:: Jim Savio
Between Day and Night
They needed a new toilet, which they found, but ended up buying a half-dozen other items they didn´t really need but felt obliged to purchase because the prices at Home Depot were too good to pass up .
They had rented the car for the day to visit some friends they hadn´t seen in a while. "Might as well make the most use of it," he had said, as they pulled out of their friend´s driveway heading back to the city. Driving to the main road that would take them to the expressway, he lowered the sun visor swearing at the glare, clipped in his seat belt, and for a moment his hands remained off the steering wheel. The car swerved and veered to the right but he quickly regained control of it.
"What are you doing Rob?" his wife asked.
Hearing the hint of irritation in her question he decided to let it slide.
"Maybe we should go grocery shopping too," Elena suggested a little further down the road, both of them squinting into the sun looking for the turn off to Home Depot, and as much as he hated to grocery shop, he agreed it would be a good idea while they had the car. But then they argued about which supermarket to go to once they got back to the city and they barely said a word to each other as they moped around Home Depot looking for the plumbing aisle, inspecting the toilet for cracks, quarrelling again over what kind of toilet seat to get, painted wood or plastic.
"You like to sit on plastic?" he asked. "I thought you hated plastic."
"It is easy to clean," she said.
"A factory, spray painted wooden seat isn´t easy to clean? Besides, a wooden seat is warmer."
"Warmer?"
"Yes."
"So get the wood."
He hated when she gave in so easily. It made his point, whatever argument he was trying to make, sound even more trite than it was.
An orange glow weakened on the horizon. The sky above it faded into several shades of blue, ending in the deep cobalt of twilight. The woods silhouetted along the side of the expressway looked like a forest where a fire had singed the leaves off the trees. It was cold and going to get colder Elena reminded him that morning when he was leaving the house without a hat.
"I gotta take a whiz," he said, knowing in a few miles the woods would disappear and there would be nothing but fifty miles of suburbia, no rest stops, the city sprawl and gas stations with rest rooms that were generally out of order.
"Why didn´t you go at Home Depot?"
He put on his directional and pulled onto the shoulder.
"It didn´t hit me till we were almost back to the car. I couldn´t face the inside of that store again," he answered, shaking his head almost imperceptibly, annoyed he had to justify a decision that had no real consequence in their lives.
He drove slowly in the breakdown lane and put on the emergency flashers. He turned toward the woods looking for a spot where he could step in among the trees and be hidden from the road as if anyone would see him or care if they did. He noticed the last light of the day just barely illuminate the left side of Elena´s face and he remembered the late afternoon light of thirty years before when he saw her sitting several seats ahead and across from him on the train coming from Boston. How beautiful she looked with the sun rinsing her hair and how he uncharacteristically stopped in the aisle and asked her if she wanted a soda from the club car and how she looked at him and smiled and said, "No, thanks, " but then changed her mind as he turned to walk away saying she would have an orange juice if they had any and then she reached into her bag for some money but he told her, "It´s on me, " and the way she said, "Thanks, " and smiled so beatifically, filled him with the promise of infinite possibility in his life that he had never considered before, and how glad he was when they did have orange juice, and they talked, laughed and exchanged phone numbers before they went their separate ways. A moment or two after they parted, each of them turned around to see if they could find one another in the crowd of people at Penn Station. As they did so, their eyes met and they came together again and he gently took her hands as she unconsciously set her suitcase down. He put his arms around her and kissed her on the lips without thinking, whispering, "Thank you, " as if responding to her earlier gratitude when he offered to buy her something to drink.
"Be careful getting out," Elena said.
"I will," he answered, and went to pat her hand on the seat but it was only her glove.
He looked in the side view mirror, conscious of how it made him feel nervous to get out of the car on a busy highway. There were few cars on the road that night but those that passed them seemed to be moving very fast. He walked a few yards into the woods and stared into the gaunt remains of the summer and with the exception of an occasional car speeding by on the highway it was quiet and remarkably still. Rob listened to his urine hit the dry leaves and the cold air on his face felt good and fresh and clean and then without warning he was pushed forward by the displacement of air and the sound of shrieking brakes shoes that forced him to let go of himself. Piss got on his pants and on his right hand while he stumbled to zip up his fly and catch his balance. He half turned and saw the imposing cab of a Freightliner hit his rent-a-car from behind and together with the silver box and running lights of its trailer they sent the car forward with a metallic slam. They plowed into the trees and the green wood snapped and splintered in the path of the car, and the momentum of an eighteen wheeler at seventy miles-an-hour made a sound he had heard once before, perhaps in a film or a dream. He froze for a second and stared in disbelief, then ran toward the gash and the smoke with one thought in mind; to tell his wife he loved her and that she was right . . . that she was right this time and why hadn´t he listened to her.
"Damn, it´s freezing," he said, getting in and closing the door quickly behind him.
"What do you have against hats?" Elena said. "You know seventy-five percent of your body heat escapes out of your head."
He turned and found her hand, bent over and squeezing it brought her fingers to his lips. "You´re right," he said. "Foolish vanity."
She looked at him. "I didn´t know you were vain," she said and tried to smile.
"Does that mean you knew I was foolish?"
"That´s why I fell in love with you Rob."
"Because I´m foolish?"
"Because you´re neither."
As they drove back into the city the traffic grew heavy and though he didn´t enjoy driving at night with the lights of the cars coming from the other direction in his eyes, it didn´t bother him that evening. The car wreck he had so vividly imagined was fading, nearly gone, and in its wake was a disquieting realization; he had wanted it to happen as much as he feared it. This unsettling desire and his fear of it became one, and how a warm breath will take form and then disappear on a cold morning, it vanished as he acknowledged the dark disposition of his thoughts. They talked on and on about many things and he found himself marveling at what Elena said, the softness of her voice and the simple pleasure he took in hearing it.
© Jim Savio 2003