The morning after the terrible accident, walking toward Dicker's Landscape and Design building, I got a guilty, giddy feeling of being free of Joel and a very nervous feeling that someone may be in trouble.
I'm early for work, so I stop and light a cigarette, leaning against the brick wall in front of the Post Office, hoping that smoking would calm my nerves. The realization sinking in that I'm free of Joel brings relief flowing out in full force. I get teary-eyed from my tremendous feeling of relief. Joel really had me messed up in the head for many weeks and knowing he isn't inside that building is the best feeling ever.
Taking a deep breath, a sob develops, so I flicked the cigarette butt into the gutter only to see it slip out of my finger and bounce off my cheek. I yell, "Fuck! Dammit!" as a tiny cinder burns a small red dot on my chin. I was still mumbling about that as I went in the front door at work. There is a note in the locker room telling everyone to attend a general meeting in the supervisor's conference room. Oh man, what now?
I walked around the old and new locker rooms, hoping to find Robby as he'd probably know what was going on, but my footsteps echoed ominously in the abandoned locker rooms. Everything was creeping me out this morning. Unwrapping a stick of chewing gum, I nervously chewed it as I slowly walked down the hall to the conference room. Inside the door, I hear Robby saying, "Here, Dylan, over here." I went right to him in the back of the room. Almost everyone was in their seats, even though it was a minute or two before the start of our work day. I looked at Robby, trying to read his expression.
Jeez, he seemed the same as always. Grinning, he grabbed my arm, pulled me against his body, and whispered, "You look so cute in that hat." I was like, "Huh? What?" He chuckled as the meeting was called to order. The reason for this meeting was the accident, of course. Because it was a workman's compensation accident, one of the requirements was that a representative of some government agency needed to inspect the company's safety rules and then impress upon us the need to do this and do that and blab, blab, blab...
A nondescript little man wearing a bow tie stood in front of everyone and droned on for twenty minutes, and when he was done, Mr. Dickers gave an update on Joel's condition that boiled down to: He'll be okay, but we'll see no more of Joel till next year.
I somehow managed to keep myself from standing up and cheering. The longer the little bow-tie man talked, the more it became apparent that as far as everyone was concerned, the workers, the supervisors, Mr. Dickers, and the safety guy from the government agency, everyone felt this was simply a freak accident.
Robby looked over at me with sort of a grin or a smirk on his cute face, the tip of his pink tongue just visible between his rosy, full, bow-shaped lips. I stared back at him, fascinated by his face, as the sunlight from the transom beside us hit his face just right. The rosy cheek blotches so pretty against his pale complexion, his beautiful light blond hair, slightly unruly this morning, needing to be cut, the slant of his head, the look in his big, bright eyes with his narrow eyebrows slightly raised as if he were making a point to me, long eyelashes blinking now and then, and the almost too-cute nose and just right chin. Everything about his appearance seemed a miracle of nature's happenstance in its never-ending game of matching genes that allowed the creation of a boy this attractive, but it would seem he's kind of dangerous, too.
I had to grin back at him as if I was part of the unspoken conspiracy; he seemed to be including me in, and inadvertently, I was part of it. The meeting ended, Robby squeezed my arm, leaned over, and said, "I love you, Dylan." I ambiguously made a scrunched-up face at him. He continued in a serious whisper-voice, "It must seem weird to you, but I think I will always love you." I silently mouthed to him, "Yes, you got that right, you are weird!" We both laughed quietly behind our hands.
In my experience, awkward moments are often saved by laughter. Mr. Dickers announced coffee, soft drinks, and sweet breakfast rolls in the hall, and we were all invited to help ourselves. Work was beginning an hour later than normal this morning. In the hall, Robby and I grabbed a couple of strawberry-frosted donuts and Styrofoam cups of Dunkin' coffee and then changed into our work clothes. After that, we went outside to enjoy eating and drinking our breakfast.
The weather had cleared during the meeting, and the sun frequently peeked out behind the clouds. Out of nowhere, it hit me: The overwhelming finality is that the Joel incident is completely over! It's history, totally yesterday's news. Joel is completely out of my life; no more trepidation entering this building, no more humiliating and painful experiences standing in front of him at attention, and no more anything to do with that prick.
Looking at my hero, I'll ask Robby about it someday, assuming he doesn't tell me about it first. For now, I felt a strange special closeness to him, and, as usual, he was very close to me, forcing me to mumble, "Robby, I love you, too, dude, but don't lean on me so much. People will begin to notice. He shrugs, "I don't care," but he backs away about an inch. I had to smile at him because it's so nice to be desired like that.
We ate our donuts, grinning at one another. After a big swallow of coffee, Robby lets out this long, loud, rumbling coffee/donut burp that got us laughing like two nine-year-olds. Right after that, maintaining that same age category, I squeezed out a fart, and we were laughing hard now, just like something really funny had happened, but I knew we were laughing from a sense of relief. We were safe, Robby from getting caught, and I was safe from Joel.
The work day was hurried from then on because we needed to make up for the hours we wasted this morning in the meeting. At the end of the day, I had to run to catch my bus without even having a chance to share some spit with Robby in the back section of the old locker room. As I ran by him, he said, "Try to be early tomorrow, Dylan." He nodded toward the old lockers.
I yelled, "Guaranteed, Robby!" The bus driver saw me running and waited ten seconds for me to get there. That was wicked nice of him and very rare, too. I told him, "Thanks, man!' and he said, "Take your seat, please," but he smiled at me when he said it. Today turned out so nice. What a surprise. And, oh boy, I have a date with Willie tonight!
To be continued...
