Spandex

Wesley woke up in a bed on the fourth floor of the Liberty Regional hospital. Things had gone wrong the day before. Actually, things had gone wrong long before. Take, for example, the day Wesley was born; as he left the womb in peace and silence, the doctor responded by slapping him. So life began.

Wesley had spent the previous day working a long shift manning the salad bar at a small grocery store in a small college town. It was the beginning of September and college was back in session. This was a blessing and a curse. A blessing because the college was prestigious and brought money. A curse because the college was prestigious and brought many pretentious assholes to town.

What people would do to the salad bar was incredible: shredded carrots wound up scattered on the beets, wet feta mixed in with the sliced chicken—it was a disgrace. One time, they had run out of soup bowls, so someone had decided to put hot soup in a cardboard salad container. When the container began dissolving at the seams and leaking corn chowder, this person just left it on the salad bar and walked away. Soup leaked all over the croutons.

So it had been a long day, and it was made longer by a group of spandexed athletes, fresh from a bike race. They walked through the store chatting loudly. They ordered sandwiches with indifferent eyes, treating the sandwich maker like a vending machine. They helped themselves to a salad. Then they paid and went on their way, leaving the salad bar in extreme disorder.

“I have a two-year-old niece who has better manners than these people,” said a girl named Elissa to Wesley as he was leaving. “It’s ridiculous.”

“At least it keeps us in business,” said Wesley, twisting his shoulders and grimacing.

“The fuckers,” said Elissa. “Wait till the revolution comes! Let them clean up for themselves.”

“I’m going to help Mike with the trash on my way out,” he said. “See ya later.”

“See ya,” Elissa said. “Keep on writing, Wesley. Don’t let a stupid rejection drag you down.”

“Oh yeah, I know,” he laughed, and felt his guts twisting. Compassion can be crueler than contempt.

Wesley helped a middle-aged man named Mike drag barrels of garbage out to the dumpster. The sky was blue. The sun beat down on the dry pavement.

Wesley’s car was hot and smelled like old cigarette smoke and sweat. The AC didn’t work. He drove away and was sick of this disgusting world. He was especially sick of the scoundrels at the Dog River Review. Wesley had spent seven years working on one short story, hoping it would be good enough to be noticed, and not receive another of those kind, indifferent, soulless emails that dance around with vocabulary, using fifty words when “reject” would sum it up in one.

But rejection was fine. What disturbed Wesley was to think of what the editors at the Dog River Review did not reject. First, something by a 28-year old San Franciscan on the struggles of someone in a far-away country. Then, there had to be something about accepting your sexuality, or having your father molest you, or some asshole not understand you. Next, a little piece about a sensitive girl falling in love with some jerk in a polo shirt at a golf course. All with the essential and predictable tear-jerking or heart-warming statement, which allows the readers and editors to feel humane and connected. They know when their hearts are expected to warm, when their eyes should grow moist with tears.

In his spite, Wesley ignored the fact that he had never actually read a literary journal. He never could get past the first paragraph. But he imagined that he knew everything about them from a glance at the titles or the photos of the authors.

As he got into his car, Wesley lit his twentieth cigarette of the day. Wesley smoked, gritted his teeth, and began to drive, blowing clouds of smoke into the muggy air of his car. The Dog River Review expanded to epic proportions in his mind: it had become an impenetrable wall, blocking Wesley out, and Wesley’s manuscripts were stones or battering rams, which shattered against it without leaving the slightest impression. 

Up ahead were two bikers, clad in spandex, riding side by side. The road was narrow and winding, and Wesley slowed way down. The two men in spandex continued on their way, one turning his head a little, noticing Wesley, but continuing to ride nonchalantly in the middle of the road. Wesley was unable to find an open stretch for passing and was stuck behind the two bikers, driving five miles per hour.

This slow procession went on for fifteen minutes. Finally, there was a chance for Wesley to pass, but destiny intervened: a pickup truck was coming in the opposite direction. Rather than risk an accident, Wesley dutifully returned to the right lane, behind the bikers in their piebald spandex.

Wesley could barely breathe, the inside of his stinking car was closing in on him, he shook his head back and forth, like a little baby saying “No! I will have no more of this!” Then finally… redemption! The winding road straightened out; it was wide open. Wesley passed the bikers and was dismayed by their smug postures, their arrogant neon spandex shorts—and the bright sneakers—with neon laces!

Wesley pulled his car off onto the shoulder. He could not breathe, his eyes were watering, he felt like an elephant was standing on his chest. He leapt out of his car, gasping for breath, but the heavy, humid air offered no relief. The spandex clad bikers came slowly toward him—

“Torturers!” he screamed from a distance, throwing his arms above his head. “Why do you torture me?! Spandex is disgusting!”

The two bikers frowned, then looked away and moved to the left side of the road. Wesley ran into the middle of the street, shouting in a high-pitched voice, which he found embarrassing.

“Answer me! Why? Why do you wear spandex? It’s a disgusting fabric!”

The bikers were amazed, but continued with serious faces and tight shut mouths, giving no answer to Wesley’s eternal question. They seemed to Wesley to represent the faces of all the indifferent people who make up this unfathomable world. Wesley felt lightheaded. He felt like he was floating above himself, watching himself do something that would cause nothing but grief.  Yet he had no will to stop it, now that it had begun, and he found it so ridiculous that he almost started laughing.

“No, I will not let you leave without an answer!” Wesley wailed, full of sorrow, and, with unusual athleticism, flung himself onto the road in front of them.

The front tire of one bike ran into Wesley, and the man jumped off the bike, holding it up by the handlebars. He pulled his cell phone out of a bag, while the other biker exclaimed, “This guy’s a maniac. Get the hell out of here, you asshole!”

They had gotten back on their bikes and were going to ride around Wesley, but Wesley twisted around on the pavement like a worm, and managed to grab hold of the bike tire. The biker kicked at his hand while Wesley repeated, “It’s disgusting! It’s a disgusting fabric!”

When the police came, Wesley was still lying in the road holding onto the bike tire. The bikers had retreated a safe distance and were watching in disbelief. All Wesley could say to the police officer was, “I protest…I demand an answer…”

The next morning, Wesley awoke in a bed on the fourth-floor psychiatric ward of the Liberty Regional hospital. The ward smelled of sterile chemicals and human filth. Wesley had a white room with two beds and linoleum floors. There was a scruffy, overweight guy in the other bed. The night before, he had informed Wesley of his declaration of war on the CIA, claiming that he had been arrested for blowing up an F-35 with a Molotov cocktail at a carnival where the feds were sacrificing children to Moloch.

Wesley went in search of a nurse, to see about getting out of that place. On the way he passed a woman with wild red hair. He said hello, but she looked right through him, muttering something about dirty water. Then she spun around and started stalking back up the hall in the other direction, saying to herself, conspiratorially, “One man eats seven bums, another eats thirteen.”

These two interactions had given Wesley the creeps—these people were crazy!

The nurse told Wesley that the doctor would meet with him at 10, and he was determined to be cunning and prove he wasn’t crazy. To stay in that place with those impenetrably dull and wild-eyed faces was out of the question.

Wesley was furious at the spandex clad bikers who had driven him to such an abyss: if they were only a little less self-satisfied, if they had biked single file, if they had answered him, if they had dressed in t-shirts and shorts rather than spandex, things never would have come to such a pass.

Wesley tried to hold the posture of a well-adjusted person. He let his shoulders go loose and held them slightly back, rather than hunched forward; he relaxed his face so that the furrow between his eyes disappeared; and he tried to relax his eyes so they were self-effacing and non-threatening, rather than glaring and angry. Then he sat on his bed and breathed deeply, waiting for 10 o’clock.

At 10 o’clock, he was escorted into a small white office to meet with the doctor. An assistant accompanied her. The doctor was a woman of maybe 30, a small blond lady—her assistant was a well-kempt young man.

“It’s nice to meet you, Wesley,” the doctor said with an aloof smile. “My name is Dr. Totten.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Dr. Totten. Thanks for making the time so soon.”

“You’re welcome. We try to have a meeting with every patient as soon as possible. We know that this can sometimes be an unpleasant experience.”

“Yeah, yeah. Especially in my case,” he said.

“Oh?” she said with an inquisitive smile. “What is it about your situation that is particularly difficult?”

“Well…this might not sound very original, but I’m really not crazy,” he laughed. “I was put in a room with a man who believes the FBI worships Moloch. I don’t think I’m a good fit here.”

“We see all kinds of people. Some are having different problems than others. But tell me a little about yourself.”

She asked about his health, his family history, whether he had been in psychiatric treatment (he hadn’t), whether there was any mental illness in his family (there wasn’t).

“Can you describe what you experienced yesterday, Wesley?”

“Oh, it was just a really bad day. It got blown up out of proportion,” he was silent for a moment. “I meant it as a joke. I thought it would be ironic for me to get in the way of the two bikers—since they had been blocking my way for 15 minutes.”

“How were they blocking you?” she asked, tilting her head with concern, as if this blockade were something he’d hallucinated.

“It was a winding road and they were riding in the middle of it.”

“I see,” she said while her assistant vigorously jotted notes. “Did you want to hurt them?”

“No.”

“They were afraid,” she informed him with a frown.

“Yeah…but I have never had a desire to hurt anyone,” he said with a short laugh.

“Or yourself?”

“Myself?”

“Have you ever thought about doing harm to yourself?”

“Oh no. Of course not.”

“That’s good, that’s good,” she said with a kind smile.

There was a moment of silence.

“In my notes it says you were very upset about spandex.”

“That was a joke,” he laughed.

“Ah,” she said with a slow nod. “One of the bikers said that you jumped out of your car shouting about spandex, that it was ‘disgusting’. He said you threatened them with violence if they did not explain to you why they were wearing spandex. He was very upset.”

“Well, I was joking,” Wesley said, leaning forward. “But I wouldn’t expect someone who wears spandex to understand this,” he laughed bitterly, expecting that the doctor would also laugh, but she didn’t.

“What is so bad about spandex?”

“It’s just disgusting,” he said.

“Why?”

“Why?” he thought for a minute. “I think… because spandex is a symbol.”

“A symbol?”

“Yes,” he said slowly, rubbing the fingers of his left hand against the palm of his right hand. “I think that it is like a uniform, and a uniform is a symbol. If you wear a gun and a badge, or a business suit, this stands for something: the badge symbolizes authority, the suit symbolizes professionalism—and spandex symbolizes complacent, smug, close-minded idiocy.”

“Can you tell me a little more about these feelings?” The doctor’s eyes were concerned; her lips were closed tight, in a frown.

“Yes,” he said, “yes I can tell you more. If you’re interested?”

“Go ahead.”

“Well, spandex is not so much a fabric as a lifestyle. You don’t need spandex to go biking; you need spandex to fulfill a posture. And what is this posture, you ask? This is the posture of the well brought-up, well-adjusted, middle class, which says ‘well’ when you ask them how they are, and scorns anyone who says, ‘I’m good’. It’s the posture of the braindead, who decides he needs a hobby, because pop-shrinks say it’s good and healthy to have a hobby. And if he’s going to have a hobby, it might just as well be riding a bicycle as anything else. And if the healthy, well-adjusted creature does something, it must be what other people do, because he needs to be in a group, he needs his clique, he can’t do anything alone, and therefore he needs to wear spandex!  He throws away all individuality, all human decency. And, though all like-minded groups of people are hypocritical, judgmental, and belligerent, this is especially true for groups of middle-aged, middle-classed people in spandex on two thousand-dollar bikes!

“They are shameless! Has it never occurred to them to be embarrassed by the fact that they are wrapping their bodies in skin-tight fabric? They’ll be wearing codpieces next year! No! They are not embarrassed!” he gasped with a lack of breath. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid pedallers—on and on! I hate them! Do you think they care that they are ruining my life? No!” he lamented, rocking his torso back and forth as he raved. “They pedal! Nonchalant…they won’t let me pass… they never even think that I might want to pass… I want to pass! They don’t care! Impenetrable—inhuman!”

For the second time in as many days, Wesley felt as if he was floating, watching himself from the outside, and the one he was watching was plunging towards an abyss, and the one who watched was well aware that it was absurd nonsense, but could not stop it.

The doctor exchanged looks with her assistant, who had stopped taking notes and was watching Wesley with indifferent, serious eyes.

“Have you ever been tested for Asperger’s?” the doctor asked Wesley.

“Asperger’s!” he bellowed. “Never!”

“I ask because you seem to lean forward in your chair a lot, and many people with Asperger’s do the same.”

“I just felt like leaning forward in my chair,” he said. “Leaning forward in your chair is not a disease.”

“Oh no,” she said reassuringly, “it’s a spectrum. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to keep you here a while so we can do some testing.”

“I want to leave though…”

“Unfortunately, we won’t be able to release you today, but you will be able to leave at some point.”

“But I am not crazy! I don’t belong here!”

“You’ll be okay…”

“Liar!” he screamed, leaping to his feet, as his chair screeched upon the white floor, and all sorts of soothing people came bursting in, suddenly violent, to grab hold of Wesley. And if you think they loosened their grasp any time soon, both I and Wesley are sad to say you are mistaken.