As he sat outside, at the cafe next to the library, NervousMan looked at the remnants of his sandwich.
NervousMan's clothes clung to him in an unappealing way. His shoe had a hole in it. His underwear was at least 3 days old. It was his last clean pair. He knew he needed to do his laundry. But he seemed to always need to do his laundry, or clean the carpet, or the bathroom, or wash the dishes.
Forever, it seemed, NervousMan was faced with an endless list of chores that had to be done.
NervousMan sighed.
Suddenly, from somewhere behind, NervousMan heard a sound that sounded somewhere between a hack and a sniffle.
'Hitching sob' were the words that went through NervousMan's head before he pushed them out and resumed thinking about his imminent, endless, chores.
NervousMan heard the incomprehensible jabber of patrons around him. They had grown somewhat quieter since the loud noise had come from somewhere behind him.
NervousMan looked out of the window of the cafe.
The spring months are starting now, NervousMan thought. The sun would come out, and be out longer, making NervousMan even more nervous. For a moment, he regarded the sunny day that lay beyond, and felt the bass hum and the intermittent 'woosh'es of traffic going by outside.
"I need to buy toilet paper" NervousMan thought.
After being out, for almost an hour, NervousMan was sure that he would want to rest when he got home. Why had he gone out anyway? Oh yes, to get out. Now, perhaps, he needed to go back.
Life, it seemed, was an endless alternating sequence of 'going out' and 'going back'. And chores in between.
NervousMan looked down at the plastic, or wood, or whatever is was, that made up the black tabletop in front of him. His palm rested against the coolness of the table.
"I want to rest," NervousMan thought to himself, which, of course, was his favorite way of doing so. "At home".
Again, the sound came from behind him.
NervousMan winced.
"I have to take a shower" said NervousMan, very very softly. So that even the person sitting next to him wouldn't be able to hear. He looked up and saw a man standing at the counter talking to the cashier. The man had to weigh at least 500 pounds, NervousMan thought. The man was buying some doughnuts.
NervousMan looked back outside. He frowned, and considered the prospect of going home and taking a shower. Perhaps, even doing his laundry.
NervousMan felt tired.
'I don't want to start in on a bunch of other stuff," he thought..
Perhaps NervousMan should go home and take a nap. That sounded easy enough.
NervousMan let out a deep sigh and then began to gather the various napkins and wrappers on the table, methodically putting them, one by one, onto the tray in front of him.
If he took a shower, NervousMan thought, he would only get dirty again shortly after taking the shower, eventually. So, logically there was no point in taking a shower. It was an exercise in futility. Utterly pointless.
"Stupid," said NervousMan, very softly as he placed an empty and torn packet of sugar, the last item, onto the tray.
NervousMan froze as the sound came from behind him again. This time it was definitely a sob.
"Oh god," NervousMan thought to himself, "Someone is losing it, behind me". Maybe it was someone who had a loved one die recently, he thought.
NervousMan was nervous. He began looking around, plotting to make his exit smoothly and cleanly. NervousMan could sense people around him fidgeting now, and glancing at the person behind him, someone that NervousMan could still not see.
Not that he wanted to.
....
Mr. Weepy was aware of everyone looking at him, but he didn't care. Mr. Weepy just couldn't keep the tears inside anymore.
As if Mr. Weepy ever could.
Mr. Weepy watched the tears fall one by one into the cup of hot chocolate in front of him. He wiped his eyes again with the side of his wrist. "My eyes are becoming stingy", he thought to himself.
This made him cry more.
Mr. Weepy sniffed deeply and looked back at the picture and let out another sob, biting his lower lip as he did so. This sob was more pronounced. Mr. Weepy put a little of his voice into it this time and then punctuated it with a sniffle at the end. He breathed in sharply.
A man wearing a black leather jacket, and a lip-ring, sitting at a nearby table, scowled at Mr. Weepy. People around him bristled. Someone got up to leave.
"Aaaaaah hah hah hah-HAAAAAH!" Mr. Weepy wailed, drawing the mucus back into his sinuses and bowing his head.
Mr. Weepy's real name was Wheetmort Plendergrast, a name he would often have to spell out the letters of, between sobs. He was 53 years old and he had never had a girlfriend. In fact, Mr. Weepy hardly ever had any friends at all.
Wheetmort Plendergrast suffered from a variety of nervous conditions and was well-known by social service personnel in several states. Wheetmort was his actual name and was on his birth certificate. A lot of people had asked him over the years what kind of name 'Wheetmort' was, but this made Mr. Weepy cry even more, and so they stopped asking.
Denizens of the various towns that he had travelled through over the years, came to know him sometimes as The Crying Man, or in some cased 'Mr. Weeple'. But mostly, they knew him as 'Mr. Weepy'.
At six foot three inches tall, Mr. Weepy resembled a larger, more robust version of Mr. Whipple from the old commercials back in the 70's... except Mr. Weepy's face was often crimson and his eyes were red and irritated from weeping hot and bitter tears, usually in public. His soft, fine black hair, what was left of it, often floated around his head as he walked, his face set in a mask of hurt anger.
Mr. Weepy took about 23 pills a day, all told, a regimen made up of vitamins, obscure supplements, and psychiatric medication. He carried his pills around with him in a large plastic sack.
Mr. Weepy had an imposing walk, that said 'don't come near me, don't fuck with me' to the other people around him. Few people who saw Mr. Weepy forgot him anytime soon and while his presence was disturbing to others, few approached him to leave their place of business. But that was okay, cuz Mr. Weepy kept moving around. The pockets of his corduroy slacks bulged with several handkerchiefs that he carried around with him at all times.
Mr. Weepy lived off of social security disability. The question of whether Mr. Weepy could ever hold a job... well... it wasn't even a question, really. Doctors had told Mr. Weepy over the years that his limbic system, in his brain, was constantly working overtime. On the occasion that he got a CAT SCAN, it showed that the activity in this area of the brain, usually there to regulate emotion, was off the charts. He was told he had a genetic condition that one or both parents had as well.
Mr. Weepy never knew his real parents though, and this was one of the things that made Mr. Weepy weep a great deal.
Mr. Weepy had just moved into town and had decided to eat at the library cafe. Looking through the local newspaper, which the cafe provided, he came across an article which talked about a local care center which treated little burned and blind babies. It was called the Infant Trauma Center or ITC. The newspaper story talked at length about it.
"How beautiful," thought Mr. Weepy, as he looked at a grainy black and white picture, of a child in bandages reaching out to a helping hand of someone just out of the frame of the picture. Mr. Weepy had spilled some of his hot chocolate on the picture just a moment before, so startled he was by the article.
"How beautiful," thought Mr. Weepy. He reached out and smoothed the picture lovingly as waves of tears boiled up from deep inside of him and spilled out through his perpetually dilated tear ducts and fell upon the picture. "How beautiful". Under the bandages, you could see the smile of the little child.
The caption read, "Little Mindy Souzan sees the face of her caregiver for the first time".
Mr. Weepy sniffed noisily again and his face was overcome with emotion. Some part of him realized that he was making a bit of a mess, and for the millionth time he saw that everyone in the cafe was looking at him now. Soon, one of the employees would come over and ask in a concerned voice if everything was okay. That sort of thing happened before to Mr. Weepy a lot.
Mr. Weepy looked up and saw the nervous-looking young man in crummy clothes who just getting up to put his tray away.
The nervous man glanced nervously at Mr. Weepy, for a moment, and then away, before he walked to the exit door. For a moment, Mr. Weepy saw the old woman in the pink sweater saying something to the nervous man.
Mr. Weepy looked back at the picture and drew in his breath sharply. A painful, tearful grimace took hold of his features again, this time much stronger. Slowly, sniffing sharply every other second, he began to carefully tear the picture from the page.
When he got home, Mr. Weepy would put it in his collection of beautiful pictures. Beautiful, beautiful pictures.
Fishing in his pocket, Mr. Weepy thought, "How awful, that poor poor nervous man. And his clothes. How awful. What the fuck is wrong with people? How awful.".
Mr. Weepy sought out a dry spot on his third handkerchief of the day.
"How awful. How awful How awful!" he thought. And then, looking back at the soiled picture he thought, "How beautiful, how beautiful, how beautiful" and wept some more.
Mr. Weepy's mind foundered in an ocean of stark and poignant emotion, steeped in the sensations of its own raw sensation. He lived on the edge of always being capsized.
"How beautiful," said Mr. Weepy through tear-filled eyes.
Here it was, thought Mr. Weepy. It was already so early in the day, and there was already so much to cry about. Even the sunshine, especially the sunshine, in fact, made Mr. Weepy cry. Because it was so beautiful.
"Is everything... okay? Can I get you anything?" someone said off to his left.
But Mr. Weepy didn't look at the person. He looked at the picture as if the person had never even said anything.
"What... like an ambulance?" asked Mr. Weepy as he sniffed again and wiped his nose.
....
After putting his tray away, NervousMan sighed and made his way toward the exit door. He glanced back at the man crying in the corner. He felt like maybe something was wrong with the poor man. Again, it crossed his mind that the man was in mourning. Some kind of mourning.
Whatever the reason was for the weepy man's outburst, it made NervousMan nervous.
"Mourning" though NervousMan passed the mirrored wall next to the soda fountain, and willed himself not to look at his reflection lest he see his own nervousness.
NervousMan walked on, feeling the muscles in his gut clench his entrails like a stubborn bobcat that did not want to let go of its prey. He came closer to the exit door.
NervousMan felt the raw sunlight streaming through the glass window, and pouring over his face.
NervousMan winced.
NervousMan noticed an old lady in a bright pink sweater and black slacks eating licorice on a chair, sitting at a small table, near the door, waiting for a seat. The woman's hair was dishwater gray and was held together with a black hairnet.
She looked at NervousMan in such a way as if she had been looking at him for a long time. A hint of a smile was on her lips which was neatly adorned with violet lipstick which matched her sweater and set a sharp contrast against the lined age of her face. In her lap was a bag of pink and black licorice. NervousMan noticed quickly that the bag was the same color scheme as the old lady's outfit.
Her aged hands, covered in thick blue and black veins, and almost completely choked with liver spots, gripped solidly the gray handles of the walker in front of her as she leaned forward slightly.
"You're funny," she said to NervousMan giving him a wink and popping a piece of licorce into her mouth.
The old lady smiled.
"I-- I am?" said NervousMan.
"Yes".
NervousMan leaned against the exit door. "And here I thought I was so serious," he said.
"You," the old lady said, "are funny... because you are so serious".
NervousMan blinked.
NervousMan pushed the exit door open and for a moment, everything was in slow motion as he walked out into the sunlight of, what was for all intents and purposes, a bright spring day, NervousMan seemed dazed. It was as if the sun was coating him with mind-altering radiation.
Yes, the sun WAS radiation after all, thought NervousMan. He tasted bitter saliva in his mouth like electric spit, his shoulders slumped as if the sunlight pressed down on him in heavy golden sheets.
NervousMan wanted to sit down. Perhaps he should go over to the library.
Stepping inside of the lobby of the library, NervousMan was momentarily relieved by the shade of the indoor cover. Slightly disoriented, and somewhat blinded by the sudden change in brightness, NervousMan walked steadily inside as his eyes adjusted.
NervousMan had seen the security guard man before. He looked a bit like ... that comedian... Bill Murray was it?. Yes Bill Murray. Or was it his brother? The security guard man sat at his station near the entrance watching NervousMan approach.
NervousMan had seen how clean and impeccable those security uniforms were.
"Impeccable" thought NervousMan. There's a word.
The security guard's eyes seemed to narrow as NervousMan approached the station to pass in front of it. He had seen the security guard man before but had never really looked at him. NervousMan did not want to look at him now, or to be looked at.
NervousMan walked on.
"Hello, how are you?" the security guard said to NervousMan, his tone direct and serious. The man's head seemed to be arched in such a way as to direct NervousMan inside.
"Oh! Hello!" NervousMan said back almost immediately looking at the security guard only in his peripheral vision, but tilting his head somewhat in the security guard man's general direction. "I am FINE! Fine... I am. Thank you. Thank you very much”.
NervousMan offered a tight smile and inwardly rolled his eyes at his own awkwardness.
Had he said 'hello' just a tad too loudly? Oh god! What an idiot he was! Maybe he should have asked the man how HE was too. Maybe even strike up a conversation. Make a new friend.
What was WRONG with NervousMan?
But, no. That kind of person wouldn't want anything to do with NervousMan anyway. That was for sure. Best not try to get to know anybody, NervousMan thought. Besides, how strange would it look to stop and walk back and start chatting. What in the world would he say?
Just the thought of doing something like that made NervousMan nervous.
NervousMan walked on, thinking "I look stupid, I am so stupid, I am stupid, I am so stupid, I seem suspicious," thought NervousMan, again. "I am suspicious. Suspicious and conspicuous. Conscpicuous and Suspicious ... and nervous".
NervousMan sighed.
A young Asian woman behind the information counter seemed to regard NervousMan. NervousMan looked away.
"Oh my god," Nervousman thought, 'what if my fly is open!".
NervousMan realized that he could check to see, with his hand, or by looking at his crotch, but that would only make him look more 'conspicious'.
"Conspicious? Yes, I am 'conspicious'," thought NervousMan.
Steadily, NervousMan walked to the foot of the escalator. Suddenly, he had the strange sensation that his legs weren't long enough to quite reach the ground. That in a moment he would soon just dangle in space moving his legs but not moving anywhere, and then float up, up into the rafters of the building.
People would laugh at NervousMan if that happened!
NervousMan could see in his mind's eye, the security guard looking at the back of his head as he mounted the steps and they pulled him bodily onto the moving metal flight.
"Perhaps he knows what I am thinking", thought NervousMan.
"In that case, he already knows that I know that he knows. And then he knows... THAT. And then he knows... that, too."
"I am 'conspicious'," thought NervousMan as he was pulled upward.
As he rose, NervousMan felt like every person in the library was staring at him. Somehow, they knew his knowing of their knowing his knowing.
Or so it seemed.
NervousMan could feel the glare of dozens and dozens of sets of eyes roaming over and collectively exploring his backside like the pinpoints of hot laser beams.
NervousMan shuddered and gulped hard.
He felt sick.
Don't look back, thought NervousMan, closing his eyes as he ascended, enduring the horrible and withering stares he sensed were coming from all around him.
Somewhere, above him, he heard someone laugh.
Perhaps it was someone looking at him, thought NervousMan.
NervousMan opened his eyes, seeing that he was now arriving at the 2nd floor.
"THE COSMOS EXHIBIT" read a bright red and orange LED sign in front of him surrounded by black and a few hints of decorative lights placed around, like stars. Under this sign, was an arrow pointing off to the right.
"Cosmos", thought NervousMan. Somewhere he had read that God was everything. God was the Cosmos.
"Words," thought NervousMan. Replace Cosmos with God. Who knew what God was anyway?
"God," NervousMan muttered softly to himself, stepping off of the escalator. No one heard him.
The laughter came again, and NervousMan glanced over to see a young man, quite oblivious of NervousMan, happily talking on a cellphone in one ear, and in the other ear listening to one of the headphone wire of his iPod.
NervousMan grimaced and soon found himself shuffling off toward 'THE COSMOS EXHIBIT", following the signs all around him.
