I woke up at 5:45 on Sunday morning. Then, for whatever ridiculous and masochistic reason, I threw the covers aside and got out of bed. My cat Chrissy was so confused that she didn’t want to eat the food I poured into her bowl for fear that I was sleepwalking and thus more likely to either 1.) accidentally poison her, or 2.) suddenly fall on all fours and eat the food myself.
I went so far as to ask the bathroom mirror: “Why are you not still in bed? You have to work all day. You didn’t sleep well last night. What unmitigable disaster are you trying to court and why, for God’s sake?”
The morning before, I'd awakened from dreams that haunted me all day, so maybe I was afraid if I went back to sleep I would have a repeat of that troubling scenario.
The reason why I was awake and making the day’s first cup of tea became irrelevant when the reality hit me that I would not be going back to bed. I'd just have to march onward and try to remain upright through the early afternoon and into the last, inexorably slow final hour of the work day.
At 6:30 there was a knock on the door. When I double-checked the time I knew this was not a good sign.
My mind conjured all manner of images that my life would not welcome if they materialized.
A sheriff’s deputy at the wrong door because he didn’t know how to read numbers. Mr. Jerry wanting me to call his phone because he’d lost it somewhere in his studio apartment. Dave Nexdore wondering if I had an extra Coke in my fridge–the fact that I never do has yet to deter him from inquiring about this daily.
Truth be told, though, I still was not expecting the unexpected. So imagine how this lack of expectation was destroyed when I finally answered the door and saw my best friend and the person I love most in the world: Citizen Jim!
He’d been MIA since March. There were many times when I’d looked for him to show up between then and now.
Like when Mark David Chapman got denied parole for the thirteenth time since he was eligible for it. This, I thought, would bring Citizen Jim to my door with some crackpot theory involving Taylor Swift and the ghost of J.D. Salinger. Or when some lake in Mexico was drying up because people keep stealing water out of it—this had sounded ripe for a heist-themed plan of some sort.
When 99 Cents Only Stores began closing all of its 371 stores in the US, I thought for sure Citizen Jim would come knocking with a scheme to open a chain of 98 Cents Only stores. Taylor Swift's stop-over in Ireland during the Eras Tour? No comment from Jim. Same when Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy. Trump's convictions on 34 felony counts garnered no rage or joy from Citizen Jim.
He didn’t drop by to gloat about the fact that Dua Lipa performed at the Glastonbury festival on his birthday. He didn't show his face the next day, either, even though it would have been the 63rd birthday of Princess Diana.
And when I realized the Fourth of July came and went without so much as a string of firecrackers exploding outside my windows at three in the morning, my concern for Citizen Jim turned into a low-grade panic.
But now that he was here, my panic mushroomed into full-blown terror!
What could have happened to bring him to see me at this hour of the day, and on the exact day that I got out of bed earlier than I had in months?
There was no time to ponder this, as he was in my apartment staring at me and tapping his foot while all the above thoughts were going through my mind.
“Could you please stuff a sock in the black hole where your mind should be and say, ‘Good morning!’ or ‘I’m so glad to see you!’?” Citizen Jim asked me. “I don’t have a lot of time to waste this morning.”
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Asking me why I’m here is NOT A GREETING!” he yelled.
“Hello, Precious Lamb. I’m so glad to see you!” I said, though I was still burning to know why he’d shown up after a four-month absence.
“If you’re as glad to see me as you’re pretending to be, why aren’t you asking me how my job search is going?” he asked.
“I didn’t know you were searching for a job,” I said.
“I didn’t, either, until I went outside to cut the grass yesterday and there was some big hod on a riding mower wearing earphones and gyrating like he was listening to ‘Never Say Yes’ while he tore around my yard like a race car driver from Spinout,” he said.
“Well, I guess that’s better than pounding air drums or pretending to play the saxophone like he was listening to ‘Never Say Never’ by Romeo Void,” I said. “At least he kept his hands on the wheel.”
“Your bullshit post-punk college radio references have no place in a conversation about my wife firing me from landscaping our yard,” said Citizen Jim. “But I’ll let it go this time because I think I found something more suited to my skills set.”
“Oh good!” I said. “Are you going to go back to editing for a publishing company?”
“Not on your life! I found me something a thousand times better,” he said, and pulled his phone from a back pocket. After tapping the screen for five minutes and saying, “Damn it!” ten times, he finally turned the phone toward me so I could see the job for which he was going to apply.
I guess my face didn’t react the way he wanted it to, because he pulled the phone away and said, “I guess you think I’m not the right fit.”
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that,” I told him. But I knew my expression was saying exactly that. I failed at back-pedaling, too, when I remarked, “I’m not saying you couldn’t do the job, but I don’t think you can.”
“Only you would say you’re not saying what you’re actually saying and expect me to feel better,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure that the Royal Family only hires British citizens to work for them,” I said. "And you’re not a British Citizen. And you can’t speak Welsh like they want. And maybe you’re not so robust in the whole ‘excellent communication and organizational skills, with a proven ability to build productive relationships with a wide range of individuals and institutions.’ So.”
“That’s fine. You’ll see! So will my wife! And that wooly mammoth zipping through my yard with his headphones and his Elvis music and goggles and steel-toed boots. I’ll show all you haters that I’m more than a pretty face and beautiful feet!”
“I’ll be excited to see that,” I said.
I just didn’t want him to pull off his shoes to prove how beautiful his feet were.
