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Isn't It Bro-Mantic?

Page 28

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted


  I feel a sensation that’s odd in that I’ve never experienced it around Alice before so it takes me a moment to identify it. When I do, I realize that what I’m feeling is contentment. For the first time in our lives together, I feel that Alice and me are friends.

  “Well, thanks for this.” I pat the pocket that has the folded-up sheet of paper in it. “And thanks for everything else too.”

  “Hey,” she says, “just because I often think you’re a jerk, it doesn’t mean it’s escaped my notice how good you are.”

  When I key the ignition a few minutes later, I’m feeling better than I did when I arrived a few hours ago, but I’m still not quite there. Who else can I go see tonight? Who would be up at four in the morning?

  Big John, I think.

  Big John’s always complaining about how he has so much trouble sleeping, sometimes he just gives up and starts the day early.

  I think, I decide, I’ll go see Big John.

  “You’re up early,” Big John says when he answers the door, leaning on just one cane, so it must be a good day. “Who are you, the fucking milkman?”

  He laughs at his own joke and I laugh too, even though what he said really isn’t that funny. I’ve been up so long, maybe I’ve moved from tired to punchy?

  “Christ, shh.” Big John puts his finger to his lips then whispers, “Don’t wake your aunt or there’ll be shit to pay. Here, let me just leave her a note, then we can go for a drive.”

  Once we’re buckled in, Big John turns to me. “So, you and Helen finally got in a fight, huh?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “It was bound to happen sometime. Drive.”

  “OK, but where am I driving?”

  “The cemetery. Let’s go see your mother.”

  In late October, a Connecticut cemetery can be a cold place to be in the early hours of the morning and the air is crisp as a green apple, the sun barely breaking on the horizon as I pull into the drive. It’s been a long time since I was last here, so Big John has to direct me to the plot where my mother is. After helping Big John out of the car and walking over with him, I see an addition has been made. Previously, there was just my mom’s grave with a marker to the right of it with Big John’s name and date of birth on it. Now, to the right of that is a marker for Aunt Alfresca.

  “You did what,” I ask, “purchase an add-on after you and Aunt Alfresca got married?”

  “No, I purchased that years ago. I always figured that whether we got married or not, we’d all be together through eternity. You may not know this, but your aunt doesn’t like to be alone.”

  It’s difficult to picture Aunt Alfresca being vulnerable about anything. Huh. People can surprise you.

  “Why do you think she was always hanging around after your mother died?” Big John says. “I just didn’t want her to have to worry about getting lonely in the afterlife.”

  That, I think, is incredibly sweet.

  “Of course,” he adds, “your aunt hating being alone also means that we’re going to have to speed this little shindig up. Because if I’m not home before she rises, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  Now that sounds more like the Aunt Alfresca I know.

  I look at my mother’s tombstone, the dates on it. She was so young when she died. I’ve already lived far longer than she ever got the chance to.

  The grass over her is extremely tidy and there’s even a little vase attached to the left of the tombstone with a single rose in it that’s starting to wilt.

  “They take good care of the dead in this place,” I observe.

  “They do OK,” Big John says. Then, as difficult as it is for him to do so, he bends over to pluck at a stray weed that’s growing at the base of the granite. “But I do better. I’ve got to remember to bring a new flower next time I come. That one’s starting to look like shit.”

  “You come here a lot?”

  “Once, twice a week.” He shrugs. “Who else is going to take care of her if I don’t? You know, some days, I can barely remember my life with her, it’s been so long, but being here always makes me feel peaceful, helps me think—and believe me, I need all the help I can get. I get all my best thinking done here. I like to talk to her when I have something I need to figure out. She wasn’t always the best listener when she was alive. But now? She’s great at it.”

  “Wait a second. You come here every week? How did I not know this?”

  He shrugs again. “Well, it’s not exactly the kind of thing you advertise. ‘Hey, poker buddies, for the last thirty-four years I’ve been consulting a dead woman for help with my problems. OK, who’s in? And can I get another beer here?’ Nah, better to keep it to myself.”

  “Does Aunt Alfresca know?”

  “Christ, no, and don’t you tell her. I don’t think she’d be jealous, much, it’s more that she hates graveyards. You know your aunt is terrified of death?”

  I shake my head. Another thing I didn’t have a clue about.

  “Why do you think she always gave you a hard time growing up about your mother dying?”

  “I don’t know. Because she blamed me?”

  “No. Because she blamed the universe. She couldn’t understand how someone she loved could just come to the end suddenly like that, with no real reason. It scared her so much, still does, but she couldn’t let that show, so instead she just turned it into anger.”

  I let that digest and we just stand there in silence for a time, staring at the stone and the two markers: the one who has gone and the two yet to come.

  “The thing is,” Big John says, launching into my…issue without preamble, “you have to figure out how to fight with each other. Specifically, you need to figure out what kind of fighter Helen is so you know what you’re up against. Like, is she a stewer or a screamer?”

  “Um, Dad, what are you talking about?”

  “What I just said!” His voice booms across the empty graveyard, signifying his aggravation. “Is your wife a stewer or a screamer? Because which she is will determine the best way for you to respond.”

  I still have no clue as to what he’s talking about, but I also don’t feel like hearing his voice boom like that again, so I try to work this out on my own. Unfortunately, I do that out loud.

  “So, let me see if I have this straight. A screamer is one who screams. So a stewer would be…one who stews?”

  “Yes. Christ, what have I been saying here? Do I need to spell everything out for you?”

  For a guy who says he finds the graveyard peaceful, he sure gets irritated easy here.

  “A stewer,” he says, still irritated, “one who stews. Stew, stew, stew, stew, stew. Like on the old Carol Burnett Show. Harvey Korman would be playing her husband, asking her what’s wrong, and Carol would clench her jaw, smile tightly and say, one eye twitching, ‘Nothing. Nothing.’ There’s your classic example of one who stews.”

  OK, I think I’m getting this now. TV anecdotes can be so useful in explaining real life to a person.

  “Now, your mother,” he goes on a little more calmly, fondly even, “that woman was a screamer.”

  Wait a second. “What? That can’t be true. You and Aunt Alfresca are always going on about what a saint my mother was.”

  “Oh, a saint, sure, but a screamer too. When your mother got going, people could hear her all the way over in the next block. A screamer can be tough.” He reflects. “The thing about screamers is, you get caught up with the screaming with them, and that’s when you have to be doubly careful, which is tough to do when you’re both screaming. The thing you don’t want to do is say every cleverly nasty thing that comes into your head. Just because you can think it, it doesn’t mean you should ever say it. That way lies madness…and divorce. One time, we were arguing real fierce and a line came into my head that was so excellent, I started smiling. Your mother asked me what was so funny, but I couldn’t tell her, so she got mad about that too. But that was OK. At least I had the satisfaction of thinking ‘When you’re mad, you walk
like a duck’ without hurting her feelings.”

  Huh.

  “So,” I say, “I guess if my mother was a screamer, Aunt Alfresca must be an even bigger screamer, right?”

  “Oh, no. You’re aunt is a classic stewer.”

  “You gotta be kidding me. Aunt Alfresca screams, like, all the time.”

  “That.” He waves off my objection. “That’s just her speaking voice. But when she’s mad? That woman has stewing down to an art. Never met a more frustrating woman in my life.”

  “Oh, yeah? What does she do?”

  “Changes the station from whatever I’m watching, for one thing.”

  I vaguely remember him saying something like this at one of our poker games but I guess at the time, I didn’t believe it. “Like with no warning?”

  “Exactly. One minute I’m watching the Knicks pre-season and then—click—there’s some basketball player in the European league and his wife trying to find a house for a year in Spain on HGTV. Sure, both shows have basketball players involved, but it’s hardly the same thing.”

  I think about it. “That’d piss me off.”

  “I know, right?”

  I think about correcting him but it occurs to me that with the exceptions of Sam not saying it and Helen not knowing we’re not saying it, I have no clue what anyone’s saying anymore.

  “But don’t worry.” He nudges my elbow with his. “I know how to get even.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Whenever she does finally decide to start talking to me about what’s on her mind?” Dramatic pause. “I whistle.”

  “When she’s trying to talk to you, you whistle? You mean like—” I try to demonstrate but my lips are so cold, I can hardly muster a decent tweet.

  “Yeah,” he says, “only much better than that. Pisses her right off.”

  “I gotta say, that’d piss me off too. If it’s all the same with you, I don’t think I’ll try that on Helen.”

  “To each his own.” He shrugs. “So tell me, which one is Helen, a stewer or a screamer?”

  I think about how she was screaming at me last night but how she kept everything in for months before that.

  “Both,” I finally say. “I think we both might be both.”

  “Oh, Christ, I don’t know how to help you with that.”

  “You mean I’m screwed?”

  “No. It’s just that, we can gather all the advice out there, but then it’s up to each of us to figure out how to make a marriage work.”

  “Ah.”

  “We better get going. If I’m not there when your aunt gets up, she’ll be mad and I can’t have that.”

  “Knicks’s are playing this afternoon?”

  “You got it.”

  “If it’s OK, even though it’s Sunday, I don’t think I’ll be coming by later.”

  “That’s fine. You need some time alone with your wife. Besides, I got to see you now. I hope I helped, at least a little.”

  “You always do, even when you don’t really. I love you, Dad.”

  “And that’s why I’ll always be the luckiest man alive. Let’s hit it.”

  We turn away from the grave but then Big John stops. “I almost forgot,” he says, going back.

  I watch as he takes something small and red and crinkly-looking from his pocket, puts it on top of the gravestone, touches his fingers to his lips and then presses his fingers to the granite.

  “What was that?” I ask when he rejoins me.

  “In addition to keeping things tidy and the vase filled,” he informs me, “I always like to bring your mother a little something when there’s a holiday.”

  “What holiday?”

  “Don’t you know? Halloween’s right around the corner. So I brought her a fun-sized $100,000 Bar. They were her favorite.” His smile is wistful. “She used to love those things. She used to say, ‘Can you imagine if this really was a hundred thousand dollars?’”

  “You were a good husband,” I say. “You are a good husband.”

  “Yeah, well.” Now he’s embarrassed.

  A few minutes later, when we’re back in the car, rubbing our hands together waiting for the heat to kick in, he has once last piece of advice. “Oh, and don’t forget to pick up flowers on the way home.”

  “Flowers? Why flowers?”

  “Because women love that shit.”

  Great. Where am I going to get flowers? It’s not like there’ll be any florists open at six-thirty on a Sunday morning. And I can’t just steal flowers from somebody’s lawn—that would hardly be in the spirit of the thing. Besides which, it’s nearly the end of October and we had that big storm last week, so the pickings from other people’s lawns would be slim.

  And then it hits me. There is one place, open 24/7 as they say, that should have flowers.

  Super Stop & Shop this early on a Sunday morning is a shockingly empty place. Who knew? Usually, I come after work or in the middle of a weekend afternoon, when the place is jamming, the lines long. But now? There’re just workers stocking the produce section and the aisles, a handful of stray shoppers scattered about. Maybe I should get the week’s shopping done? I could zoom through this place in record time, not even having to wait to check out.

  But no, I realize, of course I can’t do that. What was I thinking? If I show up at home with bags of groceries, it’ll just look like I went shopping for my own convenience, the bouquet of flowers coming across as some kind of afterthought—hardly the impression I want to project. So, despite the tempting allure of a restocking the larder at home, I make my way to the in-store florist, pick out an impressively lovely display, if I do say so myself—there are so many different colors in this bouquet, what woman wouldn’t be impressed?—and head toward the first available checker, which is, like, every checker.

  I must be really punchy from lack of sleep because I actually stand there for a moment debating—do I go to the 12-items-and-under checker or one of the regular ones—when I hear a voice call: “Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith, is that you?”

  Turning, I see my half-pint little friend standing there, Willow.

  “Willow! What are you doing here?”

  “Walk with me, Mr. Smith?”

  Walk with me? What little kid talks like that?

  I’m about to explain to her that I don’t really have time to walk and talk right now, but then I see the look on her face. Willow looks, no other word for it, woebegone. What could make this staunch little kid look like that?

  “Yeah, sure,” I say. “I could spare a few minutes. Where do you want to walk?”

  She sweeps her hand out, gesturing toward the whole of Super Stop & Shop. This should be some walk, I think as we set off.

  “So, you never answered my question,” I say as we proceed down the coffee and cereal aisle. “What are you doing here?”

  “Why else would anyone be here? I’m shopping.”

  “Yeah, but where’s your mom?”

  She gestures vaguely as we turn a corner, start up another aisle. “She’s around here…somewhere.”

  “Isn’t it a little early for grocery shopping?”

  “You’re here,” she says pointedly.

  “But you don’t even live in Danbury.”

  Now we’re passing the spaghetti sauce. Man, there sure are a lot of different brands of spaghetti sauce.

  “My mom lost her job, so we’ve been staying with relatives.”

  “Oh, geez, Willow, I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do?”

  “Not unless you’re hiring. Does your painting company need a systems analyst?”

  Embarrassed, I give a rueful shake of my head.

  “That’s what I figured,” she says. “Anyway, my mom keeps getting up earlier and earlier. Today she decided to do the grocery shopping for the house before everyone else was up and she woke me to come with her. She gets manic like this sometimes.”

  We’re in the pet supplies section. I’m tempted to get Fluffy a new toy—he would love that plush mo
use with the bell in it—or maybe a rubber bone for Bowser, but then I remember that coming home with something in addition to the flowers will dilute the floral effect.

  “But that’s just an exaggeration, right?” I say. “I mean, your mom isn’t like, I don’t know, manic-depressive, is she?”

  “Actually, she is, and it’s mildly distressing.” Willow heaves a heavy sigh. “OK, it’s really distressing.”

  I don’t know what to say. This poor kid.

  “Is there anything I can do?” I offer again.

  “You could just keep walking with me for a bit,” she says hopefully.

  “You got it.”

  So that’s what we do.

  We keep walking up and down aisles, not even talking anymore, but it’s an OK silence, the silence of friends.

  “My favorite aisle,” Willow says with a sigh that’s happy this time.

  We’re standing in the middle of the seasonal aisle, the one that changes depending on what holiday is at hand. All the bags of candy that surround us and the small display of costumes reminds me that Halloween is right around the corner.

  “I still haven’t decided what I want to be this year,” she says, eyeing the costumes.

  “Do any in particular look good to you?”

  “Mm…I can’t really decide. The fairy costume is tempting. But maybe I’m ready to be a vampire?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to rush these things. Maybe you should try one on?” I shift the flowers from my right hand to my left before reaching for a hanging costume.

  “Hey,” Willow says, “you’re buying flowers.”

  If she’s only noticing this huge bouquet for the first time now, what’s going on with her mom must really be distressing. Well, who can blame her?

  “Is it Mrs. Smith’s birthday?” she asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Your anniversary?”

  Another shake.

  “Oh no.” She looks disappointed now, so disappointed. “You had a fight, didn’t you?”

  Before my head can respond, Willow continues.

  “Well, I suppose that was to be expected. I mean, who didn’t see that coming? Still—”

 

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