Lit in Progress

Jeremy gave his mommy a hug, squeezing the rayon dress with his small hands until it crinkled like construction paper. She laughed; her ginger-colored hair brushed his ear and tickled. He was two, strong and tall for his age. He smiled a lot, showing his baby teeth and wrinkling his soft face.

She carried him to their Voyager and slid the door back. The carseat was in crooked; she sat Jer down on the floorboard. As she adjusted the seat Jer walked over to the other side door and pushed the window lever up and down. He pressed his hand flat against the glass, and looked at the outline of steam gathering around it. Since it was cold, he patted his hand on the glass and watched his fingermarks marr the steam outline.

His mommy leaned over the carseat and grabbed the back of his overalls, pulling him within reach. He laughed at that. She picked him up and set him into the seat, fastening him in like an astronaut. She talked but he didn’t understand what he said, but he replied “uh-huh” when she stopped so she would keep talking. She handed him his small toy truck, and slid the door closed as he bounced it up and down on the arm.

The other door opened and a breath of cool air came in, ruffling Jeremy’s curly orange hair. Mommy appeared in the mirror, putting on her sunglasses and pushing the key into its place. The car started buzzing nicely, like it did. She turned around and smiled at him, saying something else.

“Uh-huh!”

They were off.

Jake pulled at the padding on his arm rest. His mother was singing along with the radio, “Show me Your glory…” with a man’s voice that sounded like Jake’s daddy. He nodded his head in time with the music, feeling the low notes buzz in his chest.

He felt the straps as they pulled him sideways; his mom swerved and said something in a mad-voice. Then she gasped and pulled at the steering wheel again, and the belt pulled Jake, hard, the other way. His toy truck clacked as it tumbled fast across the floorboard.

Brittney took a stick of gum from her sequined hobo bag and hurriedly unwrapped it. She was late for her first class, but it was history so she wasn’t too concerned. She paused in front of the guest bathroom mirror and put on another layer of lip gloss. Pressed her lips together. Smiled insincerely.

She looked at the button that opened the garage. The light was out again; Dad ought to fix that, she thought. She pressed the button, and light poured over the waxed Camero she bought last year with her own money.

The silk-flower lei suspended from her rear-view mirror swayed as she opened the door and threw her purse into the passenger seat. She carefully adjusted her mirror and seat before starting it up. Backing out. She clicked it into drive (no, not a standard, oh, well) and smiled at the throaty purr as she pressed the gas pedal.

Jake pulled himself into the truck, mumbling softly about his knee. When he was in the military – he doesn’t tell the story – he’d been drunk one night when they were stationed in Arizona, and he’d hit it on a table. That was it, his glorious war injury. Damn.

He creaked, he thought, like the seat springs. Wondered, with a chuckle, which was loudest. There in the passenger seat and floorboard were tools, rags, some baling wire. A copy of Catch 22, another of Clear and Present Danger. He kicked a styrofoam cup from under the clutch and the truck roared awake.

Mercury wasn’t sure about today. It just didn’t feel right. Some days were like that; they just weren’t going to end well, no matter how much she tried to convince herself that she was being ludicrous.

She eased the bedroom door shut, not waking her husband Bret, and walked barefoot to the bathroom carrying her uniform and underwear in her hand.

Ten minutes later she was in the truck, heading to the hospital. The roads were clear, but it was a cool day and there was a lot of fog. She pressed her lips together and hummed along with the radio.

Julie was already there, standing beside their ambulance. “Mornin’,” she said. Mercury raised her chin in response.

The first call came at 9:18.

Marsha was late. Her alarm’s sound had been turned all the way down sometime yesterday and she didn’t wake up until 7:00, while she was supposed to be at work at 6:15. She hurriedly pulled her hair into a ponytail holder and grabbed her name badge as she headed for the garage, cursing as her shoulder caught the door frame.

Her grey Toyota sat cold in his place, knowing she was late. He didn’t know why she had to be at the warehouse so early. She didn’t like it there; he heard her complain almost every day to her friends, about the heat (or cold), the dust, the noise, the mechanical sameness of walking up and down the same aisle 70 times, to be finally done and the next day begin as though the former had never happened. Her words seeped into the cell phone, down the charger and into him, like fluid through an umbilical cord. Perhaps, he thought with a smile, I am the mother.

Marsha laughed, a bit bitterly, at the Alanis song on the radio. Here she was, two hours later, still no farther than 27th Street. “Don’tcha think…”

She coughed twice, and wiped her face with a Sonic napkin from the glove box. There was that horrid laundromat, wiped out in one of the tornadoes, then ressurected with the same ugly gold roof as though nothing had happened. She thought about her mother, riding a bus to the laundromat in Norman, calling once in a while to make sure Marsha wasn’t doing anything stupid.

Three cars whizzed by on the shoulder. She yelled at them in her mind, envied their audacity. Where’s a cop when you need one?

Marsha considered taking the exit, but since the construction ended in just a ways, she decided not to. Twenty minutes later, cursing the decision, she sped up with the traffic and fairly flew onto 240, almost colliding with a Stanley Steamer van.

Michael’s brown eyes hung on the clock in his apartment bathroom. His teeth were brushed, face shaven, hair gel’d and drying. His shirt lay over the bed corner, unbuttoned. He pulled it over his arms, buttoned it up, felt the cotton folds like paper creases press into the inside of his elbow.

His coffee machine burbled as he pulled on socks, shoes, tie. His jacket hung in the far corner of the closet, and he pulled it down. The hanger bumped the ceiling, settled back between other garments. He filled his thermos with black coffee, fitted the lid.

Michael stopped at the table by the door. His phone went in his pocket, his wallet in another. His keys stayed in his hand. The messenger bag he had carried for two years, over his shoulder.

His Mercedes was waiting for him. She was glad; he seemed to be in a good mood. He was not late. She beeped; he turned the key and she backed out of the space. Her wipers cleared off the tree’s deposits from the windshield. He turned on the radio, and she sang to him, “God bless the child that’s got his own…”

I think he’ll do well today, she thought. He needs to rest, to breath a little, but he’ll do well. As long as he doesn’t think about it too much.

His jacket pocket started bzzzing, muffled by its closeness to his chest. “Hello, this is Mike.”

She heard the voice of his mother, felt her voice going through her side window, keeping up with them. She felt his back tense slightly as his mother said something. “I know, Mom. I’ll be there.” She said something else, and his hand was cold as he shifted gears. “Yes. Eight o’clock.” Pause.

“How’s Dad doin’?” Mercedes felt him sadden, soften, as he thought about his father. She thought about the place he visited his father at, with its well-kept parking lot and brown and white signs with arrows pointing to “obstetrics,” “bone & joint,” “cardiorespiratory,” places inside the tall, sprawling brick buildings whose waves of electricity made her edgy and anxious to leave.

The place where Michael’s father stayed was on the fifth floor, whose windows were dark and where only one elevator went.

“Mm. Okay. See you then, Mom.”