Chapter 2
And this is where we left off, another Wednesday night at the Drumfields.
Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday... It’s something that has never made much sense to Henry - giving names to the individual days of the week. He could understand it if the days were different, but they’re not. They're all the same. They’re all just one miserable 24-hour period blurring into another. Like, is his suffering any different on Tuesday than it is on Friday?
So, no. He doesn't get it, but, whatever.
So, once again, the evening finds Henry sitting in his silence, doing what he usually does to pass the time while in his misery induced stupor, counts all the reasons he no longer wishes to live. Yesterday it was 312, but judging by the amount of food she's shoveled into her mouth tonight, that number could be closer to 318 now, and growing by the minute - or grocery bag, however you choose to view it.
But wait.
Maybe he's being a little unfair about things. Maybe it’s not as bad as he's making it out to be. After all, there's only two things about his wife he doesn't like:
1) Everything she says.
2) Everything she does.
OK, 3.
3) She breaths.
But that's it. Just three things.
So maybe he's being a little harsh. Besides, things could surely be worse, but at the moment, he can't think of how.
So he thinks about it for a moment - how his life could be worse, and it suddenly comes to him. She could insist on having sex. It reminds him of a joke going around work...
"Hey, what's the difference between a bowling ball and Henry's wife's pussy?"
"What?"
"If you absolutely had to, you could eat the bowling ball."
Sure, it’s a joke, still, the very mental image of performing oral sex on his ever-demanding wife makes him cringe. He can’t help but fear the day her vast inventory of sexual devices no longer satisfies her and she demands the real thing.
It's a frightening thought, and one that sends more than a few cold chills down his spine.
And he thinks... Cancer, don't fail me now.
He breaks out of his depressed stupor just long enough to glance to his left and do a check. It's a habit of his, these occasional checks, something he does every hour or so and has for a very long time now. And there's a reason for them. The idea is that this may all be part of a dream, a bad one, and that one day, maybe one day soon, even, he will wake up, and the nightmare will be over. And he will know when this day comes because he will look to his left, and this thing, the satanic fat factory he’s married to, his wife, will be gone. Just a bad dream after all. Just a nightmare. A really fat one.
So, he glances and makes his hourly check, but, sadly enough, realizes that today is not that day. 'It' still exists. Still alive, still consuming food, and still occupying the throne from which it rules.
Yeah, the throne.
At least that's what Henry calls it. It's actually a $3,800 Lazy-Boy recliner they purchased from 'Crazy Bill's Furniture Emporium' just after he finished paying off Agnes' custom Sealy 'Sleep Master 5000' mattress set.
And quite the device it is, the throne: built-in phone; built-in TV remote; audiophile quality Bose speaker system; deluxe built-in heating coils; full body massager; state-of-the-art foot rejuvenator and spa; AM/FM radio; CD/DVD player; 24-hour weather station; and on the right side, just below the armrest, a mini refrigerator with ice maker, cubed or crushed, your choice.
Quite the throne, indeed.
Henry remembers the day they bought the thing. Hard not to. It was Agnes's 50th birthday. He remembers the occasion because of the embarrassing argument that erupted between her and the manager of the restaurant she insisted Henry take her to, a family-owned 'all you can eat' Mexican buffet.
The problem began when the manager, who was actually the restaurant's owner, insisted that Agnes pay for three people. This demand, as explained by the owner, was based on the amount of food she had eaten. That, and the fact that customers were walking out angry because of the shortages Agnes was creating, with many vowing never to return. A clear loss of income for the restaurant.
Agnes responded to the manager’s demand by releasing a cloud of gas so foul, it cleared the restaurant, and it remained closed for two days following the incident until a team of professionals could finally get the smell under control. Needless to say, it was yet one more buffet the Drumfields were no longer welcome at. The third one, in fact, leaving only one in town remaining. After that, they would have to start traveling to buffets in other nearby towns and find new places to wear out their welcome.
Once they left the restaurant, Henry and Agnes headed to Crazy Bill's, and shortly afterward, drove away from the furniture store with their new purchase. But before heading home, there would be one more stop to make, the Goodwill secondhand store.
The purpose of the second stop was to buy Henry his recliner. Agnes had grown sick of looking at the blue plastic milk crate Henry uses to sit on night after night, and insisted he replace it with something less embarrassing, something that wasn’t such an eyesore. So, to Goodwill it was. Not exactly Henry's first choice for a furniture store, but it beats the city dump, which Agnes had also mentioned.
Once at Goodwill, they learned that the store didn't have much in the way of recliners, and of the two chairs they had available, only one was even close to Henry's limited budget, making the choice an easy one. An easy one, but also, one with a problem. The price.
The tag on the chair read $25, but after tipping the guys at Bills $20 for loading 'the throne' into the back of his truck, Henry had little more than $19 and some change left over. The store manager, however, sympathized with Henry's plight and was nice enough to accept the money he did have and made the sale anyway. ‘After all, the name of the place is Goodwill, is it not?’, the manager said.
And what a nice lady she was, the manager. Even threw in a dash mount Elvis bobble head for free as part of the deal. No charge. Of course, it's on the dashboard of Agnes' new Lexus now, but still, it was the thought that counts.
Now, maybe some other men may have felt slighted by all of this - the cheap recliner - but not him. Not Henry. In fact, he was quite fond of his $19.35 purchase, and the duct tape that covered the many holes and rips in the chair, to him, only added to the chair's character and charm. To him, the tape repairs served as a kind of testimony to the recliner's many fine years of service and experience. Kind of like a resume. Probably only came up for sale because the owner passed away, is Henry's guess. In fact, probably died in his beloved recliner, no less, having refused a bed in a hospital that could have saved his life. Said he'd rather die at home in his favorite chair than live one day without it.
Yeah, that'd be Henry's guess. Someone had to die. Otherwise, such a fine piece of furniture as this would NEVER come up for sale.
Besides, it was a huge upgrade from the milk crate he had been using, the one that caused him such severe backaches, they began making Henry look something like a hunchback; a fact that did not go unnoticed by the neighborhood kids, who were only too quick to brand Henry with a new name, and ‘Mr. Henry’ soon turned into 'Mr. Hunchy’, as in Hunchy, the hunchback of Kosmeyer.
He didn't mind the kid's daily teasing and ridicule so much; it was the rocks they would hurl at him. They were good shots, the kids, and the rocks they would throw were big. Too big. Like softball big, which is why he started wearing a football helmet when traveling to and from home.
But that trend - kids throwing rocks at him - somehow spread to all the neighborhoods Henry serviced, and the helmet soon became a regular fixture for him, becoming, as it were, just part of his uniform, now. So much so that the guys at work painted the helmet in company colors just to make the look official.
So, yeah. The old recliner suited Henry just fine, and not long after the purchase, his back issues went away. The back issues went away, but the kids did not. And neither did the rocks they were so fond of hurling at him. Too late for that. The tradition has been established now, and kids are not quick to abandon a good thing. For them, Henry was cheap entertainment.
No matter. The important thing is that he now had his own recliner, and like his beloved dog, Doogy, it, too, was something he cherished and was grateful to have.
You see, Henry Drumfield was a man of simple means and even simpler tastes, unlike his wife, Agnes, whose standards were much more substantial and demanding. For example, their cars: while Agnes required a new luxury SUV every two years, typically a Lexus, Henry was quite content with the ancient Chevy pickup he drove. That is, until it finally died on him one day. A day he remembers well...
* * * * * *
She presses a button on the control panel, and instantly, the massive, obscenely expensive recliner responds. The chair quickly begins to adjust and conform itself to the exact contours of the current occupant's body. Agnes smiles as she listens to an army of miniature hydraulic pumps whir and spin as they slave, feverishly, to provide her with the ultimate recliner experience.
Once the chair finished adjusting itself, she then resumed her current efforts at calorie consumption - a ginormous bucket of popcorn, extra butter, on the end table to her left, and a fresh gallon of Double Dutch Chocolate ice cream on her right, both within effortless reach. As such, she quickly falls into her usual routine - a handful of one, a scoop full of the other. And she does this with practiced, almost surgical precision, to the point that she never once has to divert her eyes from the wall sized TV in front of her.
Another push of a button. This time, the TV remote, and the deluxe flat screen comes to life. As a result, Wendy Williams instantly appears. The screen is so large, and so big, that Ms. Williams' left breast is a good 3' wide, at least. Maybe more. Probably more.
About that time, the front door opens, and her husband, Henry, manages to somehow drag his defeated being across the threshold and into Agnes' entertainment nerve center, a place otherwise known as the living room. As he makes his way through the door, the only thing in the world that cares whether he is alive or dead, his faithful companion Doogy, comes out of hiding to give his master his usual enthusiastic greeting. It is the only thing Henry looks forward to in coming home: Doogy's loyal, loving welcome. He reaches down, gives his only friend a pat on the head, and continues to lumber his way inside.
Without so much as glancing at him, Agnes lowers the volume of the TV just low enough, and just long enough, to bark her orders...
"There's a Boston cream pie in the refrigerator. Bring it to me, will ya. And while you're at it, grab me another bag of chips, the family reunion size bag."
He replies...
"I can't. There's something I need to do first."
The rare disobedience infuriates her. She grabs the armrests, bolts upright, and turns to him to deliver a glaring look of utter disgust…
"LIKE - WHAT!"
She says this in a staccato inflection in order to emphasize the complete disdain behind each delivered word...
"Go in the garage and suck on the tail pipe of your new Lexus."
"WHAT? Why are you going to use MY car and get your drool and slobber all over my nice, shiny tail pipes? I just paid good money to have them polished! Why can't you use YOUR car?"
Just about that time, he notices how Wendy's head seems to fill the entire living room wall. It is now 6 ' tall and 4 1/2' wide, a close-up. Her pores are the size of golf balls, and each hair of her eyebrows is roughly the same diameter and color as a car radiator hose.
He replies…
"Can't. It broke down on me on the way home. I had to walk the last five miles, in the freezing rain."
"What do you mean it broke down? Already? We just bought that thing twenty years ago!"
"Yeah, I know. But it was already thirty years old when we bought it, and that's the problem with buying cars built in 1960. They tend to develop problems after only 50-60 years of everyday use, like my seats. I don't have any. The seat foam and vinyl covering dry rotted into dust twelve years ago. That's why I sit on bare metal springs now."
"Wait. You’re telling me the seats actually turned to powder?"
"That's right. I'd be up to my knees in seat dust if it wasn't for the fact I don't have any floorboards."
"Wait, you don't have floors in your truck?"
"No. They rusted away around the turn of the century. And good thing they did."
"Why? Why's that a good thing?"
"Because. It's the only way I can stop the truck. Hasn't had brakes since 1970, so I stick my legs through the floor hole and drag my feet. Got the idea one day while watching The Flintstones. Only problem is, I go through a pair of shoes a week."
"A PAIR A WEEK! WE CAN’T AFFORD THAT!"
"Don't have to. I shoplift them, while I'm at Wal-Mart stealing groceries for lunch."
* * * * * *
He lets out a long, sad, pathetic sigh.
He remembers that day well. He wishes he didn't, but he does. He remembers it all, everything, and he so hates them, the memories. He might feel differently about them if only he had some good ones, but he doesn’t, and that therefore makes them his enemies, his tormentors.
Henry glances to his left and performs his hourly check, but to his disappointment, 'it' is still there. Still alive, still breathing, and still consuming food items. He watches Agnes as she upends a 2-liter bottle of soda and finishes it off. She sucks down the last gulp and tosses the bottle on the floor with the rest of the empties. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and then proceeds to trumpet a deafening belch. The belch is then quickly followed by a massive fart whose volume surpasses even that of the belch. The enormous release of gas causes the entire townhouse to shudder. The walls and windows bow outward. Things on flat surfaces dance and shake, while photos and framed wall prints begin to swing like pendulums. The sudden increase in room pressure even causes Henry's eardrums to suddenly ache.
Even the people on TV, Wendy Williams’ audience, begin to look around, panicked that they may be in the throes of an earthquake, a smelly one.
Wendy herself pinches her nose and scrunches her face in disgust. She turns to her guest, Chef Rachel Rae, and gives her an accusing glare. Rae responds by parking her fists on her hips and unloads on the bizarre, almost artificial looking TV host...
"Don't look at me like that, bitch...trying to pawn it off on me!"
She sticks an enraged finger in William's scrunched face...
"Somebody did it, and it sure wasn't me. AND, since there's only the two of us up here, that leaves YOU! Just own it, you transvestite-looking stink bag!!"
And with that, she grabs a dish towel from the set's cooking island to cover her nose and mouth, and then storms off stage. The audience does likewise and begins to stampede their way out of the studio, with some tripping and falling, and becoming trampled underneath the feet of the panicked crowd. Wendy herself doubles over and begins to projectile vomit. The show quickly cuts to a commercial for industrial-strength air fresheners.
Henry hears a whimper and looks down at Doogy, who has his paws crossed over his nose, but it doesn't seem to be helping much. The dog's eyes are watering.
Henry, himself, grabs a towel he keeps handy just for these occasions and covers his own nose and mouth. It's a bad one, for sure, but he's survived worse. Much worse, and he'll get through this one as well. He always does.
And then another noise. This time it's her mouth...
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh, MUCH better."
Henry compliments her...
"Good rip, Agnes."
"Yeah. Best one of the day, so far."
"Welp. Day's not over, so there's still hope - you know, the best for last and all."
"Yeah, we can only hope", she says as she unscrews the cap from a fresh 2-liter and begins draining it. Armed with a fresh soda, she attacks the remaining six bean burritos in the Taco Bell family value bag in her lap. Extra beans, extra cheese sauce, extra calories, her favorite.
Henry excuses himself, explaining that he needs to apply his nightly dusting of talcum powder, something he knows is a carcinogen, but in reality, it’s just an excuse to leave the room until a time when it's safe to return - like there's really such a thing.
He begins to lift himself from the recliner when something suddenly catches his attention, something out of the corner of his eye. Something outside, in the sky, just below the cloud cover.
He lowers himself back into his recliner and begins craning his neck in every direction in an attempt to get a better view.
And that's when it happens, he sees it.
