In the morning, Arnold James Sharpe always had the same thought: that he should get coffee before work. He didn’t think about the fact that he didn’t like coffee all that much, but rather he thought that maybe having a cup of coffee would make him seem more approachable.
He wanted to be more approachable because he thought that if he did, maybe he’d make a friend. He thought about the last time he had a friend. He was maybe twenty-three or so, but he thought it was possible he could have been twenty-four, and he was convinced that somehow it mattered.
Arnold would think about what to have for breakfast, and whether he should order it from the coffee shop when he got his coffee. Instead, he would always make an English muffin with cream cheese and cucumber slices. He would eat that while he thought about having a donut, and he liked to believe that somehow it was the same as actually having a donut.
He would think about his first girlfriend, sometimes, when he would think about having a donut instead of an English muffin. She had worked at a gas station. It was Arnold’s opinion that the gas station she worked at sold the best donuts he had ever had – or ever would have – in his life, and sometimes he would think about her handfeeding him a donut even though they hadn’t spoken in nearly thirty years.
Thinking about the gas station she worked at led him to think about the grocery store which he would need to go to today because he had used the last of the cream cheese, which caused him to remember that he didn’t have anything for dinner either. This led him to think about the lady janitor that worked at the grocery store. He thought about her long brown hair with the faint red tint. He thought about her smile, with the single missing tooth towards the back on the top right side. She had a crooked nose with a pronounced bump, and he thought how unique it was. Arnold was glad that she looked a little strange. He thought that he also looked strange, and that maybe they would make a lovely pair because of that, even though he thought she was still too pretty for him.
Sometimes when he thought of women, he would think of his older brother. This was a thought Arnold never liked to have, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped. When he would think of his brother, he would shake his head, hoping that the thought would fall out his ears, or maybe his nose, or maybe work its way through his throat, into his digestive system and out his butt. He thought it would be nice to flush those thoughts down the toilet.
After breakfast, Arnold would check the time, and try to decide if he had time to watch an episode of a game show re-run before work. He never had time. So, instead he would think about how enjoyable it was going to be to watch the show later that night while he ate his dinner. So, again, he would think about what to get for dinner at the grocery store. So, again, he thought about the lady janitor. So, again, he thought of his brother and shook his head as though his brain were an etch-a-sketch that could be wiped clean.
When Arnold brushed his teeth, he thought about how lucky he was to have healthy teeth. He would remember his mother and how she would force Arnold to wash his face and brush his teeth every time he would enter the house, leave the house, have a meal, enter his bedroom, leave his bedroom, or turn on the tv. He thought about how silly it was to wash your face after you turn on the tv, and how peculiar it was that his mother thought that the tv static would give him wrinkles.
While getting dressed, Arnold would think about how fat he had gotten, and lament over the fact that he spent his youth thinking he was fat, when it was really the fittest, he would ever be. He thought that maybe in five years, when he had gained another twenty-seven pounds or so, he would think back on this moment and think he was thin. Arnold felt guilty for thinking badly about himself in this moment, and he shook his head gently until the thought went away.
Arnold had a goldfish sitting on his dresser. When he looked at the goldfish, he thought about how remarkably similar he looked to Brian III – whom he had when he was twelve – and Brian the twenty-first – whom he had when he was twenty-nine. He thought that maybe he should rename Brian the forty-seventh, and that maybe forty-seven fish named Brian was possibly about thirty-four too many. But the thought came quickly and left in about the same amount of time that he had kept Brian the eleventh alive. Two minutes.
Maybe fish for dinner would be good. But then Arnold thought about the fact that if he had fish for dinner, he wouldn’t be able to bring Brian the forty-seventh to the coffee table to have dinner together like he did every night because that would be insensitive. He decided he could get fish for lunch instead.
On his way out the door, Arnold thought about everything in the apartment that might risk a fire. The stove was an obvious candidate, he thought. Too obvious. He thought that if the house were to burn down, it would be something else. Perhaps the TV, or maybe the charger to his tablet. Maybe a candle, Arnold thought, until he remembered that he had never owned a candle in his life. Maybe a neighbor’s candle, he thought instead. Then he decided it was too much to try and stop every fire that might happen and chose simply to unplug the lamp next to the couch and call it good enough.
Arnold thought it was a nice day out, even if it was drizzling a little. He thought about maybe getting an umbrella but decided that the seven flights of stairs were too much, and he didn’t want to take the elevator twice within five minutes. He thought something bad might happen if he did. Maybe it would start a fire. He thought about waiting, but he knew that if he waited six minutes to use the elevator again that he would be late for work, and he didn’t like being late.
He thought about taking the bus, but then he remembered that seven months ago there was a stabbing at a bus stop in Detroit, and he decided he didn’t want to risk it. Detroit and Rochester weren’t that far away, after all. He thought about Lake Erie and Canada, and how those two things were the only things between him and the bus station in Detroit where someone got stabbed. He shook his head.
He decided to walk to work. On the way, Arnold saw a school bus, and he wondered if anyone had ever been stabbed while waiting for one. He shook his head again. He thought about going back to school, but then he thought that fifty-two was too old to do so. He thought about how much he hated school anyways as he walked up to the coffee shop next to his job. Then he thought about skipping the coffee, since he never drank it anyways. He thought the bell chiming as he walked in sounded particularly pleasant today.
While he was at work, he thought about how much he hated working. He thought about his sixth job, the one where he worked as security for a medium. He got that job right after his mother died, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit that the two events were related. He liked that job. The lady he worked for smelled like cats and fried chicken and spoke with a thick New Jersey accent that sometimes made it hard for him to understand. When he couldn’t understand, she would gently lob one of her fluffy purple sandals at his head. Arnold always found this funny instead of abusive like he knew he should have. He couldn’t remember why he quit.
Now, he worked part time cleaning at a funeral home. He would clean the arrangement room first, then the reception room, then the offices, then the display room. He would save the preparation room and reposing room for last because he knew they were the only places he was at risk of encountering a dead body. When he did see a dead body, Arnold couldn’t help but think about his mother, and then his brother, and he would have to shake his head until it hurt before the thought would be replaced.
Today, when Arnold finally made it to the preparation room, he found Marnie at work. Arnold would always pretend that whoever Marnie was working on was simply relaxing, as if they were at a spa. Marnie said hello to Arnold, once she finally noticed him, and warned him that there was someone in with her, even though Arnold could clearly see that already. Marnie told him to come back and clean later, and when Arnold explained that this was all that was left, she told him to skip it until tomorrow. She tells him that she and her guest would be gone by then. As Arnold picked up his things to go home, he hoped that nobody in Rochester would die tonight.
After work, Arnold didn’t feel like going to the grocery store any longer. He thought about going home and trying to scrounge for dinner and going to the grocery store tomorrow, but two thoughts compelled him to turn left instead of going straight towards his apartment. The first was that he remembered he was out of cream cheese, and if he was out of cream cheese and didn’t buy more tonight, he would have to find something else to eat for breakfast for the first time in three years. The second thought was that it was Thursday, which meant that the lady janitor was working.
He thought the grocery store looked brighter than usual, and wondered if it was the lady janitor or one of the other janitors that replaced the lights. As he wandered the aisles, he thought about trying something new from the Asian food section, but when he picked up a packet, he saw that some of the directions were written in another language and couldn’t figure out if he needed both the English and the foreign directions to make the noodles, so he put it back on the shelf.
Arnold found the lady janitor near the milk at the back of the store, which was across the aisle from the cream cheese. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. He thought about saying hello, but then he remembered that he had been seeing her here for nearly two years and has never once said hello, and that maybe today wasn’t the right day to change the routine. Arnold looked at all the flavors of cream cheese and thought that maybe the dill one would pair nicely with his English muffin and cucumber, but he grabbed plain anyways. On the other side of the aisle, Arnold noticed the ice cream. It had been years since he had had an ice cream cone, and thought that it would be a nice treat, but for some reason he chose a box of ice cream sandwiches with strawberry filling instead. He didn’t know why.
He walked past the toy aisle, which he normally didn’t do, and he wasn’t sure why he did it. He didn’t know that it would force the thought, but when he noticed a remote-control truck, he thought of his brother. He shook his head, but the thought didn’t budge. He remembered his brother playing with the wooden cars his father had made for them before he had passed away. He shook his head, and it lodged a new thought in his brain. He remembered his brother coming into his bedroom at night, and each second he spent in bed waiting for him to go. Arnold shook his head hard, but with each swing, he remembered his brother’s hands on a new spot. He smacked his head a few times until the lady janitor walked up to him. She said something that he couldn’t hear, but her gentle hand on his shoulder and the soft, concerned look on her face helped him think of his ninth girlfriend instead.
Walking back home, Arnold watched as the sun went down. He thought about all the stars that must be in the sky at that moment, but that he couldn’t see because the light pollution was too bad. He thought about his grandmother’s house, out in the country, where he would camp outside where no one could find him, lying in the grass with no blanket. There were so many stars.
Outside his apartment, Arnold noticed a mother attempt to lift a stroller carrying a fat, crying toddler up the stairs. For some reason, Arnold did not think of his own mother as he watched her. The mother noticed him and smiled an apologetic, thin-lipped smile as the child started to cry. Arnold set his bag down on the sidewalk and opened the box of ice cream sandwiches, offering one to the mother for the boy. Hesitantly, she took it, and Arnold grabbed one side of the stroller, and together the two hoisted the boy to the top. Arnold grabbed his bag and, without saying a word, opened the door and went inside. As he reached the elevator, it dawned on him that he probably should have held the door open for her, but decided it was strange to go back now.
While eating dinner, he watched the game show he wanted to watch that morning, and occasionally glanced down at Brian the forty-seventh. He thought about how nice it must be to be a goldfish. How nice it must be to live two minutes like Brian the eleventh, or seventy-two days like Brian the eighteenth, or even ten years like the man at the pet store told him is how long goldfish are supposed to live. Arnold thought that goldfish are supposed to live as long or as short as they please.
Arnold got ready for bed and thought carefully about each button as he pushed it through the hole. He thought about his mother buttoning his pajamas for him when he was a child. He wondered what she thought about as she was dying. If she thought about Arnold, or his brother, or his father. Maybe she thought about her own parents, or her own brother who died a year before her. He wondered if she thought about how Arnold’s brother had turned out, and he wondered if she felt bad about it. He thought that she probably didn’t.
Each night just before Arnold fell asleep at around 11:43 pm, he would think about killing himself. He would debate about what route would be most efficient, even though he had decided long ago that he would choose the bottle of pain pills in the mirror, because he was convinced this would be the least painful avenue. He wasn’t sure why he thought that. But then he would think that maybe he was just overly tired, and he would go to sleep and think of nothing at all.