Tom

 

The code ran in streams along the computer: red and blue in a sea of white. He always thinks of that scene in the Matrix where the programmer, looking at digits on the machines, sees only people and shapes. That is what these numbers and letters represent. They are the interiors making up that Google search and that Amazon storefront.

His hands dwarf the keyboard, veins standing out over the tan skin stretched taught. He types slowly and methodically, each entry preceded by that ceaselessly blinking cursor.

 

A voice shakes through the red, blue, and white and his head physically jolts with the impact. Standing up stiffly, he stretches his lean frame, the beginnings of a pouch showing through his rumpled sweater. Before heading downstairs, he glances at the clock in the no-nonsense metal frame: 12pm, time for lunch.

 

His wife of twenty-four years sits next to him at the table. Lunch is pork chops with a side of potatoes and a few boiled vegetables. Picking up his fork, he adjusts the glasses framing a square face and hazel eyes. The black legs of the glasses lose themselves in the dark brown hair tinged with silver, thinning out on the top. He opens a thin-lipped mouth and savors the crush of juice from the meat impaled on his fork.

“What do you think we should cook for tonight?”

His wife looks up, blond hair cut in a bob, knife still poised above the potatos, “How about steak and some sweet potatoes? I can cook them with the brown sugar and cinnamon she always likes, maybe a banana bread.”

“Good idea, I’ll run to the store and pick up the steak and potatoes in the afternoon.”

Wrapping up lunch, the clock reads 1pm as he heads into the garage. Swinging open the door of his black Volvo, he breathes in the leather interior and pushes the button to start the engine.

 

***

Years ago, he had stood by the dirty sill, looking into the room with crude wooden desks and the emaciated puppeteer standing in the front. The pupils had been mostly attentive, even though some had the glazed look of those in a dream. But the puppeteer’s best pupil had always been the boy standing outside the schoolhouse in the dirt clearing, with scraggly grass around his feet and elbows rested against the windowsill.

 

He had watched the teacher scratch away at the chalkboard every day for a month. His eyes had squinted through the grime-flecked glass and his broken pencil had made scratchy replications in his crumpled and torn notebook. He tried hard not to make any mistakes because the eraser had long ago been worn down to the metal, and he hated having scratches and smudges along those neat, orderly lines of graphite.

 

The lesson that day had been on basic integrals, and he had taken care to draw the swirl sign just right. Head bent down, he had been perfecting another line in his book when a commotion inside caused him to look up. The students were standing up and stretching, and the teacher was walking towards the door. Glancing at a broken watch tied loosely around his bony wrist, he read 10:15am. They never had break until 11am.

 

His heart beat a little quicker as his eyes darted back and forth, trying to understand. But the teacher was already opening the heavy wooden door and he could see the skinny shadow stretching onto the grass outside. Dread crept through his veins, settled hard in his stomach, and he began stuffing the notebook and pencil back into the worn backpack slumped against the wall. The corner of the notebook caught against a mended patch in the fabric and he jammed it in, hearing the pages crumble inside.

 

Without looking up, he swung the pack onto his broad, thin shoulders, over the threadbare shirt, and began to walk away from the steps he could hear approaching. Every hair on his head was alive with tension and he dared not stop to look back.

 

“Wait.” The words barely carried and he wondered if he had imagined it, but he couldn’t resist and stopped, half-turning, to look at that gangly figure out of the corner of his eyes.

 

The teacher always wore the same green sweater, knitted with thick thread over corduroy brown pants. He resembled a distraught Christmas tree, all limbs and bony branches. One bony branch was extended out to him now, with the twigs of fingers holding a pencil.

 

He looked from the pencil up to the face, and realized for the first time that the teacher had grey eyes. Open, grey eyes that were wide with anticipation, trying to read his own face.

The mouth opened squeakily and the puppeteer offered the pencil again, “Come in.”

 

***

 

Even now, he still preferred using real pencils over mechanical ones. There was even one sitting in the cup holder of his car, his preferred tool for capturing some sudden thought that he would jot down in a notebook he carried in his pocket. He still remembered that teacher, Fran. He still remembered how, after all those weeks, that puppeteer had let him into the classroom, given him a seat, and the chance to pick up those books and learn. He had walked three miles everyday to get to that school across the fields of barley and cracked dirt. He had walked away from that school where students snored on tables and the teacher snored even louder. He had heard of this teacher that offered a marginally better chance, he had taken it, tested for college, and made it in. He had taken his chances, worked until his eyes saw red and blue turn into purple, and built a family for himself. They didn’t have the white picket fence or the dog, but he had a wife who he met in college, a daughter who reminded him so much of himself, and a fish he kept in his office at home.

 

Guiding the steering wheel lightly, his mind drifted back to the black tarmac ahead. He’d been going to this same grocery story for the last fifteen years, the familiar turns and lanes so second nature that he found himself surprised as he turned into the parking lot. Getting out of the car, he looked at all the other shoppers with their heads down, eyes on the ground. No one smiled and no one looked up, each lost in his or her own bubble. Entering the store, the sliding doors emitted the clean, contained smell of vegetables and frozen air. He still remembered the first time he had stepped foot in this grocery store. When they had moved all the way here from Kansas.

 

***

 

It was a Tuesday because he always grabbed a bagel at the bakery downstairs on Tuesdays. Rumors had been flying around all week and when he saw the calendar invite in his email, he felt his stomach churn and set the bagel, still in its bag, on the corner of his desk. Walking into the fishbowl of a conference room, his boss for the last five years had stood with his back to the windown, on the other side of that merciless black glass top.  The small talk was mechanical. He only had enough room in his mind for the warning signs he saw everywhere and the pressure pushing against his head. After all the niceties were exhausted, his manager had finally settled his girth into a chair and coughed and stumbled through the words.

 

He had packed up his pictures into a brown box with worn corners and made his way through the familiar halls and out the heavy doors to his old red Mazda, his first car.

 

A couple months later, though, he found a new job. And after that he had cycled through even more jobs before finally landing here in Wisconsin. As he browsed through the shelves for the cinnamon, he remembered how shocked he had been. Each time, he wondered if he had made the right decision, but the turmoil and confusion of those moments were now mellowed out in his mind. They had none of that pungent bitterness or sweetness from all those years ago.

 

In the self-checkout lane he scanned the meat, sweet potatoes, and cinnamon, and collected the receipt whirring out from the machine. Glancing at his watch, it ticked 2pm. There was plenty of time still and just as he was looking up, a young man cut in front of him, almost knocking the bags out of his hand. Without a backward glance, the baseball-capped stranger rushed out the door, lost in his own hurry.

 

Had he been twenty years old, the color would have risen to his face, the hazel eyes would have narrowed, and his jaw would have clenched. But at fifty-five, he merely remembered how he used to rush around with those same harried steps and that same constant anxiety. When the cap had been jauntily balanced on his own head, he had told himself he liked being busy, liked having a schedule overflowing and dripping into his personal life. Now, he wished he had scooped the contents back in and pulled a little more personal life onto those pages. Back then, he had been sucked into the tunnel vision of everyone else’s definition of success. He had ascended those elevators into the ranks of mindless suits and big paychecks and had only just barely managed to pull back at the last second. In that last second, he had hardly been home, had hardly spoken to his wife, and had hardly any friends he could call for a drink anymore. 

 

The car radiated a blue 2:30pm by the time he pulled into the garage. Taking the bags, he opened the door and stepped into the warm smell of banana bread baking in the oven. His wife must have decided to add a treat to the meal after all.