Talking
Daniel:
With our reservation made for seven o’clock, and the Charter House only a few miles west of Morrison, our AIS was twenty-five minutes from now at six-thirty-five. I was dressed and waited for The Moment. Being what the evening was about, there certainly would be one. A woman’s moment of gorgeousness exhibited. There would be a twirl, and then Pamila would say; ‘Well? What do you think?’ Freeze! Think! Men, what next comes out of your mouth may very well determine the outcome of your evening. Once, just once, I played the humor card. If you take anything away from this book, take this; no matter how funny you may think you are, no matter how perfect you think the joke, never ever use humor at this moment.
Fully prepped and ready in my suit, minus the jacket, I sit in my recliner. Two quick finger flips and I was rolling through the thirteen-minute cycle of today’s news on Cable News. This cycle is the same on all cable-news channels. Each different channel forces their political ideologies upon us, but otherwise the news stories are all the same ones.
(I so wanted to digress into a tirade about the cable-news channels, but you are spared. I’ll save it for my blog.)
If you were paying attention, you noticed that I wrote ‘my suit’. I do mean my suit, my one suit. It is black and it is in excellent condition because I only where it twice or thrice annually. My suit is five or six years old and I believe it still to be in style. Whatever I believe, I really don’t know if it is. My barometer is Rebecca. She being very fashion conscious, she would certainly tell me if I looked like Jake Blues of The Blues Brothers.
(Sorry, I cannot pass up a second digress: My college roommate and I were ticketed for urinating in public. My roommate was a thespian in the college playhouse. We showed up at court in matching Blues Brothers outfits. From bad Fedoras to black wingtips, we were Jake and Elwood Blues. They were perfect outfits. My roommate rambled off a ninety-second defense about how we were so rudely interrupted by the ticketing officer. The judge gaveled us, fined us thirty-five dollars, and told us to never show up in her courtroom again. Those gathered in the courtroom loved it. It was perfect!)
I am back.
It wasn’t that I did not want more than one suit. Yes it was. I simply did not need more than one. I never had. The dozen or so times that I needed to be formal in my attire, I rented; it wasn’t a big deal. (When the President invites me to a State Dinner, I will gladly rent a tuxedo.)
Here is the thing. I own six different Oxford shirts and eleven different ties. This gives me sixty-six different combinations. So if I only wear my suit three times a year, I can get through 2032 without wearing the same combination. In 2032, I will be seventy-four years old. With what Sarina calls my continual slide away from want of normalcy, I probably will not be wearing any clothes when I am seventy-four. See, I have a plan.
It is not that I am completely without social attire acceptance; I have dress shorts and dress pullover shirts. As well, I own three pairs of tennis shoes. One pair for workouts. Another for daily wear. The last pair is formal. This evening I wear my black Wingtips. Also several years old and in excellent condition.
If I were trying to focus on the news of the world, anticipation of the evening’s events would be a distraction. Amidst a flash of clarity, the circled news returns to an earlier story. This time I half-listen to it and lazily attempt to give it meaning. It seemed that a large natural gas company, Briton’s, purchased rights to something or another in Malaysia. Apparently still more distracted than I wanted to be, I did not catch what the money had purchased. I wondered how much money Briton’s had paid. I speculated it was in the hundreds of millions. The story seemed to be more of a national security issue. We always have those. I knew that it was common practice for our intelligence services to monitor such transactions. So I did not care. A possible security leak also came with the Anchor’s words. Still did not care. Any eight year old with the internet could monitor global financial transactions. I did not see the big issue. However, the cute late-thirties Anchor Lady, was telling me that I should care. The State Department called it a black cloud. It’s all good, we need a little rain. If the State Department wanted it to rain, the news bureaus would happily seed the clouds.
“Would you take me out in public?” I turned to Pami’s question. I stood.
“Wow! You look amazing! Beautiful.” She twirled. I stepped to her. Careful not to supposedly smudge make-up, I lightly kissed her cheek. That, is how you do that.
My response may have been learned, and certainly thought through, but it was sincere. She had my full attention.
“Not bad for a forty seven year old.” She proudly said.
“Not bad at all. But forty-seven?” I flinched with my words. She did not scratch my face. Good. I wondered how I had gotten three years older than her over our marriage.
Probably ending the moment before she wanted it ended, a presenting moment that she had worked through the evening toward, I did. Taking her left hand, I kissed it and said; “You’re beautiful.” That was fine. Here is where I forced the moment to end before its time. “Come on we gotta go.” As soon as I said these words I knew they were poorly chosen. Making it worse, I turned from her and headed toward the garage. Pamila did not move; arms limp and lips slightly parted. If I had listened, I was sure I would have heard a sound of soft disgust. I knew not to listen or turn back. I knew I was a dumb-ass; looking back would only emphasize this. Done was irrevocably done.
Grabbing the full-length coat that she had prepped over a kitchen chair, I turned and held it out to her; offering the right sleeve for her arms insertion. This single and weak sliver of gentlemen-ness worked for me. Our eyes met. Her’s told me that I had done badly; it had not worked for her. One of my best things, I played ignorant of her disgruntled gaze. This time I heard the sigh. I sigh was good. It left no marks.
With my right hand, I grabbed the car keys from the hung wooden placard that read: KEYS. I held my hangar’d suit coat in the left hand. It would remain hung until I exited the car. See, I do have the smallest amount of dress etiquette.
Opening the door to the garage for her, with a concerned look, she asked; “You want to drive. Are you sure?” Understanding that Pami thinks me a liability behind the wheel, I sensed that there was more buried in her question than the normal misgiving. We continued to my proposed sides of the car. Me more deliberately than she. Opening the driver’s door, I looked to her. She was passing the front of the car. She moved as if she really did not want to. Her glaring at me asked much.
With only what a writer could come with, I asked; “What?” She continued to the passenger door. Reaching to open the same, her eyes never left me.
Pami now seated next to me, I slid the keys into the ignition. My peripheral grabbed the same searching look. I returned a visual questioning. She proposed her own thought. “Well, earlier, you seemed… you seemed a little upset. Distracted you know?” I swung my face to look out over the hood of the car. Starting the car I sat back into the seat.
“You mean earlier in the bedroom?” She didn’t answer. I lifted my hands, examined the backs of them for dirt, and rubbed them as if they were cold. “I’m okay. I’m fine.” I must not have been convincing.
“Danny what’s wrong with you? Do your hands hurt?” I placed them on the steering wheel. I didn’t know why I looked at my hands. I didn’t know why I warmed them. I did not know what to say. Pami was leaning over to me and had placed her left hand on my arm. I met her kiss.
“I’m alright.” I still didn’t think she convinced. I wasn’t myself.
Backing the car, we cleared the garage and graveled down our driveway. We were off. Therefore, and as usual, off was where I went. Off in thought, on the road. This made me an insurance liability. This was Pamila’s normal concern.
‘Well, earlier, you seemed… you seemed a little upset. Distracted! You know!
” Those words by Pamila were the last clear words of my conversation. The remainder of our dinner drive conversation was a mere glitter of clarity amongst my translucent thoughts. We in the car, the road under our wheels, life all around scrambling to stay that way, all were a part of that translucent.
Clear to me in the translucent was that I had resolved. My mind now enjoyed a peaceful settled. A resolution warm spiritually, a logical understanding that let reality carry on. All left pending was what path to take? What path would I take to define what I had resolved? For now, this would be good enough.
It was this acceptance of resolved that let me in the immediate to drift in thought. My drift in thought in the immediate was my liability. It was Pamila’s concern.