Broca

It's not really about the dog

Broca

            Alex awoke to the bird’s throwing some sort of bachelor party outside the window.  The sky was gray, heavy, and pregnant with storm.  It didn’t seem to be in the mood for a party at all. Alex rolled over under the covers and thought about staying there.  “Will I feel guilty if I spend the day in bed?”  The trees in the backyard swayed and flicked their black leaves toward the window. 

            Alex stared at them upside down and concluded that they didn't seem to approve.

            It was cold in the cabin but warm and slightly damp under the covers.  Alex could spend days in bed under the covers, safe and warm where the images flowed freely.  For a writer, this was an excusable habit, but for a writer who hadn’t written a page that hadn’t made its way to the bin in eight months--it was a habit that needed to be broken.  This was especially the case when the writer had a regular job.  It wasn’t that Alex needed the money.  Royalties for the first two books were still coming in and there was a bit left in savings, but the rent on the cabin wasn’t cheap, and there comes a day when even the most free-spirited of folks need to place floundering feet upon some sort of structure, if even for cautionary economic purposes.  It also helped to keep the fog of sadness and self-destruction at bay. And so, Alex had taken a job at an animal shelter in town.  It didn’t pay much, but it was proof that even writers could hold down steady jobs if necessary. 

            As Alex stared at the trees and appraised the situation, the acrid smell of coffee slithered into the room.  “D****t.” The word crawled out slowly and languidly into the room to meet the pore-saturating scent of water and roasted beans, but it was no less a curse for its slow speed.  “Why can’t I remember not to program that thing on Saturdays?”

            Alex crushed away the covers, ran for the robe that hung on the back of the bedroom door and stammered “F**K! It’s cold,” all the way down the sheets of cold iron that were the hardwood stairs leading to the kitchen.    The fire had, of course, gone out during the night and all of the wood was outside swelling with rain.  Alex’s feet reached reprieve on the  cable woven rug next to the counter.  “Mental note: Buy rugs for everything today.  And stop going to bed without making sure there’s wood in.  No wonder Jamie was so anal about that.”

            The programmable coffee pot was either the best or the worst idea Alex had ever had.  The idea was to program it so it made the coffee every morning, prompting the dozy dreamer awake to shut it off, lest the fire department come to do the waking.  Alex suspected that the pot might have an automatic shut-off, but courageously resisted every effort at checking the manual, or the entire scheme would be thwarted, and days would be lost to Morpheus and his kingdom of Nod.

Alex poured a cup of coffee, dropping in three sugar lumps and tip-toed to the refrigerator for milk, then scooted to the table, where a matching cable knit rug offered reprieve.  

The rain sounded like nickels being hurled at the window, and the trees outside were barely visible through the water veins streaking down the glass, and the obscuring mist beyond.  It was the perfect day for nothing, but a nice morning for jazz.  Alex hit the buttons on the radio remote and sipped coffee and swayed while Billy Holiday sang “Ain’t Nobody’s Business if I Do.” 

Alex sighed and thought about the office upstairs. The books that lined the walls were dusted and ready for fingers to fumble through.   The computer desk was dust free, and the bin empty.  There were five new legal pads in the top drawer, and a nice present of three new pens, each with its own case and an engraving on the clip.  The typewriter desk had fresh blotter paper and more layers of lemon Pledge than a pew in a Catholic church.  The typewriter itself sparkled and had a fresh ribbon.  There was an unopened bottle of single malt whisky in the bottom drawer of that desk waiting for a champ who could pound out a sentence.  “Maybe tomorrow, today is more of a reading day.”  Alex stared at the drilled-closed flap that once was a doggy door, and now just a bit of vinyl that let in a draft.  “I wonder if there is a newspaper out there in all that muck.”  But it was too cold to open the door in a robe.

A big breakfast would have felt great, but it seemed ridiculous to cook for one.  There was a lot of preparation with big breakfasts: whisking eggs, tending bacon so it didn’t burn, pouring pancakes, and then the actual meal would be eaten in ten minutes, and there would be all of those dirty dishes to do.  Somehow it didn’t seem worth it.  “…Keeps on rainin’ Look how it’s rainin…’” 

“Oh shut up,”  Alex said aloud to Billy, but didn’t shut off the c.d. player.

The phone rang.

Alex didn’t want to think about who would be calling this early on a Saturday, especially since hardly anyone had this number.  People were so unwilling to call landlines anymore.  It was easy to be left alone here.

Alex pulled the robe tighter and ran over the ice of the living room floor to the phone.   A forgotten footstool attacked without movement.  “Sonofabitch!”  The cold drove the dull pain upward from the shin all the way to knee. It was almost deafening.  The phone stopped ringing.  Alex spat more obscenities at the footstool.  

The phone rang again.  Alex wrenched it off of the cradle. “WHAT?!”

“Alex, I’m sorry.  Is this a bad time?”

“Jamie?”  Alex walked into the kitchen with the receiver.

“Yeah, it’s me.  Is everything okay over there?”

“Yeah, no, it’s okay, I’m fine.  It was just one of those chain reactions of clumsiness finding the phone.  I cracked my shin before I answered.”

“Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to bother…I called back because, I guess I just worry about you, I mean when you didn’t answer, I didn’t know….  Are you warm enough there, Alex?  Did those guys ever come out to do the windows?  It was in the thirties last night.”

“I’m fine, please, just relax.  I’m good, I promise. I can take care of myself, you know.  And that’s next week that they’re coming, but I just got a bunch of rugs to cover the floor, and I’ve filled the hall closet with firewood, you should see it.  Every time I open it, I’m afraid it’s going to fall on my head…”

“Do you need me to come out there to help you stack it?”

“No, Jamie, I’m fine…I just meant…”  Alex stared out the window at the violent whips of rain and pulled tighter the robe.  “I just mean that I’m okay.  Is that why you called?   To come up with more reasons to worry about me?  I thought I made it clear when, I mean, well…you know…I’m a fully capable person, Jamie.”

“I’m not saying you aren’t, I just…If I can help at all.  It’s too bad you can’t buy the place and get some central heating installed.”

“I’m sure I could if I really wanted to, but it’s just a stopping place, Jamie.  I’m here until the book is done…that’s it.  I’m pretty ready to blow this town.”

“Ah, right.  Well, you used to love it well enough.”

“Well, people do that sometimes.  They love a place, and then they move on and they love a new place…Jamie, please don’t fight with me.  I can’t do this right now…Hey, Jamie?” Alex lit a cigarette and pulled hard.  “Why are you calling?”

“Well, I didn’t call to fight.  I didn’t even realizing we were fighting.  Maybe,”  Jamie sighed, “maybe I shouldn’t have called.  I just wanted, I thought we could go to the old Scallop joint.  Have a storm picnic.  I saw the weather report yesterday, and I thought it might be a good idea.  Get you out of that cabin….I mean, not that, I didn’t mean…not that you’re cooped up or anything, I just wanted to see you.  I thought maybe you wanted to see me.  I didn’t mean to bother you.”

Alex gingerly swirled the ashes through the ashtray with the lit cigarette, and sighed.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to…I’d like to see you.  I’m sorry, it’s my fault.  You know how I am before my coffee.  I’d love to, but that place is closed for the season, you know that.”

“Ah, how soon you forget my amazing, almost superhuman cooking abilities.  I thought I’d fry some up and bring them.  We could just sit in the car and catch up and watch the water and munch on some of the best food you ever had.”

Alex’s throat squeezed the breath inside of it and fashioned it into a hard lump.  This seemed a little dangerous.  It was something they’d only done once since the split and it didn’t end up so well that time.  Was that what Jamie was expecting this time?  Or was this time to make up for last time.  Erase it?  Would it be better to stay home?  That would only lead to a day of staring out the windows from bed and wondering what would have happened, as though it were happening somewhere else.  Maybe the dream would be better, though.  But, then again a heated car is a good place to spend a storm.  Nestled in a cocoon and watching the world outside flood and sway.  Storms were some of the best parts of the coast for both of them.

“Alex?”

“Yeah, alright.”  Alex butted the cigarette.  “Sounds delicious.  What time?”

“Ten o’clock okay?  Want me to pick you up?”

“No, I’ll meet you there.  Ten works great, see you then.”

“Excellent.  See you then.”

“Bye.”

“Bye…OH Alex…”

Beep.

Alex had hung up a second too early, and wondered for a moment what Jamie was going to say, but, if it were important enough, the phone would ring again.

Within an hour Alex was snaking the little blue Volkswagen down the winding roads, fighting against the rain, like the car was a machete, chopping through thick jungle growth.  The wind rocked the little car, and the trees on either side swooped down menacingly as though attempting to scoop it up.  

Alex breathed deeply approaching the best stretch of road in New Hampshire.  At the crest of this hill, there would an astounding gray wall and a flat line of horizon above the trees.  It was so reminiscent of the hills of the mountains at home in West Virginia, that this wanderer, no matter how well prepared, took it for the mountains at first sight.   It was, of course, the ocean come to meet the sky.  But the effect was so magnificent and disconcerting that made the brain shift and the heart race every time. 

Alex reached down and pressed the screen of the Ipod nestled in its dock and pulled up John Denver, feeling suddenly home-sick, which felt a lot more like home ache. But the ocean was still powerfully magnetic enough to rip right down the center of the heart.

Alex reached the crest and didn’t bother dropping it into second, but just kept that machete slicing through the jungle of rain.

“To the place, I belong…”  John and Alex belted.

After three rounds of the same song the little Volkswagen pulled into the parking lot of the closed restaurant.  The restaurant looked like a haunted shack.  The lot itself was an overlook of the ocean, and the two were separated by only about ten yards of dropping young beach made of rock and shale that time had not quite fully pounded into sand.

Jamie’s light blue sedan was parked right up front facing the ocean.  Alex pulled into the back, near the restaurant, and spent a minute breathing before getting out of the car.  The door didn’t want to shut.  It seemed to prefer to fly after the wind, but after a few second wet battle it succumbed with a click and Alex made way for the sedan, head bent, and propelled by the weather.  The door was unlocked and the inside was dry.  Jamie was too.  Alex was not.

Jamie passed over a Styrofoam container of coffee.  Alex greedily clutched it like the last dying flame on earth that could warm up a body. 

“Careful, it’s hot,” Jamie said.

“I don’t care,” Alex answered.  It was a struggle to keep the coffee close and take off the sodden jacket.  Jamie helped, one arm at a time, folded it, and placed it in the backseat.  Alex shivered, sipped the coffee, and stretched newly bare feet out to the heat register below the dash, while Jamie folded socks and tucked them in shoes and placed them on the floor behind the driver’s seat.

The rain plunked countless bullets on the car, which made the inside feel that much more safe and warm.  The ocean breathed mournfully outside, and received the water from the air with angry whispers.  “You know, one would think, that of all your thirty-two years of experience with the weather in this world, that you would realize occasionally you might get wet, and an umbrella might be a good investment.”

“Well,” Alex replied between sips, “one would be wrong.  Besides, this kind of weather would have just turned it inside-out anyway.”

“You’re probably right about that.”  Jamie peered out toward the windshield and attempted to look straight up.

“How’s work?”

“It’s work.  Ahh, I don’t know, the kids seem less and less interested every year, and funding got cut again, and of course they took it from the art and music departments, so it’s not like I can make things interesting.  Sculpture is now a thing of the past.”

“Again?!”

“Again.  I guess I should be happy I’m still employed.”

“Well, you’re good.  Who’s going to fire an award-winning artist?  Draws people to the school.  It’s good for real estate…Sorry about the sculpture stuff,” Alex gulped the cooling coffee.

“Yeah, well those awards get me a higher pay scale, so I’ll probably be first to go.”

“But they like you!  And I don’t know about interest in art, but the kids love you!”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“That’s all complete bullshit.  I don’t know why you stay there.”

“Because it’s a job, Alex.  People in the real world need jobs.”

“I have a job.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t.”  Jamie passed over a greasy paper bag of fried scallops.  Alex popped one. 

“My god these are like heaven.  I still can’t believe you never told me how you make them!  You and your giving nature!”

“Arr, well it’s a cursed recipe.  Had to steal it from me own mom, who sailed out from Innsmouth to Devil’s Reef itself. I’d no be wantin’ to pass on the curse.”

Alex smiled and raised an eyebrow.  “Cthulu cakes?”

“That’s right, and don’t ya be tellin ma secret, or they’ll come from the depths ta take ye away!”

They smiled at each other and Jamie reached for Alex’s welcoming hand.

“How’s Broca, Jamie?”

“Great.  But she misses you.  She whines and paws the doors of your old haunts.  Every morning, it’s back and forth from the bathroom to the office.  She’s still carrying around your old pair of sneakers too.  I should tell you, they are basically just soles and laces now.”

“She always loved to eat our things.  Remember the time you stayed up grading mid-terms all night, and fell asleep on them?  When I woke up they were in shreds all over the house, and she was rolling around in them?”

“Ha, yeah.  You think it’s funny.  Try explaining to five classes of kids that your dog ate their homework.”

Alex chuckled.  “God, I miss her.  I wanted to take her, you know.” 

“I know, but you know that cabin is no place for a dog.   It was fine when we used to go there in the summers, and she could run around in the forest, but this weather.  It’s a summer cabin, Alex, I don’t even know what you’re doing there!”

“Writing.”

“Yeah, and how’s that coming?”

“F**k you.”  Alex threw the bag of scallops and reached for the door.  Bare feet would mean no wet socks anyway.

Jamie reached out and grabbed both arms.  “Stop!  Stop, don’t go.  I’m sorry, just, I’m sorry. Please stay. Please.  I’m sorry.” 

Alex settled back into the seat, and held onto Jamie’s arms.  “I miss her.”

“Well, come out to see her.”

“No, I’m not ready.  I mean not about her.  I just, can’t go back there.  I don’t want to go back there yet.”

Lightning broke the day into morning for a fraction of a second and made Jamie’s features glow.  Thunder crackled like a maniac.  Jamie and Alex held each other tighter. 

“I still don’t understand why you left in the first place.  I don’t understand anything you told me at all.  It doesn’t make sense.” 

Alex watched the water and thought about explaining again, and having the same argument, and feeling foolish, but couldn’t find the energy or strength for it anywhere.  It would be easier to forget it for today and, instead, hold and be held, kiss and be kissed, and cool and be warmed. 

By the time that the clouds rolled away to find a new home, sweaters, shirts, underwear and pants all lined the inside of the car like a new Technicolor dream upholstery.  Alex and Jamie lay in the back, naked, holding each other, and smoking Alex’s cigarettes.

“Mmm, it’s better this way than it used to be at home.”

“Alex, please don’t say that.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just…I didn’t mean…I meant, you know, without the pressure.”

“What are you talking about? What pressure?”

“Nothing, forget I said anything.  Let’s just enjoy it.  It’s probably the car, you know…feels like high school!”

Jamie was sitting up now.  “No, I won’t forget it, Alex.  I’m sick of these cryptic little digs.  Why would you say something like that?” 

“I don’t know.  Because I’m a bad person.  I’m not even fit to own a dog, remember?  The bigger question here is why you keep calling me!  Playing it safe when you need a f**k?  Afraid to go out there and find someone new?!”

Within seconds sweaters had swallowed up naked torsos.  And jeans had crawled their way back up legs. 

“If you think that’s what this is, then you are more fucked up than I ever thought you were!”

“See there it is again! Fucked-up Alex, drinks-too-much-Alex, parties-too-much-Alex, sleeps-too-late Alex, indulges in therapy Alex.”

“Well, you do, you do all of those things.  Everything you do is indulgent.  The fact that you pay someone to complain to for two hours a week, just shows it all the more!  I’m just looking out for you.  You’re not in your twenties anymore!  You have to grow up sometime!”

“Yeah, not in my twenties!   Well you would know, wouldn’t you?” Alex yelled, flicking the cigarette out the window.  “You came out of the womb a forty-year-old.  It’s not my fault you’re afraid of life!”

“Afraid of life?  Screw you!  Afraid of your lifestyle maybe!  You think you can do anything you want and it doesn’t affect anyone, not even yourself.  You don’t give a damn about yourself or anyone else.”

“I do give a damn about other people.  I donate more in a year than you make at that lousy teaching job.  I’m actually living my life, I wanted to write, and I write.  You could have been a famous sculptor, but instead you teach at a school where you can’t even teach sculpting!   And why, because it’s safe!!!!  All that bullshit about getting fired.  You’re in the teacher’s union, for Christ’s sake.” 

“You know wha,t Alex?  I don’t know why I spend so much time pining away wondering why you left me?  I should have left you a long time ago.  You are the cruelest damn….I can’t believe the s**t you say to me!”

“The s**t I say to you?!  Oh, I call you out and suddenly you’re a victim.  What about the years of your little digs?  Years of feeling ashamed of who I am and the way I live my life, because of your comments.  It got to the point where it wasn’t even arguments anymore, it was me not liking myself, because of you.  That’s cruelty, Jamie.  And even after leaving you, it’s still there.  Every little thing I do in my life, go to a party, sleep in, drink in front of the typewriter…I feel these pangs of guilt wondering what you would think.  And then I remind myself, I don’t have to care anymore!  And the world is so much damn lighter.”

“Wow.  I had no idea.  I had no idea that you even cared about me enough for me to damage you like that.”

“F**k you, you know I cared about you.  I still care about you, but I can’t live with you.  I care about you even knowing that you’re still making it about you.  Can’t you just leave me be?  If any part of you ever cared about me, just a little bit, just leave me be.”

“I never meant, I never meant.  I think this got all wrong.  How did it get to be like this?”

“It took a couple of years of not paying attention.”

“Then I’m sorry.  Not for us, or for me.  But, just, sorry.”

“Me too,” said Alex, opening the door latch, and trying hard not to look back.  Alex closed the door softly and walked away, pulling out a cigarette and thinking it would have been better to have stayed at home with the dream. 

“Alex!!!” Jamie stood up and shouted from next to the driver’s side door.

Alex turned around.  “Why don’t you take Broca for the summers?  I mean, as long as you’re living here,” Jamie called.

Alex finished lighting a cigarette, and smiled.  “I’d love to!  Thank you Jamie!”

“I’ll call you about the details!” Jamie yelled back.

Alex was already walking back to the Saturn, wondering if Jamie was watching and smiling like the sun above that had finally decided it was a good day to come out.

Reviews

[Grant P.]

This is written wonderfully. This can't be a first draft, everything seemed like it was thought through multiple times. I like the main character being a divorced/split up writer whom has writers block. The character development between Alex and Jamie was well done as well. How it's sort of a love hate relationship. I can't see how this isn't published. Very good write here, keep it up.

[Margaret Malloy]

Thank you. This is actually one of my finished pieces. I'm glad you were able to notice things that I was trying to get across. I have been rejected on this twice but your review has given me some courage to send it out again. Thanks again for your time and words!