Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

Kay wrestled with her headgear. Easier to get on than off. She looked like one of those domestic animals caught with its snout in a paper bag. Finally the helmet popped off, and her hair came down in rowdy strips. Bark, cocoa, black cherry — the flaunting of colors was hard to miss, only since Kay wore her hair pinned up, even to bed, how was Olgo to know?

She won the decision. Two to one.

Erin said, “Tough break, Jim.”

Kay drank from a water bottle, letting the excess dribble down her chin. She’d yet to corral her hair and was flush with victory. She lapped the group with arms high, saying: “Kay Denny-Panjabi takes the gold! What an upset! Anything is possible for her now!”

Olgo shook his head. He didn’t need to use the bathroom, but he went anyway. He was so confused. Tears were likely. Lynne, Erin, Kay — it was as though they were teamed up to kill the motor that kept him going. He pushed his way through the crowd, slowing down once he got clear of the others. An arm linked up with his.

“Cheer up, Olgo Panjabi. It’s not so bad.” Lynne smiled up at him. “Tomorrow is a new day. Things could get interesting for you, and maybe that’s just what you need. There’re other fences to mend besides the Indians’.”

“Who the hell are you?” he said. “And what do you want with me?”

“Tomorrow is a new day, Olgo. You heard it here first.”

He kept walking. Stopped at the door to the bathroom, afraid she would follow him in. But she was gone. So was Jim. Erin and Tennessee. He scanned the room for Kay, fearing she had left, too. But no. She was at the zeppole stand, licking powdered sugar from the tip of a finger cleaved to a hand cleaved to an arm, a torso, a body, and finally to a man — a stranger —whose life was not consecrated to Kay’s happiness, her needs and care, but to something else altogether, chiefly to the ruin of her marriage to Olgo Panjabi.

He retreated to the bathroom. Looked at himself in the mirror. Said: “There are other fences to mend. Tomorrow is a new day. I did not see what I just saw.”

Bruce Bollinger: Whose features do not impress on their own but which, in the aggregate, give the impression of a man who’s verged on disillusion with everything that matters; he’s calling it quits any day. Henceforth: Verge Face .

DOB 9.4.62 SS# 202-64-1592

Bruce picked at a gristle of cheese welded to an oven mitt. He thought: Okay, Crystal, where are you? It’s Sunday, and I want to leave this house. I cannot babysit my wife. I love my wife, but today I can’t do it. How long before she starts crying? Has there ever been a wife who cries more than mine? If Crystal ever gets here, there will be no crying.

He put his ear to the bedroom door. Rita was crying. And calling his name. He tiptoed to the kitchen and crouched behind the fridge. She called again. In doing so, she dwelled on the ew of Bruce so that his name toured the house until it found him. During their early courtship, this had been hot, the melody of the call a G — E progression that generally meant Come here, lover boy. Now, the progression reversed, it meant simply Come here, shithead.

Why? Because she was pregnant and it was not going well. Her uterus was loose, the upshot being four months in bed. One hundred twenty days. She’d only just started, and it was torture. As much for him as her. Just now, she’d dropped the TV remote. What did bed rest mean, exactly? Would she actually lose the baby from picking the remote off the floor? The baby would fall out? Why was it okay to walk to the bathroom? Here was an idea: maybe she could grab the remote on her way.

“Bruce!”

He checked his watch. He’d never taken interest in Rita’s friends until now. Now they marched in one after the other, bearing casseroles and pie. He and Rita were putting on weight at the same pace. Only Rita was not experiencing the same gastrointestinal distress. He wondered at her resilience. A hormonal thing? To mention it seemed ill advised, but since Bruce frequently departed from his better sense, he let it be known he envied her. To which: You envy me? Get out. And close the door behind you.

He’d been sleeping on the couch. Pregnancy can strain a marriage. A bad pregnancy can test your vows. Crystal was the day’s rescue. She was half an hour late.

He turned on the video camera and stormed the bedroom.

“Turn that thing off,” Rita said. “You know I hate that thing. I look awful.”

“You’ll be glad for it later. Trust me.”

She pulled the covers over her head. He deposited the camera on the floor. He’d been filming her pregnancy in snatches — when she wasn’t looking, as she slept — because his son’s ratcheting to life was too precious to ignore. Also, the tedium and stress of her venture were moving. Humane. An easy pregnancy would have been great, preferable to be sure, but without emotional content. At least not the kind Bruce was always wanting to capture on film. Normal people drafting their lives, and getting it wrong each time. Reality TV moved him to tears.

He picked up the remote and got in bed. Hand on her belly, he imagined the life inside. A little boy, ready to stretch and grow and case the joint.

She blew at her bangs. He loved that she still wore bangs. Blond and wispy.

“Just look at my fingers,” she said, and she began to cry.

They were swollen. At this rate, her wedding ring would have to be cut off. No way was it sliding over her knuckle. Look at that knuckle!

“It’s okay, baby. You get skinny fingers from changing diapers. I read that somewhere.”

She thwumped him in the chest with a felt sack of herbs, because she had opinions about karma, chief among them that good karma could be bought for the price of a sack of herbs.

“That stuff reeks,” he said. “Junior’s probably getting high and loving it. No, no, wait, I was just kidding, don’t cry again. I was just kidding! I’m sure the herbs and candles and quilt and rock fountain are all doing their job. Come on, honey, let’s see what’s on TV.”

“I’m trying to read,” she said. “You took so long for the remote, I decided to read instead. It relaxes me.”

He laughed. In the last few months, his wife had taken an interest in political philosophy. She was, perhaps, having an identity crisis hastened by the onslaught of progeny who tend to ask questions like: Do I have a penis? Does God exist? What is a libertarian? Rita did not know her leanings because she did not know what any of the parties stood for.

Today’s text was Carl Oglesby and his speech at the March on Washington in ’65.

“This is relaxing?” Bruce said. He skimmed the flap copy to see who the hell Carl Oglesby was.

“It’s edifying,” she said. “I want to know things for when the baby comes.”

“I hardly think he’ll be asking you about Carl Oglesby. At least not before age two.”

She closed the book. He tried to free the remote from her hand, but she resisted. This was her kingdom, the bedroom TV; no way was she ceding control to him. She began with channel 2 and went from there.

“Seen it,” he said of the vampire drama in syndication on three channels.

“How do you know? It’s a commercial.”

“I’ve seen them all.”

“Where do you find the time?”

“Such is the burden of the unemployed. What do you think I did all day while you were at work?”

“I don’t know, look for a job?”

This was not a pleasant topic. He was on thin ice. Before the Department of the Interior, he’d been unemployed for six months. The only career he wanted was one, if his track record was any kind of litmus, he had zero chance of getting. Errol Morris. Ken Burns. Michael Moore. They sucked. You know who didn’t suck? Or who might not suck if given the chance? Or who, if he sucked, would kill himself? Bruce. Bruce Bollinger, who sounded just imperious enough on the phone to get through to some producer who would shut him down immediately. Something like: Oh, Bruce Bollinger who wants production money, funding, yes, yes, a very important film, life changing, I see, sounds great. No.