Computer Morning

The following is more of a character study than a story, dear readers.

Computer Morning

Saturday is an El train approaching, passing, and speeding by. It arrives with such pleasurable anticipation. The morning sees a bare foot touching an already warmed wooden floor. It wakens one with coffee, pancakes, and relaxing yawns. But then, like a redball freight express, it races through the minutes, gaining speed. The coffeepot gets drained, a couple of chores are checked off the list, sandwiches and orange slices slide across the luncheon table, and the afternoon light begins to dim. Then the redball hugs the rails, and that precious Saturday is shortly only a distant memory.

Such was the Saturday when five huge boxes of electronics sat on the carpet of my office. A friend of a friend would be dropping by later to unpack them and assemble my new Gateway computer.

As I waited for his arrival, my yellow flowered sheets were plumping nicely in the dryer, going around and around, relaxing in the heat. The carpets had been vacuumed and displayed fresh patterns of dark and light. I had shifted the dust around more neatly on my piano, the top of the TV, and my fireplace mantel, and my friend had come over. We were sharing the last of the coffee, when the doorbell rang. Jim, the computer expert, had arrived.

If I’d had reservations about opening the door to a stranger, the sight of the rounded Irishman who stood there in his scruffy jogging shoes -- no more than five-foot-two, would have eased my worry. His eyes smiled, his chin creased into curved echoes of his lips, and his cheeks were flushed pink as Kris Kringles'.

Jim’s eyes darted around as he entered. “Mary’s not here?” he questioned, his voice cracking nervously.

I smiled and called out to our mutual friend. She had been sitting in the living room, trying to finish a chapter of a library book -- the latest mystery of Elizabeth Peters. Mary put down her book and came into the office to join us.

Seeing her, Jim relaxed into even more circles of smiles. His body wagged like a puppy’s tail, and he started in to talk. Jim launched into a monologue about his four teenaged boys who were buying a gas station in town. His body puffed up with pride. He threw his head back, and looked up at Mary and me, asking if we ever bought gas down at the corner.

The station, a newly refurbished Mobil not far from my house, was not a busy one, but it had cornered its own clientele of locals who insisted on purchasing all their gasoline there despite its slightly higher prices. The young men gave service with smiles and a friendly hometown atmosphere. I felt guilty as I admitted I bought my gasoline cheaply and at random.

Jim turned to plant my keyboard in a different spot. He tugged at the monitor, moving it back against the modular piece of furniture. “Only need an inch between the monitor and the wood,” he said.

I was watching the confidence of Jim’s movements. No hesitation halted his motions, nor did he need the diagrams and directions I had laid out on the chair for him.

He continued talking about the service station, and his hands kept time with his words. They coiled and uncoiled wires, and matched the ends red-to-red, yellow-to-yellow, and green-to-green. Jim interspersed his monologue about the gas station with directions and explanations. “See how easy it is,” became a steady refrain.

I kept remembering how I’d attached the stand onto the monitor the night before. I't had taken me half an hour of reading and rereading the directions, fretting over them while wondering why the picture didn’t look the same as the reality. My hands had been stiff and awkward, as I’d struggled to insert A to B without breaking a piece out of A or B.

I’d been successful. The monitor sat neatly on its stand, ready for Jim’s skilled fingers to attach it to the rest of the paraphernalia, but the stiffness in my back from the tension of the day before reminded me that despite what Jim kept telling me, assembling computers wasn’t easy, not when you were unsure of what you were doing.

Jim finished making all the connections and bent down to plug the surge protector in. When he came back up, his T-shirt with the words, “Computers turn me on," was still neatly tucked into his faded jeans, and his belt was still at half-mast beneath the overhang. Jim was puffing dangerously, at a rate of about three heavy breaths per word. It didn’t stop him from talking.

“I’m a pessimist,” he told us. He laughed as he said it, and his jowl shook with the rhythm of his belly. “That way, no one ever disappoints me,” he continued. His eyes scanned our faces, checking to see that Mary and I were listening.

I nodded, but my eyes were fascinated by the way Jim’s curly red-gold hair vibrated with the rest of his body. The curls flopped about invitingly. One blonde spiral hung down over his forehead. I had a sudden urge to stretch out my hand and touch it, curious as to its texture.

Jim laughed again. The sound of it was quieter and shorter in duration than one would expect. His barrel of a chest looked like it would rumble in cavernous bellows at a bass or a baritone depth, but Jim’s laugh was a tenor, and that laughter did not match the rhythm of his body. It was a quick clap like a wave crashing against a bouldered cliff. Then came the withdrawal, a mighty sucking in of all the loosened glee, a series of heavy puffing gasps, and a rippling aftertaste as his body continued to gyrate. I could feel Jim’s laughter even after it was silent. It rampaged through the floor beneath my feet, bubbling and churning.

When the echoes died away and Jim was once more telling us about his sons, my eyes were drawn to watching Jim’s hands. Even with the flow of words running down his body into the air around us, Jim's fingers continued their steady connecting. His hands seemed separate from his jiggling body. They weren’t squatty or bloated. Jim’s hands were strong and quick. They were a magician’s hands performing magic on my plastic and metal electronic boxes.

Lights had started popping on and off. The printer began to hum. The monitor displayed the vivid blue of Windows. A stick figure in the corner of the screen started goggling its eyes up and down, appearing to ask how it could help us.

“I’ve been married twenty-seven years,” Jim was telling us as he tested the printer’s connections.

I watched a paper slip out of the printer into the valley in its top. The paper was filled with charts and words of a test pattern. Beside me, my friend, Mary, ignored the printout. She was nodding her head that she knew how long Jim had been married.

“I have no complaints,” Jim continued. “Even though I’ve still got the four sons hanging around the house too often,” he giggled a laugh. “Of course, as I told you, I’m a pessimist. The marriage probably won’t last!”

Once more his body convulsed into a strange giant guffaw with the resulting period of ripples. Jim's eyes, gray-blue as seawater, twinkled as brightly if sunshine illuminated them.

There wasn’t much more for Jim to do. The computer was up; the screen was empty and waiting. The googly-eyed paperclip man on the Windows screen raised his eyebrows, questioning my needs.

Jim turned to face me. His eyes smiled as he handed me his business card. “You probably won’t need any help,” he said, “but I’m a pessimist, so this is just in case..."

Jim’s body continued to jiggle and shake as he heaved himself out through my front door. He was panting again, but the currents of his laughter never stopped. I watched as he hoisted himself up into his green and tan camouflaged jeep. He rolled down the window, breathing harder than ever, and I heard one last guffaw as he waved goodbye.

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