Ken Sparling - Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall

THERE ISa store over at the mall near my work where I sometimes go in the afternoon, on my lunch hour, to buy something for Sammy. I bring it home and give it to him after work. Tutti always says, “How much did you pay for that?” I always say, “Three dollars.”

~

My father used to play this game where he’d put us in jail. Jail was the bed in my grandpa’s bedroom. My grandpa was dead by then, but we still called it Grandpa’s bedroom, even though Grandma called it the spare room.

~

I don’t think there is an end to the depth of the soul. Sammy stood outside the video store and cried until Tutti picked him up and put him in the stroller. We were on holidays. Sammy got back out of the stroller. The wind was blowing in the grass.

~

Later, when I went back in his room, and I looked at him lying in his bed, with his blanket under his nose, lying there so peacefully, with his little eyelids closed over his eyes, I felt like I should apologize to him for something.

THE SUNwas shining. No, wait a minute, the sun wasn’t shining. It was sort of shining. It was hazy. There were clouds. The sun was peaking out. No. That’s not right. The sun was an orange ball. Hold it, hold the orange ball. It was night.

The moon cast a pale shadow — no, that’s been done. The moon was a hole — no, that’s wrong, the moon was not a hole, the moon was bleak, there was something bleak about the moon, about everything. The earth was a prisoner. No, wait! I know. The earth wasn’t a prisoner. She was a hostage. No, she was free, the earth was as free as …

Wait.

There was snow. The snow was like…what? Not marshmallows, definitely not marshmallows. More like a whole lot of toilet paper. That’s it, toilet paper. Exactly. The snow was exactly like a whole lot of toilet paper.

It was New Year’s Eve. No it wasn’t. It wasn’t New Year’s Eve at all. It was summer. There were birds. No, wait, forget the birds. No, no, I know, there were birds, but they were asleep. So there were birds, but there were no bird noises. Wait! I know! All the birds are dead. There are no birds. There were never any birds. Forget the birds.

This is not a story about relationships. There are no men and women in this story. Okay, hold it. Of course there are men and women, all stories have men and women, but in this story the men and women never meet. They live on opposite sides of town. All the women live on the north side…No, wait! All the men live on the north side. Yeah, that’s it — all the men live on the north side of town, and all the women live on the south side.

~

If you think you can say a word, tell a person a single word, without telling the person everything you know, you are wrong.

~

I think a sink skirt is going to look bad in there. I would rather just go out and spend the money and get a proper cabinet. But Tutti has all the money locked away in investment certificates.

~

Tutti scissored the blinds again to have another look.

“Cliff’s lights sure are screwed up,” she said.

“Why?” I said.

“They’re on now,” she said.

“He probably wants them on,” I said.

“At 6:30 in the morning?”

“Sure,” I said. “Not on Saturday,” I said, “but you can’t set those timers that way. People are up for work at 6:30 on a weekday.”

Tutti shrugged and drank some coffee.

“You sure you want to drink that stuff?” I said. “You won’t be able to go back to sleep.”

“Yes I will.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

THE THINGwith Tutti gets more and more real, so it’s as though nothing happens until the words are on paper. It’s as though there is nothing going on in my life, there is no real person who is my wife, there is only Tutti. Tutti is the person who does the same things my real wife does, but it’s as though I don’t pay attention until Tutti does them. As if Tutti watches my wife and sees what my wife does and then comes along and does it better.

~

Some people died while I was in high school. A girl named Florence got hit by a car. Another guy, Dan, got cancer. Dan was away for a long time. When he came back, he was wearing a hat.

~

I remember one time I came home from school and I could not get the front door of our house to open. I couldn’t get the key to turn in the lock. I tried for a long time, until it seemed I would never get into the house. Then I stood on the front walk outside the house for a long time looking at the front door. I didn’t know what to do.

Dad was living at his new home at this point, with his new wife, and I phoned him there.

When I think back to that time, what I remember is my arms. I think of how my arms hung down at my sides.

I stood in the driveway, waiting for Dad, and when Dad came into the driveway I ran over to his car and waited for him to turn off the engine and get out of his car.

Dad went over to the front door and opened it. I was standing beside him, looking around him into the front hall. I told Dad to go home.

~

Tutti says, “Want me to show you how to iron those things?”

“No,” I tell her.

Tutti goes to bed.

After I finish doing the ironing, I go over to the window and look out and see all the lights. I think, Each light represents a possible other place I could be living right now .

I go in the kitchen and move things around in the fridge.

~

Tutti says the last time she was in the sewing machine shop there was a man in there yelling. The man said he would never buy another Singer and he walked out of the store. When Tutti was telling me the story, I pictured the man. The man I pictured looked much like the man who lives across the street from us, only in my mind the man was wearing a hat, and the guy across the street never wears a hat. I pictured this man walking out of the sewing machine shop, with this hat on his head, walking into the cold winter air, and what I pictured was the way the man’s breath came out, how you could see the man’s breath, because it was winter and it was cold outside. What I pictured was the man just standing there outside the shop, with his breath coming out of his mouth, just standing there trying to think what to do next.

~

You need to try to cover all the spaces, each space being a section on the grid, covering the various aspects, each aspect being a moment in the body’s life, with the life being composed of such activities as defecation, bereavement, and, finally, dissolution of the grid.

~

When I first met Tutti, I was skinny. I could put my hands around my waist and touch fingers on both sides. I only went to see Tutti once or twice a week back then. I would leave work at the grocery store, my hands smelling of lettuce, and I would walk up Tutti’s street, the one with the ditches on both sides. I could walk to Tutti’s house from where I worked. I would go up to where Tutti’s old man’s car was parked, and I would hardly be able to breathe. Tutti would be there at the door, with that hair of hers that goes out all over the place.

~

Dad would say, “Try not to hit those cows over there, dear.” And then he’d turn in his seat and wink at me and I would giggle. This was the year we rented the cottage on Lake Huron and we drove up one Saturday afternoon. We stopped in a small town and went into Kresge’s and Dad bought me a plastic bucket and a small plastic shovel. We stopped in another small town and Dad bought Mom a beach towel with seagulls on it. Dad wanted to stop in each town we passed through.

~

Tutti will get rid of that couch eventually. Right now she can’t get rid of it because we don’t have enough money to buy a new one. The one we have now looks like an old dog. Those pillows down there look like floppy ears. It sheds, too. It gives off little crusty balls, and you get them all over the carpet when you get up from lying there and these crusty balls are stuck to your socks.