Free Sway by Kat Spears Page B

If I ever did think about getting it on with Heather again, one of her pouts was enough to put me off. It was fascinating to watch someone who was so completely self-absorbed.
    I sat back and tried to coast through the rest of the evening. My work was going as planned, but I still had to figure out how to get her home without putting my mouth on her overglossed lips.

 
    TEN
    It turned out that Mr. Dunkelman liked to complain. A lot. When I picked him up on Saturday to go to the football game, he complained about how hard it was to get in and out of my car because the seats were low to the ground. He complained about the print on everything being too small to read. He complained that sausage gave him the runs even though he ate two with onions and mustard during the game while I silently prayed that his bowel irritability wouldn’t manifest until after I dropped him off at the old folks’ home.
    But most of all, he liked to complain about how ungrateful his children and grandchildren were, none of whom, according to him, ever came to see him. It was his intent to run out of money at the moment of his death so his heirs could not profit from his demise. And, apparently, he had plenty of money to go around, which he intentionally wasted on risky investments and crap he saw on QVC just to piss off his kids.
    When I asked him why he didn’t leave his money to some charity, he said they were all fronts for anti-Semitic terrorist cells or were run by Oprah Winfrey, whom he hated with the passion of a religious convert. “She’s fat, she’s thin, she’s fat, she’s thin—always talking about how she’s eating her emotions,” he said. “I’ll tell you what she’s eating is a lot of pies.”
    â€œYou got something against fat people?” I asked, mostly to give him shit, but he took the question at face value. Literalism was one of his other personality traits that could be alternately irritating or amusing, depending on my mood.
    â€œI don’t have anything against anybody,” he said.
    â€œExcept anti-Semites and fat people,” I amended, “and, by extension, Oprah Winfrey.”
    â€œAll I’m saying is if you’re going to be fat, just embrace it and be fat. Don’t go on television and whine about it all the time. You seen these shows they have on TV now? It’s a game show—honest to God—where the way to win is to lose the most weight. That’s what we’ve become in this country. A bunch of fat slobs who only lose weight if there’s a cash prize in it.”
    â€œYou’re like a font of wisdom,” I said. “Now tell me an anecdote about how much you sacrificed during WW Two.”
    â€œHow old do you think I am?” he asked.
    â€œDefinitely old enough to remember World War Two,” I said as I drained my last sip of beer.
    â€œI was a kid during World War Two,” he said, indignant. “I served in Vietnam, the early years. I was such a dumb-ass I volunteered for service in ’65. Thought I was going to get to see the world, take advantage of the G.I. Bill.”
    â€œI was born in 1995,” I said.
    â€œShit,” was all he said, then he watched the game for a while in silence.
    After that exchange, he didn’t complain as much. Except for complaining about his bowels. That was a constant. Everything he ate or drank had some potential negative outcome for his bowels. I began to wonder if by the time you reached the wisdom and experience of old age, it no longer mattered because all you could think about was your shit—color, consistency, frequency. And if it’s a bunch of old guys running the country in Washington, D.C., how much time could they really devote to the country’s problems if they were constantly thinking about excrement? When I asked Mr. Dunkelman that question, he just barked out a laugh, but he did go for almost thirty minutes without mentioning