Published in The Madison Review, Fall 2009.
Look, I’m not exactly sure where to begin, so let’s get right to the part where I’m wearing the baggy clown outfit and Chuckles the Doberman is ravenously licking my nuts.
Some kid’s birthday, Gus and I are the replacement clowns. I’m still trying to sift through all the details.
But for now, Chuckles is out for the kill, spreading filth over me. He’s got me pinned against the sunny stucco, growling, muzzling my crotch, kneading the clown suit.
“Easy there, doggie.” I grope for his hot jowls through slobber and sludgy gums. My thumbs stroke veiny, black ears. “Nice boy.”
Over in the study, I can hear the four of them dealing with Gus.
“Bastard!” Alicia yells. “Start talking.”
“Ouchie!” Gus says. It sounds like he might be on the floor now while they boot him. “Okay, okay – the schedule – maybe I touched it up, erased Fuzzy’s name, penciled in ours — ”
“What were you thinking, scum meat?” Ray says to him, “You’re not even in Fuzzy’s league.” His voice is rage and gravel.
“End of the line, lumpo,” I hear Gordon say.
I’ve got Chuckles by the throat. The predatory eyes bulge as I squeeze. He yelps and we tumble into high yellow grass. His long paws flail up a snowstorm of shredded clown suit. I’m clamped under his toenails, beneath the musky pelt and sour breath. A pinstriped portion of my outfit dangles from his jaws. The hot tongue slathers my jugular. I wiggle free and claw, my fingers gouging a gelatinous eyeball which disappears into a hollow socket.
Kicking, flopping, blood —
It started with an interview. I need to begin there from the part about the cleaning. Actually, it goes back to the slump I was in – this losing streak like I’d contracted some deadly form of employment leprosy and no one wanted near me. I was in debt and had moved back in with my dad after Karla dumped me. Grandma died and Mom had already run off and been away a long time by this point. I was holding out hope Mom would be back.
Listen, before I go any further, I absolutely must say something about the bowl of rotting fruit.
I was cleaning apartments in the neighborhood, and for weeks, while I cleaned his place, all Gus did was sit catatonic in front of the TV beside the fruit bowl. Three hundred pounds of the guy sofa-sunk.
Thursdays I’d ring his doorbell, clutching broom, mop, and supply bucket. His house number, a black five, hung upside down on a twisted nail. Eventually, I’d feel the tremors as he approached. He’d Cyclops me through his spy hole then open up and stand there in a stained bowling shirt, Fred & Kendra’s Lanes embroidered on the patch. He was in his fifties, jowly and pale, a troglodyte squinting into daylight.
“How’s it going today, Mr. Robbins?” I’d ask.
There was tang to the guy. His belly swelled over his slacks to funhouse contortion. Reddish black hair razored along his scalp like a boar’s back. Grunting, he’d retreat to the sofa while I stepped into his grotto lit by TV tint. Fermentation. A sickening stench of bananas, so beyond ripe they released a vapory, black perfume everywhere. It was difficult to move against air so thick with sweet.
His place was a pit, a den of filth. A soccer game blared from the TV (Vámanos vámanos, apurate! Dando y dando pajarito volando. Ándale pues!), a whirl of whistles and shouts and miniaturized red and yellow jerseys. The announcer howled, and I wondered how it must feel to wail with so much passion it seemed he might be having an orgasm. Or a root canal.
While I lugged in my supply bucket, Gus stared at the screen, his pink baked-goods box and glass of milk on the coffee table. The coffee table moments were always tense. I’d stoop to wipe around the fruit bowl and felt the eyes crocodile me.
Bear with me. I want to get the bowl of fruit just right.
The bowl was of cheap pink porcelain, chipped at the lip. Its contents were mottled and disfigured. Shriveled apples had collapsed into yellow, concave blobs. Tiny orange flies leaped from one piece to the next, plunging into decaying pulp and gorging themselves A few of the bugs affixed their mucky feet to the television screen, while others grouped on the ceiling. Branches of purple grapes were now tight raisins, dandruffed in fungal snow. Bananas, linked by petrified handles, sank into black lump. The flies had found their way into the gaping ooze, laying larvae.
He’d warned me never to touch it.
But the thing was, I wanted desperately to touch it, and there came a time – one time – when in fact I did touch it. I was holding my breath, dusting around his fruit when my fingers grasped the base of the bowl and a voice inside me screamed to lift and dump.
“No!” Gus exploded.
I gasped, struggling to stabilize the shaking bowl. “I was just — ”
Gus hit mute on the remote, the hush excruciating. He pointed a cigar-sized finger at the table. “You go ahead and set that right back down where you found it.”
“Okay.” I was trembling, afraid I’d drop it. “But it isn’t sanitary.” It was probably the filthiest thing I’d ever come into contact with. The stench burned into my skin. I balanced the bowl against my chest, feeling the shifting slosh of putrescence as I stepped back into an unwieldy, yoga-warrior pose.
“Cleaning isn’t going to bring her back,” Gus said.
At that moment, I had no clue what he was getting at. I hugged the thing for dear life, swallowed to beat down the nauseous upsurge. “I just need to make it right.”
“Do not,” he said slowly. “Ever. Fuck with my fruit.”
I’d like to get the next part laid out really nice. I’m something of a detail guy, so let me take you back to the beginning.
I was interviewed by this woman named Tracy, dressed in a tight gray business suit. We were in a cubicle with a bare, sticky floor.
“What brings you to us today, Ben?” Tracy sat forward, her fishnets brushing pleasantly.
“I suppose, in a way,” I told her, “I’ve always been interested in custodial work.”
Tracy’s laugh was hoarse and loud and immediately upsetting. “Yeah, right.” She wrote something on her clipboard. “I love it.” Her fingernails were turquoise. She was early-thirties – a couple years older than me – auburn hair, makeup heavy around the eyes. Not bad looking. From a porthole overhead a cube of sunlight lit up the soft hair along her arms.
But what got me was her desk. I’d seen filth before, but this – her filth – was unacceptable. Invoices and receipts spilled out from a scatter of manila folders, forming a canopy over a sooty Caesar’s Palace ashtray, an enormous ring of keys, some hairbrushes, a pair of balled-up, turquoise panties, and a fossilized sandwich.
She launched questions at me from her swivel chair, which was considerably higher than the lopsided, fold-up I was seated in.
“I like working with my hands,” I said.
She glanced at my hands and puckered. “Care to elaborate?” Her dark maroon lipstick was slightly morbid.
“I love to organize stuff.” I peeked back at the desk. “It’s what I do.”
Tracy extracted a cigarette from the clutter. She lit up and dragged deeply, nostrils fuming as she perused my resume. “Smoke getting to you yet?”
“No problem.” My eyeballs were searing. The interview was feeling, more and more, like some smoldering, singles bar encounter. “Listen,” I said, “my skills may not look all that hot on paper. But I’m eager to learn. I’m – ” I used the smile I’d been saving – “self motivated.”
Tracy wedged her cigarette into the sip-hole of a soda can. “Tell me more about this one: Related Experience – ‘We Do Beef’?”
I described the fast food job, but she wasn’t listening. Her marker swiped across my resume, crossing out items.
Actually, the fast food job hadn’t played out well. Yuri, my boss, kept preventing me from wiping specks off the deep fryer.
“Please,” Yuri would say, indicating a mound of glistening ground beef. “Tell to me, my friend, why you do this. Andrei – him. He – is cleans. You – filling hamburger. Do me a favor – Please. Fill. Now. Hamburger.” He fired me after he caught me down on all fours, away from my mound and scouring ferociously.
It was my grandmother who instilled the obsession in me – I must have been around twelve.
Dreck, dreck, ach, it’s no good! she’d mutter as she inspected our living room from her walker. There is no order here, only filth! She’d point a raw, damning finger, her face assuming the tortured expression of a woman losing the lifelong battle with dreck.
Ben, you must make everything clean. Your mother will never return to a place of so much filth. Swear to me you’ll make it right.
Yes, I told her.
Swear, Ben. Swear it to me.
Tracy was snapping her fingers in my face. Then she grinned, smoky-eyed. “Tell me something, Ben.” Her legs uncrossed and recrossed in a delicious nylon cling. “Just how bad do you want it?”
I squirmed. “I like what I see here.”
Tracy made plus signs all over her clipboard. “We should probably talk mops, Ben.”
Gus and I wait on Alicia and Ray’s vast front porch. We’ve lugged gear up a dozen steps to encounter the smirking, naked boy statue amidst towering white columns. There’s a brass letter box and a brass plate that says The Fliegels.
“Remember,” Gus says through pink lips, “we stay in clown mode.” A light breeze flaps his polka-dots and my pinstripes.
Much of the morning has been given to the glopping: white, yellow, blue, and orange layered over every facial pore. Gus insists this makes us believable. We’ve taken the bus – three of them – trudging in oversized flip-flops, getting on and off again with the equipment (two huge suitcases, a duffel bag, the giant tub of kazoos and ukuleles), each time securing seats at the rear because Gus likes to feel the bumps.
A woman in a beige dress and sizable hoop earrings – Alicia? – pulls open the front door, beaming. “Hello,” she says. Then her smile collapses into mild panic as she takes a closer look. “Oh.” She struggles with an agitated Doberman. “You’re not Fuzzy.”
The Doberman toenails the marble floor, salivates, glares.
I look over at Gus. “Fuzzy?”
The dog barks, evaluates, then lunges as Alicia reels in a loop of leash. “Chuckles, down!” Her laugh is nervous, then she furrows. “There seems to be some mistake. We specifically requested Fuzzy. This won’t play with Fritz.”
“Look — ” Gus says. “Hello!” His pink lips are enormous. “I’m sorry for the confusion.”
“Fuzzy’s already confirmed,” Alicia says. “What’s going on?”
“Fuzzy had an accident,” Gus blurts.
Chuckles growls as Alicia drags him behind the door. “Goddamit, Chuckles, behave!”
“He stumbled,” Gus explains, “toppled down stairs, clear on down to the cellar. There’s rumor about a banana peel.” Gus straightens. “Long story short, ma’am – he splattered.”
“Is he — ?”
“Gone.” Gus pouts for her. “Big guy like that – must’ve plummeted like a moose, spreading tragedy over every step. We’re all devastated. You can see how no one’s had a chance to phone you. Then we get the call. We’re booked solid, but we manage to work you guys in. And – ta-Dah! Here we are, and we hope you like our show.”
“Unbelievable,” Alicia mutters.
“No. Gus. Call me Gus. This here’s Ben.”
Alicia frowns. “Don’t you guys use stage names?”
“Yes, indeedy,” Gus says. “It’s Gus. And Ben.”
It’s a spotless mansion, utterly clean. Pure white carpeting veldts the living room then corkscrews up the stairwell.
“Fuzzy – I’m not clear on Fuzzy,” I whisper to Gus as we enter. The make-up and lipstick sandbagging my facial muscles make it difficult to speak. The tiny pom-pom at the tip of my cap pongs my face. “You said you’d been here, worked with these — ”
Gus gives five, short warning hisses. “Now isn’t the time,” he whispers. “So, keep it buttoned till I give the ‘all clear’.”
Fritz – the birthday boy – and the rest of the kids are upstairs playing. Well-dressed parents sip cocktails, looking us over as we make our way through the living room. Alicia leads us down a hallway, around a surly maid with a moustache smudge.
In the study, a large, lavender-yellow oil painting hangs between solid bookcases: a grinning portrait of Chuckles in a bowtie.
A tan brunette in sundress and sandals gets up from a leather recliner.
“Meet my sister,” Alicia says.
“Hey, I’m Lexie!” she says and shakes our hands. Her husband, Gordon, paces in a navy blazer and speaks excitedly into his cell phone, for some reason uttering the word lump numerous times.
I wave at Lexie. “Hi, I’m Ben.”
Lexie frowns. “That’s actually not very funny.”
Gus pumps Lexie’s hand with his big, gloved hand (“How we doin’ – how we doin’ – how we doin’?”) and Lexie squeals.
“Did it work for you?” Gus says. “I mean, did it seem happy on the outside but with a little sadness as well?”
I’m distracted by a set of six blue saucers along the mantle. Each saucer features a nature scene – meadow, stream, windmill, farm house – except one saucer isn’t right. On it, a long-haired prince is riding a horse, and there’s a fleck on the horse’s shank – nothing much – a dried gnat or crumb of dirt. But there it is, undeniably.
I cannot tell you how this affects me.
Alicia goes over to the desk to hand Gus a check, and I look over his shoulder at a sum of money I can only dream about as a house-cleaner. Lexie’s giving me the stare, so I give her one of my own lusty stares, until it dawns on me I’m dressed as a clown.
“Clownboy,” she says quietly, surveying my outfit. “Does it ever get – you know – hot under there?”
Alicia leads us away to the patio to unload.
That saucer – I can’t stop thinking about it.
Alicia’s husband Ray waves tongs across the yard. He wears a green apron, his muscular arms poking hot dogs over a smoky grill. He wipes sweat off his moustache and stares our way.
“There’s a guy with clown issues,” Gus says quietly. “Ouchie.”
I’m spreading limp balloons over a towel. “How can you tell?”
Gus pulls up the inflatable porcupine, a pair of boxing gloves, and the special effects kit from suitcase one. “I’ve seen that type.”
A dozen or so wide-eyed five-year-olds, their mouths rouged with popsicle, burst towards the edge of the lawn. My pulse rockets: it’s clown time. We take a few nervous bows, although no one’s actually clapping yet. Fritz is in a turtleneck, skeptical and scratching his hair. Adults nibble hotdogs and watch from the rear.
Gus steps forward and extends his arms. “A very pleasant good afternoon to all of you, boys and girls, ladies and jelly beans, reptiles, poultry-lovers!” This gets the little guys cheering. Gus juggles old shoes, rutabagas, then bowling pins while I shove crackers in my mouth, flailing and attempting to whistle the Star Wars theme. They’re laughing out there. What an odd thrill, dressed in a loose-fitting clown costume disguised as someone else. Gus moves through an astonishing sequence of facial expressions (twisting, contorting, furrowing, elongating). He squeezes balloons into squeaky gerbils and poodles and flings them my way to hand out to the crowd.
His banana-through-the-head act brings down the house. Fritz and friends fall backwards in laughter. Great stuff. But it still isn’t right. Something’s got to be done about the saucer.
Gus winks at me and leans in. “It’s really working,” he whispers. “By golly, we’re killing them out there.”
I pump my fists triumphantly at him and think about sneaking back into the study to take care of the problem.
One quick, rubber-chicken interlude and we move into the complicated part where Gus juggles three baseballs and I’m supposed to keep tossing in more. Mesmerized by his mastery of the five-ball rhythm, I stare while my thoughts float off towards the mantle. If I can just slip over unseen and get a moistened finger on that filthy little fleck and if —
Gus has stopped and is shrugging at me. I’ve forgotten to toss the next ball.
“Come on, Ben. I really need you for this part,” Gus mutters in our huddle. “Stay with me.”
“Gus – god! I’m trying. I’m going to make it right. I swear.”
We start the routine over. I toss in ball number four and give a thumbs-up. In a moment he’ll signal for the next ball, and what I’m wondering is whether the fleck might require something abrasive. I might use the little toothbrush I carry around.
Gus drops the balls on the lawn, blinks and swears under his breath.
They’ve gone completely restless; Fritz looks back desperately at his frowning parents. We’re forced to scramble into the mime routine, the one we’ve barely practiced. In this one, we go to greet each other, but as we shake hands, Gus pretends to convulse and scream.
Disaster. Gus’s mouth foams, his tongue a hideous blue from some powder he’s swallowed. Even I find this a little disturbing. Uneasy whines rise to panicked wails as Fritz furiously pounds his pudgy fists into the grass. I watch hysteria domino from kid to kid. Gus gestures wildly for me to retrieve the banana-through-the-head device, but I can’t find it. Meanwhile, Gus – in a moment of confusion – mirrors their reactions and completes the trauma. Angry parents bulldoze through to collect their little ones while Gus melts into the lawn and gazes at his flip-flops.
What I really need to do to get everything tidy and organized is to take you back to the job part for a second.
Tracy showed me where all the supplies were and was really looking after me. One day she cornered me in the company supply closet against stacked green jugs of solvent. She kissed me roughly, her tongue eeling into my hard palate, her breath tobacco, toothpaste, and egg salad.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” she said.
It was thrilling to see her up close. Her eyebrows were thick like she’d knitted them on, and this incredible feeling – like when something’s really been organized and perfectly cleaned – surged through me.
She kneed my hip, motivating me to grab up those delicious fishnets. “I dream about you, dream we’re lovers, and it’s like you’re some kind of master who demands constantly of me.”
“I’m okay with that,” I whispered.
“It’s incredible in the dreams, the things you do to me. At the end, credits roll.”
They named me Employee of the Month. My photo went up over the drinking fountain, and I’d get thirsty all the time, just so I could go admire it. My talents were recognized. They gave me the special parking space in the agency’s small lot – someone even went so far as to paint my name over the curb. I don’t actually own a car, so I’d step off the bus and go stand in my designated spot.
Tracy returned early from lunch one day and caught me organizing her desk. I’d snuck in and was making nice stacks of bloated manila envelopes.
“What do you think you’re doing in here?” she asked.
“Please, Tracy. Give me a moment. Let me show you.”
“Show me? What is it with you?”
“Dreck. I’m sorry. But it’s got to be tidy. Acceptable.”
“I thought you liked me for who I am, Ben.” Tracy opened the door and waited for me to step out. “But, apparently all I am to you is another filthy desk.”
Gus watched me struggle. “Go on now, set it down. That’s it.”
I bettered my grip, eased the fruit bowl to the table, and sighed.
Gus regarded the fruit. “That’s what’s left of it. And you certainly wouldn’t be so quick to clean if you understood the situation.” He loosed a satin handkerchief from his back pocket, blew his nose in a brassy glissando, spat, and examined his work before refolding the handkerchief. “I ought to lay the whole goddamn saga on you, uncut,” Gus said. “Ouchie. It isn’t a happy one.”
I told him yes, sure, I’d like to hear it; I didn’t know what else to say. Work was waiting for me – other units. Not to mention how eager I was to get back to cleaning Gus’s place – the litter of peanuts, bottle caps and toenail clippings in the carpet, the stubborn soap bar hairs waiting to be tweezed – its state of utter dreck.
He couch-patted, offering the other end. As I took a seat, Gus whipped the handkerchief towards my face and bannered it between his fingers. The handkerchief was spotless.
“Jilly willipers, boys and girls, where do you suppose all that phlegm disappeared to?” Gus said. “Snot there Get it? Snot there!”
That’s when Gus told me about the clown business.
“And, you know, things were going fine,” Gus said. “I had solid work. I was the mall clown, for crying out loud. My kid-birthday calendar got so full I was up to my ass in kiddie parties. Plus, adult functions.”
“Functions?”
“I played trombone at board meetings, got the shareholders smiling.” Gus lowered his voice. “Then one day there was Nomi.
“She was a Japanese clown, twirling hunks of kelp over by the pier like nothing you’d ever seen.” Gus swigged his milk so that it moustached him “She had circles – these perfect orange pancakes on her cheeks. And her lips – I mean, they were so green — ”
“But the fruit. What about — ”
Gus shook his box of baked goods at me. “Here, take some homentashen.
“Nomi and I fell in love and formed a clown team, and ouchie! – were we hot! I tell you what that girl got inside my head, sensed the juggle and knew when to step in to remove the jumbo paper clip from my ear. We played a clown convention, competed freestyle in the Battle of the Clowns and soared all the way to the top. They were all there: Karl, Pong, Enzo. Binky, Alba, Atticus, Helgar, Slink, Woggi — ”
I downed a few butter cookies while he rattled off names.
“Virge, Fuzzy, Kloghda – and, yes, Bevo and Pilk, The Great Turco, Alfonso, Thor – We walked away with Grand Prize. Sweepstakes Five hundred bucks and a wad of gift certificates. Plus the fruit bowl.” Gus bit his lip. “Then the unthinkable happened.”
I stopped chewing.
“You see, being with Nomi somehow caused me to lose my inner sadness.”
“That’s not good, right?”
“When a clown’s lost his inner sadness, it’s pretty much game over. Nomi saw how off-the-mark I’d gotten, and she looked deeply into her own inner clown. She had a choice to make: either me or her clownability, and I came in second.”
“Second’s pretty good,” I said.
“She mounted the unicycle and never looked back. Left the fruit and the cash.”
“That is a sad one,” I said.
“I tried to move on. Clients stopped calling. The mall replaced me with a puppet show.”
I could see how much it meant to him. And his story moved me. But there wasn’t time to sit around stewing. “Well,” I said, rising to thank him, “time is money and — ”
“You interested in earning a gob of extra money?” Gus asked. “A grand apiece Slabs more bacon than you’re bringing home cleaning stuff.”
It was like he was inside my mind.
“Look, Ben, I could really use your help with this. I’ve watched you work. You’ve got good hands. And you’re obviously a detail guy. I can’t go it alone This could spell comeback for me, one last chance, you and me partnering up.”
Gus excused himself then reappeared in a green, polka-dot gown. “We don’t have a shit-load of time here for me to make you funny.” He tossed a pinstriped gown with yellowed arm pits at me. “Try her on.”
I push through the madness towards the study. My clammy fingers reach along the mantle, the saucer teetering. I stare at the caped knight with his unsheathed sword. He and the horse and the stowaway gnat gallop through the leafy insignia.
Forbidden What am I doing in here? Mustn’t touch. Touch the fruit, the next thing you know you’re a clown. But Grandma always said, make it right
I’m moistening a finger when the door clicks and there’s Lexie, smiling coyly. “I knew I’d find you here. Her voice is huskier now as she approaches and runs her fingernails over my wooly, press-on eyebrows. “Why, little clown, you’re trembling My god, is this your first time?” Her eyes move from the saucer at my side to the gap in the mantle. “Well, well I just love what you’ve done in here.”
“It’s filthy. No good.”
“You like touching little plates, Ben?
I stare at her My caked lips part heavily, and this sound – this tiny whimper – escapes. “You don’t understand how clean everything needs to be.”
Lexie presses a gentle finger to my lips. “Get over it, clown. Time to move on.” She takes my hand. “Why don’t we talk about what I need?”
I try to pull away, but she’s got my sleeve.
“What I need is to take Clownie over to the sofa for some horizontal positioning.”
We tug-of-war with my sleeve and she laughs and grabs for more material at my chest. Her dress is unbuttoned, a black bra exposed. She squeals, plucks the clown nose off my face, places it on her thumb, and pops it, like a swollen olive, into her mouth.
Rapid knocking startles us.
“Don’t worry, I locked it,” Lexie says.
A key rattles, the maid steps in, mumbling. Her eyes sweep the mantle then she glares at my saucer. “Bad man.”
Alicia enters. “Well, what on earth — ?”
“That bad clown.” The maid points. “He try to take the things, but Mrs. Lexie no is letting him.”
“Things? Lexie says. “That clown practically raped me.”
Gus pushes his way in. “Aw, please tell me you didn’t try and organize anything in here. Gus watches Lexie button her dress “Did you tamper?”
“Please, whoever you are — ” Alicia extends a hand for the saucer “Just give it back now.”
Ray steps in, furious. “Alicia, didn’t I say something was worming my gut about these people?”
“Christ, I don’t have to listen to this,” Gus says
“You’re not for real, are you?” Alicia says to Gus.
“I happen to be, for your information — ” Gus blinks rapidly. “A clown school graduate. A licensed professional.”
“You’ve frightened our guests away,” Alicia says. “Fritz is deeply depressed.”
“Bad clowns.” The maid makes some clucking noises.
Ray shoves Gus. “Where in fuck’s Fuzzy?”
“Please — ” Gus says.
“We need answers here,” Gordon says.
Gus stomps. “There happen to be plenty of other clowns in the world besides Fuzzy!”
“You?” Ray laughs. “You’re the sorriest clown in clown history – you’re not even rodeo.”
I edge closer to the sofa and visualize my escape. My heart’s pounding in my neck. Gus sucks in, cocks his head, and spits into Ray’s face with a raw-egg splat.
Ray wipes, lunges for Gus, and Gordon steps in.
I hurdle the sofa, lose the saucer and burst outside where Chuckles zings over the lawn at me like a guided missile.
I was lucky. The maid waddled out, clapped, whistled, and secured the leash. I took a last look at mutilated Chuckles then clopped all the way to a service station where I managed to get hold of my father.
“Dad, I need help.” Inside the pungent phone booth, my voice was pathetic. “I need you to come get me, okay?”
“Christ, Ben” he said. “What in hell’s it this time?”
This is where I’m choosing to end it. It isn’t organized and probably isn’t the best ending, not the one you were hoping for – not the one which proclaims, as the credits roll, how no animals were harmed during the making.
I’m still at my Dad’s. I no longer deal with his sprawl: the dirty socks, beer bottles, comic books, his tools strewn everywhere.
I’m looking for another job. Tracy let me go. She won’t return my calls.
I lie awake at night smelling fruit. I imagine I’m holding on to the bowl, intent on sanitizing, but then I set the thing down and just accept it.
Gus must be back to the old routine. I imagine how he waits, the bowl of fruit in the TV glow helping to pass the time.