(A guest column from Irene McCoy)
We've been retired for five years now...and loving most of the time we spend together. (Yes, that's what I said --"most of the time.") But memories of those days and nights when we were both working occasionally crop up. We smile at those thoughts now. Back then, it was no laughing matter.
One night remains vividly clear in my memory bank. It was a time when Larry's work day began around one a.m. One, because he had to catch the 1:47 into Manhattan, and a.m., because he worked the early morning shift in the newsroom. This night was no different. The shrill call of the alarm on his side of the bed pierced my skull and had me sitting upright in a second, heart ready to explode and nerve ends playing jerky games with my arms and legs. I sat up for a few seconds, as I usually did, wondering if I should crawl over his body and whack the alarm into oblivion or just wait until it ran itself down.
I was contemplating the possibilities when a hand reached out in the darkness and punched something at the side of the bed. It wasn’t the alarm. I was sure of that because it kept ringing. I wondered what he’d hit. The stack of library books perched precariously on the edge of his bedside table? A small bowl filled with collar stays and subway tokens? The lamp? The lamp!
I braced myself for the sound of glass shattering on the uncarpeted floor. When that didn’t materialize, I turned on my nightlight and saw him lying face down, his hand pawing the air at the side of the bed and an opaque globe, hanging by its cord, swinging slowly between the bed and the nightstand.
The alarm ground out a last weak “brrring” as he rolled over and slowly sat up, at which point I turned off my light, lay down, and pulled the quilt up to my ears.
I honestly tried to muster up some sympathy for him. Every day. The fella had to put up with corn flakes in the middle of the night and what I pictured as life-threatening rides on the city’s subway at three a.m. At the end of his day, he had to struggle to block out the kids’ noise in our small apartment as he tried to fall asleep before six in the evening.
My dilemma every morning was how to squeeze in a couple more hours of downtime before I took off for work at a more sensible hour. Most times I reluctantly watched daylight sneak in under the window shades, mentally lashing myself for not having married a nine-to-fiver - a salesman or an accountant. One of the day-side all-stars, as Larry referred to these guys. But of course, that was never even a remote possibility.
Meanwhile, in the room’s grey light this particular morning, I saw him place the lamp back on the table and then navigate a wobbly course to the bathroom. I dug deeper into the bedding, preparing myself for the discord that would beat on my brain pan for the next several minutes. Water would stream, pour, and rampage over tiles and porcelain towards a gurgling drain. Thousands of tiny darts would attack the shower curtain, filling the house with metallic “pings.” I shut my eyes tightly, pounding, punching, and pushing my pillow into a shapeless mound of fiber-fill.
Some morning, after one of his lengthy showers, I was going to get out of bed and find the shower gone. Just not there any more. Caulking, tiles, faucets, everything! Washed away! And he’d have shriveled up like a prune. A big white one.
I opened my eyes, glanced at the glowing, green hands on the alarm clock and listened for sounds of his progress. Nothing. Except the rush of water. He must have fallen asleep, I thought. Not an impossibility. He could easily have found a comfortable position in a corner of the tub. Or perhaps he was squatting over the drain, shoulders bent slightly forward, head resting against the shower wall. It wasn’t until the water pipes knocked, announcing a cease-flow in the action, that I relaxed somewhat, preparing myself for the flapping of his bath towel, bottles rattling in the medicine cabinet, and his electric razor buzzing. I hated that razor! Its persistent whine, agonizingly shrill, plays out the same mind-rattling, one-note exercise each morning.
I rolled over, taking sheets, quilting, and pillows with me. A few moments later, after the buzzing stopped, he padded into our room and began struggling with a dresser drawer, which, when it finally relented, flew outward and left him holding two knobs. I took in the scene through half-open eyes as he threw the knobs to the floor angrily, addressing the wayward drawer with choice expletives. He picked up the drawer, pounded it back onto its track, and started rummaging through piles of socks.
“Sorry, but I can’t tell the blues from the blacks,” he blurted out as he switched on the overhead light.
Blinded by the sudden burst of electrical energy, I raised myself on one elbow. “Listen, why don’t I fix your breakfast. You’re running late as it is.”
The threatening look on his face made it clear that this was not something he liked to hear. His momentum faltered and he glanced at the clock, mumbling, “Well, I guess a little help wouldn’t hurt.”
I was already out of bed and heading towards the kitchen where I threw open the fridge door and watched, helplessly, as a glass of orange liquid toppled to the floor and shattered at my feet.
“What was that?” asked a muffled voice from the bedroom.
“Oh, just some juice one of the kids left on the edge of a shelf in the fridge,” I acknowledged as a wave of despair swept over me. I reached for a towel, attempted to collect the shards of glass the best I could, then set the table, grabbed the cereal from a cabinet shelf, filled the tea kettle with water, and dropped two slices of bread in the toaster.
Larry came into the room as the kettle began its high-pitched whistle, soft at first, then more insistent as steam shot from the silver-mouthed spout, forcing off the cap and propelling it across the countertop into the sink where it spun crazily before coming to a halt in the drain.
“Why don’t you go back to bed. I can get the rest,” he said, his last words punctuated by the sound of metal on metal as the toaster noisily ejected two slices of dark bread.
I nodded and left the kitchen, mumbling “Don’t slip on the wet spot.”
Back in bed, I turned my back on the narrow strip of light lining the bottom of the doorway. Convinced that I’d never fall asleep, I stuffed the quilt and sheets around my ears and anticipated the next round of events, which, over the last few months, had become an excruciating (for me, not for him) part of the early morning ritual.
From the kitchen came sounds of his knife scraping butter onto dry toast, of milk flowing unchecked into a cereal dish, and water from the kettle splashing into his mug of instant coffee. My eyes popped open when a spoon started its never-ending circular trip around the sides of his bowl. At about this point, tears would normally fill my eyes as I contemplated the short, determined jabs, accepting the fact that the floral pattern in the bowl would soon be obliterated. Ditto for the blue-green border. That’ll make four of them. A full set - with faint smudges suggesting that there might have been some color on the bowls at one time.
A final flurry of swipes, jabs, scoops, and stabs announced the end of breakfast. I was convinced there wasn’t a single, soppy flake left. Or a drop of milk. No need to put the bowl into the washer. It would be spotless! Dry to the touch!
My thoughts were interrupted as a chair, pushed abruptly away from the table, scraped the vinyl floor covering. His nightly signature. A closing statement. The sign-off. I’ll have to take some cleanser and steel wool to the scuff marks in the morning, I thought. Wait a minute. This is the morning!
At about that time, I glanced nervously across the bed at the clock’s gleaming hands and heard his footsteps thumping heavily about the house. He’s misplaced it again. His ticket. He’d never make the train and I’d have to drive him into the city. If I was lucky, I might be back by five. These discomforting thoughts were interrupted as the bedroom door burst open and he stormed in.
“Can’t find it. Can’t find my ticket!”
“That’s it. I’m driving you to the station. Otherwise, you’ll never make it.”
“I’ll make it! I’ll make it! Just help me look!” There was a note of quiet desperation in his voice.
We ransacked the closet and eventually found the elusive monthly in a jacket he’d worn the day before. He grabbed the ticket, tore out of the room, stormed through the kitchen and out the side door. I stumbled back to the bed, crawled in, and glanced apprehensively at the clock.
Familiar sounds registered from outside. The metal fenders of his Sears’ two-wheeler scraped the vinyl siding as he maneuvered the bike out of the driveway. In my mind’s eye, I followed him as he peddled furiously past leafless maples on the rusting Red Rocket. He was flying down a cold, dark street, narrowly missing parked cars, his ghost-like figure illuminated by the eerie, orange-colored street lights that arched overhead.
I saw him as he approached the turn to the small bridge spanning the channel, knowing his head would be down, shoulders bent into the icy wind that blew across the dark water. Where the grade steepened, he would bend over the handlebars, his fringed, woolen scarf sailing out behind him. He’d be glancing sideways across the channel to see the lights of the 1:47 challenging him as the train crossed the trestle far to his left.
At the top of the grade, he’d relax but would still hold himself low over the bars as he swept down the roadway into the station plaza.
Had he lost his hat again, I wondered? Did he have time to lock the bike? But why lock it, I thought. Who’d want it?
And then, the inevitable question: will he call if he’s stuck at the station, train-less?
I lay, rigid, waiting for the phone to ring.
If I sat in the kitchen next to the receiver, I theorized, I could pick it up before the first jangle finished. The kids might not hear.
An alternate set of plans raced through my mind as the hands of the clock moved slowly from 1:45 to 1:50 and finally, 2 a.m.
I was exhausted. My eyelids drooped as I finally warmed to the fact that he hadn’t called. He made it. No problem here…..
And the following morning, we would both get to do this all over again.
(Posted July 8, 2011)
