The Art of John
He wore his lucky tie to the party. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a red, striped seven-fold that he assembled in a half-Windsor knot, the way his father had taught him. He yanked the tie from left to right, straightening the neck piece in the mirror before giving his reflection an affirming nod and heading out the door. The keychain he anxiously fidgeted with boasted the logo of his Ivy League alma mater, which he hung out of his pocket ever so slightly that someone might inquire about it.
The Yacht Rock reverberating from inside the party escaped beyond the Tudor's mahogany door. As he waited at the doorstep, Hugo looked down over his loafers and read the doormat’s hackneyed adage before knocking rhythmically. He was suddenly a sheepish teenager again, waiting to escort the mousy girl in his biology class to the junior prom.
“Hugo! What a pleasant surprise! I didn’t know you were coming!” He jolted as the door swung open. Marilyn’s voice seemed to raise a few octaves when she spoke to him. He found it condescending.
“Yeah, well, honestly, neither did I,” Hugo chided through a feigned chuckle. This was the first time he’d done anything after work in quite a while. Marilyn returned an awkward smile and pointed Hugo towards the open bar, where unfamiliar faces gathered in a huddle.
The men shared their golf pars between burning sips of whiskey. They asked about each other’s wives and kids, though it was obvious that none actually listened to the responses, but rather waited for their turn to brag about their daughter’s piano recital or their upcoming trip to Aspen. Because the men barely knew Hugo and he barely knew them, he regaled them with stories of the last few months that he knew would excite them.
He told them of his adulterous wife. “Well, to be fair,” he asserted slyly, “she had found out about my affair in New York first.” The men erupted into laughter and their gaped jaws urged for more.
He recalled his time in Amsterdam, where magic mushrooms transported him to a utopian reality, where bikes were the only form of transportation and their bells the only sounds that rang. “Prostitutes dance in windows,” he told the men, “It’s called The Red Light District.” They sighed, redolent with excitement that temporarily erased the monotony of their own banal lives.
As the whiskey set about loosening his normally tensed muscles, he took pleasure in confessing to these perfect strangers about grappling with an opioid addiction that started after a back injury he incurred while training to climb Kilimanjaro.
Hugo beamed at the men’s interest in his stories. He wasn’t a very interesting person, usually.
When he got home, he removed his tie and put on his pajamas – an old, ratty band tee shirt and a pair of checkered boxers. He got into bed alone, set his alarm for work the next morning, and drifted into a deep sleep.
* * *
Hugo dragged himself to the kitchen where he poured himself a glass of orange juice and a black coffee. He hadn’t any time for breakfast, but a few sips of caffeine would get him ready for the day. The men’s laughs of approval rang in his ears like tinnitus. Hugo drove the speed limit to the office, sat down on his swiveling chair, and awaited his nine a.m. regular patient. His degree in psychology from Dartmouth hung crookedly above his head; he remembered a former patient with OCD couldn’t stop complaining about it.
John walked in, tanned from his time in Miami, looking leaner than he did the last time they’d spoken.
“Dr. Morris! How’ve you been?” Wasn’t Hugo supposed to be the therapist? Hugo appreciated his patient’s interest in his own life, even if it was just a mere formality.
“Oh, I’ve been great.” For once, this felt like an honest response. “Bring me up to speed, John. How have you been since we last spoke?” Hugo closed his notepad. There was no refresher needed; he had perfected the art of “John” already.
“I’ve been better, Doc,” John replied as he sank into the peeling leather couch. “My back is still killing me, and I really miss my wife.”
Tell me more, John, tell me more.
