Scene 5: "Anticlimax"

It is 8:52 am on Friday, August 11th, and the the fog still hangs low and heavy in the San Francisco sky. He laces up his shoes, walks down the stairs to the front door, and at long last, sets out on his 43rd and final walk in to the office. Come Sunday, it will finally be time to go home. It turns out that nine weeks was all that he could bear. Three days earlier, he had asked his supervisors if he could leave a week early, and they gave their seal of approval. There was no conflict, and very little questioning. It was so easy, in fact, that he regretted waiting until the 9th week of this wasteful, painstaking robbery of time that they call an internship to bring it up. He probably could have gone home weeks ago, but they all implanted some implicit, virtuous notion of an obligation in his mind that took him nine weeks to decode as a facade. He is ten minutes into the commute when he once again arrives at the steep, grueling San Francisco hill that lies between him and the office. The grade is so intense that stairs align the road instead of a sidewalk, and it looks nearly vertical if viewed from a distance. He marches up each step one by one, recalling the story of Sisyphus and remembering all the mornings that he felt as if he embodied it. But this time, his ascent feels more like Rocky’s, and when he arrives at the top of the hill and looks over the city skyline, he is entirely ready to seize his long-anticipated day of redemption. The view, to his disappointment, is still cut off by the haze of the morning fog, but the gravity of the moment still remains, and he takes note of it as he walks in the door and awaits the elevator one last time. Upon entrance, he eyes down the chair for his final battle, replaying all the hundreds of hours that he had spent shackled to it. Every morning, it had mocked him, but he is about to win the war, and he takes great delight in his hard-fought sense of victory.

By 11 o’clock, the office is only half full, and with the open-floored layout and the vacant seats strewn about the room, it feels even emptier. Several employees are off on long weekends or vacations, which disappoints him because, although he isn’t expecting any farewell parade, he at least wants an audience to witness the epic moment of triumph that will come when he finally exits the office doors for the final time. He had visualized the moment several times, and he feels ready, and deserving, of the opportunity to revel in its significance. But alas, it appears that he will have to settle for a sparser crowd than he envisioned. He makes his rounds to those that are present, holding the script together for one last day and thanking everyone for “a great summer” and “a wonderful opportunity.” He expresses the same gratitude to his supervisors, who are equally oblivious to the sheer and utter bullshit that he yaks out of his mouth. They complement him for his enthusiasm and productivity, and they ask him to keep in touch. He chokes back the laughter that bubbles in his esophagus, and he assures them that he would indeed stay in contact. They seem inexplicably nostalgic when they hug him goodbye; there was never any depth in their relationships with him. But he allows them to indulge in their own idealized moment of closure, and he embraces them as if they had spent decades working side-by-side. The clock is almost up, and he returns to his desk to pack up his belongings.

He pushes the chair in with pronounced emphasis, audibly zips his bag so as to indicate his imminent departure, and takes a deep, relieving breath in preparation for the big moment. He scans the entire office, lingering to see if anybody will take notice, but everyone stays immersed in their own screens, focused on their own separate experiences. As he paces towards the door, he puts in his headphones and presses play on Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” – a predetermined soundtrack that he planned on accompanying him through this momentous point in time. He approaches the front desk and hands over the key card, turning around one last time in search of a pair of eyeballs or even a parting nod, but he there is nothing to meet his glance. He starts towards the door.

"For what is a man, what has he got."

He pulls open the door and steps through, clawing for his long-awaited moment of triumph.

"If not himself, then he has naught."

The elevator arrives right away, but there is nobody inside. It takes him straight to the lobby.

"To say the things he truly feels, and not the words of one who kneels."

The doors part, and he walks through the lobby.

"The record shows I took the blows and did it my way."

The closing verse rings loudly in his ears as he exits the building. Upon walking out, he displays a liberating smile to go along with a deep exhale, just as he had pictured, but his thirst for glory remains strikingly unfulfilled. A few steps into his march from the office, the song concludes, and a fierce blast of San Francisco wind hits him head on, prompting him to turn his back to the gust and shield his face from the powerful impact. He trudges all the way back to his apartment through the blustery conditions, panicking as his moment of exaltation flees him like a mishandled balloon floating hopelessly into the atmosphere. Despite his greatest and most frantic attempts to salvage this moment, he is left to feel nothing – an emptiness that he is keen to ignore, and a dissonance that he is eager to deflect. But he is slowly failing.

This vacant feeling persists into the night, and although he can no longer ignore it, he also refuses to give in to it. After all, this was supposed to be the rewarding part – the part that he had earned after the world had tested him and treated him like shit. He refuses to let it be tainted, so he reaches for the fridge and grabs the half empty bottle of wine that sits on the shelf. He sits in his chair and drinks the whole thing. Then, in desperate pursuit of the day’s once hopeful narrative, he decides to swallow his pride and venture out alone. He had never done this before, but it had become the only option. He snaps on his watch, ekes out the bottle’s remaining drops, and sets out for The Silver Cloud – a karaoke bar in the heart of the Marina.

Out front, there is a brilliant neon sign, and an enticing red carpet that extends from the front steps in through the doorway. He walks it inside, and heads straight for the sign-up sheet – the alcohol beginning to take his mind away. The pseudo name that he scribbles down is mostly for effect, but it is also to distance himself from the shame of his loneliness. It’s a 20-minute wait to sing, so he walks through the dimly lit floor towards the wooden bar, and flags down the server.

“Can I get a gin and tonic please?”

“Sure thing hun, you here by yourself?”

“Well I was here with my roommates but they had to go. I was already signed up though, so I’m just gonna wait it out.”

He wonders if she can see through his masquerade, and for a moment, it feels as though everyone is looking at him. But by the time he looks back up, she’s already moved on to another patron.

He sits on the barstool and nurses the gin and tonic, taking pleasure, for once, in the aura of his solitude. The romanticized image of a mysterious and lonely man pondering life while slowly sipping a gin and tonic at the counter of a dimly lit grunge bar is one that he had always fantasized about. And now, he gets to live it, and he soaks himself in every second of it. His pseudo name is called three times before he awakens from his fantasy, and suddenly, he is walking up to the microphone, morphing himself into a new character for the oncoming performance. The stage lights are blinding, and he struggles to prop up his phone at an angle that would allow for the show’s filming, but eventually, he manages.

“Champagne Supernova,” he announces in a British accent.

The crowd buzzes with anticipation, and for once, they are all looking at him. He does his best to emulate the iconic stance of Oasis’s lead singer, which he had seen on Supersonic – hands locked behind his back, head and shoulders leaning forward into the mic, and hips slightly bent to one side. In singing the lyrics, he also attempts to replicate the distinct and spirited voice that he had come to identify with so strongly over the summer. He is comforted and relaxed by the sound of his vocals reverberating through the speakers, and he closes his eyes, settling into the theater of the moment. He hears the crowd start to sing back to him, and their collective voice sounds stronger than the fifteen or so people that are standing in front of the stage. To him, it feels more like dozens, if not hundreds. He can feel the momentum building towards the chorus, and when it arrives, he unleashes all of the pent-up energy that had been building up inside of him all day. He pours it all into the microphone, and for a fleeting moment in time, he is finally able to carry out his narrative, at long last capturing the sense of triumph and victory that he had been seeking all day. In this moment, he feels complete control over his audience, and he hangs on to the final verse of the song as if it were his last breath. But the song eventually ends, and he is forced to open his eyes. The crowd of fifteen has dwindled to a crowd of about ten, and as he looks out at them, he is not entirely sure of where he is.

The change in lighting disorients him when he steps off the stage, and as he re-assimilates into the crowd, the weight of his drunkenness occurs to him. The smattering of compliments from the audience goes in one ear and out the other as he moseys his way back to the bar. He takes a seat and considers the rest of his evening – where to go and who to be, but he can’t decide. All that seems to be left is to go home, but just as he begins to get up, a woman in a bright red dress comes standing over him, and leans into his ear.

“I just divorced my husband,” she whispers.

He cannot see her face, but he can feel the heat of her breath on his neck and the tickle of her fingers on his chest. It tugs at him, and it pleas for the narrative’s continuation. But this time, he cannot reconcile with its illusion. He takes off his watch, heads out the door, and walks home alone. Without any headphones, the night is deafeningly silent.

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