Chapter One: A Day in the Life
Everyday begins the same. I’m asleep and just before the alarm goes off I wish that I won’t wake up. Inevitably I wake up, my room coated in the blue light of winter morning. The ceiling fan on low turning, vuum-vuum-vuum. With one eye open I stare at the fan. I turn 32 today. I’m not married, I have no children and I work at a bookstore for just over minimum wage; same job I’ve worked for almost ten years.
They say my generation is the “new” greatest generation. We elected Obama, we’ve sacrificed our brothers and sisters to two wars and we have more problems to tackle than any generation previous. When I hear stuff like that I feel like a used car salesman is jerking me off before selling me a lemon.
The media has high hopes for my generation. It’s too bad the world didn’t create enough jobs or lower the cost of a quality education to help us along the way. I always find it funny that in one breath those that came before us can say we’re lazy, never had to work a hard day in our lives, and also commend us for defending democracy in some desert they can’t find on a map. When I was in high school my geography teacher told us we had it easy. We’d never lived through a real war or a draft. Turns out he was a kid during Vietnam and he never had to fight or get drafted. Most days I wanna punch him for his ignorance.
Anyway back to waking up. Yawn, scratch, all that drunken tired zombie dance to the bathroom. So this is what 32 looks like. Black unkempt hair, bags under my pool water blue eyes, the beginning of crow’s feet from squinting instead of wearing my glasses and a scraggly beard. One somewhat shameful glance at my supremely fit gamer body and I turn on the shower, hot. My showers are always hot, to burn that AdHd itch in my skin. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t.
My 21st century world citizen guilt doesn’t allow me a long shower. Images of polar bears swimming until they drown due to global warming melting their habitats, gets me out of the shower every time. I think about global warming deniers and wonder why the fuck it matters if it is a normal Earth pattern or not? The point is, with or without global warming we’re poisoning the fuck out of ourselves. However, when people that don’t believe in evolution also don’t believe in global warming, their credibility wanes as far as I’m concerned.
Nice black slacks, pressed white long sleeved shirt and tie. Nice clothes to give the illusion that the overpriced books you’re buying pays the wages of bookseller professionals. When really the people that I work with can barely afford rent, let alone whatever else we need to survive the new millennium. Some gel in my hair, little body spray (still waiting for women to sexually harass me like in the commercials), and here we go.
I walk back into my room. I mournfully glance at my 42 inch flat screen TV, my gaming console calling me for a marathon session of play. If only I’d known at a young age that gaming could be a profession. Instead I double majored in Psychology and English Lit. I sigh thinking of all the reasons those degrees were such a flat waste of time, but truly my lack of motivation and the comfort of my shit job results in the reality of my not reaching my full potential, failing to launch, so to speak.
I make my bed to help my recently retired mother out in her daily chores and smile. After my father died, my brothers and I spent every waking moment in the care of our mother and trying to make her proud. She always said that just being her boys was enough to make any mother proud, but we all made it our personal mission anyway. Lately, despite her never treating me otherwise, I feel as if I’ve failed her. I get away with a lot being the youngest, but that doesn’t mean I don’t strive to be a better son.
I stare at the picture of my father sitting on my desk in his fireman gear, Jack Monaghan. He died when I was seven. Dad was a decorated fireman, and he died in the line of duty. I used to have nightmares as a little boy of him burning, screaming my name as his body blistered in the heat. Two of my brothers, Aaron and Christian, couldn’t become firefighters fast enough. Rian, Ben and I steered clear, although Ben went into law enforcement. My Grampa used to say that without the Irish there would be no cops, he also used to say if there were no Irish we wouldn’t need any cops.
My Grandfather built this house. We live deep in the unincorporated Tilden Hills up above Berkeley California, surrounded by pine and eucalyptus trees. No one ever seemed to remark about eucalyptus trees without recalling how they exploded during the Oakland Hills fire. I found comfort in the salty medicine smell they gave off.
I’m not even sure people live in houses like this anymore. My Grandfather came from Ireland at a young age and started his own pub, built the house off the profits. Rian runs the pub now, and I tend bar there sometimes, but mostly he and his wife, Bette, take care of the place, modernizing as needed but mostly keeping with the Irish pub charm that ole Patrick Monaghan created.
Grampa Patrick intended on a large family and built a sprawling six bedroom house to accommodate, but in the end Gramma only produced one heir, my father. My grandmother used to say Jack was plenty, but I always thought she lived vicariously through my mother’s five pregnancies.
Rian and Bette have a baby girl, Becca. They turned the basement into an apartment. Christian divorced shortly after his two boys were born Tommy and Drew; they stay with him in the guest house when he has his two weekends of custody. The guest house was built when my great grandparents came here to live out their days before I was born. Aaron converted the attic into his bachelor pad, just before he found the woman of his dreams, so only one notch was ever consummated up there and Ben lives above the garage.
I’m the only single boy living here these days in his childhood bedroom surrounded by comic books, video games, large amounts of Psychology textbooks and great works of literature. Various action figures from multiple universes stride the objects of my room. I’m sure they come alive when I leave like Toy Story; although I’m pretty sure they have a much saltier vocabulary.
Unlike many of the people I’ve grown up with, I’ve never been chided for still living at home. People have always said, “Those Monaghan boys love their mother, and always take good care of her.” It’s true really, but she takes a lot of good care of us too. Sometimes I think we never really left home, because we didn’t want mom to be alone. She’s never gotten over Dad dying. She always said he was her soul mate; she’d loved him plenty and had no use to just have a “man”. No one would ever measure up, and to this day no one ever has.
“Hey Happy Birthday Eddy!” My brothers yell in almost unison. Papers, breakfast and text messaging put on hold long enough to celebrate my birth. I start to feel guilty for being so morose. I do love my family.
“Happy Birthday Eden,” my mom presents me with my favorite breakfast, French toast.
“Thanks, Ma.” I smile and she kisses my cheek.
“Good news, the world didn’t end!” Ben exclaims as I sit down at the large family table.
“So much for the Mayan calendar,” Aaron grunts, texting his facespacetwit status.
“I’m pretty sure it isn’t supposed to effect January first 2012. I think it’s later. Who the fuck knows?” Christian remarks grumpily from the newspaper.
“Watch your mouth!” My mother sits with her cup of coffee and watches me eat, a glowing happiness on her face. I look up and grin at her.
“Sorry Ma,” Christian mumbles.
“Well?” I choke out while she watches me eat.
“Well what?” She acts as if she hasn’t performed the same ritual since I could comprehend speech, maybe sooner.
“Mom…” I groan at her coyness.
“We were watching the New Years Day parade, a bird in the oven and a ham ready to go for the whole family to eat a glorious New Year’s dinner. I of course was cooking the whole thing. I’d been through four pregnancies prior and never a problem, not once. You had two months left, but oh no, you wanted to watch the Rose Bowl your father said. Well right after basting that turkey my water broke. Your father, bless his soul, rushed me down to Alta Bates. He was so sure he was going to lose us both. He missed USC beating the Buckeyes, said he didn’t mind. You barely fit in my hand, two weeks you stayed in the hospital. The day you finally came home was one of the greatest days of my life.” She tears up and takes me in her arms. “Happy Birthday, baby, I love you.”
“I know Ma.”
“Finish eating and go to work so we can eat New Year’s dinner when you get home.” Ben groans at the spectacle of my birth story. Everyone knew mine was the most dramatic, but everyone had their story retold every year on their birthday too.
“I can’t believe they are open on New Years, un-American.” My mother scowls. I often wonder if she becomes irritated I have to work on my birthday or New Years. My money is on the birthday aspect; Un-American indeed, really, a capitalist country working on a holiday.
Hurriedly I finish my meal and kiss my mother on the cheek.
“See you all later. Thanks Ma!”
***
The smell of coffee made its way through the empty aisles of books. Everything was quiet, an unusual moment for a retail establishment cursed with the monotonous drone of elevator music. Moments like these were blessed by the invention of the iPod and secure ear buds. The only sound beside the indistinguishable buzz from random iPods, being played too loud, was the sound of the cleaning crew vacuuming, and the occasional squeak of a shelving rack moving down an aisle.
This is where dreams come to die. Not so much in the shelving of books. I like books. I like organizing books alphabetically. I even love the smell of books, old and new. I especially like the discount I get when I buy books from here. But no, sitting here in the café going over the sales numbers from last year, yesterday and the projected sales for the day, and the membership cards we’re all expected to sell, that is the moment. Being berated for not writing up a schnazy review for a book so that customers can be inspired to buy the books we read, and knowing that we’re never going to make enough money to compete with a Harry Potter release day, that is the moment where dreams die.
“And, we have a special announcement! Last month’s staff recommendation that made the most sales goes to!” Yes, she drum rolls with the sales report clamped between her legs. “Eden Monaghan,” goddamn it, that’s me.
I give a smug smile and cross my legs as she hands me a gift card for the store. Awesome, excellent, fantastic, as if it isn’t hard enough working for this place, but having the worst manager in the history of managers congratulating me for something she wanted done, in front of all of my fellow cellmates, makes me want to die. I vow to pick a book no one will ever want to read, and then I decide that might mean someone would read it, and then sigh with my own version of a bookstore catch 22.
“Oh and Eden, excellent work on your membership sales, you’re leading for the month. Maybe you can help everyone else with some pointers on why you’ve been so successful.” She nails my coffin shut and I don’t even want to claw my way out.
“Um, I just ask everyone if they’d like one and then I smile, that’s about it.” I thumb the letter of resignation in my name card holder, the one I’ve had folded behind my nametag for over two years now, and wonder why I haven’t left this place.
“See, that’s what I’ve been telling all of you. Just ask, throw in some charm with a smile and you’ll sell those cards.” She ends with enthusiasm and the familiar acid bile taste fills my mouth. “We open in ten, make it a great day!” She stops herself and faces us again. We all stop waiting for the missed announcement, “Make it a great year! Happy New Year everybody!”
Thank God she forgot it is my birthday.
I groan and stand up, my eyes meeting the cheese eating grin of one of my friends, who hands me a latte and slaps me on the back. “Just ask with a smile? Is that the secret? Man I’m going to smoke you on those cards now buddy.”
“Please do, I think that’s like four months in a row I’ve been suffering through these meetings. I haven’t even been trying. I picked War and Peace for my fucking staff rec. How the hell was I supposed to know Oprah was going to make it one of her favorite books this quarter?” I straighten my tie as the cleaning crew leaves for the day. I see one of the recyclers dumpster diving for cardboard and I consider a career change, really hard to collect cardboard with a motorcycle though.
“The only thing that could make this day better would be if my mom showed up with a bag lunch for me.” I blow at a loose strand of hair that has fallen across my vision.
“If she does ask her to bring me one!” My buddy walks back towards the café and I man my post at the customer service desk. Soon those window paneled doors will open and a plethora of customers will cry in unison ‘I’m looking for a book’. Really, how did I know?
***
By the afternoon the self deprecating thoughts seep into my soul like a toxin. With a cigarette in one hand and an energy drink in the other I sit on the edge of the loading dock and watch the people coming and going in the parking lot. One thing about California, the weather, it’s a bit chilly, but the sun is nice on my face. Hasn’t rained in a couple of days, which is nice, I hate dragging coffee ground riddled garbage bags across a rain soaked parking lot. The parking lot is full. I wonder why these people don’t have family functions to attend. I know I would rather be at mine. The convenience of life, maybe that’s one of the breakdowns of modern America, modern humanity. Obesity, broken homes, disinterest in the world’s problems, less activism to make the world a better place. I pat my belly. Thankfully a baggy shirt hides my gamer physique. Maybe it’s all been made too easy. Shackled by debt into dead end jobs, we’ve made keeping up with the Jones’ our own private prison, working for the very places we spend all our money. Most of these customers are returning Christmas presents they didn’t want, or redeeming gift cards for gifts they do want.
So my life has become this, a Farside calendar I don’t even read every day, the pages gathering ripped from their base and left to lay on the floor collecting dust. I chuckle to myself at the thought, calling myself on my own bull shit. I stare up at the sky as my cigarette burns out, smoke wafting passed my sunglasses, the crinkle of me crushing my now empty energy drink and a jet carrying braver souls than I, is climbing higher in the sky. Once curious and adventurous awe has been replaced with the emptiness of two wars and a loss of innocence when I thought America was a pure democratic country full of hope and promise. Now, I’m not so sure, but I still get pangs of patriotism with the possibility of an uncorrupted equality. The can somersaults in the air and lands in the recycling can. How could I ever let those brainwashed bastards take my country from me?
“Hey, fuckwad says your break is over.” One of my fellow cellmates alerts me and I nod checking my watch to see if said manager is correct, she’s not, but ya know they don’t care about the five customers I helped on my way out the door. I walk up to the customer service desk, not a customer in sight. Most of them are at the cashier area and the café at the moment. A couple of my co-worker buddies are conspiring.
“The swine flu vaccine will start it,” I overhear as I pick up a stack of books, the newest hardcover who-done-it ready for the first bestseller list of the year.
Here we go again. I used to partake, zombie apocalypse, how we’ll survive. The scales would finally be even, debt cleared, true equality based on Darwin’s survival of the fittest. We talk about the end of days as if they’d liberate us, save us from the oppressive retail white middle class dull-drum of impulsive hoarder OCD spending, never get anywhere, never find the right girl, buy a house or have a job you never wish to retire from, bull shit life.
“Shotgun,” now the conversation about the best weapons for said apocalypse. Everyone who will survive knows a shotgun is too goddamn loud. Give me a bat or a katana and a face mask to shield me from the putrid blood of Dexter proportions and I’m good to go.
I’m no fool though. I know that death and destruction won’t save me from Darwin’s rules or Jesus’ for that matter. I’ll probably never be able to kill a defenseless animal to feed myself, or kill a person to protect myself, but I do yearn for silence. I yearn for a simpler time where meals are earned, not pit stops during monotony. I yearn for a freedom, less people, more open spaces. Land that is occupied not owned. True equality determined by a person’s quality, not their quantity. Mostly though, as I look up from these stacks of books, my friends continuing their monologues of zombie warrior superiority, I yearn for the fluorescent lights to stop humming.
The lights I’m staring at start to flicker, and then they go out. I sigh, it’s just the one. For a moment I wish an assassin’s laser sight was targeted on me, the light going out my distraction from becoming red mist.
“Eden,” the manager’s voice beckons. No such luck.
“Yea, I’m on it.” I head off to get a replacement bulb.
***
I watch the sunset over the bay as I stand in the BART train car, my I.D. badge banging against my chest. Everyone on the train has their headphones on, talking on the phone or listening to music. I wonder if anyone is listening to the same song. I feel so disconnected from everything. I try to remember if I clocked out before I left, and I can’t remember. I wonder if I’ll ever feel connected to anyone. I’ve tried and failed a few times. A couple of failed engagements even, but I’ve never felt connected to another human being in the way my mother always says she was connected to my father. Sometimes I wonder if that even exists, if people just lie about how they feel about their partners, to fit some sort of model that Shakespeare created and Disney perfected. I lean my head against the door between the cars and close my eyes.
A short motorcycle ride later and I’m home. It isn’t late, but it’s winter so it’s dark already, pitch black the further I get into the hills. Yellow lights glow here and there in houses spaced far from each other, trees and ivy covering the land between, brown and dead needles covering the ground, a severe sweet and natural pine smell in the air. The air is cool and clean and as I turn off the engine of my motorcycle I hear the cracking of the trees. I can smell dinner before I even open the door. Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, rolls fresh from the oven with a distinct smell of fresh butter, my stomach growls as I set my helmet down and pull off my leather jacket and gloves and put them in their respective places. The hallway entry is narrow, the way they used to make them when heating was an issue, not that it isn’t now, but for a while we were all living the high life in our wide open and vaulted ceiling McMansions, well some people were.
Wood hooks to hang all of our coats, a mirror and a table to place our keys and knick knacks, a jar of loose change, two pair of fireman boots. In the mirror I take an evening look at myself, my hair is longer, around my face, curled a little, mostly from the laziness of not going to get it cut, but it isn’t like anyone cares if a guy has long hair these days, not like when my dad was growing up. I’m sure my Grampa would give me a lecture about looking like a proper gentleman, but he isn’t around anymore for such things.
At the end of the hallway the family room opens up, stairs on the right, between the kitchen and the family room, in the middle a huge dining room table. The fire is going, and the game is on. My brothers are all a bit tipsy. The niece and nephews are playing with their toys, dressed in their New Year best.
“Oh good, I wasn’t sure I could keep them from eating any longer.” My mother sets an un-carved turkey at the end of the table. She kisses me on the cheek as she wipes her hands on her apron. “Soup’s on kids!” An army of thundering feet race for the table. Christian carves the turkey, as he’s done since Grampa died. No one ever really asked him if he wanted to. We’d all been gathering for Thanksgiving that year and then just stared at the turkey where my father had once been the carver before he’d died, and then my Grampa had resumed the job for a while, and no one had known what to do. My mother had been on the verge of tears when Christian, still a boy in his own right, walked to the front of the table, picked up the utensils and carved the turkey and the ham without a word, white meat on one platter, dark on the other. Sometimes when I think about that moment, I feel as if that was the moment when my eldest brother became a man, far before any boy should have to.
I roll up the sleeves of my shirt and sling my tie over my shoulder there is serious eating work to be done here. A short non denominational grace is spoken, with a customary amen. The night continues with polite conversation. What the year will hold for everyone. Pounds to be lost, muscle to be gained, classes taken, career maneuvers, relationship maneuvers, even a hint at another Monaghan to be born in the coming time, but nothing certain besides a wink and a nuzzle between lovers. Candles illuminate the table as the fire crackles behind us, the TV on mute so we can glance at the score between conversation gaps. Accolades to the chef and promises of a cleanup detail (all of us that didn’t cook) and questions about how my day went and a toast to my birthday with glasses of cabernet sauvignon (even the boys got a swallow like we all did at their age), my mother’s proud Irish smile as she surveys her greatest accomplishment, a beautiful and respectful family that truly enjoys their time with each other. Granted we fight, all families fight, but we don’t fight like some families, but mostly we just don’t hurt like some families. There is definitely always a sense of those that aren’t there, but with the coming of the next generation the pain and dull ache of the one that came before is covered with hope and pride.
“The only thing that could make this more perfect would be a blanket of snow.” Bette says before sipping some more wine. My mother, born and raised in the Irish Catholic streets of New York sighs with a fond remembrance of snowy holidays and smiles in agreement. I raise my eyebrow and snarl a bit at the thought of trying to shovel the driveway of snow, but if it was in my power to make it snow for my mother, she’d never go a holiday season without.
A large birthday cake and a song to go along, each of my brothers singing as if they were an Irish tenor, but in reality just tipsy and sloppy, I laughed anyway before blowing out the candles. No one had room for cake, but we all forced a slice in anyway. More cake ended up on Becca’s little face and dress than in her stomach.
I had a cigarette on the deck looking up at all the stars, the trees cracking in the cold winter wind. I watched as Bette and Rian kissed under the mistletoe before scooping up their sleepy daughter and retreating into the basement for privacy and eventually sleep. I want that, maybe that’ll be my New Year’s resolution, find a woman to love, and to love me, hopefully all in one person.
I turned away from the windows that overlooked my brothers asleep on the couches and leaned against the deck railing that viewed a dark pretend wilderness where deer and raccoons lived and where we’d built forts and skinned our knees as children.
Each flick of ash produced tiny flying pieces of white floating on the wind like sparks in a fireplace. The smoke wafted by my fingers like the touch of a lover’s ghost. Nicotine stained my fingertips as the blood vessels in my veins constricted. I wondered about all the fires my father put out caused by these little cancer sticks and guilt came over me.
“You know I hate that you smoke.” My mother joins me and slides the glass door closed behind her, a blanket over her shoulders.
“Yea, I know Ma.”
“Your old dad used to get melancholy in the winter too. Sometimes I’d have to do some crazy things just to get him to smile. After we had you kids though, he was always full of joy. Your time will come Eden.” She puts her arm around me and joins me looking out into the darkness.
“Sometimes I wonder. I wonder if I’ll ever find someone like you found dad, whether I’ll have a family-a career-whether Dad would be proud of me-whether you’re proud of me.”
“Of course I’m proud of you. You’re my son, you work hard. You’re talented. I know your father would be very proud of you. You mistake other people’s success as your own failure.” She squeezes me, but she knows my melancholy won’t be lifted in this way.
“I just want more.”
“Then my son, you’ll have to go and get more.” She forces me to look at her and a single tear rips itself free from my left tear duct. “Figure out exactly what you want, and go get it.”
“Thanks Ma.” I bury myself in her comforting hug, and on the carrying wind I hear the ghostly call of the BART train in the distance.
Really loved the first chapter! Thank you so much for sharing it!
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