Ryan W. Bradley
Van Deen parks in the driveway and turns the heating control knob to defrost so it will be ready when he heads to work in the morning. He turns down the volume on the stereo, takes his keys out of the ignition and sets them on his lap. He takes his cell phone from the cup holder and shoves it in his jean pocket. He steps out of the car. It’s foggy. Like soup. He shuts the car door and presses the button on his key chain to lock the door.
…..Before he even puts the key in the lock of the front door he hears his dog, Fitzgerald, barking on the other side. He opens the door slowly, closes it behind him, and pats Fitzgerald on the head. Fitzgerald bounds for the sliding glass door in the kitchen, ready to be let outside to do a day’s worth of business. Van Deen takes his wallet from his pocket and places it on the half-wall next to the door. He puts his keys next to the wallet. He slides his shoes off and lines them up parallel to one another. Fitzgerald comes back for another pet. “So impatient,” Van Deen says. He pads across the hardwood floor in his sweat-sticky socks and opens the back door.
…..Van Deen opens the blinds in the front room, behind the love seat. He walks back to the kitchen to see if the oven has pre-heated yet. It hasn’t.
…..He returns to the living room and sits on the love seat and watches out the window. He watches the mailboxes across the street. The woman a few doors up the street always checks her mail after work. Van Deen hates to miss it. The oven chimes that it’s ready for his store-bought meatloaf. Van Deen regretfully turns away from the window. After putting the meatloaf in the oven he returns to his perch, but there’s no way for him to know if his neighbor’s already checked her mail.
…..He watches for another hour before he closes the blinds and turns on the TV. He ate his meatloaf watching out the window, and he brushes the crumbs off onto the floor for Fitzgerald to eat. His chest is tight. He tells himself that tomorrow he will see the neighbor woman as she checks her mail.
…..No one has ever told Van Deen he looks like someone famous.
…..Van Deen chews on a handful of antacid tablets. Tropical fruit flavor. He pulls the blender from the cupboard and plugs it in. He takes vanilla ice cream from the freezer and dumps three scoops into the blender. He pours in milk. He puts a handful of the antacid tablets into a plastic bag and takes a hammer out of a drawer next to the dishwasher. He slams the hammer into the plastic bag, crushing the tablets. He wipes sweat from his forehead and dumps the antacid powder into the blender.
|…..“Dessert,” he says, patting Fitzgerald on the head.
…..He presses the red power button. Watches the swirling liquid. Wonders what he will find on TV to watch before bed. “Should have gone to the video store,” he says.
…..Fitzgerald lets out a small bark.
…..Van Deen takes his finger off the power button and removes the lid from the blender. He pours the milkshake into a pint glass.
…..Van Deen brushes his teeth. He brushes a hundred times in front and a hundred times on each side. He brushes a hundred times on the top, and a hundred times in the back. He spits the toothpaste into the sink and washes it down the drain. He lathers soap between his hands and rubs it into his face. He thinks about when he was a kid and never washed his face. Acne in high school is what does this to people, he thinks as he squeezes his eyelids closed to keep the soap out.
…..He puts the tube of toothpaste behind the sink, and dries the counter with a towel. He hangs the towel back up on the wall, and turns out the light.
…..In his mind Van Deen goes over a checklist. Gave Fitzgerald water and food. Locked the doors. Turned off the TV and the oven. He peels back the blanket on his bed and reaches for the alarm clock on the bedside table. He switches the alarm button on. He checks the alarm time, even though it hasn’t been changed in years. He slides into bed and pulls the sheet and blanket up to his neck. He lays on the right side of the bed on his stomach. His left hand stretches out to the empty side of the bed.
…..“I could be doing hard drugs,” he says to Fitzgerald. “Soft drugs,” he says and laughs. “That’s what I prefer.”
…..Van Deen watches out the window. The neighbor woman walks down the sidewalk. She is dressed in her work clothes, a navy skirt just past her knees and high heels. Her hair is down, straggling in the breeze. Van Deen likes it best when she wears it up, like a cinnamon bun. She opens her mailbox and pulls out a bundle of letters, and probably bills. Maybe catalogs and junk mail. Sometimes Van Deen wonders if other people get the same things as him. He imagines the neighbor woman has magazine subscriptions. Maybe to fitness magazines. She’s so slender. Like a gazelle.
…..She turns away from the mailbox, and for a second she is looking right into his eyes. She waves. Panicked, Van Deen ducks below the window. He is sweating.
…..He lays down on the love seat with his legs dangling off the side. Fitzgerald stands over him, tongue out, panting.
…..Van Deen imagines being married to the neighbor woman. He closes his eyes and thinks about lying in bed, propped up by pillows. She comes out of the bathroom. She’s wearing a yellow raincoat. And one of those yellow hats that match the set. And yellow galoshes, of course. Her bare legs stick out from under the raincoat. She is doing this for him, but also for her. This is what Van Deen sees when he closes his eyes, before the timer rings that his dinner is done. Before he brushes his teeth, or runs through the checklist in his head. Before he goes to work in the morning with the heater already set to defrost the windows, because everything has a place and a setting in his world. “If only her place was in our house instead of her own,” he says, putting a hand on Fitzgerald’s head and sitting up.
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Ryan W. Bradley has fronted a punk band, done construction in the Arctic Circle, and now manages an independent children’s bookstore.
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