I’m typing here because Larry the electrician has just—and I know it’s Larry because can I see his lean bearded figure through the upstairs office window as he stands before the front door holding that green cell phone, which nearly glows in the lengthening shadows, and Larry is looking more worn than usual because it’s 5:30 in the evening and he’s on our threshold but he’s missing his kids, or I bet he’s missing his kids, because he told me that last time, and on Wednesdays Larry sometimes brings home Happy Meals, as a treat, and sometimes Larry just wants a Happy Meal himself, but ours was a little add-on job, so he’d stop by his way home and I’m sure he’s thinking: You can’t say no to the money, even if Lord knows it would be nice to have a chance to say “No to the money,” and while Larry can’t know the full scope of our problem, just that it’s about an under cabinet halogen light, I’m certain he’s hoping it’s simply a bulb—a bulb would about what a person can handle at the end of a twelve hour day and I’m certainly the kind of guy who would call in an electrician for a blown bulb—so maybe Larry’s thinking he get out of here quick and grab those Happy Meals with extra chicken nuggets and everybody at home can zap them in the microwave, bags and all, and the kids can mix the barbeque and sweet and the sour sauces into a glistening “concoction” and Larry can sit at the kitchen table and smile at his wife and concentrate only on that, the painting before him, but Larry doesn’t know that you and I have been fighting and that there is plenty to fix and he certainly doesn’t know that yesterday morning you put a spoon in the toaster trying to release that recalcitrant English muffin, which you would never do under normal circumstances, and that the spoon and the muffin both flew, along with an impressive array of cobalt blue sparks, which caused a violet, lightning-tinged secondary flame to emerge from both ends of the now-singed under cabinet fixture, followed by the dawning realization that had you not pulled your hand away a millisecond before we could have been calling 911 and the later discovery that the twirling silver-plated spoon had shattered both the lens and the halogen bulb behind it, all of which allowed us to instantly forget why we were fighting, though we know, because we’re us, that it was really about the lack of attention and the lack of mental space and the absolute lack of time to be ourselves, due to the sore truth of drudgery, which is that the track runs on and on forever until you end up abandoned on some wayward siding, and the stress of those nearly teetering towers of work, which inch higher and higher into the thinning clouds of fear before crowding out all available office light, and this fight, all because I forgot to get the half-and-half, or rather I forgot to put the half-and-half on the extended grocery list, and that the half-and-half’s absence, that gaping, truant hole in your daily ritual, your I‑really-need-THIS-coffee-which-will-allow-me-to-drive-to-the-Park-and-Ride-lot-so-I-can-board-the-MBTA-commuter line-and-reach-those-South-Station-stairs-which-lead-down-through-the-vapors-to-the-Red-Line-which-will-take-me-to-the-escalator-which-leads-to-the-seven-minute-and-twelve-second-walk-to-the-elevator-which-leads-to-the-smaller-than-it-used-to-be-office-where-I-will-throw-everything-down-with-a-convincing-whomp-on-my-grey-steel-desk-before-the-meeting-which-will-already-be-in-progress-where-further-cuts-will-be-announced morning and because I can clearly see that this is a relationship emergency, and not simply a fried under cabinet light with perhaps an ancillary problem involving the outlet that served our toaster so well in the days before this dreadful encounter with the spoon, and because of this, and the need for a new toaster, I have sold, on EBay, my 1964 Midnight Blue Rickenbacker with the Humbucker pickups, the guitar with the shimmery oh-so-jangly tone, a tone that brings me, still, to my knees, and just now, as Larry’s fingers reach to curl around the knocker’s handle, with yet another left-handed mouse click, I have confirmed the purchase of two tickets to Amsterdam, where we may wander the canal edges and gaze at brilliantly colored house boats and rent bicycles that have tiny handlebar bells and harmonize with old Dutch people in the hazy coffee shops as we sip fresh squeezed orange juice from pint glasses and discuss, in depth, jazz pianists we have not yet encountered, and knowing that the lost Rickenbacker will pay for both Larry (whatever he discovers) and those tickets to Amsterdam and knowing further from the phone call I picked up just minutes before with your superior Peter-the-less-than-great, as he is known to us, asking if you were home yet but informing , for some reason, that there would be another round of cuts in six weeks, which we both know is clearly Peter-speak, a warning that you had better use your stored vacation NOW, and as we discussed, during one of the moments when we weren’t fighting and certainly not having sex, that if the worst, employment wise, did happen that could expose us a different realm of possibility, an unexpected space in our lives that might be filled with joy and contentment, and this is just to say that I am sorry about the never-purchased half-and-half, and that this is the moment for us to decide to cross the North Atlantic, to fly through the deepening evening and towards the streaming, pale coral sunrise, to reset, reboot, rebuild and reconsecrate and I never played the Rick all that much anyway, and now that I have nearly finished this note before Larry’s hand has finished lifting front door’s knocker and given that he is about to let it fall with a resounding KLACK, which will be the clarion call of one more overworked, overtaxed person who really wants to be home reheating a Happy Meal with his kids, and though I need to type fantastically quickly here because Larry is still perched on front step, and his fingers are unfurling and a mere nanosecond into the future he will have just—knocked on our front door.
I’m typing here because Larry the electrician has just—and I know it’s Larry because can I see his lean bearded figure through the upstairs office window as he stands before the front door holding that green cell phone, which nearly glows in the lengthening shadows, and Larry is looking more worn than usual because it’s 5:30 in the evening and he’s on our threshold but he’s missing his kids, or I bet he’s missing his kids, because he told me that last time, and on Wednesdays Larry sometimes brings home Happy Meals, as a treat, and sometimes Larry just wants a Happy Meal himself, but ours was a little add-on job, so he’d stop by his way home and I’m sure he’s thinking: You can’t say no to the money, even if Lord knows it would be nice to have a chance to say “No to the money,” and while Larry can’t know the full scope of our problem, just that it’s about an under cabinet halogen light, I’m certain he’s hoping it’s simply a bulb—a bulb would about what a person can handle at the end of a twelve hour day and I’m certainly the kind of guy who would call in an electrician for a blown bulb—so maybe Larry’s thinking he can get out of here quick and grab those Happy Meals with extra chicken nuggets and everybody at home can zap them in the microwave, bags and all, and the kids can mix the barbeque and sweet and the sour sauces into a glistening “concoction” and Larry can sit at the kitchen table and smile at his wife and concentrate only on that, the painting before him, but Larry doesn’t know that you and I have been fighting and that there is plenty to fix and he certainly doesn’t know that yesterday morning you put a spoon in the toaster trying to release that recalcitrant English muffin, which you would never do under normal circumstances, and that the spoon and the muffin both flew, along with an impressive array of cobalt blue sparks, which caused a violet, lightning-tinged secondary flame to emerge from both ends of the now-singed under cabinet fixture, followed by the dawning realization that had you not pulled your hand away a millisecond before we could have been calling 911 and the later discovery that the twirling silver-plated spoon had shattered both the lens and the halogen bulb behind it, all of which allowed us to instantly forget why we were fighting, though we know, because we’re us, that it was really about the lack of attention and the lack of mental space and the absolute lack of time to be ourselves, due to the sore truth of drudgery, which is that the track runs on and on forever until you end up abandoned on some wayward siding, and the stress of those nearly teetering towers of work, which inch higher and higher into the thinning clouds of fear before crowding out all available office light, and this fight, all because I forgot to get the half-and-half, or rather I forgot to put the half-and-half on the extended grocery list, and that the half-and-half’s absence, that gaping, truant hole in your daily ritual, your I‑really-need-THIS-coffee-which-will-allow-me-to-drive-to-the-Park-and-Ride-lot-so-I-can-board-the-MBTA-commuter line-and-reach-those-South-Station-stairs-which-lead-down-through-the-vapors-to-the-Red-Line-which-will-take-me-to-the-escalator-which-leads-to-the-seven-minute-and-twelve-second-walk-to-the-elevator-which-leads-to-the-smaller-than-it-used-to-be-office-where-I-will-throw-everything-down-with-a-convincing-whomp-on-my-grey-steel-desk-before-the-meeting-which-will-already-be-in-progress-where-further-cuts-will-be-announced morning and because I can clearly see that this is a relationship emergency, and not simply a fried under cabinet light with perhaps an ancillary problem involving the outlet that served our toaster so well in the days before this dreadful encounter with the spoon, and because of this, and the need for a new toaster, I have sold, on EBay, my 1964 Midnight Blue Rickenbacker with the Humbucker pickups, the guitar with the shimmery oh-so-jangly tone, a tone that brings me, still, to my knees, and just now, as Larry’s fingers reach to curl around the knocker’s handle, with yet another left-handed mouse click, I have confirmed the purchase of two tickets to Amsterdam, where we may wander the canal edges and gaze at brilliantly colored house boats and rent bicycles that have tiny handlebar bells and harmonize with old Dutch people in the hazy coffee shops as we sip fresh squeezed orange juice from pint glasses and discuss, in depth, jazz pianists we have not yet encountered, and knowing that the lost Rickenbacker will pay for both Larry (whatever he discovers) and those tickets to Amsterdam and knowing further from the phone call I picked up just minutes before with your superior Peter-the-less-than-great, as he is known to us, asking if you were home yet but informing me, for some reason, that there would be another round of cuts in six weeks, which we both know is clearly Peter-speak, a warning that you had better use your stored vacation NOW, and as we discussed, during one of the moments when we weren’t fighting and certainly not having sex, that if the worst, employment wise, did happen that could expose us a different realm of possibility, an unexpected space in our lives that might be filled with joy and contentment, and this is just to say that I am sorry about the never-purchased half-and-half, and that this is the moment for us to decide to cross the North Atlantic, to fly through the deepening evening and towards the streaming, pale coral sunrise, to reset, reboot, rebuild and reconsecrate and I never played the Rick all that much anyway, and now that I have nearly finished this note before Larry’s hand has finished lifting front door’s knocker and given that he is about to let it fall with a resounding KLACK, which will be the clarion call of one more overworked, overtaxed person who really wants to be home reheating a Happy Meal with his kids, and though I need to type fantastically quickly here because Larry is still perched on our front step, and his fingers are unfurling and a mere nanosecond into the future he will have just—knocked on our front door.
~
Edward Hardy is the author of two novels, Keeper and Kid (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press) and Geyser Life (Bridge Works). His short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, GQ, Witness, The New England Review, Boulevard, Epoch and many other magazines. He has won three fiction fellowships from the Rhode Island State Council On The Arts, he teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program at Brown and lives in Cranston, Rhode Island.