The Introvert Read online

  I still regretted promising Donna that I’d go with them to Wellington’s on Friday, but then I felt promises should only be broken in the most extreme cases, so I figured I’d have to go and that she’d likely touch my arm and my leg and try to get me to drink alcohol while Jeff and Gary and all the other men stared at her whenever she walked past.

  I changed out of my suit and made myself some dinner. I’d only sold two vacuums that day, one through a cold call and one to a friend of a customer who’d purchased one three weeks ago. Gary had also sold two that day, so I remained eleven sales behind with just seven sales days left.

  I sat on the couch after dinner and relaxed in my apartment. It wasn’t much of an apartment, but I still liked being there more than anywhere else. I didn’t have much in the way of property, but I did have a picture of me with my parents when I was young and when we had a Golden Retriever named Shelby, and even Shelby was in the picture. It was the only picture I had of my parents, but that was all right because it was my favorite. I kept it on my dresser in the bedroom, and even if it wasn’t much of a dresser, it held up the picture well enough and I could see both my parents smiling in the picture, and I think Shelby was smiling in her own way too because of how her mouth was open and the way her tongue lagged out. Either that or she was just hot, though I suppose it could have been both.

  I felt calm and comfortable in my apartment and rarely had the thoughts that I often had in the outside world. The closest I’d come to feeling those thoughts at home was when Molly had her accident on the kitchen floor and the time when my rent was two days late and the landlord knocked on my door looking for it. I answered the door wearing pajamas and no socks and Molly was excited and gyrating at my feet as dogs sometimes do.

  “This isn’t a flop house,” is what he’d said to me.

  I’d never been late with the rent before and kept quiet and to myself most of the time, save for when Molly would get excited and bark as she was then doing.

  “It’s been a tough month at work,” I said.

  I remember how he’d looked down at Molly and how his face bent nastier than it already was.

  “You know we get complaints about that dog sometimes.”

  “Is this about the rent or about my dog?” I asked.

  He wasn’t much of a landlord. He was probably in his mid-fifties and I could smell the alcohol on his breath, and it looked like he hadn’t shaved in days. He had his own dog that he’d sometimes berate in public or pull viciously on the leash to make it heel even when it was already heeling. Whenever I saw this I wanted to say something, but then I usually just said something in my mind and then he would pass by us and then it would be too late.

  “The rent,” he’d responded.

  “I get paid on Friday,” I said.

  “Then it will be four days late,” he said.

  I thought that it was better to be late than never, then I said it, but the landlord didn’t seem to share my optimism.

  “There are plenty of people who’d love to get into this building,” he said.

  It was probably true. It was a decent price for what you got, especially in the city.

  “And it would be nice to have less weirdos in here,” he added.

  Just like his tone, I felt his last comment to be entirely unnecessary. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought of him as red and open, but it had been the first time I felt it so intensely. I could see that there was nobody else in the hallway and I remember how I’d looked down at my bare feet and how I’d wished I’d been wearing some type of steel-toed boot because then I could have pulled him inside my apartment and driven him to the ground and kicked him in the head over and over and over again until all of his teeth had been knocked out and washed to the floor in a pool of his own blood and saliva, and how I’d smash his nose into his skull and close off his eyes and how by the time I was done with him his head would be a red and purplish mess and how Molly would likely be barking throughout and annoying the neighbors and then probably run through the mess and track red paw prints around my apartment and how I’d somehow have to clean it up and get rid of the body.

  Only I wasn’t wearing steel-toed boots, I was barefoot, and before I could decide what to do next he’d already stumbled away and stepped into the stairwell.

  ***

  I went early to the DMV the next morning and was third in line by the time the doors opened. I was waited on by a young male clerk who I found much more agreeable than the mole-necked clerk from the previous day and I provided him a second form of identification and managed to get my driver’s license renewed for an additional five years. Then I thought to myself that it might be nice to go out and celebrate that weekend, so I no longer regretted my promise to Donna.

  CHAPTER 4

  On Friday I found myself sitting at Wellington’s around a large table with ten of my fellow colleagues. It wasn’t much of a bar because it was dark and loud and the glasses weren’t always clean, but at least they had free peanuts.

  I’d pulled to within seven vacuums of Gary by then, but Monday was the final day of the month so it would be hopeless unless I worked through the weekend, which I usually didn’t do.

  Gary bought everyone a round of beer and though I had mostly avoided alcohol since the incident two years ago, I took one because it was free and because I still felt good about renewing my license on Tuesday and even about coming in second place because it always made Mr. Peters happy and made for easier days at work.

  I’d only finished half of my beer before Donna pulled up a chair beside me, and it wasn’t long after that that she was laughing at everything I said, which wasn’t very much.

  “I like men who keep their word,” she said.

  “So do I,” I said.

  “But not in the same way, I bet.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by that so I didn’t say anything else and instead took another sip of my free beer.

  “So were you looking forward to tonight?” She touched my arm for the first time that night.

  I said that I was, because it was true, and she seemed to like this very much.

  I’d actually showed up late because I had to go home first and take Molly out or risk coming home to another accident on the kitchen floor, and though I knew that it wouldn’t be her fault if she had another accident, I knew that it would still make me angry and that it wouldn’t be fair to Molly and that it really wouldn’t be good for anyone. So instead I went home and took her out and then took a cab to Wellington’s just in case I consumed too much alcohol and wasn’t fit to drive home.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said, only this was just as obvious as when she’d told me I better get my license renewed, not only because of how she’d already curled up to me but given the fact that my coming had been her idea in the first place.

  “So how’s your weekend looking?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll make some calls.”

  “Boring,” she said.

  “There’s not much to do on the weekend,” I said. “Mostly I take the dog for walks and watch television.”

  “Sounds lonely.”

  “No, I have the dog with me,” I said, thinking maybe she hadn’t heard me the first time.

  She just laughed and touched my leg. Donna had recently been seeing some boy in the suburbs, but apparently it hadn’t gone well. Whenever one of her relationships ended, she would always tell me how the men were jerks or used her for sex or both and then would ask why she couldn’t find a sweet guy like me, and I would tell her I didn’t know and then she would laugh and call me modest and I would laugh along with her even though I wasn’t actually trying to be modest or funny but truthfully just didn’t know the answer.

  Tonight she wasn’t drinking beer. She was drinking something that was red and purple like the way I’d imagined the landlord’s face under steel-toed boots when he’d come up to complain about my rent being two days late. She seemed to enjoy it, and we both finished
our drinks rather quickly.

  “Buy me another?” she said.

  “Okay.”

  I let her order another drink when the waitress came by then ordered another for myself because Donna said she hated to drink alone. I told her that there were plenty of other people drinking at our table, including the men who would leer at her each time she got up from the table, only I left that last part off. But she said that it wasn’t the same, so I ordered another beer and we drank our drinks together once they came. By then I was starting to feel good and thinking that maybe I wouldn’t work that weekend after all.

  By the end of the third beer, I started to think of the incident from two years ago because the last time I’d felt this intoxicated was when it happened. Donna was touching my arms and legs evenly up to that point, usually when she was laughing at whatever I’d just said, and no matter if it was meant to be funny or not. I could tell that Jeff and Gary weren’t happy with the attention that she was paying me because of the looks on their faces each time that she touched me. I didn’t much care if Gary felt bad because he was married, and he would be receiving the bonus. I felt a bit different for Jeff since he seemed to genuinely like her, but then I figured that she might like him better if he stopped leering at her, and then I didn’t feel so bad for him anymore.

  I tried to stop drinking after my third beer, but somehow Donna convinced me to have another. I think maybe I complied for lack of willpower. Only by then I was also looking at Donna differently. I was noticing her breasts peeking out from beneath her blouse in a way that I never had before, and I was finding myself joining Jeff and Gary in leering at her from behind whenever she stood up and walked to the bathroom. I then started to wonder if Molly might need to be let out again but then Donna returned from one of her bathroom breaks and my focus returned to her blouse and what was beneath it, and I felt that peculiar feeling from down below and hoped that this night wouldn’t end up the same way as the last time I’d consumed that much alcohol.

  I drank two more beers before I told Donna that I wanted to leave. She suggested we walk or cab home together and I didn’t object. We’d hardly walked one block before she took my hand and started to kiss me. Her tongue was cool and tasted like berries. From there we shared a cab back to my place and I was happy to find there was no mess on the kitchen floor and even happier to see what was under Donna’s blouse.

  It had been a long time since I did the things that I did that night. I don’t know why I didn’t pursue it more often, because it felt really good, even if it didn’t last very long. Donna didn’t seem to mind how long it lasted. She curled up around me and fell asleep moments after I’d achieved it. After a few minutes I decided that I wanted to do it again but felt it wouldn’t be right to wake her, so I decided to wait until the morning when she helped me to achieve it a second time.

  CHAPTER 5

  Monday seemed no different to me, except that Donna wasn’t behaving as she usually did. She asked me why I hadn’t called her and I explained that I didn’t have her number and that I had no reason to call her. She seemed upset by one or both of these statements, but by lunchtime seemed to have forgotten all about it because she was being friendly as usual.

  She gave me her phone number and asked me to call her, but when I asked her what we’d talk about she didn’t seem to know, and so we didn’t discuss it any further.

  I went home at the stroke of five because I was still tired from the weekend. I dropped the month’s rent through the slot in the landlord’s door on the first floor and then took Molly out for a walk. On our way back in, I saw the landlord chatting with another tenant in the front lobby and I could see him holding my check in his hand.

  Molly and I went on upstairs and I didn’t give it another moment’s thought. Later that week I heard a knock on my door. It was the landlord.

  “You’re three days late with your rent.”

  Molly had come up by my side, only this time she was better behaved. Since our last encounter with the landlord several months ago, she’d become wearier of his presence.

  “I put it in your mail slot on the first of the month.”

  He rolled his eyes at me. “You think I’d be here if you’d paid?”

  He coughed as he sometimes did since he was a smoker and the stench from his breath was revolting.

  “I paid my rent. I saw you with my check in your hand the very day I dropped it off. Maybe you misplaced it?”

  It looked like maybe he was starting to become angry because one of his eyebrows began to twitch. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, then stumbled a bit and braced himself against the doorframe. Then he added, after righting himself, “You think I like coming around here like this?”

  I couldn’t say whether he liked it or not, but his tone suggested he didn’t.

  “There’s something wrong with my sink,” is all I said in reply.

  I wasn’t trying to change the subject, but I really wasn’t worried about my rent since I knew that I’d paid it and the broken sink had just popped into my head. The pipes were old and rusted and had started to leak beneath the sink and I had to use buckets.

  “What are you talkin’ about, your sink? What’s wrong with it?”

  “It leaks,” I said.

  “Well, what’d you do to it?”

  “I didn’t do anything. I just turned it on and off and it started to leak.”

  Then he got a searching look on his face. “Hey, didn’t I just fix your sink last year?”

  “You did. But it was not fixed for long.”

  “You being smart with me?”

  “No,” I said.

  He didn’t seem to know what to say next, but eventually said, “How ’bout you just give me a new check?”

  I decided that it wasn’t worth the bother and went to get my checkbook. Unfortunately I’d just used my last few checks on some bills. When I told him this, he didn’t seem to believe me, and it perhaps even bolstered his belief that I was lying to him.

  “What about the sink?” I asked.

  He left without saying anything further, but the way he looked at me as he did, and the way he looked at Molly, gave me the greatest urge to see him red and open.

  CHAPTER 6

  I went to work the next day and sold five vacuum cleaners. Three were to relatives of former clients, one was from a cold call, and one was from someone who called our company looking to buy one. The last one is what we call a “lay down” because the customer just lies down in front of you with their wallet out. These were the easiest sales but the least personally rewarding.

  Five vacuums were a lot in one day. Our commission was twenty percent, so it made me happy. I think I was smiling when Donna saw me toward the end of the day and maybe she thought I was smiling at her because then she came up right beside me.

  “So when are we going to go out,” she said, “on a real date?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it,” I said, but then I saw her face turn ugly and sad and I added, “but it sounds like a good idea,” and it changed back to how it was before.

  “Where should we go?” she asked.

  I didn’t know much about these things so I said we could go wherever she liked. I’d dated some girls in college and achieved it when I could, but those relationships usually didn’t last very long, and it was never all that important to me anyway since I could achieve it on my own. Mostly I just went to class and read my books and wrote my tests.

  “How about the new Italian place?”

  “Sure,” I said. I knew the one she was talking about.

  Her face was bright and she was smiling.

  “Friday?”

  I nodded.

  “Meet you there at seven, then?”

  “Seven,” I said. I was trying to remember when I’d last gone to an Italian restaurant with a girl but I couldn’t. Then I tried to remember the last time I went to any restaurant with a girl and I couldn’t. The fact that I couldn’t remember mad
e me want to laugh really loud, so I did. I saw a strange look in the faces of a few of my colleagues but Donna just smiled.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “I was just thinking of something funny,” I said.

  “I like it,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The way you laugh. You should laugh more. It’s cute.”

  “I suppose maybe I should,” I said.

  She apparently found this funny because she began laughing herself, though on this occasion none of my colleagues looked over with any strange looks on their faces.

  “I can hardly wait for Friday,” she said.

  “Neither can I,” I said. And it was true. I had heard many good things about the new Italian restaurant. I had also heard that it was a bit expensive, and I was more thankful than ever that I’d sold the five vacuums.

  ***

  I made it home that night at a decent hour and ran into the landlord on the way into the building. He nodded politely at me as I came in and I could tell that he’d completely forgotten about what had happened the night before. My rent check had cleared that day, so I concluded that he must have found the check or realized his error. Either way I was happy that the matter was dealt with. I did feel that he owed me an apology, but then I figured that it wasn’t absolutely necessary and thought nothing of it again.

  When I took Molly out for her walk that night I thought about Donna and the new Italian restaurant and the five vacuums I’d sold that day. I also thought that if our date went well and I paid for dinner that maybe she’d come back to my apartment and help me to achieve it.