July 2009 (novella)
ha:
The first big news, the best news of July comes rolling in on the 1st. Or right before the marker of our independence as a nation, 200-or-so years later.
I spent the remainder of June, that fair month, in my own cocoon. I go to work and I eat and I take showers. On special occasions, I shower and shave. That deal. Don't get too excited.
I do not talk to my mother for a while; partially out of need and partially out of sheer laziness. There are many attempts made to pick up the phone, that fumbling instrument, only to drop it by the wayside in favor of some other looming task. A task that often never existed to begin with.
David! her emails come almost every week. We should talk. Please call me. You can't be upset about this?
And it's not as much as being upset as disillusioned. With an ideal, an illusion. It was a mistake, and I know that, and in the scheme of everything that has ever happened, it meant absolutely nothing. But. But.
The good news is a call I get the day after I decide to quit work.
"You're really quitting?" Mr. Peterson is bewildered. His eyebrows alone do all the talking for him. He sits at the desk, with his arms spread out and his mouth ajar. Collections of spittle have amounted at the corners of his lips.
I hold my two weeks notice. It's written on yellow office tablature. The truth is: there is nothing holding me in DuBres. My mother is not some breakable old woman; she needs my companionship like she needs a limb amputated. I had a real budding life out west and I want it back.
"Appears that way." The sarcasm comes out despite my best inclinations. Not so wise, there.
There was a boy I went to high school with I vaguely remember- Wiseman Motts. He was on the football team. I don't remember if he was any good because I did not care enough to pay attention. My high school years were preoccupied with trying to chase girls and my place on the debate team and trying to make it a college people had heard of. Anyway, Wiseman sat in the back of my history class. Last period of the day, I remember. He would sit there and rattle on about whatever inane thought came, leaping into his rattled mind. Sometimes it was on par with the rest of the class, sometimes it seemed to matieralize and make sense only in the universe he existed in. But the way Wiseman spoke- without hesitation and with such ferocity of belief that every opinion he had was gospel truth. That was how he earned his nickname: Wiseman. Whether or not he was really one was purely subjective, although I'm sure you'd only think so if you were brain-damaged.
"But David. David. Put this into perspective," Mr. Peterson is actually pleading with me and I know it's because he knows I'm the only competent worker in this office. I wonder if he has some twisted fantasy of me taking his place someday. "Everything passes! Whatever you're going through is only temporary. That's life."
He could write greeting cards.
"I want to leave DuBres. I really want to go. There's no future in this place, sir, and I think you know that."
Mr. Peterson is silent. He has a frown wrinkling his face. A disappointed frown, much like the one I probably wore when I realized my mother's infidelity, Sarah's happiness, my own diminishing life. Then, he nods. And says nothing else.
I walk out of the office and I want everything to be in flames. I almost want to leave work right then, drive to the hardware store three blocks away, pick up some gas and matches and return to do a madman's job.
The next day I go to work and everything is the same, except I have roughly fourteen days left to go. I spend the morning comparing plane tickets. This way, that way. It's July 1st. I resolve to talk to my mother before she goes to Switzerland. Hell, maybe I'll go out with her and Crimshaw, or maybe I'll go with them to the airport and see them off.
I drive home, listening to talk radio blabber on about some unrest overseas. Boy, am I lucky. I'm American. And then I kind of laugh to myself and pass through a red light. I did not mean to do the latter; I'm highly conscientous of that sort of error.
"Respect the law, David," my father's voice creeps into my ears from a long, long time ago as I do so.
"Oh, come on," I had joked at the time. I was sixteen, seventeen. Learning to drive, cramped behind the wheel.
"I'm serious," he scolded me. "Don't be so flippant, kiddo. Always be mindful." Then he had a laugh himself. "You're not your mother- you can't flirt your way out of a ticket. Or get out of the car to look for your purse and make show of the short skirt you're wearing. I wouldn't suggest it, either."
There was something almost bittersweet about that, although at the time I had just snickered.
I walk into my apartment and I go straight to the answering machine. Sometimes I put it off, but that's just delaying the inevitable and I'm able to rest better if I know it's just my barber reminding me about an appointment or an automated message, trying to sell me some piece of junk.
The red light blinks urgently. Check me check me checkmecheckmeCHECKME. I cannot refuse that.
"David, it's Sarah. Hi. I'd like to see you, if you don't mind? You have my number; please give me a call. I'd really like to see you." My heart wants to burst out of my chest. It's like having wind knocked back into me.
Maybe I should think about this.
Two days later, I'm back at the Rhinestone, like before. But this time, I've dressed up and I've shampooed and shaved and gone the whole nine yards. I've taken myself to town.
"What will it be, big chief?" To make the ensemble perfect, of course, the very same bartender is there. As stupid as ever.
I swallow the gum I've been steadily chewing and lean in. Peppermint dots my breath.
"Could you not, could you not call me that?"
"Oh?" the bartender snorts. "What you gonna do about it?"
I show him my prime and ready knuckles. I am by no means a very muscular man, but I think my bare knuckles are fairly intimidating.
Afterwards, I'm served by a new bartender. She's a shy, young blonde.
"Hi," she says tentatively, with a gentle warmth. "What can I get you?"
"A Scotch," I tell her. Then, by some impulse, I'm driven to ask her name.
"Stacey." If I wasn't meeting with Sarah, I would have heavily employed the charm then. She is gorgeous. Younger than me, yeah. But gorgeous.
"What do you do besides bartend, Stacey?" She's sliding me a glass then. Very well done move, by the by.
She shrugs.
"I go to school. Kind of." I didn't inquire how someone could "kind of" go to college. Sarah arrived.
"Sorry if I'm late," she says, in a slight huff. She wasn't late.
"You were late last time," I remind her.
"You remember!"
"Of course." I always remember. It's wiser not to say that outloud.
She looks a lot calmer than she did, the time before. Her hair is straighter and her clothers are more crisp. Not that that means anything.
"Well, I'm back in DuBres for the summer. Surprise?" Just as I'm about to leave. I hope.
"Yeah! Definitely! Wow!" In some circles, this is what you would call "overkill." I see Stacey's eyes staring at me from across the long bar, too. They're green eyes and their presence does not fade in my mind. I wonder if all good things come at once, then, and you die. I'll get hit by a drunk driver in the parking lot or I'll have a heart attack running tomorrow. Dad would know.
Sarah watches me, and then she smiles the most adorable, life-reaffirming smile I have seen in ages.
"I can pick up on your sarcasm, David. Always your favorite course of action! Are you going to ask why?"
"Do I have to?" I kid. She jabs me with her elbow. And in a way, I am reminded of my mother.
"I was offered a job in DuBres that starts in September. And it's a great job- benefits, pays well, some prestige."
"Some!"
"Shut up! Anyway, it also involves a lot of travel. Which, I mean. Thank God."
"Right?" Stacey comes up again. Sarah requests a gin and tonic, which, to me, is weird. Maybe she'll start doing the Charleston if she has another.
"Oh, I know."
"What does Paul think?" She starts from the gin she's swallowing at the moment. Her skin, I note. Is flawless. Creamy white and without a noticeable blemish. And if there was a mere scar or wound or abrasion, wouldn't it just be wonderful proof of her humanity?
"Out of the picture." Her answer's simple and flat but it's all I need to hear. If a man could die of joy, then would have been the time.
"But I thought..." I try to pick up the pieces where we left them. I think of Paul. I don't know Paul. I never knew Paul. He's just a shadow in a business suit in my mind, a vacant face behind well-coiffed hair. He probably is blessed with exceptional health, teeth that have never needed fixing, a stainless driving record and some kind of "pack" on his chest.
"Well, yeah. Things were going well for some time. I mean, I thought." She holds the glass enviably in her prim hand. "Then I got this job in DuBres. And don't get me wrong, Paul is a great." She swallows the mix of saliva and drink swishing around in her mouth. "Person. He's such a great person. God. I feel so inadequate when I compare myself with him- like he's some saint, some pillar of chastity and selflessness."
"Oh Sarah. You could never be inadequate." She blushes. I spoke too soon. The heat's rising in my cheeks, too.
"Aw, David. If only you knew Paul. He's kind of sullen and quiet, but he has such a good heart. Anyway, Paul will live and die in New York. That's his plan. He's never leaving."
"So this was about geography, I take it?" It figures. One pulled in one direction, the other in another. Sarah's heart, odd as it was, was in DuBres of all places. And Paul's beat with the city. I couldn't really blame the guy, here.
"Just the concept in general. He didn't really want kids, either. He was weird about that. Paul had a lot of baggage."
"Check that shit at the door," I offer, not even aware of why I'm saying something so, so stupid. Sarah snorted, aware of the blatant stupidity.
"David! What the hell was that!"
"I don't know!" I give her an honest shrug. I was just trying to make her laugh.
"So you're single then?" I say after a silence that carries on for way too long. Sarah nods, her hair swaying with the age-old gesture.
"Currently."
Never has a word held more promise.
"How long?"
"What, until I'm not single?" She smirks at me, as if knowing my intentions. Let's be honest: she probably does. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure some stuff out.
"Well..."
She holds up one finger.
"Not a while. But I don't know who Paul and I were trying to kid. I heard he started dating a girl from his firm after we broke up. Tara? How's that for ironic?"
"I bet she's no you." I don't think she hears me. Or just disregards the flimsy statement altogether. Which she can do, with a simple tilt of her head.
"She's black and a pro-bono lawyer. So like, the antithesis of me." I find myself searching for an illustration of that. I say nothing; I have more beer.
"Are you still single, David?" she then asked, piercing what remained of the silence. Which draped us both with awkwardness, discomfort and a knowing. Just a knowing.
I nodded. The beer had left a film in my mouth.
"I have been single for a very long time," I say, shooting an eye up at Stacey, who is flirting shamelessly with some younger guys down the bar.
"Why is that?" I swear it's not my bias towards such thoughts, but she sits closer to me. I can smell her; I can feel her.
"Well. No girls have really caught my interest since I've been back." I exhale. "I mean there's been some, but nothing substantial."
I move my head to see her looking at me, intently. She's gazing at me. Her eyes are full of hope.
"Some?"
"Yeah..." I move my hands towards hers, then. Instinctively.
If this was years ago, or even (to be open) only months ago, I would have not dared .I would have expected flat-out rejection. I would have not been so utterly brave. It wasn't like the idea of her and me was completely ridiculous. But there's that dream you're always pulling for, that you feel is eternally beyond your reach. She was that dream for me.
Sarah did not move her hand away. I ended up taking the dream girl home.
"So..." I stood with her outside, playing with my keys. Feeling the rusted metal on and off again between my fingers.
Sarah may have been somewhat drunk. She was drunk, who am I kidding? She was swaying like a leaf trapped in the breeze. Her breath was like having a tavern spilled out in front of you. I wanted to grab her on the arms and steady her.
She kissed me then.
"I want to go to sleep," Sarah instructed afterwards. I nodded.
"We'll do that." I expected nothing more.
I had another girlfriend, at some crosspoint in time. In the waste of existence I called "college." She had written a list of traits she found desireable in a relationship, in a mate. I had found it one day, snooping, and one of the traits or activities or whatever was "to sleep together but not to have sex."
Well, because I was pretty juvenile, I took a spare pen and added to it: yes, but my cock was in your mouth the whole time. She hadn't seen the humor in that one.
With Sarah, though. She slept on my bed, the first body other than my own to sleep on those sheets, and my arm stayed around her, fully clothed. This was how we spent the night.
I would have never expected any of this. It was just a sign of good things to come. Sarah and I started seeing more of each other- a lot more of each other. And with that, I felt my spirits rise.
So I went to my mom.
"David!" her voice burst when I called. She picked up on the first ring.
"You leave tomorrow?"
"Yes! You know."
"Can I come over?"
"Of course."
I ran over because the evening was one of those summer evenings you'd like to last forever. The wind hits your body like a massive warm kiss. Everything smells fresh and possibility plants itself everywhere. At this time, I've been spending more of my waking hours outdoors. Finding myself excuses to stay out- helping neighbors with their yardwork, making myself readily available for anyone that might need me. My skin gets tan; the tips of my hair turn themselves blonde.
The sun stays out longer, too. Of course it's no Alaska or St. Petersburg. But it helps to have the sunlight on your skin up until the point of sleep. I smiled to myself and whoever else could have seen it. The dogs napping on the lawns, maybe, their big brown eyes shut to the world.
"You know, you kind of look like a model," Sarah had told me during one of our prolonged make out sessions. Bliss, nirvana, heaven. You term it what you will.
"A model? What a weird thing to say to a guy. And a sensitive one at that!" She had just laughed and kept tousling it, her fingers elongating each strand.
I want to tell my mom about Sarah. About everything. I want her to share in it- like my life is this dish and I'm offering her up this plate.
The door is open when I get there. I know she's not far away.
"Mom?" I ask, rounding the final bend. "Mom?"
"David!" And then I hear a clunk, alerting my senses. Like something (or, more importantly, SOMEONE) falling. My mom isn't ,made of glass but she's not made of steel. I rush inside.
It's not her. It was a suitcase she was attempting to push down the stairs. She giggles, embarrassed.
"Last minute planning," she explains, as I stand awkwardly at the foot of the stairs, bathed in my own sweat.
"Yeah," I say, picking up the lavender, overstuffed suitcase. "Damn Mom, what did you throw in here?" It weighs an enormous amount. Or, at the very least, my arm is interpreting it as such.
"Oh, clothes. You know."
"You're not going to be gone that long!"
"I am a woman, David! Jesus!" She ambles down the stairs, her feet covered in those disposable thong sandals you can buy at any Target or Wal-Mart. Made by aching Thai children, probably.
"That's why you haven't been married yet." She gets to the bottom and takes it from me, carrying it with more ease than I was.
"Other reasons!" I insist. I follow her from behind. She snorts.
"Really."
"Come up with more theories, why don't you!" Mom places the suitcase by the door to the garage. I suspect she will scoop it up, with Crimshaw's help, come morning. I think of his arms; they bulge with veins like tree trunks bulge with tree veins. I wince. Like a ball player on tons of steroids. Enough to keep Central America afloat.
"Did you ever play tennis with him?" I had asked my father once upon a long distant time.
"You're crazy!" my father had roared in return, with great amusement. That was accurate: Crimshaw, you could imagine, being a lumberjack somewhere remote and away from civilization, swinging a mighty ax around.
"When's Crimshaw coming?" I ask. The words glide off my tongue. Mom sighs, sounding exhausted.
"Around 8. It's a long ride!"
"You better get to sleep soon. Do you want me to put the suitcase in the car for now?"
"No, no. We're taking his." There's a way she chooses to let that "s" drag in the pronoun. But I try to think nothing of it. Still, though. It was like a hint of posession.
"What kind of car is that?" I try and make small talk. She, though, sees right through me.
"You don't care."
"A Honda, then?" She shakes her head.
"So you've forgiven me?"
I stand there. I struggle to map out the course of words I should say. What lines haven't we used before? What cards haven't we dealt?
"There was nothing to forgive." I remember that my apartment is locked up for the night, safe from any dumb teenage kid that might try to break it and jack my TV or DVD player.
My mom doesn't smile, but she looks relieved.
"Good."
"Mom?"
"Yes?" She touches my cheek kindly. Inspecting it. Searching for traces of my father, maybe. You look so much like him. Voices shout out through my ears.
"Lucille, Lucille, I love you. Can you hear me?" I imagine him, standing up behind her in the clothes we buried him in. Latched onto her shadow.
"Can I stay here tonight?"
"If you want! I'll make us some coffee." I nod. "You are a weird boy, David." I shrug.
"We should catch up. That's why I want to stay."
"I'm coming back. It's not like you'll never see me again. Plus, there's email. Oh. And phones. Remember them?" Crookedly I smile, in spite of other impulses.
"This is different, Mom."
"Close the front door for me. Before someone sneaks in and kills us both."
I do as she asks. I turn the knob and shut off the night breeze. It's too bad, the worries of modern times. Or maybe cavemen had to worry about the same stuff, in their lairs, millenia beyond comprehension.
I hear the grinds of the coffee, emitting from the kitchen. The smell ambushes both my nostrils.
"There's more I want to say, too. I'm not sure if now's the right time, though," my mom tells me as she prepares the machine.
"Why not?"
"Because tomorrow's such a huge day for me, David!" There's a nervous tinge to her voice. A twitch. Like if she was showing me, her body would have quaked.
"Then don't."
We carry on like adults, that last night before her trip out of the country. Adults with a lot of things to say to each other. We sit on the floor of the kitchen, Indian-style, as they used to call it in school. We talk fast as if we might run out of words. English is such a limited language, anyway.
"You excited? Everything ready?" The coffee is the best I've had in some time. I'm not sure why: I know from fact and experience my mom goes for the cheapest brands. The stuff you find on the bottom shelf in aluminum tins.
"Of course!" She takes a moment to process what is ahead of her. "This is, this is. Wow. Unbelievable."
"I know." It is unbelievable, very much so.
"I wish it was your father...." I cut her off before she can say anymore.
"No. I think he would have liked this, even more." And I believe it, I really believe it.
Lucille, I love you.
We are very quiet, then. And I can feel his presence, hanging over us. I wonder what he thinks of Crimshaw. Clueless, anonmaly-like, good-natured Crimshaw, who is packing his stuff across town in a dimly lit bedroom. The bedroom he has shared by himself for the past several years. Wouldn't be a better substitute.
"Sarah and I are kind of going out," I tell her. I feel like this is the happiest news of my life. These are the best words I've ever gotten to say to her. Even one day telling her I'm giving her grandchildren won't compare to this.
"It's about time."
In the morning, the doorbell rings out. This doorbell rang out innumerable times during my youth, punctuated long silence and broke my sleeping cycles. Crimshaw will be the finger, pressing it inwards. I know that much.
I'm sleeping in my boyhood bedroom. Smells like dust. And poor cologne that attracted no one.
I managed to clean out it pretty thoroughly when I moved out, but as always, there are souvineers left behind. Posters and portraits hung up, slapped against the plaster. A window with the curtains half-closed. The musk was inevitable and unavoidable at every corner of my bedroom; that sad smell that collects when an area hasn't been properly inhabited for a while. The smell that pervades countless attics and crawlspaces across this country.
On the top of my bookshelf, I had managed to put a few of my dad's old tennis trophies that I had salvaged. Two, in fact. The others were at my own apartment. The sun softly lights them up, bringing to face the engravings on them. My father's name, the sport, the tournament, the time of year it was. I close my eyes again.
"David, David?" my mother appears at the door. She's wearing sunglasses and a rather lightweight dress, kind of appropiate for the summer. I have no idea what the climate is to be like in Geneva, however. I imagine somewhat colder- but what do I know? She has the Lonely Planet and Crimshaw for reference, after all. Her hair is very straight and spread out across the width of her shoulders.
Just like me, the sun has left her a little tanner as well. I yawn and stretch, having slept in my clothes. The hoodie I wore over- unneccessary, really- tossed on the hardwood floor. The only thing I have to grab.
"You leaving?" I sleepily ask. She nods.
"Have to!"
"Is Crimshaw downstairs?" She nods again. I grab the hoodie and carry it under my arm. I reconstruct movement from my youth. So many hectic mornings: the smell of oatmeal burning, the car running in the driveway, my parents voices going back and forth. "I'm coming! I'm coming!"
Crimshaw is inside the house, getting my mom's belongings together. She doesn't have a lot and she shouldn't. In the scheme of it all, it's a short trip.
"Hi there David," he says to me. His voice is easy and relaxed. It's calm and boyish. He's wearing a pinkish dress shirt with the first few buttons undone. Underneath, there's a bleached white t-shirt.
He looks, perhaps (except for the clothes) the same as when I last saw him. Except his hair is a little thinner and he the traces of facial hair on the lower portion of his face.
"Mr. Crimshaw," I say, unsure of what exactly to say. I'm so fogged down with sleep that it's debatable as if whether I put a "hello" or a "hey" in there somewhere. A lazy "'ello."
"You do look so much like your Dad. My god, the face!" Crimshaw is marvelling at me. It's uncomfortable.
"Um." I back away, two steps behind me. Crimshaw blushes.
"I didn't mean to make you comfortable. It really is just uncanny."
"It's not hard to make David uncomfortable. A puppy could do it." My mom appears behind me and pats my shoulder.
"One hell of an ugly puppy." I add. Imagine a golden retreiver with three heads. "Take care of my mom, okay?"
Crimshaw looks me square in the eye. In some lingo, he is what you would call "a straight shooter."
"I plan on it." I have no reason to doubt him. I don't doubt him. I shake his hand; there's a lot of hair on it.
God. Don't let me get like that.
And, like people before me, when all is said and done, I watch them drive away.
The first big news, the best news of July comes rolling in on the 1st. Or right before the marker of our independence as a nation, 200-or-so years later.
I spent the remainder of June, that fair month, in my own cocoon. I go to work and I eat and I take showers. On special occasions, I shower and shave. That deal. Don't get too excited.
I do not talk to my mother for a while; partially out of need and partially out of sheer laziness. There are many attempts made to pick up the phone, that fumbling instrument, only to drop it by the wayside in favor of some other looming task. A task that often never existed to begin with.
David! her emails come almost every week. We should talk. Please call me. You can't be upset about this?
And it's not as much as being upset as disillusioned. With an ideal, an illusion. It was a mistake, and I know that, and in the scheme of everything that has ever happened, it meant absolutely nothing. But. But.
The good news is a call I get the day after I decide to quit work.
"You're really quitting?" Mr. Peterson is bewildered. His eyebrows alone do all the talking for him. He sits at the desk, with his arms spread out and his mouth ajar. Collections of spittle have amounted at the corners of his lips.
I hold my two weeks notice. It's written on yellow office tablature. The truth is: there is nothing holding me in DuBres. My mother is not some breakable old woman; she needs my companionship like she needs a limb amputated. I had a real budding life out west and I want it back.
"Appears that way." The sarcasm comes out despite my best inclinations. Not so wise, there.
There was a boy I went to high school with I vaguely remember- Wiseman Motts. He was on the football team. I don't remember if he was any good because I did not care enough to pay attention. My high school years were preoccupied with trying to chase girls and my place on the debate team and trying to make it a college people had heard of. Anyway, Wiseman sat in the back of my history class. Last period of the day, I remember. He would sit there and rattle on about whatever inane thought came, leaping into his rattled mind. Sometimes it was on par with the rest of the class, sometimes it seemed to matieralize and make sense only in the universe he existed in. But the way Wiseman spoke- without hesitation and with such ferocity of belief that every opinion he had was gospel truth. That was how he earned his nickname: Wiseman. Whether or not he was really one was purely subjective, although I'm sure you'd only think so if you were brain-damaged.
"But David. David. Put this into perspective," Mr. Peterson is actually pleading with me and I know it's because he knows I'm the only competent worker in this office. I wonder if he has some twisted fantasy of me taking his place someday. "Everything passes! Whatever you're going through is only temporary. That's life."
He could write greeting cards.
"I want to leave DuBres. I really want to go. There's no future in this place, sir, and I think you know that."
Mr. Peterson is silent. He has a frown wrinkling his face. A disappointed frown, much like the one I probably wore when I realized my mother's infidelity, Sarah's happiness, my own diminishing life. Then, he nods. And says nothing else.
I walk out of the office and I want everything to be in flames. I almost want to leave work right then, drive to the hardware store three blocks away, pick up some gas and matches and return to do a madman's job.
The next day I go to work and everything is the same, except I have roughly fourteen days left to go. I spend the morning comparing plane tickets. This way, that way. It's July 1st. I resolve to talk to my mother before she goes to Switzerland. Hell, maybe I'll go out with her and Crimshaw, or maybe I'll go with them to the airport and see them off.
I drive home, listening to talk radio blabber on about some unrest overseas. Boy, am I lucky. I'm American. And then I kind of laugh to myself and pass through a red light. I did not mean to do the latter; I'm highly conscientous of that sort of error.
"Respect the law, David," my father's voice creeps into my ears from a long, long time ago as I do so.
"Oh, come on," I had joked at the time. I was sixteen, seventeen. Learning to drive, cramped behind the wheel.
"I'm serious," he scolded me. "Don't be so flippant, kiddo. Always be mindful." Then he had a laugh himself. "You're not your mother- you can't flirt your way out of a ticket. Or get out of the car to look for your purse and make show of the short skirt you're wearing. I wouldn't suggest it, either."
There was something almost bittersweet about that, although at the time I had just snickered.
I walk into my apartment and I go straight to the answering machine. Sometimes I put it off, but that's just delaying the inevitable and I'm able to rest better if I know it's just my barber reminding me about an appointment or an automated message, trying to sell me some piece of junk.
The red light blinks urgently. Check me check me checkmecheckmeCHECKME. I cannot refuse that.
"David, it's Sarah. Hi. I'd like to see you, if you don't mind? You have my number; please give me a call. I'd really like to see you." My heart wants to burst out of my chest. It's like having wind knocked back into me.
Maybe I should think about this.
Two days later, I'm back at the Rhinestone, like before. But this time, I've dressed up and I've shampooed and shaved and gone the whole nine yards. I've taken myself to town.
"What will it be, big chief?" To make the ensemble perfect, of course, the very same bartender is there. As stupid as ever.
I swallow the gum I've been steadily chewing and lean in. Peppermint dots my breath.
"Could you not, could you not call me that?"
"Oh?" the bartender snorts. "What you gonna do about it?"
I show him my prime and ready knuckles. I am by no means a very muscular man, but I think my bare knuckles are fairly intimidating.
Afterwards, I'm served by a new bartender. She's a shy, young blonde.
"Hi," she says tentatively, with a gentle warmth. "What can I get you?"
"A Scotch," I tell her. Then, by some impulse, I'm driven to ask her name.
"Stacey." If I wasn't meeting with Sarah, I would have heavily employed the charm then. She is gorgeous. Younger than me, yeah. But gorgeous.
"What do you do besides bartend, Stacey?" She's sliding me a glass then. Very well done move, by the by.
She shrugs.
"I go to school. Kind of." I didn't inquire how someone could "kind of" go to college. Sarah arrived.
"Sorry if I'm late," she says, in a slight huff. She wasn't late.
"You were late last time," I remind her.
"You remember!"
"Of course." I always remember. It's wiser not to say that outloud.
She looks a lot calmer than she did, the time before. Her hair is straighter and her clothers are more crisp. Not that that means anything.
"Well, I'm back in DuBres for the summer. Surprise?" Just as I'm about to leave. I hope.
"Yeah! Definitely! Wow!" In some circles, this is what you would call "overkill." I see Stacey's eyes staring at me from across the long bar, too. They're green eyes and their presence does not fade in my mind. I wonder if all good things come at once, then, and you die. I'll get hit by a drunk driver in the parking lot or I'll have a heart attack running tomorrow. Dad would know.
Sarah watches me, and then she smiles the most adorable, life-reaffirming smile I have seen in ages.
"I can pick up on your sarcasm, David. Always your favorite course of action! Are you going to ask why?"
"Do I have to?" I kid. She jabs me with her elbow. And in a way, I am reminded of my mother.
"I was offered a job in DuBres that starts in September. And it's a great job- benefits, pays well, some prestige."
"Some!"
"Shut up! Anyway, it also involves a lot of travel. Which, I mean. Thank God."
"Right?" Stacey comes up again. Sarah requests a gin and tonic, which, to me, is weird. Maybe she'll start doing the Charleston if she has another.
"Oh, I know."
"What does Paul think?" She starts from the gin she's swallowing at the moment. Her skin, I note. Is flawless. Creamy white and without a noticeable blemish. And if there was a mere scar or wound or abrasion, wouldn't it just be wonderful proof of her humanity?
"Out of the picture." Her answer's simple and flat but it's all I need to hear. If a man could die of joy, then would have been the time.
"But I thought..." I try to pick up the pieces where we left them. I think of Paul. I don't know Paul. I never knew Paul. He's just a shadow in a business suit in my mind, a vacant face behind well-coiffed hair. He probably is blessed with exceptional health, teeth that have never needed fixing, a stainless driving record and some kind of "pack" on his chest.
"Well, yeah. Things were going well for some time. I mean, I thought." She holds the glass enviably in her prim hand. "Then I got this job in DuBres. And don't get me wrong, Paul is a great." She swallows the mix of saliva and drink swishing around in her mouth. "Person. He's such a great person. God. I feel so inadequate when I compare myself with him- like he's some saint, some pillar of chastity and selflessness."
"Oh Sarah. You could never be inadequate." She blushes. I spoke too soon. The heat's rising in my cheeks, too.
"Aw, David. If only you knew Paul. He's kind of sullen and quiet, but he has such a good heart. Anyway, Paul will live and die in New York. That's his plan. He's never leaving."
"So this was about geography, I take it?" It figures. One pulled in one direction, the other in another. Sarah's heart, odd as it was, was in DuBres of all places. And Paul's beat with the city. I couldn't really blame the guy, here.
"Just the concept in general. He didn't really want kids, either. He was weird about that. Paul had a lot of baggage."
"Check that shit at the door," I offer, not even aware of why I'm saying something so, so stupid. Sarah snorted, aware of the blatant stupidity.
"David! What the hell was that!"
"I don't know!" I give her an honest shrug. I was just trying to make her laugh.
"So you're single then?" I say after a silence that carries on for way too long. Sarah nods, her hair swaying with the age-old gesture.
"Currently."
Never has a word held more promise.
"How long?"
"What, until I'm not single?" She smirks at me, as if knowing my intentions. Let's be honest: she probably does. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure some stuff out.
"Well..."
She holds up one finger.
"Not a while. But I don't know who Paul and I were trying to kid. I heard he started dating a girl from his firm after we broke up. Tara? How's that for ironic?"
"I bet she's no you." I don't think she hears me. Or just disregards the flimsy statement altogether. Which she can do, with a simple tilt of her head.
"She's black and a pro-bono lawyer. So like, the antithesis of me." I find myself searching for an illustration of that. I say nothing; I have more beer.
"Are you still single, David?" she then asked, piercing what remained of the silence. Which draped us both with awkwardness, discomfort and a knowing. Just a knowing.
I nodded. The beer had left a film in my mouth.
"I have been single for a very long time," I say, shooting an eye up at Stacey, who is flirting shamelessly with some younger guys down the bar.
"Why is that?" I swear it's not my bias towards such thoughts, but she sits closer to me. I can smell her; I can feel her.
"Well. No girls have really caught my interest since I've been back." I exhale. "I mean there's been some, but nothing substantial."
I move my head to see her looking at me, intently. She's gazing at me. Her eyes are full of hope.
"Some?"
"Yeah..." I move my hands towards hers, then. Instinctively.
If this was years ago, or even (to be open) only months ago, I would have not dared .I would have expected flat-out rejection. I would have not been so utterly brave. It wasn't like the idea of her and me was completely ridiculous. But there's that dream you're always pulling for, that you feel is eternally beyond your reach. She was that dream for me.
Sarah did not move her hand away. I ended up taking the dream girl home.
"So..." I stood with her outside, playing with my keys. Feeling the rusted metal on and off again between my fingers.
Sarah may have been somewhat drunk. She was drunk, who am I kidding? She was swaying like a leaf trapped in the breeze. Her breath was like having a tavern spilled out in front of you. I wanted to grab her on the arms and steady her.
She kissed me then.
"I want to go to sleep," Sarah instructed afterwards. I nodded.
"We'll do that." I expected nothing more.
I had another girlfriend, at some crosspoint in time. In the waste of existence I called "college." She had written a list of traits she found desireable in a relationship, in a mate. I had found it one day, snooping, and one of the traits or activities or whatever was "to sleep together but not to have sex."
Well, because I was pretty juvenile, I took a spare pen and added to it: yes, but my cock was in your mouth the whole time. She hadn't seen the humor in that one.
With Sarah, though. She slept on my bed, the first body other than my own to sleep on those sheets, and my arm stayed around her, fully clothed. This was how we spent the night.
I would have never expected any of this. It was just a sign of good things to come. Sarah and I started seeing more of each other- a lot more of each other. And with that, I felt my spirits rise.
So I went to my mom.
"David!" her voice burst when I called. She picked up on the first ring.
"You leave tomorrow?"
"Yes! You know."
"Can I come over?"
"Of course."
I ran over because the evening was one of those summer evenings you'd like to last forever. The wind hits your body like a massive warm kiss. Everything smells fresh and possibility plants itself everywhere. At this time, I've been spending more of my waking hours outdoors. Finding myself excuses to stay out- helping neighbors with their yardwork, making myself readily available for anyone that might need me. My skin gets tan; the tips of my hair turn themselves blonde.
The sun stays out longer, too. Of course it's no Alaska or St. Petersburg. But it helps to have the sunlight on your skin up until the point of sleep. I smiled to myself and whoever else could have seen it. The dogs napping on the lawns, maybe, their big brown eyes shut to the world.
"You know, you kind of look like a model," Sarah had told me during one of our prolonged make out sessions. Bliss, nirvana, heaven. You term it what you will.
"A model? What a weird thing to say to a guy. And a sensitive one at that!" She had just laughed and kept tousling it, her fingers elongating each strand.
I want to tell my mom about Sarah. About everything. I want her to share in it- like my life is this dish and I'm offering her up this plate.
The door is open when I get there. I know she's not far away.
"Mom?" I ask, rounding the final bend. "Mom?"
"David!" And then I hear a clunk, alerting my senses. Like something (or, more importantly, SOMEONE) falling. My mom isn't ,made of glass but she's not made of steel. I rush inside.
It's not her. It was a suitcase she was attempting to push down the stairs. She giggles, embarrassed.
"Last minute planning," she explains, as I stand awkwardly at the foot of the stairs, bathed in my own sweat.
"Yeah," I say, picking up the lavender, overstuffed suitcase. "Damn Mom, what did you throw in here?" It weighs an enormous amount. Or, at the very least, my arm is interpreting it as such.
"Oh, clothes. You know."
"You're not going to be gone that long!"
"I am a woman, David! Jesus!" She ambles down the stairs, her feet covered in those disposable thong sandals you can buy at any Target or Wal-Mart. Made by aching Thai children, probably.
"That's why you haven't been married yet." She gets to the bottom and takes it from me, carrying it with more ease than I was.
"Other reasons!" I insist. I follow her from behind. She snorts.
"Really."
"Come up with more theories, why don't you!" Mom places the suitcase by the door to the garage. I suspect she will scoop it up, with Crimshaw's help, come morning. I think of his arms; they bulge with veins like tree trunks bulge with tree veins. I wince. Like a ball player on tons of steroids. Enough to keep Central America afloat.
"Did you ever play tennis with him?" I had asked my father once upon a long distant time.
"You're crazy!" my father had roared in return, with great amusement. That was accurate: Crimshaw, you could imagine, being a lumberjack somewhere remote and away from civilization, swinging a mighty ax around.
"When's Crimshaw coming?" I ask. The words glide off my tongue. Mom sighs, sounding exhausted.
"Around 8. It's a long ride!"
"You better get to sleep soon. Do you want me to put the suitcase in the car for now?"
"No, no. We're taking his." There's a way she chooses to let that "s" drag in the pronoun. But I try to think nothing of it. Still, though. It was like a hint of posession.
"What kind of car is that?" I try and make small talk. She, though, sees right through me.
"You don't care."
"A Honda, then?" She shakes her head.
"So you've forgiven me?"
I stand there. I struggle to map out the course of words I should say. What lines haven't we used before? What cards haven't we dealt?
"There was nothing to forgive." I remember that my apartment is locked up for the night, safe from any dumb teenage kid that might try to break it and jack my TV or DVD player.
My mom doesn't smile, but she looks relieved.
"Good."
"Mom?"
"Yes?" She touches my cheek kindly. Inspecting it. Searching for traces of my father, maybe. You look so much like him. Voices shout out through my ears.
"Lucille, Lucille, I love you. Can you hear me?" I imagine him, standing up behind her in the clothes we buried him in. Latched onto her shadow.
"Can I stay here tonight?"
"If you want! I'll make us some coffee." I nod. "You are a weird boy, David." I shrug.
"We should catch up. That's why I want to stay."
"I'm coming back. It's not like you'll never see me again. Plus, there's email. Oh. And phones. Remember them?" Crookedly I smile, in spite of other impulses.
"This is different, Mom."
"Close the front door for me. Before someone sneaks in and kills us both."
I do as she asks. I turn the knob and shut off the night breeze. It's too bad, the worries of modern times. Or maybe cavemen had to worry about the same stuff, in their lairs, millenia beyond comprehension.
I hear the grinds of the coffee, emitting from the kitchen. The smell ambushes both my nostrils.
"There's more I want to say, too. I'm not sure if now's the right time, though," my mom tells me as she prepares the machine.
"Why not?"
"Because tomorrow's such a huge day for me, David!" There's a nervous tinge to her voice. A twitch. Like if she was showing me, her body would have quaked.
"Then don't."
We carry on like adults, that last night before her trip out of the country. Adults with a lot of things to say to each other. We sit on the floor of the kitchen, Indian-style, as they used to call it in school. We talk fast as if we might run out of words. English is such a limited language, anyway.
"You excited? Everything ready?" The coffee is the best I've had in some time. I'm not sure why: I know from fact and experience my mom goes for the cheapest brands. The stuff you find on the bottom shelf in aluminum tins.
"Of course!" She takes a moment to process what is ahead of her. "This is, this is. Wow. Unbelievable."
"I know." It is unbelievable, very much so.
"I wish it was your father...." I cut her off before she can say anymore.
"No. I think he would have liked this, even more." And I believe it, I really believe it.
Lucille, I love you.
We are very quiet, then. And I can feel his presence, hanging over us. I wonder what he thinks of Crimshaw. Clueless, anonmaly-like, good-natured Crimshaw, who is packing his stuff across town in a dimly lit bedroom. The bedroom he has shared by himself for the past several years. Wouldn't be a better substitute.
"Sarah and I are kind of going out," I tell her. I feel like this is the happiest news of my life. These are the best words I've ever gotten to say to her. Even one day telling her I'm giving her grandchildren won't compare to this.
"It's about time."
In the morning, the doorbell rings out. This doorbell rang out innumerable times during my youth, punctuated long silence and broke my sleeping cycles. Crimshaw will be the finger, pressing it inwards. I know that much.
I'm sleeping in my boyhood bedroom. Smells like dust. And poor cologne that attracted no one.
I managed to clean out it pretty thoroughly when I moved out, but as always, there are souvineers left behind. Posters and portraits hung up, slapped against the plaster. A window with the curtains half-closed. The musk was inevitable and unavoidable at every corner of my bedroom; that sad smell that collects when an area hasn't been properly inhabited for a while. The smell that pervades countless attics and crawlspaces across this country.
On the top of my bookshelf, I had managed to put a few of my dad's old tennis trophies that I had salvaged. Two, in fact. The others were at my own apartment. The sun softly lights them up, bringing to face the engravings on them. My father's name, the sport, the tournament, the time of year it was. I close my eyes again.
"David, David?" my mother appears at the door. She's wearing sunglasses and a rather lightweight dress, kind of appropiate for the summer. I have no idea what the climate is to be like in Geneva, however. I imagine somewhat colder- but what do I know? She has the Lonely Planet and Crimshaw for reference, after all. Her hair is very straight and spread out across the width of her shoulders.
Just like me, the sun has left her a little tanner as well. I yawn and stretch, having slept in my clothes. The hoodie I wore over- unneccessary, really- tossed on the hardwood floor. The only thing I have to grab.
"You leaving?" I sleepily ask. She nods.
"Have to!"
"Is Crimshaw downstairs?" She nods again. I grab the hoodie and carry it under my arm. I reconstruct movement from my youth. So many hectic mornings: the smell of oatmeal burning, the car running in the driveway, my parents voices going back and forth. "I'm coming! I'm coming!"
Crimshaw is inside the house, getting my mom's belongings together. She doesn't have a lot and she shouldn't. In the scheme of it all, it's a short trip.
"Hi there David," he says to me. His voice is easy and relaxed. It's calm and boyish. He's wearing a pinkish dress shirt with the first few buttons undone. Underneath, there's a bleached white t-shirt.
He looks, perhaps (except for the clothes) the same as when I last saw him. Except his hair is a little thinner and he the traces of facial hair on the lower portion of his face.
"Mr. Crimshaw," I say, unsure of what exactly to say. I'm so fogged down with sleep that it's debatable as if whether I put a "hello" or a "hey" in there somewhere. A lazy "'ello."
"You do look so much like your Dad. My god, the face!" Crimshaw is marvelling at me. It's uncomfortable.
"Um." I back away, two steps behind me. Crimshaw blushes.
"I didn't mean to make you comfortable. It really is just uncanny."
"It's not hard to make David uncomfortable. A puppy could do it." My mom appears behind me and pats my shoulder.
"One hell of an ugly puppy." I add. Imagine a golden retreiver with three heads. "Take care of my mom, okay?"
Crimshaw looks me square in the eye. In some lingo, he is what you would call "a straight shooter."
"I plan on it." I have no reason to doubt him. I don't doubt him. I shake his hand; there's a lot of hair on it.
God. Don't let me get like that.
And, like people before me, when all is said and done, I watch them drive away.
Comments
Post a Comment