The Bottomless Pit
(or: I Could Never Eat a Bug)
by Matt Hale
“I mean, the whole thing is so weird: like I’m even close to being at that point yet.”
The breakfast rush had just died down and Ellie was spending her all-too-brief fifteen-minute break with Joe, who had come in for breakfast on his way to another glamorous day putting his summa cum laude English degree to work as a clerk at Books Inc. This was a tradition they had on days when his work schedule permitted it. He’d come in around ten and she’d shoot him discreet looks when customers were idiots and then sit down with him when she got her break and they’d talk.
Today, as had regularly been the case lately, Joe was monopolizing the conversation.
“Jonathan keeps talking about having to ‘pitch’—he talks about it like it’s real; like it’s done! But, anyway, he seems to think I should settle on a working title and, yeah, that’s the one I’m thinking...”
“It’s a subtle reference.”
“Yeah. Does it…It doesn’t sound too…I don’t know, everything about this whole process—It just feels stupid to say any of it out loud.”
“No, no.” But then Ellie’s eyes changed in this way they do and her head tilted. “But, I don’t know…”
“What?” Joe felt preemptively humiliated.
“It’s just,” and her eyes widened and her head tilted the other way. “Do you really want to do the gerund-title thing?”
Oh, she had crushed him. Obliterated him! He loved her so much.
He planted an elbow on the table and propped his chin in his palm. All he could manage as yet was a “Hmm…”
“I mean,” she continued, toying with him a little (admit it!), “I know it’s kind of unfair, but…”
“You know, it is unfair.”
She continued, speaking right over him, “…it’s the first thing people see. And I must admit that I myself have bemoaned the trend.”
Joe put on his seriously-pondering-something face. He lifted his head defiantly.
“But wait!” and he held his index finger up, pointed toward the ceiling. “I personally believe that throwing out something one genuinely believes is good so as not to be perceived as bowing to some trend is, in fact, far more reprehensible than actually bowing to said trend.”
Ellie sat up a little straighter. Her eyes said, I see!
“Trends come and go,” Joe continued, “My work, however, is timeless.”
Ellie smiled and, really, what else is there in life but that smile.
With that encouragement, of course Joe went on, really playing up the great-artist-on-his-soapbox thing (basically, yes, making a gleeful ass of himself): “I refuse to to succumb to any trend! And to alter my work to avoid trendiness is simply another form of succumbing.”
She snorted down an erumpent giggle. O, his heart!
“And to those who will dismiss your great work,” she inquired, “unread, based solely on the seemingly hackneyed title?”
“I say, screw ‘em! I need not the patronage of slaves!”
Ellie nodded emphatically and then tilted her head in a totally different way than she had earlier—this was a tilt that made Joe want to leap and twirl and jig. She had approved of his stance—had found it worthy.
Her face changed again and she looked down at her watch. Her break was over and it was also time for him to head off to work. The brutal, banal realities of pecuniary life had once again conspired to tear them apart.
They stood.
“I’ll see you tonight,” she said.
They kissed—a quick, public peck.
“I love you,” he said, terrified as usual by the thought that she probably considered this sacred utterance a perfunctory nicety at this point in their relationship when in fact it was nothing of the kind. Every time he said it he first summoned the entirety of their nine years together and tenderly packed it into a ball at the center of his frontal lobe.
“Love you too,” she said, and he fervently hoped that she did.
Ellie turned around and walked off toward the kitchen. Joe dug into his pocket for some cash to leave as a tip. At the precise moment he tucked a $5 bill under the plate, the front door swung wildly open and there stood a panting young man, his entire body absolutely drenched. It was not raining outside. The young man held onto the door for support, bowed forward—water pouring forth from his hair and clothing, pooling onto the floor in front of him—and took as deep and long a breath as he could manage.
He stood back up and shouted toward the kitchen: “CYNTHIAAAAAAA!”
And it was like the movies: The chatter in the diner stopped completely and everyone looked up at him. If a jukebox had been playing, it would have inexplicably lost power or something.
The swinging kitchen door opened slowly with a creak and a young woman in a waitress uniform, one of Ellie’s coworkers, poked her head out.
Her eyes appraised the dripping young man. She noted the state he was in. Her expression transformed from one of mortified embarrassment to (would you agree, Ellie?) tender concern. She walked out of the kitchen toward him.
“Ronny, what the…Christ, what happened to you?”
“All I know right now…” and he stretched his arms out to her, “All I know is that I love you.”
She took his hands in hers and lowered his arms for him. Her awareness of the crowd—and of the fact that she was at work—was returning to her now and she, not without genuine care and concern, seemed to want to guide him away from public scrutiny.
“Are you okay?”
Ronny placed a hand to her cheek and gently guided her face up. He looked intently into her eyes.
“Do you even remember what we were fighting about?” he pleaded, “Because I don’t even remember…”
She unlocked their eyes and turned her head desperately toward the kitchen. “Ronny…”
“Please! It’s so stupid.”
She looked him in the eye again and she was moved, despite herself.
“Because,” he said, “I love you so much.”
She looked down at their clasping hands and noticed that they were covered with sand. She smiled conspiratorially.
“Ronny, come with me.” And she led him to a corner booth.
As they went off, he was muttering, “So fucking ridiculous. God, Cynthia, I don’t even remember what it was about; I mean do you even remember what it was about…”
They sat down facing each other and held hands across the table.
Joe’s fingers were still resting on the cash he had set down under his plate. He turned his head and found Ellie standing by the swinging kitchen door. They shared a look across the room—kind of a woo, that sure was something look, with grins. Then Joe looked down at his watch and looked back up with an aw shucks face. Ellie nodded; and Joe nodded in response. Then they each headed off for their respective doors.
<END>
