Friday 27 April 2007
01:19 -- YJ's Snack Cafe
18th and Wyandotte
Kansas City, Missouri

She's so needy. Her voice, once young and sweet, now bossy and demanding and shrill pulled him out of the confortable warm womb of his slumber. His milky eyes adjusted to the room. All the lights were on. A pile of clothes were at the foot of her side of the King sized bed -- some folded already. He could feel the warmth radiating from the freshly dried pile. The laundry basket was by the half opened closet door. A smell of something that vaguely resembled something edible was coming from somewhere in the house -- most probably the kitchen, where he heard the familiar muffled but shrill sound of her voice blaring out like a siren. He didn't hear what it said, but he knew who it was directed to. He felt that by her tone that he had a few more minutes of sweet escape coming to him. When she appears in the doorway is when it is all over. He let his eyes shut. It was a mere blink before something soft landed by his right ear. He felt the warmth and pride any father feels in the presence of his child. He knew the feeling of his little girls favorite stuffed toy, and knew that she was closeby. He opened his eyes again to see her smiling at him. "Mommy, Daddies waking!" As distant as he felt from the mother of his children, he felt the exact opposite for his two girls. He smiled at his little treasure, and her sibling appeared in the doorway. He would not still be married were it not for the twins. Again, from the kitchen, came the shrill voice. The only word he could make out was "pager." She was yelling quite loud for him to make out even one word, and he knew that his time in the bedroom was over, and that she was bugging him about work again. He sat up just as his two girls joined him on the bed. He hugged them both and gave them each a kiss on the head. He looked down at his legs, he was still wearing his "BDU" pants and black socks. He had on his brown undershirt, which smelled of the workday. He looked at his two children, and felt a bubble of resentment towards his wife. It countered the pride and love he felt for his kids. As needy as she always was, he figured that after the children were born, she would cut back on her selfishness for their sake. He soon found out that her needyness grew tenfold after they were born, and that she also seemed to have a weird sort of jealousy of her own children and took it out on them often. She acted more like their older sister than their mother. Jeff grew quite tired of always having to devote so much attention to his wife. He had little time to himself and had to find clver ways to work out an escape. One was Kaminski -- the polish guy on base who he liked to drink with. His wife allowed that once in a while only because Kaminski was so mild mannered that she felt no need to compete with him. When Jeff came home smelling of drink and cigarrettes, she assumed that what he was saying was true. It usually went along the lines of work paging him to go fix something on base. And afterwards, he and Kaminski went to his house on base where they had some beers in his basement and talked about music. Kaminski is a smoker so she was told, so she never worried that Jeff was out cavorting in some bar somewhere drinking and smoking. When Jeff heard the word "pager" he thought that maybe it was Kaminski calling him for his weekly escape. They had it worked out. Kaminski would page him, and he would go to the base and they would hang out in his basement smoking and drinking beers and listening to records. At least, that's the way it was for the first month. Kaminski still pages his friend, but Jeff will go there maybe one out of 4 times. The other times Kaminski might meet him, and they would go to the city -- Jeff would drive to Kaminski's, and Kaminski would drive them both to the city. They would go to a show, or go to a bar for a few hours. Jeff might meet his friend in the city, and usually after a while, Kaminski and Jeff would come back to the base where Jeff would call his wife with the convenient cover story that he had to work a tough job in one of the base buildings. The other two times, Jeff would just drive to the city, to go to his friends apartment. She is a little older than Jeff, and isn't as needy or demanding as his wife. He managed to have his visits timed out just perfectly so that he could come home without raising suspicion. Lately, however, he has found that his friend was pushing a little harder for him to stay the whole night. He would tell her that he'd love to, but he has to figure out how to divorce his wife without losing his children. He would be crushed if his children were taken away. In the fog of his mind, he remembered staying a little later than usual last night. He went to work today, and was 5 minutes late, just as his supervisor, the chief, was waiting on him at the readyness area where he worked by himself generally. His boss was already ticked at him about the fact that he had not gotten the inventory done when he should have. So when he was late and gave a sheepish excuse about traffic to the base, to which the chief told him he needed to leave earlier, he knew he was cutting things close. He was tired all day, and the boring work of inventorying and pushing paper generally all day without a visitor pushed him over. He snuck a half hour nap after lunch, but quickly awoke when he thought he heard the door open. Working in this state makes you more tired than if you worked hard all day. He didn't remember driving home or even laying down on the bed. He just remembered the sweet escape of his sleep, and his dreams. He remembered as he was drifting off the sound of the train whistle in the distance. It reminded him of his wish for escape. If he could only get into one of those open boxcar doors. Maybe he could make it past everything and find himself back in the big city -- young and unencumbered. Escaping his father then was much easier than the schemes he has to work out now. Don't you answer your pager anymore?" she screamed as she stood in the doorway. "That thing has been going off for the past hour!" "Kaminski" he thought, "not tonight." Somehow he left the pager in the living room. She intercepted it this time. He realized that if she looked at the number on it, she would realize it was not the base calling. He felt a little unconfortable. Maybe she knew what was going on and the gig was up. He felt some panic at the idea of having to explain, then having to come up with a new scheme to escape. Why is she so damn needy? She refuses to learn how to drive, so he has to take her everywhere. She refuses to leave the house without him, so he has to be there for her. Since the kids were born, leaving the house has become an ordeal, but she always wants him there to take her somewhere. She refuses to make friends, and when she does finally find someone to be friends with, she will find a way to spoil it. Usually Jeff will meet somebody who has a wife, and will bring them over for dinner. This will last generally about three months before the falling out happens. Jeff is thankful for Kaminski, someone who his wife allows him to be with. The work cover story helps. She tossed the pager on the bed. He looked at it in amazement. It WAS work calling him. "You know, last night, when you were gone so long, I called Kaminski." "I got the number from you pager." "Where were you?" Jeff felt the panic begin again. "I was at work." "LIAR!" Jeff could feel the kids both jump at the sudden outburst. "Don't yell in front of the children!" Jeff said curtly. He got up. He looked around for his boots and jacket in the living room. She came in behind him. "You didn't leave it lying in here this time." "Your jacket and shoes are in the laundry room." "Where were you last night?" "I was working." "You are a lying piece of work, you know?" "You weren't on base last night." "Know how I know that?" "Your base called you you liar." "They needed you to do a plumbing job." "They had been calling and paging you." "You stupid ass, you left your pager here." "The fire department even called you wanting to know where you were." Jeff thougt back, so that's why my boss was really mad at me today. He hated his job more and more. He hated it slightly less than he hated his wife, but only because it gave him an escape from her. His job used to be a joy. He was the boss of his own department, and everything was simple then. His specialty was working with metal. He could do anything with metal -- bend it into any shape. He even went to school extra to get better at his specialty. However, in the past 3 years, all specialties were combined, and people were expected to be jacks of all trades. The training was a joke. They were just handed manuals and told to study them. So now, when Jeff is called to work on base, he is perpetually lost. One day he might be a carpenter, the next a plumber. He was even put in charge of his own shop, but was demoted when a more qulified staff seargent came in. Jeff was one of the last of the regular seargents -- people who were promoted without having to test their way up. Gone were the days when you could achieve NCO status with just time in grade. Jeff had been in that rank for a long time. His time was short. He needed to test up or get out of the service. He does bad in tests, and now that all the specialties have been merged, he found it impossible to see himself with that extra stripe. He got demoted to readiness when a new staff seargent came in who was smarter and better at running a shop. Readiness is a forgotten desert. It is not even in the same building as the rest of the squadron. The tasks are menial and the job is boring. Jeff usually spends his days entertaining himself by making stencils and drawing posters for imaginary punk rock bands. He finds that he is often put on call for night duty. He doesn't mind because they usually don't call him, and it gives him a ready excuse for escape. However, last night, apparently, they did call him. He did the one stupid thing that he shouldn't have done, he left his pager at home. "I've got to go to work." "We will talk about this later." He was hoping to buy time to think up a clever excuse. "What? How do I know you are going to work? Maybe you are going to drink with your friend again." "So help me, if I find you are there again, I will kick your ass!" He knew she meant it and she could do it. "You can forget about hanging out with him. You will come straight home after you are done. I thought I could give you a little leeway with him, but you abused it, like you abuse everthing around here." "You get done there and you come home and take care of the things I need here." " You know the faucet here leaks in the kitchen and hearing that drip drip drip is about to drive me crazy." "I am here day after day taking care of your kids and fixing you dinner and the least you could do is come home once in a while and not play around with your crap or disappear off into the basement!" Jeff found his boots and jacket, slipped them on quickly and went out the door into the garage. She was right behind him. "And another thing, you sell that piece of crap before I have the junker come haul it. It has been sitting here in piles for ever. We need the garage for other things." She of course was talking about the Starliner, which was sad and forelorn sitting under a tarp. It was a project he started on, but just enought to fill the garage with parts and little else. He headed out to the little Ford. It was a stale little econobox commuter. He wishes he could hop behind the wheel of something sexier, but this car is paid off. His wife went back into the house and slammed the basement door. He slammed the door of the car behind him, and the hallow metalic sound had a shrill ring to it. It kind of reminded him of her voice.