My Only Friend La Croix - Chapter 6

I watched a lime La Croix topple down the steep part of Octavia Boulevard as I was on my way to work. I heard it first—the distinct sound of a crumpled can inching down the sidewalk, fold over fold, had brought my gaze to its poor, discarded green frame. I stared at it from across the crosswalk as it kept banging down, turning onto Market Street, pressing onward. The man on the other side of the street gave La Croix a brief look followed by the thousand-yard stare of indifference into the San Francisco fog, averting his gaze to all of the perturbations that the city might throw at him. Yet My Only Friend La Croix had a somber face, visible to me, neither ugly nor beautiful, and he was not a trivial disturbance of the city. No body to stand upright, but the presence of My Only Friend La Croix was proud. In this moment, he was a pain in my side, the sentinel and the usher of my hollow. La Croix continually brought me to tears from laughter or from the profundity of isolation. These cans of seltzer watched and guarded my feelings of being present. La Croix, My Only Friend, existed to tell me where and how to be.

Everyone was familiar with La Croix, but I was confident that no one knew My Only Friend La Croix. His presence was the whole world that I would conjure for myself. It was where I would turn when I was alone. Nothing about My Only Friend La Croix was about loneliness with a capital L, the harsh, brutal sort of loneliness; it was about solitude and the feeling in which I entertained myself without feeling the harsh sting of silence. I needed forge on with my individualism, and at the same time, recognize my loneliness. My Only Friend La Croix did not speak and could not pass any input into my life. He was simply a mirror for the attitudes that I adopted when reflecting on solitude—was I to wallow alone with my silence and inaction, or to recognize  my hollow and forge on anyway?

It was drizzling by the time that I made it under the awning outside the office. I buzzed into the door and trudged up the stairs. I was again alone in the office for the first few hours. Slowly, Nick and Allen trickled in. After zoning in to work for a few hours, I looked up and noticed that there were two strangers in the building.

I took out my headphones and went over to introduce myself and I was caught by a sense of being on edge toward the older couple in front of me. This sense felt irrational but in my gut I knew it was not without backing.

One of the two before me was a stout man with intense blue eyes which carry a sense of focus as Allen’s do, yet his gaze more intense. He shook my hand and I thought back to the time that Jared felt slighted by Brown Russell, who took his hand and twisted so that his palm was facing downward and Jared’s upward. Dave did this to me and I could not tell if it was an automatic action for him or if it was done by a sense of old-man dominance. I felt like a man who was in a place with cultural customs not his own then I remembered that I was in my home country and this man’s state of Colorado is not that different from California nor Arizona. It could not have slipped by this man for his entire life that he is shaking hands like an asshole, though it is not the kind of thing that one would be corrected on. I then had the thought that I missed a fine chance to point out his blunder, yet it was gone in an instant. Many men have been through this exchange before, I thought.

“How’s the oil business been?” my boss asked him.

Dave led into the details about his fracking business. I disliked him even more through their conversation but I tried not to let it show on my face nor in my eyes. I looked at his wife who was very tanned and fit and did not say much, but she seemed quite lively.

“It’s honestly been tough to find drivers, given the economic conditions,” Dave responded. “It’s many tons of sand that we have to deliver for the fracking, you know.”

It occurred to me strange to be employed by the son of this man. I then felt a slight shame that I made a judgment on this son of a man who has no control over the actions of his father. I sometimes get in a loop of judgments to the actions of my own father, who had allowed me to become such a computerized child, unsafe from the pull of devices and screens, withering away with the flick of my mouse-hand as I spent hours shooting strangers on the internet or collecting currency in virtual worlds. Still, I thanked my father for not giving me a smartphone in my adolescence, and then I cursed him for letting me get a degree in a field related to software, putting eggs in a basket which I’d like to throw out the window. I wished that my father could have seen me in my youth and told me what I would like to tell myself now: do not pursue the virtual world. Then I forgave my father and I forgave myself for the act of judgment.

I went back to my desk and the remainder of work passed quickly. I passed on the nightly workplace ritual of Super Smash Bros after work, citing the fact that I had a date. I looked at my watch. I had plenty of time.

I biked it home and followed my usual routine into the shower. Condensation pooled on My Only Friend La Croix as he sat on the edge of the tub. I stared at his aluminum face between his letters and his orange and silver sharks and I looked for a moment then brought a delicate hand around his exterior, gently gripping with thick fingers, pulling his frame to my lips for a drink and then I sat him back to his place on the shower frame next to the two white Le Labo bottles, peas in a pod.

The fog was burning off just past Sanchez Street as it rolled east. I stomped north in my brown boots toward Church. I passed Spro as they were still closing and made eye contact with the cleaners, who had taken all of the chairs and garbage and recycling bins inside. I gave them a nod and they continued chatting.

I wondered about the prospects of the date ahead of me. This was to be my first encounter with Lisa, who I had met on Hinge, and she wanted to meet at the tiki bar near my place despite living over in the Tenderloin.

The bouncer looked at my ID and opened the door into the dark space. The bar was centered within what appeared to be the frame of a fuselage, accompanied with high chairs which were retrofitted from old airplane seats. There were fake plants and vines hanging from the ceiling; the whole scene felt like if Disney owned Indiana Jones and designed the franchise into a theme park (with alcohol). There were a few open seats near the entrance of the bar, so I claimed one along the corner. I looked at the extensive selection of rum for a long time: Probitas, Holmes Cay, Hampden Estate. The bartenders wore black earpieces and aprons with tweezers. One of them poured me a water.

Conflicts over the merits of dating filled my head. I felt that I had to explore dating in this new city, although I felt like I had already found someone who I deeply connected with, but she lived far away. I knew that it would be a disservice to myself to make no attempt at dating locally, but I couldn’t decide if my heart was in it. Hinge to pass the time, I suppose.

Lisa and I went out a few times after our first date. I remember going up the rickety elevator to her fifth floor apartment late after a night out. The door to the elevator had to be slammed shut, otherwise the latch wouldn’t catch and you’d have to try again. Her place was the smallest apartment I had ever seen; room for a bed and a desk, piles of appliances and bullshit stacked above the counters in the kitchen. There were white walls with reasonably high ceilings, but it was maybe 300 square feet. The place looked out toward the back side of another high building and it felt to be in a local low: no cinematic city views.

We used the mirror next to her bed to its full advantage. “Holy shit” was her phrase of the night. She complimented my body in the little hours, saying that I looked like a Greek statue, which I appreciated. I spent so many hours in the gym trying to improve my body; first I started for the validation that I expected to get from women, then I switched over to do impressive lifts within the gym itself, finally realizing that I need the endorphins from a workout to feel sane. So I told myself—it had been a long time I considered that cycle of mindsets. Settled again on “validation from women” I had realized.

We went to take a shower. The plumbing was old, she complained, so it ran slowly. She knelt down in the little pond in the heat of the moment anyway. I offered to fix it for her afterwards. She seemed enthusiastic at my offer. Before I knew it, I was on the receiving end of the San Francisco special, and I didn’t hear from her again.