Matt Cowper - The Clerk

“What about you, Thomas?” his father asked. “Did you ever expect to see two-dollar gas again?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Me neither. All I can say is: thank God for fracking.”

“It’s a dubious practice,” Dan said, “but it does bear fruit. Liquid fruit, I should say.” He smiled — but not too widely — at his witticism.

“I hope I see the day when this country is Energy Independent,” Frank Copeland stated. He might have been addressing a crowd of thousands. “When other countries come to us for oil, not the other way around.”

“Yes, that would be nice,” Thomas said blandly.

Jean Copeland had disappeared into the kitchen, but she now reappeared with a mug of eggnog, which she shoved into Thomas’s hands.

“Drink up!” she said. “Oh, it’s so delicious!”

“Always is,” Thomas said, grateful for the mildly alcoholic drink. He’d have to scrounge through the Dowling family’s kitchen cabinets for stronger stuff if he was to survive this holiday, especially after what had happened at the Oxendine’s Grocery Christmas Party. Orianna’s capitulation was still fresh on his mind. He assumed she’d given Vernon her notice yesterday, but he wasn’t certain; Vernon hadn’t said anything about it yet, and Thomas damn sure wasn’t going to ask.

Then again — maybe Orianna had changed her mind, and maybe his gruff speech had been a factor in the reversal…

His sister blasted out of the kitchen, furiously wiping her hands on a towel, then stopped when she saw him.

“You’re late,” Emily said.

“I don’t believe I am,” Thomas replied. “I got here at 3:50, and I said I’d arrive between one and four PM.”

“Yeah… well… maybe you can come a little earlier next time. Mom and Dad drive up all the way from St. Augustine, and they’re still here hours before you.”

“Honey, let’s not bicker…” Dan began, before a look from his wife silenced him. Dan Dowling was respected at the law firm where he worked (and feared, by lesser employees), but in the presence of his wife he was but a footman before a dowager empress. And this was Christmas, a time when Emily had a dozen Plans that had to come off perfectly, and so he found his power further decreased.

Thomas studied his glaring sister, as he’d studied his parents and Dan. Emily Dowling, née Copeland, however, betrayed no signs of aging, nor had she put on weight. (In truth, she weighed five more pounds than she had at age eighteen, a fact which bothered her more than it should, since she was of the “every woman is beautiful” school.) Her figure, currently wrapped in tight jeans and an old Barack Obama CHANGE t-shirt, still enticed: at the supermarket, men of all ages followed her not-so-stealthily down the aisles, pretending they needed soy sauce or charcoal, depending on her route. When she jogged through the neighborhood in spandex and sports bra, she was conscious of the stares of yardmen, postal workers, husbands who happened to be home, wives who looked like they wouldn’t mind a same-sex fling, if only someone would initiate it for them, and skateboarding teenagers.

When she complained to Dan about this “juvenile ogling,” Dan suggested that maybe she shouldn’t jog in such risque attire. This caused Emily to flare up like a volcano that had suddenly decided to annihilate a chunk of civilization: “I should be able to wear what I want, when I want, without having some Cro-Magnon assholes undressing me with their beady little eyes! It’s not my fault they can’t control themselves!” Dan murmured out a few words that have not been remembered, then returned to the New York Times article he’d been reading.

“We will bicker,” Emily huffed now, “if we need to. Like every Christmas, I’m stressed and overworked…”

“Honey, I’ve tried to help you,” Thomas’s mother pleaded, “but you won’t let me. You take on too much, and—”

“Mom, you make the eggnog too eggy, and you don’t clean the dishes properly—”

“How can I mess up the eggnog, when I follow your recipe exactly? And as far as dishes go, why, Jean Copeland can clean a pan, I’ll tell you that much—”

And so it began. The men stood there, listening to the back and forth. (It should be noted that none of them now looked senatorial.) Finally, the miniature hurricanes blustered into the kitchen, leaving behind an awkward silence.

“The same every year,” Thomas finally grumbled.

“Yes,” Dan said carefully. “But it’s sort of a tradition by now, isn’t it? It would seem odd if Emily and Jean didn’t clash.”

“It would seem like a normal family Christmas,” Thomas replied, “not a pointless frenzy.”

“Something the matter, son?” Frank Copeland asked, ever probing for chinks in his son’s armor.

“Nothing. Just work stuff.”

“Well, don’t let it poison the mood,” his father admonished. “This is one of the few times we get together…”

“I’ve never known Thomas to poison anything,” Dan said. “I’m sure his work problems aren’t that major.”

Frank Copeland looked at him malevolently, and Dan Dowling’s station sank from that of an already-low footman to a stable boy. He considered saying something caustic, something about how he was a lawyer of no small account, and that Frank was in his house — but he knew it would accomplish nothing, and Emily would get angry with him for befouling the mood, so he stilled his tongue.

Instead he took a few sips of his eggnog, as if nothing in the world irked him or would ever irk him, and then excused himself: “I’m going to go check my e-mail real quick. Important work stuff, got to keep on top of it.” This left father and son standing by each other. Both men looked outside intently, instead of at each other, as if something engrossing could be seen, but there was nothing besides the skittering of a few leaves across the road.

“How’s Florida?” Thomas finally asked.

“Fine.”

A leaf pirouetted, then flopped back onto the pavement like it was exhausted.

“What have you been doing lately?” Thomas tried. This was a good question to ask, as it could potentially keep his father talking for minutes (or at least seconds) at a time, therefore relieving Thomas of the responsibility of maintaining a conversation.

Frank Copeland hadn’t had many hobbies during his working life, but now that he was retired he’d filled up the free hours with tons of them. Except they weren’t really hobbies, as his father attacked them with ornery zeal. “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well,” Frank Copeland always said. For example, he couldn’t take a lazy birding stroll: he had to bring along his $999.99 pair of binoculars; his water-, fire-, and acid-proof field journal, in which he kept precise data on all bird sightings; two or three birding guides he could consult if he came across an unknown species (which was extremely unlikely, because Frank Copeland knew his birds); and more photographic gear than a red-carpet premiere.

“I’ve taken up painting,” Frank Copeland replied.

“Really?” Thomas thought back. Yes, his mother had mentioned this in several e-mails. “How’s it going so far?”

“Fine,” his father said dourly. “Making progress. Most of my stuff looks like blobs of gunk now, but in time, I think I’ll have something worth presenting.” In truth, this was standard Frank Copeland false humility, which went hand-in-hand, somewhat paradoxically, with his “worth doing well” philosophy. If he hiked up Mt. Everest unaided, at the summit he would curse himself for tripping once a few thousand feet down instead of celebrating.

“Is mom helping you?” Thomas asked, though he knew the answer. Even if his mother hadn’t mentioned it in her e-mail, he would’ve been able to guess it.