Dan Crawley Potluck
“Whoever
looks at baseboards,” Perry says. “You’d be surprised,” Ann, his mother, says. The way Perry’s head lolls to the side makes his Adam’s apple grow to the size of a walnut. His hair is long and parted in the center like her husband used to wear it when Ann first met him. “They must have concussions,” Perry says dryly, “from tripping over each other or running into open doors or falling out of windows, never taking their eyes off the precious baseboards.
Baseboard obsession probably is listed in the latest DSM in Dad’s office.” Ann marvels at how this thirteen year old, seemingly overnight, has taken on his father’s arid monotone, his cresting falsetto long gone. She’ll take this deadpan over a highpitched whine any day of the week. Perry rises up from the tiled entryway and squeezes the wad of damp paper towel in his tight fist. “My knees are developing calluses.” Ann hears the vacuum around the
corner as Mads, her daughter, bangs the legs of the furniture in the front room. Because Ann just came from the kitchen, she knows her husband us is on his hands and knees, mopping again. Ann is grateful for how considerate Jonathan is. She had finished mopping the tile floor earlier, and here came her husband behind her to attack the tougher stains with a sponge and bucket. “Your dad’s knees are fine.” She is losing her eldest son fast. He slouches toward the