Are you happy?

A Chapter by justsomesaint

Thursday

One of the many benefits I have always found in waiting. Is that it is an opportunity to reintroduce you to yourself, to look at your inner thinking and clean house. Most thoughts are mundane, such as the daily check list of your errands.

Stop by the store. Get olive oil. But only if it’s on sale. Did I have a coupon at home? Do I have time to swing by the apartment? Maybe I should just get take-out after I go to the store. But then why get the oil at all? I wonder if that Thai place is still open.

See, mundane thoughts.

However, there are the gems. The sort of thinking that takes you years into the past into order to see what brought you to this very moment. I will be dammed if my fourth-grade sweetheart moving to The Vegas didn’t make me a husk wandering in and out of situations for next the sixteen years.

I wonder if Jennifer ever thinks of me.

Mostly and if not always, my time spent taking stock of my inner thoughts can be polluted by location. Such as if I’m at the doctor’s office.

When’s the last time I exercised? You should run after this. A whole mile! You used to run a mile every day! What would Jennifer think!

Waiting in line at the grocery store.

Why don’t I every bring my own bags? Sixty percent of the time I say no and struggle to carry my purchases. The other forty percent, I pay the charge for a plastic bag and slowly kill the planet. What would Jennifer think!

At this moment my inner thinking is adapting to the urban coffee shop I am currently in. The line has gotten a bit lengthy. The girl at the register has become enthralled in a deep conversation with a friend of hers.

“No, it’s like I would totally be vegan, but like the craze has kinda died so, I don’t wanna be like a weirdo.”

I was vegan once.

The gentlemen in front of me have become unruly as they fidget in line.

“Hey, Barbie, we got places to be!”

I don’t mind waiting in line. The idle time gives you ample time to take in your surroundings. Appreciate the artwork scattered on the walls. People watch and of course- more thoughts.

I should make coffee at home; I’d save so much money! Then you could take a trip. Maybe to The Vegas! No, no that’s stupid!

I try to shift my pointless inner thinking back to the present moment. I move my gaze from the register to the bar. Two teenagers making drinks stop in order to spray whip cream at one and other like machine guns. Each taking cover behind fridge doors.

Why aren’t the barista’s wearing any hats? I thought the L.A. dress code was strictly cover your weave.

It’s my simple thoughts that keep me sane as I await the unknown. I stand in line at coffee shop witnessing the great War of the Whips. A man I have no background with other than we are both in line at this coffee shop. The man in question gave his name as Malcolm. From what I could gather in the short time we spent waiting in line was he was a man of good value. He wore business casual attire but strutted an American flag scarf. A poster boy for capitalism. Malcolm was a gunslinger with questions, I felt like I was being hounded by a detective in a noir.

“Are you happy?”

I turned around to face the man asking the question.

“Sure?”

I turned back to face my goal of reaching the register for my black coffee and almond croissant until�"-

“Are you sure, you’re sure?”

It was strange that he opened with such a question. And stranger that he followed up with that right hook. My great instinct was to smile and nod my way through the line. Deflecting each question with a: yup, mhm and oh really?

Avoidance was my game and I was the winner. That was until--

“You seem like you have a good head on your shoulders.”

This statement, rather this compliment caught me off guard. All at once it was like a person’s weaknesses and traits were being sold in book form and Malcolm took pride in reading mine cover to cover. My pride has always gotten me in the worst situations, and if only I knew what was to come. As my stupid smile grew, I thanked him.

I do have a pretty good head on my shoulders. Jennifer would be quite impressed.

All at once, my defenses were down. Before I knew it, we were sitting together, and I was answering every single question he shot my way.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Do you live alone?”

“With my plant Sheldon.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I have a lot of odd jobs. But I’m trying to be an actor.”

“You’re trying to be an actor? Isn’t it you are, or you aren’t?”

“Well a little green man said do, or do not, there’s no try…. but I’ve been trying to prove him wrong.”

Malcolm chuckles and my ego grows.

“You should be a comedian.”

“I would, but surprisingly I like myself too much.”

Another chuckle form Malcolm. This man was trying to win me over.

It’s working.

Malcolm clears his throat.

“How many hours, would you say you work?”

As I munched on my almond croissant I thought about the question.

“Seventy hours?”

“Seventy hours!”

I nodded.

“Between three jobs…”

I swallowed the reminder of the croissant.

“…seventy seems about right.”

Malcolm became wide-eyed and smiled.

“Cheesus Mice.”

I was unsure if he was impressed or concerned. I was mainly concerned with his expression. Was he attributing Christ to a mouse or was this what the neo-Christians used in replacement of Jiminy Cricket?

“That’s quite impressive…how often are you home?”

“I leave in the morning and return at midnight.”

Malcolm’s smile grew.

“You’re able to act in full plays.”

“They’re mainly small stage one acts. I have a pretty okay memory so I can get the lines down between all the work.”

“So, you’re a good actor?’

“I didn’t say good…or that I WAS an actor.”

Malcolm reflects on my answers and nods.

“Well you’re quite the busy bee!”

“Thank you.”

What was with this man and creatures?

“For all this work you must have a lot of cash flow?”

I didn’t.

“Actually, I don’t.”

Malcolm’s smile faded and all at once I shown his sympathetic side. It was nice how a stranger could suddenly be in your corner and have such concern.

“Well that doesn’t seem right now does it?”

“No.”

“I was like you a few years ago.”

Malcolm fondly recalled the events his wife and he went through upon graduating from college. The struggles of a new marriage with zero to now foundation.

“It took a lot for us to figure out a balanced budget and live our lives. For a while she would take all the leftovers from the diner she worked at.”

Malcolm continued to describe his daily rituals. He’d awake, pray for the day, kiss his wife and head to his nine to five, stay until six and return to the homestead to bid farewell to his wife on her way to her second job at the diner. He’d head to bed and pray.

I couldn’t understand how someone was willing to pray again after such a mundane day. And apparently neither could Malcolm.

“I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. We were both college graduates, struggling to get by. We were doing everything just to stay afloat. I felt like a rat in a cage forced to run on my wheel.”

Again, with the animals?

At this point the pride Malcolm had produced within me at reached its fumes and I was prepared to scarf the rest of the croissant, slam down my cup of coffee and bid this Aseop wannabe adieu.

“But everything changed when we met this couple. They claimed to solve the issue of finances. Of being poor.”

This was a topic that was ever present on my mind. I was raised by a single other so the great antagonist of our day to day was the budget. Can we afford new cloths, water, power or food? It’s a dammed miracle we made it through. So, I became very excited when he mentioned a solution to being poor. Within seconds my focus shifted from almond croissant to owning fine art. I needed to know the great solution. I need to know the secret.

“What’s the secret?”

Malcolm chuckled as if I was a doing my hot five at the laugh factory.

“There’s no real secret.”

Bullshit.

“Bullshit.”

D****t that one slipped out.

Since I had already revealed my natural vulgarity, I took it as a sign to resume my own questions.

“If it’s not a secret, then what is it?”

Malcolm smiled.

“It’s an opportunity...”

Malcolm leaned closer to me which caused me to become unsettled. I was never really one for public intimacy. When my mother would reach for my hand I would duck and dive. I’d rather have the people I’m with angry at me than have strangers think I was weak.

“If you really want to stop working seventy hours for dirt…all you have to do is have a talk.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Being the smart a*s, I am, I continue to pester him.

“Well we’re talking right now?”

“Yes, but another time. Give yourself a chance to think about jumping into the rabbit hole.”

All this talk of rabbits and holes. A normal person would have said take a flying hike. But are any of us normal?

“Okay, when can we meet again?”

Malcolm lit up like a firework.

“Whenever you’re available.”

I removed my notebook from my back pocket. This was my schedule, my life, all the overflow from my noodle was in this book. As a flipped through to the next week Malcolm made it a point to continue to feed my ego.

“Wow, you’re really that busy?”

I try to give a glimpse of a smile like most humans do. I finally arrive at the day to day for this week.

Man, the phone bills coming up. And I need to change my insurance plan to continue seeing Tanner.

Opening my book was a dangerous game.

“I can do Saturday!”

Malcolm grinned as he knocked his hand on the table.

“It’s a date then.”

Oh no.

I wasn’t homophobic, just now unsure if what he was selling was genuine. The real deal. But the secret was too valuable to give up.

“It’s a date.”

Malcolm stood up and stuck out his hand.

“This coming Saturday we’ll meet up and have a good conversation.”

Was this not a good conversation?

Before I knew it, Michael was jotting down the address for a coffee shop. One I had not yet the pleasure of taking refuge in. So regardless of how this will they won’t they played out. I got a new coffee shop.

“I’ll see you at nine a.m. on Saturday.”

As Malcolm gathered his things, I felt compelled to make this come full circle. So, I looked up to him.

“Malcolm, are you happy?”

Malcolm smirked as he threw his jacket over his arm.

“As happy as a bear with a pot of honey.”

Malcolm waved me off as he exited the coffee shop.

As I sat there nibbling on the carcass of my croissant, many of the usual questions started to invade my brain.

I should’ve got the banana. I’m getting fat in all the wrong places. But are there right places? Everyone’s quick to jump on that keto diet, so there must be good fat?

But what really stuck out was his answer.

Why the animals? Could Malcolm be a furry? What would Jennifer think?

Those questions stuck with me as I devoured the last piece of sliced almond.