the heaviest feet

He wasn’t drunk enough for this.

November meant cold, nearly-winter cold, and it was only a few minutes’ walk from his door to the edge of the dock, but by the time their shoes hit the planks, Nate could already feel it. “Shit,” he said. The word came out light like a breath. Out here, the water picked up the shine from other houses’ porch lights and otherwise sat black. He imagined it thick like tar. He imagined himself encased. Preserved.

Nate’s fingers played at the hem of his sweater, practicing for the lift. Not yet. He turned, instead, and toed off his Sperries — one foot, then the other. “Alright,” he said, “this is it. Last chance to back out.” His voice was halted, betraying the part of him that hoped he’d come to his senses. That part was getting smaller every day.

“Shit.” Nathan’s voice came out harshly under his breath, getting drowned out by the usual buzz around the city, along with the clicking noises coming from the empty lighter he was holding up to the cigarette currently hanging off the corner of his lips. He shook his head in defeat and tossed it into the next trashcan he passed as his slow steps dragged him through the biting cold. He wasn’t in a rush - work wouldn’t start for another few hours but for some reason he didn’t want to head back to his apartment right now. Some days he just couldn’t stand it, the emptiness of it with his few belongings all over the place in an organized mess. It was almost too small, too, even for him and with the bit of money he made there was no way for him to be able to decorate it and make a proper home out of it right now. With a deep sigh, Nathan reached for the cigarette to hold it between his fingers and clenched his jaw before approaching the next best person to hesitatingly speak up. “Hey! Uhm, sorry to bother you but uh - do you maybe got a light for me? Mine kinda gave up, I guess…”

He was on his way home from the pharmacy. Due for a refill -- his first refill for this dose, because Dr. Tempano said to stay the course -- and every time he took a step, the pills shimmied and shook in the folded-over white paper bag. Like percussion for the sidewalk, or the rattling of something loose in his head. Screws, he thought. Loose screws. 

That might’ve been funny, once. Tonight, it barely moved his mouth. 

Nate was still doing a pretty good job of keeping the house smoke-free. That meant he had to do all his smoking outside, out on the porch or on the sidewalk on nights like these, on lazy, languid strolls back towards the lake. He stopped at an intersection, where the crosswalk light was orange, DON’T WALK, and he pulled a pack of American Spirits out of his jacket pocket. It was the first pack he'd ever bought, still only six cigarettes down -- and he was about to fold the top over when someone asked for a light. 

Instinctively, he angled the pack closer to his body. Like a kid getting caught with a flask in his hand; smoking was always gonna be shameful, even if he’d picked it up twenty years late. “Sure.” The sky wasn’t dark yet, but it wasn’t blue, either. The streetlights had yet to hum on. He couldn’t really see the guy, or he wasn’t really looking, or -- let’s face it, Nate wasn’t as perceptive as he used to be. He handed over the lighter without much of a thought, one of those extra-small gas-station Bics that he could cover completely in his palm. "It’s finicky,” he said, as a sort of preemptive apology. “Cheap, but that’s what I paid for. I have to decide if I’m a smoker before I buy anything real.” 

“Do you mind grabbing that book for me? Grendel, John Gardner,” Nick asked the person next to him. The used book store in the heart of Bellevue was significantly less spacious than the typical chain store or even the library in the city, floor to ceiling shelves creating mazes throughout the building that were often hard to maneuver with anyone else around in the shop. “I’ve been looking all over the place for a copy of it for my personal library.” 

There was something about the smell. New bookstores were plastic-wrapped, sterile; libraries were visitor centers, dusted and air-freshened and inspected by the hour. Old bookstores -- used bookstores -- were something else entirely. It was the organic smell of thinning paper and glue that could get a guy to spend half his day sitting in the stacks. 

He wasn’t the only one who thought so. “Grendel,” he repeated to himself, quietly. It was a way to capture the information: Grendel, Gardner, Grendel, Gardner, until his eyes found the title on the spine. “That’s the... fairy tale?” With the witch, and the gingerbread house? He knew it from somewhere, but that didn’t sound correct. 

It wasn’t a party; it was a benefit. Everyone there had paid for their seat at the table, and every seat went towards the Pacific Science Center, and that meant he was doing good just by agreeing to speak. Nathan knew that. It was an honor to be asked, and Nathan knew that, too. He just preferred the elementary schools, that’s all. A hundred second-graders sitting cross-legged in a gymnasium with their hands stretched up to the ceiling so he’d call on them, every question like was it pretty? and did you float outside? and what did you do if you had to pee? 

It was easier to be interesting when kids supplied the enthusiasm. 

At least his speech was over now, and there were just the next couple of hours to fill. And there was an open bar included in admission. Nate had never been invisible, though he’d always kind of tried -- even on the nights he didn’t take center-stage, he was still tall and sturdy and noticeable. Severe, Winnie had told him once. She said it was something about his face. So maybe he wasn’t going to successfully sneak away a little early, tonight. He could still step out into the hallway for a second, between handshakes and head-nods. Quiet when the door clicked shut. Nate looked at his reflection, faint in the glass of a framed portrait, and swirled his vodka soda in its glass. 

The door opened and shut again, and he turned towards the sound. It took a second. Maybe two. Nate would’ve kept to himself, smiled that straight-line smile and said nothing at all, except something about her was familiar; he lingered until he figured it out, and then he blinked. “Oh,” he said. “You’re the--you worked on my suit, right? This suit?”