by Mark McCann
“So she has actual breasts?” Katie asked enthusiastically.
“Yes,” I wanted her to not pursue this. “I’m sure a bank account’s worth of work had been done. And it’s not exciting on any level, I’m sure on some level, for someone, obviously – look, we in this room are not excited about anything to do with this,” I sighed. Katie looked at me almost apologetically, and placed her hands on my leg. She was smiling faintly. I knew the reason would likely hurt my pride or disagree with me on some level; but I smiled faintly back anyway before I exhaled a weak and weary, “What?”
“Not that it makes any difference, but I think that she is actually a transsexual or maybe transgendered, not positive, but I think a transvestite just, um, cross-dresses, I’m almost positive, maybe,” she smiled like it lightened the load. I stared like my stare was crushing her.
When her smile had left, and I had given it more thought, I said, “I somewhat finally have a routine in my life, but this drunken father and transvestite or transsexual girlfriend thing is, I think, kind of ripping through my stomach lining. I am electively naïve and innocent, and that is something that has worked out wonderfully for me in life. But this, today, holy bountiful offering of crap, it was like I was in a serious business meeting and I didn’t know how not to bump people in the face with a shovel that had poop all over the end of it, you know, that kind of awkwardness. I was squeamish, I was in awe. I was just, I don’t know, floored. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out exactly what I should have said or should have been doing, and I don’t think I did or said anything at all, nothing important anyway. And my dad, ahoy crap fuck, he passed out three seconds after I got there. Right in the living room, right against the wall,” I shook my head.
“Oh Lewis, that’s alright,” Katie reassured me, “I think you are allowed to feel and react however you feel and react in that sort of situation.”
“I stared at her breasts,” I said slowly, not sure if I was confessing or just trying to talk my way away from the memory. “I didn’t mean to, but they were just, it was…” I shook my head, “I felt like I was trying to crack a code or something, you know, it was like, okay, that’s good, establish eye contact, okay, good, hold it, now figure out what’s going on beneath her chin, abort, abort, you’re looking, you’re looking. They were the boobiest boobs that ever did boob. I mean it; they were just so out in the open. You know what I mean? If she went that far to get people to look at them, what the hell would she do if they didn’t? It’d be like me standing dangerously close to you, pointing at your eyes, saying, why are you looking at my finger?! He was all show and no tell.” I shook my head. Katie looked at me sympathetically and began to rub my back.
“Her,” she corrected me. “Oh, so,” she paused for effect, “is that why you wanted to do it when you got home? I mean, staring at boobs all night,” she giggled.
I laughed gently with her and shook my head slowly, “No,” I answered, “I just wanted to do it one more time before I divorced you.
“Oh, I see,” she said with a giggle.
“Actually I’ve been thinking that a hobby could really do me some good. I was also thinking that nothing really beats the commitment O.C.D carries, and now I’ve just got to establish the best possible pattern for it. That’s all that was, just trying to set up a good routine. So, um, now that you know it’s for a good cause and all…” I tilted my head with a smile. She pushed me off the bed to my feet.
I left to use the washroom and to brush my teeth. When I came back into our room she was done with her reading and was just waiting. “I set the alarm for you,” she said.
“Thanks.” I lifted the blankets to get in beside her. She kissed me and then shut the lamp off. My head swirled and my mind stumbled. I knew it would go on and on and bump into everything in the darkness behind my tired eyes. The room was silent now aside from our breathing, until I said, “Stupid boobs.” Katie giggled.
We both were laying quietly in the dark. It seemed when I moved, she moved. For some reason it was a restless night for her too, which was rare. Usually it was just me still awake, trying to turn everything off and shut myself down. I was lying on my back. I turned my head and could just see her silhouette in the light from the alarm clock. She turned her head and I could tell she was looking at what she thought was me as well. I was pretty sure by how the lines rose along the shadow of her face that she was smiling.
Whether she could tell or not, I smiled back, and said in a whisper, “I’m awake, you’re awake; that counts as foreplay.”
In a soft and sultry voice that I didn’t think I knew she had, she answered, “That was a good one.” I felt her leg slide over me, followed by the rest of her body. I was taken by surprise.
Chapter 10 … Dummy dum dum dum
About mid-shift I was paged to the office. When I arrived there I was offered the one and only seat in front of the boss’s desk. I declined and then sat there anyway. He relocated a piece of paper that he’d been giving his attention to and took up a new one that obviously had been designated for me.
“I have to give you a written warning for missed time.” He looked up.
“Oh yeah,” I said rather acceptingly, “didn’t know I’d missed that much time.”
He blinked at me, then his computer screen, and ran his finger sideways along it, “Well, it’s not so much that you have missed a lot of time, but you didn’t fill out the paperwork for it.”
“Do you mean like a written apology?”
His face said, don’t do this to me, while his mouth said, “No, you need to fill out a Personal Leave form.”
“Oh… so I request a sick day?” I asked. Seeing as I was unable to rise above the stupidity; I figured I would at least match it. The room then seemed to become little bit smaller and I wasn’t sure if he had just sighed or shuddered.
“Any time you miss a day you need to get this form and you need to fill it out and hand it in along with any supporting documents.” He spoke as though all he had wanted was for me to have said, oh okay. His tone was one I that felt was begging to be spurred on to see where how we would end up when it finally lost its legs and hit the ground. The truth almost always sprung up at that point; mad as hell and breached with the truth just pouring out.
He was speaking in a tone that I felt needed to be spurred on. Mostly because I knew he was but a little encouragement away from saying what he really wanted to. For some reason I wanted the truth no matter how turbulent it was going to make the moment.
“Supporting documents,” I said like I simply didn’t know anything and part of his job was to explain it all to me.
“Yes, like a doctor’s note,” he said calmly.
“Okay, so can’t I just fill this stuff out now?”
“No, it has to be done right after.”
“Oh, um, but don’t we give a reason when we call, or does this replace that?” I asked and wished for drool to fall from my face to show exactly how far from reason I thought we’d gone.
“You still have to call, and then you have to fill this form out as well.”
“Oh, I see, I guess. Do we do that because extra stuff is fun? And I didn’t know that; can’t I be cut some slack?”
“No, I’m sorry but the policy was changed and the changes were posted in the hall,” he explained sternly. He began to twitch and make needless hand gestures which I took to mean his patience was on the verge of failing. He had these sheets and the computer, look; fingers and a pen.
I tilted my head like I had an objection, “Posted in the hall, but I’ve never been in the hall.” Logic no longer applied. I resented him for introducing me to yet another moment that seemed to be working against me. As far as I was concerned I had just appeared there in his office. “Plus,” I added slowly, “I don’t read anything in hallways anymore; my mother ruined that for me. In the front hall of the home I grew up in, she had up all these arts and crafts with little plaques and tiny banners printed with stuff like, ‘If love was a gard
en, I’d pick you as a friend.’ Yeah, well that was that, no more reading anything on the wall in a hall for me.” He began blinking more rapidly and sputtered a few incoherent things before stopping to stare at me. He looked at me like I was applying mayonnaise to my forehead. “So the company’s vindictive now?” I asked with a tone that suggested I was either surprised or impressed.
He shook his head, “Of course not,” He continued shaking his head like he was making up for the times he hadn’t earlier. “Why would you say that?” It seemed he was running out of things to say.
I joined him and shook my head, “I just don’t think it makes sense; we’re still entitled to sick days, right? But now we have to apply for them and the company decides if they count or not and, ultimately, if we’re penalized or not? It’s like they’re almost breaking the law, but not quite yet, so it’s okay for now. It just seems weird to me. I don’t get why the company treats me like an idiot, yet I’m not entitled to the benefits of being one.” I raised my eyebrows like I may or may not have made a valid point. His mouth opened but nothing followed right away, so I got up and walked my tired body back to my tiring job.
Chapter 11 … D is for dinner
I was in the bathroom doing up my pants when Ding Ding came running down the hall and around the corner. I washed my hands, dried them and turned to face him.
“My foot is not a robot,” he said, with an amount of concern I couldn’t quite weigh, but thought any really was too much on the subject, especially for a three year old.
I shook my head and exhaled dramatically, “No, big guy, your foot is not a robot. Where’s Knuckle Butt and what on earth are you watching out there?”
My phone beeped with a text from Katie: what does cad stand for when it’s a cause of death? a friends mom died of it.
I replied: she either died of coronary artery disease or she got control alt deleted.
“I don’t have red eyes, I have white eyes,” Ding Ding said triumphantly.
“Actually, you have blue eyes,” I said and smiled, proud of how weird he was. My mouth had the taste of coffee all through it so I thought I’d brush my teeth. Knuckle Butt had now come to see what his brother and I were up to.
“Yeah, that’s right, I have blue eyes,” Ding Ding repeated, and nodded his head before stuffing his blanket into his mouth and walking away. Knuckle Butt stood staring at Steven, our Chinese Crested Powder Puff, er, I mean, our German shepherd. He was raising his eyebrows at him – or maybe it was to himself and Steven just happened to be there.
I stood in the washroom with a mouth full of mouthwash.
Knuckle Butt pointed at the sink, “Spill it,” he said, with W sounding L’s.
I spit out the mouthwash and laughed. “Okay, big guy, let’s get Ding Ding and see what we should do, eh?”
Before I was even in the hall, Ding Ding was back with his blanket bunched under one arm and his bottle in his hand. “You’re not going to eat me, I’m too big for your mouth,” he said with poor grammar and a hand held up to his mouth to indicate this statement to be literally true.
“No, I am not going to eat you.” I made it sound like I was a little disappointed.
“Knuckle Butt,” I said “where’s your milk?”
“Nnoo,” he shouted.
“What do you mean, nnooooo,” I replied, stretching mine even longer. I made my way by them, gently patting each of them on the head.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you stop yelling at me?”
“Oh, can you only say that when I am yelling at you? And, even then, it might not be a good idea.”
“I’m not a little giraffe.”
“I know; you’re a monkey.”
“No, I’m three.”
“Three? How on earth did you get to be three? Weren’t you two yesterday?”
It wasn’t so much what I was saying, but rather how I was saying it that had him laughing really hard. I was exclaiming everything as though I just could not believe it at all.
A serious expression formed on Ding Ding’s face, “Nukkobutt is the biggest baby I know.”
I nodded my head. “Me too,” I said ambitiously, “and Knuckle Butt is the oldest baby I know: since he’s two.”
“He’s not as small as a raisin.”
“I’m not going to argue with you there, Ding Ding. Knuckle Butt is totally not as small as a raisin,” I said to him with my face now very close to his. I rubbed his cheek, and smiled. “You are very smart.”
I had knelt down to tidy up some of the boys’ books. Ding Ding came running at me and jumped onto my back. “Your back is not a ladder,” he said into my hair. I removed him, and gave his bum a light pat.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?” I said, while I was helping Knuckle Butt retrieve a car from under the couch.
Ding Ding pointed his sippy cup at my face, “You just need a drink,” he said, “It won’t hurt you.”
I laughed, and kissed him on his cheek. “Well, thank you,” I said to him, my face close to his, “but that’s okay. That’s your drink; I have water up on the counter.”
“Daddy?”
“Yes?” I asked, feeling myself begin to unravel.
“I want some dinner,” and at that he went up the stairs and climbed onto his chair at the dinner table. He looked at me, then at the television.
“Okay, of course,” I smiled at him, “but what do you say?”
“Say please can I have some dinner?”
“Thank you, and, yes, you may. What would you like?” I asked since it had been his idea, and raised my eyebrows at him expectantly.
“I want some dinner,” he repeated.
“I know that, but what do you want for dinner?” I said.
He looked at me, then said slowly, “I … want … dinner.”
His brother was pushing his car along the coffee table in the living room, driving it off, saying, ‘Oh no.” I laughed, “Okay, but what do you want to eat? Momma won’t be home for a while so it’s just us, so what do you think we should eat?”
“I want to eat dinner.”
“Of course, sure, I love you, and I will get you some dinner, and patience will be appreciated and rewarded,” I told him as I turned and walked into the kitchen.
“Dinner,” he called after me.
“Yes, I know, thank you,” I called back and fought the urge to head-butt something.
Chapter 12 … Face… Your… Smells
I set the plum sauce into the grocery cart and continued down the aisle. My cell phone rang. I checked and saw it was Nate, so I answered with a firm, but friendly, hello.
“I have something for you,” he sounded rather smug.
“Oh yeah,” I was unable to bring about much more interest than that.
“Oh yeah,” he said with much exaggeration, “I’ve been thinking.” He then made a fraction of a giggle as he tried sadly to draw an ounce of curiosity out of me, but I had none and waited.
“Okay,” I broke finally, expecting the worst, “what are you getting at, Nate?”
“I’ve been tapping my head on this one, I tell you,” he said overconfidently.
“Careful,” I warned.
“Seriously,” he said, “are you ready?”
“No.” I stifled a yawn that I felt couldn’t have come at a better time, and then shook my head as though he could see me.
“So,” he ignored me and continued, “let us say I was guarding something, okay?”
“Uh huh,” I said, “just another day guarding something, got ya.”
“And I left, so I was no longer guarding it,” he continued, “but then I came back.” He paused, as though it mattered, “okay,” he continued, “my question is would I now be reguarding it?”
Neither of us spoke, well, aside of course from him saying, huh, repeatedly, but that’s more of a sound, than a word. “You’re pretty damn, I don’t know, entertaining,” I confided, hung up, and then texted him: memo regarding regu
arding shut up.
My cell rang and again it was Nate. “What,” I asked, skipping the impromptu hello, a disregard for phone etiquette I rarely practiced.
“Come on,” he goaded, “it’s a bit funny.”
“Dude, seriously, this is why you’re single,” I said with a shallow laugh that I regretted. “Like okay,” I cleared my throat and continued, “yeah, it, I guess, is funny or something, but there has to be a lot of thought about the words, and not a lot of people are going to get it when you tell them, or, I don’t even know. Sometimes I think stuff that I think is funny, but I often just kind of keep it to myself sometimes too. Know what I mean?”
“Sydney liked my jokes,” he replied defensively. “If she and I were on speaking terms I would call her and tell her. And she’d probably laugh her head off, I bet you.”
“Uh, Nate, she may have liked one little verbal ditty, sure, but I remember why she left you and it was exactly over you thinking you were funny.” He exhaled loudly into the phone. “I’m not trying to bum you out, Nate, its ancient history, man, alright,” I said wanting to get off the phone and finish grocery shopping.
“She overreacted,” he said in a manner suggesting he was surprised even still.
“No, I don’t think she did,” I said, emphasizing my disbelief, “let me just say it out loud for you because I really think it is much different in your head than it was in real life.”
“Whatever, man, it was a harmless joke.” He skirted truth like a professional. I stopped walking.
“Okay, no, no, no, it wasn’t. You squatted NAKED over her face in the dark. Okay, naked, over her face, squatting, and to indicate how wrong you were already, people are looking at me like I’m doing it to them right now. So let’s take it to the next level, right, I mean, that is funny right there, but when you turned on the light and farted at that exact moment, oh, funny, funny man. And I guess she didn’t want to keep you up with her laughing that’s why she made you sleep on the couch. I mean I really don’t know why she wasn’t impressed with your hand-ass co-ordination.” I felt red in the face for retelling his misadventure so enthusiastically.
