Scenes From an Unemployed Marriage

 

Afternoon shadows grew long on the wall as I gazed, heavy-lidded, at my Hot New Jobs of the day…

 

Suddenly: the grinding stop and start of the mail truck. My head snapped to attention.

 

I detected movement downstairs: life, a stirring. My senses flamed alive and grew keen, my ears twitching like a cat’s. A whiff of diesel wafted through the screen just when, one floor below me, my husband’s chair scraped across the linoleum. I knew he’d heard it and he knew I’d heard it: the mail truck chugging up to our mailbox, idling there as our cheerful, deaf mailman Lenny shuffled up to deliver the goods. It was just a matter of strategy at that point; not to mention positioning, agility, and raw power; the result of months of training and practice.

 

I heard shoes on the stairs and steps through the kitchen, then leapt to my feet, chiding myself for checking that one last email. In seconds I hip checked my husband, also unemployed, as we battled each other for the daily prize: to be first at the mailbox.

 

A sharp pain as he twisted my arm behind my back – dang his decade of karate! In my effort to get free I propelled myself into the coat closet where I sucked on a mouthful of down jacket and mothballs. As I flopped about trying to unchain myself from the scarves and coats, I heard the squeak of the door, the creak of the mailbox, and my husband’s cheerful “Hello” and “Nice day, isn’t it?” to Lenny, effectively masking the torrid domestic drama unfolding only yards from him.

 

Anyway, that was last Monday.

 

I like to think our marriage can survive this daily scrimmage to collect solid evidence that we still exist, if only to be billed and gather junk mail. Sometimes we get there at the same time and it’s just a matter of brute strength. I’m a big woman but he is a man after all, and knows how to throw his body weight and shoulders into the mix, so I’ve more than once found myself tumbling down the porch stairs onto the walk. And it’s not that he doesn’t say “sorry” or “excuse me,” but I always notice, as he gambols down the stairs to help me to my feet and check for head injuries that he’s grabbed the mail before coming to my aid.

 

Flash forward to today. He’d been victor at ‘the box’ for a week now. Call me the Comeback Kid, but I had a plan.

 

It was 3:13PM, a truly meaningless time of day, especially for the unemployed.

 

Spying Lenny’s truck as it turned the corner on to our street, I snuck down to the basement door and locked it. CLICK. Just as Lenny pulled up to our house I ran out to greet him, scaring him slightly, and grabbed the mail from him. Good thing he couldn’t hear the roaring and banging coming from our basement. I took deep breaths, shuddering as I listened to my husband bellowing from his musty cage.

 

Ahhh, but the mail felt so good in my hands: there were the fat color glossy ads, there was that book I bought on Amazon for a penny, solicitations for charities I threw away without opening -- I’m sorry, blind people, I’m sorry, cleft-lipped children, I’m sorry, opera, dancers-in-training -- can’t do it! Book of the Month club, are you insane? Bite me, time share in Cancun -- I leave for last what looks like an actual letter (how primitive – antediluvian!) from a friend, but cleverly, it is only a solicitation for Project Bread cunningly packaged to look like a letter…and I wonder, would my money actually go to feed hungry people? How can I possibly recycle this? We are still eating, after all…

“Let me out of here! I know what you’re doing!”

“Honey, what’s the matter?” I say, stacking credit cards bills in one horrid little pile.

“You know what’s the matter! Get me out of here!”

“Looks like you got some good stuff today, hon, and look, a free sample of – “

“LET ME OUT!!”

I turned, facing the door. “Why aren’t you this Johnny-on-the-spot about the garbage? It needs to go out as badly as the mail needs to come in, but noooooo – “

Bang, bang, bang, kick, kick KICK!

“Oh, come on, don’t be a big pout. Mail’s all sorted and waiting for you.”

“I’M GOING TO BREAK THIS GODDAMMED DOOR DOWN!”

I ran over to the door and unlocked it. As he brushed gruffly by me on his way to the kitchen table, I thought I could detect some tenderness under the slap to the back of my head, perhaps…the hint of a caress? I wondered…

He snorted as he tore open the water bill, whimpered about an excise tax notice he’d forgotten was on its way.

“We need to talk,” he said, riffling through the rest of his pile.

“So we’re talking.” I could read him like a Target circular.  

“You know, it’s not the same, locking me in the basement. Not an even playing field. Besides, I let you win a few times last week.”

“LET ME WIN? I’ve beaten you plenty of times, sheer skill.”

I handed him his unemployment check as I thumbed through my Land’s End catalogue, even though I don’t even like Land’s End clothes. They are bulky and sad and sexless and remind me of the necessity of keeping warm and fed, their joyless bathing suits offering endless cures for my “trouble spots.” Underneath was the Victoria’s Secret catalogue which depressed me in an entirely different way. No matter, it was mail; I could touch it and keep it or toss it. And look, there was my name…his name, my name on the mail. I started to cry…

He noticed me thumbing glumly through Victoria’s Secret; I noticed him trying not to look at the women bubbling out of bathing suits as he comforted me.

“You OK?”

“No.” sniff sniff…
”But…you should feel good. I mean, you got to the mail first today. Sure, you had to lock me in the basement…”

“It just didn’t feel as good as it usually does” --  waterworks --  “to get there first…” I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me.

He took my hand. “How did that job interview go the other day?”

I looked at him through red-rimmed eyes. “Is the phone ringing?”

He squeezed my shoulder. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I don’t know.” Sniffle. “What are you thinking?”

“Salad bar. Denny’s.”

“Oh, honey, we can’t afford – “

“I’m thinking: first: coffee at Dunkin Donuts. Even a latte if you like. Then, maybe a stroll through Walmart’s, just to get us in the mood…”

“But – “

He waved the unemployment check in my face. “Go on upstairs and put on a clean shirt. That one’s still a little bloody from…yesterday.”

“Maybe we do need to get out a while…you mad about the basement?”

“Naah. Ancient history. This is our night.” He checked me out a little. “Hey, have you been working out?”

“Maybe a little,” I said, blushing, my secret being I had been hitting the track to train for my sprints to the mailbox, speed being my only advantage.

As I collected my mail and tossed it in the recycle bin, we both heard it. The tinkling music of an approaching ice cream truck. Our eyes met; old passions flared. We both sprinted for the door then stopped short in a dead heat at the screen, breathing hard.

He reached for the door and opened it. “After you,” he said, then took my hand in his as we strolled out into the sunshine to join the gathering children.

 

Comments

[Jon]

Reads like a scene from a 1930's Carpra movie. Poigniant. So funny it hurts to laugh.