“Just wanted to make sure you guys were gonna be there. Always good to check!”
She was still laughing as he dropped the line. He knew they would be staying open for him. They would never close before seeing the last patient, especially not him. He had made his own name for himself at the practice. It wasn’t just because his family had been going there for years and years before he or his sister were ever born. It was because of him, and who he was. He was Clifford Chase Ford.
Clifford felt good driving down the highway. He was cruising along the two lane highway, painfully aware of the approaching Olive Garden on his right. He was sure the afternoon crowd was already there. He wondered if any of the regulars thought they gotten engaged, eloped, moved far away. At least they would be together in someone’s reality, even if it wasn’t this one. He willed himself not to look, instead, he counted backwards trying to calculate the last time they had gone. It hadn’t gone like he had anticipated.
They had just pulled into the parking lot. She drove, since gas prices had peaked for the first time in four years. They were discussing the election. He had made entirely fair remarks based on economics, statistics, actual common sense stuff. Obviously healthcare should be free, and all student loans should be forgiven, and vaccines should be mandatory along with the boosters, as long as people were allowed to regulate their bodies in whatever ways they chose. He got how it was for a woman or anyone to be who they were even if their parts weren’t on the same page. He had respected her enough that he encouraged her to pick what form of birth control she wanted, if she wanted any. If she didn’t, he supported her decision and as long as she was buying condoms, he would wear them. Because she had a right to chose what went in her body and how.
Clifford looked to his right, the parking lot sat empty, taunting him. It was like the whole world has stopped when their relationship ended, not just his own. The spot they had pulled into caught his eye. She had just parked the car. They were trying to make it past the talk of politics. He wanted to share his good news with her. The big pharma company he had been applying to, and regularly following up with, said they would give him a second interview. He was one step closer to having a full time job outside of his part time job teaching traditional Hawaiian dance to kids. He was going to propose to her with the ring he inherited from his grandmother. Her wedding and engagement rings went to his mother and his sister, but this ring was something his grandfather had given her when they were still a young, Jewish immigrant couple fighting for their lives and livelihood in America. He had a whole speech planned. But she was needling him. In the parking lot.
That was two weeks before they broke up, but since they hadn’t seen each other much in those two weeks. . . the knot in Clifford’s back grew. The tension pulled in his neck. He couldn’t drive by that damned Olive Garden without his body falling apart, even worse than it already had been. Next week would be eight months to the day of the disastrous dinner that never happened. Eight months from when she told him she had been offered a promotion. She would be making more money. She wanted to move to the city. She wanted to know if he was ever going to get a job. A real job, not built on the cultural appropriation of Hawaiian culture. She wanted a dog.
He exited the highway putting the Olive Garden, and her, behind him. Clifford focused on the road. Winding, and smooth. He opened up the engine of his Subaru and felt one with the road as he moved along. A car beeped pulling him back to the moment. Repeatedly blaring the horn, a large truck pulled out from behind him, crossed into the oncoming lane of traffic, and swerved back in front of him. Clifford rolled his eyes. “Asshole,” he screamed though the truck was already through the approaching intersection and almost around the bend. The speed limited was 40. Clifford had been doing at least that. Some people were lunatics.
As he pulled through the intersection, the “Watch Your Speed” sign held a solid 37 MPH across it. The car in the opposite lane was pulling down the score. His neck twinged. He shouldn’t have even bothered to look at the truck, but the driver was reckless and obviously Clifford needed to be the safe, responsible driver. Thankfully he was almost to the chiropractor’s office.
Dr. Ryan would put him back together. He could always count on him for that. Did he agree with all of the man’s beliefs? No, the more Clifford thought about it, he was probably an idiot. Believing that holistic medicine was better than science, that people should have to pay their student loans back – they chose to go to college, they could have learned trades, joined unions, saved up for the cost of college and managed their finances effectively. He was basically a middle aged hippie, but he always managed to get Clifford’s body back, to feel good, to feel like everything was how it was supposed to be. So he schlepped up and down the highway. It was his third time at the office this week, and he knew next week would be worse, but still not as bad as the week after. He felt it in his broken bad, achy neck, and misaligned heart.
Of course, it didn’t help that gas prices where at record highs. He was paying $85 for a tank of gas. His visits were $65 each time. There was no escaping the damage she had done. There also wasn’t a price too high for Clifford to pay for Dr. Ryan to lay his hands on him and fix him. Pulling into the parking lot, he was happy to see two other cars there. Reinforced that while the office would stay open for him, he wasn’t inconveniencing the chiropractor by coming up so close to closing.
Clifford walked into the waiting room hanging up his phone. Something his father had always done when running into a meeting at the exact start time, versus the recommended 15 minutes early. It was true no one had been on the other end of the phone, but it looked good. The receptionist smiled at him, waving as she turned around to take out his folder. He greeted her, making small talk, while she checked him out, he smirked at his own pun. Signing his credit card receipt he commented on it being his third visit. She looked like the kind of girl who if she could pull a string for you, she would. Clifford was sure that wasn’t the only thing she would pull on if given the chance.
A petite strawberry blonde stepped out of the hallway and in front of the reception desk. Behind her was tall, broad, thick-haired Dr. Ryan. Clifford didn’t understand how short, tiny women became chiropractors. They had to be able to move a body, to lean into one. He couldn’t imagine the receptionist, allegedly going through chiropractic school was going to be useful to anyone. Unless it was a happy ending type place. He could see her working out in that kind of environment.
They entered room one, his usual room, and started telling Dr. Ryan everything that was bothering him; mostly about his back, a little about the job market. He said nothing about her. He felt all the familiar touches of chiropractic care. Dr. Ryan’s hands on his lower back, cradling his neck, his hip. He didn’t say much as he performed the adjustment, just his usual “other side” or “this side up.” It was all familiar. It had been the same for years. There was a comfort in that that Clifford appreciated even more than getting himself in alignment.
For the first time since he had been in the office two days ago, Clifford’s body relaxed. It was like being held by a loving hand, instead of a cold sanctimonious bitch.
Clifford stepped off the table and walked toward the wall for the last adjustment. Arms crossed in front of him Dr. Ryan told him to breath out, and his pressed against him. “There ya go.” Dr. Ryan turned and grabbed Clifford’s chart from the desk. He made a few notes and then gestured with the card toward the hallway.
“Feel better, Clifford,” the receptionist said. “Hopefully you won’t have to come back,” she giggled softly as she waived.
He lifted his hand and waived. Getting in his car, Clifford adjusted himself. He couldn’t place the exact moment he had become aroused, and he was pretty sure no one else did either. Who knew he could be attracted to that type, the flash your smile and stand with your tits up high, type. Clifford shrugged it off, and sat down in the driver’s seat. Already he was thinking about his next visit with Dr. Ryan. He was closed until Tuesday, but as long as he avoided the Olive Garden, or any of those housewives shows, or sushi takeout he should be okay. Maybe he would just spend the rest of the day snuggled up with the extra large teddy bear his niece had gotten him a few months ago for Hanukkah. He could still feel the chiropractor’s hands on his back. It was silly, but it was comforting.
A good couch session with the oversized teddy bear would be just what the doctor ordered.