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Ambient Florida position

  Josh Spilker

  Copyright © 2011 by Josh Spilker

  (KUBOA)/SmashWords Edition

  www.kuboapress.wordpress.com

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  There were no more Doritos. There were no more bottles of iced mocha coffee. There were no more almonds.

  I got in the car.

  This car used to go across the bridge, to a parking garage near the Westshore Mall. The car now goes to the Hess Station everyday. It does not know the bridge any longer.

  At the Hess Station. The choices are limited, the lines are short, the bottles say there is 10 percent fruit juice.

  I buy a full bottle with 10 percent fruit juice. There is a label on the bottle.

  I buy a bottle of iced mocha. The bottle is made of plastic and has a label on it. 

  I buy small bags of almonds. The almonds have plastic wrappers with logos

  The labels on the bags, the labels on the bottles; they have slogans. I don’t remember any of them.

  "Nice day." The guy behind the counter.

  “Yes,” I said.

  "Is that all?"

  “Yes.”

  “Debit or credit?” the guy asked.

  “Cash,” I said. I took out my wallet. I paid in cash.

  ***

  I was at the stop sign.

  If there was a light, it doesn't matter, its shade green or yellow or red. A blinking dull light on the ceiling, the passenger light, the reading light, that light that doesn't go off when you expect it to, instead you're standing outside your car waiting for that light to go out; that light was on.

  That light was all that mattered. He went and they went, and they hit him, he hit them, the fault not only in the hitting, but also in the pain, the coincidence, some victims egg themselves to be victimized, maybe we all do, but the Goodwill truck bent the door, it’s bent by one of its kind -- another vehicle, recognizing the equal material and greater force, bending to its speed, ferocity and they were also forced to bend to it, crunching, crumbling, folding and folding farther, like stretched elastic with no purpose. We never notice the things we see everyday.

  I was at the stop sign. I watched this.

  An open gray road with littered materials, a rusty desk lamp, and tired sweaters, a cutting board and shears, a weedeater, a  Playskool mobile.  A DVD copy of Revenge of The Nerds with a scrape on its side, the case stood side-upright on the pavement, supported strong by American expansionism, American capitalism, ideas borne not out of grand visions, but out of knowing the intricate American-ness of both domination and the role of the underdog, its small fissures exposed to be exploited and then sold back to us -- we never the wiser for knowing these fissures, as we all kept doing what we were doing, what we are doing now, what I've always done, which is drive this Ford Explorer while others get decimated doing the same.

  I opened the Ford Explorer door. I walked and picked up the movie. I'm sure the woman in the car was screaming for help. I'm sure she needed some water. We think about what we might do, but never think to do it.

  ***

  "...did you see them coming?" Nathan said.

  "...doesn't matter."

  "...whose fault..." Uncle Ander said.

  "...can't remember..." I said.

  “…AND AFTER YOUR FATHER…” Mom breathed in a deep whisper.

  "But you took this movie...from the accident?" Laurie said.

  "Yes."

  "And you didn't help?" Nathan said.

  "No."

  "...heartless, callous, unsympathetic bastard, that's what...,” Mom said.

  "I am."

  “…gawd, what else…” Mom breathed. In and out.

  I walked out of the room. I went into my living room. I walked to the TV.

  I put the movie in. I pressed “play.”

  ***

  Blue, gray like a large Aerostream RV co-opted for public use, the bus stopped at the curb. Uncle Ander approached the bus. In Uncle Ander’s hand, a dirty wooden shaft. At the end of the shaft, a steel-tin-metal square, its edge sharp from standing upright in the back of a shed. Uncle Ander wore a backpack.

  “Uh, sir where are you going with that thing?” the bus driver said.

  “Is there a problem?” Uncle Ander balanced the shovel on the first bus step.

  “I know what it is sir, but this is a…”

  “See this finger?” Uncle Ander said. He flexed his middle finger. “This could be a weapon, but it ain’t if I don’t use it as a weapon.”

  “Sir…”

  “Same with this shovel.”

  Uncle Ander got on the bus. He walked down the aisle. He selected a black plastic seat near the middle of the bus. Uncle Ander sat down. He looked forward. He looked backward. He was alone with a shovel.

  The bus stopped five miles later. Uncle Ander got off the bus. He walked down the sidewalk. To his right was an iron fence. He walked to the corner of the gate. The iron gate was latched. He opened the iron gate latch and walked inside the gate.

  A small headstone and another headstone and another. Willises, Betts, Samuels, Beasleys, Ramirezes, Blackmons. He found “Jorgeson.” He put the shovel down in front of the “Jorgeson” headstone. He scooped ground off the top. He was not making a hole. He wanted to scrape along the top. He wanted to make an indention.

  Uncle Ander opened his backpack. Inside, a small wooden box. He slid the off the lid. He emptied the ashes into the indention. He placed the shovel into the fresh dirt. He lifted it, dumping it over the ashes. He flipped over the metal square of the shovel. He smoothed the dirt over the ashes. He laid the shovel down. He placed his hands on his hips.

 

  II

  “Is the scene dead?" I said.

  "Not again," Nathan said.

  "Are those girl jeans?” It was Mom. “You won’t be wearing girl jeans in my house."

  “Not again,” Nathan said.

  "What?" I asked. Nathan’s jeans, tight around the thighs, around the ankles, no holes in the knees.

  “They make you look ridiculous,” Mom said. Her red apron with white piping, its straps wrapped around her neck, around her waist. Looked like an experienced 37 at age 50.

  Outside on the deck, we were watching her swing a large grill fork. She flipped charred steak over and over, the grill lines in the same pattern, the same place on either side. She put lighter fluid on charcoal, she didn't mind the wait of the charcoals heating, the weight of the slow-cooked steaks. “Propane are for the Japanese,” she said.

  "You shouldn't use lighter fluid then," I said. "Almost the same thing. A shortcut."

  "Shut up," Mom said.

  At 13, I said Michael Jackson’s interview with Oprah Winfrey was his first since the one with Barbara Walters on 20/20 in 1979. My parents were impressed with my pop  culture fluidity.  My parents were also impressed with Touched By An Angel.

  “Take these in the house,” Mom said. She handed me a plate. The plates had steaks on them. Nathan followed. I put the steaks on the kitchen counter and we went into the living room.  “And Wallace, there’s a key for you on the counter.”

  “‘You know what the great thing about whistling is? It's that you can stop whistling!’” Red, That 70s Show. In the kitchen, Mom had a small television. 22-inch, not even flat, not even high-def.

  “You still watch this show?” I said.

  “It’s called syndication, D-A,”
Nathan said. He threw the remote at me. It hit my face. It fell in my lap.

  “Damn Rays.” Uncle Ander. In suspenders. Something like barbecue sauce spread across a flannel shirt. Like the sauce was there on purpose, across his stomach, an ‘x’ marking the spot for its return, its eventual resting place, the map spreading bigger and bigger each passing week, month, year. Sides of his head now snow white, the top enriching a gray zone, his body figuring out how to be old, how to sink, how to fall appropriately.

  “We’re actually doing pretty well this year,” I said.

  “We won’t make it,” Uncle Ander said. “Remember the Hit Show? We need something like that.”

  “Hit Show” -- the slogan the Tampa Bay Rays used after luring three big names, all later found to be on steroids. Each night, third baseman Vinny Castilla disparaged us and our team’s livelihood on third base, not by his words, not by his looks, just with the bat as if by some unconceivable power he could only swing at nothing, Vinny Castilla’s balls never found green grass, never found brown dirt, his feet never reaching an extra base, inconceivable hate never erupting, never manifesting itself, not even festering, Vinny Castilla was wholly pleased with his play and his paycheck.

  “That was a disaster,” Nathan said.

  “You’re a disaster. Look at those pants. I should give you a wedgie, just so I wouldn’t have to put up with any offspring that might come out of you,” Uncle Ander said.

  ***

  In the car. I turned left then right, then another left. Near my house, there is a church on the corner.

  "God's last name isn't damn."

 

  III

  Mortgage bill on the table. Plates in the sink. A treadmill in front of a television. Books on the side table. The table next to a futon. A bag of almonds on the floor. Vitamin Water next to the bag. I always took my car to work, now I don't. The TV was on. “The View” with Elizabeth Hasselbeck. I sat down and looked up the website for Survivor. I clicked on “Become a Contestant.”

  The phone rang, “Sweet Caroline” ringtone.

  “What’d they say?” A female voice. Laurie.

  “I didn’t tell them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you mean what do I mean?”

  “You lost your job.”

  “That happens to people all the time,” I said.

  “That doesn’t mean you don’t tell people. You don’t lose your job all the time. They are your family.”

  Scott had said “we wanted to keep you,” a pink envelope in his fingers (a real live pink slip!), his fingers passed it to me, I thumbed, I didn’t open it, he was in my office the blinds were open, he could see the retention pond from where he stood next to the bookcase, the same pond that I drove by every day never really noticing, except that one time it flooded --

  “Hate to do this,” he continued, (hate to do what? didn’t you already do it?) “but I’m going to have to ask for your keys.”

  In the desk drawer, and I opened the desk drawer and found them, and pulled the keys off, bending the circle trying to get the circle to open, extending the awkwardness further hoping he would change his mind, realize his grave mistake, realize things weren’t so bad after all, that I would stay and stay and that only the others, without offices and without key rings with important keys on them would have to go -- an announcement, a nice email MEMO that said, “If you have a key fob, you are fired. If you have a real set of keys, you can stay,” there would be no judging on merit then, just pure unadulterated RANK, “but you can leave when you want, just by Friday. Drop your files off in my office on you’re way out…” Others had been called to the conference room, with brown butcher paper covering the windows. They were told to leave and come back on the weekend for their things.

  Scott said something else.

  No hello, not even a glance in the eye, just a return from the watercooler to still find the pink envelope sitting there with an departing figure extremely high, extremely low -- I would take it anyway, as if medical coverage and SSN payments and higher property taxes were not a concern but where would I put my packet of gum in cleaning out this desk, the fake wood allowing the drawers to slide nicely out, just like this -- place in and out, easier to replace a piece of furniture than part of a soul.

  I opened the pink envelope. There was no departing figure. Just a departing zero.

  “Not all families work the same,” I told Laurie.

  Two years ago, there was Laurie at the Brand New and Moneen show, not wearing some type of eccentric printed punk tee, just a simple striped shirt in splotched jeans in some type of sensible shoes, me wearing an old 1994 Orioles shirt with Ripken’s name on the back, vintage yes, original yes found on eBay, standing near one another in a wait for the portable toilet -- me saying casually -- “What’s the worst Hot Topic item you’ve seen so far?” her reply, simple but focused -- “a My Chemical Romance cape, yours?” and I said “a GI Joe messenger bag” the eyes mutually agreeing that we were TOO OLD for this, yet still enthralled, the music moved us even though the culture had slowed to a consumerist, corporate sludge, clogging up the pipes of punk rock -- she accepted the offer of a drink, some type of sale on Coronas because no one was old like us to buy and we talked about the currency of the day -- books, movies, music of course and stances on Wal-Mart; me older her younger, or so we thought until it was revealed our birthdays were the same month of the same year and here we are, me surviving her crocheting phase, her surviving my extreme jet ski phase, even though jet skis cost more.

  The status was now “single” or “it’s complicated” depending on how the bar and small talk went the night before, someway somehow even through drunken taxi rides and late night beach bonfires with others, there was always a phone call the next day and the next, the valleys of rights and wrongs having no consequence.

  “Still you need to tell them” she said. “Anyway, gotta go,” she said.

  IV

  Brewster’s Millions on the TV.

  Cellphone, gyrating on the table, Uncle Ander.

  “Come over here.”

  “I’m at work,” I said.

  “You’re a liar. Can’t believe this. Can’t believe you’d lie,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Laurie told me. She’s got good legs, okay?” Uncle Ander said.

  “Why did she tell you?”

  “Don’t worry, I did not tell your mom, I did not tell your brother. We’ll wait.”

  “God…” I said.

  “Loves you,” Uncle Ander replied. He laughed. He said “loves you” to anyone who used it as a curse. I would say “you” to him after he said “f***.” That was not funny like when he said “loves you” after “God.” We both let the word “sh**” slide. I turned off Brewster’s Millions. It was during a part where Richard Pryor’s eyes were very wide.

  In the car. I turned left then right, then another left. Near my house, there is a church on the corner.

  "If you give the devil an inch, he will take a mile."

  At his house, Uncle Ander was in the garage, his house a condo unit, the garage in the parking lot near brown awnings with numbers printed under them. Found a visitor’s spot, a rare commodity in the economy of right-place/right-time.

  “Come move this. Someone is picking this up.” He pointed at a washing machine.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing, I’m going to the laundry mat from now on.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, I like the order. The peace and comfort. The whir-whirring.”

  “It’s kind of nasty there and the quarter machines never work.”

  “Not at my laundromat.”

  We sat on the curb. Uncle Ander drank Natural Light from a brown paper bag.

  “Did you really buy that from a convenience store?” I asked.

  “No, I just put it in this bag,” he said.

  “Why? Why didn’t you just bring it out? Eve
ryone would have thought it was just an off brand Coke or something, now the paper bag actually brings attention to it,” I said. “If the security truck comes by, they’ll be suspicious. They’ll think you’re homeless."

  “They already think that.” he said. He paused for a drink. “Since when did you care about the homeless? Or paper bags?”

  “For always. For always I’ve cared about paper bags. I didn’t even know they made those bags anymore, I just thought people used plastic.”

  “Don’t people still take their lunch to work?” An innocent question. Perhaps the most innocent I’ve ever heard from Uncle Ander.

  “No, people don’t use paper bags anymore, they use those plastic bags that everybody has, you know with the big logos on it from the grocery store,” I said.

  “I can’t drink Natty Light without the bag. It’s good on my fingertips, like the soft caress of a work shirt and Dickies all in a wad.”

  “You just like to get drunk by dumpsters,” I said.

  He threw the bag and the can at the dumpster, it didn’t make it, but hit his washing machine instead.

  V

  A Facebook message from Laurie.

  “I’m free at 3,” it read. “Text me. Have my own new job news.”

  I texted her. “Got yr msg on FB. Rods?”

  “Great. C u in 30.”

  ***

  John McCain:

  “And I promise you, we will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. We will reform government."

  ***

  Coffee and wine bar Roderigo’s, with chocolates and cakes to elevate clientele and conversation maybe. Distraught well-to-do young professional adults at the tables, in the booths, Laurie and I took our place. On the table, a stack of cards for “urban lofts.”

  “I’m working for Obama,” Laurie said. “On his campaign. And I wanted to let you know.”

  “You know I don’t care about politics.”

  “I know you don’t, but I want you to care, because this is important to me, and if you haven’t noticed, this city sucks, this state sucks.”

  “Like a vacuum cleaner,” I said. “What will you be doing?”

  “Finances. A financial assistant actually. Maybe buying supplies. Responsibilities like that.”