SELENA ENTERPRISES, Toronto, Canada. All rights reserved
The novel first published in the magazine THE NEWS OF THE NEW WORLD, North Carolina, USA, 2001/2002
Reprinted with permission
So, who is next? Jack asked himself, starting the car.
Certainly, this is my tweetie honey-pie, he answered without hesitation and drove home.
"Honey-pie, you are making me crazy, I"m in love but I"m lazy . . ."
Jack hummed the popular song while driving, anticipating a triumph of long-awaited revenge.
Jacqueline was one of those wives who thought that God invented husbands for one purpose only - to operate as a reliable money-making machines. But like all machines this one also had some unpleasant side effects. A coffee-maker buzzes, a lawn mower clatters, a husband snores. He is a main source of laundry and mess in the house. He always wants food and sex. But the most outrageous thing is that this thick-skin creature could not recognize a lot of very simple things. For example, why his wife needs a new car of another color immediately after she has changed the color of her contact lenses.
The usual state for Jacqueline was the state of war. Since she had never worked after her first child, she directed her boiling energy to constant battles with her husband, battles over messes in the house he and the children produced, and battles over her own weight.
The first battle went on with an alternating success. Every day she sawed at Jack like a skill saw, complaining about how little money he brought in. Jacqueline provided impressive examples of other husbands who were not such wishy-washy losers . . . And so on and on.
First Jack tried to argue with Jacqueline, but then he realized that to argue with a wife is the same as spitting against the wind. Everything you say is turned back against you. So he decided to follow an old and wise oriental proverb: never argue with a woman. Listen carefully to all her advice and then do everything just the other way around.
The second battle was a victorious one. Now the rooms in the house were as clean as hospital wards and as restricted as museum halls. The inhabitants of this exemplary dwelling were not allowed to enter the house without leaving their shoes on the porch, they could not touch the furniture before double-washing their hands with extra strength soup, they could not take food or drinks out of the kitchen and enter bedrooms before nine p.m.
The third battle was doomed to failure from the very beginning. Every time Jacqueline went through weight-losing sessions, the results were opposite to the expected ones. After gruesome diets and grueling exercises, the poor woman felt like she could eat a raw mammoth without salt or ketchup. Her dreams were full of surrealistic pictures in which bowls of hearty onion soups and rich lobster bisques were rock"n"rolling with plates full of strong-smelling garlic bread and well-roasted mozzarella cheese, beautiful-looking Mediterranean mussels and crunchy French fries twisted with juicy filet Mignons and oversized New York steaks, goggle-eyed red lobsters and fat pink shrimps waltzed with creamy chocolate cheesecakes and delicious specialty coffees. This produced a very pleasant phantasmagoric show with a very unpleasant finale: a strong stomach spasm that made her get up in the middle of the night and see that her crumpled pillow was soaked wet through - not with tears, with saliva.
Before undertaking weight management Jacqueline could hardly finish a small pizza. After the last session, she could easily finish off a large pizza with double cheese and triple toppings and she still felt as hungry as a young playboy after an exhausting night shift.
The outcome of the individual weight-losing course that lightened Jack"s pocket by half a thousand dollars was simply incredible. When Jacqueline tried to check her weight and stepped on the bathroom scales, they simply crashed. The steel spring popped out with the speed of a bullet and lodged in the wall a few inches away from Jacqueline"s temple.
After that, the young lady gave up on useless weight-managing methods, abandoned futile attempts to control her demanding flesh and started to enjoy life as is. Since she could not buy clothes in regular stores anymore, Jacqueline ordered them in a popular Smallton tailor shop The Stretchable Solutions For Strapping People. In order to look more attractive in the stretchable attire, she always wore a mini skirt accompanied by a deep purple pedicure and a popular boyish-style short-cut hairdo known as "Huge surprise for tiny lice".
Like everybody in Smallton, Jacqueline played bingo too. She did not believe that she would ever win, but she feared that one day her good-for-nothing husband would win, abandon his family and leave her in the lurch.
Jack was also deathly afraid that one day, when he won, his quarrelsome wife would find the card and get his money. He hid his cards in all conceivable and inconceivable places in the house, but in vain. Since Jacqueline scrubbed and swabbed the house daily, she found the cards everywhere Jack tried to hide them: in his clothes and shoes, in closets and cabinets, jugs and mugs, behind the pictures and even inside the piano or toilet tank.
But, one day, Jack found a reliable shelter. In his daughter"s bedroom there was a big rubber plant standing in a ceramic pot. While taking care of the rest of the housekeeping, Jacqueline could not stand looking after plants and flowers because of an allergy. It was the responsibility of their older daughter, Jenny, who enjoyed floriculture and horticulture. Her room was always full of exotic plants and flowers.
One day, when Jack was wandering around the house looking for a place to hide his bingo card, the rubber plant caught his eye. This was a place where Jacqueline never parked her allergic nose! So Jack started digging the cards down into the flowerpot after putting them into a waterproof jacket to protect them from soil moisture and watering.
Jacqueline was surprised that no bingo cards could be found in the house anymore, but Jack explained that he gave up playing. Waste of time and money. His darling did not buy this but there was little she could do about it.
Approaching home, Jack decided on his tactics. He had to seize a moment, dig out the winning card and then kiss his sweetheart good-bye. As usual, Jack took off his shoes on the porch and entered the house on tiptoes.
Jacqueline was vacuuming the carpet. Seeing her husband home unusually early, she turned off the vacuum cleaner and asked with surprise:
"What"s happened? Are you fired or promoted?"
"Neither," Jack answered, trying to sneak away from the living room. "Simply, I"m not feeling well. Probably flu. I"m going to bed."
"You know that you"re allowed to go to bed only if you have fever. I spent an hour making it. It looks great and you"re not going to mess it up without a good reason. Get a thermometer, it doesn"t feel like you have a fever."
Jacqueline stuck a thermometer into Jack"s mouth. Then she straddled her favorite hobby horse.
"Do you know the latest news? Bob Banken"s been promoted! This morning I talked to his wife. He"ll get a two percent salary increase and additional lifetime insurance that covers wisdom teeth extraction for the entire family! In high school Bob was your classmate. And you told me he always cribbed math tests answers from your notebook. And now this booby hatch graduate is a first class technician while you"re still a second class one. Is it fair?"
Listening to his wife, Jack laughed internally.
"Two percent increase, wisdom teeth insurance. If my sawmill-spouse only knew how rich I"m now! With the money I have, I can easily tear out the wisdom teeth from each and every mouth in Smallton."
"Okay, okay, I"ll handle this last sawing session," Jack thought, sucking the useless thermometer.
"How many times have I told you that you should be more persistent and active?" Jacqueline continued. "I told you that you always have to be in sight of senior management. You should walk back and forth near their offices daily. If I told you once, I told you a thousand times. But you still sit in your dusty corner like a cowardly ground hog in his hole. If you keep being such a meek fish, you"ll never ever be promoted!"
While saying this, Jacqueline was standing near the open living room window. Suddenly she noticed Bob and his wife walking along the street. She immediately put on an on-duty smile and waved her hand, greeting them as the best friends. Then she turned back to Jack, took off the smile and continued:
"Now I can appreciate how right my mummy was! The first time she saw you she said that you were neither fish nor fowl. Actually, she said this in another way - neither fish nor meat. And life has confirmed that you"re a limp dishrag with absolutely no willpower!"
Jack knew his loudmouthed wife"s glib tongue and he knew that it was best not to interrupt her monologues. Even if he wished, he could not do it with a thermometer in his mouse. But the last remark was more than Jack could take! He jumped up from the sofa as if he got an electric shock and spat the thermometer out of his mouth.
"I don"t have the willpower, do I? I"m a wimp. I"m a dishrag. I"m a loser. And you"re the Princess of Wales, Snow White, a lady from a fairy tale. That"s what you"re saying, are you?"
"I"m not saying I"m a snow-white princess of Wales from a fairy tale. But you"re definitely a loser! What have you achieved polishing that office chair with your butt for ten years? Hemorrhoids? You"re the greatest loser I have ever met in my life. If it were the worldwide contest of losers you"d definitely be in the last place!"
"Really?" Jack exclaimed ironically. "But if I"m such an outstanding loser, then why would I not get the goddamn first place? "
"Because you"re a loser!" Jacqueline countered, demonstrating a good sample of women"s logic. "Dear Lord! My heart is bleeding. Even in the worst nightmare I could not imagine that Bob Banken, this abbreviated piece of nothing, this chunk of skunk, this bed bug-slug becomes a first class technician earlier than you do!"
Bob Banken was their neighbor. Jack and Bob went to the same high school, from time to time they played golf together and Jack did not find that he was a chunk of skunk or bed bug-slug.
"You"re right. Bob was my classmate. You know what he told me in high school? When you decide to get married, first look at your honey"s mum and you"ll see your wife in twenty years from now. I also remember the vivid impression I got when I saw your mother the first time. She could hardly make the doorway in our front lobby. During the dinner she finished everything that was standing on the table and when it was totally empty I was afraid she"d start munching the table cloth!"
At these words, Jacqueline"s face turned green as a fresh cucumber. Jack ignored the dangerous change of colors in his wife"s face and continued.
"And now you have outdone her. Okay, I"m a wimp with no willpower. And what about you? Look at yourself in the mirror. Where is your powerful will? Your mouth is never shut. You munch 24 hours a day. You"re not even 30, but you look like a second-hand Halloween treat bag. And there is not a single minute when you"re not swearing like a trooper . . ."
Jack sarcastically imitated Jacqueline"s intonation:
""My mum told me that you were neither fish nor meat". In this case your mother is all that meat and no potatoes!"
Too late, Jack realized that he should not touch this delicate topic. Jaccy"s face turned from green to purple, she grabbed Jack like a naughty kitten and yelled:
"Don"t pick on my dear mummy! You"re not worth her little finger!"
Then she tossed Jack out through the open living room window . . .
Lying on the flower bed, Jack examined his arms and legs. It looked like everything was okay. For several years, Jacqueline has been asking him to put concrete borders around this flower bed but Jack always found a lot of excuses not to do so. Now he could appreciate that it was a pretty wise decision.
Jack went back to the porch but the front door was locked. He rang the doorbell for a few minutes and then started banging his fists on the closed door. There was no response.
Finally Jacqueline came to the window. Now she was as pale as newly-installed drywall. Jacqueline pointed her finger in the direction of the driveway and said very slowly and distinctly:
"Mr. Stanton. You have trespassed on private property. I strongly advise you to leave my property immediately or I will call the police."
Damn! She was right. The house was bought with Jack"s money but formally Jacqueline was the only owner. Everything, including their bank accounts, was registered in her name to get extra benefits and reduce tax payments as much as possible since Jacqueline was a housewife and had no income.
But now it did not matter much. The only thing that really mattered was to get hold of the card. Jack sat down on the curb near the house to wait for Jenny. She had to be back from school soon.
The school bus stopped near the house at four o"clock. Jenny ran up to her father and said:
"Hi, daddy. Guess what? Today is my lucky day."
"Really?" Jack answered in an absent-minded manner, trying to think of a way to ask his daughter to bring the plant from the house.
"Yes. Two years ago all the members of our floriculture club planted identical plants in identical pots. Today there was a contest in school. Ten plants were presented and mine was awarded the first prize! I got coupons for a free Happy Meal. I can have one every Saturday in McDonald"s across the street till the end of this year. Isn"t it great! I"m so happy, daddy!"
Jenny put her hands around Jack"s neck and kissed him on the cheek.
Suddenly Jack felt a nasty coldness arise somewhere inside his spleen and, like a huge spider, crawl into every corner of his body. He interrupted his daughter:
"Wait, wait, is this the plant that was standing in your room near the window?"
"Yeah. That"s it." Jenny confirmed.
"And where"s it now?!" Jack cried, grabbing Jenny by her shoulders.
"After the contest, we had a fundraising fair. All plants were sold in an hour. That"s how we got money for our prizes. And Mrs. Cribton said . . ."
But Jack was not fated to hear what Mrs. Cribton had said. Jenny"s face smeared into two faces, then four faces, then six and all of them began to spin around in Jack"s head like industrious planets around the mother-sun . . .
When Jack regained consciousness, the street was full of vehicles with wailing sirens. According to Smallton municipal by-laws, in case of an emergency all services equipped with siren-bearing vehicles - ambulances, police cruisers, fire trucks, "United Gas" vans, city by-law enforcement sedans and CAA pick-ups - were obliged to rush to the accident site. In many cases it was very helpful since only the noise they produced could easily bring the dead back to life.
Jenny was standing on her knees near Jack, sobbing. When her father opened his eyes, the girl rejoiced and exclaimed:
"Daddy, are you okay?"
"Yes, I"m okay. Go home. I"ll be back soon."
Jack stood up on his feet and slowly, without any purpose, plodded along the street. To trade ten million dollars for a happy meal! That was a happy deal! In one day he had changed from a decent member of society into a waif, a street bum, a nobody. No job, no money assets, no place to live. Nothing! That was a twist of fate, indeed! The flowerpot with ten million dollars inside had been sold to an unknown jerk who probably would never know about his wealth. There might be a dim chance to find this damned plant. But how to do this in a town with a population of a hundred thousand people?
When Jack came back to reality, he discovered that he was sitting on a bench in the central Smallton park. It was dark, cold and Jack felt lost, beat and hungry. The former millionaire took his wallet from his pocket. There were two twenty dollar bills and some change.
Jack angrily kicked a bench as if he blamed the innocent piece of wood for all mishaps of this unbelievable day.
"What I really need now is a good drink," he decided and, wincing, rubbing sore leg and swearing, made his way to the nearest pouring station.
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