Look Evelyn, Duck Dynasty Wiper Blades. We Should Get Them.: A Collection Of New Essays (13 page)

.....................................

From
: Beverly Corrigan

Date
: Friday 22 November 2013 7.22pm

To
: David Thorne

Subject
: Re: Re: Re: Re: Very disappointed

I'm reporting you to my internet service provider.

My partner Holly works for a bank. Not one of the big banks, a small bank with only a few branches. Big banks have large glossy posters of happy people buying houses, driving new cars, and giving children wizzies. The posters in Holly’s bank are black and white A4 printouts featuring gardening clipart. The customer service desks are dark wood and the carpets are dark green. According to Holly, it’s like the bank in It’s a Wonderful Life but I don’t watch black and white movies because I own a colour television and it’s not 1945 so I’ll have to take her word on it.

Mirroring the bank’s main customer demographic, the people who work there are religious and old. They attend church, grow cabbages, and watch the Weather Channel. The men wear vests under double-breasted suit jackets two sizes too large for them, the women wear pleated polyester dresses with flower patterns.

“You should find out the combination to the safe,” I said to Holly, “It could be our retirement plan. We’ll empty it out and live on the run.”

“I don’t need a combination,” she replied, “They never lock it.”

We were at one of several annual functions for her work. They’d hired a staff member’s John Denver cover band for the occasion and there was a makeshift bar, with a two drink maximum, tended by a weird little man and his round little wife. The weird little man had retired from the bank years before but he liked being the bartender. He had nothing else to do and nobody had the heart to tell him to fuck off. His round little wife looked like a Muppet. Not one of the main Muppets, a Muppet Jim Henson might have thrown together on an off day using left over round bits.

“That’s an interesting one Mr Henson. What’s its name?”

“Oh, I don’t know... Muppet thing.”

Everything seemed to be in slow motion. And muffled, and grey. Most of the people worked together so stood around in awkward small groups, occasionally becoming animated when someone thought of something to say but for the most part just pretending to listen to the band. The lead singer of the band, a man in his eighties, wore large orange tinted glasses and a tan suede vest. He mumbled the words to the songs rather than singing them. It was like a stroke victim reading aloud from a book, accompanied by a guitar, drums, and a stick with bottlecaps nailed to it. The beat seemed random but there was one lady dancing. She had her hands held up in front of her, like a mime doing the invisible glass thing, and was walking in circles.  

“Look at that one dancing. It’s like Helen Keller trapped in a closet. Someone should do something about it.”

“Like what?” Holly asked.

“Like leave. Below Deck starts in twenty minutes. This is the saddest event I have ever been to. And that includes funerals and Thanksgiving dinners at your parent’s house.”

The only thing edible at Holly’s parent’s Thanksgiving dinners are the Dry Balls. Dry Balls are basically bits of bread dipped in milk, rolled into a ball, and baked. Which may sound dreadful, but they come with a cold white sauce made of milk and flour that helps you swallow them. I usually get McDonald’s on the way. After everyone finishes eating, we sit in the living room watching The Weather Channel for an hour or two in silence. Occasionally someone will comment on how good the Dry Balls were but conversation is kept to a minimum as Holly’s father Tom, who is going deaf, makes a big production of turning the television sound down every time someone speaks then turning it back up to its highest setting when they have finished.

“The Dry Balls were good this year, Tom”

“What?”

“The Dry Balls.”

“Hang on,”
“What?”

“I was just saying the Dry Balls were particularly good this year. Best Dry Balls I’ve ever had in fact.”

“What about the Dry Balls?”

“They were good.”

“Marie, what did he say?”

“He said the Dry Balls were good.”

“Oh.”

“We can’t leave yet. They’re giving out certificates in a minute.”

“Gift certificates?”

“No. Just certificates. For people who have been at the bank for twenty years or more.”

“Do they get anything else?”

“No, like what?”

“I don’t know. Something good. It’s just a certificate stating so and so has been working for the bank for twenty years?”

“It’s framed.” Holly replied.

Oh, well that’s alright then. If I worked somewhere for twenty years and they gave me an unframed certificate stating that I had worked there for twenty years, I’d be a little disappointed. They’re nice frames then?”

“They’re plastic. But they look like wood. We can leave after they give them out.”

“Fine. Just don’t leave me standing here alone again.”

“There was a line at the bathroom.”

“Some old lady trapped me in a corner for several minutes while you were gone. She explained her views on having a ‘coloured’ family in the Whitehouse. I asked her if she had ever seen two dogs kiss.”

“What?”

“You know, when they touch noses and both stick out their tongues at the same time.”

“I work with these people. Who was it?”

“I don’t know, they all look the same. She had really tight skin, it was pulled back so far her gums were showing. It looked like she was wearing one of those things dentists put in your mouth. An invisible one though. She had a walking frame.”

“That’s Sue.”

“I didn’t even get to drink my second beer. I put it down on a table for just a second and an old man with sores all over his face put his down as well. I picked up what I thought was mine and took a sip but it tasted like mint denture paste so I spat it back into the bottle.”

“So you asked Sue if she’d ever seen two dogs kiss and then you spat into a bottle?”

“Yes.”

“Right, well I won’t be leaving your side again. It’s like having a child with Autism.”

“It’s pronounced Altruism.”

“No it isn’t. Just try to act normal for the next half hour or so. And please don’t steal anything. It isn’t funny.”

“I have to I’m afraid, it’s the rules.”

The rules had been written years before I met Holly. I was at my friend Geoffrey’s house one day and he was being annoying so on my way out,  I took a painting from his hallway wall. I’m not sure why, I just thought it would be funny for Geoffrey to walk down his hallway and see a blank space where it had been. It was a terrible painting - Geoffrey had painted it himself - showing a knight in armour standing on the top of a mountain raising his sword to a stormy sky. Apparently it was a self-portrait but the face looked more like a monkey. Geoffrey called it Journey’s End but I referred to it as Monkey Being Dangerous. 

“The title doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yes it does.”

“No it doesn’t, sooner or later the monkey is going to have to walk back down the mountain so it should really be called, Journey’s Half Way Point or, That Was a Bit Pointless, Good Exercise Though.”

“It’s not a monkey and the journey is over because it was a journey of discovery. The fact he has to go back down the mountain afterwards doesn’t come into it. Besides, he can ride back down.”

“On what?”

“His horse.”

“Where’s his horse?”

“It’s behind that big rock. You can see its head sticking out a little bit.”

“Oh yeah. I can kind of see the horse’s body as well. Is the rock semi-transparent?”

“No, I painted the horse first but it didn’t look right so I painted the rock over it but the horse was black so it shows through a little bit. I should go over it again sometime.”

“Or you could just rename it, Journey to the Semi-Transparent Rock.”

Geoffrey came to my house a few hours later to recover the painting, it was hanging in my living room above the fireplace. On his way out, he pocketed the remote control for my television.

Rules had to be defined after this; you can’t take anything that the person uses regularly and it has to be obvious. Their favourite mug that you would use the next time they visited, the welcome mat, all their cutlery apart from teaspoons. Eventually it became a reason to visit each other.

“I wasn’t going to drop in but I really needed my bathroom soap dispenser back. Hey, what’s that over there?”

“What?”

“Oh, I thought I saw something. Well, I should be off.”

The game spread outside our homes. I’d visit Geoffrey at his work and the secretary would ask him later if he knew what happened to the clock on the wall behind her desk, he’d visit my work and a potted plant would go missing.  It progressed to work related functions where we no longer took items from each other, but competed.

“What did you get?”

“A serving bowl shaped like a duck.”

“Nice.”

“You?”

“The little brass bell from the foyer. And a lamp.”

Eventually, it became the only real reason to attend functions and we saw it as a kind of recompense for having to be there. It wasn’t Kleptomania, the items made their way back eventually, but it was close. We couldn’t walk into a room without automatically scanning everything in it and calculating the probability of successfully concealing each item under our jacket.

“I might even steal one of the certificates.” I said to Holly.

She laughed.

“Oh no. Here comes your friend,” I warned, “She’s very slowly headed our way.”

“Hello Sue,” said Holly, “How are you?”

“Oh, I can’t complain,” said Sue, “I’m having a better week than Janet in accounting. Have you heard? Her husband had an affair.”

“Was it with a coloured woman?” I asked.

Sue frowned, “No, I don’t think so.”

“Well that’s something.”

“This is my husband David,” Holly interjected, “He’s Australian. David, this is Sue.”

“Yes, we’ve met,” said Sue, “I didn’t realise he was Australian though. I just thought he had a speech impediment.” She looked me up and down, “You don’t look Australian. Australian men are usually blonde. And rugged.”

“Do you own seventy cats?”

“No, just two.”

“Well there you go. You can’t judge a book by its cover. Have you ever seen them kiss?”

“No.”

“They probably only do it when you’re not looking.”

Sue glanced at Holly. Holly pretended to be intensely interested in her glass of wine.

“There was one Australian man I liked,” Sue continued, “What was his name..?”

“Was it Pat?”

“No. The one who got stabbed by a swordfish. He was married to an American girl as well. Did you know him?”

“Steve Irwin? Yes, we were good friends before the swordfish thing. Only it wasn’t a swordfish. It was a starfish.”

“No, they weren’t,” said Holly.