Rich’s Inner Life

As his thumb hung over the exclamation point button on his phone Richard noticed that it held a tremor in the way it would whenever he had too much caffeine or went too long without it. This held his attention for a moment, before he remembered the question at hand. An exclamation point might seem overeager — even unhinged — to include in the first message he was sending in nearly two years. But friendliness was not what he generally tended to, and he thought, almost striking himself with a smile, of how George in whatever Seinfeld episode it was got a date and a job all in one day by doing the opposite of what he would normally. A period, on the other hand, might seem caringly genuine in the seriousness it expresses, though an exclamation point might show a newfound uninhibitedness that might be appreciated. As Richard remembered that she had historically been more than smart enough to see through such self-serving maneuvers, he noticed that his tremor grew a little greater. 

He began to feel a little disgusted with himself, asking questions of expedience in a matter that deserved authenticity. Authenticity, he thought, deserves seriousness. And so he migrated his thumb from the exclamation point to the period, and even went as far as pressing it. But part of him demurred. “Look at how you’re shaking,” he said within himself, “you’re in no state to be attending to matters of consequence.” He reached over and put his phone on the nightstand beside him, letting this particular demon go unexorcised for one more night. The clock on his cabinet — a good distance away so he’d have to get out of bed to turn it off every morning — read “01:33 AM.” 

Richard, thankfully, was already in bed. He moved to his side and tried to turn his attention to other things. But eventually he felt no more up to that task than the task he was trying to get his mind off of. “Am I just a coward?” he asked, to his pillow in a breathy grumble. After a moment, and as his breathing began to slow, the thought arose: “No, just rather ridiculous.” And he felt clever, thinking of how many other men in his state and situation would wallow in self-pity and over-dramatization of the circumstances, with no appreciation for the humor latent in these things. He only rested on this for a moment, however, realizing that this very feeling of cleverness could simply be a second-order coping mechanism. But wasn’t this second realization itself quite clever? 

His face relaxing more and more, Richard realized that he could potentially continue this recursive process forever, his own wit stretching itself to construct an infinite series. He tried to guess how long he could practically make it before he was forced to stop by a sneeze, sleep, death by thirst, or some loud noise. But it stood to reason that it would be far from clever — stupid, really — to risk even a small chance of death, and a sure risk of lost sleep, for the sake of constructing a mental monument to his own intelligence. Suddenly, Richard’s cognitions were interrupted by some distant wailing. Reluctantly, Richard realized that this was not the hallucinatory audial aura of REM sleep, but rather an alarm going off down the hall.

And so, having emerged from his bed into the rest of his surprisingly spacious studio apartment, and having thrown his peacoat on over the white tee and gym shorts he was wearing as pajamas, Richard emerged from his surprisingly spacious studio into the bright of the hallway, punctuated as it was at rapid intervals by the blue flashing of the alarm. His bare shins stuck out to him; he thought of middle school, when it was de rigueur among his friends to dress as such in the winter, bundled up above but nothing longer than basketball shorts for the legs. In the elevator when he reached it, things were dimmer and quieter, and Richard was able to relax slightly as it crawled down. But this too was interrupted. “Just had to be tonight,” his fellow-occupant let out, “Murphy’s law I guess,” as he shook his head good-naturedly. “That’s right,” Richard said, giving in return something that could, if held longer, be considered a grin.

Stepping out from his pre-war, though recently renovated to luxury specifications, building, Richard reached into his pocket in the familiar way, though this time, unusually, only grasping air. His phone had been forgotten in the low-speed chaos of his exit. Almost letting out an obscenity, he stopped himself. It would seem strange and, after all, these others have dealt with enough stress tonight without having to deal with the presence of someone acting strangely. Richard felt charitable for a moment, before remembering that he didn’t have his phone and would be stuck outside for an indefinite stretch of time. He was too tired to get angry with himself. The fifteen degree night, however, faced in paper-thin gym shorts and an old peacoat held onto for reasons Richard felt embarrassed to think about, began to change this. The sirens on the arriving trucks finished the job. Fully awake, finally he turned his attention to the crowd of which he was part, momentarily scanning one face here, another there, resting his look for just a moment to prevent seeming strange, or worse, encouraging conversation. 

One Richard stopped on longer than the others. The one to whom it belonged looked to be about his age, and was about the same height too, though a little skinnier. His eyes seemed to bulge a little behind his glasses, and his chin looked to Richard just a little too weak. Richard never considered himself particularly handsome, but he reckoned that his eyes were at least content to stay in their sockets and his chin was perfectly standard in strength. He thought of how bad he felt much of the time and how much worse things must be for this other guy, without even a decent appearance, and felt sad for him. This humane meditation was interrupted when the other man pulled out his phone, appearing to take a call, and began to pace away. 

Walking out from the building late was a couple. To Richard, standing not far from the door, the strained look on their faces and the way the man (Richard felt strange thinking of the him as “a man,” considering that he looked even a little younger than himself. Nevertheless this was the word that first entered his mind.) had his arms crossed as he walked just a little faster than the girl, indicated that they had possibly been fighting. Richard strained to hear what they might be saying, but was far enough from the door that he couldn’t. He wondered whether they lived together or not, but doubted it when he noticed that both were wearing sweatshirts emblazoned with the name of the local college. They stood silently for a few minutes, which Richard took as confirmation that his theory of a recent fight was accurate. When the man took the girl’s hands, bare in the cold, and held them, trying to warm them up, and appeared to softly say a few things, Richard reconsidered for a moment, but concluded that this simply indicated them making up. 

A fireman came out of the building and announced that all was safe and with his arm beckoned all to come back inside. Though he had grown tired again, Richard managed to find himself back in his surprisingly spacious studio. Getting back in his bed, he layered his blanket atop his sheet, taking care, as he had done every winter since his mother had knit him the blanket in his freshman year of college, that the the top section of the sheet, beyond the row of stitching, wasn’t covered by the blanket. He lay down in all the warmth and thought of her, and all her goodwill for him. He looked at the clock, reading three-fifty-six, and thought of waking up at seven-thirty, and of slidedecks. A few minutes later he shivered — violently but quickly — under his blankets. But he thought nothing of it, since for him thought had ceased for at least a little while.

Winter 2022