Traffic
a short story by Terence Loose
You wake to the sound of traffic.
Car after car rolls past your window, day after day, night after night,
in an endless soundtrack of revving and exhaust. And in those rare and brief moments when no
car races toward the freeway, there remains the consistent rumble of the
freeway itself, which exists at the end of your street like a great reminder
that everyone—everyone—has somewhere to be.
Everyone but you, that is. And
they seem to need to be there in a hurry.
It’s been this way since you returned, and it feels as if it will
be this way forever. You seem to be
caught in some personal dense fog that never burns off. Not that there is any warmth to burn it off
anyway; just when did
But there’s no time to focus on that right now. You have important things to do, or, rather,
things others see as important.
You pull yourself from bed and wrap your robe around
yourself. Shuffle, shuffle to the
kitchen, where a hot pot of coffee awaits.
You pour a cup, wondering if this is the day that things will finally
click. Flip on the news next. What else?
Reports on the traffic. Bad as usual. Aggravated people battling
to get to aggravating jobs. You
were gone almost three years and nothing’s changed. In fact, that could be the same tape of a ‘98
traffic jam for all you know. Why not,
save on helicopter fuel, film costs. Who
would notice?
Alright, that thinking is getting you nowhere. Gotta stop that;
not productive. Today’s important, that
much you know. But what—
The ring of your phone interrupts that thought.
“Get a move-on, buddy. It’s
almost nine,” the voice cheers into your ear.
It’s Brett Reed, energy-filled as ever.
He’s probably been up and in pinstripes for hours now.
“And what would I need to be moving on to?”
“Hey, I’m not your secretary.
Whatever you do between nine and five.”
“What day is it, Brett?”
You ask this a split second before realizing you shouldn’t. It’s the sort of question that doesn’t sound
too promising to a man who lives by the second.
But now it is out there, hanging in the air like a surprise hiccup in
front of a highway patrolman.
“Don’t go depressive on me, buddy.
It’s Thursday, the day all the hotties are
fresh. Meet me at The Trader at
eight. We’ll put your whole ancient
mariner thing to good advantage, maybe even get you
laid this time.”
“I don’t know if I can make it tonight, Brett,” you say, knowing
full-well resistance is futile.
“Not acceptable. I just
closed on a six-figure commission and, bro, we’re celebrating.”
“Brett, what exactly do you do again?” Even three years ago, when you power-lunched
with Brett, you could never pin down precisely what he did. Something involving big
companies and bigger buy and sell orders. But Brett’s relation to the whole thing
remained as vague as the feeling with which you now wake every morning.
“I make money, bro, I make money.” The second money comes out long and sweet, as
if Brett were describing a tall brunette he wants to conquer.
By ten, after forcing yourself to take a shower and shave, you’ve remembered what today
is: lunch with the old boss. More importantly, and not coincidentally,
today is the one-month anniversary of your return and your self-imposed
deadline date for getting a job. You’ve
really gotta get a day planner. But then, that would probably result in plans
for each day, and that sounds daunting.
You fight traffic all the way to the offices of Voice, the magazine for which you spent
four years selling ad space. Cars move
past you only slightly more quickly than when you are lying flat on your back
in your street-side bedroom.
After waiting ten minutes for Jonathan Pike to get off the phone,
you rejoin the traffic battle back the way you came to The Bistro and make
small talk while you wait for a table.
Why didn’t you just meet at the restaurant in the first place?
Finally, you are seated.
Jonathan checks his watch immediately.
“Mind if we order right away? I
have a one-thirty,” he says, apparently without remorse. This is not encouraging.
Things start happening fast now, even relatively speaking. Before the waiter brings what looks to be
French onion soup and half of a club sandwich—Jonathan ordered you the number
five since you didn’t have time to read the menu—Jonathan has told you that,
yes, he knows why you asked him to lunch and, no, he’s sorry but there isn’t
anything he can do.
“Things are really tight right now, chief. But you’ll be the first one I call when they
turn around.” He turns to the waiter,
who is just releasing his hand after setting down Jonathan’s plate. “I better take this to go.”
Three minutes later you are alone at the table, unless you count
the face of Andrew Jackson staring up at you from the twenty dollar bill
Jonathan left in his stead. Which you don’t.
The rest of the day is a slow-motion blur, a phenomenon you are
just now getting used to. You wind up,
as always, at the cliffs above the beach, watching the sunset. It is the only part of the day that seems to
travel at your speed. Today’s curtain is
slower—and therefore more soothing—than normal.
A blanket of high clouds has provided a perfect canvas on which every
hue of orange can be displayed.
Others—in power suits and skirts—roll up, get out of their BMWs and
Mercedes S-classes and stand for a moment to take it all in. But you out last them all. While they grab a sound bite of the magic and
check it off their daily things-to-do-“for me”-list, then quickly move on, you stand
and appreciate every ray and swirl, until the oranges have turned to purples,
the purples to deep blues, the deep blues to black.
Why you showed up here at The Trader you are not fully sure. Possibly the effort of drinking with Brett is
slightly less taxing than explaining why you didn’t the next day. Besides, sooner or later you’re going to have
to get back in sync.
The Trader is new and, as such, very packed. That’s the one part of this town that has
changed: the restaurants and bars. But then, this mutation fits in with the
frenetic atmosphere; it seems natural. As natural as cattle grazing away one field and needing a new one
from which to feed. Only these
cattle devour and move on quickly and are very well-dressed and carry cell
phones and feed on martinis and Sex on the Beaches. These pastoral thoughts canter through your
mind as you stand just inside The Trader’s massive oak doors watching the
well-heeled herd buzzing around this upscale wild west-themed venue. You are about to turn in retreat when Brett
appears by your side, accompanied by two very attractive ladies who instantly
dissolve any bovine images you were enjoying.
“Told you he was the real deal, ladies,” Brett says, handing you
what must be a vodka and tonic. “Just
look at that outfit.”
You take Brett’s cue yourself, realizing you’re not quite sure what
you have on. Turns out you’ve decided on
your salty deck shoes, faded blue jeans and a not-so-impressive-even-to-you
beige wool sweater. You are trying to
think of some witty excuse when Brett introduces Pauline and Amber. You get the impression that he is after
Amber, but with Brett it is not always easy to tell. The official Reed motto has always been Leave your options open until the very last
instant, “to the foot of the bed,” he likes to say. It is also distinctly possible that he is
after both at once.
Brett has, against all odds, secured a cozy booth in the corner
and you all move to it. Pauline and
Amber slide in close on either side of you while Brett is off to get more
drinks, the waitress not being fast enough for the Reed celebratory intoxication
quest.
“So Brett tells us that you sailed around the world. Alone,” Amber says.
“That’s right,” you say.
“Wow! You gonna write a book?
You could make a lot of money.
Maybe get a movie deal.”
You tell her that your goal is to be the only man to sail around
the world and not write a book about it.
She laughs but looks disturbed.
She’s obviously picked up on the fact that you meant what you said, and
that doesn’t fit any of her male paradigms.
Now Pauline speaks. “You
must have seen so much beauty out there,” she says.
You are in awe of this sentence.
It is the simplest and most pleasing you have heard since your
return. What you like most about it is
that for once it came before the inevitable questions about storms and pirates,
or what you do for a living now—a question that is becoming increasingly sticky
to answer.
“Yes,” you say, “beauty is everywhere out—“
Before you can continue Brett is back with a tray of fresh liquid
soldiers.
“Has he gotten to the part where he fought off six pirates with
Uzis yet?” Brett says, squeezing in next to Amber.
“That can’t be true,” Amber says, apparently excited at the mere
possibility.
“Now could we lie in the face of your piercing beauty?” Brett says
as he clinks Amber’s cocktail with his.
“Tell them bro.”
“No, we couldn’t lie,” you say.
“So it’s true?” Amber says.
“No. The truth is I never
saw a pirate or a big storm,” you say.
Brett takes this even harder than Amber.
But Brett makes one of his famous saves, appeasing Amber with talk
of his six-figure day. Amber has
apparently decided to gamble on the money story and conveniently forget that it
was Brett who only a moment ago tried to put across a whopper. This allows you to start a happy melt into
the booth’s soft burgundy velvet, your complete withdrawal stopped short only
by Pauline, who asks what place in the world you found most attractive.
This is another question you like, it powers up images of clear
water, blue skies and warm trade winds.
You do your best to convey these images and to your amazement time seems
to act appropriately again. In fact,
everything acts correctly and before long you are alone with Pauline on warm
velvet, Brett and Amber finding life in the booth too sedentary and your talk
too idyllic.
Later, back at your apartment Pauline is telling you that she did
some traveling after college. “Like
everyone, I backpacked through
“It sounds exactly like sailing around the world,” you say. But you find it impossible to explain any
further. To explain that no matter how
far you go, or how long you take, that you always come back, and no matter how
grand the memories are, they are still just memories. They don’t stand a chance against the
full-court press of the present.
In the morning Pauline is still there. As she sleeps, you watch her slow breathing
and her long charcoal-colored hair shimmer in the early morning sunlight. How long before this is just another
beautiful memory you wonder.
When she wakes you kiss her and she smiles. It’s a radiant, shy smile that comes across
as both familiar and fresh.
“Why did you come back?” she asks.
You could give her the obvious reasons of accomplishing your goal,
needing the security of land again and, not least, running out of funds. But all those, while valid, seem false.
So you tell her the truth.
“I don’t really know,” you say.
There is a quiet moment. A
truly quiet moment you realize after a few seconds, during which, for the first
time since your return, the traffic was not audible.
Then Pauline asks another question.
“Why did you go away?” she says.
“I guess I didn’t like who I was,” you say, but that seems
incomplete. “I wanted to change.”
“And did you?”
You think for a moment, listen for traffic.
“Yeah,” you say. “I think I
did.” þ