patience

it was 100 degrees in the shade, the type of weather that drives you nuts, makes you testy, soaks you in sweat. i opened a discarded newspaper at the bus stop and saw my horoscope. something about unpleasantness all around, so be sure to be cheery. i can't remember it verbatim.

ok, cheerful. look at the children playing. they don't mind the heat. i don't mind the heat. i remember being young in the summer. the baking concrete, the bright yellow sand, the deep shades under trees. hazy skylines off in the distance, abstract ideas of what being an adult is all about. summer can still be fun.

loosening my tie as i got through the front door, i knew it would be a nice evening to spend with the machine. i set down my bag and turned the A/C on, stopping in the kitchen to pour a glass of beer. the room was stifling but soon enough the waves of cool air from the window unit began softly cascading down. i sat on the hardwood floor and tooled with the machine a bit with a screwdriver. just tightening up screws here and there.

i go to the high school she told me she worked at. i feel strange walking through the lobby of the sprawling, squat brick building. i worry it will be like my high school, cops patrolling the halls, but i realize that here and now there is no worry of that sort of thing.

i look for her classroom. each room is full of students, heads down, writing at their desks. the fluorescent lights bathe everything in a cellophane-like sheen. the kids are all neatly dressed, lots of striped shirts and browns and oranges. it feels sad in this place. i'm tense. outside of the auditorium i see a few chairs and i take one. they're the old type, wooden with a paddle-like slat attached to one arm for writing. i sit and watch through the small glass panes of the double doors as a science teacher lectures about physics. sitting a few feet away from me is a blonde haired boy in a long black t-shirt. he stares at me. his mother or aunt or something is sitting opposite us. she has small eyes and a perm of tight brown curls.

the boy looks at me and starts making a whimpering, almost wailing noise. it's obvious he is autistic or some such. she tries to calm him but he is staring at me with frightened eyes and shifting in his seat. the noises continue. "it's okay," i say. "i'll just leave." i walk quickly out of the building. i'll have to come see her another time.

i'm in the bus with my friends crossing the delaware into philadelphia late at night. for some reason or another i am pissed off with my friends and have elected to sit in a seat by myself one row ahead of them. i stare out the window as the ben franklin bridge's steel supports flit by one by one. suddenly we are in the city in all its supremely seedy glory. grimy buildings fly by, cars weave next to us and fly past in the night, city buses covered in neon graffiti streak through red lights, an ambulance sits on a side street with its lights flickering wildly. two city girls walk up to our rows. one is obese with freckles, the other solemnly pretty in a plain way, her brown hair limp at her shoulders. i tell her to sit next to me and i shift over slightly. she smiles and obliges and outside the night is dangerous and heavy with a sense of deviance.

my new boss wants to ride the metro for the first time so he accompanies me out to national. we're on the red line and i keep telling him we have to change trains but i can't get a word in edgewise. his suit costs so much more than mine, the wide lapels, the salmon colored tie in a blossoming windsor knot. he keeps talking about his wife and single malt whiskey and it's all such bullshit but i want to like the fellow, i really do. finally we get to the transfer station and i tell him this is where we catch the train to the airport. he looks at me with an intense disappointment.

"i thought you wanted to come to the airport," i offer. he waves off the comment. i search my brain for what to say. it's like being in a mausoleum in these stations. what were they thinking? "i'm sorry, i've got to catch this flight," i tell him. he stares off away from me. the doors close and the train pulls off, and there i am on the platform with my suitcase and no idea of what just transpired. i may return from my trip jobless. oh well, i'll deal with it.

at the twa counter the pretty ticket agent asks me for identification. i check my pockets. they're full of all sorts of unnecessary crap: styrofoam peanuts, matchbooks, old cigarette packs, oh god--a condom, pennies, old buttons. i let out a frustrated sigh. "anything is fine, sir," she tells me. "social security card, driver's license, passport." finally i find my driver's license, the black and white photo of me with shaggy hair from my last autumn in college. she smiles and wishes me a good trip. i go over to the molded plastic chairs and smoke six cigarettes in a row.

we land in scotland and the teenagers i am sitting next to could care less. they are each playing a sega gamegear, they have similar haircuts, they each wear either a stussy or massimo black t-shirt and baggy jeans. what a boring way to live, i remark to myself. we all de-plane and stand on the tarmac awaiting a shuttle bus to the terminal. it's loud with the sound of plane engines all around and luggage carts dart to and fro around us. a light mist is falling from a slate gray sky. in the distance, past the runways and passing planes sits a rolling green meadow. i turn to one of the teenagers. "this is it! think about how many centuries of civilization roamed these meadows before they put a damned airport on it." he rolls his eyes and walks off to join the other teens. i reach in my pockets and find them full of all sorts of junk.

the machine sputters to a stop and i am back in my room. it's freezing. the a/c has been on full blast all this time. i shut it off and walk outside to the kitchen, which is blazing hot. the sun has set behind the houses across the street, the sky is streaked with thin white clouds like inconsistent brush strokes. from a leafy green tree three birds sail upwards and out of view.

another day is done.