Meet Pacem

"You want to come over later?" I ask Carne, "we're throwing a party."

"What's the occassion?"

"It's some kid's birthday..."

"Do I know this guy?"

"No, technically I don't either. He's one of the new kids in the program. Actually, I'm not even sure its his birthday. I just want a really good excuse to throw a party."

There's a pause. I can't see her face over the phone but I know exactly what expression she's making.

"So, you coming?"

Hilariously enough, she met her current boyfriend at that party.

***

"So," I ask the blond kid who just walked in the door, "you normally go by Xenu?"

He stares at me, "what? Oh! My facebook! Yeah, I like messing around with that..."

I start cracking up and hand him a drink, "Well, happy birthday stranger."

"Birthday?" he's laughing too now, "oh yeah! Today IS my birthday on facebook isn't it?" He grins and poses with the cake with his name on it for a photograph.

"You know," he says, "according to facebook, I have a birthday about every two weeks...and there are a whole slew of my 'friends' who haven't caught on yet."

"Whatever, I like having parties."

***

"Ya-pach-um"

It was his first phrase, or more, that's how I can best type it an Anglesized version of it. I can gesture vaguely verbally at the myriad of hidden consonants in the actual polish baby-talked version, but I'll never be able to type it.

I'm observing.

His grandfather had found him sitting in the family's garage and asked him what he was doing. I find it a fitting summary of Pacem in general.

I'm observing.

Most people when they want to understand another person "walk a mile in their shoes," or imagine themselves as being in the other person's situation. Pacem instead has the sort of mind which permits him to observe himself from the same third person perspective he sees other people, and to understand them that way. This has many side effects, one of which is his ability to look at himself and have a good laugh from time to time, which is one of my favourite things about him.

I'm observing.

***

"Dona nobis pacem..."

I distinctly remember preforming this piece in fourth grade. The harmony and simplicity mezmorized me, and still does to this day.

Let us have peace.

I remember singing at the very top of my lungs. The world is complicated, and the things which you know are beautiful are true are worth really clinging to.

***

He looked worn out, tired, and depressed. His boss was an asshole and his team's aptitude left much to be desired. Furthermore, two of the team members no more qualified than him had escaped the worst of it, and had a lot of goodies and attention from his boss's boss which would surely let them escape the looming fallout this work team would suffer. One of them wasn't being particularly nice to him either.

He locked himself in his room for hours with his laptop and didn't speak to much of anybody. I would come in to tell him when dinner was ready, but realistically there wasn't a whole lot I could do.

"Ya-pach-um," I grinned and waved to him from the doorway. When all else failed, I guess act like an idiot.

"Ya-pach-um," I repeated, falling into a game of word sounds, "Ya-pach-um, pach-um, pacem, dona nobis pacem."

"What?"

"Peace, you could use some probably."

"Huh?"

"Dinner's ready."

***

"Red four on the five."

"Oh man I didn't see that one."

Nerds do some fairly impressive things when deprived of internet, but the words "communal solitaire" still crack me up. I think it was one of the best things that happened to the house, because with nothing better to do we all got to really know and care for each other. Pacem and I remained close considering the distance my senior year, and we even found time to visit him on the road trip with Ginger and Giraffe. When I found we were both returning for a second year I was overjoyed.

***

"Quesadillas and bud lite," he looks down at himself, "I feel like white trash."

Pacem is wearing a wife beater and athletic shorts since the rest of his clothes are currently in the drier. The two of us are on our knees loading up gallons of milk and orange juice into the upper shelves of the refrigerator.

"I figure," he says as he hoists the 30 rack into the new space we have created, "Its all about the finer things in life anyway."

I'm on the couch later when Pacem wanders back with a box labled Xerox. It once to contained printer paper but now it carries his clean laundry. He sits down on a couch to begin folding it.

"You want...us to pick up a real laundry basket for you?"

He shrugs, "this works."

He pulls out a hilighter colored shirt with the bright pink AMP logo. Its the most horrendously beautiful shirt I have ever seen in my life, and I always make fun of him for it.

"Directing traffic soon?"

"Fuck, give me direct sunlight and I'll blind you!"

***

We've been fighting a lot recently for no real good reason. Well, I know mine. I have a terrible pressing need to escape and keep finding him in my room when I want to be alone. I guess that's one of those things roommates have been known to do. Pacem probably has his own reasons, but I wish he wouldn't vent them by helping in the efforts to circumvent me that have cropped up.

"We're heading up to the casinos that last weekend," he says.

I glare at him. We have four houses to shut down and clean and a ton of furniture to move and now he's skipping out with how many people?

"We'll clean up a ton on Sunday and Monday to make up for it. We don't really need a whole weekend to clean. I promise, we'll make up the time."

I shrug. There isn't a whole lot of point to arguing with somebody whose mind is made up that firmly. Pacem knew damn well how much work this was going to be: he, the guy I was dating at the time, and I had spent a whole weekend last time cleaning up only one house, and that one had been subjected to a lot less wear.

***

They came home Sunday sunburnt and tired. They slept a few hours and then drank until one threw up on the carpet we had finished cleaning. The next day was Monday. They sat on the couch, still hung over, and announced they were going to the beach. I was carrying a load of food and supplies from Delta to Alpha when Pacem came up to me to say goodbye since they were getting on the plane right from the beach. He wanted a hug. His eyes were dead.

"You're going?"

"Yeah."

"You said you'd help..."

"Well the car's leaving now."

"We'll see you again soon Pika," Tiffany interjected.

"Yeah, whatever," I respond.

"Aww," she continues, "don't be sad, we probably will..."

The truth was that right then I never wanted to see any of them again in my life. Turning back to Pacem I hugged him so I wouldn't be that asshole who leaves somebody with outstretched arms hanging, "You promised," I said.

"Promised what?"

I'm pretty proud of not flat-out decking him right there. It was just the last straw after a whole summer of passive aggressive bullshit from somebody who I had relied on to back me up and help me out.

I walked back into the house and Joker's friend followed me. "Who were those guys?"

"People who lived here."

"Aren't they going to help us out?"

"Apparently not."

"That blond kid, you knew him well?"

I shrugged. What am I suppose to say other than 'I thought I did.'

"He seemed like a real asshole."

"Yeah I guess he is."

***

I left this post for months because I didn't want this story to end like this. Pacem was one of my closest friends in AMP. It wasn't that I was even mad at him, it was that I was disappointed that this was who he turned out to be.

We talked briefly only about business a few times over the next while in the course of wrapping up the house stuff. It was not until six months later when I had had yet another stupid boy-related adventure that I was upset about that we wound up striking up a serious conversation.

"I've been..." he pauses, "working through some stuff. I'm really sorry that I took it out on you."

I use to hear stories like this from my friends and tell them they're crazy to forgive people like this, but I guess if all people were held to those standards I'd be shit out of luck myself.

"I'm sorry too."

Professional

"Tuck up," she says, "we're going to get hit with the sprinklers."

I turn in the sleeping bag and pull the edges up, tucking them under my feet. Through the holes in the mesh I can see the wood-chips on the ground about 8 feet below me, although I can't feel the mesh through the sleeping bag.

We must be quite a sight: three college students and one graduate camped on a children's playground. We could see the lights from the road and hear the cars shuffle past. Most of the noise came from the unevenness of the road.

Drummer was sprawled across a bridge between two of the sections, Jesh had yet to settle down but was enjoying running along the tops of the structures in the dark. Tiffany was curled up next to me. I could almost see the smile on her face in the dark.

At dawn we awoke to a rosy sunrise and two dogs running in the park. The husband and wife walking them had obviously seen us and were skirting the entire structure. My bare feet could feel the grain of the rivulets which made up the structure surface and my blue plaid PJ pants ruffled slightly in the morning breeze. Oh well, this isn't going to get a whole lot weirder no matter what I do...

"Hello!" I called, "Good morning to you both!"

The husband looked a little baffled and puzzled on how to respond but the wife grinned widely and waved to us.

"Can I pet your dogs?" I asked.

"Of course," the wife answered.

In seconds I was down the fire pole and across the mulch into the grass which licked the hems of my pants as I ran, leaving them wet with dew.

"What are you doing up there?" the wife asked as I arrived.

"Camping out," I smiled as I worked to extract a bright green tennis ball from the mouth of an excited golden retriever.

"Why?" her husband asked.

"I don't know," I replied, winding up and chucking the ball as far as I could. The golden retriever streaked out in pursuit, front and back legs together in a bounding gate, "Why not I guess?"

"I know how that is," the woman said turning to me, "you wouldn't believe the half of the crazy stuff I did in college."

The husband's eyebrows crashed together like waves for a moment before he raised one in puzzled alarm and looked at his wife.

***

They weren't in front of the iron gates of the school we had selected. They weren't in the subway station. They weren't picking up their cell phones. They weren't anywhere I could figure out.

The day was cold enough to see your breath, and I was wrapped tightly in a baby blue coat. An equally bright and clashing orange piece of poster board with the words "Free Hugs" written on it in foot high all capitol black letters was rolled up in my hands.

This had seemed a simply grand idea in a group, but standing alone I felt nothing short of absurd on that street corner. I stood alone for nearly half an hour, sign half unfurled in one hand, looking somewhat dejected.

"You're giving out free hugs?" a voice asked me. It belonged to a girl who was probably still in highschool. Black lipstick, black skirt, dyed black hair, some sort of intricate black shoes, and even the obligatory hot topic spiked bracelet made me feel like I had just met the walking personification of people who need to prove their uniqueness by all acting the same.

"Uh...yeah," I said non-commitally.

"I love that video," she grinned, "can I have one?"

"Uh...yeah!" I said a bit more brightly.

I'm never going to be able to explain what exactly happened in that moment when the girl who I was so busy looking down on came up and hugged me, but like so many other endeavors in life, the first step was the hardest and the expression of confidence is often what makes you succeed. I held my sign high above my head, grinning at incoming pedestrian traffic. The people came in streams, they would see one person hug me, and then another person would follow suit, but at no point did interest hold strongly enough to form a line.

"You're doing a psych project?" a man asked tenitively, pointing back to the gates behind me.

"No, just for fun."

"Oh," there was a long pause before he produced a rather nice camera from his coat and extended his hand once more toward the intricate iron gates, "I go there. I need an art project. Can I photograph you?"

A street preformer came up to me at one point and said that everybody walking from my direction was smiling, hugged me, and left. I hugged the photographer, but sadly I never got to see the result of his project (if you're out there Mr Photographer Man, I'm rather curious how that turned out), as a matter of fact I'll never find out if I made much of a difference to anybody that day, and honestly I don't expect I did. It was, however, one of the most heartwarming and rewarding experiences I have ever participated in. People in groups are miserable creatures, but from time to time if you can manage to take them and yourself our of the daily environment you'll find something in them which makes you both smile. It was also really healthy of me to get over my self-consciousness about the absurdity of it all and just enjoy myself.

***

The big lab with the best toys in it, naturally, is the one which I must share with a variety of characters. One of them is standing in front of me wearing a suit.

"You have to wear shoes in here,"

I want to ask him why, but I already know why, and its not something he's likely to say out loud. There is no heavy machinery here, no serious danger, Florian just believes its unprofessional to not wear shoes at work. Nothing has changed since I started doing this more than two years ago, Florian is just new and believes he can help me by teaching me to grow up. Maybe he can.

I find this interesting. Personally I define "being unprofessional" as "not doing a good job," but in reality the act of "being professional" in this day and age seems to have taken on a significant amount of unrelated baggage. I understand that sometimes we need to put our best foot forward to impress guests and potential sponsors, but why must we keep up this facade with one another? Why are we trained to be so fearful of the judgement of total strangers we will never see again and will have no impact on our lives, and of our own teammates who are suppose to be our allies? Perhaps this insistance on stupid and trivial childish behavior is stupid, but this other option of a culture just slays me.

***

"Punch buggy green, no punch back," I tap Corey on the shoulder. Corey is a professional, both in my eyes and in Florian's, and ten years my senior. If I am where he is when I am his age I will be very proud. He looks at me for a moment slightly bewildered, then smiles and shakes his head.

"Pika, are you ever going to grow up?"

"I was considering maybe starting on that in like 10 years..."