Still, Greg would think about his life. All the time he would. He’d try to define it. It was a moon. But it was a life, too. It was a thing beyond the moon, if the moon was a hole in the sky. Or it was a cow, a fish. A dodo-bird. He was prone to crude, animal metaphors of life. He would see all of life — the entire askance crash of it, in the side yard, like a UFO — in an ant, a toad. He was prone to metaphors within metaphors. Two metaphors at once. Dashed, and simile’d. He would declare things, try things out: “Life is an ant — so small you just want to smoosh it, that you can’t help but smoosh it, that you leave the bathroom telling yourself you won’t smoosh it, but then go back, smoosh it.” Was this right? Did it make sense? He would say these things out loud, in another person’s voice, in the empty classroom of his head. Often, in a girl’s voice. It kept him company, and passed the time. But it also frightened him; these precarious beginnings of imaginary friends — was this … safe? It was iffy, Greg knew. Iffy at best. He was much too old for imaginary friends. He was 23. He should be in some army infantry unit somewhere — taking off his helmet, wiping his brow, putting his helmet back on. Or else in grad school, on a futon, patting a girlfriend’s head with one hand and marking up a textbook with the other. There were infinite other places where he should be instead of where he was right now. And this didn’t seem right — one over infinity; didn’t this equal zero? As it turned out — Greg Googled it — no, it didn’t. One in infinity only tended towards zero. But still, it didn’t make any sense. How could one trust the internet?
Greg signed his timesheet and went to the children’s books section. Rachel was sitting Indian style on the carpet. She was new here — another high schooler here for community service, which helped, supposedly, for college admissions.
Rachel looked up. “Hey Greg.”
“Hi, Rachel.” Greg had recently begun calling people by their names. It had always seemed strange to him — the sudden possession and clinical, Greg felt, intimacy of it — but now he had started doing it. His co-workers had begun talking. They would tilt their heads, peer into Greg’s face like a zoo animal, and then ask him why he was being anti-social. And so Greg had made the effort to speak more. He bought books on how to improve his social skills. One book said to address people by their names. It would be interpreted as friendly. And though his voice still sounded small and weepy to him, like gerbils let into a swamp, Greg felt good to be saying people’s names. To be making some kind of progress.
“What’s with hippos and kids?” Rachel said. “All these kid’s books involve hippos. Either hippos or grapes. What’s with that?”
“Where do hippos come from, anyway?” Greg said. “I mean, what are they related to? Elephants? It feels like they’re from outer space.” Greg could sometimes talk like this. Something inside of him would prop up, and in that quick and windowed moment, something flurried and alive would glide out, and play a little. Then it would fly right back in, though — dead now, and wooden — and knock against Greg’s insides, lodging there like a boomerang.
“Outer space?” Rachel smiled. “Dugongs?”
Greg liked Rachel. He would talk to her more. He would say something insightful and ahead of its time — something that should not have been said until 20, 30 years from now. Rachel would beam, then swoon a little. They’d get married. Open a little iced coffee place on the beach, right out of the sand, like a trapdoor. But now Greg’s face turned red, which would happen; whenever it wanted, Greg’s heart would move up into his face and linger there — hot, throbbing, and bored, like a ten year old.
Rachel watched this, then looked down. There were children’s books scattered around her, hard and plate-y, and she began to sort them. “They should do a children’s book on dugongs and manatees,” she said. “There would be prejudice between them. But in the end they would unite against the sharks.”
“Good luck with that,” Greg said. “Rachel.” It didn’t make any sense, and Greg didn’t know how he came to say it. But he had mumbled it, anyway, and so Rachel didn’t hear. She looked up and smiled. Greg tried to do something with his face — tried to smile back, look happy or something, confident and grown-up; like he wasn’t afraid of people — but it didn’t happen and he turned and moved driftily away, feeling dilute and sick, like watercolors, like a ghost with a cold.
On his lunch break, Greg walked out into the parking lot. He had planned to drive to Wendy’s for a Spicy Chicken Sandwich, but Rachel was out here with three friends, all of them leaned up against a truck.
“Greg,” Rachel called out. She waved him over.
Greg stumbled a bit, almost fell over. He had forgotten how to walk. Life was precarious like this. You could forget things. You could even float away, Greg knew, like a balloon. Or else topple like a tree, slow-motion and deadpan, teeth smashing into the blacktop. That could happen.
“Hi, Rachel,” Greg said. He tried to grin, but his face took on a grieved expression instead. He had no control over such things — his face, anything. Control was illusion. Control was kiddy glue, non-toxic and blue. Though the truth, really, if you wanted it, was that there was no glue, not even kiddy glue. That was a lie. There was nothing holding anything together. Your face could do things you didn’t want it to do, and you could say things you never wanted to say. And these sort-of accidents could covey out into the rest of your life, like pigeons, so that when you got there, to the rest of your life, you’d find only — pigeons. You wouldn’t know what to do. They’d be making those intrinsic pigeon noises, and you just would not know what to do. Eventually, though, you’d adapt — you’d take to emulating them, mockingly at first, but then earnestly, trying hard to get it right.
Rachel started introducing Greg to her friends. There were five now. Some had come out of the truck. They were talking, but Greg couldn’t comprehend anything. He was worrying that his nervousness was showing, trying to control this, worrying that he couldn’t.
“Come with us, Greg,” said one of them.
Greg felt a need to smile, so he did, but then stopped — it didn’t feel right. His face was saying things. It was saying, “I hate you. Go away. Shut up and go home. I hate me. Go home me.” It was out of control in a robot way, speaking with a kind of death knell, cheerleader-y rhythm, like something powered on AAA batteries. Something you fixed by hitting it.
“We’re going bowling,” Rachel said. “Tomorrow night. Come with us.”
Greg had an image of someone bowling a strike, then breakdancing — slow at first, but then faster, and then like crazy, breakdancing out of the bowling alley and into the parking lot. But was this how you went about getting a life? You went bowling, some other things happened, and then, finally, you were awarded a life? Greg had to try. “Okay,” he said. He nodded a few times. People were always talking about getting a life, as if there were a store and it was just a matter of going there, picking one out. It annoyed Greg. Though in his sleepier moments, he believed in this store, understood that it was in Europe somewhere, or else deep in Russia. One of those two places. He’d sometimes wake up sad because the store was so far away. Why did it have to be so far away?
“Greg, hey,” Rachel said. She did a little hop-step forward, touched Greg’s shoulder, sprung back, and giggled a bit. Greg looked down, aware of Rachel’s friends, that they were watching him, thinking strange and unknowable things. He scratched the back of his neck, kicked at a patch of pebbles, glanced back up at Rachel. She was smiling and had her eyebrows raised in such a patient and accommodating way that Greg felt, briefly, until he became aware of it, essential, unafraid, and at ease in the world — almost, he thought later, while shelving books, euphoric.