Ordinary Sins

by Jim Heynen

  Cats are an extension of the human psyche, she said. We made them middle class. So now they get cancer and arthritis. They get kidney stones.

  Her voice rose as she went on: They’re procreating like mosquitoes! Over a hundred million in America! A hundred million! A bored middle-class cat kills a thousand wild little darlings in its lifetime. Cats are the most species-destructive animals on the planet, and yet we supplement their diet with what they don’t kill! You could feed five third-world nations with the money Americans spend on cat food! Not to mention the annual veterinary expenses! More billions!

  Her friends waited until she finished. When she got her teeth into a topic she shook it until it lay limp and silent. They didn’t tell her how bewildered they were by her diatribe. She had three cats herself, ones she picked up from the pound. Her cats were like feral critters in captivity. She kept them indoors to protect the wild creatures outside, but her cats lurked menacingly around the couch and skulked off like guilty bullies when humans got close. Nobody would say her cats were middle class, but they’d kill if given half a chance.

  Her friends still sought her company. In many ways, she was kind and generous. She left big tips for artists and actors posing as waiters and waitresses. She was a devout conservationist. On Thanksgiving, she served soup to the homeless. But whose side would she take if a pit bull attacked them on the street? There was something dangerous about her that her friends couldn’t resist. It was as if she were their wild little darling and they her protectors.

  THE HARDWARE STORE MAN

  He had owned his small hardware store for thirty-three years and lived for the day when someone came in who didn’t know the name of the item he needed. Would-be fix-it men gave him his greatest pleasure, after so many years of eking out a measly living selling replacement parts for people’s falling-apart lives.

  Enter a young man with the kind of glasses that up-and-coming lawyers wore. Or maybe a teacher. A history or English teacher. At worst, a pastor for some liberal church. Whoever he was, he was someone who didn’t mind showing up in public wearing earth-toned tweeds and flannel. He wouldn’t know a pipe wrench from a deadbolt. He wasn’t somebody who lived in the real world of broken-down washing machines and leaky faucets. He headed straight for the plumbing section, exactly where his kind usually went. The hardware store man watched as the customer stood, bewildered, in a world of rubber gaskets, plastic tubes, and metal-threaded pipes of every size and angle.

  The hardware store man moved in.

  What are you looking for?

  I think I can find it.

  The customer wiped his brow with his smooth hand. His eyes scanned the shelves like someone speed-reading a foreign document, hoping that one word would resemble his native tongue and that he would be able to pronounce it with confidence.

  This was the magic moment for the hardware store man. He looked squarely into the customer’s face to force out the greatest embarrassment.

  What is it called?

  In the eyes of the hardware store man, the customer looked like a child who couldn’t find the bathroom. His brow knit as he looked up at the steel rafters, stared into their webby depths as if he were trying to remember some long-lost time when his hands worked with the ordinary drips and spills of life.

  Then the customer turned to face the hardware store man. He lifted his chin so that he was looking at the hardware store man through his bifocals.

  How the hell do I know what it’s called and why the hell should I care? I could give a damn what it’s called.

  Now the customer moved in more closely to the hardware store man: I suppose you know the names of all these flimsy, poorly made, overpriced pieces of plastic and rubber crap?

  Of course I do, said the hardware store man in a sharp, indignant voice.

  So what? What has it taught you about the nature of the universe? What has it taught you about good and evil? Why don’t you fill your mind with something worth remembering?

  The customer grabbed an item from the display. Here’s what I need, he said. Oh, I see it is called a flapper ball! Flapper ball! Now there’s a brilliant name for you. Took some brains to come up with that name! Flapper ball indeed.

  The hardware man was speechless as the customer paid for the flapper ball and walked out.

  The hardware man stood behind the cash register. He felt terrible. Anger? Despair? It was just a terrible feeling, but he couldn’t think of a name for it.

  THE CHAPSTICK GUY

  For some reason this man wore so much chapstick on his lips that if he fell on his face he’d leave a skid mark like a slug. Nobody ever commented about it, even though his lips slid around so much when he talked that you’d think he was trying to invent a new language for romance. And he was in a job that put his face in the faces of the public all day long. He sat in a booth on the ground floor of a large office building under a sign that said, INFORMATION? ASK ME.

  THE WOULD-BE POLYGAMIST

  This woman did not belong to a religion that condoned polygamy, but she felt that God had created her for many men, not just one.

  In college—that universal testing ground for good intentions—she explored her capacity to love many men equally at the same time. Not all of her women friends could do it, so she assumed what she had was a gift. Other young women didn’t see her behavior as a gift. Some gave her cruel labels, and others reminded her of those laws that were lying in wait for her when she did decide to marry.

  I’m a triple major, she argued. I’m quite capable of making several commitments at once.

  She was basically an honest woman, so she was in a constant bind, with more than enough love to spare and no legal framework to allow her to honor her desire to offer boundless and unwavering affection to many deserving men.

  She told her best friend about her desires. Her friend said she was deranged and that what she wanted probably wasn’t possible.

  You can have a harem of women, but a harem of men isn’t even in the dictionary.

  I am not bound by outworn definitions, argued the would-be polygamist. I can do it. I have the will and energy. I have the steadfastness. I have the love. In sickness and in health, she said. Bring them on.

  THE LEPIDOPTERIST

  He had an eye for the detailed web in the clearwings and for the colors in the brimstones and sulphurs. He admired the excited movement in the flashers and skippers, and savored the sweet diversity of the fritillaries, the leafwings, and the metalmarks.

  Look at that swallowtail! he would shout into the warm, dreamy air.

  Ah, and the modesty of the whites, and, oh, such a gentle flutter of that monarch.

  To honor the exquisite beauty of butterflies, he used a net with fabric as soft as butterfly wings. To honor their appetites he set out honey scented with rose. He chose a crystalline jar with an airtight lid so that sleep came easily on their final resting place of choloroformed cotton.

  He purchasd the finest forceps to return the delicate antennae and legs to the likeness of life. He used the slenderest of stainless steel pins to preserve their beauty, like gems, to his corkboard.

  WHO DIDN’T LIKE TO HAVE PEOPLE WATCH HIM EAT

  This man did not like to have people watch him eat. He said that eating was a very intimate act.

  You’re opening your body and putting all kinds of food into it. Shouldn’t such things be private? he argued. Think of it: one second an innocent slice of orange has its orange and juicy presence visibly in the world and the next second it is entering you, disappearing inside your body.

  He was so earnest that nobody said, That is rather weird, sir.

  He did go to dinner parties and sat at the table with the others. Conversation excited him, but he didn’t eat. He used his mouth for talking, nonstop talking, filling the air with his current thoughts on endangered species and the draining of aquifers. One of his favorite topics was the depletion of trace minerals from the earth, though no one could imagine how a trace of minerals ever got int
o his body.

  In time, people became accustomed to him and his ideas, though occasionally someone would taunt him with a question like, Given how you feel about the privacy of what goes into your mouth, how can you stand to go to the dentist?

  That’s different, he said. That’s clinical.

  He was a well-built and handsome thirty-three-year-old and did not look underfed. No one knew when he ate. Both men and women found him attractive and often stared at him over dinner as they consumed their food in what he considered their indecent way. As they ate and he talked on and on about an array of topics, they all focused on his lips, which were so full, smooth, and unblemished.

  WHO TALKED TO HIS BEES

  This beekeeper was always talking. He sounded as if he had as much to say as his bees in apple blossom season. But all he talked about was what he was doing.

  Now I’m moving this hive over just a bit. Now I’m checking the angle toward the sun. There. Now I’m walking to the clover field to see what we have this year.

  He went on like this all day long, day after day, while the bees went on buzzing about their business as if he didn’t exist.

  One day a blind pastor was walking through the country hoping to hear a voice from heaven. When he walked past the beekeeper’s place, he heard a strange voice over the buzzing of the bees.

  The blind pastor stopped and listened more carefully. The sound of the bees was like the golden pillars of heaven in his mind, and the voice of the beekeeper was like the Lord Himself descending from heaven.

  I am listening, said the blind pastor. Now he heard the voice of the beekeeper again, saying, I am going to wipe the sweat from my forehead. There.

  The blind pastor trembled, fearing that he was a cause for the Lord’s perspiring. Falling to his knees, he said, Have I been such a labor to Thee, Lord?

  My nose itches, said the beekeeper. I’m going to move my wrist slowly up to it and rub it a bit. There.

  Now the blind pastor feared he was an offensive odor to the sensitive nostrils of the Lord.

  Does my earthly body offend Thee, Lord?

  Just then the beekeeper heard the blind pastor and turned to see who it was. The sight of the blind pastor kneeling along the road with his hands stretched toward the sky was so strange that the beekeeper stopped talking for the first time in many days.

  With that, several bees came down on him and stung him, since the beekeeper never wore any netting to protect himself. The beekeeper screamed and swore in pain, then ran to find some mud before the swelling began.

  The blind pastor, hearing the ungodly commotion, sprang to his feet, vowing never to wander through the country again. He started walking slowly back toward town where every Sunday he preached two sermons.

  The beekeeper resolved to mend his ways also and never to stop talking in the presence of his bees again, no matter how great the distraction.

  The bees went on buzzing in their usual way since, for them, this was a very busy time of the year.

  THE WORRIER

  The worrier was the one who yelled Be careful! when others bounced merrily down the steps to the beach. When she used a Sani-Can, she worried that everything in her pockets would fall into the disgusting recesses of the chemical sewage—or that when she did sit down she would contract avian flu or mad cow disease or the swine flu or herpes or crab lice—or at least be bitten by a lurking brown recluse spider. At home she worried about everyone’s schedules and appointments. She worried about leaves filling the gutters and about the nutritional value of food in the refrigerator.

  Recently she had come to resent the fact that she was the one who always had to do the worrying. Why couldn’t someone else worry about the directions to the airport? Why couldn’t someone else worry about money for the toll bridge or proof-of-insurance papers in the glove compartment?

  Her biggest worry was that if she didn’t do the worrying no one would take up the worrying role and the world would fall to pieces. Chaos. Bedlam. That would teach all the slackers to take up some of the worrying responsibility! In the meantime, she worried about the fact that no one else was signing up for the worrying role.

  Worry-wrinkles burrowed deeper and deeper into her brow while the world around her somehow survived in spite of itself. Still, she had to believe the slackers had a heart, that some part of them appreciated what she did. They must have taken comfort in knowing the bills were paid. They must have felt grateful that someone was sniffing for gas leaks near the stove, and checking the carbon monoxide in the bedrooms, and the lead content of the soil in the tomato patch, and the radon level in the basement! When they went to sleep at night, they must have been thanking her in their hearts, knowing that water and rations and candles and two-way radios and gas masks and life vests and fire extinguishers and radiation shields had been stashed away in case an earthquake or tornado or flood or terrorist attack should suddenly be upon them all from god-knows-where. But what about the neighbors? she wondered. What did she really know about them?

  THE WONDROUS QUIET LIFE

  She was sixty-two and widowed. Church people did not recognize her, but people at the animal shelter did. People at the shopping mall did not recognize her, but people at the library did. In this woman’s life, there were more books than traffic lights, more cats than cell phones, more vegetables than credit cards.

  In appearance, she looked ordinary in her blue denim jeans and work shirt, her graying hair wrapped tidily at the back of her neck. Her hands had the size and strength of a laborer’s, but her smile had a gentle sweetness. She did not startle easily, though she moved through the world with a smooth swiftness, with a confidence that was not aggressive.

  She seemed neither lonely nor gregarious. She seemed neither indifferent nor friendly. Still, some curious and good people wondered if she was all right. When they asked her, she said she had what she needed. When they gave her gifts, she accepted but offered more in return than what she had been given.

  She had neither answers nor questions for anyone. If she had strong opinions, she didn’t offer them. If she had worries, she didn’t share them. Those who came near her felt a peacefulness spreading around her. She was like a soft cloud passing overhead.

  THE MAN WHO RESEMBLED A PIG

  This man had a peculiar resemblance to a pig. A Berkshire, actually, with oddly pointy ears and a squeezed snout. When he spoke, it was like a ventriloquist sending a human voice through the head of a Berkshire pig.

  Already in junior high, classmates had taunted him with oink oink, so he knew very early what his life would be about. Later, after he had made his way through college and into reclusive work as a laboratory technician, there were still times when he had to appear in public. At first, when strangers stared at him on the street, he’d turn away, but he learned that he looked as much like a Berkshire pig in profile as he did head-on. He practiced a smile that he hoped would distort his features, but this made him look like a cartoon of a happy pig.

  Ridicule, rejection—and the face of a pig! Why didn’t he lash out at the world? Why didn’t he kill somebody, maybe himself?

  In spite of his liability, the man was very intelligent, quite brilliant, in fact. Perhaps it was through careful analysis of his situation that he decided his solution lay in assertive goodwill. Perhaps it went deeper than that into the mysterious recesses of whatever it is that makes a man what he is. In any case, he decided that instead of becoming bitter, he would become sweet. That was his goal. He would be sweet—and stylish. He wore a pinstriped suit and a jaunty white hat in public, and he spoke in a gentlemanly fashion. And always with a smile.

  The strange combination of his endearing cordiality and pig face fascinated people.

  I know, he’s weird looking, but what a sweet person!

  I thought he’d be shy with that face of his, but look what he gave me!

  He’s really quite delightful once you get to know him. And such a gentleman.

  An extraordinarily attractive woman found h
im irresistible. He’s not like the others, she said. He is the first man who is interested in the part of me that doesn’t greet your eye.

  Give me a break, said a jealous cynic. The guy’s got the face of a pig!

  Today the pig-faced man and the beautiful woman are happily married. For reasons they don’t disclose, they have decided not to have children of their own, but they have something that makes many ordinary couples jealous.

  PART II

  What’s Candy to an Artist?

  WHAT’S CANDY TO AN ARTIST?

  The baby decided to cry in public. She was at that blissful stage before words were needed to create a policy. She didn’t have words, but she did have a policy. For nearly a year she had taken the matter under nonverbal consideration and had decided, without saying so, that actions spoke louder than the babble she heard around her. She listened to the grown-up babble around her and witnessed how talking was getting no one anywhere.

  Crying was a reasonable alternative. She test-marketed her nonverbal deduction in supermarkets and restaurants. Leading indicators pointed in one direction: Cry in public!

  Crying in public was bliss. It scrambled people more than pulling thirty books off a bookshelf. It made their faces light up like rain on the sidewalk. Crying in public worked. If a bit of a good thing worked so well, how much better would an abundance of a good thing be? She resolved to work on her policy until she had it right.

  Crying at the family reunion photo session one day was nothing compared to the next day at the airport. She wailed and screamed until a whole concourse of men and women and ageless genderless beings recoiled in nonverbal submission. More than submitting, some were transformed. An announcer unearthed a smile, while a janitor swept up his remnants of pity. A lethargic clerk declared early departure. A man in a pinstriped suit inquired about the convenience of buses.