Creamy Bullets (3 page)

Ice Cream Bars

I
am fashionably depressed in the window of a small cafe. An old woman rolling a shopping cart down the sidewalk sees me and steps inside. She opens a large dirty bag and takes out some pots and pans. She finds a quart of ice cream somewhere at the bottom and tells me how to make ice cream bars. One of the pans is full of fresh brownies and she takes a spatula in her left hand. “Make sure the ice cream is softened,” she says. She dips the spatula into the ice cream and smears some on top of the brownies like frosting. She graciously hands me the spatula. Spreading the thawing ice cream feels good.

The cute girl that works in the cafe puts on a cassette of happy Irish music.

“You must have some good French chocolate,” the old woman continues. She takes out a colorful tin can adorned with a strange word and opens it with a can opener. She pours the chocolate over the top of the ice cream. “Now, we must go to your house and put them in the freezer,” she says.

For the next few days, the lady lives with me and I evaluate my life. I make a list of things that make me happy. I make a list of things that make me sad. The old lady reads each list and responds accordingly. One night I draw a bath for her and decorate the surface of the water with small flowers from the garden.

Later, we go out to find a new place to eat dinner. She bends her short arm into the crook of my arm. We walk together and for some reason I feel like an actor, taking his mother to the Academy Awards. Lights are popping, people are smiling. Our picture will be in
People
magazine.

On the day she disappeared from my life I went back to the cafe and sat gloating in the window.

The cute girl came out from behind the counter and sat beside me. The music was low as she touched my hand and asked where my mother was.

Thirteen Mundane Dreams

1.
You were in the laundry room and I walked in. You asked me what I wanted.

2.
My mom was trying to grind some coffee beans but it wouldn’t work. Then she realized the grinder wasn’t plugged in.

3.
My grandfather was fishing at that really popular lake outside of town. I drove up in a Ford Taurus and asked if he needed a ride home. He got in the car and farted.

4.
I was watching TV in the front room when the mail arrived. I looked at it sitting there on the floor. A Domino’s Pizza ad and the cable bill.

5.
My cat walked into the bedroom like he was going to make an announcement. I watched him for a couple minutes before I realized he couldn’t talk, because he’s a cat.

6.
I was at a Moby concert. He was fiddling with a keyboard and there were gospel singers shouting something over and over.

7.
You were watching TV and I walked in and showed you the cable bill. I was wearing that hat I always wear.

8.
This guy I work with called and asked me if I could come into work for him. I started to say yes but then he said he was feeling better and that he’d see me later.

9.
I was reading this old biography of Gerald Ford when my neighbor knocked on the door. I answered it and he gave me back the hedge clippers I let him borrow.

10.
You and I were at a funeral home. We walked over to a coffin and it was empty. The price tag next to it said 50% off.

11.
My friend Matt was sitting on a ledge eating his lunch. At first I thought he was on a high building or bridge, but it was just a Safeway loading dock. He jumped off and walked away.

12.
You were at a hockey game and that guy you slept with eight years ago was sitting a few rows away from you, closer to the ice. He looked the same, but maybe eight years older.

13.
I woke up with a headache. You told me to take some aspirin and fell back asleep.

Racial

S
he jutted out her chest in hopes of communicating something inside her. She held wobbly onto her small red clutch while staring at the man in the seat across from her. A thought crawled across the bottom of her mind: racial joke…racial joke…racial joke…

Her feet were sticky and wedged, pointing at everyone through sloppy black plastic pumps.

This streetcar is not a car and this is hardly a street, she thought to herself, sure that there were others who were thinking the same thing. The sounds of sighs and people singing inside their throats gained momentum as she slacked against the noise. She listened for bad words in the air and felt eager, herself, to say something wrong.

She Whispers, Nudges,

Mumbles Something

S
he felt like she was getting sick when the bass kicked in. It was the low, crunchy, beneath-your-feet kind of buzz. She moved away from the blast of the speaker. A tall, broad-shouldered man in an orange hunting jacket was her shield. She held on to him for security. He squirmed as if surprised but he shouldn’t have been surprised. He knew she was looking at him. That she was easy and bored and changed her hairstyle all the time because of this boredom.

This was a dirty band they listened to. They had a song called Republican Bathhouse. They had two bass players, two keyboard players, clothes that were terrible in all the right ways. They crossed lines and expected people to follow.

The man in the hunting jacket turned around and said something to her but there was no hope in hearing the words. She held him tight for an amount of time that didn’t seem too long or desperate or bold. Her grip loosened and by the end of the show she had a single finger hooked into the belt loop on the back of his jeans. She pulled on the jeans playfully and looked at his ugly underwear. She had the urge to let a drop of spit out, to watch it roll down his spine, into the gutter of his ass. Instead she blew on his peach fuzz there. She imagined a field of dead grass blowing in the wind.

They walked out to his car with their ears buzzing. Everything sounded like it was muffled by a pillow—their footsteps, people talking, cars backing up on the gravel. She let go of his belt loop and walked to the passenger side of his car. She looked over the top of the car and saw him standing there. He seemed shocked, as if noticing her for the first time. He accidentally smiled at her before getting in. He paused after putting his seat belt on and then leaned over and unlocked the passenger door.

She got in and didn’t put her seat belt on. He started the car and the stereo was playing a CD by the band they just saw. It seemed like too much. She told herself that she wouldn’t want to listen to this band again for a while. She felt like she just endured something.

He turned down the radio and looked embarrassed. He said something that she didn’t quite catch but it sounded like, “I live with my mom.”

“That’s okay,” she said. She pushed a button for the electric windows. It went down halfway.

“I like your hair that way,” he said.

She looked at him sharply when he said this. She mumbled something to herself so he couldn’t hear her. She knew that the ringing of his ears was probably to her advantage. So she kept mumbling and whispering and smiling at him. She liked that simply playing with the volume of her voice made her words like a foreign language that he struggled to understand, grasping only fragments. He was too polite to ask her to repeat herself. She whispered, “I live with my mom too” and looked sad. She smiled again quickly, poked his side with her elbow, and said a bit louder, “But she’s deaf, so she won’t hear us.”

He laughed and said, “I know. I’m totally deaf right now!” He put his hand on her knee and said, as if making a rule, “Let’s not talk any more tonight.”

She pointed him to her home. The buzzing between the two of them turned to silence and the cool, quiet sensation of everything else began to overtake them.

Trails

T
he manager owned a goldfish that had begun to grow hair. The girl saw it one day, making waves into trails on the surface of its tank. What’s wrong with Teller, asked the girl of the manager.

Penn died, he replied. He walked over to where she crouched, looking in on the fish. He flicked his cigarette ash into the water. Cancer, he said. She looked at him hard. It spreads, he coughed.

Why is he growing hair, she asked more specifically this time.

It’s his way of telling us to fuck off, he said.

Don’t Eat Paper

M
y son was getting ready to eat dinner when he ran to the bathroom, doubling over with stomach grief. I put his pasta down and went to see what the matter was. He threw up some of his root beer, some of his elementary school hot lunch.

He always preferred the sink instead of the toilet when vomiting. I stood behind him and put my hand on his back for support.

“I didn’t know you were feeling sick. Do you have a fever?” I ran the water in the sink, trying to keep the smell from sticking.

“Don’t eat paper,” he said, before bending over the sink again.

I pushed lightly on his stomach and wondered how paper might break down in there. How it might come out. I remembered how it felt to throw up as a kid and how my father would hold my stomach for support. I pressed for details.

“Did someone make you do that?”

“No. I just did it.”

I tried to think of why someone would eat paper.

“Was it a secret message?”

“Yes.”

“Who gave it to you?”

He didn’t answer, choking forth more bile. I figured it would be a good lesson for him. When you throw up something as a child you never want that thing in your mouth for the rest of your days. I remember once getting sick on Lorna Doone shortbread cookies. I never touched them again. As an adult though, people throw up all the time but always return, steely and unshaken, to the cause: beer, corndogs, sushi.

I fumbled for more information.

“How much paper was it?”

He turned on the water, rinsed some thickened spit down the drain.

“It was just a little piece of notebook paper. With the little holes down the side.”

“Was it from a girl?” I asked for some unknown reason.

He wretched loudly and some chunks of food came out. I made a mental checklist before I washed them down: raisins, fruit roll-ups, maybe some tuna fish.

But also: a raggedy flag shape of paper, about three inches in length. I pinned it to the porcelain as the rest swirled away. My son fell back against the wall, exhausted and pale, breathing like a runner at the end of a marathon. “There,” he said. “I think that’s it.”

I tore the paper as I tried to smooth it out but I could still read it. In evil-looking block letters it said: DON’T EAT PAPER.

The Takeoff

I
get excited just by sitting next to you. I spread the small blanket over my lap so that no one can tell. This is the third airplane we’ve been on today. We are preparing for takeoff. I’ve got the window seat and you’re in the middle. Next to you, in the aisle seat, is a sixty-year old woman knitting something.

As the flight attendants vapidly show us how to tighten our seatbelts and deploy the oxygen masks, I guide your hand under the blanket. You move your fingers there. By taking sharp inhaling breaths, I can make my penis hop. It’s like a stupid pet trick. It makes you smile.

Just as your fingers start to trace my zipper, a male attendant walks up and starts talking to the lady next to you about her knitting. She tells him that she’s making a frock and for some reason I can’t quite remember what a frock is. Is it like a poncho? An apron? The attendant lingers a little and I catch his eyes drifting away from the frock and focusing on our blanket. We are sitting very still and you even have your eyes closed, feigning sleep, though underneath the blanket my zipper is down and you are prying that part of me out.

“I couldn’t work on something like that,” the attendant says. “I don’t have the patience.”

I look over at the lady’s hands. They quickly and smoothly work the black yarn and red needles. I wonder if knitting is like hand exercise, if it helps to thwart arthritis. Her skin does look young, soft, made of pearl. She has a rhythm going like a drummer. The attendant walks away. The plane is starting to rumble down the runway. I look up at the lady’s face and she looks angry now.

Under the blanket, your hand is gripping me, moving slowly. I shift toward you so the movement isn’t noticeable. We are up in the air.

“Would you like some gum?” the woman is suddenly asking us. I look up and see her chewing excitedly on her own piece. She is looking right at me and I notice that she has a very loose neck. It wiggles as we gain altitude. “It helps you from popping your ears,” she says.

“No, thanks,” I say.

“I’ll take some,” you say, your eyes snapping open. You let go of me and take your hand from under the blanket. You take the gum and unwrap it. It’s a flat pink slab. I watch you put it in your mouth. I wait for your hand to return. It does, feeling cold for a second. “Thanks,” you say to the woman.

The woman just nods and chews, a smile on her face as she concentrates on her needlework. I focus on it as well—the looping, the weaving, the clicking of the needle points. I’m starting to relax when the pressure comes. Your hand is putting me away as my ears pop.