Love & Darts (9781937316075)

by Jones, Nath

  Inside, alone, Marylyn hated mirrors on account of her teeth. They were mostly straight except one in the front that overlapped the one next to it, and they were all different sizes. Just another gift of charity, I suppose. It seemed as though all the teeth had been taken from other heads and thrown into her smile.

  You’re not from a small town. It’s hard to make you understand. In cities and big places you need names and made-up identities. Names aren’t necessary in little places because you know the people and they know everything about who you are. Names are only slipshod approximations. They’re cop-outs really. There is more time in small towns. You can watch a person live her whole life in a stereotypic small town. And a name, any one arbitrary word, cannot possibly describe a lifetime like Marylyn’s.

  Anyway they all watched it happen; she got older and so did her teeth. She bought the pet store and walked to work every morning, with a fresh sweet roll wedged in her jacket pocket.

  Some said she knew the baker quite well. It usually wasn’t nice when they said this. Others said she was too, well, too something to know quite a bit of anyone. But she walked every morning from the old house on Lincoln Street to her tiny pet shop on the square. She’d get there and look over her shoulder, the folks in the courthouse said, before she ever fished her key out of a hidden pocket and began to unlock the rattling door.

  Lights on, blinds up. Then—and this is what the people all loved—she took a careful half-hour setting up a most elaborate tangle of twigs and vines outside on the sidewalk. Weather didn’t seem to matter. Someone mentioned to me in passing once that her brother had built the bizarre sculpture for her out of gnarled branches from the woods where they used to play. Who knows how much truth there is in that tidbit? Most people say he hasn’t been much use in years. But Marylyn would set up those branches, so carefully, and bring out a tiny sparrow, which no one would think to buy, and place it, so gently, on a curving twist of a twig.

  Customers stopped in through those years of days, ringing the old cow bell that hung above the door. Marylyn always said, “Welcome. Glad you stopped in,” and doled out goldfish like a miner, sold turtles to every eight-year-old with a jarful of pennies. So much to be done. There were questions to be answered about this or that newt. And paperwork on health and cleanliness. There was money to be counted and saved. Once a pretty old lady asked if her poodle’s pink satin claws could be manicured. No one ever heard whether Marylyn had done it; the lady was from out of town. But I believe she probably painted those claws whatever color the lady wanted. She must have. Why would Marylyn say no? She swept the floor, periodically, and invited summer kids to watch a ferret run through the heating shafts along the floor. At night, when the first streetlights came on, she’d start her closing-up routine, which was rhythmic and tidy and grim.

  Even during all this, though, there were long periods of tame times when she would sit at that pet store window, with one foot pulled up underneath her on a stool, looking out, watching her sparrow flit around in its tangle of branches. Such a creature to hop and cock his head and proclaim mightily that there was so little to know which he could not tell you. Marylyn was obliged to listen. Every night he returned to a cage.

  FLAG BOX

  A violent, vibrant storm rushed in and then vanished leaving a stupid, ripped flag all tangled in our do-it-yourself rose arbor. The one my wife never felt was a good enough incarnation of her dreams. So I took the neighbor’s kid, this cute little girl, to use the flag box in front of the post office. It was a week ago. My wife wouldn’t have allowed it. But. She was with our three cats at the vet.

  I don’t think she’ll leave me. She’s mentioned it twice in the past eight months. But. Hopefully she’s not serious. I think she just wants me to get a job. I want to get a job, too. Her staying or leaving really won’t change how fast that happens.

  I was a chemist. Sort of. Ran gels in a lab until the grant money disappeared. The other two lab techs got spots in the department. They’re involved. They do all the stuff you’re supposed to do to keep jobs: play the musical chairs, put in five bucks for birthday cakes, talk to the professors and researchers about hockey. I’ve never been good at that stuff.

  There’s a thing, you know. Some kind of guy thing. I don’t have it. I’m not queer. Been married for almost twelve years. Just never figured it was worth spending a lot of energy pissing all over each other, jockeying for power or whatever like guys are supposed to do. But sometimes it gets me.

  I was talking with my sister last night. We were having a theoretical kind of debate. She said she hates being passive, resents it. I don’t know what she’s talking about. Except that I hate having to be some kind of hero on a stupid old-time white horse. Like it’s my responsibility to stop all the robbers on trains. That’s not my business. Why don’t they just not rob anybody. Problem solved. Plus, no one’s ridden horses in a hundred and twenty years. But. People don’t care. They still think I’m supposed to save the day. There’s no way I’d rescue the pucker-lipped damsel in distress tied to the tracks, punch out some bad guy, run along the roof jumping from one passenger car to the next while a picturesque steam engine blows whistle shrieks into the desert sky.

  I don’t know. All I know is I saw my neighbor’s kid, a little girl about three years old with gold hair that’ll no doubt end up losing its curls and shine, outside. She was dancing in a flag. The storm had been terrible. During the worst of it the flag, a pretty large one maybe four-by-six feet, blew off its pole near the cemetery. It got caught in the rose trellis behind my house. When I first saw her running like a bull through a toreador’s cape the sky was still purple. July is like that. The sun on one side gleaming. Dark clouds on the opposite horizon grudgingly moving on.

  God, she was having fun.

  Okay. Now this little girl next door lives under a strange mix of incoherent rules and inefficient supervision. I don’t really look out for her. My wife and this little girl’s mother are archenemies. I don’t remember why. I tried to block it out while it was happening. Conflict’s not my thing. But. My wife is basically right. The mom’s kind of a nut. So it’s not like I’m babysitting. But. I just kind of make sure this little girl’s okay out there—not in the street when cars go by if she’s running around out front and not falling down into the ravine if she’s spinning in circles out back. I don’t even think her mom would notice if she ran into the street or fell in the ravine, you know? But I do know that if I instructed her kid even once that woman would come out of nowhere to hunt me down. I can just see her with her big rack flopping everywhere saying I was way out of line and keep my mouth out of her family business. I don’t need that shit. I just think it’s stupid to let a kid run wild everywhere. Especially when she’s in my yard half the time.

  So. I stay away from the mother but me and this little girl became some kind of companions after I lost my job. Nothing dirty. I don’t have any weird thing for little girls. But. I make sure she doesn’t succumb to an accidental death without anyone noticing. It’s good. She gives me hope. Well, hope for a second before I remember no one else much cares. So. I’ve been known to turn the sprinklers on. To leave new beach balls on the lawn. Most days this summer I’ve watched her race across my yard. And I won’t apologize for it.

  Anyway a week ago after the storm that wet flag tangled in the trellis surged. And while the wind whipped the red, white, and blue material the little girl raced under it and around the roses, burst straight into the stripes as the wind switched directions and snapped the flag back. She laughed and screamed one or two of those really self-confident little-girl yelps. I had to smile. The sun shone through the colors and highlighted her damp gold hair as the dark clouds receded slowly taking the big winds with them.

  Humidity returned. The sky’s contrast drained to hazy gray. Her glorious flapping toy dropped to a deadweight curtain, so suddenly tragic—trapped—after just being so brilliant and bold. As if the little girl knew I’d be watching from the window she whi
rled on me and demanded help with an intense brown-eyed stare.

  She’s looked at me like that once or twice in the past. I’ve always stayed inside to avoid that mouth on the woman next door. But last week I felt as sorry for the little girl as she did for that hung-up flag.

  I thought of a lawsuit, of the neighbors worrying unnecessarily about an adult man and their little girl, but no matter how whacked-out her mother can be, the moment mattered more.

  I ambled across the yard, kneeled down next to that cute little girl, and awaited my instructions.

  “We have to help it.” She started to cry and hugged me.

  Women. Can’t hardly please any of them.

  For I don’t know how many years my wife went on and on about how she wanted a rose trellis. I don’t know what kind of grand scale she felt would be worthy. But she was always pointing out pictures from landscaping books from the library. What was I supposed to do? She’s the one who files the tax return. But I did what I could and finally installed one as a surprise on our anniversary.

  Shouldn’t have bothered. She was immediately disappointed with it. Said the color was wrong. Said it was too rickety. Said the weight of the branches would crush it. Said there was no point growing roses anyway. Threw herself on the bed in a fit of rage because she was too old to start training roses over an arbor in the backyard at this point. But I’d spent a good four hundred dollars on the thing. And paid a guy seventy-five more to dig a few holes, pour some cement, and figure out how to get it propped up. We might not ever live anywhere like that Amalienborg Palace she always talks about going to see but we’re not even close to too old for anything. So I started the climbing roses myself.

  I wasn’t thinking about any of that last week. I was just looking at this little girl with her lip all pouty not knowing how to help the flag. My father’s voice became mine. “Well, sweetie, look.” I pointed to a corner of the flag which had settled on the wet grass. “Don’t let it touch the ground. Flags are never to touch the ground.”

  She leapt to her duty and stood with her little arms extended far above her head; the flag wrapped wet around them.

  “I’ll get the ladder, and we’ll get it down,” I said.

  It’s not quick, you know. But my roses climbed that trellis just fine. You just tie the branches to it as they grow. That’s it. And the color of the thing doesn’t matter at all. During the summer you can hardly see an inch of it anymore. And it’s not gonna collapse either. Stood up in a storm that tore a flag right off its pole, didn’t it?

  I came back with the ladder but forgot my gloves. For twenty minutes I wrestled with the rose branches’ long, fat thorns. Ensnared material was everywhere because the wind had changed directions so many times. But when I felt like shirking my duty even long enough to just go get the gloves—let alone a big pair of scissors that really would have expedited the process—I’d see that little girl’s frame with arms still extended earnestly, with full trust about my words that the flag should never touch the ground. So I worked on. My wet skin burned from the scratches. I looked down at her. “This might take a while. Won’t your mother wonder where you are?” She was reverent and stayed silent, her head under the makeshift tent. She reached higher. I saw her little fingers adjust their grip.

  I shook my head. “Okay. If you say so.”

  But damn I wanted those gloves and that pair of scissors.

  Finally I extracted the thing and held it. Together we stood near the trellis and the ladder holding the heavy wet flag off the ground.

  She started to get tired, whined just slightly, “What now?”

  How should I know? Folding the flag while taps played on a beat-up old trumpet couldn’t be arranged quickly enough to give an exhausted three-year-old a ritual tribute.

  My arms were poked full of thorn holes and burning. I rubbed my hairy forearm with a couple wide fingers. Whistled low, forcing air through my teeth, buying time.

  She kicked at mosquitoes.

  I said, “Well, now we take it to the flag box!”

  “The flag box?”

  “Yeah. They have one in front of the post office. It’s where you put old flags.”

  I put the ladder back and let her pick a special flag container from all the stuff in my shed. We didn’t ask for permission to go or really even think of it in the moment. Her mom would have said no for little reason.

  I drove carefully but let her ride in the front seat. I think it was a first for her. All these child safety laws with the car seats, you know. But. It was important that she sit right next to me as an equal. The flag lay between us in a wooden apple crate.

  She kept one hand on it.

  We rode through wet streets in silence. When we got to the post office I showed her the flag box, a converted blue street-side mail drop-box painted red, white, and blue with stars and stripes. I said, “The American Legion puts these boxes out so they can collect and dispose of the flags in an honorable way.”

  “What’s the ‘merican Legion?”

  I’ve never been quite sure myself. “They help out with flags and they probably fought in a war.”

  She listened. And waited, thinking.

  I hoped she wouldn’t ask me what flags have to do with war. She didn’t. She said, “What do they do with the flags?”

  I had no idea. They probably burned them in a ceremonious rite. I just knew they handled all the pomp and circumstance required for caretaking flags. “They make sure the stars find eyes to sleep in and the stripes go on end to end from here to California.”

  She nodded.

  I held the flag off the ground while she readied her step. After the apple crate was steady she climbed onto it. I opened the little door and held the back of the flag while she stuffed and shoved and pushed the material into the box.

  I tried not to think of mildew. Surely the American Legion folks check the box often. “Not to worry.” They seemed the sort.

  She kissed the last corner of the flag good-bye, letting her fingers loosen one-by-one. When the last bit slipped away I let the slot’s door snap shut.

  THE SANDWICH

  Stilled isolation and forgotten sock sounds make the harmony of my attempt at beginning.

  I don’t remember why but I guess a week ago a cop friend called my mother, said he was taking me to a hospital, a psych hospital. Mom came to visit. Felt she had to. Resented it. But. Came nonetheless. It was like usual. Five days to stabilize the meds, to ask all the right questions, to teach me to cope, again, to deal with my mother and the paperwork, and then to set me free as if my mind would allow it.

  Mom left yesterday, which is fine.

  How do you do your best to sort everything with a glued-back-together-and-held-by-vice-grips mind? You can’t ask anyone for help with this part. No one knows what you mean. If they do know, they pretend ignorance. So just hush and hurry to fracture your constant stream with prism eyes as information comes sideways.

  Inanimate things take their toll on me. My socks rest where they were left on an unremembered day. I think about my broken mind and try to let the glue dry. Let it harden while dealing with the coming of a teakettle in the apartment next door. Culling awareness, I put what I hear in different places with their pictures of female members of the family. Or men, sometimes, for the guy sounds. Distant traffic revving at the streetlight goes into a memory of the accidental night. Gasping hawks get put away with photographs of my father. Inside the socks lay crinkled on the couch and still. Weighing me down with their no-sound way to put them anywhere.

  If the floor is, in fact, under the bed, it will not sink, I guess. But who can be sure where the floor ever is?

  But if the floor is, in fact, under the bed, then I guess I am pretty hungry. Jell-O would be great. Knox Blox, to be exact. Cut out with nestable cookie cutters of different-sized stars. Slip yellow points into red corners and be good enough, be someone worthy, be happy to put one star inside the other like it shows how to do on the package. But you need vegetabl
e oil that has no flavor to grease the perpendicular-pressure aluminum. I only have sesame oil. And I hate eating art.

  So then what? Gravy? I don’t know how to make gravy. What’ll I do with the lumps? There will be lumps because I am not good enough to make anything come out right. I don’t know how to make gravy or anything so they gave me a brochure about self-esteem and said to check a website once a week for coping tips. I can chat in real time with a trained counselor who’s twenty-two and makes eight fifty an hour. Sometimes, even so, a yearning rises and grips my center, sending me into a kind of God-lust. Sometimes a yearning comes undone and drifts sideways, changing Mother’s hand-me-down thoughts into a kind of almost-wonderland.

  Life being half indebted inheritance and half unrealized potential, I am trying to resurface in an unrecognized welcome.

  I am awash in similarity. I don’t even have what-ifs. But whatever. Instead of getting anywhere with my vision of the meta-almosts I end up with all sorts of not-quite-good-enoughs and probably-could-have-beens and just give up buying anything with built-in obsolescence, like boyfriends and homes, though it seems there is nothing but continuing. No splendor. No deep roots. Simply the day-by-day inebriation of adulthood.

  The church tears at the politician who shouts at the people and says, “Hope. Change.” Change what? Hope for whom? Myself with others? My other realms with each other? You have got to be kidding. My rhythm of death-days has become so same, so unending, and I am succumbing to the trance of disbelief that shrouds nations.

  But. It’s okay. There’s a pill for what ails me. Just do the laundry. Clean the bathroom. Hang the towels. Spray 409 on the stove. Water the plants. Go to the gym. Feed yourself. Clothe yourself. Take out the trash. Enjoy things like music, books, TV shows, and beach volleyball. Participate. Learn. Invest. Grow. Plan a trip to meet indigenous peoples in a rain forest and discuss intercultural affairs on an ecotourism adventure that’s well-enough controlled to be both liberating and safe. Airplanes are natural. Drive your car. Don’t let the gas tank get too low. Pay for things with cash. Live within your means. Hang up the clothes. Mop the floor. Do the dishes. Remember the import of eating a balanced diet, of exercise, of maintaining relationships, of having people over to smell your scented candles, to pet your dogs, to comment on your wall art, to play your piano, to rifle through your medicine cabinet, and to sit back down on your couch pretending nothing ever happened.