Page 31 - WTP Vol. V #4

The box, full of baby clothes, had become an emotional biohazard that had sparked random outbreaks of passive-aggressive commentary for three straight days. Now, having finally to part with the box, it was that morning when he decided to release the rest of his Thorazine from any further contractual obligations with his cerebral cortex.
That day at the zoo, Dieter had waited for her at the crowded entrance, finally spotting her moving against a crowd of little, sticky faces exiting the park, nearly trampling a pre-pubescent boy just trying to make it to the next level with some little blond. She hissed at the couple as they protested her high-heeled intrusion.
~
and to pieces—a gambling addict caught in be- tween slots, sluts, and loan sharks with snake eyes. The police never managed to find out who cashed him in early, but his mother wouldn’t have even pressed charges, anyway.
He would take the bottle from the glove compart- ment of his 1974 shit-colored Barracuda, but only after gently buckling that box into the back seat. Thinking of his wife, grieving, alone, in their bed, he looked up—he thought, or half-hoped, to see her standing at the window. It was just a cruel shadow from their neighbor’s fruitless lemon tree. He didn’t deserve to be numb and dumb today—he threw the bottle down his neighbor’s drain pipe.
“There’s my handsome, talented, and wonderful Da Vinci of the nerdy masses,” she laughed, fling- ing her arms around him.
~
“Oh, your work should be in the Guggenheim, not sprawled out across arcades and pixilated porn screens.”
Right before he turned off I-95 to Alligator Alley, he noticed that his radio was off, yet he kept hear- ing that all too familiar fuzz. “A few missed doses and you’re back on the air,” he chuckled.
“Nobody goes to arcades anymore, mom.” They wandered around the zoo, violating the privacy
of domesticated Donkey Kongs and not-so-Wiley Coyotes. He showed her his latest designs and she perused them half-heartedly. She let out a sigh and handed him back his sketch book.
A high-pitched squeal managed to filter its way in, followed by what sounded like Mario and
Luigi having sex. At first, it delighted him and brought him back to his childhood when his mother would pretend to hear it too, although
he wouldn’t officially be diagnosed with schizo- phrenia until there was some collegiate distance between them; he’d be twenty-one by then and, running her sea-foam acrylics through his golden mop, she’d refer to it as his very special serendip- ity. Missus Mendel believed in bankable creativity, instead of cures. Art classes were an investment and cheaper than psychiatrists. Dieter could almost smell her cigarettes overlapping with the morning dew.
“What’s wrong?”
When they’d first found out they were going to have a baby, Dieter hadn’t known how his mother would react to the news. He would tell her at the San Diego Zoo, their once-a-month treat ever since he was two and his father went to Vegas
He secretly loathed that phrase. Missus Mendel’s own career as an actress had never progressed beyond a few lotion commercials, her only line, a sultry “Simply Divine.” It had become her catch phrase, and every other waitress at her job be- lieved that it should have been her name. Dieter
“Mom, don’t call them that; they’re my valued customers,” he chuckled.
She let her sea-foam acrylics wander aimlessly about his face. “Well...it’s just that your stuff doesn’t feel organic anymore. Ever since you let Evil Emily talk you into seeing those witch doc- tors your creations have suffered. Can you even hear the signals anymore? They’ve got the voice, just give them bodies. Do you remember the won- derful alligator men you made for me when you were first hired? They were simply divine.”
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