Love & Darts Read online

hire a heating and cooling guy or if she just didn’t really care anymore. Because I think she knew, you know?

  When we got to the restaurant I helped her with the seat belt, the curb, the steps, and the hostess. We sat at the counter. It was easier to lean onto the stools than for her sit down in one of those low wooden chairs at the tables. The coffeepots sang silent with their steam. There was no one there who cared about her sweater. And we each ate biscuits. Turning so slow, swiveling from side-to-side on our almost-too-resistant counter stools.

  CHARACTER SKETCH, 1997

  She had to have it, you know? That was kind of her thing, real grabby-like.

  But she was good at things that didn’t rely on others. She was good at things for a little while and then moved on. She was good at things like mixing drinks and cooking; like making jewelry; arranging patio furniture under the setting Texan sun; gardening, tomatoes mainly; and playing video games. It’s not like she was neat or whatever. But she liked things a certain way in a certain place and organized her CDs, rearranged the inside furniture, too. Alphabetized books on shelves. Stuff like that, you know. What else? Oh. She was really good at picking songs and burning homemade compilations for friends. Crafts, too. She made envelopes, you know. Herself. By hand. Same with cigarettes and decoupage collages.

  Yeah. I can tell you more. There’s always more.

  Mixing drinks: In a glass vase on the counter behind the sink she kept long glass swizzle sticks with bright ornamental figures on the tops. Blown glass, you know? A monkey. A parrot. A palm tree. And a bright umbrella. They were a set. An expensive set of art glass swizzle sticks. Kitschy but beautifully rendered. She was careful with them and for fun screamed at her friends to be careful with them too. It was like a joke, but super mean. She made the drinks in the kitchen. Stirred them with the handle end of a knife, then served them on the patio wearing their swizzle sticks, expecting comment. Tom Collins. Mint Julep. Gimlet. Clamato and Spicy Tequila with Lime Juice.

  Cooking: She always used the right implement or pot for its express purpose. And she didn’t mind the cleanup that this involved. She didn’t mind at all. I know because she always told me, “I don’t mind.”

  Making jewelry: She had a red Sears Craftsman toolbox where she kept all her jewelry-making supplies. The burliness was explained away. It was a really satisfying toolbox. In the top she kept all the beads in a carefully-organized removable tray. Underneath there were different wires and clasps and pairs of needle-nose pliers and graduated sizes of similar-looking tools. In the bottom of her butch jewelry-making box she also kept a paring knife. It had belonged to her great-grandfather who had come to America from Sweden via Ellis Island. She said he carved his initials in a lot of walls with that knife. She told the story saying she didn’t approve of graffiti.

  Gardening: Her garden was a tribute to her favorite architects. Bamboo structures were everywhere. She grew tomatoes on all of them except for the ones where peppers and sweet sugar snap peas with their Awwww-look-aren’t-they-sweet? blossoms grew. But like Monet with his haystacks she had a focus and was mainly interested in the best structure to support tomatoes. Tried different things. Pyramids. Towers. Conical funnels. And round cages. She built whimsical bent-bamboo tomato trellis forts. After trying everything she found that an igloo-type structure provided the best support and ease of harvest for the tomatoes. It optimized the exposed surface area of the leaves to bright midday sunlight.

  Video Games: She was very good at video games that involved racing. She could even race the game itself on the most difficult and trying courses. She was, however, not so good at the video games that involved the martial arts. Her roundhouse kick was a personal embarrassment.

  Organizing CDs: If a friend were depressed and there seemed no way to contribute, she would show up on a breezy Saturday and organize the CDs as if of course that would help. She put them in genres—not in alphabetical order like the books. And once finished she put the DVDs and videotapes away. And she would look under the sink and put order there. Then she would make sure that the clothes in closets were not chaotic but pleasantly satisfying, orderly. She’d make a joke from a movie about wire hangers. After that, she would link her arm in her friend’s arm and they would find a place to eat tamales and chicken wings outside in the afternoon. “You’ll love it. Their cheladas are great.”

  Arranging the Furniture: The furniture in her living room was always a little discordant. She liked to have the bright yellow chaise next to her black metal apothecary chest right in front of the door as one walked in. It had an interesting effect. Not exactly feng shui. Coming into the room one was accosted by the fortress of furniture. But she had it that way for a reason. The person lying on the chaise could reach over and open the door without getting up. If the cops came, well, it bought time.

  Burning Songs: She was a fanatic with the CD burner. But she made it a moral point to buy exactly one quarter of the downloaded artists’ songs.

  Making envelopes: The artisan envelope was her signature. When she sent invitations for her cocktail parties, which she had on the patio with citronella torchlight, low funky music, and those fancy blown-glass swizzle sticks that she yelled at her friends to use with care, she made the invitation envelopes herself out of old wrapping paper or wallpaper samples. But the effort was so great that the guest lists stayed short.

  Rolling Cigarettes: She was very good at rolling cigarettes. She could do it in her hands. Or she could do it on her little cigarette-rolling machine that she took with her to diners late at night. Mostly it was tobacco.

  Collages and Decoupage: She collected pieces of wood. Mainly small, really quite useless cutting boards. She never used wooden cutting boards in her kitchen. Didn’t like bacteria to breed at an uncontrollable rate. But they were such beautiful pieces of wood, those little cutting boards. So she bought them, the smallest ones, the most useless ones, whenever she got the chance. She cut pictures of thin-armed girls in well-suited homes from magazines. Dwell. Better Homes & Gardens. National Geographic. And Surf Digest. She made collages on the cutting boards with decoupage glue and a pair of really sharp haircutting scissors from the beauty supply shop.

  Planting terrariums in perfume bottles: Though short-lived, for a time she made a hobby of planting terrariums in tiny perfume bottles. She made a great terrarium and gave it to her elderly neighbor whose children had decided to sell the old woman’s house and move her into an assisted living community. Who could blame them for the market? Houses just wouldn’t ever get these kinds of prices again. But still. It didn’t seem right to sell an old lady’s house out from under her without her consent. So my friend with the jewelry-making toolbox and the art glass swizzle sticks and the optimal bamboo structure for growing tomatoes stayed up all night and planted a teeny tiny terrarium for her neighbor to take with her to her last new life.

  Humming: But. You know how things go. There are ups and downs. Not everything is the way you might hope. My friend was just like anyone that way. She panicked. She threw things. She shoved people. She held close friends in vicious contempt. She was paranoid. She didn’t care. She was defensive. She was wounded. She was on drugs but not like they teach you in school. She was above all that and did drugs for fun, for freedom, for something to do with her disposable income, for the hell of it, for the experience, for enough quality bonding time, for better sex, for enlightened transcendence and Whip-it! laughs. Sometimes she cried and screamed with an infantile sense of injustice. But. Whenever she was driving alone she was happy. And she hummed.

  SMILES

  Sometimes you are standing in line at the bank. And you smile because you feel you must. You don’t expect to chat and converse but the teller is an old enemy from high school. You already know her story. You’ve heard five different versions of it. Worse. She knows yours.

  You’re in hot-pink sweatpants from Victoria’s Secret. They’re pulled up to mid-calf. And you don’t remember in the moment that they were buy-one-get-a-free-purse-
sized-perfume. You’re wearing flip-flops with a row of rhinestones passing over the tan you rubbed on your feet, your belly, your shoulders, your legs. Your mother, every mother you know, used to say, “You can be anything, honey.” She used to say, “We don’t quit.” Now she says, “I don’t think you heard me the first time. I don’t care who he is.”

  Your hair is a mess. And who gives a shit? It’s ninety degrees and humid. You really weren’t planning on seeing anyone anyway. Definitely not this chick.

  Dammit. There’s no avoiding her. She’s already seen you and the other lady must be at lunch. You’re next. You’re waiting for your turn to reach out and grab a sucker from the baseball-shaped ceramic mug. You’re behind the overweight guy in Wranglers, a dusty blue flannel work shirt, and big, red, wide suspenders. So what if she’s looking at you, trying to wave a little bit, craning her neck around Mr. Can’t-Wear-A-Belt-Like-A-Normal-Person to say hi before he’s finished his business? Just stare all you want at the one brass clip on his waistband, which is slowly letting go of that denim edge. Metal fatigue, probably. The thing’s got no grip left. It’s gonna pop at any moment.

  Your mother used to say, “Quit staring.” But why should you? That thing is barely holding on and you want to see it spring loose the next time he heaves with one of those COPD coughs. What’s the point of looking away? What’s the deal with all this shame, all this pretending nothing’s happening, all this putting a good face on a whole bunch of bullshit? And why should you do it for this guy in suspenders or for the old enemy from high school who counts a stack of twenties and keeps starting over? It’s not pride or social etiquette. It is not prayer—that’s elsewhere. There is no reason to pray for this girl or some old, fat guy with red suspenders. So just keep looking at that brass clip, which will definitely pop before he gets back to his truck, and let your mind start its usual subservient free fall.

  You see that real unnamed breath, which never has explained itself. As if you care. You violently toss away your Bible school-issue halo but it boomerangs, chokes you, and spins around your neck like a fast, accurate horseshoe on a stake cemented against the force of arthritic clapping and victorious shouts by some great-uncle at a family reunion. And with this kind of physical proximity to the essence of life you know instantly and then know nothing of it, remembering the bank teller, this old enemy from high school, is divorced with two kids.

  You should have just deposited this thing at the ATM but you can’t now. You want a pineapple sucker and need a roll of quarters anyway. You shift your weight to place your body under the air conditioning vent. The man in the suspenders is finished with his business. He pounds a stack of envelopes on the counter and explains himself as he heads for the door, the truck, and the post office, which is under review. “Wouldn’t have even had either overdraft fee if the payroll service didn’t take the day off for the Fourth. Damn thing’s automated. How’s a computer gonna take the day off?” And he’s gone.

  The door is made of glass tinted brown.

  Before you take that last step forward there is another glimmer in your mind but it is nothing fearful, nothing really intimidating, nothing that can hurt you. Not anymore. Those glimmers are good. They breed humility in your worldview, deference in decision-making, caution while driving, and hesitation in what you say. They are visitors that beguile certainty on tired afternoons, trespassers and traitors, like old friends lost, like space invaders.

  But whatever. You don’t have to look over your shoulder anymore. Just put your paycheck between your teeth, pull the boomerang/horseshoe/halo thing away from your throat, and readjust your headband. You don’t have a duty to listen to this girl’s sob story while she cashes your check.

  You don’t have to care. You don’t. But you do need a roll of quarters. So you take that last step forward and smile. Just hand her the stupid paycheck and say it. “Hey. Girl. How’ve you been doing?”

  You pick up the baseball-shaped coffee mug and start rifling through it looking for what you want.

  She takes it as her cue to say she’s recovering slowly from a bout of too much drinking which came out in the custody hearing—it’s not as if she drives into oncoming traffic every day—but luckily they found in her favor. You do not care. But you still smile. So she goes on. She couldn’t believe that the judge let him get out of paying the child support he’d missed: the child will only eat brand-name chicken nuggets, which are not cheap even if you buy in bulk. She moved back in with her mom and dad and they are helping her get back on her feet. She had to sell the house but that was okay because the roof needed to be replaced and the people that bought it knew some great roofers. She couldn’t have afforded to put a roof on that house after all the court costs and divorce and all. But she’s doing really well.

  It’s over. You’ve got the quarters. You’ve listened to whatever she felt the need to share. You’re done. You turn to leave. You take a step away from the counter and have your sunglasses back on before she says, “And what about you? Did you decide to press charges?”

  BLEACH & WHITE TOWELS

  After work—fuck that bullshit job—I get home and give in.

  Sometimes I can’t get back up off the couch all night. It’s not any one thing. I just don’t know what duties matter, what obligations I care about, or how much to let myself be exploited by these assholes who think one person can do six peoples’ jobs. American dream. Are you freaking kidding me? Who the hell makes it happen? I don’t see how it’s possible. A house? Marriage? Kids?

  I’m tapping the base of the entertainment center with my shoe and slouch down. My neck’s bent against the back of the couch and my butt’s hanging off the cushions. I’m glad I don’t have a girlfriend. Dating’s too expensive. One dinner and a movie and I can hardly pay my rent.

  There’s not crap on TV anymore. I throw a frozen French bread pizza in the toaster oven, go back to the couch, grab the remote, flip around for a while, watch some news, maybe a little SportsCenter, but what’s the point?

  The Brewers suck right now. They’ll never amount to anything with Davey Lopes.

  The timer reminds me to get up. By no stretch of the imagination is this pathetic pizza a supreme. There is one shaving of sausage and a layer of cheese I can see through on top of the thin slab of bread. Flakes of red and green pepper placed at statistically optimal distances from one another seem to repel the tiny cubes of pepperoni that dot the top.

  Still. They don’t cut corners on packaging. Some dude stares up at me from the pizza box in the trash. He’s supposed to be a fighter pilot, an ideal. His red scarf is blowing back in the wind. His eyes are cast to the heavens beyond. Dashing. Dude’s got a fucking mustache and a tousled animated haircut. He’s wearing goggles on his head. And his stylized WWII garb would still get more women than I ever could.

  I look at the clock. It’s almost eight. Whether or not I show up, Judson’s always got a shot of Tullamore Dew sitting in a glass on the bar for me at eight o’clock. To have a drink waiting for you at the bar when you get there is a great sign of significance.

  I don’t really care that much.

  But I usually go. Some people put on a new shirt to go out at night. I never do. I’ve never really understood it. I just go in my work clothes. The bar on the corner is brick, has a cracked set of curved cement steps that no one’s ever gonna fix, and has too many neon signs for the size of the windows. There are two small Harleys parked on the sidewalk. Who the hell parks on the sidewalk?

  I open the door and camel bells slap the back side. A few other regular patrons look up from listening to the bartender read out loud. He does that sometimes. Seems to get a kick out of it on slow nights. He holds a book and says, “And I am dirty with its satisfaction.” I rattle the door, like applause maybe, like I’m sort of making fun of him, too. Nothing crazy. Nothing out of control. Just enough to bring him down a peg. The camel bells smack the wall once and Judson shuts the book. He doesn’t look pissed and sure enough, my drink’s waiting
in front of my seat at the short end of the bar.

  He looks me in the eye, “‘And I am dirty with its satisfaction.’ Isn’t that great? So much in it. All the guilt. All the pleasure. All the social constructs and guises and norms and repression. I love it.”

  I drink slowly. “I’ll love it when you get off the literary kick.”

  “Just waiting for Monday Night Football so the library card can go back in the closet. I can’t stand baseball. Won’t have it in this bar.”

  The Brewers suck anyway. “You got anything to eat back there?”

  He starts to dig through a little fridge and produces half an egg salad sandwich, three jalapeno-pickled green beans that go in the Bloody Marys, and a fistful of pretzels stale from the humidity. He plops everything onto a paper plate that bends with the weight and shoves it over to me. “A little gold, frankincense, and myrrh for you, right there. How’s that?”

  Better than that crappy pizza. “I’m dirty with its satisfaction.”

  He turns his back, picks up a bucket, and heads for the ice maker. I watch him digging down into the chest of fused ice cubes. What the fuck is he using? Some kind of red plastic thing. “Is that a sand shovel for kids at the beach?”

  “Yeah. It is.”

  I don’t want to ask. But. I can’t let it go. “Why the fuck are you using a sand shovel?”

  “I don’t know. I bought it last week. Thought it’d work pretty good. I hate those stainless steel scoops. The handles get too cold. And I don’t like cutting ketchup jugs to make scoops either. Too much trouble. They bend and crack. This is sturdy.”

  “But it’s a kid’s toy.”

  “So.”

  There are two women playing pool. They don’t talk too much but enjoy the game. One wears black leather pants. The other’s in a black leather vest. They must account for the two Harleys outside. Nebraska plates. Nice bikes. But I don’t know too much about bikes. I look at the woman in the vest a little too long. She smiles. She cocks her hips. She leans on the pool cue. She opens her mouth and touches her tongue to the tapering length of the wood.

  Jesus. Who wants to deal with all that? I’ve gotta work in the morning. I swivel on my stool, put both elbows on the bar, and watch Judson dump ice over the beers. “Those girls in for Summerfest, you think? I’m not going this year. Too many people. Too much traffic.”

  “It’s Harley’s 100th though too. That could be it. Or just