mr. linero shares a sunset

mr. linero taught in the room next to her office. the office that she shared with three other people, with a giant air vent in the cieling that only worked in the winter. he taught literacy and had the whitest, thickest hair she had ever seen. she was guessing he was almost seventy; he shuffled up and down the hall with his thermos of coffee in one hand and a tangled web of papers in the other. but his frame was large and his face, underneath the coke bottle glasses, was boyish.
he had been teaching there for decades, another teacher had told her, and no one knew why he stuck around. the clinic had one of the highest turnover rates for any like it in the country. she could tell he was mean and she secretly thought that had something to do with it- the endless power trips one could assume in a place like this, the endless outlets for verbalized frustration. the only smile she had ever seen him muster was to her on the first day, and even then it was tight lipped and hidden.
at the beginning she just assumed it would take a while for everyone to get used to her. she was the first full time case worker at the clinic and she knew what it looked like- her arriving off the train every morning, a whispered reminder to both the patients and the other employees. she didnt live here, she got to leave it behind every night and go home. everyone knew her home was far away.
she steeled herself in the morning, putting herself on the tracks of her routine as soon as the alarm went off and refusing to concentrate on anything else. there were stages: putting the kettle on, brushing her teeth, picking out which shoes to wear. it all had to go in an order, and if it veered even slightly to the side, she resigned herself to a day even worse than the one she had predicted. on the train she looked around her at the men in suits, standing though there were seats available. the parents with their kids, headed off to college prep elementary schools and the wall street journal reading women, too determined to glance up. she wanted to poke one of them and interrupt the stagnancy- im on this thing for 25 more stops. you? off the train, she wrapped her coat around her and tucked her lunchbox under her arm and walked the mile to the clinic, preferring it to waiting in the line for the bus. there were times it was so crowded three would pass by, people getting more and more angry, standing nearer and nearer the curb so that just in case there was room for even half a person, they would be on. people elbowed each other, muttering to themselves under their breath, each one thinking "i will get on this bus. i will get on this bus." it took her weeks to learn the mantra, but once she did she was as ruthless as the next person. with the clinic being what it was, she decided on the first mild morning of the winter, she shouldnt start the day off so aggressively. now she just ambles past the stares and the comments and wonders, through narrowed eyes, how men can muster that sort of lust, or whatever drive it was, so early in the morning.
her day was spent clinging to habit. this was difficult, she soon learned, beacuse of the constant fights, the screaming and the bullhorn used to herd the patients from one barren, chewed up hallway to the next. considering how bad the day was, how many new intakes she had processed or how high-risk a client was, the commute back home was even worse. she couldnt get away soon enough. thats why seeing mr. linero only three seats away on the express train home was so disconcerting- despite her initial, shamed surprise that anyone in that world could possibly intersect with her own neighborhood, she was shocked that she hadnt seen him before. she had been working there for eight months, leaving at the same time as the teachers. she quickly looked back at her book and hoped she wouldnt have to make small talk.
after the first time, she began noticing him almost every day, riding in the same car on the same train as her, and exiting at her very stop. she started to choose other cars, but still she would have to cross paths with him at the street's lip, and still she pretended as if she didnt see him. once she looked up, to make sure he wasnt attempting communication. just as she had done, he averted his eyes to the concrete and shuffled past.
they continued passing by each other in the hallway, nodding sometimes or even saying hi. but no mention of the commute, no mention of the fact that they must live within a few blocks of one anothers homes. she kept hearing him yell in his next door classroom, books slamming against tables, patients being sent out for disrupting his class. and she kept hearing his feet inch back and forth from his classroom to the lounge, endlessly, tirelessly, evenly.
the office she shared had no windows and her knees touched one of the other employees throughout the day because of the rooms size. most of the time she worked from a binder in her lap. she had been coming home and crying, over one case in particular. it was weighing on her too much, she was feeling it physically in her chest and in her shoulders. the way the place smelled, stale and almost toxic. the harshness of the words all around her, the language they used, the tone of their voice when asking even the simplest of questions. some days, she couldnt rid herself of it. like kudzu it started with her feet and wound its way up and around her, leaving smaller and smaller bits of her exposed. the only thing that made her feel better was to walk. one march day she decided to walk to the river.
she lay on a patch of slick green grass across a walking path that bordered the river. it was five in the afternoon, the sun was still up and swallowing the water. she watched the people running by, babies being pushed in three wheeled strollers, dogs lapping up the air. she closed her eyes and lay all the way back and tried to be still. she tried to be conscious of how it felt to be out of the office and in the sun, touching something other than a metal card table and metal subway poles and the change for the ticket. this is what she was missing, she realized then. the sun. she was deprived of it, kept all day long like a young calf being tenderized for veal. except instead of making her taste better, instead of making her more expensive and more delicate, it was making her less curious, less interested, less expectant of anything at all. she had to quit.
she stood up, energized by the very thought of not being eternally sentenced to that job, and brushed herself off. there, standing across the path, was mr. linero. she could tell it was him, though his hands were on the railing and his back was to her, because of his oversized green jacket and that white white hair. his body was facing forward but his face, glassesless, was turned to the drooping, melting sun.

fight or flight

everyone had said it: youre going to get married. everyone had been saying it, of course, all throughout her life, but this was the first time that her sister squeezed her forearm and whispered it, making it sound like edible, sugary exclamation points. what she meant was, youre going to get married to him.
his name was timmy and he worked at the power company. the first man she was engaged to, who was also named timothy but refused to ever have it shortened, was a graduate professor of english at the university of south alabama. he was her teacher though he was only five years older, and after a passionate tryst which involved hotel rooms and bottles of wine, luxuries of which she had never seen before, he wrote on her final thesis "marry me." she moved in with him and after 4 months of finidng trails of other students scattered throughout their tiny, wood panelled apartment, she moved out. she slept on her sisters couch and allowed herself tears she had never known before. something, she had told her sister one morning, as she was waking up to find the day as empty and useless as the one before, some dream i had is over. youre still so young, her sister said while pouring coffee into a thermos. you still have more chances.
but the more she clung to that adage, the more her body chanted the words she had been shrouded in since the day she unconsciously settled into the footprint of feminity, the further from herself she became. and so she decided to buy a house. she moved to birmingham and got a job working underneath the vice president of advertisting and sales at the power company. she bought a fondue set and martini glasses, and hosted a party all on her own. her friends came and baked tiny quiches and everyone envied her for her independence, her glittery self assurance. it was there that she met timmy, and found him to be meaty, sturdy, consistent. everything the first timothy was not.
they began dating and she was most pleased with how smitten he was with her. her previous experience with love, though still an uneven and tender scar on the verge of perforating, made her more attractive to him, and her completeness only drove him nearer and nearer her. he offered to move in and she told him they needed a break; things were moving too fast. she was so proud of herself, of how wholly she had transformed the seemingly insurmountable brand placed on her at birth. she needed her sister and her friends, but a boyfriend, a husband, she definitively did not need. she had proved that to him and to her herself and to the people who had seen her at her lowest, at her neediest.
timmy flew a two seater airplane. he kept it out in shelby county and would sometimes take her for a spin, circling birmingham. the engine made so much noise that communication was impossible, but this only added to the thrill of it for her. she would get nervous right before they took off the ground, when it was rumbling down the runway like a determined child on a tricycle, but as soon as they were in air she was gloating, full of excitement that she had never experienced on solid ground. the closest thing she could relate it to, she realized with the twinge of irony, was the fight or flight response that happens when faced with impending doom.
her cousin, who she was never very close to, was getting married in gatlinburg, and she asked timmy if he would take them there in his plane. he swelled with pride and said it would be his longest trip in awhile, but that he would love nothing more. this would be the first time that her family had met anyone since timothy. as she counted down the days she began to worry. what if this relationship failed, though she couldnt imagine him ever leaving her, and her family had already met him? what if he cheated on her, though she couldnt imagine him ever wanting to be with anyone but her, and she had made a big deal about introducing him to everyone, showing him off like a prize, like a marathon marker. we're in the last stretch, she seemed to be saying. just wait, i will cross the finish line with a real husband and baby and all of it.
the nervousness didnt go away when the plane left the runway like it usually does. she sat gripping the sides of the seat, her brows furrowed in concentration, almost pain. this would be a long ride, she knew that when she asked him. he was prepared, he could get them there. he was a competent pilot and she knew that she shouldnt be scared.
but as they travelled north, the wind got stronger and she began to feel timmy straining to keep the plane straight. she looked at him, terrfied with every gust, but no matter how loud she screamed he couldnt hear her. it was getting darker, the trees beneath them were swaying and they looked veiled. she realized it was rain. her heart was beating so hard and so fast she felt like she was going to be sick. she reached over to timmys leg and squeezed it, looking at him, begging for any sort of reassurance. this happens all the time. we'll get out of this. but he didnt look at her at all.
and thats when the thought shredded through her like claws- theyd die there. up there, up nowhere, together. this would be her legacy, this would be the last person she saw, the last thought she felt. no more cocktail parties at her house, no more endless endless chances