"And Then What Happened. . . ."

Originally Posted Friday, September 20, 2013

This mania for telling. . . it is a disease.  I should be in bed now, but I am jacked up on whiskey and gin and hard, raw emotions that are almost unaccounted for.  The telling. 

The day after the accident, I couldn't face things and simply wanted to pull the covers over my head and go to sleep. But the repairman was coming and I had to be at the apartment of the ex-girlfriend early in the morning.  The repairman was having trouble in his life, losing his house (the third he'd lost to foreclosure) and afraid of losing his wife who had moved out of state.  Trouble travels and is not interested in any one of us alone, but I had my own this day and his were in the offing.  Still we chatted.  I listened.  Everyone needs to tell. 

Eventually, I got to the apartment where the ex was still lounging in bed full of early morning grogginess. 

"What's the problem?" I asked.

"Look in the kitchen." 

The repairman had been working there all week.  He'd repaired a crack in the wall behind the stove, put up concrete board, tiled, and put in a new counter.  She didn't like the color of the counter.  It was one we saw and thought OK earlier, but she had gotten a new idea. 

I looked at the kitchen. 

"I don't think the counter top looks good," she said.

"Do you want me to have him rip it out and put in a new one? 

She looked at me. 

"Uh. . . do you think that one looks good?"

"I think it looks fine.  That's why I told him to put it in." 

She sat looking.

"What do you want me to do?  Do you want me to tell him to rip it out?" 

"If you think it looks O.K. . . . "

"It looks fine."

"Well. . . we have to paint the walls a different color, then. . . ."

"Whatever color you want.  Just tell him." 

People don't like to make decisions.  I would later hear from the distraught repairman that she changed her mind about the paint three times. 

When I got back to the house, I was glad to be done with them all.  I called my secretary.

"I won't be in until this afternoon," I told her.  "I wrecked my car yesterday and I have to take care of the insurance stuff." 

I hadn't had proof of insurance when the cop came, so I had many phone calls to make. 

And when they were done, I went back to bed and pulled the covers over my head.