Jack O'Connell - Box Nine

Woo’s eyes begin to flutter a bit, tiny mutant birds, and then they go into a series of full blinks. He stares up out of his army-green sleeping bag and Lenore thinks he looks like he’s been swallowed up to the neck by a sentient vegetable that’s invaded the planet.

“How long was I out?” he asks.

“Just a couple of hours,” Lenore says. “Sleep well?”

“Strange dreams,” he says through a yawn, and pulls his arms free from the bag to stretch.

“Join the club,” Lenore mumbles.

“What time is it?”

“Little before seven. Want some coffee?”

He nods, shimmies out of the bag, and climbs to his feet. “Yes, please.”

Lenore unscrews the thermos cap and pours a cupful. “It’ll have to be black,” she says.

“I normally drink it black,” he says, taking the cup, sipping, and burning his lips.

“It’s steaming,” Lenore says too late. “Sometimes these thermoses work too well, you know?”

Woo nods and dabs at his singed lips with his fingers. He’s dressed in a pair of old pleated chinos with slightly flared legs, a too-thin brown leather belt, a cotton baseball shirt with blue three-quarter-length arms and a picture of Ezra Pound silk-screened on the front, a fraying navy cardigan, and low-cut white sneakers void of a brand name anywhere on them. Lenore thinks he’s an illustration for a men’s magazine on “how not to dress for a date.”

“For breakfast,” she says, unrolling the top of a paper bag on the table, “we’ve got a choice of cream-filled chocolate cupcakes, mini sugar donuts”—she rummages—“chips, licorice, graham crackers …”

“Excuse me for saying so,” Woo says with a guilty smile on his face. He blows on his cup of coffee and continues, “But it surprises me that you eat these things. I mean, you’ve got such a stunning figure—”

She cuts him off. “It’s all metabolism. Don’t listen to any of the experts on this. Trust me. It’s metabolism. I’ve got a digestive system that won’t quit. I burn up food like you read about. It runs overtime. Just really aggressive.”

She pulls out a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips, tears it open, puts one in her mouth, and offers the bag toward Woo. He reaches in, takes a chip, bites into it, and, after a beat, makes an awful frowning and squinty face.

“So sour,” he says, his tongue caked with small pieces of chips. “And this early in the morning.”

“I thought you people loved sour-tasting food.”

Woo makes an exaggerated, gulping swallow and says, “Where did you hear this?”

“Just one of those things you hear.”

Woo makes small, pecking sips at the cup of coffee.

“That book you brought with you,” Lenore says, “that Aztec tongue book? What is that? That’s not a textbook, is it?”

“Not exactly, no,” Woo says. “It’s a very obscure novel from the early 1900s, I believe. Written by an Argentine who chose to remain anonymous. It’s been out of print for years. I picked this edition up, used, last year, and never got to reading it. It’s really a mystery novel, of a sort.”

“My brother loves mysteries. Reads them all the time. Nonstop. Like peanuts, one after another. I can take them or leave them.”

“I have a colleague, a woman in the literature department, she says that the mystery, or, no, I guess, the detective story, that’s it, the detective story, is the most fitting mode for expressing our contemporary situation. What did she call it? Very clever woman. Something about — post-God, post-humanist, post-holocaust, post-literate, numbing void. Something like this—”

“Actually, I was a criminology major.”

“Of course.”

“And that was a hell of a long time ago.”

“Another symptom of our times. We live longer than any humans to walk the planet, yet we start thinking we’re elderly soon after adolescence.”

“I don’t think I’m elderly. Believe me, I know where I stand. I’ve got a good grip on my age. I’m better at thirty, both mentally and physically, than any rookie the department took on this year. I guarantee that.”

“I don’t doubt you, Lenore.”

“But the fact is, I work at it. I mean, there’s an awful lot of effort.”

“Self-evident.”

“I think, you make the effort, your body responds. And the things you can’t change, they’ll follow along. You see one grey hair in my head? Go ahead, look close. Not a one. Now, it’s not like I use any coloring or anything, but my brother, Ike, okay, same exact age, we’re twins, okay, you should see all the grey ones he’s sprouting. Another five years and forget it. That’ll be the whole head. Now, same age, same genes, for Christ sake, and look at the difference.”

“Perhaps it’s stress. Is your brother in a very stressful environment?”

“More stressful than narcotics? Jees, Freddy, c’mon.”

“You have a point.”

“You know where Ike works? You’ll love this. Directly above our heads. I’m not kidding you. He’s a letter carrier. Mailman. Right her at Sapir Street.”

“Such a coincidence.”

“Maybe. I don’t really believe in coincidence.”

“You know, Lenore, for some reason I didn’t think you would. What is it you go for? Fate? The karmic wheel?”

“The thing I hate most with you is I really can’t get a bearing on when you’re making fun of me.”

“I can’t recall one instance since we’ve met when I made fun of you. The mistake you make, Lenore, is to overcomplicate things. You can take me at face value. I’m a very simple man.”

“I’ve heard that said half a dozen times before and it’s never been true.”

“Think about it, Lenore. You see in front of you a man who’s spent nine-tenths of his adult life inside enormous libraries. In terms of theories of language, well, perhaps, maybe, possibly I’m a bit involved. But, I swear to you, in terms of just day-to-day routine, these common dynamics of meeting and speaking with people — Waitress, I’d like a cup of coffee; Bill, good to see you; Ms. Dixon, how’s the new baby? — I’m so ill at ease, I’m constantly second-guessing myself, overpreparing for every minute encounter.”

“God, that’s terrible.”

“I don’t sleep well.”

“Oh, c’mon. You were deep into dreamtime the past two hours.”

“Well, pardon me, but, again, that just shows how comfortable I am in your presence.”

“Now, that’s something I don’t hear very often.”

“You’re out to confuse me, Lenore. One compliment will bring me an insult and an obscenity, the next you let pass.”

“You just don’t get it. We’re a little out of sync here. I don’t think you always pick up on sarcasm or irony or, I don’t know.”

“Yes, this is true. I know what you’re saying. There’s sort of an urban hipness — self-deprecation, detached absurdism, mock horror set next to a bored complacency.”

“Whatever. Now you’re the one thinking too much. I had this nun in grammar school used to try to teach us French. She’d always say, ‘Let the words wash over you.’ I always took that as — don’t think so much, get the flavor, get the rhythm. You think too much, you miss the forest for the trees.”

“You speak French?”

“No way.”

“Too bad. I always enjoy a little practice.”

“Practice?”

“I speak six languages. I’m working toward eight.”

“Ambitious guy. You’ve impressed me.”

“I didn’t mean. I was simply …”

“Take it easy, Freddy. I’m serious. I’m pretty serious. That’s an achievement. I’m not running you down here. Ease up.”

“Both my parents were fluent in a variety of languages. I was somewhat destined for my field.”