A Day In the Death of Walter Zawislak

by Molly O'Keefe

  “Taped it!” She was clearly both horrified and pleased.

  “Yeah, through the screen. We can show it to her boyfriends when she’s older. It’s great.”

  The woman laughed and patted her husband’s butt as they walked through the door into the light of the house. She shut the door behind them.

  “You,” Peter breathed, looking right into Walter, the grief of a million men on his face, “clearly don’t understand torture.”

  “Why do you do this? Is someone forcing you to watch your family without you?” Was God so vindictive?

  “Are you kidding?” Peter laughed. “We sign up for this. We line up and fight over these jobs.”

  “It’s so cruel.”

  “Your limited understanding of that word is laughable,” Peter bit out. “They used to give these jobs to people who lived past a hundred. Something about old souls and compassion…go figure. But then someone like you would come along and beg to just be let go, that their life was just too terrible, too full of regret, to be relived. Well, those old souls would just let people slide by, because they understood regret. They knew the pain of having lost something held dear. Well, you can imagine the chaos. So they gave the job to us, stillborns and infants. Because I don’t feel compassion for you, do you understand that? I don’t feel pity. I’m pissed that you are wasting my time and your life. I never learned to breathe air and I’d give anything—anything— for a day to relive.”

  Walter wiped his eyes and put his head in his hands.

  “Life is beautiful and precious. It’s not about mistakes and regret and anger. It’s about appreciation and forgiveness. You have forgotten that and you should be ashamed.”

  Walter shook his head and turned away from Peter and his house with the box in the attic. He understood the sad implications Peter’s story had for his own life. But still, he was paralyzed. Lost and scared in the woods, unable to find the tracks that would lead him home.

  “I can’t,” he breathed. “How do I say goodbye again?”

  He heard the rumble of the earth that foretold a filing system erupting from some cosmic storage room.

  The front door to the Sunrise Café out on Wisconsin Highway 11 emerged from the ground in front of Walter.

  “If you’re so scared of saying goodbye, let’s start with hello,” Peter said, just before he kicked Walter in the ass and through the door.

  20

  As diners went, the Sunrise was top shelf. Sparkling clean, lots of waitstaff and busboys so you never had to wait too long for coffee or tap water. There were plants, real ones, hanging overhead. The booths bordered on plush—ludicrous, almost, with their deep pink padded seats.

  Walter had passed out more than once in those booths.

  And the spinning pie and cake display was filled with Hulda Allen’s homemade peach pies that used to bring people in from as far away as Waterton.

  Walter walked over to the peach pie, watched its slow spin on the plastic shelf and had to stop himself from dropping to his knees. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to beg Peter to let him go, or thank him for giving him another shot with one of those pies.

  “Really, Walter.” Peter spun away from the eat-in counter where he sat in a pair of dirty overalls and work boots, like the rest of the men bent over their meatloaf sandwiches. “You have got to be one of the most stubborn files I’ve ever had.”

  Walter smiled, watching a coconut cream pie go around. That’s what his brother had said about him that day when he thought they were lost. It’s what his basketball coach said about him, the guys he served with in the war.

  They all said he was stubborn.

  Walter wondered if stubborn was supposed to feel so much like scared shitless.

  “You know what day this is?” Peter asked, and Walter turned and unerringly found the back corner booth where a young man sat, hat pulled down low over his eyes, pouring whiskey from his flask into his coffee cup. The booth was by the kitchen, in the smoking section even though the young man didn’t smoke.

  He sat there because it was the new girl’s section.

  “I know what day it is.” He smiled at Peter. Clapped him on the shoulder and walked over to the young man getting drunk on his lunch hour. Walter slid into the booth and sat down in the space the man’s earthly body already occupied.

  Ask her out, the young man thought. He took a sip of the heavily doctored coffee. Today’s the day; you gotta ask her out.

  Walter smiled, wanted to put his arm around his young self and tell him it was all going to be okay. That today he was going to be a better man than he thought he was capable of being. But instead he swallowed and pushed into the center of his young self. Into his brain and bone and skin, into his worry and constant despair, into his fear and his fragile secret feelings for the new girl.

  * * *

  May 28th, 1973

  Sunrise Diner

  Back Corner Booth

  * * *

  “Here you go.” The new girl slid a giant piece of pie across the table in front of him.

  He smiled though he couldn’t quite look at her. Like the reflection of the sun off the corner of a windshield, she was something he watched out of the corner of his eye.

  “Thanks, that’s some piece of pie.” He swiped a finger under a fat slice of peach that was crowded off the plate. “Hope you left some for the next guy.”

  “Well, I don’t think there will be too many next guys. The lunch crowd is pretty much gone.”

  Walter looked up and realized the restaurant was practically empty. He should get going. Christopher had given him shit yesterday for coming back late from lunch and he knew that it was only a matter of time before Christopher told him to stop coming to the site.

  “Mind if I…?” the new girl asked and Walter, surprised, finally took his first good look at her. Brown hair, brown eyes. She was round. Round cheeks, round shoulders. Round lovely breasts pushing at the front of her pink and green striped uniform—all things he had the impression of from his surreptitious watching, but were lovelier than he had imagined while filling in the blanks.

  “Do you mind if I join you?” she asked again. She tilted her head and smiled, and Walter’s heart stopped dead in his chest.

  I’m a goner.

  “Yeah, yeah, of course. Sure.” He gestured at the big soft pink bench across from his. She gratefully sat down and scooted across until her side was pressed to the wall.

  “It’s nice to sit down,” she breathed. “I’m working a double today and it’s not going to be pretty.”

  He laughed and didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he balled them up in his lap.

  “What’s your name?” She flipped over the unused mug on her side of the table, poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot she had with her, and then set the nearly empty pot on the table. She cradled the cup in both hands like she was cold, and Walter wished he had a jacket to offer her or something.

  “I’m Walt…Walter.”

  “Hi, Walt Walter. I’m Rosie.”

  “It’s just…” he started, but she smiled and he realized that he was being teased. Him. Teased. He didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

  “Nice to meet you.” She held out her hand and he braced himself for the touch of her skin, that lovely smooth slide of her palm into his. He braced for it and it still zapped him down to his feet.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” he said. Her handshake was really strong for a woman, her fingertips soft.

  “You gonna eat that pie?” She nodded toward the slice of pie that was collapsing under its own weight.

  “Yeah, of course.” He grabbed his fork and shoveled a sugary, sunny slice of peach into his mouth. He pointed his fork at the plate. “God, that’s good pie.”

  Rosie laughed, “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Walter sat back, feigning great shock. “You’ve never had one of Hulda Allen’s peach pies?”

  “No.” She smoothed an awkward hand down the front of her uni
form. “But I am glad you like it.”

  “You want a bite?” He inched the plate toward her.

  “No, no. Thanks, but no.”

  His fork hit the plate and it was loud and he was blushing. He was no good at this. A terrible flirt, no sense of what was right or wrong. He coughed and kept eating the pie, though now with a painful sort of awareness. Surely he was going to drop the whole thing in his lap or some other ridiculous thing.

  “You’ve been sitting in my section for weeks now and I haven’t seen you smoke one cigarette.”

  It was sort of like an accusation. “I don’t smoke,” he said and took a sip of coffee/whiskey, wishing he were better at this.

  “So why do you sit here?” She rested her head against the wall and smiled at him like they were old friends already. Like she already knew all of the bad stuff about him and was still willing to sit there and smile.

  He put down the coffee mug.

  “Because the new girl brings me huge pieces of pie.” He smiled back at her, but quickly turned his focus to the grey day outside the window when he started to feel too bold.

  “My, my.” Rosie smiled. “I do believe you are flirting with me.”

  “Uh…not…really.” He went for another drink, anything to give him something to do rather than look into those eyes and wonder if she was laughing at him.

  But his coffee cup was empty. Rosie lifted the pot and poured the last of the coffee into his mug.

  “Thanks,” he muttered, his hand fumbling in his pants pocket for his flask.

  “I like that you’re flirting with me,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you to talk to me for weeks now.”

  “Really?” His voice sounded like a thirteen-year-old boy’s, and he cringed and coughed.

  “Yeah, here or…” She shrugged. “I know your family goes to my church and I keep hoping that one of these Sundays you might show up.”

  “That’s nice… I mean… that you—” He wished he could swallow his tongue. “I don’t spend much time at church.” He unscrewed the lid of his flask and slid his coffee cup toward the edge of the table.

  “Please don’t do that,” she whispered and Walter stilled.

  “Do what?”

  She nodded her head at his hand, which gripped the flask under the table. “I want to get to know you and I think you want to get to know me. I mean, I can’t figure out why else a guy would sit in the smoking section day after day when he’s not a smoker.” She smiled, but it seemed sad to Walter. She put her hand on his where it gripped the mug, and his whole body twitched.

  His heart made some arcane calculations. Subtraction and minuses of sums that were less than or greater than others. Fractions and equations figured in the chemistry and blood of his gut and the sudden electrical currents he felt, gazing upon her face.

  Walter screwed the cap back on his flask, not at all sure what was happening.

  He put both hands back on the table, suddenly feeling taskless and unmoored. A drinker without a drink.

  “What do you do for a living, Walt Walter?” she asked, her smile bright again, and he was pleased in some deep place that he could do that. That he had the ability to make her smile glad.

  “I’m working on the plumbing out at the new school.” He jerked his thumb behind him toward the Highway 10 cutoff.

  “Oh, I bet you know my brother, Al. He owns Marsden Plumbing Supply.”

  “Al’s your brother?” Walter asked. He really liked Al, a straight shooter with a big laugh, a salesman who never seemed to be selling anything. He didn’t deal directly with Al, as foreman, Christopher did, but he always took a few minutes to shoot the shit with the big guy when he came by. “I guess I can see the family resemblance.” He ducked his head so he could see into her face. “It’s your eyes.”

  “You mean it’s the family shape you recognize.” Rosie blushed again and he loved it. Just adored that color on her cheeks. “Round. Al and I are both round.”

  “Well…” Walter laughed. “If Al is your brother, then yes, I’d say he’s round, but you are…” He realized too late where his stupid mouth was taking him. He stopped abruptly and the blush on Rosie’s face turned blotchy at the neck, and her smile was determined rather than glad or bright.

  “Round—”

  “Perfect,” Walter interrupted pushing the word out before he went cowardly. “Very, very—” He cleared his throat and concentrated hard on making sure his coffee cup lined up right with his napkin. “Perfect.”

  Rosie pressed her finger down on a grain of salt that was on the table and swept it away. “Thanks,” she breathed.

  “You’re welcome,” Walter said, wishing he could have a drink. He took another bite of the pie, despite the fact that he was so full he was about to bust.

  “I think maybe I would like a bite of pie.” Walter, his mouth full, nodded, probably with more enthusiasm than a bite of pie warranted, and pushed the plate toward her. She picked up a fork and grinned at him, looking like nothing so much as a little girl about to do something wicked.

  “Better be as good as you say it is.”

  “Trust me.”

  She speared a slice of peach sitting in a small pool of juice and cinnamon along with a little of the flaky crust, and with great delicacy, which fascinated Walter to no end, she put the bite in her mouth.

  She closed her eyes and moaned. “Oh, that’s good.”

  Walter’s blood warmed, watching her eat the pie.

  She laughed, a girlish silly sound, and speared another bite. Walter was suddenly starved for peach pie and the two of them finished off the slice.

  “Oh my lord, it will be nothing but water and grapefruit for days…” Rosie sat back and put her hands over her belly. He loved the way she ate, the way she really seemed to relish it. He liked peach pie, but he never closed his eyes and moaned over it.

  He brushed some crumbs off the table while the blood beat in his erection.

  “What…what happened to your neck?” Her fingers fluttered over her own carotid artery.

  That took care of the erection in a big hurry.

  Walter tilted his head to try and stop the sudden burning of his scar.

  “Were you in the war?” she asked.

  Walter nodded.

  “So was Al.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, he doesn’t talk about it much…he came home a few years ago and just threw himself into work. Worked like he was on fire.” She took a sip of coffee. “Are you like that?”

  “Like what?” Walter asked, still trying to put it together in his head that the big laughing Al was a vet like him.

  “Working like you’re on fire?”

  He shook his head. “Can’t say as I am. Working like I’m fast asleep, maybe.”

  “Was that—” She gestured, something between a point and a wave, at his neck and Walter had to fight to keep himself on the bench. If Al was a vet, didn’t she know she shouldn’t point? Shouldn’t draw attention to the ruined generation coming back from that place? His hand fell to his pocket and the flask and the salvation.

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I shouldn’t ask. I just…I wish Al would talk. You know, just…talk to me. I just want someone to talk to me about it.”

  She was waiting for him to answer or respond like a normal person in a normal conversation would, but he wasn’t normal. The silence stretched and stretched until he felt compelled to say something or throw the empty coffeepot at the wall.

  “If he wants to talk, he’ll talk.” Walter shrugged. “I guess.”

  Rosie leaned forward. Her hands were in her lap and he could see where the table cut off her arms. The skin was white and when she leaned back there would be angry red lines across all that pretty skin. He wanted to ease her back so she wouldn’t do that to herself.

  “Do you want to talk?”

  “About the war?” he asked, horrified.

  She bit her lip and nodded. “About anything.”

  He didn’t
know how to answer these questions. He wanted her to stop biting her lip. He wanted to kiss her and hold her, press his nose to her neck. But he had nothing to say. Nothing at all. He was such an empty thing inside. There were just echoes and memories and whiskey.

  She sat back and there were the red marks on her arms and he wanted to touch them with his thumbs. With his lips.

  “I’m not much of a talker,” he finally told her.

  She watched him for a long time, waiting maybe for him to change his answer. Walter started to get the feeling that there was something else at work here. Something underneath the pie and the talk and her beautiful flesh.

  There was a choice buried in all of this.

  She nodded and started scooting away from the wall toward the aisle. “I better get back to work before my boss starts yelling.” She grabbed the empty coffeepot on her way. “Well, thanks for sharing the pie...”

  She stood up and he realized what was happening, how the empty spots were getting bigger and that this was the first time in a long time he wasn’t angry or drunk. He realized that this woman was gold and that if she walked away—this choice was made.

  She stood and he stood, as well. “I’m not much of a talker,” he told her again. “But then, I’ve never had anyone real keen to listen to whatever I might say…”

  “I would listen,” she said without a smile or grin or girlish laugh, and Walter could see all the worth of this woman, the things down deep that she would keep hidden from people. The pain and the regret and the worry and the wishes. He could see all of it.

  I am going to marry her, he thought and decided he’d better get worthy of Rosie in a hurry.

  “I…” He took a deep breath. “I would like to take you to dinner some time. A movie? Or something? Is that…would that be…” He was stammering and stuttering and being an idiot. He looked back out the window, like the gray day might have something to add to this terrible attempt at courtship.

  “I would like that,” she finally breathed, and Walter thought that maybe the gray day wasn’t so gray anymore.

  “Friday?” he asked.

  “Today is Friday,” she said.