Greetings to you, Dear Friends, Strangers and Otherwise.
This being Thanksgiving Week, I’m going to dedicate this Blog Thing to a theme of Gratitude.
I recognize that a habitual complaint of mine is geared toward my places of employment, past and present. Because I fancy myself an artist, a free spirit, a seeker of spiritual matters, these various office jobs can really throw a monkey-wrench into what I feel is my natural way of being. However, these jobs do serve a purpose. Yes, yes – of course they are a means to earn money and support myself in the world - but more importantly – they supply a vast assortment of human interaction which leads to the introspection necessary in order to foster positive personal growth.
So while these office jobs are mostly a giant pain in my ass, I will forever be grateful for my life’s path leading me to one job in particular. For without that job, I would never have met Hiram.
Back then, The H-man was a tender babe of 27. I was a project manager’s assistant at a chaotic contracting firm. A frenzied kinda joint. I had heard that they were gonna be hiring a temp to handle some of the clerical overflow.
Enter Hiram: THE TEMP. His very first day and there he is: Strutting past my desk with such energetic ferocity that all of my papers blow up in the air. I’ve been absorbed in a phone call and I look up just in time to catch part of his profile, then his back, and then he is WHOOSH - careening down the corridor before vanishing into a supply room. I can hear him cackling wildly to somebody in there. Jeez. Dude’s sure made himself right at home.
He is 4 years younger than me and the lad dresses with distinct self-awareness, the kind that screams MIRA, MIRA - LOOK AT ME!! Office protocol be damned, he is resplendent in vests loudly adorned with colorful cartoon characters. Silk neck-ties from the Warner Brothers Collection. Tightest jeans you ever saw. He owns at least 50 pairs of designer (and faux-designer) shoes and sneakers and twice as many jaunty hats, visors and caps. Underneath these caps, his shimmering black hair bounces with his every step - with each ecstatic hoot of his incomparable laughter.
And there is LOTS of braying laughter coming from this boy. When Hiram laughs he flings his head back and he throws his whole body into it. When he finds something even mildly amusing (altho’ nothing is ever too MILD where he is concerned…) his mouth opens inconceivably wide and he shakes the fucking rafters with that laugh of his. It’s a strangled war-cry, a groaning scream of pure joy. He strives to make YOU laugh from HIS laugh alone, never mind what the hell he’s laughing AT. I have never known anyone who loves to laugh the way Hiram does. He also has the arrestingly tender eyes of a doe, or maybe a fawn. They are large, almond-shaped and of the warmest chestnut brown, with lush lashes that I will forever covet.
And he gets on my goddamn nerves. Well, at first he does. But it’s not really his fault. I suppose I am short-tempered, as back then, my first marriage was completely fried. It’s a case of two people having grown irreparably apart, but neither of us is addressing it properly and it’s been taking its toll on my nerves. Big time.
So Hiram comes along just when I’m going thru a personal shit-storm on the home-front. He sits right behind me and on bad days, I can be downright snotty to him. Especially when I’m trying to be somewhat constructive on the job, haven’t slept well and he’s yelling in Spanish to his Mami on the telephone. He calls his mother like 6 times a day, asking pertinent questions about the Latino soap operas that they both follow. He also bursts into impromptu loud singing. A lot of Madonna and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. You know. My favorites….
Sometimes I know I wound him with my crappy attitude. But he brushes it off, won’t let me get him down. He sings louder and takes to calling me Blanche. He’s a huge old-movie buff and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE (featuring Joan Crawford and Betty Davis) is one of his all-time favorites. He says I make a perfect nasty cunt like Betty Davis when she’s victimizing the invalid, Blanche (Crawford). So now whenever I give Hiram ‘tude, he makes big, round, bug-eyes at me and bellows both parts…
Crawford: “You wouldn’t be able to do these AWFUL things to me if I weren’t still in this chair!”
Davis: “BUT-CHA AAARE, BLANCHE!!!! YA AAAAARE IN THAT CHAY-UHHH!!”
And no matter HOW shitty my day is going, there’s no way I can keep a straight face thru that. Not possible. I dare anyone to try.
He is a most empathetic person, effortlessly attuned to others moods. When I am feeling down, he’ll glide by my desk and either give my neck an affectionate little squeeze or drop some hard candy on my computer keyboard as I type, blowing kisses in his wake, performing an overblown Diva-swagger that he knows will make me double over with the giggles.
Hiram’s ‘office temp’ status is temporary in and of itself. He is soon hired as a full-time employee. His presence in the office, however flamboyantly distracting, has become a company requirement. Especially for me. He has sung, swaggered and charmed his way into my heart with a vengeance and now there is no turning back…
To be continued…
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