River City Blues: Part II

River City Blues – Part II



Ignoring Dad must’ve done something to his masculine ego, because only a couple weeks after Ms. Sandee stopped pushing herself on Dad, he started paying a lot more attention to her. It was kind of hard to watch. He’d come home early, suspiciously clean, and follow her around, complimenting things she’d done, like, “You sure scrubbed that toilet white,” or “you can hardly tell where that pan caught on fire when I was cooking fish the other day, after you cleaned the scorch marks off it.” But mostly, she just snapped at him to get out of her way.

His next attempt at seduction was bringing dinner home. It was takeout from Corky’s (the original), of course. He brought it before Ms. Sandee left for the day, which meant he showed up with dinner around 2. p.m.

“Stay and have it with us,” he said, as she eyed the aluminum bowls. “I got extra.”

“I have to take my mother to an appointment,” she said. “Also, you know, I’m a vegetarian.”

Dad paused. “Well, there’s chicken,” he said. “And it’s real lean.”

Ms. Sandee adopted a long-suffering smile. “No thanks, but you enjoy it.”

Dad’s face dropped like a sunset. After she left, Dad slapped everything into the fridge, grabbed a beer, and consoled himself with reruns of Jerry Lawler wrestling Andy Kaufman. I stood in the kitchen, eating directly from the aluminum bowl, listening to the audience boo and hiss.

Next, it was flowers. Sort of. Dad hated flowers. He thought they were a waste of money, but everybody knows you’ve got to buy flowers for a lady. So, a couple days after the dinner fiasco, Dad came by and picked me up up early and took me to Wal-Mart.

“Son,” he said, on the way over, “You like Ms. Sandee, don’t you?”

“Yes sir,” I said.

“Would you like to see more of her?”

A feverish heat washed over my face. “Absolutely,” I said, emphatically.

Dad nodded and didn’t say another word until we pulled up to the Garden Center at Wal-Mart. We hopped out and went inside. A man approached and asked if he could help us.

“No, thankee,” Dad said. “You’re a little too butch.”

We left the man behind, and Dad kept walking until he found a female employee.

“You’ll do,” he said, as he approached her. “I need something for a lady,” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

“A plant,” he said. “Flowers.”

“We have a flowers section,” she said.

He shook his head. “Waste of money,” he said. “Flowers are already dead when you buy them. Why give someone you care about dead things?”

“That’s a point,” the girl said, clearly confused. She looked around for a moment, then took us over to some bushes. “Hydrangeas,” she said. They were tall and lush, mostly with either pink or blue flowers.

“That’s nice,” Dad said. “Classy. Which one should I get?”

“Which one do you want?” the woman said.

“If I was buying this for you,” Dad said. “Which one would you want?

The woman blinked and then turned to the flowers. “I like them both,” she said.

So, a man who wouldn’t pay an extra ten cents for name-brand paper towels bought one of each.

“How much of a discount will you give me for buying two?” Dad said.

* * *

“These are lovely,” Ms. Sandee said, when we brought them home. “I’m surprised at you, Ed. I didn’t know you had such good taste.”

“I just thought, ‘what would be as pretty as Sandee.’” His face flushed bright red as he hurried to finish, “And they didn’t have anything, so I got these instead.”

Ms. Sandee flashed him a smile that sent me to the bathroom with another “cramp.” When I came out, they were outside. Dad was digging a hole while Ms. Sandee directed him. Then Dad put one of the plants in the hole. He’d already planted the other one. He finished and stepped closer to her. She put her hand on his chest and pressed into his side. It sent a shiver along Dad’s spine; I could see him shake, briefly. There stood there, a moment, looking at the plants. It was kind of sweet.

A couple days later, Ms. Sandee stayed for dinner. She wanted to cook, but Dad wouldn’t let her, which meant we had take out. But this time, it was Italian, which, in Dad’s mind, equaled ‘fancy.’

“Plus, she can have hers ‘vegetarian’ and I can have mine with meat sauce,” he said.

Since it was a “date”, Dad dressed up, which meant that he slathered himself in Old Spice, put on a clean shirt, and exchanged his work-pants for a battered old pair of khakis. He also donned his cowboy boots. This was only the second time I’d seen Dad dressed up like this. The first was Mom’s funeral. I think he actually wore the same shirt.

That whole evening, he doted on Ms. Sandee, and she seemed to enjoy the attention. He’d unscrew the top to pour her more wine, or pass her a breadstick. She’d rest her hand on his and say something polite. Watching them, I realized that being sincere with a person meant a lot more than being suave. After dinner, Ms. Sandee turned to me and said,

“Time for you to go to your room so your father and I can talk.”

I went as far as the kitchen and hid behind the door.

“I appreciate everything you’re trying to do, Ed,” Ms. Sandee said, “But I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?” he said.

“If you’re ready for this. Do you mind me being blunt?”

“No,” he said. I could hear a tremor in his voice.

“I think you’re still in love with your wife.”

He was quiet for a long time. I was a little afraid they’d heard me make a noise or something. “I do love her,” he said, finally. “And I always will. But that don’t mean you and I can’t get together.”

“I need you to bury that ghost,” Ms. Sandee said. “You’ve got your son and wife already in your heart. I’m afraid there’s not room for me.”

“She’s buried,” he said. “But from time to time, I need to visit the grave.”

She was quiet again. I caught myself holding my breath. It was strange hearing Dad talk like that about Mom. After she died, he’d sat me down and talked about the whole thing, explaining what would happen with the funeral and everything.

“She’s not coming back,” he’d said. “But you and me, we’ve got to stick together.” Then he sort of roughed up my hair and said, “I love you, boy.” Hearing him say that made me a lot more scared than anything else had. And that was it.

Finally, in the living room, Ms. Sandee spoke. “I can live with that,” she said. I couldn’t hear anything else, so I went back to my room to think.

C.L. Bledsoe

Posted over on Troubador21

CL Bledsoe is the author of two poetry collections, _____(Want/Need) and Anthem. A third collection, Riceland, is forthcoming later this year. A chapbook, Goodbye To Noise, is available online at www.righthandpointing.com/bledsoe. A minichap, Texas, is forthcoming from Mud Luscious Press. His story, "Leaving the Garden," was selected as a Notable Story of 2008 for Story South's Million Writer's Award. He is an editor for Ghoti Magazine http://www.ghotimag.com He blogs at Murder Your Darlings, http://clbledsoe.blogspot.com