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Description
Alan Jerome Peterson wakes up every weekday at 5:47. He rolls over, shuts off the alarm, and stumbles into the bathroom for a six-minute shower, after which he shaves. He has eight button-down shirts for work, and five pairs of pants; he picks out some combination of these and puts them on methodically, without looking up at the mirror. He only walks to the mirror on his dresser when he’s found a tie, which he puts on and straightens. He combs what little hair he has left to the side, and moves downstairs, with his cat in hot pursuit. After feeding said cat, he will occasionally heat up a bagel with butter, and eat it on the way to his car. The cat watches him through the window screen that overlooks the driveway as he drives away.
Alan drives thirteen minutes to the bus stop on the edge of town, and waits there with one woman who works three floors up from him, and a Mexican cleaning lady who does houses in the city. He has been waiting with Rosa Hernandez for five years; Jillian Patricks for three. They have never spoken to one another. If Alan and Jillian by some chance pass by one another in the office, they exchange curt, awkward nods. Alan sits on the left aisle in the bus, a tiny bit forward of middle. Sra. Hernandez sits in the very first seat once you get on, on the right. He is not sure exactly where Jillian sits, since she goes almost all the way to the back every morning, and he wouldn’t want to turn his head and watch her to see where she sets her briefcase down. Her briefcase, by the way, is black and matte and pristine. Alan’s is brown and worn shiny all over, with scratches on the handle from his cat.

When he was thirteen years old, Alan was the center fielder for his Farm League team in Ohio. He hadn’t made the tryouts for the school team. It was the second to last game of the season; everyone knew they wouldn’t make the playoffs. But that didn’t make Alan feel any better when he watched the fly ball set down three feet in front of him, leaving nothing but a soft hollow in the grass. He was so sure it was coming right to him. He could have sworn that it was about to fall into his open mitt when it hit the ground instead. No one said anything to him about it afterwards. It made the seventh run for the other team; in the end, the visitors won by five. He was able to keep from crying until he rounded the corner leaving the baseball field, and he didn’t stop until he reached the bathroom in his house four blocks away, where he threw up into the toilet. His parents weren’t home; they never knew. He didn’t play baseball the next year, or ever again.
His morning is dominated by meetings; one for a discussion of the new VP’s policy changes, and one to distribute tasks amongst his Quality Team. He can’t remember everyone’s name in the group, but he does know that there’s one guy whose pocket is always full of pens, and he never has anything by deadline. Alan eats lunch alone, and facing the wall. Caesar salad with dressing squeezed from a Newman’s packet, a BLT with the T taken out, and a Pepsi. Usually this is supplemented with a candy bar from the vending machines in the break room, although he likes to pretend that it’s a rare treat. He likes Reese’s and Almond Joy.

When he gets back to his cubicle, there are three memos waiting and a lot of typing to do. When he stops, he can hear the constant clacking from the people on either side of him, and it eventually guilts him into continuing. The phone sits next to his two-year-old computer; the red light just waiting to burst into gleeful phosphorescence to signal someone’s call. It hasn’t rung in days.

When Alan was twenty-three, he worked as an intern in the mayor’s office two towns over from where he grew up. One of his fellow hopeful young things went by the name of Cassandra McKeyes, or more accurately Cassie. Soft hair, pink mouth, long smooth legs stretching out of demure medium-length skirts. He didn’t speak to her for three months, for fear that the only thing he would be able to blurt out would be “Will you marry me?” She worked at the desk on the opposite side of the room, and eventually he began to pile papers and bulging manila folders at the front of his, so that he could finally stop staring. He choked out a “Hi,” at the photocopier one day, and was rewarded with a smile in return. At the office Christmas party he found her reeling drunk in the coatroom, and got to third base in a state of fumbling ecstasy before she pitched forward and would have hit the floor had he not, clumsily, reached out and taken her insubstantial, girlish weight in his arms. He carried her out to the office and got her a drink of water. She quit two weeks later.

It’s now 5:03, and Alan is just reaching for his keys and jacket when the manager drops by. He nods through most of the conversation that follows, and occasionally gets out a “Yes, sir.” Discomfited by his supervisor’s smooth speech and poised good looks, he leaves as soon as he can’t hear his footsteps anymore, without recalling a single detail of what was just discussed.

The bus is just as empty on the way home as it is on the way in. Sra. Hernandez isn’t on; she doesn’t come home until 9. She doesn’t mind anymore, not the way she did when she had a little girl at home waiting for her. Now it doesn’t matter. Alan watches the tall gray buildings give way to smaller brown ones, and finally white, yellow, and blue houses on suburban green grass. His car is still waiting where he left it; free of dents, scratches, and bumper stickers. He left those behind when he bought his first new car at the age of 37. Now no one can identify his political affiliations, musical preferences, or sense of humor by his rear bumper.

All the lights are off at home, but the yowling cat greets him with a cacophony of news, so it doesn’t feel so lonely. Briefcase is set down on the bed upstairs; tie on the dresser. The hard, shiny shoes are left by the bedside. Dinner consists of Ore Ida steak fries and microwave hot dogs. If he’s still hungry, sometimes he’ll have a bowl of breakfast cereal. The cat has Tuna n’ Whitefish, shredded with sauce, and no breakfast cereal.
It’s still only 8:17. He wanders into the living room, where he has pictures of his parents, and still one on the wall of the girl he almost married, before she met Lena in her Women’s Studies class. Now they live in a cottage in the hills of northern California. She writes every few months; Alan keeps meaning to go out and visit, but airports depress him. So he sits down with his back to the wall and the picture frames and flicks on the television. He browses through the chick flicks, the action flicks, the buddy cop movies, and the artsy European “films”. He lingers a little longer on the porn channels he recently started paying for, nine months after he canceled his subscription to MyNewLove.com’s online dating service. But the thought of all those grinning blondes and their oiled-up plumber friends is too much, and he presses the button to make the screen go black.
When he was sixteen years old, Alan got into a screaming fight with his uncle, the vet. It ended when Uncle Mort called Alan a commie faggot who didn’t deserve to live in the country that he didn’t want to fight for. His nephew tried to think of something clever, brave, and meaningful to say, but he couldn’t, not before the tears of rage and helplessness began to form behind his eyes, and he turned away and walked out of the room before his red, mottled uncle with the scars on his neck and the bad knee could see him cry.

It’s 9:23, and after setting his alarm, Alan Peterson goes to bed.