Gary, February 20, 2008

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So this cart, I told him, it's about 4 feet long—actually it's exactly 53 inches and three eighths but I didn't want to waste time with that kind of detail—so I just gestured to him, about like this big? You got me?

I told him it's not like any of your carts here at El Centro, it's not metal, no es metal...

My Spanish is worth shit, it's a total fucking joke that I'm trying to mount a show in this place...

It's made of wood, I said, two by fours, de madera, dos por cuatro...

Shit, I thought, this is getting nowhere, I tried to sketch it in the air with my hands, it's tall and thin like this, and the one piece at an angle, like this, and it's covered with old carpeting, cubierta con moqueta...

Look, I said, it's my cart, I made it, it's for moving paintings, and I left it right here about ten minutes ago.

By this time Erasmo had come up, he's the kid who's been helping me hang the show, a sharp kid, a talented artist, actually he's the one getting paid to hang the show, it’s a dual exhibition, me and that guy from LA, which means I'm the fucking unpaid supervisor on this project. Don't get me wrong, shit, even if El Centro had a pro gallery director on staff, I'd want to hang my own show, and I like working with Erasmo, he listens, like when I tell him about the math of hanging paintings, I mean he's smart enough to know what he fucking doesn't know, know what I mean?

So I told Erasmo the cart was missing, and he turned to the maintenance guy, Curro, his name is, and they talked for a while in Spanish, way too fast for me to follow but not half as fast as Curro talks to the other guys from Venezuela, and finally Erasmo turns to me and tells me that Curro saw the cart, a few minutes ago, the nurse lady took it.

The nurse lady? I said. You mean that gray-haired white lady?

Si, Si, says Curro, and he starts laughing, and the only words I can catch after that are la educación sexual and jovenas, and then Erasmo translates for me that the nurse lady took the cart so she could move her posters for the class she's teaching.

Those foam-core posters? I said. The ones that were over there?

I walked over to the place and pointed, to make sure Curro knew what I meant, because I sure as hell wasn't going to try to translate "foam-core" into Spanish.

Curro nodded.

What the fuck! I said. That cart is for moving stretched canvas oil paintings—what the fuck does she need my cart for to move foam-core posters that don't weigh a goddamn thing!

And Curro backed away like he thought I was about to start a fight, and I thought, oh shit, no, no, this isn't happening. Here I am fucking things up with the community and the opening is the day after tomorrow!

It was a fucking awkward moment. I started to tell Erasmo to tell Curro that I didn't have a problem with him or El Centro—I just couldn't understand why that white lady—

But Erasmo gave me a look and said, take it easy, man, take it easy. So I took a deep breath and stepped back. Then Erasmo said something to Curro, and Curro glanced at me, just once, kind of wary, and started mopping the gym floor again.

Then Erasmo told me he was going to the classroom to get the cart back, and he'd meet me at the loading dock. So I said okay, and Erasmo went off, and Curro kept mopping the floor. I stood there for a moment, but Curro wouldn't look at me, so I made my way to the loading dock. There were three crates waiting for us—from that gay Latino painter in LA. Two fucking days late. We had a lot of work to do, Erasmo and me.

He's a smart kid, Erasmo. A talented artist. A good listener.

Betty, October 21, 2007

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Seeing him at the grocery store—it's surprising, really, now that I look back, that there haven't been more awkward moments. We've been living here, in the same neighborhood, driving on the same streets, for twenty-five years now. Longer than that, of course, especially for him, but twenty-five years since.

"Betty," he said. "How nice to see you."

Our houses are less than a mile apart, but maybe, except for the brief period when we were actually pursuing each other, maybe we live in different worlds, move in different networks. Maybe the gradient in housing, from his sprawling brick tudor, every bedroom with its own bathroom and a few more just for the convenience of one's visitors, down the scale to my tidy bungalow with its vinyl siding—maybe that's the leading indicator of a different social ecosystem—different dry-cleaners, different auto mechanics, different florists. Different friends, that's for sure.

"Raymond," I said. "What a surprise."

And now, after twenty-five years, here in this aisle. My only indulgence—this expensive little store with its great produce section. Why did he show up now? He never did any of his own shopping, I'm know he didn't, even after his wife left him.

When did she leave? '84 maybe? No, it was at least '87. A good five years after we broke up. So I wasn't the direct cause.

"Are you still working?" he said.

Of course I always liked to think that I was more dangerous to him—to his equilibrium—than any of the others. A single woman. Perfectly happy with my lot in a modestly paid helping profession. He preferred married women, that was clear, or at least he felt more comfortable when the culpability was symmetrical.

"I still have a couple of years to go," I said.

We each had a bottle of red wine in our carts—Australian shiraz for me, Chateauneuf du Pape for him.

"Ah," he said. "About a week ago, I was having lunch with the new Superintendent..."

He paused, inviting me to interrupt. I thought for a moment, then accepted the invitation.

"You asked after me," I said. "That's nice. But the Super wouldn't know me."

He nodded, very thoughtfully, and then, like everyone else, I answered the question he hadn't even asked.

"That administrative job—" I said. "I gave it up a couple of years ago. I'm just a school nurse again. Prospect Elementary. I missed the kids."

"Good for you," he said.

"Yourself?" I said.

"Well, my name's still on the shingle," he said. "And my former partners let me use my old office. I sit on several boards, and there's an old client or two who insist on occasionally giving me a call."

He reached toward the shelf, picked up a can of Spanish olives, and studied the label, tilting his head back to position the small text in the appropriate part of his progressive lenses.

"Are these any good?" he said.

When did he become interested in ingredients? I shrugged my shoulders.

"I was reading recently," I said, "about your daughter. You're on the board of that nature center, aren't you?"

He put the olives back on the shelf.

"Yes," he said, "that was difficult. But it's a wonderful organization, still very much worthy of my support. And Lisa will certainly find a new project. I'm very grateful to her for getting me involved with the Tangled Bank in the first place."

How does he do it? He could walk out of prize fight and make it sound as if the knockout was the first step toward an amicable partnership.

"Raymond," I said, "I hate to ask you for legal advice, but there's a situation that's beginning to trouble me. It's about my father."

Arthur, September 28, 2007

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Dorothy needed someone to take her shift at the center, there was a funeral she had to go to, Louise's friend Marian or Marianne or something like that, I'd never met the woman, not much point in me going to the funeral, so I said, Sure, I'll take your shift. Volunteer Greeter, they call it, you just sit by the door and say hello to anyone who comes in, they want the center to be open to drop-bys, even the teenagers in the park, and apparently having an old fart at the door prevents vandalism, I don't know how, I sure as hell couldn't stop those teenagers from indulging their destructive tendencies if they were so inclined, but you know, it works, you just look 'em in the eye and say Welcome to the Tangled Bank, have a look around, and the kids calm right down. That's only when they come in, of course, the rest of the time you're on your own, this was the 3 to 6 p.m. shift and there was one kid playing the ecology video game for a while but then his friends came and got him and that was that. When the place was empty I walked around, straightened up a little, I wasn't going to get out the spray bottle like Dorothy does but I do my part. I found a book on one of the tables and I was going to put it back on the shelf where it belonged but it wasn't a science or nature or ecology book, it was some sort of adventure book for girls, Wilhelmina and the Cro-Magnon Cave, maybe it was Cavern, I figured it must belong to that girl, the daughter of the director, she was always hanging around reading, kind of a sullen girl, but maybe all girls are sullen at that age, about the same age Betty was when she decided the neighbor lady was her best friend, going over there every night to help her with her collections, never understood what that was about, tearing pages out of magazines and cataloging them, now I don't think that neighbor lady was a bad influence, what was her name? there were a lot of people in Terre Haute who worked at the Federal Prison, we were very tolerant of those occupations, still a forty-year-old divorced woman, what was she? A nurse? A librarian? hell, I suppose she was alright, a little eccentric, said my wife, and Betty will have plenty of time for boys later on. I read a few pages of the book, there was nothing else to do, I didn't expect it to be be my cup of tea, but they got right to the cave drawings, I've always been partial to cave drawings, and it was set in 1918, the year I was born, Austria or Switzerland or some such place, but then they came out of the cave and went back to the boarding school and started giggling and that was enough of that book for me. A few minutes later the director came down the stairs, carrying one of those white bankers boxes, I didn't have any idea she was up there in her office, she must have been working there the whole time. I offered to carry the box for her, it never hurts to make the gesture, and she stopped and looked at me funny and eventually smiled and said no, no thanks, she had it under control. So I showed her the book and she said, Yes, that would be Samantha's, and I put on top of her box for her and asked if she would be locking up at six o'clock because I didn't have any keys. Then she finally put the box down and found some keys in her pocket and handed them to me and said that I could lock up, that would be good, and she picked up her box with book balanced on top and headed for the door, kind of in a hurry I'd say, but I called after her and asked, What should I do with the keys? and she turned and said I could keep the keys, for all she cared, because she didn't work there anymore.

Jacob, September 19, 2007

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I'm okay... I just ran too hard... I told her... I don't need... to go to the... nurse's office.

Yeah. It's... in my backpack.

Okay. It's... it's... in here....

No, I'm... okay. This isn't bad. I can... still play.

Here it is... Okay.

Hhheewwwww...

But I only do it once. My dad says...

Okay. Hhheewwwww...

I used the nebulizer this morning. My mom makes me do it before breakfast. She makes me blow into the tester thing and if the needle doesn't go far enough she makes me do the nebulizer.

The inhaler? I dunno, I just put it in my backpack. For Emer...Gen...Cies.

Yeah. I remember. You said... I should use my inhaler before recess...

But I can't let the other kids see it.

They won't pick me for the teams. My dad said you can't show them any weakness.

I guess so. Ashley... and Brandon... and Mathew... They all have 'em.

I dunno, they get picked, I guess... but they aren't good.

At sports. You can tell who's good and who isn't... and the kids with inhalers, the way they hold the bat, you can tell.

I just have to try harder. You get asthma from sitting around too much watching TV. My dad says Teddy Roosevelt had asthma until he became a cowboy.

I dunno, he was a president or something. He's the one with the moustache on the mountain. My dad wants me to go out to a dude ranch next summer and get over my asthma.

It was great. Yeah we saw the presidents and my dad and I went hiking, up on the big rocks. We saw a prairie dog, and a bison, all by itself, and a tiger salamander on a rock and some mudpuppies and a tree frog and my mom didn't believe us but we saw a bobcat. In the afternoon. My mom says no one ever sees bobcats in the afternoon but we saw one. My dad took a picture on his phone but it was blurry. My mom said she wished we had taken a picture of the tree frog instead because it might be in danger specie.

No, I didn't need it at all when we were camping. It was only on the way back, at that motel...

My dad says they didn't clean right the room right. He's gonna sue the owner for cost of the emergency room and for him and mom staying up all night, or if he doesn't sue them he's going to call the agency in South Dakota and get their license in trouble because he knows someone.

No, my mom doesn't think I should go. She says I need to do what the nurse at school says before I can go to any dude ranch.

Yeah, I know. You say...

I should use my inhaler before recess.

Okay. One more time.

Hhheewwwww...

Betty, June 30, 2007

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I was at Van Buren Hill—a nice place, my first choice among all the places I'd been looking at, not disgusting or depressing, but not full of Republicans either. I was doing quick calculations in my head—multiply dollars per month by twelve to get dollars per year, then add years—how many?—to eighty-nine, when the case worker asked for proof of residency.

"What do you mean?" I said.

"Usually a utility bill," he said.

"Is it required?"

"Well there's a different fee structure for out-of-state residents." He looked at me and smiled. "We do get some funding from the state."

I smiled back. "Really. What's the difference?"

"Oh, at the level of care we're setting up for Arthur"—he used Dad's name as if he were talking about a kindergarten student—"the difference would be about five hundred a month. At the assisted living level—let's see, that would be about twelve-fifty. Two thousand for in-state, thirty-two-fifty for out-of-state."

I thought for a moment.

"All the utility bills are in my name," I said. "Except for his cell phone."

"Cell phone?" he said. "Do the bills have the street address?"

"I think so," I said, but in fact I knew so. I had bought Dad a cell phone and a national plan five years ago. The bills had his name on them, but they came to my house, and I paid them.

"That'll do," said the case worker.

And so I needed Dad to be discreet. For a month or so. Till he settled in.

"Try not to talk about Terre Haute." I said. "Or the house."

"What else will I talk about?" he said.

"You don't have to lie," I told him. "Just... push that stuff back into the past. Act as if you've been living here for a few years."

After all, he has spent at least five or six weeks a year visiting me. For a good decade or so. It's not as if he's unfamiliar with my house, my neighborhood, and therefore, ipso facto, his new official state of residency. And people know him around here—in a way. The clerk at the bakery would see him every day for a week, she even got to know his breakfast order, coffee and a scone, no butter, and she would recognize him when he returned, two months, three months, four months later, and joke with him about having his breakfast somewhere else. He enjoyed that.

Of course, there's a lot of turnover at that bakery. There was only the one clerk who remembered him, and she's gone now.

Ten years he's been coming, or, actually, ten years I've been going to get him. Every school vacation and twice each summer.

He moved into Van Buren Hill today. One day before the end of the month—no extra charge, said the case worker. They call them case workers but they're really sales agents. This guy was okay, though.

The movers were carrying the flattened cardboard boxes out of the new apartment and I was taking care of the last few bits of paperwork when I noticed that Dad wasn't around.

"Don't worry," said the case worker. "He's probably meeting his neighbors. Everyone's very friendly here."

We found him in a little alcove near the elevator, sitting on a bench, talking with two women about ten years younger than himself.

"That's wonderful," he was saying as the case worker and I approached. "We don't have anything like that in Terre Haute—"

"There you are!" I said, maybe too loudly.

"You must be his daughter!" said one of the women. She stood and shook my hand. "My name's Dorothy," she said, "and this is my friend Louise. We've just invited Arthur to join us on an expedition."