Hi, this is Richard Drake. I’m either not home, or I’m busy creating some ingenious piece of software. So leave a message at the tone, and I’ll get back to you – honest.
I thought it might be my boss, but it’s Gwen. She has this new voice, high-pitched and loud, even more of a teeth-grinder than her old one. “I need to talk to you. It’s important.” At the word “important,” I reach for the phone. Then I remember that there is nothing important left to tell me, and I relax back into my chair. “Richard. If you’re there and you’re not picking up....” There is some dead air. The machine clicks off. Maybe I’ll call her later. It doesn’t really matter. She’ll call back if I don’t.
She’s probably calling to ask me one more time what I remember about that weekend…that last one. She has to have asked the same questions a hundred times by now. What did he do? What did he say? Did he act depressed? Where could he have gotten the gun? And I answer her the same way every time. “I don’t remember.” “I don’t know.”
To tell the truth, I don’t think she wants answers. What she really wants is for me to say just that, “I don’t know.” That’s how she hammers home that I was probably too focused on my work to “notice” anything – one of her big gripes when we were still married.
Besides, so what if I do remember something? What’s the point? What am I going to do, go back and change it? What good can come from dwelling on it? But then, dwelling on the past was always one of Gwen’s favorite pastimes, especially when it involved some great injustice I’d done her.
I need to get back to work, but now the momentum’s gone. Even divorced, Gwen still finds ways to interrupt my work and screw with my chain of thought.
I hate to quit now, but, actually, I am starting to flag. I’m not a morning person. Of course, that’s the great part about working from home. I could just take a nap right now and no one would know. Rolled up on the sofa are a pillow and blanket that I got the last time I forced myself to go upstairs. It looks inviting, but instead I go into the kitchen and pour myself another cup of coffee. By now it’s so acidic my salivary glands ache.
This kitchen’s getting too cluttered, even for me. The counters are covered with coffee grounds, some of which might turn out to be little brown ants if I look too closely. I turn my back on it and lean against the counter to sip my coffee.
Okay, sure, sometimes I do wonder what might have happened if I’d paid more attention that weekend. But it’s not like I was out on a date, I was right here in the house, working. There’s no such thing as weekends when you do consulting, only deadlines. Besides, why would I think he had a gun with him? He didn’t get that at my house.
And I wouldn’t say he seemed depressed – I mean, nothing out of the ordinary. He was a teen-age boy for chrissake. A weekend with me was always more like a sentence for him. He wanted to be at home with his friends, doing crazy stunts on his skateboard; when he couldn’t be outside with them, he wanted to play those video games, where you grab a control and compete with each other. I hate those goddamn things. I have no eye/hand coordination.
He didn’t even like the same computer games I did. I tried to get him involved with that one where you find your way off the island by solving a series of intricate puzzles. He watched for a while and then drifted out of the room. Apparently, he preferred the faster ones where things like mummies jump out of the wall, and you have to try to kill them before they kill you. They’re all reaction time and no brainwork.
Jeez, here I am lighting another cigarette. Last night I went out just to buy some basics, like milk and eggs and bread. I remembered the milk, and then, at the checkout, I asked for this pack of cigarettes—just like that. Just like it hadn’t been ten years since I’d bought the last one.
And this coffee is really burning a hole in my stomach. Maybe I should add some milk. Eating something would probably help, too. I’m not sure when was the last time I did. Though my paunch doesn’t appear to have diminished any. Even when I do nothing to nurture it, it clings like a needy woman.
I go through the short menu of items I may have in the house, but the only thought I can tolerate is cereal. It takes nothing to prepare, and it goes down easy. When I was a kid, my mom always gave me dry cereal to eat when I couldn’t keep anything else down.
So I open the cabinet to get some, and the first thing I see is that cookie cereal. His cereal.
It shouldn’t surprise me. I’ve been buying it for years. On the front is a little man with skinny legs and a cookie body. On the back is some puzzle game that a two-year-old could solve. Gwen always called this cereal “crap.” She bought it when the boy was little because he refused to eat anything else, but she proclaimed it just a little bit better than nothing at all.
I kept buying it after they left. And I’d eat it too, on his weekends here, just for a change, I guess. I always kept it in the cabinet next to my raisin bran, for when he came to visit.
I swallow hard and take a deep breath and another sip of the acid coffee. Women are wrong. It doesn’t feel better to cry. All you get are stinging eyes and a head that feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls. I mean, I don’t really even know if he ate the stuff anymore. Ever since he got to the age where he slept later than me, he’d get his own breakfast and eat in front of the TV. Maybe I’d been buying it just for myself.
I pop one of the miniature cookies into my mouth. Though I’ve never tried it dry, it’s not bad – kind of like a hard chocolate chip cookie. I take a couple more, and then grab a whole handful. I pour a little more coffee into my cup and lean against the counter eating these little cookies and washing them down with sour coffee.
How old could he have been when Gwen left me — five, maybe six? I found her upstairs packing, with him sitting on the bed next to the suitcase. When I asked what was going on, she said I wouldn’t understand. She got that right. I didn’t understand. I still don’t. I know she griped about how I didn’t spend enough time with them, but I wasn’t clairvoyant. I told her, plenty of times, if you think I’m spending too much time at the computer, just tell me, and I’ll stop. But saying that just seemed to make her madder.
Sometimes I wanted to ask my son if he understood. And sometimes when Gwen would have another new guy at the house when I picked him up, I wanted to ask him about that, too. I wanted to know if these guys really did all the things she said I didn’t do. But, then, what would have been the point? She made the decision, so it must have been what she wanted. My son didn’t seem to be too bothered by it either. So why ask?
This time when I reach in for another handful of cookies, I find only a grainy pile of crumbs in the corner of the box. I feel around for at least one more solid piece, but all I come up with is sugar stuck all over my fingers. So I remove a bowl from the pile in the sink, rinse it a little, and pour in the sandy cereal remains. I add just enough milk to concoct a paste, and sit down at the table to eat it, rubbing each spoonful of the grainy mixture between my tongue and the roof of my mouth, tasting the sweetness, before I swallow it down.
The phone rings again and I hear the machine pick up in the office. After the greeting, it clicks off. I know it’s Gwen. She must be desperate to talk to me. I guess there are some things that boyfriend of hers can’t do for her.
The sugar and coffee give me the kick I need. If I go back now, I can probably make some real progress on that software before the meeting tomorrow. Maybe I’ll even get to my pile of overdue bills.
Only, when I scrape the remains of the cereal from the bowl, it doesn’t quite feel like I’ve had enough. So I start looking around.
There’s my raisin bran, of course, but that doesn’t appeal to me right now, and the other cabinets are pretty bare. All I can find is some peanut butter. I scrape a knife across the thin film left on the bottom of the jar, but even if there were more, it’s not really the taste I’m looking for. I don’t want peanuts. What I want, I realize, is more cookie cereal.
It takes a search of the kitchen and the office to find where I left my keys and wallet the night before. Then I head out for the Q-mart. The sky is gray, and it’s drizzling a little, but I don’t take time for a jacket.
In the car, I turn on the radio, but, instead of sticking with my Public Radio station, I hit the scan button. Little snips of music flash by, interrupted by voices or static. Then a tune catches my ear, one of those instrumentals of some old, popular song . The words to it float around somewhere at the back of my brain, from a long time ago. They just won’t come to me. When another song follows, I turn it off because now I need to remember. Was it something from when Gwen and I were dating?
I can do dum dum now the dum, no, wait...yeah. Something about seeing clearly after the rain has gone...I can see all Popsicles on the tray.
All Popsicles on the tray? That can’t be right. What was it, some dumb commercial jingle? But now that stupid line is stuck in my head, since I can’t remember the rest of the song, and along with the repetition, a memory seeps in. Actually, it’s more of a feeling. It’s the feeling of riding in that Mustang convertible, with the wind pounding around my ears. I can smell the leather seats and another scent… the scent of little boy. The scent of the sun beating down on his shiny black hair, like the smell of just ironed clothes. Now I remember, he was the one who used to sing those words. I don’t know where he picked it up. Maybe Gwen sang it, and he misunderstood, the way kids do. I can hear that high-pitched little boy voice singing at the top of his lungs, back when he didn’t care if people were looking, and I’d sing it too, with the same wrong words.
So I guess we did have fun together sometimes — probably before the divorce… But that couldn’t have been before. I got that car after Gwen left, one of the benefits of being single. So when did things change? When did we stop doing stuff together? When did the things happen that made him do what he did?
There’s only one other car at the Q-mart. I park right next to the handicapped spot. There’s a fine drizzle falling now, so I jam my hands in my pockets and hunch my shoulders.
The store is empty except for the kid behind the counter and an old guy on his way out with a coffee. It’s a small place where you can see practically the entire inventory from the entrance. I spot the cereals right away and waste no time. Unfortunately, they have only a few of the most popular brands, and no cookie cereal. Still, I stand there for a few minutes, unwilling to give up so soon.
“You lookin’ for somethin’?” There’s no inflection in the voice behind me. I turn around to see a tall, skinny kid with dark, stringy hair and drooping shoulders.
“Yeah, I’m looking for that cookie cereal.”
“Got a name?”
“Yeah, I’m – oh, you mean the cereal.” I don’t know the name. I would know it if I saw it. How many years have I been buying it now, and I still don’t know the name. “Uh, it’s like little chocolate chip cookies. Only it’s a cereal.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “This is all the cereal we got.” He lopes back to the counter.
“Gee, thanks,” I say and give the door a hard push. You moron. Sure it’s a boring job, but did you ever think that maybe if you tried a little, you wouldn’t be stuck behind a counter for the rest of your life?
What is it with these kids today? All that interests them is those extreme sports. The only time they get close to a library is to launch a skateboard off the top step. Anything, so long as they don’t have to use their brains.
When I get to the parking lot exit, I hang there, looking in both directions. Was it really worth all this just to get some goddamn cereal? Just think how much I could have accomplished by now. I might have even gotten to filling out some client reports or cleaning up the kitchen.
But, hell, I’m here now. I may as well check the supermarket on my way home.
Almost as soon as I pull out, I’m caught in traffic.
I dig a cigarette from the pack and try to figure out where the lighter and ashtray are in this car. The traffic is barely inching. I reach toward the radio, but then change my mind. That song is still going in my head, and the words come out to the rhythm of the windshield wipers.
Some-thing-some-thing-now-the-rain-is-gone.
We did have fun that day we went out to buy his mountain bike… his last birthday. I couldn’t surprise him with it. I wouldn’t know the first thing about buying one, but I asked him what he wanted and that’s what he said, so I took him to the store and let him pick it out. After, I realized that I maybe should have put a price limit on it, but he was so excited, I couldn’t refuse him the one he wanted.
He was really intent on showing me all the features, too. He pointed them all out to me while we stood in the driveway. I feigned interest, but the principle of a bicycle is pretty basic. How excited can you get about it?
Then he took it out for a while, and when he came back he made me come outside again so he could show me some more features he’d discovered and tell me how it performed. He tried to get me to take a ride on it but I declined. Then he said how now he could go on a trip with Sean or Sven, or whatever the hell his name is – Gwen’s boyfriend.
That kind of bugged me when he said that. Of course, I didn’t say anything to him. What would have been the point? I mean, it’s not as if I wanted to go with him instead. I don’t think I could ride one of those things on flat ground, let alone up a mountain. I guess it was just that I had spent all that money and all, and gone through the trouble – I guess that was it. It was the timing.
The traffic is still just inching. Maybe I should turn around and go back. It looks just as bad in the other direction, though, and I think I can make out the sign for the supermarket a couple of blocks up. If I don’t end up with the goddamn cereal, I’ll have come all the way out here for nothing.
The rain hits harder against my windshield, so I speed up the wipers, and the song speeds up in my brain.
I can see all Popsicles on the tray....
That was well over a year ago now, when we got the bike.... I wonder if those two ever did go on that trip. He never said anything about it. But then, we didn’t have long conversations.
He seemed like a pretty nice guy, that Sean...Sven? He came at the end of a long string of boyfriends, and he was a good bit younger than Gwen. I always figured that’s why she hung on to him so much longer than the rest. But he was good with the boy, and maybe that was the real reason. Maybe, in her mother’s way, she was testing out guys for the one who would make the best father.
He sure had me beat. For one thing he liked doing kid things, not like me. I hadn’t liked doing kid things even when I was a kid. And the times I’d seen him at Gwen’s, when I’d go to pick up the boy, he didn’t act like the other guys, anxious to get the kid out the door. He’d pat him on the shoulder or muss his hair. The kid seemed to like it.
That’s another thing Gwen always accused me of. She said I wasn’t “demonstrative.” She was big on those pop psychology analyses. She claimed it had something to do with my inability to “connect” with people. I think that was the word she used – “connect.”
At the supermarket the lot is crowded, and it’s really raining, not just drizzling anymore. You’ve got to wonder why anyone else would pick such a lousy day to do their shopping. The store is huge, and as many times as I’ve shopped here, I still have to check the signs at the head of the aisles.
Finally, I find the cereal all the way at the other end. My eyes wander over all the brands then, finally, yes, there it is, on the bottom shelf.
Leaning down, I grab a box. Then I replace it and take the jumbo size instead. Then I grab another box and another. Hugging them to my chest like my girlfriend’s schoolbooks, I head over to the dairy aisle. With all this cereal, I’ll need plenty of milk.
It’s a tough act balancing the milk on top of the cereal. The cashier gives me a funny look.
“Cash?”
“No, debit.”
“Exact?”
“No, give me an extra twenty, and I’ll need a pack of Lites.”
“Have a nice day,” she says, handing me the receipt and the bag. For a second I just look at her. She half-shrugs, and I move on.
In the car I place the bag on the passenger seat, but before I start it up I catch sight of a woman running her cart through the rain. She pulls the hood up on her little boy’s slicker while he sits in the cart swinging his legs and babbling, as though it were any bright, sunny day.
I get that feeling in my throat again, and I have to swallow and breathe hard to get it under control.
I can’t let this happen. I can’t sit here in this fish bowl of a car and let that woman see me cry. She will feel sorry for me, and I don’t deserve her sorrow.
I’m not like her. I never even really knew my boy. No matter how I strain, I cannot remember one thing he did or said that last weekend. How would I know what made him depressed, when I didn’t even know what made him happy? Gwen was right. I don’t connect. He was at my house every other weekend for nine years, and all I have is a song I don’t know the words to and some cereal I don’t even know if he ate anymore.
“Have a nice day,” I hear the checkout girl say.
The fuck I will. I will never, ever have a nice day again.
I ram the key into the ignition, and pull out of the lot. This time I tune the radio to a talk show, and hold that song out of my brain, while I swipe the tears with the back of my hand and hope no one in the other cars will notice.
From the supermarket to home it’s smooth sailing, but my body feels like I’ve run a marathon. About a mile from home the tears stop coming, and so does the rain, but my eyes burn and the
lids feel too fat to keep them open.
In a few minutes small patches of blue begin to show between the clouds, and by the time I get to my driveway, some streams of sun are slanting down, causing small columns of steam to rise up where they hit. I grab the packages beside me, determined to get back to work, but my eyes rest for just a moment on the empty passenger seat.
As I unlock my back door, I hear the phone ringing again. If I don’t answer I know Gwen will keep ringing and hanging up all day. I toss the grocery bag onto the counter and lift the receiver, tucking it under my jaw so I can light a cigarette.
“Yeah, hello.”
“Richard, is that you? Did you pick up? Hello?”
“Yeah, Gwen, I’m here.”
“Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling. Didn’t you get my message that I had something important to tell you?”
What, was it all a joke? The kid’s really just been hiding somewhere and you didn’t tell me? But that’s too mean, even to say to Gwen. I tell her I had to go into the office. “So, what’s so important?”
“I thought you ought to know...I’m getting married...I wanted to tell you. I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else.” For some reason my stomach sinks when she says that. “Richard, are you still there...hello?”
“Yes, I’m here.... Congratulations, the same to your boyfriend…what’s his name?”
“Robert.”
“Robert? I thought his name was Sean or something with an s.”
“Sean? I broke up with him months ago.”
“You did? Why would you break up with him? I really liked him.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, you didn’t even know him. Besides, I’m sure I told you already. You’re so....” I wait for her to continue, but she just says, “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Robert and I are getting married two weeks from Saturday.”
“That soon?”
“Well, there’s no sense in waiting. I’m sure he’s the one. It’s almost like fate. I met him just a couple of months before.... He’s a psychologist, and when everything happened... It was so helpful that he was there.”
“He wasn’t there. I was there.” I realize immediately what she meant, but it’s too late.
“There for me. You’re so literal.”
I wait for her to continue. Surely she will recite a few of my other faults, too. Certainly she will tell me how I fell down on the job at that most critical time. She will at least ask the questions again. But on the other end, there is just silence, and that quick shallow breathing she has now.
“Richard? Are you there?”
“Yeah, I just… I thought you were going to say something else.... Is there anything else?”
“Well, no. Unless...you don’t want to come, do you?”
“To the wedding? Oh, no.”
“I didn’t think so.... Well, then.... Good-bye.”
“Yeah, wait, Gwen? One thing. You said this guy was a psychologist, that you knew him...you know, before.... What has he told you? Did he notice anything? Was there a clue?”
“What? Well...he said some things...in retrospect, but...well…obviously he didn’t say anything before or I would have…. They really didn’t talk all that much, and anyway.... Why would you ask that? What’s the point?” The word “point” comes out more like a squeal.
“Yeah,” I say, “exactly.”
After our goodbyes I hold the receiver for a second. Then I drop it.
That’s the end, I guess. I probably won’t have any reason to see Gwen anymore. It feels odd.
So she and Sean broke up. That’s too bad. Sean seemed nice, and I think the boy really liked him.
Then she picked up with this psychologist. She said it was fate. Whose fate? I don’t see that he did all that much — except be there for Gwen… after it was all over.
Did Sean know, I wonder, about the boy? Did Gwen bother to tell him? I don’t remember him at the funeral.
Standing there, slumped against the counter, it occurs to me that it might be nice to talk to Sean – to call and tell him what happened...and to tell him what I think of this psychologist guy Gwen plans to marry… and to find out if he ever did go on that bike trip with… Kevin...and if they enjoyed it. And maybe to tell him how much it meant to me that he was so kind to my son, and that it really wouldn’t bother me that they had fun together. In fact, I’d like to hear it.
But how would I find the number? I’d have to call Gwen back, and that would be awkward.
Instead I stump out my cigarette and grab one of the cereal boxes out of the bag. The front looks the same as always, with the running cookie man, but this time I notice the side panel, where they list all the nutritional information. I never really checked that out before.
It says here that one serving contains ten percent of my daily requirement of vitamins A and C, and 25 percent of a whole bunch of other stuff including the good things like iron and niacin. A serving amounts to just one cup. That’s not much. So according to this, if I eat just four cups of cookie cereal each day, I’ll fulfill almost all of my daily nutritional requirements.
So it turns out Gwen was wrong. This isn’t crap after all.
I open the box and pour about two servings worth into my bowl. Then I take all the boxes out of the bag and place them, one by one, in the cabinet, next to my raisin bran.
