Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
Every year, our street hosts a neighbourhood barbeque. We close off the cul-de-sac end of the street—down by the Jeffries—and set up two or three big grills for the meat. There’s a clown and games and face-painting for the kids, and there’s beer and fifty-fifty draws and Alice Kramden’s craft table for the grown-ups.
I set out on my morning walk with the dog—the same routine as always (what other kind of routine is there?)—pee on the front lawn by the road (the dog, not me), first by the granite boulder on the east side of the lot, then by the pole that supports the basketball hoop on the west side of the lot. Up went the hind leg, then out came a stream of deep yellow fluid.
You know how the song goes: “When you’re in love with a beautiful woman, it’s hard….” That’s how I’ve always felt with Suzanne. I try to hide it, but there are times when my insecurities emerge low in my viscera and refuse to go away.
Norm and I had been on vacation when Ed across the road from us took his spell or whatever it was he took that ended up killing him and left poor Thelma all alone in that big old house of hers. So, on account of us being in Wichita Falls at the time, Norm and I never had a chance to console Thelma or even bring her a casserole until three weeks after the fact.
If you’re gonna rat me out to my boss then you can just go fuck yourself. And besides … there’s no way on god’s green earth I’ll ever tell you what I’m doin’ home on a weekday watchin’ the Maury show. Oh ya, there’s Springer too.
I’ve lived in this neighbourhood for nearly ten years now. Not alone, of course; I have the requisite wife with her weekly manicure appointments, and the requisite dog with her poufy tail, and the requisite two point four children. Two of the children are easy to find.
Being the environmentally conscientious sort that I am, I went out to WalFart and bought myself a new push mower. Besides helping to reduce gas emissions, it’s good exercise running up and down the lawn with a push mower. Plus it doesn’t do a half bad job of cutting the grass.
It’s not like Otis Garvey is snooty. I don’t think he’s snooty at all. But he wears a plastic optimism that reminds me of an evangelist who smiles and grins and says it’s a lovely day even when the hailstones are chipping the paint off his car. So it gave me a secret satisfaction to watch Garvey open the letter from Nigeria and read it with a serious look on his face.
It’s amazing how different a bus ride can be depending on the time of day and the day of week. Ride the bus in the morning on a week day and it’s full of tired students on their way to high school and sober-looking grownups on their way to work.
The cop motions me over to the curb in front of number twenty-two. He’s a funny-looking creature in a Kevlar shell whose precise movements give the impression he’s still doing drills at the police academy. He skitters to the car as I roll down the window.
It’s a beautiful summer’s day, so I go to the park with a book tucked under my arm. There’s a mature shade tree—a willow—standing near a bend in the creek. Its branches arch high overhead in a broad canopy and their ends swing low, almost sweeping the ground.
They give me a green capsule and tell me it contains a radioactive isotope. I swallow it and wait in the reception area until they call my name and lead me to a special room. They leave me alone to put on a gown.