under the big black sun: a fable
Mac savored the smell of late spring twilight and just-cut lawns when it was already hot but not dried-up and brown like later in the summer. John's house sat dark as Mac drifted up slowly along the curb. He let the Fury die, windows down, amidst odors of soil and flower-bed nutrients and dying heat. No citizens outside of their homes. A ghost town, except for the intersecting hums of air conditioners.
There was a neatness to the yards and drives and sidewalks unfathomable to Mac, a will-to-trim that escaped him. Each blade of St Augustine grass glowed with its own peculiar shade of green-upon-green. The aspect of the neighborhood was otherworldly, untouchable. To visit here felt oddly comforting.
It was a flat neighborhood, reclaimed swamp. You had to drive across a modest levee to enter, a sort-of-not-everyone comes in here kind of effect. Near the gateway, on a branching drive, rose a preserved Indian Mound. Mac refused to look at it.
He dragged out sitting in the car until John appeared at the door, urgently waving him in; "Look, put your bomb up the driveway, okay? Not really supposed to park on the curb here." Mac pointed out other offenders, but John insisted.
Inside, exotic, woodsy odors swelled; a prominent bowl of dead leaves appeared to be the source. Chandra seemed perhaps two degrees off her usual peak tenseness. The kids, aged six and eight now, hovered behind her, eyeing Mac with an air of having just received strong warnings. "Hey," Mac said warmly; both Katie, the younger, and Blake smiled back broadly before being urged to their rooms.
Chandra produced supper rather promptly, saying to Mac: "Well. Tell us how you have been. Okay?"
"Sure. I got my job back, which is good. I was saving some money up, maybe going to try to trade up the Fury, you know, and I had to go to the doctor, you know, and that took all my cash."
"Really? Okay. So what's—why did you have to go to the doctor, Mac?"
"It's just this thing, when I pee, you know, it gets itching real bad—"
"Oh! That's okay, I didn't mean to—"
"It's inside, you know what I mean, that feeling in the middle of—well I mean, you're a girl, I know, it's not—"
"Really, Mac, you don't—"
"I don't mind. I'm not embarrassed or anything—"
"Mac," John said sternly. "She doesn't want to know in detail what going to hookers does to you."
"John!"
"Hey darling! I'm just helping you out with him!"
Chandra was out of the dim dining room already.
After a while Mac said "Are the kids coming in to eat?"
"Hmm? Oh, they ate already."
Mac's biannual visit. One in winter, one in early summer, always. Upon John's insistence. Mac endured it, always believing once it would turn out not something to be endured.
The house was spotless, humming, softly lit, perfect at achieving what it was designed to be.
John stood up, leaving dishes on the table, and motioned back to the TV room. As they left, Mac caught of glimpse of Chandra easing by; "Hey, don't listen to him, I don't talk to those girls even, mostly—"
"Leave her alone, Mac. Wanna catch a flick? Need to use up some of these dollars I spend on the cable bill."
The couches—U-shaped—were incredible. Mac had never felt anything so soft. He could see a person not ever wanting to get up from one of these. He tried to ask about Mama or Connie, but John deflected, saying there was a good premiere coming on. He looked at his watch when the opening credits were over. "All right. Twelve and a half minutes."
The movie involved lots of hidden pistols and women in dresses riding elevators. Mac had trouble following the way it jumped around. He saw Chandra come in a side door and sit in a chair facing the TV only indirectly, out of the light. He wasn't sure if John saw her. "Okay. Within five minutes now," John said.
After a couple of cuts, there was a woman lifting her blouse up. "Uh-oh," Mac said, as if a mistake had been made somewhere. Chandra stood up noisily. "John! Oh, come on!"
"What? We're just watching a movie here, what's eating you?"
"You're just watching trash!"
"I have told her this before: These movies come straight from the theatre. This is not a cheap movie. It is made by a major Hollywood studio.”
“So the shadow of those gun-barrel nipples on the sheets is a metaphor, right? Illuminating the subthemes of violence and power, huh?”
“Chandra. That's supposed to be in here, yes, but because we have spent money on it. It is a well-known fact that you cannot finance a major Hollywood movie like this without banks and banks will not provide money unless certain conditions are met; namely X minutes of minor frontal nudity, and it is part of my male contract to watch what I have paid for and enjoy it like 40 million other happy households in this country—”
Mac was trying to look anywhere but at the TV; Chandra had already left the room.
“Huh? What—she won’t even listen to me? —Hey! Chandra! Honey—you can watch too!”
The phone trilled. John picked up the portable. "Yeah, what. Huh? Well, I'll be . . ."
Mac wished they’d let him see the kids.
