Where do we want to eat?—the first words L says upon opening the door, before we can see her, before she can see us or even know if we are home.
D is in his downstairs bedroom, playing a computer game. I’m in the den playing the same game. Neither of us answer.
Outside, the grass is eight inches too high.
Through an open doorway I see L’s keys arc to the couch, strike the cushion with a muted rattle. Following the keys, the clean steel of a stethoscope glints in the window light, lands on the adjacent cushion. Its black tubing uncoils, slumps over the edge. L’s footsteps thud up the out-of-sight stairway. Again she asks where we want to eat, shouts it this time, feigning indignation.
D wants to eat on the moon, he shouts. I yell pizza, take a sip of my soda, lean to my left and readjust the box fan on the floor. It’s no use, only swampy air.
My t-shirt peels from the black desk chair. I stand and stretch. L retreats back down the stairway, cursing at the heat, still in her bright blue scrubs.
At the restaurant we split a fourteen inch. D pays and picks off the pepperoni.
L shouldn’t talk about them, but she does. She calls them Georgie, Grab-Ass, Old Sandra. Ginger, Larry-B, and Witch. All of them, residents at the Crestfield Home where L works nights as a nurse. All of them, disabled in some way. All of them, without family to care.
L shouldn’t talk about them, but she tells us how Witch punched one of the aides and claimed L had done it. How Larry-B wanders from his room at night, screaming, begging for someone to call his long-dead wife, to tell her he’s ready to go home, then pees in the hallway. How Grab-Ass has no legs past the knee, open wounds where they had carved out gangrene all the way to the patella—and how, whenever the nurses roll him to clean or change bandages, his nubby fingers slide up between their legs.
It’s not like he’s dangerous, though, L tells us. She shakes her head. We would be aching for sexual connection, too, in that condition, she says.
Grab-Ass is thirty-seven years old. At least twenty years younger than any other resident. Most suffer dementia, Alzheimer’s, age-related disabilities—but Grab-Ass has his marbles and some measure of youth, L says—just hasn’t got legs, or teeth, or a penis. L says it’s the strangest thing, to have testicles with no apparent penis, some developmental disorder she hasn’t learned the name of yet.
I finish my third slice of pizza and slurp down the last of my soda.
L tips, leaves a few crumpled ones from her pocket, and I drive us home.
In our driveway, an orange cat with bobbed tail sits, blocks my parking spot. D points his finger out the passenger window, hand in the shape of a gun, yells “Bang, Bang, Bang, Kitty!” but it isn’t intimidated. It takes the car horn and few engine revs before the cat saunters out of the way. D and I complain about the cat on and off until nightfall.
Upstairs in my bedroom, the air has cooled. East-facing windows ensure that in the morning, the sheets will be heavy with sweat, and I will spend another day in escape of circumstance, bent in front of my computer screen, chugging soda, box fan at my side. D will tell me his plans to mow the yard, that it will cool down tomorrow, it’ll be the best time to do it.
I sneak a cigarette, perched on the widow sill, breathing smoke into the dark air.
I sleep—and I shouldn’t talk about them—but in my dreams, soft gaunt hands fall upon my chest, young women with thin red hair lean down and drift over me, whisper that it’s ok—and my fingers slip between their legs—and their faces, in changeless granite smiles, welcome me.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
What Fall Aren't Leaves
The bedrooms are half painted. The floors—kitchen, bathroom—scuffed already.
L sets a box atop a gravel-colored counter. She wipes dust from her fingers onto sky blue sweatpants. Tiny ants, maybe termites, march in line to the sink drain.
Outside, D thumps an open palm on the worn white door. He is still without his key.
At night, rabbits munch grass and weed alike in the backyard, and a skunk is slickly determined to rummage our trash. I hear the bags tumble as I step to the porch for a cigarette. To my right, the light of the elementary school and nearby street lamps blend to cast a yellow glow on our street corner. The school's glass doors shine. It's 12:17 am, and two children are running its halls.
Flat, wide pods flutter down from our trees. Three of them, behind the house. D tells me they are Maple. Seeds the size of small leaves. Large enough to signal autumn in the mind of a tired smoker. Nature's sleight of hand—but tomorrow will be ninety degrees, as will the day after.
The skunk struts from behind the old garage. I flick the cigarette butt his direction, and he darts to the neighbor's bushes.
L is gone. At T's or R's or M's apartment. Her bedroom door, left open just enough to see that no one's inside.
I don't sleep, and by morning the skunk becomes three different cats—black, orange, gray—and I don't notice but the children are gone, and the school's lights are out, and D shuffles out to the back porch, his eyes, deep stagnant pools. Yes, he tells me, they are definitely Maple trees. See how the seeds resemble torn wings? See how they spin in descent? The whole of the yard, blanketed by seeds.
"The bedrooms are half painted," I say to D.
"None of these are gunna grow," he says.
L sets a box atop a gravel-colored counter. She wipes dust from her fingers onto sky blue sweatpants. Tiny ants, maybe termites, march in line to the sink drain.
Outside, D thumps an open palm on the worn white door. He is still without his key.
At night, rabbits munch grass and weed alike in the backyard, and a skunk is slickly determined to rummage our trash. I hear the bags tumble as I step to the porch for a cigarette. To my right, the light of the elementary school and nearby street lamps blend to cast a yellow glow on our street corner. The school's glass doors shine. It's 12:17 am, and two children are running its halls.
Flat, wide pods flutter down from our trees. Three of them, behind the house. D tells me they are Maple. Seeds the size of small leaves. Large enough to signal autumn in the mind of a tired smoker. Nature's sleight of hand—but tomorrow will be ninety degrees, as will the day after.
The skunk struts from behind the old garage. I flick the cigarette butt his direction, and he darts to the neighbor's bushes.
L is gone. At T's or R's or M's apartment. Her bedroom door, left open just enough to see that no one's inside.
I don't sleep, and by morning the skunk becomes three different cats—black, orange, gray—and I don't notice but the children are gone, and the school's lights are out, and D shuffles out to the back porch, his eyes, deep stagnant pools. Yes, he tells me, they are definitely Maple trees. See how the seeds resemble torn wings? See how they spin in descent? The whole of the yard, blanketed by seeds.
"The bedrooms are half painted," I say to D.
"None of these are gunna grow," he says.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
One Early Digression
To Ronald D. Boire, President and CEO, Brookstone Inc.
I ran over one of your magazines with a lawnmower yesterday. No malice was intended. The wind just walked it into the mower's path. It wasn't purely accidental, though—something I am ashamed to admit. I did have ample time to react, but the youthful anticipation of all that shredded confetti overwhelmed better sense.
A credit to your company: the magazine nearly jammed the blade.
I want to say, it was only afterward that I knew what magazine it was. Lifting the bits of paper from the cut grass, I noticed a large chunk of the cover, the letters—okston—clearly visible.
L. told me that it could only be a Brookstone. D. examined the font and agreed. It was a hard realization.
Important to note: none of us here at 325 N. Summit Street subscribe to your magazine. It was, unfortunately, delivered for a previous tenant, and left on the porch, where the wind cruelly flung it to its fate. Its intended subscriber, a Ms. Allison Kottrise, would want to know its whereabouts, I'm sure. If she happens to leave a forwarding address, I would be more than happy to write and explain the situation, so please feel free to enclose that information in your response.
One last thing: should you, in error, send future issues of your magazine to 325 N. Summit Street, Bowling Green, OH, 43402, L. would be delighted to browse your products. On a shredded corner of page 23, she remarked how ergonomical the UV-C Sanitizing Wand, proven to kill up to 99.9% of certain bacteria on household surfaces, appeared to be. It is exciting to see a normally bulky Ultraviolet sanitizing wand come with such clean lines and a clever hand-grip. Yes, L. is nodding.
Yours,
Jason Woodrow Carnahan
I ran over one of your magazines with a lawnmower yesterday. No malice was intended. The wind just walked it into the mower's path. It wasn't purely accidental, though—something I am ashamed to admit. I did have ample time to react, but the youthful anticipation of all that shredded confetti overwhelmed better sense.
A credit to your company: the magazine nearly jammed the blade.
I want to say, it was only afterward that I knew what magazine it was. Lifting the bits of paper from the cut grass, I noticed a large chunk of the cover, the letters—okston—clearly visible.
L. told me that it could only be a Brookstone. D. examined the font and agreed. It was a hard realization.
Important to note: none of us here at 325 N. Summit Street subscribe to your magazine. It was, unfortunately, delivered for a previous tenant, and left on the porch, where the wind cruelly flung it to its fate. Its intended subscriber, a Ms. Allison Kottrise, would want to know its whereabouts, I'm sure. If she happens to leave a forwarding address, I would be more than happy to write and explain the situation, so please feel free to enclose that information in your response.
One last thing: should you, in error, send future issues of your magazine to 325 N. Summit Street, Bowling Green, OH, 43402, L. would be delighted to browse your products. On a shredded corner of page 23, she remarked how ergonomical the UV-C Sanitizing Wand, proven to kill up to 99.9% of certain bacteria on household surfaces, appeared to be. It is exciting to see a normally bulky Ultraviolet sanitizing wand come with such clean lines and a clever hand-grip. Yes, L. is nodding.
Yours,
Jason Woodrow Carnahan
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