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ken*again, the literary magazine
Prose
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On
the Up Drew Davies |
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Drew
Laine Perry |
The Old Man's Tale P. E.
Boslet
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On the Up Drew Davies
Vienna Before Freud Susan H. Case
My Mother's Son Clifford Thurlow
Champion of the Dell Zan NordlundThe Swan River Daisy Tom Sheehan
Guileless Relation Shipra Sharma
The Elephant Man(delbaum) Jack Goodstein
The IKEA Paradox Rob Rosen
by Drew Davies
An Elevator. The doors open to reveal a CONDUCTOR standing in an empty lift. A group of smartly dressed men and women pile in.CONDUCTOR: Ground Floor! Going up!
With a “ding” the doors close. The Elevator starts to climb. There’s
another “ding” as they reach the first floor.CONDUCTOR: First Floor! Major disabilities, phobias, diseases and the like. Amputees, lepers, wheel chair users, the blind, the dumb and the deafening. Do we have any claustrophobics?
CLAUSTROPHOBIC: (terrified). Oh God, yes!
CONDUCTOR: Then this is your stop, good sir.
The CLAUSTROPHOBIC scrambles out of the elevator.
CONDUCTOR: Please stand clear of the doors Ladies and Gentlemen; please stand clear of the doors!
The doors shut and Elevator lurches upwards.
HARVEY: Excuse me?
CONDUCTOR: Yes, sir?
HARVEY: I know it’s not proper etiquette but I was wondering if I could ask you a question?
CONDUCTOR: I’m sure we can accommodate. That’s to say, if everyone agrees.
The other PASSENGERS murmur their approval.
HARVEY: I was just wondering why, on the floor we just visited, you could see through the ceilings and into the floor above? I’ve seen many architectural quirks in my time but never one so transparent.
CONDUCTOR: I don’t mean to sound condescending, sir, but I assume you’ve not been to this particular building before?
HARVEY: That’s correct.
The Elevator stops with a “ding”.
CONDUCTOR: Second Floor! Non-Caucasians! Black persons, Hispanics, Asians, Eskimos or Inuits, Australians and anyone else with a deep hued tan. You sir, if I could be so bold, have you been summering in the Caribbean by any chance?
TANNED MAN: (smiles). Yes, indeed I have!
CONDUCTOR: You’re a lovely colour, if I do say so myself.
TANNED MAN: Why, thank you!
CONDUCTOR: But I’m afraid this is your stop.
TANNED MAN: Pardon? I’ll have you know I’m expected on the Fifth Floor!
CONDUCTOR: Out you get! (Pushes the TANNED MAN out of the Elevator). Going up!
The doors shut. The Elevator moves on.
Now where were we? Ah yes! The glass ceilings. Very practical they are. Allow inter-personal relations on many levels. Great for productivity.
HARVEY: You mean you can speak to someone on another floor? From one to the next?
CONDUCTOR: Oh no, no. That wouldn’t do. Completely air tight they are. But if I was on one floor, say, and you another, we could wave to each other.
The Elevator stops with a “ding”.
CONDUCTOR: Third Floor! Women! Brunettes, Blondes, Red Heads, Hot Heads, Vixens, Kittens, Ball Busters, Iron Ladies and anyone else of the fairer sex.
(To HARVEY, as the women exit). You’ll notice that they wear either culottes or slacks. It’s a precaution to stop the perverts from looking up their skirts. We had an awful lot of trouble to begin with.
HARVEY: Do you have a floor for perverts?
CONDUCTOR: Of course not. They’d never get in the main entrance. Going up!
The doors shut. The Elevator moves on.
HARVEY: How long have you been an Elevator Conductor here?
CONDUCTOR: You’re quite the conversationalist aren’t you, sir?
HARVEY: Am I?
CONDUCTOR: And I think you’ll find that I’m not an “elevator porter” as you put so crassly, sir. I am a Vertical Travel Vehicle Manager in the first order.
HARVEY: Well that sounds very grand.
CONDUCTOR: Oh, no it’s not sir. I’m on the lowest rung of the employment ladder.
The Elevator stops with a “ding”.
Fourth Floor! The Socially Unacceptable! Anarchists, Over Achievers, Under Achievers, Bisexuals, Cross-Dressers and the Religiously Devout. Anyone wearing briefs. This is your floor please.
A few people exit. The doors shut. The Elevator moves on.
CONDUCTOR: You see many queer types on that floor, sir, if I do say so myself. I’ve had to pry the buggers out with a crowbar. I don’t know why they get so upset. If they walked slowly no-one would even notice. Nice biscuits they get on that floor too. Macaroons.
HARVEY: People just don’t know how good they have it.
CONDUCTOR: Makes me want to cry.
The Elevator stops with a “ding”.
Fifth Floor! Final Stop! All remaining passengers please dismount!
Graduates, Aristocrats, Conservatives, Male Models, Jet-Setters,
Nepotists and anyone else that went to school at Eton.Everyone exits the Elevator except for the CONDUCTOR and
HARVEY.HARVEY: Excuse me?
CONDUCTOR: Are you still here?
HARVEY: They said I should go to the Sixth Floor.
CONDUCTOR: Really? That is a strange kettle of fish. Would you be so kind as to show me your pass?
HARVEY takes out a gold pass card.
Very good, sir—everything’s in order. If you’d just like to hold on to the rail.
The doors shut. The Elevator starts rapidly.
Aren’t you the lucky one, sir? The Sixth Floor. Imagine!
HARVEY: What’s on the Sixth Floor?
CONDUCTOR: Well don’t look at me, I’ve never been there. Not my place. You must have had a very good upbringing, sir.
HARVEY: The very best. My father was a scholar and my mother was a poet. I had a Danish nanny and everything I could have cared for and nothing I would not. My place in the world was decided the very first time I was laid down, naked and wriggling, on crème cashmere sheets.
CONDUCTOR: I hope, sir; you’re not insinuating that wealth has brought you this opportunity?
HARVEY: Well, I…
CONDUCTOR: I’ll have you know that money doesn’t enter into it. We’re not prejudiced here you know.
HARVEY: Of course not.
Pause.
This ride is taking a time.
CONDUCTOR: It’s a long way to the top, as anyone worth their weight would say. It’s a grand journey. I’m going to miss it.
HARVEY: Are you leaving?
CONDUCTOR: Not of my own accord, sir. Cut backs. They’re going to replace me with an automated voice! Can you believe it! Forty years of service and they replace you with an electronic device! Sparks will fly!
HARVEY: I’m very sorry.
CONDUCTOR: And to add injury to insult the person who is providing the voice for the automated service is a woman! With a lisp!
HARVEY: How absolutely ghastly.
CONDUCTOR: I have ten children, you know. As it is, I get thrupney a week and half a length of string if I’m lucky.
HARVEY: If I were you, I’d complain.
CONDUCTOR: Not to worry, sir. There’s little a man in my position can do. Nearly there!
HARVEY: I do hope I like it up here.
CONDUCTOR: Oh you will. Great views. Lots of space. Not like those poor bastards below us.
The Elevator stops.
Here we are, sir.
HARVEY: Thank you very much. You’ve been very helpful.
CONDUCTOR: All in a days work, sir.
HARVEY: Well, take this as a token. (Gives him a few coins).
CONDUCTOR: That’s very kind of you, sir. (The Elevator doors open). Have a good day, sir! Mind the step, sir!
HARVEY steps out. There’s no floor. With a cry, he falls. His screams can be heard as the Elevator door shuts.
CONDUCTOR: Doors closing! Going down!
Vienna Before Freud
by
Susan H. Case
n 1773 I had the privilege of being treated by the well-known physician Franz Anton Mesmer. I was twenty-nine and for years had been troubled by a mysterious malady that, despite my looks, caused my parents to despair of my ever being married. Miss Oesterline, Mesmer said to me and bowed, at which blood rushed to my head and I fainted, but not before experiencing a most profound tooth and ear ache. Mesmer was rumored to have observed a woman’s face wax and wane with the moon, turning so ugly with the waning that she would not go out again until the moon was full. It was this transformation of bone that had led some colleagues to view him as an instrument of the Devil. Still, my parents were at their wits end over my delirium and vomiting and after my last rage, in which I threw my needlepoint at my father and screamed, tears coursing down my cheeks—it was at the end of February—they decided that something extreme needed to be done to address my apparent madness.
When I entered the room with the oval wooden baquet—not the smaller room for those less economically fortunate, but the large room for women like me—I was encouraged to take a seat near the iron filings and the wine bottles full of magnetized water. I held onto iron rods to conduct magnetic flow to my afflicted body. The room was crowded with patrons. Mesmer’s treatments were quite popular, especially after the rumor began that sitting on the wrong side of the baquet would lead to unspeakable moral transgression. When one of the young assistants, a very handsome young man I must state, lay his hands upon me in a curative gesture, rubbing my spine and knees and breasts, I could not help but swoon. The way he stared at me! I tried to maintain my equilibrium by listening to the music with my eyes closed—opera was popular, as was Mesmer himself on the clarinet. I was embarrassed to view what was occurring, but I admit that I occasionally peeked. The treatment produced violent hysterics in the women around me and when I too began to have a fit, two of the handsome assistants gathered me up and carried me into a salle des crises where I fell into a deep sleep.
It was, of course, through Mesmer that, at a point when my parents had surrendered all hope, I was introduced to his stepson, now my dear husband.
My Mother's Son
by Clifford Thurlow
hen I passed the sign for Blackpool it occurred to me that I hadn't been there for years. Blackpool 8. It was only eight miles, but work lay at one end of my journey, home at the other, and to have turned off had always seemed inconceivable.
My hand stroked the indicator. I caught a glimpse of my eyes as I turned right and, for a moment, it looked like somebody else in the rear-view mirror. Then, as a child sees monsters growing from the wardrobe, I thought I saw Catherine at the edge of the glass, her eyes full of...understanding.
She would be disappointed, of course and, across the hot-line, Miss Durban would be fussed. They were my journey's frontiers, two bridge supports at the lips of the abyss: vast, robust and really rather touching as the bridge washes away on a tide of tax demands and questionnaires all neatly completed in the crabbed capitals of Miss Durban's arthritic hand.
Delia Durban. It was a solid, provocative, step-motherly name, the pair of Ds like the high and low notes of a musical scale, a bullet and its retort. She was four score and more, thin as an asp, with a toad's gnarled flesh, her loyalty to Father reminding me of those old lame dogs that carry their leads in their mouths, a legacy that should have been buried with him, tossed to the flames like a Guy some dismal November night. She was the only one who cried at the funeral.
Catherine wore her chin up; both of them: a free-forming sculpture of burgeoning curves erupting from the constraints of a black suit a size too small, her cheeks flushed as if by exertion, plump domes of bubbling flesh rippling from her best shoes. I studied my wife more carefully that day and felt relieved that the children had been too young to attend.
It was a jolly affair, little islands of egg and cress sandwiches ornamenting the table in the living-room, a stiff parade of sherry schooners gathered in by well-wishers with scissor smiles and the hushed reminder that he'd had a good life. The curate had Love is God tattooed on his forearm and Catherine wasn't sure she approved.
My wife in mourning was best avoided. Although, as I left for work next day, I realized that Miss Durban, with Father gone, was going to be worse. Her concern for the business was as consuming as a teenager with his acne, a fixation that made me less decisive in my meek endeavours. She was like a shadow, always behind you, or beside you, as permanent as the curate's tattoo. She professed an inclination to claustrophobia which graced me through the open door of our offices a panoramic view of her dewy nose and squirrel eyes that squinted over a typewriter with a damaged s as she pecked away like some famished sea bird on the deck of a doomed ship. I had no idea to whom she was writing and never cared to ask. She was the hub around which all wheels glided, the book keeper, historian, the albatross to my Ancient Mariner. Through eight dust hushed hours a day for two decades I had watched the old bird's silver hair bobbing behind the Underwood, her tongue darting out to coil around the gummed apex of a manila envelope, her crippled hands ironing creases in the company foolscap. Through the length of a murderer's sentence—without remission—I had exchanged paper-clip prattle and climatic prognostications above a shoe factory that had touched its toes in cold ashes of the crematorium even before Father did the decent thing and buggered off.
I had taken command, the son and sole heir of an enterprise that manufactured English brogues, a task analogous to that of the Master on the Titanic, my assignment as hopeless as King Canute's playful lesson with the tide. The current had always been against me and, that day, the banks had crumbled. I was brimming with watery similes: drowning in foreign imports. I had been cast adrift on the flotsam of social change, the jetsam of junk footwear. I had been sucked down in a whirlpool of trainers, sandals, sneakers, espadrilles...I would have worn them myself but Catherine didn't like that sort of thing. I had waited for bankruptcy like a man on a quayside watching a curl of smoke on the horizon. Finally, my ship had come in.
The trees had come to an end and I turned left: Blackpool 3. I saw the famous tower, neon signs like new flavours of ice cream. The road became the sea front and my nose filled with the smell of the sea, candy floss, jellied eels. Mothers with big legs and sleeveless dresses watched infants playing in the sand. Pensioners like abandoned Punch and Judy puppets filled deck chairs in hostile silence.
I looked ridiculous in a charcoal suit, my brogues that I polished before I went to bed at night mirroring the spring sunshine. They were too expensive; an anachronism, like Miss Durban. The Americans bought them with some puritan nostalgia for something that may never have existed. But you need a home market and that's what we didn't have. Costs went up, sales went down and, each time we increased the price, the gap widened.
I left my jacket on the passenger seat and ambled down to the beach. I heard someone laugh and glanced over my shoulder before realizing it was me. The pier was suspended over the sea like an idea not fully realized. The air, tingling like champagne bubbles, made me feel a giddy. A child was paddling, running a few inches into the tide, then running out again shouting. I removed my shoes and socks. The sand felt warm as it worked its way through my toes. I thought of Catherine as I strolled along the water's edge. "George, really!"
She had a short list of reproaches and uttered them in the same tone, her moon face deflating as she shuddered, sucking air through her teeth like a Chinaman. She would arrange her features into a look of forbearance and benignly hurry off to the St John's Ambulance, the Wolf Cubs, the WRVS, her uniform pressed, shoulders pulled back, her ponderous breasts swinging freely as if the Boys' Brigade Band marched at her sturdy rear, which they did at Church Parade on the second Sunday every month. She was the Maypole around which local life turned, a do-gooder and Bob-a-Jobber, a woman of powerful convictions all neatly sealed in an unshakeable belief in the Conservative Party, the Church of England and the Daily Mail.
Perversely, it was Father who had introduced us. They were at some charity function and when he saw her starched shirt and sensible shoes, and when she announced that she was a virgin—that's how I had imagined it—he decided it was time to deliver me from the clutches of Marjorie Mackie, a factory dyer, a girl who smelled of animal flesh and the king-sized cigarettes she smoked in quick succession. She wore high heels as she worked. She painted her nails the same fierce red as her lips and those lips live so sharply in my memory the periodic arousal it fires meets Catherine's fleet and missionary anticipations.
Father arranged the encounter at a garden party he had organized as treasurer of the Chamber of Commerce. We were surrounded by panting matrons and dribbling majors and, among them, Catherine was light relief.
"How do you do?" I said, and her blue eyes as they looked back at me were clear and untroubled. I liked her full lips, her breasts filling a frilly blouse.
"Very well, thank you," she replied, and I had a sudden vision of myself sinking into all that buttery goodness. She was twenty-five, a year younger than me and, though too old for the ribbons in her hair, they gave her a look of cherubic well-being. Catherine would grow into the kind of woman who, learning from the TV, would rush over to show a neighbour how to get a shine on the kitchen floor; the daughter my father never had and my mother had been unable to give him.
Mother was the odd pawn inevitably lost from a chess set, fading from my mind as she had faded from life like a flower pressed and forgotten between the pages of a Victorian girl's diary. She was a timid woman so anxious to do the right thing, and so certain her husband was the one to do it, she gave in to some trifling malady soon after I started boarding school and I wasn't told she was dead until I came home for the holidays. I burst into tears and, as I sat there blubbering, Father turned the same ruddy tint as the raspberry jam on our breakfast plates. "This isn't what England's made of," he said, and left for the comforts of Miss Durban, the Daily Mail rolled like a swagger stick under his arm.
Up until then, I hadn't known my father. He was just the back-slapping, moustache-wearing colossus who took me on long walks over the moors on rain-lashed Sundays. When I was tired or sick, he would say I was my mother's son and the memory of Mother slowly dulled into a fog of pity and shame. I learned to dry my eyes and do whatever was expected of me. Father took the helm, as Catherine was to take over from Marjorie Mackie.
The velvety softness I had visualized at the garden party had been an apparition. Catherine was a solid bulk, a bulk that would grow more solid and, by the time I was conversant with this affliction, I had married her. I had pleased Father and sent him off to the crematorium behind Mother a complete and contented man. His company was called George Tanner and Son and he had lived to see another son join the line, another pair of feet to fill his shoes and make more shoes into eternity.
I wriggled my toes. They were like something alive. I felt like swimming, which I hadn't done since the children were small. I had taught them, then retired to praise and observe. It was one of the few tasks I had performed. Catherine had been in charge of the rest, rearing them on the fare of Grandpa's values and sending them off into the world equipped to face its perils. Peter joined the RAF as a boy entrant at sixteen, and Jacqueline got a place at secretarial college in London as soon as she had finished her O-levels. We didn't see much of them after that, except sometimes at Christmas when Peter talked about radar and Jacky always had some disorder that prevented her from eating. She had grown as tall as me with legs as thin as licorice sticks in black leggings and short skirts. I asked her once why she had gone so far away to study and she said if I didn't know, she couldn't explain.
Some things you can't explain. I left the wet sand and stripped off my shirt and tie, trousers and underpants. I raised my arms in the air and faced the sun. I stepped into the water and, when I saw my nakedness in the reflection, I couldn't help laughing, a long, loud laugh that echoed over the water and woke the pensioners from their nightmares. I had the ocean to myself. I waded slowly forward. The bottom banked steeply. I took a deep breath and began to swim.
Champion of the Dell
by
Zan Nordlund
arie and me decided it was a great idea just to write ourselves a pass and skip school. I couldn’t believe it took us so long just to figure this one out. We’d thought of everything else by now. So, instead of wasting this gorgeous afternoon listening to some poor middle-aged bastard with a cheap tie drone on about inane points of history and science nobody gave a damn about anyway, we went for a ride through the backwoods of Vermont.
Marie, by coincidence, parked behind the school, near the edge of the woods—not up close like usual. It’d be easy to get out of there without being seen. It was almost like she’d planned the whole thing.
Her 1970 rust-bucket of a Trans-Camero had this faded black vinyl roof with a big hole torn dead-center on the top—you could see where the elements were determined to eat their way through to the headliner. And to think, some people pay for a sunroof. Most of the rest of the vehicle was held together with a combination of duct tape and what looked to be Bazooka Bubble Gum, though I wasn’t sure.
I tossed my knapsack through the missing rear window and hopped into the passenger’s side. The door creaked and groaned at the sheer agony of being called into service. The royal blue interior was beat to crap. Its cloth seats were so slick with grime they felt downright slimy. The whole thing reeked like mildew, and stale cigarettes, and old urine. Marie used a screwdriver instead of a key to start the Trans up—it backfired and then rattled hard enough to make you cut a wisdom tooth when she revved the engine. There was a grubby pacifier covered with sand on the floor under my left foot. I was afraid to ask where it came from; I just moved it aside so I wouldn’t step on it and looked out the window.
We exited the parking lot and made our way toward the gate of the school complex. It soon became evident shocks hadn’t been in the budget in a while—I swear I heard the rear bumper hit the ground once or twice over the ruts the spring rains had carved in the dirt road. I just prayed the principal didn’t decide to return early from one of his Tuesday afternoon romps at the Majestic Inn with Mrs. Chezworth, the lunch aide, and catch us in the middle of our escape.
The gate was in sight and I felt a sudden sense of exhilaration—a newfound sentience of freedom. I’d never done anything like this before. I was looking forward to exploring all sorts of new opportunities with Marie.
That was when she pulled a pack of Kools out of the glove compartment and lit one up. She handed the whole thing over to me and offered a smoke.
"Ugh. Thanks . . ." I said. I just didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to sound like a geek so I tried it. I thought somebody lit my lungs on fire—it felt like I’d brushed my teeth with a Brillo Pad. I tossed the butt out the window after a few puffs. She cast a funny look in my direction.
"Uh, I’m tryin’ to cut down," I said. I wasn’t sure she believed me, I think she had a smirk on her face. Boy. I was rackin’ it up today.
Just then she hit another one—Marie didn’t even try to slow down over the potholes. In fact I think she kind of sped up when she saw one. Maybe that’s ‘cause her father was a mechanic. He had a little goatee. A black one. I bet he didn’t weigh one-hundred-and-twenty-six pounds, soaking wet. They used to tease him about being the only guy down at the shop who could fit into all the small places. They called him ‘Ratty’ for short. He always had to get up and inside the dirty stuff ‘cause he’d never done any of the bench presses the way the rest of those fellows had when they were in high school. His upper body never developed as a result. That’s ‘cause he was busy pressin’ something else. He was thirty-six and he already had ten kids.
To my surprise we came out of the back side of the woods and pulled right into the driveway of Marie’s house. She lived in The Dell. The place was notorious. Her family, in fact, was the only one in the whole Dell that lived in a house—all the rest of ‘em—they had trailers of one sort or another. Her uncle, the ‘rich one,’ he lived across the way in a double-wide with a full aluminum skirting around the bottom, and even some landscaping. Didn’t look like he’d touched it much since, though. At least not with plants of any sort. Her Grandmother was at the top of the hill in the 1936 pink and white Champion. Her Aunt Nancy was next door in a brand-spankin’ new black and white Elkhart.
My mother said for what they paid for that, they could have bought a ‘real’ house. There was no accounting for taste she said. I didn’t know the rest of the neighbors, but they were all related to one-another here in The Dell.
Marie’s house was a two-story square box with a peaked roof. It had lemon yellow paint on top and mint green on the first story. The shutters were falling off a window on the second floor. The paint was faded and chipping, and several shingles were missing. The window on the porch was broken and a sapling seeded itself in the trench where the pane used to be. The front yard featured an old gas stove and a rusty grocery cart somebody’d pinched from the Central Market a long time ago. Two-foot weeds grew up along the few patches of grass that remained.
A mean-looking rottweiler sat guard over the front door. The thing had to be at least fifteen. It was grey in the snout and missing a front tooth. You could tell it had a cataract in its right eye and one of its ears was half-gone. The air reeked of dog shit. The critter got up as we neared, more out of obligation than sincerity, and began to bark and to growl. It pretended to strain at its twenty-pound shit-covered stainless-steel chain.
"Shut-up Ruthie!" Marie yelled. The dog cast a welcome glance at her for the command and turned its arthritic hips around to lie back in the one spot under a bush it hadn’t soiled. It flopped with a humph and glared at me from its post.
Marie opened the aluminum screen door and let it slam behind us.
"Ma! I’m home!" she hollered as she set foot onto the front porch. Just like that. She gave her schoolbooks an unceremonious toss into the corner of the foyer. It was clear she’d retrieve them on her way out the next morning. She threw her jacket atop a pile of other coats on a tattered chair and walked into the kitchen.
The house had a smell about it—not bad exactly, just like a little kid that needed a bath. The wooden floors of the house had long gone grey with dust and with grime. The ceilings were amber-colored—sticky with the tar of cigarette smoke. A kidney-shaped ceramic ashtray overflowed with used butts onto an enamel-topped kitchen table. It was clear it had not been washed in a while. Two red plastic chairs were by the table. Their seats were split with age and their stuffing poked out of their sides. An orange kitten walked by, stretched and yawned. The slight scent of a cat box filled my nostrils. The kitten reached out with its paw and placed a claw through an opening in the screen of a well-worn wooden backdoor. It was soon outside.
Marie opened the beat-up once-white refrigerator. There was a large dent in its center and it evidenced rust around its edges. She pulled out a can of government-issued orange juice—you couldn’t miss the generic black-and-white label, so simplistic in design. It stated only "ORANGE JUICE" in bold block letters. She opened a cabinet and pulled out two large glasses. They’d come from fill-ups at the local gas station. She nodded at me for approval. She poured the juice, replaced the can in the fridge, and placed an artful kick centered squarely on the bottom of the door. The entire thing warped into shape and the door resealed.
Marie then set about searching the cabinets for a snack. She settled upon a can of tuna and white bread—she opened the can and drained it into the sink. She didn’t bother rinsing the broth down the drain. She pulled a bottle of mayo out of the fridge and left the door open. She spread a thin coat on each side of the white bread, and dumped half of the tuna onto each sandwich. She then put the mayo back and then landed another kick on the fridge like a mule.
I’d never seen anything like it. I’d grown up in middle-class suburbia. My mother was June Cleaver compared to this. You came home from school. You put your books in your room because you were going to study later. You hung up your coat, you changed your clothes. Hell—You mixed tuna fish in a bowl. You rinsed a sink after you’d used it. And ‘June’ was big on soap and water. She washed everything. She even washed vegetables before she cooked them. And you—you washed your hands. Did you ever wash your hands! These people never washed anything.
Way cool.
Marie handed me my sandwich—without a plate—and we moved into the living room to build a fire. Her mother wasn’t home and she was still allowed to build a fire!
She was good at it, too. She did it almost every day. First she put in the tinder and some newspaper. She was sure to show me—I guess at this point she’d noticed how clean I was and figured I needed lessons. Then she built a teepee out of the mid-sized sticks. She chose Norway Maple today. She said it was because it burned long, and because she liked the smell. She went back into the kitchen and returned with a bag of Al Capp’s Fries. We shared those as the fire got started.
I was studying the water stains on the 1920's-style wallpaper just as the school bus pulled up. It was a traditional bright yellow one—none of this newfangled orange stuff—and about a mile long. The noise coming from it was so loud it could have broken the sound barrier. To make matters worse, there was a lady with a blow horn on the thing telling everybody to stay back fifty feet. Hey! No problem! I don’t think anybody wanted to get closer to that thing than they had to!
I expected the bus to pull away at any moment, but it kept unloading. Hundreds and hundreds of the little buggers got off—like ants leaving a flooding ship.
"Gee. A lot of kids live in this neighborhood, don’t they?" I asked. I stared out the window and tried to imagine where they could all fit.
"Not really," replied Marie. "Just us—and my cousins, that’s all."
"Oh," I said. Maybe not as many kids got off as I’d thought.
Just then somebody kicked the front door open like it was a drug raid. They were all yelling and screaming at once—you’d think they’d just been let out on parole after a twenty-year stint. Everyone of them threw their backpack right where Marie had tossed her books. The pile was big enough to rival the annual tent sale at the Eastern Mountain Sports Outlet—only their stuff wasn’t that nice to begin with. It was all tattered and dirty and held together with safety-pins. It smelled of peepee.
The mob pushed right past me as though I wasn’t even there. They hit the kitchen like a sea of locusts—cupboards slammed, dishes broke. It was unbelievable!
"Are they this way every day?" I asked.
"Pretty much," Marie said. "But they’ll go outside in a minute." She looked tired. And a lot older, all of a sudden.
I felt as though I’d just witnessed the first of the seven plagues. She made no attempt to quiet the children or to straighten up after them.
"Well, I should be heading home now. Thanks for having me over," I said. "Next time you’ll have to visit me."
"Sure," Marie said. Her voice was flat and I could tell she was disappointed I was leaving so soon.
That evening my mother called to me when I came through the door. The smell of dinner wafted across the threshold as I hung up my coat in the entrance hall. I was sure to wash my hands before sitting down at the table and to place my napkin in my lap. I didn’t linger in front of the bonus episode of Alias Smith and Jones.
Instead, I spent the time on my science and history homework. I even put in a few extra minutes on algebra.
The Swan River Daisy
by Tom Sheehan
hester McNaughton Connaughton, aptly named for both sides of the family, landowner in the new world, squeezer of pennies and nickels at the very corpulence of coin, embarrassed at times by his own good fortune where his roots had once been controlled and ordained by potatoes and turnips or the lack thereof, gazed over the latest acquisition of a two-acre parcel abutting his prime abode and wondered how he could best utilize it. Mere coinage, he had early assessed, would apply the jimmy bar under Carlton Smithers and separate him from the land in their town of Saxon, not far from Boston. Carlton was old, alone, susceptible. It would be a piece of cake. It was, subsequently and as he had forecast, a swift steal, and papers and proper process moved the property under the shield of his name.
A big man in his own right, massive across the shoulders, Chester, even as a dreamer of large proportions, was given to talking to his father long gone down the pike, from a runaway case of pneumonia, to better pasture. The old gent had once called it “a greater kingdom and a lesser court.” Still civil in such matters, Chester addressed his father as “sir,” never once forgetting his manner of address. “Sir,” he said this day, “how can I best use this land? The farmer is no longer in me; no endless hours, no thievery of land and what it will allow to be taken from it, these I do not envision. What would you propose? I would by design do whatever you suggest.” On his porch, the sun wavering its heat across the width of the two acres, Chester transposed himself into his study mode.
Now it takes all kinds of beliefs to manage oneself in this world, and commerce or business demands certain of those beliefs come into the fate of a man. Chester heard his father say, in the same enigmatic voice, the same wonder of voice, the simple words, “Swan River Daisy,” the words a barely audible breath coming upon his porch, like an aside from forever. The long-gone old man had not entirely eluded him. A sense of trust redoubled itself in him as he heard the echo say again, from some parallax athwart the universe, “Swan River Daisy,” and repeating, “Swan River Daisy.”
Acceptance struck him. Oh, he knew that sun-yellow flower well, a hardy, deep-root grower that dispelled an easy pull of root work in the fall. One year a decade or so earlier he had planted the whole flower bed across the front of the old colonial house with the tenacious daisies, waiting for their yellow waves to unfold a day in May, a wave a teasing breath of wind could set to dancing, the daisies standing so tall. Both the blossoming and the root work came back to him in swift recall. Did the old man mean to have him construct a greenhouse on the property, to specialize in Swan River Daisies? Was that the evolution of the simple answer a soft wind had brought him across the field? Should he plant the whole field with such golden color it would attract tourists? Should he run horses, like roans and pintos, through the field, and to what end? What good means is such advice without fair and equitable interpretation?
At length, in this quandary, the sun nodded his head and closed his eyes, and the old man said again from off the porch yet at immeasurable distance, “Swan River Daisy.”
Came upon him eventually turmoil and noise and his daughter crying out to him, “Father! Father! Look, look at the field!”
Upon his new property sat the most gorgeous Mississippi paddle wheel steamboat he had ever seen. It was red and blue of color and proud in its bearing and was smoking at its single black stack. Bales of cotton, like pale brown dominoes, stood on the prow of its deck and the paddle wheel astern of it, like a huge radius, spun itself through slow, angry revolutions. But there were no passengers crowding its deck, no crew evident about its surfaces, no movement other than smoke in a single column drifting upward to dispersion and the paddle wheel only partly visible in its circular passage.
Boldly printed in large yellow letters against the blue hull was the name, “Swan River Daisy.”
In less than the passage of one hour he was nearly assaulted by the Building Inspector who had come in answer to neighbors’ complaints. “How did you get it here? Do you have a permit? Was there a building plan submitted to Town Hall before this traffic? I suspect, sir, that you have violated many laws and regulations and will be held accountable.”
Chester shrugged his shoulders. “I did not bring it here. How could I do that? It was just there. My daughter, in great confusion, yelled at me and said, ‘Look in the field.’ There it was.”
“Is that your field?” The inspector was indeed young, indeed officious and surly in manner, the way Chester looked upon him, and wore his hair long and uncombed.
“Yes, I bought it quite recently.” A pup is still a pup, Chester announced to himself.
“I suggest, sir, that this must go all the way to the Town Manager and the Board of Selectman. You, most likely, as I have said, have broken all kinds of rules. That plot is not zoned for business.” The inspector was young, snotty-nosed, arrogant in an imperial and puerile manner at one and the same time, and was shaking his head and pointing the most possible accusatory finger at landowner Chester McNaughton Connaughton, smarting at the surliness.
“What business is that, inspector? Chester could not bring himself to call the young man sir. That was reserved for his father. His father came from that distant point again, that far parallax, “Swan River Daisy.”
The wide-eyed young inspector, obviously not in on the other conversation, replied, from his haughty countenance, “Why, that of transportation, having a river boat, delivering cotton bales, obviously a horde of passengers who are below deck and gambling illegally.” His head shook in a fearfully authoritative manner, superior counsel judging the Swan River Daisy from his dais, and thus judging Chester McNaughton Connaughton.
“Delivering bales where?” Chester’s hands were on his hips, his arms like sails, a big man towering over the young judge in pants though not in robe.
“Why, the next port of call, perhaps.” The young man looked down past the fields the way one might look down river. Fluster, for the lack of another expression, came on him. “I must report this to higher authorities. I will call the electric and telephone and cable companies to see if any of their wires have been cut or disturbed. This is highly unusual. Improper displacement of utilities most certainly has been commissioned in this transport. Think of all your neighbors so unceremoniously impacted. Perhaps half the town. Why haven’t I been so informed?” In the most inquisitive gesture, he cocked his head to one side, a half smile at his mouth, as if to say you can let me in on this, and said, “How did you ever in this world navigate the underpass from the main highway? That seems quite impossible.”
“I suspect it does look that way, but I did not bring it here. I did not build it. I did not order it. I did not wish for it. And I assure you I know nothing about the underpass or the overpass or how it was, as you say, navigated.” Chester suspected there was in his own eyes a merry twinkle at this point. He consciously depressed the words, “Perhaps there’s been a change of tide.”
“But, sure as heaven, you are responsible for it.” The finger was wagging at Chester once more. “It’s on your property, sir, and you are therefore responsible. I hope you have insurance.”
“For what?” replied Chester, still hearing the far voice saying, “Swan River Daisy.”
“For the obvious damages you have incurred getting it here.”
“Getting what here?”
“Getting the Swan River Daisy onto your property, that’s what. I can read the name on the hull. I know what a Mississippi steamboat is, and a stern paddle wheeler for all that. You can’t fool me in these matters. I assure you I have read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I know about the big river and the boats. I even saw the movie, Tom and Huck and Becky in the cave. And Injun Joe.” A pause came upon the young inspector, jaw hanging slack, then a distant light came into his eyes as he stuttered in saying while pointing at the Swan River Daisy, “This… this, sir... this is not Saxonish. This is,” and he held his breath in proper caesura before he nearly shouted out, “Mississippian.” As he walked away, Chester McNaughton Connaughton saw a definite slump had accosted the young man’s shoulders.
In less than another hour a parade of men and two women came to Chester McNaughton Connaughton as he and his daughter Chadra were leaning on the fence that girded the new parcel of land…and the Swan River Daisy still puffing a thin line of black smoke, the wheel still turning mysteriously into the earth, and as yet no passengers or crew evident. Counted in that new audience were the Town Manager, the Town Counsel, the Board of Selectmen including two women members, three men from the Planning Board, an energetic member of the Appeals Board who was rapidly making notations on a pad of paper, and citing the length of the Swan River Daisy by use of a visimeter of a special sort. Every man was dressed in a black suit, white shirt and black tie and Chester, whispering to his daughter, said, “They look like hangmen if you ask me.” To which the daughter replied, “Especially the women in those deep-rose dresses, so ghastly.”
The Town Manager, bristling, holding forth in front of the small parade, addressed Chester McNaughton Connaughton. “My dear Mr. Connaughton, what is going on here?” With his hands on his hips he was still half the size of Chester, yet he had a round face, almost moonlike above the black tie, and deeply-set eyes continuously at measurement.
“This disturbance, this disdain. I was at a wedding reception. It is no mean fete to slip away from a wedding reception. I’ll have you know. I might have dishonored a constituent.”Chester reminded himself of the change of tide comment and thought well of it. “Do you seek passage, sir? Do you sail? Indeed, I do not, and do not contemplate doing so.”
“Is this your craft?” The Town Manager, whose name was Anton Swirling, said to Chester, and then smiled at the two ladies from the Board of Selectmen. He did not know which one he favored best.
“It is not my craft. It is not my boat. It is not my ship.”
“Is this your land?”
“We all know this is my land,” Chester offered, leaning back against the split rail fence. “I bought it from Carlton Smithers.”
The Town Manager smirked for the ladies once more. “At a ridiculously low price, from what I hear.”
“Would you have bought it at that price?” Chester said.
“That’s beside the point,” the Town Manager said.
“Precisely what I say,” Chester came back with. “It’s all beside the point. This is not my paddle wheeler.”
“If it stays here in your field, you will have to pay taxes.” In his affirmation, Anton Swirling was holding the hand of one of the ladies of the Board of Selectmen. He squeezed that hand as a sign of his authority and their potential. “That means property taxes, water fees, sewerage fees, all that apply to a place of business. The Assessors are at this moment coming up with a firm billing." He felt puffed and thorough and mightily superior.
“To what business do you refer?” Chester said.
“The business of commerce, sir. It is most evident that this craft is a business enterprise. My god, man, look at the piles of cotton bales on the prow of that craft.”
“Do you suggest that I have a cotton field where such cotton is raised?”
“Where you get it, sir, is your concern. Mine is that you pay the appropriate fees for running such a business.”
“If I offered you for the taking every bale of cotton, would you take them, for free?” Chester offered. Chadra Connaughton squeezed her father’s hand.
“What in heaven’s name would I do with bales of cotton? Where would I take them?”
“Your Building Inspector, whom I note did not return with you, suggested the next port of call, down river somewhere.”
“My god, sir, there is no river here.”
“That is precisely my argument, Mr. Town Manager. There is no river to properly run a business of boats. There is no next port of call. There is no place to deliver the goods of a business. There is nothing. This town has not supplied any services for such a business. And you wish to tax me on those conditions.”
“By god, sir, there is a boat in your field and you will pay taxes on it.” His voice was a few octaves up on its normal range. The lady of the held hand squeezed him back. He turned to the assessor still madly scribbling on his pad. “I want the whole business of this land sale scrutinized before this day is out. We will get to the root cause for all actions, mark my words. And once you have ascertained the proper tax billing, please present it to Mr. Connaughton.” He squeezed the lady’s hand and said, in his best manner, “And with a duplicate copy to me so that I can fully watch and control this situation myself, if I must say so.”
The parade of authority of the Town of Saxon walked off behind the Town Manager who strutted like a drum major at the head of a band.
Chadra Connaughton tugged her anxiety at her father’s sleeve. “Easy, child,” he said, “it will be fine with us. We have done no wrong.”
When Town Manager Anton Swirling woke in the morning and looked out his back window, hoping to catch the glint of the early sunrise, The Swan River Daisy, on due course, was crowding his whole back yard.
Guileless Relation
by
Shipra Sharma
Within minutes of my sitting down, surrounded by the luscious carved teak furniture, I heard from behind me the cadence of his husky boots—the way his hobbling teases the mosaic tiles below. I never asked him which aberrance in his bones had made him permanently awry below the waist, careful not to embarrass him if it was caused by wrong postures of lovemaking, or his mother’s carelessness while he was still cuddled in the womb.
Drumming my fingers on the wooden table I patiently waited for him, quenching the desire to turn around and pull him faster with my stare. I just prepared myself for what I would see—that bearded face which seemed a incarnation of an amateur sketch, with hair inside his nostrils long enough to curl, and elongated ears, from which the spiky gray bushes protruded and seemed to have their roots in his wrinkly forehead. I have always wanted to have his photograph framed and hidden in the chest, below the neatly folded embroidered coverlets, to which a middle of the night visit would be sort of an escapade.
He came and stood beside me, expressionless as always, and looked curiously at my fingers, as if the music they were composing shows Beethoven’s genius. Mozart’s fingers, I thought and folded them. He grimaced a little, as if he wanted me to compose this music perpetually, for him.
“Madam Ji.”
I looked up. Like a patient suffering from compulsive neurosis I couldn’t grasp his words unless I saw that movement in his throat, the saliva passing down intermittently like messengers sent to fetch thoughts.
“Somebody left this slip for you.” We exchanged the slip, avoiding touch, afraid of tainting the sanctity of this relationship.
“Coffee,” I said, disrupting his slavishly attentive stare. He didn’t move. I knew what he was waiting for. “Thank you,” I said, and he plodded away. He belonged to the coterie of those psychotic old men who get excited when women say “thank you.”
I opened the slip. It read. “It’s in your best interest to meet me at 7 pm. Tonight Alone, At pine and 4th.”
I looked at the far left corner where each swing of the kitchen door revealed the loud clanking, as though forks, knives and plates were devouring the men inside. He stopped at the door with the handle in his hand and hinge waiting to creak. He turned back to look at me and smiled, gathering the wrinkles of his cheeks closer to his eyes which retreated back further into their sockets as he did so. I too smiled, pressing my hand to my lips.
The rectangular piece of paper was wrinkled like a parched land, something resulting from repeated folding and staying too long in the trouser pockets. I rolled it diagonally and looked at the big black window glass at my side, a costly substitute for the kiln product, projecting my curly hair and young white face like a soul that people are passing through, unnoticed in the arcade. A word and two numerals: pine, 7 o'clock, and 4th triggered an uncontrollable adrenalin rush, pruning away the boredom and the guilt of returning the janitor’s salute with a yawn as I stepped in the cafe—a smug jostled by a serendipity.
Another shadow filled the glass, another soul who unlike me was smiling while people were passing through it.
“Madam Ji, coffee.” He placed it on the table looking at the folded paper caught in my fingers. Sometimes he beats me completely, suddenly surprising me with his coarse voice, as though he glided all the way here, or the floor had become soft hearted and no longer cried under his weight. But the sparkle in his eyes indicates the immense pleasure he derives when people don’t hear him coming, perhaps a hope that in spite of his hobbling his grandsons might allow him to play hide and seek with them.
“Would you like anything else with the coffee?” He didn’t wait for my lips to part or my chin to sway horizontally. It was just a duty to fulfill. He understood that one week can’t alter five years of history.
He hobbled back to the place where I can’t see him standing, but his black eyes could still devour me in morsels. In all these years I have never seen him attending any other customer, never heard his voice meant for ears other then mine, never seen him partake in the morbid curiosity that other waiters project towards me. Like he exists for me alone. A mannequin who breathes my exhalations and suddenly comes to life, and remains dead, frozen, till I reappear.
I read the note again. The black scrawled letters combined with the caffeine made me dizzy, dizzier than I have ever felt even after the most violent of binges. Suspense excites me, not like those electron transfers in dark halls where we sit for hours like silhouettes and willingly infuse our veins with this legal recreational drug; but the one which tinkers with our soul and promises a new life.
I wondered who I’ll be meeting at Pine? God himself? As he is the one who likes conundrums and has blessed my non-conclusive life with this non-conclusive note. This attempt by an anonymous to meet me. Or perhaps I’ll be meeting my own shadow, a duplicate devoid of my humanly defects: the monthly growth of nails, the snot occluding the passage to my life when cold grips me, and this need for sleep which pushes me towards forced unconsciousness. This note seemed a chance by God or the Devil to exchange sides with this new person I’ll meet. Or maybe it will be God himself occupying the table for me, bearing the harassment by waiters to place an order. All for me. Then I’ll lambaste him for what kind of person he has made me, and will plead with him for my metamorphosis into a more suitable self.
With the last sip lingering on my tongue I heard his movement; his shadow from the light bulb at my back silently climbed up my spine. I folded the slip back the way he gave it to me, marking the line between p and m.
He came and stood beside me. “Coffee good, Madam Ji?”
He spoke with humility, smiling through his yellow teeth, and looking at my fingers holding the slip. I nodded and handed him back the slip, which he carefully placed in his upper chest pocket, and tapped it twice, broadening his lips. It’s five years and he has never lost it even once. He has handed it to me on every Saturday and has never tried to comprehend why I requested this favor of him, to hand me this slip whenever I’ll come to his café, and never even accepted a penny for it. I heard him hobbling away with the empty cup and the money, leaving the coins I tipped him on the plate. Reluctantly, I pocketed the coins, feeling relieved as the cadence grew lighter on my back, as after years of laying supine the wind at last had touched my back and soothed all the wounds that posture gave me.
Don’t think such addiction to vicarious thrills is insanity. I am satisfied that at least I have a partner to accompany me forever in this madness.
The Elephant Man(delbaum)
by
Jack Goodstein
ut he doesn’t speak,” pronounced the portly producer trying to be reasonable.
“So? Speaking is everything?” The director mocked.
“Speaking is—”
On the stage, Mandelbaum, the speechless subject of their conversa. . .of their confrontation, his body and face contorted in what his imagination had told him was a flawless elephantine portrait of John Merrick, stood listening with anticipation. “Speaking is not everything,” he answered without words the rhetorical question, the whole very idea of the rhetorical question itself a reproof to the need for the spoken word.
“But the words of the playwr . . .be reasonable,” continued the producer, there is a text. The actor has to speak the—”
“Why?” interrupted the director.
“Why?” echoed Mandelbaum voicelessly.
“Can we not communicate through facial expression?”
Mandelbaum winked his approval. The director brandished his tongue in the direction of the producer.
“Body language?”
Mandelbaum clenched his body in a veritable explosion of unspoken words. The director moved menacingly towards the producer.
“Gesture?”
Mandelbaum raised a finger. The director raised a fist.
“But the playwright—” implored the producer trying his best to stem the tidal wave about to swamp them and their production.
“Mute eloquence,” insisted the director pointing with the elation of discovery to the figure on the stage, and then as if allying himself with that inarticulate voice swung out his fist in the face of the philistines who only heard with their ears. And as that particular face slumped to the floor, the director turned to the stage.
Mandelbaum feeling eyes upon him, an elephant of a man, reared his mighty trunk in silent blast: “I am not a man. I am an animal.”
The IKEA Paradox
by
Rob Rosenoney, come here!” screamed my husband from the bedroom.
“What?” I screamed back from the kitchen.
“Come quick!” he screamed, even louder.
In a panic, I rushed through our apartment, down the hall, and towards our bedroom. My husband is sadly accident-prone. Visions of severed fingers ran through my head as I raced towards him.
“What’s wrong?” I shouted, nearly out of breath, as I sped into the room.
“Look!” he shouted.
I scanned the carpet for bits of his fingers. I looked at my husband for signs of bloody gashes. I screamed at him, “What? What?”
“There! Look!” He was pointing madly at the TV.
“The TV? What’s wrong with the TV? Did you lose the remote again?” Besides being accident-prone, my husband has a propensity for losing things as well: car keys, his wallet, his wedding ring, and, frequently, the remote control.
“It’s on the fucking bed.” I said, angry with him for needlessly worrying me.
“No, not that. There!” He sounded desperate, so I looked at the TV again.
“What? It’s a commercial. What am I looking for?”
“It’s IKEA. They’re opening up a store in Emeryville,” he explained, beaming up at me.
“IKEA? That’s why my heart is racing? What’s the big deal?”
“It’s IKEA!”
“So you said. And?”
He looked up at me with a bewildered look on his face. Like I was supposed to know what the hell he was so excited about. My husband and I often have differing opinions on what constitutes exciting, but this one was way beyond my comprehensive abilities. He had never shown a predilection for IKEA or Emeryville before. I stood there clueless as he sat there grinning at me.
“Okay, I give. Please tell me why we’re so happy all of a sudden?”
“What’s wrong with this apartment? He countered my question with his own.
“You want a list?” I stood there, arms akimbo, and glowered at him.
The apartment was always a sore spot with us. San Francisco apartments are notoriously small. My husband’s apartment was just barely big enough for one person. When we met, and I moved in, we agreed that it would be a temporary thing, our living there together. But finding a vacant apartment in the city was about as easy as finding a needle in a field of hay. Especially an affordable one. So, five years later, there we were: happily cramped and resigned to the fact that we weren’t moving anytime soon.
“Okay,” he said, still smiling, “but what’s the one biggest complaint.”
That was easy. “No closet space.” Which was true. We had one small closet; and it wasn’t even a walk-in. Basically, we crammed all our belongings into whatever furniture each of us brought with us to the relationship. Nothing I owned was crease free. Finding specific clothes I wanted to wear was a huge headache. And we never, ever bought anything new. There simply wasn’t room for it.
“Voila,” he said, pointing again to the TV.
“What? Alpo? We’re getting a dog?” The commercial had changed; my husband’s demeanor had not.
“No, two armoires.” He practically beamed.
“From IKEA?” Now I was getting it.
“From IKEA,” he concurred, glad that I wad finally with the program.
“And where do we put two new armoires?” I asked, even more nervous now than when I was imagining rushing my husband to the hospital, his pinky nicely chilling in a bag of ice.
“Easy. We get rid of that small thing, that small thing, and that small thing,” he said, pointing out our old furniture, which was clearly brimming with our clothes and assorted accessories.
I stood there for a minute before speaking. It did make sense, what he was telling me. It would be wonderful to be able to hang my clothes up and actually be able to find them again. Still, a chilling sense of foreboding hung in the air.
“Well?” he asked.
“Weeeeell…okay. Sounds like a great idea.” I like to see my man happy. That definitely did the trick. He jumped up and hugged me and planted a big wet one on my lips. Who knew Scandinavian furniture could have such an extraordinary effect?
***
IKEA was much bigger than I expected. Almost a small city unto itself. I never needed a map to maneuver my way through Macy’s before. What if we followed the wrong overhead arrow? Would we end up in Stockholm? I was nervous, but still excited, nonetheless. I was getting some much-needed, new furniture, right? Visions of neatly folded t-shirts popped in my head. And my husband was clearly beside himself. So I pushed my worries to the back of my addled brain, and I happily smiled as my husband gleefully pointed to the home furnishings section that lay sprawling before us.
Okay. I hate to admit it, but IKEA really does sell some beautiful furniture. And it was all so large and practical. I would love to have had any of their reasonably priced furniture in our too-small apartment.
“Which one do you want?” asked my husband.
Crap, this was going to be hard. I wasn’t expecting so many viable options.
“That one!” I pointed, truly thrilled for the first time. It was an enormous armoire, made from beautiful, cherry wood. The doors were a translucent white material, framed in silver. And the inside had a long bar to hang a fair share of our shirts on. Centered below this, there were three deep drawers that would surely hold all of our underwear, and then some. On either side of this were three sets of shelves on the left side and three sets of shelves on the right side. And this was all in one armoire. I gladly imagined what we could store in two of these things. I was beginning to see why my husband was so excited about IKEA.
Until…
“How do we get these into our apartment?” I asked, my good senses finally returning to me.
“That’s the beauty of it, hon. They sell it so cheap because we build it ourselves.”
“We who?” I asked. “The last time you tried to hang a nail into the wall, you put a three inch hole into it.”
“That’s different. This stuff’s made for your average person to be able to put together,” he assured me.
I wasn’t so sure, but it was awfully beautiful and easily large enough to hold practically all our stuff, so, “Okay. Why not? But let’s get just one for now and see how it goes. We’ll come back for its twin if it’s as easy as you say. Deal?”
“Deal, sweetie. And don’t worry. This’ll be a snap.”
That hole in our wall was still there, but I smiled at my husband as he signed for our new armoire, anyway.
That’s where the snap stopped.
We were given our receipt and told where to go pick up our furniture. Seeing this wisely hidden area of IKEA was my first clue that all would not be “snappy”. There were endless rows of stacks upon stacks of incredibly long boxes. I gulped when I looked down at our receipt and saw that we’d have to find six of these boxes to fit on our huge, flat, rolling dolly. And I thought Costco was a pain in the ass. That was nothing compared to this. My husband and I painfully strained our aging muscles loading these monstrosities. I remembered that the Swedes were descended from the Vikings. That made sense. Who else could have lifted this shit?
I kept reminding myself how little we paid for it, as we wheeled our belongings up to our noticeably small car. That was the only thing keeping me smiling.
“Um, how do we get all this in the car?” I asked. Yes, we could have had it delivered, but that cost extra. Wasn’t the whole point of this to save money? I was beginning to wonder.
“We open the windows and have everything slightly hang out,” my husband answered, still oblivious to the consequences of going cheap.
Okay, that could work. And forty minutes later, after countless shifting and reshifting, we actually made all six boxes fit; though it hung out of the windows way more than I would consider “slightly”. I prayed that our fellow freeway drivers would see us coming and clear out of our way. We drove extra slow, just in case, and made it home in one piece—us and the armoire.
Now all we had to do was get it all out of the car, into the house, and built. Suddenly, my husband realized what we were in for. Our smiles were rapidly leaving our faces.
“New furniture!” My husband squeezed out one last ounce of jocularity.
“New furniture.” I mimicked, less than enthused. I hoped our marriage was strong enough to endure it.
***
I never realized how small our apartment really was until we tried to fit those six big boxes in it. Even with our old furniture gone, we had to put a few boxes in the bedroom and a few in the living room. How we were going to get all of it together and in one room was beyond me. I just had to have faith in my husband. I remembered what the minister had said: for better or worse, in sickness and in health. Too bad he never mentioned IKEA. I might have had second thoughts.
We stood there in our bedroom looking at each other, once the boxes were in place.
“Now what?” I asked. I could tell he had no clue. “The biggest boxes must be the outer frame. How about we open them first?”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
I didn’t think he was too happy with my suggestion. This was his baby, and I knew it.
“You know,” I suggested, “there really isn’t enough room in here for both of us and all of this. Why don’t I let this be your little project?”
The smile returned. I gratefully let him be. If too many chefs spoil the stew, too many inept carpenters surely spoil the armoire. Besides, I was glad for the peace and quiet of my still uncluttered kitchen.
Twenty minutes later, I heard, “Fuck!”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, after running through the house to check on him.
“Look at this,” he said, handing me the papers from within one of the boxes.
There were no words, just diagrams. I supposed IKEA was now all over the world and this was an easy way for them to standardize the process. I could tell immediately why my husband was so upset. The instructions were pages long and incredibly difficult to figure out. This was going to be a major undertaking. Fuck indeed.
“Want some help?” I offered.
Dejectedly he said, “No. I can do this.”
Thirty minutes later: “Honey, come here.”
Nervously, I walked to our bedroom.
“Wow. The case is done,” I said, as he stood there grinning. But then I noticed something. “Honey, what are those holes in the front?”
He looked down and I could see the creases in his brow start to form. He had the base on backwards.
“Fucking Swedes. I hate them. I hate their meatballs. I hate…I hate…ABBA. I hate…them.” I guess he couldn’t think of too many Swedish things to hate. I didn’t want to rub salt in the wound and remind him about the Volvo parked in our driveway. I quietly left the room. I don’t think he noticed. Poor man.
I started to make dinner to try and keep my mind off the turmoil that was surely ensuing in the other room. If patience was a virtue, my husband would not be considered a virtuous man. I’m sure the armoire was testing his limits. I was happy, another thirty minutes later, when I heard a gleeful, “Honey!”
“Nice,” I commented, upon entering and seeing the case done, correctly this time. “What’s wrong with your hand?” His hand was wrapped in paper towels.
“It’s nothing. Minor accident. Okay, back to the kitchen now.” I was being dismissed.
“Okay, sweetie, call me if you need anything.” Like a tourniquet or an ambulance or anything.
Ten minutes later: “Honey, where’s the power drill?” Uh-oh. I was afraid of that one.
“I thought all you’d need is a hammer and a screwdriver. Isn’t a power drill a bit…um…extreme?”
“You have to drill holes in the doors to install the door pull things.”
“Oh. At the store they looked like they were already part of the door,” I said, and regretted it immediately.
I could see he was counting to ten before he responded. “Please, just tell me where the power drill is.” I did and rushed back to the kitchen. I prayed our nice, hardwood floors would somehow miss being marred by that power drill. Better yet, my husband’s hand.
An hour later: “Honey!”
“Wow, the doors look great. It’s almost done, huh?” I smiled appreciatively at my husband. In truth, the door pulls were just slightly uneven, but there was no way I was going to make mention of it. Besides, the floors and his hands were still intact, so I was counting my blessings.
“Almost, just the inside stuff needs to be put together. I’d say…another half hour.”
“Would you like dinner first? It’s almost done.”
“No, this shouldn’t take long and I’d like to get it done.”
“Okay, sweetie. I’ll keep it warm for you. Great job, by the way.” He smiled, but went right back to his work.
An hour and a half later: “Honey!”
Thank God. I was starving by that point. But then…
“Oh, not done yet?” I asked, timidly.
“Close. Those bastards had three sets of screws that all looked about the same on the diagrams, but weren’t as interchangeable as I thought they’d be. Had to start over again midway through. Fuckers. Anyway, fifteen more minutes, tops, okay?”
“Sure sweetie, no problem. Take your time.” Poor thing.
Thirty minutes later: “Honey!”
“It’s beautiful!” I beamed. He beamed back at me. I didn’t mention the mysterious extra parts that were lying on the floor, or the several bandages wrapped around both this hands. And it really was beautiful. I couldn’t wait to put our clothes in it and be done with this whole thing.
Then I remembered: “What about the other one?”
My husband paused before answering. I held my breath.
“JC Penny’s. We’re only buying American from now on. Fucking Swedes. Now, what’s for dinner? I’m starved.”
“Hamburgers and fries, honey.”
Can’t get any more American than that.
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Drew
Laine Perry
Untitled
Laine Perry
Deep in the Heart of Jersey
K. Weiss
There Goes the Neighborhood
K. Weiss
Lone Buffalo
K. Weiss
Grandfather and I
K. Weiss
Brilliantly Waning
K. Weiss
Illustration
Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
Illustration
Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
Woman with Fan
Durlabh Singh
Reflections
Durlabh Singh
Shatetel Girl Michal Mahgerefteh
Pond
Michal Mahgerefteh
Field of Dreams Michal Mahgerefteh
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The Old Man's Tale
©1974 P. E. Boslet
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