More AU shit...

[just_displaced]

 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.  

Comments

[knockfourtimes]

There it is. There's a question.

Fall asleep on the couch in his office. Or drink until you pass out on said couch. When that fails, disappear for a week. Maybe a month. Try and fail to find your answers in someone else. And eventually, let it slide, let it all slide to its straggling end.

In the meanwhile, take what steps you can, move ahead on the path, however sharp it slopes downward. Drag yourself along one step after another and be certain to pretend that nothing's happened, act as if it's all together.

There is, after all, an art to carrying on. There is an art to fading.

But never mind that. Never mind the drama. (He falls into it so easily sometimes; he's going to drink after this.) Never mind his own response to an absence of ideas - though he knows, he knows the way words and images lie heavy in the head, the way they may refuse to rise at all - and never mind the trailing of of Ginsberg's renewed energy. He hasn't been back very long. He still remembers too much - he must - and it's late; with all of that in play, it's only reasonable that Ginsberg's thoughts are shorting out on him.

Ginsberg needs to relax. That's all. (It must be. It probably isn't. Don really doesn't believe it is, but the possibility stands.) It's easy to succumb to pressure around this office, and Don half-wonders whether anyone has encouraged Ginsberg to keep from overdoing it or has been... all right, for lack of a better phrase, keeping an eye on him. (Jesus Christ, he's a grown man.) Peggy or Ted must have been. Isn't that part of their job?

It's probably part of Don's job, too. It certainly used to be. He hadn't bothered with it - as long as the work was done, he'd made a habit of not really noticing them - but Peggy and Ted both seem more aware of others than he'd ever been. Granted that Peggy gets caught up in her work, maybe even forgets that others are around in a way Don recognizes. And Ted's been spending a lot of time in California...

Again, that doesn't matter. What matters right now is answering Ginsberg's question. Providing a firm response.

"I go home."

There used to be truth to that, and it used to work. When there was a home to return to. When recharging was a possibility.

"This place can drive anyone up a wall or into a dead end. Why don't you should get out of here, Ginsberg? Get some sleep, at least go breathe the air outside.

"You're onto something. It sounds like you have a solid idea of what you want; that's what matters. You aren't lost at sea. So give yourself a break. You'll have plenty of time to get it written down tomorrow. Or the day after." That isn't always true - sometimes the words slip away - but more often than not it's possible to find the way back. And Ginsberg does sound as if he has a handle on the direction he wants to take. There might even be something in it. Probably is something in it, Don admits.

"You don't need to cram a year's worth of work into a month."

This conversation has been actually, moderately tolerable - even revitalizing, in a way (the way he'd been able to just speak) - but it probably would be best all around if Ginsberg were to leave. This encounter would end reasonably well. Don would have the office to himself, left to his attempts at catching onto something, anything that might be usable for Sunkist or at least worthy of discussion.

And just now? Don feels as if he might be able to find something. Hadn't he spoken almost naturally (god, it'd felt good, it really had) about Mallo-wich? The words had come easily, bringing with them the prospect of further ideas, of synapses snapping thoughts together and into use. If he begins work now, he might be able to corral more of these thoughts. Might come up with something for the morning.

(He doesn't entirely believe this. The more likely case is that he'll return to his office and hit the wall again, facing the sour taste of his task and the mountain of ideas he simply cannot find. He knows the routine. He knows the weight. But he feels, right now he feels as if he might pull through that...)

It's beside the point, and he takes a sip of his coffee, eyes on Ginsberg.

[just_displaced]

"I don't know how to..."

How to what? How to go home? That's true enough, and not just in the literal sense, the sense that tells him that going home to his father is potentially dangerous, not because of anything his father will do but because that look of sympathy, that look of worry, that anxiety that he sees so clearly in his father's face, all of that is enough to break him. It's true in the metaphorical sense, too, that he has no idea how to be home, really home, here in New York or here at work or here anywhere. Maybe there is no home.

But that's not the only thing he doesn't know how to do. He has no idea how to relax, no idea how to turn off his mind, and that seems to be what Don is suggesting, and he simply can't do it. Or simply won't. There are too many things that could creep into his thoughts if he stopped thinking about this project, if he stopped typing away at the typewriter or stopped pondering the various pros and cons of Mallo-wiches.

"I don't know how to take a break," he says, and in some ways, he thinks Don will understand. He knows they're not as similar as he might like them to be (because he desperately wants to place Don into the same mold that he, himself, is cut from, yet he knows that it's an oversimplification to do so) but he knows that there are certain things that they share. That they must share, because they have a similar kind of spark, when it comes to advertising. Or... they had. He doesn't know whether either of them truly possess it anymore.

"When I was over there--" And he knows this isn't the direction Don wants to go in, knows that Don would probably like to do anything to get out of this conversation before it goes down that road again, but he can't help it. He can never hold back, can never resist bringing whatever he's thinking into the conversation, no matter how hard he tries. This is why he's been largely avoiding conversation. This is why he shouldn't run into anyone late at night in the office, when his inhibitions are even lower, anyway.

"-- I don't know if it was like this for you, maybe it wasn't, but it was worse to stop doing things, to have time to... think about everything that was going on. On days when nothing was happening, on days when we weren't in danger, when we weren't fighting, when the only thing I had to deal with was soul-crushing fucking boredom, I thought I'd go crazy. Maybe I did go crazy. It's worse to give yourself a break, sometimes."

He had been so goddamned productive over there, had been the kind of medic that he knew people must have appreciated having around, despite his obvious quirks and downfalls, but when he really pondered it good and hard, he had to admit to himself that a large amount of his seemingly boundless ability to perform tasks was due to a desire to avoid being left alone, idle, with nothing but his thoughts and worries to keep him company. The voices in his head could be drowned out by war, by violence, by fear and by guilt and by grief, and it bothered him sometimes, bothered him that, to some extent, it was easier to cope with those things than it was to cope with his own mind.

Don wants him to go outside and get fresh air? He can't even fathom it. The world inside this office building may be small, it may be uncomfortably stifling, at times, it may feel like the walls are closing in and threatening to crush him under their weight (the weight of the building itself, as well as the weight of all the expectations and emotions of everyone in the building, which he always seems to sense so clearly) but it's infinitely better than the world outside. The world outside is full of threats, and he always feels poised for combat out there, ready to spring into action at any moment.

How do people cope with it? How do they stop feeling threatened? Does Don feel threatened in this way, too, or has he learned to numb it? Is it time, or something else, that deadens that kind of instinctive response to the world around them?

[knockfourtimes]

It occurs to Don that in the future, he should avoid the break room.

The conversation could have ended. Ginsberg could have accepted the advice, given some parting words of gratitude, gathered his clothing, and headed out for the night. Even as he thinks it, Don dismisses the image, half amused and half nauseated by its absurdity. As if that were anywhere in the realm of possibility. As if Ginsberg could ever stop, ever hold back from whatever the hell it is that crowds his mind... And there's a warning again, a suggestion that Don should step out while he can, because this probably isn't going to become any smoother. Because there's no telling where Ginsberg might go. Because already, Don can feel the ground he'd gained eroding.

Nothing is certain, though. He'd entered this conversation... mostly willingly, and he can still handle it. In any case, he isn't willing to let go of it just yet. Because he feels, somewhere feels that he has words that might suit here. Because there is something of a challenge in meeting Ginsberg's questions and navigating the many pitfalls of engagement (it requires sideways thinking, forces him into drawing connections with which he's been too often out of touch). Because...

Something holds him here. Maybe it doesn't need any more analysis than that. All that it requires is words and voice. He can do that. He can.

"You aren't there anymore. You're here. And you'll have to get used to that." It's a simple statement, spoken with an accustomed measure of brusqueness. He doesn't intend it unkindly; only as a firm injunction. Lingering in the past can't do any good. (Not that blanking out the past had done much good for Don in the long run, but it had aided in its way, and perhaps there was a path between the two extremes.) What Don knows is that being present, being here is a necessity, and not only in terms of work.

Of course, being out of that place doesn't necessarily mean being freed of the thoughts. Of course he knows how the mind can play tricks, hanging on too tightly to something from the past, and causing one place to bleed into another. The key is to beat those impressions back. The key is to keep your mind clear of what has been, leaving play only for what is.

Don had discarded thoughts of Korea quickly enough, but Don had - has - also been skilled at compartmentalizing. Putting his mind in a sort of order, and never mind how that order stands now, whether it truly stands at all. Ginsberg doesn't seem to have mastered that skill or even begun to grasp its use. A month, and he still speaks, still looks fresh from overseas. (What had they seen in Vietnam? What is that war, and is it - God help them - is it somehow worse than Korea had been, somehow even more of a mess? It might only be Ginsberg. It might only be his sensitivity.)

And his words had come so quickly, so naturally. Almost as if Ginsberg has been waiting to talk about that, about the war. For a moment, Don wonders whether Ginsberg has anyone to speak with about it. He must have... Or not. So much about life remains unspoken. And it's better that way, Don still insists on believing that it's better that way (mostly, though there are times he could bend to other views times he could question his certainty on the point).

Maybe, though. Maybe there are some people who, once in a while, require outlet. (Some people. Many people. Can he deny this?) If so, Ginsberg seems a likely count for their number.

Never mind. That isn't the point here. It isn't (it can't be) anywhere for Don to enter. "You need to adjust your vision. Remember where you are.

"You need to stop thinking as if you're somewhere else."

[just_displaced]

"Yeah, I get that. I know I'm here. I just don't know where here is."

Is it too existential of a question? Most likely. He's not sure Don'll appreciate it, but then, Don doesn't seem to appreciate much of anything about this conversation. He'd feel bad for dragging him into it, but, well, it's not like he's forcing him to stay. If Don wants to walk away, he will. If he wants to keep talking, he will. He's the kind of man that can make his own decisions. They both are. Aren't they?

Don always manages to be so brusque in his delivery of statements like that, like he's absolutely certain that what he's saying is right and true. He wonders if Don really believes any of this, or whether he's just so good at sounding confident that he can convince everyone around him. It's a talent, to be sure, one that Ginsberg's never quite been able to cultivate in himself. He's good at selling an idea, good at spinning complete bullshit fantasies for products, but he's never been good at having confidence, never been good at believing in his own words, and certainly never good at dispensing advice. If this can be considered advice.

"People say that. I mean, you're not the first person that's told me the whole 'adjust your vision' thing, even if most people say it in kind of different words, but the thing is that nobody explains how to do that. You know? I know it's true, I know that's what needs to get done, I just don't know the steps for doing it.

"And it's completely ridiculous, it's completely insane to me, that there're all these rules and regulations and steps for training someone about what they're supposed to do in the army -- I mean, fucking boot camp is all about that bullshit, all about how things're supposed to go and how they're supposed to look -- and then you get over there and maybe you can't apply all of the rules all of the time, but you've got an idea of how things're supposed to be to guide you.

"And then you get out, and all of a sudden, nobody's even trying to give you any rules. It's okay, you're done now, enjoy your life unraveling the shit you saw, because there's no help for it, just a slap on the back and some stupid fucking medals."

He's said too much and he knows it, given far too much insight into his mental state that Don doesn't need and probably doesn't care about, but how can he hold it all in? It's like he's boiling over, like no matter what he does, no matter how much he tries to put a lid on it, it'll all come streaming out, whether he tries to prevent it or not. At a certain point, trying to prevent it moves from being simply useless to being actively painful.

He already has to be quiet so much, around so many people. He can't possibly tell his father anything about what had happened there. Morris would listen, of course he would, but it would destroy him, Ginsberg can sense it, and he can't be responsible for destroying his father when he's already, simply by the process of existing in the first place, been responsible for destroying his mother. That's another thought that's plagued him, lately, another thought in the endless stream of thoughts that preoccupy his brain.

Shit, shit, if he were back over there, maybe he wouldn't have to be thinking about this at all. He sure wouldn't be standing around half-dressed in a break room with someone he imagines thinks of him disdainfully, if he even thinks of him at all, which he doesn't, does he, because he'd said that. That elevator ride is still so clear in his mind. But if he were back there, if he was in that place where nothing made sense and yet everything fit together perfectly, he could fill his mind with other things. All he wants is some kind of clarity.

Maybe clarity is impossible. He's shaking so hard now he knows it's visible to anyone but the very unobservant, and Don's not unobservant, never has been, even if he doesn't always seem to care.

[knockfourtimes]

Of course it doesn't make sense that the rules in war are clearer than the rules at home (or what was supposed to be home; Don had made and held to a home for himself after the war, but that stability has long since dissolved). Or, no, it makes perfect sense, because wars ostensibly operate within set boundaries, their territory and personal relationships, their horrors defined by men who make certain that everything can be recorded and reported. War is man-made and man-directed, and so exists within a sphere that is understandable, if you can overlook the inhumanity of it. If you can overlook the chaos that waits at its edges.

Life outside of war, life outside of anyone's definition stands astonishingly unbound. Societal institutions do their best to train people to see in terms of community and social morays, in terms of rules of etiquette and subtle (or not-so-subtle) class gradations. And people believe these structures. People do. They guide their lives by popular rules, they cling to some sense of being protected by these rules. It's why, or a big part of the reason why they'll buy a new car years before the old model's ready for the trash heap, why they'll rush out to buy the silkiest pair of pantyhose or the newest handbag. It's a sense of pre-defined place. A sense of belonging.

But there are times at which a person may find himself (or, all right, herself) pushed out of this sense. Times of being forced to encounter the world in other ways, ways that clash with all prior expectations and understanding, breaking the very possibility of safety. It is at such times that the artificiality of social structure, of companionship, of all that had been known stands exposed. And returning from such recognitions can prove difficult, if not impossible. (Can you ever fit the pieces together in the same way again? Don wants to believe so. Don has feigned to believe so. But now? Now?)

Don's seen it before. The permanence of unraveling. He'd glimpsed it before the war, he'd seen it in the fire and his own actions (he'd hardly believed them at the time, hardly understood the way that he grabbed for life, not his own but yes his own because he hadn't asked to see flesh afire and what he'd needed what he'd truly needed was to be freed of what awaited in America), and he'd seen it plenty of times after. Still sees it, and Don can't say with certainty when the first crack came or why it's never been sewn shut. Maybe he'd never really seen the world as whole. Maybe that was why he'd clung so blindly to the picture-perfect family when he'd finally found it, why he'd let himself ignore the creeping doubts though he knew they'd come through, knew the image would collapse.

And what do you do about it? You push through. Keep moving and try not to listen too close. Use the knowledge where you can and otherwise look elsewhere. Don doesn't have a final answer. There is no final answer; jesus, you've got to make your own way.

Granted that Ginsberg's raised a reasonable point: nobody plans for the soldiers leaving battle. Nobody guides them because nobody knows how, because to those outside it's only another job (an impressive one or a heinous one, but still just a job), and because soldiers are meant to be impervious. Unshakable. That's how the soldier fits into society's basic picture: the untouchable hero who needs no help, accepts no help. Who exists to stir passions on the homefront and defend the country overseas. A soldier is hardly human; why should he be ushered back into the fold?

But that isn't anything to dwell on. Bemoaning the state of that particular structure won't help anything, and is likely - as in Ginsberg's case - to in fact increase some sense of confusion. and Don isn't going to argue about it right now. Don isn't going to give Ginsberg impetus for pushing further down that road.

What is there to tell Ginsberg? Don feels pushed up against a wall, he feels a flash of anger, and mostly he feels himself to be at a loss. Because Ginsberg won't listen, not really; he misses - doesn't he always? - the implications working behind the words, misses the opportunities that their spaces offer. When understanding doesn't present itself, the key is to create answers and craft your own understanding. Don doesn't manage it quite as well anymore, but he had been expert with the skill before, and it had kept him moving when the world seemed shaken. He doesn't entirely comprehend Ginsberg's stubborn adherence to direct answers.

"Nobody explains it because there is no ready-made answer." There's a harsher edge in his voice, a force that covers for exasperation. "There is no... approved program for achieving stability. Nobody can solve anything for you."

But that isn't entirely fair, and he relents slightly, shaking his head. "You pick your rules. And you know where you are. Look around. Here is where you're standing. Here is your work and everything you have outside of work, your home. Here is everyone who looks you in the eye or brushes past with a quick hello. Here is what you can touch, what you can share with the people around you." This is ridiculous. That he should be saying this to Ginsberg... Something in this feels absurd.

"You don't need to spend the rest of your life wrapped up in what you remember. Let yourself be here, and you'll find your way forward.

"It takes time."

[just_displaced]

"And is that what you did? Let yourself be here? Picked your own rules? Am I supposed to believe..."

He's angry now, and his voice flares with it, feeling oddly, absurdly betrayed, somehow, feeling that there had been something more Don could have given him, something beyond that harshness of tone and that obvious exasperation. There was meant to be something beyond that; Don's words make sense, they do, but they're surface level, in his opinion. They're meant to sell him on an idea, to sound like advice, but they don't strike him as solid.

It shouldn't make him as angry as it does, but the force of his anger takes him by surprise, and he has to turn around quickly, flinging open one of the cabinets above the coffeemaker like he's looking for something, but really he's just trying to find something to do with his hands, to preoccupy himself, so he doesn't start kicking things. He wants to kick things. He's had that urge for a long time: kick things, knock things over, throw things out the window, express what's in his mind in some tangible way so that maybe people can finally see what a mess he really is. He doesn't question why he might want people to see that, why that makes sense to him when it's so at odds with what anyone else may want. Most people want to hide. He wants to explode.

"Am I supposed to believe that you aren't wrapped up in what you remember, too? I'm not asking you to solve anything for me, how the fuck could I, when I don't think you've got anything solved for yourself? I'm just trying to have a conversation. A goddamned connection with someone I thought might understand what it feels like to go through life completely empty, and..."

It's too much. He knows it's too much. He desperately, helplessly tries to reel it in. His back's been to Don throughout the entire outburst, and now he makes a show of rummaging through the cabinet, like he really cares about the stale box of crackers and the eight kinds of coffee creamer he finds in there. Who stocks these cabinets, anyway? Why don't they stop buying creamer when it's practically overflowing as it is? It's an inane thought with nothing attached to it, just like so many of his thoughts seem to be.

He takes deep breaths. He tries to remember the ways he'd calmed himself over there, but none of those really apply here. This isn't a combat zone, or if it is, it's one that he feels less equipped to manage. There's no easy niche to fit himself back into. Copy chief. It's a job, but what does it mean? Does it mean anything? Does it have to?

He finally closes the cabinet and turns back around, eyes frantic and wide and yet still exhausted somehow. There's so much he wants to say, so much he wants to ask, but he doesn't think Don is ever going to provide him with straight answers. It irks him, irks him that he can see so clearly that there are visible cracks in this man but that he still can't entirely get through them to see what's underneath. "Don't you ever get sick of pretending?"

Pretending what, he doesn't specify. It could be anything. Pretending to be a complete person, maybe, or just pretending that things will work out. He's said it; he's implied that Don's just as broken as he is, and now Don's probably going to fire him, and he can't say he'd be surprised. Maybe that's what he's been gunning for all along. An out. An escape. He didn't need to be that confrontational. He didn't need to shout.

It seems like he does a whole lot of things he doesn't need to, these days. Looking down at his hands, he realizes that he's holding one of the half-empty containers of creamer. He lets out a quiet little laugh, and hurls it into the trashcan. It's not nearly as satisfying as he'd like it to be.

"I shouldn't have..."

It's the beginning of an apology, but he can't force the rest of it beyond his lips. He doesn't feel it, it isn't genuine. He's not sorry he'd said anything. He's not sorry he'd flared up. Maybe he should be, maybe he should just go back to being good at taking orders and staying out of the way like he'd been doing for the last eighteen months, but he can't. He's unleashed something in himself that's angry and dark and powerful, and although he's scared of it, he can't help but embrace it. Someone should say things like that to Don. Why shouldn't that someone be him? He doesn't finish his sentence, he just lets it hang there, half-spoken, an acknowledgement that perhaps he shouldn't have (shouldn't have what? Spoken out? Is it always so bad to say what you think, what you feel?), but that he had, and that he's not taking it back.

[knockfourtimes]

Jesus. Ginsberg's... Calling him a wreck wouldn't be right, because Don's seen worse, Don's been worse, and this seems to be more of an outburst than a permanent rupture. (Can he be sure of that? Something here seems to run deeper. Something he'd seen in their last encounter, something that should have receded but seems if anything to have increased in intensity.) Is he a mess at the moment? Yes. Yes, that seems to be a close enough description.

Again, think it out: Ginsberg's tired, he's been sleeping in the goddamn office for who knows how many nights, and he's obviously worked up about something. Something? The war. Being back home. Being left to figure out how to navigate the world again. (That might explain the odd silence Don had heard mentioned over the past several weeks, the seemingly amenable change in Ginsberg. Something building. Something uncertain.) It's a lot, or Don can admit that it might seem overwhelming if not quickly stifled or redirected. Ginsberg's never seemed particularly skilled at controlling anything - indignant outbursts, snide remarks, ad campaigns he'd been told to keep quiet, anything. Ginsberg's also been prone to outbursts; this is only a more explosive manifestation.

It's easiest to think about this in logical terms. To accept it as an almost predictable occurrence, because what else was he to expect, having come across a half-dressed Ginsberg drifting absently through the dark? But that might not be quite right. It might be a mistake to take this as just another one of Ginsberg's episodes or trialsome quirks. Because he'd been overseas and clearly hasn't begun to separate himself from the past (’am I supposed to believe that you aren't wrapped up in what you remember, too?’). Because watching Ginsberg, Don feels himself unnerved - just slightly - by the rawness. Because the disjointed fury is one that Don recognizes a little too well.

And the words... What he’d done or hadn’t done. How emptiness becomes an actuality. what it is to pretend.

'You don't know what you're talking about.' He could say. But that would be acknowledging it. That might come close to admitting something. And after all, Don suspects that Ginsberg does have a clear idea of what he’s saying. He’s proven his too-close vision before, after all. What he’d said last time… but Don doesn’t want to think about.

Ginsberg's made a point here, yes, Ginsberg's hit upon truth, but it isn't any sort of revelation to Don. He's confronted these same thoughts often enough, found himself pulled down their vines to deeper suggestions and whispers that Ginsberg hasn't begun to touch on. Don knows his own hollowness; hearing it spoken gives no sudden bolt of terror. It might be mildly worrisome to hear the words coming from Ginsberg's mouth, and maybe a year ago, Don would have reacted with greater indignation. Maybe he would have been alarmed. A year ago, he might have thought himself still capable of hiding his frayed edges. Now? Mostly, he's surprised that more people haven't noticed. Now, Ginsberg's declaration only leaves him feeling tired.

Don has had enough of this. He's had enough of looking at these same faults and incompatibilities, enough of wondering how long he has until he wears out entirely. And he certainly isn't about to engage with Ginsberg on any of that. (Would it be the worst thing? Would it? Just to talk?)

Fuck. Fuck. Don isn't in the mood for this. He shouldn't have said as much as he had the last time they'd spoken. He shouldn't have allowed himself to be drawn in...

Only somewhere… Somewhere, maybe, he thinks he wants this. Something about it.

Never mind. It’s ridiculous, and it isn't anything he can say. For several moments he remains silent, looking at the cup in his hand, waiting until he can speak with complete control.

"Is this where I'm supposed to say something, or would you rather just continue shouting at me?

"I was under the impression that we were having a conversation. Until you decided to start taking pot-shots at the U.S. government. Until my personal life became a topic for discussion.

"You're asking me to talk about things that aren't any of your business. You're asking me to talk about things that don't matter. That isn't conversation; that's deranged.

"If you want to have an adult discussion, fine. If you want to wallow in some sort of confused misery, I have work I could be doing."

Those words aren't right. He knows it, feels a mild queasiness as the words rise, but displays only a fleeting flicker of unease. His hand has been played; best to stand by it.

He hears the echo of Ginsberg's question, ’Don't you ever get sick of pretending?’ Always. Never. A question is how far the pretending goes. A question is whether it all blends together at this point, whether the show is reality enough in its own way. Whether it even matters if there’s reality involved, at all. (Of course it matters, of course it does.) He wonders.

It doesn't... It doesn't matter.

[just_displaced]

He had wanted... what? All he knows is that it hadn't been satisfied. What he'd been looking for in Don was a flareup of his own, maybe, a responding shout, a responding toss of a container of coffee creamer, something that indicated to him that Don was just as angry about something as he was. It's juvenile, and he knows it, but all he's ever wanted from Don is some kind of sign that he, Michael Ginsberg, is capable of shaking the seemingly unshakable Don Draper. Sure, he's gotten sarcastic asides out of him, he's even gotten downright exasperation. He's been informed that Don would like to shove him in front of a cab, and he's been told...

He's been told that Don doesn't think about him at all. For all the angry responses he'd wanted to get from the man, for all the jibes and insults he's been prepared to accept, that was the one thing he'd never wanted. All he'd ever wanted was for someone -- someone like that, someone who'd written something so brilliant as that damn letter -- to take notice of him. If it had to be in a negative way, so be it. He'd tried to push Don in both directions, he'd tried to impress him with the genius of his ideas all the while goading him towards something like a confrontation, but he'd never received the validation he'd been looking for, and he'd never received the verbal assault (or sometimes even physical assault) he'd been expecting.

What had Don given him? An opportunity to work at a firm like this, yes. He remembers well that Peggy hadn't wanted to hire him, and frankly, he can't blame her. He'd acted like an idiot at the interview, and he'd worn jeans to it, of all things. Of course, he's wearing jeans right now, so maybe he hadn't learned. But Don? Don had provided him with... the occasional approving nod, a sign that his ideas weren't totally shit, and the occasionally failure to ignore him completely, which he always took as a sign that maybe Don was growing to tolerate him after all. And the sabotage of the Sno-Ball campaign, which had been his strongest validation of all.

But still he pushes, and he pokes, and he prods, and he tries to get Don to respond in some kind of like way, so that he can feel a little less alone. And he'd learned, hadn't he, when he'd been over there, that something poking and prodding wasn't the best solution to a problem? Sometimes you had to leave a bullet in a wound to give someone any chance of survival. Sometimes tearing things apart and exposing their ugly interiors wasn't the way to confront a situation. He'd learned that in the literal, physical, solid sense. He still hasn't quite learned it in the theoretical, metaphorical one. Feelings, he thinks, should be exposed. He wants Don to be exposed, not because he wants to belittle or judge him, but because he senses a kinship in them that he can only scratch at the surface of.

He wants more.

"They might not be any of my business," he acknowledges, and the fact that he's even willing to acknowledge that is a little victory for Don in and of itself, although he doesn't expect Don to recognize that. It's what anyone would say, what any reasonable human being would know to be true. Is he a reasonable human being? By the standards of the man standing in front of him, giving him that... look, he certainly isn't. By the standards of the guys in his company who'd come to rely on him protecting their lives, he had been. Who's he supposed to judge by? Maybe whoever's talking to him at the moment, whoever's closest at hand.

"It may not be any of my business," he continues, but there's always a but, because it's Ginsberg, and he's nothing if not contradictory, even when plagued by this gnawing, terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, even when he's shaking so hard he wants nothing more than to collapse onto the floor in a heap and be blissfully unconscious for awhile. "But it does matter. To you, if not to anyone else."

Does it matter to Don? Maybe he overestimates the personal life of everyone else. Maybe he assumes everyone else thinks about these things, maybe he assumes that the same sense of brokenness and hollowness that keeps him up awake at night does the same for everyone else, because he can't stand the thought of being the only one. Because it's incomprehensible, that everyone else had gone through something similar (and no matter that it had been a different war, he thinks, that he and Don had encountered: war is war, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the fighting, there's something inherently alike about it) and nobody felt it the same way he did. He can't be that isolated in the world. It's an impossible thought.

The next words, though, leave him breathless, speechless (probably happily so, for Don, who's found a way to strike at the heart of the matter even if he's trying to avoid it entirely.) He can't do anything except stare, for a long moment, expression on his face completely open, completely without guile, completely terrified. Because Don's said what he's always been afraid people will say, what they always do say, eventually, once they get to know him well enough that they see it, and he'd been hoping...

I could not / Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither / Living nor dead, and I knew nothing

There are no words. His vision blurs. He looks, probably alarmingly so, like he's about to bend over and throw up all over the floor of the break room, and while it's very likely seen similar displays, it's not something anyone's eager to have repeated.

Deranged.

He hadn't said you're deranged, but he might as well have. He might as well have stabbed Ginsberg right in the chest, for what those words do to him. It doesn't matter whether he's saying the conversation is deranged or Ginsberg himself is deranged; it all equates the same way, and it's all too...

Too true?

He always has been, he always has thought he's been, he's always tried to drown out to stifle to squash the voices in his head but they just keep coming back and he can't...

There's nothing to say.

He continues to stand there, staring, vaguely wondering how his legs are remembering to hold him up when, by all logic, he should be collapsed on the floor.

"I wanted..."

It seems he's trying to come up with something to say anyway. He tries again. Force the words past his lips. Get something out there, so that Don doesn't have further reason to think he's crazy. Deranged. Whatever the word had been. It's all the same. It's all true.

"I'm not deranged," he finally manages, "If I had been, they wouldn't have made me go to Vietnam in the first place." A poor joke, probably, but the best he can do for now. Retreat back into his old sarcastic tone, remember how to make fun of himself, remember how to keep things light, or at least with a semblance of lightness. That's how he'd gotten through that warzone. It's how he'll get through this one.

"I do want... a discussion. I just don't want to be the only one that has to question myself. That has to question my sanity. A discussion is supposed to have two sides. I don't want to have a conversation with someone who's trying to sell me their version of 'how to be a sane and seemingly together individual.' I want to have a conversation with you. Whoever the fuck you are."

He's not yelling. That would require too much energy. But he's still staring.

[knockfourtimes]

He doesn’t know what to do about that terror. He doesn’t know what to do with what looks like shock, with the suddenness of Ginsberg’s transformation and the cold distance it suggests. When the pallor had first set in, Don had taken half a step forward, setting his cup on the counter because he’d been certain Ginsberg was going to hit the floor. When Ginsberg remained standing – half-dead by all appearances (jesus that had been so easy, shouldn’t have happened like that, shouldn’t have come on so hard) but somehow still upright – Don had kept his distance, and now he continues to hold his position, waiting for a sign to move in, hoping he won’t have to. It would be safer not to touch Ginsberg. Better to maintain this space between them.

(Where has Ginsberg gone? Don probably doesn’t want to know.)

It’s amazing, it’s incredible – or absurdly apt – that Ginsberg begins speaking again, that he even flashes something like humor. Nothing, nothing can keep this man silent. And while part of Don wishes that Ginsberg would put an end to these words, he’s relieved to find that Ginsberg hasn’t been thrown that far out of himself. These words might suggest the struggles of a drowning man trying to keep his head above water, but at least they suggest that Ginsberg is still functional.

Granted that beyond the words, Ginsberg still looks a wreck (and now it is, yes, now wreck is the right word for it; always amazing what a word or two can do). Granted that Ginsberg isn’t exactly backing away from his line of inquiry. There has been so much rage and blankness from Ginsberg tonight. What do you even do with this situation. What is there to say? Words can’t heal (not really, not unless you believe in them, and Ginsberg seems chronically unable or unwilling to believe; a situation perhaps not far removed from his own), and there are no answers.

Words are what he has, though, words are just about all he has to work with, and he reaches for a start. There's exasperation again, but this time it's more with himself, maybe with the situation. "I didn't say you were—"

But of course that had been the implication, and this the intended effect. Consciously or not, Don had selected the words because he'd known (he hadn't been thinking it directly, but on a lower level he's always working, on a lower level he always chooses with care) how they might strike Ginsberg. Because he’s always understood the worth of words and where they hit the hardest. Because he knows that even where words cannot heal, they can wound and confound, because doubt creates a blindness of its own. And, yes, because he'd hoped to silence Ginsberg, and there's something unworthy about that, something at which he cringes internally.

He’d pushed too far this time. Jesus, it isn’t the first time, it isn’t as if he hasn’t made a life of seeing how far he can press his words, how far provoke without surface-level aggression. But this… He’d seen the state Ginsberg was in. He should have known better. There are better ways of dealing with situations.

It’s only (only?) that Don doesn’t care to have this conversation. That opening his own situation wouldn’t do either of them a goddamn bit of good. ‘Whoever the fuck you are.’ The answer to that would be smoke and instability, and Don doubts that he has an answer. How many times has he heard the question? And his response – whispered through his mind only, at night and unbidden – becomes more uncertain with every passing year. If he’d ever known, his knowing has been uprooted, his image strained and separated until he can hardly believe in his own solidity.

And Don isn’t certain that it – it, this bigger question, it, this idea of his own emptiness and memory – does matter to him, not anymore. Because everything is distant. Because nothing can change what has been and nothing, nothing stands to stop him in this down-slope. Nothing needs to. Because it doesn’t… What would be the worth otherwise?

Don doesn’t want to talk about it. Certainly, he isn’t about to share this depth of un-mattering with Ginsberg. He wants to solve the problem and put an end to the vague worry of it (more than vague, though he won’t admit that, won’t allow the thought). Jesus, why is this so hard? (That is, that is a ridiculous question.)

“Maybe I don’t want to have that conversation.

“You could have been clearer about the conversation you wanted to have. But what I said—It’s late. I didn’t mean that. You aren’t the only one who asks questions, Ginsberg. Even the most blissfully ignorant schoolgirls have their moments of crisis. We all live on the edge of these questions, and on the edge of recognizing that the answers aren’t clear. That we don’t always know who we are.

“The difference is that you’re more aware of this edge right now. You think with more intensity than most people. And you were in a shitty situation. That’s all.

“I’m not going to say I don’t have questions. But I’m not going to open myself for you to dissect because you’re having trouble finding perspective. That isn’t what I’m here for.”

He shakes his head, exhales. “Jesus, will you sit down?”

[just_displaced]

He understands it. To some extent. Maybe not fully. Perhaps he owes Don an apology. He, too, had pushed things too far. It's an ingrained habit, and even when he'd been over there, he'd been guilty of doing it. He was always treading that line of insubordination just a little too closely, always trying to see how far over the line he could edge himself before someone yelled at him or threatened him. It had been his talent as a medic that had stopped him from getting in trouble more than he did, he suspects, just as it's his talent as an advertiser that saves his ass over and over again at SC&P. There shouldn't be so many similarities between the places and the people, but there are. Is that reassuring or concerning? He's not sure.

"I'm..."

But he's not sorry, not really. And whether Don had meant what he'd said about him being... crazy -- deranged, yes, that's what he'd said, and it's not a word that should strike him so hard since he's heard it so many times before in so many different iterations -- it had served its purpose. He never feels certain of anything anymore, but he feels even more uncertain now.

And yet, and yet, when Don tells him to sit down, he doesn't even think about questioning it. He just sits -- slides, really, slides his back down the cabinet slowly -- and sits on the floor, knees up against his chest, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around them and rock back and forth. He can't let Don see him like that. Not when Don already thinks he's deranged (no matter that he says he hadn't meant it. He knows exactly what words can do. It hadn't been unintentional. He could have used any other word.) He should be angry at Don, maybe.

He's not.

"I used to want to be you," he points out, almost conversationally, despite his visible trembling. "I thought you were a genius. I still think you're a genius, but I think I've started to realize what it really means to be a natural at something, what it means to have a talent. And now I'm..."

Now he's what? Now he's becoming Don? No, that's a little too simple of an answer. He'll never be exactly like Don, not just because he'll never possess Don's ability for subjugating his own emotions but because he never expects to be half as charming or commanding as Don. There had been a time he'd probably have been sad about that fact, have wished that he could change it. Now, he's almost glad. He may not know who he is, but he knows he doesn't want to be the next Don Draper.

And yet he still wants to please him.

"I don't want to dissect you."

Is that true? Maybe. He likes getting inside of peoples' heads, seeing what makes them tick, trying to form some kind of understanding, but sometimes it's... too close. Sometimes the intensity of emotion he feels from other people once he starts exploring them practically physically injures him. It had happened all the time over there. He'd always been good at getting guys to talk, either to distract themselves from their wounds or to distract themselves from their fear or just to pass the time, and people had appreciated it, they had, the opportunity to get things off their chests, the opportunity to let out some of that choking, stifling fear and pain, but what had the tradeoff been?

The tradeoff had been that he had taken it all upon himself, of course. He doesn't even have to think about that for long to recognize that that's exactly what he'd done. When he'd been confronted with a man who had a bullet through his knee, he couldn't take the physical wound away from him, couldn't give it to himself instead (but he would have, he would have) but he could take some of the emotional turmoil. He was just so goddamn good at understanding what people wanted, what they needed.

And he doesn't want to take on Don's darkness, so no, perhaps he doesn't want to dissect him. That darkness, combined with his own, would drown him. He knows it, the same way he knows anything else: pure, unfettered emotional instinct. Maybe that's the only talent he truly has.

"Can we just... talk? I won't pry--" As though that's possible, as though he's capable of restraining that instinct. "--and you won't... you won't call me crazy. I just want to have a conversation with someone. I can't talk to anyone else."

Has he tried to talk to anyone else? Or has he just locked himself in his office and avoided everyone? It's a good question, and yet he doesn't even have an answer to something that simple.

"Just... if you don't want to talk to me about the big stuff, if you don't want to tell me who you are, if you don't want to talk about my war or your war or any war, just tell me what's been going on around the office. Tell me anything. I can't stand the silence."

He hates the plaintive tone in his voice, but there's no erasing it. He's always been so pathetic at hiding his feelings. And what's the alternative? Talking to himself? He'll do it, and they both know it. He needs noise. He needs conversation, even something inane, to smooth over the jagged edges of everything else. It may not help him find perspective, but it'll help him from becoming more... deranged.

[knockfourtimes]

'I used to want to be you.' Why would you ever, why would you ever. 'You,' whoever that is, back to that question and wondering whether he'd ever been that person, himself, thinking it isn't the case. Because of course the you in question is only an image, an empty but serviceable display crafted to accompany his name. Not even his own name, exactly.

It had begun as a way of re-creating himself, a way of ripping some path out of the benign malignancy of a dead-end existence. He'd learned how to thrive by packaging his particular skills in the guise of a man who could only be called enigmatic. (It was a way of selling himself, though of course he hadn't thought of it that way; at one time, it had almost seemed an admirable struggle, the classic tale of the self-made mad.) A man whose very silence suggested that he held answers, who garnered attention and a perhaps-grudging respect precisely because he kept himself distant. The more removed he'd been, the harder it had been for anyone to attack, and the stronger his image became.

Until it was all that anyone knew of him (almost anyone, but the one who'd really known is gone now, and those who had begun to know have been driven away). Until he fell to believing it himself and lived for a time as that self-crafted shadow, hardly realizing that by severing from everything and holding only to this image, he'd lost contact with the ground. When he'd awakened from belief in the image, he'd found himself disorientated. Nothing to go back to. Nothing to believe. Hardly anything he knew about himself, and nowhere he wanted to go.

In any case, it's the image that Ginsberg has referenced - it must be - and this isn't the first time Don has heard the sentiment. Craft an effective mask, present yourself as a worldly success, and others will clamor to echo your image. That someone as outwardly (and, yes, inwardly, but it's the exterior that counts) chaotic as Ginsberg should even think of emulating Don Draper seems almost laughable, but wishfulness and actuality rarely align, and there's no way of telling exactly what Ginsberg had seen in Don. Even if Ginsberg hadn't seen down to the bottom, he might have held a different view of the image; Ginsberg has always seemed too acute for his own good.

Isn't that what's going on here? Ginsberg sees too far and with too much intensity. It's probably a part of what fires and distinguishes Ginsberg's creative work - and Ginsberg's work is better than good, speaks with an agile, heavy-hitting resonance that had at one time seemed threatening (and maybe still does, in moments) - but it's also left him here, curled against a break room cabinet in a show of vulnerability that almost (almost?) hurts to see.

Don doesn't know what to do about this. He wishes Ginsberg would pull himself together, shake it off, and go back to his office (that sounds absurd, too simple, and Don knows it). What do you do when an employee - and an employee with whom you don't have a particularly positive history - starts falling apart like this? Don won't leave him. He wants to, mostly, but he won't.

He just wants to talk. Whatever that means - it's a plea, there isn't any hiding that it's a plea, and how did Ginsberg reach this point? - he just wants to talk. And he is, at least, being more reasonable about subject matter. (Had he been especially unreasonable? Of course. Of course, Don's life isn't any of his business. Nothing gave him the right to ask.)

Something about Ginsberg's talk of what it means to be a natural, something about the unfinished sentence('now I'm') leaves Don uneasy, though he doesn't want to venture into that mire. Don has finally gotten Ginsberg away from prying at his life; inviting Ginsberg to expand on his half-sentence seems a sure way of bringing Ginsberg right back to prodding at Don's life. So Don lets it go without remark, those he can't shake it from his head.

Now you're what?

There's a price for everything. Never mind.

When he speaks, his voice is gentler than it had been. "Ginsberg, I don't think you're crazy."

Ginsberg's idiosyncrasies and impulses are particularly - sometimes painfully - noticeable, but in the end, he probably isn't crazier than anyone else around the office. He just doesn't know how to hide, or doesn't bother doing so... Though maybe that isn't quite true. Maybe that's what he's been doing since his return, maybe that's why he's supposedly been so quiet. Jesus, is this what happens when Ginsberg tries to mute himself?

"I also don't think spending the night in a deserted office is the best way of avoiding silence."

Don takes a step forward before lowering himself to crouch near Ginsberg. Somehow, this is easier than looking down on him; that distance makes Ginsberg look more exposed, more lost in the space of the half-lit break room. Ginsberg doesn't look especially great up close, but this proximity is better than that sense of loss.

"You can talk about the war. You can talk about your own life all you want." That's a dangerous door to open, and Don hopes that Ginsberg will leave it shut. He thinks he will; Ginsberg has seemed more interested in discussing Don's affairs than his own. It should be safe.

"As far as the office goes, you probably know as much as I do. Joan's started the search for a new office manager. Peggy's taking Ken to Indianapolis to scope out Mallory Batteries." There had been rumors of fractures in the relationship with their current ad agency, though no one is especially hopeful, and it wouldn't be a major account. "And Harry Crane is doing everything in his power to convince us that we need to expand the television department."

[just_displaced]

Don is... Don is crouching beside him and for a second he thinks that he must look terrible, that he must look so bad that Don has no choice but to stick around instead of leaving like he so obviously must want to. There's no way Don could want to be here, no way he could want to stay in this room, no way he could want to get closer instead of backing away. Ginsberg knows he looks like a mess, knows he's crumpled on the floor like the goddamned wreck that he is, and if he were more like Don (but he doesn't want that, he doesn't want that, he shouldn't want that) he'd be able to pull himself together.

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.

[knockfourtimes]

This is uncomfortable. To put it mildly, and just as a way of trying to define the situation. (It's difficult, of course, when the fact is that this situation simply shouldn't be occurring, when the pieces still don't seem entirely possible, but when has actuality ever made much sense? The truth of life is that it's pieces never fit the way they should. The truth of life is that everything is more absurd than could be imagined, and that the absurdity is ordinary.) If he can define the situation, Don thinks he can continue to manage it. So long as he continues to search for understandable terms and definitions, he can remain removed from the situation. And he needs to. This isn't anything he should fall into.

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."