A Bad Day

I awaken, but I’m already standing. My balance resets and a wobble passes through me. Not a passage between sleep and wakefulness, then. Something else. There is no sense of before and after, no chain of prior events. 

The smell that fills me is fresh cut grass and it is too present. I’m in it. I’m of it. So outside, then. Are my eyes open? The light is so strong, but stronger when the lids give way. I close them again and then open one eye. That’s a little better. I squint the one eye and begin to make out blurry formations. 

What I see may or may not be familiar. It feels familiar, but I can’t place it specifically. It could be a place that I go every day or it could be a well-worn trope that built a cottage in a corner of my mind. I don’t know where I go every day. Nothing could be familiar enough for me to brand as mine. I’m born anew, disconnected from time and space. 

There is a street, oddly clean, the crisp and freshly-paintedyellow-dashed lines perfectly dividing the road. A raised sidewalk separates it from a lawn manicured to the standards of the greens at Pebble Beach. The sidewalk meanders closer and further from the road on a whimsical path. Trees dot the lawn,each segregated inside a circle of brick and uniformly shredded red mulch. The whole world is a brochure for a high-end condominium or a television commercial for a jauntily named pain medication. 

I see a pretzel stand beside the road. Do I like pretzels? My stomach turns in a pleasing way, making space for a pretzel, but does it know me better than I know myself? Am I just a body, with a mind painted on like a false window in the bowels of a cheap cruise ship? 

A chipper women of retirement age mans the stand, wearing a crisp red and white collared dress with a matching apron that would be at home in a 1950’s diner or a soda stand. She doesn’t ask what I would like or pressure me in any way. She greets me with a smile and lets the smile carry the interaction until I’m ready to speak. 

The menu is simple and pictographic, showing pretzels of three varieties: plain, salted and cinnamon-dusted. I point toward the picture of a salted pretzel. 

“Would you like a cheese cup with that?” she asks, too joyful, too bright. 

Would I? Do I like cheese with a pretzel? Do I like cheese at all? Am I lactose intolerant? How do I know that lactose intolerance could be a potential consideration, but not know whether I even enjoy cheese? 

She hands me the pretzel before I answer, heading off my confusion before it begins to boil. She also hands me a cup of cheese. The impression in her manner is that this is the correct answer. I do like cheese. She knows this and I don’t. There is a hint of a wince under the smile that tells me this. She is pained to have to override me. She was hoping that I could do it myself. She is invested in me for some reason, and disappointed in her investment. 

I pat my pockets and don’t feel a wallet. I would never go out without a wallet. I feel an almost physical pain from the embarrassment. I will have to hand the pretzel and the cheese back to this woman, disappointing her further. 

“Never you mind that,” she says. “It’s on me today.” 

But I don’t want it to be on her. I don’t know her. I throwthe pretzel at the ground in frustration. I want to scream something to defend myself and say that I’m not a bumbling idiot. I’m a capable man, dammit! My voice is a croak, too long unused. Nothing substantial comes out and before I can clear my throat, someone has taken me by the arm. 

“How are you today, Roy?” 

I’m Roy. 

“Would you like to go to the movies today, Roy? 

Would I?

“They’re playing a great old western. Gary Cooper. One of your favorites.” 

I like westerns and Gary Cooper. Why does this person know that and I don’t? 

The person is a man, younger than the woman at the stand by maybe twenty years. I see a passing resemblance between them. Maybe cousins or a mother and a son. He walks me down the sidewalk, not pulling, but definitely insisting. His pace is just right. My knees and back don’t strain. The feeling of his arm around mine is comfortable and familiar. We’ve done this before. 

It isn’t far to the theater. We bypass the ticket stand and walk directly up to the usher, who is dressed like a hotel bellhop, including a round, brimless red hat with a tassel. 

“Here for High Noon again?” he asks. 

The man who walked me there cringes in a physical way that travels down his arm and into mine. 

“I mean…here for High Noon?” the usher ventures, excising the “again.” 

The man next to me nods with a pasted-on smile and we continue into the theater. 

No ticket was offered or requested, and when we approach the concession stand, no payment is taken in exchange for the popcorn. The man holds the popcorn with one arm and maintains his hold of my arm with his other, walking me down the hallway. There are two theater entrances. Instead of being numbered, the theaters are identified with posters. One poster shows a dapper man in a top hat beside a younger women with shoulder-length glowing blonde hair. The other shows a lawman walking through the empty street of a town, his sidearm not drawn, but his hand at the ready. We walk into the lawman’s entrance. The theater is quiet as we enter. No one is there and no previews play. As soon as we enter, the lights dim and an old-fashioned concession ad plays as we find prime seats in the middle of the third row. 

I boil in my seat. This is wrong. Something is wrong. The timing is too perfect. The usher said “again.” The pretzel lady knew my order. No one wants any money and I don’t have any if they did. This isn’t the world as I lived it. This is a monstrosity, unreal, like a William Shatner Halloween mask that was cut and dyed to become Michael Myers. 

There are no previews. Credits play over a western scene. A male voice sings “do not forsake me, oh my darling.” 

I begin to cry. It is quiet at first, but before the credits and the song are done, the man next to me notices. The look on his face is sad, but also there looks like a judgement there. I did something wrong and he doesn’t want to feel like that, but he does, and he can’t help conveying it with his expression. 

“I’m sorry, dad,” he says to me. “We’ll try again tomorrow.” 

He pokes something into a little device that he fishes from his pocket and then puts it back. 

I digest the idea of being his dad, but the taste is wrong in my gut. I don’t know this man. Maybe he’s using the word euphemistically? I’m dumbstruck and can’t find the words to respond. He stands up and helps me out of my seat. As soon as he does, the movie comes to a stop. 

When we exit, a car is already waiting for us at the curb in front of the theater and I am ushered into it, but the man stays outside the car to talk to the driver. I recognize the driver. It’s a nice retirement-aged lady in a collared dress and an apron that I’m sure I saw recently, but I can’t place her. I hear them speak to one another in hushed tones through the cracked car window. 

“This is third day in a row,” the woman says. 

“You know what they say,” the man replies. 

“Yes, yes. Good days and bad. I know. But wasn’t this place supposed to help with that? It doesn’t seem to be helping.” 

“They have a great track record. It’s worked for so many people. He’ll get there. Don’t worry.” 

Who are these people I hear talking? The car is shuddering slightly as it idles and the air conditioner is set a little too cold. 

“But I’ll never have him back all the way,” the womansays. “He’s not going to be my husband anymore, is he?”

“Probably not, no.” 

I smell grass. It’s so bright today. Why am I in a car?Wasn’t I just doing something indoors?

“I’m not even a wife anymore,” a woman says beside the car. “I’m just a person who sells him pretzels.” 

Pretzels? Do I like pretzels?