by Jim Heynen
Meanwhile, she went outside to be brightened by the makeup of sunlight.
The chair was in trouble.
We all stared at the chair. Just stared at it.
But she? Ignoring the banner of her boredom, she went off into the world oblivious to how much she affected us.
JOB TITLES
The sales associate, the maintenance director, the assistant manager, the executive assistant, and the waitress got together to talk about job titles.
We’re all at the bottom, said the sales associate. They just want us to feel good about ourselves, so they stick a fancy word in there. Associate. What does that mean? I haven’t been associated with my boss from the day I got there.
Nothing could be worse than to be called an assistant anything. Assistant manager, indeed. Chief go-fer would be more accurate, said the assistant manager.
Hah! said the executive assistant. At least they were honest enough to call me executive assistant instead of assistant executive. When’s the last time any of you had to make somebody else’s travel and lodging plans? And pack their briefcase!
You think that’s bad, said the maintenance director. My real title should be mop boy.
What’s your problem? said the waitress. It’s so easy, she said. It’s so easy. You just gotta go with the flow like I do. If I don’t like the way the bigwigs treat me, I just rub their silverware through my armpit and spit in their martinis. Take your titles and just go with the flow. You gotta think. You gotta think ahead about what to do, and then just go with the flow. You hear what I’m saying?
THE DIETER
For a rigorous decade he had been dieting. Like most big fellows, he had tried the Stillman, the Pritikin, the Scarsdale, the Atkins, and the South Beach. He had been to the Diet Center, Weight Watchers, and Overeaters Anonymous. He lost thirty pounds with Nutrisystem, then lost the same thirty pounds a year later with Slimfast. Once he happily lost seventeen pounds on the Drinking Man’s Diet. At another time, for three months, he was the only male in a Jenny Craig Christmas season special and lost a half pound for every day in December through the twenty-fourth. His dieting history was the story of many successes.
And with his successes came nutritional expertise. He could give the carbohydrate grams, the protein grams, and the fat grams in any ounce of any food item from Hershey’s Kisses to raw rutabaga. He knew the difference between glycogen and glucagon, between monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, and could tell you how many calories he could burn in one hour on the step machine, one hour walking, or one hour sleeping. At his size, making love burned 350 calories, give or take a hundred. When it came to dieting, he was a combination of Job and Sisyphus—until one day he thought, This is stupid. I need a different project.
It was so obvious when it occurred to him: instead of pursuing his ideal weight, he would pursue his ideal woman. Books and magazines featuring his ideal woman were everywhere. They were more plentiful than diet books. The more he read, the higher his standards rose. She had to be perfect, and the more he read and the more intense his fantasies became, the ideal woman became a new shimmering mirage. But as his appetite for her kept growing stronger, his appetite for food diminished.
For two years, as his weight steadily dropped and his fantasies of his ideal mate flourished, one day, there she was—his Eve, his Beatrice, his Sophia Loren! Those legs! That face! That hair! And the eyes that said she was mentally brilliant, and that movement of her thigh that said she was a dancer, and that swirl of her wrist that said she was an artist, and that notebook in her hand that said she was a poet!
He wasted no time courting her, and soon asked her, quite confidently, Will you marry me?
Certainly not, said his ideal woman. Look at you: you’re nothing but skin and bones. I hate men who have emaciated themselves with a lifetime of bad choices!
THE ESCAPEE
For almost a year they watched him work out on the track every morning, though he’d reverse his direction in the middle of a lap, so no one knew for sure how far he could run. Sometimes he sprinted and then stopped, panting loudly, as if air were freedom and he never got enough.
It is like cutting your wrist, if you want to call that freedom, he once told them.
In the morning he ran toward the dawn and in the evening toward the sunset, and they did not know what to think of that. All they had was the minimum security of themselves, while he had other purposes. Call it rehabilitation. He had only six months left and a great body. They were still spitting on the sidewalks when the guards were not looking and at best could do this without moving their chins.
Then of course he did it and was only two laps gone when the whistles blew. Now they were the ones who breathed deep and tried to blow him over the mountain without moving their chins.
The first ten miles are easy, he told them later. Then you don’t have any skin and your whole body is an ear and the cold wind screams pain and the dust screams pain. You’re raw liver to the dogs and anywhere is the wrong turn.
They asked him if he thought of that before he ran and he said, Yes.
The warden would not let him run after that and he started spitting with the rest of them. He was quick even at this and filled them all with resolve and goodwill. There was no way he could have known how much they needed him.
THE GRIN REAPER
When others chuckled, he sneered. If someone laughed at a joke, he stared at them as if they’d passed gas in an elevator. If there were a smile anywhere in a room, he’d go after it with a scythe of bitterness, a sharp haughty look that screamed, Stupid! To say he didn’t have a sense of humor was like saying a snake didn’t have long legs. When he left a room, you felt that kind of peace that comes when you stop beating yourself on the head with a hammer.
Talk about a wet blanket!
This guy doesn’t have an ounce of joy in him!
How can anybody be such a total downer?
How can anyone be so one-dimensional?
No one could explain him, but it was easy to give him a name.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
The way they remembered the story, it went like this: Many years ago one farmer stood in the way of everybody out there getting electricity. Before electricity could come, this farmer needed to cut down his tall evergreen trees where the power lines could go. He refused to cut down his evergreen trees, so it was a stand-off between him and his trees and everybody else.
The boys knew this farmer was a bad man. What kind of person would keep everybody from getting electricity just for his stupid old evergreen trees?
Finally, all the neighbors went over to this farmer’s place with saws in their hands.
If you want to shoot us to save your trees, then shoot us all, said one of the neighbors. Life isn’t worth living without electricity.
That’s the day the boys learned that this farmer wasn’t all bad. He let his neighbors cut down his evergreen trees so the power lines could go up.
Be careful what you wish for, said the farmer who didn’t have any evergreen trees anymore. The boys were there when he said those words, and they did wonder if he was still as bad as they once thought he was.
It wasn’t long before the power lines went up and everybody had their farms wired for the big day when electricity would come like an angel from above and give them all light.
A big switch was going to be thrown somewhere out there in the darkness, and, just like that, all the new and unused light bulbs would come to life. The letter said that it would happen at five o’clock one night. Have all the switches turned off, the letter warned, and then turn them on one at a time so that the wires get used to all that electric power coming through them.
The night of the big switch, the boys sat around the kitchen table with the grown-ups. Then they saw it happen: a light at a neighbor’s house where there had never been a light before. Then lights started popping up all over the place. The horizon looked as if it was covered with fireflies.
The ol
dest boy got to flick the switch in the kitchen. The fluorescent light above the kitchen table stuttered a little—and then it came to life. First a trickle, then a splash, then an avalanche of light. Bright light. Light brighter than any kerosene lamp or flashlight. Light as bright as high noon on the Fourth of July.
Everyone around the kitchen table looked at each other: every freckle on their faces, every smudge on their collars, every speck of dirt on their hands screamed out in this new and bright light. They looked around the room: was this their kitchen? The ceiling where the old kerosene lamp had hung showed a dark and ugly shadow that the smoke must have left. The white cupboards looked gray. The wallpaper was stained with who knows what!
The boys felt ashamed to be in such a dirty place, but it was a grown-up who said, Look at this place! We have some work to do!
They knew what was coming next. Instead of playing Chinese checkers after supper the way they did in the old days, they were busy washing walls. With all the bright light showing them what they were doing, they didn’t have to be told that they missed a spot.
IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED TO ANYONE
A farmer yelled for his boys to hurry. Somebody had slid off the road and was stuck in a snowbank.
Here! You take this shovel and you take this one, he yelled. Get in the back of the pickup.
In a minute they moved down the road and stayed safely in the tracks that other vehicles had made in the snow. Down the road, the rear end of a blue four-door stuck up out of the ditch with its wheels spinning in thin air. You could see where the front wheels had zigged out of the tracks before the rear end slid around and the whole car nosedived into the ditch.
The boys recognized the driver. It was the science teacher. He didn’t have any gloves on. He stepped out of his car when the pickup stopped. He didn’t have a warm cap or warm boots either! He looked like he should have stayed in the science lab. First one boy started to snicker, and then another. When their snickering made them bump their shovels against the back window of the pickup, the grown-ups gave them that stare. The boys put their warm gloves over their mouths.
Pickups and cars full of farmers and farm boys were heading toward them from both directions. Everybody had brought shovels. Everybody wore boots and gloves and warm caps—and they all tried to get at the teacher’s car first. The boys saw what was happening and put their grins away. They got into it, shoveling faster than anyone else. But there were so many boys and men there—some shoveling and some pushing—that it was hard to tell just who should have gotten credit for the way the stuck car came out of the ditch like a sorry old tooth that knew it was time to let itself go. The car eased out and sat back on the middle of the road with its grill stuffed with snow.
Everyone stood on the road and looked at the prized car. One man dug the snow out of the grill. Another kicked packed snow from under the fenders.
How can I thank all of you? asked the teacher. Let me give you some money.
Don’t even think of it, said one of the grown-ups. It could have happened to anybody.
Everybody got their cars and pickups turned around without sliding into the ditch.
The boys took their place in the pickup and started snickering again. They looked back at the big hole that the teacher’s car had left in the ditch. It looked like a science project that didn’t work out too well, but it was an impressive hole. For a while, people who drove by would say, What on earth happened here?
But then spring would come and melt away all the evidence. Right now, though, everybody looked happy. Everybody looked full of thanks.
THE SANDBOX
Strangers thought the sandbox in the backyard meant that a child lived in the house nearby. In fact, a retired army general lived in the house nearby, and he didn’t have any children. He was through with war. He had come back, bought a house, and lived alone. The sandbox was his sandbox and his only.
A security light in the backyard turned on when anything moved back there, so at night he had to loosen the light before he could play in his sandbox unnoticed. When he went out in the dark, he first sifted through the sand with a cat-box scoop. He didn’t have a cat, but his neighbors did. A small yellow dump truck waited for cat droppings. The general drove it stealthily away and emptied it into the flowerbed. Cleaning the sandbox was a warm-up for serious play.
He sat bare-legged on the sand and made different forms, sometimes breasts and hips but usually sandcastles and forts. Being noticed on a night mission could spoil everything, so he played for a half hour but no longer. He avoided the sandbox on moonlit nights when people might see him. The darkest nights were his favorites. In pitch blackness all he had was the feel of the sand, the liquid sound of it flowing through his fingers and never fighting back. He liked the way it found new forms or followed the form of whatever pressed into it.
To cap off the evening, he rolled in the sand, letting it sooth his flesh and cling to him. He bathed in his sand, but when he got up, some of the sand followed him into the house and sprinkled itself over his rugs and furniture. Cleaning up the wayward sand was his daytime work. It didn’t take that long, and usually there was only a cupful that he had to sweep up. When darkness returned, he carefully carried the cup of sand back to his sandbox where it belonged.
KEEPING ONE’S SECRET
This man’s secret was that he urinated wherever he pleased. It’s not as if he was raised in a country where every street-side bush was like a fire hydrant to a beagle. It is true that he was raised on a farm where he learned to imitate the animals in their indiscriminate fertilizing of every spot where they stood—but that was years ago. Today he was an SUV-driving suburbanite who wore Ralph Lauren shirts to work.
The man who urinated wherever he pleased believed everyone had a secret and that his secret was less harmful than most. Instead of hiding a pint of whiskey in his desk, he urinated behind his open car door in a mini-mall parking lot. Rather than slipping off to a casino to waste money, he urinated in the corner of his garage. What’s your secret? he wondered when he met a tightlipped banker for a business loan. Do you look at porn sites on your office computer? Do you cheat on your taxes? And the flight attendant who smiled coyly as she handed out peanuts and pretzels, did she have a different lover at every overnight stop?
The urinator had not had the flu or a cold for ten years, not since he started urinating wherever he pleased. He didn’t make a connection. He was not superstitious about his secret. All he knew is that the good life accompanied urinating wherever he pleased. On starry nights, he looked up smiling while he urinated from his upstairs bedroom—in an arc that avoided staining the house siding. Over the years he became so skilled in his ventures that he was never caught. When he seemed to be kneeling to pull weeds in his garden, would anyone wonder why the marigolds were sparkling when he walked away? When he stepped off the path in the city park and returned staring up like a bird-watcher, would anyone suspect that his look of contentment came from anything but spotting an Oregon junco?
Everyone had a secret, but most didn’t know how to protect it. They were clumsy or reckless, like shoplifters who didn’t notice the security cameras or who didn’t know how not to look like a shoplifter. Other men who would like to urinate wherever they pleased made stupid mistakes, like standing with feet apart, with one hand in front and one hand on the hip. Keeping one’s secret was not for fools. It required imagination and practice. Keeping one’s secret was an art, or at least a highly developed craft.
THE POOR RICH YOUNG MAN
When this young man confronted his wealthy parents about their drinking, they disowned him. For the first time in his life, he was poor. Out on the street.
My parents disowned me and I am impoverished, he announced. I have nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat, no money to buy clothing. I don’t even have a car.
The poor rich young man didn’t have poor friends, so he didn’t have anyone to ask how to be poor. How did one get food stamps? And how did one get a job as a dishwasher
or a janitor? How did one act unemployed when the only people he had ever known were the ones who did the employing?
The poor rich young man talked to the friends he did have. Do you know about the bus schedule? he asked. Will I be safe riding one downtown to look for a job?
Don’t be silly, said his friend. You can use my car. And we have a spare room at our house that you may use whenever you need it.
News of the poor rich young man’s dire situation became the topic of conversation at many cocktail parties.
Wasn’t that brave of him to challenge his parents about their drinking? They really were having a problem with it.
I simply adore him for that, said another. His heart is so good. He meant so well for his parents.
The poor rich young man soon had more dinner invitations than he could accept. Everyone’s spare room was open to him, as were their refrigerators and spare cars.
Here, take the keys to the Chevy. Here, take these house keys. You can come in our back door any time you need a place—the security alarm code is on this card. And here’s a key to the tennis court.
One woman gave the poor rich young man spending money for house-sitting her cats, another for walking her dog through the park. There were canaries to feed and aquariums to check. There were suits and trousers on their way to the Goodwill that could just as well be given to the young man. Everyone wanted a piece of his welfare. Everyone gave him a key to something.
The poor rich young man learned to live with his misfortune. The ring of keys that dangled from his belt grew so large that poor people on the street nodded in recognition of one of their own.