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Jan. 9, 2005 “Stop! Just stop it.” It was a simple command or request depending on my mood of the moment. She always had a way that could soothe or grate, it depended on what I was doing or thinking or feeling at the time. I knew what she was talking about, the thing she wanted me to stop but I was feeling puckish at the moment so I replied: “Stop what my dear, eating, listening to you, breathing; what…what exactly do you want me to stop?” We were driving and had just come through the pull up window where a faceless teenager had passed a bag of tasteless food through for which I had paid an unreasonable amount of money. I said I was feeling puckish and argumentative. The feeling applied to everything not just my companion of the past thirty eight years. “Stop being such a…a bastard…will you? There’s no need for it and there’s no desire from this half of the car to feel it or be the target of it. So just stop.” I spared a glance, one I hoped was withering just like all the novelists expressed with that word. I saw she was not afraid and was hovering between laughing at me and becoming truly angry. So I just shut up for the moment and ate the garbage I had bought as the unchanging fields of Middle America moved over the glass of the bug screen. I always called it that, a bug screen because years earlier I decided I resented the fact that it stopped me from feeling the wind in my face. A Model T driver of so many, many years before was able to experience that and I wanted it too. But I appreciated the fact that I was not getting rammed by bugs at 70 miles an hour. In my mind the compromise between calling it a bug screen or windshield was necessary to put the issue to rest. 60, I hated turning 60 in a way that fifty never accomplished. I finally, after so much life I was feeling old. And going to this damn party my kids were throwing was making me fight the age inside and I suppose Dr. Freud would say it was because of some angst over my mother or some such crap when the truth of the matter is simply I hated it. The aging process and my new focus on it and the betrayal of my knee’s and back and eyes and ears and nose and tongue and probably every other damn organ in this once proud body that failed never. And now seemed to screech a new complaint on the hour. False syrup, she always recognized it but I couldn’t or wouldn’t concede the peace and quiet she wanted as I spoke between mouthfuls; “If I have to turn 60 at a birthday party for me then why in the hell do I…” emphasis on the I, “have to drive twohuuundreddd ffiffty miles to do it?” I stretched the syllables of the words hoping they would irritate her enough to have her tell me to turn around and go home to my chair in front of the television. “Because Bobby has to work today, Sarah has the two kids, Judy has three and if you had been around more when Bobby, Carl and Judy were younger you’d know what it was like to gather and haul them all around. Besides you’re the one who wanted to move…remember? They all live back home.” One thing about my woman she still gave better than she got. She threw it back at me and now she was the gladiator who ripped the helmet from her face and waited to see if I really wanted to go to the center of the arena for a battle. She waited sword in hand and three french fries paused at her lips as she looked directly at me. No withering anything, she simply quietly waited to see if I wanted to go to the killing floor. A place I had been so many times before. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean…If I had been around. I was around I worked and busted my ass and there was food and a roof…” She stopped me with a hand to my face palm outward; the new universal signal to shut up and take care. “Don’t Billy, if you start an argument today I swear…I’ll…I’ll.” She stopped. I guess she thought I would just give in and be a good boy. Man that always got my hackles up. I thought in silence for a minute letting the sound of the tires mix with the echoes of the past few minutes; thinking whether I wanted the short sword or the net and trident. I know myself to be argumentative at times but history seemed to say never at the right times and never with the right people. So I acquiesced for the moment and looked out the bug screen. Almost but not quite staring up the road as the one behind me came rushing in at her comment of;” If you had been around…” The house we lived in today, not as big as the one Bobby, Carl and Judy had grown up in with it’s two bathrooms and four bedrooms placed on a suburban lot in a subdivision eight miles from the city limit and fifteen from the first apartment we had shared when Bobby was just a toddler. Her body still young and firm, slim in the hips and the day we met, me a rake and her, a single parent working as a receptionist for my bank’s branch manager. Back when a simple branch manager had a receptionist. My mood wasn’t improving as the miles sailed away. But my caution was honed to razor’s edge and I wasn’t ready to throw it out yet. So I let her get comfortable, let her think I would just shut up and go away so she could anticipate the kids and grandkids in peace. I pretended to focus on the driving, the moving forward when all of my life was behind me. What the hell did she mean if I had been around more, sure she worked too most of those years but so did I and not once did anyone ever say thank you to me for that not when I was thirty or forty or fifty or at any time. The plant didn’t give me a watch or a bonus or so much as a see you later when my thirty years were up. No one even asked what I was doing as I cleaned all the accumulated junk out of my locker and left for the last time. They gave us some medical benefits and a retirement check and that they supposed was what thirty years of a man’s life was worth. My darling wife fretted more about me being under foot most of the day since she had had the house to herself during the day for the last fifteen years and all those years of the afternoon shift when the kids went to school when I was sleeping and I left for work before they came home…”how in hell was I supposed to be around more dear?” I’d asked her that before and she never had an answer that made any sense because it was an evasion not this time though…”Billy, Billy, Billy you think of yourself as the martyr and the one in this family who gave everything up to get nothing back, but you know what…you missed out because you wanted to miss out. Even with you shift you had plenty of time, the week end or the morning when you stayed in bed as the kid left… Billy I know you like you know this car and I swear…if you want to go to the places you seem intent on going then…well you just might as well turn around and go back home because you have some need to ruin this party and everyone’s day.” There the challenge… she once again is making me out to be the bad guy. For just a second as looked at her, at the face that has taken residence in near every memory I have, for just a second I debated and took my foot off the gas, I saw it the flare of the nostrils that told me…”go ahead I dare you, you know I will make you pay so go ahead and make your move” A gunslinger with the white duster pulled back off the pistol grip waiting, danger in the eyes for the cowpoke who dared to cross him. I pressed back down on the accelerator and said; “If you weren’t looking forward to the kids so much I swear I’d turn this party off and go back home.” She pulled her wallet from her purse and started to count the money as she said; “Billy if you are going to ruin it, there must be a Greyhound station around her somewhere just drop me off and be done with it…if you can behave then let’s go, if not the next town will be quite sufficient for me…” she muttered something under her breath that sounded like it had the words old fool in it but I didn’t want to know. I resented the old part of that comment; she after all was three years older than me. Four hours later after she let me listen to the St. Louis team lose in peace and quiet I slid the Lincoln to the curb in front of my middle son’s house and before I could even get all the way out the three grandkids were all running at me screaming “Granpa, granpa.” hanging on me even as the big car door snicked itself closed. I sure hope the old lady took note of the fact that they had to run past her to get to me. ------------ About the author Mark C. Durfee: I am a retired persom who takes only the big things seriously. I never sleep and i never exercise. I have manuscripts that are complete and and that is past i have more words in the can that I can pull out (see that's a joke) as the situation warrents but the biggest most important word I know is Peace. Email: mcd5255@hotmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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