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Show I 4 Ife 7b De ito by Ronald L. Johnson ..Hnesday morning, Oscar , ha The didn't want to take a kne , He lay in bed after Alice iTooi to fix coffee. He just water and getting under it 5 think about it the rest of y, until just before bedtime l e h had a few nightcaps after J retired, then sitting therein h chair with his hand curled Ld e wineglass, he suddenly I lied he didn't want to take his Sing shower either. He went T he bathroom, took the can of deodorant spray from the cabin d hid it on the top shelf of his son's closet. He then went back to Ws chair and finished the glass of wine. The following evening, while he watching the nightly news, Alice called out from the bathroom. He waited for a commercial, then went back to the closed door. "Oscar-have you seen the deodorant?" "The deodorant?" "Yes, I got some Monday." "No. It wasn't on the shelf this morning." " The rest of the evening, dunng program breaks, he switched from channel to channel, back and forth, B catch the deodorant commercials. com-mercials. As he climbed into bed that night, he thought he could detect the first faint whiff of himself. In the morning he was certain of a partial result: the night had been unusually warm, his pajamas definitely carried the smell of dried sweat in them. He lay curled up in bed, listening to Alice in the kitchen, kit-chen, sucking the odor of his chest and his underarms and his crotch into himself. Alice called out that it was time to get up. He hopped out of bed, stripped off his pajamas, and took the suitcase down from the top shelf of the closet. Before Alice called again, - tie had his pajamas stowed in the suitcase, and had replaced it among the hat boxes and shoe trees. In the bathroom, shaving, he noticed a new red can of deodorant in the cabinet; he wrapped it in his shaving washcloth, slipped into the other bedroom, and studying the even, sleepful breathing of their son, placed it on the closet shelf beside the other can. He surprised Alive at breakfast by eating a second waffle-the first time he had done so, he realized, since their honeymoon. Work went particularly well that day, he was able to remain at his drafting table without coffee waks, he even came back from lunch fifteen minutes early. Usually jhe afternoons went slowly, with a aiding number of erasures as each hour passed until quitting i e; but now the T-square and the compass and the triangle seemed . 10 be almost working of themselves, them-selves, his fingers merely obeying re the tools wished to go. As he as Putting his materials away for night, the boss stopped by, acing hls big hand on Oscar's . Been noticing your work the last couple days, Oscar. You're really getting your guts into this one.." Oscar gave him a smile of thanks. On the drive home he rolled up the windows. In the stop-and-go traffic, it wasn't long before his forehead was damp and his underarms un-derarms moist. He turned on the radio, a song was playing that he remembered from high school. It seemed like years since he had really heard a piece of music, felt himself responding to the drums and the guitar and the screaming, pleading voice of the singer. He turned it louder, all the way up. By the time he pulled into the driveway, his forehead was dripping drip-ping and he could feel the wetness in his shirt to the small of his back. In the kitchen, Alice was in her hair rollers, washing the shampoo soap down the sink. She pulled on a hair net its strings symmetrical, like those of a spider's web and followed him into the front roon. "My God," she said, "I didn't think 'it was that hot." "It's warmer than it looks." He sat in his chair, unloosening his tie. Alice wrinkled her nose. "I bet you want to wash up." He pulled the tie through his collar and handed it to her. "After supper." She frowned, and cleared her throat. "You'd better have a talk with that son of yours. I found our deodorant in his closet. He keeps insisting that he didn't put it there, but it was on his shelf two cans this morning. "I wouldn't be too rough on him." "He's turning into a little sneak." She watch him closely. "You'd better have a talk with him." He sank back in his chair, propping his feet up on the footstool. foot-stool. "After supper." After supper he watch a television show about a fighter. The fighter lived boxing through adolescence into young manhood, convinced that one day he would be world champion. Oscar watched the ring scenes very closely, the pounding of the leather gloves on sweating bodies, the cuts in the eyebrows, the swelling of the battered faces. "I think it's disgusting." Alice stood up. "I think I'll go to bed." He sipped his wine, and she frowned at the glass. "You didn't say anything tonight about the deodorant." He didn't take his eyes off the screen. "I'll catch it tomorrow." He could feel her standing there, watchiing him. "Goodnight, Oscar." . After the show was over, he turned the television off, poured himself another glass of wine in the kitchen, then returned to the silence of the front room. Alice hadn't said anything about him not washing up. Not yet, not exactly. He sat in his chair with his wine, and the song on the radio ran through his mind. High school: he had wanted to design rocket ships, to be an expert in engines, or fuels he was never very clear on exactly what just that he wanted to be an expert. That dream had begun one October evening while standing on the lawn and watching the first satellite, a point of light flickering across the night sky. As he watched, trying to place this point of light in what he knew of distance and history, he had the same feeling that he had experienced ex-perienced in church. And what had happened? His glass, he noticed, was empty. He went to the refrigerator, leaving the glass among the left-over chicken and squash, and took the gallon jug of wine back to the chair with him. How had begun with that churchlike church-like feeling and ended up drawing air-conditioning units for some contractor who knew nothing of history and whose knowledge of distance was limited to the square feet involved in lots? By the time he finished the gallon of wine, he had yet to trace this cause-and-effect relationship but he decided it didn't make any difference to anyone if he did, not even any difference to himself. He tipped the jug up, waiting for the last drops to roll down from the bottom and drop off through space, and perhaps history, he thought as the wine splotched on his chin and then finally into his mouth. He held the jug in his lap, studying it, the huge, inside emptiness emp-tiness of it. When he woke', the jug was still in his lap, and he had to piss. He unzipped his pants, and after two total failures of trying to zero in on the mouth of the jug, made his way to the bathroom. Alice would indeed in-deed be mad, he thought, when she saw the rug in the morning. He tried zipping his trousers back up, then gave up on it. He pulled back the door of the cabinet, took the toothpaste out, and squeezed it into the commode. It came out in one long unending trail, white, curling curl-ing around and around the inside of the toilet bowl until the tube was completely crumpled. He tried to replace the cap, then simply tossed the crumpled tube back into the cabinet. He took out his after shave, the bottle Alice had given him last Christmas, and sprinkled it over the white, curled worm of toothpaste until it was empty. The two red cans of deodorant spray took longer, even after he was finished with them he wasn't positive they were empty. Then he began on Alice's tall, thin can of contraceptive foam. This he had no experience with, it was trial and error until he found that by pinching pin-ching his fingers on the little white cone on top, it came out in a steady, billowing flow. The commode was overflowing before the can was empty; he flushed it. The white foam came slipping back up as the bowl refilled. He emptied out the rest of the can, and flushed it all down again; but again the foam seeped back up with the rising water. He was taking his suitcase down from the closet when Alice woke up. She sat up in bed, watching him trying to put his foot into the pajama leg. He remembered falling, and he could hear her breaking out in laughter. A real belly-grabber, he thought as he studied the intricately in-tricately carved leg of the bed. He didn't remember closing his eyes. |
