Exes

by Max Winter

  *Our class’s graduation was moved to the smaller, less pretentious Friends Hall, where it would stay until the school’s bicentennial, in 1989. It’s a lovely space, but far too small for extended family, so grandparents—including, briefly and ironically, Ike and Tillie—were asked to wait outdoors while, inside the humid oaken hall, girls dressed in white linen crossed and recrossed their sticky legs, thinking of cool church stone and, I don’t know, snacks? Sugarless snacks? What do girls even think about? What must they get used to? Heels? Balls? The Holocaust? From the dais, I tried to catch Eli’s eye, but he was every bit as distracted.

  **The only time Grandpa Ike ever mentioned his service. But the war came up all the time. On weekday mornings he would take me out for eggs at a breakfast place up the street. The only other customer that early in the day was a plump gentleman of indeterminate age and ethnicity who always ate Adam & Eves on a raft with a lime rickey on the side. Ike bought me two scrambled with toast and OJ. I always envied the fat man’s breakfast and eventually worked up the nerve to say as much to Ike. “You can’t drink soda first thing, and wet yolks make you sick,” he said. “How come he can, then?” I asked, nodding at our fellow regular. I’ve never seen Ike so angry. “How can you even ask that after what he’s been through?” he said, pointing with his butter knife at the blue, scratched-at tattoo on the man’s flounder white forearm. I now know that the man couldn’t have been more than a child at the time. “For Christ’s sake, kid. Smarten up.”

  “. . . I wake up screaming . . .”: Me, I sleepwalk. It started shortly after Eli was moved from his crib first to the bottom, then the top bunk in what was now our room. Worst was when I turned eight and tumbled down two whole flights of stairs. Pa rushed up from his basement workshop and held me in his arms, kissing my bruises. It was the fastest he ever moved. His arms were warm, and I went limp in them. He smelled like his pipe. It felt like being born.

  Jubilee

  Mark Slepkow

  Kathy said we should use our miles down to D.C. and surprise Jake for his thirty-first, but I told her I didn’t want to see their baby. Kathy said I was being dumb: we weren’t there to help. Besides, Jake’s kid was healthy, and that’s what mattered, so I shouldn’t be afraid. First I told her I wasn’t afraid. Then I said, “Okay, but we won’t bring Bob.”

  “Why?” Kathy said.

  “Because,” I told her, “it’ll only make Jake feel bad.”

  Kathy said I could be like a brick sometimes. “They want to see our son too, Mark. It’s not a contest.”

  I tried again. “Look, we’ll all go, so long as I don’t have to see them change it. That’s where I draw the line.”

  “Him.” Kathy sighed. “Change him.”

  “Either way,” I said. “No changing.”

  Jake’s kid was born a couple weeks after ours and came out wrong—half boy, half girl. I guess technically he’s a boy, but still. His stuff’s all up inside him, like a girl’s. This is the kind of thing that happens on a talk show or maybe on the news when it turns into a lawsuit or an issue, but not to someone you know.

  Jake is my best friend, even though I’m not sure what grown-ups mean by that—like we still need best friends, or can even keep them, what with work and wives and kids and whatnot. I didn’t think I needed any friends anymore, but Jake was having a hard time, and all of a sudden I wanted to help. I figured we could leave the kids with the girls, catch a game, grab some beers—regular guy stuff like that. Plus, I don’t think Kathy and I were giving each other everything we needed at this point. I wasn’t holding up my end, at least, and I don’t just mean in bed. Everyone always adds “in bed” to the end of everything, like you’re a fortune-cookie fortune. No. I only mean we didn’t talk about our days much, only Bob’s, and once he went down, we were too beat for anything other than some takeout or microwave we’d eat too fast and a little cable Kathy’d fall asleep in front of. Even when we agreed, we were arguing. At one point it got so bad that I asked Kathy why she married me. “Because,” she said, pausing long enough for me to think that was her answer, “I knew you could never ever hurt me.”

  Kathy’s father died in a car before she was even born. Boyfriends came and went. “You’re a good man,” she added. I should’ve asked her what she meant. If I asked her now, I’d probably get a different answer, and I want to know what she meant at that exact moment, with both of us yelling and crying and getting ready for bed.

  Jake’s wife, Hannah, was in on the surprise. She picked us up at the airport with Alex in tow. It was early Friday afternoon, and Jake was still at work. Kathy sat in back between the babies, and I rode shotgun. Bob’s ears never popped on the plane, but now, down on the ground, he finally slept. Meanwhile, Alex spilled out of his car seat, awake and staring. Jake had told me over the phone that the testosterone shots made Alex bigger than normal, made his bones thicker, but I was shocked all the same. He could’ve eaten Bob for lunch, and my son was a good two months older. I looked at Alex and caught myself thinking about locker rooms and urinals and the backseats of cars. I turned around and faced the road, but I couldn’t help but check the rearview every couple seconds.

  Alex looked like a normal baby boy, and I guess that’s what spooked me most. Human babies are pretty weird animals, at least compared to, like, a baby fox or a snake. We’re all soft and dumb and out of proportion. Alex kept smiling those weird human-baby smiles back at me, where you can’t tell if it’s real or if it’s just gas. Those gas smiles give me the warrens. Alex wore a T-shirt with a cartoon sea horse on it. Sea horses give me the warrens, too.

  “Alex seems happy,” Kathy said, tugging on one of his thick, bare feet. Bob always wears socks, even in summer. Kathy thinks colds are literal, and I’ve given up arguing with her.

  “I think he is,” Hannah said, checking over her shoulder. She looked tired. Who doesn’t? But Hannah looked like she had spent the night defrosting in the sink. The only other time I had ever seen her was at their wedding, which had been an open-bar blur. She had seemed hot, but not too hot. You know, relatably hot. Like a sideline reporter or lady rookie in a low-budget cop flick. A local weather girl. That’s Jake’s type: the kind of girl that guys who are basically realistic fantasize about. I wish I had a type.

  Hannah was still hot, but less hot. Maybe teacher hot. And extra tired. As for the wedding, I only really remembered meeting her brother. He had a fucked-up arm he hid inside the sleeve of his coat. It looked like a chicken wing or maybe one of those dinosaur arms: you know, the little girly ones that the real big kind have. I actually didn’t see the little arm until later, so at first I thought he only just had the one good one, like maybe he had lost the other somehow.

  “We don’t have these in Rhode Island,” I said, interrupting the girls, who were talking about something.

  “Don’t have what?” Hannah said, switching lanes.

  “These roads that look like normal roads, but you can drive like it’s the highway.”

  We came to a stoplight.

  “And with stoplights,” I added. Hannah kind of nodded, and they went back to talking about the babies or whatever. Whatever. At least I didn’t interrupt them to point out a taco joint you could tell used to be an IHOP, like I had thought to.

  Hannah and Jake’s development was called Jubilee, which is exactly the kind of thing I would’ve never stopped busting Jake’s balls about back in the day. “Jubilee!” I said, laughing.

  “Yeah, Jake still won’t call it that.”

  “There used to be all kinds of things he wouldn’t call what was on the menu,” I said. “Going to Friendly’s with him was a real pain in the ass.”

  The guard lifted the arm and waved us in.

  “We know it’s not much to look at,” Hannah said as we pulled up to their place, “but we didn’t have much choice in this school district, and Jake and I think History class is more important than history.” You could tell this was something she had said before. It so
unded like Jake.

  Thirty years ago Jake’s house would’ve been like his neighbors’ house and like their neighbors’ neighbors’. Now they know to offer different kinds of driveway shapes and shutter colors and crap like that. But these shutters were all screwed on. Even if you could shut them, they still wouldn’t be big enough to cover the glass.

  Hannah gave us the grand tour. The front door was heavy but delaminating. Huh, I said to myself while the girls got the boys settled. Last we talked, Jake told me the house was sinking—he had put jacks in the basement to hold up the low spots. Which was one thing, but Jake made a lot of money at his job in planning or PR or whatever. I never did get around to asking him what he meant when he said PR, if that’s even what he said. Now it was too late. He’d think I was a real asshole if I asked him what he did for a living all of a sudden. I’ve got to start paying attention the first time around. But whatever he does at work, I bet the only boxes they talk about are the kind they need to think outside of.

  They had lots of furniture, that’s for sure. In what Hannah called his den, Jake had an executive-style desk and one of those programmable chairs to go along. While the girls talked blinds, I fooled around with it for a while, but I’m no good with stuff you adjust. I do know from different kinds of actual boxes, though. I could tell you all about J-17’s and J-20’s, but I try to leave the job at home. Kathy’s had her fill. Besides, she’s the real breadwinner, so if anything, we talk about her work. But I don’t mind. Sometimes, in the shower, I daydream about all these men flirting with her to get jobs. In my daydreams Kathy’s a lot meaner than in real life. She lines them all up in her office and calls them ladies and steps on their penises. Sometimes it even works, until I remember that Kathy says she’d never, ever have an affair, but if she did, it would probably be with a woman. That’s not a turn-on for me. I feel useless enough as it is.

  When I was through with the chair, I joined the girls in the living room. The kids were lying on the floor in front of the couch. Bob reached over and grabbed a fistful of Alex’s cheek. Alex shook his head and swatted him away. He was more into the wooden blocks Hannah had scattered between them than my son was, which is also normal. He had long, thick eyelashes, though, which I used to think were a sign of male gayness.

  “The place looks great, Hannah,” Kathy said.

  “We tried,” she said. “Can I get you guys anything to drink? Some juice or soda?”

  “I’d love a Diet Coke,” Kathy said.

  “How about you, Mark. Can I get you something?”

  “Got any beer?”

  Kathy looked at me. She didn’t like when I drank without her. She was always afraid I’d get carried away. These days I’m much more likely to get carried away with food than with beer, but she looked at me just the same.

  “We don’t usually keep beer,” Hannah said. “Jake’s more of a wine guy these days. But I think we might have some left from the Oscars. In the mini-fridge in the garage. Let me check.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I can always take soda.”

  “Oh, no bother. Just let me check.” Hannah walked out of the living room.

  “Why couldn’t you just have a soda?” Kathy said.

  “I don’t know, beer might be nice.”

  “But she didn’t offer you a beer. She said juice or soda.”

  I thought about it some more. “We’re on vacation.”

  “You shouldn’t make her go through any extra trouble. Things are hard enough. And it’s not vacation, it’s just a trip.”

  I looked down at Bob. He was touching Alex’s face again. Alex blinked, turning away from our son and toward the doorway.

  Hannah came back into the living room carrying two glasses of soda and a bottle of beer. “We only had light beer,” she said, passing me the bottle. “I hope that’s okay.

  “Gotta keep an eye on my girlish figure,” I said, patting my gut. Kathy shot me a look. I didn’t get why at first, but then, after a second, I thought, shit. Maybe Hannah hadn’t heard me. I tend to say the kinds of things people don’t really hear. I took a sip. It was that bitter, foreign kind, but it tasted good, watery and cold.

  It was true, though, that I’d put on weight since the baby. I had always thought it was the woman who got fat. Except for first thing in the morning, I can barely see helmet when I’m taking a leak. I hardly know how to dress away from work. I can never decide whether to tuck in or not. These days, I change in the dark.

  We all drank our drinks and watched Alex play with blocks. He was really concentrating on stacking them straight. Where his eyebrows would’ve been if he had any was all red, and his mouth was just an O.

  “Alex is so smart, you can tell,” Kathy said. “Look at him handle those blocks! He’s a little architect.”

  “He loves to stack things,” Hannah said.

  “That’s amazing for a kid his age. It really is,” Kathy said. Bob looked at us and grinned bubblegum gums and a couple choppers. Then he rolled onto his back and looked at us upside down, laughing. I smiled back at my son and half-ass peekabooed from behind my beer. It’s funny, some days Bob’ll look like me, and other days he looks just like Kathy, like there’s this tug-of-war inside him. I once heard that all kids start out like their dad so he won’t eat them.

  I hope Kathy’s genes win, and so does she, I bet. Kathy even wanted to name Bob Freddie, after her brother. I told her Freddie was a girl’s name. I wanted to call him Stan, which was a man’s name, through and through. A girl can’t ever call herself Stan. But Kathy said it made her think of some old creep with green toenails eating supper in his shorts. We settled on Bob, her father’s name. A kid named Bob Sadwin beat me up once in sixth grade. Chased me up the slide and just started whaling on me for putting a pen down his girlfriend’s buttcrack in Math. Who’s got a girlfriend in sixth grade, is what I’d like to know. Maybe my son’ll be tough, too. Maybe he’ll also get a girl of his own before he knows what to do with her, which is the only real way to learn how to know what to do with one when you finally get one for real. Kathy was my first, and I’m still a disappointment. “Don’t rush the first time,” my mom had told me, giving me the only advice she ever gave me not about school or work or being sick. My folks didn’t really have any friends. Just family.

  Bob picked up a block and threw it at Alex’s latest work, knocking it over. I tried not to laugh. Kathy sighed. “All Bob ever does is destroy things.”

  “He’s actually kind of a dick,” I said.

  “Well, he’s a boy,” Hannah said. After that, no one said anything for a while. I’m not sure for how long no one talked, but I do know that at some point the freezer made ice. Alex had finally given up on trying to build his tower and was now picking loose hairs out of the carpet with both hands and studying them. Bob picked up one of the knocked-over blocks and tapped Alex’s back with it. Alex didn’t turn around, so Bob sat down and started sucking on the corner of a blue Q.

  Jake was a dick when we met. In kindergarten, he would sing this stupid song at me from that ad for eggs: “The Incredible, Edible Egg!” And at some point we were friends because kids will become friends or enemies for next to nothing.

  But why do they even make ads for eggs? And not some eggs, all eggs. I think that’s wrong, ads for all of something, like all nuts or milk or diamonds. Maybe a big bright billboard for flowers on the way to work: When’s the last time you bought your wife Flowers™ or gave her Gems™? No one makes eggs, and you either buy them or you don’t. I sell folks SlepCo boxes, not on the idea of boxes. There’s no Box Council. You should put your stuff in one of our boxes, I say, not, You Should Put Stuff in a Box! In Rhode Island they either buy ours or Kilmartin’s or none at all—not that that’s an option: everything you can think of goes in a box at some point.

  When Jake got home, it was like Dick Van Dyke tripping over the ottoman in the opening credits of his show, except we weren’t the people he saw every day at work. I can still
tell what season of a show it is just by the wife’s hairstyle. It might be my only skill, apart from always knowing what time it is inside of five minutes. There’s no point in saying Laura Petrie is my type. “You guys,” Jake said, setting his bag-looking briefcase down on the floor. It was soft and had way too many straps, but growing up, his folks made him wear lederhosen. “Slepkow!”

  “Happy birthday . . .” Kathy and I sort of sang, more or less together. Kathy got up and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Then Jake folded his jacket over the back of a chair and walked over to me. I shook his hand, and he gave me a bear hug. I could feel Jake’s hands sink into the extra flesh beneath my shoulder blades. I broke the hug, which felt weird, but only because of how fat I am now. I’m sure he could feel how fat I felt.

  “Good to see you,” he said, his eyes a little red, but maybe from rush hour and not feelings?

  “Likewise,” I said.

  “And Bob.” Jake squatted down to touch his head. “Look at him! Look at this little guy.”

  “Doesn’t he look like a Stan?” I said.

  “He looks just like you, Kathy,” Jake said, gently running his hand over the soft spot in my son’s skull. The static made Bob’s thin brown hair stand on end.

  “Alex is something else,” I said.

  I didn’t even have to turn my head to know exactly what kind of look Kathy was giving me.

  “He’s our boy,” Jake said.

  We all sat down.

  “So,” he said, “what do you guys have planned?”

  “Whatever you two want,” Kathy said. “This is your guys’ weekend.”

  “Hey, Jake,” I said. “I got us tickets to the O’s game tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” said Hannah, getting up and refolding Jake’s jacket the exact same way. “I hope the game is even still on.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” I asked.

  “A train derailed outside Camden Yards, and one of the cars was carrying toxic chemicals. They had to cancel the game tonight. It’s still burning, and there’s fumes.”