Hot Like Grease

I'm standing there, concentrating hard on not tipping the cast iron pan because it's filled almost to the top with grease, even though I shouldn't worry too much. It's on the far burner. When I lay the chicken legs in, the grease rises a little higher. I slowly lay another drumstick in the bubbling pool while my two-year-old clutches my leg. 

My life is a series of tasks, small ones that follow each other relentlessly. Most of them I associate with a sensation, an awareness of sound or touch, maybe. Not many are pleasant in themselves. I can’t negotiate myself out of it because there is no one left to negotiate with, so I complete my tasks and bear witness to myself while doing them. In this moment, I note the sticky feeling of grease on my face, grease that is propelled through the air in microscopic pockets of steam, searching for something to adhere to. I lean over the pot, letting my face be assaulted again by the hot, evaporating grease. I will scrub my face with a warm rag and soap and water when everyone is asleep.

I turn one of the chicken legs by gripping it with tongs and then shuffle towards the refrigerator, dragging my two-year-old who squeals. “Hmm?” I ask my husband. He has to repeat himself because the exhaust fan is blowing and the grease gurgling. And of course, the kids. 

“I said, she can’t seem to stay out of trouble!” He means the mayor, who has now been named Public Official Number One in a trial of another local politician. She’s already been dragged to court but seems indomitable. There were charges of misuse of public funds, including an apartment that was supposed to be for official use only. There were stills of the mayor and another man–not her husband–laughing carelessly as they sat on a second-floor balcony overlooking a piazza of sorts in the oldest part of the city. They were inches apart, sat at a beautiful if superfluous wrought iron table. There were other pictures and video clips, of course, and now the mayor is connected, somehow, to this new trial, new defendant. It’s a small world, I think, when it’s a world full of crooks. My husband strokes his head and cups his chin, feet up. This is his routine, watching the daily news. He really is brilliant when it comes to history and news and political science.  My four-year-old is next to him, folding paper while lying on her stomach. She surveys her work, markers strewn around her. Markers near the couch! my mind screams, but I try to ignore it since she’s not using any of them right now. She mumbles approvingly to herself, and then something occurs to her. “I’m thinking,” she says and places a finger at her chin. “I want something to drink.” 

I am ten feet away in the kitchen. There’s no wall between the living space and kitchen. Everything is closest to me: the refrigerator, cups, napkins–even bibs, but I’m busy. And I don’t feel like doing something else when I’m already doing at least two things. If I stop, I’ll have to remind myself of which spice I wanted to get to put into the boxed side dish I’ll use to round out dinner so that the boxed part of the meal will taste a little more special-–if I remember the seasoning at all. And my husband isn’t doing anything anyway. I take a deep breath. My husband offers, “Honey, you want me to …” he gestures to the air after I don’t answer. But he doesn’t get up. 

“Sure,” I say, standing in front of the pantry, searching for au gratin potatoes or stuffing or mac and cheese for tonight’s dinner, but over my shoulder, I see he hasn’t gotten up. His feet are on the floor, he’s leaning a little over the arm of the recliner, but he hasn’t gotten up.

“Never mind, I can get it,” I say and am relieved to find a sippy cup half full of apple juice in the refrigerator. I hold out my arm and she jumps up to grab it like a baby bird.  

“They really ought to do something about her,” he says when the story is over. I know his disdain for her as a person and a politician is great, but I’m sure she’s not the first…to use the apartment for a date, to spend the city’s money on herself and her political interests. I can’t for the life of me figure out the level of outrage.

“Yes,” I say, hoping we can move on to other topics. “It really is a shame.”

Just then, the meteorologist comes on. She’s young and beautiful, and though I don’t like the news, I pay attention to her outfits, to see whether she will ever re-wear an article of clothing. Not yet. She announces with a grave face, mouth like a line, that this summer is unusually hot, and each day is as hot or hotter than the day before. In other words, we’re in a heat wave. But, there are predictions to rely on, which means an end in sight. This is day three of at least six predicted days of 98+ degree temperatures, with “feel like” temperatures soaring to the 100’s. Some warm currents are pushing through from the Atlantic or the Gulf, I don’t know, and El Nino and La Nina, pressure systems, etc., etc. In any case, we’re right in the middle of the heat wave which is the hardest part of anything. She says with pride that their–her–projections have been accurate, even conservative. Her tone tells me she’s impressed herself. She goes on using weather words that are just spilling out of her. I think to myself she just has to get started with a trigger, like “currents,” “excessive heat,” “warm front,” and let it rip. Only a weather reporter can do that, speak with conviction and a dismissive friendliness at the same time. Comes off as pleasant somehow, noise that plays in the background. I glance up at the chart on the TV screen. A blazing red arc is cast across our area, and icons of bright yellow suns lined up along its path are sweeping us up. She tells us to watch out for the three p’s: people, pets, and plants. All my people are here, and we have no pets or plants worth saving.

In our neighborhood, everyone’s central A.C. unit buzzes all day and night. Some units have taken on the tic-tic-tic undertones of my exhaust fan. I am silently grateful that our A.C. unit is fairly new. The heat wave has ushered us to the hottest day so far, which is today, the meteorologist says, and, with the wisdom of an almanac, she announces it is the exact middle of summer. We’re in the middle of the middle: middle of the heat wave, middle of the summer. That has to mean something. My mind rambles to the other “middles” I can think of: Tolkien’s Middle-earth, middle child, middle of the road ... “Today’s high is a record,” she explains, “three degrees hotter than this day last year or the year before, going back to 2003, just after Tropical Storm Bertha.” Then, no one had lights or a working refrigerator or A.C. for five days. “At least we made it through the hottest day of the year,” she says, making a gesture of wiping her brow. And then, “Let’s hope.”

The sounds swirl. There’s the repetitive melody of the news package wrapping up and reminders of what’s to come later at eleven. My two-year-old is no longer at my feet. She walks up and down, focused on arranging blocks in a line. She is close to where I’m working, and I use my body to block her. My husband gets up unexpectedly and tickles our four-year-old, and she screams. I jump at the sound. She laughs and then dives into a song I’ve never heard about a worm that’s this big and what he ate: one watermelon, two oranges, three candy canes, and four slices of bacon. I realize it’s a learning song, one of those progressive ones that teach counting in a fun way. I’ll shut off the exhaust fan soon. It sounds like it’s breaking. There’s a whir, but underneath is a clunking metal sound. The grease is really loud now, and the chicken is browning nicely. I look at the clock, satisfied that I’m just about done. I just have to put some real cheese in the boxed macaroni and set the last of the chicken on a toweled plate. My bladder is tight and full, urging me to go to the bathroom. It’s tingling, but I’ll just be a minute or two more.

I open the refrigerator again and can’t remember why. I let the door swing all the way, and the cool air sweeps over my face. There is a forgotten pint of blueberries on the back of a shelf. They’ll spoil soon if I don’t use them. They are the cheaper ones, non-organic, in a plastic container. A small number of berries are leaned up together as if for warmth in the corner of the container. They’ve been mostly used, but on what, I can’t remember. But, that’s another part of my job: conservation. I’m pleasantly surprised to find them, and, on a lark, decide to bake blueberry muffins. I like how the blueberries bleed into the dough and burst like spilled ink onto spots of the cake, so incredibly dark but still blue, blue like indigo. As I grab the box, a berry escapes and rolls near my feet. I pluck it up, groaning as I straighten, a groan that no one notices. My husband is still watching TV, my four-year-old contentedly working on her art. I examine the berry before eating it, squeeze it, so that the berry oozes in a puff, and think about the paradox that their insides aren’t blue at all.