Suburbs
September 2008
It’s six-thirty, and the alarm is going off. I wake up on top of the covers. It’s warm. I leave the heat on seventy-two degrees all the time. I don’t like to be cold. I get out of bed, go to the bathroom. I take a long, hot shower. At moments I find myself zoning out, not washing, just standing there enjoying the sensation of water flowing over my body. When the water starts getting cold, I rinse. I get dressed- boxers, black slacks, blue shirt, red tie, black leather shoes.
My wife is in the kitchen making breakfast- scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice. She makes too much. We throw the leftovers out. My wife puts the dishes in the dishwasher and starts it. It isn’t full, but she hates to come home to dirty dishes. The kids pile into her Jeep Liberty, the one with the leather seats so if the kids spill a drink from their pop bottles, then it can be wiped right up. She drives them to school.
When I get into my car, a Land Cruiser, I have to wait about a minute to back out of the driveway because a school bus is blocking my way. I drive to work, forty-five minutes away. I could have lived closer to my office, but I liked the bigger house in the suburbs- I figured it was worth the extra gas money. I stop on the way and get a coffee. It’s hot, so I ask the barista to double cup it. I throw away the cup for my coffee at the office door.
At work I buy a coffee from the automatic coffee machine. Again, it’s too hot, so I double cup it. At lunch I drive to a McDonalds, order a double quarter-pounder meal, and eat it in my car. I’m thinking about getting a new car, something more masculine, something bigger. I’m not certain. After noon I switch from the coffee to bottles of soda.
I drive home, change- jeans, t-shirt, sneakers. I pick up the kids and we buy a bucket of chicken from KFC. We sit outside on the deck and eat off of paper plates. The kids drink soda out of red plastic cups and my wife and I drink cans of beer. After we eat we sit down and we watch TV, a crime drama. When commercials are on I start laundry- my work clothes, the kid’s school uniforms, everyone’s towels from showers and baths. After they catch the bad guy, the credits roll, my wife goes to take a long bubble bath. I watch the nightly news. There are stories about an oil spill somewhere else, about erratic weather somewhere else, about food shortages somewhere else, and about global warming, which I don’t believe in anyway. When I go to the bedroom my wife is already under the covers. I wrap my arms around her. I fall asleep feeling grateful that I do not live somewhere else.
Copyright 2008 Jessa Marsh
Read Comments
No comments.