All Intent by David Clasimons
There was no hope for me this time: her talk was beginning to scare me. Night after night she would present herself in front of the bullet-proof window, and night after night I would learn more of her desires. Ma always told to be weary of pretty girls, but that advice didn’t concern me, I thought. Nothing like drudgery to dampen the soul; tonight, like every other night, would be dark, dull and dreary. Working the graveyard shift had begun to take its toil, I was paler than usual, for the lack of sunlight, and the monotony had begun to irritate me to the extreme. I remembered the old adage: familiarity breeds contempt. Then she came, all intent, and everything changed. Everything changes: What we know rearranges - with each New encounter our perception changes. It wasn’t that I feared females; it was just my inability to ever say anything important enough to impress them. She stood, possibly five feet or more, the oblique moonlight illumined her eyes, and I longed to ask her name, but my courage seemed to recoil inside my gut, I felt a pinkish glow heat my face, made even more noticeable by my pallid complexion. Her childlike face, which every now and then moved franticly from left to right, provoked an overwhelming desire in me that I should be her protector; but I couldn’t even ask her name. The nameless, moonlit creature wore a black leather jacket fastened to her body by the scissors her arms formed around her waist, contrasted by her small white dog, her beautifully manipulated white hair and even whiter skin. She began to speak, and the soothing tone, although muffled on its expedition through the security hatch, generated in me a tingling sensation that made everything I had previously feared of women seem futile. - ‘Hiya, could I get… emm, twenty major and a two litre of Premier Dairies milk, please’. I passed slowly along the counter, toward the refrigerator, and blindly took the cigarettes from their fleeting abode, a skill I foolishly thought would impress her. I took the milk, also of no fixed abode, and made my way back to the hatch, and slowly put the items through one by one, in the hope she would again release into the night air, her soothing, liberating tone. She did. - ‘Have you been busy’, she frolicsomely asked to my surprise. I told her it was the same as usual and somehow found the courage to ask her if she found it hard to sleep, for it was almost three hours after midnight. - ‘I’m on medication at the moment, it keeps me awake’. I was surprised at how liberally she spoke to me, a complete stranger. But I was glad of it. I asked in a concerned tone if it was anything serious, all the while I held my head upright, but my cowardice prevented me from maintaining any notable eye contact. -‘I’m a manic depressive’, she said. -‘I take the medication to stop me going la la’, she said in the type of voice that makes a response like that seem normal, normal to her, I suppose. ‘Oh’, was all I could assemble from the infinite possibilities of language, and because of the distillation of sound through the security hatch, it came out sounding more like a judgemental grunt, rather than the sympathetic monosyllable I intended. She stormed off in the direction of the Stillorgan Shopping Centre, and the sound of her heels on the garage forecourt reverberated inside my chest cavity. I returned to the corner of the shop I habitually occupied when I wanted to conceal myself from the security cameras and began to make a cigarette. My mind began to wander, and I wondered what exactly a manic depressive was, or what it entailed. I wondered how she found it so easy to tell strangers her personal problems, and why I found it so debilitating to ask her name. I must have fallen into a vampire-like reverie; I suddenly realised almost four hours had passed and I had completed none of my duties. My manager was the first to arrive; he was twenty-eight years old, a laconic speaker due to his debilitating stammer, ten years my senior. He, with the economy of one with a speech impediment, began to reprimand me for my lethargic ways. I didn’t feel obliged to listen, so, I exited the petrol station and crossed the street toward the bus stop. James, my manager, crippled from the tongue upwards, was unable to do anything other than watch. I manoeuvred my way through the backlog of city bound traffic on the Kilmacud Road and sat in the midst of the morning transients already at the bus stop. Later that night, after I had rested, as much as is possible for the day- sleeper, I caught the penultimate 75 bus back to Stillorgan for more monotonous hours behind the bullet-proof window. The window, or the security hatch, was fast becoming my only point of contact with the outside world. I remembered she would be back tonight, more expected it. She terrified me. What would I say to her? What could I say to her so as not to offend? I wasn’t very good at public speaking; even asking the customers what they would like was difficult, made even more difficult by my inability to maintain eye contact. I knew this bothered the regular customers, the older ones would mutter under their breath and the younger would call me a weirdo or freak. I just laughed it off, they hadn’t a clue. It was a normal, busy Friday night: drunken teenagers in abundance, and drunken drivers’ intent on maintaining an upright position while they filled their cars. I used to report them, take down their registration numbers and give them to the Guards. I don’t anymore, because the last time I took the number down in a haze and an elderly lady from Navan was asked to come to the door, to come clear some details, at four in the morning. When everything had calmed, the bars emptied, and the sound of passing cars bounce seashell sounds off the empty streets, she came back. - Busy? - No. - Can you talk? - Sure. What’s the story? - Remember last night when I told you I was a manic depressive? - Of course. - Well, I’m not really a manic depressive. I suffer from schizophrenia. With that, she dropped her dog’s leash, pulled the sleeve of her jacket from her right arm and showed the numerous scars from elbow to wrist, as if this was validation of her illness. I was shocked. If I was lost for words before this, imagine how I felt now. - It’s grand. I’m alright now… the medication. - I’m glad you’re doing better now. - Thanks… Do you have a girlfriend? - No, I mean… I have a boyfriend. I lied about that part. - No, you don’t! You’re just saying that because of me. Why don’t you open those shutters and let me in to… My heart was pounding. I knew what I had to do, to tell the truth. I was afraid she’d think I was only saying it to get rid of her. I didn’t want rid of her, she was interesting and scary at the same time. I’d never said it to any one before except to myself. What if she told the people I worked with? I’d be fucked then. With that I looked her straight in the eye and told her I was. I am… David Clasimons