"What are you doing?" she asked from the living room, amid the clutter of junkmail and newspapers and dishes.
"I'm acting out this age old western ritual called Making the Bed. You should try it sometime."
She gave him the finger and collapsed on the couch. "My back hurts. You expect me to do all this work when I'm in pain?"
He was beginning to know what pain was all about. It was about knowing you were trapped, that this was all there was to life. He wanted something different.
"How about we get flannel sheets, honey?" he asked. Any small change would do.
"I don't want flannel sheets. I'll get too hot."
He tensed up inside by how easily she dismissed him. After he got the bed made his wife decided she needed him to massage her back, so she sprawled her considerable mass across the newly made bed, pulled off her shirt, and handed him the massage oil. He remembered buying the oil on Valentines Day in hopes to spice up the marriage. Now he wanted to spread it all over the kitchen floor in hopes that she would slip and crack open her head.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Animal Crackers
I ate a bag of animal crackers today. Half the time I couldn’t figure out what animal it was. Sometimes I could blame it on limbs being broken off, but most of the time it just looked like some amorphous shape, like the batter had oozed beyond its outlines. Where did the giraffe go, and the bear? Who turned the playful monkey into a disfigured hunchback? And if I’m unsettled by this, what effect does it have on kids? These crackers are why are kids are so confused these days. I’ll bet the steady decline in national IQ scores is directly related to the degradation of the animal cookie. Who is going to do something about this? Or a better question might be: why is a 37 year old guy eating animal crackers?
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Blood on a White Tuxedo
His typewriter had been broken for years and rusting on the desk, but he had not admitted to anyone, not even himself, that he didn’t miss it. He gave up hope on leading a decent life, and resigned himself to the fact that he was bound for life in a trailer park, a sink full of dishes, an unmade bed with crumpled stained sheets, a mutt tied to the bumper of his car barking at a pack of kids that tormented it all day. He bit down on his cheek, tasted blood. Wouldn’t he miss the trance of writing stream-of-consciousness at 3:00 am of vampires perched in trees, of fangs that punctured the night in a glint of ivory razor stainless steel? Beneath the moon he danced with spectral girls in virginal dresses, mud splashed on the pant leg of his white tux, blood splashed on the lapel like a lurid carnation. He laughed at the utter lack of stars on this clear night. Only a great void hung above him with its rogue moon. He danced a waltz to the music of undead orchestral players in the pit and laughed because madness brought with it courage. It was all over now. He’d go wherever life led him. Why waste another hour of his life trying to make sense of things? There was plenty of distraction on the television, and dishes to wash, and would somebody shut up that god damn dog!
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Blood Drive
I gave blood last week. Things didn’t go as smoothly as usual. As I filled out the questions on a clipboard like “Were you in Botswana any time between 1977 and 1986?” a woman lay on a cot beside me with a dampened napkin on her forehead. She must have fainted just before I got there. She laughed embarrassedly as all people do after they faint. Why? It’s not like their fly was open, but it must be a sign of weakness to faint when giving blood, and a sign of strength to see how quickly you can fill up the pint bag, then leap off the cot and head to your next meeting sporting your chartreuse arm band like a medal of honor.
Then I had to go behind a curtain with an interviewer and answer those embarrassing questions like “Have you ever paid to have sex, or had sex with someone who has been paid to have sex.” I don’t get into the debate with him on whether buying your date dinner at a trendy restaurant with tiny portions constitutes “paying for sex”, so I just say “no”. He asks if I’m on any medications. I should carry a laminated card of all my meds. I am held together by a complex cocktail of pharmaceuticals; at any given time I am likely under the influence of no fewer than four medications. Pfizer invites me to their Christmas party each year. Then he asks me to spell them, and what they are each for. Isn’t he the one in the white coat? I don’t remember half the time. Pill #1 is to offset the side effects of pill #2, and pill #3 is so that I can cope with the emotional trauma of what he is about to do to my little finger.
That’s right, what I fear most when giving blood is not the needle in the arm, but the pinprick on my finger for the blood test. He asks if there is a particular finger I’d like to sacrifice, which always reminds me of Sophie’s Choice. This little piggy suddenly is the focus of every nerve ending in my entire body. The spring loaded needle shoots into me, and there’s a split second of excruciating pain. Hallelulha, that’s over, but then the guy starts squeezing the finger like he’s milking a cow, and he starts jabbing the open wound with that tiny little plastic straw. This has got to be against the Geneva conventions.
I am escorted to a cot and handed over to a bloodletter. He’s a trainee. A woman with the air of authority watches from a chair ten feet away, offering up little hints as to what he is doing wrong. He has trouble finding a vein. Ex-girlfriends doubt I even have any, but with enough slapping around and squeezing and rubbing, they find what they’re looking for. The bloodletters, not the ex-girlfriends. They discuss which vein should be used and the angle at which the needle should go in. At the last moment the observer decides to get a second opinion. Another lady comes over and says, “Oh no, you don’t want to go in there because that’s a valve. Feel that? It would have been quite painful.”
They decide on a vein, and I feel the needle go in. I can tell something is wrong because they don’t say or do anything, until I feel a second stabbing sensation. “Your veins are running away,” she says. They get it after the third try, and the trainee attaches the tube and the bag, all of which I know is going on only out of my periphery. I make a point of never looking at the tube, the bag, the needle, any of it. I look off to the walls, or the people moving about, or listen in on the banter between the different volunteers.
He praises the rate at which I fill the bag, as though I had something to do with it, and before long I’m done. As he fills out paperwork he sets the bag on my outstretched legs. The blood is still warm. My eyes are glued to the wall, and I manage not to faint.
The next day, I see three puncture wounds in the crook of my elbow like I have been bitten by a three-fanged snake. Over the next few days the bruise spreads to the size of a baseball and changes from blue, to purple, to yellow.
Then I had to go behind a curtain with an interviewer and answer those embarrassing questions like “Have you ever paid to have sex, or had sex with someone who has been paid to have sex.” I don’t get into the debate with him on whether buying your date dinner at a trendy restaurant with tiny portions constitutes “paying for sex”, so I just say “no”. He asks if I’m on any medications. I should carry a laminated card of all my meds. I am held together by a complex cocktail of pharmaceuticals; at any given time I am likely under the influence of no fewer than four medications. Pfizer invites me to their Christmas party each year. Then he asks me to spell them, and what they are each for. Isn’t he the one in the white coat? I don’t remember half the time. Pill #1 is to offset the side effects of pill #2, and pill #3 is so that I can cope with the emotional trauma of what he is about to do to my little finger.
That’s right, what I fear most when giving blood is not the needle in the arm, but the pinprick on my finger for the blood test. He asks if there is a particular finger I’d like to sacrifice, which always reminds me of Sophie’s Choice. This little piggy suddenly is the focus of every nerve ending in my entire body. The spring loaded needle shoots into me, and there’s a split second of excruciating pain. Hallelulha, that’s over, but then the guy starts squeezing the finger like he’s milking a cow, and he starts jabbing the open wound with that tiny little plastic straw. This has got to be against the Geneva conventions.
I am escorted to a cot and handed over to a bloodletter. He’s a trainee. A woman with the air of authority watches from a chair ten feet away, offering up little hints as to what he is doing wrong. He has trouble finding a vein. Ex-girlfriends doubt I even have any, but with enough slapping around and squeezing and rubbing, they find what they’re looking for. The bloodletters, not the ex-girlfriends. They discuss which vein should be used and the angle at which the needle should go in. At the last moment the observer decides to get a second opinion. Another lady comes over and says, “Oh no, you don’t want to go in there because that’s a valve. Feel that? It would have been quite painful.”
They decide on a vein, and I feel the needle go in. I can tell something is wrong because they don’t say or do anything, until I feel a second stabbing sensation. “Your veins are running away,” she says. They get it after the third try, and the trainee attaches the tube and the bag, all of which I know is going on only out of my periphery. I make a point of never looking at the tube, the bag, the needle, any of it. I look off to the walls, or the people moving about, or listen in on the banter between the different volunteers.
He praises the rate at which I fill the bag, as though I had something to do with it, and before long I’m done. As he fills out paperwork he sets the bag on my outstretched legs. The blood is still warm. My eyes are glued to the wall, and I manage not to faint.
The next day, I see three puncture wounds in the crook of my elbow like I have been bitten by a three-fanged snake. Over the next few days the bruise spreads to the size of a baseball and changes from blue, to purple, to yellow.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Uneaten Biscotti
Why the hell did I break up with Francesca? It was a mistake, I know that now. What was I thinking?
I take another sip of black, bitter coffee and ignore the biscotti sitting on a plate. I'm sitting in the middle of the coffee shop, not my usual spot. Our usual spot. Francesca and I would always sit on the sofa over by the window, sipping coffee and sharing biscotti and telling funny stories about each other's families, or books or movies or stupid little things that people in love talk about.
She never comes to the coffee shop anymore. She's on a track that will never cross mine again. It's enraging to think that she's out there right now, somewhere without me, so instead I'm staring at the sofa by the window and trying to backtrack. There had to be a single turning point from growing closer to growing apart. A comment made, noticing an annoying habit in the other, something that showed the first signs of dissatisfaction. I keep thinking I can find that moment and change it.
I sound like someone who was broken up with, but no...I did the breaking. That's what makes it worse. Maybe it would have been acceptable if something really fucked up had happened, like she had slept with my brother or I had stolen a thousand dollars from her savings account, but the truth of the matter was that I got bored. I started to wonder what life would be like single again.
Is this my answer? Miserably drinking cold coffee and ghosting the places we used to spend time together, trying to relive those mornings when I believed myself to be so miserable?
I take another sip of black, bitter coffee and ignore the biscotti sitting on a plate. I'm sitting in the middle of the coffee shop, not my usual spot. Our usual spot. Francesca and I would always sit on the sofa over by the window, sipping coffee and sharing biscotti and telling funny stories about each other's families, or books or movies or stupid little things that people in love talk about.
She never comes to the coffee shop anymore. She's on a track that will never cross mine again. It's enraging to think that she's out there right now, somewhere without me, so instead I'm staring at the sofa by the window and trying to backtrack. There had to be a single turning point from growing closer to growing apart. A comment made, noticing an annoying habit in the other, something that showed the first signs of dissatisfaction. I keep thinking I can find that moment and change it.
I sound like someone who was broken up with, but no...I did the breaking. That's what makes it worse. Maybe it would have been acceptable if something really fucked up had happened, like she had slept with my brother or I had stolen a thousand dollars from her savings account, but the truth of the matter was that I got bored. I started to wonder what life would be like single again.
Is this my answer? Miserably drinking cold coffee and ghosting the places we used to spend time together, trying to relive those mornings when I believed myself to be so miserable?
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