My Life in Offices by Garder Streetwise

Part I

Doctor’s Office
18 months
Pneumonia
Back again and again. And then to the hospital: one giant office. Clipboards, dry-erase boards, beds like boards, white things, square things, bad carpet. Eighteen Months? I was a year and a half. I was? I was. Why didn’t I die? Can’t die in an office. Too boring. Too many calendars. Too many things to do another day.

Part II

William Able’s office, though more a studio.
Every day, pretty much, first five years
Fun

Still, everything in its place. Bins for brushes, bins for paints, bins for pastels, bins for bins that might one day hold something that could be glued to a canvas and called po-mo magnificent. Animals all over the office. Live cats, live turtles, decoupage deer, watercolor condor. Difference between an office and a studio? The floor. Bad carpet, speckled cement.

Part III

Dentist
Every six months for sixteen years
Hell

Haven’t been in a few. Too expensive. Too terrifying. Drills to teeth and conversations with your mouth clamped open.

Part IV

Post Office
Every holiday season
Stupid traditions

Mailing packages to aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas who lived far away. Other cities. Other countries. No more. They’re all dead.

Part V

Dad’s office (not the one here but the one at the University where he used to work a long time ago)
Occasionally while seven—before they married
Needed watching

A professor’s office a special office because a fake office. Dad doesn’t want to be there, he said. He said he hates office hours. Students love office hours. Should be a student office where they can pretend to be tidy adults. Nice desk. Large oak with cubbies. Clean life in sections. Four comfy chairs. Dad in one, me another, coloring book the third, crayons the fourth. Not a bad office, except the stranger, and it smells like vanilla.

Part VI

The Shrink’s office
So, so many times
I need it, they say

Ramble, ramble, ramble.