The Pleasure of My Company Read Online Free PDF

and
I became fixated on its giant tires. I noticed that even though the tires were
round, they still had four points: north, south, east, and west. And when the
light changed and the truck started rolling, the north, south, east, and west
points of the tire remained constant, that the tire essentially rolled right
through them. This gave me immeasurable satisfaction. When the next truck came
by, I watched the tires rotate while its polar quadrants remained fixed. Soon,
this tendency became a habit, then a compulsion. Eventually the habit
compounded and not only tires, but vases, plates, lawns, and living rooms were
dissected and strung with imaginary grids.
    I can
remember only one incident of this habit prior to my teen years. Eight years
old, I sat with my parents in our darkened living room watching TV. My father
muttered something to me, and my response was slow. Perhaps intentionally slow.
I replied disinterestedly, “Huh?” with hardly enough breath to make it
audible. My father’s fist uppercut the underside of his dinner tray, sending it
flying, and he rose and turned toward me, whipping his belt from his waist. My
mind froze him in action and I saw, like ice cracking, a bifurcating line run
from his head to his feet. Next, a horizontal line split him at midpoint, then
the rest of the lines appeared, dividing him into eighths, sixteenths,
thirty-seconds, and so on. I don’t remember what happened next.
     
    My counting habit
continued into college, where its real import, purpose, and power were
revealed to me. The class assignments seemed trifling, but the irresistible
counting work seemed vital not only to my well-being but to the world’s. I
added textbook page numbers together, divided them by the total page numbers,
and using my own formulas, redistributed them more appropriately. Page 262 of Science
and Environment could become a more natural page 118, and I would razor-cut
the leaves from their binding and rearrange them to suit my calculations. I
had to read them in their new order, too, which made study difficult, and then
finally, as I added new rules and limitations to my study habits, impossible.
Eventually my quirks were picked up by various professors and savvy teaching
assistants, and they, essentially, “sent me to the nurse.” After a few days of
testing, I was urged out of school. I then went to Hewlett-Packard, where I
landed a job as a business communiqué encoder.
    One
time, when I was working at Hewlett-Packard, I tried medication, but it made me
uneasy. It was as though the drug were keeping me from the true purpose of each
day, which was to count loci and accommodate variables. I slowly took myself
off the pills and eventually I left my encoding job. Or maybe it left me. When
the chemicals let go of my mind, I could no longer allow myself to create a
code when I knew all along that its ultimate end was to be decoded. But that’s
what the job was, and I couldn’t get the bosses to see it my way. Finally, the
government began providing me with free services and one of them was Clarissa.
    Clarissa
the shrink-in-training clinked three times on my door with her Coke can. The
knock of someone whose hands are full. The door opened on its own, and I
remembered not hearing it latch when I entered earlier with my small sack of
earplugs. Clarissa, balancing a cell phone, briefcase, sweater (pointless in
today’s weather), Palm Pilot, soda can, and wrapped baby gift (she hadn’t
wanted to leave it in the car), closed the door and made a purse-induced
leathery squeak as she crossed the room. I liked her outfit: a maroon skirt
topped by a white blouse with a stiffly starched front piece that was vaguely
heart-shaped, giving her the appearance of an Armani-clad nurse. (Oh yes, I
keep up with the fashions. I noted how close her outfit was to my own favourite:
light cotton pants with a finely pressed white dress shirt. No problem, as I
love to iron. Once I ironed a pillow almost perfectly flat.)