Michael Ginsberg (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
just_displaced) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
margatesands2014-01-25 11:00 pm
just_displaced) wrote in margatesands2014-01-25 11:00 pm
Entry tags:
More AU shit...
With a variety of (okay, two) options!
I.
After three weeks of being back, he finally has his own office. There's a name plaque on his door. It says Michael Ginsberg, of course, but he's been tempted to tape a piece of paper over the part that says "Michael." Some irritating new kid around the office had stared at the name on the door one afternoon and loudly declared that he hadn't known that Ginsberg's first name was Michael. Irritating as that kid had been, Ginsberg can't say he's distressed by the fact that people only know him by his last name. It reminds him of the army.
Being reminded of the army, as it turns out, isn't always the worst thing he can possibly imagine.
He stays in his office at night sometimes. Okay, most nights. He's realized that the floor isn't so uncomfortable, if he puts some pillows down on it, remembers to bring a blanket, lies in the right position. It's more comfortable than sleeping in the jungle, anyway, and hadn't he done that for eighteen months? The office floor seems positively cushy in comparison.
He stays here because he can't go home, because he can't let his father see him the way he is now, not for long periods of time. Morris Ginsberg is too perceptive by half, would recognize that there's something missing in his son, would see what the war had taken out of him, and there would have to be a conversation that he has no interest in having. So he lies and says he has too much work or he's going to see some friends or he's got a date and he won't be home till late or he won't be home at all. And then he camps out on his office floor.
Tonight, it's late. Midnight, maybe. He's not keeping track. Everyone's gone, the place is quiet, most of the lights are out. He's not tired yet, can't possibly fathom going to bed, so after pounding the keys of his typewriter in fruitless frustration at being unable to come up with a slogan for a new weight-loss drink, he pushes open the door to his office and walks almost soundlessly down the dark hallway, unsure of where he's headed, simply liking the feeling of walking alone in the dark, in a place where he feels relatively safe.
II.
There are days he can't face going to work. They don't happen as often as he might have expected them to, but they do happen. On days like that, he just can't bring himself to walk into that lobby, to press that button for the elevator, to go upstairs, to go into his office, to face the same old people with the same old routine. On days like that, he feels the pressure of the whispers in his head much stronger, the insidious, harsh things they say becoming so much clearer in his distress. On days like that, the faces of everyone he sees seem distorted and somehow dangerous, as though they're all staring into him, as though they're all hearing his thoughts, too.
That's when he finds himself somewhere else, places he can't always remember deciding to go. It's strange, this sensation he sometimes has that he's losing time. He knows he must have gotten himself to this coffee-shop of his own accord, on his own two feet, but he'll be damned if he can remember why he'd chosen to come here or what had possessed him to order a white chocolate coffee (whatever the hell that is.)
All he knows is that he's sitting there, staring at his stupid drink that he's not even going to enjoy, idly toying with the two things he wears around his neck, which somehow seem to have gotten tangled together in a way that means he can't quite figure out how to untangle them without taking them off, and he doesn't particularly want to remove them. It's just his dogtags and the Star of David necklace his dad had given him before he'd left for the army (it was supposed to keep him safe, apparently, and he didn't know whether he believed that, not exactly, but hey, he wasn't dead yet, so maybe he might as well keep on wearing it.)
Eventually, the people who run this coffee-shop are probably going to get sick and tired of him sitting there and taking up space and not even drinking his coffee, but for now, he's content just to sit. And stare. And pretend that he never has to go back to work, never, never again.
I.
After three weeks of being back, he finally has his own office. There's a name plaque on his door. It says Michael Ginsberg, of course, but he's been tempted to tape a piece of paper over the part that says "Michael." Some irritating new kid around the office had stared at the name on the door one afternoon and loudly declared that he hadn't known that Ginsberg's first name was Michael. Irritating as that kid had been, Ginsberg can't say he's distressed by the fact that people only know him by his last name. It reminds him of the army.
Being reminded of the army, as it turns out, isn't always the worst thing he can possibly imagine.
He stays in his office at night sometimes. Okay, most nights. He's realized that the floor isn't so uncomfortable, if he puts some pillows down on it, remembers to bring a blanket, lies in the right position. It's more comfortable than sleeping in the jungle, anyway, and hadn't he done that for eighteen months? The office floor seems positively cushy in comparison.
He stays here because he can't go home, because he can't let his father see him the way he is now, not for long periods of time. Morris Ginsberg is too perceptive by half, would recognize that there's something missing in his son, would see what the war had taken out of him, and there would have to be a conversation that he has no interest in having. So he lies and says he has too much work or he's going to see some friends or he's got a date and he won't be home till late or he won't be home at all. And then he camps out on his office floor.
Tonight, it's late. Midnight, maybe. He's not keeping track. Everyone's gone, the place is quiet, most of the lights are out. He's not tired yet, can't possibly fathom going to bed, so after pounding the keys of his typewriter in fruitless frustration at being unable to come up with a slogan for a new weight-loss drink, he pushes open the door to his office and walks almost soundlessly down the dark hallway, unsure of where he's headed, simply liking the feeling of walking alone in the dark, in a place where he feels relatively safe.
II.
There are days he can't face going to work. They don't happen as often as he might have expected them to, but they do happen. On days like that, he just can't bring himself to walk into that lobby, to press that button for the elevator, to go upstairs, to go into his office, to face the same old people with the same old routine. On days like that, he feels the pressure of the whispers in his head much stronger, the insidious, harsh things they say becoming so much clearer in his distress. On days like that, the faces of everyone he sees seem distorted and somehow dangerous, as though they're all staring into him, as though they're all hearing his thoughts, too.
That's when he finds himself somewhere else, places he can't always remember deciding to go. It's strange, this sensation he sometimes has that he's losing time. He knows he must have gotten himself to this coffee-shop of his own accord, on his own two feet, but he'll be damned if he can remember why he'd chosen to come here or what had possessed him to order a white chocolate coffee (whatever the hell that is.)
All he knows is that he's sitting there, staring at his stupid drink that he's not even going to enjoy, idly toying with the two things he wears around his neck, which somehow seem to have gotten tangled together in a way that means he can't quite figure out how to untangle them without taking them off, and he doesn't particularly want to remove them. It's just his dogtags and the Star of David necklace his dad had given him before he'd left for the army (it was supposed to keep him safe, apparently, and he didn't know whether he believed that, not exactly, but hey, he wasn't dead yet, so maybe he might as well keep on wearing it.)
Eventually, the people who run this coffee-shop are probably going to get sick and tired of him sitting there and taking up space and not even drinking his coffee, but for now, he's content just to sit. And stare. And pretend that he never has to go back to work, never, never again.
no subject
But he's not. And he can't.
What he can do is cling to those words. I don't think you're crazy. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that someone has said it. What matters is that maybe if he hears it enough times, he can start believing it himself (but that's bullshit, isn't it, because it never works that way. No matter what other people say, he stubbornly thinks what he wants. Isn't that what people always complain about?)
And... maybe Don's right. Maybe spending the night alone in the office isn't the best choice, not if he wants to talk to anyone, but that opens up that nagging question again: does he really want to talk? Or does he simply think he needs to? Does he simply not know how to be silent? Is he willing to spill out all of his thoughts? Obviously he's doing a pretty good job of dumping these things on Don, on the one person who very likely never wanted to hear them. Is that why he's so insistent upon doing it?
"I don't have..."
What? What? Come up with something to say. Speak or Don's going to walk away and he's going to miss his chance. He needs to say something. He needs to keep him close because right now Don crouching beside him is the only anchor he has in the world and that's terrifying, terrifying and wrong and awful, not because Don is a bad anchor but because Don would hate to know that, and he's probably already starting to sense it.
It's not right, it's not right at all, that he should feel more scared here, curled against the cabinets in the break room, wishing he could disappear entirely, than he ever had over there. Over there he'd had a purpose. Being scared had been a part of everything else, inseparable from the rest of life, and while he hadn't liked it (no, of course he hadn't liked it, no, there was nothing to like about it, he needs to quash the little voice in his head that tells him that there had been something that had felt good about it, had felt fulfilling, had felt... stopstopstop) he'd understood what he'd needed to do. He saved people. Or he didn't.
And here? What is there? What is there but a half-dark break-room and an empty office and someone crouched beside him who clearly doesn't want to be here and a bunch of ad ideas that will never, never amount to anything anyway and fuck, he feels like he's going to be sick, but he won't. He can hold it in. He's gotten good at that.
"I don't have anywhere else to go."
There it is. The reason he's here instead of at home. It's not entirely true that he has nowhere else to go. He could go back home to his father. He knows that's what his father expects. He knows he can go there any time he wants to. And he knows he could look for his own apartment, too. But it's deeper than simply the literal meaning of nowhere else to go. It's all wrapped up in his mind, all tangled up in the fact that he doesn't know who or what or sometimes even where he is. Where the fuck do you go when you're nobody and nothing at all?
But concentrate on what Don's saying. He's talking about the job. This is good. This is what he'd wanted to come back to all along. This is what he'd dreamt about (yes, literally and figuratively) when he'd been over there. This is what he'd regaled the guys over there with stories about. They'd known more about some of the people around the office than anybody else outside of the office ever would. Maybe he'd exaggerated some of it, sure, but he hadn't needed to exaggerate the important parts, the key aspects of people, the things that mattered the most. And now he's back here, and Don's telling him things about all of these people, and he should listen, because this is what he cares about, isn't it?
Well, isn't it?
He still feels like he's going to be sick, and so he turns his head away from Don for a moment, intending to politely throw up off to the side if he's going to at all, but he's still clinging to Don's words, letting the nausea pass over him in waves, and finally, finally, he thinks he can respond with some semblance of sense.
"Mallory Batteries." He tries to think about it. Somehow, remarkably, he seems to remember hearing someone mentioning something about it in one of those meetings he'd barely been paying attention for. "I heard the head of their marketing department can be a real sleaze, but Peggy'll probably break his fingers if he tries anything. I also heard a rumor that we were in unofficial talks with some--"
The words are coming to him too quickly now, and he has to consciously dial it back so that he doesn't sound completely insane, so that he doesn't trip over his own tongue and make himself sound worse. This is good. This is talking about work. He can do this.
"--some company that makes socks, or sells socks. Socks, right? Maybe they make other things, too, I wasn't quite clear on that. Hammett & Sons, or something. Stan said they kept wanting to do some placement in TV shows about their socks, and all their ideas were really awkward and obvious. Harry might like that, though. He could expand the television department with jobs entirely devoted to finding ways to namedrop sock brands into every television show on the planet."
It's relatively irrelevant, in the big scheme of things, but it's work talk. It's the kind of talk that can't bring up anything painful. It's something to hold onto. He's trying. Surely Don must see it in his eyes, how hard he's trying.
no subject
It's clear enough that Ginsberg has tumbled into something, though he seems to be attempting to pull himself back out. (Is that surprising? Is that almost... admirable, in a way? Don might not have thought that Ginsberg possessed the wherewithal to regain himself like this, if Don had thought on it at all.) His eyes are still unsettling, so close now that Don almost does pull away, tries to sunder this unstable connection before he has to really face it, before the sensing of it takes on the guise of responsibility. It's like looking into the eyes of a drowning man, or at least a man who thinks he's drowning. It's painfully familiar.
'I don't have anywhere else to go.' Of course he doesn't. Of course it isn't that easy, and Don suspects Ginsberg means more than that he lacks an actual home (though maybe he doesn't have anywhere to go, maybe he really doesn't). Because a part of Ginsberg is clearly still caught overseas. Because he apparently can't rid himself of what happened there ('because there's no help for it') and doesn't know what to do with it, maybe doesn't know what to make of himself in the wake of those events. Things happen. You change with whatever events you encounter... But if Ginsberg can't accept what happened, maybe he doesn't know what or where he is.
Such a fucking mess. And while Don would like to offer words, to present a solution that could wrap away the problem and shake Ginsberg out of this awkward despondency, he doesn't think this is a time to dwell on the matter. Every answer he's given thus far has only incited Ginsberg further. And what is there to say? Don doesn't have open-and-shut answers, and Don isn't convinced that Ginsberg is capable of accepting anything less than some clear-cut approach.
Maybe it’s better to stick with talk about work right now. Maybe he'll come back to the rest if the time feels right, or if he can't avoid it any longer (some issues press, demand expression like that).
All right, he can talk about work. They were doing well enough with that before, weren't they? So Don nods, elbows resting on his knees, and speaks in an almost casual tone. "Jeff Franklin. He keeps a stack of porno magazines on his desk."
Of course Ginsberg was right; Peggy would be fine. There was no question of that, though Ted had insisted on making absolutely certain that she knew what she was getting into, and that she knew she didn't have to go. Peggy hadn't so much as batted an eye. If anything, she'd become more firmly set on winning the account in spite of Franklin's shady reputation. "If Peggy can cut through the licentiousness, we might be running ads for double As in the near future."
"Double As and socks." The news about Hammett & Sons is a surprise, though he betrays the fact only through a moment of silent processing. Either nobody had mentioned the account to him, or he hadn't been listening. Maybe it had come up in a partners' meeting. Maybe it hadn't, and whoever was running the talks (did Peggy know? did Ted?) had simply decided that Don didn't need to know.
He isn't certain that it should matter. It probably should, and it raises worries, suggestions that he's entertained on and off for the past several months. There comes a time when usefulness wears itself out, after all. There comes a time when whatever talent, whatever pull you once had is no longer enough to hold you.
It stings for a moment, and then he pushes it away. Never mind. He can't know what happened (but, Christ, shouldn't this put more pressure on whatever he may or may not come up with for Sunkist? what follows after being removed from news of potential business?). He can't know what it means. There isn't any use in worrying.
"My wife used to swear by Hammett & Sons." He says it without thinking about the statement; it's only something to advance the dialogue. Betty had purchased Hammett & Sons socks often enough that to mark them in Don's mind, after all. "Something about longevity and colorfastness. They weren't uncomfortable, but they weren't exactly memorable, either." So far as Don had been concerned, they'd just been another brand of socks. He hasn't bought them since.
"I can't think of a more boring product to crowd the airwaves with."