30.EPILOGUE.55: August 8, 2003:
"Bob and the Meaninglessness Of Morning."
Not the least of the torments which plague our existence is
the constant pressure of time, which never lets us so much as draw
breath but pursues us all like a taskmaster with a whip. It ceases
to persecute only him it has delivered over to boredom.
-- Schopenhauer.
Morning. And he could
hear her breathing, and feel the sun on his face.
Bob opened his eyes.
He rolled over and looked
at her. She faced him, hair tossed lightly over her face, breathing
softly.
He watched her sleeping
for a while, and then she woke up.
"Morning," he said.
"Morning," she said.
And then she rolled onto her back. "You were watching me sleeping
again, weren't you?" She rubbed her eyes.
And when Bob said nothing,
she said:
"Don't watch me sleeping.
It's creepy."
"I love you."
"Yeah. I know.
You say that about every two minutes."
"But I do love you."
"I know." Heather
yawned. "I love you, too."
He bent to kiss her cheek.
She stopped him with her hand.
"Don't kiss," she said.
"I've been drooling."
"I love your drool."
She sighed. "You're
weird." And she sat up.
Bob adjusted raised himself
on the bed, lunged forward and grabbed her breasts from behind.
"Boobs!" he said.
She sat motionless, feeling
his weight on her back, and contemplated both the pros and cons of the
situation in which she found herself. Finally, she said:
"What are you, two years
old?"
"Boobs!" And he squeezed.
But not too hard.
She sighed and gently pried
his hands loose.
"Awwwwww," Bob said.
Standing: "What time
is it, anyway?"
"About eight." Bob
lay back down and watched Heather walk over to the window. She wore
a t-shirt and panties. Bob was in his shorts.
"Crap," she said, leaning
on the edge of the window, forcing her eyes to get used to the light, "I've
got so much crap to do today. This is pathetic."
And Bob actually felt bad
for her. After all, there was all this crap she had to do.
So he told her:
"I feel bad for you.
You've got all that crap."
"Thanks."
And he really did feel bad.
After all, she had to go work at the bookstore. And she knew exactly
how dull it would be. And all Bob had to do today was sit around
the house. This was the beginning of his weekend.
After the coffee shop burned
down, Heather had found herself unemployed and lost. School was expensive,
and married life (she found) really wasn't that much cheaper than being
single. Especially when her husband was just as unemployed as she
was.
When she thought back to
the coffee shop, those days everything seemed kind of fuzzy. She
knew she was getting paid, but she never really remembered cashing any
of her cheques-- and she never really remembered doing much, if anything,
outside of the shop. And, to top it all off, she couldn't remember
what Bob's job was, back then. He'd been getting money from somewhere,
doing something. But once the shop burned down and they were cast
loose to meander endlessly without any purpose or focus she found Bob to
be utterly and completely jobless. And broke. As broke as she
very quickly became.
So she struggled for a while.
She got a job at a bigbox bookstore stocking shelves and ringing up sales,
and Bob got a job at a video place. The money wasn't all that great,
and the hours sucked, but at least there was something coming in.
And Bob liked working at
the video place. He was like that. He kind of liked any job
as long as there was no heavy lifting involved.
She, however, hated working
in the bookstore because it was less of a bookstore than a warehouse with
shoppers. And all she ever did was reshelve books, and ring up the
occasional sale. When she reshelved books, she wasn't allowed to
talk to anybody. And when she rang up sales, again she wasn't allowed
to talk to anybody.
And there were very few
customers in the store.
Almost no one.
Heather didn't understand
how the store stayed in business.
The bigbox bookstores had
moved in, put all the little bookstores out of business, and then they
themsleves began to die.
In those few years before
the turn of the century, people at least pretended to read. Now they
don't even care to pretend.
Heather sighed.
"What's the matter?"
"I think Janice is gonna
be there, today."
"Which one's that again?"
"The one who plays the same
fucking Leonard Cohen disc all the fucking time."
And it was true. On
any given Janice day, Heather could hear "Susanne" upwards of 15 times--
depending on where Heather was in the store and the punctuality of her
nighttime replacement.
At least it was better than
the guy who played Radiohead all day.
No, actually it was just
the same.
Heather had liked Radiohead,
once, a long time ago, before the Radiohead guy had alternated between
OK
Computer and Kid A for a week straight. And it had been
OK
Computer and Kid A and nothing but OK Computer and Kid
A. And now, ever since Hail To The Thief hit the racks,
it's been that one all day, every day. Except when he throws on The
Bends for varitey.
And the customers never
complain. But that's because there are no customers.
Heather groaned.
And the weird thing was,
whenever she thought of asking Bob what he'd done before they'd been married,
it was either while Bob was out doing something on his own, or in the middle
of the night when Bob was sleeping and she was near sleep, or when she
was in some other way isolated from him (on the can, in the shower, taking
out the garbage, walking to the store, and so forth). And, thus,
when Bob finally swung back into focus enough time had passed that she'd
forgotten the question. But, now:
"Hon?" she said.
"Hm?"
"What did you do before
the coffee shop burnt down?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what was your job?
Where did you work."
"Oh," he said, "I was with--"
Long pause.
She turned away from the
window.
"Uh," he said. "I
was...." And then: "Didn't I tell you?"
"Nope."
He thought for a long time,
then turned pale.
"Fuck...." He rubbed
his eyes. "Why can't I remember this?"
"That's what I thought,"
she said.
And then the phone rang.
Heather ran to answer it.
And when she returned to
the bedroom she had the feeling that she'd forgotten something. But
she wasn't sure what. She'd wanted to ask Bob something, maybe?
Bob was also up, now.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching tv.
Daily rituals: check the
weather and see what parts of the West Coast were burning up now, follow
the latest West Nile Virus reports, see how many American soldiers had
been killed today by Iraqi suicide bombers and snipers, check the stock
market, check the current terror alert status, the quality-of-air reports.
"Who was it?" Bob asked.
"Someone selling bottled
water," Heather said.
"They start early."
She looked at Bob glued
to the tv, then the tv. There were fat black people yelling at each
other on some talk show. Then Bob switched the channel to some religious
program: some demented looking white guy holding his hand up to the screen,
exhorting viewers to touch the screen and be healed. Then a bunch
of cartoon toothbrushes. Then car accidents.
"What were we talking about?"
she said.
Bob shrugged.
"Not sure," he said.
Heather went and got herself
a glass of water. She drank the water. She came back to the
livingroom. She looked at Bob.
"I'm going now," she said.
"See ya," unblinking.
And so Heather went off
to her bookstore job, and Bob sat at home and spent the day watching chips,
surfing for Internet porn, and watching five different episodes of Spongebob
Squarepants.
And when Heather got back
she saw that Bob was still in his t-shirt and shorts. The whole day
had passed him by and all he'd done was vegetate indoors.
The tv in the livingroom
was on. There were three empty bottles of Vanilla Coke on the coffee
table.
He ran up and kissed her.
He smelled like Vanilla Coke.
"Hi hi hi," he said.
"Have a good day?"
"I'm tired," she said.
And she was tired.
She turned her back to him
and bent to untie her shoes.
So he leaned into her and
grabbed her breasts.
"Boobs!" he said.
And she sighed and smiled.
"Okay, okay," she said.
"Boobs."
Fade to black.
30.EPILOGUE.55: August 8, 2003: