A Portrait of Loneliness

(For a newer draft of this story, click here.)

An icy wind whistled in Josh’s ears. He pulled his newsboy hat lower and raised his shoulders. The streets through which he roamed look deserted. Milky steam plumed from a sewer lid and slinked across the road until it dispersed. Josh paused at an intersection to let a car pass. Once it rattled by, Josh resumed his course in defiance of the glowing orange hand that advised him otherwise.

The smell of vegetable oil and rice vinegar reminded Josh of his happier past. Walking among the downtown buildings, he caught a waft of such a scent while passing a bustling buffet. He slid into a stream of wistful recollections.

Josh became attuned to the scent of Chinese food during his first taste of independence. Bolstered by the new found freedom resultant from passed driving exams and hindered by poorly paying summer jobs, Josh and his friends sought inexpensive means to wade into maturity. It was preferable to leave their respective homes with their ever-cramping restrictions, yet it was impossible to take shelter in a local tavern. Senior year of high school was a time of conversations fueled by the excitement of youth rather than the intoxicants of adulthood.

Restaurants were a fitting locale for adolescent escapades. They were the sort of places you could laugh and carry on like adults without the bank accounts that come with careers. The blissfully nondescript Hunan Inn was the sort of place you could order something like the House Special and not think twice about price. Nestled between an anemic insurance office and a vacant store front, the mustard yellow neon sign for the Hunan Inn gleamed with the promise of quantity over quality.

Hunan Inn was distinct for its changelessness. Even its wounds of dilapidation remained the same. Dining was like eating in a forgotten museum. On the table at the booth in the southeast corner rested an archaic, small black-and-white television with an antenna cloaked in silver foil. Every surface was frosted with grey powder. Dust accumulated on ancient wisps of spider web to form forlorn bridges from a plastic framed silhouette of the Buddha on the wall to a lonely bouquet of fake flowers or to the pepper shaker near the soy sauce bottle. Rips in the russet vinyl booth cushions were healed with duct tape the color of chocolate. The liquids in the rainbow of liquor bottles never descended. It was as though the restaurant aged to a point and thereafter could not be touched by time.

What would have otherwise been a depressing environment was redeemed by the meek elderly couple who were its proprietors. "Grandpa," as Josh’s friends referred to him, cooked exclusively. He never made extended forays into the dining room. Instead, he kept near the back and grinned from a distance whenever he felt eyes upon him. The slight woman and presumed wife of Grandpa was the face of the establishment. She sported a heather grey ponytail and bright red apron that fell slightly above the knees. She served the food, cleaned up, and irregularly showered you with stale-but-sweet almond cookies as you left. Although it was a transparent attempt to make use out of expired goods, the treats nevertheless were a relished surprise.

Most endearing about the locale was the fact that on nearly all visits, the friends were the only customers. This gave the group two obvious benefits: greater license to be boisterous and an illusion the restaurant was their own private dining room, the sort of thing business executives had access to. They were kings of a small hill, but kings all the same.

Opening the door to Hunan Inn jingled a bell on a tattered piece of yarn and roused the staff to attention. Departing from the vestibule coincided with the tail of white knotted strings of Grandpa’s apron darting into the kitchen. The woman greeted the young man by counting them and stating “four” in a declarative rather than inquisitive tone. Although all the tables were available, the woman always sat the group at the same one. It was not near a window or in a corner, yet it seemed to them like the seating for very important persons. She took everyone’s orders with squinty smiles and nods.

Josh never failed to feel full after a meal at the Hunan Inn. There was plenty of food. More steamed rice and lo mein noodles were provided without charge in the rare instance that a voracious appetite outlasted the dinner portions. More than food, Josh felt filled by human connection. He and his friends would pile outrageous tale on top of outrageous tale in a comedic competition. Late-night escapades, close-calls with authority figures, female conquests (or impending conquests), and intricate plans of tomfoolery buttressed the remaining edifice of conversation they built. The friends left listening would chuckle and rattle the teapot with ecstatic slaps of mirth. Cynicism, hypocrisy, and spite fueled many of the jokes and wise-cracks, but the conclusion was always laughter. Whether the humor was good-natured or dark never mattered as much as actively sharing with one another. Rarely did any of the participants feel like they knew anyone else better, but they were unquestionably closer every time they left.

A raised slab of concrete tripped him out of his memories. Josh stumbled and felt embarrassed at his excessively awkward corrective motions. He stayed vertical at the cost of snickers from two passing women carrying large soft-drinks. He blushed and cast his eyes in a direction that would have kept him tripping again. He wished he had someone to laugh with.

Josh wondered why it was he always found himself depressed whenever he took the time to wonder. Then he thought of his isolation and how dreadfully unknown he was. It is not good for man to be alone. During the crucible of college, he grew disdainful of shallow interactions. He did not have the time to engage in conventional dialogues concerning what he was going to “do” with his degree. After college was over and he was fully independent (i.e., isolated), he found shallowness preferable to the loneliness.

Where did my friends go? Different towns. Different dreams. Everything goes to shit. Entropy. This is not what I expected. What happened? Why don’t we at least write a note to each other every now-and-again? Technology makes us brittle. We're so damned distractible--all these shiny, beeping gadgets shining and beeping every other second. I wish it was quieter. I wish I could go to bed thinking I talked with someone today. They never really cared. Or did they just stop? Transitioned to something else.

Crossing a plate-glass front of a café, Josh eyed the crowd. People were sporadically positioned along the lengthy counter behind the window. A man in a hooded sweatshirt and a denim jacket took a bite of a half-eaten hoagie. The bottom contents fell out in a slimy plop. The man pinched the fallen ingredients together between his fingers and tilted his head back. Josh looked forward before he could watch the man release them into his full mouth.

I want to have friends. I don't have friends. I am sad. I used to have friends. I don't have friends. I am sad. Repeat. Refrain. Encore! Encore! Sadness is a rhythm and depression is its waltz. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, want, 2, 3, miss, 2, 3, sad, 2, 3. We travel the same steps of thought to the beat of the old wheezy throbs of our hearts. We twist and turn, spin and sway, to the same notes that resonate for the same amounts of time.

Acrid saliva seeped into the back of Josh’s mouth. He felt nauseous. He fixed himself the only way he knew how: he gave himself something else to be conscious of. He unbuttoned the front of his jacket and let the air chill he core. His organs shuddered. Humans weren’t supposed to live here. It’s too damn cold.