[c] Bonkers
The scene took on a detached, objective view, as Bob considered what was going on, even as it happened. He made a mental note to cut down on the evening flirting with Cindy so he wouldn’t end up with such enormous piles of work to bring home. The white letter flipped twice in the air, then began to slide at a steep angle to the steps. He could see the pale blue typing on it as it fell, and noted that it was most likely a bill, probably from the credit union. Probably be better off letting it fall and forgetting about it, he thought to himself. But even as it began its descent, Bob watched in vague amazement as his left hand, the one with the brief case, executed an excellent maneuver to retrieve the falling object. The briefcase handle slipped down from a full grip to his middle, ring, and pinky fingers, just as the other two intercepted the letter. The victory made him smile, and that smile grew when he suddenly became aware of the silence. And that smile died when the yipping started again, this time from the other side of the front door.
“Damn dog.”
Struggling with the doorknob, the letter, and the briefcase, he finally managed to make his way into the house, only to be attacked by the ten-inch high Yorkshire Terrier that his 9 year old daughter had begged him for for two months straight. He’d told her that the dog was entirely her responsibility, and that if she didn’t take care of it, it was history. That lasted about two weeks. But that was just long enough for Helen to fall in love with the damn thing.
It jumped up on his leg, reaching almost to his knee. He kicked it a couple of feet away and it decided, as usual, that barking from a distance was more to its advantage.
“Would the owner of this dog please take it out back and shoot it?” Bob yelled down the hallway towards the kitchen.
“NO!” came a screech from the TV room to his right. “Daddy, you wouldn’t! Bonkers is just a puppy!” Samantha popped out of the room and ran to the now silent animal. Bob had long ago decided that Bonkers wasn’t stupid, just annoying as all hell. “See,” his daughter pleaded, picking the dog up and rubbing her face into its fur.
“Fine, take the sainted mongrel and keep it in the TV room with you, ok? Thanks, honey.” Bob kicked the front door shut and made his way to the kitchen. The odours of garlic and hamburger caught him as he entered and he dropped everything onto the table and took a deep breath in and closed his eyes.
“Thank God for food,” he said. He realized the fallen letter was still clamped securely between his two fingers, and when he opened his eyes, his credit union’s logo smiled back at him from the envelope. “Ugh.”
Helen stood in front of the oven watching the national news on the portable black and white TV in the kitchen. She turned the volume all the way down and turned to her husband. “What’s the mat-, oh honey,” she whined when she saw the pile of papers, “you didn’t bring more work home with you, did you? I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t do that anymore? We’re supposed to be spending more time with our daughter-”
Caught off-guard while enjoying the pleasures of the nose, Bob snapped, “Who happens to spend more time with the television than everything else combined. And that damn dog! I can’t believe I let you talk me into keeping that damn-”
“-and more time with each other!” Helen snapped back. “I’ll bet that new secretary gets more time with you than I-” She brought a hand quickly to her mouth, trying to grab back the words she’d let loose.
“What the hell are you talking about? I’m fifteen minutes late and you-”
“Twenty-five,” she said, before she could help herself. She turned quickly back to the stove.
“Don’t start with me, Helen! Just because I’m late, by however many minutes and seconds you’ve oh-so-meticulously counted, you think I’m cheating?! What the hell is going on here? Would you mind telling me what the hell is going on here?!” He was shouting each word, strong and clear. Straight at her hunched and shaking back.
The dog had started yipping again, and Bob turned to yell at Sam to shut the damn thing up. When he turned, he saw Sam standing in the doorway to the TV room, her baseball cap pulled low, her hands hanging limply at her sides. She didn’t move, she just stared.
“Aw, hell,” he said to himself. “Go watch TV, Sam, everything’s fine. Helen and I are just having a discussion. Go on.” Bonkers continued to bark like there was no tomorrow. Bob ground his teeth together and the bill in his hand crumpled into a ball in his fist. “Listen, honey, why don’t you take Bonkers out for a walk, ok? You’ll get back just in time for dinner.” Sam nodded, picked the terrier up, and grabbed the leash on the way out the front door.
“Maybe now I can have five minutes of peace,” he said loudly, without looking towards his wife. “We’ll have a nice relaxing dinner. Then you and I will talk about whatever delusion it is that you’re having.” She didn’t say a word, but only continued to stir the spaghetti as it cooked.
Without thinking, he threw the wad of paper in his hand into the trash, and slipped the newspaper out from between the files and the mail. He sat down and popped his shoes off with one hand, stretching his toes and pulling at his socks, while opening the paper with the other. A story caught his eye. A man had been shot to death the previous evening for letting his dog urinate on the neighbor’s mailpost. Bob read it aloud to annoy Helen.
“Serves the idiot right,” Bob said when he’d finished. “Maybe I should read this to Sam before bed tonight. What do you think, Helen?” He was jabbing her because she shouldn’t have opened her mouth like she had with Sam around and she knew it. Helen was weak. He’d known that before he’d married her, but it did have its benefits.
She responded by turning up the television. “…has risen in the last ten years by 35 percent. The majority of those cases have occurred within the last five years. New legislation is currently being drawn up to amend and possibly increase the sentence for such inter-spousal homicides.” She turned the volume back down. Bob looked up, surprised at Helen’s audacity, to catch the newscaster still speaking silently with the picture of a large, round red heart crossed by a long black gun to his left.
“Is that a threat? What the hell has gotten into you, Helen?” Bob put the paper down and stood up. Helen cringed when she heard the chair slide across the floor. “You think I’m cheating on you and now you’re gonna make me pay? I’m getting very tired of this, very quickly. Just because you caught my eye when I was still with Maggie-” At the mention of Sam’s mother’s name, Helen spun around, eyes puffy and lined with bloody veins.
“You bastard! How dare you make me sound like some little hussy? It was-”
“Because you were.” Bob smiled. Once he got her angry he was home-free. First she’d get angry, blow up at him for a while, and he’d of course keep her going with a few well-placed cuts, like the taste of blood to a wild animal. Then she’d tire, slow down, and just break down into tears. She wouldn’t let him touch her at first. But after about twenty, maybe twenty-five, minutes he’d give her a hug, tell her it was ok, that he’d forgiven her, and that everything would be all right. She’d cry some more, lean on him, then she’d even thank him. He’d noticed this trait of immediate forgetfulness during their first argument. Whenever something traumatic happened to her, she would forget it happened within a half-hour. He assumed it had something to do with her growing up, maybe she’d been raped or abused or something. But if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, he’d always thought.
“What the hell are you smiling at? You think this is funny? You think you can just laugh your way out of this one? The hell you can! Cook your own damn dinner!” Boiling water and overcooked spaghetti stretched across the short distance between them, splashing hard against Bob’s dress shirt and tie and scalding his face and hands.
Shocked, the two stood in silence for a moment. Helen still held the pot out a little ways from her body, slowly dropping it to her side. Her other hand covered her mouth, but her swollen eyes were wide. Bob couldn’t believe she’d actually done it, either. The shock put even the scalding pain into the background. She’d actually done it.
Was she ever going to pay for that, he thought. He stepped forward slowly, ignoring the pain, and the pot clattered to the floor as Helen brought her hand up to keep him away. With a grab and a jerk he squeezed her wrist and yanked her to him.
“You will never, ever…ever…do anything like that…again,” he growled, grinding her wrist-bones together as he slowly pulled his other hand across in front of her face, giving her a full and concrete view of what was about to happen to her. He grinned as he watched her eyes follow his hand precisely, her face pale in fear.
“Is dinner ready?” Sam’s voice was unsteady as it came down the hall.
Bob’s head jerked toward the hall. He didn’t recall hearing the front door open or shut. He felt some strings of spaghetti clinging to his shirt and one wrapped over his ear. The pasta was sticky and his shirt was glued to his skin now, still burning from the water. He dropped his free hand immediately as he put his face close to hers for just a moment.
“Clean it up,” he hissed, giving her wrist one final raging squeeze for emphasis. Helen didn’t make a noise, but the crack of bone echoed down the hall.