Last days of Joe

A few weeks later, I watched Joe make himself an egg.  He wasn’t sturdy on his feet and he kept forgetting what he was doing.  He cracked an egg into the frying pan.  The electric stove hadn’t gotten hot yet.  The egg was barely white when he put it onto his plate.  He ate the egg as best he could, trying to scoop it up with his fork.  He didn’t say anything and I didn’t either, but I knew I had to find a way to get him some food.

As he finished his egg, he stood up quickly and started heading for the bathroom.  His pants were falling down and I saw shit had spotted the back of his pants.  Then I noticed that there were spots of shit on the brown carpet in his bedroom.  Clearly, this was a problem too.  I didn’t clean it up.  I didn’t mention it.  I sat there and when he came back I suggested getting him some help. 

the day we stopped

It was a Saturday, but it could have been any day, when people stopped going to work.  Like a virus, it spread quickly through the cities and out to the towns, and also like a virus, it spread inside people, meaning you could follow its progress from its first symptoms, a general antipathy at the idea of doing anything, to its final phases, where the idea of doing anything for money or culture or civilization was completely ridiculous.  People lied in their beds all over the world, their alarms fading, unable to find the motivation to do anything else but have breakfast and maybe watch a little television.  It wasn't that they were feeling lazy.  It was as if civilization had somehow come to the collective conclusion that doing anything that they didn't feel like doing was a complete waste of time, that life didn't need to be a struggle.  It became a notional sort of world.  Planning anything more complicated than a good meal seemed unnecessarily burdensome.

People became very friendly in those days.  As their televisions stopped working, and internet connections were sporadic, they left their houses and apartments.  They talked to their neighbors.  They gathered in bars and coffee houses, serving themselves drinks.  Restaurants became friendly communal affairs where people took turns cooking and self-service was the norm.  As dishes piled up, many were reused and people were surprised to find that they had shed this nonsensical obsession with germfree eating and managed not to get sick.

LUNCH

I spent ten minutes in my car trying to decide which burger place I wanted to go to. After deciding that the better one wasn’t worth the extra ten minute drive, I parked in the mall and went in to order.

When the waitress came over, I couldn’t help noticing how old she looked, then realized that she was ten years younger than me. She was skinny and probably had a few kids at home. She said I looked deep in thought because I was staring out the window. I told her I was tired.

The place was full of women over forty, all at least a little overweight, mostly with short hair. One came in and sat with her back to me, but kept turning around to look at me. She was sitting with a woman who looked older than her, but was probably the same age. They were both too heavy, had bad skin. The one facing me looked old. She was probably fifty, but she already had designed her look to be grandmotherly. It was hard, though I tried, to imagine her as a young woman.

A couple with a teenage son came in and sat at the counter while he ate a burger. They ate nothing and didn’t take their coats off. I remembered a time when I was a kid and my father took me to Burger King and he cut the Whopper in half, giving us each half. It was plenty of food, but it was only later that I realized it was because he didn’t have enough money for both of us to have our own.

The burger at this “gourmet” burger chain was kind of gross. There was a selection of ketchups and hot sauces, but they all tasted about the same and couldn’t cover up the greasy taste in my mouth. I ate half the pickle before I realized how disgusting it was.

Looking at the people around me, I began to worry that eating this food might be the first step to becoming one of them. They were about my age, but their weight and their general demeanor made them look unhealthy. Shopping for Christmas at the mall wasn’t getting them fit, that’s for sure. Maybe I’ve already become one of them. I don’t know.

Another woman, who looked exactly my age, came in wearing a black overcoat. I could tell by the way she walked and her clothes that she thought she was in a different class, above the other women in the place. She knew how to walk, but she was as dog-ugly as the rest of them and had the same extra pounds. She just knew how to cover them up. Her perfume was strong enough to make me leave. What was that covering up?

As I left, the waitress told me to get some rest. I couldn’t tell if she was being nice or just reminding me to tip. It was the kind of place, with a sort of half-waitress service, that you weren’t sure.