Chapter 3
Three
This Treadmill That I Call a Life
Monday
Jesse: hey sexy
Jesse: wyd
Me: Um, going to work?
Me: It’s 8am
AS THE UNSOLICITED dick pic flashes across my screen, I shut off my phone, glancing furtively around me to make sure no one is looking over my shoulder as I stow it back in my pocket.
It’s not a bad-looking dick, necessarily, but not at all the energy I need while I’m sitting on the Q train, wondering if I would wake up faster if I poured my cup of coffee directly into my eyeballs.
You might think, given that I’ve proven to have a stick up my ass about pretty much everything else, that I have a problem with dudes sending me pictures of their junk without asking first. But in reality, I don’t actually mind.
If it were late in the evening, and I was actually looking, I could work with a dick pic.
There’s something honest about them, you know?
I haven’t always had the best track record when it comes to knowing somebody is into me, and I don’t exactly thrive in a bar or club.
But a picture of a dick? I know what that means, and I can work with it.
I’ve had great hookups that started that way.
But there’s a time and a place, and this isn’t it.
I take a sip of my coffee, then shut my eyes, leaning my head against the glass.
The train is rattling along the tracks, the high-pitched whine of the brakes quivering against every one of my nerves, vibrations traveling through the window and juddering through my skull, making my teeth clack together, but I’m too tired to care.
It takes me at least twenty minutes every day to make it from my tiny apartment in Prospect-Lefferts to Lower Manhattan, longer if I have to travel to Midtown or the Upper East Side.
I try to make the most of it when I can, grading a few papers or jotting down lecture notes.
But some mornings, just continuing to exist is about all I have the energy to do.
You probably want to know how I’m doing after the Cole debacle two weeks ago.
Well, the answer is that I’m fine. I haven’t heard from him at all, and I know he’s better off.
Seth was a little weird with me the day after the engagement party, but I played dumb and eventually he left it alone.
I know I’m going to have to see Cole a few more times in the next couple of months because of the stupid wedding, but now that we know where we stand, I know it’s not going to be a problem.
The train squeals to a stop at 14th Street, and I gather my stuff, making my way to the door. It’s another fucking day, the start of another fucking week on this treadmill that I call a life. There’s nothing to do, really, except to get on with it.
***
Tuesday
The ocean is angry, a mess of whitecaps, surf pounding over the sand as the rain drives in almost sideways.
A great bolt of lighting splits the sky in two, and I know I should get off the beach, that it’s dangerous to be out here.
But I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something I need to find, that I’ve lost something precious, something that’s just out of reach —
“Ezra!”
The voice is familiar but I can’t place it, barely audible over the crash of the waves and the insistent howling of the wind. I try to answer it, reaching out of the sea, but I’m falling — falling — dragged by the undertow as the steel-gray water closes over my head —
“Nnnnhhh — what?”
I wake with a start, catching myself just before my face crashes into the keyboard.
I sit up and blink, taking stock of my tiny apartment.
There’s the kitchenette along one wall, the countertop that can barely accommodate a single cutting board.
The door to the bathroom, where I can hardly turn around in the shower without falling out of it.
My shelves, overflowing with books. And my bed in the corner, which serves me for sleeping, fucking, eating dinner, watching TV — except when I’m sitting at my desk, of course, where one hour merges into the next as I hunch over my work.
I rub the sleep out of my eyes as I stare at my computer screen, trying to get my bearings.
It’s early afternoon on the one day of the week that I don’t have to head into Manhattan until late, to teach my evening seminar on the labor movement in the United States.
So that means it’s my day to catch up with my online courses, to check out the activity on the message boards and grade the weekly papers. It’s fucking deadly.
My phone buzzes, and I jump about a mile. It’s Seth, and I hurry to pick it up and answer it.
“Hey, is everything okay?” I tuck the phone against my shoulder.
Seth’s laugh is a warm crackle through the line. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”
“I just thought, you know, since you’re under the age of seventy-five, that you would text me if you had something to say. Like a normal person.”
“Yeah, well —” Seth sighs. “Bree just said I should check on you, that you might need something. I dunno, something about crystals or colors or — you know she’s spent too much time around Hollywood people. But she said it had to be a phone call, and I love her, so — hi, I guess.”
“Huh.” I cast about for something to say. “Um, I mean, I forgot to eat lunch. So maybe I need pizza?”
“Want me to order you one?” Seth chuckles.
“I think I can handle it.” We’re both quiet for a beat, and honestly, I’m kind of thrown, because Seth usually doesn’t hover over me like this.
But it’s sort of touching, I guess, so I decide to throw him a bone.
“Hey, you’re the programmer, right? Do you think you could — I dunno, make an AI to replace me? ”
“Why would you want that?” Seth asks incredulously.
“Because I’m grading these papers, right?
And I don’t think my students actually wrote any of them.
So I’m thinking — why am I, a human, spending my time trying to correct papers that were written by robots?
Couldn’t I get a robot to do that for me?
Then none of us would have to do anything, and the students and I could go sit on the beach. ”
“I don’t know if it’s supposed to work that way.” Even though I can’t see him, I can tell Seth is shaking his head.
“Well, maybe it should.” I take off my glasses, polishing the lenses on the hem of my T-shirt before sliding them back on. “But hey — nice talking to you? And thanks for checking on me.”
“Any time, little brother.”
Huh. When I put the phone back on the desk, I stare at it for a minute, drumming my fingers on my knee. Then I stand up and stretch, crossing the floor to the kitchen to make something to eat. I guess taking care of myself once in a while isn’t such a terrible idea.
***
Wednesday
“I’m sorry, Professor Callahan, I know I haven’t handed in two papers and I know I’m going to fail, and I deserve it, but it’s just been a lot and I can’t —”
Alyssa, a student in one of my Intro to World History sections, breaks off to bury her face in her hands. I nudge the box of tissues across my desk in her direction, hoping that the walls will cave in at any minute, crushing us all instantly and getting us out of this situation.
“Look, Alyssa —” I begin, and she raises her head, raccoon tracks of mascara starting down her cheeks. I would gladly be literally anywhere else. “Would you like to take an incomplete for the semester? That would give you until the middle of the summer to get everything done.”
Alyssa sniffs deeply. “You would do that?”
“Yeah, I mean —” I know what you’re thinking, and I am not doing this just to get her out of my office. Well, not entirely. “Your attendance has been good and you’ve been participating, so I know you’re invested in this class. If more time would help, I don’t mind giving it to you.”
“Oh thank you, Professor Callahan —” She’s gathering up her things, thank fuck. “I promise I’ll get it all done —”
“Just — try to get some sleep, okay?”
As I listen to her sneakers scuffing down the hall, I take off my glasses and toss them onto the desk, massaging my eye sockets with the heels of my hands.
Fluorescent lighting, of course, and since I share this office with four other adjuncts, I don’t really have any say over the decor.
Other instructors might have failed Alyssa instead of giving her more time, but the thing is, I know exactly how it feels to have more to do than I could ever possibly finish in a day.
To feel like I’ve poured so much blood and sweat into my work that if you turned me sideways, I would be two-dimensional.
And I’m not gonna fault anyone else for getting themselves into the same position.
I pull out my phone and check the time. Five o’clock, which means my office hours are officially done, and I can start the trek home, where I have hours of prep work ahead of me before I can get to sleep.
I should get up right now and get started.
But for some reason, I navigate to my hidden folder instead, opening one of my hookup apps and beginning to scroll through the profiles.
There are a few that look promising, and I weigh my options carefully.
But then I spot it — an anonymous profile, with body pics but no face.
His screenname is PwrBottom95, and he says he’s 28, which probably means he’s in his early 30s like me.
His profile pic is a shirtless torso, his thin arms folded behind his head, all the better to show off the lean S-curve of his torso, nearly hairless except for a dark blond trail that disappears into the waistband of his low-slung jeans.
He’s standing in front of a painting — well, more of a collage, maybe, words and images and slashes of paint across a square canvas.
And there’s just something about him, something that tugs at a corner of my brain and drags my thumb to the button to message him.
Me: Looking?