12

J started small. He rearranged items on the shelves. He moved the generic peanut butter to eye level, and placed the Jif, Peter Pan, and other brands down on the very bottom shelf with their labels facing the wall. It was a cruel place to start, since everyone knew that generic peanut butter was virtually inedible. It probably wasn’t the most effective use of his time, but he had to start somewhere. J hummed Beatles tunes as he worked. When he tired of humming, he softly sang, “Will you still need me? Will you still feed me? When I’m sixty-four.” He returned to humming as he finished his work with the peanut butter. Since J hadn’t seen a soul during his peanut butter reorganization, his confidence grew. He moved onto the jelly, where he began to twist off the tops of the jars, causing the little dimple to pop up, rendering the jelly useless. After he’d popped a few, he grew tired of the pursuit. He knew that such efforts were likely only wasting time and money. He had bigger fish to fry, like cows. He headed for the meat department and began tearing into packages of ground beef. J didn’t discriminate based on fat content, he just grabbed for anything in reach. His first thought had been to write a message in blood on the store floor, but early attempts gave him only a light pink letter H. It really wouldn’t do. Looking around for signs of anyone roaming the store, J realized that he was practically alone. Disgusting as it may have been, J began to form letters using ground beef. He’d reach into the package and scoop out the ground beef. Taking the cold strands of meat in his hands, he would press them together lightly as if playing with hamburger play-doh. He then began to form letters on the floor in front of the meat case. It was time consuming, but no one seemed to know or care that J was there. The strike outside was distracting customers and employees, leaving J to write letters on the tile floor. Soon, J’s hands stunk of raw meat, and the knees of his pants weren’t doing much better. He worked quickly, spelling out his message on the cold tiles, careful that his meat letters did not grow too large or too wide. Had his giant sized, ground-beef message of “Meat Killers will Perish” not been such a labor of love, not to mention his greatest slogan to date, he might have given up much earlier. As he completed the task, small bits of meat hanging from his palms, and blood stains on his knees, he looked down at his message proudly and realized that something was missing. The great messages, and the great messengers all had one thing in common. They had passion. J knew that his fine slogan would go to waste, but he also knew that without the proper punctuation it might very well be a waste. J realized he was missing an exclamation point. There was no ground beef left in the store. He’d actually had to use Chicken wings for the “s” and the “h” of perish. Spotting several pork loins and a few pork chops, J formed a primitive exclamation point. He proudly surveyed his hard work, “Meat Killers will Perish!” screamed the Kroger floor in meat. J almost wished he could see their faces when they stumbled on his note. He looked around again in disbelief that no one had wandered by in the twenty or so minutes he had spent composing. Taking one last look at his creation, he almost wished he had a camera. Not usually one prone to strains of vanity, he hoped this one made the news.

The lack of attention emboldened J as he made his way back out of the store. He ran through the aisle knocking cereal boxes onto the floor. In his excitement he stopped briefly to throw a few jabs and a right hook at a life-size Rice Crispy display. Poor Snap was knocked flat on his back as J took off in a sprint. With the grace of a hurdler he jumped over a closed sign and ran out of the store. The Scabs working the registers looked at him in wonder, but no one made a move to stop him. As he ran out of the doors, he saw the strikers who had created this opportunity for him. He felt a little guilty that he hadn’t been more considerate of their plight the way he’d promised, but the guilt was short-lived as he turned away from them and headed back home. It wasn’t long before his legs politely asked to slow to a walk. J obliged.
**
That same afternoon, Sid had shaken off his hangover well enough to help Sherri cart Ben out of the hospital. They all still looked like hell, but at least they were leaving the hospital alive. Sid knew that was better than a lot of people could say. He never liked hospitals for that very reason. Even as they dragged their feet to the taxi stand, Sid started to think about the night before. For now he was ignoring the onslaught of daiquiris and focusing on how the night out had begun. They’d been searching for Matty’s boy toy. Sid saw an opportunity to help J out. He’d find Matty. He’d find the toy. Then they could enact revenge, J wouldn’t be so distracted anymore, or at least Sid hoped he wouldn’t.

Sid left Ben taking care of Sherri, or perhaps the other way around depending on how one looks at the nurse-patient relationship. Realizing that bar-hopping may not have been the most effective means for locating Matty or her new boy, Sid set out toward Matty’s house. He’d only been the one other time, but figured he could find it. Across the way, J had veered off his course home and was also heading to Matty’s. J knew where he was going as he’d been there in just about every state he knew: angry, drunk, giddy with love, disappointed, horny, happy, sad, and of course lost. Due to this advantage and his location, he arrived first.

Buzzing the doorbell, he took a deep breath in hopes that Ned had not somehow arrived while he was at the grocery store. Matty didn’t answer, because she was at work. This ocurred to J slowly, as he had tried to make himself as unfamiliar with the concept of work as possible. With that in mind, J decided to write a note. Only he didn’t have a pen or paper. He started to look around for a stationery store when Sid walked by on the other side of the street, clearly searching for something.

“Sid” J hollered. “Sid!”

The second Sid caught his attention. He turned to see J standing in front of Matty’s house. That certainly made it easier to find. He crossed the street to J.

“Do you have a pen and paper?” J asked.

Sid was keenly aware that J had not asked, “Why are you in this neighborhood?” or “Why do you look like you’ve been hit by a truck?” or even “Hi” which Sid knew wasn’t a question, but with the right inflection could convey a sort of questioning air. J had asked none of these things. He had asked for a pen and paper. Sid hated to let him down, but he was without paper.

“I’ve got a pen,” he replied as he produced it from his pants pocket.

J began scanning the neighbors’ yards in search of something to write on. He felt around in his pockets for paper. He spotted a newspaper on the stoop next door.

“Could you get me that newspaper, Sid.”

Sid let out a nose grunt, but obliged. J hadn’t even made that request into a question. It was an order with a could stuck in front. Sid was starting to feel a little frustrated by the way he was being treated. Perhaps it was post-hangover clarity, or post-hangover anger, but either way, Sid was going to say something when words failed him.

J scrawled a quick note on the newspaper and shoved it into the space between the door and the jam. Sid couldn’t see that the note left his phone number for Matty to call. Nor could he see that it said that J really needed to talk to Matty, but Sid could’ve guessed as much.

“Let’s go back to your place.” J said when he finished the note.

Sid shrugged. He walked a step or two behind J the whole way home. J never noticed.

When they got back to Sid’s, J went immediately to the kitchen and scooped out some ice cream. Then they sat. They waited. Sid had the impression they were waiting for a phone call, though he didn’t know from sure. This impression came directly from the way J kept looking up at the phone. After twenty minutes of silence, Sid couldn’t take it any longer.
“What happens when she calls?” Sid asked.

“She’s not going to.” J replied grimly, his head sinking.

“What happens when she doesn’t call then?”

“I call her.” J says, sitting back up like a manic depressive jack-in-the-box. “And we work this out.”

“Why?” Sid asks.

“Because we belong together.” J replied. “I think,” he added. “I mean she’s Matty and the first time I saw her she melted my heart.”

“But we’re a few looks past the first time?” Sid said getting wise in his passive-agressiveness.

“True,” J said thoughtfully, “but relationships are difficult.”

Sid let out another nose grunt. J ignored it. So they waited some more.

Sid had some Chinese delivered. And they ate that in silence. It started to get dark outside, but still they waited.

“How long are we waiting?” Sid asked

“I’ll call her now.” J said pulling his head off the table. He dialed her number and listened to the rings. His heart jumped up into his throat. J wasn’t sure what he would say. His hand twitched and he almost hung up, when he heard “Hello?” She sounded sleepy. His heart was racing.

“Hi. It’s J,” he spit out quickly. His usual confidence had taken to hiding when he needed it most.

“J” she sighed.

Sid watched J talking on the phone like a reality show was taking place in his kitchen. He was detached, amused, and yet somehow terribly intrigued.

“Can we talk?” J asked. “I mean face-to-face.”

“You know where I live,” she offered unconvincingly.

“I’ll be over,” he said. J hung up the phone and walked out of Sid’s place without a word.
Sid picked up J’s empty ice cream bowl and flung it at the door. He then spent the rest of the evening cleaning up the pieces and anything else he found with even a speck of dirt. He looked for anything to avoid the frustration he felt boiling up inside.

At Matty’s, it was like an Icy Hot wrap had been placed on the Matty and J relationship pains. The initial chill J had felt when he arrived was quickly replaced by a soothing heat. As many couples do, J and Matty returned to the one place where relations were less strained, even as faces were more-- the proverbial bedroom. Proverbial in this case because the bedroom was the kitchen floor. From the sounds that evening it was safe to assume that Matty and J were back together. A passerby could’ve asked, “Are you two back together?” And they would’ve heard, “Yes. Yes. YES!” The passerby may also have heard, “Yee-haw!,” “Yow-ee!,” and “Woo-hoo!,” but those exclamations answered entirely different questions.

They still hadn’t dealt with the issue of Ned, but with more pressing issues, Ned became an afterthought. He was something they could deal with later, when the fire burnt out again.

Over the next few months Matty and J were ridiculously happy, except for when they weren’t. They weren’t ridiculously happy, or even slightly happy when their lives didn’t mesh. When Matty wanted J to attend corporate dinners, J pouted and often Matty ended up just telling him to forget it. When J wanted Matty to take a stand against everything from the partners’ treatment of lawyers to the questionable ethics of her defendants, Matty often had to leave J hollering to himself. The moments were fewer, but only because they were both trying so hard. J took Matty on dates. Matty often ended up paying the check, but at least J had made the dinner reservations and picked out a movie. J began working on a more regular basis, not daily or anything drastic like that, but often enough that he could spring for happy hour drinks if Matty had time to meet him.

With J busy, Ben and Sherri picked up where their earlier fling left off. The Florence Nightingale effect had worked heavily in Sherri’s favor. She had been so good to Ben while he was recuperating from his altercation. She had kept his wounds clean. She’d fed him almost daily. Which in retrospect was often better than he’d fed himself in the last few years. She’d kept him company when he would have otherwise turned to soap operas for distraction. Sherri was motivated by her crush on Ben, but Ben’s resistance had only been out of respect for J. He had a crush of his own. Hearing that J was back with Matty, the nightingale effect only solidified Ben’s chocolate-covered Sherri cravings. The cravings were solidified, not the chocolate.

With couples blossoming all around, Sid was left to his own devices. Which unfortunately for Sid, was all too familiar. He worked during the day. He found interesting things to do at night, some more interesting than others. He built a model ‘57 Chevy, but his sticky fingers had caused a terrible accident that totaled the car. He wrote poetry one night, but the effort produced so much dark material that he felt more depressed when he was done. A few nights, Sid went to Open Mic night at a local pub, but he only watched. If there was a song brewing in Sid, it still had a long way to go before it would bubble to the surface. Sid spent some nights reading and some nights writing letters. Every week or so, J would stop in, just to check on him. Sid looked forward to those nights most of all. He always kept ice cream at the ready in case J was dropping by. J never stayed long and Sid always felt a little emptier when he left. J almost always talked about Matty. He hardly ever asked about Sid and he never made mention of the activist activity. Sid almost missed the cheater, because at least then they’d had a common enemy. The one thing Sid had been a part of since high school seemed to be falling apart. “Love might conquer all,” Sid thought bitterly “but it sure does suck the life out of everything else.”

Then the tiniest hint of an idea lit Sid’s mind. Activist activity was not strictly J’s domain. If he wanted to make a statement, then he could make one. He didn’t need Ben or Sherri or even J to do that. He could do something on his own. Sid strolled over to the maps in his kitchen to have a look. He hoped the city or the gold stars might inspire him further.

As he stared into Cincinnati, and all its swirl of suburbia, he thought how perfect a town he’d never left. It wasn’t big enough to be metropolitan, not small enough to be down home. It wasn’t even Cleveland or Columbus. Cincinnati, like all Ohio, lacked a certain confidence. Someone somewhere along the line had pushed Ohio around and Ohio had just taken it. Sid surmised they were the Buckeye State, because that’s what the founders had tripped on while they were stumbling to a state legislature meeting. Cincinnati sports teams were losers. Cincinnati wasn’t quite Midwestern because it had adopted the scornfulness of the East, but it wasn’t Eastern either, despite its time zone, because it didn’t have nearly enough attitude. Cincinnati was a land-locked island where rural and urban blended in the unpleasant way that Kentucky and Ohio blended, the offspring of two uninspired parents. Sid knew how the city felt.

Three knocks on his door brought him back from his Ohioan pity party. J or the police had arrived. He wasn’t sure who he preferred at this point. At least the police wouldn’t talk about Matty and how blissfully happy they were going to be, unless of course the police were all dating Matty too. That would serve J right he thought begrudgingly as he opened the door.

“Sid, my man,” J said as he stode through the door. “What took you so long? You got a girl in here?” he asked as he looked around. He gave Sid a wink. “We’ve got to find you a girl.”

Why did members of a couple always assume that singles needed opposite sex companionship? And when did Sid become Bridget Jones?

Sid took a moment to look again at the map of Cincinnati on his wall. He turned slowly to J and unfurled his middle finger like a flower blooming in one of those cheesy biology films. With his largest digit pointing at the sky, he smirked.

“Whoa.” J said surprised. “I didn’t mean to offend. You don’t need a girl. Heck, I don’t need a girl. It’s nothing but trouble. Matty and I are in another spat.”

Sid looked J in the eye and then let his eyes fall to the still erect middle finger. J followed his gaze.
“Uh,” he stuttered. “No Matty then.” He gave his nose a few quick rubs with his index finger. “What’s new Sid?”

Sid lowered his finger, impressed by its power. For a moment he considered whether it was all of Cincinnati that had backed his gesture and that was why it had proven so effective.

“Love stinks.” Sid announced. “We haven’t even looked at injustice since you and Matty and Sherri and Ben. Ugh.”

J started to say something but Sid cut him off. “If you even think about mentioning the healing power of love, I will fight you.”

At that declaration, J had to laugh.
The laughter only enraged Sid. He launched across the room and attacked J. There was a lot of swinging and missing. There was a lot of grunting, but Sid wasn’t giving up. He continued to wave his arms around and around, even as J held him back. Sid had adopted a windmill slapping technique which proved both ineffective and exhausting. Finally he stopped. He was panting. J had held him at arms length for most of the onslaught. As J lowered his arms, Sid lunged at him and wrapped his arms around J’s torso. Sid squeezed and struggled, trying to tackle J.

“Sid! Sid! We’re pacificts! Sid!” J hollered.

Realizing that he wasn’t bringing J any closer to the floor and tired from his efforts, Sid collapsed in defeat.

Sid lay motionless in anguish at J’s feet. He stared at J’s shoes and thought about how ants must feel when they get trampled. Sid felt like an ant. It had been quite a night for Sid, already he’d been Ohio and now he was an ant. He wondered how much more he could go through.

“Sid,” J whispered after a number of minutes. “Maybe we should talk about some things.”

Sid closed his eyes in a long blink before opening them again. J couldn’t tell if Sid was considering or slipping into unconciousness.

“I know I’ve been spending a lot of time with Matty,” he started. “But that doesn’t mean...” he trailed off.

Sid turned his head slightly and whispered, “doesn’t mean?”

“Well, it doesn’t mean that we can’t still” J was struggling for words, “fight injustice.”

Sid didn’t answer.

“Did I tell you what I did at Kroger’s?” J asked.

“Yes.” Sid groaned.

“Oh. Well, maybe we can find something this week. Have you looked at the map? Do you have any ideas?”

J had never asked Sid for ideas. J had never asked anyone for ideas. Even when his ideas were bad, he didn’t ask for ideas. Sid’s curiousiy piqued.

Psst. 13 is over here