When a run of hard luck compels a browbeaten soul to envision a life on all fours…
by: T.E. Cowell
From the car she watched him step out of the building and felt her heart start beating fast. She studied his face and walk as he came closer in an effort to try and determine how it had gone. He had his head lowered to the ground as he walked, as if to watch his every step, as if he were hiking down the Grand Canyon rather than walking across a flat asphalt-meets-gravel parking lot. Along with his head-bowed walk, she thought he was moving a little slower than usual, a bit hard on his heels. His body language disappointed her. He would not, she felt, look this way had he just been offered a job, or even the possibility of a job. If that were the case, he would walk similar to how a lottery winner would. He would walk like there were springs in his feet, and he’d keep his neck straight, and looking straight ahead he’d see her sitting in her car, waiting for him, and seeing her looking at him through the windshield, his face would fold into a wide smile.
Imagining this — him securing a job. It made her almost want to cry with happy relief. Him having a job would change everything. They would finally have a future together, something concrete they could build upon. They could start the foundation toward living out normal adult lives.
She lost a portion of his face and upper body with each step that brought him closer to her car. She could only see the lower half of him now, the outline of his legs behind the navy-blue pants he was wearing, his nicest pants by far, pants he’d found at a thrift store for ten dollars. Then she could hear his shoes splitting the gravel near their car’s front tires. He opened the passenger door, sat down next to her and she looked over at him, watched him glance at her — a glance that told her nothing about how it had gone, just a blank look that could mean any number of things, or nothing.
He looked straight ahead then, out the windshield. She looked out the windshield too. Beyond the parking lot were a few airplane hangars past a chain-link fence, along with a few visible airplanes. There was a runway a little ways back. The interview had been for a delivery driver position, had nothing to do with airplanes.
She looked at him again. She might’ve stared at his profile for a good ten seconds before she lost her patience and opened her mouth.
“How’d it go?” she asked. She tried to sound hopeful and gentle, the same way she’d tried to sound after all his interviews the past eight months.
He glanced at her again, then looked back out the windshield. “Alright, I think.”
She was used to this kind of response from him. “Alright” could mean either good or bad or something in between, but it couldn’t, she didn’t think, mean great. If the interview had gone great, she imagined he’d probably use the word “good” instead of “alright.” He had yet to say “good” in response to this question following his interviews, only “alright.” Surely he wasn’t the most vocal, upbeat person, but he did have his strong points. He was extremely kind, and chivalrous, always holding doors open and helping out with apartment chores. He helped cook dinner each night. But the whole job thing was getting on her nerves.
She kept looking at him looking out the windshield, hoping he’d elaborate. She thought about pressing him for more information, a few details, nothing much, but from past experience decided not to. When he didn’t want to talk he wouldn’t talk, simple as that.
A few more seconds went by, and when he didn’t say another word she knew he wouldn’t for a while.
She looked away from him, started the car and drove off.
Back at the apartment he took a beer from the fridge and went over to the window and sat down in a chair. Standing in the kitchen, she watched him looking out the window, beer in hand, then went into the bathroom, closing the door softly behind her. She sat on the toilet and closed her eyes, tried focusing on her breathing. She was worried, how could she not be? It seemed to her that she worried more than she didn’t these days. She was tired of it. There was hardly a moment’s peace anymore, hardly any enjoyment left. Everything she did seemed automatic now. When she wasn’t at her job, busy with the mindless things she did there, she was thinking about him, worrying about him. She daydreamed about him finding a job, any job, she didn’t care — she thought she’d even be happy if he worked at McDonald’s. His unemployment was stressing her out, and in turn she was stressing him out about finding a job. She sometimes wondered if her parents were right, maybe he really was a slacker. A moocher. No job and twenty-seven, hardly anything to show for himself. His older, successful, generous brother was helping him out, giving him enough money to survive on, to pay his half of the rent each month and to eat food and drink beer. How long could it go on? When would they be normal? When would he grow up?
She was running out of patience. All her friends’ boyfriends had jobs.
Beer in hand, still looking out the window, in the small fenced-in backyard opposite the alleyway he noticed the neighbor’s little white dog. The dog had its nose to the green grass as it trotted along. He sipped his beer, watched the dog stop to pee before returning to its trotting. He kept watching the dog, couldn’t take his eyes off it. Then he heard the toilet flush in the bathroom and sipped his beer again. He saw his neighbor open the front door of his house and call out “Rufus!” Rufus stopped trotting, lifted its head and looked at its owner, then raced over the grass, little tail wagging happily. From the window he watched Rufus disappear inside the house, followed by his neighbor. He watched the front door close and sipped his beer some more.
He looked at the neighbor’s backyard and felt a sense of envy for the Rufus. In that moment he desired Rufus’s easy thoughtless life, so much so that he wished he were Rufus. If he were a dog he’d have nothing to stress about. He imagined sitting around all day, eating dog food, scratching, licking himself, wagging his little tail, barking at the mailman, peeing, pooping, rolling in the grass.
He sipped his beer again. What a life, he thought. What a life. He’d have food, water, shelter, probably a nice variety of doggie toys to play with. Without having to work for it, he’d be given what he needed to survive comfortably. He wouldn’t have to work some job he didn’t like, wouldn’t have to worry about all the stupid things people worry about.
She emerged from the bathroom and glanced at him. He was still sitting by the window, looking out. She thought about going over to him and rubbing his shoulder, maybe kissing him on the cheek, but instead she went into the kitchen. She thought about eating something, a little snack, maybe carrots dipped in hummus, but realized she wasn’t hungry. Despite her deep breathing in the bathroom, her stomach still felt tight. Just like all the other jobs he’d been interviewed for, she doubted he’d get this one. She’d never known anyone who had the kind of bad luck he seemed to have when it came to landing a job.
She decided to make some tea. She opened the kitchen cabinet, reached for a mug, filled it with water from the Brita filter, found the box of chamomile tea. She tore a packet open, and just as she pulled the teabag from it he walked into the kitchen, right past her without looking at her, stopped by the door where the trash was, and dropped the beer bottle into the paper bag they used for recycling. The bottle made a loud sound as it made contact with other bottles. She lifted her shoulders at the noise and felt a quick shudder pass through her.
Her back to him, she put the teabag in the water inside the mug, then the mug into the microwave. She was pressing the necessary buttons to start the microwave when he said, “I’m gonna take a walk.”
She looked at him standing by the door. “Okay,” she said, and watched him leave.
After he left, she could breathe easier. She sat with her tea at the kitchen table, her palms around the warm mug, her eyes closed.
Before the tea had cooled enough for her to start drinking it, she heard her phone ringing. She stood back up and went into the kitchen, took her phone out of her purse that was hanging on the wall near the door where a peg had been nailed. She looked at the lighted screen on her phone and saw that it was her mom. She hit the talk button and put the phone to her ear.
“Hi, Mom,” she said.
“Hi, honey. How is everything?”
“Everything’s,” she began, but then stopped herself. She was tired of pretending everything was okay. Everything was not okay. She sighed helplessly into the phone. “I don’t know, Mom. I really don’t.”
“What is it?” Her mom’s voice sounded concerned, maternal, almost delirious.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just…I think you might be right. About Steven, I mean.” She sighed once more. “He had another interview today, and if he doesn’t hear back from this one, well, I think…I think it might be over for us.”
She started to cry, couldn’t help herself. Her mom was deeply relieved by her daughter’s words, and she tried to convince her that she could do better than Steven. That she deserved better. Before getting off the phone, her mom told her why she’d called — to ask if she wanted to come over the next night for dinner. She was making her famous chicken enchiladas. She could bring Steven, or not, her mom said, it didn’t matter one way or the other.
Steven, sitting on the stairs outside the door, heard everything Jen said. He wondered if he’d get the job, and if he didn’t, whether she’d stick to her word. Probably, he thought. But it didn’t matter. He was tired of pretending everything was fine and dandy, tired of being nagged all the time, figured he might be better off alone.
Maybe he’d go back to college, get a degree in something. Find a job that paid decent, that he didn’t consider a supreme waste of time. The interviewers saw right through him — he couldn’t act to save his life. They wanted someone eager, someone dumb they could keep on for as long as possible.
He stood up and went down the stairs, opened the door to the outside world and started walking toward the nearest bar. His plan was to get drunk, it was a good time for it. Getting drunk was one thing he could do that a dog couldn’t, one thing he could do that for the moment he was thankful for.
T. E. Cowell lives in Washington State. He’s been writing for well over a decade, and has had short stories published in a variety of different literary journals.
