Change in the Cushions

How beautiful a sky, like the heavens had lung cancer. A woman dressed her little dog in rain gear and I waited for them to cross the intersection wondering if they would have a very interesting conversation in a restaurant. McDonald’s? People have brought their children to McDonald’s for years and now this elderly lady, on one of the last days before the rain of her life is going to treat that pooch, her companion and friend, to the world’s best-selling hamburger. One day the sign will read “ A Billion Beasts Served.”

Honk.

There is a very lovely Toyota Tercel that wants to get to work. The driver does not obviously want to consider the valuable Friday morning connection we can have with neighbors, their dogs, the immense possibility of McDonald’s. Does she order the small dog a child’s meal? Does she say, “You’re such a good boy… I’m gonna give you a Big Mac!” Perhaps she will find love with an old man who is a cat lover and they will consider their options as they try to forge a mixed household together. Their grown children will protest but love will conquer and the honeymoon will be Vegas. She’ll realize that he has a problem with the roulette table and will ask him to choose…

Honk!

I really don’t know why the traffic lights are so quick on the left turn. The phone rings but the Bluetooth is naughty. I can never hear anything very important on Bluetooth and often arrive at work with several missed opportunities. So I pull over after the traffic circle. There is a small park where people in vans cover their windows. They are just trying to get through another day and it’s probably very smart to wake up late on a Friday and have more energy to dance the night away.

“Tom! Tommy, it’s terrible.”

“Yes, my love?”

I always call Brad, the personal assistant, “my love” so that he remembers we are both Christians.

“Bob Doughtry just died. He was eating a Red’s Donut and just died.”

That’s very interesting. Not the donut, because I think Monterey Donuts are better. They have never killed anyone in two years of operations. Red’s is a generational donut and has probably killed many people who thought they were celebrating when in fact they were dying.

“How bad is it?”

“---- ?”

“Um… the death thing. How bad is it?”

That’s when Brad really let me have it. He started crying like a little kid. I could hear him putting his favorite coffee cup into a box. At least it sounded like that porcelain coffee cup that said “I love my Dad.” which is ironic because the man has no children and he never talks about his father at work. “Brad..?”

“Bob’s dead and they’re going to reinvent the department. They are going to automate my job or I have to move to Sacramento.”

Oh. That’s bad.

“Did they say how long it would take to reinvent the department?”

Bob Doughtry was my boss the former day. Now he was dead and the company had to take inventory. Maybe Bob would be found to be an awesome embezzler. The way he probably packed in a few exceptions into the staff meeting concessions. Every time he called a meeting, he must have written down “Concession expense.” We often met for only a few minutes and there were no concessions. Now Bob is going to have a Maserati at home with no one to drive it.

The phone rang again and I told Brad that he was going to be on hold. Brad has one of those little snails in his ears so he can keep packing while the other line reminds us both that he is not vital to company operations.

“Heya Tommy-boy!”

Chester. Blah. “That’s T-Man now. What’s up, dude?”

Chest B Arthur was my oldest friend and he has just turned forty. He promised this year he was going to get rid of his nightlight and really consider growing up and getting married.

“I heard your boss died and so I know you have a few hours for that thing we talked about.”

That thing we talked about? I had not really considered ‘that thing’ because I was in the middle of a merger with a Korean Company and some guy who spoke more languages than me was gunning for my job. Now without Brad, it would be a challenge to show the new managing owners that I was well organized and knew the product matrix and such. I also had to prove that I had a lower cost of ownership, that I was more married to the firm, and that I’d be that guy holding the champagne at New Year's Eve's last toast.

“It’s been thirty years. I think you’re ready.”

Now I remember what Chester was talking about. I really didn’t see the hurry.

“I’ve purchased a spot over at the old graveyard…”

Wait. What? “How did you manage that?”

“Facebook marketplace. It’s like they knew we were ready.”

I had to stop to consider this. “You’re saying we were just drunk on Tuesday, talking about the ultimate funeral for our youth and now you have one of the coveted gravesites in Pacific Grove?The one looking over the ocean, the one with the deer… the one next to the Pebble Beach fairway?”

There’s a pause on the line. “Some kid thought he’d live forever and sold his spot for a party price.”

I had a million questions but wanted Chester to consider that we didn’t have to bury our youth that day. Plastic surgery was really getting good. He could get hair plugs and put on cucumber masks, maybe iron out the wrinkles in his hands with … with …

“Did you see those veneer commercials on Facebook? Maybe we should try that first.”

Everybody knows that you can’t eat a decent steak with veneers. Hard candy? A hard no. In fact, if Chester didn’t fear dying in his parent's home so much I think he would just go out and buy a sports car like the rest of humanity.

I was about to really lay into him when a tap on my window brought me to the shock of knowing I didn’t have a gun. It was a black man with a knit cap. A man with a bucket of cleaning supplies, tapping on my window. Next thought: do I even have any change?

No one thinks of the change stuck in the cushions of their car just then. No one thinks that an accomplice could be sneaking into the backseat while the driver is busy telling the man that he has no money. This is why you should always drive a coupe and not a sedan.

I rolled the window down an inch and waited for the sales pitch.

“Sir, can you move your car?"

“No. Sorry. I only have cards.”

He looked absolutely stoney. I am told that a homeless person loses English after the second year. Like Tarzan and Closet Kids. I tried to sign with my fingers, “No cash just cards.”

He waited.

This is very peculiar. Does one move their car and return to their argument about being productive and adult or do they just sit there and pretend the homeless man is not waiting. At the very least, they should roll up their window? No? The sky was beginning to tinkle small droplets on the windshield in obvious warning. The sky wanted movement, change, fresh wipers, and maybe some Rain-x anti-beading solution. I couldn’t say. The man looked straight ahead while the phone pulsated that I should continue testifying.

“Brad, I’m gonna have to call you back.” Click.

I think Chester might have argued that he was not Brad but it didn’t matter. The aging homeless man wanted to have a stare-down. He was staring right into my cabin window, rocking. Rocking like an escaped murderer who couldn’t help but continue to listen to the voices. That’s alright. I am slightly religious too.

But in this case, I didn’t want to cede authority of this parking spot to some random stranger who probably parked there all day, and used the bathroom toilet paper till the Amazon had to be deforested. There are always broken faucets, and homemade electrical splices to plugs. There is always that random scribbling of poetry, the occasional locked stall overdose situation, and the small river below the urinal like someone couldn’t keep it steady.

I decided to be an adult and challenge the man with the bucket. I didn’t roll up. I pulled the escape handle to the car door, checked my belt, and got up with all majesty in the sprinkle. The Camaro's red door opened without creaking. It actually has a thick masculine quality, like an airlock on the shuttle. I opened the airlock and took a step out.

Albeit the car is low to the ground and you can’t exactly get out of the driver's seat with all dignity. Sometimes you have to sort of twerk out. A Porsche is still the worst. It would be best if I had a dollar to have the man open the door, perhaps take my hand so I didn’t fall back. In any case, I could not exit the car full of grace. It was clunky. Almost tripping. My dignity fell to the cuff of my slacks. The small tag in my boxers folded over (and I felt it because i am very sensitive). The railings on my wingtips touched the ¼ inch puddle at an angle. I was imperfected. Dare we say tarnished. Ankle twisted. Sucking up that particular pain which is closed to root extractions. But we must show an example and so I sort of stood up proud.

The man just blinked right ahead. His body at an arch. Waiting for the treasure that obviously was under my vehicle. He waited for that good diving spot. I could see no Recreational Vehicle. Couldn’t see a van or a truck or anything in particular that would want my spot.

The old guy just licked his lips and stared at the stone pavers. He rocked and hummed to himself, slightly.

Now, there’s not much dignity in arguing with a cuckoo pants. I got back into the Camaro and put that girl in reverse. Parked right into the handicapped position directly behind my former spot, maybe a car length of no man’s land in between. I got back on the phone and dialed Bradley instead of Chester. Enraged that I had given up the special parking spot which probably had superior cellular reception.

“I’m still here…”

Bradley pretended that I hadn't hung up, got in an altercation, had an entirely new life while he packed his desk. Since the man is also sensitive – he hoards anything that anyone has ever given him. He was probably given that “I love my Dad” coffee mug by a lover that shared affection for the thing he petted. It probably kept him from going senile during his multi-tasking. I ignored the assistant narrating all the memories he packed in a box. The old black man bent down where the Camaro once rested. He bent down with a five-gallon bucket that once held a value sized laundry soap brand. He took out a small bottle of Dawn soap. He placed the soap over the center of the parking stall. He scrubbed with a hand brush on his knees.

Why would he scrub before the rain?

I watched him really get into the chore. He launched his back forward and then pulled the brush back toward his knees. He scrubbed so violently that it looked like a locomotive. Like he could take the top layer of the stone bricks off with his will alone. Mostly, I could see joy in his eyes. Not that twinkling joy that comes from Santa Claus with a strange kid on his lap. That joy that is deep walled, an artisan well of purpose, maybe like flossing after ten years, like picking out old caulk, showing bubble wrap your dominance with squeezing fingers. Yeah, I saw joy.

One time in religious reeducation class, Sunday School or whatnot, they told us that the difference between _Bliss and _Joy is that joy is eternal. Bliss might just be a quick orgasm that you flush down the toilet with paper. But Joy is turning to that lady in the bed and realizing that you can have more bliss if you just wait 30 minutes.

The old man joyously scrubbed and scrubbed. I couldn’t figure out which iTunes song was thematic. I mean the car reminded me of the David Lee Roth years of Van Halen. Maybe a little Joe Dirt wins the Lotto. But watching that man scrub and smile, his belly crunches tallying into the hundreds. His glittering white teeth were the shiniest thing under a petulant sky.

I put on Morrissey. Ok. Maybe the Smiths. I put on the happy version of that guy, belting “Every Day is Like Sunday. Every Day is silent and gray…"

The volume was knobbed so high to the right that the windshield started quaking. The cushions slightly inflated with the woofers inhaling and exhaling the beats.

In the seaside town

That they forgot to bomb

Come, come, come, nuclear bomb

It’s that damn zingling fetchy feeling in the sternum. The buttocks quiver to dance. The fingers cannot stay on the steering wheel tap tap tapping while the pulse of life is so near. I exit the vehicle again, without ceremony. I run over to the old man scrubbing out oil spots from paver stones in the light rain. Hell Yeah. This man gets it.

He has another six-inch scrub brush in his bucket and doesn’t say a damn thing as I get down on my knees in the wool suit. It wasn’t italian but had a lifelong guarantee at the Men’s Warehouse. I could get fat or thin and they’d sew it all right again.

Morrissey railed from the open door. There was also that chiming from Chevrolet that meant the door was ajar in a handicapped spot in a public park – but I didn’t care. We were all handicapped and full of purpose that day. We were all singularly focused on the black spots that marred a beautiful rainbow of color from the pavers. How the masons found different hues to represent different spectrums of our little existence. The message is always on the ground but people keep telling us to look up.

There were blood droplets. Some kid probably ate an ice cream and had a nosebleed. Two large dried circles, a few feet, and then a baby circle. I scrubbed away that day, waiting for the rain. My companion is so remarkably justified in his chosen profession. I made grid squares like one should do when mowing lawn. You start with the perimeter and then you enter the grid and slightly overlap the last pass. My cleaning buddy just stayed right there in the deep dark oil spot. He was scrubbing up dead ducks from the Valdez, he was scrubbing up miniscule evidence trapped by sneakers. Probably a CSI of murder. He was taking up liver spots, bad habits, cleaning the lungs of the earth from smoking too long.

How lovely was the morning.

How ungaudy like afterbirth.

Fasting.

Then feasting.

Sometime after my palms were waterlogged, the rain came down and the white collared shirt was all male nipples. I really couldn’t run a Reorganization Meeting with exposed male nipples for sure; Chester B Arthur called.

I panted quietly while he explained that he dug a hole.

Chester dug a hole at the old graveyard. There’s a lighthouse across the street that still operates to keep fishermen from landing on the rocks.

“I did it Tom.”

There was nothing too much to say. He spent his day on the past.

“I’m going to cover up the hole I dug now Tom. You’ll just have to figure out where it is for yourself.” Then he hung up.

I was always curious who said the eulogy for a pet rock.