Co-Workers and Beyond
It continues, the conversation with a virus at its core.
Derick Fallon dozed off seconds before his accident, detoured through a dealership and then proceeded to take off the rear bumpers of eight brand-spanking new Cadillacs.
“But you’re okay,” I tell him. “That’s the important thing.”
Derick concedes that if he had respected the lockdown, he wouldn’t have been on the road to have an accident. I don’t point out that staying on the road would also have played a real preventative role.
“I just couldn’t sleep,” he actually says.
Irony shows no mercy.
Some of the callers I know personally. Before the days of the virus, we worked in the same office. One of these is Rembert. He called me to make tentative plans for a round of golf sometime in the near future. He says he is going nuts cooped up in the house with the wife and three kids. He says, “I just need something to look forward to beyond.”
Unfortunately, our future plans hinge on Rembert, whose first name I don’t know and didn’t think to ask for when I had him on the phone because I was so preoccupied with his use of the word beyond.
Only now do I wonder why we all call him Rembert. How did that start? Maybe he doesn’t have a second name. Like Madonna or Cher. I wonder if the wife and kids have a second name beyond. In the company directory, there are five Remberts listed.
I can’t imagine inviting five Remberts to play eighteen holes of golf just to make certain the one who invited me is included. And just like that, I have imagined it!
I take the natural next step and wonder how many in the five-member household respond when someone shouts “Yo, Rembert.”
In the middle of it all, I get a call from another co-worker, Teri Lin. Like everyone else in lockdown, she is trying to look beyond.
“Loch, I am so depressed.”
“It’s rough not seeing me for such a long time.” I laugh.
“It really is. Do you have a minute?”
I would give Teri Lin the rest of the workday, if she would let me. We have wonderful animated conversations that take me out of the storms and doldrums of the workday. We have done a few things outside the office as friends. And we have been friends long enough for me to know that she is not what I am looking for in a woman. Nevertheless.
“It is so hard not going out,” she laments. “So unfair, when the weather is nice and the mean government says we are supposed to practice social-distancing.”
“Yeah. I think the CDC says that too.”
“Everybody is trying to take advantage of the situation.”
“I don’t think there is anything in this for the Center of Disease Control. They are simply telling us how to stay safe. Do you ever play the online game Words With Friends?”
Teri Lin laughs. “Oh, I needed that Loch.”
“What?” Seriously.
“Your little games. That’s just another way to spy on us to make certain we are staying six feet apart.”
“I know games that don’t require a smart phone. I’m thinking of a word with seven letters.”
“More games.” Teri Lin huffs. “I want to feel the sand between my toes, lime at the back of my throat. I want to spend money at the traveling hot-dog kiosks at Myrtle Beach.”
“That’s sounds great. A friend of mine actually moved to Myrtle Beach to work one of those hot-dog kiosks.”
“Really, Loch?” Her voice is full of sunshine and ocean.
“Oh yeah. He makes his own fresh chili each morning and has fourteen bins of onion, mustard and other fixings.”
“You are making me so hungry.”
“Unfortunately, right now he and all the fixings are in lockdown.”
Teri Lin moans. “I would give anything for a real hot-dog.”
“I miss the simple things too. I didn’t expect to miss them. But then, I didn’t expect that six feet would come between us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You. I miss seeing Teri Lin in the office, less than one foot away from me.”
“Why do you miss Teri Lin?” Teri Lin asks.
“She is my friend with all the fixings. And I’m hoping she will stay inside until this corona business passes.”
“What if it doesn’t pass, Loch?” I can hear the tear in her voice.
I tell her what I tell everyone. “I’ll make a few calls. I’ll make something happen. Maybe I’ll swing by to pick you up in my four-pedal hot-dog kiosk.”
She laughs like that first sunny day out of lockdown. “I’ll bring the napkins.”
BYO Hot-dog.