Litter Box

It was another perfect summer day, winding down. These were days wherein a comfortable pattern had been established and he never had to stop to ask what he was to do next, never had to be bored, because his loose itinerary answered these pressing things.

He would awake as soon as his partner left for work. Having the house to himself drew him into his day, put him at ease – inspired him to action. He inaugurated the day with 90 minutes of meandering guitar playing on a tinny acoustic electric. Reams of paper had printed guitar tablature scraped from the internet, and thanks to the passionate efforts of others, he was able to re-create the works of his favorite, obscure, artists. He would occasionally sing along - not heartily - but in a baritone voice designed to measure strange shifts in timing. It never felt like he was progressing or getting better. He did it to maintain the relaxation of his night’s rest, and ease into the work the day would require. His hands would eventually sore and he would shower.

Shorts and an expensive collared shirt. Socks were optional. For 7 months of the year, this was his uniform. He would appear at the coffee shop reading, on this occasion, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom (impressionable as he was, he was inclined to believe that human emotion did not exist until the bard directed humanity in it’s direction). He was enthused that his favorite barista was working: he had a benign crush on her. He would wait until her shift ended and she joined him on the café patio – they would talk of music, movies, and literature. There were times when he felt like he fed off her youth, inhaling all the projects she juggled and her romantic ideas about where she was going to be in two years. Talking to her like this, in public, made him feel more attractive and desirable. He listened enrapt until one of them needed to be elsewhere, and they would part. She was leading role in his masturbatory play - the occasional understudy could never quite fill her jeans.

He would stop at a Korean Deli to get a sandwich as noon approached. The woman at the deli, Cantonese, would pose questions about the American idiom as she assembled his lunch – “What does it mean, Yankee?” and he would feel like a saint for answering these challenges. Today, he needed her to elaborate where she heard Yankee, and she replied - Dr. Phil! “Yankee your chain.” He elaborated; she understood - and he regretted that the puzzle wasn’t as difficult as originally interpreted.

After lunch, it was time for work. A month prior, he had set to painting the house. It was a project that eluded estimation and provided no definite end. He knew that his slow approach meant less would be accomplished today - that he would have to contend with a sun at its highest intensity. But this was his way. He quit his job and cashed in his 401k so he would have it his way. He defied the script so he could have things his way. He did all of these things so he could be adrift without pressing responsibilities, as an adult – even if for only a short while. Today, he would paint for a solid six hours. Or as long as he wished to. He had earned this convenience a long time before, paid up front, and the fact that he was getting away with what most adults don’t reap until their ending years, only filled him with a fullness of pride. He could afford to be meticulous in the application of “Mossy Rock” to each horizontal siding. Each pass of the painting pad was a confirmation of his attuned sensibility.

As the sun went down, he would have a beer. Or two. The paint brushes and paint pads soaked, and he would lose all clothes but his shorts: slide the lawn chair into place, and soak up the last rays of the day. The lawn chair had a little beer cozy, and he loved it for it. He might remember to cinch the knee length shorts up to his groin, maximizing his tan. Perhaps the next door neighbor would come home while he reposed as such – she was a gorgeous woman, going to nursing school – and she could look away demurely as she did on one occasion when she saw him in this state. But not today. Today, he was completely alone, exposing and rotating his sun-facing flesh.

His partner was not yet home. He could, if he acted, be absent when she arrived: it would be a treat for her to have the house to herself for a little while. He grabbed his book and headed to another coffee shop where the evening brought live music and the décor was more hospitable. He took his book with him and read. Incredible headway into the book today, and he feels a little guilty about it. The book breaks down into chapters separating Shakespeare’s plays; 32 chapters that deserve to be read over the course of a month. He had ploughed through seven of them in one day, and questioned his ability to retain all he had taken in. He was always second-guessing whether he was reading too much, too fast. He wondered this intermittently as he broke to listen to the folk singer in the next room. The singer’s songs were melancholy, slow paced, and he projected his own clumsy playing on the stage. What does this artist have that he doesn’t? He chalked it up to the artist’s initiative to call the café and book an appointment. Really, that is the only difference.

He tried to draw out his time away from the house. The paint brushes would be fine and his partner the happier for it. With a little light left, he skittered past interstices of golden sidewalk and charcoal shadow, deciding to do a little grocery shopping. He is feeling good, relaxed. This is why he loves summer; his body is always warm and his muscles feel so loose and his metabolism is operating at an optimal level. He does not care that he has traced these steps a thousand times, the path from café to grocery store. He read as he walked, knowing each crack in the sidewalk: each time he makes this route it is at least a little different for him for the pages he reads.

After his circuitous trek, he arrives home. His partner is there. The doors are all open, but the screen doors are shut to circulate a little air through the home. He asks how her day went. He asks her what she thinks of the south side of the house. It was a hectic day for her, she has noticed, and she approves.

- You look pale.
- Well, I was up and down the ladder a hundred times. My blood sugar is probably low. I’ll make myself dinner right away…
- Have you checked your blood sugar?
- Nah. Let me get this started, then I’ll check.

He begins to make the same meal he makes every evening: toasted cheese sandwiches. Two starches, three proteins (3 oz. of cheese). To maintain his seventy percent carbohydrate to thirty percent protein diet, he will round things out with some orange juice. Perfect, because he does feel low. The OJ will act quickly. But he feels frenzied. All he is doing is getting bread – from the bread bag; cutting cheese – from the cheese loaf…but he feels like this is confusing. Like he might try and slip a slice of bread between squares of cheese. He goes to grab the catsup, because catsup is necessary to the enjoyment…and catsup is necessary to the nine grams of carbohydrates he wants to factor…

- No seriously, you are scaring me. You aren’t making any sense at all.
- I’m fine. We’ve been through this before. I’ll eat and I’ll be fine.
- You are shaking all over.
- Just, I expended a lot of energy today. I just want –

And he recognizes his heart rate; this is one of the bad episodes of low blood sugar. His heart isn’t racing from running a marathon; it is racing to outpace the point where it has no energy to race with. And his body gives. He can only maintain complete muscle failure before everything, the whole body, collapses on itself. He’s been exposed to this before in less severe doses: he becomes ecstatic, he talks emphatically and quickly, he gets euphoric, and as the brain synapses let go of one another, he sees everything so clearly and harmoniously and he thinks he is Jesus. This time, he’s skipped all the fun parts. He is on the floor. He has the mental faculty to breath, and that is about it.

- Here – drink this.

She holds his head up in one hand and helps him to drink from the carton of orange juice. Even as he does this, he feels all the muscles in his face pulled taught, and he feels a little better knowing he can notice anything like this at all. He notes and imagines how much he must look like a suckling baby right now. There is only so much orange juice one can drink, and as he does so, he factors how much he needs to ‘get back’. He gulps down twenty gulps. More than he should need, but he has to be sure. He is drained, he is weak, and although he feels immediately better than the moments before, he knows it takes a good fifteen minutes to digest food and in the case of orange juice – get it into the bloodstream where he needs it. He continues to lie on the floor. When he straddles this borderline, he micromanages what takes up the slightest amount of energy: fast breaths versus slow breaths, sudden movements versus the slow and deliberate. Getting up of the floor is like booking a vacation he hasn’t budgeted.

- I hate to ask this, but can you finish making my toasted cheese?
- Oh no, no problem. What did you do today? You know that terrifies me, when you get like that?
- It might just be the ladder. It seems like you aren’t expending a lot of energy, but maybe it takes its toll after doing it repeatedly.
- Just, will you wear that medical bracelet now? I bought it for you and you never wear it.
- Okay, I’ll do that. I don’t know how much it will help if food, or you, are not around. I guess it could help a coroner.
- It’s just, I don’t know what I would do if you were to, you know…

Something was not right. He could feel himself sinking. The confusion enveloped him again, and he was sinking. He could not afford to pretend things were okay.

- Michelle - I think I did something stupid.
- What –
- I think I took a shot before dinner. It’s coming back to me. I gave myself a shot before my walk, I never checked…and it’s been like ninety minutes since I took the shot.
- What does that mean -

And he was gone. He could feel the life draining away from him. He could feel himself dying. So this is what dying feels like if you want to do it at a creep without breaking the skin. There’s a vacuum at the center of your body, and it just sucks everything from inside, spits the ethereal out through your belly button. Or your asshole. You feel and watch everything: the blood slowing to a crawl in your veins, each beat of your heart struggling and sputtering through its last pumps. You feel your eyes flicker and cannot fight them rolling backwards in a deadman’s float. And your dick. It is useless, lifeless, and when they find you it will be at its least flattering ebb. And you will be drained to an alabaster hue. And all will be tight, so tight that your thick shocks of hair will look like a receding hairline as you recline in your open coffin.

- Hey.
- …
- You ate your dinner. You can’t do this to me again.
- (throat is dry)
- Ben, you have to take care of yourself. I can’t have you die like this. Do you know what this does to me? Do you know how terrifying this is?
- Thank you. This doesn’t happen every day.

He was still on the floor. His body was on its side and he was spooning the cat litter box. They both got a laugh from this. He felt like he was coming out of anesthesia or a coma. He recollected a xerox posted on the wall of one of the break rooms at his old job: it listed signs of low blood sugar, and the last two on the list were ‘coma’ and ‘death’. Is death a symptom of anything?

This was a rare occasion where they stayed close together through the evening. They would go to bed at the same time. They would break from their normal patterns in order to not let the other out of their sight. When they each awoke in the morning, everything was back to normal. He waited until she left, and he popped out of bed. But he felt like he was a ghost now. He felt like he had already died, and he was only a ghost now.