|
SECOND PLACE
American Cookout
By Fred Venturini
Patoka, Illinois
Ronnie
once envisioned his life as a wonderful path to carve,
but after seven rough years with his wife Anne, his
life had instead become an arduous road to travel.
He
became accustomed to his hollow days and craved the
sanctity they provided. There were indeed
some warm memories, but they were preceded in his mind
by the famous opening words of Star Wars: “long,
long ago in a galaxy far, far away.” He
was stuck in the current galaxy, where the priest’s
promise of marital bliss became a test of will and
sanity that Robinson Crusoe likely would’ve failed. Misery
wasn’t in the wedding vows, so Ronnie concluded
that Anne was in breach of marital contract, yet he
feared confronting Anne—goddess of screams and
rants—she with the angry, dinosaur walk that
could rattle kitchen windows.
Anne
began her domineering ways when Trisha and Alicia,
their twin daughters, began to grow up. Ronnie
escaped her escalating temperament with alcohol. Once
a casual drinker, his evenings became ritualistic—his
libations in the form of Pabst Blue Ribbon. More
years passed, and as his daughters were overwhelmed
with teenage angst and anger, his wife followed suit. She
coddled them every minute of each day, in turn becoming
a distracted, bitter dominatrix of his life and paycheck.
Alcoholism
alone wasn’t enough. Ronnie turned
to Workaholism, taking a second job at the Bottle Shop,
the package liquor store downtown. While he was polishing
countertops and dreading the arrival home, Ronnie couldn’t
help but recall the quiet nights when Anne was a loving
woman, not the evil critic of his ability to provide. On
those nights, he found the peace to read, and he encountered
the wisdom and foresight of William Blake, who once
said, “I sometimes try to be miserable so that
I may do more work.” Those words haunted
Ronnie—a mantra and a curse. Blake’s
truth would’ve been more intense, but with Anne
and the twins, there was no need for Ronnie to attempt
misery, only a need for work to distract him from it. He
secretly wished to be Robinson Crusoe, whose life he
shared over the course of three glorious nights in
the winter of ’87. During that winter, he
was engrossed by the richness of the novel, enthralled
by the trials, adventures, and friendship. When
finished, he remembered making love to Anne, and then
he slept soundly, happily. Oh those Star Wars
days—so tantalizing.
Now,
he felt foreign, unable to understand the language
of Argument, which was native to Trisha, Alicia, and
Anne. He didn’t recognize the girls of his
family without the raised voices, the stamping feet,
the selfish reasoning.
Ronnie was passive in their
awesome wake of stubbornness, often forfeiting his
logic with one white-knuckled
hand wrapped around a can of Pabst. Ronnie knew
of no consolation for meeting his doom with such patience. He
could hear the traditional advice for being caught
in such a trap, “don’t struggle, you’ll
sink faster!” Yet he could think of no person
that would go down without a fight, no matter how wise. Except
for himself.
Ronnie
was a passenger in life. His day job as
a service manager at Briggman Chevrolet afforded him
the pleasant social interaction that his sanity required. Conversations
about the weather, sports, or his passion for cars,
made the hands of the clock scramble to quitting time. Then,
he drove two blocks to After Hours Liquor, where the
conversation was full of life and passion. Ronnie
found that the most interesting people were either
drunk or happily anticipating a stupor of some degree.
Ronnie
embraced After Hours. Draped in a loose
fitting, kaleidoscope-colored Hawaiian shirt, he would
slick his whispery brown hair back, open up a Pabst,
and deal booze with an almost-genuine smile until closing
time at ten.
And then, the real work—avoiding
Anne as he cleaned up and got to bed. Usually,
she was asleep early, habitually cleaning the house
from five in the morning
untilnoon, when she napped, met with the twins, and
spent his money. Anne was thoroughly obsessive—obsessed
with order, with herself, with the public perception
of her daughters . . . with just about everything but
frugal spending and her husband.
But
on today, his special day, Ronnie wouldn’t
have to endure the routine. He usually acted as
a passive man, hiding in the womb of work and beer. He
was an enabler, allowing his wife to be a burden, corrupt
his daughters, and put him in debt. On this special
day, he wouldn’t be an enabler. He would
be a man of action, ready to break routine by having
a cookout for no one but himself. The anticipation
of his solo barbecue was so great that Ronnie requested
two hours of leave, shocking just about everyone at
Briggman Chevrolet. Even he was surprised that
he hadn’t used any of his leave, sick or accumulated,
in the last seven years.
He
called up Bobby at the Bottle Shop and told him he
couldn’t make it in. On the way home
from Brigmann’s, he picked up all the herbs,
spices, meat, and everything else on his crumbled,
tattered list. The list bustled in his pocket
each day for the last week, a promise of peace.
It
was Thursday, which meant that Anne, Trisha, and Alicia
were at the mall, and they usually stayed there
until about eight. So Ronnie made a date with
the summer breezes he missed so much, the scent of
searing meat, the aroma of freshly cut grass, the smoke,
the rattle of grilling tools, the pitter patter of
his flip flop sandals, and the peace of his country
backyard. It was a date, his first since he met
Anne twenty years ago, when he was eighteen, and he
wasn’t about to miss it. At three
o’clock, with a whole hour left until
quitting time at Brigmann’s and two hours before
clock-in at the Bottle Shop, Ronnie was in his sandals
on his patio. His white legs baked in the sun,
jean shorts frayed at the edges, and his topless body
basked in warmth. His sandals clapped against
the concrete as he padded around his grill, preparing
his porterhouse cut of meat.
Although
he neared the age of forty, Ronnie was the simultaneous
picture of age and youth. His receding
hair line was tempered by a short, wiry ponytail teasing
the back of his neck. He bore no wrinkles and
no gray hairs, yet his eyes were pained and thin, holes
of despair in a world of happiness that had somehow
eluded him. They appeared tired of looking for
it. His body was toned from years of turning wrenches,
but his joints were thinly padded from years of abuse. His
hands were strong, but gnarled and scarred from his
early days as a mechanic.
He
worked around the grill with the marvelous quickness
and coordination of an oily casino dealer. This
was after all, work, only with a much more satisfying
reward. Grilling was like any other hobby he had
around the house. His days off were filled with
activities that allowed him to lose himself in work
yet bask in rewards other than money—the reward
of completion. The grass was always finely manicured,
healthy, and a vibrant green. The landscape was
painstaking, each stone hand-placed, each tree and
plant constantly nurtured. He built birdhouses. He
took on projects in the house such as painting, staining,
reorganizing, drywalling, or laying linoleum. Each
day off—each second off—allowed Ronnie
to take on a project, one that would occupy him and
quell Anne. There would be no arguments if he
gave her another beautiful room to step into and make
her own.
His grill was a homely,
inexpensive one, loaded with gray-hot charcoal that
was smoldering, greedy for meat. To
his right was an outdoor grilling cart with cutting
boards, coolers, and drawers. To his left was
another one, only with a sink and more space. His
tools, ingredients, and meat surrounded him. Like
a conductor at the sweetest of symphonies, he turned
to one side, then the next, his hands always working,
pushing, kneading, rubbing, or cutting. The grill
in front of him was an attentive audience, ready to
receive him.
With the
grill heating nicely under the neatly packed field
of coals, he prepared a porterhouse cut of meat
that resembled a dark, rich slice of marble. Whole
sage leaves, coarsely chopped rosemary, and two finely
diced cloves of garlic were perched on the grill cart,
along with a small cup of coarse salt and an oak colored
pepper grinder. The spice symphony filled the
nose, lungs, and soul with faith of their potential. It
would take a person with olfactory paralysis or supreme
self control to resist sampling the herbs with a moist
pinky finger. Ronnie was not that person. As
he enveloped a finger with his lips, he envisioned
the extra virgin olive oil bringing all the ingredients
together, slathering the steak in traditional Tuscan
style at the end of the grilling process.
The
meat was generously seasoned with salt and pepper,
and then put in one of the cooling drawers when Ronnie
was satisfied with the preparation. He was almost
overcome by the peace of the moment, the therapy he
so richly deserved. The optimism came in such
thick torrents that he found himself taking a long
pull from his can of Pabst and savoring the taste,
not just the alcoholic result. Leaning back in
his lawn chair, soaking up sun and smell, Ronnie enjoyed
the moment—until he was alarmed by the sounds
coming from the driveway—gravel crushing, an
approaching engine grumbling.
Anne, Trisha, and
Alicia were home early. He could
feel his aura of peace fading, and a knot of concern
began to swell in his chest. Breathing became
a labor that required concentration. Impervious
to labor, Ronnie quickly found air.
He
expected them an hour later, and Ronnie wanted to eat
and clean up before they got home. This would
maintain the illusion that he only skipped work at
the Bottle Shop, which he informed Anne he would do. The
clock was nearing four, however, and it would be obvious
he left Brigmann’s early. With this new
turn of events, he decided to put the meat on.
The
porterhouse hissed against the bars of the grill. Ronnie
turned his complete attention to it, savoring the meaty
smoke and how it dominated the air.
Anne, Trisha, and Alicia came around
the corner of the two-story, brown-shingled house,
shopping bags
bustling in their hands. Shoulder to shoulder,
they sauntered up the sidewalk as if a red carpet were
strewn before them.
The
twins looked like spoiled rich girls. They
were far from rich, but richly spoiled. Excellent
looks, perfect blonde hair, and rapidly developed breasts
made the twins just as spoiled by the boys at school. They
had never been exposed to the real world that Ronnie
knew intimately—they even spoke their own native
language—Yell.
“But she got it last time! I
never got the car two times in a row,” Trisha
squealed. He
could tell them apart by their voices, but only barely
by their faces. Trisha had a voice that dripped
with complaint. Everything about her could be
perfectly described as whiny.
“The heck you have. The heck
you have, you got the car twice in one week last month. I
don’t
see what the big deal is anyways, have Todd over to
the house tonight.”
Alicia was less whiny
but bossier, and twice as demanding as her mother.
Ronnie
closed his eyes and breathed deep, trying not to hear
them. It didn’t work.
“I’ve heard it for the last
twenty miles, I’m
not going to hear it anymore! Alicia, you can
have the car. Trisha, just have Todd over tonight. Your
father won’t mind. You can have the car
twice next week.”
Anne. The self-appointed
queen that could’ve
been a sculpture called “Aged Beauty.” Once
a goddess, her face was now craggy, the wrinkles filled
with pasty beige makeup that looked like a shoddy drywall
repair job. The hair was no better, strands of
gray, black, and deep red intertwined in a strange
collage. Anne’s eyes still glimmered, once
with youth and hope, now with the predatorial shimmer
of a hawk.
“Your father won’t mind,”she
had said. Ronnie
heard it despite his best efforts to shut her out,
and despite his patience, he began to seethe with finely
aged hatred for this woman who would dare to say she
knows what he would and wouldn’t mind. He
almost blurted out, before they came around the corner
with their bags bouncing and mouths flapping, “yes,
I do mind when Todd comes over and promises you that
I can’t hear, when you think I’m fast asleep
and your futon squeaks, when I get up for a glass of
milk and I can hear the unmistakable sound of flesh or
Todd moaning,” but he didn’t. He turned
the steak.
“This isn’t fair. We
were going to see a movie tonight, does anyone understand
that? You
can’t walk to the movies from here. This
extra sucks. Downright gnarsty,” Trisha
said, her voice teasing tears.
Gnarsty, her cute compilation of gnarly
and nasty without expending the extra two syllables. Ronnie
found it amusing that a girl who talked so much worried
about
streamlining her language.
“Life sucks sometimes dear,” Anne
said. Ronnie
was about to concur vocally, but he instead turned
to one of the grill carts, picked up a rag, and began
to needlessly wipe it down. Ronnie had prematurely
turned the steak, but the raw meat and flame joined,
swallowed the air with power, lending him strength.
“Yeah, life sucks,” Alicia
added. “Trisha
and life would get along, both sucking and all.”
“Mom!”
“That’ll be enough of that
Alicia,” Anne
said with a smirk.
Ronnie
thought of Todd moaning, that zitfaced little rich
punk with the huge Adam’s apple. And
that hair, intentionally messy, spiky, with platinum
tips, as if there were a low, wet ceiling that Todd
had walked under, standing tall, his chest puffed
out.
“Just turn the steak over. Cook
evenly, like Steve Raichlen says,” Ronnie thought. But
it was too soon to turn the steak.
Ronnie’s
mind was burning hot, like the grill before him. He
waited for an “oh look, daddy’s
home,” “what are you doing home early?” or “is
something wrong?” But there was nothing. They
were too consumed with doling out possession and
aggression.
He marveled
at how their tongues seemed to be saturated with
hatred. Before he could reflect on the sight
of one of his daughters starring in her personal
porn, he recited, “I sometimes try to be miserable
so that I may do more work.” Blake’s
curse was with him. It was indeed a curse—a
sedative as he was led to slaughter, but the pride
of the cooking meat was waking him up, refreshing
him.
They
shuffled into the doorway and the walls began to
muffle their voices. Ronnie anticipated a golden
silence as Anne glanced over her shoulder and said, “smells
good hon,” as she went inside, without the
slightest hint of question or concern.
Anne
had seen him on the patio, and that’s all
she could say. His daughters didn’t even
bother greeting him. He mildly expected them
to ruin his cookout, and had prepared in advance.
Sitting
in his lawn chair, Ronnie turned to his friend, Pabst,
and raised the can to his other friend, Steak. He
drank, looked into the sky that was a hundred hues
of blue, white, and gold, and whispered aloud: “Ungrateful. Disrespectful. Spoiled. Thankless. Selfish. Whiny. Greedy.”
And
that was just the twins. In the time that
he listed his daughters’ adjectives in his
mind, the steak was close to being done to the rarity
that
he preferred. Ronnie figured that he had no
time to list all of the adjectives that described
Anne,
unless he was planning on slow roasting another cut
of meat. Clutching the beer can, he leaned forward
to rise, but paused. It wouldn’t be fair,
not if he didn’t at least try to think of some
qualities first.
After
a few seconds: “Beautiful.”
He
immediately rebutted himself: “Vain.” The
word escaped his lips, but barely. Hopelessly. Hope
was gone, but replaced with the power of the sizzling
meat.
Now standing,
he breathed, drank, and looked into the sky again. “The
prosecution rests, your honor. Don’t be
too hard on old Ronnie.”
Ronnie
kept his can raised in a toast to himself and the
sky, hoping that someone was listening above. He
could think of nothing more to say, nothing with
the power and resonance of William Blake or Robert
Lewis
Stevenson. He tidied up his grill companion
carts and plopped the steaming cut of meat, which
was neatly
tattooed with hash marks from the grill, onto a plate. He
doused it with olive oil and the prepared herbs and
spices with eye-narrowing concentration. For
Ronnie, grilling was a craft—he missed doing
it daily.
With his porterhouse steaming and
ready, he grabbed the knife.
Stuck
in their own little world where Ronnie barely existed,
Anne, Trisha, and Alicia hadn’t noticed
that he was only cooking a single steak. Ronnie
was convinced of this—their selfishness wouldn’t
allow them to go into the house without asking where
their portion was.
Because of their ignorance,
he was sure that when he entered the dining room,
they wouldn’t notice
the knife either.
Shimmering
under the playful summer sky, the butcher knife was
eleven inches in length—a pristine,
virgin blade, purchased brand new just hours earlier.
Ronnie
went inside, determined to eat in peace.
Copyright (c) 2003 for the
author, all rights reserved. |
|
