More than I ever would want to know

It was an odd homecoming.

I took the elevator to the basement and walked through the dimly lit corridors with the sound of dripping water drowning my thoughts. This is what the famous Chinese Water Torture must feel like, pounding inside your skull. Coming up to the stone wall and passing the entry keypad made me remember days where I went underground at predawn hours and didn't resurface until after sunset. If a day goes by without you seeing daylight, is it still a day? It smelled like a dank cave but was nevertheless immaculate--Today I went to the college where I graduated and then did graduate research. I went down to the electron microscope lab in the basement.

It wasn't just a sightseeing trip--I was there because the school is now my customer and I had to install some equipment. You would think that I would roam the halls with confidence, but it reminds me of something in the Bible: "A prophet is never welcome in his own hometown." I really felt like more of an outsider there than anywhere else I go.

I met the equipment coordinator, and we took an elevator ride up. I knew this guy from when I went to school there. One thing I remembered about this guy was that there were pretty much three different states of existence: About to have a cigarette, Currently having a cigarette, and Just had a cigarette. The only thing that was drowning out the smell of smoke was the odor of alcohol from last night's rampage coming through the pores of his skin--I couldn't help but literally taste it in the air. It was just four floors, but I was so relieved for a fresh breath of air.

Usually, I can work on equipment in peace--the installation that I was doing was a little complicated, but mostly just tedious. I had even brought my iPod so I could just relax, listen to music, and work for about 4 or 5 hours.

But that was not to be.

After about an hour, an older man walked into the room. Has it really been 10 years since I graduated? I was really happy to see him--I had taken a class in plant physiology from him and he had explained some of the complex processes to me more clearly than I had ever seen before. I was so inspired in his class that I did a very complex project to measure the "antifreeze" capability in citrus fruits. He was so impressed that he told me the work was practically a thesis--I had even bound it and included graphs, photos, micrographs, and electron micrographs. I had selected him for my graduate committee.

But my happiness faded when I remembered that, instead of continuing on with my graduate studies, I had left school abruptly to work full time. Regardless of the reasons, I felt like a real chicken shit for not personally speaking to him when I left grad school--I just left him to wonder what happened to me, after he had been such a great teacher. I handled things with him badly, and that is one of my biggest regrets.

Now he walks in and I'm sweating and standing with a handful of tools and an odd expression on my face with my iPod in my ears playing something that was absurdly unfitting the situation. I could barely turn it off and take it off fast enough. I felt like a real loser, but he was gracious enough to let me off the hook and he told me that he's glad that I'm doing well. He's a good guy, so I know he means it, but part of me hopes that he believed the part about "doing well". Oh well, maybe it was age regression of sorts since I knew him mainly when I was a wet-behind-the-ears 20-something year old college student struggling to get by.

Back to work on the equipment, then one of the new faculty walks in. And out. And in...So, I thought it would be rude for me to be jamming out on the headphones, so I took them off while she was around. Music seemed to be doomed today.

As I was concentrating on a particularly tough part, in walks the equipment coordinator. I asked him a seemingly innocent question about why his office was moved recently, and he, quite literally, told me the story of his life. It took over two hours. I guess I was a safe bet, because I was pretty much a captive audience figuratively chained to 2000 lbs of equipment for the afternoon.

He kept a safe distance, so the fumes didn't overwhelm me, but his story did. Coming from a small Texas town, he had gone to college just like his 4 brothers before him did. But he liked to party and flunked out. Then he went to work in the West Texas oil rigs.

"That's where I got this!" (I was afraid to look). Finally, I did, readying myself to cringe at the sight of an unfortunately-placed tattoo, but instead he was holding up a hand missing two lopped-off fingers. After he healed, he got fired from that job for "going out and getting drunk and not getting up in the morning."

He went back to his hometown where he sold ladies shoes in a store while going back to college. Soon, he had flunked out again. He met his wife and they ran off to Mexico to get married--they didn't tell their parents for another 6 months, and when they did, they were then married in the church. When I asked him how long he had been married, he answered "It lasted 20 years." and I could tell he was choked up. He took a long sip of coffee and composed himself. At different times, he rambled a little about different classes he took in college, the teachers, and the grades that he got in the classes.

He finally moved to the Dallas area and took a job as a surveyor with the highway department. He got in a fight with a co-worker on a job site and they were both fired. He took a job working in manufacturing which he held for 8 years, getting "cross-wise" with the boss and eventually walking off the job before getting fired. He was about a year shy of being fully vested for retirement. At rock-bottom, he went back to school and found that he had a new scholastic maturity. He started to do well in his classes for the first time in his life, and graduated with a degree in biology. Twenty-five years after he started classes for the first time.

Funny how a lot of people tell you stories with themselves as the hero. Sometimes I even try to see beyond their story to see what "really" happened and how it is being skewed by their interpretation of it--I'm not sure how I got this jaded. It was really refreshing to hear this guy talk, because I felt like he was humbly telling me the perfect truth about his situation, and taking accountability for it. When he first started talking, I was kind of rolling my eyes to myself and hoping he would sneak off in the back room for a couple of shots of MD 20/20 and pass out and not bother me. Eventually, though, I came around and wanted to hear the rest of the story.

I'm not sure what else was going on with this guy currently. Maybe he was lonely. Maybe he had to get something off his chest. Maybe he had to tell that story because it showed how he had overcome adversity to make something of himself, and he wanted to feel proud. Sometimes my knee-jerk response is to respond by telling some of my personal history to show that I related to him, but not today. I let it be his turn today.

I didn't get to listen to my iPod--I have a great playlist that has almost all of my favorite songs on it. I can turn it on and drown out the rest of the world. This was a little bit of a different tune than I anticipated today, but I listened closely and it became music to my ears.