Page 37 of Two Marlboros

They both stared at me petrified. Ashton, perhaps, even with some hardness.

“Sorry, huh,” my colleague said stymied. “We were doing it for you.”

Ashton did not know. His gaze was steady: he was condemning me, and I was fine with that. He couldn’t understand and I didn’t care that he did. But Nathan...

Nathanknew.

And his gaze let me know that, once again, he had sensed what I was thinking.

“I don’t think so,” I replied.

I turned around and left the two of them talking to each other about who knows what, with laughter and banter.

What did I care anyway?

9

Fragile Appearences

(?TLC - Unpretty)

The time had come for me to claim my “Dickhead of the Year” award, for pulling off a slew of screw-ups in record time. Last but not least, I had been the protagonist of a tantrum worthy of a kindergartner, caught up as I was in the excitement of that party and my not entirely dormant Good Samaritan soul. I wanted to do good and had ended up trampling on Alan’s feelings.

Yes, well. Trampling was a real understatement. I had gone over it again and again, until, not content, I had ripped it all out nicely, just to make sure I had done everything right.

Alan had disappeared past the hallway where the metal detectors were, taking the exit, while Ash was still standing there in front of me, more panting than a sprinter who had just finished the race.

“That’s it, I’m changing offices.”

“What?”

He was livid in the face and with two grim eyes scanned the corner beyond which Alan had disappeared.

“He’s been doing that as long as I’ve known him, I can’t stand him anymore! Always with that face, always sour!”

He had really gone off on a tangent. By now he was ranting infamy left and right, not even looking at me anymore.

“He should fuck a little more, damn it!” he exclaimed again, then sighed, and shook his head. “Sorry.”

In fact, I was sure Ash had babbled a lot more than my brain had processed, but my thoughts had all gone to Alan and what Icould do to avoid such a miserable impression. He did not even give me time to respond, however, that he hung up immediately.

“Come on, though, he deserves it. You try having him as your colleague all day, every day! Eventually that gun to the waist makes you want to use it, believe me!”

“Toward him or toward you?”

Ash huffed. “I can’t say anything, they might arrest me.”

He shrugged, dejected. In fact, he might have had a point. Not even a second passed before he began mumbling again.

“I tried all kinds of ways, you know? I’ve tried introducing him to someone, suggesting dates, but nothing. He’s decided by now that he wants to be a single sourpuss, and I have to put up with it every single day. But then, had he had a reason for being like that! I always ask him, ‘How has the world harmed you?’ He gives me a bad look and goes away. I don’t understand him.”

I let Ash vent, let him tell me about Alan’s perpetual long face, his attitude of bugging him about every misplaced comma when conducting investigations, and many other stories that described a lonely man angry at the world. As I listened to Ash I also felt a little guilty, because I knew, at least in part, why Alan was the way he was; but I certainly could not spill his guts, because I assumed he had his own reasons for not telling Ash anything.

I tried to calm him down, telling him that perhaps it was not appropriate to provoke Alan like that every time, with jokes about his character and the fact that he needed a man, but the effect was only that Ash ranted even more and louder and louder; I wondered if some colleague wasn’t hearing everything, with the risk that, the next day, he would report everything to the person concerned.

“Whatever, I’m going back to the office, at least I can finish the evening in peace.”

“Have a nice evening at work,” I wished him.

---