It was a Thursday, but it felt like a Monday to John. And John loved Mondays. He thrived at work. He dismissed the old cliché of dreading Monday mornings and refused to engage in water-cooler complaints about "the grind" and empty conversations that included the familiar parry "How was your weekend?" "Too short!". Yes, John liked his work and was unashamed.
I should probably get another latte. I've just been sitting here with this empty cup. But then I'll start to get jittery. I'll get a decaf. No, that's stupid, it feels stupid to pay for a decaf. I can't justify that.
John was always impatient on the weekends; he missed the formal structure of the business week. When he was younger he used to stay late after school on Fridays and come in early on Mondays, a pattern his mother referred to with equal parts admiration and disdain as "studying overtime." Jesus, I've written another loser.
Now, John spent his weekends doing yard work at the Tudor house Rebecca left him after their divorce. Rebecca, with her almond eyes—both in shape and in color—could never be his enemy.
That barista keeps looking at me. She'll probably ask me to leave if I don't buy something. She's kind of attractive. Not her hair—her hair seems stringy—but her face is nice. I should really buy something.
Their divorce was remarkably amicable. In fact, John would often tell his parents, "Rebecca and I are better friends now than when we were married!" In fact, John looked forward to the days when he and Rebecca, with their new partners, would reminisce about their marriage, seeing it in a positive light, like two mature adults.
Maybe I'll just get a pumpkin-spice loaf. That way I can still sit here without going through a whole production of buying a coffee and giving my name and feeling like an asshole while it gets made. But if John were being honest, the house did get lonely on the weekends. Rebecca's parents had been generous enough to leave John the house even though they had paid for it. John was still struggling to get his short-story writing—I mean, his painting—career off the ground, and Rebecca and her family had been more than supportive, even during the breakup.
Maybe the barista's looking at me because she thinks I'm attractive. I am in my blue shirt. So she has stringy hair? Who am I to complain about stringy hair? Who do I think I am? Cary Grant?
And now John was doing temp work at the law firm of Fleurstein and Kaplowitz to get himself righted again. He had a strong six-month plan: he would save some money to pay Rebecca's parents back for the house and be able to take some time off to focus on his writing—on his painting. In a few months, he would be back on his feet, probably even engaged to someone new. Maybe even that barista. Yes, almost paradoxically, temp work provided John with the stability he craved. This is shit. It is utter shit.
Actually, in moments of great self-reflection, John hated his work. Who was he kidding? He was doing temp work. No one has ever liked temp work. It reinforced his feeling of instability, confirmed his cynical view of the job market, and took him away from the only thing he ever enjoyed doing, which was writing short stories—I mean painting! Painting! John enjoyed painting!
I think I have to pee.
And John was a great painter.
Literally every single person on line for the bathroom looks homeless. Maybe I can just go in and not touch anything. I'll just lift the seat up with my shoe. John often wondered how Steve Bowman from college was having so much success while John was stuck doing temp work in a futile attempt to pay back Rebecca's passive-aggressive parents for a house he hadn't even wanted them to buy. And Steve Bowman was a talentless hack who even admitted to John that he only writes—paints!—so that he can "bag women." He actually said "bag women." But Rebecca thinks he's "interesting" and that they could "have a real life together." I hope they both die of cancer. What did John have with Rebecca? How was that not "real"? Maybe if Rebecca's parents had let John breathe instead of forcing their hypocritical Christian "values" down his throat every chance they got, their relationship would have been more "real." Good luck, Steve Bowman. I hope you like having a mother-in-law with no boundaries.
I think I will get another latte. That barista is so sexy. I'd love to pull her stringy hair while we have sex on my floor.
John would often go to Rebecca and Steve's new house in the middle of the night and just stare in their window.
She probably has a back tattoo. So slutty.
John would secretly hope to see Steve and Rebecca fighting. He would fantasize about seeing their silhouettes through the window, Rebecca throwing the telephone at Steve and him ducking but it still hitting him in the head. John would get aroused by this fantasy.
I'll say something cool, like "The coffee's not the only thing hot in here." And she'll probably be like, "I get off at seven." And I'll probably say something like "I don't have a real job, so any time's good for me." Jesus, who am I kidding? I'm a loser. She would never like me. Even a stringy-haired barista with a slutty back tattoo would never like me. But, of course, John never saw anything in Steve and Rebecca's window. He thought of urinating in a glass bottle and throwing it through their window, but he couldn't even work up the courage to do that. He was a loser who couldn't even commit a petty act of vandalism.
He was a dumb dumb stupid dumb writer—painter!—who couldn't even afford an office, so he wrote—painted!—in a Starbucks because he got fired from Fleurstein and Kaplowitz for making copies of his stories—paintings!—when he was supposed to be copying legal briefs for those corrupt corporate shylocks.
And Rebecca would never come back to him and no one would ever love him and he was going to die fat and bald and alone and miserable in the ugly house his in-laws bought to suffocate and kill him!
Maybe I'll get a tea. I like that hibiscus one. It's sweet but not too sweet. It's nice. It's a nice flavor.
And maybe I will get a slice of that pumpkin loaf. I think I had it before. I think I definitely liked it. I think it must be seasonal. I haven't seen it in a while.
I'll eat and drink and then get back to work. Everything seems to be flowing well. It was a little tough getting into it but now it's really flowing. It's weird how I do that—how I think I can't write something and suddenly I'm carried away and then I can't stop writing. I think I'm too hard on myself. I think I punish myself for no reason. But I think I'm really hitting my stride now. I'll just get that tea. That nice hibiscus tea.
And then get back to work.
Written by Jack Smith911