Doubts and Dishes

Doubts and Dishes

    Vicky stood by the sink washing the dinner dishes.  On Sundays she and Ray splurged on seafood. Today she’d deep-fried tiger prawn shrimp in tempura. For some reason the shrimp was on sale at Boney’s grocery store.  She didn’t think they could sell them if they were bad, so Vicky bought a pound and a half at 3.50$.  One time she bought Italian sausage that was on sale and Ray got food poisoning really bad, since then he hated her to buy meat on sale. He had trust issues.

    The space between them never grew too far.  First because their one bedroom apartment on the coast did not allow it; second, because Ray liked knowing where she was.  Vicky made sure they got the corner unit.  She went by the new apartments after Ray had left to work, back then they lived in Ray’s flashy blue Chevelle, the reason they lost their studio. He would not sell that car when he lost their money for rent playing keno. Big Deal! He’d said, but then Ray trashed the place and they had to leave in the middle of the night. "Big Deal!" Ray said. Two weeks living out of a car convinced Vicky it was a big deal. So she went and talked to Tony the manager about the new corner unit. 

      If she watered the plants in those tiny soccer shorts, every Saturday, and bent over a couple of times, they could have the corner for $695 a month.  It was worth it if you liked seeing the Pacific Ocean anytime of day from your living room window, if you liked balconies, smoking cigarettes, beers, the sound Hennessey made on ice, and watching the sun sink behind the water line.

      Vicky was on pots now and almost done with the dishes.  The pots clanked as she hunched over. The sink was low and she was six feet tall.  She heard Ray come in behind her.  “Vicky don’t bang the pots they leave black marks on the white.” 

Too late, she thought, the marks were everywhere. The rest of the time Vicky washed pots like she was playing Operation, without touching the sides. Afterwards she got Ray a beer and sat down next to him on their couch covered with brown sheets.  Ray took the beer and popped it, turning the tab left.  A couple of wolves were nipping at each other on television.  Ray liked to watch nature shows about animals.  She thought about this show they’d seen once about insects getting it on and turned in his direction to say,

      “What do you think about those green bugs that bite off their mates head after getting their way with them?”

        “I think that’s a good way to go, if you got to go,” he said in between sips of beer.

        “I guess,” Vicky said. She looked past him towards the sinking sun and wondered if pain felt good, so she said, “I was talking to Bobby yesterday, and he asked if I knew what masochism meant.” 

        Ray didn’t answer at first, he turned and his eyes scrunched down a little, like he was squinting, only the sun wasn’t glaring anymore.  His eyes were always that way. His eyebrows were dark and coarse, but she liked that those eyes could burn right through her.

        “Well anyway, I went to the library and looked it up,” she said, “Don’t you want to know what it is?”

        “So what is it?” Ray said.

        “It’s when you think love is pain, or pain makes you feel loved, but both probably.” 

She waited to see what Ray would say, she wanted him to say something intelligent about the matter, but instead he said,

      “So what do you care what Bobby the neighbor says anyway?”

      “I just think maybe we are like the wolves and the funny looking bug,” she said.

        Ray smiled, “You going to bite my head off anytime soon doll?”

His hair was salt and pepper. Her blond locks bobbed at her chin. Thirteen years difference only seemed like a lot if you think that when she was six he was nineteen, but now time moved slowly between them, like swamp water.  She had an urge and pounced.

      “Maybe not your head, but can I bite your ear?”  She landed halfway off the couch. He flipped her on her back and used her pounce to his advantage.  He bit a couple of times on his favorite mole. He looked down at her and said, “I think you are an animal.”



        Maybe she was, and maybe she wasn’t. But if she were going to be any animal she would be a wolf. She’d read somewhere that wolves mated for life. Maybe she could be one of those wolves, and Ray could be her mate for life, or maybe she’d end up like that rogue she-wolf on television, banished, and forced to eat her own young out of mercy.