Ten years ago:
A post-work routine spontaneously sprouted out of the dirt. I would usually work the closing shift that the mall, which was the same as Allie's usual shift at the candy store. She would come over and rattle the gate when she was ready to go. Even though I knew it was coming, that shaking metal noise would scare the crap out of me any time. She would stand there tapping her foot while I frantically finished counting out my drawer. We would run over to the bank and drop our night deposits and then we would head to her house, where Isis would be up and heading for work in a few hours. We would maybe watch a movie or something, and then I would fall asleep on their couch. Isis would drop me off at home on her way to work, and I would sleep until almost noon and start the cycle all over again.
When Isis and I would both have time off we would go around and run errands together. We would get lunch, usually at the Salad Bowl on Lincoln or up on 8th Street somewhere, and then split up for the afternoon. We would regroup around dinner time and run through our usual routine before I would head home.
Sometimes Allie would go into her room and call her boyfriend, and Isis and I would sit around the dining room table. We would play a round of gin rummy, or play with the cats, or just chat. Usually we kept things light, but every once in a while the conversation would suddenly cut into someone more meaningful as we felt each other out. I talked about my long-held decision to not have any children of my own. She told me how she didn't like anything about cigarettes. We played chicken, inching close to talking about religion before swerving away at the last minute. We outlined the border of ourselves playing these games, and it was both exhilarating and saddening. But we had become very good at doublethinking our way out of these uncomfortable places, and things were light and happy otherwise.
It seems strange to think that it only took us about a week to create this paradigm for our time together, but it seemed so natural at the time. I felt connected to them; that I contributed to their lives as they contributed to mine. Clearly I was desperate for these connections at the time, which was why I fell into it without any hesitation. Even knowing what I know now, I don't feel bad for any of this. I was relaxed and happy and I felt like I belonged to something larger that just myself.
Isis gave me her cold. I woke up on my day off with a bit of a sore throat, and a scratch in my sinuses. I didn't think much of it at first, but it persisted as the day went on. I knew that this was merely the beginning, and that I had about twenty-four hours before I became really miserable.
I called her to both scold her for making me ill, and ask her to take me to the grocery store so I could get tea and cough drops. A small part of me was afraid that I was coming down with my annual one week bout of the flu, so I filled the cart high while she laughed at me. I skipped traditional cold medicines, believing that I was better off sweating the fever out than dwelling in the sickness. As I grabbed my bags to head out, a teenage employee insisted that he help us out to the car. Despite being so forceful with his need to carry my things, he was surprisingly distant on the walk through the parking lot. For some reason, it made me think of all of the shitty jobs I had worked in high school, and how I was pretty distant for most of them as well.
We drove around in the car for a while, pondering our lunch choices and trying to laugh the illness out of my system. During a commercial break, the radio pumped out a commercial for Menards, a local hardware store. The commercials feature (even today) banjo music in the background, which I found offensive to my sensibilities. I mentioned to Isis my decision to never shop at their stores while their commercials attempted to appeal to me through the use of banjo music. She smiled, and then turned the car around.
Isis had worked at Menards for two years, and pushed me through the front doors with an enthusiasm that I was uncomfortable with. She took me to every department in the store, introduced me to the employee working in that area, and told them about the conversation we had in the car. We stood at the key duplication counter for twenty minutes while she shamed me in front of several of her former coworkers. She then picked up a bunch of remaindered lumber and made me pay the $.46 cents at the checkout.
"There, now have you learned your lesson? Everyone here is very nice, right?"
"I still don't approve of their insulting marketing technique."
"I don't care if you approve. I'm glad I got to rub your face in it."
She drove us back to my house, where we unloaded the car full of cough drops and lumber. For the first time, Isis came upstairs into my apartment. While I put the kettle on, she built a little Menards shrine on top of my television. We had some tea and sat on the couch for a while before we decided we needed to go get some food. That shrine sat on top of my television for the rest of the time I was in Michigan.
I didn't really get sick. I ended up with a sniffle that lasted a few days, and then I was right back to normal. I tried to get more rest than I normally would have, and went home right after work for a few days. I didn't get a chance to see Isis again until the following Thursday. We both had the day off, and we went to the Salad Bowl for lunch. We sat in a booth by the window, and the cold air was pouring off of it like a waterfall.
"What are you up to on Saturday? Do you want to go out?" I asked.
"Actually, I'm heading out of town tomorrow."
"Oh, that's cool. Where are you going?"
"Up to Alpena."
"Alpena? What's up there?"
"My boyfriend's parents have a cabin there."
I was mid-swig in my coffee, and I had to put forth a lot of effort not to choke on it. This was the first time she had mentioned him since that first night at the bar. I had never mentioned a thing about it, figuring it was outside of the realm of topics that were in play. Casually raising the topic over lunch the day before she left seemed like a brushback pitch.
I murmured some polite response and went back to drinking my cooling coffee under that window. But I think I might have done a poor job of covering my emotions in that moment. In the same way I saw that look in her eyes when we were in the car a week before, maybe she saw something in me in those brief moments. Maybe she had set up that statement in order to see what clues I would drop in the moments immediately after. I have no idea what the truth is here, but that moment was when our little pattern we had built finally evaporated.
It wasn't until I was back in my apartment that the other shoe dropped. It suddenly dawned on me that it was practically Valentine's Day weekend. While it held no meaning for me, I suddenly knew why everything was in play. While it didn't do anything to settle out my thoughts, at least I had a bit more understanding. I spent Friday night sitting on my couch, trying to cover the wound that had suddenly appeared.
Isis went to Alpena that weekend. She never called me again.
To add fuel to the fire, I had an unsettling conversation with my mother that weekend. My grandfather was back in the hospital, and they were weighing the possibility of calling in hospice. She said that I should probably start putting some money aside in case I needed to come home in a hurry. I understood what she was saying, but I was switched into panic mode and I didn't quite have a response to her words. To fill in the awkward silence in our conversation, she mentioned that they had talked to my Aunt and decided to sell the homestead once they got it into shape.
I had disagreed with my mother before. I had spent some years not talking to my mother before. But before that moment I had never been enraged by my mother. I wanted to be understanding about their position: the house was not in good shape, and it would take the work of a much younger group of people to restore things. It was inconvenient for them to have to maintain the property and make sure that bills and taxes were paid. I really did try to grasp the hard conversation they must have had to reach such a conclusion. But all of that would have required me to apply logic to a fundamentally emotional problem, and I wasn't able to make it over the wall.
I curtly informed her that I did not agree with the current course of action, and she did not try to talk me out of it. I'm sure she knew that I would react this way before she even picked up the phone to call me. This wasn't a consultation, it was a debriefing. Since her objective was accomplished, she politely said goodbye and hung up the phone.
Between Isis and the situation with my grandfather, I was angry and frustrated and I didn't know what to do besides stew in the feeling. I tried to call my brother, but he was out with his wife celebrating his 30th birthday. I didn't feel like I could call the kids in New York over these issues, as I wasn't sure I could convey the magnitude of the problem. So I grabbed the things that I knew would at least get me through the moment: cigarettes and cider. I knew that it wasn't the best idea, but I had to get the thoughts out of my head one way or another.
I was looking at a very dark well, knowing that I was about to tumble down.
Notes on a life in exile: A retrospective
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