JoeandMary

“Listen, when I woke up today I was hoping we’d go to the park or something. I wasn’t planning on being stuck here inside the house all day. Now it’s 4:30 in the afternoon and we ain’t done nothin’ all day but sit around on our butts and watch the damn TV.”

Mary had had it with Joe and wasn’t afraid to tell him about it.

Silence. Joe responded with simple silence, as if he wasn’t part of any conversation.

“You coulda at least cleaned up the garage or somethin’. You know, we still have that broken garage door and you was gonna fix it months ago and we still can’t get it closed right, and Lord knows who might try to sneak on in here in the dead of night and try to rob us, or worse! How long we gonna live like this? I mean, ain’t nothin’ on that damn TV no way, so we all just been wastin’ a good day we coulda been gettin’ some stuff done or going someswhere or something. Now the day’s over and it mightaswell be Monday already cuz ain’t nothin’ gonna happen this weekend. I don’t know why I long so much for the weekends when we don’t do nothin’ but sit around and watch the TV all weekend anyway. Nothing fun. Nothing productive. It’s all just lazing around, lying on butts, and I’m here working all weekend in the house anyway. I clean, I vaccuum, I spent all day waiting on you to do something and so I did a good cleaning of the bathroom. But had I known we were just gonna sit here like always I mighta gotten out the mop and really done the floors good. Now I’ve just done a bit to where it don’t look like we live in a slophouse, but it ain’t much better than that. It’s just on the surface clean. So I ain’t really done nothing and I’m tired and bored outta my mind and I really wanted us to go to the park like I thought we would and enjoy this here Sunday. I don’t know why I put up with you!”

Joe took another sip of his beer. It was getting too warm to drink but he didn’t feel like getting up to get another cold one. He was tired and trying to pretend Mary wasn’t talking. He pretty much shut the whole conversation out of his head and tried to focus on the football game that was on. He didn’t really care all that much about the game on in front of him but it was distracting enough to keep him away from listening to her and he didn’t have to think. He really never had any interest in going to the park this morning. He’d never promised her that they would. In fact, she only mentioned it a few hours ago and by then he was already comfortable in his recliner and didn’t see any reason to move. The more she complained about going to the park the more he just tuned her out. And she kept leaving in the middle of her complaining anyway. She’d nag for a while about going and then head off to a bathroom and do some cleaning or something. He could hear her yelling from in there, but not audible enough to make out the words. When she’d come in to the living room and nag at him he just hoped she’d hurry up and go back to wherever so he could get back to watching television. He liked television anyway. It helped him not have to think. And on his day off it was his God-given right not to have to think for a day. It’s Sunday, the day of rest, ain’t it? So why would he need to think or do anything.

“Joe, are you listening to me? I’m talking here. I don’t know why I try so hard every day to get you to listen to me. You don’t do nothin’ and you never listen and you just sit there like a bump on a log. If you didn’t have to go to work tomorrow you’d probably just sit there all day and night everyday. And where would that get you? Nowhere, nohow. If it wasn’t for the commercials you wouldn’t even know when to go to the bathroom. Oh, now before you go in the back bathroom, I was cleaning up in there and I got stuff in the sink a-soaping, so don’t use the sink. But for God’ssake wash your hands after you use the facilities. So if you have to use the bathroom, go in the front bathroom. I’m still working in there but you can at least use the sink. Just be sure to clean up after yourself cuz I’m still working on it and I don’t need to try and clean up after your mess all the time. I already do that all the time anyway but it’d be nice if you helped me out a bit now and then and cleaned up just a little. Or at least didn’t make such a mess when you do stuff. I mean, gee whiz, the toilet is a big round bowl and somehow you always miss it and there’s pee up in all the place around here. It’s a big round bowl! How can you always miss that. It ain’t like it’s hard to find. It’s right there, big as day, lots of room to pee into, and you always end up on the walls. You know, you ain’t five years old no more. And I’m tired of taking care of you like you’re a child. I got my own life to live, you know. I coulda been at the park today like we had talked about but you just sit there doin’ nothin’ like always. Same as any day. Oh, now, I put out pork chops for dinner in the sink this morning to thaw out. I guess I start cooking those up in a few since we ain’t doing nothing today and we gotta get to fixin’ dinner here shortly. I worry sometimes if you’d starve to death if I wasn’t here cuz manalive you only eat when I cook. Do you even know where the kitchen is? Oh, now, I know you do since you always getting out those beers of yours. Well there’s more to a kitchen than that frigerator. Now lemme finish up this bathroom before I start fixing dinner cuz if I ...” and with that she trailed off in sound down the hallway.

Joe really hadn’t been listening to any of it anyway, but it was background noise and he figured she stop at some point. And now that she was gone back down the hall he could focus on the TV. He decided this was a good time to get up and get a cold beer while she was down the hall, so he snuck out of his chair rather quietly and eased on into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door and grabbed one. He rushed back to the living room. But before he could get back to his chair Mary was right there standing in the living room staring him down. She began to tear into him once again as he slid back into his chair.

“Well, well, well, I didn’t know you knew how to get up outta that chair. You ain’t been out of it all day. You know it’s too late now to go the park and enjoy ourselves. Even though that would have been nice today. Real nice. Instead we still sitting around here doing nothin’! I’m so sick and tired of doing nothin! When we got married you said we’d have fun together all the time and now we just sit around and do nothin’. It breaks my heart. I shoulda never trusted you. Oh, whatever now, I’m gonna finish up in the bathroom, I’m in the middle of cleaning up the tub.”

Joe was really tired now and wasn’t about to do anything. Although he was getting hungry. He was hoping she’d start up dinner soon but he wasn’t about to say anything about it right now while she was still fuming around here. And she did say earlier she’d start up those pork chops soon. His stomach rumbled a little and he figured he’d still wait. He could use to lose a few pounds and maybe not eating for an hour or so would help that. He took another slug of his beer, the new cold one, and was happy that he had gotten it because it tasted way better than the warm one he had been drinking. His mind trailed off to the stuff he’d have to do at work tomorrow and he got real tired and annoyed and just laid back further in the recliner and shut out the world as best he could. He closed his eyes. For just a few minutes and tried to picture life without work. When he opened them back up she was standing right there in front of him.

“Are you sleeping now? I’ve been working the whole day and you’re sleeping now?! I just can’t believe you. Can’t for the life of me believe you. Why do I put up with you?”

She then walked off towards the kitchen.

“I’m gonna start dinner now. Finally finished up the tub and now I mightaswell get started on dinner while I’m up and it’s just about that time. I am so mad right now though I could spit. Maybe I will spit while I’m cooking. You’d never know. You just eat whatever I put out anyway. Now, you know I wouldn’t really spit in the food, I’m not like that. I’m a good person. But I am really mad right now and just can’t believe that I’ve put up with you all this day while you just sat there and we never did go to the park. We coulda gone to the park. Next weekend we can’t cuz we got that family dinner over at Mama’s. At least maybe we can relax a bit over there. But you know it’s always full of so much trouble with the kids and stuff so it’s hard to really relax. The park woulda been real relaxing. Just sitting out there on a nice blanket, looking up at the sky, not a care in the world. Instead, we still here doing the same ol’ thing we always do. Oh, oh oh, I forgot, now we’re out of green beens, and I know you like green beens with your pork chops, but we’ll have to have corn this time instead. So you’ll just have to deal with that. I ain’t going out to get some green beens tonight. It ain’t happening. I’m too upset for that. You’ll just have to eat the corn tonight.”

It was a commercial and Joe got up to go pee and to get another beer from the refrigerator. The bathroom was all nice and clean. That’s good. Doesn’t see the point of always cleaning all the time like she does. It never gets all that dirty. What’s the point of all this cleaning all the time. Still looked like the same ol’ bathroom. He focused a bit and tried to get all the pee into the toilet this time. It wasn’t that hard. He knows it. But sometimes it just happens. He went on to the kitchen, saw his wife standing there over the sink taking a giant fork to the pork chops and he put his hand on her shoulder. She turned around, looked up at him waiting for him to say something. And he did.

“The corn’ll be just fine for tonight.”