‘THE TALE OF ADAM IN THE GARDEN’
— a short story

Adam stood looking out of the window of a thirty-story office building in Los Angeles. Memories drifted and floated through his mind. He thought about last weekend. He guzzled more alcohol than a packed pub in Dublin celebrating St Patrick's Day. He stood there, tall and lean with his hand lightly touching his swollen left jaw. The mysterious swelling had him searching for answers. It wasn't painful, but that didn't make matters any better.  One week had past and the lump on his face progressed to the size of a golf ball.  Occasionally, he stopped in his thoughts long enough to look at the analogue clock on the wall. It was early afternoon, and his breath reeked of liquor. He had spent his lunch break at the bar drinking vodka with Brutus. And an hour later, he was staring vacantly at the sidewalk below packed with people buzzing with energy, and in his pale and fatigued state, he remembered driving home so drunk he vomited all over the car seat and then passed out behind the steering wheel. Then a light breeze, slightly chilly, started to blow, and his thoughts went to the change of weather. He looked at the grey clouds drifting across the sky above and thought summer was a pleasant season, but he much preferred the fall. He grinned. His office above the street and his name over the door read Assistant Managing Editor. This was the life I was born for — Assistant Managing Editor who oversaw what he called the heard. Staff members avoided any contact with him as if they were united by a shared knowledge Adam carried fleas that caused the plague. He sometimes wanted to care, but he never knew how; it just wasn't in his DNA. His media mogul uncle had recently promoted him. The new promotion put him at the number three spot at a paper with about two hundred editorial employees. He lashed out at staff and often asked, "Are you sure you want to pursue this career?" They despised him and labelled him a moody and uncheerful person.

      But Adam was happy when he had a drop too much of alcohol to drink. He'd bar-hop all the trendy nightclubs in the City of Angels with his sidekick Brutus who liked to party hard.

      Sometimes Adam drank till six in the morning. Sometimes Adam drank till he got blackout drunk. Alcohol liberated him from misery. He sought solace in the bottle. 

***

In August 2016, Adam was thirty-three years old.

      Think of a mediocre journalist related to a man who owned a powerful media empire. That was Adam. The first time Adam smiled at a junior colleague called Daniel, a dimple sunk into his right cheek.

      "You wanted to see me?" Daniel said, walking into Adam's office that day.

      Adam would ordinarily not have said anything at all, just motioned to the deadline worksheet on his desk, but instead, he said, "Did you get into college through affirmative action programs for minorities?"

      Daniel wore a puzzled look on his face; the kind of expression that implied Adam could not possibly be serious.

      Daniel had only been at the paper for about three months. From colleagues whose main interest was gossip, he'd heard Adam never laughed but when he did smile it was more of a grin that revealed a kind of obnoxious surety of himself, a grin that surfaced when at an advantage, a grin that said checkmate. 

      Well, Adam had this great big grin plastered on his face.

      Daniel smiled at Adam as well, a thin patronising smile that seemed to say everything about Adam was a front, that he knew Adam was deeply insecure about himself.

      "I actually got into UCLA on a scholarship," he replied. 

      Adam snorted. "You blacks certainly do know how to dribble a ball."

      "It was a wrestling scholarship."

      "Hmmm... What's the status on the Farrakhan story?" Adam then asked, his eyes fixed on the computer screen in front of him at his desk.

      That moment, Daniel glanced at Adam's swollen jaw. It looked like someone smashed his face in with deadly combinations, he thought. "Goddamn. You got into a barroom brawl or something?" he asked jokingly. "You need to put some ice on that."

      Adam looked up to glare at Daniel. He saw a big man with a bloated belly who had full-size man-boobs underneath the green t-shirt he wore. Typical black ghetto dweller who ate fried chicken every day. "I asked for the—"

      Before Adam could finish, Daniel interrupted. "Alright, alright, brother, give me about thirty minutes. I'm just doing some last-minute editing on the piece."

      "I'm not your brother."

      Daniel raised his eyebrow in rebuff, then smiled. "O.K. boss man. Like I said I'll be done before the deadline."

      Adam stared at Daniel with a face cold like a winter morning. "Deadline is right now."

      "Huh?"

      "Did I stutter?"

      “But—" 

      "But nothing. I'll have Emma finish the story. It's about time you realize we're trying to run a newspaper here." Adam then leaned forward, lifted the telephone receiver off the hook on his desk. "Have Emma come to my office," he said to the person on the other end of the line.

      Daniel, as predictable as a cobra right before it lunges forward and inflicts a bite, watched Adam intently as he spoke. But Adam countered with this rebuffed stare that thoroughly deflated Daniel's menacing fixed gaze. 

      "That's my story," Daniel protested with his forehead knotted in a frown.

      "Not anymore," Adam said.

      "I've been working on that story for weeks."

      "Exactly my point. You take too long on one freaking story."

      "I had to move mountains to get a quote from a Nation of Islam informant. Initially, no one wanted to talk to me.

      They said I worked for the white man's paper." 

      Adam sighed. "Your incompetent tales bore me."

      "Incompetence?"

      "Yes." 

      "This is crazy."

      "No, actually this conversation is done. Goodbye."

      Daniel stormed out of the office, slamming the door. Adam grinned through his swollen mouth and yelled, "Hope it's not going to be a struggle for you to meet deadlines next week." 

      Right after Daniel left, Adam stared at the closed door, at the smooth surface, and remembered how relieved he was to hear the office door slam the day he fired this tall and good-looking young male intern. Such memories so quickly invaded Adam's mind. He thought about that afternoon when he ran into the intern in the hallway and telling him that he needed someone who could survive the hostile media environment.

      He fired him two days after that encounter.

      The intern wept from shame as Adam screamed abuse at him over a small editorial typo in a piece he'd submitted.

       "You have no talent," he told him. "I honestly think you could single-handedly bring the newspaper business down to its knees if you were to progress in this profession." 

      The intern was blond with broad shoulders and had leanly muscled arms like an athlete. Adam would look at him, wished he could subdue this burst of resentment for the handsome young intern whose presence served as a stubborn reminder of Adam's physical imperfections. The day Adam fired him, the intern slammed the door so hard it caused the window frames to rattle.

      Two or three minutes later, Emma knocked at the door and walked into Adam's office. She gave him a pursed-lip smile. Her brunette hair was thick and long and hung like a coiled rope on her left side. She had on a black sleeveless top and a pink skirt that showcased her flawless tanned skin and legs. Her elegant figure reminded Adam of Esther, an ex-girlfriend he remained obsessed with after they broke up. Adam had at times searched Emma's eyes, hoping to find a glimmer of affirmation he could be her companion. She wasn't interested. Emma looked gorgeous. He nursed resentment knowing short of rape was the closest he'd ever get to fucking a woman that attractive again. 

      "Hey, Adam," she said, "Stacey tells me you wanted to see me."

      "Yes."

       Emma had just noticed Adam's swollen jaw. "What the—," she gasped, "what happened?"

      Ignoring the question, Adam said, "I need you to finish writing that Farrakhan piece." 

      Emma's dark eyes made a huge circle. "I thought Daniel was writing that."

      "Is that a question?"

      "No... but—"

      "Why is it so impossible to find a competent writer around here these days... It's like reaching for the stars."

      Emma's face flushed with embarrassment at Adam's remark.

      "It's just that I'm still working on the Donald Trump presidency will be good for Latinos story." 

      "So what? When I was coming up, I wrote a minimum of five stories a day."

      "I'm gonna need some time."

      Adam sighed again — a bit louder this time. "Oh, how I was wrong. I had such high hopes you were going to be one of the smart ones around here, but it turns out you're just as inept as Daniel." 

      Emma looked at Adam calmly, but without warmth. "Excuse me Adam, but I just need——"

      Adam cut her off short, uninterested in entertaining the subject any further, and yelled, "It's a story about a freaking secret affair with a white woman. You need a whole year to write that?"

      "No, but—"

      "Have the story on my desk in one hour. Goodbye."

***

With Adam's promotion came a slightly bigger office. But after a month settled into his new space, the office still had a look that resembled one stripped back to the barest of essentials. There were no picture frames on the wall. His desk had no photos of family and friends. Anything that could serve as conversation starters did not exist. On the left corner of the room was one black filing cabinet, and a flat-screen TV mounted on the back-right corner, the volume a little low and on Fox News. Because there was no other furniture except the chair behind his desk, everyone else stood during editorial meetings.

      Still, it was the kind of office space Adam appreciated. Right at the southern end of the corridor, he was isolated and far removed from the newsroom where the staff writers kept the workplace plentifully supplied with gossip. He often looked out of his eleventh-floor window and observed Second and Spring Street below, and think about Esther as he was doing right now.

      They met in college, both in their final years, he in journalism, and she in psychology. When Adam asked her out on a date, she nearly laughed in the face of this skinny, pale man who walked with his nose in the air, but what drew Esther was the way he glared at her, eyes that made her feel he was fascinated with her. After a month, she moved into his apartment four blocks from the campus, and they went everywhere together, sitting at the coffeehouse for hours studying for exams, bowling every Thursday night. They took showers together in the small bathroom with white tiles, they ate at their favourite café and when his friend Brutus began calling him "pussy whipped" Adam grinned as if Brutus had no idea what he was missing. Adam bartered with her, divulging intimate stories of his physically abused childhood in exchange for all the attention she gave him. The abrupt breakup came as a surprise to Adam, who proposed to her a few months before. They remained friends, but the breakup hit Adam hard. Eight years passed, then ten years after college, and he hadn't quite gotten over Esther, sending her the occasional romantic email describing his love for her or going out for drinks often with Brutus tagging along.

***

Adam was sitting behind his desk, reading the paper. On the TV screen, the Fox News anchor could be heard saying taxes would go up 30 per cent if voters allow Barack Obama a second term. He wasn't listening. Then came a light knock at the door. It was Stacey, the secretary. She popped her head around the door frame. 

      "Adam," she said.

      Adam didn't look up. "What is it?"

      "I have Brutus on line one," Stacy said. Brutus knew all the hangout spots across Los Angeles.  

      "Ah, yes," responded Adam, tossing the newspaper aside to reach for the phone on his desk.

      "Hey, Brutus," he said as he reclined back in his seat with the phone lodged between his shoulder and right ear.

      "Dude, your cell's going straight to voicemail."

      Adam leaned forward to check his cellphone on the desk.

      "Oh my God. My battery's dead... How was New York?"

      "Hectic. A long week full of tedious boardroom meetings."

      "Aww. Poor you."

      "Listen, we're doing the Genesis Lounge on Wilshire tonight."

      "Awesome. What time?"

      "I was thinking six, that way we'll catch the Happy Hour till nine."

      "You're such an alcoholic." 

      There was laughter on the other end for a moment, then Brutus said, "This coming from a guy who was getting it on with Esther's friend in the bar restroom the other night." 

      "What?"

      "You don't remember?"

"Oh my God. No, I don't."

      "At The Spread Eagle's. You were wasted, dude."

      "Spread Eagle bar?"

      "Yeah. Three weeks ago."

      "I haven't the faintest recollection."

      "You was banging this chick with short green hair."

      "Bullshit."

      "I kid you not."

      "Was she hot?"

      More laughter. Then: "The last time I pictured her in my head, she broke my neck." 

      "Oh my God. Why?" Adam asked, somewhat stunned by Brutus's bizarre comment.

      "Because she was fat," Brutus said laughing hysterically, "fucking enormous, dude."

      Adam covered his forehead with his hand.

      "Gosh, Brutus, you're fucking kidding me, right?"

      "I wish I was. I had to drag you out of there. You was in the restroom with her for hours. I worried she might have suffocated you with her fat ass."

      "Oh my God."

      "Yep."

      As they talked, Adam's memory, clear as a light beam, took him back to a time when Esther warned him about his excessive drinking and how she hated dating a drunk.

      "Please tell me Esther doesn't know about this?"

      "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but um, yeah she does. She was at the bar with us all night."

      "Oh my God. My life is over."

      "Don't be silly," said Brutus, still laughing.

      "This isn't funny."

      "Fucking hilarious, dude."

      "I've ruined my chances of ever getting back with Esther."

      "Dude. You need to get over her."

      "She'll never want to be with me again knowing I did something with her ugly friend."

      "Dude. Stop being such a conceited asshole. Every dude I know has made out with an ugly duckling after a few drinks... or in your case, an ugly elephant."

      "Haha, that's a good one, you freaking loser." 

      "Listen, I gotta go. I'll see you at six, then, right?"

      "Well, I did plan on seeing my dentist for three-thirty."

      "Dental work on a Friday?"

      "Yeah. I've had this awful swelling under my jaw. I must've gotten a bad reaction from something I ate." 

      "Dude, that sucks."

      "It's weird."

      "I suppose tonight's out the question then?"

      "Heck no. I just cancelled my appointment."

      "When?" Brutus asked.

      "Just now," Adam said.

      Brutus chuckled. "Right attitude, buddy."

      "Miss a night of drinking with a certified degenerate? Not a chance. My dentist will have to wait until Monday."  

***

 An unexpected thunderstorm came with mid-August. The Friday Adam hung out with Bruce at the Genesis Lounge, the rain pelted down all night in heavy sheets. Adam almost got arrested that night after running inside a McDonald’s, half-naked and dancing on the tables and counters. Brutus joked that twelve tall glasses of lager and eight shots of vodka could do this to a man. Luckily it was Brutus who saved Adam from spending a night in the coolers. He was a heavy-set dude, about six-feet-four, with a little bit of a belly in front. It would take all 240 lbs. of him to restrain Adam and whisk him away before the cops arrived.

      But that was Adam's weekend fiasco. Today, sitting behind the wheel, worries occupied his mind.

      The lump under his jaw had gotten more massive, and his throat scorched like he'd taken a shot of Devil Springs Vodka. He was wearing a faded blue jersey and tracksuit bottoms. His two-day growth of beard shadowed his chin and cheeks, hungover, and his eyes were watery. The road was thronged too. Buses and taxis, SUV's and motorbikes streamed past in a noisy, endless procession. His journey to where he was going had started when he walked out of the clinic and threatened to have the dentist fired after she'd told him he had contracted gonorrhoea in the mouth. With the memory of his appointment with the dentist still rattling his nerves, he had been only able to think of whether the Latina dentist was qualified to know what she was doing? 

      Their exchange lingered in his head. 

       "Oh, is that a Mexican name?" Adam asked, looking at her name tag.

      "No," she replied. "It's El Salvadorian." 

      "I'd rather see an American," Adam muttered.

      She first made a sound, a hmmm, as though she was unsure how to respond, and then said: "I'm an American citizen."

      Then she did some blood tests, took an X-ray of Adam's jaw, and said she'd call when she had the results. But after swabbing his mouth, she asked him, "How long did you say you've been experiencing the swelling around the mouth?"

      "About a week." 

      She paused. "How many sexual partners do you have?"

      "How dare you... How many do you have?"

      The dentist looked at Adam with a blank face.

      "Sir, there's no easy way to tell you this, but it looks like you've possibly contracted a sexually transmitted infection."

      "What?"

      "More likely gonorrhoea of the throat."

      "Don't be ridiculous."

      "Sir—"

      "Please be quiet… I could have you fired, you know?" Adam snapped his fingers to show the dentist how fast she could be fired.

       "Sir," she said unperturbed. "I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't inform you about the dangers of oral sex." 

      "I don't know what you're talking about, woman" Adam yelled.

      There was an awkward silence, while Adam struggled to digest the indigestible.

      "I'll be filing a complaint with the Department of Public Health," he then said, getting up off the chair. "These foreigners," Adam said aloud. His vocal cords popped. Speaking through his numb mouth felt unusual, but good.

      As Adam drove home, a restlessness had taken over him. His doubts about contracting gonorrhoea had grown. But he knew a few things to be true. There was something in him, his fragile ego that needed constant polishing. His phone started to vibrate violently on the passenger side seat. He glanced at it and saw Brutus's name on the screen. That creepy laugh of Brutus kept echoing through Adam's brain. He grabbed the phone and switched it off. He looked out of his window at the people he drove past. He was resting his eyes on the vehicles and pedestrians holding umbrellas. He had just turned on Wilshire when he noticed a man standing outside a bar. His looks weren't unusual – because they were typical – thick dark hair, olive skin tone, moustache on his upper lip, wearing a sombrero and boots. Stand on any street corner in East Los Angeles long enough, and you'd see a version of this, though highly unlikely the type to rub shoulders with the privileged elite. Adam pulled up in front of the bar. He imagined hearing Esther saying don't do it. He wished he could avoid doing things against his better judgment, in being outside of himself and evading things that caused him to destroy everything he cared about enough. 

      But that would be like asking Adam to jump away from his shadow.