The Futility Experts

by Margaret Broucek

“Megan, calm down.” He shut himself in.

  She continued to bawl. “All your cards and everything’s gone!”

  “Stop it, Megan! I need to think!” He watched the pregnant lady come out, followed by a hooded teen, who was scratching away at the tickets against his palm and was probably the culprit, Davis thought. Then he mentally went through the process of canceling the credit cards and renewing his library card and his AAA. Had his school ID been in there? All the while, Megan’s knees were jumping. Suddenly he got the idea to get out and look beneath the car’s undercarriage, and in the process he saw the wallet on the floor, beside his seat. “It’s here.” He held it up for her. “Okay? Calm down.” Dear Lord, what a strange creature she was. How would she ever deal with life’s small problems on her own, let alone its calamities? But he only let his mind churn on that worry for a moment before forcing it out of his head. She was not an animal, after all. She would learn.

  TIM

  When Tim’s phone chimed on the nightstand, at five forty-five a.m., and he had to jostle his bulk over to grab it, he realized he had not transformed into Rusty overnight. It was a return text from Phyllis:

  The tinaco is full and life is good. Evry Friday, they pump it full of water frm their truck all the way up to my rooftop. I take a shower during the pumping to squeeze as much as I can from thm. Not as easy to know when they’re coming as it is for gas truck, which plays Pop Goes the Weasel while drving down the rd. Anyhow, full of joy now having just left the verdant terrace of Hotel Posada. All around the table--poets, artists, adventurers! Our Friday salon. Then, like dropped into a movie, we hrd first horns of a mariachi band taking to the streets. All the best groups in the country will now descend for the fstival. And for you, Tim, Banda music! Tuba the essential instrument! Come and be impassioned by the alchemy betwn horns & vocals. 20-piece bands! There we sat looking over the jardin with the great aural bounty rising to match the visual (the umber of the casa walls and the impossible sky). Cheap, cheap, cheap lots with views of the infinite high desert. Am now selling real estate. You would be a king here with your horn!

  I cannot sign the P&S. I must insist on gettng full amount, all of it for myself, but Mr. Softy may nt agree. In order fr me to sign any P&S, that stipulation must be in it (PHYLLIS GETS ALL MONIES BECAUSE OF WHAT SHE HAS ENDURED). The funds will help me heal frm my “multiple falls,” as I’m sure Dr. Concerned describd to you. Do you recall the wrds I screamed when you opened your window onto my horror? I cannot remember. Wld like to know.

  Warmly,

  Phyllis

  She’d screamed no words, he could tell her that, just a howling cry. Thinking of his inaction that night, years ago, pushed Tim out of bed, and he caught sight of himself in the mirror on the closet door. For Christ’s sake, he thought, why was he still fat Tim? Now he had to talk with Vinnie about how this whole becoming-your-ideal-self thing worked.

  # # #

  The two smoking Asian workers leaning against the bay door of the just-closed Lube Express were grinning away with their brown teeth as Tim rested, huffing, hands on his knees.

  Vinnie looked at his watch and too quickly barked again, “Run!”

  Tim made a hateful face and launched forward as hard as he could while Vinnie jogged ahead of him, studying his watch. “Now walk,” he said after thirty seconds.

  They turned a corner, and the setting sun blinded Tim. He had to shade his eyes to see Vinnie’s shape up ahead. Again the man yelled, “Run!”

  Tim imagined himself running away from a catastrophe, a lava flow or a great wave gaining on him.

  “You can do it! Come on! Move it, move it!” Vinnie shouted over his shoulder. “And now…walk!”

  His chest heaved out so far, he thought he’d rip his shirt. “How many of these?”

  “Couple more.”

  A young woman yelled, “Shut up!” to someone behind her as she shoved open the door of a two-story brick apartment building. Tim stopped to let her pass, and she scowled at him, hugging more tightly her bucket of spray bottles.

  “This is good, Vinnie,” Tim said, still standing in place after her car pulled away. “I can feel that this is really—ah—really good. Let’s walk and talk now.”

  “You’re done?”

  Tim shook his head, hands on hips. “It’s just—I need to go over some things with you.”

  Vinnie walked toward him, and they turned back in the direction they’d come.

  “Okay,” Tim started, “so I’m doing it. That’s the thing. I’m all positivity about making a change.”

  “Good for you.” Vinnie sounded bitter.

  “I mean I have absolutely decided my fate, but it’s not happening.”

  “Well, no, of course. God has an appointed time. You can’t mess with God’s appointed times.”

  “That’s not what you said before. What about all the laws of attraction?”

  “That takes a back seat. Look, when you met Mona—” Vinnie swept his hands apart to clear space for what he was about to describe—“that was God’s set time for that to happen. And he had to take care of many things in advance: Mona’s family had to encourage her singing so she’d be good enough to get into that kids’ chorus to meet her boyfriend.” One finger went up. “Okay? Then her boyfriend had to get inducted and you get rejected.” The second finger popped. “Many, many things go into the set time. When you conceived Miles, that was also God’s appointed time. And he had to make sure that a particular sperm was ready and that it beat out all of the other sperms. He does a lot of prep work. You can’t rush it, and you can’t know when it is. This is what faith is for.”

  Tim squinted to keep the sweat out of his eyes. “How do you know about this ‘appointed times’ thing?”

  “Joel Osteen. YouTube. That man is a positive thinker, but when even his positive thinking doesn’t work, this is why—God’s timing.”

  “For all this supposed planning, God sure comes up with some shitty outcomes.”

  “Well, maybe you’re talking about things he didn’t even set up! Maybe you didn’t wait for God. You did an end run, and then that’s on you.

  Tim waved that off like a bad smell, and they continued walking.

  “God had someone planned for me,” Vinnie said, “but that man went off on his own. He decided to marry a woman. And I told him, ‘No, I’m not coming to your wedding! Are you kidding me? You don’t jilt a man who has listened to all of your dreams, who has kissed your tears away, and then expect him to throw rice.’”

  # # #

  The flowers looked too droopy to present, really, and weren’t lilies death flowers? Maybe Lawrence Fife and Drum thought she was already dead. Maybe she was. He rode the elevator with a young couple, the man smiling over at him and then whispering to the woman, who kept snorting in laughter. “They’re not my flowers,” he told them. It was late, nine-thirty. He was supposed to deliver these yesterday. He hoped it was after visiting hours. He wanted to leave the flowers at the nurses’ station.

  Tim waited a while at the empty station before making the leaden march to her room. Only Angela was in there. He could see from the doorway that she’d pulled her blanket off again. She was the most frightening sight he had ever seen, like someone exhumed. He stared back down the hall toward the station. Shouldn’t someone be helping her in some way? Tim set the flowers on the table at the foot of the other bed, the one closer to the door, and turned to leave. Then he thought he heard Angela move. “Do you need anything?” He turned back.

  Was someone putting eye drops in the eyes that never closed? “The Lawrence folks sent the flowers,” he told her, now taking a few steps back into the center of the room. “That was nice. Everybody’s thinking about you.”

  Her breathing was rough. Where was her husband? Where was ballot-box boy? He inched halfway toward her bedside. “I’m sorry, Angela. I’m sorry this is happening to you. I’m making sure your family gets everything you’re due. That’s taken care of.”

  And then her
rasp stopped. He waited, watching her still chest. In a moment, he snatched the call button from her bedside and detonated it, then rushed out to the hall. “My friend’s not breathing,” he told the approaching nurse, and he was surprised to hear himself say the word friend. He hadn’t had one of those since he screwed Joe Masotta’s girl.

  # # #

  The next morning, Mona pointed out that Tim had a tuning on the calendar, for the opera patron Sunny Straub. “She can help me get Rosina,” Mona reminded him.

  “Rosina is nineteen years old.”

  “It’s for a coloratura. I am a coloratura. I just need makeup.”

  # # #

  Sunny and her Klopotek grand piano lived in a big home in Beverly Farms. If you wanted to take a photo of the entire home, you’d have to cross the street and put your back against the home facing it. Sunny’s home was Federal-style with wood clapboards and trim that had been left to rot in a few spots around the windows and along the bottoms of the corner boards. She answered the door in a coat and hat, and smiled like Tim had come to gather her for elopement. “Oh, I’ve just come in myself!” she said. “It’s a bit nippy to be in your shirtsleeves.”

  “I’m pretending I’m in Mexico.”

  “Well, it’s here!” She beamed.

  “The Klopotek has landed?” he said, tipping sideways to try to see beyond her into the house.

  “It’s gorgeous. I can’t believe I own it. Listen, I’ve got just five minutes for lunch now, will you join me?”

  “No, I—”

  “Chicken salad on iceberg. It’s ready right at the moment, so let’s have some together.”

  She unbuttoned her coat, and he helped her off with it. “Whoever invented meat salad gets my vote,” he told her.

  They dined at the marble island in the kitchen, on blue-and-gold china and with real silverware. Sunny held her Pomeranian on her lap while she ate. Tim had seen three paintings of the Pom just on his way into the kitchen.

  “That’s a great dog,” Tim said because people love to hear how great their dog is. “You lucked out with that dog. Look at her, she adores you!” The dog was staring up at Sunny’s chewing mouth.

  “Bea’s the best dog I’ve ever had.”

  “I bet.”

  “So Mona says you consider yourself a funny guy. Tell me a joke,” she insisted and then pertly grinned.

  “She said I consider myself funny?”

  “She thinks you’re funny, then.” Sunny shrugged.

  “She doesn’t think I’m funny. Did you know that she’s a coloratura?”

  “Come on, tell me a joke. I love jokes.”

  Tim was happy to stop separating the raisins from the salad and set his fork down. “A father sends his son for tuba lessons. After the first lesson, the kid comes home and the father asks, ‘How’d it go, son?’ ‘Yeah, fine,’ the boy says. ‘I know how to play a C now.’” Tim watched Sunny pull the fork from her mouth, reload it, and slide it into her dog’s mouth.

  “Then, after the next week’s lesson, the father inquires again, ‘Did you learn anything new?’ ‘An E!’ the boy answers. “I can play an E!’” Sunny fed herself again from the fork.

  “The next week, the father waits and waits, and the child doesn’t return from the lesson. All through the afternoon and evening, he’s a no-show. Finally, around two a.m., kid walks in with the tuba. ‘Where’ve you been, son?’ asks the father. ‘I’ve been worried half to death!’ ‘Oh,’ says the boy, ‘sorry, I had a gig.’”

  Sunny grinned just as she had during the entire telling and waited to hear more.

  “It’s about how the tuba only plays a coupla notes in any song.”

  She cocked her head like a questioning dog.

  “Like, if you think of the oompah-pah of a polka, say.” Then he held a pretend tuba, rocked, and sang, “Oompah-pah, oompah-pah, oompah-pah, oompah-pah.”

  “YES! Oh, dear! How funny! Three notes!”

  “It’s okay.”

  She scraped up the last of her salad. “Do you know where I was before you arrived? I was at my lawyer’s. I’m suing someone.”

  “Oh!”

  “If some people think they can take advantage of an older woman, they guess wrong with me. A man sold me a lemon car.”

  “What kind is it?”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter what kind it is. Even if this car is a well-known disaster, I certainly didn’t know it, and I trusted the salesman to recommend something to me. This car is what he recommended. Now the engine block is cracked or some such thing.”

  “A used car.”

  “Doesn’t matter, though, if it’s used or not. That’s my whole point.”

  “Right, I was just—”

  “I’m suing him for more than the price of the car, for all of my wasted time and anguish.” The dog got a last forkful before Sunny changed the topic. “I understand you work at Bells Up. I know The Publisher there.”

  “You know her?”

  “We’re in some of the same circles. Music lovers.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention my piano-tuning work. It’s not taking any time away from the magazine, but—”

  She put a hand up to stop him. “I am a capitalist all the way, sir. I believe we should be free to make as much money as we can.” And with that, she stood up and waited for Tim to do the same; then she led him back through the dining room and foyer and into the grand living room. In every space, Sunny’s flowery scent mixed with that of mold and dog. The home had fine furnishings, not a few of which had fallen into disrepair—fraying, splitting, leaning.

  The Klopotek claimed the corner of the big room, an ornate beast with a white satin finish. Gilt carvings decorated the sides of the case and rimmed the music stand. Gaudy cartouches had been stuck on where the body met the legs, and then the legs slimmed down and curled out to rest on outturned scrolls.

  As Tim set his strap of tuning tools on the floor, Sunny said, “I have to pop out again, over to my dressmaker’s.”

  “Good. Listening to a tuning is an underused torture.”

  She struggled back into her coat. “I am leaving your check on the credenza, if you could just lock the door behind you.” He’d thought a credenza was only an Italian thing, since every one of Mona’s relatives made a big point of their credenzas.

  When he ran a few scales, he knew he would never be through, but he was determined to remove, wrap, and replace at least one octave’s worth of pins that day. He got up to see what the check was made out for. The $250 was what he had expected, and it included his visit to the auction house. He tapped the check but left it there and poured himself a shot of scotch from the glass cabinet. When he shut the door, the whole credenza shuddered and the fine glasses tipped against each other. Near the check was a framed photo of Sunny and her little dog, to whom he raised a toast. Sunny looked a lot younger in this photo, but she still had the same dog, or maybe, he thought, this Bea was one of a series.

  He took his scotch out to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The stacks of plastic tubs with paper labels intrigued him. He slid out one containing meatballs, and set it on the counter. Four tries for the silverware drawer put him in touch with a fork, and he buried it in a meatball and then walked about the house with the forked ball and his drink. Six more photos and god-awful paintings of the pooch. He discovered her library and scanned the books, all hardcovers of novels that most people bought in paperback and threw out after the vacation, big romances and whole mystery series. He sucked the last bit of meat off the fork while looking out at the green and leafy pool. Did Sunny live here debt free? And what would that be like? This was probably it, he decided, eating a meatball you didn’t have to cook while surveying your land.

  Then his phone buzzed, and he saw a Snapchat had come through. Tim set the fork on the windowsill and held a finger against the screen to play the video. It opened with some scratchy old LP sound, and there was Blondie, smiling and waving fingers at the camera in slow motion
. Then a fast beat, and churning guitars kicked in and the song rocked, and Blondie began running along a beach in a bikini. Summer Footage. What a beauty. And what a song! The energy! And the female singer’s voice got inside of him, the chorus: “When I grow up, I’ll be stable. When I grow up, I’ll turn the tables.” Blondie jumped into the waves, and when the foam settled, the camera zoomed in to show her smoothing her hair and opening her incredible eyes. Next she fist-hammered a ball over a net in a sleeveless tee and skimpy shorts, and then other girls patted her ass, and, yes, more leaping, arms overhead, and slow-motion ponytail flicks. When the video ended, he reluctantly pulled his fingertip from the screen. Touching the box next to the message again brought nothing about. That band, that song, Tim decided, that was the music for his ideal self. And that beauty, dear God! That was the ideal self’s ideal mate.

  Back at the piano, he unfurled the strap holding his tools and began by placing rubber wedges over two of the three strings that play A440. Then he fit the tuning lever over the pin of the third string, rapped the tuning fork on his knee, and struck the A key firmly to compare that tone to the one coming from the fork. The noise startled the dog, who set in to barking from another room, yipping in time with his repeated, upward-bending note. “No, Bea!” he shouted.

  Each time he cranked the tuning lever and then released it, it returned, counterclockwise, to its old position. He’d planned for this and had cut small strips from the corrugated cardboard that had separated his wife’s china plates. After struggling to get the string off, he unscrewed this first pin, sixty-three turns to remove it. Then he pushed the curled wrapper over it. Then sixty-three turns to reset the pin. Once he’d wrestled the string back on, he struck the note and maneuvered the lever to the perfect spot, but when he let go, it again spun back. Fuck this fuckety-fuck!

  If wrapping didn’t work, his instructor had whined, then they would need a whole new set of pins, one size larger than the current pins, and they’d need to drill new holes for each of the 230 new pins “and hope to heck you don’t crack that pin block, folks!”