Bittersweet
By SteveIn today’s edition of “Phiction Phriday,” we have “Bittersweet.” Warning: Contains attempts to be like Raymond Carver. Reader discretion is advised.
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Bittersweet
I need to take these two bags of trash to the dumpster downstairs, and Carla could call at any minute. Knowing my luck, she’ll call as soon as I take one step outside and won’t know I’m here, and I won’t be able to tell her that I’m here and that she can come over. I pour the last of my beer down my throat, stuff the can in one of the open bags, and place both just outside the front door. I take a Certs out of my pocket, unwrap the mint, and place it on my tongue. I’ll take the bags downstairs in a minute. I can’t miss that call.
Besides, there’s no way I need to be walking around that filthy parking lot, especially with one of those college kids downstairs blowing the engine in his Toyota or Honda and creating our building’s own personal Exxon Valdez spill, only the EPA isn’t in any hurry to clean it up. Neither is the landlord, and no one in the building has cared enough to throw down any cat litter or sand on it. Every time you return from taking out the trash or have parked your car, you bring a little of it in and make a little deposit on the carpet. I have a little trail that starts dark at the door then gets lighter the further you get in the apartment.
At least I used to have that trail. The carpet normally looks mighty ragged, but I rented one of those steamers from the grocery store which got it all cleaned up real good. It’s back closer to its original color, which was this kind of ugly yellow that was popular 20 years ago. It’s okay, I guess. Not that I really care about these things. I might go for something a bit more brown, or tan, something that doesn’t show dirt and stains and shit like that so goddamn much.
I know Carla won’t like the color, the yellow or brown, because she was more into some of those bright colors like we had in our last apartment. She always did like a lot of color, whether it was on the walls of the apartment, the furniture, in her clothes, or even on her face. She’d go for some of those wild hair colors which on most people they look kinda cheap, but Carla can pull it off. She’s a tall, simple woman with a fondness for showing off her body in tight pants, low-cut blouses and frilly bras. She likes bright red lipstick, blood red she’d say, some shadow that really brings out the blue in her eyes, and she wears some face makeup that makes her look like she wasn’t wearing makeup. She always says that is the key; you should never look like you need makeup. She didn’t need it, that’s for sure. She was always a fine looking woman, though she had some skin problem from having some bad acne as a kid. She’d put some cream or powder on her face and it would disappear. I’d get some of it on my face whenever I kissed her, but I didn’t mind that so much.
I’d wiped the dust off all the furniture earlier, because I know she’d notice that, especially on the TV. I even pulled out and cleaned all the music CDs (the country ones were hers, mine were all rock) and VHS tapes in the rack next to the TV. I still had some of her movies on there, Sleepless in Seattle and Working Girl, sitting right next to my Clint Eastwood movies. I really like his old westerns, though Carla liked him more as Dirty Harry or Philo Beddoe in Every Which Way But Loose.
I needed to smoke a cigarette but didn’t want to do it in the apartment because Carla would be able to smell it in the room. When I last saw her a year ago I said I quit, and that seemed to get her all excited as she didn’t like the smell of smoke on my breath. I never understood that, because she liked to smoke when we were out drinking. We went out a lot, almost every night, but she seemed to never get that addiction to cigarettes. I was up to a pack a day by the time she left me, and then I really went into high gear and pretty much doubled my cigarette habit. I like smoking, so it’s not really a big deal.
I lit up in the hallway. You weren’t supposed to smoke at all in this building, as it was a “No Smoking” apartment, but I think that’s just bullshit. You shouldn’t be able to tell a man where he can or cannot smoke.
I blew the smoke out over the ledge that overlooks the parking lot. It was full of beat-up old American and Japanese cars, with an odd Volkswagen. My gray LeSabre was in its spot, and I can see the rust on the driver’s side door from here. It’s a good car, with a smooth ride and enough pep to get me up to speed.
Carla hasn’t been to this place before, but I think she’ll be able to find it. The apartment is around the intersection of Willard and Ridgewood, but in a strange way it isn’t actually on either. If you drove down either street you’d pass right by it if you didn’t know exactly where the driveway is. You needed to stop by the mechanic, Mann and Machine, and turn down the alley just past the garage. If she didn’t know this, she’d drive right by. I gave her pretty clear directions but she was never really good at finding things while driving.
I don’t think she’ll be very impressed with the building itself, but I told myself I’d make sure the apartment is in tip-top shape. The paint’s still pretty good, and the furniture that came with it isn’t all that bad.
I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. I sat down in the big leather chair under the bronze-plated halogen lamp in the living room and took and long gulp. I picked up a magazine off the coffee table and thumbed through the pages, but I couldn’t focus. I kept glancing over at the phone; does a watched phone never ring?
I listened for the mailman, you could usually hear him opening and closing the boxes directly downstairs. He was like clockwork always showed up at 4:00. He was late. As I checked my watch, the phone rang. I rushed over to the phone and pulled it off the cradle.
Hello, Carla?
Can I speak with the woman of the house, is what the voice who wasn’t Carla asked.
No, and I’m waiting for a call.
Do you make the buying decisions for this household?
Yes, goddamnit, but I don’t want to talk to you.
This will only take one moment, sir. We’d like to ask you a few questions.
A few questions, right. You’re just trying to sell me something I don’t need.
Sir, I can assure you…
Fuck off, is what I said as I hung up the phone in anger. Carla could have called during that few seconds; that’s what would have happened if this was some charming romantic comedy or tragic drama. I suddenly regretted turning off call waiting; I never got more than one call at a time, so what was the point of spending an extra few bucks a month?
Now I started to get even angrier. I slammed the entire phone onto the table. Fucking telemarketers, calling all throughout the day, trying to sell me something: credit cards, surveys, I just won a trip to a resort. I’m pretty busy, why are you bothering me?
It must be a hard job, though, having people yell at you all day.
I picked at my thumbnail, scraping away some crud from beneath its dried and yellowed surface. I needed to take a shower, but I’d hoped to wait until she called. I could get in and out of the while she was on the way over.
I grabbed the phone and stretched the chord and the phone line as far as they would go, all the way across the living room (I had to plug the phone into another outlet). I left the bathroom door open, so I could definitely hear the phone ring.
I ran the water and took off my shoes and clothes, throwing my shirt and pants into the hamper. I wrapped a towel around my waist and made my way back to the bedroom. I laid out my clothes for the evening: a clean button-down shirt, the still freshly-pressed Haggar slacks I’d worn to a job interview earlier today, and my new pair of shoes. I picked up the clothes and head back into the bathroom, stacking them on the toilet lid. I’ve been living alone the past year but I still can’t walk naked from the bathroom to the bedroom.
The steam keeps me from seeing my tired body in the mirror as I step in the shower. The hot shower feels good, and I get all lathered up with some soap. I pull the hairs on my stomach and stand motionless under the stream of water, letting it run off the top of my thinning and graying hair and down my face. The water pressure in this apartment is terrible, and I keep mentioning it to the landlord whenever I see him but he doesn’t seem too concerned about it. I picked at the dirt underneath my nails and reached out of the shower to the beer on the sink and took a long drink.
I turned of the water and got out of the shower. I dried myself slowly, wrapped the towel around my waist, trimmed a few extra long and dark nose hairs, shave (even though I already shaved this morning), splashed a little cologne on my neck, and get dressed. I caught a glimpse of a hairbrush sitting in a box on the toilet lid; it’s Carla’s, and even from here I can make out more than one hair color in it. She used to spend what felt like hours before bed combing out here hair, the brush passing down through it in a long, elegant motion. Everything she did was elegant.
I downed the rest of my beer and put the empty can in the trash and covered it with some tissues and wrappers. I’m hungry and really want to eat something, but I want to wait for Carla to get here.
Hopefully she won’t be in one of her moods. I love her to death, but she can get real bitchy. Now I’m all for women and men being equal, but after I worked all day carrying those boxes over at UPS, I don’t want to do anything but come home, eat some dinner, watch some TV and knock down a few cold ones.
It’s like she’s always on the rag. She was always getting on me about things, always telling me to get off my ass and take out the trash, or clean up this or that. It’s not like she had to lift anything at her job. She basically answered phones at a cellular phone company, though she had some fancy title about being a technical support manager. She got paid on commission to get people to upgrade their cellular service, and with her sexy voice she was real good at it. A natural saleswoman, as her boss would tell her. She even dressed the part of a professional, getting some business suits, wearing perfume, always buying fancy nylons, the ones that don’t get runs in them. I never really could figure out why she’d want to dress up for a phone job, but she said she had to look good to impress her boss so she could get a promotion.
But she got home a couple hours earlier then I ever did on most nights, though on others she’d stay late, especially before she left. I figured if she got home first, she should handle the dinner and maybe take out the trash and straighten things out. I know I would do that if I was home first, but I usually worked overtime for the extra money. We always seemed to be short on money, and we’d already maxed out the credit cards and all. Well, she seemed to do all the spending, on those business suits and perfume and all. I also would buy her pretty things, like flowers and jewelry, things I knew she’d like.
Like most women, she’d always ask me what was on my mind, what I was thinking and all, and never had an answer for her. These little “state of the marriage” discussions were the worst. I’d nod a lot and do whatever it took to end the discussion. Most of the time I’m not thinking, and when she’d think I was in some sort of deep thought trance I was more likely thinking I’d rather be somewhere else. If we fought, I was just as happy to forget everything and let our anger run its course. We’d break a few things and then feel better and that’d be it.
But I don’t think she really wanted to know what I was thinking anyway. People never tell the truth to each other, and that was especially true for me. We keep trying to make things up so we’re always in state of denial, lying through our teeth to seem more interesting to each other.
She definitely didn’t want to know what I thought about kids. She thought she was pregnant once, and got all excited over the idea. Of course the first thing out of my mouth was something like, “You’re not actually planning on having the kid, are you?” And that really got her upset, but I couldn’t see why. She wasn’t thinking it through. We could barely afford the apartment we were in, our two cars were rusting out and probably wouldn’t survive another Winter, and there were some nights we could barely afford McDonalds, much less a real dinner out on the town. I didn’t want to bring a kid into the world until we got some money in the bank. And even then, I’d probably rather put that money down on a nice house for the two of us, or for a couple of new cars, before I’d want a kid. I just don’t like kids.
Needless to say it turned out to be a false alarm, which I was obviously grateful for. But after that event, she got really depressed and seemed to be a lot more quiet then normal. I think something happened to her, probably some hormonal thing. That’s a joke, really. But seriously, after about six months she left one morning, saying she’d had enough of my immaturity, my drinking, and she wanted someone who was more ambitious.
I was like, “Don’t be such a bitch.” I mean, I’m ambitious, it’s just things haven’t been going great at work. We’re really busy because the holidays are coming up, and my back has been tightening up. As for the drinking, I wasn’t drinking any more than most people, and it’s not like I ever hit her or anything when I got drunk. I’m not a mean drunk, I’m more of happy drunk. I laugh a lot more, and make everyone around me a lot happier.
As for being immature, she’s the one who should talk. She’s the one that bought into the fantasy of the 2.5 kids, the house in the suburbs, all that bullshit. We were past 30, that life was something to shoot for, but we’d need to get out of the city to make that work, especially with what we were both making at our jobs.
Needless to say, that morning she left, which was a Wednesday, and I’d missed a couple of days of work before because of my back, I was nursing a serious headache, and I snapped a bit at her after she said she was leaving. I called her some names I really wish I hadn’t, and ones I really don’t want to repeat. I’m sorry I said them, and have told her so much many times since then.
It was weird right after she left, because you realize that all of your friends are suddenly forced to take sides. In our case it was pretty easy for them to take her side because she brought all the friends with her when we hooked up. I’m not sure most of them actually liked me. They had all gone to high school together and always talked about old times that I wasn’t a part of, which really bugged me. I think they picked that up from time to time, but they still did it, which I didn’t think was too friendly of them.
I had the guys from work, but they were mostly black guys, and while I’m not racist, I just don’t find myself wanting to hang out with them.
After a few months of separation, I decided I’d try dating again. I figured we were broke up even though we were still married, so it’s not like I’d be cheating. Besides, I was getting a bit sick of celibacy, so I staked out some spots at one of the local bars, pulled off my wedding ring, and stepped back into the scene, so to speak. We’d been together for nearly 10 years, Carla and me, and boy had the dating scene changed. The women out there, I couldn’t figure them out. They all talked different, and whenever I’d try to talk to them they’d treat me like I was from another planet or something. I’d try to be nice, buy them drinks, but they were totally ungrateful. I got a couple of numbers, but one gave me a fake number after I spent about $20 buying her drinks. Can you believe that? She could at least talk to me on the phone.
Around this time, I tried to talk to Carla. She’d moved in with a co-worker, some woman whose name I can’t remember. I got her number from the receptionist at her company, a big woman who I think had a little crush on me. She was surprised to hear from me, that’s for sure, and she didn’t seem to want to talk. I’ve been calling for the last few weeks, at least once a night, leaving messages on her machine, inviting her over.
I sit on the chair in the kitchen and open another beer. I’ll still hang on to the cordless phone. I look out the window into the western sky, tasting the breeze to determine its intensions. Rain is coming, and it’s getting darker by the minute. It always gets darker earlier at this time of the year.
I look down at my hand, at the thin hairs on my knuckles and traced the blue veins that run across the back toward the wrist with my eyes. My hands start to shake for some reason; they do that that from time-to-time. I look at my watch. She’ll call any minute now, I can feel it. Things are really looking up for us.