Free The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison

bite of a muffin and make a cup of instant coffee. But no sooner has she begun to stir the coffee than Trev calls for her again. From across the dining room she sees me stand, and bids me at ease with a shake of her head. On command, I sit down and pencil in avoid for 23 Across. Setting her coffee aside, she answers Trev’s call. Again, I hear the soft drone of her voice as she turns him on his side. When she emerges from the bedroom, she takes up her coffee and walks through the dining room to the far side of the living room. She looks out the window with the sleepy eyes of a Komodo dragon and blows on her coffee so a ribbon of steam curls up her face.
    â€œHe’s irritable when he’s like this,” she observes. “He says things he doesn’t mean.”
    I want to go to her, to offer myself as comfort, to say the words that will smooth her wrinkled resignation, but I haven’t got the guts.
    â€œIs there anything I can do?”
    â€œJust stay a little longer,” she says into her coffee cup.
    But for the muffled hum of the ventilator and the rasp of Trev’s breathing in the distance, a dense silence settles in as she gazes out the window, where a rogue sunbeam flashes silver off the wet driveway. Now I see that Elsa is looking right at me with great sadness in her sleepy eyes.
    â€œIt’s not our fault,” she says.

battle of the blur

    N one of my zippers work anymore, which must be some kind of metaphor. Listing ever so slightly before the urinal, I’m not surprised to discover that my fly is already open. Tonight is Max’s birthday. We’re having a little party at the Grill, where happy hour ended some two and a half hours ago. I’m wearing my blue cords for the occasion (in spite of the lazy zipper) because they’re the only pants I own that still manage to achieve some kind of slimming effect, an illusion, I fear, that’s beginning to lose its crisp edges with every cheeseburger.
    Th is evening is sure to end badly. Already, I can feel hints of the old blur coming on: the dull throbbing in the chest, the thick, slow coursing of blood behind the temples, the heaviness of limb which signals my approaching oblivion. Zipping my fly up futilely, I’m determined to fight the blur this evening, determined to feel and remember, to walk among the living, even though I have nothing to hope for.
    Rejoining the party to the tune of Motorhead’s “Fast and Loose,” I see that a second larger table now abuts our own. We are being joined by five of Max’s Bremerton friends. Th e tall guy with the trench coat and the dirty glasses is vaguely familiar. Th ere is a short, ample redhead dressed like a witch. Her black leggings fit like sausage skins—which is appropriate because this is basically a sausage party. Th e other two Bremerton friends are also dudes, skinheads dressed like rappers, with tattoos above the collar, both of them with initials for names, not J. J. or B. J. but awkward-sounding ones: G. R. and C. L. or P. K. and K. W.
    Full introductions are made, shots are procured, and the bar is soon abuzz with our chatter. Th e jukebox cycles more Motorhead, Bon Jovi, the Boss. Th e tables get stickier by the minute. Th e world is still tactile, still memorable. I’m winning the battle. Th e tall guy is talking to me about Atlantis, the Pillars of Hercules, ziggurats in pre-Columbian South America. I wish he’d clean his glasses—it’s all I can do to resist leaning over and doing it myself. Teo is arm wrestling a skinhead who keeps calling him “bro,” while Max appears to be making headway with the redhead, who giggles more than you’d expect for a witch. She’s unwittingly slopped a big gob of nacho cheese on her cape. Th ese people are slobs. I’m beginning to feel superior this evening in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
    â€œYour fly is open,” says Forest, nudging me.
    â€œDude,