Chris Bachelder - The Throwback Special

“Hey, man,” George said to Gary. “You okay?”

Gary tried to nod, but the flesh of his cheek against the hotel carpet had a relatively high coefficient of static friction, and his head barely moved.

“Hey,” George said, “you want me to walk on your back?

“No,” Gary said quickly, though George was already peeling off his black socks.

Nate, the fourth linebacker, entered the room. He was not wearing shoes.

“Hey, Nate,” George said, “can you turn off that light? Yeah, that one.”

Nate turned off the light.

“And can you put that jersey over the bedside lamp?”

Nate laughed, though he did not know why. He draped Bald Michael’s Gary Reasons jersey over the lamp, and the room grew dim and blue. George unzipped his duffel bag, and selected a CD. He looked around the room, then inserted the CD into Gary’s laptop on the orange chair.

Gary said, “Hey, George, I don’t think—” but the first track on the mountain dulcimer compilation was “Wildwood Flower,” and he found that he could not complete his objection.

“Wait until you hear ‘Shady Grove,’” George said. “Gary, you’re going to want to lift your shirt up.”

With his face still on the carpet, Gary lifted his shirt up.

“Okay, Gary,” George said. “You ready?”

Gary did not respond, and George approached with his pant legs rolled. Gary stared at George’s feet, which were coarse and clean and dry, with high arches, long and hairless toes, and toenails that appeared to be trimmed but not fussily managed. The feet were not tender and pale, helpless in the way of baby animals, but neither were they the hairy, black-soled, thick-nailed feet of a wandering hippie. If they had a smell, it was faint and mild and organic, like cucumber or loam. They were good feet, expressive of proper values. Observing no overt sign of resistance, George stepped onto the middle of Gary’s back. Gary grunted, winced, squeezed his eyes shut. George stood still for a moment, achieving his balance, allowing Gary to grow accustomed to the weight. “There you go,” George said. “That’s it. Arms straight out. Now find your breath. Find it.” Gary tried to find his breath, and gradually he found it. The dulcimer played “Black Mountain Rag,” and George began slowly to shift his weight from one foot to the other. In his cold, wet socks Nate watched, wincing in sympathy with Gary. He could feel George’s feet on his own back. He could feel a shortness of breath. Bald Michael took several pictures of George and Gary with his phone. Eventually George began to shuffle deliberately up and down Gary’s back. His balance was excellent.

“How’s that?” George said.

Gary grunted and tried to nod.

“Seriously,” George said, “feels like I’m standing on a coil of rope, man.”

With a librarian on his back, with dulcimer music in the air, with the cold rain still tapping the window, with the heavy mantle of Lawrence Taylor upon his shoulders, Gary had the rare opportunity to break down entirely. He felt he could really lose it, and he was startled by the energy it took to resist it. “How. . did. . you. . know?” Gary said.

“About your back?”

Gary tried to nod.

“Man,” George said, “it’s everyone’s back that hurts.”

Nate was hoping he would be next, though he could not bring himself to ask. The dulcimer played “Whiskey Before Breakfast.” In the dim blue light, Bald Michael looked through the photographs he had taken, deleting each one for its failure to portray.

JEFF HAD A THEORY about marriage:

All it is, he said, and he said he learned this too late, but all it is, is watching someone and having someone watch you. He paced in front of the mute television, on which a pickup truck drove over boulders in slow motion. He sounded exasperated, as if the other eligible receivers in Room 440 (Randy, Steven, and Derek) had worn him down, forced him to defend his position, though in fact no one had asked him anything, and no one had been speaking about marriage. No one had been speaking much at all. That’s all it is, he said. He said when you’re a kid, your parents watch your life. They know what’s going on, they’re watching you pretty carefully. Or at least let’s hope they are. They know you have a spelling quiz or a baseball game, they keep track of it all, and so you get the idea that your life is important, valuable. But then you grow up, Jeff said, and it turns out nobody is really watching anymore. It would be weird if your parents knew that you switched cereals in the morning, or that the power went out at your office for two hours. Nobody really knows what your days are like. Jeff said he wasn’t talking about the big things — moving to a new city or having a kid or losing your job. He said he was talking about the tiny, stupid crap that fills most of our days, and that you can’t tell people about because it’s too small and stupid. But it’s your life, Jeff said, right? It doesn’t matter to anyone else, he said, but it matters to you because it’s your life. The water in your basement, the strange smell in your shower drain. Changing your kid’s bedsheets in the middle of the night. Jeff said that life is a precious gift, sure, but usually what life is, is going to the store to buy a stupid piece of shit-ass hardware, and then buying the wrong size, and then having to go back to get the right goddamn size, except the store doesn’t have it. If you’re not married, Jeff said, chances are, nobody sees you make two trips to the store on Saturday morning for that hinge or flange that you don’t even get. Marriage — Jeff saw it so clearly now — what marriage does is at least guarantee that one person is watching. There’s one person who knows you got the oil changed today, or that you waited over an hour for your dentist appointment, or that you’re trying a new shave gel, or that the running shoes you’ve worn for years got discontinued. On television an adopted child was reunited with her birth mother, but none of the men saw it. And here’s the thing, Jeff said. The wife does not have to care about any of this stuff. It would be weird if she did, Jeff said, right? Because it’s boring, he said, and because she has her own tiny crap she’s got going on in her own life, and that seems important to her. And you’re watching that for her, Jeff said. See? You don’t have to care, he said. You just have to watch. You just have to be sentient, a witness. You don’t even have to watch very carefully. You’re not a scientist. You’re not some astronomer. It’s not like that, Jeff said. It’s certainly not about keen perception, and it’s not about gratitude or sympathy or even appreciation. It really is not about giving or getting credit. Just, Jeff said, just trying to keep the squirrels out of the goddamn mulch. If that person who is watching happens to love you or respect you, or if that person concedes to have oral sex with you, that’s a bonus, Jeff said, but it’s not necessary. It’s not what marriage is for. It’s just vital to have someone who sees your life. It’s no small thing. And look, Jeff said to the men, if you want any more from marriage than that, you’ll be disappointed. He walked to the door, squinted into the peephole. If you want to be connected, Jeff said, or if you want to share a passion, or if you’re thinking at all in terms of big, old trees with thick roots, you’re going to end up on the couch. First the couch, he said, then a crappy studio apartment. The only thing marriage can really give you is the sense that your life is witnessed by another person. A kind of validation, Jeff said. That’s it, he said, and it’s plenty. If you have that, you have a lot. You have everything. But here’s the thing, Jeff said. People don’t like being watched. They resent it. Jeff said that he resented it. He said he wanted to be free from it. He wanted his wife to mind her own business. But when he got away from it — when his wife was no longer watching — he didn’t feel free, he said. He didn’t feel relieved or liberated. He didn’t. He said now he just feels like there’s suddenly no point at all to buying the wrong kind of caulk for the windows. You’re not in a movie, Jeff said. He said that over and over. Nobody sees you, he said. He said that’s why people pretend they’re in movies. People say they want privacy, but they would actually like a camera out in their cold backyard at midnight, pointed through the kitchen window while they make a school lunch for their kids. They want someone to just notice, Jeff said. He said that’s what marriage is for. Otherwise, he said, honest to God, we’re all just like penguins at the North Pole, doing it all for no real reason.