Author: tq1695

The tasks were become familiar.
I no longer felt like a person wearing new clothes,
for the first time …
conspicuous,
stiff,
terminally self conscious.

I learned the names of their children,
wives ,
husbands –
building a database …..
….  where they had been before
and how long they’d been here.
It seemed to be working.

People were more willing
or
perhaps I was not so infuriatingly earnest.
Less like a zealous convert,
eager to share salvation.

Co-workers began to talk of topics other than work
some remained distant
but
I seem to have passed the test,
if not popular –
considered all right.
Belonging : a wonderful feeling.

Before the iPod, was the Walkman.
And before that, music was out loud
heard, wanted or not.
Top 40 played endlessly
catchy or maddening – earworm yet to be invented.

Book end –
in my first week of university
Santana sang, “nobody told me about her.”
They didn’t.
Walking from her office,
eyes followed me, from hidden desks –
digging in deeper : shit happens.
Last days of high school,
on commercial radio
Rod Stewart sang about Georgie
and
happiness at last meeting.
– Book end

We crossed in the supermarket
by then, not in the same workplace.
And I knew –
told by a coincidental third party.
Intuition told her I knew. And hadn’t. It was easy.
We talked of the present
and the future – mine … “what do you think you might do now?”
But not the past,
we might stray ….. into that day.
We laughed, real laughter, not polite response.

I noticed things, never noticed –
she had tiny hands – they waved around,
a young child’s teeth – neon displayed constantly,
small round breasts – they pushed up and out with laughter and animation.
….. 15 – 20 minutes – several exits talked past ….
… then – “ well I guess
great catching up – all the best.”

Rod Stewart told of Georgie finding peace, happiness
and being in love –
congruent thoughts, as the cash register conferred ownership.
Yes, to all of the above. She had. And was.
A decade and a half later I heard,
heard about love up and leaving – abruptly.
Psychiatric hospital? “ Oh …. months! Well over a year.”

If Only is a sequel to Nobody Home, published March 15, 2017.

As faded as Miami Vice
as long ago as Dire Straits
as far back as Ronald Reagan,
where computers were large
and application’s small.
When mental illness shared an address –
with alcoholism and homosexuality.  1, The Closet.

I knocked on her door
…“ about this morning
I’m sorry if I upset you.”
In a job still to come
“… wouldn’t know shit about shit,”
was catch cry response, to naiveté, gaucheness, stupidity.
I didn’t,
but I could read the frost on her face.

BASTARD.

She thought I knew,
that other two had told me.
I didn’t. They hadn’t.
No word. No absolution. No Explanation.
I fled belligerent silence
finding out only by chance …..
and after I no longer worked there.

Nobody Home is a sequel to Out of Sight. Out of Mind, published March 13, 2017