by Susan Tepper
“I’m not fond of being sticky,” says Bob. He takes a sip of his soft drink. “Unless I’m sharing a chocolate bar.”
“Within minutes, my lips started buzzing and I was zooming to outer space. I was gonzo.”
“Never was one for outer space,” says Bob. He chews the other thumb and makes sucking noises that sound like wet farts.
“I ran to wash the crab off. Only I couldn’t manage the god-damned taps on account of my greasy fingers. I started pawing at paper towels and the toilet paper roll but it was too late. I collapsed on the floor right by the toilet.”
“Bet you didn’t much like that,” says Bob.
“Ambulance brought me right here, Bob, right to this very place,” I say, tapping the table, “to the emergency department of the same hospital where I now work as a summer orderly. Cool, eh?”
“That is a very nice, circular kind of story,” he says.
“Except I almost died, Bob. You get that part, right?”
Bob stands and walks over to refill his Styrofoam cup with ice and Coke. He shuffle-walks back to the table. His lips mouth words, as if he’s choreographing, breaking down the mechanics of placing one foot behind another.
“Now I wear an Epipen. See.” I lift my smock to reveal my fanny pack with two auto-injectors of epinephrine.
I push myself up and head for the games shelf near the bank of windows. I select a deck of cards and a cribbage board.
Back at the table, I hand Bob the cards. He struggles with shuffling. So he tosses the deck across the table and smooshes the cards around like a game of Pick-up sticks. When finished, he blows air hard over his lips and smiles.
“I’ve got a story for you, Mr. Big Shot Orderly,” says Bob. “When I still lived with my family I gave myself time-outs. In a closet in the basement.”
I deal six cards to Bob and six to me. Bob takes a few minutes to decide which two cards to place into my crib. At this rate, we’ll still be playing our first game at shift change.
“Aren’t time-outs more of a thing for kids, Bob?” I ask. His glare is so mean the hairs on my arms stiffen.
Bob says, “It got so I liked it more in the closet than being upstairs.”
I set a five down after Bob’s ten. “Fifteen two,” I say. I move a peg along the cribbage board.
“Truth is, I’m not a fan of people,” Bob says.
“Not so different than a lot of folks,” I say.
I want to tell Bob I know about him and his family. Only I can’t on account of me promising my asshole supervisor I wouldn’t bring up the word fire with Bob. I wait to speak while Bob clears his throat.
“Nice double run for eight,” I say. I point at the two eights, a seven and a six sitting in front of him. A gob of spittle trickles over his cleanly shaved chin. “See how I got that?” I ask. He doesn’t say.
I run fingers through my hair and wait. The ticking of a clock on the wall opposite is deafening. When I look at Bob, his lips are tight, horizontal stalks of celery on a cutting board.
“Last time I went to the closet, I stayed a whole week,” Bob says.
I wonder if he’d sooner shit his pants than leave that closet. I sip my drink but it’s taken on that bitter taste stale coffee gets.
“The basement isn’t finished. The wife used to nag me something fierce about that.” He licks under his nose like a dog with a runny snout. “She left me no choice.”
I rake the cards in and shuffle. I look up to see Bob has tugged a cribbage peg out of the board and perched it on his bottom lip.
“That old closet is where we kept junk. Broken skis, smelly running shoes, a bunch of baseballs, and those wooden badminton rackets.”
Rackets make perfect kindling, I think. I stitch my lips into a line. I itch to bring up the fire. But I mayn’t so I shuffle faster and faster to keep myself distracted. My father would say, “Watch you don’t rub the tits off the queens.”
“Door’s got no slats so once it’s closed, that’s it. It’s pitch black,” Bob says.
For a second, I don’t follow. There’s too much going on. “You done playing?” I ask. He nods. I centre the deck on the table. Bob grabs the cards back like they’ll grow legs and run off.
Bob spits out the peg and replaces it with a playing card. His lips maul the edge of the card, working the card’s rim like he’s nibbling corn on the cob. I reach over and retrieve the other cards from his steely grip. He fires the gnawed card at me. Using his teeth, he picks at the cuff of his hoodie. The edge of the card is moist, like a barely-peed diaper. The unlucky King of Hearts has a row of puncture marks lining his head.
My fingers tighten around the deck. The King is tacky and sticks to his neighbours. I open the sleeve of saltines and offer the package to Bob. He takes two, stacks them like a cracker sandwich, and attacks both at the same time.
“I don’t much care for the dark,” says Bob, specks of cracker sputtering from his lips.
“Most people don’t,” I say.
Crumbs of dried saltine collect in the corner of Bob’s mouth. Bob looks as if he’s asleep with his eyes open. His head lolls toward a shoulder. He has that look people on the subway get – a stare so piercing it causes everyone to shudder.
His teeth find the cuff again. For a moment, he stares at me like he’s unsure how we met. When Bob looks over at the bank of windows, he squints against a flicker of sunlight. The earlier rain has finally stopped. Bob slouches in the chair. He pats his chest like he’s looking for a pack of smokes and a lighter. I glance at the wall clock, its second hand grating in my ears.
Suddenly he pushes the table at me and says, “I’ve nothing to say about the fire.”
Bob trudges to the vending machine. I follow a few feet behind. He stands in front of it, rocking from side to side, studying it like he’s coaxing it to spit out free food.
I pause next to Bob. There’s a pile of coins in my scrub pocket. I fumble with the change until the jingling drowns out the ticking clock. Bob’s taller than I expect, over six feet in his slippers. He chuffs through his big teeth.
“Oh, look, Bob. Why don’t we split a Mars bar?”
The yelp he releases sends a shiver through my spine.
11.45am
Belmont, Massachusetts, USA
Poison
by Gloria Garfunkel
Apparently I was hospitalized for a medication overdose which was not a suicide attempt but a mistaken double dose for a month with a very toxic drug by my incompetent psychiatrist, Irena Akanov. I want to sue her because she’s ruined my life but my husband says it’s not worth it. She caused a brain injury which will supposedly heal over time, maybe a year, but they can’t predict how long or whether it will heal completely. I can’t spell, do math, or remember a string of numbers like my phone number. I can’t dial it even when it is tacked to the wall. I don’t know if nine comes before or after eight. I can hardly find words or talk in sentences that make sense. I can’t concentrate on reading and when I forced myself today to read The New York Times that they send around, I struggled to remember any tiny details like a headline or the date.
My doctors say that my brain had been injured by the medication and my husband told me they had called Poison Control while I was in the emergency room. This means I’ve lost my job and will have to get onto disability. Actually, I hate my job at Orwell Industries’ Hospital where I typed dictated doctors’ notes. It was so boring that I lived on coffee to get through the day. There is nothing entertaining about those notes. Physicians are terrible writers. The one good thing that has come of this disaster is that I never have to go back to Orwell.
Normally after work I make dinner for the kids and when they go to their rooms to play Warcraft on their computers until all hours, I write short stories and have been working on a novel. What will I do without words? This is the biggest tragedy of all.
The nurse (I can’t remember their names) says I must eat more. But I never have an appetite, especially when served hospital food. The salmon last
night had the texture of rubber, like those fake plastic foods and vomit they sell in joke shops. It practically bounced when it accidentally fell on the floor, like it was alive.
When the nurse asked about it, I said, “Well, it just fell. Anyway, I’m a vegan. I don’t eat fish.”
The nurse had agreed to order me a salad. It was drenched in dressing.
“I don’t eat salad dressing either. I’m allergic to fat.”
The nurse insisted that I drink a can of Ensure, that high calorie glop they give to anorexics. She watched me until I finished the whole can which seemed to take a couple of hours by the clock.
6.00pm
Berlin, Germany
6.00pm Feed
by Claudia Bierschenk
Each feed seems endless. He’s latched on to me like an octopus. One little hand flails uncontrollably. A small fist bangs against my collarbone. Tiny fingers cling to my shirt. He doesn’t know yet that these hands are part of his body. When he’s full, he un-docks abruptly. Little mouth slightly open, a thread of milky saliva bridging his lips. Then he opens his eyes, looks at me, almost bemused, as if to say, “Oh, you’re here, too?”
12.00noon
a small town, upstate New York, USA
Bread and Peanut Butter
by Susan Tepper
When the twelve o’clock whistle blows he comes back up the basement stairs, per usual, for his lunch. He wears a sheepish look. I think about calling him Lambchops but he might get the impression that I’m weakening. That I will whip up a rack of rosemary lamb. No such luck.
“Ready for lunch?” I say. I’ve got the baby again, clutched to my one side.
He looks doubtful, scratching his chin. “What is there?”
“Bread.”
“Just bread?”
“I could spread on a little fucking peanut butter.”
“I don’t like peanut butter.”
“I don’t like fucking fucking.”
He sits at the table. “OK.”
I put the screaming baby back in the carrier and take the loaf and remove two slices. Smear on a thin layer of peanut butter. Jiffy. The cheapest the market sells.
“Jiffy? I like the other brand, what’s it called? Smuckers?”
Smuckers like fuckers? I suddenly want to throw the Jiffy jar against the wall. “What fucking other brand?” I bang the Jiffy down on the table. “What fucking other brand? Do it yourself.” I scoop up The Baby and jiggle it to stop the crying.
“Wow, this is getting bad,” he says.
“You have no fucking idea.”
I decide it’s a good day to wash windows. Not actually wash, but squirt them with Windex. I place The Baby in the carrier and put her in the heated porch in front of the TV.
Then I come back and Windex the kitchen windows while he’s having his peanut butter sandwich.
“Do you have to use that ammonia stuff while I’m eating?”
“Yes. Yes, I fucking do.”
He nods and continues chewing. When he’s done, he leaves the plate on the table and makes for the basement stairs.
“Hey! The fucking plate goes in the dishwasher.”
He comes back and puts it into the dishwasher.
“The knife, too,” I say.
“Is there any coffee?”
“At Starbucks there is. Or you could try Dunkin Donuts. They both have fucking coffee.”
“Right.” He heads back down the basement stairs.
After I squirt every fucking window in the house, I decide to take a walk. I put The Baby into the stroller. My therapist is encouraging me to walk every day. It takes the stress out of your body, he said. I wondered about his choice of the word body. I feel under these particular circumstances that it wasn’t the best choice. Couldn’t he have said: It lessens your stress. Or something without the word body. It is bodies that got us into this mess in the first place. I don’t need to be fucking reminded every moment. I’m thinking of switching therapists.
It’s a damp day. April here in upstate New York can go either way. This year there’s been a lot of dampness. Just what I don’t need. The grass is still brownish and the trees are mostly without leaves. I need bright sunshine and some fucking warmth. But apparently I have no power over that. Or my marriage. Or my screaming baby. I am quite powerless. I only have power over the meals served in my house.
After my 5 mile walk (which I kind of doubt because I think my pedometer is off), I sit on the front steps of our house. A weak sun has come out. I park the stroller so The Baby will get some warmth on her face. I notice my neighbor has planted daffodils near the stone wall. I used to like daffodils a lot. Now they are just daffodils.
12.03pm
Belmont, Massachusetts, USA
Lunch
by Gloria Garfunkel
I refuse to eat lunch at all. Some sort of chicken salad and greasy French fries.
“I don’t eat fat,” I say. “I’m allergic. It says it in my medical … um … chart. Also, I don’t eat mayonnaise because it has … um … eggs … and I’m … um … vegan. Isn’t that in my … um … record, too?”
The nurse, who looks like she has an eating disorder, insists I eat something.
“A salad with no dressing,” I say.
“That’s not a lunch,” she says.
“Fine. Then a can of chocolate Ensure. And I want some black coffee.”
“No coffee. You’re not sleeping.”
“Fine, then more ice water. Two pitchers this time. I’ve got to wash this … um … poison out so I can go home.”
I’ve also got to fill myself up with something.
12.15pm
East Village, New York City, NY, USA
Kit and Dasha
by Kyle Hemmings
It is lunchtime. Kit is helping Dasha, her latest girlfriend, in the kitchen. The two are preparing a cucumber and radish salad with green onions. They are in Dasha’s apartment overlooking a flower shop on East 3rd. The day has cleared up. The sun is shining through everything. Although it has grown warmer, a chill lingers.
“You don’t have to help me,” says Dasha, “it’s not like I’m all thumbs.”
“I don’t want you to be lonely,” says Kit.
“Speak for yourself, grunge-girl.”
Dasha is twenty-one and attends art school. She is dressed in a check ribbon skirt and a tight white blouse. She and Kit met at a bar after Kit scored a trick with a college professor who reminded her of her stepdad. The crease in Dasha’s nose always distracts Kit. She has drawn several charcoal nude portraits of Kit in the apartment, shades drawn, yet still enough light. Kit always claims that the drawn breasts are too large.
Dasha sometimes tells Kit after sex, “I love you, Kitty, but your legs are so thin and I wish you had bigger breasts.”
And Kit replies, “And who made such an impression on your nose?”
Dasha sticks out her tongue. “It’s called genetics.”
“Science is amazing.”
Leaning against the sink, Kit admires the way Dasha thinly slices the green onions and cucumbers. When Dasha is done, Kit pours a light sour cream with finely chopped dill over the onions and cucumber. She adds salt and pepper. The girls bring plates and the main salad into the dining room, which is no larger than Czarina’s. Dasha pours them both a semi-sweet white wine, which Kit doesn’t really like, but never complains.
While munching on their salads, the girls smile at each other or sometimes screw up their faces to make the other laugh.
Dasha pours for them a second glass of wine.
“Are you full, darling?” asks Dasha
“Yes, darlink,” says Kit.
“I never say it as darlink, Beatle-juice girl.”
The two reach over the table and hold hands.
“So tell me, Kitty Kat, I am just curious.”
“About what?”
“The men, the ones you go out with. Do you enjoy it?”
“Sometimes. More often it’s like ho-hum
, I gotta do it.”
“So you do enjoy it.”
Kit pulls her hand away from Dasha and plays with her fork. She tries balancing the handle end on the edge of the table.
“You’ve had guys haven’t you?”
“Da.”
“So what’s the big deal? They can’t compete with you. Not for a million rubles.”
Dasha smiles. Her teeth are white and perfect. “Look. Why don’t you move in with me? It would be fun. And I’d have someone to wake up to. And someone to make salads for me when I’m not feeling very borscht. And you can get a job at the diner on East 5th and 3rd. They’re hiring. Oh, say yes. I hate living alone.”
The fork falls to the floor. Kit bends down in her chair and picks it up. Then rests her head on her hands, gives Dasha a soulful look, as if a diva posing for a CD cover.
“Later. Yeah. Maybe. Just not now. The woman that I’m living with, she’s like my mom, you know?”
Dasha runs a hand through her cropped dirty blonde hair. “Yes, I know. Most of us have had mothers.”
“I mean it’s not like I don’t want to. I do. But not now. Not this instant. She needs me.”
“I see. And you need her.”
“Something like that. There aren’t too many kind people out there. This one took me in when I had nothing.”
Dasha juts her chin forward. “You still have nothing.”
“I have you.”
“I was hoping, little bitch, that you’d say something like that.”
Dasha lights a cigarette. Blows smoke past Kit’s face.
Kit grabs the cigarette and throws it on the floor. “Don’t you know smoking is bad for you, darlink?”
“You’re not my babushka. If you are, we are morally decrepit. Dostoyevsky would disown us.”
