Isaac Callaway Biff’s Lax Leisure

Biff’s Lax Leisure Isaac Callaway

Biff closed his laptop and sipped his Tubby’s Iced Tea. His focus pulled up to the ceiling and hovered there as his thoughts chained together seamlessly, almost on autopilot. Whenever he finished writing he would take a second to marinate in the bliss of his favorite beverage coupled with deep reflection.

He was sitting on his favorite couch in his favorite sweatpants. His favorite plastic parakeet was clipped on his shoulder and his favorite person, “The Wife,” as he called Beth, was humming a song from the laundry room. She had always been a singer; it was nice to have a positive mood posited into his-

“-underwear smells-like tuurrrkkeeeyyyyyyy, his overalls smell-like juunnnnkkkkkk-”

“You know it does!” Biff bellowed and stiffly stood with a growled huff. All his life, he had been told that he should enjoy his time while he was young, but in experience his fifties had far surpassed his drifting young-adult phase. His thirties compared a little bit (due to his thenrecent marriage), but everything else was far less in retrospect. He was finally living it up, living in the present. Busy nine to five, chill with iced tea and the wife from six to nine. Sometimes they watched TV together, sometimes they took walks, but most of the time she would sing her thoughts at him from the kitchen or the laundry room while he would write out a story or two.

“I mean, seriously,” Beth dropped her romantic, whimsical singing voice. “It’s like you collect garbage for a living or something.”

“Yeah,” Biff gruffed. He walked from the living room to the kitchen table to get a look at her through the walkway leading to the laundry room. “It’s like I feed a family or something.”

“I wasn’t fed today.” The Wife faced Biff and dropped a blouse she was folding. She made her “hot-stuff” face. “There were other things that never happened today. When are those things gonna happen?”

Biff’s eyes lit up with sparkles, sparkles The Wife had famously named: “The Pre-Sex Sparkles.” A few nonverbal cues later and the two were playfully moving closer.

A knock interrupted.

Biff’s face fell. “Who dat’?”

Another knock. Then, after a five second pause, a third knock.

Recognition took Beth back to the laundry room while Biff ran to greet his closest friend at the door. He swung it open and let out a roar of gusto.

“Tom!”

Tom was a forty-two year old lawyer who had moved in from New York just three years ago. When the two first met at a local bar, The Mississippi Drippie, they hit it off so well and had bonded so tightly that their friendship had been sealed and remained a firm “man pact” ever since.

“Biff! It’s awesome to see you, pal.” Tom waved his head back just slightly to get one strand of his slick hair out of his eye. Classic Tom. Lean, tall, brilliant, donning a charming and uptight smile, Tom had the stuff. He had it all, save relationships with the opposite sex. His complicated ethical theory that he rigidly held all immediate family members up to pretty much killed the vibe whenever something started to sprout. But he bought a nice car to make up for it, which, in Biff’s opinion, was a good call since beautiful cars were second to none, save beautiful women.

“Get in here! Got some—”

“Iced tea! I’m up for it!” Tom promptly stepped inside behind Biff and softly closed the door behind him.

Before Biff rotated completely Tom gripped him on the shoulder.

“I have something extremely important to ask you.” His voice dropped. “I have a big proble—”

“Hold on!” Biff said quickly, in an otherwise occupied and struggled tone. He was grappling with his belt buckle. It needed to be looser, much looser. Usually he noticed it earlier in the day, but sometimes he didn’t until it started to cramp. After a few seconds, he managed to unlatch it, freeing his belly to hang lower.

He turned to Tom. “Ahh, much better.” His face shifted from relief to

concern as he looked into Tom’s eyes. “Hey now, what’s the matter?”

Tom shook his head and wringed his hands. “I’ve finally found something that, that, gives me joy.” He gulped. “But it’s also nightmarish, and I don’t know how to do it, but I need to do it. I did it once, and it was magical. Now, it hangs over me like a terrible burden, and I hate it, but I know I love it, and…” Tom breathed in.

“Okay wait just a darn minute.” Biff held up his hand. He closed his eyes, sighed, then looked down. “Is it writing?”

“Yes! And I had alw—. What? How’d you know?”

“Listen Tom.” Biff raised his gaze and scratched his scruff. “For it to be fun, sometimes you just gotta do it, hold yourself to no expectations, just let the story flow through. You seem the type that would get too caught up in the planning to do anything. Your writing will turn out just fine. Go write.”

Tom was taken aback. “Wow... wow, thanks Biff-”

Biff gripped Tom’s two shoulders and turned him around, then reached from behind and opened the door. “Go write pal. Me and The Big W were about to get it on. There’s a prompt for ya.”