The Crystallized Man

We were watching reality TV. You and me, Mom. Life-like sustenance in between commercial breaks. I remember the way you laughed with your cast on the coffee table. You shook your recliner.

But you are not gone. You are still there, in your recliner. Your lips are slightly apart and your cast is propped on the table. I have work in fifteen minutes. I am late, so I take the last of your Percocet. You don’t mind.

I chew the pills. 

The road curves here. There was a movie I watched with a curving road. Headlights, telephone pole. Foley.

Here’s the pizza place. The new guy is cleaning an invisible scuff on the wall. My manager, Jessa, smiles at me while the new guy steals a glance at her  ass. I go even myself out in the bathroom.

For a moment, I’m in the bathroom at community college, when I was taking film studies. But then I’m back, and the crank glitters on the porcelain. It makes my driver’s license light up in a thousand little spots. Her eyes do that sometimes — Jessa’s. This is not a safe job, but it is the best job around for me. I do my best. I clean visible scuffs. 

I clean the store and speed down back roads with delivery orders. After every run, I stuff the passenger-side well with customer copies and fill my nose with amphetamines. I repeat the cycle; it is always this way. Sometimes, like tonight, I close the store. We two, me and Jessa, we are the last to leave again. I smile at her, but it is dark, and we already said goodnight, so why would she see me? I drive through the place in the road where it curves and there is a telephone pole.

You are still in the living room, in your recliner.

I sit on the couch and imagine that we are at my wedding – I’m 30, but it’s not too late for me. I like it when you say that. You are in the front row at the ceremony with your lips apart, like they are now. 

We do not sleep. The light from the TV dances on your eyes all night.

Morning. I am late. The road curves here. There was a movie with a curving road. I accelerate.

Here’s the pizza place. I scrub all night, working double. I make one hundred dollars in tips. Jessa and I leave together. I imagine:

I smile in the dark and Jessa looks back at the perfect moment. She is unhidden, vivid in the darkness. I learn anew the angle of her face when she smiles back.

The timing belt of Jessa’s car squeals from the road as if to remind me that I am truly alone in the parking lot. Still, I do not notice the curve in the road tonight. I am watching a different movie now, one that I wrote, one with a pat ending.

The air outside our apartment is cold; it is crisp like the ice that is freezing to the sidewalk. But when I walk in, you are still. You are still there in the living room, in your recliner, with your lips slightly apart. Your eyes refuse me, but I will never leave you. I will be your itching flesh beneath the cast. I will refill your prescriptions. I will not let you die.

Jake Stimmel lives and works in Minneapolis, MN. He teaches English to speakers of other languages and spends his free time writing and running. This is his first publication. His website is jakestimmel.com.

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