Rontel Read Free Page B

looked back at the newspaper.
    I liked to have a newspaper on the train so no one would talk me.
    It wasn’t the only guard against interaction, but definitely the best.
    Staring at a newspaper for a long time seemed normal—but staring at any other object on the train for a long period didn’t.
    If you just stared at something without words on it, someone would eventually fuck with you.
    They’re here to fuck with me—I thought.
    The tension of feeling perfectly fine with just staring at anything, versus other people fucking with you.
    The tension.
    Such bad tension!
    Let me show you how a real man endures bad tension.
    Been doing that a lot lately, adding, “Let me show you how a real man (does something)” to a lot of my thoughts or conversations.
    Like, yesterday my girlfriend went to walk across the street before we had a walk signal and I held her back and said, “Let me show you how a real man obeys traffic law.”
    In the newspaper there was one last item in the crime blotter, presented in the form of a giant quote with the story beneath.
    The quote was from someone who witnessed a stabbing outside a bar in Rogers Park.
    The quote read: “Yeah this guy came up, and was going to give him (the victim) a hug, and then he (attacker) says, ‘Hey what’s up,’ and stabbed him in the back.”
    So—someone randomly approached someone else outside a bar and said, “Hey what’s up” then offered a hug, then stabbed the person as the hug was accepted.
    My heavens.
    I sat there terrified.
    Why would anyone accept some random hug.
    I’d never accepted a random hug in my life.
    And never would!
    Actually no.
    What the fuck.
    Who am I to deny.
    I’d take the first one offered by anyone right now—even if I saw the person holding a giant knife behind his/her back.
    Even if the person ended up stabbing me, I’d take a deep breath and put my mouth by his or her ear and say, “I knew you’d do this. I knew it, sweetheart. And, well I still thank you for the hug.”
    I turned the page.
    There was an article about a television show where people competed by losing weight.
    I closed the newspaper and put it on the ground.
    Welcome to your new home.
    *
    The train made a stop at Damen Street and the kid in the mechanized wheelchair exited, pushed out by his mother.
    Thumb in his mouth still.
    He did the same wave—keeping his eyes forward.
    Pushed away, waving.
    Signaling, “Laaaaater, asshole.”
    And I realized that part of my problem was I visibly resembled an adult.
    But never became one.
    People viewed me as an adult but I was just shit.
    I always expected adulthood to happen, to make, like, a popping or dinging sound when it did.
    But no.
    Newly twenty-nine years old and nowhere near anything different than ever before.
    Not even youthful.
    Just the same pile, moving around.
    Shifting anxieties—moving a pile of lead around to different areas of the same giant bare room.
    To then realize I’ve become the pile.
    The truth.
    All just one time period.
    One big now.
    No adulthood.
    Rapidly moving away from any kind of connection.
    I could imagine borders around periods of my life to make it seem like I’d become a different person, but that would just be a failure to see there was no more changing or nearness of change as the person on either side of those imagined borders.
    Not sure.
    Not important.
    Not going to shower today. (Third day in a row, yeah!)
    What if I just donated all my organs and everything useful about me right now, even the few good thoughts I’d had.
    What if I walked into a hospital and said, “I’m going to kill myself anyway, you want my shit or not, come on”—then wait a second and say, “Come on, talk to me talk to me let’s go.”
    I saw myself entering the hospital and confidently walking up to the front desk, resting my elbow on the counter.
    “Yeah, come on, let’s see a doctor, sweetheart,” I’d say, regardless of the front desk worker’s gender—and I’d be snapping.