A Sleepwalker

A Sleepwalker

It was in little jests that we would embarrass the man, asking him whether his Reich-heiling member would knock over lamps and smear across walls. Tit for tat, really – we at least gave him the benefit of the doubt regarding his vitality. And yet there was a singular tinge of despondence in his speech, a wistful longing from living every day with that thing he considered, in words more colloquial, as moribund. The early sun of summer bloated the walls in orange light, and he arrived at the delicatessen with news. I was the only one at the store.

“I think there might be a cure!”

“My friend, no medication will heal us of this job.” He was unaffected by the sentiment and apparently by the doldrums of this barely-keeps-one-alive job, blind as usual to the searing light of his obliviousness.

“No, no, the sleepwalking I always tell you about.” I was mildly surprised that he didn’t frame the sickness as the one we made fun of him for. “It’s apparently pretty simple, a pretty easy procedure. I’ll go in next week and I won’t have this rings under my eyes or this, what did he call it, listlessness!” His eagerness fascinated me. It was like the lunk who just discovered the greatness of a pyramid scheme.

“That’s great, man. Does it cost much?”

“Yeah, but who cares? I got enough in savings and my wife has a job too. And besides, with this, I won’t have to work here!”

“You have to work here? Did God come down and tell you that?”

“Well, no, but what else could I do?”

“Security. People would still think you were on the job, even if you were trying to balance the pepper spray on your dick.”

“Why is it always about my dick, man?”

“Why is it always about your sleepwalking, man?” The reflexive mocking was a bit much and I steered the conversation towards easier things.

“So, what’s the procedure supposed to be? I hope it doesn’t involve suction cups.”

“What? No, no suction cups.”

“Oh, good. Those piss me off. I can imagine it now – ‘Yes, by very careful suction cup application to your gentials, we can exorcise the demons and get you cash in the next thirty days! Cures sleepwalking too!’”

“No, uh, that’s just weird. All they do is a few CAT scans, some sort of wave technology thing, and apparently it works!”

“And you went to a doctor, yeah?”

“Of course!” Oh. Of course.

“Well, I hope it works out for you. Any idea what this thing was called?”

“Yeah, uh… hold on a sec. It was called ‘allotropic induction through resonance’, whatever that means.” I thought it was cleverly worded bullshit and resolved at the end of the day to look it up myself, curious and a little dubious about his density.

It turns out the process was peer-reviewed and about as well-tested as the theory of gravity. It could change a lot of mental aspects, but most of the applications stuck to easy and practical problems like somnambulism, rather than the more twitty and nebulous questions like, “If Bob calls me on Sunday and I know I’m free but, like, I say no anyway and I really want to, is there a way to make it so, like, I do say it that way? I mean, you know, the way I want to?” Personality changes were in the cards but not available at the moment. I was kind of worried that my sleepwalking friend expected some sort of complete life reversal, as if he would suddenly explode out of minimum-wage wankery and thud softly in the sugary sands of Cancun.

As was usual, the days seemed long and tiring. Shoulders weep, and by clock-out they seem to be at the same angle as the eyebrows, penitent and desperate for salvation. Our man of the legendary penis and second-act sleeping problem came in a few days after his revelation with a despair so palpable that some men who moved the goods into the store acted very loudly and visibly as if they had eaten fresh manure. We questioned him to no avail until the lunch break, where he finally broke the silence in a whisper.

“I… I don’t know if we’ll have the money after all.” One of my friends at the place spoke softly in reply.

“Aw, man, that stinks. Anything we can do?” I hadn’t yet explained to them that this was actually a real procedure, and put my bets on some sort of tragic and humanity-distrusting dupe among dopish friends. I often do this because I feel bad for cynics. Myopic wrongness has to take a toll.

“N-no… I just had to have somebody die now, of all times. Gotta get a casket and a service…” He looked down and never seemed to swallow, ruminating endlessly on one pulverized bite of pastrami on rye.

“Well, if there’s anything, let me know.” The faces were all serious, earnest. I wasn’t surprised, but I did lose my bet.

The next day he was ecstatic, in the greatest of moods. It was pretty obvious that Jack, the manager, had thrown in a helping hand. His smile had no interest when the man offered his explanation, only the complexion of altruistic contentment. It is not difficult to explain the face, but it is easier to say that it is not at all like the face apparent while one is defecating. Had it been like this, my sentimental-cynicism suspicion of Jack as a sociopath would have instantly been verified. I would also very much want to know why that face was his preferred one.

“Well, thanks to a certain someone, I’ll be getting the procedure.”

“That’s cool, man.”

“Good for you.”

We were all very pleased by this – we all cited practical reasons, getting him to shut up or finally having a chance at ridding ourselves of the bastard - but I believe most were simply glad to see a fellow man being helped, even if it made them squirm to admit it.

The following days proceeded with a little drama, expected but, as always, coming in a different way than expected. My girlfriend of three months decided on separation, citing in less robust terms that she was “not prepared for a long-term relationship”, which to me, besides being true, transmitted a fair deal of other information. I, however, merely nodded and wished her the best of luck, and offered to keep in contact, as we certainly made good friends (knowing full well that her statement implied a variety of things that suggested we would probably never talk to each other again). It was my turn for questioning that day at the delicatessen, mostly oblique comments about my spacey staring. In truth I was concocting lines of wit, already anticipating another attempt at a relationship. I looked over regret with intellectual distance, applied the bandaging of wisdom surgically, and hoped that a full emotional release could be done within the next few days. The clinical approach was handy, as I never had the urge or the ability, really, to change or replace emotions.

I was still in this fugue the day before his treatment. I walk up to a woman on the street. We are at a crosswalk, and she is beautiful. I’m not sure which is more important, the beauty or the crosswalk, for the crosswalk is where reality intersects wit. Next to her, I lean forward then turn, raise an eyebrow, and ask politely, “Could you tell me when it’s okay to walk? I don’t think I’ll be able to see it like this.” I rolled my eyes in my dazed state, and my coworker asked. I told him, with the appearance of utter honesty, that ocular calisthenics are necessary for a day-dreamer extraordinaire. My disinterest in his question was apparent as I said this verbatim, making no attempt to soften a tone that I always thought was funny in an ironic, overcompensating kind of way. He merely frowned and went back to sweeping the floor.

The day of was uneventful and honestly dull, hardly worth the excitement we had brought up for it. I coined new and horrifying phrases; my coworkers did their usual in unpredictable ways; my manager Jack smoked a terribly skunky joint and fell asleep in the back room while drawing circles all over his arms. We played connect the dots as well as we could, using permanent marker and, of course, making sure that every attempt yielded a penis in some sort of position.

The following sunrise greeted Jack, clad in seasonally inappropriate long-sleeves. He was immediately followed by our man, who we all wondered about with a little bit of excitement. Through our usual work chatter we had decided that he would return some sort of superhuman or even a cyborg, to be revered as the first of a daring and no-way-I-want-it-too enhancement. He came in placidly, and spoke to us with an odd, stumbling, and utterly mechanical way of speech.

“They-said-that-some-speech-center-side-effects-would-make-this-a-little-weird-so-if-we-could-keep-talking-to-a-minimum-that-would-be-very-nice-of-you-thanks-it’s-a-work-time.”

He walked normally and performed his duties, answering questions only when necessary. We were not compelled to attempt humor, the idea to much like trying to conquer a hill embedded with landmines. The next day was similar and by the end of the week no progress had been made. Our man, however, did not appear frustrated and might have even been a little more sprightly by the end of the week.

I met with the other single coworkers for a game of billiards and some movie watching over the weekend. We all threw around our half-assed ideas in a drunken fashion, shooting for humor and easy laughs while either avoiding or trivializing the man and his procedure. What would his wife do now? He had a wife? Well, he has to inflate her first. And on and on, the empty banter an analogue to stereotypical Chinese food, satiating only to feel, fifteen minutes later, as if one had never consumed a single bite. The drinks would drown the hunger for something close, something real, and then we would awake, fresh in headaches and haze, grumbling and forgetful. I would wake up in the morning, fully understanding the desperation, and committed nonetheless to doing it again the next weekend.

On Monday the man was not there. It was of particular concern only to the floor, whose previous squeaks from rubber soles were now softened by dirt and dust into bumping, scuffling noises. That was it and all the all that day.

I came home that night less curious about curing somnambulism and more concerned about going on a grand trip some day. Far away, across the greatest deserts and widest rivers, slinking down the Amazon and skirting up the Nile, through the sandstone catherdral of Strasbourg and into a seedy tavern in the Czech Republic. For some reason or another I was compelled the idea of going there, convincing myself that this was a grand new place, then working somewhere eerily similar to the delicatessen I was at now. I would find another going-nowhere coterie, slip through the social scene, and move on a year later just as I had done with this town.

Tuesday saw the same neglect, and I was assigned to clean up shop. It made me wonder in earnest whether the job really needed the man. Jack was stone faced, or just stoned, and emoted only at the announcement of a sports score or record number from the radio. Another coworker had been replaced in the afternoon shift, a high-school kid looking to appease her parents take some “personal responsibility”. She whined on and on about how they knew nothing about personal responsibility, that if she was just going to have college paid for anyway, maybe they’d assign her some real responsibility and stop treating her like a child. I sighed. She took this as a sign to keep speaking. I turned around and left half an hour early.

The evening corroded. Dinner swam into view and passed into fullness. Bars glided by nosily, distortedly, hideous faces brackish on the stools, little windy triumphs of laughs and the sweet-low hum of a broken air conditioner dancing in a corner. Dancing, breaking the pulses of light like a slowly dripping film. I hadn’t tripped for a long time. God, everything seemed to right, fit so well with this bullshit in my system. It reassured me, billowed in brilliant smells and cacophonies too bright for me to see, and seemed to proclaim with pulpish glory that everything would be alright.

Morning. Wednesday. Hand in front of face. Five fingers. Five curling fingers. Five fingers to grab a broom. Broom. Vroom. Vroom vroom. I love waking – I see the world before I am confused enough to try and make sense of it. Everything is in focus after that trip. I am here. In an apartment. I feel lonely, unspent. Not impotent, really, just apathetic. This routine, this blinking sun. Blinking sun? Outside a few helicopters had passed by. Completely unrelated. I wanted them like a story. I wanted them to be symbolic things, I wanted to look over this unusual week like I had encountered some epiphany. Thumps from the apartment above. Swells of wind chaffing my window. I stepped in my shoes and set out to quit my job.

I met Jack and the man was there. Cigar in his mouth, a fedora and Hawaiian shirt.

“Jesus, man, this isn’t Miami, nor are you a detective. What the shit is this getup?”

“I’m a new man, can’t you tell? Hell, the wife died, and I’m free.”

“Your wife died. Hey, what? Free? Free like what? From what?”

“Man, I am free.” He walked out. Apparently curing somnambulism gave one… whatever the hell this was.

“Do you really think curing sleepwalking did that?” I asked Jack.

“I dunno. I don’t event think his wife died.”

“What?”

“She called in yesterday and said that her husband was ‘out’. No details, just sounded a little concerned and wanted to let me know.”

“Huh.”

“Then, get this. She calls this mornings and just apologizes. Says he’s a little different but he’ll do the work, same as always.”

“I don’t think he’s going to be doing the work, uh, ever again.”

“I’d be inclined to agree.”

I quit shortly after and left for a new residence in the southeast, compelled by easy access to the Keys. Flings and friends and a few years later, I picked through a newspaper and saw a picture of the man in the obituary. I laughed a little, morbid as it was. He had the same fedora on, a huge and wicked grin over his face. The obit was terse so I looked up some details. There were a few small articles regarding him, one of which caught my eye.

“Tampa, FL – A man found in the Seaside park today near the dog walk, mauled and killed after what eyewitness report as attempting to have sex with a German Shepherd. Details are forthcoming, however, locals report that this man worked at a drycleaners off of Somerset and was regarded as a “very strange man”.”

That night I opened my paycheck and stared at it, eventually letting it slide between my fingers and waft to the floor. I let one breath out slowly, then another. The feel of my chest, my lungs compressed, salty air expelled. I looked outside, to the moon across the bay, to the twinkles of skyline farther north, and decided that I would quit my job. Was it fear that kept me here? Longing, maybe false hope? I went inside and ripped out his picture from the obituary. Took a broad swathe of clear masking tape and stuck the photo cleanly to the wall. It struck me like a lighthouse that had caught fire from the pilot light. I felt embarrassed and immediately ripped it down. Even if a taped it to my forehead, what was it going to do? I let it sit in my lap for the rest of the night, the wiry face somehow looking down at me still, and wondered idly if his face had always appeared like a lighthouse in my mind.