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Shouldn't You Be Doing Something?
By
Doug Mort
Meyers could finally take some comfort: he had finally dead-eyed the dog that kept crapping on his lawn for all of the neighbors to witness, and after that he laid to rest a lazy, no-good, free-loading cat that had taken his wife for granted. He’d lured them into his backyard, shot them full of lead pellets and then weighted and dumped them in the county canal that ran behind the house. Both animals had thought he was a man to be taken lightly. Now all that remained was the squirrel.
According to Meyers, the squirrel liked to stretch upward on the brick planter outside the living room’s picture window and look in on him. It liked to snicker, even hee-haw at Meyers. (Oh how he hated that snicker!) But Meyers was hopeful, for he had a fool-proof plan for the squirrel. And once the plan was complete, eternal happiness would come home to roost, and once again Meyers would prove to himself that he soared above all creation.
All of this, by the way, took place on a hot, languid day in August.
After the dog and cat, Meyers sat propped and ready at the edge of the couch for a good hour, waiting out the squirrel with the fortitude of a true patriot defending the homeland. But the heat made him sleepy, and his smoldering brain (fast becoming a smooth, arid outpost) asked itself, Doesn’t every soldier need a rest before the battle ahead? Shouldn’t he take a load off fanny? Thus he told himself he was the man, thumped his hairy chest with his fist to reaffirm the belief, and then proceeded to stretch out for a nap.
Unfortunately, good feelings often rode in and out on the same breath for Meyers, and now, only seconds after his thoughts of triumph and redemption, he could not get comfortable. No matter how he turned or twisted or beat on his pillow, the pile of mail in the middle of the living room floor crept into his sights and pooh-poohed his prophecies. There were failure-to-appear notices; letters from the unemployment office that indicted Meyers for fraud; IRS audits; and one from his union that stated he would never again work in California. He knew Annie was responsible for placing the mail there; these days she did whatever she could to thwart his rise. He also knew that her new friends had put her up to it. A week before, while looking for money, he had found the pamphlets in her purse. He rode his bicycle to the meeting place, hid behind bushes and peeked inside windows, watched the head Nazi goose step back and forth at the front of the room and bark out orders: “Make a decision and stick to it! Let them be responsible for their lives!” And who was crying in the back row as if she too knew she was guilty of treason? Why, it was the same woman who promised to love, honor and cherish him. Honor was hard to come by these days, Meyers knew, but now his own wife had thrown it out with the trash. And to add insult to injury, he got a DUI on his bicycle on the way home. And he hadn’t even been drinking! A month or so earlier the police had impounded his car, now they had his bicycle! How could he be where he needed to be once he figured out where he needed to go if he had no way to get there?
There on the couch, Meyers’ mood spiraled downward. He turned and pushed his face into the backrest; he pushed and pushed until he was close to smothering himself, and he wondered if he could summon the will. If a guy could run a skill saw through his jugular (Meyers heard the story at one of his court-ordered AA meetings), certainly he could accomplish a more humane approach.
But the squirrel saved him.
First Meyers heard the chomping of acorns, and then the snicker. His mood lifted, but he decided to exhibit a moment of compassion. He’d read (back when he could read) about an American sniper in Viet Nam who let a high-ranking Viet Cong commander finish his lunch before he put one between the commie’s eyes. Meyers liked to think of himself as such a man.
But a few seconds was all he could stand. Thus he lurched upward, spun around and grabbed the shotgun he had leaned against the couch. He growled like a deranged sasquatch (Meyers hadn’t shave for months and his beard was now mingling with his chest hair) and emptied both barrels into the picture window. As the sound of destruction shook the house, a feeling of accomplishment tingled to his bones. To celebrate, Meyers lit a Swisher Sweet, tilted his head back and blew smoke rings at the ceiling.
***
Annie was supposed to be hanging the new sale tags, but she was having a hard time getting started. She stood frozen a foot or so back from the jars on the shelves, afraid to move any closer. If she were able to talk to somebody, she’d start by saying her life had taken on the feel of a b-movie at a weed-strewn drive-in, her and Meyers sitting in the lone car, both of them the last to know that the horror story on the screen was theirs to behold. She’d tell them that the meeting she attended last Saturday had only added another confusing turn to the script. In the middle of the proceedings an anonymous woman had cried out, “Once they’re a pickle they can’t be a cucumber!” And now Mr. Blanchard, the store manager, had sent her, Annie, to price down the jumbo Vlasics and Del Montes in aisle 10.
As she stood there, Annie was convinced that Mr. Blanchard’s orders were a prelude to termination, that he was employing the jars as empirical evidence, and after she learned her lesson, he would fire her and the men in white coats would haul her away to the applause of her fellow town folk, who were waiting in the parking lot to cheer and jeer and place a mark on her forehead. Perhaps there would be popcorn and cotton candy vendors, maybe a juggler or two. But if Annie could have it her way for once, there would be a fire-eater, for jugglers could only imply but not truly represent her role in a marriage she had been forced to accept.
Annie took a few deep breaths and then leaned her face toward one of the jars. She focused on the contents. Yep, it certainly seemed true: chances did not look good that any of the pickles would ever again be a cucumber. They looked soft and knobby, as if they had suffered a horrible head injury and were now sodden with years of medication that time would never erase. She was overcome with pity, but also with a sense of relief, for maybe there was a place for Meyers after all, floating in one of the jars and safely stocked away. If she didn’t go completely insane after her termination, maybe every now and then Mr. Blanchard would let her visit her husband in aisle 10. She would wave and smile at Meyers, and maybe he would wave back. Then again, maybe he’d give her the finger. That was okay, though, because hadn’t the pickle lady at the meeting informed her that Meyers was sick? That he needed help? She, his wife, could help him, couldn’t she? She could make sure his jar was kept in the back, where people couldn’t point and laugh. Where they wouldn’t notice what her husband had become.
“Annie?”
Mr. Blanchard’s voice shocked her awake. She straightened, turned and faced him, but she couldn’t look him in the eyes. Instead she looked at her shoes and waved at the ceiling. “Hi, Mr. Blanchard!”
“What are you doing, Annie?”
“Doing?” She patted at her smock for the sales tags. “I was just—”
“You have a phone call, Annie – in the office.”
Of course she had a phone call in the office. Wasn’t that part of it too?
“Yes, I’m ready now,” Annie said. “No need to put it all off, hm?” She took off her smock and hung it on a hook above a row of hooks holding plastic lemons. “I washed it last night – so it’ll be clean for the next person. Thank you very much, Mr. Blanchard,” she said and walked the other way.
***
Officer Roloson went to school with both Annie and Meyers. He wanted to tell her his side of things; he also wanted to prepare her for the damage to the house.
“We put up caution tape, but you might want to cover the hole with cardboard. We also cleaned up the glass on the porch and lawn.”
Annie didn’t reply. Caution tape and officers cleaning up glass – what in God’s creation will the neighbors think of that?
“He came to the door without clothes, Annie. What if we were Girl Scouts selling cookies?”
“He must have forgotten.”
Roloson sighed. “When we went inside he went in the bedroom and came out with a bunch of medals that looked like they came from a flea market. He threw them on the table and claimed he had been in Viet Nam. When I reminded him that we were the same age, he went into a fit and screamed something about smelling women and children burning.”
All of a sudden Annie felt hopeful. “He did? He really said that? He said he smelled women and children burning?”
“Where are your children, Annie?”
“They’re at my sister’s for the summer. I didn’t send them, though – they wanted to go.”
Silence.
“Well, look, we have him down here.”
“I’ll come get him. Right now.”
“There are reports of a missing dog and cat, Annie. I think Meyers used a pellet gun because they’re quiet.”
“You know Meyers would never do anything like that. Remember when he climbed the tree to save the cat?”
“That was a long time ago, Annie. That was in high school, remember?”
“Yeah, but don’t you remember? How about the time—”
“I’m very busy, Annie; I have to go.”
“Wait. What about—”
“I have to go, Annie.”
***
“Communists! Each and every one of ‘em!” Meyers barked as he and Annie crossed the parking lot outside the police department. He had conceded to clothing himself with a robe before leaving the house, but he had refused to wear shoes. Having lost all sense of time, he said, “Held for forty-eight hours on nothin’ more than innuendo, supposition and dereliction! No habeas corpus, no nothin’!”
It was all too much to take, so Annie’s mind drifted away. She wondered about the weather: the air was still and humid, and there was a calmness that reminded her of earthquake weather. When Meyers segued into his alibi of being robbed, how he was out back when he heard the blast that cleared a path through the window for the intruders, and how he had tried to nab them but they were too quick, Annie thought, Each day there are hundreds of earthquakes that go unnoticed by most people. In fact, isn’t the West Coast a daily carnival ride of tectonic shifts and slips? Thus she proceeded to ask Meyers if had noticed any animals acting strangely around the neighborhood that afternoon.
Meyers stopped amid the scattered squad cars and gave her a look of disgust.
“And what the hell are you tryin’ to say now?”
“That maybe there was an earthquake. Maybe that’s what happened to the window. And maybe that’s what happened to the dog and cat. I’ve heard that when animals sense an earthquake they seek safe territory.”
“Are you not listening? I said we were robbed. I heard the blast.”
“Then what about the dog and cat?”
“The dog and cat? That’s it! I’ve had enough!”
Meyers turned around and started for the Starlight Room. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he still imagined the place full of friends and confidants, people who looked forward to his presence.
“Meyers!” Annie called.
“You should have thought about it before you started!” he hollered over his shoulder.
***
The yellow caution tape turned her stomach. Nonetheless, Annie (certain that the neighbors were watching from behind their curtains) mustered a stroll to her front door that said she was living the springtime of familial harmony. She thought about waving but she didn’t want anyone to think she was crazy.
When she got inside she quickly locked the door and went to the phone. A few minutes later an expert was telling her what he knew: “Well, as usual there was a lot of movement around the Gilroy area today, and a little around Santa Rosa, but I don’t have any reports of any earthquakes out your way.”
“Maybe the machine is broken,” Annie said.
“I don’t think that is likely.”
“Maybe people can’t feel anything anymore.”
“Quite unlikely as well, ma’am.”
She gave him her phone number. “In case you change your mind,” she said.
After she hung up, she went to work on the window: she removed the caution tape, thought about cardboard but decided cardboard might imply certain things. Instead she pulled the curtains and fluffed them up for what she hoped was a look of normality.
Then the phone rang.
“I knew there was an earthquake!”
Silence.
“Hello?” Annie said.
More silence.
“Who is this, please?”
“Have you checked the rabbits?” a woman’s voice asked. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, and then the word pickle flashed through Annie’s mind.
“Excuse me?”
“Shouldn’t you be doing something?”
Annie paused. Then: “No thank you, we have plenty of insurance; thank you for calling, though!”
She hung up, unplugged the phone and hurried to the backyard.
The rabbit pen was on the edge of the patio, where the concrete met the lawn. Three years earlier, Meyers built the pen for the rabbits he had brought home for the children. One was a female for April, who was five at the time, and the other a male for Zack, who was seven. Zack named his Petey (short for Peter Cottontail) and April called hers Fluffy. Now Petey was gone, and Fluffy was scrunched against the back wall of the little wooden house inside the pen, looking out on Annie as if she were indeed a willing accomplice in the whole sordid affair.
Annie leaned up and frantically looked around the yard. Her eyes fixed on the barbecue against the back fence; on the ground beside it was a newly opened bag of briquettes. She had bought the bag herself; she had taken it from the trunk of the car and left it in the garage the day before.
She scanned the perimeter of the fence. Halfway across the south side was a knot hole the size of a silver dollar. Annie grabbed an oil pan from the side of the rabbit cage, rushed to the fence and held it over the hole, stayed there until she thought her arms might fall off, went to the garage, found some duct tape and covered the eye of the nosy neighbors. After that she went inside to work on Meyers.
***
She heard him come in. On her back on the bed, a warm dishrag across her forehead, she’d been wondering if there could have been a test given, an interview, or a spread of odds.
Now she could hear him stumbling around. Suddenly he was swaying in the bedroom’s doorway. “Them goddamn thieves did a number on the window, didn’t they?”
“I have a headache, Meyers.”
“Shouldn’t we be lookin’ to see what the bastards got?”
“They got my wedding ring.”
“I knew it! Goddamn it, didn’t I tell you? Jesus, no one listens! Well that’s it – it’s probably halfway to some flea market by now.”
“Either that or they flushed it down the toilet.”
“Huh? Why the hell would they do that?”
“I don’t know, maybe some people just feel the need.”
“You’re not right.”
“Goodbye, Meyers.”
“Yeah, you better get some rest.”
***
Back on the couch, Meyers held an internal briefing. Tonight he had captivated everyone at the Starlight Room with his tales of big game, the Serengeti and trophy heads. The squirrel was his crowning achievement; it was also a talisman of sorts for the hunting season ahead. From here on out, however, he would have to be a little more circumspect. He had managed to hide the big weapons, but the heat was on, so he needed something that offered an even quieter stealth. A few seconds later he had it: he could use his son’s wrist-rocket and a few of his larger marbles, maybe the cat-eye boulder the boy was always showing off. Once again Meyers was in awe of his intelligence.
He stretched out and got comfortable. A warm wind of renewal ruffled the curtains, and the pile of mail was now laughable. Justice had prevailed after all, he thought, so he thumped his chest and told himself he was the man.
Unfortunately, as he started to drift off he was struck back awake by a series of horrible sounds. First there was the chomping of acorns, then that goddamn snicker and hillbilly hee-haw.
Meyers jumped up from the couch and tried to pull the hair from his head. He ran outside to the front yard, fell on his knees and clawed desperately at the grass for signs of the squirrel. When he failed to find any blood or fir, he leaned up, shook his fists at the sky and hollered, “Goddamnit, Annie!”
Annie curled up on the bed, put her face in her hands and began to cry.
Copyright © 2006 Doug Mort
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