The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving (12 page)

monday, monday

I
've just set the kettle to boil and arrayed my coffee cone precariously on the rim of my oversized Les Schwab mug when a double rap rattles the compartment door. It's never good news at 7:40 a.m. Probably Madge in 212 again, come to berate me for feeding chocolate bars to her thirty-pound cat, an offense of which I am decidedly not guilty. Looking up, I'm startled by a clean-shaven male face, late twenties, pressed to the window, fighting the glare of the reflection with both hands and a legal-sized envelope as he peers into the compartment for signs of life. Instinctively, I dive for cover behind the kitchen counter. Seconds later, rising tentatively on my haunches, I extend my neck and prairie-dog over the countertop to find that he's still there. I pop back down, though probably not before he's spotted me. Glancing at my watch, I see that I'm going to be late for work again.

A tap on the window.

I don't budge.

Another tap.

Maybe he didn't see me, I reason, just as the kettle begins to moan. By the time I scurry crabwise across the linoleum to the stove, the damn thing is screeching like a rabid spider monkey. Groping blindly around the stovetop, a bolt of lightning shoots down my wrist to my elbow.

“Ah!” I call out, releasing the kettle with a metallic clatter on the range, where it continues to warble and wheeze.

Th
e doorbell rings. Immediately, the neighbor's terrier starts going nuts.
Th
e kettle continues to squeal.

Th
rusting my arm up again, I give the kettle a push until it clears the burner completely and begins to settle. Sidling over toward the sink, I slump against the cabinet. Janet wasn't bluffing this time. Nothing to do now but wait it out.

After two minutes, when the incessant tapping and dinging and yipping have finally subsided, I peep over the counter and see that my pursuer has apparently thrown in the towel. Forgoing my coffee, I rush madly about the apartment gathering my keys, my wallet, my crossword, and my sweatshirt. Poking my head out the apartment door, I scan the causeway in both directions, see that the coast is clear, and stride briskly down the corridor. I spot the courier below, leaning against the bike rack, tapping the envelope on his knee. If I can get to the stairs, I can sneak around back, run some interference if necessary, and circle the far side of the building to the Subaru.

No sooner have I passed 210 than Madge emerges from her apartment with folded arms, blocking my way like a sentry. She's wrapped in a tired blue terry-cloth bathrobe covered with cat hair. She's got curlers in her hair and a cigarette in her mouth. I glance at my watch, then over the rail, where I note that the courier has cut his losses and is crossing the lot toward a blue Bronco. I lean back out of sight.

“Stop stubbing your Winstons out in my planter box,” Madge wheezes.

“I'm not.”

“Don't get smart with me, mister. I've seen you.”

“No you haven't.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“I don't even smoke.”

I attempt to sidestep her, but she blocks my way.

“Not so fast,” she says. “Not until you pick every last one of those butts out of my gladiolus.”

Eyeing the planter, I see that the gladiolus are nothing but withered husks. Indeed, a dozen or more crooked butts jut out of the soil like gravestones.

“
Th
ey're not mine,” I say.

“And I suppose you're not feeding Hershey bars to my Agnes?”

“
Th
at's right, I'm not.”

As though on cue, Agnes emerges, slinking through the crack in the apartment door, and begins rubbing herself around my ankle.

“
Th
e heck you aren't,” says Madge. “Now either you start fishing those butts out of my gladiolus, or I'm going to march right down to Chuck's apar—”

Before she can finish, I force my way through her blockade.

“Hey!” she yells. “You come back here!”

Over the rail, I see that her shouting has alerted the courier. He freezes. We lock eyes for an instant.
Gotcha
, he seems to say. We both break at once for the stairwell. Madge is calling after me.

“You asked for it!” she hollers. “I'm going straight to Chuck with this!”

I hit the top of the stairs at a sprint and don't slow for the corners. I beat him to the bottom, just barely.

“You! Benjamin Benjamin!” he calls. But I don't turn—to turn would be to admit that I'm Benjamin Benjamin. Instead, I jump the boxwood hedge, sidestep a silver Lumina, and dart straight for the Subaru at the far corner of the lot. I jump behind the wheel and hit the ignition, which doesn't catch the first time around. I can hear that little solenoid tapping away under the hood as I turn it over twice, three times, before it ignites on the fourth, and I whip the car in reverse. In the rearview, I see my pursuer turn halfway across the lot and run for his Bronco. He should have kept coming. Hemmed in by Emilio's gardening truck, I'm forced to back into a three-point turn, which turns into an eight-point turn. I hook Emilio's bumper on the final maneuver.
Th
e Subaru rears up on three wheels momentarily and crashes back down with a squawk from the rear suspension. No sooner am I free of Emilio's bumper than I stomp on the gas.
Th
e Subaru chokes on her own exuberance. I give her a few seconds to recover, then lay rubber pulling out. Squealing around the corner of unit B, I nearly collide with the blue Bronco as it noses around the edge of the building. We both lay on the brakes in the nick of time.
Th
e little cockroach is smiling behind the wheel. He thinks he's got me. We're still locking eyes as I shoot past him, up on the curb, sideswiping the juniper hedge and narrowly eluding an electrical box.
Th
e back end squawks again as I regain four wheels and speed toward the exit. But the Bronco falls in right behind me.
Th
e kid is still smiling. He's right on my tail as I swing onto Madison, where immediately the Subaru stalls. Desperately, I turn the key over once, twice, three times, looking anxiously up at the mirror.
Th
e kid is actually laughing now. On the fourth try, the Subaru lurches back to life, and I sputter north toward the library, gaining speed steadily. At the roundabout, I catch my first break as two school buses pull in behind me. I squirt out the north exit just ahead of some middle-schoolers at the crosswalk, for whom the Bronco is forced to pause. By the fire station, I've got three blocks on him. When I catch the light at Highway 305, I leave him in the dust. But I know I haven't seen the last of him.

Arriving at work ten minutes late, I find Elsa waiting impatiently in the kitchen with her gear. I can tell she'd rather give me the silent treatment, but she can't help herself.

“You know,” she says, hefting her tack bag. “I realize this job doesn't pay much. And I realize you have a life outside of work. But if this job is getting in the way of your life, maybe it's best for everybody if we have Social and Human Services assign a replacement. Frankly, I can't leave in September without knowing I can count on a provider to be here when we need him.”

She looks tired. I can tell it takes something out of her to give it to me like this, and I feel terrible for putting her in such a position. “I'm sorry,” I say. “It won't happen again. Really. You can count on me.”

“
Th
is isn't personal,” she says.

WHEN I GET
home from work in the evening, I find a note from Chuck on the door.

We need to talk,
it says.

So I march straight down to Chuck's apartment and knock on the door. He doesn't invite me in but steps grimly out under the causeway, scratching his neck. He's wearing slippers and a Ravens jersey, and he smells like weed. He'd rather have this conversation some other time, I think.

“Uh, look, Madge says you're trying to poison her cat,” he says.

“She's nuts, Chuck. She thinks I'm siphoning her electricity, too.”

“Yeah, well I don't know about that, but she also says you've been using her planter box as an ashtray.”

“I don't even smoke.”

“Well, what about Emilio's truck? He says you dented the front fender.”

“I just clipped the bumper. I was late. He boxed me in, Chuck. I was in a hurry.”

“Look, man,” Chuck says. “I like you, I do. Until recently, you've been a decent tenant.” He looks down at his slippers, and scratches his neck some more. “But . . .”

“But?”

“Look, I don't know what kind of stuff you're mixed up in, and to tell the truth I don't want to know. What I do know is that I looked out my window this morning and saw some guy chasing you through the parking lot.”

“I can explain.”

“Don't bother. Just do me a favor, okay? Just keep the shady stuff away from the complex, man. And quit feeding chocolate to Madge's cat.”

“But Chuck—”

“Dude. I'm just doing my job.”

Walking back to the compartment, I'm shell-shocked. How did I arrive here? At what point did my character become so suspect? When did I sink so low that I can hardly sustain a nine-dollar-an-hour job, that my car stalls at every intersection, that I can't hit a lousy .250 in slow-pitch softball?

green beans

J
anet used to take long lunches on Fridays. When weather permitted, the kids and I would meet her by the duck pond at Battle Point.
We
would buy fresh artisan bread from the T&C deli at four and a half bucks a loaf. Janet would've killed me had she known. But Piper insisted that it wasn't fair that ducks should have to eat stale bread all the time.

“And not the white kind, either,” she said. “Mommy says it's not good for you. So it must not be good for ducks.”

Piper and I would pack a picnic, Jodi watching with dark placid eyes from his high chair as we assembled peanut butter sandwiches. Piper handled the peanut butter side, since I always made it lumpy, and we cut the sandwiches into tiny squares as per Piper's instructions.

We'd fill Ziploc bags with cold canned green beans. Jodi loved them, ate them like jelly beans while the rest of us endured them. For dessert, there was Yoplait yogurts. I once tried passing the healthy brand (alternately known as the lumpy brand) off as dessert, but it didn't fly. Piper ate it (and seemed to enjoy it, I might add) but only under strict protest. She also managed to finagle Scooby-Doo Push-Ups and a player to be named later out of the deal. We'd bring a gallon jug of apple juice to wash it all down. I let the kids drink all the apple juice they wanted on Friday afternoons, though Janet swore it would rot their teeth.

Picnic packed, we'd gather our raincoats, boots, and artisan bread and the umbrella we'd never use, and pour out into the driveway to the RAV4.
Th
e RAV4 was my choice. Janet wanted a minivan. She wanted an automatic. I told her no self-respecting dude drove a minivan. Or an automatic. I'm often reminded of this. What if we'd bought an automatic?

I'd buckle the kids in the backseat and hike up socks and boots. Sometimes when I was well rested, we'd sing on the drive to the park. Sometimes we'd talk about alligators. Or special schools people could attend to learn how to speak dog or other animal languages and how you could use it to explain to the coyotes why they should stay out of garbage cans so people wouldn't want to shoot them. Or you could warn mice about traps. Or teach raccoons to look both ways before crossing.

We were invariably at least five minutes late when Janet stepped out from beneath the gazebo to greet us. We'd trample out into the muddy parking lot and across the field to the pond, where honking ducks converged to greet us. Bread in hand, Piper would dash to the shoreline while Jodi faltered along in her wake, his little hands grasping at the air in front of him. Janet would begin setting the picnic out on the table, under the cover of a maple. Yum, she'd say, in reference to the canned green beans. She'd talk about work. A sixteen-year-old retriever riddled with lymphomas. A tabby with heartworm. She'd ask me about my day. I'd tell her about dirty dishes and the Wiggles and how Jeff fell asleep in the Big Red Car. Again. And if I seemed tired or grumpy or a little short on patience as I watched my kids like a hawk at the water's edge, it's not because I didn't live for those Friday afternoons, for muddy feet and dandelion bouquets, for grass-stained knees and half-eaten lunches. Friday afternoons were perfection, the sort of perfection childless people can't possibly understand. It wasn't an easy perfection, all of that wiping noses and scuttling around duck ponds. It tried my patience to the ragged edges. But today I would trade an afternoon of cold green beans and muddy feet for every tomorrow I have left. And if that's not a convincing argument for eating your green beans, I don't know what is.