DIARY OF AN OXYGEN THIEF By Anonymous (The Oxygen Thief Diaries) (10 page)

             
The next morning, I said that we should go for breakfast. I got my bags together and checked out. Soon we were in another taxi on our way to a café near her place. And soon after that I was in yet another cab and on my way back to That Place. She didn’t look around after I got in the cab and was whisked away.

             
I know this, because I did.

             
Back in St Lacroix, it still hadn't snowed. I still hadn't sold the fucking house. I was already out of my mind with paranoia, thinking my company was instigating a block on the sale of my house. I thought they were slipping some money to the realtor to restrain his enthusiasm in closing a deal. I was under tremendous pressure with a big campaign I was doing for a charity that supplied Summer vacations for kids with AIDS.

             
Big project. Big deal.

             
Every ad agency likes to have a charity on their books for which they'll pull all sorts of outlandish favors. There are attractive incentives for this, though. One, the agency can usually do great dramatic work for a charity, more dramatic than what you'll be allowed to do for baked beans. And two, there are tax concessions and write-offs. But it’s important which charity you affiliate yourself with.

             
Especially in the United States.

             
For instance, a fundraising group that wants to help addicts off heroin isn't nearly as reliable, or photogenic, or even pitiable, as a kid with AIDS. Adults with AIDS are no good. It could be their own fault. No, kids are good. Kids with AIDS, are better. Sorry, but it's true. It's not the fault of the ad agencies. It’s actually your fault.

             
The Public.

And if this never gets published it’s your fault too because it means that this kind of story was deemed uninteresting to you.

             
You bastards.

             
You just won’t accept a heroin addict asking for money to kick his habit. Maybe you’re right. Who knows? But that’s it. Charities are as competitive as commercial companies and nowadays need to think like them.

             
After all, they’re chasing the same dollars.

             
Then you've got the networks. They have a finite amount of airtime available annually for donation to charity. Which ones to give the time to? Each network has standards to maintain and are wary of letting the tone of their channels slip. It comes down to which commercial is going to make them look best. Again, you're safe with kids. So the ad agency is clever enough to pick a charity with lots of kids in it, because they know from the outset, the networks will have more time for them, in this case, airtime.

             
Anyway, let me tell you my Summer camp kids story. We were shooting the commercial on location at the Camp Northern Minnesota. We were sleeping in bunk beds at the camp. I didn't even know what Summer camp was until I had it explained to me. Still seemed like something only middle class kids would ever do. But there is no middle class in the United States. Yeah right.

             
After a fitful sleep, it was so quiet I made my way to the communal bathroom (euphemism for toilet) for a shit and a shave. It occurred to me that with two hundred kids running around here during the Summer, some of their contagions might rub off on the basins. It occurred to me just before I shaved.

             
I thought about all the skin pores being opened up to all that diseased air. Christ. I went ahead and shaved, of course. And after a few appreciative glances at myself, I was satisfied that while I hadn't slept well, I didn't look as if I hadn't slept well.

             
I was careful not to smile at myself. I want never to be caught smiling at myself in a mirror. It's okay in private. Out for breakfast I went. The crew and the director were already assembled around steaming plates.They looked rough and unshaven.

             
This pleased me.

             
I sat down and dug into eggs and toast or whatever was on offer. Cwaffee. Then, the Camp Boss and general all-around hero of the day came in all bubbly, wringing his hands and lowering his eyes with excess humility. He ran the camp and was the founder of the whole thing. I noticed he, too, was unshaven. This was very uncharacteristic of him since he was always very particular about the way he looked. In fact, apart from being unshaven, he seemed his normal well-dressed self, but in country wools and tweeds. My veins began to curdle. He risked a humble look around the table. He was looking only for information. Who was at the table? Who did he need to be nicest to and in what order?

             
He stopped at me:

             
“You didn't shave, did you?”

I must've gone white.

             
“Yes. I did. I…”

             
“Aw c’mon, I'm very disappointed.”

             
I was about to ask him how he thought I felt, when he said,

             
“We don't shave here at camp. It's meant to be informal, but I suppose since, strictly speaking, you're still at work, we'll let it go this time.”

             
I laughed a genuine laugh. I would live. And more importantly I wouldn’t need an HIV test before meeting my beloved again. Being in that camp with birds singing and children everywhere being so cute and nice to each other had awoken something familial

in me. I saw Aisling and I living somewhere wooded like this. Light dappling our happiness, laughter echoing around trees before we shushed each other lest we wake the baby.

How fortunate we’d consider ourselves to be that our child was not infected with some horrible disease or other.

             
My future wife’s phone number burned away at my thigh and in the inside of a drawer and a few other places I couldn’t remember. I'd taken the precaution of writing it down and placing it in a few different places in case I lost it. I'm no fool. I had to resist the temptation to call her. A lot. 

             
Physical cravings.

             
I was in a bad way. I mean I hadn't even looked at a girl for five years and now it was all over me. I didn't even know what it was. I'd never really had those feelings before. I wince now to look back on it, but I really was in love. Or infatuated. My eyes got heavy when I thought of her, they dilated just thinking about her.

             
The ads for the camp turned out pretty good and one even went on to win an award. All the kids we featured have since died.

             
Don’t quite know what to do with that.

But there you go. It's easy for me to be totally honest here because the possibility of anyone ever publishing this is so remote. At least I'll benefit from it as a form of therapy. Did I feel love or obsession? I still don’t know. Somehow, the thought of her, or even the thought of calling her, got me through those Minnesotan nights.

             
So I called her and we chatted, about advertising mostly, and therefore about me. I thought she was interested. Maybe she was. At least, that would have made it a bit more enjoyable for her. I can't help thinking that she must have treated this part of the whole thing like a prostitute treats the talking bit before the sex. You have to listen to some of their shit before they feel comfortable enough to get a hard-on, and they have to get the hard-on or they won't have the sex that you need them to have with you in order for you to get paid. This is what I thought was going on. She listened to me, I know she listened to me. There I go again. The male ego. Like the guy who believes the hooker comes when she seems to. I want to believe she listened to me and liked me and, yes, even loved me a little bit. Even now I seem to want to believe that. Crazy, huh? I used to say, crazy, eh? But now it's huh.

             
America.

             
In Minnesota, I'd been in a terrible state of mind for almost two years and felt I deserved something good to happen. Having been in New York now for over a year, I can see how innocent and silly I must have sounded to a twenty-seven-year-old hungry-as-fuck photographer determined to crack the New York scene. Fair enough. Her fascination must have been of the morbid variety, mine wasn’t much more developed.

             
I wanted her to help me out. Out of St Lacroix. I wanted her to be my pathfinder in New York. I wanted her. I wanted a lot.

             
I had my reasons and I suppose she had hers. To her, I must have seemed like a big wet-fat-bald overpaid Culchie, a name reserved for anyone from outside the Dublin area. Ripe for harvest.

             
Aisling would have seen a lot of my type in her travels as a photographer's assistant. Shoots in Miami - the light, darling - were commonplace for photographers from cloudy New York. Lots of hotel rooms and bars and long shoots. Lots of art directors like me with lots of money and wives and kids and mortgages. I hope I stuck out because all I had of these was the mortgage.

             
She must have thought I was married, though, or hoped it. You see, I couldn't help thinking she was gathering information on me for some later use. Perhaps she wanted to blackmail me against the wife she imagined me to have. Well, why else would I be living in a three-bedroom Victorian house? The reason for the blackmail? To get big juicy commissions from the ad agency. It'd be worth a lot to her as a fledgling photographer to get a job or two from such a renowned company.

             
I thought, what the hell, she's very pretty, I'm lonely, I'm also in need of a courage booster. I wouldn't have had the balls to do the next bit if I hadn't had a tasty chick egging me on. I gave her the power to pull me out of there.

             
I started calling the personnel department, inquiring about how to resign. As if I didn't know. I wanted them to know I was serious. I was past caring. In reality, it was a crazy move. They must have been sure I was in love, and let's face it, I was. I made a point of asking if what we discussed was confidential, knowing they'd have to inform the group head in a situation like this. So I was able to threaten resignation without having to resign. Graham, my boss, knew what I wanted him to know.
             
That I was serious.

             
It didn't take long before he asked me in passing whether I'd sold my house. I'll never forget the expression on his face. God help me, but I enjoyed it. And again, believe me, I got my version of this happening to me later, but this was my moment. The best way I can describe his pale face is to say that it rippled. From below his chin and upwards to his hairline, one solitary ripple. Like milk. He was that pale. It took a couple of beats for its significance to register in him and then in me. I didn't think it would matter that much to him, one way or the other. But seemingly, it did. He really must have thought he had me for another couple of years. If I'd succumbed to the Swedish women, he probably would have.

             
The next day, he called me in to say that I was to fly to New York to help out at the office for a few weeks. I didn't know that I wouldn't be coming back but I hoped it. I'd be able to see my Aisling. I didn't care about the job. Fuck the job, I was sick of advertising and everyone in it. All I wanted was a few weeks paid-up in a nice hotel in New York City with my love.

             
Back at Fort Fuck-up, my nickname for the house, I’d speak to her. I’d imagine she was sitting in a chair in front of me. I’d look lovingly at the middle distance just above the chair as if into her blue eyes and cock my head, impressed. Nodding courteously, I’d lean forward and agree almost reluctantly with what she had to say. She was so intelligent that even I had to concede a point.

             
And then I would laugh happily. Because I was happy. I was conducting a love affair. The perfect love affair with no interruptions from anyone else. I saw a cartoon that had a picture of Narcissus staring at his own reflection in a pond. His girlfriend asks him a question, “Narcissus is there someone else?”

             
If they fired me at the end of my New York sojourn, fine, at least I'd have a few memorable moments. I had tried to organize trips to New York before, but they'd all fallen through. Each time, desperately trying to hide the disappointment in my voice as I told Aisling I couldn't make it after all.

             
I'd kick myself as I felt any hope of our relationship slip. It was killing me. Then I'd call on Saturday morning around 10:30am and she wouldn't be there. The one-hour difference made it even more worrying, 9:30am in New York. Jesus, my mind would have a fun with that, I can tell you.

             
Not there?

             
Obviously, on her way home from some guy's flat or maybe even still there fucking him. Why not, she got into bed with me the first night we went out? But that was different, that was love. That was with me. I'd call and offer to turn up there one weekend. This she would deflect gracefully, saying it was nicer if I didn't have to pay myself. Better to wait for a business trip. She was right, of course, but I was gagging for some sex. I could see also that she was ambitious. Not afraid to talk about her work.