Contemporaneous: Chapters 21 – 22

21.

No messages in the morning, nothing but that unease of something that went wrong, and the uncertainty of how culpable I am. But this is no different to any of the multitudes of arguments I’ve had with Lana, although (as so many do with relationships) there’s that regret of what might’ve been. I’m too inexperienced in relationships (at least long-term ones) to know if I’m unrealistic, or perhaps I’m too wishy washy to see it for what it is.

I have breakfast, brush my teeth (while playing my Words shots), then shower, preparing to sit in front of the computer and try get through some writing before I meet Autumn, but when I turn on the computer, it embarks on some update I didn’t know it needed, and when it’s finally done, it happily welcomes me to Windows, as if this is the first time I’ve ever used the fucking thing.

The writing doesn’t come – or it feels like I have to find my way through a quagmire of glass-infested shit, and whereas once, many years ago, I would’ve happily (and naively) taken the plunge and just kept swimming, instead I boot up my emulator, and play a game from the 1980s: Elevator Actions – there’s no significance there, outside of the nostalgia.

This feels like such a restless existence, so by the time lunch comes around, I’m in this odd mood that I can’t define as I drive out to meet Autumn.

We meet regularly at this little café on the second floor of the local shopping plaza. I don’t recall the first time we came here, or why it became our haunt – it could be that it was convenient to meet here because once we were done, we could each go our separate ways and do our shopping.

Autumn’s already sitting at a table by the balustrade that overlooks the first-floor promenade. She’s remarkably forlorn, this sadness that might or might not be in her face, but which I extrapolate. As I approach – and before she notices me – I just feel like she’s alone, although I know she’s not, because she’s married with a couple of kids, but I get that impression because I get these impressions all the time.

“Hey,” I say, as I take the seat opposite her.

“Hey,” she says back. “You okay?”

I frown, unsure about the question. “Yeah. Why?”

“The Melody stuff.”

“It is what it is, right?”

She no doubt detects that it wouldn’t be difficult to trigger a rant in me, and then I’d passionately and righteously ramble on and on, and she’d patiently listen to me, but today I can’t be bothered. I think maybe the argument with Lana’s taken the indignation out of me.

“I looked at Shia’s editing,” Autumn says, “and I’ve started to go over it myself.”

“Melody won’t like that.”

“It needs an edit. She’ll understand that.”

“What about …?”

“I’ve shown them some of the unedited copy, and they’ve agreed. She won’t like it, but she’s got no choice – unless she wants to try back out of the contract and deal with legal.”

Autumn’s being diplomatic – in all likelihood, she went to the higher ups to back me, or to at least point out that Melody’s unrealistic. It should be flattering. She’s done this often enough for me – backing me when I don’t even know if I can back myself.

“Thanks,” I say.

“How’s Lana?”

I arch my brows, as if to say, The usual. In the past, I would’ve claimed the relationship was over. But I’ve done that so often that the statement’s redundant, so I just leave it at this.

“What about you?” I say. “How’s Dennis?”

The waitress arrives, interrupts up. She’s a little thing with an Irish brogue, and we have to repeat our orders several times – tea and an orange muffin for me, and a weak latte and vanilla slice for Autumn.

“Dennis is … you know …?” Autumn shrugs. “Same.”

Here’s some exposition: Dennis and Autumn have been married twenty-five years – most of it happy, although when we used to share lots, Autumn would tell me she questioned the relationship, feeling Dennis had lost interest in her sexually, and he’d gained more interest in hanging with his friends.

“That sounds exciting,” I say.

“That’s life, huh?”

I think she’s diverting, and I should push it – once upon a time I would’ve. But we don’t really have those talks anymore – well, at least about our personal circles. We talk around them, though, which speaks to the greater malaise of life.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

For several months there’s nothing, but then a sigh, and I’m sure she’s close to crying – she’s remarkably composed most of the time. It’s just that when blows, she blows big time, like penned-up emotion overflows. But she doesn’t like that. I think she worries where it’ll take her.

“You get to a certain point in life, and you think what’s next?” she says.

I’ve been thinking that since I was twenty.

“And whether you’re caught in something that’s just okay, and you tolerate that just because it’s what you’re used to. Like,” she slides her hand across the table so it’s closer to mine, “what would happen if I left Dennis?”

“Sometimes it’s easier going because you think things’ll be better, but the more challenging option is to stay.”

“It’s work, too. What more’s there?”

That I know. I’ve peaked as an editor, and although years ago I might’ve enjoyed being in a role like fiction publisher, nowadays I don’t think I could deal with the politics (or the authors). And above that’s what? CEO or something? Definitely not interested (not that I’d ever get anywhere near the position), and I know it’s not something Autumn would like either.

“How about your own writing?” I ask.

“Nearly finished. Finally. Twenty-five years in the making.”

That would be Autumn’s novel – something she’s always had on the side. We see it a lot when we run workshops at festivals: on-the-side writers. Unfortunately, a lot of them are women who deprioritise their writing so they can marry, have kids, then become the primary parent. Eventually, they return to their own hobbies, although in many cases it’s not until the kids are self-sufficient.

“You going to submit it through us?” I say.

“How would that look if the fiction publisher’s novel was published?”

“How would it look if the fiction publisher’s novel was published by somebody else?”

“I’m thinking of doing it myself – starting my own micropress on the side.”

“That’ll be something.”

It’s starting to feel like the way we used to be as friends, chatting over our beverages and treats, and then strolling through the plaza, and stopping anywhere there’s books – first at the bookstore, Robinson’s, and then at the big chains, Big W and Kmart.

But somehow I lost that – well, not somehow, because a large part of it was my relationship with Lana, which overshadowed my friendship to Lana, and downgraded it to this occasional thing, and even then it’s usually tempered because of the Lana qualifier.

My argument with her from last night plays in my mind, and half of me thinks she’s right – that my friendship here has been too impactful, and hasn’t allowed our relationship to become what it should be, and the other half of me thinks that I should be allowed to have a platonic friend, shouldn’t I?

When Autumn announces she should be getting home, she hugs me on the promenade, this nice, familiar figure where I do feel safe, and it teases at something more, something possible, if not something so probable it’s meant to be, but tempering that is I’m too imbecilic and needy and unrealistic when it comes to framing my intergender friendships.

“See you Monday, huh?” Autumn says.

“Sure,” I say, and watch her leave with this unimaginable regret that I just don’t understand myself.

And then she’s gone.

 

22.

I don’t shop because it’s not Sunday, and that’s when I do my shopping, even if I am here right now. But everything would feel wrong if I brought it home. Sunday’s the reset. Sunday’s the day I start my week. So everything should happen Sunday, rather than a day earlier.

So I go home, struggle with Words, and sit around the computer, dealing with that simmering impatience when you know something’s on, and now you’re on countdown until it happens. The bright side is I’m looking forward to it, although what I’m probably really looking forward to is drinking with abandon.

When 6.00pm comes around, I shower again, dress in smart casual (cargos, a t-shirt, and my favourite black jacket), then lock up and begin my trek to the pub – a walk of about fifty minutes.

I used to love walking – I’d walk until all that concentrated thinking, all that stuff that contended for my attention, just burned away, and all that remained was the stuff idling in the background. It was so peaceful, and meditative, and I think it’s something I strive for, even though it’s now impossible.

One evening about thirteen years ago, a car struck me down at a pedestrian crossing, breaking my leg, dislocating my ankle, and causing significant nerve damage. Despite two years in the hospital system with physio, hydro, nerve blocks, and a psychologist specialising in chronic pain, I was left with permanent restriction, nerve issues, and discomfort. Every time I take a step, my foot aches.

It occurs to me as I cross the railway line that this is life now – a mimicry of what used to be, and an idolisation of something that can never happen. My foot and leg will never be one-hundred percent, but they never expected me to improve it (and I worked so hard on physio) as much as I did.

By the time I reach the pub, I’m sweaty and a little uncomfortable, my foot sorer than what it usually is, but otherwise okay.

I don’t even bother searching the pub or the bistro, knowing I’ll find the guys out in the beer garden – and sure enough, they’re seated right by the big screen that got some international soccer game on. Somebody’s bought me a beer, a Corona, which I appreciate, and after the greetings I take my seat and fall into the rhythm of chat.

We’ve known each other over forty-five years, meeting originally at primary school, and maintaining our friendships through high school. Typically, as we got older, life took us in different directions, but inevitably we kept reconnecting, until we got to our thirties and decided we’d do a monthly dinner to make sure we stayed connected.

It’s funny that regardless how old we are, or how long we’ve known one another, how we immediately relive the dynamics we enjoyed in our late teens and early twenties – those times when you’re discovering yourself, just finding autonomy, and working out who you’ll be moving forward.

Mostly our conversations are sports-related, which are adolescent, but fuel banter that’s been ongoing for decades. There’s some small talk about work, about houses (they own, are buying, or refurbishing), or partners (they’ve all been married twice, Jay and Troy happy second time around, while Brett’s going through his second divorce; and each of them have kids).

I could show you these conversations as they take us deep into the night, even as we grow more and more boisterous with each beer that we have. That’s another thing that’d be good writing – to show you these things, as well as to help realize these people as characters who might have their own arcs.

But this is a deeply disaffective evening for me so that even as I can enjoy the rapport, even as the beer can enliven me, some other part of my mine is ticking, automatically, like it’s separate from me – some dry, cynical commentary that’s a chorus of voices (mine, my mum’s, possibly Lana’s), and it’s tearing me down.

I think of approaching fifty next year, my writing career fizzling away like a dying firework spiralling uncontrollably out of the sky, my job now something I do just to pay bills (and seemingly in a place I’m growing increasingly obsolete), with no family or kids of my own, and in a relationship that I don’t want to be in, but which I don’t know how to extricate myself from, or it’s a relationship I’m in that I can’t rightly service.

Everybody must go through these periods of self-reflection, but I’ve done this so often, that the only difference is the beer fuels a layer of melancholy that contextualises me as woefully inadequate; I think would’ve rather lived and fucked up rather than not lived at all, and what’s become my imprimatur is that I’m playing catch-up in a journey where I’ll never catch up.

“I’m going,” I say, rising.

“You okay?” Jay asks.

“Yeah,” I say.

This is maybe our thirtieth dinner since we started doing these things regularly, but what occurs to me is that while I’ve always felt some element of this, I always thought there was this patchwork fix, a bridge, that would at least allow me to get to this place that was never going to be perfect, that might not even be good, but which, given my circumstances, would be good enough.

I should’ve shown you more from the dinner, should’ve told you I ordered a steak sandwich, and asked for a salad without dressing or tomatoes, and yet they gave me dressing anyway; that Jay ordered a parmigiana, Troy the buffalo chicken wings, and Brett the calamari; that they rambled inanely for an hour about football this year, and their team’s prospects next year; how Brett eyed a woman at a neighbouring table, and discussed his prospects, until Jay told him to shut the fuck up and concentrate on himself rather than a possible wife number three (Brett commits immediately, and fatally); how Troy was worried about becoming redundant from a sales position he’d held for twenty-five years, and was looking for possible business ventures; how talk went back to football, then cricket, then some more football, and then went back to football, only now exploring how our teams went in the past; how Brett proposed we name our best five players of all time (he’s always proposing such lists as conversation fodder) – I should’ve and could’ve shown you all this, but as I stumble home, foot now aching because I’ve overtaxed it with this walk, all that I see now is the redundancy in not only my life, but life in general.

A train rumbles not far off, and your mind’s probably already hinted at where you think this goes next, but you’re thinking it can’t because I’m writing this, but what I’m thinking is about being hit by the car: I felt like I was abruptly shoved, and it was more annoying than painful; time actually does stand still, as the cliché suggests, and I somehow have enough time to think, Shit, I’m getting hit by a car; I could die here; and then it was sitting up on the road some fifteen feet away, knowing my leg was broken (I could no longer feel my foot, because skeletally it was no longer attached to me), but still not dealing with any pain. It was an instantaneous transaction: whole one moment, and not the next.

The train’s louder now, and I beat the automated crossing gate as it swings closed. I’m now on the wrong side of it – on the reverse side. I could stay where I am and I’d be fine, or I could dash across the tracks to get to the other side, although it wouldn’t be much of a dash. With my foot and leg being what they are, it’d be more of a lumbering hip-hop.

I can see the train now, can feel the ground vibrate under my feet and, most of all, can feel a hopelessness that – in this instant, through a perfect synchronicity of circumstances, thoughts, and timing – is inescapable.

Life may have pointed me at this moment so death could take me.

The train approaches.

I step in front of it.