Mark Matula 1012 Garnett Pl. #2 Evanston, IL 60201 (847) 491-1943 (off-campus) Nowhere Man Smooth-talking men sweet-talked smooth-brained women. Blue jazz erupted from the curious trio in the corner. A man sat at his table staring at the other patrons. Staring at his ragged fingernails. Staring at the nameless vodka slowly melting the three resilient ice cubes in his glass. Although his stone face gave nothing away, his mind was turning over a million questions a minute. Occasionally the hypnotized patrons would turn away from their pursuits and emit an automatic applause that sounded like the clatter of a stick on a freshly white-washed picket fence. Or perhaps it more closely resembled the buzz of a king of hearts against the spokes of a bicycle being walked up a too-steep hill. It was irregular, yet had a repetition reminiscent of the laugh- track from "The Munsters." The half-hearted applause was more like encouragement than commendation. It was received by the band with an even less enthusiastic thank-you. This interruption was usually enough to inspire the man to shift his gaze to a new direction. Now the checked table cloth. Now the Bellows print on the wall. Now the electric wall-mounted candles with their dancing orange glow. What the hell was he thinking. What could occupy his mind to such an extent that his body was left with no capacity for manifestation of his thoughts? It was doubtful they were pleasant thoughts, or he would have been smiling. The corners of his mouth would have been turned up at least a little, one would guess. Even when his eyes shifted, the motion was imperceptible. The dim lights played off his contact lenses no differently from one moment to the next. One could not even be sure he ever blinked. His android scan of the room simply went on unnoticed. He took in everything, yet registered nothing. His waitress walked by glancing at his three-quarters full glass. She did not expect a large tip. She moved on to other patrons with a considerable air of indifference. How long did he sit there? He never shifted his weight. He sat mostly straight. He gave the slightest impression of leaning to his right. He slouched a little, yet it seemed deliberately. Suddenly his glass was only half-full, yet nobody saw him drink. His posture did not change. His mind did not wander. The music continued its wash over the crowd. A loud barrage of laughter exploded from a table two over from his. Everyone in the club was startled. Everyone looked at the red-faced man who led the revelry. Everyone but him. The noise was just enough to make him focus on the snare drum glinting in the corner. The waitress passed again. This time she did not even check on his progress. Although he most decidedly did not look happy, his appearance did not give the impression of depression either. His brow was not furrowed. His jaw was not tight. He looked genuinely numb. Perhaps he had simply drank himself to this state. But the fact was that this was his first half-drink. Unlike most of his fellow patrons, his face was not red. He simply looked like a man who had ceased to feel. Yet to think he had quitted all though would be a mistake. The musicians took a break. He looked at the bottles on display against the mirror behind the bar. The trio came back. The welcoming clatter turned his blind attention to the front door. The band opened with a swing-jazz cover of Nine Inch Nails "Head Like a Hole." Nobody knew it was a cover. The perfect joke. He may even have tightened his lips in a sublime grin -- possibly his first acknowledgement of the world around him. He closed his eyes, reached his hand for his glass, lifted his chin, and finished the contents of the drink which consisted of vodka and the water of three half-melted ice cubes. If his mind was indeed active before, it was now completely defunct. Everything stopped. His mind was blank. There was no band. No waitress. No tablecloth. No time. No bar. No laughter. No applause. Nothing. Like the vacuum in a burning room the instant before it flashes over into a backdraft -- like the proverbial "calm before the storm" -- like the quarter-second between the mouse taking the cheese and the steel-sprung bar snapping its neck -- the world went silent. An instant later, the flames erupted. The tornado touched down and a mouse lay twitching and bleeding from the eyes and nose. A dam broke and a flood of thought poured from his mouth. If his mind was active before, it was hyper-active now. He yelled at the large red-faced man to shut up his fat face. He overturned his little round table in the same motion which upset his chair and brought him to his feet. He clenched his fists. He clenched his teeth. He clenched his hair follicles. He screamed profanities at the band for butchering the last song. He derided the audience for missing the joke. He called his waitress a worthless wench because she had allowed his glass to remain empty for a half-second. He was so wound up, his toenails hurt. In contorting his face to wring out every ounce of angst from his epithets, one of his contact lens popped out and fluttered silently to the carpeted floor. And as suddenly as it had begun, the storm ended. The gale was reduced to a whimper as this man found himself still sitting at his round table in a dark corner of a small jazz club wall-to- wall full of patrons that happily listened to the music and the conversations and the come-ons and ignored the soft sobbing of a broken, lonely man. He slowly stood up, being careful not to bump the person behind him as he pushed out his chair. He pressed down the wrinkles on the front of his suit with both hands. His eyes were locked on the red beaded-glass candle on the table in front of him. He retrieved his wallet from his right back pocket and deliberately placed it on the table next to his full glass of melted ice-water. Nobody noticed him as he walked out of the bar to catch a bus. Nowhere Man Mark Matula 1012 Garnett Pl. #2 Evanston, IL 60201 (847) 491-1943 (off-campus)