Hot Pink (18 page)

Every night of the following week, the man sat in a chair in front of the wall in order to witness the crack ooze gel, but every increasingly caffeinated night he fell asleep before the oozing, foiled again, then woke at first light to a gel-covered crack.

Each morning that week, he wiped the gel with a kleenex, threw away the kleenex in the can in the garage, fed the dog and himself, and took the dog for a walk.

On the seventh morning's walk, his eyes were so tender with sleep-deprivation that even the smallest breeze would sting them, but the dog's fawn coat appeared especially handsome, which filled the man with a prideful affection that, sting be damned, he wanted to relish—there seemed so little to relish of late—so he made the decision to walk the block twice instead of just once, and during the latter half of this walk, in the midst of relishing his prideful affection, it occurred to the man that he needn't stay awake to witness the oozing, for he owned a camera, and he chided himself for not remembering it sooner, and commended himself for remembering it at last.

That night he set the camera on the chair in his stead, pressed
RECORD
, and happily went to sleep beside the woman. In the morning, however, he met with disappointment. The recording of the wall during the hours before sunrise was far too dark for him to even make out the crack; by the time it grew bright enough, the gel had already oozed; he could see nothing more than he'd already seen.

The next night, at bedtime, he set up the camera just as before, but this time he put a flashlight beside it to shine on the crack.

The following morning, to his great surprise, the crack was entirely free of gel.

He proceeded to use the camera-and-flashlight rig three nights in a row, only to discover, three mornings in a row, a crack with no gel. The woman suggested the flashlight (and maybe even the camera) be set on the chair before the crack in perpetuity; she suggested that keeping the crack well-lit (or under well-lit surveillance) might prevent the gel from ever reemerging. The man thought this plan was cowardly and defeatist, but also, he knew, the woman wouldn't understand why it was cowardly and defeatist. The problem, to her, was that a crack oozed gel, and to prevent that crack from oozing gel would, to her, be a form of victory, while to him it would at best be a stalemate, for the crack would still be there (the woman wasn't even
pretending
to suggest that light or surveillance would uncrack the wall), and at worst be a miserable and total defeat because you don't negotiate with terrorists, do you? You don't buy a high-performance German sedan to convey you to work when a baby's on the way (knock wood, knock wood). You don't learn to live with your plight, you end it. The world was a blooming and ever-fertile garden containing the means with which any man, if he was of any use, could solve any problem that might arise as long as he determined to forego half-measures. But because the man knew the woman wouldn't understand how mounting the flashlight or the flashlight-and-camera would be cowardly and defeatist, he suggested that the gel, if prevented from oozing forth from the crack, might gather
in
the wall, causing them troubles they couldn't imagine, and the devil you know, and the devil you don't.

And the woman relented. “Maybe the crack's finished oozing anyway,” she said. “Maybe it ran out of gel and stopped.”

“It's possible,” said the man.

“If the gel comes back, though,” the woman said, “and you won't try the flashlight and camera again, you have to promise you'll keep the crack clean.”

The man made the promise, the crack oozed gel, and he returned to the previously established routine. Each morning, on waking, he would wipe the crack with kleenex, throw the kleenex away in the can in the garage, feed the dog, feed himself, then take the dog for a walk.

As the weeks went by, the walks became longer, and the man, on these walks, became increasingly vexed by fundamental questions about the gel's origins, namely: had the gel formed first and created the crack, had the crack formed first and created the gel, had they been created simultaneously by a third phenomenon he wasn't aware of, or might they even have been created by a pair of independent phenomena he wasn't aware of? Was it really safe to say the gel
oozed from
the crack? Might it not be the case that the crack somehow
attracted
or
gathered
the gel from somewhere else? From somewhere in the bedroom? From the
air
in the bedroom? The very air the man and woman breathed nightly?

The man elected not to trouble the woman with these questions. They'd only upset her, which would, most likely, be bad for the baby. He hated, however, to hide things from the woman. It revved his vexation. He grew vexed to distraction. He'd find himself thinking of the crack and the gel during meetings with clients, visits to friends. In the middle of an orgasm he saw them on his eyelids. What did it mean? What could it mean? It was gel on a crack. A crack oozing gel. Or gathering gel. Or coalescing with gel by unknown means for unknown reasons. Crack and gel. He lost lots of sleep. Eating seemed a labor. One morning he forgot to shave a section of his face and didn't even notice until after lunch when a certain associate who liked to yank his chain called out to him just outside of reception and told him, “Nice work! You possess my admiration. Rare is the man who can pull off the cheekstache without looking totally crazy and depressed.” Was he crazy and depressed? He remembered a talk show that talked about depression. Or maybe obsession. Something psychological. Experts were consulted. They got into arguments. All they could agree on was
break the routine. Break the routine
was the moral of the talk show.
Break the routine
was the cure for... something. He'd give it a shot. It was worth at least that.

In the morning, instead of wiping the crack then feeding the dog then himself and then walking the dog, the man walked the dog first. A couple blocks in, it seemed to be working. His mood was improved, jovial even, and so was the dog's; it licked at his hands and bounded and leaped, cast glances at the trees whose leaves had started turning, then cast glances at the man as if to say, “Look! These trees are really great! Don't forget about these!” and accompanied these glances with a kind of sigh that sounded like “
Fff
!”

After returning to the house from their walk, the man fed the dog, and then fed himself, and then went upstairs to wipe the crack with the kleenex. Upon dropping the kleenex in the can in the garage, he noticed that the tips of two of his fingers seemed slightly moist and slightly tacky. Were they, though? He touched them together again to double-check. They no longer seemed to be tacky at all, but maybe they seemed to be a little bit moist. Only a little bit. Maybe it was nothing. But maybe it was something. He triple-checked the fingertips—no longer moist. Maybe it had been something that then became nothing. Maybe some gel had seeped through the kleenex when he wiped the crack but it was such a small amount that it evaporated rapidly. Unless it was maybe just a drop of fruit juice. Or maybe some honey he'd put in his yogurt? But it might have been the gel. And given how quickly the evaporation had occurred, it might have happened before without his ever noticing. He might have touched the gel any number of times. What the fuck was he thinking, standing there like that?

He ran inside the house and scrubbed his fingers. He stared at his face in the bathroom mirror—he still had the cheekstache. In the twentyish hours since he'd first been made aware of it, he hadn't thought even once of shaving it off! Was he losing his mind? Was the gel, contact with it—was contact with the gel poisoning his mind? How could he know? Was there some way to test it? There were tears in his eyes. One of them fell and got stuck in his cheekstache. And then, all at once, he understood what needed doing.

Next morning, the man wiped the gel with some bacon, and went to the dog, who was waiting on the patio.

“Go on,” said the man. “Eat the nice bacon. Then we can go on our Saturday errands.”

The dog rose on its hind legs and leaned on the man, put paws to his nipples.

The man stepped back. The dog fell to all fours.

“No dancing,” said the man, “till you've eaten what I brought you.” He gestured with his chin at the dangling bacon, which he held at his side between two fingers.

The dog stepped forward, rose on its hind legs, and licked the man's chin.

From behind him came a noise, a muted chuffing—the laughter of his wife behind the sliding glass door. She was saying something now.

“What?” the man said.

“Merf merf merf wait!” she said.

“What?” the man said.

His wife slid the door open. “I said that he's watching his weight,” she said.

“His weight?”

“You know,” his wife said. “Because it's bacon.”

“Because it's bacon?”

“The Food and Drug Administration doesn't even classify it as meat. That's how fattening it is. That's why he doesn't want to eat the bacon, I was saying. Because he's watching his weight and bacon is so fattening that it's classified by the USDA as a fat, even though it's meat.”

“The FDA,” the man said, “or the USDA?”

“What?”

“First you said one and—”

“What I meant was—”

“Either way,” said the man, “is it really true?”

“What?”

“That bacon is classified not as a meat, as we would likely expect, but as a fat,” the man said.

“Well, it's certainly something I've heard,” his wife said.

“But have you seen documentation? I mean, is it documented?”

“You know, I don't know. I was trying to make a joke.”

“A joke?”

“About the dog watching his weight.”

“I don't think that's very funny,” the man said.

“I can tell,” said his wife.

“I didn't find it funny when you originally said it, and I don't find it funny now, after it's been explained to me.”

“Jeez.”

“Jeez yourself,” the man said, and flung the strip of bacon toward the fence out of pique. The dog brought it back, dropped it on the patio, sniffed it, licked it, chewed it up and swallowed.

“Good
dog
,” he told the dog. He turned to his wife. Her mouth was just a line. She'd been stung; he'd stung her. “I'm sorry,” he told her. “I'm sorry I snapped at you.”

She said, “Why are you feeding him bacon, anyway?”

“I wanted to give him a special treat.”

“You should have cooked it,” she said.

“I don't think he cares if it's cooked,” the man said.

“Uncooked bacon may contain harmful bacteria.”

“I doubt there's any harmful bacteria—bacon's cured. And the stomachs of dogs can handle more bacteria than the stomachs of people can.”

“Where do you get
that
?” she said. “Have you seen documentation?”

“Touché,” said the man.

“That's right,” said his wife. “They die from chocolate.”

They stared at each other until his wife smiled.

“Maybe…” she said. “Maybe it's his blood pressure.”

“What?” the man said.

“The reason he didn't want the bacon before. Because bacon's very salty. Eating too much salt is a cause of high blood pressure.”

“Huh-ha!” the man said. “Now that is a good one.”

But he didn't mean it. He did not think it was a good one, or even an okay one. What he thought was: I have just fed what may be poison to my beloved dog for no better a reason than to discover whether what I just fed my beloved dog is poison. I may have just set in motion the slow murder of my beloved dog and, in the process of doing so, I lied to my wife and made her feel bad about herself for having made a joke that I didn't find funny. I am a terrible person. I do not want to have fed what may be poison to my dog, nor to have lied to my wife, nor to have made her feel bad about herself. I do not want to be a terrible person. I do not want to suffer the terrible justice that I want to believe is visited on terrible people. I need to get out of here and
think
.

“I'm going to the store,” the man said to his wife. “Do you need anything?”

“Eggs and veined cheese,” she said. “For veined cheese omelettes.”

“You've got it!” said the man. Then he turned to the dog. “Store, boy?” he said. “You want to go to the store?” The dog started to rise, as if it wanted to dance, but before it got tall enough to reach the man's nipples, it fell back on all fours, dipped its head weirdly, then shifted its weight right to left, as if dizzy.

“So cute!” said the woman. “What's he doing? So cute!”

Every night before bed, ever since he'd married his wife, and no matter how tired he was, the man brushed his teeth, rinsed with mouthwash, and flossed. Though he rarely enjoyed performing these tasks, afterward his mouth always tasted clean, and he felt responsible, forward-thinking, and generally adultlike. His uncompromising dental hygiene was good for his wife (kissing in the future as well as kissing today), good for himself (foregoing mouth-pain/dentures), good for his unborn child (forming good habits now to enable him later to more easily set a good example for the child about forming good habits), and good for America (lower dental costs meant lower-cost dental insurance which meant wider coverage). Preventive care, the man believed, was indeed a noble kind of care, maybe even the most noble kind.

Another, newer, thing the man regularly did (he'd been doing it for nearly six months, now) was to execute a two-point turn in the driveway and back into the garage every time he arrived home, the purpose of which was to obviate his need to back
out
of the garage (a task requiring a greater amount of focus and hand-eye coordination—and therefore a greater risk of accidental collision—than that of exiting the garage hood-first) to drive his wife to the hospital when she went into labor. For all the extra effort it took him (the two-point turn; the extra-slow, neck-straining ingress), his routine backing of the car into the garage was, no less so than the diligent, nightly cleaning of his mouth, a source of quiet pride for the man. Each time he thought of it, his spirits lifted.