Frank curled under a stack of blankets to shield himself from winter and the sound of his wife’s withdrawal. Ruth kicked doors as she walked through them. Frank lay still as a hill, engaging in an activity the spiritually inclined called visualization meditation, but Frank called it playing pretend. He pretended he was dead.
Ruth shook the bed and screamed for Frank to get to work.
“I’m in pain,” Frank said.
“You think you’re the only one with pain?” Ruth said.
“Did it snow?”
Ruth took the paper liner out of an empty pack of cigarettes and forced it into her mouth.
“Think I’d let you sleep if it snowed.” She worked the wad with her tongue. Between the two of them was more kindness than teeth. Frank put on his boots in slow, concentrated movements, as if he were under water. Although he couldn’t feel his legs, he trusted them to catch when he propelled himself forward. They did, and he shuffled his way to the front porch. Frank pressed Prince Albert tobacco into a pipe. He pretended his hands had harvested it. How gratifying it was to work the land and keep the spoils, 8 years old in a tobacco barn, hauling stalks his grandfather pulled down from the rafters. He tied a dry leaf around his ankle to smuggle home and made himself sick when he smoked it. Frank imagined the life of a farmer who owned the dirt under his fingernails.
“Frank!” Ruth punched Frank out of his pretending. He passed her the pipe.
“Maybe it’ll snow tonight,” Frank said.
“What about today.”
“Ms. Shirley might have work.”
“She said don’t come back unless there’s snow to shovel!”
So goes the plotting for their next dollar in the heart of winter with no lawns to mow, leaves to rake, gutters to clean, and generosity from Christmas—spiral ham from Ms. Louise, hot chocolate basket from Ms. Betty, and crisp hundred dollar bill from Ms. Rose—had passed through their colons. Frank had collected widows from the oldest neighborhood over the hill for a couple of decades, walking the road from early spring until the last leaves hit the ground, prepared to do any job their husbands used to do. Frank was strong, worked fast without cutting any corners, and the money flowed until his first stroke and the extended release opiate OxyContin hit the market.
Frank fell on times so hard he lost access to the energy required to be too proud to beg.
Over the years he wore out his welcome begging the widows. Last person left was God.
“C’mon, Lord,” Frank said. “Where are you, God and Jesus? Deliver us.”
“I’m cutting off my hand,” Ruth said.
“You’ll bleed out before you get to the hospital.”
“Where’s that hand saw. Ha! Hand. Saw.”
“Ruth! You’ll pass out on the first strip.”
“They’d give me morphine.” Ruth walked in a tight circle on the porch. “I’ll walk to the hospital parking lot, and then I’ll saw my hand off. All the pudding I want!”
“I’d like to see you eat pudding with one hand.”
“Shut up Frank! Hear that?”
“Hear you losing your mind—”
“Shh!”
Frank cupped a hand to his ear and captured the sound of gravel spinning beneath slow moving tires. Cars on their street were usually announced by grinding metal or a bassline that could strip paint.
“That’s Ms. Beverly. Coming this way. Thank you, God!”
Ruth spit. “This’s the devil’s work.”
Ms. Beverly was a widow whose bad side is a place Frank never wanted to glimpse. One perceived slight meant exile. Not even bees risked stinging her. But working for Ms. Beverly was an investment in the future. She had daughters and a bloodline that outlived the men by 20 years. Ms. Beverly rolled down her window and looked like a department store hitman with spiked maroon hair, sunglasses worn over her bifocals, and black driving gloves.
“Get in, Frank!” Ms. Beverly squawked like a bird of prey.
“Yes, ma’am.” Frank propelled forward.
“I need my Christmas taken down!”
“Yes ma’am.”
One hour of Frank’s walking path to Ms. Beverly's was traversed in two minutes, the time it takes to cross the town divide between economic realities. Ms. Beverly’s home was on a corner lot that Frank loved to mow in long L-shaped stripes. A bright American flag watched over the door. Electric candles glowed in each window.
Frank had more fingers than invitations inside the house. Not even to empty his bladder.
For that, he used a special kneeling method to piss discretely in the yard. Ms. Beverly waved for him to follow. Frank was unaware of his odor until it collided with the mixed aroma of coffee, fabric softener and a cinnamon candle.
In the front room was a pile of boxes and a plastic Christmas tree.
“Put everything back in the basement just how it was in November, remember?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Frank started with a small box to warm his muscles. The basement was a cement cellar accessible down a narrow staircase. Dead beetles and a veil of cobwebs greeted him. He found the string, and a bare lightbulb revealed a library of domestic life. A gap between fishing tackle and a hard-shell luggage set indicated space for the Christmas decorations to live in the off-season.
Frank played pretend. Inside his mind’s eye, he entered a parallel life the same way one slides into well-loved boots, becoming the owner of this corner lot with the American flag, where soup beans and sweet tea waited for him once the task was finished, and framed prints of him and Ruth adorned the mantel. This transformation required as much forethought as the beating of his heart.
Just pretending to be stronger made him so, and he picked the heaviest box—one with nutcrackers that Ruth had collected for years—and moved with ease down the steps. Frank pondered the fishing poles, making plans for spring, then measured the luggage and held a wish to see the Grand Canyon before he dies. After supper, he’d fall asleep by the fireplace and wake so warm he’d have to remove his socks. At last, he returned the plastic tree to its place in the corner across from the sump pump.
The moment the rubber grips of the base made purchase with the floor, Frank stumbled backward and caught himself against the shelves. He collapsed into the fold of his elbow to catch his breath. His mouth was dry and tasted like metal. He couldn’t recall his last drink or bite to eat. Pain flooded his muscles. At times, his pretend life felt so real that he shivered with grief when it vanished.
“Lord,” Frank gasped, “how do I go on? You done showed me once today. Show me again. Please, God.”
From his position, bent over and leaning into the shelves, his eyes came to focus on the orange spine of a tool resting in a tray like a flower in a vase. Frank reached for it as if it were God’s open palm. It was folded in half, but the hinge was clean and spread with ease. The teeth on a hand saw smiled at him.
Brook West, Lexington