It was a stupid thing to get worked up about maybe... it wasn't part of some long standing battle we had, not a conscious one anyway, it was just a quick unfinished response to something Merril said. She asking me if I was always into programming and I answered, "No, I used to play music and perform in a band"
and "Oh? Would I have heard of you?"
"No, probably not..."
"So, you used to have actual CDs of music?! Did you ever make, um.... alllllll... 'albums'?"
"Yes, I made a few albums back then." "Well why don't you play one of your songs for us?"
And then there it was --- reflexive and presumptuous and all-encompassing, Sarah's interjection:
"Well, he's not really...."
and then a look towards me
somehow both an apology
and a "You're welcome"
at the same time
And of course I fell in line, wrapping my trunk around the tail of the elephant in front of me,
"Ya, I wouldn't know what to play, my keyboards are all..."
pointing way yonder, to anywhere really
anywhere not immediate
and like a good publicist Sarah swept the conversation under the rug of our children
our one success story
and when the conversation arrived at Chris' recital I excused myself for the bathroom.
Sometime in there
while I was trying to figure out what looks so unfamiliar about me in that big mirror
I got it in my head to sneak out the window. I was in the downstairs bathroom so it really wasn't much of a drop.
I locked the door and shut the light off and then tried to open the window but
I'm so stupid
Sarah just had $32,000 E-Sills installed last week and the remote is on my keychain on the hook in the hall
so I sneak out and grab them and sneak back
almost undetected --- Carter is watching me from the couch, but not suspiciously
No, he watches me in a way that says, "I've been there. I also have executed back-to-back pee sessions"
and I nod and point at my groin to affirm our collusion.
I lock the door again, leave the light on though, this time,
zap! the window's open
the toilet seems taller, my knee caps salute
one leg on the toilet, my knee on the sill
there's knocking now
Carter's voice, "Ay, Gavin. Hello?" whispering, like it's us against them
"Gavin, you need anything?"
I'm not sure if that's concern or a proposition of some sort
I will just squeeze out---
"Honey?"
The voice of 1000 lbs!
with a love so heavy it ages me
Now she knocks too
I know because her rhythm is somehow accusatory
The window begins clamping down on my back, even as I work my left thigh through
is this the boasted "Anti-theft technology"
that blue-suit bastard was touting
in MY living room smiling at MY wife?!
In my head I'm already down the street
smashing bus stop shelters with a hammer
in serial fashion, walking straight to downtown
Glass cases populated with beautiful people
Smiling, nuzzling, drinking wine coolers together with big jewelry
the way things never were
and I swing the hammer into them and walk on while their guts sparked and hissed at the new air
(nothing beautiful or classy about that)
nothing's so pristine when you get the scalpel out and really look at it
but here in this bathroom,
caught in transit by our stupid stupid new hi-tech E-sills
My wife
who has keys to even the bathroom door somehow
is looking at me like I'm a rabid skunk
while four or five of her friends have clustered around me
overtly sympathetic
but I hear you snickering, fuckers
in my house
I may be drunk but my ears still work
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