Pathetic

Keep your head up. Be aware of your surroundings. Trust your instincts.

I had certainly been subjected to enough episodes of Oprah looping endlessly in the staff lounge to know all of this, but, of course, I did none of it.

I was angry, hurt, and in a hurry to get the hell out of there, so when the first blow hit me, it didn't quite register. I mean, it registered with my head, of course, but not my mind. I fell to my knees and clutched at my skull, paperwork cascading around me and a warm stickiness that could only be blood seeping through my fingers.

Did I bump into something? Something behind me? I shook my head, trying to clear it, but my thoughts remained thick and muddled. I heard a shuffle of feet, and a spike of fear, cold and electric, shot up my spine. Someone was there.

"House?" I called hopefully. Maybe it was a prank. A pretty funny one, too. Let's hide from Wilson and jump him in the parking lot; and just to make it seem legitimate, let's give him a concussion, too!

An unfamiliar pair of shoes came into view. I felt sick. Jesus Christ! I don't have any money on me and I drive a shit car!

"What do you want?" I asked, trying (and most likely succeeding) to sound scared and humble.

They answered with another thump to the back of my head. I hit the pavement face-first, my arms too slow to break my fall. I may have thrown up then, I'm not sure.

He fished through my pockets and I lay still, eyes closed, pretending to be unconscious. The jingle of my keys signaled the end of the pat down, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I had gotten off lucky.

Then he kicked me in the ribs. Hard.

I threw up then, for sure.

I lay there for what felt like forever, terrified that he was waiting nearby to finish me off. A car drove by and I shrank down, praying that he wouldn't run me over. I strained to hear over my own raspy breathing, but could discern nothing but the steady drip, drip of water somewhere to my left.

When I was reasonably sure he was gone for good, I struggled to get my legs up underneath me. The pain in my side was excruciating, and I wondered if he'd managed to bruise my lung, or worse. The sharp stab that accompanied each breath could mean that a broken rib had penetrated my chest wall and punctured my lung. It would just be a matter of time before it collapsed and I suffocated, here on the concrete floor.

I gave a mighty push with my left arm and almost managed to achieve verticality when my loafers slipped in something slick (Oil? Blood? Vomit?) and I went down again, this time landing on my bruised ribs.

Would you think less of me if I told you that I cried? Because I did. Not so much because of the pain, but because I thought I had lost everything that day. Dying in a pool of my own bodily fluids would be a fitting end to the shittiest day of my life: my fortieth birthday.

"I'm sorry," I said to nobody and to myself. "I'm so sorry."

I came into this world pink and shiny with potential, and in forty short years I have managed to fail spectacularly at everything I've attempted.

"I'm sorry." That's what I said when I arrived home early to find my wife fellating another man. I'm not sure what I was sorry for, mind you. For coming home early? For not knocking on my own front door before entering? For marrying a whore? No, that's not fair. I wasn't giving her what she needed, so she found it elsewhere. I suppose that was the reason for my apology.

I did it to all of my wives. I was just unable to fulfill them. Or, more accurately, I was unable to be fulfilled by them, so I eventually just stopped trying. You can only fake something for so long, until you both know it's false, and at that point there's no reason to keep at it. I'm sorry, I'd say, as they were packing their bags, and they would nod; they understood, and they were sorry too.

"I'm sorry," is what I told the maid at the hotel this morning when she walked in on me while I was in the shower. Granted, I was a little … preoccupied with myself, so I may not have heard her knock, but really, I had nothing to apologize for. They don't exactly make a sign for the door that reads: "Caution: lonely, pathetic man whacking off in the shower. Enter at your own risk!"

It's probably my Jewish upbringing. Guilt is tightly woven into the fabric of my being.

I feel at fault when bums ask me for money. I always give them some. I flush with shame when I go across the border, convinced that the Customs officer will find something illegal on me, despite the fact that I don't steal, poach, or use recreational drugs.

Hell, I feel guilty when I don't rotate my ties. As if the blue one with the orange stripes knows that it's his turn to be worn and spirals into a depression when I wear the brown one instead.

And even before I was living at the hotel I had gotten in the habit of sending out my laundry, because separating the lights from the darks seemed unfair. Racist. Would my clothes hold it against me, even if the loads were separate, yet equal?

And now I'm sorry that I couldn't leave well enough alone. I had always told myself that I'd wait. That I wouldn't push it. If it were meant to be, then it would happen, and if it weren't meant to be, then I was better off without it.

Of course, it was always easier to tell myself that when I had someone. Then I wasn't pathetic; I was patient. I'd just wait. Bide my time. But I've been alone for a while now, and it feels less like waiting and more like dying. Not literally, of course, but every day that goes by is one more day closer to me being dead and one more day of me being unhappy. Does that even make sense?

I have always been a flirtatious person. I learned early in life that a well-placed smile or touch on the arm can open more doors than good breeding or a prestigious education ever could. I flirted with teachers, I flirted with fellow students, I flirted with old ladies and young girls alike.

Don't get me wrong - this flirting wasn't sexual, per se. I mean, there is an underlying current of sensual tension, but I wasn't trying to score with most of these people; I was just trying to connect. To put them at ease. To bridge the gap that lies between most people who don't know each other well.

When I came to Princeton Plainsborough, I had no reason to change. I flirted with Cuddy, who got me on the board of directors; I flirted with my terminal cases, to let them know that they were still alive and desirable; hell, I even flirted with House, after the infarction (for much the same reason) until one day, House flirted back.

It was subtle at first: a raised eyebrow, a sly grin. Sometimes we would brush shoulders when walking down the corridors. Sometimes, he would stand behind me, and then lean in, under the auspices of reading over my shoulder.

I'm sure he would deny it, if confronted, but a life-long flirt knows the signs when he sees them: a light touch on my forearm, a coy look downwards, a tilt of his head to expose his neck. I ignored it at first, thinking he probably flirted with everyone, but then I realized that he didn't. He LEERED at people. He was inappropriate with large-breasted women. He was crass and suggestive, but he did not flirt.

I should have left it at that, but once I noticed these behaviours, I couldn't un-notice them. That bell could not be un-rung. And speaking of things that cannot be undone, I rang the mother of all bells this afternoon.

We'd had a bit of an argument first. Nothing serious, mind you, more of a verbal sparring really, but I was a bit irked. Probably because House was right, and he just had to gloat. I had left his office for the sanctuary of my own, but he clumped right behind me, debating (with himself) whether his superior intelligence and dashing good looks could be attributed to genetics or were environmentally acquired.

I suggested that perhaps they were actually the result of a drug-induced hallucination, but then stopped short. On my desk was a birthday cake. Nothing fancy, just a store-bought chocolate and butter cream confection, but I was amazed that somebody had actually remembered. Well, not just somebody, but House. On top of the cake, in loopy yellow letters, it read: "Jimmy's gettin' old." Beneath that, in red and blue icing, was a sugary pocket protector.

"House, you old softie," I said, "I didn't know you cared."

"I don't," he replied, grinning, "I just wanted the sugar high." He made to push past me and take a swipe of the icing, but I stepped in the way to shield my cake. He then went to push me out of the way, but I resisted. I don't know if it was to get back at him for winning our last argument, or just because it was MY cake, damnit, and if anyone should get to eat just the icing, it should be ME!

He went left, and I blocked. He went right, I blocked again. He faked left, but went right, and I saw his fake and blocked him anyway. Then he cracked me on the shins with his cane and swiped my icing while I flinched. I grabbed his arm and we struggled over his butter-creamed fingers, like some bizarre arm wrestle, both of us shaking with the effort. Eventually he gave in, letting his arm go slack, but not before smearing a blob of icing on my nose. His fingers hovered there a moment, and before I could think things through, they were in my mouth and I was sucking the sugary sweetness from them.

I looked to House, and his face was running the gambit from shocked to pleased, with stops along the way in perplexed and scandalized. He pulled his hand away, his fingers making an audible pop as they left my mouth. They hung between us - still damp with my saliva - as we both stared at each other, slack-jawed and wide-eyed.

Probably no more than a second elapsed, but a lifetime of possibilities seemed to be slipping through my fingers. It was now or never. Now or never. Now or never. The seal had been broken. The proverbial can of worms was open and spilled. Now or never.

I grabbed his shoulders, screwed my eyes shut, and pressed my mouth to his, sending up a silent prayer that he would accept. That he would want this as much as I did.

At first, there was nothing; only the firm line of his mouth. Then it softened, his lips yielding to mine, and his hands - trapped between us - grabbed the cloth of my lab coat and pulled me closer. I gripped back and tentatively swiped at his mouth with my tongue. His lips parted, his own tongue hesitating, unsure, until it met mine, and they explored: sliding, touching, tasting.

A sudden shove knocked the wind out of me and sent me backwards with such force that I hit the desk with the backs of my thighs, almost tumbling onto my cake.

"What the fuck was that?" he spat, wiping his mouth on the shoulder of his shirt. "What the hell are you thinking?"

It was a legitimate question, but one that I had no answer for.

"It was nothing," I mumbled into my chest, "just a birthday…kiss." I cringed and shrugged at the lie. It wasn't nothing…you kissed me back. His pupils were so dilated that his eyes were almost black, and there was a small tremor in his hand as he leveled an accusing finger at me.

"You're pathetic. So, you've worked your way through the entire female staff, and now I'm next on your list?"

"I-I'm not pathetic," I stammered, hurt but not surprised at his reaction.

"I understand that you have a compulsion to fix people , but the next time you try to entangle somebody in your web of warm fuzzies, remember, you're oh for three in the relationship game. Not good odds from where I'm standing."

"B-but I-"

"You're forty years old and you live in a fucking hotel! Talk about issues! Perhaps you should take care of your own baggage before you try and play bell-boy to anyone else's."

I took a step towards him, but he put up his hands, palms out.

"I'm sure that being stuck in 'the closet' didn't exactly help your marriages either."

"But-"

"Leave me alone, you're pathetic."

I stumbled over a few more words of protest, but he had turned and walked away.


(three more chapters to come)