Printer repair man, March 4th

My office is big and empty at lunch time, and it’s just me and the printer repair man.  He stands across the room, tall with a kind, unworn face.  “So they left you all alone?” he says.

“Yep.”  I answer.  “But everyone’s sick anyway, so I’d rather not be with them.”  Also, they are loud, and I’d rather have a moment of silence.

He ducks his head.  “Yeah.  It’s like, ‘go on, get out.’”

“Exactly.”

He fiddles with something technical looking, the printer’s plastic entrails spooled across the table.  “You know, I heard this whole thing about herbs being able to fix the common cold.  Some guy’s on the radio trying to sell his natural herbs.”  He cocks his head to the side.  “You know it really makes sense.  I mean, people are made of herbs and stuff.  Well, not herbs.  But, you know.  We’re natural.  So it makes sense that it’s not the chemicals that are going to make us better.”

“I agree,” I say.

“But you know what it is?  It’s the pharmaceutical companies.  They’re trying to make money, so they don’t want us to know if there’s something as simple as herbs that will make us better.”

“That’s true,” I say.  “I heard that they found a cure for cancer, or close to it.  But it was so easy that they couldn’t make a profit, so no one knows about it.”  I don’t actually know if this is true.  But I did hear it.

“Yeah.  That’s why I don’t trust them. Like, if my grandmother is sick she’ll go to the doctors and come back with a prescription.  Only they never take her off it.  It’s just for the head.  So you feel okay mentally.  But it doesn’t do anything but make them money.  I trust the animals.  You know, in the tsunami, or whatever…”

“The animals knew before the people did.”

“Exactly.  And I mean, you go out on a perfectly clear day to a field of cows.  Sunny day around twelve o’clock.  And then, even if it’s not going to rain for two hours, they are already heading for a grove of trees for cover.”  He has taken something apart, lifted a whole panel of the printer.  He uses a yellow rag to wipe grease from the surfaces, and he does this expertly but he never takes his eyes off me.  “That’s why I like dogs too.  Because if a dog is sick, it eats grass.  Back to the herbs.”

“Yep.  And think about how little dogs are sick.  Not much.  It’s because they’re not eating all those chemicals.  That’s why I try to eat things in as close to their natural state as I can.”

“Me too,” he says.  “Growing up, my grandmother had a whole garden, and we’d eat from it.  We’d have green beans and black-eyed peas.  She’d steam the beans and them can them.  And it was just like what you get in the grocery store, only without all the chemicals.  She – my grandparents – raised five of us, and I can tell you, between the kids and the garden it’s a lot of work.  Like, I don’t know if you and your husband – if you’re married, do that.”  Somehow, when it comes to men, they seem to like to find out your marital status real quick.  It always comes to that, but I don’t feel like this guy cares either way.

“Yes.  My husband and I are trying to grow some foods we can eat.  We’ve got tomatoes and peppers and basil.  I even have a little lemon tree.  It’s just a little container garden. We’ll see if it grows though.”

“Yeah.  I wish I had space to grow something.  Even a little thing.  But I don’t right now.”

“Mmm.”

My coworker comes in then, to work on a project we’ve planned.  He sits next to me, and then the printer repair man comes to fiddle with the printer that’s even closer to me.

“Do you know,” he asks, as my coworker lays out our data, “my grandmother’s garden was huge.  As big as your whole shop area.  And we’d have six rows of corn as long as your parking lot.”  The parking lot at my work is actually a city street.  It’s very long.

“That’s awesome,” I say and he nods.

“Yeah,” he says, and looks really wistful.  “Yeah.”

My coworker starts talking then, so I turn back to my work.  I like that people like to talk to me.  I would rather talk than do headachy projects.  Later, as he leaves, the repair man interrupts again to say, “Goodbye dear.”

And then, quietly, regretfully, he’s gone.

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