“I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid…” He clasped his hands together, “I’m cold as shit is what I am!”
He heard the buzzing of the street lamp far away under the four tiered bell tower. He turned looking at the red stone, rising, working its way up to the iron bell, culminating in a triangular cap on top of the memorial.
“How could I possibly betray my wife that way?” He blinked into the night.
Tears ran crisscross along his cheeks as he leaned forward looking down at the slate block. The columns enveloped his confession. Nothing stirred inside the breached architecture. He found his way back to the little bridge, crossed over the fence and went back to his car. It was still running. The heater had kept it blistering hot. His cheeks felt stripped of their outer layer. He was glad to return to the tiny sanctum. His holy shrine, the beginning of his release cradled him with a vibration that lulled him into a relaxing peaceful sleep for several minutes. He felt ready to return to Arch Street.
As he passed by St Paul’s he slowed the Buick to a crawl admiring the oval stained glass windows. The idea struck him, manifesting itself as he rounded the corner from High Street, then he remembered it was midnight and there would be only locked doors and solar lights to greet him. It was an incredible thought though, that the priest might forgive him for being a piece of garbage, for being so irresponsible and ruining the rest of his life. He felt bad for his mother, having raised a son so…vapid, so weak. It wasn’t the first time he’d disappointed her. Standing next to the car he could almost hear her voice bouncing back at him off of the snow as he lingered in the chapel driveway, her shrieking, nagging, awful screeching, reminding him to ‘turn back rather than to perish’. He watched transfixed on the spitting snow flying in every direction like it couldn’t make up its mind which way to go.
He turned and slipped toward the car. When he got inside and put it in reverse, the car peeled back across the snow. He headed the other way knowing there would be only two places open this time of night around there and the one was only just a couple of blocks from there. The all-night laundromat could be a haven, a place to wash his clothes. He felt behind him in the back seat for his gym bag and grabbed the sweats and jogging pants. When he looked back for a second he saw the illuminated screen from his phone. Vibrating against the zipper, the phone call drew his attention away from the road. He spun across the lane in two and a half circles, he felt himself smiling like he was on the Tea-Cup-Ride at the fair. His front bumper landed on the curb facing the food co-op. The neat even rows of yellow steel siding smiled at him, grinning as he attempted to back off the embankment. The front of his car made a long screeching noise as it scratched backwards. Finally, he was sitting with his headlights beaming on the long glass window. The light shining in his eyes blinded him. He steered anxiously into the lane finally winding his way back through the neighborhood. Nothing looked the same at night. He found himself at the corner. A couple of students lumbered out from the Ore-Docks Bar. He pulled alongside them and asked if they might know how to get to the laundromat. When they explained it, Ethan was sure he had went that way already. He had no choice, but to follow their directions. He was surprised when he found it right where they said it would be.
He changed in the lavatory, the bathroom glass was like a circus mirror. The crusted half-melted oblong glass seemed cloudier in the vacant light. The black circles around his eyes appeared like crayon drawings of a zombie. He reached toward the image never touching it. He wondered at the wounds in his face. Red lines scrolled across his forehead. He felt for them. They became invisible again. The light flickered and his eyes became a quiet blue. The gentle face his mother used to stroke emerged. He cradled his face in his slender fingers. A sudden knock on the door made him jump.
“Hey, you can’t sleep in there. This is not a shelter.”
“Oh, I’m not…” He cracked the door open and pushed his nose into the slit. “I’ll be right out.”
“Okay mister, cause if you don’t come out, my bother Thomas will come in there and get you out.”
Ethan jerked the handle back toward him. He scrambled reaching for the items on the floor, “I’m coming, right now.”
He shuffled past her ringing the coins in his pocket. He put the clothes, including his suit jacket into the washer, even though he hadn’t worn it into the hotel room. He didn’t want anything that may have rubbed up against the foulness, to be left in his car. He wanted it all sanitized. He bought the powdered bleach and dissolved it in the hot water inside the wash machine. He dipped the rag from the sink into hot bleach. He went to the car erasing any trace of the encounter with her. He put the rag to his nose an inhaled. He could still smell her, like she had the power to hide up there in his sinuses. He pushed the rag up into his nostrils and sucked in the vapors. The stinging bleach and the frozen air burned his eyes. He felt like crying again. He search everywhere inside of himself for his courage finding it only in the blinking street light, across the street, telling him to breathe in and out, like the pulsing rhythm of his heart might fail were it not for the constant of the stop light.
“Hey, mister!” The attendant shouted to him, “You can come back inside.”
Her kindness was well received. He ran his cupped hand over his eyes washing downward. He went back into the warmth, forgiving himself for breaking down. He sat back on the chair at the end or the row of washers and waited till his time was up. He threw everything in the dryer just until it got heated up and the wrinkles disappeared. He pressed them with the steamer and laid them flat in the back of his car. The light broke across the early morning sky. In only a month it would stay dark until seven, he thought gratefully.
The butternut brown t-shirt and black shorts the young man wore stepping outside into the bitter cold was in contrast to the black knitted cap pulled down tightly over his light brown curls. Ethan watch the youth shudder as he threw his duffle bag into the passenger seat. He sized up the van with the Yamaha ski carrier attached to the roof. He surmised that the heater in that thing would never be good enough to merit wearing the unseasonable apparel, even if he was only heading over to a house in the nearby campus. It was freezing out, despite the appearance of the blatant sun booming in spokes across the tops of the houses. He remembered when he was in college and Bobbie Jo knitted him an ungodly long scarf out of scratchy gray woolen yarn. He wore it everywhere. He was never warmer, he reflected, ever.
Ethan followed in his car behind the gray smoke of the dieseling van to the corner of Front Street. It was hard to turn back toward the house when he wished so desperately to go there…to the large rental he once shared with his college friends. The march across campus trudging through the snow for an eight o’clock class with the heavy backpack weighing him down, it seemed light as a feather to him now. He would gladly trade it for the chunk of ore riding on his lower back. He reached instinctively to his hip rubbing vigorously against the ache. He turned back following Main Street down to his house.
The driveway was untouched. The virgin snow sparkled up to the steps, he creased them, spinning into the uphill space in the driveway. He saw the curtains bobble. Partner was no doubt yapping inside, creating chaos like he always did when his owner came back from one of his out-of-town meetings. In only seconds he saw over his shoulder, while he stooped into the back seat to collect his suit bag, his wife’s sleepy face staring out at him. Bobbie smiled from the window. He gave her a faint wave and pulled the briefcase from the floor along with the box of giveaways for the clients. He always brought home the extras for Bobbie to use in the prize box in her kindergarten class. He doubted she would want them, but when he showed her the emergency tool she shook her head excitedly saying she would give them to the staff as a small momentum for the holidays. He spent a long time showing her the release button that could shatter a window and the cutter she could use to cut off the seatbelt if she found herself hanging upside down in a crash. She listened eagerly to the tutorial. Lastly, he showed her the multi-function flashlight that she could definitely use in the case of any emergency. She thanked him by climbing onto his lap at the table and kissing him on the neck. Partner hadn’t stopped whining the entire time. Ethan pushed Bobbie off of his lap and scolded the ugly mutt until he finally slunk off to his dog bed. His wife disappeared into the back. He heard the shower running. He joined her there running his hands up her slippery back. He weaved her short hair between his fingers working the shampoo into a good lather and rubbing her neck. She turned to him and kissed him. There was plenty of time before she had to go to work. She pushed her tall frame up against him. He kissed her and pulled her close. The water showered down over them. By six-thirty they were seated on the tall seats at the snack bar eating oatmeal with slivered almonds on top.
