Free Study in Perfect by Sarah Gorham Page B

and water. The corn comes exclusively from fields in Indiana, while the other grains are imported from farms in the Midwest. The name “whiskey” is a Gaelic translation of the Latin phrase
aqua vitae
, meaning “water of life.” Seagram’s was the favored drink of “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, a heavy-metal guitarist before he was murdered onstage by a fan. Dimebag mixed his Seagram’s with a shot of Crown Royal and a splash of Coke, a drink he called “Black Tooth Grin.”

    Dr. Seuss’s feline protagonist may be “a cheerful, exotic and exuberant form of chaos,” as the book’s jacket copy asserts. But look at the children’s faces watching the cat. They are not necessarily smiling. Their eyes resemble tunnels.
Oh, oh, oh
, they mouth as the cat balances the books and the tray and the cake and the boat and the fish in the bowl and the milk and the cup all on one foot hopping on the ball with its stripe round the middle. Now the rake and the red fan and the wooden toy man. Only the fan seems secured by the cat’s tail, shaped like a cup hook. “But that is not all! / Oh no. / That is not all …,” as the action accelerates. Little wonder Sally’s red hair bow quivers with anxiety as she grabs her brother’s arm and they both plant their feet like croquet wickets.
    Down comes the cake, and the frosting slaps over the plate, and the milk spills (but the bottle did not break!), and the rake’sbent, and the boat looks like it’s sailing on a wave of butter and cream. Down come the glass and the fan and the book splayed like a tent, and down comes the fish, oh the fish, tossed out of its fishbowl into a teapot, as a matter of fact, where he frowns, one fin in the air, “‘Now look what you did!’ / Said the fish to the cat. / ‘Now look at this house!’”

    Betty, cashier at the Rite Aid, had a steep beak with reading glasses perched at the very tip—classic Woolworth’s fifties—wiry black hair, and veiny hands. Never satisfied with a simple financial transaction, she took mental notes. Whose wallet was stuffed with crisp twenties or pilled singles. Whose child pilfered a Baby Ruth and was he punished adequately? She sold booze to men, women, street people, rich people, and kept count, as if bottles were Weight Watchers points. Not much of a task for her memory the professor who purchased his daily fifth, sometimes missing a day if he sprung for a gallon. Her tongue clicked and slid over her teeth. “Is that
all
for you?” she asked. No response. “Sir? That’ll be $13.53.”
    Years of this, she figured out which lady was the wife—the brusque, all-business one who didn’t seem to care for conversation, who checked her change and left without a thank you. “Sweetie, you know I see your husband in here nearly every day getting him a fifth of that whiskey over there.” Caught up short, I sputtered under my breath: “Whatever.” Thinking: Nosey parker. Just do your job, please, and shut up. We’re doing fine. He contemplates the big picture, I do the details. I
like
details. Flight arrangements, bills, doctors and dentists, chimney sweeping, furnace repair, taxes, ditching the sour milk andmoldy bread. All the right moves we made in our lives—the babies, our relocation to the coast where he juggled a part-time teaching job, job search, book project, toddlers so I could have some writing time too, all without family around—those were his ideas. I did the packing. Didn’t mind, couldn’t imagine passing that job over to him. Commotion of glasses mixed with silverware, everyone’s unfolded clothes thrown into the same suitcase or two. Who could live with that?

    The science of fermentation is known as zymology. French chemist Louis Pasteur was the first known zymologist, when in 1854 he connected yeast to fermentation. Studying the fermentation