-lipped style, like a young Clint Eastwood. A much less tall, handsome and rich Clint Eastwood, but a young Clint Eastwood nonetheless. Okay, maybe not quite Clint Eastwood. Not Clint Howard, either. I was a new breed of Clint. A heavily sighing, July 4th-celebrating Clint of uncertain heritage and moral composition hurtling down highway number two at terrifying speed. Squinting, in true Clint style. Blocking out the sun as it dropped low on the horizon behind me. Focusing on what lay ahead. Homehomehome.

So many times, we'd taken this road, and always been surprised by how quickly the ride had taken us from TheInLaws to our own home. My children, having grown out of their propensity toward falling asleep as soon as the vehicle set in motion, were boisterous in the back, following the already-visible moon across the horizon, reciting the names and numbers of the highways as this quick road grew suddenly slower and infinitely longer before me.

The moments stretched, and I felt myself doing the same. I imagined the Hindenberg, in the last moments as it approached Lakewood, pregnant with history and ready to burst into new immortality. My sighing grew steadier and more constant, but no longer offered relief. My expectations were evolving mile by mile, from "This is not a problem" to "I think it'll be fine" to "As soon as I get home" to "I don't know if we're gonna make it."

Offramp became onramp, and we merged onto highway number three. Fifteen minutes until home. So very close.

The debate raged in my mind for two exits, then at the third I turned off. Close to where TheWife had once worked. "There's a McDonald's up ahead," she said. I took her at her word, not thinking too clearly, focused with all the will I had in this world on the dual tasks of moving the car foward safely... and keeping myself in check. Focus. Focus. Focus. The road slowed. The miles stretched.

And then, suddenly, there it was: the promised McDonald's. We'd made it. And as I pulled into the parking lot, I realized: This wasn't going to end well. As I pulled into a spot in the mostly-empty lot, I felt something terrible rise inside of me, and I struggled to put the car into park.

I was reaching for the door handle when I felt it begin to surge.

I clamped my jaws shut.

Stepped out of the car.

Didn't even look at the restaurant, only two dozen feet away.

Stepped six feet in front of me, to the immaculately manicured grass along the parking lot's edge. So carefully tended. So lush and green, in the fading daylight.

And Mount Saint Helens erupted.

(cue stock footage: seismographs going ballistic, mountainsides exploding out and up and away with untold force, Pierce Brosnan fleeing for his life, my children rapt and incredulous inside the car as they watched me lose control as never before...)

Across Boston, families gathered together to see the rocket's red glare. Bombs bursting in the air. Explosions in the sky giving way to wonder and amazement and memories being made, then and there and forever. A holiday to remember. And in the parking lot of a suburban McDonald's, less than fifteen minutes from our home, my wife and children sat in wonder and amazement, memories being made then and there and forever, and together watched me get violently sick across the grass.

Glory, glory. Hallelujah.