Rbergeso's Journal

    At nine thirty it’s crunch time, and I slap my face in the stall to prepare.  By the time I get back to my station, children with varying degrees of southern accents are screaming and shoving each other through the door.  Svetlana gives me a look that suggests she might have an asthma attack and Gabby shrugs.  I shrug back and duck under the counter.  They’re Ukranian, and too sweet to realize they’re being exploited.  I point at the register to let them know to get started.  It’s been defunct since I started working here, but they get the message.  Rosey Spencer is adjusting the commemorative plates again, and I have to sit her down before she breaks another one.  They’re thirteen thousand tickets a pop, and Eddie takes it out of my pocket.  Plus she’s got rheumatoid arthritis pretty bad and I’m supposed to keep her more or less out of sight on account of the gnarled hands.  I grab the plate from her as gingerly as possible and guide her to a stool behind an opaque display case with the Realistic Arthropods.  It has a painting of a brown horse head on it, with green polka dots in the background, suggesting some sort of pristine western field.  By the time I’ve finished hanging it back up, the kids have practically overrun the counter.  Svetlana is backhanding the air and cursing desperately in Russian while shining a flashlight on Gabby who is working the calculator taped to the register.

            I make my way over to them and bump Svetlana aside.  I start yanking tickets from anybody within reach and handing them to Gabby who adds them up and prints out a receipt from other receptacle taped to the register.  From here, Lana hands it back to whatever kid reaches his/her hand out.  It’s not a flawless system, but it works well enough.  Eddie should be here by now to exchange receipts for prizes, but he’s off ogling the younger, less obese mothers who wait on the benches next to the Test The Strength Of Your Resolve machine.  He’s a perv, and not at all in a sympathetic way.  Once, when I was still new in town and feeling like I might want to get laid, he convinced me that he new lots of people at Roy’s pub on Surfside.  We spent a major portion of the evening in a corner booth while he imparted little gems of knowledge on me and stared inappropriately at the couple across from us.

            “Are you at all familiar with the basic framework of Taoism?”

            “I don’t know.  Sort of.”

            “My friend, my friend, my little friend.  You don’t have a clue.  And how do I know?  Because, Jay, it hasn’t gotten you even remotely into a porking situation.” 

            This is the type of guy Eddie is. 

Karen is sprawled across the sofa when I get home.  She’s sleeping, snoring quietly with a melted popsicle on her arm.  I decide not to move her tonight.  Instead, I go into the bedroom and watch some wrestling on tv.  Johnny C4 has just put King Stacker into a coma when she comes in, squinting. 

            “Did you feed Mucky tonight?” she says.  She basically talks in her sleep a lot.  Mucky is a Siberian Hamster that she had when she was still at UMT.  He died after eating part of an old battery in the driveway.

            “Mucky doesn’t exist anymore,” I say, guiding her to bed and feeling a little guilty.  She winces, and then topples over into the covers.  I kiss her hand until she wakes up and sort of open-hand punches me in the mouth.  This lets me know she’s fully awake.  She blinks for a second.

            “Why is my shoulder sticky?”  She dabs her arm with her hand and screws up her face a little.

             “Oh, Jay.  You didn’t.”

            “You got some popsicle there.”

She smells her finger, regarding me with mild hostility. 

            “Honestly, Karen, it’s purple.  Your arm is purple.”

            “Yea, well…  Look, buster, I know what you’re capable of.  Why didn‘t you wake me?”

            “You looked like you wanted to be sleeping.”

            “I do want to be sleeping.  In bed.”  She wraps herself up and looks at me.  I look at the tv.

            “If you stay in here, turn it off.  And don’t even think about making a move.”

            I turn it off.  I don’t make a move.  I lie down and stare at the ceiling fan.  After a few minutes, her breathing slows and she falls asleep.  I spend some more time watching her.  She looks classically pretty, sleeping in the grey darkness -  like a rural Tuscan girl who sews her own dresses and loves her husband.