A man checked his watch. It was half past ten. Half past, he thought. It’s half past now. He took a deep breath and kept counting down.
He had read an article, a long time ago now, that said the length of time of grief is the same length of time you’re with a person. He read an article before about how to loosely define grief. Not just the death of your mother, but the loss of a friend, or fiancé, or self.
The man considered himself to be well-read. It was one of the words that, if his friends asked him, “Hey, Tom, what three words would you give to describe yourself?” he would say. But he didn’t have many friends, at least not the kind that asked that kind of question. The other word is dedicated. The other word is a secret.
Tom took the ticket in his pocket out of his pocket as he heard the loudspeakers announce his train’s departure. He walked across the busy station. He stepped in some gum.
Tom is a man of many secrets. One of his secrets is that he saw the gum in his path. The other word is lonely.
Tom is visiting his mother because she is going to paint the walls in the kitchen again. He is going to help her choose colors this weekend. Next weekend, he will come down again and help her paint it. His mother doesn’t want to paint it herself and she doesn’t want to hire painters. Despite it all, she doesn’t like strange and new people in her house. Besides, she likes the company of her son.
She has secrets too. She gets lonely too. But that isn’t the real secret, the real secret is it’s been going on much longer than since her husband died. The real secret is she forgot to bring flowers. She nearly forgot to wear black.
Tom likes to sit by the window on the Acela. He likes to watch as the world whirs by. The Acela is fast, and Tom doesn’t need to go fast. But the Acela is expensive, and another secret Tom has is that he doesn’t have a lot to spend his money on. A secret is that his bank account makes him lonely. People think he must be generous when he gives money to all the guys on the street but they don’t know the half of it. Tom likes to go fast on the Acela because not many other parts of his life do.
He looks out the window and counts the number of things he sees that start with g. Grass.
Grass is all he can find today. He was hoping for a goat but wasn’t so lucky. Tom doesn’t feel like a lucky guy but that part is not a secret. It can’t be a secret if you can see it from across the aisle of the Acela. He wears it like a coat of paint. But then again, if we go by those rules, his loneliness isn’t a secret either.
Sometimes when Tom gets bored of counting things that begin with g. He repeats all of his favorite jokes in head.
He laughs to himself because he likes the moment he forgets where he is and forgets how he feels and is happy. He likes to laugh to himself because sometimes, if he is lucky, he laughs so hard he cries and then he gets a moment of crying out of joy. He doesn’t get a lot of those anymore, he cherishes them, holds them close and very, very tight. But Tom doesn’t feel like a lucky guy, and he isn’t one today.
Nevertheless, he closes his eyes and thinks. The best thing about Tom’s head is it’s entirely his own and there is no one to tell him that his jokes are too corny or stupid or don’t make sense.
He usually starts with the knock-knock. It is mapped out in beautiful detail:
A man walks up to a house in the suburbs. This house is yellow and has a concrete walkway and three steps. And a doorway with a doorbell. Above the doorbell is a sign that says “no solicitors.” In Tom’s mind, the handwriting is beautiful, someone who took a class in cursive. The man who walked to the door is wearing a button down shirt with a red grid pattern. He knocks. He hears footsteps, then a voice from inside. It says,
“Who is it?”
The man replies, “Billy Bob Joe Penny.” To which the voice replies,
“Billy Bob Joe Penny who?” This confuses the man. For one, he wonders why this person doesn’t open the door. It is customary these days for one to open the door while they speak with someone. For two,
“Seriously, how many Billy Bob Joe Pennys do you know?” he heard himself ask. At first there was a bit of silence, it smelled of mulling. Then the voice from inside declared,
“Three.” Billy Bob Joe Penny did not believe it. He said,
“Name them.” To which the voice replied in a tone that can be described in no way other than smug,
“Billy Bob Joe Penny. Billy Bob Joe Penny. Billy Bob Joe Penny.”
Tom hadn’t thought of a clever way to continue it. Sometimes, he thought of this when on the Acela, but for now, only having released a brief chuckle, he continued on to the next joke of his list.
This one was much simpler and it was simply a scenario:
His cousin, at the time no more than 12 years old, has received a pedometer for his birthday. Not the kind on a watch or a screen like nowadays. The kind that just clips to your belt and has a number which says the number of steps. It only has three settings. When the boy received the present, he asked his mother,
“On average, how many steps should I take per day?” The mother told him about 12 thousand. At the end of the night it is time for Tom’s cousin to sleep, but his pedometer only reads 10,788. He walks quickly in a circle and says,
“I gotta get my steps in, Ma. I gotta get my steps in.” His mother says,
“It is bed time, Henry.” He says,
“I gotta get my steps in.”
Tom cannot remember what the three settings are and sometimes this recollection or imagination is how he spends his 45-minutes of Acela ride, but today, something in his mind draws him to the third joke:
Jessica sits across from him at the diner. He asks her if anything interesting happened in work today. She says,
“Well, it’s a good thing you mentioned it, because I received the strangest call. The phone rang, like any other call, and I picked it up. I said, ‘this is Williamson Wood Products, how may I help you?’ And the voice on the other line said, “I’d like to make an order please,” and so I thought nothing of it yet, I thought, ‘This is a client.’ And so I said, ‘Yes, what is it?’ And then the voice said very slowly, ‘A penguin.’ And I said, ‘What?’ And it repeated the same, and then, I said, ‘With whom am I speaking?’ And the voice said, even slower, ‘Mars.’ And then it hung up”
And Tom was laughing very hard, and he said,
“Wow, I can’t believe it!” And Jessica said,
“Neither can I” And Tom is still laughing and he says,
“Really?” And Jessica says,
“No. I just made that up.” And then she starts laughing too and then Tom laughs harder and they are laughing together in the diner and all of the old customers are looking at them but they don’t care because they —
Tom catches himself. Her laughter echoes in his head and it is sweet like coffee with 10 Splenda. His heart hurts deep and bad and he understands the term heartache because he can feel the pain squeezing out his insides like wringing a rag. He has understood the term for a while now. It’s passed half past now.
He is crying. And it isn’t from joy. Tom doesn’t feel lucky today at all. Tom takes the travel sized tissues out of his backpack. The part of his mind that drew him here is the same part that takes the blame for why his new sneaker is now stuck to the floor of the Acela. A fact Tom is reminded of when he tries to stand up to leave the car. He wonders why that joke is still in the rotation when he forgets the last part. This just makes him cry more and turn to the window. Grass. A tunnel reflects a face he does not want to see.
It is in these dark moments on the Acela that Tom ponders the second word, and asks if he is really more dedicated than lovesick.