My Wife and My Dead Wife

by Michael Kun

  And she leans toward him like she’s being tipped by the wind.

  And she kisses him, her chest touching his.

  And he smiles.

  And they walk to my car, hand in hand.

  And my wife waves at me with her free hand.

  And she opens the door and says, “Ham, this is Bob. Bob, this is Ham. Old boyfriend meet new boyfriend, and vice versa.”

  My wife has a boyfriend.

  SURPRISE!

  CHAPTER 25: WHAT WILL BIGMOUTH SAY ABOUT THE BANANA PUDDING?

  It’s a Tuesday. It’s Cab Calloway’s birthday, so the radio station is playing “All Cab, All Day.” Only between the commercials and the announcements that they’re playing “All Cab, All Day,” They only play four or five songs an hour. And they keep repeating the SAME songs. I’ve already heard “Minnie the Moocher” four times today. I don’t need to hear it again.

  Palmeyer, Debbie and I are talking about the time Debbie got lost in Stone Mountain, which is pretty difficult to do considering the path is straight up and straight down, when Minnifield comes in. He’s the guy who had us alter a suit for him on short notice by pretending he was going to a wedding. I’m sure he doesn’t remember that, but I do, and I’ll bet Palmeyer does, too.

  “Hey, boys,” Minnifield says. He has a suit jacket folded over his arm.

  And Palmeyer says, “Hello, there, Mr. Minnifield. Haven’t seen you around here in a while.”

  And Minnifield says, “No. I haven’t been here in a while.”

  Minnifield nods toward me, and I nod back, then I return to my machine.

  “Last time you were here,” Palmeyer says, “I think we were altering a suit for you for your nephew’s wedding.”

  And Minnifield says, “What?”

  And Palmeyer says, “Weren’t we altering a suit for you for your nephew’s wedding?”

  And Minnifield touches his temple and says, “You know, I believe you’re right. It was for my nephew’s wedding.”

  The liar. He told us it was for his NIECE’s wedding.

  And Palmeyer says, “What was the bride’s name again? It was Anna, wasn’t it?”

  And Minnifield says, “Yes, that’s right, that’s right. You have a good memory.”

  Liar, liar, LIAR. He never told us the bride’s name. Besides, the bride supposedly was his niece.

  “Anyway,” Minnifield says, “I’ve got a bit of a problem I hope you can fix.” He places the suit jacket flat on the counter and points to a black circle on the right sleeve. He didn’t have to point, you could see it from where I was sitting.

  “I got a little careless,” he says, “when I was smoking.”

  Palmeyer lifts up the sleeve and brings it close to his face.

  “Minnie the Moocher” comes on the radio. AGAIN.

  Palmeyer turns the sleeve inside-out, then folds it back again, staring at the black circle like a surgeon examining an x-ray.

  “It’s a tough job,” Palmeyer says, “but my boy Salami here can fix it.”

  Me?

  Why me?

  As if I’m not busy enough as it is. As if I don’t already have a stack of clothes to alter.

  He hands the jacket to me. I run my thumb over the black circle. There is a tough, thick crust surrounding it. It’ll be difficult to repair, even worse than a tear. At least with a tear, you can reweave the fabric. This, I could try a patch, but the patch might show if the material is not identical. More likely, I’ll have to remove the sleeve entirely and try to shift the material so the burn will be hidden behind a seam. It’d be easier to build a new jacket from scratch.

  Cigarette burns are the worst.

  I hate the cigarette burns.

  And every time we get a jacket or a pair of pants with a cigarette burn, every single time, I end up thinking about what happened in Cadbury, Georgia. About what Victor Smalls did. About body parts only a doctor could imagine. About that boy’s hand with the cigarette burn in him. About how Victor Smalls did not smoke. About how people speculated that he might have had an accomplice. An accomplice who smoked. I know that sounds ridiculous, like a flashback from a movie where someone keeps remembering the time he almost drowned, but it’s true. It happens every single time. Usually, I’ll see the cigarette burn and I’ll say to myself, It’s just a piece of clothing. Don’t let yourself think about that other stuff. But then I’m trying so hard not to think about the other stuff that I end up thinking about it even more.

  I hate working on the cigarette burns.

  I HATE it.

  x

  Palmeyer tells Minnifield that it’ll be a week before we can get his jacket back.

  “Any chance I can get it earlier?” he says.

  And Palmeyer says, “What, another wedding?”

  Minnifield thinks for a second, but finally says, “No, no, a week will be fine,” then leaves.

  When he’s gone, I say, “That guy’s such a liar, Palmeyer.”

  And he says, “I know, I know. But he pays for the work we do.”

  And Debbie says, “What did he lie about?”

  And I say, “He told us a big fat lie about needing a suit for a wedding, so we had to rush to get it done even though we were backed up.”

  And she says, “His nephew’s wedding?”

  And before I can say anything, Palmeyer says, “Last time, he said it was his niece’s wedding.”

  And I say, “The guy is a big fat liar.”

  And Palmeyer says, “Regardless,” and tries to hand me the coat, only I don’t take it.

  I say, “Come on, Palmeyer, can’t you do it?”

  And he says, “I’m too backed up.”

  And I say, “Well, I’m backed up too, look, look.” I point toward a rack full of clothes, then to two piles of clothes.

  And he says, “I want you do to it. You’ll do a better job on it than I would.”

  I ignore his compliment, even though it may be the first one he’s ever given me, and I say, “Listen to me. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to fix that big fat liar’s goshdarn jacket. Goshdarn this place, Goshdarn this whole friggin’ place.”

  No one says anything. Debbie and Palmeyer both stare at me.

  Finally, Debbie says to Palmeyer, “Do you mind if Ham and I talk outside for a minute?”

  Palmeyer doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move at all.

  Debbie and I walk outside, and we stand on the sidewalk.

  “What’s the matter, honey? she says. She’s never called me honey before.

  And I say, “Nothing.”

  And she says, “You can tell me.”

  And I say, “Nothing. Really. I’m sorry I swore.”

  And she says, “It’s okay to swear. I’m a big girl. I’ve heard it all before. Frankly, I think people should swear more often. It’s a good way to release some of your emotions.”

  And I say, “Really?”

  And she says, “Fuck, yes.”

  And I laugh a little.

  And she says, “What’s the matter?”

  I almost tell her everything. I almost tell her everything about Shellie. I almost tell her everything about Renée. Instead, I say, “I hate working on the goddam cigarette burns. I hate the GODDAM, MOTHERFUCKING, COCKSUCKING, SON-OF-A-BITCH CIGARETTE BURNS.”

  She puts her arm around my shoulder and says, “It’s okay, honey. I’ll work on the cigarette burn. I’ll take care of it.”

  And, into her shoulder, I say, “Goddam motherfucking cigarette burns.”

  And she says, “Yes, yes, I know. They are motherfuckers, aren’t they?”

  And I say, “Yes.”

  And she says, “Goddam, bitch, ass-licking motherfuckers.”

  And I say, “Yes, yes.”

  x

  What do I think about sometimes? What do I think about when I’m working on cigarette burns? I think about how thin the walls of our home were when we lived in Cadbury.

  They were so thin that I could hear something my mother was saying
on the phone, and she was downstairs in the kitchen, and I was up in my bedroom, and my door was closed and locked.

  “Oh,” she was saying. “Oh, my. Yes. I understand that. I agree that tests are very important.”

  You could hear everything that went on in that house. Everything, even if you weren’t trying. Talking. The television. The dishwasher. Mrs. Cantor, when she came to visit my mother. Clementine. That was our dog. Everything, every little noise, floated around in that house.

  Sometimes, in our bedroom—we shared one, Carl and me—one of us would sneeze, and someone would say, “Bless you,” from the den or the kitchen or, once, from the garage even. From the garage, that’s how thin the walls were.

  “No,” we haven’t been to a doctor yet,” she said. “It hasn’t seemed to be that severe. Nagging is the word I’d use to describe it. A nagging condition.” She’s talking to someone at the high school, probably the principal’s secretary. I can tell.

  “He’s upstairs in bed right now. Sleeping like a baby. I really couldn’t say when he’ll be feeling up to it.”

  They wanted to know why I hadn’t been in school all week is what they wanted to know. My mother was trying to explain. She isn’t really sure why herself. She keeps asking me, “Is it your head? Your stomach? Is it your chest?” “It’s everything,” I kept telling her. It’s everything all put together.

  “Yes, yes,” she said to the secretary. “That would be good. That would be very good.”

  It sounded like they were talking about sending my homework home. I didn’t want to listen. Homework was the last thing on my mind. I’d think of the ballet before I’d think of homework.

  I turned the clock radio on and then sandwiched my head between my pillows until my mother’s voice sounded like a car engine revving. It stuttered and started, like it’s winter outside.

  So, why hadn’t I been to school all week? Bigmouth, that’s why. Thomas was his given name, but everyone called him Bigmouth. That was because he was one of those guys who always had to raise his hand in class and give the teacher the right answer. Always, it was, “Who knows the answer to this problem? Yes, Thomas?” Or “Who would like to go to the blackboard for this one? Thank you, Thomas.” It was not so much that it made the rest of us look dumb, it was just, why did he DO it? Why did he have to be such a bigmouth? He wouldn’t have been half bad otherwise. Even the girls called him Bigmouth, though.

  My mother was off the phone. No more of the car engine, and I took the pillows off my head and lay there, listening to myself breathe, in and out, and to the radio. I couldn’t make myself breathe in time to the songs. In and out, in and out, in three-four time. I played the trombone in fifth-grade band, so I knew a thing or two about music and keeping time. I quit so I could play soccer.

  “Ham, are you okay?”

  It was my mother. She tapped her fingernails against my door, and I couldn’t decide whether to pretend I was asleep. I didn’t feel much like talking to anyone.

  “Ham, Sweetie?”

  And I said, “What?”because I couldn’t have been asleep, or else how did the bedroom door get locked?

  And she said, “I asked if you’re okay.”

  And I said, “I guess so.” There was no inflection in my voice. Nothing. It was just dull and flat, but not sickly, and that was the way I should have sounded. If I sounded sick, then I would have had to see the doctor.

  And she said, “That was Mrs. Agee on the phone, from up at the high school. She’s going to send some work back with Robbie Sincore this afternoon. She says you’ve already missed a quiz in U.S. History. She says it was on the Battle of Bull Run or some other such thing.”

  And I said, “Bull Run was right. It was in the Civil War.” We had started on the Civil War three weeks ago.

  And she said, “She says you can make up the quiz when you get back. You can make it up after school one afternoon.”

  And I said, “Okay.”

  And she said, “Or you can do it during your free period. I told her you’ve got soccer practice, so she said you could take it during your free period instead. Whichever you like. And there’s a quiz in Mr. Lair’s class tomorrow.”

  And I said, “He has one every Friday.”

  And I said, “Oh. My. Every Friday, is that right? My, well, just as long as you know.”

  I listened to my mother move down the hall and into her bedroom. I heard her turn the television on to some game show. I knew it was a game show. I could hear the host, and I would hear the audience going wild, screaming, and I swear that I could just about hear all the lights, they were so loud. She was making the bed, probably, and watching a game show at the same time. You don’t need to concentrate much when you’re making the bed.

  Next, I listened to the man on the radio, the DJ. He told a joke about a lady who eats too much. She eats so much that she can’t get into her car, and someone else tells her to hang the license plate around her neck. That was not the end of the joke, but it may as well have been. It was a dumb joke.

  I listened to myself breathe. In and out, in and out.

  I wanted to apologize, but what would people think if I apologized to Bigmouth? They’d think I was crazy is what they’d think. That, or they’d think I was kidding around.

  I listened. This was what the world sounded like when I was in school. A commercial. The vacuum. The telephone ringing. The DJ. A song I don’t like. In and out, in and out. The washing machine. Clementine in the backyard, pulling against her chain. My mother talking on the phone to one of her friends, something about a picnic. A lady won a dining room set. A song. In and out, in and out. A bathroom faucet. “Just like mama used to make.”

  It was me speaking, only it sounded like someone else. It felt like someone else. Usually, I didn’t hear what I said because I was too busy saying it to listen, but this I heard like it was someone else, someone with a deeper voice standing beside my bed or beneath it or somewhere else close by. Carl’s bureau, maybe. I was remembering, is what I was doing. It was because of the song on the radio. It was a slow song, slow with a lot of pianos, and the signer was singing about he lost his girlfriend. It was music to remember by. That was what my mother calls music like that. Sometimes she would stop doing whatever she was doing and half-close her eyes, like a cat, listening. “Oh, Ham,” she would say to me, “I just remembered something sad.” That’s what I was doing: remembering.

  When I heard my mother turn the shower on, I climbed out of my bed and flicked the lights on and stood in front of the mirror in my gym shorts, nothing else. No shirt. I needed to do sit-ups is what I needed to do. My stomach was getting fat. I flexed my muscles like the men in the Mr. Universe contest and held my breath. Why was I doing this? To make myself laugh, only I don’t. I just looked silly standing there is all.

  When I was done with that, I let my breath out and went back to the nightstand. I turned the radio up louder, then went back to the mirror and danced in front of it. I tried to dance like the dancers on American Bandstand, kicking my legs up, swirling my head around and around, rubbing my hands all over my chest, the whole time making a face like I just drank a whole glass of grapefruit juice. It didn’t work. I was still not laughing, and I shut the radio off, pulled on a t-shirt, the one that said CADBURY HIGH SCHOOL on the front, turned off the lights and headed downstairs.

  The kitchen was clean and all the chairs were pushed in at the table. My mother had already put away everything that she and my father and Carl had for breakfast, which meant that I had to cook for myself. I would have to clean up afterwards too.

  I usually did not eat breakfast, but what else was I going to do? That was what I was doing all week—eating—and most of the time I wasn’t even hungry. It was just something to do to pass the time. Tuesday, I ate an entire chocolate cake, one of those in the boxes that you bought at the supermarket. Not in one sitting. Spread out over the whole day. But it’s the same number of calories regardless of whether you ate it in one sitting or spread it out
.

  I cracked a couple of eggs into a coffee mug and mixed them up with a spoon. I was not very good at cracking eggs, and little white pieces of shell fell in, but I left them. I just stirred them in until I couldn’t see them anymore.

  After I beat the eggs, I melted some margarine in a pan and poured the eggs in, then scrambled them like my mother did, adding a little sugar and a little pepper, making plenty of noise. I forgot to put some bread in the toaster, so I ate the eggs by themselves, which was probably good for me calories-wise. I drank a glass of soda, too. It made my stomach tingle, and I thought of someone at school who said you can clean pennies with soda. I don’t remember who.

  It’s not until I put everything in the sink and start working on the frying pan with and SOS pad that I looked at the clock, and I was surprised to see that it was already eleven. At school, it was almost lunchtime. We ate early. Fourth period. Biology got out in fifteen minutes, and then it was lunch, then Gym, which was no treat right after lunch.

  Eleven also meant that my father was going to call soon, in half an hour maybe. I knew it. It was the same time he had called every day that week, just before he left the office to eat, and I knew he was going to ask me the same questions he had asked every day that week. He was going to ask me how I was feeling. He was going to ask me If I needed anything. He was going to ask me if I wanted to tell him what was the matter. Tuesday, I almost told him about Bigmouth. I almost said, “There’s this guy in my class with the name of Thomas,” but I had a piece of cake instead. I almost told him, though, and I almost told Carl once, too, but he wouldn’t understand. He was too young.

  I took all of the clean dishes and silverware and glasses out of the dishwasher and put them away in the cabinets and drawers, then I put my things in. I walked into the den and turned on the television, then lay down on the carpet in front of it. There was a soap opera on, the one I had been watching all week. I didn’t usually watch soap operas, I was usually in school, but this was a good one. It was the one with Bob and Cheryl in it. Bob was a lawyer, and I had not figured out exactly what Cheryl did. They were trying to find the baby that Cheryl put up for adoption when she was eighteen or nineteen.