Archive Report #596
Waiting, Hillbillies, Likability, European Chocolate, Magic
SMS
Sent 04-19-2018
I’m on a bus waiting for K**** to give me slide content. Everything is super.
Overheard
”I don’t know what it’s called. All the hillbillies looking for ginseng in the mountains.”
Credit where it’s due
I hate to hand it to them, but everyone who has ever told me I shouldn't care about being liked was well qualified to give the advice.
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“It ain’t such a long drop / don’t stammer, don’t stutter / from the diamonds on the sidewalk / to the dirt in the gutter.” - J. Prine
Roy’s employer sent him to Tulsa the third week of each month. This was unnecessary since all he required to do his work was an internet connection, but the client Firmly Believed In The Value Of In-Person Collaboration. The client also Firmly Owned A Fifty Percent Stake In The Office Building Where His Desk Sat, but who’s counting? Roy liked hotels, so it made no difference to him. He also liked a pizza place in Tulsa called Andolini’s. Good pie, walking distance from the hotel, and exposed brick walls? Mamma mia. His ritual was to eat half at the restaurant, and the other half back in his room while he watched Deadliest Catch reruns. He was slurping the last of his coke and carrying the encore slices back to his hotel when he passed a man sitting on the curb with everything he owned. “Come have a seat and watch me turn the night into day,” the man said. The chances of meeting another Blaze Foley fan were getting slimmer every day, so Roy pulled up a section of curb and introduced himself.
“I’m Roy. Want a slice?”
“I’m Wayne. And no, thank you.”
Roy’s guts were so busy dealing with the first half of that pizza that it dulled hits wits, and he let his face betray his surprise. He was a consultant and had long practice of keeping a straight face no matter how shocking or asinine a thing someone said to him.
“I know it sounds crazy, but when you eat as little as I do, food tends to upset the stomach more than ease it,” said Wayne.
That was the least of the devastating things he told Roy that night, like how he got into this situation in the first place. “My girlfriend broke up with me. I wanted to get married, and she didn't, or so she said, because by Andy Rooney’s eyebrows, she got married a month later, and the rest of the story was that she just didn't want to get married to me. That turned me inside out. Couldn't focus at work. Started showing up late. Eventually I got fired, and when I couldn't get another job, I lost my apartment. I didn't have any friends but her. My dad's the only family I have and we don't talk, so there was no couch waiting for me. I've been out here for two years now.”
Roy swallowed hard. He had more couches to land on than than Nebraska Furniture Mart. He had enemies who would do that much for him. This embarrassment of riches was Roy’s not because he was smart and handsome, but because he happened to be born when and where and to whom he was born. It came with the diapers. Wayne didn't do all the things that give people permission to withhold their compassion; vice didn't build him a home under the highway (but so what if it had). It was an extremely normal sequence of events that could have happened to anyone, only if and when it did happen, most people could survive it while losing little more than a therapy copay and gaining few Facebook posts they'd live to regret.
Roy gave him the jacket he was wearing and left him with the old copy of The Martian Chronicles he brought on work trips. He never read it again after the first time, but he liked having it around. Turns out Wayne loved sci-fi, too. He said it gave him a place to go that he wasn't.
Given enough time Wayne really could turn the night into day, but it was a trick that rewarded patience. They sat there talking while his slow magic did its work, and sure as little green apples, here comes the sun. That night Roy learned that Wayne believed earnestly in the multiverse. He had some compelling points.
“You think there’s a world out there where our places are swapped,” said Roy.
“I guarantee it,” said Wayne, “but the one I want to get to is where nobody’s in my place.”
“You got any of that pizza left? Maybe just half a slice would be alright.”
End Transmission