On the Rim

by Florida Ann Town

  Is it possible to become addicted to water? Everything else seems addictive. People used to have a “bit of a sweet tooth,” but today, they’re chocoholics. She wouldn’t be surprised if there was an association to help them kick their habit; CA, with its own twelve-step program. Athletes get high on endorphins when they work out. Nicotine addicts plug in a different set of chemicals.

  Ellen muses on a group to deal with “aquaholism.” She pictures herself, seated with fellow aquaholics, in a dimly lit room. Voices come clockwise around the circle. Soon it will be her turn.

  “My name is Bernice (she’ll use a fake name), and I’m an aquaholic. I snuck a drink from the fountain in the library while the librarian thought I was looking at books.”

  The light changes and she slides the red, domed bottle back into its holder. She sees it from the corner of her eye, as images sneak in where they don’t belong. The cylindrical shape poised under her crotch looks like a huge plastic penis. She squints until it turns into a harmless water bottle again, then pedals off.

  Her mind wanders while she rides. Her thumbs control the gear levers almost automatically now and her eyes swivel from side to side, checking the traffic ahead, beside, and behind her in regular sweeps, like the swing of a windshield wiper. She wears a little rear-view mirror on her helmet — the kind that looks like a dentist’s mirror and gives a glimpse of what’s coming up behind. It makes her feel safer.

  All this happens with no conscious thought, and the churning rhythms of her quads and calves take her to another level of non-thought. She feels like a passenger on the bike, no longer involved in what’s happening.

  Ellen watches things along the side of the road. Shoes. There’s a story about all the shoes beside the road. They’re all supposed to be left shoes. She never had time to check it out before, but there’s time enough when you’re on a bike to check out everything you see. They aren’t all left shoes. Oh, wait! They’re left — as in left behind. How dumb can you get? All this time she thought they meant left shoes, as in right and left. That’s funny. She’ll have to share that with the grandkids. See if they get it or, like her, think there’s a legion of unmated right shoes sitting around somewhere waiting for the other half of the pair to come home.

  There’s lots of broken glass along the roadside, along with a few pop cans and beer cans. And plastic bottles, like the ones that hold dishwashing soap. Where would those come from? Surely no one walks out to the car with an empty soap bottle to dispose of beside the road?

  The detritus of the roadside fascinates her. Bolts, screws, and metal washer rings are scattered like confetti. They range from truck-size to Smart Car–size. She expects them to be rusty, but most aren’t. She pictures them falling from obscure engine parts and dropping slyly by the road bed. Do their owners ever figure out what’s happened? Do gangs of black-market mechanics sneak around in the middle of the night, scooting on their backs on those little dollies, sliding up and down rows of parked cars, loosening bolts so the engines will fall apart?

  Snarls of tangled audio tape line the highways. She read somewhere that there are 250 feet of tape in a 90-minute cassette. Is that true? Does anyone ever re-roll these miles of tape and replay them? Which artists stretch the farthest along North America’s highways? How many cassettes does it take to go from coast to coast?

  Used Pampers line the ditches. Ellen corrects herself. She can’t say that. Pampers is a trade name and they might be other brands as well. To be politically, socially, and “advertisingly” correct, she has to say “disposable diapers.”

  Whatever. They clutter the roadside. Now that she thinks about it, she can’t remember ever seeing a cloth diaper beside the road. What does that say about people who use cloth diapers and people who use disposable diapers?

  On a more grownup note, there are lots of shirts beside the road. Mostly men’s T-shirts. Some look quite new. She has a quick flash of a young, hunky muscleman taking off his T-shirt, putting it on the roof of his car, and flexing his pecs for the benefit of passing motorists. He’s so hyped by his own exhibition he drives away and leaves the T-shirt on top of the car, to blow off and join the roadside collection.

  Other things appear — sheets of loose-leaf paper, scribblers — but no books. She’s never seen a book thrown out beside the road. She has seen lampshades, though. And garbage cans. Probably from do-it-yourself moving ventures; pickup trucks pressed into service as low-cost mini moving vans, with odd, lumpy shapes pressing out against billowing tarps. Sometimes tarps wind up beside the road, too.

  She’s leery of the cardboard boxes that squat defiantly in the middle of the lane, daring drivers to touch them. Most won’t. They swerve around the boxes, then glance in the rear-view mirror. The empty mouth of the box laughs at them. The boxes pose a hazard for her. Drivers will swerve to miss the box and hit the biker on the side of the road. Sometimes the box is beside the road and she has to cycle around it. She always touches it with her foot to see if anything’s in it.

  Boxes on the road remind her of a horrible story she read about in the newspaper — someone put unwanted kittens in a cardboard box and dropped it on the highway, where a semi-trailer ran over it and killed the kittens. Witnesses said it was lucky there were no children playing in the boxes or they would have been killed. Wasn’t it bad enough as it was? Those kittens actually died. They weren’t hypothetical deaths. Besides, no one would put kids in a box and dump them on the highway, would they?

  Something about pedalling sends Ellen’s mind into a strange, hypnotic mode. Long-forgotten memories drift up from the bottom of her mind. She talks with people, repeats conversations, and revises responses. No one can hear her. It feels good.

  Sometimes she talks to Al, but not often. They ran out of things to talk about long ago. Maybe that was part of the problem. He talked and she listened. Or at least she looked like she was listening. They used to enjoy reading the Sunday morning paper together. After breakfast, she’d clear the table and Al would hand over a section of the paper to read while they enjoyed a second (or third) cup of coffee.

  She couldn‘t remember when he’d started reading things out loud. It was sweet at first. He wanted to share things with her. Then it changed from being a commentary about an item to reading the whole story and grew until it seemed like he was reading the whole paper out loud. She was expected to make a response, so she had to listen. She felt like telling him it was difficult for her to read her section of the paper with him reading out loud. It also spoiled the stories for her when he handed that section of the paper over. There was nothing left to discover.

  At least she doesn’t have that problem anymore. She can read her paper in any order she wishes, without having to listen to someone talk at the same time.

  What makes her think of that now? Perhaps the pages of newspapers lying beside the road stir up that particular memory.

  Sometimes she talks to the kids while she’s riding, rehashing some of the old arguments. She laughs. Even with all the wisdom and culture she imparted, none became a Nobel Prize–winner. Probably just as well. Ellen’s fond of them just as they are.

  Lately she’s been going farther back in her memories, dredging up bits and pieces, things that still scare her and skulk on the borderless shadows around the edges of her mind. The truth is, she feels really ratty today. Biking isn’t fun. Reading isn’t fun. Nothing is fun today. She’s still upset from this morning. On the way to the library she passed the squashed body of a squirrel lying on the road. It couldn’t have been very old, probably just a few months, and must have been killed several days ago. It was stiff and dry and leathery-looking, with hair that stuck up in clumps. Its mouth was open, as though in an “O” of surprise when the tire ran over it.

  Why doesn’t someone move it off the road instead of leaving it there for everyone else to run over? Why didn’t she move it off the road? She couldn’t make herself touch it. She didn’t even stop. Now she’s ashamed of herself.

  “If it
’s still there, I’ll move it,” she promises.

  But she “accidentally” takes a different route home.

  — 6 —

  THE NEXT MORNING, ELLEN’S mind is filled with leftover dreams, strange, disturbing dreams. Not indecipherable surrealist images, but dreams filled with everyday things. In one, Ellen opens a door and their pet cat, Gulliver, runs in meowing and brushing her ankles, just as he used to. She feels the whispery-soft touch of his fur against her shins and her ankles tense as he passes by. She hears him meow with her outside ears, not the internal sound of dreams. It is so richly sensual, so real and so persuasive that she expects to find Gulliver sitting under her chair, waiting to be fed. She’s disappointed when she wakes and he isn’t there.

  It’s a beautiful day. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, but even that doesn’t make her happy. She doesn’t want breakfast. She wishes she still smoked. There would be comfort in the long, slow morning drag that used to open each day. Ease in watching the curling rings of smoke, the pleasant sensation of the cigarette between her fingers. A cigarette would bring her head back into focus. Her breath releases itself. It’s been years since she bought a pack of smokes, so there isn’t even a leftover butt to snipe. Ruefully, she opts for a ride, hoping to clear her head. Even as she pulls on her biking clothes, she knows the cigarette would have been better. Easier. More comfortable.

  When she finally sets out, the air is fresh and cool. Not cold, but cool. Birds chatter in tight rows along the telephone lines. Whatever it is they’re talking about, they’re so deeply engrossed in conversation that someone riding by, which ordinarily whirls them into the air in huge panicky flocks, drawing pictures against the sky as they wheel and change directions, doesn’t register today.

  Ellen’s disappointed. It’s wonderful to watch their swirling and swooping. How do they know when to turn? Somehow they do, and all wing over at the same time. They’re much better than human drivers. They don’t crash into each other and wipe each other out. They don’t have feather benders, or skyway pileups. There’s no air rage, no shaking of beaks and claws, no mid-sky collisions as they charge against one another, squawking and shrieking with anger.

  Her tires give a reassuring shush as she pulls up at an intersection, waiting for the traffic light to go through its choreographed sequence: left turn, amber arrow, green light, amber light, red light, left turn. The control box on the corner clucks before each change, like a broody hen deciding which chick to hatch. This crossing doesn’t have the audio signal that lets visually impaired persons cross. The audible traffic signals make different sounds. They chirp, bleat, cuckoo, beep, or whistle. She wonders how it would feel to face traffic with no vision. It must be frightening. Still, the different audio warnings must be confusing. She wonders why no one has standardized the sounds of safety.

  Traffic isn’t building yet. The few cars that go by are driven by people delivering newspapers or other things. Whatever happened to milkmen? Vegetable trucks? Paper boys? She remembers boys at school with paper routes. They hung out at the paper shack, after school, members of a select fraternity. No girls allowed. No hangers-on. Only boys, with their hands swirling rapidly over piles of fresh newspapers, folding them into hard rolls that they tossed, like batons, onto front porches as they wheeled smoothly by on their bikes. There are no paper boys now, only adults servicing routes in cars, with hundreds of papers to deliver in the early morning hours before most working people are awake. Who knows, she may soon be forced to find that kind of job. What seemed like sufficient money when the divorce settlement came through has dripped away at an alarming rate. She puts off buying things and is bitterly aware that her life is on hold. After struggling through the divorce, the depression, the rebuilding, things should get better. But the cosmic plan hasn’t kicked in yet. Instead, her rent is going up, and the utilities are following suit.

  She’s still replacing things in her kitchen. Every time she wants to make something it seems she has to buy something to make it with, on, or in. Muffin tins, cake pans, microwaveable containers. The list goes on and on. It’s time for a new tradition: showers for the newly divorced to help them replace a lifetime of accumulated goods.

  The residue of tension left by her dreams evaporates as the sun warms the day. Traffic thickens, almost unnoticed, like pudding just before it comes to a boil. Time to get off the road before the air turns solid with exhaust fumes and the noise level blots out the hum of her tires against the pavement.

  Starbucks, near the mall, opens early. Ellen decides to treat herself. It’s too early in the day for the jolting infusion of an espresso. She pictures a latte, heaped with frothed milk, dusted with cinnamon and raw sugar.

  Briefly, she thinks about buying a special coffee maker so she can have a latté whenever she wants. It would save a couple of dollars every time she used it. Crossly, she dismisses the thought.

  “That’s government thinking,” she tells herself. “Spend two hundred dollars to save $2.50.” Unlike the government, she has to either pay her bills or go bankrupt. This thought jolts her back to her original problem. Sooner or later she has to make a decision. What kind of job to get? What kind of work can she do? She still has a little leeway, a little stretch of freedom ahead of her, but it’s evaporating rapidly.

  She takes her latte outside, sinking gratefully into the green plastic chair that’s already absorbed comfortable warmth from the sunshine. Business people pass by, gulping their coffee as they head for their jobs, walking toward the still-locked doors of the mall where security guards inspect them before granting the minimum of open door required to get in. Others wait impatiently for coffee to go, in specially shaped mugs that slip into the cupholders of a car. Their shared deadlines generate a sense of camaraderie. This isn’t just a coffee shop, it’s a club to which they all belong.

  Ellen isn’t a member. She’s grittily aware of her bike clothes, in contrast to their office outfits. She’s in running shoes while they wear the latest, modish shoes. Beautiful boots. Stylish shoes.

  Sighing, she picks up a discarded newspaper and glances through the pages. The business section has been removed. She looks at the other tables. The business section is definitely the thing to read if you’re a member of this group. Forget it, she tells herself, crossly. Soon enough she’ll qualify to sit here in her status shoes and read the business pages. Today, she relaxes and enjoys the sun against her legs while she savours the cinnamon on her latte.

  There’s a little rush away from the coffee shop. Time to open the offices. Time to ready themselves to meet customers. Time to start the day. Like flights of little birds that whirl in midair on some invisible command, the coffee drinkers respond to a signal Ellen doesn’t hear.

  The busboy comes to clear the tables. He eyes her for a moment, then clears around her. Deftly. Silently. The silence triggers her memory. Why should silence bring back the memory of an argument?

  They were in the bedroom. Not for anything as interesting as sex. They hardly ever used the bedroom for that anymore. She was doing something mundane, like putting laundry away. Ellen doesn’t remember why Al was there. It wasn’t important. When she finished, she began making up the bed — straightening the covers, pulling the sheets tight, and fluffing the pillows.

  “You know, that’s one thing that really annoys me,” he stated, with no preamble.

  “What is?”

  “The way you make the bed.”

  She stopped to look at him.

  “You mean like I’m doing now?”

  He shook his head, a mean, grimy little gesture.

  “No. Like what you aren’t doing now. All you ever do is straighten it. You only make it when you put clean sheets on the bed.”

  She didn’t know what he meant.

  “I don’t understand. Are you saying you want me to put clean sheets on the bed every day?”

  He exploded in anger.

  “There you go again. You never listen to what I say!”

  “You�
�re wrong,” she said patiently. “I’m listening as hard as I can. I can hear your words, but I can’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

  “What I’m saying is that you never make the bed. All you do is straighten it.”

  “That’s something different?”

  “It’s a lot different. My mother used to make the bed properly every single day.”

  “So tell me how she did it.”

  “She took all the blankets off, took the sheets off, and shook them outside, in the sunshine, so they went back on the bed smelling nice and fresh. Not all stale from somebody sleeping in them.”

  Her mind started to giggle. She did that when the boys were younger and their beds smelled of old running shoes and farts. This didn’t seem the time to share that information.

  “Does the bed smell stale to you?”

  “Oh, forget it.” He spat the words out.

  “No, I’m serious. Is that why you’re telling me this?”

  “Just drop it. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  He stalked from the room, leaving her standing beside the bed, one corner of the spread in her hand, ready to flip over the blankets. She was confused. Now that he had worked himself into a snit he’d be angry if she unmade the bed and did what he wanted. If she didn’t make it properly, he’d be resentful.

  She stripped the bed. She’d change the linens. It would be an excuse to make it “properly” without triggering another round of argument.

  Sitting at Starbucks, enjoying the sunshine, with the taste of latte coating the inside of her mouth, she can’t believe that argument actually happened. Nor can she believe she responded as she did. She gropes inside her mind, looking for a word to describe her behaviour. There isn’t one. What do you call someone who’s afraid to make a statement, any kind of statement?