Lifestyles

She turned over and switched the alarm off before it could go off and wake her husband. It would be the nicest thing she would do for him all day, even considering yesterday's diagnosis. She spread her toes against the carpet then dropped her heels onto the floor and pushed herself into wakefulness. She had never in her life worked for the public, so did not understand people who needed coffee first thing in the morning. She would say that last part to people, and had, on many occasions. Not the part about not working with the public, the part about not understanding people. The responses were smiles and nods and rarely a crinkled nose, but not warmth. It was no surprise to anyone that this woman did not understand people.


But, she would at least go into the kitchen and turn the coffee pot on for her husband. Which, one might think would be a contender for the nicest thing she would do for him that day, except it should be taken into consideration she would only pour enough water into the reservoir for a single cup to remind him that she saw his drinking coffee in the morning as an affliction of character, and that she would make it very, very weak. Like Tea, were the words he used to describe it to no one but himself.

On her way to the kitchen she passed a low table littered with Happy Birthday cards. "Littered" is her word for it, no one else's- there were only two. Her stride skipped like a missing piece of movie and she frowned because she couldn't remember if it was her birthday or his. She kept walking.

There was a sour smell and a rustling from the kitchen and she immediately thought about her cats, the mind taking the most logical leap to bridge the next five steps that would carry her into the kitchen, never-you-mind the cats having been dead and gone three years past. She remembered what happened to the first one, but couldn't for the life of her place what had happened to the second. She would remember what happened to the second cat before long, well before noon, even.

She still hadn't thought about the cats being gone before she stepped into the kitchen and saw a man reading the (her) paper at the table. A young journalist would later write that it appeared the man had been reading the Lifestyles section.

Remarkably, the coffee was already on. This was surely a man she would not understand.

She stood there numbly, despite herself, still not wanting to wake her husband, and was surprised when the man raised his finger to his lips, and not her. All she could do was nod once, twice.


He leaned back into the chair and set the paper down as if he meant to go back to reading it once he was finished with whatever reason he was here in her kitchen, in her house. He nodded for her to take the seat opposite him which she did, he then pulled a legal pad and then a hammer out of his coat and set them on top of the paper in front of him. He patted his pockets until he found a pen and then leaned back over the table, jotting the pen against the pad. The sour smell was overwhelming.

"What-" she got out, only for him to put up his hand in the One Sec gesture. She looked down at the hammer. A rival journalist would correctly identify it as a ball peen hammer.

Finally satisfied with the legal pad, the man looked up and said, "You yelled at my employer because his dog pooped in your yard?"

She didn't know what he was talking about, truthfully.

He shrugged, "Well, it's been a while now, like a few months. And I saw your yard, tell ya, I'd yell at somebody if I had a yard like that and their dog was pooping in it."

"What do you want?" she was finally able to get out.

He seemed apologetic. "It's a nice yard. It's not going to win any society or...what's the word, horticulture awards, but anybody can tell you work hard on it. And normally my employer? He'd let something like that slide, except he was with his daughter and you embarrassed him."

She looked away from him to the hammer laying on the table. "I don't remember..."

"Honestly, who would? It's just he's sensitive to...ah..interaction? You know he always wears a ball cap when he's out running around? It's so he can hide his eyes from people, so if he doesn't see them they won't try to, you know, say 'hi' to him or anything. He just wants to be left alone."

She leaned back, cross. "Well, if his dog was shitting in my yard then I'm sure I did yell at him, whoever he is."

He winced, "That's the thing, his dog was definitely taking a dump on your green, but it was pretty plain to see that he was in the middle of picking it up when you came out 'running your trap' it says. Or, what did you think he was doing with that grocery bag?"

"Oh, please! They all carry those little bags just to make it look like they're hauling shit all over Kingdom Come, but the instant, the instant, they don't think anyone's watching they just leave it lay!" now she was leaning over the table toward him, "What in the hell is that smell?"

At this he flinched and sat up a little straighter, "It's me, ma'am."

She curled her nose, "What? It's you?"

He nodded once, "That smell is bad things. I'm bad things," and looked down at the hammer.

The offensive that she had won in her very own kitchen was waning, "What...are you, why are you here?"

"Listen, I don't think you're a bad person, lady. Your house is nice, you get the paper, no one does that anymore, you keep good coffee, I bet you're even kind've funny, right?" he tilts his chin to a magnet on the refrigerator: GET YOUR ETHOS OUT OF MY PATHOS BEFORE YOU'RE A MYTHOS "I mean, I don't really get it but, it's cute, funny. But, at the end of the day, I'm here to beat you to death with this hammer. I think you know that, you've always known that."

"Get out of my kitchen. Get out. I'll scream, I swear, just go, I'll scream, you can't, I'll scream-"

"Sometimes you scream, sometimes you just take it, sometimes you fight, it doesn't matter. I just keep coming back and I smell worse every time, just worse and worse, it's awful. I usually start reading the paper, I've read it front-to-back so many times, it's not getting any better, I'll tell you that. I've only recently started making myself a cup of coffee for after. The birthday cards in the hall, that's new. Some mornings there's a lot- well, more than two anyways. One time you came in here and called me 'Denver' did you know that? Who's Denver?"

Her mouth was dry and her throat hurt but she choked out "my cat. run over." That's what had happened to the second cat, run over. Stretching his broken body crawling back into the yard, a bloody sack of broken things, now she remembered.

She blinked and swallowed, "What do you mean 'sometimes' why do you act like this has happened before, you've never been here before."

He looked at her a long time, studying her, before he answered "I think you know that's wrong, don't you? Somewhere in there you know." Then he stood and picked up the hammer, "Lady, I've come here a thousand times."