RUSH

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The nothing smell of neutralized air. The hollow echo of commercials playing in loops above urinals because white-collared men enjoy being pandered to while they piss.

I move from stall to stall, lurking to the glimmer of personal injury lawyers, import car dealers, teeth whitening systems and natural male enhancement. Five second increments of cyan, magenta and yellow glow against the white on white grid of the opposing tile wall.

Stall after stall is empty so I close myself in to the last.

Dotted lines are for commitments. For breaking commitments, too. Giving up, giving in, giving out. Sign here, initial here and here, kiss exactly fifty-percent of your worldly possessions good-bye. Then determine what your fraction over seven or thirty or three-hundred-sixty-five will be. Custody fractions. Every-other weekend, every third Saturday kind of math.

Not my kind of scene.

This is the middle of the afternoon on the Sunday after Independence Day*, not much to worry about. Table five is waiting for his poached salmon. A group of twenty-something women doing an early cocktail hour at table three are probably ready for desert. Or more drinks.

Table sixteen is in the back, a little more private. The man in the boring suit has to be the lawyer. The other guy’s much too aloof, twirling his gold plated pen while the harried woman across from him fake-smiles, choking back tears. She’s buying drinks, he’s getting his coffee refilled, rolling his eyes. Ready to check this off in his Blackberry and get on with life.

The lawyer hunkers down into his briefcase. A worm of a man, just a fixture, a place for their eyes to rest so they don’t have to look at each other. He’s on his fourth glass of water, extra lemon. Page after page after page, it’s not a war, just one of the many battles with no way to tell who’s coming out ahead.

My little mirror smiles back at me with the knowledge that I’m never going to be in their place. A powdery roman numeral three slashes across my reflection, solid lines. Satisfaction. Momentary, but it’s safe. Controlled. These lines aren’t broken, they’re the good kind, here to annul my relationship with reality. Have a fling with a different side of me. Cheat on myself with the beautiful one that most people will never meet.

I roll a crisp twenty, a tip from the only good looking chick at table eight, roll it tight. I resolve never to make those mistakes.

Sniff.

Every moment is now, and like a high-power scope on a rifle drawing cross-hairs on myself at two-hundred yards, I’m zooming in blazing fast like until I’m right next to me.

We smile. Then we pull the trigger.

Sniff, sniff.

Bang.

* * *

“You okay in there?” Never heard the door open. Or maybe.

“Yeah, got a cold. Allergies. You know how it is.”

“You always have a cold.”

“You always stick your nose in other people’s business.”

“Sixteen is low on coffee, three needs desert menus.”

“Be right out.”

“How about now instead of later?”

“If you weren’t in here bitching at me, maybe three would have desert menus by now, instead of later.”

The door closes. A mighty sound like a bank vault lurching, then the impact, dissipating. Gone. Then alone, the nothing sound of ice melting in the urinals because cuff-linked men like that sort of thing. Tonight they’ll be tipping a black man to squirt soap on their hands and toss them a fresh rag to dry off. They’ll drop a well worn five dollar bill and grab some Tic-Tacs and a condom on their way out.

The crisp twenty unrolls a little in my palm. In God We Trust.

Right.

In lawyers and settlements and alimony and think of the kids, you selfish prick. And trust? Who ever said anything about that?

We roll the bill tight again, pause, thinking, don’t forget to tell five his salmon will be right out. Be extra nice to three, might get tipped another twenty. Then, maybe tell the pathetic soon-to-be ex-couple at sixteen that it doesn’t matter. Together, apart, shared custody, who cares? Your kids already hate you.

It’s not like sixteen is going to tip, anyway.

* * *

© Anthony David Jacques MMX
*Sunday, July 5, 2009.