Wurlds Best Cashir

Our TV is broken. It resides in the basement with the old couch and the water heater and the dust. It has a huge, spiderweb crack on the right, that bleeds multicolored pixels onto the picture, but it works well enough to put a tape into. I sit with a quilt that smells like basement squeezed around my shoulders tight. I have to hug my knees in close to keep the chill from biting at my toes.

“Well I’ll be darned. I think this might be the best card I’ve ever seen!”

I love TV. I love the mommy and the daddy and the brothers and sisters. I love their big house and all their sparkly-clean rooms.

“Happy Father’s Day, Dad.”

The fuzzy people shapes envelop each other, squeezing the smiles out of themselves.

“I love ya, Robbie.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

The invisible launches into their clapping, and the invisible saxophones take up their warbling. I halt them in their crackling tracks. I have to feel for the rewind button underneath the quilt. I’ve memorized its position. The blurry boys race through their actions in reverse, murmuring in their strange backwards language. I hit play again.

“...the best card I’ve ever seen!”

I squint my eyes at the little blocks that compose the happy picture. The piece of paper appears to be dolled up in crayon. There are pictures, some smiling faces, some flowers, some just pixelated scribbles I can’t decipher. There’s a message on top: World’s Best…

I can’t see the end of it. It’s folded in Robbie’s daddy’s hand.

I jam my thumb into the squishy fast forward button.

“I love ya, Robbie.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

Rewind.

“I love ya, Robbie.”

Rewind.

“I love ya, Robbie.”

A plan takes shape in my head, glowing warmly as it forms in the dark.

I take a deep breath before whipping off the blanket to brave the freezing sprint upstairs.

🖍️

School has countless buckets of grubby crayons. Tall ones, short ones, plasticky, ineffective ones, waxy, smooth ones, and buttery, soft ones. Some are snapped in the middle, some shattered, some fragmented, shattered and severed; their only similarity is that they are all broken. But, like my TV, they work just fine. I lay them all out, in rainbow order, red to purple and everything in between. My materials are before me.

But the drawings won't come.

I don't always draw. I like to press the crayons to the paper as hard as I can, until they crumble and their color is smushed out of them. But this is done on scrap paper, sheets of old tests that are already tarnished.

Mrs. Humboldt gave me three brand-new sheets of white paper today.

I can’t ask for something like that again.

When so much possibility is before you, it’s hard to decide what to draw.

I settle on a smiley face. Robbie made that in his card, and it seemed to work. I choose a purple crayon. The best one.

I loved watching Daddy smile. It meant he was happy. Jovial. His dry lips would turn up at the corners, and his skin would fold at his eyes and his cheeks. His eyebrows would soar up into his forehead, so I could better see his big brown eyes, like crystalline acorns. I have the same type of brown eyes as he did- with little green flecks in our irises. When Daddy smiled, his scratchy mustache would follow suit, like he wore two beaming grins instead of one. And my grin would make three. When all three of those grins coexisted, it might have meant cereal for lunch. It might have meant ice cream for dinner. It might have meant sneaking candy into scary movies and driving in the truck with the speakers full of songs I could choose on my own. And even if it didn't mean all that, it would mean he was smiling, and that was enough.

I am giddy, envisioning real smiles, by the time my crayon smile is complete.

Too giddy. It’s lopsided. Very lopsided.

I have to throw it away. But it’s okay. Everything's okay. I have two pieces left.

“Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere!”

I glance at my two blank pieces of paper, and all my crayons. I’m not nearly finished.

“Joseph, those need to be put away nicely.”

I bundle up the crayons and clench them in my hands until they sweat. The paper on them makes my palms itch.

“Who’s ready for bellwork?”

I slip toward the cubbies. I am a spy, a spy whose heart is beating just a little too fast.

“Time’s up!”

I drop the sweaty crayons and paper into my backpack and dart back to the desk, my stomach veering into my throat like we're doing donuts in the truck. 

🖍️

The bus is not as nice as Daddy’s truck was. It drags itself over the road, its tires hefting into the air at each divot in the pavement. My whole body shakes like a leaf in the wind. The crayons won’t stay still in my hands.

I have decided to make the words first. Since I can’t think of what to draw. Robbie wrote “World’s Best…” on his card.

But world’s best what?

What was Daddy the best at? He was the best at burping. His belches were thunderous, monumental and earth-quaking. They would send my lungs spasming with laughter. Though I don’t think that would work on a card.

He was the best at opening things. He opened anything I needed. Even if I could open it on my own. He popped the lids off of soup cans and milk bottles and jars of Nutella and boxes of cereal. And beer. He let me try that once, but it tasted like how a manhole smells up-close. My tongue burned and my stomach recoiled, but Daddy laughed.

He was good at laughing. He laughed so loud sometimes that onlookers yelled at us. He liked to laugh in the movie theater, to show his appreciation for the film. Sometimes he took me to scary movies, since he was cool like that. Sometimes they would scare me so bad that the scream would fly out of my gut before I could catch it. But Daddy never minded. He told me he’d always protect me.

Always protect me.

A hand appears in front of my face. I waste no time discovering its motive- the boy's grubby fingers grab at the paper. I fling my arms over my creation to protect it.

“Is that for your boyfriend?” questions a nasally snarl from behind me. He smells like he didn’t wash his hands after he went to the bathroom.

“No,” I tell him.

He just laughs, the nasty kind of laugh that means you’re dumb.

I scrutinize my card from the cover of my coat-laden arms.

World’s Best Cashier. That’s what I’ll write. Since Daddy was a cashier at Stop ‘n Go. I’m not sure how to spell cashier. Or world. But how hard can it be?

Man, Daddy had the best job. He took me to his job once. There was a giant metal cash register that banged open and clanged shut. There was money in there. Lots of it. But he told me he wasn’t allowed to take any. He also had reign of big machines full of twirling, brightly-colored slushies. They billowed and churned like neon tornadoes, tantalizing and ice-cold. There was racks full of multi-hued candy bars, with nuts, nougat, wafers, taffy, caramel, cookies, and every other mouth-watering substance that might be combined with chocolate. But it was evidently off-limits. Once, my hunger overrode my brain, and I wondered aloud why I couldn’t just take the candy. Daddy was in charge of the store, after all. He told me very loudly that I wasn’t allowed to steal. But then he winked, and he slipped me a Snickers.

The gross boy tries to snatch my card again, but I save it a second time. This time, I stuff it into my backpack.

I’m not even mad at the boy. It’s okay. Everything is fine. Because I’m going to have a better day than he is. I have a better card than he ever will. 

🖍️

It’s not so cold out today. If I stick my lips beneath the collar of my jacket, they won't freeze. That’s good, because the heat isn’t on inside, and I’m not allowed to turn it on if Daddy’s not here. I’ll waste money.

I sit down at the kitchen table and brush away the crumbs. Then I lay out all my crayons precisely side by side again. I lay the paper down ceremoniously.

It’s wobbly. It’s very wobbly.

The bumps on the bus turned to bumps on my paper and “Wurld’s Best Cashir” looks like a big old zig-zagging mess. Plus, it turns out there was something wet on the table when I put it down, and now there is a pool of a stain in the very center of the sheet.

I have to throw away my second piece of paper. 

It smells like dry old leaves and chilly air and cloudy skies. I like that smell. But I am too concentrated to enjoy it.

I wipe off the table and write each millimeter of each letter with complete precision. My forearm begins to shake with the strain of concentration. When I’m done, the message is still imperfect. But I can’t try again.

I’m not going to cry. That’s silly.

The sun slinks down in the sky as I begin my drawings. First, I need to draw Daddy, of course. At his job. I give him a smiley face, and that makes me smile.

There are clouds rolling in, chasing the sunset into the ground. My stomach does a little flip. I don’t like clouds, and I don’t like storms. But it’s okay. Daddy will be home soon.

Daddy will be home soon.

I finish coloring in his red shirt vigorously. The cover of color is uneven and textured. The crayon gets shorter and shorter in my hand and it squeaks against the table. But it looks good. It does. I’m encouraged.

I draw the cash register, and the money, and the big slushy machines and the candy.

It looks even better. Maybe I’m good at drawing.

I made a decision. A sudden resolution consumed me: this card will be even better than Robbie’s card. It will have even more color, and even effort, and far more potential. It will have flowers and smiling faces and trucks and sunshine and everything.

My hands start to go numb with the cold and my tongue sticks out to better focus my head. I climb up onto the table and fold up my legs like a frog as I draw. Every detail must be perfect. Perfectly perfect.

He used to tell me I was perfect. He said I was the most perfect girl in the world, and that no man better tell me otherwise. But I just laughed at that. I didn't want any other man to ever tell me things. Just him.

It’s getting dark in the kitchen. My hands are too cold to make the minute details. My finger slips and I smudge a little petal I was drawing on a flower. Dread sinks into my belly. I try to scratch it off with my fingernail, but I am frigid.

I could go get a blanket. I could lay under it until my hands warm up.

No. I can do this. For Daddy.

I scribble and scribble and scribble and squint so I can see the tiny lines I draw. I start to get dizzy from all my squinting but I can’t wait. I can feel it bubble up in my veins, the anticipation.

Click goes the door. I drag my hand across the table and swipe all the crayons into my backpack. They clunk to the bottom of it and one of them slips onto the floor and rolls. It rolls and rolls until it meets the top of the basement stairs. I follow it as it clatters softly down.

I hear his footsteps plodding toward the kitchen overhead.

I fold the card in half, just like Robbie did. My hands are trembling.

I worked so hard on it. Surely he’ll see that.

I place one foot on the stairs and it creaks under me. My breath hitches. I move slower, and slower, until I am a stealthy sloth, just tip-toeing up the creaky stairs in the dark.

His big brown coat is on the kitchen table. It smells like smoke and him and it emanates the cold of outside. The fridge is partly open, spilling cold light onto the tile, and I close it for him softly. I bite my lip to keep from smiling, as if I’ll spoil the surprise for myself.

I can hear the muffled TV warbling when I get closer to the living room. He’s in his old arm chair with a beer in his big hand. His big old feet with his big old worn socks are propped up on the ripped footrest. His big baggy jeans sag over his body just like his eyes. His dry lips purse to accept the beer. His brown eyes are barely open. I can't see the green flecks in them any more.

I take one last glance at the card.

Maybe that will change tonight. Maybe he’ll smile. Maybe he’ll take me out for ice cream in his big truck and we’ll go see a movie and he’ll tell me I’m perfect again.

“Daddy?” It comes out breathy and tentative.

He doesn’t hear me.

I say it louder.

“Mm,” he replies, his eyes trained on the screen.

I amble closer to him. His round belly hangs above his undone belt. I place the card right on top of it.

He brushes it aside.

He must not see it.

I prop it in front of his eyes, and I stretch my smile from one ear to the other.

“Don’t do that.”

He must not see it. He just doesn’t know.

“I made you this, Daddy.”

“Mm.”

My tummy hurts.

I spent so long on it. It has to work.

“It’s a card for you.”

“I’m watching my show.”

“Can I show it to you?”

“No.”

I recenter the card on his stomach. I’m not going to cry. That would be silly.

He finally grabs it and elation warms my insides.

He clenches it. His hands are strong. His arms are strong. Scary strong.

He laughs. The nasty kind of laugh that means you’re dumb. And he throws the card on the floor. It's too light to fall, and it floats there for a moment, suspended in shock.

“I worked really hard on it, Daddy.”

“Olivia, you don't know what the fuck hard work is. I worked hard, and now I’m watching my show.”

I should stop talking. I’m dumb. I’m so stupid and dumb.

“I just wanted to show-”

He takes his big strong arms and he puts one on my chest and he shoves. He pushes me like he is pushing over a feather, but I am weak. I trip, and I fall, and I do not float in midair like the paper. My head drags along the corner of the coffee table that never has coffee on it, only beer, and my fuzzy black blobs worm their way over my eyes.

“Oh, come on, drama queen,” he laughs. He laughs and he laughs and he never looks my way, not once.

I go back to my basement.

🖍️

I cry even though it’s silly. I cry and I sob and I weep, and I press my hand to my lips to stifle the bawling. I tug the quilt around my shoulders, trying to squeeze the pain out of my. Robbie’s Daddy hugs him tight on the screen, even though Robbie’s card wasn’t half as good as mine.

“Well I’ll be darned…”

Why don’t I get a hug? Why am I not perfect any more?

Maybe I just wasn’t born as good as Robbie was.

Some people are just not as good as other people. I’m one of the not-so-good ones. That’s all.

I cry until my belly aches, it burns and churns like an empty slushy machine. I try to drag the quilt so tight on my shoulders that it feels like arms, but they are not arms, nothing is arms. A big storm is outside, and there is horrible thunder and unstoppable, crackling lightning.

Years and years ago, a Daddy said he’d always protect me. But that Daddy died. I must have killed him.

When will he come back? When will he come back to save me? When will I finally make a card that brings him back?

“I love you too, Dad.”

Our TV is broken.