five VINCENT part 4
The cabin lights dimmed and Mrs. Howell fell asleep under a satin mask. I snapped my overhead light on and dug Margaret’s contract from my bag.
She was slumped up front in a window seat, braids combed out, brown curls poking from a wad of fun-sized airline pillows stuffed against the bulkhead. Two of her own pink pillows from home corked in the middle of the mix illustrated Margaret’s habit of packing backups for her backups, carrying spares for her spares, some OCD blend of Girl Scout preparation and sailor’s superstition.
Back when we still had the house and money was good I put an engraver in her Christmas stocking. Before the new year came she’d gouged her initials into everything she owned. Put mine on every tool in my rollaway chest, branded every possession in the garage.
Then Margaret bought a second engraver for the singular purpose of putting her initials on the first one.
When I found it in the kitchen junk drawer I teased her without mercy for needing to achieve that level of parity and perfection. Hiring a barber to cut the barber’s hair.
She told me to shut up then, flushed devil red and came within six inches of being truly pissed off when I pushed it too far. Her jaw hardened into an unforgiving edge and she firmly told me:
I have a fetish for backup plans.
Margaret’s contract began with a lengthy preamble structured like a point-by-point autopsy of our years together. Then a gory, harshly lit cracking of ribs followed by a clunky juggling and unceremonious assessment of all the precious things I had abused and turned toxic. Neglected and allowed to fail. It was a fair, entirely accurate and reasoned review. Really fucking thorough.
I skimmed over written accounts of the things I could remember. Harder to absorb and endure were the mention of landmark offenses I’d certainly committed but could not recall. These read like ancient battles, obscure crimes of war written in footnote and unimaginatively referenced by a place-name or geographic feature, an intimate event or the coincidence of a holiday.
The community theater fundraiser where I made false offers to spark a bidding war over an heirloom quilt.
The time at her company Christmas party when I deeply offended a Wiccan and cost Margaret multiple friendships and professional connections.
Miscellaneous events, hosted-bar weddings and warm-weather gatherings, each ending with someone discreetly pulling Margaret aside, then politely asking me to leave.
The process inside me meant to verify and authenticate genuine promises was long ago corrupted and well out of order, replaced now by a false mechanism willing to look the other way as I said or signed anything to keep on doing to myself, doing to Margaret whatever the fuck it was I’d been doing all these years. I nodded through those pages, eager to arrive at Margaret’s finest point and make note of buzzwords and key phrases in case I were confronted with them later. Souvenirs that would prove I had paid attention.
I saw no ultimatums, no storm warnings about my drinking, no if-then statements or threatened outcomes. And there was no mention of us, not as a going concern, not as a myth or a maybe or even a rumor, no hint of reconciliation or future association beyond our gigs together as Citizen Samurai.
The remainder of Margaret’s document was a series of reasonable expectations for our musical partnership. A primer on attendance and punctuality, and then one strange compliment that read like a comment in a grade-school report card:
Your good manners toward strangers are unfailing.
I looked at my hands. Turned them over and wondered at their current capability, estimated the value of their contributions to date. Considered the road before me and wondered how many days I would last on tour before I was ushered into a small trailer, cashed out of the organization and marched off the grounds.
It was the same feeling that came over me on the first day of each new job during my a la carte career life.
I’d be shown the workplace, my desk, the copier and the breakroom and I’d wonder, How many days before I’m handing in my notice? How long until the conference room where I was interviewed will see those same people reconvene as a forum who will engage in muttering and judgement before someone holds up a check and invites me to seek other opportunities?
I remembered Margaret’s words at the airport that morning. Held my breath and said it out loud, softly to myself as I exhaled:
This is business.
Looked at the final page. Saw no signature line across the bottom, only a yellow Post-it:
surprise me
surprise yourself
take this chance
start your life again
and a smiley face.
My vision went shiny at the edges and flooded shaky silver. I pushed a damp cocktail napkin into the corner of each eye. Took deep breaths until my skull filled with autumn-orange showers of sparks that faded to digital clouds in blue.
I’d crossed a line of demarcation. Etched another asterisk on my timeline, cold-chiseled a coda into granite and closed a set of data like the date of death on a tombstone.
That was when it sank in. The moment I realized I was no longer in on the joke. I was its crooked center.
Motherfucker.
If I were a Disney princess, then right there? That was the part where I would have looked up at the stars and sang a song about all the shit my heart truly wants.
end chapter five
©2017 J.R. Schaefers — all rights reserved
