Was it infected?

--Why the earring? Tom asked.

--Vicki, Robert said as he finished lightly squeezing his ear.

--She thinks it makes you even more ‘adorable and cute and cuddly’ than you already are?

Robert ignored the quoted language and explained.

--We had an argument over commitment last weekend. I didn’t want to do a friendship ring thing because of my ex-fiancé, so I got talked into this friendship earring. It’s okay, I guess. She’s very possessive.

--How much more devoted can you get?

--She always worries, but I don’t mind it. I’m not going anywhere, he said.

--Why not a tattoo?

--If she suggests tattoos I don’t know what I’ll do. At least I can take this thing out. She’s got one, you know, a little butterfly on her shoulder blade.

--Whatever works, Tom shrugged.

Without feeling the necessity for explanation, Robert meticulously thumbed through his jacketed hardback copy of the latest work by the man who was separated from him by a distance measured only in human bodies lingering in rapture that numbered too many to count.

Actually, he could technically count them, but that would have been too much for his friend, Tom, to handle. He looked up from another exquisitely rendered run-on sentence and fingered the ring on his ear. A young girl with an orange knapsack and curly hair, dyed green, approached the author. Robert remembered the reading and the lecture.

Humans are out of time today. Punctuation gets in the way. I find run-ons and fragments to be the most effective means of communicating the intermittent thoughts that rush at me throughout the day. Too numerous to process or even count, when possible they must be swiped from the mind, inscribed for my readers and disseminated as quickly as possible.

The reading was serene and gorgeous, captured time set aside for both author and audience to enjoy simultaneously. He had said that, in addition to his unorthodox approach to grammar, it was enjoyable for everyone to be on the same page for a little while. Usually author/audience meetings took place in secret, with parties present at different times, arguing the most interior of all dialogues with no possibility of compromise but accord was conceivable. And that was what sold books in the esteemed author’s most humble opinion.

We have no time to interface on a deep level. Compliments and approval mean nothing because we are always hurrying to the next thing. The humanness is gone from contact between humans. Our crisis of inarticulation is best resonated by our computers which register appreciation with the two letter phrase, "OK" click here, otherwise click "Cancel." To purchase a book is to say: "OK." Humans register something beyond machines only when they physically reach out to one another. It is the only thing the virtual world cannot do, though it tries. It can simulate but not replicate the feeling of flesh and the emotions married to it. Although I’ve noticed that as we become more technically sophisticated we try to further ourselves from these raw feelings. Going forward with this worldview gives prostitutes of all types a distinct advantage over the rest of us.

The girl with the curly green hair leaned across the table and kissed the silver-haired author. Robert returned to his rereading.

--How many times have you read that thing? Tom said.

--Twice, Robert did not look up. How many people do we have to go?

--Twenty or maybe thirty, Tom said. I don’t know, there’s a bunch. Does it get better with rereading?

--No, it just reminds me of other times I read it. It goes right through you. I love his style, content doesn’t concern me that much anymore although that was how he first hooked me. I wonder if they’ll make this into a movie?

--I’m only halfway through. How did you get into this guy?

--Professor in college. This stuff just opened up my world. I never read much before I read him. I was trying to get Vicki to read, but she says she doesn’t have time. I tell her that’s exactly who he’s aiming for, but she doesn’t get it. She just makes fun of me. Whenever she sees me with it, she says, ‘Reading the Word of the Lord again?’

Tom ignored the invite into Robert’s domestic life; he had heard enough already.

--You don’t read much besides him, Tom said.

--There really isn’t anyone quite like him. All I read are my computer programming books for work and his stuff. He really has a way of capturing the feeling the world gives you these days. It seems like he’s walking right alongside us. I just like to grab a machine at the gym and read him. I could pedal and read for hours.

--You do. Still spending two hours a day there?

--Yeah, it’s great stress relief and when Vicki and I have a problem it’s a great place to think. It’s where I got the solution for the ring.

--Is work good?

--Yep, we’re getting some new software in next week. It’s middleware that is supposed facilitate the job of the database software. Sue is really up tight about it. One of the GMs gave her a hard time about the Seibel implementation.

Seibel was customer management software; it kept track of purchase orders, addresses, and technical support needs to enable the company to better serve the customer. It was a great system, but it had taken longer than expected to install and had a few glitches that the middleware was supposed to fix.

--This should be a smaller job, right?

--Yeah, Robert said.

--You should come to work in my business. Tom had founded a web design firm the year before; it specialized in building web sites for small businesses. Using Active Server Pages (known as ASP code which allowed the customers to input their information directly on the web pages), the sites took customer credit card orders and enabled the companies to provide continual product support. The sites also enabled companies to compile detailed databases of all of their customers.

--No, I’m happy at American Technical Educators, Robert said. Besides, you don’t need someone who specializes in networking.

Robert was the network administrator for the computer-training firm. He also taught courses in networking essentials and database management for the firm.

--I could always use someone who understands relational databases and I still don’t have anyone who is really good at ASP coding. Didn’t you just finish that course in it?

Robert ignored the reference to his recent certification. ASP code was a key component in the sites that Tom was creating now, but Robert didn’t want to acknowledge it. He didn’t want to open himself up to persuasion. He liked where he was. He had a private office. Normally, he didn’t get hassled by his boss too much.

--Business is good though, huh?

--Even with the trouble in the tech center, Tom said. I have redone all our literature so that we come across more marketing focused rather than web focused. We expand your ways of doing business and reaching out to people; we don’t redefine them anymore.

Robert smiled and returned to looking at the book.

They talked a lot about work.

When they didn’t talk about work, they talked about school.

When they didn’t talk about work or school, they talked about women.

They rarely talked about books.

They often talked about the future.

A man with a gray beard had held up the line. The author was becoming engrossed in a conversation with him. Robert could hear only the excess sounds of conversation: the lost syllable heard out of context, the guttural sound of accord between like-minded men, rhythms of the breathing patterns.

His eyes darted from page to page. The book was only a week old, but he had read it twice and had made notations in its margins as though he’d been preparing to conduct a question and answer session with the creator himself. The author was taking no questions tonight.

--Next, the woman, a bookstore representative, said.

The line advanced as the gray beard vanished. More sensitive people attained their moment with the famous man. They ensured their meeting was short so the next group could step right up to get their books signed and talk to him.

Hunched at his seat, the author resembled an assembly line worker dealing with an ill-timed non-stop flow of parts that required his labor. The line behind Robert was still growing. He watched how the author received people, always saying something to them. Did everyone get the same phrase? The same hello? Or was it different?

The phone played Bach melody line bringing Robert out of his immediate daydream. It was a text message from Vicki. She was on her way to pick them up; she’d just left the gym and it would take fifteen or twenty minutes to get there, depending on the traffic. She typed in that she loved him. Robert typed a response to the message.

--Vicki? Tom said.

--Yeah, she’s on her way, Robert said. I hope this line hurries up. Let me finish this message. Why did she do this now?

He pressed the button to send and waited for a confirmation from the machine, only to realize the message was incomplete and misspelled.

--Next.

--Put that thing away, Tom said. He looks irritated.

--Next, please.

--We’re next.

Robert dropped his book and his phone.

--Someone’s got slippery fingers, the silver-haired author said.

The man had a cheap fountain pen in his hand, and his fingers were spotted with black. He wore a green button-down shirt and khaki pants. Robert picked up his phone and then his book. Tom handed over his copy and the author signed it.

Robert’s hands were sweating as he clumsily opened his copy to the title page. The tightness of timidity and anxiousness crept into his throat. He failed to speak. His head was congested with fragments and run-ons.

--Enjoy the reading?

The author said this without looking up and took the book from the nervous youngster’s grasp.

--Very much so, Robert said. His mouth had gone dry.

--Who should I make this out to?

The author looked into his eyes and his lip curled and twisted into a ball of his left cheek.

--Robert.

--Okay.

Robert watched the nib of the pen leak the signature beneath the title.

--Thank you so much. I really admire–the phone played the melody Bach had penned a few hundred years earlier. Shit.

The author’s eyes narrowed, he shook his head, and his palm came down heavy on the cover of the book as he closed it. It seemed a motion of frustration and finality for the printed medium of his work, outstripped by the immediacy of the singing phone that Robert maladroitly silenced. He pushed the book toward the end of the table where Tom was standing trying to look disconnected from the incident. The author did not look at the reader.

--Next.

The author looked toward the line of other readers.

--Move on, the woman said. Come on, next.

Tom and Robert went down the stairs and out of the store onto the street.

--What was that? Tom said not expecting an answer.

Robert kept looking at the stain-spotted street.

Vicki arrived ten minutes later.

--How was it?

--Weird. Tom said and dropped into a reserved silence.

--Fine, just drive, hon.

--What’s wrong, Robert? Why didn’t you answer my–

--Vicki, just drive the car.

--Did you meet him? What was ‘God’ like? The line is–

--Vicki, just shut up and drive the car.

Vicki put the car in motion and made a mental promise to herself to refuse to look at Robert for the rest of the trip. In the rearview mirror, she could see Tom looking out the passenger window.

Robert took out his phone and shut it off. Then he took off the earring.

Drew Giorgi can be reached at drew@nyhangover.com