The Shirt and Tie; Defined

“’Business trips,’ are what I believe we’ve called them for nearly a year now.”

“I know,” I sighed before concluding that the addition of a forced smile would only further damage the conversation.

“Then what the hell is the problem then? You made it pretty damn clear to me last time. I won’t ever ask you to leave her again. You know I want more but I’ll take what I can get. Just don’t bring up her name around me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you getting soft now? Feeling guilty after all this time?”

“No, just thinking.”

I turned my back to Sarah and fell asleep to the disgruntled beat of her throat clearing itself unnecessarily loud. It was one of the few times I actually did much sleeping in her apartment. I knew I couldn’t get out in the morning without satisfying the both of us at least once more. In truth, there wasn’t much of a problem with this. But now, it was time for sleep, and pushing more thoughts away to the edge of my head so I could finally clear out a space to crawl between them.

--

The morning bus was always like a cheap bar but frequently without the booze and always without the opportunity to sit next to the women you wanted to. The people argued loudly, fumbling with their backpacks. The driver didn’t give a damn what happened and sometimes blared the radio like the assholes who endlessly subject all to their favorite jute box tune. And just like the bars were the lost ones, who looked out the bus window either lost or trying to look lost; the old souls gazing into the bottom of their drinks. Near the back seat, some scared and well-fed woman watched everyone from eyes that had slept either too much or not enough.

As I stepped away from the squealing bus door behind me, I squinted into the dusty wind and decided I would go to the bar tonight.

I felt some vague semblance of familiarity when I entered my car at the station and a stronger one when I pulled into the driveway ten minutes later. I straightened my tie and briefly ran my fingers through my messy brown hair. Emma was still home.

I climbed the rusted metal stairway, dodged some weak steps, rounded at the top, turned to the right, and knocked softly on door 205. After a moment it cracked -- then flung open. Emma, with a half-dressed figure and cucumber-melon scented skin, threw her arms around me. Her wet hair followed accordingly, saturating my faux-businessman’s blue shirt wherever her blonde strands landed.

I smiled. I meant it. I was always happy to see her. I set Emma down and kissed her with lips that had just removed the domestic alarm of foreign lipstick. She noticed nothing, just like every time before. She pulled me inside and the door closed. We collapsed into bed together and she kissed a trail from my mouth over my jaw and to my neck. I knew where this was going.

“I’m exhausted,” I whispered into her ear.

She continued kissing me as if to dismiss my words for obvious nonsense. I pushed her away softly.

“I mean it.”

She stared at me with bedroom eyes, looking hurt and younger than the day I married her. I couldn’t stand it so instead I kissed her once more, then rolled over and watched the white wall; waiting for it to be filled up with all the colorful things Emma was thinking.

“I’m sorry darling, I’m just tired as hell. You know these trips wear me out. We did well though – closed a deal with a major new client and Mr. Bennett sa–“

“I’m running late anyway,” she answered neutrally.

That was her closing up; answering non-interest with more non-interest and saving face as she walked back toward the bathroom and shut the door loudly. The hair-dryer hummed to life a few seconds later.

It wasn’t as though I didn’t love her. It wasn’t like she was bad in bed, or that she didn’t satisfy me, or that I was just miserable or wanted someone else. I loved Emma above all else. I just wanted more than anyone should. I didn’t feel entitled to it, like some celebrity fucking pretty boy – hell, I was barely entitled to my status as a husband, employee, or human being. I just desired women. And somewhere down the line that desire overcame my duty to faithfulness.

Did I feel terrible about it? Sometimes. Some days I didn’t care and went about it like it was part of my job detail. Other days I’d feel like a dog that ought to be shot and left out in the yard. And it was days like these I’d deny her and face the wall.

--

I opened my eyes to a much darker, moodier room. Pink evening light filtered in through the blinds as the clock flashed 12:00 over and over and over. The power had gone out and come back on.

I picked up my cell phone, near death, and saw two missed calls; one from Emma, one from my Boss. Beneath that were three text messages from Sarah. I closed my phone again.

I stumbled out of bed and ignored the note taped across the TV screen as I got into the shower. It was only ten minutes before I got back out and forced my boyish brown hair into some sort of unnatural yet acceptably attractive position that didn’t clash too strongly with my shirt. I rolled my sleeves to my elbow and walked out.

“Jack,” her handwritten paper scrap began,

"I’ve got my late class tonight and then I’m going out with Lindsay. I shouldn’t be back too late in the morning though. I went shopping yesterday so there should be something to eat if you look hard enough. I’m sorry about this morning, I should have paid more attention to you.
Love, Emma”

I smiled and crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it somewhere in the general direction of the kitchen trash-can. I wouldn’t even need an excuse to hit the bars tonight.

Two hours and five drinks later, I was talking with some girl – Jess or Jessica, it didn’t matter. I called her the former a couple times and she didn’t seem to mind. I told her I remembered seeing her around from our college days, though we hadn’t even gone to the same school and I’d never seen her in my life.

“You were there in ’96? You remember Hardy’s right?” Jess slurred.

“Hardy’s?”

“Yeah, that shady bar on the corner of North Villa?”

“Oh right.”

I had a rule; I never went to any bar which had a name ending in the letter 'Y.' They were always terrible. The few exceptions I made over the last decade only moved my rule closer to the status of scientific law.

“We went there most weekends," Jess continued, "with this crazy Arab Professor we hung out with. He liked to buy us drinks and then he’d invite a different one of us girls back to his apartment each time. I never went though! It was easy enough to get an ‘A’ without sleeping with him.”

“Oh yeah? Yeah, I think I went there a few times myself.”

The conversation droned on much like this for twenty minutes or so. I almost felt bad because she was a nice girl and I really didn’t care all that much what she was saying. The alcohol certainly didn’t help her case in the area of thought-provoking conversation.

Jess stood and announced she was going to the ladies room for a moment, giving me a wide opportunity to escape to the other side of the bar. I scanned the room and found few prospects. With nothing else in mind, I ordered another drink. That’s about the time I heard the sickening, hellish screech from outside the front doors.

The front bumper of some monstrous truck came crashing through the low bar window and glass poured like a furious wave around the tables and feet of everyone inside. A second violent and thunderous noise followed immediately after the first truck came to rest. It echoed throughout the street and was gradually replaced with screams from the bartender, the customers, even the walls.

The driver in the first truck was dead – of that I had no doubt. It looked as though it had flipped quite a few times and lost most of its paint job to the unyielding canvas that was the pavement below. I looked behind it to see a second car which looked, from my angle, to be slightly more intact.

Jess flew out of the ladies room and jumped into my arms which somehow found themselves wrapped around her thin body. She was as confused as the other women trailing out. We walked toward the front door, safely to the left of the chaos that had just pounded like a missile into the crowded bar. We stepped around glass fragments and walked out the front door to something neither of us had been prepared to see.

“Oh my God, Jack...”

Some girl’s mangled body stuck out oddly from beneath the Black BMW that had forced itself upon her like some wild, starving animal. It was now firmly attached to the back of the truck. Her legs were bent unnaturally to the side and blood was pooling below her. Her left arm wasn’t anywhere in sight and the thought of having to see her pretty face was enough to make anyone want to leave the twisted wreckage in its place forever.

Jess clawed her way deeper into my shirt sleeve and made weeping sounds.
I just looked away.

“Come on, Let’s go,” I whispered into her ear.

Jess and I turned and walked together into the warm street lights.