Early Autumn

“We’ll have to make it short; I have to pick up my son in half an hour,” I lied.

Bent over, gagging with regret, I watched this man, who looked like nothing less than a lifetime of failed days, his narrow, splitting-maul face a mask of barely managed loathing and his every move bitterly performed. He was a jackal, hoarding a pulverized wildebeest; daring me to step inside the circle; I was his mark; he was entitled to be in my house; planning to stay awhile. His sweeping anger was valiantly confined, a swelling hernia of expected rejection. Not far beneath the rat-eyes, this man had a secret – a Jerry Springer secret, a Smokey Mountain gene-planted secret, and I, being his persecutor, had to feint and jab to get out with a heartbeat, down to me to purge him from my nest, subdue this violation , pronto, but I was backing up already. He dumped his machine on the living room floor, assembling its parts, reciting a memorized brochure and just barely cloaking a barbeque rage and scanning for a place to dump my body. He inhaled my fear in gulps.

The vacuum extracted an alarming amount of dirt from the cream colored carpet.

I said, “Wow,” so the man would know I was paying attention - a big mistake.

“It can clean anywhere,” the man said. “This attachment gets tough corners or behind your stove or frig.” He might as well have said “Bring it!” The fucker had me.

I understood that the situation demanded intervention right now.  

I live in rural Snohomish County in Washington State on four lovely acres, which justifies occasional contentment, but is sometimes grounds for paranoia. I see Mount Rainier burn evening pastels through power lines, which has become the only way I really like it.. But I sometimes hear ORVs and trail bikes and pickup trucks at night, ripping away at the gravel and mud beneath those power lines, and then rifle and shotgun blasts and bombs. My closest neighbors have a dog that bays for hours, day and night. My house and car have been broken into. I hide my stuff when I leave. Typically, I’m not gripped with terror nor suspicion, just practical.

Understand, we were only fifteen minutes into this event and he hadn’t presented pathological urgency. But his tightly-coiled, measured delivery, and the flat-lining affect were digging my grave. He was just trying to figure out which attachment to use on my skull. Looking over those dreaded attachments, certain enemies no matter what took place, I said, “We won’t have time to test all those; I have to leave in about ten minutes.”

That was to be the end of our nice-talk honeymoon.

The man said it wouldn’t take long.  I heard, “this is my living, buddy”, overtones of “I could kill you.” But I decided I was making stuff up – assigning unearned motives. Meantime ,tension gushed waves over me.

”

“I’m here trying to show you this machine. It takes a few minutes. Can you understand that?” This guy had driven 30 miles to be snubbed

 I NEVER let this happen.

 “I told the lady on the phone and I told you that I only had a little time.

I had initiated this incursion from an unsolicited phone call,certainly a colossal and doubtless lethal blunder, but maybe my salesman was harmless, not an escapee from the Insane Wing of Monroe’s packed prison. He was, likely, the only person who wanted this job, and his dream of a paltry commission was not even going to yield burger-flipping revenue.

Telephones are my chosen enemy. They infuriate me. The ring jacks my blood pressure numbers and toggles my flee response; being stuck in traffic or a long grocery check-out line can strike with similar intensity. I neither have nor will ever a attend a “door buster sale” camp-out. If you have ever seen the panic of sheep packed into a small pen, I was the one taking terrified vertical leaps, looking to the sky

Never, never again.  The have-a-good-day lady had exploited my need to get off the phone.  “Shall we have someone stop by, say Tuesday, for a quick demo.” No, Tuesday wouldn’t work but I guessed that Wednesday would be 

O.K. 

For what? What was I thinking? I would buy Target’s absolute cheapest vacuum without even a retractable cord. Vacuums cost $3 on senior day at St Vincent’s. How was it that this mad killer was in my house and calling the shots?

And, make no mistake, gloves were off; he was in full battle dress.

“I understand that my well-documented prior engagement is becoming urgent,” I sputtered, trying to adopt the facial affect of one with a pressing prior engagement, but coming out Olympic level “lame.”

“Do you really even have a son?” hatchet-face countered.

I had him there; my 8 year old son was a tangible mammal.

“I guess I have to ask you to leave,” said I, “this was a mistake.” I was fairly certain this was my last day on-planet, a final mistake.

“I am not a mistake, and I need to demonstrate this product to you,” he insisted. “You treat your friends this way?”

“No, we both have to be out of here, now,” I intoned, hemorrhaging fear, but pissed off.

The man gathered himself and mumbled about how rude I was and how wronged he was, looking at me hard before starting to pack up his attachments. He filibustered and dawdled, while I stood wondering from which part of his popularly-priced suit he would produce a shiv. I was beginning not to care. I had started to hate Shiny Suit, resent his sympathy pretexts, deplore his prepackaged whining. Who else would eventually have to endure this psycho - a senior more senior than I?

Finally, with neither a word nor glance, El Time-bomb made two loiterish expeditions from my living room to the old Ford which might have been his living room.

The car wouldn’t start.

The Spotted Towhees are pissed off. The ground under the apple tree is supposed to be theirs on which to peck and hop.

Yet, wiggling their little butts,chicken-scratching the ground for apparently nothing, bobbing their head-lamps, my 13 quails peck like little addicts under the apple tree. They have developed fine streamlined figures like their still-patrolling mother.. They are yet to add or maybe organize the white horizontal wing line segments their dad carries like tiny fungal fruiting bodies. Many now wander a ways in their raving hunger, strutting pompously, their tails blue in the failing evening light. When I stepped outside, they used to run like super fast-walkers, probably signaled by mom or dad, to the nearest blackberry patch, only adopting their hopping, Wright- Brothers flight patterns in order not to be last in line. Now they are confident, shaming the Blue Angels in their flapping formation, but still choose the thorny blackberry bushes to vanish into like rain. A tap on the window will start the darling exodus. I adore my 13 and hope they come back 26 next year.

My salesman will never come back. My carpet’s fine and my quail keep scratching, but I chase them away before they dig too deep under the apple tree.