You’re drinking coffee and it’s 5:30AM. You’re up this early because you’re still on your old schedule and if you don’t run early you’ll just wear your running clothes all day while you feel sorry for yourself.
You check your pockets for your keys (they’re in there) as you grab your phone and headphones. You check your pocket for your keys (still in there) as you lace up your shoes for the third time, finally getting them right. You check your pocket for your keys (yep, still there) while you tentatively close the door behind you. You will check your pocket for your keys no less than 35 more times this morning.
You think about how you and Jon used to joke about how you live in a “luxury” building and you’d do “luxury” voices as you pointed out all the ordinary things about it. You walk down the luxury hallway past the luxury shared laundry that was luxuriously overpriced and get in your luxurious elevator to the luxury lobby where the man working the front desk today is the one who never remembers you.
You go out the mail room door so your luxurious door man won’t give you a pitiful smile. “I wanted him to move out!” You want to yell but you don’t have to because you prefer the mailroom door anyway.
You turn left and walk to the corner of 12th Avenue and 42nd and the block is deserted except for a luxurious dead rat lying on the sidewalk by the bus stop.
You cross over to the West Side Highway and you are running. You are going north and you pass the Intrepid and you keep running north and you pass the pier where every cruise departing Manhattan leaves from, the hordes of tourists with their enormous roller bags are not blocking the path because it’s too early and so you keep running without having to yell at anyone from Kansas to get out of the way.
You run past the Larry Flynt Hustler club and the spot where Sully Sullenberger crashed the plane into the river probably ten years ago when you were shooting a TV show across the street. You remember thinking everyone was probably dead but then how happy you were when you found out nobody was dead.
You follow the path and it turns into a wooded boardwalk and you keep an eye out for geese who are protecting their nests. You wonder if you should come back here for lunch later so you can watch tourists get attacked by geese. And for a split second you think, “Won’t I be working?” But you won’t because you lost your job recently too.
You check your pocket for your keys.
You think about the time that you and Jon had lunch here and the food was really bad but you had a nice time until you started fighting about the girl whose texts you found on his phone. He insisted they were friends and you knew he was lying. And then you think about how you shouldn’t have dated someone you worked with. And then you remember your mom asking you, “So he got the job and you got the apartment?” And you ignored her joke and explained that they were laying people off due to the pandemic but you leave out the part where Jon didn’t get laid off and she was technically right.
You stop near the bathrooms at 79th street and are relieved to find them open. You head inside and go into the first stall and think about what you have to do today. And you vow that you’ll apply to some places. You vow to actually write cover letters and not just change the details on one depending on where you’re hiring.
While you’re thinking about what a scam cover letters are, you hear a sound in the next stall and your heart stops. For a moment everything is still and you wonder if you’d imagined it. You suddenly realize you no longer want or need to pee and get up, flushing the toilet behind you for no reason other than habit and head to the sink.
Then the door to the other stall slams open. You’re startled and you drop your phone.
A man is rushing towards you and he’s grabbing at your arm, and for a moment all you can think is, am I in the wrong bathroom? And why are you blaming yourself already? He’s in your bathroom god damn it. And he’s scaring you. And then you get angry.
And you are suddenly yelling, “HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!”
You kick out at him and slam your foot into his hip sending him backwards. You kick out again, aiming for the balls. You’re still yelling, “Motherfucker, fuck you, fuck you, I don’t want to deal with this shit. How fucking dare you,” you wonder where this is coming from.
The man falls to the floor and you debate kicking him in the balls again but you turn, pick up your phone, consider washing your hands but instead you stumble through the door and slam it shut behind you.
And you’re outside and you yell at someone, “I was just attacked,” and they stop to ask you if you’re okay and are you okay?
You pull out your phone, the screen is cracked, and for some reason this is what makes you cry. And you don’t want to call the cops. You worry the cops will kill that asshole, and you don’t want him to die.
The nice lady who stopped has flagged down another runner and they’re blocking the doors to the bathroom so no one else tries to use it.
You check your pocket for your keys. They’re still there, and you breathe.
And you think about how you saved yourself.
Eileen Writes Good 