(Dis)order

 
He put the newspaper in a neat stack and sat his ceramic coffee mug next to it. The chair was pushed in so that the four wooden legs lined up with the corners of the white tile and the back was four inches from the four-foot-by-four-foot table. It sat perfectly square facing the single other chair across the table. When he sat down his weight was evenly distributed on the wicker seat and the pockets of his cargo pants were emptied so as not to cause any sort of imbalance.
        His thin gray hair was combed neatly to one side. It had been washed twice that morning because the first time he squeezed a dime-sized amount of product into his palm, making sure it fit within the creases of his cupped hand without extending over them, and rubbed his fingers into the glob to run through his thin hair, he had realized that the left side, where his part lay, had been the recipient of the majority of the gel, leaving the right side stuck up with small frizzy hairs. He had had to re-measure small cups of shampoo and conditioner, get back into the shower, and wash his hair again, getting out and towelling his head and combing his hair into a straight part before re-measuring a dime-sized amount of gel into his palm once again.
        Sitting at the kitchen table he fidgeted with a bowl of sugar before settling it two inches to the left of his mug. The spoon protruded toward him and was exactly one tablespoon. He brought the spoon out of the sugar bowl and used a knife that sat beside it to scrape off the rounded top before stirring the granulated crystals into his coffee. He carried the spoon straight to the sink where it was rinsed, lathered with dish soap, rinsed again, dried with a clean white towel, and placed back into its spot in the silverware drawer. It sat atop three other shiny spoons to the right of four shiny forks that rested next to four gleaming butter knives. The stacks were evenly situated in a cardboard nest that he had cut out himself for the purpose of keeping spoon, fork and knife separate. After a suitable, shallow box had been found he had cut out two pieces of cardboard to create walls between knife and fork, fork and spoon. Sometimes when he slid the drawer open a knife would slide off his neat stack but he would use the tip of his finger to tap it back into place before gingerly closing the drawer.
        By the time the sugar spoon was cleaned, dried, and stacked back on top of its mates, his coffee was at just the right temperature; he blew on it three times for two seconds at a time just to make sure.
        For years he had begun his day just like this. It took him hours to ready himself before he was picked up and taken to the library to sit and watch the patrons. There he relaxed surrounded by the tidy rows of books and magazines in a world where he felt taken care of and part of a community that shared the same desire to line up rows of books and then choose one, open the front cover, and journey methodically through hundreds of pages, one by one, left to right.
        At home he was alone. He had his own stacks of books and boxes and cans of instant potatoes and lima beans in the cupboard, but no one was there to care for them beside himself now. No one was there to unload the groceries and categorize them by size and weight as they were placed into the refrigerator and cabinets. It had been up to him, for the last seven years, to pace the grocery store, organize the items in the cart and set them onto the black register belt all by himself, to put each bag into his trunk so that a straight line was formed and the food was situated geographically as he had found it within the small store.
        Every day he did the things that had once been done with someone who loved him, someone he loved in return very much. He had never been scolded for spending two hours in the bathroom situating his hair or for leaving the table to wash the sugar spoon before having morning coffee. Instead he had been accompanied by someone who helped him measure out a tablespoon of shampoo and a teaspoon of conditioner, someone who had put the same amount of sugar into their coffee and waited until the spoon was washed, dried, and stacked away before taking a sip. He hadn’t needed to be occupied at the library because he had spent his days with someone who could choose a book from the shelf in his own home and sit next to him, flipping through the pages one at a time. He couldn’t choose a book on his own now, so he just watched.
        He looked at each spine and read each title beginning with Atlas Shrugged and ending on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, every time. He didn’t categorize by author because he never remembered the author’s name. Until eight o’clock at night he would trace each letter on every spine with his eyes. Walking up the stairs he took one step on each ledge placing his foot in the center, following the footprints that had been mashed into the carpet. Step one, step two, and he missed the outline. He backed up, moving in reverse with his veined right hand on the wooden railing screwed into the wall. There were eighteen steps to take before he reached the second floor landing.
        It didn’t matter whether or not he had anyone waiting for him upstairs, he had always taken the steps the way same way. His footprints never got smoothed out of the carpet, even when there had been another’s alongside them. The dust caked onto the carpet filled in the old prints. Stripping off the days clothes, folding them and stacking them in the hamper, socks first, trousers on top of them, his sweater next, he got on top of the quilt covering his mattress and laid his head just to the right of the pillow. He slept on the left side of the bed and stayed resting flat on his back throughout the night, tracing the woodwork around and around the ceiling.