Shake

            I unplug the carton from the metal, icy shelf. My fingers, numb to the manufactured weather, squeeze the carton and that satisfying rip, that tear, and there’s milk running down my goatee and the off-white shirt below and the jeans and the sneakers on my wrung-dry body. 

            I hold the carton like I’ve earned it. My dried throat spreads – waves rushing. The godless Arizona heat’s had me begging for this. I let my arms down alongside me, the milk carton in my grip, and I throw my shoulders back. I suck through the air, cool gusts of it running through my pores. I walk to the bakery, past items and blurred colors and children next to canned soup inside shopping carts, and I stop at the breads and cookies and pick up a serrated plastic tray, crumbs and macadamia nut shavings and soft white cookies.  I’m staring at the cookies, and they look as they should, when I hear him speak.

            “If cookies were big during the dark ages, what divine thing do you think they would represent?  Jesus’ chocolate-chip, sun-burned flesh?”

            He is speaking to me.

            My neck strains as I look up to face him.  A man wearing sandals and cargo shorts, paired with a grey tee and black, messy hair down to his shoulders.  He’s carrying a face full of beard, casually holding a pear with two slim carrots stuck in its round bottom for legs and two baby carrots for arms.  I blink, wondering what exactly to center my gaze on, the organic doll or him, and he just continues looking at me, points to my tray of cookies and says: “You know what goes into those?”

            I say yeah, thanks, and look at the floor as I pivot away from him and scuttle toward the cash registers. 

            The image of the stranger has disappeared by the time I’m home taking a leak, judging by the uncomfortably loud sound whether I’m hitting the mark; the light’s been out for some time. The trickle rises high above the air conditioner’s monotonous hum. Between some channel murmuring on the TV and the consistent air conditioner, I live in a warm bubble of sound and custom-set temperature.

            The building is thin walls and identical doors with unique numbers and a community pool somewhere behind a fence.  The only light comes from the computer monitor’s eerie light.  I gave up on changing light bulbs and my blinds are stuck in a solid barrier against the window.  I don’t like much light at home.  It stirs me.  It exposes the mess of socks and shirts scattered on the floor, huddling in corners until they’re picked up again.

            How many men does it take to change a light bulb?

            I clear a jacket off the chair and sit in front of my monitor.  I bite into a cookie and grab for the mouse.

            I’m not scheduled to go into work tomorrow, so I don’t set my cell phone’s alarm. No need for exact time. A watch is merely something to check your actions against. I brush my teeth in 300 clicks of the little hand; it takes me about 90 degrees’ worth of the clock to eat a meal. What matters is a moment. A moment lasts until it doesn’t. When you think that time is a chain of repeated coincidences you’re free from expectations. No one disappoints you. 

            ——————————————————————————————————

            The next day, or the day after that one, or just a day with traffic lights and an endlessly blue sky and my old car with the Pizzeria’s logo on top, and I find myself again in the bright lights of the supermarket.

            I’m standing in my socks, each inside a shoe, all the other clothes expected.  I’m queued up, going down the bottleneck. There’s spaghetti and beer in my basket; I’ve already got the condiments at home. I play with crumpled wads of cash, customers’ tips, crammed in my cargo pocket. Items beep through the scanner, rolling through the conveyor belt, and we follow them like shamed children, shuffling small steps. Everything is so clean and glossy and sterile. Even the white floor stays mute, spitting your image back in crisp reflection.

            Past an old couple in front of me, their cart filled with canned food that can outlast them, I see him again, holding a baguette and a discount can of Spam in his hand, waiting to pay. He’s poking at celebrity magazines, intently reading the gossip headlines with a wide melon-slice of a smile. His finger goes up to Angelina Jolie’s nose, flat and shiny on the cover, and he presses his fingers into it, saying: “Boop.”

            She doesn’t even blink.

            I see his hairy feet inside his sandals.  He looks down at his arm, at the Spam.

            “Oh, discounted can of Spam, you… are too… much.  But discounted Spam!” he says, his voice ebbing with playful embarrassment, “what if others hear you?  Oh, you are so awful, discounted Spam!  Now, now, baguette, jealousy is an emotion entirely too useless to a loaf of bread,” he says, holding the baguette up to his eyes.

            The old couple between us stands frozen, following attentively the cashier’s hands – two sets of plump fingers and glossy, red nail polish (to match her hair and uniform overalls).

            The man in front places the items on the belt and addresses them: “Behave you two.”  He smiles and looks back at the items as he walks in front of the cashier.

            “Do you have a VIP Super-Value Appreciation Stamp-Approved Club Card?”

            The cashier’s voice comes out so clear and rehearsed, like harsh morning light, that he grunts at the sound of it and immediately slumps down, jelly knees, low enough to propose, and he places his palms on the counter, his eyes looking up at hers.

            He rises up, fumbling through his pockets, a smile beneath his nostrils.  The cashier makes that face, blowfish cheeks puffed out, and her eyes roll in her sockets, like the barrel of a six-shooter.  He keeps groping his pockets and says, “Aha!” and takes out a toothpick, places it between his canines, and tells her, grinning, “No, no I don’t.”

            She doesn’t even blink.

            I reach past the old couple, that leaning reach, my Card in my hand, and say, “You can use mine.”

            “About time,” he says.

            The belt moves.

            He pays for the two items with a crumpled wad of bills and coins.  I wait for the old couple to scan and beep and move on. I go through, receipts and copies of receipts and carbon copies of receipts, and he’s waiting for me at the end of the line.

            He looks at the inside of my wallet as I put the card back in and asks, “How long do you think we’re gonna be keeping those high school prom pictures in our wallets?”

            I look at the picture – inside a plastic sleeve, a proper girl next to costumed me, a moment several lifetimes past. I close the wallet and he leans in, close: “You can call me Peter,” he says.

            I extend my hand in greeting, a plastic bag draped over my wrist.

————————————————————————————————————————

            Peter’s hair is growing below his shoulders now, and he keeps his beard trimmed, not neat, but trimmed.

            We get in the elevator, going from the underground parking to the shopping plaza several levels above, and a short, fat man waddles in after us. He’s got a baseball cap and a tan-colored jacket with too many zippers and layers.  He looks like a peanut with feet, like an upside-down square with a baseball cap. 

            His fat finger presses for the floor directly above; otherwise known as two sets of stairs.

            The doors close, the slick metallic blobs of our reflections sleek on all four walls. We stand behind him. His tan, fat blob stares back at him from all directions. He looks around with purpose, as if impressed by the right angles of a box, and the elevator stops. He clears his throat, ahem, and the sound rips through the thick, stagnant air, it rips a cone of space from him to the sliding doors.

            The doors take a long time to open; long enough for him to pivot and smile: “I didn’t feel like taking the stairs.” And he twists back, proud, and walks out. We’re all just eager to answer.

            “I love it,” Peter says once the man is out.  I love that man.”

            Soon we’re at a coffee shop, waiting to order, people’s conversations oscillating.  We’ve got so many chances to stand in queue. 

            We take a seat by the window. I’ve got my laptop out and I log onto the coffee shop’s wireless Internet.  I’m connecting to something somewhere.  When your cell phone rings next to a computer, you hear the high-pitched interference of the call through the computer’s speakers a full second before the cell starts to ring.  I wonder how many invisible waves we can string through the air, before they knot.

            Peter puts his cup down and takes a small mirror form his pocket. He angles it just right to shine a bright spot on my coffee cup.

            “Catch the bunny,” he says.

            I grab my cup and he shifts the spotlight to my pants.  “Get it,” he says, and I swat at my pants as he moves it again, this time to the wall behind me.  I slap the wall, and he keeps the light in place, so now the bright spot is on my hand – an irregular patch of light draped over my fingers. I look at my hand.

            “You know,” he says, “you’ll always try to catch it.”

            “Doesn’t feel like I did.”

            He sips his coffee and I sip mine.

            When we first met, outside of the grocery store, Peter suggested an agreement. Our existence, outside of our meetings, is our own. We won’t share anything personal, anything particular, anything specific. We’re both single – that much is apparent. 

            I scratch the back of my head until I’ve got enough dead skin under my nails to wipe it off on my jeans. Peter lights two cigarettes in his mouth and places one directly on my lips. He smiles from across the table and says, “Now that I think about it, philosophy is man’s most natural art.”

            It’s so easy with someone you barely know.

            “Go on,” I say.

            He takes a drag, his cigarette brightening at the tip: “Philosophy is just ordered thinking.  Anyone’s a philosopher, anyone can think,” he exhales the smoke.  “If anything,” he says inhaling again, “we at least know that we exist.”

            “I think therefore I exist,” I mumble through the smoke.

            “Precisely.  So you know you exist because you can wonder if you do, which would also prove that you not only exist, but also think.  So philosophy,” he says, “is just development of our only true and universal quality – thought.”  He takes a last drag off his cigarette and smothers it into the ashtray.

———————————————————————————————————-

            I fly through the backdoor and back into the crowded kitchen – a small place of contrasting smells and sounds. Buckets of hot sauce and deep-fried chicken wings smell so loud you can’t hear the pumping, pressurized hose of the industrial washing machine. That familiar, warm smell of fresh-baked dough lays hidden behind the industrial clutter. All the bodies in there, as well, always moving, always busy.

            “Yo,” I say looking down at the tired, stained floor.

            “Hey,” says Mark on his way out, probably smiling wide, carrying four large pizza boxes in one hand and twirling his car keys in the other. He’s the cool, chipper driver.

            I grab the next orders and go straight to the map, visualizing the optimal path.

            Rabbo’s is a likely pizza shop. One of the cooks mixes dough and rolls it in clumps. He pinches the tops and makes them look like tits. The other cook always starts from the nipple when he rolls them out. It never gets old. They jerk off pepperoni sticks with aggressive New York accents, they tug at breadsticks and squeeze tomatoes; one of them eventually dipped his testicles in hot wing sauce and the manager filmed it with a cell phone.

            I think of the job as a game. They give you a package and coordinates and you go to the spot. I listen to talk radio in my car; I like the soft, pleasant tones of a human voice chattering above the car’s engine. I leave my car door open when I drop off the food.

            Once you arrive, whether you smile or frown, either way the customer looks at your feet and gives you the same tip. Just stay neutral to whatever’s going on behind the customer, beyond the front door. People are used to the pizza delivery routine by now so just stand there. Don’t spoil a good thing by improvising. Just stand there and wait for your tip.

———————————————————————————————————————————

            Peter and I are making our way through the food court, that obligatory cluster of a hundred voices rummaging through the air.  Everyone’s in queue, waiting for a refill.  Everyone’s eyes are on the menu long after they’ve chosen. I’ve already had my frozen meal, thank you.

            Peter and I pass through, beat-boxing.  We’re spitting music, our hands cupped before our mouths, covered in slobber and cadence.  His hair has grown, thick strands of it draped over his shoulders, still the sandals, his beard locked and loaded, wearing faded jeans and a white tee. We match.

            We walk on, our bodies perpendicular to the floor, and we walk past people and endless display windows.  Glossy, smooth mannequins with perfect posture, a row of dummies at attention, and everyone’s heads turned to them.  Jealousy is an emotion entirely too useless for a plastic mannequin.

            We’re still coughing out beats, spattering cymbals and snares and bass. We reach the end of the mall, our own catwalk, and pivot a hundred and eighty degrees to walk back through it again.

            We walk past a home decorating store, with those cute tiny porcelain kittens and lambs, and Peter makes that scratch-pad DJ whir. I stop the beat, wipe my palms on my jeans, and follow inside. He’s crouching next to a painting, his eyes intently on it, pinned to the canvas. I scan. A blond woman trailed by a short man is leaning over a foot-long bamboo fountain.  There are oddly shaped dishes in the corner and utensils for tickling broccoli the right way. 

            I think that without the bright lighting, without the perky music, this stuff would rot unused in my kitchen. The only distraction I need in the kitchen is my fridge, which I frequent at all hours of the day and night. I’ll use any excuse to open that heavy door and look at the shelves lined with condiments, prepped and ready. When I loose my keys, for example, I always open the fridge and peek inside. My freezer holds several kinds of frozen dinners, dessert included. I got water and ice on tap, filtered somewhere in there. During a commercial break I’ll sometimes get up from the couch just to open that solid door. 

            Peter strolls over to me.  Just in time, too. 

            “I wonder if I have the qualities of a steel fork, or a felt-tipped whatever,” I say. “Am I stainless, anti-bacterial, microwave-safe, ready-to-serve?”

            “Turn around,” Peter says, his hand on my shoulder. “Let me look at your ingredients, your cooking directions.”

            I turn my back to him and laugh, “I’m organic, you know. Fancy.”

            And Peter says, “That’s funny.”

            “What?”

            “It says ‘Shake Well Before Use.’”

————————————————————————————————————————-

            Darkness drips onto our shoes and we, hands in our pockets and deliberate steps, advance through the alleyway. It smells like midnight and the moon looks stapled to the black velvet curtains above. Peter’s hair now just flows down. He’s wearing a comfortable robe over his entire body, looking like a hippie sheikh, beard included.

            We’re wedged between properties, we’re walking the dirt path behind someone’s swimming pool, we’re an inch-thick wall apart from someone’s very own private backyard.  Everything is overlapping shadows, creating transparent films of black.

            By now, we’ve met some time ago.  Few things matter precisely how long ago.

            We walk and walk, hearing bits of evening conversation, passing through slices of privacy.  Beyond the fence, behind that impenetrable six-foot wooden fence, Peter and I hear late-night action movies, the whir of some kitchen appliance.  A faded police siren rises, several fences that way, drowning out the buzzing of insects and electricity.

            When I was a kid, my friends and I dreamed up scenarios at the sound of a siren.

            Peter lights a cigarette and hands me one.  We find a large boulder next to a telephone pole, and we sit down, a solid brick wall behind us. 

            Crickets play their legs and we look up at the darkness to exhale.  A siren rises up again somewhere.  Everyone’s in trouble.

            I look up at the dark filth before us, the unkempt dirt.  Nobody’s dirt, right between perfectly trimmed backyards with timed sprinkler systems.

            He speaks over the silence: “I’ll tell you what the problem with education is.”  His chest rising and the cigarette crackling, he says, “We fit the curriculum to the time schedule, instead of fitting the time schedule to the curriculum. 

            “It’s weird,” he says, taking a drag, “It’s just so weird.  All we can do in life is learn.  And suddenly, we find ourselves disinterested in it.”  His cig crackles.

            “You ever watch television?”

            This is the most personal conversation we’ve had. 

            “Yeah,” I say, “I watch TV.”

            “Do you know how the damn thing works?” He asks.

            “No.”

            He looks at me.  I’m an upside-down square with a cigarette.  

            I look back at him, the deep contours of his dark silhouette melting into the night.  He says, “We’re tired of the textbook explanation weaving its way through wordy lessons and restricting rules.  Patience is unnatural.”

            “You see then,” he says looking at the wall, as though he’s writing his ideas there and reading them off, “Our insatiable lust for knowledge is slowly doused by incremental, step-by-step instruction.  We are given an A, a B, and a C.  We are presented with facts.  Facts!  And no one cares anyway when all they do is sit in numbered rows, waiting for the magician behind the overhead to uncover her trick.  Teachers give a formula,” he says, his lips arching in ugly disdain, “They just give a goddamn formula and say ‘it’s solved.’  As if the formula exists outside its real application.”

            “You’re really fired up about this,” I say.  “Are you a teacher?”

            “I guess you can say that,” he says.

            And I ask, “What do you mean?”

            “I’m Jesus Christ,” he says, “I’m Jesus fucking Christ.  And I can’t even start a riot.”

            I drop my cigarette and it triggers a siren somewhere in the distance. 

—————————————————————————————————————————-

            I stare straight at him as he brings his hand to my face and pushes my nose like a button.

            “Boop.”

            I don’t even blink.

            He’s looking ahead, his hair and beard – unmistakable puzzle pieces.

            I sit there, in the alleyway, in the public dirt between private homes, my ass squished on a boulder.  I’m looking ahead, too, like a kid taking a test and searching for the answer on a wall. 

            “What about talking to the can of spam?  What about wasting time at the mall?’

            “What about it?” he asks.

            “You’re not Jesus Christ.”

            “Alright,” he says and smiles at me.  “Forget it.”

            We listen to a sprinkler’s sputter.  A car starts up somewhere.

            “Fuck you, dude,” I say. I feel the words lifting me up, and I stand up off the boulder and turn to look down at him. “You seriously gonna give me some Christ bullshit?”

            Peter looks up at me.

            “All right, forget it,” he says and looks away.

            “No, fuck your self-important shit.” I hear a rushing sound, I’m shaking - there’s a jumbo jet taking off next to me, Niagara Falls crashing on the rocks below. “Look at me,” I say, “fucking look at me.” It’s all so loud.

            He looks at me, straight at me.

            I stop. I see him clearly, no waterfall, no jet engine.

            “I’m sorry,” he says.

            I kick a jagged rock with the tip of my shoe and watch it awkwardly stumble forward and blend into the dark distance. I light a cigarette and breathe through it.

            “Go teach the people, then,” I say. “Reach out to them.”

            “What have I left to say?”

            I sit back down. We look straight at each other. It’s comfortable. I want to ask the question, but I don’t.

            “You’re not Jesus,” I say.

            He picks up a stick and doodles in the dirt.

            “Just forget about it,” he says.

            I grab a small rock and lob it over a fence.  Peter lights a business card on fire and we both watch it curl under the flames.

            “I guess anyone’s as good as a messiah,” I say.