I Left My Back Door Open (13 page)

“Yeah, I don't want to get mixed in with you all's issues.”

“Well, I appreciate your being willing to talk to me,” Bill said, sounding respectful.

“Sometimes, talking can clear the air.”

“I don't know where to start,” Bill stammered. “It just seems like things have been blown way out of proportion.”

“Depends on who you talk to,” I replied.

“I don't mean to minimize anybody's feelings,” he said, awkwardly leaning his tall, slender frame back against the folding chair. “And I support mediation,” he added halfheartedly. “I really do. I don't want to be defensive or dump on you.”

“What
do
you want from me?” I asked, ready to cut to the chase.

“I don't know,” Bill answered, straightening his glasses again. “I guess I want to connect on some level.”

“What level?”

“I don't know. Just on a human level, for God's sake.” Bill sighed miserably. “I mean I know everybody's busy and most people have their two-point-three friends and—”

“Bill, are you trying to be my friend?” I interrupted, feeling awkward.

“I'm not asking you to be my friend or anything.” He looked away. “It's not like we're in the sandbox and I'm asking, ‘Will you be my friend?'” He sighed again. “It's not like that.”

Bill made eye contact. “It's just that people probably see me as the guy that fools with the gadgets and keeps them on the air. And that's okay. I mean that's understandable.”

“I'm not sure that I get your point.” I saw an unexpected vulnerability in Bill's eyes.

“Everybody has to have a point?” He leaned back in the chair again. “So, let's see, what's my point?” I was concerned that he might tip over. “Maybe I don't have a point,” he said finally. “Maybe I had a point yesterday. Or I'll have a point tommorow or in ten minutes. But is it okay for me to not have a point, just for a few minutes?” He looked like a child asking permission.

I narrowed my eyes and looked at Bill like I was trying to make out small print. I was having trouble getting a read on him.

“Maybe I have a point that you don't see,” he said, spitting as he talked. “Or you'll see one that I don't have. Anyway, can you just let me get this stuff out?”

“Yeah, go ahead. Just watch your mouthwater.”

“Sorry.”

“I have some time,” I said, begrudgingly. “So long as the conference room continues to remain available.”

“It is. Nobody's due in here for awhile, I already checked,” Bill said enthusiastically. He looked like he was having to restrain himself from shouting, “Goody, goody, gumdrop!”

I told myself that it would be good practice for me to show Bill a little compassion. After all, I never knew when somebody was going to call me up on the air and say they were feeling blue enough to jump off the Sears Tower or something.

Bill tilted his chair back to the ground. “Anyway, I went to a grief workshop last weekend,” he said casually.

“Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you lost someone.”

“Thanks, but I didn't go to the grief workshop because I lost someone.”

“I just assumed that most people would go for that reason.”

“Most people did go for that reason, but maybe I'm not most people,” Bill said, laying on each word and clasping his fingers.

You're absolutely right
, I thought. Most people wouldn't corner someone to tell them about attending a grief workshop when they weren't even grieving. I'd almost dusted the violins off for nothing

“If you didn't go because you lost somebody, why
did
you go?” I asked, confused.

“I went because I was
at
a loss.” Bill sighed. “I had nobody to lose.”

“Is this all connected to you and Jade?” I asked, warily.

“I don't know where the connection is. I'm just telling my story, just like in AA. Have you been to AA?”

“Yeah, I used to go with a friend of mine.” I flashed on Sharon dragging me to those smoky, soul-searching meetings.

“Anyway, I wanted to be around people who were sad,” Bill continued. “I wanted to be able to
be
sad.”

I wondered if Bill was clinically depressed.

“I think a lot of people are sad, don't you?” Bill asked.

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “There are a lot of people on Prozac and Zoloft.” Maybe, by this winter, I'd be reaching for St. John's Wort myself. I shuddered.

“But nobody talks about it,” Bill said, shaking his head. “They pretend to be happy. But a lot of people are not happy. They're sad. And when you lose somebody or get diagnosed with cancer, then it's all right to act sad.”

“So, how was the grief workshop?” I asked. “Did it bring you down more?”

“No,” Bill answered firmly.

“That's interesting.”

“Oh, it was hard hearing about this one's lover who died of AIDS and that one's sister who was murdered. It was real hard, but it was real real,” Bill said quietly. “It was mighty real, as you say on your radio show. Anyway, I could relate to the people who were sad. Because I was sad, too.” He paused. “And I discovered compassion for myself.” He looked at me, teary-eyed. “I know I've made some stupid remarks and been somewhat of an asshole. And I apologize for that. But I haven't assaulted anyone.”

“People are afraid these days,” I said softly. “They don't know if you're gonna stalk them or what.”

“You're probably right,” Bill agreed. “I saw a woman I went to college with waiting for the El. We chatted on the platform for a couple of minutes. I wasn't trying to pick her up or anything, but when we got on the train, I naturally sat next to her. I figured that we'd continue to catch up on old times, right?”

“Right?”

“Bong.” He hit his head with his fist like he'd just lost a point on a game show. “You can just pick it up in the body language,” he said. “All of a sudden you're pond scum. You're vermin, something that crawled out of a swamp. Did you say anything wrong? Probably not. Do you have bad breath? No. Do you have body odor? No. She's just decided that you're unwelcome, you're unwanted, you're the
other
.”

“I have some experience with being the
other
myself,” I interjected. “It's called being black in America.”

“I'm sure you can relate, then. Anyway, suddenly you're not good enough to sit next to her and continue a fucking conversation.”

“People can be cold.”

“So, I crawl back into my world of computers and electronics. I hole up in my bachelor's apartment. And I go to work, play computer games, jog just so I can have some release. And then one day, da da!” Bill waved his hands dramatically. “There's a glimmer of hope in the form of a grief workshop. Imagine that.” He sighed, making soulful eye contact.

I didn't try to imagine it, but seeing the sadness in Bill's eyes made me sigh, too.

“Dee Dee, do you ever wonder about what's gonna happen to us after we die?”

“You're not suicidal, are you?” I asked nervously.

“No, I just think about death a lot of the time,” he said casually, locking his hands behind his head. “It's natural to think about death. We're all gonna die. Every morning we wake up, we're all a day closer to death. It's the one thing that we all have in common. But nobody talks about it.” Bill folded his hands in his lap.

“What's there to say?” I asked.

“Do you think about it?”

I shifted in my chair and felt the smooth wood of the conference table with my fingers. I remembered asking when I was a child, “If God made the world, then who made God?” I never got a good answer.

“I used to to think about it when I was little,” I said. “And then I stopped. But I think about it again, now that I'm getting older,” I admitted. “I just pray that when my time comes, I'll leave everything in order.” I paused and added, “You know, I'd hate to die suddenly and the house was a mess. Like I haven't cleaned out the litterbox. Or my important papers weren't in order. And I wonder who would take my cat.”

“What would you care? You're dead.”

“I still think about my cat and the people I'd leave behind. That's why suicide is so selfish. I hope you realize that. Bill, you have too much to live for.”

“I guess you probably figure it's easy being a man, especially being a white man. You probably think I have it made, huh?” Bill narrowed his eyes.

“I think you have certain advantages,” I answered, matter-of-factly.

“I see myself as a guy who's pretty much followed the rules and has done okay. Everybody thinks I have the goodies, but you know what? I don't.” Bill stretched out his empty hands. “I envy the freedom you have to speak your mind sometimes. As a white guy, I gotta walk on eggshells. I'm under a spotlight.”

“Not as far as the police are concerned or the public, for that matter,” I argued.

“Okay, I'll buy that. I was referring to the politically correct crowd.”

“Well, as a black woman, I feel that I'm at the bottom of the food chain sometimes.”

“I guess what I'm driving at is, you can be this so-called all-powerful white guy who actually leads a pretty empty existence.” Bill leaned back casually, but his voice was choked with emotion. “I'm a white guy that basically nobody gives a shit about.”

“Somebody must care about you,” I insisted, able to muster up a bit of sympathy, although I wasn't ready to throw a pity party for a white man, just yet.

“Name 'em.” Bill said.

“What about your family?”

“Dead or don't give a damn.”

“People don't hate you here at the station.”

“People don't hate me, is that the best that I can hope for? I'm just a fucking robot in a fucking control room. Is that all there is?”

“I don't know. Bill, what do you need from me?”

“I need human contact. I need to know that I'm not fucking invisible. I need to know that I'm more than my fucking job. And I know you're thinking, ‘Boy is this guy needy!' People who need people are the neediest people in the world. The worst thing you can do is need somebody in this fucking world.”

“You sound like you're really angry.”

“You sound like a fucking therapist. I
am
angry. Haven't you heard about angry white men?”

“Are you one of them?”

Bill sighed. “I'm not sure what I am. I know I'm supposed to have it all. Hey, I've got a good job, a nice apartment, a reliable car. I'm a white man. I'm doing okay.”

“Yeah, by most standards.”

“Bong. No … I can't fucking connect. I listen to you and Jade doing your shows and I feel a connection. It's like you're my friends. I listen to Jade's music and it stirs something inside me. I express that to her and I get shot down. It's like I'm this slimy piece of shit that no one wants to connect with.”

“Maybe it's the
way you
express yourself.”

“Why is it when a woman does it, it's sensual and beautiful, but a man is always seen as crude and intrusive?”

“You don't intend to be crude?”

“Look, I was socialized as a male. And there was nothing in my indocrination as a male in this society to prepare me to be able to just watch a beautiful, scantily clad woman, gyrating and motioning toward me seductively with her hands. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven, okay?”

“It was all part of Jade's performance. It wasn't personal.”

“Everything's a performance these days. Nothing's personal.”

“She felt uncomfortable when you approached her. Serious belly dancers don't want to be seen as sex objects.”

“I want to respect that. But there was nothing in my training as a man to see belly dancing as anything but sexual. Especially when you throw alcohol into the mix.”

“Yeah, when people are drinking, it's hard for them to focus on the spiritual aspects of a belly dance, I will agree.”

“It was so seductive. And she was so beckoning,” he whined.

“You know Jade's married, don't you?”

“Yeah, but not happily.”

“How do you know that?”

“Even though I'm not a woman, I have some intuition. I'm not all nerd.”

“You surprise me. I didn't know that you were so emotional.”

“Sometimes, I wish I weren't.” Bill shrugged. “Then I'd be in less pain.”

“I think that we're all in pain on some level,” I said quietly. “I used to think you were either happy or you weren't. People used to say, ‘I just want you to be happy.' Books used to say, ‘And they lived happily ever after.'”

“Who the fuck is happy?” Bill asked.

“Happiness is just a whistle-stop,” I said. “It comes and goes. They lived happily ever after. What a crock.” I laughed. “I'm happy right now laughing about it, though, I must admit. But it's easier to be happy when you've had some champagne. Anyway, nobody's really happy all the time.”

“Did you know that a study showed that half the people in this country would rather shop than have sex?”

“No, I missed that survey.”

“There's a name for those people, too.” Bill laughed. “Women.”

We were both laughing when Jade and Skylar entered the conference room. Everyone spoke hastily. I tried to cover up my disappointment that I hadn't heard from Skylar. Of course, he didn't mention it. He even avoided my glance. But I could see the look of betrayal in Jade's eyes. I knew she was shocked to see me laughing with the enemy. I had some 'splaining to do.

“We're scheduled to have a session now,” Skylar said, awkwardly.

“No problem,” I answered. “I'm on my way out. Bill, it's been
serendipitous
.”