Love & Darts (9781937316075) (4 page)

Humming:
But. You know how things go.
There are ups and downs. Not everything is the way you might hope.
My friend was just like anyone that way. She panicked. She threw
things. She shoved people. She held close friends in vicious
contempt. She was paranoid. She didn’t care. She was defensive. She
was wounded. She was on drugs but not like they teach you in
school. She was above all that and did drugs for fun, for freedom,
for something to do with her disposable income, for the hell of it,
for the experience, for enough quality bonding time, for better
sex, for enlightened transcendence and Whip-it! laughs. Sometimes
she cried and screamed with an infantile sense of injustice. But.
Whenever she was driving alone she was happy. And she hummed.

Sometimes
you are standing in line at the bank. And you smile because you
feel you must. You don’t expect to chat and converse but the teller
is an old enemy from high school. You already know her story.
You’ve heard five different versions of it. Worse. She knows
yours.

You’re in hot-pink sweatpants from Victoria’s
Secret. They’re pulled up to mid-calf. And you don’t remember in
the moment that they were buy-one-get-a-free-purse-sized-perfume.
You’re wearing flip-flops with a row of rhinestones passing over
the tan you rubbed on your feet, your belly, your shoulders, your
legs. Your mother, every mother you know, used to say, “You can be
anything, honey.” She used to say, “We don’t quit.” Now she says,
“I don’t think you heard me the first time. I don’t care who he
is.”

Your hair is a mess. And who gives a shit? It’s
ninety degrees and humid. You really weren’t planning on seeing
anyone anyway. Definitely not this chick.

Dammit. There’s no avoiding her. She’s already seen
you and the other lady must be at lunch. You’re next. You’re
waiting for your turn to reach out and grab a sucker from the
baseball-shaped ceramic mug. You’re behind the overweight guy in
Wranglers, a dusty blue flannel work shirt, and big, red, wide
suspenders. So what if she’s looking at you, trying to wave a
little bit, craning her neck around Mr.
Can’t-Wear-A-Belt-Like-A-Normal-Person to say hi before he’s
finished his business? Just stare all you want at the one brass
clip on his waistband, which is slowly letting go of that denim
edge. Metal fatigue, probably. The thing’s got no grip left. It’s
gonna pop at any moment.

Your mother used to say, “Quit staring.” But why
should you? That thing is barely holding on and you want to see it
spring loose the next time he heaves with one of those COPD coughs.
What’s the point of looking away? What’s the deal with all this
shame, all this pretending nothing’s happening, all this putting a
good face on a whole bunch of bullshit? And why should you do it
for this guy in suspenders or for the old enemy from high school
who counts a stack of twenties and keeps starting over? It’s not
pride or social etiquette. It is not prayer—that’s elsewhere. There
is no reason to pray for this girl or some old, fat guy with red
suspenders. So just keep looking at that brass clip, which will
definitely pop before he gets back to his truck, and let your mind
start its usual subservient free fall.

You see that real unnamed breath, which never has
explained itself. As if you care. You violently toss away your
Bible school-issue halo but it boomerangs, chokes you, and spins
around your neck like a fast, accurate horseshoe on a stake
cemented against the force of arthritic clapping and victorious
shouts by some great-uncle at a family reunion. And with this kind
of physical proximity to the essence of life you know instantly and
then know nothing of it, remembering the bank teller, this old
enemy from high school, is divorced with two kids.

You should have just deposited this thing at the ATM
but you can’t now. You want a pineapple sucker and need a roll of
quarters anyway. You shift your weight to place your body under the
air conditioning vent. The man in the suspenders is finished with
his business. He pounds a stack of envelopes on the counter and
explains himself as he heads for the door, the truck, and the post
office, which is under review. “Wouldn’t have even had either
overdraft fee if the payroll service didn’t take the day off for
the Fourth. Damn thing’s automated. How’s a computer gonna take the
day off?” And he’s gone.

The door is made of glass tinted brown.

Before you take that last step forward there is
another glimmer in your mind but it is nothing fearful, nothing
really intimidating, nothing that can hurt you. Not anymore. Those
glimmers are good. They breed humility in your worldview, deference
in decision-making, caution while driving, and hesitation in what
you say. They are visitors that beguile certainty on tired
afternoons, trespassers and traitors, like old friends lost, like
space invaders.

But whatever. You don’t have to look over your
shoulder anymore. Just put your paycheck between your teeth, pull
the boomerang/horseshoe/halo thing away from your throat, and
readjust your headband. You don’t have a duty to listen to this
girl’s sob story while she cashes your check.

You don’t have to care. You don’t. But you do need a
roll of quarters. So you take that last step forward and smile.
Just hand her the stupid paycheck and say it. “Hey. Girl. How’ve
you been doing?”

You pick up the baseball-shaped coffee mug and start
rifling through it looking for what you want.

She takes it as her cue to say she’s recovering
slowly from a bout of too much drinking which came out in the
custody hearing—it’s not as if she drives into oncoming traffic
every day—but luckily they found in her favor. You do not care. But
you still smile. So she goes on. She couldn’t believe that the
judge let him get out of paying the child support he’d missed: the
child will only eat brand-name chicken nuggets, which are not cheap
even if you buy in bulk. She moved back in with her mom and dad and
they are helping her get back on her feet. She had to sell the
house but that was okay because the roof needed to be replaced and
the people that bought it knew some great roofers. She couldn’t
have afforded to put a roof on that house after all the court costs
and divorce and all. But she’s doing really well.

It’s over. You’ve got the quarters. You’ve listened
to whatever she felt the need to share. You’re done. You turn to
leave. You take a step away from the counter and have your
sunglasses back on before she says, “And what about you? Did you
decide to press charges?”

After work—fuck that bullshit job—I get home and give
in.

Sometimes I can’t get back up off the couch all
night. It’s not any one thing. I just don’t know what duties
matter, what obligations I care about, or how much to let myself be
exploited by these assholes who think one person can do six
peoples’ jobs. American dream. Are you freaking kidding me? Who the
hell makes it happen? I don’t see how it’s possible. A house?
Marriage? Kids?

I’m tapping the base of the entertainment center
with my shoe and slouch down. My neck’s bent against the back of
the couch and my butt’s hanging off the cushions. I’m glad I don’t
have a girlfriend. Dating’s too expensive. One dinner and a movie
and I can hardly pay my rent.

There’s not crap on TV anymore. I throw a frozen
French bread pizza in the toaster oven, go back to the couch, grab
the remote, flip around for a while, watch some news, maybe a
little SportsCenter, but what’s the point?

The Brewers suck right now. They’ll never amount to
anything with Davey Lopes.

The timer reminds me to get up. By no stretch of the
imagination is this pathetic pizza a supreme. There is one shaving
of sausage and a layer of cheese I can see through on top of the
thin slab of bread. Flakes of red and green pepper placed at
statistically optimal distances from one another seem to repel the
tiny cubes of pepperoni that dot the top.

Still. They don’t cut corners on packaging. Some
dude stares up at me from the pizza box in the trash. He’s supposed
to be a fighter pilot, an ideal. His red scarf is blowing back in
the wind. His eyes are cast to the heavens beyond. Dashing. Dude’s
got a fucking mustache and a tousled animated haircut. He’s wearing
goggles on his head. And his stylized WWII garb would still get
more women than I ever could.

I look at the clock. It’s almost eight. Whether or
not I show up, Judson’s always got a shot of Tullamore Dew sitting
in a glass on the bar for me at eight o’clock. To have a drink
waiting for you at the bar when you get there is a great sign of
significance.

I don’t really care that much.

But I usually go. Some people put on a new shirt to
go out at night. I never do. I’ve never really understood it. I
just go in my work clothes. The bar on the corner is brick, has a
cracked set of curved cement steps that no one’s ever gonna fix,
and has too many neon signs for the size of the windows. There are
two small Harleys parked on the sidewalk. Who the hell parks on the
sidewalk?

I open the door and camel bells slap the back side.
A few other regular patrons look up from listening to the bartender
read out loud. He does that sometimes. Seems to get a kick out of
it on slow nights. He holds a book and says, “And I am dirty with
its satisfaction.” I rattle the door, like applause maybe, like I’m
sort of making fun of him, too. Nothing crazy. Nothing out of
control. Just enough to bring him down a peg. The camel bells smack
the wall once and Judson shuts the book. He doesn’t look pissed and
sure enough, my drink’s waiting in front of my seat at the short
end of the bar.

He looks me in the eye, “‘And I am dirty with its
satisfaction.’ Isn’t that great? So much in it. All the guilt. All
the pleasure. All the social constructs and guises and norms and
repression. I love it.”

I drink slowly. “I’ll love it when you get off the
literary kick.”

“Just waiting for Monday Night Football so the
library card can go back in the closet. I can’t stand baseball.
Won’t have it in this bar.”

The Brewers suck anyway. “You got anything to eat
back there?”

He starts to dig through a little fridge and
produces half an egg salad sandwich, three jalapeno-pickled green
beans that go in the Bloody Marys, and a fistful of pretzels stale
from the humidity. He plops everything onto a paper plate that
bends with the weight and shoves it over to me. “A little gold,
frankincense, and myrrh for you, right there. How’s that?”

Better than that crappy pizza. “I’m dirty with its
satisfaction.”

He turns his back, picks up a bucket, and heads for
the ice maker. I watch him digging down into the chest of fused ice
cubes. What the fuck is he using? Some kind of red plastic thing.
“Is that a sand shovel for kids at the beach?”

“Yeah. It is.”

I don’t want to ask. But. I can’t let it go. “Why
the fuck are you using a sand shovel?”

“I don’t know. I bought it last week. Thought it’d
work pretty good. I hate those stainless steel scoops. The handles
get too cold. And I don’t like cutting ketchup jugs to make scoops
either. Too much trouble. They bend and crack. This is sturdy.”

“But it’s a kid’s toy.”

“So.”

There are two women playing pool. They don’t talk
too much but enjoy the game. One wears black leather pants. The
other’s in a black leather vest. They must account for the two
Harleys outside. Nebraska plates. Nice bikes. But I don’t know too
much about bikes. I look at the woman in the vest a little too
long. She smiles. She cocks her hips. She leans on the pool cue.
She opens her mouth and touches her tongue to the tapering length
of the wood.

Jesus. Who wants to deal with all that? I’ve gotta
work in the morning. I swivel on my stool, put both elbows on the
bar, and watch Judson dump ice over the beers. “Those girls in for
Summerfest, you think? I’m not going this year. Too many people.
Too much traffic.”