Joe Mantych Tomatoes

KENNETH B. SIMPSON:

A man shouldn’t have to wait this long to eat. It’s boiled chicken again. Steam from the pot spreads throughout the kitchen, suffocating.

The radio is on, the volume low, murmurs of some song with guitars and a crowing voice, singing about love. I can barely hear it. We used to listen to the radio together, but not anymore. We used to listen out on the back porch, listening as the stars and the moon listened, listening as the sea of swaying wheat listened, but not anymore.

Her graying hair is pulled back in a bun, tight, taut, she hovers over the counter, the one right next to the humming white fridge with a calendar of national parks on it except the calendar is turned to August and it’s the middle of September already and she’s cutting apart the tomatoes she bought from town, the ones I said we didn’t need, we have enough food in this house, she said I just wanted some goddamn tomatoes, don’t you want some goddamn tomatoes too, Kenneth? and I stood up and pushed my chair back and it scraped against the dulled tan tile floor and the screech of the wooden chair against the dulled tile pierced the kitchen and I stomped out the door to the fields because the fields don’t ask for nothing, you water them and they feed you, but Ann, Ann needs too much, takes too much, doesn’t give enough in return.

That was this morning. Now it’s dinner, my boots are off, my brown boots wait by the wooden door on the red carpet that she cleans every day but not well enough because it’s always dirty. The steam still suffocates. She still cuts up the tomatoes. The radio still plays, murmurs of some song, but still there. We used to listen to the radio together. Not anymore, but we used to. We used to. We used to listen together out on the back porch, the wooden porch I built myself out of wood I bought from Len in town when he asked me if I wanted to buy some wood and I said how much and he said a hundred bucks and I said no I’ll give you $75 and he said come on Kenneth you know I need the money, you know my brother’s sick and I’m the only one working the damn fields and I said I’ll give you $75 and I gave him the money and he helped me load the planks of wood into the back of my Ford and I took the wood home and built the porch in a week. I worked at night because I had to work the fields during the day and she would creep open the backdoor at night in her light blue nightgown and say Can you stop the hammering and get on into bed you need the sleep anyways and I would

say I’m working on this for you and if I want to work on it at night then I’ll work on it at night and I finished it in a week and the first night she and I sat out on the porch in those rocking chairs with the cushions on the back and we rocked on the porch as the radio sang and a couple of flies wisped around but we didn’t care and we looked out at the fields of wheat as they swayed in the night breeze we watched the seas of wheat swaying together as one and the moon and the stars listened to the radio with us and Willie and Johnny and Dolly seeped into the fields and embedded themselves in the quiet rustling and the radio played and we rocked on the porch I built for her and I looked over at her in her blue night gown and she had her heels up on the chair and her arms around her knees and her copper hair dangled around her taut shoulders, the shoulders of a strong woman, and I looked over at her and she smiled and I smiled and we turned to look back out at the sea of swaying wheat and that was the last time I had seen her smile and now the radio ain’t nothing but a bunch of lonely sounds.

I can see her left hand. She hasn’t worn her wedding ring for a few weeks. There’s tomato guts on her hands, she’s tearing the tomatoes apart.

It’s late for dinner, about 9:00 now, a man shouldn’t have to wait this long to eat, a man shouldn’t have to wait to eat until after the sun goes down, barely any light breaks through the red cotton curtains above the porcelain sink. A few dishes are in there, a few plates, a metal cup, a spoon and a fork, waiting for her. I do my work. She does hers. It’s always worked like that. It’ll always work like that.

She looks at the tomatoes and not at me. She said she wanted them, I said we don’t need them, but she’s already taken them apart, cutting them.

I’m hungry. I don’t want no goddamn chicken and tomatoes but I’ll eat it because I need food and I reckon the only people who always get what they want are the ones who ask for too much.

ANN:

I know he’s watching me. I know he is. But I don’t give a damn.

I can’t see him. I’m looking at the tomatoes, at my tomatoes.

I can’t see him but I know he’s watching me, sitting in his overalls, his black baseball cap on his balding head, his eyes judging me under his untameable eyebrows, those untameable eyebrows usually furrowed together into a hairy wrinkly mass because he’s mad at whatever isn’t following the undeniable laws of Kenneth B. Simpson.

He still wears his wedding ring because marriage is one of those laws, a law that can’t be broken.

But I still just look down at the tomatoes, the ones I’m cutting up, the ones I bought, the ones I bought from that store in town, the ones I bought with the money I had saved up in that purse, that purse I hid behind the towels in the bathroom closet. I saved up my own money and bought my own tomatoes even though I knew Kenneth would be angry because we didn’t need them but I bought them myself and when I do things that defy the laws of Kenneth B. Simpson I can actually breathe for once.

The tomatoes seep into my fingers.

And right now it’s hard to breathe because of the steam.

The radio murmurs but I can barely hear it and I don’t like listening to the radio anymore anyway.

I used to listen to the radio but not anymore.

“It’s late for dinner.” I hear him but I don’t look at him. “We always eat at 7:00. It’s almost 9:00 now.”

I look at the tomatoes, at the food, the food I bought.

“I was doing your laundry.” I know he’s looking at me.

“If you didn’t go to town to get those goddamn tomatoes, you could’ve done the laundry this morning.”

I don’t wear my wedding ring. The tomatoes are bloody, seeping into my fingers.

“You’ll still get to eat.”

And he will. He always eats, and I always eat, too. But I’m also always hungry, always never quite full.

I don’t wear my wedding ring.

It’s hard to breathe because of the steam.

The tomatoes seep into my fingers.

I don’t like listening to the radio. Not anymore.

I look at the tomatoes, the ones I bought.

Joe Mantych Washington University in St. Louis, ’23