oranges

The man had just finished peeling his orange, and he was savoring the sweet and spicy aroma that drifted up to his nasal passages. It had been a perfect morning so far, he had crawled out of bed seconds before the alarm was due to ring at 5:54 and was showered and dressed in time to enjoy an unusually peaceful breakfast all alone. Nothing was nicer than sipping a morning coffee in total silence, engrossed in the simplicity of the mundane. Why did oranges have such porous skins? The man thought to himself, still wrapped in his morning daze.

Still pondering, the man began to peel apart the sections of the orange, eating them slowly, one after the other; sometimes pausing to peel open the outer casing and reveal the tiny juice sacs inside. How does juice get inside those tiny sacs, and why does it stay there? Why are some oranges so dry if they are filled with tiny sacs of juice? Carefully separating one little sac from the rest of the section, the man gazed at it in wonder, curious about its’ being; aware that it was only one of many wonders of nature that he did not completely understand.

A memory hit the man, like a destructive and deadly tsunami hitting the shores of a faraway land. All at once he was lost in a place long ago, in a time when life had been simpler and less had been expected of him. He was lounging on a beach blanket with a young lady; the air was a charming mixture of salty rotting fish, coconut suntan lotion, digested beer wafting off his body as he whispered in the ear of the young lady beside him, and from somewhere down the beach the faint scent of oranges being peeled by a little girl taking a break from sand castles.

Life had seemed so easy then. One didn’t have to worry about daily routine; making sure there was enough milk and toilet paper; putting the seat down after taking a piss. Women had been attracted to his talkativeness, and festively careless attitude. He was always the one chicks crowded around for keg-stands; he always took home the prettiest ladies, and was the envy of all his college mates. He had never worried that his sheets were not clean; that he hadn’t vacuumed since…well, ever. His apartment was shared with three other dudes. None of them ever cleaned the bathroom. Sometimes one of their mothers would show up and decide that the apartment needed a “woman’s touch”; she would buy them new towels and clean the whole place, leaving behind a nice smell and a fridge full of vegetables. Soon though, everything would revert back to the way it was; towels would be used to clean up spilled beer and then left in moist piles for weeks until somebody noticed that they were what smelled and would throw them out, never considering washing them an option; vegetables would suffer a similar fate, being ignored until they rotted, the then soggy bags of indiscernible matter being thrown out.

How had his life taken this unexpected turn? When did he go from rolling on the beach, naked and drunk, with girls that may, or may not, have been featured in “Girls Gone Wild: Mexico VI” to this; a sad aging man peeling his orange in the morning while savoring a little silence? When did he stop caring about his six-pack abs, or the amounts of product he used to style his freshly dyed crew cut? When had it all gone downhill?

He was back at the beach, momentarily almost able to smell the Herbal Essences in the hair of the young woman; the fruity tonic that so encouraged men to kiss the necks of their college coeds. How had somebody thought to create a shampoo that would transform bland and tidily styled hair into something of mango, kiwi, papaya scented, lustrously shimmering locks of an angel, or other thing of beauty; a porn star perhaps. Something that you could smell when walking behind a girl on the way to class and fantasize about taking her from behind because then you could smell her hair without having to look at her face which was, no doubt, not so nice.

Then he remembered the panic. College would be over in a span of months. The boys from his frat were preparing to disperse throughout the states; girls he knew were going to graduate school, getting married, some already had kids (“accidents” during school which led to the girls moving to far away places like San Francisco; Toronto; Orlando, where nobody knew their families and there were less people to judge - at home, the families would talk about how the girl was accepted to a new school in CA, and how proud they were of her), and he even knew a young “family” with two little ankle-biters crawling around their shabby chic apartment which was bought for them by parents as a bribe to keep them together “for the child’s sake”. He remembered thinking that the gang was all splitting up, and soon he would be left living in his college town, his hometown, working for his old man, still hitting on high school girls with fake IDs at the local pub. He remembered wondering what he could do to better his fate. Even as a member of a fraternity, his options, career-wise, were not looking too bright.

He had never been head of the class; never understood really why he had enrolled in the business program to begin with. He didn’t want to be a businessman. If anybody had stopped him on the street and asked him what he would do if he had a million dollars, but still needed to work, he would have answered that he would work as a pool boy for a local woman who was said to have made porn in her youth. He would have replied that he would like to work for the local gas station, shelling out $20’s to lotto winners, and selling cigarettes to minors. He would have offered up “bartender”, “cruise ship director”, “lifeguard”, “talent-less rock star”, anything except lowly “businessman”. Who wanted to become a suit? “When I grow up, I want to work for a business selling stocks; updating the Internet; balancing dividends; creating PTS Reports…”

Back then, whispering sweet nothings in his newest girlfriend’s ear on the beach that spring in Cabo, he was filled with the fear of being alone; and worse than being alone, alone and unsuccessful. He paused momentarily to stare at Cindy’s profile in the rapidly dimming light; she was a nice looking girl, naturally…he only “dated” the lookers, the others became one-nighters that he could shrug off by saying “beer-goggles”…he actually enjoyed talking to her, even if she knew nothing about sports, and she had a nice sense of style. She never became the “drunk girl” at parties, and he hadn’t been ashamed to introduce her to his family when they ran into each other at a local restaurant the week before. Maybe there was potential there for something longer-term? He thought about marriage for a minute while his gaze turned to watch a sweet young thing strut by in what could barely be described as a bathing suit. How many couples did he know that had stayed together for longer than a year? Even his parents were on their 3rd (mother) and 4th (father) marriages; what kind of an example were they setting for him? If nobody stayed together, what was the big deal with marriage? Even though you still said it, it no longer really meant “till death do you part”…it was more like, “till you find something that interests you more”. So why not try it out? He remembered that thought drifting into his skull back on that beach at sunset, beer flowing naturally through his body as if it belonged there with his blood.

The next day, hangover ravaging his body and brain, he had stumbled across a native fellow selling cheaply made jewelry at a stand near the beach. Straining to differentiate between the colors and shapes whirling before his eyes, he asked the fellow which was the most expensive-looking. Handing him a nicely set, purple-tinted diamond-like gemstone ring, the fellow chuckled and asked if he was planning to give it to a nice lady. In a moment of clarity, the words catching in his throat and nearly gagging him, he replied, “yeah”, before throwing a few big bills at the native dude, stuffing the ring in his swim short’s pocket, and stumbling off down the beach in search of beer and the possibility of a mid-day blowjob.

He couldn’t actually remember the details of when he handed over the ring, the acceptance of what he couldn't really be sure was a marriage proposal as he couldn’t remember what he had said, only what it was said that he had said. He didn’t remember his pals congratulating him during the BBQ that night, or what he had worn when he posed a question to the girl he had thought a week before was probably a fling, but he did remember the sex. That was hot. Apparently, the way to get a girl to do things that she had never before considered doing was to ask her to become the little missus. The idea of stability, and being with the same guy for longer than a few weeks opened up a can of the unknown, an uninhibited girl that the man never before had known…and had not known since.

Fondly thinking back to those hours in the love shack on the beach, the man could feel his boner beginning to push up against his suit pants, asking to be rubbed and relieved. Lost in the memories of that steamy night; the midnight dip in the sea, falling off the bed but not caring-just pulling down the blanket to spread over the marble floor, protecting her back from the cold …

A tiny grin formed at the corner of the man’s mouth as he thought back, lost in the distant moments that had rushed over him as he sat at the table peeling an orange. Looking at him, one might have thought he was thinking back on any number of precious memories; the birth of his first child, watching his bride-to-be walk towards him down the aisle, perhaps even some joke that he had shared with the guys at their bowling league the night before. Unless you looked under the table, you wouldn’t have suspected the racy pornographic images running through the middle-aged man’s head, more graphic than a grocery store romance novel. The man thought about her freshly tanned skin, and the dip in her lower back; her thin but muscular legs, and the way her little breasts moved in a bathing suit, and out of one.

With these thoughts in his head, he kept peeling back sections of the orange, slowly eating the pieces inside of the sections and not paying attention to the details, or his questions, any longer. He was, momentarily, lost to the world of dishes and diapers; softball practices and after-school activities; he was lost in a blissful time before children were even a spark of an idea, a time when all that mattered was lust; the days before sex became scheduled (Thursday nights, after dessert, when the girls were tucked into their beds watching their show, before lights-out time and the evening news). Picking out a seed, he wondered again when life had become this daily routine? Thoughtfully placing another juice sac in his mouth and popping it with his tongue, he continued to question his direction in life. Eyes glazed over, he didn’t notice the quiet footsteps entering the room, and it wasn’t until he heard a voice that he was jolted back into reality. “Daddy, can I have a piece?” The little girl queried. The man tore off a section of the orange, squirting the acidic juice into his left eye and swearing under his breath as he handed it to her, before getting up to gather his things for his day at the office.