Saturday, February 04, 2006
XL
Been struggling at the keys this week, but on the way home from the grocery store I caught a nano-glimpse of a guy. You know, one of those houses you drive by all the time but you never see the people who live inside. Today he was outside, and that nano-glimpse inspired me.
The grill bowed under the pressure. He didn’t care. He just kept scraping.
What did she care how much he had spent? What did she care if any of the guys pitched in? He’d cleaned the bathroom, he’d cleaned the basement, stocked the bar, done all the shopping and was trying to get everything cooked. All she could do was yap, yap, yap.
It would be different if it were any other year. But what did she care then, anyway? These guys came over one Sunday a year and he always did all the work. He took a break to ash his cigarette, then turned back to taking out his marital frustrations on the rack in the smoker. By the time the wood was smoldering in there, his anger with his wife was down to a simmer. He turned back toward the house and took a deep breath.
“It’s the Steelers, fer Crysake,” he said to himself. He’d grown up loving them and now they were back in the big game. His college buddies came to his place once a year, and the wife always bitched about it because somebody always spent the night on the sofa.
“She’d better expect to see them all Monday morning if the Steelers win,” he thought. After all, it was better than the alternative.
Pre-game was in high-gear on the big screen as the guys trickled in. Keys clanked as she stood at the top of the basement stairs with the open helmet cookie jar. It was part of the tradition.
Because she spent the day with her Julia Roberts DVDs and her scrapbooking supplies, she was the only one not drinking. Every year she collected and hid the guys’ keys. Only she was allowed to decide who could drive himself home that night.
She stopped him as he made his way down with the ribs, smoked to perfection the day before.
“I know,” he said. And they lingered in the kiss. The pre-game hoopla had blown over again this year.
