Of course, some Sundays, a guy doesn't feel so good. It was a little before 9AM, and I was in The Center, complaining to Marge--the Front Desk person--how I wasn't feeling so good.
Marge rolled back in her chair. "There is that bug going around."
"Bug?" I said, rubbing my eyes. "I wish all I got was a bug."
"What did you get then?"
"I think I got old overnight."
Marge laughed. "You're not old. You're just tired. Drink some coffee."
"Yech, you know I don't drink coffee."
"Why are you so tired?"
I leaned on the bar-high counter that snaked along in front of the Front Desk. "I don't know," I said, gazing at the skylight overhead. "It all started last night when I couldn't get to sleep."
Marge rolled forward. "What, something on your mind?"
Though these ACCW receptionists expertly carried out what was required of them--pleasant with the asses on the phone, patching up bleeding Book Arts students, playing bartender to everybody's hard-luck stories--one had to be careful when leaning on the Front Desk. The Front Desk was the hub the ACCW wheel, and these eager receptionists were the station masters of Gossip Central.
"No, nothing on my mind," I lied. "Probably just a full moon last night."
"No," Marge said, "it was a new moon last night." Marge wasn't young, but was all spring chicken now that she had her face in the feeding trough. "That's right, Anton, your year is about up. Who is she?"
Since I'd signed on at the college, Marge had used her crowbar skills to pry open my private life. From that breach she had concluded, I did a girl for a year, then took a year off. Did a girl for a year, took a year off. And now I was wrapping up that year off, so, of course, she assumed I was all beav-eager to dive into yet another relationship that had wrong turn written all over it.
"No, no," I said, "no new woman in my life. It's just that I couldn't get to sleep, so I--"
"Really," Marge cut in, "it's a wonder you get any women with that extreme creed of yours."
This creed--compiled from my six failed relationships--was my attempt to learn from my mistakes. Now, when woman showed an interest in me, I promptly laid my creed upon her: "I don't do kids, I don't do dogs, I don't do 'I do's'"
"Ya, well," I said, "a guy's got to do his screening. Anyway, I couldn't get to sleep, so I--"
"I got it," Marge cut in again. "How you could do your screening more efficiently. You could stand up at Orientation, call out your creed like the town crier. That way you wouldn't have to go around crying your creed to every freshman girl like you usually do."
"Marge, I'm trying to tell a story here."
"You and your stories."
"At least they're short."
"OK, tell me your story."
"Ya, see, I couldn't sleep, so I says to myself, 'Hey, what you need is some wine.' Well, of course, I had no wine. So what do I do? I crawl out of bed at midnight, go get me a bottle, drink the whole thing. And now, damned if my head ain't pounding like there's no tomorrow. What you got back there, some aspirin or something?"
While Marge searched for some drugs, I heard The Center door bang behind me. I turned. Cry me a creed! Making a beeline for student lounge was the woman of the orchard, in her hand, a beefy coffee mug she carried like a briefcase.
"Anton," Marge yelled, slamming the aspirin bottle on the counter to break my trance.
"Thanks," I said, snatching the bottle. "I'd better get some coffee to wash it down."
Chasing the bobbing ponytail into the student lounge, I shook the aspirin like lucky dice. Odd, I wasn't feeling all that hung over just now. Not old at all. How about that? It was I who was all spring chicken now. I thought of Marge back at the feeding station. Maybe I'd come down too hard on Marge. After all, us forty-somethings needed some haul-ass horse to hitch our broken wagons to. So Marge hitched hers to gossip. Was I any better hitching mine to bobbing ponytails?
The bobbing stopped at the coffee pots warming on the hotplates. A golden saying came to me then: "If you find a fountain that works, youth it."
Sure, I wanted to quick-draw my pad and pen, harvest the gold grain. But a door had opened--the door to forgetting my old age--and if there's one thing we old souls knew how to do, it was hauling ass through what open door have you.
I was reaching for a mug when the orchard woman said, "Oh, no, a bird flew in; is banging against the window."
This called for a different mug.
Yes, this wider rim was better. Even had a little bird in it--if one tipped it right.
Off I went to save the bird.
Hovering over the bird, a movie came to mind. "Easy, little fellow," I whispered to the bird, "I'm here to help, not hurt."
OK, so it wasn't a whisper, exactly. Could it be that this whole Horse Whisperer scene wasn't for the bird, but to impress the girl across the way?
It could, indeed.
"Calm," I said boldly, but with lots of air. "Calm, dammit. I only want to get you out the door. Ya, so you can get back to getting it on with the other birds. And bees."
Maybe it was my bold male airs, but the bird didn't calm, kept banging its bird brains as I chased it from window to window with my big blue mug.
Beat up and exhausted, the bird finally fell to a sill. I scooped it up, carried it out the door. Blowing out my mug, I hurried back in--had that working fountain to youth. But, damn, the fountain had left the lounge.
Returning the mug to the shelf--the bird hadn't shit in it or anything--I took to thinking where I'd taken a wrong turn. No, instead of jumping to task, chasing bird, I should have stayed put, filled my cup, passed some winged words with the orchard woman.
"Damned birds," I might have said, "they're always flying in the door."
"Better birds than bugs," she might have said.
"Ya," I could have countered, "birds are always flying in my food, but I just don't know it."
****
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