His wife Janet spoke up from the kitchen. Her smoky voice echoed, “Don’t worry, it’ll just be a few more minutes.”
“Not a problem at all,” Tim said confidently. He was concerned that they were being too kind to him in asking him over for Easter. That’s a pretty big holiday. He had been over probably close to five times and never returned the favor. It wasn’t intentional. Tim just wanted things to get better. Then he’d have the work guys over and Mark and Janet. Yeah, there were good times on the horizon. He just needed some motivation. “I’m just really lucky you guys were stickin’ around here and thought of me. Let me know if I can help with anything, Janet.”
“Nah, everything is good. You know, one of the burners on the stove went right before Christmas. We haven’t had the money to replace it so it slows us down a bit. It’s on the list, I guess. Right, Mark? We need new carpets, bathroom upgrade…the place is pretty beat up.” Hair in a ponytail Janet snuck into the threshold of the kitchen to be a member in the conversation. She was in a faded 3M sweatshirt and slippers. Tim didn’t mind that they didn’t dress up for their guest, though Janet wasn’t always frumpy. Sometimes he’d see her coming in at night. She still had a figure in the right outfit.
“You guys don’t have to apologize for anything. My place is a sty. I like that picture.” He gestured at a framed poster on the wall. It was the four early Beatles with Japanese characters in deep reds, oranges, and purples. It read “Tokyo ’64” down the side in English.
“Yeah, I picked that up in California a few years back when I had a job that would actually send me places. Pretty cool piece. You like the Beatles? Actually you seem like more of a Stones guy.”
Tim didn’t know much about music, investing too often in silence, a losing investment. “Eh, I don’t know. I like it all. I just like the colors of that…that one.”
“Now my job just sends me to the unemployment office for travel.” Mark pulled lightly at his own beard as he grinned, “You ever been unemployed, Tim?”
“Yeah, once, but not for too long. Not for seven months.”
Mark nodded, “Well it sucks. It’s hard on both of us for obvious reasons. Every day you wonder, ‘should I just quit trying to find something? Go back to school and get another degree in something? I…we don’t have the money to really do that. Now, if they could guarantee me a job, a solid job, at the end I’d get a freakin’ loan and do it in a heart-beat. Who wants to sit around all day looking for jobs? Look at me, I’m not getting any sexier. You start to get paranoid too. It’s like the steroids in baseball, right? Most of the guys that do ‘em are successful while only some of the guys who are clean do good. Some of the other guys who are clean get replaced by cheats. Why do some guys have jobs and I don’t? I’m a good software programmer. Are all of the programmers who have jobs better than me? No, some of them knew the right people or found the right situation. Some of them must have lied on their resume. I guess, if we were put in that position…Heaven forbid Janet lost her job, I’d start making shit up too. See where that gets me.”
Tim was surprised a bit at Mark’s anxiety, but he understood it too. Janet peeled herself off of the wall she was leaning on and went back in the kitchen. Mark eased back on the couch.
“It’s just hard because…well, all the experts say ‘just find your passion and things will fall into place.’ What if there’s no jobs left in your passion or worse yet your passion fired you? Then wad’ya got?” Mark looked away for a second. “Hey man, sorry for being all serious and stuff, but having all of this free time makes your brain crazy.”
“Yeah, I know. If I didn’t have my job when I was going through the divorce…those guys were like life-savers. Seriously. I’d leave there laughing and then take my medicine when I got home and had to stare at an empty house,” Tim admitted. “Things are getting better slowly. We’ll see what Obama can do. I guess you gotta put your faith in something.”
# # #
Lisa felt sometimes like she was slowly becoming the personification of the crucified Jesus ornament that showed up once a year at her parents’ front door. She had no idea where it was the rest of the year, but it always got pulled out of some softened ancient box having shed a little more lacquer than the previous Easter weekend. Somehow Jesus tended to look sadder every year. Lisa still called it “Sow Jesus” stemming from a toddler who couldn’t pronounce the word for crucifixion in Portuguese, only catching the last syllable. Loving parents latched on to their little girl’s deficiency soon memorializing it in the kitchen among the tall-standing aunts and grandmothers and on the patio with folded up uncles and grandfathers. For all of this grief over the years she had earned title to Sow Jesus when her elders become limited to ornamental memories themselves, but there had been no white gown for Lisa permanently affecting her status within the family. She could smell the disappointment cooking in the kitchen as soon as she passed by Sow Jesus. He seemed to say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t do enough for my people,” but she couldn’t apologize for her choices.
It was a different house in Dorchester than the one Lisa and her siblings grew up in, but in these corners of the city you never traded in your faith and you never traded in your furniture. Lisa’s grandmother was the sun sitting smaller each year despite the cushions of the royal chair being plumped for her arrival. Revolving around her were eighty-nine years of laughter, sorrow, and copious great-grandkids, some menacing, some angelic, others just growing up. The kitchen was alive too with heat and furious rhapsodizing of memories, some of which were so old they didn’t have an English translation. Only steps away through the screen door the men huddled on the covered section of the patio to talk about the wives and finances, to make up stories to sustain the belly while the lamb roasted and the folar was prepared.
As much as Lisa hungered for this type of reunion, she was no longer sure of her place. She had been a grandchild that danced around the living room. She had been a young lady who went right from first communion to baking apprentice. They were proud of her for tackling college while her other cousins spent nights in garages drinking and fixing cars that already worked. That was years ago, and they continue to pull out this dream as worn out as Sow Jesus. Lisa would still joke or tell tall tales to get a rise from anyone who will listen. She didn’t want to be a clown, but her place in the family circle had changed. While her siblings and cousins knew Lisa was everything the family needed, the older generation was faithful to marriage and children. Unlike PW management, the people running the family told her exactly what they wanted, but in both cases Lisa couldn’t quite figure out where her needs fit in anymore.
As she set her coat down on the bed, the floor creaked. She couldn’t be sure if it ached from the spring rain or was just trying to get a word in edge-wise among the vociferous Portuguese. Walking through the threshold she physically bumped into her cousin Ernie who was on his way to the bathroom. They tried to exchange pleasantries in the hallway, but he kept having to swing his hips from side to side to allow somebody’s kid to rush past. Everything was madness until they pulled themselves back into the bedroom.
“Lis, how’s work going?” They shared the same skin tone that after a long winter made them almost the pale inner color of an almond where soon they would each blossom back to an outer nut brown. While cousins on her father’s side seemed to share that trait, Ernie had eyes that were almost too small for the lids he was given. It made him look sad or tired even though things were OK for him.
“Oh, you know, it’s OK. Same shit, different day. If people keep getting laid off one of these days I’m going to be manager.”
“You get a company car?”
“No, I think PW’s cut that out of the budget. Maybe a free oil change coupon. If I’m lucky maybe it won’t even be expired. Or maybe they can get me a moped. I can wear a…whaddathey call that? A jump suit with all the advertising on it. Blowing down the streets at thirty miles an hour.”
“Yeah, they can get you one of those sweet HANS racing helmets. Oh, get a second one for your boyfriend whenever you get one,” he laughed. His