I take the items out and look them over.
I decide to take them up to the house. Tish is intent on a take home test, and it won’t take me fifteen minutes to set up the two incense burners I bought for Alex. He’s out for the evening, or on his way out, and I won’t be disturbing him.
“Hon, I’m just going up to the house,” I tell my daughter.
“Unh,” she grunts in acknowledgement. That’s good enough for me. I plant a kiss on the top of her head and leave the pool house.
The nights are getting warmer, not that they’ve been cold, but there’s a perceptible difference in the quality of the breeze from the ocean. Something subtle, but there. I take a minute to turn and look out to sea. It’s dark now, and there’s no moon, so all I can make out are the tiny whitecaps just before they break onto the shore.
Nice.
The house is quiet, but not dark. I didn’t have to make supper tonight, Alex declined this morning, telling me that he was going out and would grab something. I check the medication box and note that he has taken what he needs to take for the day. I would prefer not having to watch him fall apart again. Not that controlling his prescriptions is a guarantee, but it certainly makes a difference. He’s been his usual self instead of that morbid, moping person I had a good glimpse at.
A part of me finds it darkly amusing that someone who was a drug addict can forget to take a pill. Then again, cocaine and capsules are two different things. Another dark, yet amusing thought creeps into my brain, and I wonder if he might be able to get his antidepressants in snortable form.
I place one of the burners in the den. He seems to spend a lot of time there, and I think the scent of lavender will be a welcomed change from the scent of Marlboro Lights, his choice of smoke. Not that it bothers me, the smell of cigarettes, far from it, but there might be visitors. There might.
I walk up to the bedroom to place the other burner. He has two bedside tables, and I want to put this on the empty one. The other one. The one that’s not his, that no longer belongs to anyone. I wonder a little bit about that, too.
I found the concert tickets in his T-shirt pocket the other day, when I was making up his bed the second time. He’d just left his sweaty clothes on the bed, and the stiff envelope fell out when I picked the shirt up. I had left them on his night table, but not without noting who they were for, and when this show was. And that’s where my boss is tonight, at some place called the Viper Room, seeing Miss ‘throw it through the table and the devil be damned’.
Another sarcastic thought crosses my mind that they must have been one helluva fun couple in their day, him drunk and stoned, and her, well, her being whatever it is she is. Not violent, but certainly not a soothing influence from what little I saw of her. Now, that’s not very fair of me, but I’m finding myself becoming protective of this little wretch of a man. He’s miserable on most days, but I’ve seen him be very NOT miserable and when he’s not miserable, he’s really rather nice.
He’s also still at home.
“I’m sorry, I thought you’d already left,” I tell him. He’s moving around the room, cigarette dangling from his lips, pulling on clothes from a pile that’s somehow appeared on the bed. When I speak, he looks up startled.
“Shit, I didn’t hear you,” he says. The tips of his ears and the bridge of his nose go pink.
“Sorry. Having some difficulty?” I ask, while I’m thinking ‘good, how do you like it being snuck up on?’ and ‘now I’m going to have to put all these clothes back in the closet’.
“I don’t know what to wear,” he says. He pulls a shirt on. Looks like nothing, just a shirt. He turns, looks at himself in the free standing mirror, and yanks it off.
“Are you trying to make a statement?”
“I dunno.”
“Well, are you trying to say, ‘look at me’, or are you trying to blend in?” I pick up two items from the pile, one a fitted, snakeskin print shirt made of a leathery type material, the other a white dress shirt with pearl buttons that I wouldn’t mind owning.
“I dunno,” he repeats, but he begins to tug on the snakeskin shirt.
I decide to go about my business. I take the last burner out of the bag and set it up on the empty table beside the bed. Alex is paying me no attention. I’m tempted to light the incense, but think better of it. He’d probably forget to blow it out, and the next thing you know I’m responsible for the Great Southern California Fire of ought three.
“Whaddaya think?” he asks, and I look up from what I’m doing to observe Mr. M resplendent in black leather pants and snakeskin shirt. I’m without words. I have no idea where one wears such an outfit. I certainly have never come across anyone dressed thusly at the Laundromat, or in any of the local super markets. “Too much? Not enough? Throw me a frickin’ bone, Shi.”
“It’s... dramatic.”
“Wrong.” He starts pulling the clothes off and I’m feeling that this is a good time to leave.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I tell him, but he grabs my arm and firmly leads me to the bed, pushing me a little so I sit down.
“I need help.”
I want to laugh, so, so badly I have to bite the inside of my mouth, but I know that the shrieks of laughter are showing in my expression.
“I know, I know, but I really need to get goin’ and I’m late and I don’t know what the hell to wear and...”
“Are you going on a date?” I ask. I’m suddenly thinking that he’s not going to the Viper Room, that he’s going someplace else entirely.
“No, no, I’m goin’ downtown to a club, and, shit. Look, you remember Sarah?”
“She’s indelibly imprinted into my memory, yes, I remember her.”
“She’s singin’ tonight and I’m gonna go and see her and I wanna look... I dunno what I wanna look like. Like, like...”
“Like you care? Or like you don’t care?”
“Like I’m cool with everything. Like I don’t care that she didn’t tell me about the gig. Like, it’s casual that I’m showin’ up and everything.”
“Basically, you’re perpetrating a fraud, then.”
“Hunh?”
“Never mind. You’re overdressed. Unless the club has some kind of mandatory leather code.”
“Ha.” A weak laugh. The child is in a panic.
“Are jeans appropriate?”
“Yeah.”
“Then go put a pair on and for God’s sake, hang up the pants you’re wearing. For me.”
“Ha.”
I think, under normal circumstances, he might find me, and himself, amusing as all get out. At the moment, he’s in an honest dither. He hauls off into the closet and I begin to sort through the mess on the bed. He’s not going to wear any of the shirts here, so I fold and hang until he emerges wearing a pair of jeans that look more distressed than he does. There are artfully placed holes here and there, some nice fraying along the pant legs. Looks about right, I guess. But he’s taken off the snakeskin boots he’d been wearing and put on sneakers.
“The sneakers look wrong. Boots. Put some boots on. And have you got a black T-shirt?”
“I have a lot of black T-shirts,” he says from the closet.
I pick up the clothes I’ve straightened up and join him in his inner sanctum of haute couture. There’s a nice smell in here; I noticed it the first day. He wears a few different colognes, and the scents have adhered themselves to his clothes, to the carpeting in the closet, perhaps even to the very walls. And it’s not obnoxious cologne, either, so what might otherwise be an assault on the senses is something quite pleasant. I put the folded items where they belong, and hang up the others. Poor Alex is standing there, looking lost.
“Well put one on,” I tell him. He reaches for one with some writing on it, and I shake my head. “No. Plain. Do you have a plain one?”
“Plain?”
“Plain.”
“Sleeves?”
“Optional.” He has well developed arms for a slight person. Even for a slight person who shows signs of bloating, because his medications make him bloat. Not a lot, but enough.
“Tuck? Loose?”
“Alex, please, you know how to dress yourself.” He tucks the shirt in, loops a belt around his waist, and tugs on the boots he’d been wearing before. I move over to where he has numerous jackets lined up in no particular order and choose one, a leather jacket that looks like it’s seen some service.
“That old thing?”
“Well, who are you trying to impress?” I ask, and I hold it out to him. “I mean, you’re just out for the night, dropping into a club.” I shrug and smile.
“Shit, woman, you’re smart,” he says, slipping the jacket on. He smiles back.
“I try. Here, wait a minute.” I go back into the bedroom, and he follows me. The bag with the incense is still on the table, and I fish the small box from it that holds the key ring that I bought. I take the ring out and hand it to Alex, who looks at it as it rests in the palm of his hand. “For good luck. I saw it, and thought you should have it.”
His eyes flick up and catch mine.
“It’s obsidian. It’s supposed to ‘ground’ you and ward off negativity. So, well, go be grounded and positive. Live long and prosper. All that good stuff.”
“Thank you.” He closes his hand around it, clutches it for a minute, then slips it into his pocket. “I’m so friggin’ late,” he says under his breath. “Lock up?”
“And clean up,” I tell him, gesturing to the mess in the room.
“Fuck it, I...”
“You’re late. Get going,” I say, and give him a nudge as I pass him so I can pick up the remaining stray clothing on the bed and go back to hang them in the closet. I assume he’s gone, so I’m startled out of my wits when I turn to grab a hanger and he’s right behind me. He takes my hand, lifts it, and kisses my knuckles.
“Thank you,” he says again, but it’s only a whisper now, and as soon as he’s said it he releases my hand and leaves.
And I want to make a smart remark, I feel I need to, but I can’t. I can’t mock sincerity, even when it comes in such an unusual form, from such an unusual person.
I lock up.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
