Ken Sparling
I drove until I came to
an ice cream place. I decided to get an ice cream.
The place was a little
booth in front of a barn. “My dad died a year ago,” the girl in the booth
said to me as she scooped. “Now my mom just sits around and watches TV and I
have to support her. I work ten hours a day scooping ice cream.” She looked
me in the eye and handed me the cone. “That’ll be a dollar twenty-five,” she
said.
I handed her a two
dollar bill.
“You going up north to
do some fishing?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Keep the
change.”
When I got to the next
town, which was nothing but a general store and a farm machinery outlet, I
stopped at a payphone and called my wife.
“Hi,” I said.
“Where the fuck are
you?” she asked. “I woke up this morning and you were gone. I thought you
were taking me shopping today.”
“Today is the day,
honey,” I said. “I woke up this morning and I knew this was it.”
“Oh Christ,” she said.
“I don’t think you heard
what I said, honey: Today is the day.”
“I heard what you said.
The last time this happened we had to sell the house and move into this
fucking apartment by the railroad tracks.”
“This is different,
honey,” I said, but even as I said it I could hear what was happening. Deep
in my heart I knew it was really different this time, but there was no way I
could explain this to my wife.
“I’ll be home tonight,”
I said and I hung up the phone.
I kept driving north.
The towns grew further and further apart and the bush grew denser. At
By the time I got back
to the town where I’d had the burger, it was dark. I went into the same
restaurant and ordered a grilled cheese to go.
“I was in here this
afternoon,” I told the waitress. “I had a burger.”
“That’s great, Mac,” the
waitress said. “Would you like fries with that?”
“No,” I said.
The lady went into the
back and I could hear laughter. I began to think the world was a lonely
place, that it didn’t matter where you were, in the city or the country,
most people were bastards. I began to think that the waitress that served me
the burger this afternoon had only been fishing for tips when she was nice
to me.
I put some ketchup on my
grilled cheese and took it out to the car. I ate standing beside the car. I
was afraid if I ate in the car I would get ketchup on the seats.
When I got back to the
apartment, my wife was up watching TV. She came over to the door and gave me
a long hug. She repeated a joke she’d heard on Johnny Carson.
