The glow from the computer illuminated Country’s face. He looked up. The rest of the apartment was cast in a darkness made even more ominous by the bluish light emanating from the screen. Outlines of a sofa, the door, and his guitar angled against the wall lingered like intruders anticipating the right moment to spring their attack.
He lowered the screen and squinted into the shadows. Emptiness returned his gaze. Outside, a dog barked at a plastic bag trapped in the links of a fence. He took a deep breath and tried to ignore the voices that spoke to him.
His day had been unusual, to say the least. The letter with a stamp but without a postmark he found in his mailbox. The incident on the bus. His first day on set.
The first day on set. He only had two lines. ‘A storm’s brewing, Becky.’ And ‘Get my waders. No. The ones with the recyclable inserts.’ That didn’t prevent the scene from taking ten hours to shoot. He only had to do two takes, the second one simply so the director could have a choice. The other nine hours and fifty-seven minutes, he stood around on set unable to leave because he had to periodically be on camera.
He found consolation with Bart Crony, a crew member who a shared love of guitars, politics, and cheeseless nachos. Together, as they munched on bran muffins – Country having developed a taste while living with the Bivins – they watched a fight between actors over a perceived inequality in lines, another squabble that had something to do with yogurt, and two concerning which world leader would look best in a low-cut, blue dress and red heels. The last two scuffles also involved hair-pulling.
“I don’t understand actors,” Bart said. “Never have. Never will.” A sip of black coffee washed down the last bite of muffin.
“Yep,” Country said, a brown crumb sticking to his chin, not that anyone noticed. “It’s clearly Margaret Thatcher. Or Deng Xiaoping.”
“Agreed,” Bart said. “Definitely not Bill Clinton.”
“I heard that.”
Two coffee mugs clinked together.
Besides suffering the actors’ giant egos, Country also had to endure the blown lines and mispronunciations. The worst incident came around two in the afternoon, which was when Country’s circadian rhythm typically did a slow dance. Kiera Dillingsley, an actress playing the role of Benita Huarez, couldn’t make it thirty seconds without Paolo, the director, yelling cut.
“Perhaps the screenwriter could have used a few less ‘s’s,” Bart said.
“Maybe they shouldn’t have hired an actress with a whistle,” Country countered.
“The shun ish in my faish,” the actress said as if on cue.
“Kind of like a female Sean Connery,” Bart noted.
“The accent or the beard?” Country retorted.
Bart shrugged. “Both.”
By three o’clock, Dennis and Larry, the callouses on his feet, had grown themselves a pair of blisters, and Country was just plain fed up, letting out his frustrations with hearty sighs and more mindless conversation with Bart. By six that evening, Country had lost his will to live, like those times he went shopping with Genny, returning after a complete and in-depth excursion of the mall only to find her still perusing the first rack of clothes.
You need the money, he told himself as motivation not to quit. So does Genny. He shook his head. If it wasn’t for her and her crochet obsession, I could’ve made the Bivins’ money last a couple years. The resentment in his mental voice surprised him.
Fortunately for everyone involved, Paolo called, “Wrap for the day,” a minute later. As Country headed home, he wondered if he had missed anything important in class, besides the usual off-topic banter by the professors. His concern had a short life. In part because he knew he could learn the material on his own without much effort. In part because of the incident on the bus which drew him out of his thoughts.
It didn’t register at first, not consciously at least. He couldn’t even be sure it had happened. A voice calling out, “Country.” Soft, as though the wind had carried it from the far side of the city. He turned his head towards the sound and saw a man looking at him, dressed in black from head to toe, with a pleasant smile on his face. The look lasted a moment, long enough for their eyes to connect. Then, the man dropped his head and buried it into a newspaper.
Country felt a penetrating hatred for the man. The animosity only intensified after the man got off at the next stop, leaving his reading material on the seat behind him. Country stood up and took a few steps towards the discarded newspaper. A black and white photo of a body, sprawled out in an alley and covered in a sheet, watched him from the page.
He got off long before he reached his destination. His chest burned. He hadn’t done it, but he was involved. How did the man know? Was it just a coincidence? The folded paper remained under his arm for two blocks before Country threw it into a garbage can and fled the scene. The rest of the way home, visions of Raskolnikov returning the bloodied axe played through his mind, the ghost of Dostoyevsky accusing Country of a crime he didn’t commit.
A knock on the door brought him back to the present. The unopened letter dropped from his hands.
“Come in,” he called out. He knew who it was by the sound of the knuckling. “The door’s open.”
Genny entered and sat down on the sofa without saying a word. For those who didn’t know her well, she seemed at peace. Country knew, however, that when she folded her arms and slowly rubbed her right shoulder there was something on her mind. It would eventually come out. When she was ready.
“Can I get you anything?” Country asked.
Genny lifted her head from her trance and shook it.
“OK,” Country said and went back to work. Not on his assignment, though. He was close to finding the true origin of the emails. A quick glance at Genny, who remained frozen on the couch, then back at the screen to make sure she wouldn’t understand what it meant even if she could see it. Satisfied, he started a program, which he hoped would trace the source of the incoming communication, and hit enter. Out in the ether, pieces of data traveled along the digital superhighway at the speed of lite beer through a Mardi Gras reveler. A minute passed before the ping returned. The wrong address but Country didn’t despair. Every failure brought him one step closer to discovering who had sent him the emails.
Country looked over the information again. Somewhere in all the mess, there was a clue to …
“Have you ever wondered why dogs don’t have thumbs?”
Genny interrupted Country’s train of thought.
“Huh? What? Uh … not really,” Country said.
“It would certainly make life easier for them,” Genny said.
“Yeah, I suppose.” Country buried his face in the pile of data again. There was a line, a single line of code, that looked out of place. He remembered seeing it. But where did …
“They could let themselves outside,” Genny said. “Carry the mail without getting bite marks in it. Open a jar of pickles. You know I have problems with the pickles.”
“Yes, you do. Always have.” Country smiled like a crazed clown after one too many birthday parties entertaining six-year-olds. “Now, if you don’t mind, Gen. I’ve got this thing ….”
“They could climb trees, dress themselves for Halloween, sweep.”
“You’re right, Gen. They could do all that.”
“It wouldn’t all be good, though. There are problems.” Genny looked out of the corner of her eye. “For example, which paws would they have them on? Front or back? Not to mention, thumbs are what separates us humans from the lower, tastier species.”
“I’m pretty sure there are other, more important distinctions.”
“Yeah,” Genny said. “I guess so.” She scrunched her lips.
Country watched for a little while, waiting to see if she would continue. Seeing that she wouldn’t, he went back to looking for …
“I was thinking of getting some new shoes.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Country said, letting the exasperation slip out.
He looked at Genny. Sitting on the sofa with her feet tucked under her, she chewed on the corner of her lip. Her right hand scratched the back of her left forearm as though unaware of what she was doing.
“Is there something on your mind, Gen?”
She did a lip and chin shrug. “No. Just new shoes.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
“Alright. Because I’ve got a thing to do. Now, if you want to talk, I’ll put my work away. Otherwise, I really need to figure this out.”
“Not a problem,” Genny said. “Go ahead. I’ll just sit quietly on the couch and wait for you. Like a thumbed dog,” she muttered under her breath.
“Sorry?” Country said. “What was that? I didn’t hear you.”
“Nothing. Go ahead. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I ran across town to talk to you. It’s all good. I don’t really mind you working while I sit here doing nothing. That’s what friends do, isn’t it? Ignore one another.”
Country knew, as all red-blooded males do just a little too late, that Genny was upset. With him most likely. About what he had no clue. That also being a trait of red-blooded males. He let out a puff of air.
“I’m sorry for ignoring you, Gen, but I’m listening now. What is it you need? You want me to go shoe shopping with you? I’d be happy to do that. Say tomorrow afternoon?”
“I don’t care about any shoes,” Genny said.
“What is it then?”
“Nothing,” Genny said. “I’m not really in the mood to talk, especially since you don’t seem to know anything.”
Country grit his teeth. He recognized that tone, that annoying, passive-aggressive tone she used, which, when it first started, he actually found endearing. But now, all it did was irritate him. That tone and how she dropped by at all hours. Leafing through his magazines and making clicking sounds with her tongue while he studied for his economics exam. Explaining in excruciating detail which flavor muffin she finally decided to order from the bakery where that girl who thinks she’s better than everyone else just because she went to Stanford and has that tattoo, at least, I think it’s a tattoo. Does it count if it was burned in by a waffle iron? I don’t think so, but she says it does. Anyway, as I was saying. I ordered chocolate but not chocolate chip. So little miss Stanford goes. I heard what you said, and you said chocolate chip. Her hips are all a-swayin’ and she got this little bead of sweat forming on her moustache.
He knew she wanted to talk, but he couldn’t just stop everything any time she wanted to go out or tell one of her long-winded stories. He had classes and a new job. Responsibilities. She’d need to understand and cut him some slack. Maybe even give him a little space. That and get to the point.
“Did you hear me, Country Bivins?”
“Of course.”
“What did I say, then?” Gen’s lips had curled into the shape of self-righteous indignation.
Country searched deep into that part of his mind where heard but not listened to things were stored. Politicians care about their constituents. Yeah, right. But that wasn’t it. All paths lead to heaven. Sure. Still … what was it? Of course!
“You discovered that rice isn’t made from the dried-out shells of beetle grubs.”
“That’s not even close,” Genny said.
Crap. Was that last week? Country thought.
Genny’s curled lips drooped three millimeters at each corner, the precise distance to change from indignation to scowl mode. “You weren’t listening to me, were you?”
Country hung his head in shame. “No. No I wasn’t. But in my defense, I rarely do.”
Apparently, Country could have chosen better words or, perhaps, remained silent. Either option would have prevented the scene that followed. While the beginning seemed benign – Genny got up and did what Country thought was the macarena (actually feet which had fallen asleep) – the middle section, the climax, and the denouement involved angry spittle, a few choice words, and a sofa flying through a recently broken window. The door slammed behind her in emphasis. A cracked pane fell from its mooring and crashed to the floor below.
Did I say something? Country thought. He walked to the window and watched Genny run away into the night but not before she kicked the sofa as though it substituted for Country’s tender parts. She must be working out … and taking karate, he thought as instinct used hands to cover and protect. And how am I supposed to get the sofa back up here?
At that moment, a herd of elephant seals lumbered into the courtyard. The leader, the one with the nose/trunk thingy, lifted its proboscis high into the sky and trumpeted its claim to the sofa. Using powerful flippers and miniature, snake-like rear feet, it hopped onto the couch, its harem of nose thingy adoring females braying in admiration.
“Never mind,” Country said. He turned back to the living room and replayed the events in his mind. Hands went to hips in meaningful contemplation. “What did she mean by ‘Pierre was right,’ and ‘How could you have done it?’ Done what? Hurt her feelings? I suppose I could’ve been more sensitive.”
A ding from the computer distracted him. He headed to the computer and saw the message. A smile crossed his face. The Genny issue would have to wait.