Abbott Awaits

by Chris Bachelder

  19 Abbott and the Sticky Shit All Over the Fucking Steering Wheel Again

  Gone are the daydreams of academic notoriety and glistening vulvas and whatever else. All Abbott wants right now—the only thing—is to be knocked unconscious by the long wooden handle of a lawn tool.

  20 Abbott and the Utopian Community

  With his helpmeet Abbott establishes one early-summer evening a small utopian community in a seventh-floor room of a Boston-area La Quinta. After checking into the hotel, Abbott and his wife and daughter ride the elevator to the seventh floor, stopping at the second, fifth, and sixth floors because Abbott let his daughter push the buttons. Inside the room, Abbott says, “This is OK,” and his wife says, “Yeah, it’s fine.” While Abbott holds the child on the window ledge overlooking heavy highway traffic (“Truck! Bus!”), his wife spreads out a picnic dinner on the comforter of the king-sized bed. There are peanut butter and honey sandwiches, sliced carrots and cucumbers, a sandwich bag of Fig Newtons, one ripe banana, and a large bottle of a sports energy drink that they all pass around and dribble onto the comforter. After dinner, Abbott puts a rusty barrette in his daughter’s hair and the family rides down the elevator, walks out of the lobby, and discovers a tiny plot of grass by the parking lot. Nearly all of this utopian grass has been killed, either by dog urine or grubs. A high chain-link fence separates the play area from the busy highway. Abbott runs wildly in small circles, and his daughter chases him, stopping occasionally to put Styrofoam cups and blades of dead grass on a fire hydrant. Abbott’s wife is too pregnant to run, but she watches and cheers and exclaims. Then they all return to the elevator and ride back up to the seventh-floor room. Abbott and his wife work together to put their daughter in pajamas, to brush her miniature teeth and wash her face. They turn out the lights, close the curtains to block the glow of the setting sun, and place the girl, along with her stuffed pony, in a playpen/crib in the corner. “Goodnight, sweetie,” they say, moving a large utopian chair in front of the playpen/crib. “Have good dreams.” But the child gets teary and is obviously not going to sleep, so Abbott moves the large chair and lies down on the floor next to the playpen/crib, the vinyl mesh siding of which allows him to speak to his daughter and to see her in the dim light. She rolls to the edge of the playpen/crib with her stuffed pony and says, “Dad’s down.” She says, “Dad’s on the floor. There’s Dad. See Dad through the hole. Hi, Dad. Dad has two knees. Airplane far away.” Abbott says, “It’s time to go to sleep.” His daughter says, “Dad through the hole. Sunblock tastes bad. Toast is food. This is Popo. Show Popo to Dad? Hi, Popo. Mama’s driving. This is a different blue one. We saw lions!” She begins singing the alphabet song, veers into “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” then returns triumphantly to her version of the alphabet. “Good night,” Abbott says, rising to his knees after fifteen or twenty minutes. His daughter says, “Dad? Dad, lie down! OK? That’s fine. Dad through the hole!” So Abbott lies back down on the floor and talks to his daughter through the vinyl mesh of the playpen/crib. He feels as if he is either giving or receiving confession. His daughter says, “Dad’s tired. Dad’s rough. OK!” Once more he tries to get up and once more he is ordered to stay. The despot behind the mesh weighs less than a bag of dog food. Seventy minutes after being placed down, Abbott’s daughter falls asleep, and Abbott creeps away from her, silently replacing the large chair in front of the playpen/crib. He finds his wife sitting cross-legged on the floor in the closet-and-sink niche outside the bathroom. The light from the bathroom is just enough for her to read a celebrity and fashion magazine. Abbott sits beside her, and they share a Hershey bar and look at dresses and purses and DWI mug shots. They’re both too tired to be sardonic. Later, in the king-sized bed, Abbott wants to attempt late-term utopian intercourse, but his wife does not, so they compromise on a hand job. This is just fine with Abbott. He understands that compromise is a vital component of marriage, as is, though to a lesser extent, the hand job. In fact, as he approaches orgasm—or more likely, much later—he realizes that the hand-job-within-marriage, while no substitute for vow-renewing egalitarian coitus (from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs), nevertheless does have a legitimate place in the utopian scheme. He rubs his wife’s swollen belly as she does it. Afterward, she brings him a washcloth. They kiss goodnight, then roll to distant regions of the enormous bed. The next day is a disaster. The amazing furniture clearance is not amazing. There are too many other people and too many other people’s children. Abbott’s wife sits on every couch and makes the same look, as if she’s offended or as if the couch has lied to her. “Well, it sort of has,” she says. “You have to imagine you’re not pregnant,” Abbott keeps telling her. “I wish you knew what a ridiculous thing that is to say,” she says. Abbott and his wife bicker all day and are constantly reminded of each other’s most regrettable qualities. There are no good couches, but they pretend the real issue is their spouse’s poor taste or unreasonable requirements. “Comfort is not an unreasonable requirement,” Abbott’s wife says, causing Abbott to wonder aloud whether they are wealthy enough for comfort. Abbott’s daughter behaves like a two-year-old in a furniture store. She spills apple juice in a deluxe modern showroom, narrowly missing a divan. The child’s stuffed pony is lost, discovered by a virtuous sales associate, then lost again. Abbott’s wife’s ankles hurt. She sits on couches and does not want to stand back up. The utopian community disintegrates, almost upon sunrise. All told, it lasted roughly thirteen hours, six of which Abbott spent sleeping. Like all other utopian settlements, including Robert Owen’s New Harmony Community on the banks of the Wabash River in 1825, this La Quinta venture dissolves into chaos and fails. Still, Abbott considers while hiding from his family amidst the leather sectionals, all the nonutopian communities have dissolved into chaos and failed, too. So big deal. So try again.

  21 In Which Abbott Drives through the Center of a Diamond

  Driving home, Abbott notices the sudden quiet in the backseat. The noticing perhaps more sudden than the quiet. By adjusting the rearview mirror he is able to see his two-year-old daughter and his substantially pregnant wife, both asleep, mouths parted, heads inclined toward each other. They are both a little sweaty and beautiful. By tilting the rearview even farther down—and by dropping his right shoulder nearly to discomfort—he is able to see his wife’s breasts, enlarged by pregnancy and bisected intriguingly by her seatbelt. If seatbelts became standard in American cars in 1964, why, Abbott wonders—later, not now—is our contemporary national art not filled with breasts bisected by nylon straps? Where are the songs and poems, the sculpture, the oils on canvas? For a stretch of fifty or so highway miles, Abbott periodically readjusts his rearview mirror to look first at his sweet, sleeping family, then at his wife’s splendid breasts. There is something here, inaccessible by blade, no matter how sharp. Although he is not generally a happy man—or perhaps because he is not generally a happy man—Abbott recognizes happiness when he feels it.

  22 Abbott’s Cave

  Having not checked the Internet in nearly thirty hours, Abbott dials up with a premonition, though he also had a premonition the sun would rise this morning. Another full rotation of the planet—the odds of mayhem are pretty good. And sure enough: the steamboat has exploded; the gunman has walked in and opened fire; the gorillas in the zoo have stopped eating; and now these missing girls. Here’s what we know: drunk babysitter, open screen door, tiny footprints in the mud. Authorities are amassing, combing, projecting. They are not answering that question at this time. They are utilizing all available resources. The parents are bargaining with God. “You shouldn’t read that stuff,” Abbott’s wife has said, more or less concurring with Henry David Thoreau, who believed that anyone who cares to know that a man had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River is living in a cave, and not just any cave but a dark un-fathomed mammoth one. Right now she’s calling for Abbott from a remote region of the house. He understands her tone, if not her explicit message.
When Abbott attempts to conclude his dial-up Internet session, he has, as always, a choice: STAY CONNECTED or DISCONNECT NOW.

  23 Abbott’s Folk Remedy

  Abbott just stumbled accidentally upon this treatment, but now he swears by it. It’s a little of the hair of the dog that bit you. The first thing you’ll need to do is have a child. The best kind for this remedy is a child who has some manual dexterity, who can safely and neatly chew solid foods, and who can ride placidly in a car seat. A two-year-old child usually works well. Next you’ll want to buckle the child into its car seat with some soothing words or perhaps a folk song about the sinking of a great ship. You don’t want a fussy child. Start the car and begin driving around. It does not matter where you drive, but Abbott recommends, for safety’s sake, that you avoid heavy traffic and/or winding roads. Also: a clear, dry day is best. Now, once you have helped create this child and buckled it happily into a moving car, you’ll need to open a plastic bag full of snack items. Dry cereal is fine, as are raisins, pieces of dried fruit, or small nuts. Use something that the child likes. While steering with your left hand, use your right to offer a small snack item back to the child in the car seat. Show appropriate caution, obviously. Hold the snack item securely but gingerly. Do not turn around, and do not use the rearview mirror to look at the child. Looking back is not only dangerous, it also ruins the treatment. Keep your right hand extended backwards, despite the growing discomfort. If it helps, talk to the child about what is happening. (“Here’s a pretzel for you.”) Now wait. Keep your eyes on the road, your left hand on the wheel. Keep your snack arm extended toward the backseat. You may feel a burning sensation in your shoulder, and that’s fine. Wait. Stop talking. The waiting is crucial. Your sense that the child does not want the snack item or can’t reach it or in fact is not a real and separate person—crucial. Do not turn around. Do not talk. Just pose a question with your right arm, extend it into the mystery of the backseat. Now: Feel the child’s tiny warm hand graze your scarred and callused fingers. This is important. Feel the child achieve a grip on the snack. Don’t look! If you see it, you won’t feel it. Feel the tug as the child, of its own startling volition, takes the food from your light grasp and, one presumes, eats it. Your snack hand should be and feel empty. The emptiness is crucial. Repeat as desired.

  24 On Turbulence

  It’s nearly midnight when Abbott’s wife walks into the basement to find Abbott with his head against a heating duct. She’s holding a magazine, wearing underwear and a tank top that doesn’t quite cover her stomach. Abbott can see a crescent of taut white skin beneath the hem. “What are you doing?” he says. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” she says. “We should probably whisper,” Abbott says, pointing upward. They are standing directly below their daughter’s bedroom, and sound does carry in the house. Still, Abbott’s wife rolls her eyes at him. “What are you doing?” she says. “Sorry you’re still up,” he says, putting his head against another section of duct. “This floor is gross,” she says, and they both look down at her bare feet, one on top of the other, toes curled. Abbott’s wife has to lean forward to see them. “I’m looking for a noise,” he says. “What kind of noise?” “I don’t know,” he says. “Kind of a rustle. Tell me if you hear it.” His wife switches feet. “I brought you something,” she says. She opens the magazine and begins reading an article on airplane safety. She knows he is scared to fly, and she knows, further, that he reaches irritably after fact and reason. The chance of a plane crashing is one in 11 million. The wings on a jet are built to flap up and down. It’s called flexing. “I knew that one,” Abbott says, tapping the edge of square silver duct with his fingernail. “And if the wings didn’t flex, the ride would be terrible,” his wife says. “I know,” he says. His wife keeps reading. Only one plane has ever crashed because of turbulence. “Ever?” asks Abbott. “Ever,” she says. “And probably only because it was flying too close to a mountain.” Abbott’s wife reads a passage about how people who are afraid of flying are advised to think about the plane being suspended in a big bubble of gelatin. Abbott has no idea what that means or how it might help. “And listen, turbulence,” she says. “Turbulence, because of the speed of the aircraft, turbulence feels much worse than it actually is.” Abbott stands up straight. The only light is from an exposed sixty-watt bulb on the ceiling. The basement darkens at the corners. His wife looks like some kind of ghost or dream, talking about aircraft. Abbott has cobwebs in his hair and on the back of his neck. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he says. “How can turbulence be not as bad as it feels? Turbulence is what turbulence feels like. That’s exactly what it is. You can’t distinguish turbulence from its effects.” “No,” his wife says. “There’s the air currents or whatever outside the plane. Think of the gelatin. Then there’s the bumping and falling sensation that the passengers experience.” “We should whisper,” Abbott says. “I might have just heard the rustle,” she says. “That wasn’t it,” he says. “If you hit a tiny rock in a car going thirty miles per hour, it doesn’t feel that bad, but if you hit the same kind of bump in a jet going”—she checks the magazine—“eight hundred feet per second, then it feels more severe.” Abbott is almost entirely certain that an airplane would not hit a tiny rock in the air, though he wishes his wife had clarified that point. She says, “Not that planes hit rocks. They hit air currents.” “Of course,” Abbott says. He had never considered that turbulence exists independently of our perception of it, though the point is suddenly evident. “The main thing is if you can picture the aircraft in a big pocket of gelatin,” she says. “I still don’t get that,” Abbott says. He would like to get it. “A jet is only moving about one inch up or down,” she says. She has closed the magazine, and she is palpating herself below the ribs. “Are you OK?” Abbott says. His wife says, “The baby keeps jabbing me up here.” He says, “Are you worried about it?” She says, “No. The main point with the turbulence is that things aren’t really as bad as they seem. Or feel.” Neither Abbott nor his wife says anything for a minute or so. There is no need for Abbott’s wife to say that turbulence is in this respect just like so many things in life, and there’s no need for Abbott to say that turbulence is in this respect quite exceptional. At some point you do not need to talk to have a conversation. The conversation exists whether you have it or not. It continues silently in a parallel dimension of the marriage. They both pause to let it run its course toward another stalemate. When it’s over, Abbott whispers, “Eight hundred feet per second?”

  25 The Obstetrician’s Tale

  “It’s a true story. During my first pregnancy, I really did stay up late at night reading my old embryology textbook—those million tiny things that all have to happen perfectly. And I really did come in to work early every day to give myself an ultrasound. I’m only trying to commiserate, but I should know by now that there are some people—and it’s usually the men—who I just shouldn’t say those things to.” “But still …” “Still what? It’s nice that they come?” “Well, it is nice.” “You know, I used to think that too. But now I’m sick of all these heroes.”