The Aldi (for J.Z.)

James was an internist with a private

practice on the south side of Chicago,

before the HMOs made that impossible.

He had just seen his last patient for the

day. He washed up. He spoke with his 

secretary about the next days appoint-

ments. He took off his doctor's smock

and put on a sports coat, went outside

and got into his Prius, and drove down

Kedzie. About ten blocks from his office,

he pulled into the parking lot of an Aldi

supermarket. At seven P.M., the parking

lot was not full. He parked away from the 

store, away from the other cars, in a spot

where he wouldn't be noticed at that time 

of night. He turned off the motor and sat

in his car not moving, just staring out the

windshield. He took out a cigarette, lit it,

took a deep drag, and exhaled.

in a little while he'd be heading home to his

house, to the other half of his life. He had a

routine after work: he took a shower, 

changed clothes, and went out to a bar, or a 

restaurant, or one after the other. He had an 

assortment of friends that he would hang out 

with at these places every night. Most of 

them were professionals of some ilk that he 

had known for some time. They all were 

alcoholics and/or drug addicts to varying

degrees. They all had achieved some success

in their fields, but were all doomed to ultimate

failure. This was his other world, the one he

had his other foot in.

His siblings were all either doctors or lawyers,

except for the black sheep of the family, who

had married a successful mechanic that had 

his own shop. She wanted nothing to do with

her family, nor they her.

James had a stable medical practice, and he 

made plenty of money, not that either of those

facts gave him any satisfaction. They were 

necessary only to enable and justify his 

existence, an existence molded by the 

psychological torture and soul washing he'd

received from his parents that made it virtually

impossible to lead anything close to a normal

life.

He needed to be a doctor. He needed people 

to see him as one...to see in their eyes that he

had succeeded in his parents ambitions for him,

which were nothing more nor less than their own

ambitions.

James knew this. He knew he wasn't living his 

life, but rather a simulacrum that he had been 

scared into that he could not escape from. So he

contrived to have another side to his life, a side

that neither his parents nor his doctor self would 

approve of.  He chose friends that would play up

to his persona, but were also real enough, in 

their drunken, addled ways, to be genuine, to 

have a certain measure of awareness and self 

knowledge, knowing that their grand schemes

and accomplishments were only preludes to their

inevitable train wrecks. It was a delicate balancing 

act that they played with themselves and that 

James played with them. In a way, it was a jovial,

good fellow war of attrition.

James had his practice that he would always go

back to in the morning, pull himself together, 

create that world anew each day, 'till each 

evening, start with pretense, gradually fall apart,

relax a bit, and be whatever-it-was at the time, in

his induced other world, which he longed to show

to his parents, but which he couldn't dare let 

happen. He wanted to scream at them: "See what 

you've done to me!!" But all he could muster was

discussion with his friends about how crazy the 

world was. Neither world he was in gave him any

peace. Both worlds were unrelenting in their 

disparate purposes. They were utilitarian worlds 

he needed in order to continue the life he did not

know how he had gotten himself into, but saw no 

alternative to.

So, for a brief time each day after work, he would 

drive to the parking lot of the Aldi, turn off the motor

and smoke a couple of cigarettes. This was his 

moment of nirvana, what others went to church for,

hopeful for solace. This was the only time he was 

not in either world. This was his monastery, his 

church, his moment of clarity...not that he prayed or

supplicated...not that he hoped for anything better

for his life. At this moment, he was Sisyphus, 

watching the rock rolling back down the hill, waiting

for it to stop rolling, so he could start his downward 

journey to the beginning once again.