THE GOLD FISH: The Monkey (2.1)

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The sun was high in the sky by the time Barbie roused the next morning. The tortured tossing and turning she’d done railing against Joan’s cruel and unjustified disposal of her fish and the rigors of her subsequent late night rescue mission had worn her out. But she had another mission to attend to -- perhaps the most important mission of her life -- and there was no time to spare. The minute her eyes were open, she was up and out of bed and rushing to the small rectangular jewelry box that sat upon her dresser. The box’s defining feature was a tiny plastic ballerina that spun to a wind-up music mechanism when opened. For some reason, the ballerina had always bugged Barbie and years ago she had unsuccessfully attempted to wrestle the stupid thing off its spring. Now, as if in retaliation for the senseless attack, the ballerina hung listlessly to one side, reminding Barbie of her failure and seeming to relish getting in her way.

With a sigh, Barbie batted it aside and assessed the box’s contents. Barbie had no real jewelry to speak of, but it did hold her cash reserves and a few treasures. A red bouncy superball. Some metal barrettes. A tiny plastic Troll doll with bright purple hair and a yellow smiley face ring that were all the rage that year. A folded-up black and white photo strip that both she and Bridge had taken of themselves in Woolworth’s Photo Booth last summer, toothy grins and silly faces already starting to fade. But most importantly, the box held one tightly folded dollar bill, two quarters, a dime, three pennies, and a Buffalo head nickel.

She performed a quick calculation, omitting, of course, the Buffalo nickel which she would never spend. She had $1.63. Only $48.37 to go.

After tucking the money safely back into the box -- and giving the ballerina a smack for good measure -- she pulled a pair of shorts and a t-shirt from her dresser and lifted the nightgown up over her head. She instantly regretted it. Even though her gold (pause) fish had only been wrapped in the nightgown’s depths for maybe 3 minutes tops, it had been enough to imbue it thoroughly with the smell of rotten fish. Jesus Christ Almighty, Barbie thought to herself, it’s a good thing you’re beautiful, because you stink! Giggling at her own joke, she ripped the nightgown off, rolled it into a ball, and stuffed it deep into the hamper. Let her mother deal with that too!

Minutes later she was skipping down the stairs to her first port of call: the coat closet. Like most kids her age, Barbie was well aware of the house’s hot spots for unclaimed, loose change. Change that was therefore, ripe for the picking. Finders keepers and all that. Old coat pockets were, in her expert opinion, a frequently overlooked source. She flung open the closet door and began her excavation.

Methodically making her way from left to right, the first coat -- her father’s black London Fog raincoat -- yielded up a quarter and two pennies.

$1.90.

A few more coats were busts, but a red car coat of her mother’s gave up three shiny dimes, and -- right on! -- a half a stick of Wrigley’s chewing gum. Joan was notorious in the family for her limited chewing gum capacity. Whether it was due to a small mouth or frugality, the girls never knew, but her pocketbook was always littered with torn, left-over half sticks of gum.

$2.20.

Barbie popped the gum in her mouth and it was her second regret of the day. No matter how hard she chewed, it just wouldn’t yield. Its time in the coat pocket had cured it to the consistency of beef jerky. She spat it out, re-wrapped it in its foil wrapper, and put it back in the pocket.

The next bunch of coats were hers and Karen’s, so were understandably barren, as was the last coat in the closet, a dusty, old swing coat in a multi-colored brocade that must have been her mother’s from the olden days. There were holes in both pockets, so if the coat had ever held loose change, it was long gone. But something about the coat’s fabric caught Barbie’s eye. There were tiny flowers, leaves, and even birds in the pattern. Even though it was old-fashioned, the fabric was kind of groovy, like something a real hippie might wear, she thought. A tapestry even, with bits of blue and gold, like the Carole King song. So she slipped it off its hanger. Creativity does, indeed, want out. But it would need to wait until later.

For now, it was on to the next stop: the sofa. An excavation in the cracks between each cushion unearthed another quarter, a nickel, and an old pretzel stick. The change went into her pocket, but the pretzel went back where she found it. That half stick of gum had taught Barbie a valuable lesson. Like Gomer Pyle said, “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Her new total: $2.50. Not bad for ten minutes work. She could hardly believe it! At the rate she was going, she’d have that fished stuffed in no time.

BANG. It was that damned screen door again, and from the sound of the faucet being turned on, Barbie guessed it was her mother entering the kitchen. She grabbed the brocade coat and headed her way.

Joan stood at the sink filling a water glass, a kerchief over her beehive, freshly cut grass dotting her ankles and Keds. She looked up as Barbie entered. “And look who it is. Sleeping Beauty. About time you got up. Grab that mower in the backyard and walk it around front for me. Now.” She took a deep drink of water, then placed the empty glass in the sink. “I gotta get this done before the Belle wakes up from her nap.”

“Okay. But Ma...” Barbie held up the coat. “Can I have this?”

Joan’s eyes narrowed at the coat. “What do you want that old thing for?”

“I want to make something out of it.”

Joan shrugged. “I guess. Just don’t leave me another mess to clean up.”

“I won’t. But Ma, could you also…” Barbie hesitated. Her late night insomnia had given her another idea. A bold idea. But this was unfamiliar territory and her first steps into it were understandably tentative. What she had decided was this: if she was going to be the only one in the family doing chores, why shouldn’t she charge for it? Real money, instead of Slurpee payments?

But surprise, surprise, Joan had little patience for small talk at this particular moment and cut her off. “C’mon. Get that mower. Chop chop. I don’t have all day.” And with that, she sailed out of the kitchen.

Either do I, thought Barbie. Either do I. But she knew it was best to bide her time. The right moment would come. She tossed the coat on a kitchen chair and went to get the mower.

BANG went the screened door in her wake.

BANG.

In the darkened bedroom above, Don groaned. So help me God, he thought, if that door bangs one more time, I’m going to march downstairs, rip it off its goddamned hinges, and throw it across the yard. Just try me.

It wasn’t enough that its constant banging felt like someone was taking a jackhammer to his already splitting head -- too many Vodka gimlets the night before had left their mark -- but could there be a better reminder of his complete ineptitude as a man? That when God gave out mechanical ability or even mechanical interest for crying out loud, he wasn’t just at the back of the line, he wasn’t even in the country. That he was, as his late Uncle Henry used to say, a complete and total waste of space. Why Uncle Henry always seemed to show up when Don was half awake and hungover shouldn’t have been a surprise. Mornings were typically his worst time of the day. Where others might see, with optimism, a blank canvas of the day’s possibilities before them, Don only saw his failings of the day before and the hours to be endured before the night’s possibilities.

At the thought of his Uncle Henry -- may he continue to rot in hell -- Don hauled himself upright in the bed and snatched his Zippo and a pack of smokes from the bedside table. He shook one out, lit up, and drew in a deep lungful of smoke. As if that would help banish the thought of Uncle Henry -- and his incessant criticism -- from deep inside his brain. Don had been subjected to that dickwad’s constant spiel of vitriol when he was a kid, but for the love of God, why must he listen to it long after the bastard was six feet under? Like a musical score pressed into a flat disc of vinyl, Uncle Henry’s voice was pressed into Don’s mind, and once it started playing, there was no stopping it. You’re useless. You’re a lazy piece of shit. You couldn’t work your way out of a paper bag. The hits just kept on coming.

Don and Hazel had moved in with Uncle Henry and Aunt Myrtle when Don had been about 4. This was after Hazel had thrown out Don’s father, Gene, for being a cheating philanderer. She divorced him in 1939, which Don had to admit, was a pretty bold move at the time. Although honestly, it didn’t take much effort to throw his father out; he hadn’t been around much in the first place.

At first, Don had been excited to live with Uncle Henry. He fantasized, stupidly, that maybe he and Uncle Henry might huddle around the radio together listening to a ballgame, or even play catch out in the yard. All the things Gene had never had the slightest interest in. But in the end, Uncle Henry had turned out to be an autocratic asshole who resented his smart-ass sister-in-law and asthmatic nephew for invading his space, despite the obvious pleasure he seemed to derive from humiliating him on a daily basis.

Don used to think that once he was away from Uncle Henry’s hateful and paralyzing glare, he could and would change. He was a smart guy after all. Open minded. Curious. A quick study. The usual ingredients for learning new things and getting good at them. But that had been before what he had come to call The Monkey had climbed onto his back and stuck its claws into him. He knew monkeys didn’t actually have claws -- he’d seen enough Tarzan movies to know that -- but that’s what it felt like. It was shortly after Barbie had been born, he must have been 25 or so, when he realized his back hurt. A lot. Every single goddamned day. And when he thought about it, he realized he couldn’t actually remember a day when it had NOT hurt. Nothing that he did -- stretches, exercises, a new mattress, copious amounts of aspirin -- put a dent into it. Nothing, that is, except booze. Alcohol didn’t make the pain go away per se, but it somehow made him not care about it.

By the time he was 30 and unable to turn his neck from side to side, Don’s drinking habit was at a pro level. “See Uncle Hen,” he wanted to say. “I am good at something.” And an immovable lead weight, AKA The Monkey, had attached itself to his torso. Don hadn’t exactly been a barnburner even in his 20s, but in his 30s, he felt about a hundred. Multiple visits to a doctor turned up nothing. They claimed the root of Don’s pain was most likely emotional, and therefore, in his head. Was anything bothering him, they had asked. It was all Don could do to maintain a straight face. Was there anything bothering him?!! Oh, you mean besides the fact that I feel like shit, my wife hates my goddamned guts, and I’m just as useless as my Uncle Henry always said I’d be? Gee Doc, no. Nothing the matter here.

And boy oh boy, if Joan was sick of him and his complaints about his back pain before, after this particular non-diagnosis, she could barely look at him without contempt.

So Don suffered in silence. He withdrew. He slept. He drank. And his pain got worse.

And then, when he was about 35, he suddenly felt better. He was still stiff, but the pain just sort of... evaporated. It was like the dark clouds parted and God rays of sunshine had burst through. He felt reborn, upbeat, and a miraculous thing had happened. His relationship with Joan re-blossomed. For the first time since the early days of their marriage, they were touching each other again and actually enjoying each other’s company. They’d both been thrilled when Joan got pregnant again. But like all good things, it was not to last. Within months, Joan was nauseous and cranky and Don’s pain had returned with a vengeance. And with it, a constant and overwhelming fatigue.

Don couldn’t and wouldn’t talk to Joan about it. After all, she had her own ails to deal with and soon, a new baby. But privately, he sought out a new string of doctors. A rheumatologist finally gave him an answer. A diagnosis. Don had something called Ankylosing Spondylitis, a progressive form of inflammatory arthritis which had been triggered by his own, faulty immune system. For some insane reason, it was mistakenly targeting his own spine as an enemy and attacking it. Jesus H. Christ, Don thought when he got the diagnosis. It wasn’t in his head, but as with all his shortcomings, it was still his own damned fault. And there was nothing to be done. There was no treatment and no cure. His condition would continue to worsen until his spine completely fused together in one brittle, inflexible mass. Which, to add a cherry on top, meant that he would be highly susceptible to breaks and fractures. Physical activity was actually discouraged.

But wait kids, there’s more! Don also learned that the x-rays to his neck and upper back showed signs of kyphosis, the medical term for a hunched back. It wouldn’t be long before the weight of his head would force his chin to his chest, preventing him from looking anywhere but down. He’d be a right old Quisimodo. How’s that for a punch to the kisser? The one thing Don had always been able to depend on -- his good looks -- would soon be gone. And in its place, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Making driving, sleeping, making love -- pretty much everything worth doing -- difficult and awkward.

On the bright side, the doctor had said, Ankylosing Spondylitis wasn’t deadly. It wasn’t going to kill him. At least not anytime soon. But, thought Don, as he stabbed his cigarette into the ash tray, on days like this when his hungover brain pounded, his back screamed, and that goddamned door wouldn’t stop BANGING, he kinda wished it would.

Next → Together Then (2.2)