Tape

a true story

Publishing something new every day is harder than you think. Well, maybe it’s exactly as hard as you think. In any case, I’ve depleted my stock of half-finished pieces that I can polish in a few hours. So in these desperate times, I am resorting to the writer’s crime – slapping a narrative gloss on events from my life. Behold! A true story, in the style of Emma Zunz.

---

Last summer, I commuted to Oakland every day for an internship. It was an injection of routine into my chaotic lifestyle as a graduate student. I learnt the morning BART schedule, when I would have to leave my house, and even which compartment to board so as to minimize time spent in the station. Every morning I repeated this routine. This tendency would be unrecognizable to my friends, but it came from a deep anxiety. Not only was this my first internship, it was my first job outside the academy. So the jitters that most people work through at age 19 were hitting me for the first time at age 25. I didn’t know how to be an employee, and I had to learn. I saw a disciplined commute as part of that learning process.

I spent the first few weeks of the commute staring at my phone, until I hit one of my periodic screen-time lows, and decided to people-watch instead. I saw many interesting people on that commute over the summer, but none caught my eye as much as him.

He was a middle-aged Asian man. He wore a Patagonia jacket with a company logo I didn’t recognize, and well-pressed tan chinos. He was reading a book whose cover I could not make out. He had a thoughtful frown as he thumbed through its pages. But his most distinguishing feature was the tape. There was a loop of brown tape around his neck. At first I thought it was a bandage – maybe an improvised neck brace – but it was most definitely the kind of packing tape you would see on a cardboard box. For some reason, this man had woken up that morning (or a previous morning?) and decided to tape his neck.

I looked around to see if anyone else was taking notice of this man. But most people were on their phones, and in any case it is hard to know what other people are looking at. As the train pulled into my station, I was seized with the urge to ask him why he had tape around his neck. But I hesitated, the doors opened, and a flood of people came between us. I had to leave.

I decided I would ask him the next time I saw him on the train. I expected I would probably see him again, since we commuted at the same time. But he wasn’t there the next day, or the day after. I reasoned that there are eight compartments in a BART train, so there was a one-in-eight chance of us being in the same compartment if we were on the same train. Alternatively, I could expect to see him again in eight days on average.

Maybe he typically took an earlier or later train; maybe he wasn’t commuting at all; maybe I was unlucky. Regardless, I didn’t see him again in eight days, or sixteen, or twenty-four. I have a more relaxed relationship with reality these days, and if I had an encounter like that these days I might even treat it like a waking dream. But back then, I didn’t like unresolved puzzles. I kept an eye out for him for a long time, before other issues occupied my mind.

Just before my internship, I had finished an examination for my PhD where I presented the research project I had been working on for the past year to my advisors. They knew it was hopelessly flawed, I knew they knew, and they knew I knew. There was nothing to be said. After my advisors filed out of the room, I unplugged my computer from the projector, plugged in the PlayStation I had brought from home, and played video games for the rest of the day. I couldn’t believe I had spent so much time in denial about that project, wasting a whole year on it.

So towards the end of the summer, I was starting to wonder whether I should go back to my program at all. I liked my internship, and I wondered if they would keep me on full-time if I asked. It was in those waning summer days that I saw him one more time.

He wasn’t reading a book this time. He had a pair of headphones on, and his eyes were closed. At a different angle, I might not have seen the brown loop around his neck at all. This time, I didn’t hesitate. I tapped him on the shoulder. He opened his eyes unhurriedly and took off his headphones.

“I’m sorry to intrude, but why do you have tape around your neck?” I asked.

He tilted his head. The tape rustled at the movement. “To keep my head on straight,” he said.

I didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t care to elaborate. We hung in silence for a few seconds, before I nodded and found a seat. I inferred that he was just one of those odd characters you see around the Bay. Maybe there is an r/bayarea thread where someone shares a picture of Tape Guy, and others share their zany encounters with him. There isn’t – I checked – but it is interesting to imagine.

Still, I don’t think people would take a picture of him or make jokes. He had a gravity about him that would befit the executor of an estate, or a hospice chaplain. If he saw himself through other people’s eyes – if he saw a man who put brown tape around his neck every day before going to work – how could he take himself seriously? He must be someone who moves through the world with certainty.

I went back to my PhD at the end of summer. I dusted off some research ideas I had shelved in the previous year, and I gave them my best effort. Each of them failed gracefully. My path to academia ended some months ago. Looking back, I made some judgment calls that went the wrong way, but nothing worth regretting.