by Rick R. Reed
She put her hands on her hips and shut her eyes, trying to will the anger someplace far, far away, perhaps into one of the cornfields on the outskirts of town. Maisie took several slow and measured breaths. She told herself she could just walk out of her adult son’s room and added, very unkindly, that if he got really hungry, he could lick the soup from the wall.
“Jack, honey—” she started but sucked in the words with a little cry as the plate upon which she’d put one perfectly toasted grilled cheese with a dill pickle garnish followed suit and shattered against the same wall as the soup.
She stared at the mess on the wall, the shards on the shag carpeting, and the aroma rising from the carnage, which, Maisie had to admit, smelled delicious.
It might have been easier if Jack would say something, but Maisie knew by now that her son communicated with actions. The last time he’d truly spoken at any length was before…Well, she didn’t think about “before.” It was too painful. But just the thought of the memory was enough to keep Maisie’s anger in check. She didn’t know how much longer she could pull off that little magic trick, but for now it worked well enough for her to do what she needed to do.
Jack, on his bed, lifted the remote from next to the pillow, aimed it at the TV, and turned up the volume on the cooking show he was watching, Barefoot Contessa. Maisie snorted. Jack loved the Cooking Channel and the Food Network yet could barely be coaxed to eat.
She squatted down to begin picking up the broken crockery, piling the Fiesta ware into her apron, and tried not to cry. She hazarded a glance at her son and wondered where the strapping and handsome blond young man she had raised had disappeared to. What lay on the bed, in a pair of stained gray sweatpants and a Steelers T-shirt that reeked of BO, was a stranger, a wraith, a grown man who was over six feet tall yet probably weighed less than 130 pounds. It broke Maisie’s heart.
She got to her feet, holding the apron, full of its broken soup bowl and plate, out in front of her, and managed to waddle out the door. In the kitchen, just down the hall, she emptied the apron into the wastebasket under the sink, being careful that no tiny sharp pieces clung to the apron. She found a plastic bin under the sink and brought it out to fill it with hot water, to which she added a little dishwashing liquid. She stooped again to find a scrub brush.
She returned to Jack’s room and cleaned up the mess. The carpet and wallpaper were stained. This wasn’t the first time Jack had made his displeasure known in such a graphic way. But at least if she cleaned it up, Maisie didn’t have to worry as much about attracting bugs or unpleasant smells.
As she was scrubbing the rug, the cat, Regina, an imperious ginger tabby, wandered in, perhaps attracted by the smell of cheese. She glanced over at Maisie briefly, as one would look at a servant, Maisie thought, and then hopped up to join Jack on the bed. He didn’t look at the cat, but he lifted a hand to rest on her head.
And Maisie felt a stab of jealousy, irrational as it was.
She blew out a breath and looked over at Jack, tried to engage him, if only for a moment. If he would simply look at her, she thought, all would be forgiven. Why, she’d even smile.
But he wouldn’t. It seemed like it had been years since he’d given her so much as a glance, even though Maisie knew that couldn’t be true, that she was just exaggerating. But ever since he’d holed himself up here in his boyhood bedroom, it had been like her son Jack had died, despite the breathing skeleton on the bed. That guy bore no resemblance to her son.
She sat down at the foot of the bed and glanced at the TV. Ina Garten was talking about adding “good” Dijon mustard to her potato salad. Was there a bad kind? Maisie wondered. She touched Jack’s foot beneath the blanket, and he yanked it away.
“I should have given the grilled cheese and soup to Regina. She’s not so picky. Are you, girl?”
Maisie reached out to scratch the cat behind the ears. Unlike Jack, the feline didn’t move away from her touch, but it seemed to Maisie that she merely tolerated it.
Maisie sighed. Outside the bedroom window, the day wound down into dusk, filling the too-close room with a murky, filtered light. Soon, she knew, it would grow dark, and Jack’s once-handsome face would be illuminated by the flickering bluish light of the television.
Maisie said softly, “You want some eggs? I could make you an omelet. As you know, I’ve got cheese. And I think there’s a little ham out there.”
And he deigned to speak. “I’m fine. Go to work.”
Maisie glanced down at her watch and saw that it was already getting on toward six. She worked nights as a cashier at the racetrack in West Virginia, across the river. It was monotonous and boring, but the pay was okay, and the racetrack was one place in the area that still paid its employees benefits. Still, every time she left the house, she worried about Jack.
Worried that he would harm himself.
Worried that he would kill himself.
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried.
She began to think about that other Jack, the one who now seemed like a character from a movie or book. The one who had lived in Seattle, in a high-rise in a neighborhood he referred to as Belltown. Maisie had never had the chance to go out and visit him, though she’d been planning a trip for the spring. But spring came after the winter, and that winter was when everything had gone to hell in a handbasket. Jack had been a rising star at the civil litigation law firm where he was a junior attorney. That other Jack had once confided in her that he wouldn’t be surprised if he made partner within the next five years.
And then, one night on Pike Street, it all went to shit.
Maisie shook her head. No, she wouldn’t think about that. What was done couldn’t be undone.
Before, she wouldn’t have believed it if someone had let her in on the paradoxical possibility that a person could be killed, yet still breathe.
But now the truth lay right before her. Even though she knew he hated to be touched, she squeezed Jack’s toes beneath the covers, then quickly withdrew her hand.
She stood. “You’re right. I’m going to be late, and Lord knows I can’t afford to lose my job.” She chucked mirthlessly. “Then we’d really be up the proverbial tree without a paddle, or something like that.” She shook her head and wandered out of the room.
There was no point in telling Jack what was in the refrigerator. He wouldn’t eat anyway.
* * * *
Maisie knew it was a filthy habit, one that would more than likely kill her one day, but she could never seem to completely shake the comfort she found in a pack of Marlboro Lights. She tried to hide her habit—no, addiction—from Jack and kidded herself that she succeeded, because he never said anything as he would have once upon a time, but she knew the smell clung to her hair and clothes. She shrugged and tried to rationalize. She had a hard life, and if this one vice made things just a little more bearable, then her lungs would simply have to forgive her.
She stood dutifully twenty feet away from the main entrance to Rock Springs Racetrack and indulged herself. So far this winter it had been unseasonably warm, but the night had taken a nasty turn, and Maisie wished she’d brought her sweater along. She was like so many of her pathetic fellow workers out here, shivering, huddled around a couple of cement ashtrays, all of them staring at their phones and scrolling as they tended to their addictions.
Maisie was no different. She was looking at the area Craigslist, because she made it a habit to check out their free listings every day. On account of her regular perusing, she had her sofa in the living room, a chest of drawers in Jack’s bedroom, and the little thirteen-inch portable she kept on a counter in her kitchen, to mention only a few of her finds.
Tonight, though, something compelled her to look at the help wanted ads. Maybe it was boredom. Maybe it was with the hope that there was something new and exciting out there for her. Yeah, right. In spite of her low expectations, one job posting did jump out, but not because it offered something she’d be suited for. It just jump-started anothe
r wish lying dormant in her unfulfilled heart. Some rich couple in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh was searching for a personal chef, “someone familiar with the Paleo lifestyle,” whatever that was. Wouldn’t that be nice, though, to have your own personal chef? Maybe someone could cook for Jack and he’d actually eat? She snorted at the thought. Like she could afford such a luxury on her take-home pay.
“Looking for a new job?” June Cumberland, a cocktail waitress in the bar, sidled up alongside Maisie. Maisie had known June since high school back in the ‘60s. June was like a cat, in that she could sneak up on you without making a sound. Maisie gave out a little cry and dropped her cigarette. She glared at June, who returned the look with a Cheshire cat grin, as though startling Maisie had been part of the plan. Maisie didn’t just resent June for sneakiness either. June somehow managed to look decades younger than Maisie. She’d frosted over the gray that Maisie refused to hide, but damn her, she still had the same curvaceous and petite build she did when they were cheerleaders back in the day at Fawcettville High. Maybe Maisie would be thin too if she subsisted on cigarettes and vodka.
Maisie tried to wipe the glare off her face and replace it with a smile. She told herself June was just being friendly. Maisie wouldn’t have been so startled if she hadn’t been lost in thought about how to make her wasting-away-to-nothing son eat. She glanced down at the half-smoked cigarette on the ground and debated whether to pick it up. Good Lord, Maisie! Have some dignity! But the damn things were expensive, inching up to ten bucks a pack. Sighing, she pulled another one out and lit up. She watched as June fired up one of her unfiltered Camels.
“No. Why would I look for another job when I have heaven on earth right here at good old Rock Springs?”
“Can’t imagine.” June picked a bit of tobacco from her tongue. And that was another thing that pissed Maisie off. June smoked like a fiend, yet her face remained dewy and unlined, while Maisie was approaching cronehood, with lines around her mouth she knew wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for the cancer sticks. June took another puff, did a French inhale, and then said over her exhale, “Or maybe it’s because I could see you were looking at the help wanted ads.”
Girl, you had to be looking awfully close to see that, Maisie thought but didn’t say. “Ah, just checking things out. Saw one on there from some rich folks up in Pittsburgh, looking for a personal chef. Hah! Can you imagine?”
June shook her head. “My Butch loves my cooking.” She hacked out what passed for a laugh. “And my lovin’.”
She winked at Maisie, who grinned, even though she knew that Butch was just one in a long line of live-in lovers for June, who could never seem to settle on just one. June was single, childless, and sixty.
Maybe June knew something Maisie didn’t? She quickly admonished herself for even having the thought. She sighed. “Actually, I was thinking it would be nice to have someone come in a few nights a week and cook supper for Jack. He seems to hate everything I know how to make. Plus the fact that a cook would be a little company for him. I hate leaving him alone to come here.”
“So why don’t you do it?” June asked with the air of someone who lived alone and didn’t think twice about leasing a new car every year.
“Oh, right,” Maisie laughed. “Like I could ever afford something like that.”
“Hey, hon, everything’s negotiable. And it doesn’t cost a cent to place a Craigslist ad.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “How do you think I get half my men?”
Maisie didn’t want to know.
“Anyway,” June went on. “You could try, you know, based on what you could afford. A couple nights, maybe you supply the food, stuff you’d buy anyway. Pay ‘em minimum wage for a couple, three hours. It’s possible.” June shrugged and dropped her cigarette to the ground. She extinguished it with a black patent leather spike heel. Yet another reason to hate her, Maisie thought, looking down at her own worn and sensible flats. How did June work all night on her feet in those things, anyway?
“I’ll consider it,” Maisie called out to June as she headed back inside. She didn’t believe she would, but she found herself thinking of little else the rest of her shift.
After all, what could it hurt to try? She had nothing to lose, and maybe she’d gain something.
Later, though, as she walked to her car in the employee parking lot, she shook her head and said to the starry and bitter cold night sky, “Delusions of grandeur, Maisie. Delusions of grandeur.”
Chapter 6: A FROG and a Really Bad Job Prospect
It was hard to believe two weeks had passed since I’d returned home. Christmas was just around the corner. Our first snowstorm dumped four inches on us and promptly melted the next day. I never thought I’d come to call Fawcettville home again, but it just goes to show that life was nothing if not unpredictable.
I never thought my gay marriage would end in a gay divorce.
What was so gay about that?
It almost felt like I’d been here forever. With apologies to Thomas Wolfe, I say that you can go home again—it’s just smaller than you remember. There was this sense that I’d never left. And I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or something that should have sent me screaming off into the night. But it was like my roots, ripped out when I was a young man, just took footing again and established themselves as though I’d never been gone.
So to catch you up, I found myself a place to live, which wasn’t easy in a tiny industrial river town of 8,000 or so souls. I mean, they don’t exactly build apartment complexes here. After looking at several small houses that all had the misfortune of being decorated in the style of The Brady Bunch, I turned to the trailer courts on the outskirts of town, but renting there, as Mary Beth reminded me, would only put me in close proximity to meth dealers and cookers. My sister seemed to have meth on the brain, but I understood the preoccupation—there wasn’t exactly a lot to do here. I mean, besides Walmart, which was truly the social hub of Fawcettville. You could not only get your every heart’s desire—unless it was meth—at the superstore, you could also run into old high school classmates, teachers, and neighbors from decades ago, as I quickly learned.
I was growing a beard and had purchased a baseball cap and aviator sunglasses on a recent trip. Strolling down memory lane was not one of my objectives in coming home. I wanted an escape, not a reunion.
But finding a place to live was, as I was telling you before I got sidetracked, challenging.
I had just about given up and was considering murdering my niece, Grace, so I could take over her room and live with Brad and Mary Beth forever when I came upon the following headline in the housing ads on Craigslist—and why does it seem life, good and bad, revolves around these online classifieds? When did that happen?
Prince or Princess Charming Wanted for FROG
Who could resist reading on with that headline?
My FROG (finished room over garage) needs someone to kiss it and turn it into it a home. Super clean with attached bath and kitchenette, this FROG even has its eyes on the Ohio River. Fully furnished (and by fully, that means including not only furniture but also linens, towels, dishes, silverware, and all pots and pans), all you need to do is show up with a check for first month, a security deposit, and your clothes, and you can kiss this FROG and call it home.
In spite of the metaphor being a little labored (a little?), the ad made me laugh. And the best part was they were asking only $300 a month, including cable and electric. I had enough in the bank that I could live for quite a while without working, if I chose not to.
More on that, and more on Craigslist, later.
The ad had been posted six days prior to my seeing it, so I figured it would probably be gone. But I called the number anyway and was surprised when a woman with a southern accent answered on the second ring. Her voice fairly dripped with honey, and I wondered if I had been magically transported to Alabama rather than northwest Ohio.
“I’m calling about your FROG,” I said, ex
pecting her to laugh.
“Well, thank goodness! I was beginning to think no one would ever kiss my FROG.”
“I don’t know about kissing it, but I would like to take a look at it.”
That sent the woman into peals of high-pitched laughter. Yes, sir, I could imagine her thinking, you just about made me bust a gut over here! I didn’t really think it was all that funny myself.
“Well, sir, what are you doing right now?”
I looked around Grace’s room. There was a pile of dirty laundry at the foot of the bed I was about to get started on, but since the underwear was relatively clean for today and I really needed my own home, I said, “Nothin’.”
“Well then, you just get yourself right on over here! I’m on the River Road at—” She caught herself. “You’re not a serial killer or nothin’, are you?”
She laughed, but I could tell there was some seriousness behind the question.
“No. I would be, but I found I don’t have the stomach for it. I cut my finger and just about pass out when I see blood.”
Again, you’d think I was Louis C.K. or some other comic, the way she chortled. She gave me the address, and before I knew it, I was on my way.
* * * *
“What is that?” My southern gal, a surprisingly young, fresh-faced, and black-haired beauty, pointed at the smart car from her front porch. “Are you driving a go-cart?”
“No, it’s a smart car,” I explained. I walked up the gravel driveway, my hand extended. Before me was a large house covered in mint-green aluminum siding. I admired the attached double-car garage, wondering if I would soon be calling it home sweet home.
“Smart, huh?” she asked, as though she begged to differ. “Well, I guess it’s good on gas?”
“Fabulous.” I mounted the front steps up to the porch, which had a black wrought iron railing, Astroturf carpeting, and an honest-to-goodness aluminum glider that reminded me of my grandma, God rest her soul. I clutched the woman’s hand. “I’m Beau St. Clair.”
