Working Things Out
Published: Cynic Magazine; finalist L Magazine Short Story Contest
http://www.cynicmag.com/feature.aspx?articleid=2518

Dalton sat at the front window of his apartment in Queens eating a bowl of Cap’n Crunch and pondering why so many pirates lost a leg. Were they the human equivalent of pigeons? His thoughts of pirates, led him to an image of parrots, and before he knew it, Dalton had cruised to Pet-orama. He limped the entire distance – including the subway stairs which he took one at a time – working out the notion of a peg leg. Dalton was thorough that way.

He once spent an entire day without arms by tucking his empty jacket sleeves into the pockets, zipping it up, and slipping it over his head. At first, he folded his arms in front of his chest, but when he observed the effect in the full-length mirror, he decided that the lumpiness of his arms under his jacket appeared unnatural. Not wishing to appear odd, he loosened his belt two notches and tucked his arms into the sides of his pants. It was an exhausting day because he had to walk everywhere. He couldn’t swipe his Metro card for the bus or subway and hailing a cab was impossible.

When he arrived at Pet-orama, Dalton was seduced into the aquatic section by a pair of freckled legs. The owner of these legs was bent over, looking intently into an aquarium.

Not overly skilled in the art of flirtation, Dalton positioned himself on the other side of the tank and hunched down to face her. He sucked his cheeks in, making a fish mouth, and flapped his hands at the side of his head like gills. Dalton watched her eyes watch the fish, then notice him. She had a strange look on her face which he had no time to interpret because the tank was full of angel fish, and his mind went racing after halos, saints, statues, incense, pews, the confessional, and his right hand being smacked as an adult voice said, “Dirty boy!”

He stood up, knocking his head against a display of sponges hanging from the ceiling above the tank.

“Your eyes are like marbles,” he said to her. Then seeing the marbles in her head glare at him, he added, “Because…because the water and the glass of the aquarium made your eyes small, like peewees or maybe shooters. Although now, on account of your thick glasses, they look more like bumbos, uh, boulders, uh, the big fat…large marbles.”

He stopped speaking, looked at a shelf holding bags of colored gravel, river rocks, pumps, plastic mermaids, deep sea divers, and an underwater Santa, and wondered if he should apply for a job at Pet-orama. Then suddenly, she was on the move, and Dalton limped rapidly after her.

She stopped walking and asked him, “What’s wrong with your leg?”

Her deep, raspy voice reminded him of that girl he used to call late at night before his credit cards got cancelled.

“I have an ingrown toenail,” Dalton responded.

“I work for a podiatrist,” she said.

Bad luck.

“I see,” Dalton said.

The idea of dealing with the sock fluff caught in the corner of someone’s big toenail, or their toe jam, calluses, bunions, or pronations, caused bile to lurch in Dalton’s stomach.

“I’m on my way back to work now,” she continued. “Would you like to visit the doctor?”

The ultimate question came to mind. Dalton had faced it several times when he woke up with a really bad hangover, and again when he wanted to explore the cradle of civilization on the government’s money and visited the Army Recruitment center. The last time he faced it was when he wanted to know what it was like to wear a bra, which is what got him fired from J-L Mart. They really should fix those doors in the dressing room.

Is it worth it?

“I don’t believe in conventional treatment,” Dalton told her, knowing that he could never talk about, acknowledge or have someone else touch his feet.

“What treatment are you using?” she asked.

“I’m dipping it in melted wax.”

“Doesn’t that burn?”

Dalton felt light-headed from the image of red wax hardening around his foot and cracking when he flexed his toes.

“Not really,” he squeaked.

“I’ve never heard of that treatment.”

“I read about it in an airline magazine on a flight to Prague,” he said, contemplating for a second or two why Prague and The Hague were pronounced differently.

“I’ll have to tell Doctor Gutmann about it. Do you have a copy of the magazine?”

“My name is Dalton,” he said to change the subject.

“My name is Jane.”

For a moment, Dalton was catatonic as he felt himself holding a chimpanzee in his left arm, grabbing a vine with his right and swinging through a rain forest, screaming at the top of his lungs because an elephant had tipped Jane over and was precariously close to stepping on her head. Where was Boy?

“Hello?” she said and snapped her fingers.

“Can I walk you to your office?” he asked, hoping there was no large plaster of Paris foot hanging outside the building which would send him straight back to the psychiatrist.

“All right,” she said.

Dalton limped along behind her, watching her pleated wool skirt undulate with each step. Green, black, yellow, and red plaid. He wondered what clan it was and went off onto bagpipes, shortbread, funny accents, rain, heather, Shetland wool sweaters, itching, men in kilts bashing each other with clubs.

He caught up with Jane and asked, “Why aren’t you wearing a uniform if you work for a doctor?”

“I’m the receptionist. I answer the phones and make appointments and put magazines in the waiting room. What kind of job do you have?”

At 28, Dalton had spent his career in retail, mainly shelving apothecary items at the supermarket. He arranged the items alphabetically by name and methodically aligned them to the edge of the shelf each morning. His tenure ended when the Dr. Scholl’s products were moved to his shelving section and he passed out at the sight of the rubber shoe inserts.

“At the moment, I’m considering my options,” he told her.

They passed the alterations shop, thread, needles, prick your finger, sleep for 100 years, awakened by a kiss from a prince. I’m not gay. The bakery hard rolls, warm buns, sweet turnovers, tart tarts, cream-filled donuts, ladyfingers, bear claws. They should sell condoms. The carwash. Why am I such a failure?

“Well, here we are,” Jane said, stopping outside a gate on which hung a sign that read:

Dr. Wayne Gutmann, Podiatrist

We treat feet...

 

Dalton turned a little sideways, away from the sign on the gate, which he noticed had a small illustration of a foot on it, and kept his eyes on Jane as he asked, “Dr. Gutmann? Shouldn’t he be called Dr. Footman?”

“But that’s not his name,” Jane replied.

“Right,” he said, wondering if they actually would ever see each other again deliberately.

“Well,” she said, putting her hand on the gate.

“Do you live around here?” he blurted, stalling her departure a little longer.

“I don’t think that’s an appropriate question, do you?” she replied.

Dalton thought it was a very appropriate question. He needed to know how much farther he would have to go if he was ever to visit her. There was that one day that he spent cross-eyed and he got a migraine. Distance made a huge the difference. Dealing with her profession was hard enough, but he couldn’t deal with distance issues.

“Are you sure you don’t want the doctor to look at your foot?” she asked.

“No. No. I’m fine,” he said.

“Well,” she said.

“Well,” he said.

“Well, here, just in case,” Jane said, as she took her business card out of her purse. She wrote something on it before handing it to Dalton.

Dalton looked at the card. Jane Romanzinzho DeZouza. Her name buzzed inside his head as he repeated it silently, thinking of beehives and honey and Winnie the Pooh, Eyore. Tigger. The cowardly lion. The wicked witch. Flying monkeys. He felt a panic attack coming on.

“Well, goodbye,” she said, making a little wave of fingers of her left hand.

Dalton made claw-like motions with the fingers of both hands before he limped away. As he turned the corner heading for the Labor Department, he dropped Jane’s card into a trash can. He liked her freckled legs and her white blouse. But she had written her home phone number just under the slogan, “We treat feet…” and he could never look at it again.

Some relationships cannot be worked out.