Morning Routine, With Variations

After my morning work-out in the gym downstairs I usually make my way back up through the kitchen for a small glass of orange juice, wiping the sweat off my forehead and face with a couple of paper towels on my way back down the hallway. Which Lisa hates, so I hide the bally mess in my waistband as I step into the bedroom in order to grab some fresh clothes. Morning light is now coming over the top the curtains like a row of flying buttresses – one of them propped up on the bedcover by Lisa’s foot. It isn’t necessary to hide anything, I should have realized: Lisa is splayed out on the bed as usual, looking as if she’d fallen onto it from about 10 stories up. She tries to turn over, and at the same time I hear laughter from the bathroom, but I’ve already turned the corner to investigate myself, and she slumps back down into the pillow, face first.

Our three year-old Lisa Jr. is squatting in the shower, playing next to a stack of tiles and support beams I’d dug up to take out a bad section of dry rot. It’s a fairly dank and grimy mess, especially so amidst the pristine whiteness of the tiles. ‘Sorry, honey, but daddy needs to take a shower now,’ I say, throwing the wad of paper into the waste bucket underneath the counter. I reached in to the shower to pull her out by her free arm and had her dangling over the threshold when I heard Lisa groaning from the bedroom. I look over and see that she’s now turned herself over and is propped up somewhat on the pillow. ‘Go ahead and have her shower with you, John. David drew all over her face.’ I check and see and, sure enough, she has a goatee drawn on her chin, with a curlicue mustache spread out across her upper lip.

‘All right,’ I say, dragging it out a little to emphasize that I’m not entirely happy with the situation, ‘you’re off to the showers with me!’ and lift her out of the shower by her forearm as she’s reaching into the pile of tiles with the other hand, and then swing her up to my chest as we walk towards the shower in the bathroom off the main hallway. She takes off her clothes next to the bathtub, kicking her pajama bottoms as far as she can across the bathroom floor. I hoist her up into the bathtub and draw the curtain closed behind me with one hand while I turn on the water with the other.

I pick up Lisa Jr. to hold her head under the faucet, and she’s smiling and laughing as she ducks from the stream a little and holds out her hands for shampoo. ‘What in the world were you two thinking,’ I say, and begin going after the mustache with the loofah. ‘Davey said I had to be the bad guy,’ explains Lisa, plaintively. When I’ve finished I set her down for a quick shampoo and a rinse, and then I turn off the water to let her know that our time together is over. ‘Can you dry yourself off while I shampoo myself?’ I ask her, not really asking. I hardly draw back the curtain as I swing her back out onto the bathroom floor. ‘I need to move fast now.’ ‘Sure, daddy,’ says Lisa Jr., and takes the big step onto the linoleum floor. I pull down a towel and drape it over her head. She giggles, looking and sounding a little like Tinky Winky.

It’s then that I finally peel off my shorts and soap myself down quickly. I was rinsing the shampoo out of my hair when I notice something down by faucet. It’s a loose tile, but when I touch it with my finger I manage to dislodge two more right next to it. ‘Damn!’ I say without thinking, and squat down to test the others around them with my fingers. I never was much good at tiling. It’s there in the squatting position, the water pounding my head from above, that I notice a dark shadow to my right, and then the more specific outline of Lisa Jr.’s head. She’s got her hands around her eyes, binocular style, her face pressed into the shower curtain to try and find out what new shenanigans dad is up to in there. ‘It’s nothing, honey, just a little trouble where the water comes out. Go get your mom up, and then I’ll be out in a second.’

Hummingbird

Bauer had held onto the idea of moving back into his childhood home for at least a couple of years. Maybe he’d always had it, or at least since his mother had sold the place when his younger sister had moved out back in 1985. A few weeks before he’d been making one of his annual drives around the old neighborhood during a free afternoon, and when he saw the ‘For Sale’ sign by the mailbox – same post, different box, he’d noticed for who knew how many times – he’d driven straight into the driveway rather than follow the arterial turn down towards the Steinberg and the Conroy houses, still named by him for people who hadn’t lived in the neighborhood much longer than his own family.

The current owner, an accountant who’d bought the house in 1997, had been happy to show him around the home, Bauer never letting on that he’d actually lived there himself twenty years ago. He had the first agent he reached at John L. Scott make an offer on the old home, and when that was refused he decided to just meet the asking price without any bargaining. It wasn’t about money to begin with, so he let the accountant have his way. They closed the sale on a Wednesday and on Friday he was back in the house tearing up the carpet in the accountant’s office, his sister’s bedroom.

He had lunch delivered by an Indian restaurant that hadn’t been there twenty years ago and ate while staring out in silence at the backyard. It was a big yard, bounded on two sides by the edge of a green belt and on the third by a ten foot wooden fence, put in by his father about a year before he’d moved out to separate their yard from the small marijuana crop growing in the neighbor’s. Looking at the backyard gave Bauer an idea, or rather it gave him the will to act on an idea he’d been nursing for years, and so he made a couple of phone calls. The first was to his friend Mike, one of the Conroys who’d lived four houses down on the right. Mike seemed happy enough to hear from him, although he was used to hearing from him every few months, and if he thought it was strange that Bauer had bought back the house he’d grown up in he never let on. They hung up after promising each other a game of golf. This was just a warm-up call.

He was happy to see her, and Laura looked pleased enough to see him, awkward though it might be. After getting the call from him she’d driven all the way down from Everett that very afternoon, which was a lot to do for a first boyfriend she hadn’t seen at either of the reunions, let alone in private, let alone without her husband in tow. She said that she was making a trip to Seattle that afternoon anyway, so it would be easy enough to drop by. He somehow doubted this was true, although he certainly wouldn’t fault her for making something like that up. He offered her some of the Chicken Marsala, but she declined. Without knowing what might be in the fridge he asked if she wanted anything to drink.

“What do you have?”

Looking down at the shelves he was able to say, “Milk…looks like soy milk.”

“Yeah, sounds okay.”

He pulled it out of the fridge and realized there was nothing to pour it in.

“I was just being polite anyway,” she said

“What about some coffee?” he asked, reaching for the thermos he’d brought.

“Sure. With some of that soy milk.”

He poured the milk first, and then added too much coffee. He picked the thermos top out of a beige puddle and handed it to her with a grimace. “Klutz…sorry about that.”

He asked how Steve was, and she said fine – he was getting back from a conference in Los Angeles in the evening, so she couldn’t stay long. Maybe this was true as well, although he wouldn’t fault her for making that up either. After standing in the kitchen exchanging small talk for a few minutes he showed her around the place; first the garage, where his grandfather’s workbench still stood after being inherited by his mother in the early 70’s. It had been brought over from St. Louis by a great-grandfather who had emigrated from South Africa after the Boer War, and since the bench had made another kind of journey through several owners, Bauer felt lucky to have gotten it back. They moved into the living room where as teenagers they had once spent so much time together, looking out at Canadian geese landing in the backyard for a breather on their way south. Once he’d even seen a beaver ambling out of the creek for a twig that seemed to fit its needs. That had been in the fall; now it was May and twenty-five years later, the overgrown garden was in bloom, and neither goose nor gander or beaver was anywhere in sight.

Laura shifted her weight a number of times before walking out of the space where the couch had once been and stood with her back against the far wall, by the fireplace. Only then did he realize how uncomfortable she was in the room, and felt like an oaf for asking her there in the first place.

“Let me show you what I’m doing in the back.”

They walked down the hallway past his former bedroom without a word, but peaked into the main bathroom to make a show of interest. Same crack in the mirror, he noticed for the first time.

“Remember the bathtub full of fish?” she asked, laughing a little. “I thought your mom was going to kill you when the aquarium broke!” This eased the tension somewhat. It was good to hear her laugh, one of the things he’d always enjoyed about her most.

“Yeah, those poor fish. Well, most of them made it.” He saw again a Fringetail flipping and flopping on top of the soaking carpet, gills straining at the air all around with what Bauer had even then sworn was a desperate look in its eyes. “Bulging, even for fish eyes,” the young man had said. Bauer remained silent for a moment.

“Anyway, I’ll show you what I’m working on in the back room – Stephanie’s room. You remember.” This seemed to be a relatively neutral space in the house for Laura, and she seemed a little more at ease. After they had both stood in the entrance to the room for a moment, he walked over by the window where the hardwood floor had been exposed. She stood on top of the underside of the carpet that had been pulled up. In turning it into an office, the accountant had of course changed a number of things, and since she’d never spent much time there in the first place, he proceeded to tell her about some of the changes.

“In the first place, there was a kind of pink shag rug in here when it was Stephanie’s room. Okay for a young girl, I guess, but I can see why he’d want to change it out. And the wallpaper matched the carpet – you can still see some of it in the closet here.”

Bauer opened up the closet door as widely as possible to show her a section of wallpaper hanging dog-eared, right in the center.

“Why is it in the closet?” she asked

“That’s mom for you.”

After a pause she said, “I like the hummingbirds.” The print consisted of pink ribbons running vertically for two-foot stretches, each separated from one another by a flower about the size of his palm. Next to each flower was a tiny hummingbird, its wings nicely blurred and the tail feathers pulled back under the body, so that it looked like a floating bass clef. Even in the the closet it was light enough to see the white throat, the brown feathers of its arched body, and the long beak reaching into the blossoming flower for nectar.

“Looks like you have bees.”

“Huh?”

She nodded towards the window behind him. He turned out of the closet to see what she was motioning towards and saw the huge rhododendron. He remembered the plant when it was young and realized that it must now be about as old as himself. Hanging from one of the branches next to the window was a bees’ nest, nearly a sphere, just the size and shape of basketball and with a surface that looked just as leathery.

“Jesus, you’re right.”

“It looks like the Death Star.” From the way the bees were hovering on the other side of the side of the nest he had a pretty good idea of where the entrance was. What was a wonder was how the rhododendron could support it. He looked down the length of its branch and guessed that in fact it was sagging quite a bit. But it was hard to tell.

“Funny how I missed that during the tour. I think I saw something in the garage for it.”

Without saying anything else he ran out of the room, leaving Laura to contemplate the bees through the protection of the glass. While staring out the window she tried to remember Bauer when he’d been fifteen. He’d been just about as tall has he was now, though certainly thinner, and with much longer hair. He’d been so self-assured for his age. The years hadn’t been overly kind to him, although he certainly had enough money. Something else seemed to have worn on him. He’d been married briefly, then divorced, and had never remarried. The phone call had been right out of the blue. And who buys the house they grew up in? She was staring at the hummingbird in the closet when she’d heard a shout.

She turned and saw Bauer through the window, aiming at the bees’ nest with an aerosol can as long as a night stick. He was leaning to his right with an outstretched arm to get around one of the branches. He waited for her acknowledgement, as if he’d only wanted to make sure that she’d seen him through the glass, and then turned his attention back to the bees’ nest. He pressed down on the button at the top and let loose a stream that was strong enough to force back his hand. The concentration was just as she’d remembered it, and it occurred to her that it was this expression that he’d wanted to be sure she had seen. She understood that he needed to be seen like that and smiled back even after he’d looked away, but she couldn’t help but think of the day the aquarium broke. And of a Fringetail flipping itself over on a soaking wet carpet, its eyes bulging out on either side as if to say, “Help me.”

One Morning At the Mini Mart

On Thursday morning I walked into the food mart of a nearby garage and gas station, carrying an opened container of canola oil margarine. The reason for this must remain somewhat obscure, as an absolutely truthful account of anything must remain an impossible ideal - and yet an account must be given, and if other versions should be rendered later – added, collected, sworn to, whatever – we should all bear in mind that to the first version must always go some special acknowledgement or preference. Perhaps deference is not too strong a word.

‘Why,’ one might ask, ‘must these reasons remain obscure?’

‘Because,’ I would respond, ‘explanations are overrated.’

‘But you’re the one who started this little story,’ one might protest.

‘And now you have interrupted it,’ I would then be forced to interject.

‘But what about the other…’ one might try to add, before trailing off into a hollow whisper surrounded by a veritable vacuum of sound under a look so withering it might have belonged to a pair of twin suns, rather than the steady gaze emanating from the dual orbs illuminating this particular universe.

At any rate, I can say with total certainty that I was holding the lid onto the tub with my two thumbs rather than sealing it shut. Perhaps I was looking for jam, but I emphasize that earlier I had left the lid at least partially open. I say all this to point out that my original intentions were certainly pure. And they remain, at least in their essentials, honest. I also realize that one might possibly assume that the lid just hadn’t been fastened to the tub by an overzealous machine on a speedy conveyer belt. Some of those plastic lids can be fairly tricky affairs, I must admit. I myself have some difficulty with the second largest of my own Simple Snap locking plastic containers. But, I hasten to add, not once have I had the least bit of difficulty with one of those margarine containers. Not once. Not the brand I buy.

So there I was, standing in front of the cooling shelves, or whatever they’re called. You know the kind I’m kind I’m referring to here: slightly refrigerated and yet open. What I mean to say is, without a door. So that something could just fall in there, as it were; dropped perhaps, by someone distracted by one of the many beer advertisements on display, or even just looking over at the register to see how long the line is. But not before noticing with some dismay that there were no other tubs of butter substitute to be had. It was at this point, standing by the open refrigerator bin, that I realized I’d left something at home. Possibly it was a question of whether or not I had enough jam. Or maybe my own refrigerator door had been left ajar. Maybe it was a pot of water boiling on the stove, I really don’t remember. What I did not do was lose my nerve, because I most certainly was not stealing.

I ran out the door, jumped into my car, and drove off to check on the amount of jam remaining, or turn off the stove, or whatever it was that needed taking care of. I might have though about having my toast without butter substitute, but no, damn it, I’d already paid and I intended to have that toast exactly the way I like it. When I’d finished I drove straight back to the garage in only slightly less haste than I’d driven off in moments before. I specifically remember stopping once at a traffic light. I specifically remember looking away from that traffic light to search around the interior of my car. At that moment I wasn’t exactly sure why I did this, but I did. Then, in a flash of insight not unlike those dreams in which one realizes one has walked onto the playground without any pants on, I remembered it all too clearly. I’d left it, dropped it actually, right where I was standing, leaving it amidst the cold cuts and the wine and whatever provisions they always keep in those open refrigerator bins. And since I’d already observed that no other tubs were available, there was but one simple question with which I confronted myself: Would it still be there when I returned?

When I got back to the gas station I parked my car in front of the unlit garage, dark and mysterious as any cave on a deserted island. I paused outside the door before going in, looking through the glass wall at the man behind the cash register, who for the moment was busy with a short line of customers.

And how short was that line?

Well, it was much shorter, actually. Very much shorter indeed.

Rather than explain why I’d come to retrieve a tub of margarine I’d left in his cooling bin I decided I would just dart in and grab it - assuming it was still there - and dart out again while he was helping the next person in line. I went in, I looked down, it was still there. Just as I’d dropped it, with that lid raised and slightly off kilter on one side. I grabbed it, turned to leave, and made straight for the door. The store seemed much more crowded at this point. The door closed behind me, the bells were still ringing in my ears, and then again I looked under the lid to check for contents I already knew were missing. My mistake was in glancing back into the store after I’d made it outside. I looked to see if I’d been noticed, looked back at the man at the register, and then discovered that I certainly had been noticed. He glared back at me with a face that expressed both confusion and anger, and then mouthed the words ‘Get back in here!’ I did. Once inside the door I held onto the tub of margarine with both hands and explained that I’d simply retrieved this tub that I’d accidentally dropped there just a few minutes earlier.

‘How do I know it’s yours?’ he asked, or rather said, pointedly. ‘We have that same brand.’

‘Indeed you do.’ I said, ‘I’ve bought some here many times before, but not this one. Or what I mean is, not this time. It still has fork marks in it.’

This last, desperate, defiant remark despite my deepest shame. And I was ready to show those marks, if circumstances required, and circumstances certainly did require, and already I had taken off the lid and was extending the tub with an outstretched arm when he then made it clear that there was no need for a display, no need for any further discussion at all, and there I was, still holding the tub out at arm’s length as he averted his eyes, even closed them, turning his head slightly, turning it towards the refrigerator bin, and then, then I knew that I had to put my margarine back.

I stood there knowing I’d lost and yet not knowing what to do next. I couldn’t bring myself to return the tub. It was patently ridiculous to leave an open container of butter substitute from which one full third of the contents had already been forked onto someone’s morning toast. There could be crumbs inside. There most certainly were crumbs inside. What would the next customer think? And no, there is no guarantee that next customer would be me. Possibly? Yes. Probably? Maybe. Certainly? Absolutely not.

By this time I’d gotten the attention of the rest of the people there - a couple of customers and a few employees, one beefy garage attendant in particular, wearing a blue muslin jacket and rolling his shoulders over a broom. I didn’t know what to do, I was stuck, and I felt the warm flush of tears rising inside me like a vase under a fast flowing faucet. I realized only then that the clerk wanted me to pay for the tub, and this I simply would not do. I started crying. Whether or not those tears were in the end forced I cannot say, but it is clear to me even now that they were abundantly available. They made not the least little impression on the man behind the counter. The mechanic in blue obviously thought I was being ridiculous, and grinned at me wildly as I slowly walked the margarine back over to the open bin.

I stacked the container on top of some cold cuts. Disease-ridden, most likely. But with that lid merely placed. Not fastened. No one else should suffer what I have suffered.

I turned back towards the people in the mini-mart. Tears of hot shame were still streaming down my cheeks as I faced them, for I wanted them to see me, no longer ashamed of my shame, as if abject weakness might somehow prove victorious in the end. It did not. The clerk, believing his word was truly final, was implacable as ever, already assisting the next customer in line, already heedless of any presence of mine. After glancing over at me once or twice as I stood by the door, the mechanic went back to his simple chore, shuffling his steps as he swept the floor.

I stood there sobbing while everybody looked away.

I stood by the door, and one by one they shuffled past me: a pack of cigarettes was stuffed into a shirt pocket, a candy bar was freed from its wrapper, and a wallet was slipped into a back pocket, accompanied by a dismissive shake of the head. Nobody understood. Everybody left.

Leaving me.

My Conversation With the Checker at Target

Today I was in Target buying razor blades (goatee needs a little upkeep), and I was surprised to find that when she rang me up the total came to exactly $9.00.

"Nine even, huh? Betcha don't see that too often," I said, somewhat blithely.

"No, not too often," said Amy, happy (I like to think) to be stirred from her routine.

"Well, you check out a fair number of people every day... approximately how often?"

"I don't know; two, maybe three times a day."

"How bout that?" I said.

"If that," she said, clearly giving the matter some more thought. "And what's really weird is when you get two, sometimes three people in a row with the exact same total. Not shopping together or anything."

"Okay, that is weird"

"I mean, it's not like it's the same stuff they're buying or anything... really freaky deaky, I'm saying."

"Man, that is wild"

"Yeah huh," she said, nodding while bagging the blades. "Have a nice day!"

"You too, have a good one!" I said, waving.

Yep, really freaky deaky.