July 2nd, 2006 - Part I.

I sit, as I have many times before. Cigarette between my lips, staring into the screen, recalling the past. Walking backward in time.

I wake to the low hum of a window air conditioning unit in my attic room. The sun pours in through the windows. It is 11:00 a.m. and I can tell the day outside is already hot, even in these morning hours. I push the sheets away and lift myself up to sit on the edge of the bed. My head aches, an uneasy feeling washes over me, and though I try to put the feeling out of my head and away from me, it persists. As I stand and stretch, my fingers brush the low vaulted ceiling. I bend down and touch my toes and breathe. The feeling persists.

I carry on about my morning routine of showering, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, eating breakfast and packing my lunch for the day ahead. By 12:00 p.m. I am out of the house, on my bicycle and pedaling toward the train station to catch the train to the north end of town where I will ride my bike two more miles to work. I consider calling in sick.

The train ride is uncomfortable and my head pounds. It is hot and stuffy in the train car, the recirculated air unbreathable. Moments of relief arrive almost too late as the train stops at each station and the automated doors open, letting a rush of thick, warm air in. I consider calling in sick.

At the last station, I take my bike down from the rack and step out of the train car. I step over the frame of my bicycle and begin to pedal toward my job.

A few minutes later the rubber tires of my bicycle coast onto the gravel parking lot of the oil refinery. Tanks loom overhead, forty, fifty, sixty and eighty feet, casting shadows over the gravel and concrete workings. I park my bicycle in front of the office/break room and enter.

It is cool inside and smells of coffee. The cheap kind. The kind that comes in yellow or brown or red plastic buckets with black snap-on lids. The kind that men with tattoos, lifted trucks, sunglasses tanlines and greying ponytails savor as many times throughout the day as they have ex-wives. I pour myself a cup, tear open a package of hot chocolate and stir it in with a straw. I take one drink. It further sours my stomach. I drop the cup into the large grey Roughneck trash can in the corner. It falls in slow motion, the coffee cup a small trash can falling into a giant one.

Marv, the refinery manager, lines out my tasks for the afternoon. Pressure wash the concrete pads around the silos, drain the recirc pool, other things. I nod and "okay" then go up the stairs to the locker room where I don hickory-patterned Cintas coveralls. My head is pounding. I sit down on the bench in the middle of the room. I wonder if it is too late to call in sick.

Outside the sun beats down in an unforgiving way. I wonder if it knows how horrible it makes me feel. I imagine it as some eternally-apologetic abusive parent.

I sweep. I pressure wash the conrete pads. I drain the pool. I check silo temperatures. I crush oil cans and filters. I double over in pain at the can crusher. I have to go home.

I find Marv and tell him I am sorry, and that I must leave. There is no further conversation. His demand for an explanation will be addressed later. For now I walk ten thousand miles across the gravel lot to my bicycle. Jim is riding it. "Marv just fired me, I have to go." Jim gets off my bike. His request for an explanation will be addressed at a later date.

I ride down the cracked concrete back road out to the thoroughfare, across the Expo Center parking lot to the end-of-the-line train station and wait. There are spots in my field of vision. Ink in water. Spreading and dissipating.

The train comes and I repeat my trek to work in reverse order. I arrive at my station and leave with my bicycle, ride back home, all the while my stomach knotting tighter, my head pounding harder, the sun getting hotter. It's been only three hours since I left for work.

I drag my bicycle up the stairs onto the covered deck of our house and lean it against the railing. I open the front door and step inside. The house phone rings. I hear my sister answer. "Yeah, hold on" she says. She appears from the kitchen and hands me the red cordless phone. "It's Dad," she says, "he sounds...". I take the phone and hold it to my head. There is cordless crackle, I cannot tell if it is on my end or his. "Hey," I say. He begins to speak, his voice is high and strained. Something is amiss. "Hey kid," he says, "you need to sit down".