Liz breezes in and catches the edge of my office door as if fighting the hall tide. “Hey, you have those photos ready from yesterday’s shoot?”

From where I’m standing I can just see the photos, poking out from under my portfolio on the desk. I discreetly tuck them under without drawing her attention. “Oh… no,” I say, feigning concern. “You know, I left them at home? I feel like such an idiot!”

My coworker is no longer breezing. “Hold on,” she says. “You do know we need those photos for the review, Jeff. We need the photos, or there is no review!”

“Of course I know,” I say, holding up my hands in concession. “I just… maybe I can run home and get them.”

Liz looks at her watch. “If you can get home and back in a half-”

“Oh, wait, but I took the bus this morning,” I say. “So that’s probably out.”

There is a place in my mind where I can discriminate between truth and utter fabrication, but that place is not unlike an art gallery. Some items are closer to reality, certainly, but does that make the impressionist pieces any less valid from an artistic standpoint? There is beauty in deceit, without question. I lie just to see the resultant frustration bloom–it’s the same satisfaction a gardener feels standing ankle deep in loam, his bag of seed empty. People lie to cover their asses, to make themselves look good, or to evade punishment. But any half-rate actor could tell you that drama is only interesting when obstacles are overcome, when the stakes are high. When people are happy and satisfied, well, that can hardly be called living.
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My friend returned from her vacation with skin the color of apricot honey. “Wow,” I said, and proceeded to ignore her recounting of exotic locales and leisure pursuits. The change in her complexion was profound, but more than that, her countenance glowed with a vitality that made her seem more real. She was transformed, and I couldn’t help but to comment again. “I can’t get over how healthy you look. I guess that’s it.”

She said, “You’re talking about my skin, aren’t you?”

“Hard not to notice,” I said. “I’d gotten used to you being a pasty pale thing, and even though I’ve never been one to equate tans with health–I’m proud of my ghost-flesh–I can’t deny that… it complements you. If I may be so bold.”

She laughed, “You are the saucy one. But in my case it actually isn’t healthy. When I’m in the sun too long–on those rare occasions–I get these really weird blotches. You can’t normally see them, but my face is actually one big blotch. I swear, it ends around my neck.”

Was this modesty? I wasn’t sure.

“Really,” she said, and leaned forward, tugging her collar down so I could see her right shoulder. “See there, where it ends? It’s red where my shoulder meets my neck, and there’s this ragged intersection that goes all the way down my back.”
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At a family reunion dinner, my great grandfather–a man who was, to me, as noble as a silverback gorilla–ground his molars mercilessly. Our relationship at the time was such that he would occasionally drop tidbits of age-old wisdom on me, and I would not let on that my pockets were stuffed full of colorful summer beetles that I had collected from his garden. It’s fair to say that we weren’t exactly on the same wavelength. But as inscrutable as the old man was, when it came down to such basics as the feeding process, any mystique he’d cultivated just went out the window. Whether he was processing steak gristle or apple sauce, I endured the sound of rhythmic pulverization for the length of the dinner. It seemed impossible that this had been going on for eight decades. No, more likely he had simply reached a point where he knew just how long he needed to last, so why not use it up? To end on zero, there’s nobility in that, surely.

In response, I decided on the spot never again to allow my teeth to touch. My reaction might sound extreme, and I would agree that some lifelong habits can only take root during childhood’s idealism. But the mere thought of enamel on enamel was so offensive that I spent the rest of that day slack-jawed, for which I paid dearly when I failed to heed the portrait photographer’s increasingly vehement pleas.

Gradually, my ability to avoid closing my jaw became second-nature, and it was undetectable to the outside world. A strategic, if unnatural, placement of tongue provided cushion enough to ensure that enamel never touched enamel, and my resolve to this end became an obsession, not to mention a source of vanity. I could smile without raising undue attention, and took great pride when people complimented my extraordinarily intact teeth. I was not shy about brandishing them. Soon after my 25th birthday a friend remarked, “You still have those darling little bumps on the tops of your incisors, like they just came in.”

If there was a price for perfect teeth, it was in the denial in the satisfaction of a solid bite, which I experienced only in reverie. At night I would dream about grinding my molars against each other, and the pain of it was sweet. The clenching pressure was so great that my teeth would squeak like styrofoam, and fracture lines would creep over their contours until they splintered, until gum pressed against gum. Often I would awaken in a panic, though probing never revealed anything more serious than a bloody tongue.

My teeth are worthy of remark not because they’ve changed, but because they’re exactly the same as they were when they first thrust themselves through my gums. Thus, it’s not change in itself that is remarkable, but some measure of contrast between perception and expectation. It’s fair to say that I have some concerns about my teeth, but to illustrate why this is specifically, I need to tell you another story.
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How many individual things are we able to remember at once–without resorting to unholy trickery, that is? At any given time, the experts will tell you, we can keep between five and nine things in mind, on average. That’s another interesting piece of trivia to tuck away, but it’s actually not what I’m talking about. I mean what is the sum total of things that we can know? Is there an end to it? We must assume there is an upper limit, owing to the brain’s finite mass. And if a brain is like my attic then we must also assume that, as it reaches maximum capacity, it’s not so much the size of the object you’re trying to stuff up there, but the shape of it as well. Any new thought, in other words, would have to be able to fit in among the other notions, in form as well as size. It follows then that at some point you can only accept certain types of information, which, considering my elders, is just about as accurate a theory as any other I’ve been able to devise.

Regardless, the reason this thought is occupying so much of my mind is due to a list that I can’t forget. Because I am a slothful creature by nature, I’ve always clustered tasks–those things that must get done–into as short a time as possible, the better to have done with them. As I run my internal audit, which usually happens while I’m in the shower, I string together an unwieldy list of activities that I’ll try to maintain by repeating them like a mantra. “Marinate the tempeh, add memory to the Palm, necklace for sister… Marinate the tempeh,” and so on. Invariably, when the list grows too long, errors begin to creep in. Words cannibalize themselves, and I am subject to involuntary spoonerism episodes. This must be what dementia is like.

The sheer bulk of information necessitates that I pare back to bare essentials. “Marinate, memory, necklace,” et cetera. These optimized lists are much more manageable, and sometimes they’re even catchy. But that’s the problem, see. If they’re too catchy then the lists can bridge the gap between short term memory and long term memory, and suddenly I find myself weaving these one-time lists–agendas shortly to become obsolete–into the very tapestry that makes me who I am.
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The first time we visited the progressive suburban creperie, we’d allowed ourselves just enough time to eat before the late evening movie. Nestled in the crook between the faux rusticana post-antique used junk store and the self-consciously over-exotic soap and bong shop, the restaurant was the most convenient place to grab a bite, since it was right across the street.

The front of the restaurant was so completely open as to seem abandoned, and indeed, there were no staff to greet us. Such lack of structure tends to give me a kind of social vertigo, which can result in extreme bouts of self-doubt, leading to panic attacks if not promptly seen to. “Should we sit down, or do we stand? Where should we stand? Is there a queue? Do we order up at the front, or is that just for paying? Should we ring something? Are they even open?”

I stumbled about like a lummox, and nearly knocked over the beverage machine before a waiter finally intervened. Maybe my lack of coordination endeared me to the staff, but our anonymity was compromised either way. Still, after we were seated the evening progressed in a manageable enough fashion.

Partially owing to our first positive experience, we called on the creperie again the following weekend, at the same time as our first visit. We had the same waiter, who said we looked familiar. “Yes, we came last week too.” Ah, that’s right. Same table? Sure, why not.
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The Physics professor takes his place at my side five minutes later than usual. If the rest of the crew at the metro stop notices Nathaniel Whippingposte’s tardiness you could never gauge it from their outward appearances. Acknowledgement would be crossing that delicate social boundary that keeps a morning commuter safe from commitment. In all honesty, I can’t be certain that the man next to me is a physics professor at all, nor even that his name is “Nathaniel Whippingposte,” because I’ve never actually spoken to him. It’s not to say that we live in a society of strangers. In fact, I call this motley collection of characters “the crew” because we’re that tight-knit. We’re the regulars. Sure, there are the travellers through, the one-time companions, the sight-seers, but the core group remains. More than that, we all tend to stand in exactly the same spots from morning to morning, scattered, and equidistant from one another. Physics professor might call that a stochastic diffusion.

The social burden of engagement is a real threat, and I’ve seen it destroy otherwise stable communities. This is how it has to be, because breaching the wall means an ever-lasting commitment to intimacy that no single member of our crew could hope to shoulder. Me, I’m a pocket fidgeter–a fidgeteer–which affords me some flexibility as far as observing my fellow crew mates. I while away the morning minutes by constructing intricate fantasies about them, notions based on the most frivolous of details, the most sweeping assumptions.

Take Mlinzi Majji-giza, a man whom I’ve never seen in anything but a colorful dashiki. He’s the haunted man who stands back by the wall nursing some foul tea concoction and muttering to himself at length, often to the point of self-argument. I’ve seen him miss the train on more than one occasion simply from being so lost in thought. Dierdre Scruggs, standing by the station map, is a reader of prurient romance tomes, their spines invariably broken by her little sausage fingers. She’s a whale of a woman, with frayed orange hair like old yarn, and she looks comfortable as an old sofa. Dierdre is the housekeeper for a dreadfully aged statesman who lies affixed to his bed like a barnacle, and is forgotten to the outside world, save for his bank account. Meanwhile, off to my right is Phineas Boyd, who stares at the concrete sound baffling of the tunnel wall, and doesn’t shift his stance until the flash of the train’s approach lights. But he does listen, I know that. I’ve seen the corners of his mouth twitch reflexively in response to the wails of a tantrum-racked tyke. In fact, he loathes children with such a passion that it’s caused him to be wary of women. As for Nathaniel Whippingposte, he has an unmistakable professorial air, and his hair… well if you saw him you would understand.
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“Come on, we need a fourth man!” That’s funny. Man. We were no older than eight, and already my friends had appropriated the language of their fathers. But, much as I hated to, I was going to disappoint them on this day. There was no way I was going to run around the playground in the miasma of high-noon, not when I was wearing my Toughskins jeans. I just stared at my feet and remained against the schoolhouse wall in the shade of the eaves.

If you don’t remember the unique bondage inflicted by this particular brand of apparel, then let me take a moment to explain. Toughskins resembled normal jeans in most ways, only they were designed especially for children. The assumption was that the average child, full of energy and free of inhibition, was prone to such daily activities as scooting across gravel, falling from rooftops, swinging from branches, and the like. Thus, the Toughskins were made of an extra-durable polyester, nylon, cotton blend, the end result of which was not so very different from chain mail. Additionally, the inner lining of each knee was fortified with a rubbery patch to forestall holes forming in the most obvious place.

Unfortunately, it was this latter–the diabolical rubberized patch–that was the bane of my stunted existence. For, in the humid southern summer, the atmosphere as thick as broth, the pads would affix themselves to my perspiring knees, bonding at the molecular level, which made the possibility of normal walking nigh impossible. Throughout the day I would pluck at my knee pads, and pull my pant legs straight when they bunched up as I stood. For hours on end I would pinch the material at my knees and tug it out to create twin tents, just to keep my knees from suffocating. Needless to say I could not, so burdened, participate in normal recess activities. This was the real reason that Toughskins lasted until one outgrew them, not because they were well-crafted. I believe that Toughskins were responsible for my stunted socialization. I didn’t feel fully free until I graduated to a private school uniform many years later, but by then we were all too sophisticated to bend our knees anyway.
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I wave at my coworker from across the busy car park, and she takes it as an invite and makes a beeline for me. Wait, why is she carrying a motorcycle helmet? Because this girl isn’t who I thought she was. It’s that new girl who, admittedly, bears a slight resemblance to my coworker. But only from twenty yards. My bloody nearsightedness has betrayed me on more than one occasion, which is why I’ve gotten into the habit of not making eye contact with anyone. Generally I try to look like I’m lost in thought–better safe than sorry. For the eccentric artist there are many things to ponder, after all. But this time I was so… sure.

“Oh,” I say. “I thought you were someone else.” My feet carry me forward, compelled by convention, until we are standing between a row of cars and the bicycle rack.

“Your’re scamper, right? Allison.”

Allison the new girl. “I’m scared and I don’t want to talk to new people,” I explain to her.

“Everyone says, ‘you’ve got to meet scamper!’ Ha ha.”

I grimace. “You’re pretty,” I say. “I feel scared and creepy.”

She sets her motorcycle helmet down on the bed of a pickup truck so she can tug her riding gloves off. When she proffers her hand my heart stops beating for a moment, and then doubles its rate in order to catch up. “I don’t like to touch people,” I say.

She takes my hand and pumps it. “I’m going to be working with Rob,” she tells me. Rob is my supervisor. “So we’ll probably end up working together on one of these projects they’ve been talking about.”

“You’re happy and nice, and I don’t like people,” I say.

“You heading out for the day?” she asks.

“I don’t have any more words,” I say.
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