That night I go into the house and show Tutti a bag of almonds I have just bought. “Almonds are good for you,” I tell her. I hold the bag of almonds in front of her face. I point to the spot on the bag where the regular price has been crossed off and $1.99 is written in black Magic Marker.
“They’re good roughage,” I say.
I hold the bag in front of Tutti’s face for a moment.
Tutti looks at the bag there in front of her face. She is sitting at the kitchen table with her sewing machine in front of her, with the little light on over the needle.
~
Sammy calls me up at work. He tells me the kids in the neighborhood were laughing at him. He says they were chasing him around the playground, laughing at him. He says he was crying and they thought it was funny to chase him around and laugh at him. He says he hates them and never wants to play with any of them again.
“I hate them, too,” I tell him.
~
They’ve drained all the swamps in Florida, just so you can sit by a pool and look at other people’s towels.
On the way home it rains. We have to drive through Ohio.
I hate Ohio.
~
Let us think about what brought him here, to where he is right now, as a product of everything that has gone before, as though everything that has gone before has been squeezed into a single moment, and from the pressure of all his life pressed together into a single moment he is popping out into the next moment, a moment destined to be so devoid of motion as to be the perfect replication of death.
~
One of the things I had to start doing was, I had to start wearing those rubber things on my feet.
I touched her back. There was some dirt on her back. “There was some dirt on your back,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said.
She said, “Thank you,” as though she had practiced saying it. Had stood in front of the mirror and watched her lips and said, “Thank you.” And then she had said it again, “Thank you,” only this time she was watching her eyes. Then she would maybe pat her hair. It was the kind of hair you could pat. She would look into the mirror, watch her lips and pat her hair. “Thank you,” she would say. She would say it over and over again.
What I hated about those rubber things was having anyone see that I had them on. I would take them off in the car and then run into the office, trying to dodge the puddles, landing on my toes, trying to make the least amount of shoe as possible touch the ground.
It stuck out, but it stuck out in such a way that it made you think it was not sticking out. She must have used a lot of hair spray, some kind of hair spray that makes it look as though you didn’t use any hair spray.
What I wanted to touch was the backs of her arms. The backs of her arms looked soft. It looked as though the skin on the backs of her arms was going to fall off. I wanted to touch those arms and say, “There,” and then wait to hear her say, “Thank you.”
I think they can make hair spray where it looks as though there is no hair spray. I think it’s just a matter of cost. I think it’s just a matter of the cost of the thing they want to do, and if they want to make hair spray where it looks as though there is no hair spray, it’s just a matter of cost.
I wanted to get the best deal I could on those rubber things.
You thought you could smell it, the smell of the stubble coming out, dark like that, when she lifted her arm. It made you want to taste it. You wanted to taste the smell. Just seeing the stubble, and the bra, the way the bra looked, dark where you could see it at the edge, just seeing the bra and the stubble when she lifted her arm, you got the feeling you wanted to taste the smell.
I wanted her to say it as though I had slipped her something, and what I had slipped her made her eyes grow wide. Only it would be as though her eyes had not grown wide at all. This is how practiced I think she was.
She said, “Thank you,” as if she was sorry for me. As if she wanted to give me something. Like opening her eyes wide. That was what she could have given me. Her eyes, wide open, and me seeing her eyes, wide open like that.
They try to make those rubber things look like real shoes, but if you ask me, it doesn’t work. I don’t know. Maybe if I spent more money. I tried to get the cheapest ones I could find. They raise the rubber on top to try to make it look like laces, but who are they trying to kid? I try to look at those rubber things with an open mind. I really do. But please, who are they trying to kid?
~
You can only get the money in factors of twenty. Sometimes the machine will give you more money than you have in your account.
The question on the machine was: Which account? Press a green button.
~
Before I left, I made him pancakes.
Then I went around the corner, out of the kitchen, and he went, “Daaaddy,” and started to cry.
So I went back in the kitchen.
I had on one shoe.
I turned his high chair around to face the window. I wanted him to look out and blow me kisses when I got out in the driveway. There were still some pieces of pancake in his bowl.
I find empty rooms to sit in. Then I listen to footsteps outside. I wait for the footsteps to stop. I listen for the door to open. This is it, I think.
I turn his chair around and I say, “You wave bye-bye to Daddy. Blow kisses,” and I walk out the front door.
When I was a little guy, my dad used to tie our sled to the back of his car and drive us around the streets in our neighborhood, my sister and I dressed up in our coats and boots, propped up like little dolls, the snow white and clean around us.
18
TOM GOES across the parking lot in the early morning light. He goes into the mall and meets up with the other guys, who are all hanging about by the railing on the overlook. All the guys, hair stiff with gel, are smiling and they all have wonderful gray complexions. Tom has this lick of hair which falls over his forehead. For a while he stays near the guys, listening to their jokes. Eventually, though, he drifts away to buy a coffee at Druxy’s. He stands at the condiment stand, stirring his coffee. He watches the lady behind the counter in the way fellows named Tom do.
Tom goes back out into the parking lot and buys a paper. He tucks the paper under his arm and carries it back across the parking lot to the office building where he works. He goes in. Rhonda is there, sitting at her desk, staring off into nowhere, with her red hair and freckles.
“You’re in early,” Tom says.
“I was over near here, so I thought I might as well just come on over here and be here. So here I am.” Rhonda often talks like this, especially early in the morning.
Her hair is especially red today, Tom thinks.
“Did you dye your hair?” Tom says.
“No,” Rhonda says.
Tom takes sips of his coffee. He keeps taking sips until all the coffee is gone. He closes one eye and squints the other so he can look into the little hole of the takeout cup.
“I think I have some kind of perceptual problem,” Tom says. “I think there’s something going wrong with me. I keep cutting my fingers, for example.” He holds up his hands to show Rhonda he has two Band-Aids on one hand and one on the other. “I think there’s something really going wrong with me.”
“You should see a doctor,” Rhonda says.
Anyway, that’s it for Tom. Thanks again.
19