Ray
Fewer sights are stranger than a 40-year old man riding a 10-speed bike and smoking a cigarette, but that’s what I get to see every morning at 5 o’clock when I come to work. They say he’s a big drunk, but he seems nice enough to me when he comes in for his Marlboros or his 84-ounce Big Gulp. He goes by Ray and he’s got a slew of DWIs behind him, thus the ridiculous 10-speed. He works across the alley at Clark Printing, no doubt doing something manual. If you’re 40 and riding a 10-speed bike and you don’t have on “look, I’m exercising” clothes, they won’t let you into the office. You need some stupid spandex shorts or a $50 helmet that looks like a suppository. If you got shit like that on, you can be a man in the middle of his life and still ride a bike like a kid—as long as you make it seem like work somehow. If you look like you WANT to ride a bike or, worse, HAVE to ride a bike, why, then you’re either a kook or a loser.
Ray is neither. If he’s a drunk he’s got it well under control because he shows up every goddamn day and that’s half the battle, they say. Besides, I know Clark of Clark Printing and he seems like a fucking weirdo to me. If I worked for him, I’d probably be a drunk too.
Clark, like everyone in South Dakota with too much money, drives around in a giant truck and/or SUV and pretends to be surprised at the price of gas. He’s too clean, too. Never a bit of stubble or a wrinkle on his shirt. What’s up with that? Does he perpetually have a hot date or something? He strikes me as both creepy and conventional, which is hard to get my head around.
Ray’s cool, though. Every morning before he comes into the store for his cigarettes, he courteously puts out the one he’s smoking against the wall and throws it into the parking lot. There must be a 100 butts out there that the boss wants me to sweep up, but I keep “forgetting” to do it because I’m always so “busy”. They stay out there, a sort of testament.
“How ya doin’ this mornin?’” he says every goddamn day. It’s funny. Sometimes, before he has a chance to open his mouth, I say “I’m doin’ fine this mornin’. How YOU doin’ this mornin’?” We laugh and then he shakes his head and tells me about how hungover he is. I agree that I, too, am hungover and we both mutter “shit” and shake our heads slowly. Even though I feel kinship with Ray, I would never admit to him that I’m still drunk and in fact have Bud Light in my coffee mug. What he doesn’t know won’t kill him.
So he gets his smokes and that comically large pop we sell and walks out the door, never to be seen again until an hour later when he’s back for a refill at half the price. After that I usually don’t see him again until about an hour later when in he comes for another refill. On like this till my shift’s over.
Ray gives me hope for some weird reason. If I ever seem him scrubbed up and in a suit and walking around pretending to give a shit I swear I’ll put a shotgun in my mouth and blow my fucking brains out all over the nearest mission statement.
All hail Ray and his stupid 10-speed bike and his smoker’s cough and his bloodshot eyes. Are we any better or are we just full of shit?
