Stymie Magazine
Spring & Summer ‘11
around. I remembered filling a bucket with water in grade school and swinging it in a circle, being amazed the water didn’t go everywhere. “Voila!” he said. “Homemade!” He held the bucket out to me and I grabbed a ball, put it on my tee. I could feel the glowing residue on my fingers. I cocked my driver back over my head as far as I could, swung, and sent the ball flying out into the night, farther than I’d ever hit it. “Nice,” Frank said, quietly nodding his head, and I felt proud. The sweeper kept switchbacking across the field, picking up balls and I watched Frank wind up and hit one ball after another at it. I remembered why we were here, his confession in the parking lot. I looked over at Frank and wanted to let it all out, tell him about all of my and Karen’s problems which I’d been keeping bottled in. I wanted to tell him how I’d assumed she’d had an affair with this guy, Jeremy, but I couldn’t make myself, certain that I’d only believe she was lying if she denied it but also knowing I wouldn’t be able to handle it if she confirmed. How I couldn’t move on but I couldn’t forget about it; everything we did reminded me of this guy. When she wanted to rent an old movie, I couldn’t shake the idea that he’d recommended it, or we’d go to a new restaurant and I couldn’t help but think she’d found it while out with him. I was sure Karen knew I wanted to ask, but she wouldn’t say anything if I didn’t first so this cloud of silence just loomed overhead. I started telling her about my “lunch dates” with my coworker Amie, even though we’d really only gone out once. When she got jealous, I grew brave enough to actually start initiating the lunches that I’d been talking about. I wanted to tell Frank all about Amie because I hadn’t been able to tell anyone else. I wanted to smile and tell him how much I loved watching her laugh. How she had these rings of red hair that perfectly framed her face, and the more we hung out the more I wanted to curl my hands into that hair, run my fingers through and play with it in my palm, see if it would bounce like a Slinky. How I wanted to take her to a
baseball game, and how that made me feel guiltiest of all. And then one day, eating outside on a bench after grabbing sandwiches from the deli down the road from our work, I watched Amie laugh and thought of Karen and how I’d been jealous for the last six months, and leaned in like a kiss. I watched her close her eyes and tilt her head and realized I hadn’t gone in for a first kiss in years. Before our lips touched, my face already felt warm. I could feel the stickiness of her lipstick and how thin her lips were, pressed into mine, not good or bad but just different from Karen’s. I pulled away and watched her hold her eyes closed, a smile on her face. It was the smile that I liked seeing when we flirted, but better, and I leaned back in and cupped her cheek with my hand and pressed my lips into hers again. That night I started a fight with Karen over something small on our drive home from dinner. By the time I pulled into the driveway, neither of us had spoken for ten minutes, but when the door closed behind us and I turned off the car, everything felt better. Like, somehow, the garage as a kind of “base.” We sat in the parked car and talked and then went inside and curled together in bed. The next time we fought we moved to the garage again, hoping to recreate our previous results, and it worked, and then we started spending more and more time in the garage, unable to do anything but fight elsewhere. And now I was spending most of my time out there alone, organizing my tools or just watching a movie on my laptop in my car, Karen no longer talking to me, but also no longer following my path to our previous safe haven. “Frank,” I said. I drunkenly rubbed at my face with my hands and it felt like a slug had crawled across me. I couldn’t see myself but could guess what it looked like. I wanted to tell him how fucked up it was practically living in the garage because I couldn’t just address the issue and Karen was too stubborn to do anything but go along with it. But when he turned and looked over his shoulder, I said, “Check this out,” and drew two lines under my face like eye black. I grabbed my club and held it over my head. I gave a little yell and thought of one of my favor-
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