The Lemon Jell-O Syndrome. Man Martin
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sleeves were rolled up, the better to show off his biceps, Bone supposed. Cash made some yardman witticism, and Mary laughed and touched his forearm near the heavy, old-fashioned watch he always wore. Cash looked toward Bone’s window and stepped rightward out of sight behind the sash. Mary followed. Bone gazed at the vacancy, then went into the bathroom.
Last March, Charlotte, their aging landlady, informed them of their new arrival in the subdivision. “Cash Hudson?” Mary repeated when she heard the name. It transpired she’d dated Cash in high school. Chilly fear rose in Bone’s chest.
The fear took concrete shape on a day Bone had spent yanking a lawn-mower cord until sweat dotted the Briggs & Stratton. Each time Bone was on the verge of pounding the damn machine flat with a sledgehammer, the motor condescended to puff an oily “phut,” provoking a fresh frenzy of useless yanking.
All the while, Cash talked with Mary, who stood beaming in a sleeveless cotton top, the silk concavity in the small of her back peeking out above her jeans. Two years into their marriage, her discontent punctuated their lives with increasing frequency: Bone’s work on Words took all his time and attention; there wasn’t enough money; they never did anything; there was damn medieval poetry on the shower wall; she was bored and feeling trapped.
Cash Hudson, you could tell—and if you couldn’t, Cash himself would tell you—wasn’t destined for the humble subdivision of Ashford Park forever. Instead of renting, he owned his two-bedroom ranch, and when he’d saved enough, he’d buy another and rent that one. His sole topics of conversation, as far as Bone, crouched wheezing and dripping by the lawn mower, could tell, were the money he made last year, what he was making this year, and what he’d make next year. This information Mary found riveting.
Cash’s business, ironically enough, was landscape maintenance: a big green truck with a steel-mesh gate that lowered like a navy landing craft, deploying mowers and blowers over Ashford Park and beyond. For the time being, he made do with day workers, but business was growing so fast, soon he’d need to take on someone full time.
If you’re such a damn expert, Bone thought, pausing between his labors, why don’t you damn well offer to help? I’d sure like to see how you do it.
Then, to Bone’s horror, Cash did offer.
“Let me see what I can do with that thing,” Cash said, dropping his voice into the baritone of someone wise and helpful taking charge, and with a pull, he brought the mower shuddering and puttering to life. “Let’s adjust the choke,” Cash said, and pushed a lever until the mower sounded a little less tubercular.
Even the best of lawn mowers, Cash explained, would not put up indefinitely with owners who never bought a new spark plug or a yearly oil change, and without these attentions would eventually freeze up altogether—to which Mary replied, “Oh, we didn’t know that.”
We didn’t know that. Thank you, Mary, for making me look like a fool in front of our neighbor.
“You know what,” Cash said—I know what, Bone thought, do you know what?—“why don’t I take care of your yard for you?” And before Bone could protest that they didn’t have money for lawn service, Cash said, “I’ll make it half-price.”
“Oh, I couldn’t let you,” Mary said, meaning, she could let, and definitely would let him, but she wanted to be forced.
“I insist,” Cash said smilingly, meaning, he would force her.
“Isn’t that sweet?” Mary asked. “He’s going to do our yard half-price.”
On the other side of the shower curtain from where Bone stood at the toilet, unable to pee, the tile still bore the faint traces of Chaucer’s “Prologue,” which he had written in Sharpie while studying The Canterbury Tales. Behind that was a window, from which vantage someone, if he chose, could watch unobserved as Mary and Cash resumed their conversation, although doing so would require stepping into the tub to spy on them like an emasculated cuckold.
The tub, Bone realized, offered ample space to stand, which shouldn’t have surprised him since he showered there every day, but illogically he’d expected to feel the enameled side curving up against his toes. Soap’s mild smell clung to the window. Cash and Mary stood near the privet bushes by the back fence. Nothing untoward was afoot, at least for now. Cash plucked a handful of wild violets from amongst the liriope, a yardman’s habit.
What a ridiculous situation. Or was “preposterous” the better word? Ridiculous: worthy of ridicule. But Preposterous: a nonsensical combination of pre (before) and post (after). Yes, “preposterous” was nearer the mark: there was something definitely before-after, topsy-turvy, bass-ackward about all of this. Bone pictured how the scene would look from the perspective of a hypothetical witness: a man, fully dressed, mind you, in a bathtub looking longingly, like the foolish fathead he was, out the window at his wife. From above, their heads would form a proverbial lover’s triangle, acute, in this case, Bone at the vertex, thirty feet from the base of Cash and Mary, standing in the speckled shade of the privet. From Bone’s perspective, Mary and Cash stood framed in the proscenium under the lace curtain, a sunlit stage broken into nine tiles by windowpanes. Had Cash and Mary glanced at the bathroom window, they’d have noticed first Bone’s red hair, then his blue eyes staring curiously, and then it would have been their turn to be curious. Unless they really were lovers, in which case they’d merely be indignant.
Screw it, Bone thought, I’m getting out of here.
Which is when he discovered he couldn’t.
Bone told his legs to move, but they didn’t.
Move! But that’s not how you do it, is it? You don’t tell your leg to move; you just move it. How do you move it? It’ll come naturally if you don’t think about it. Don’t think about it? What else can you think about?
Windowpanes need cleaning—mildew on the sash—spider walking on the sill—eight legs and not a problem with one of them—la-tee-da-tee-da-dum-dumtee-dum-dum-dum—damn it, move! This can’t be happening. Spider almost to the other side, goddamn spider!
Bone was sure he could move now.
Ha-ha-ha, it would be just a silly false alarm, and wouldn’t he feel like a chump? It was a temporary thing, like when your jaw locks, and you have to pop it into place. Unnerving at the time, but perfectly harmless. Just wait a little, and then move your leg without thinking.
In just a moment now he’d do it. He was absolutely positive when he attempted to move his legs, that’s just what would happen.
...
Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn.
...
He thought of lifting his legs with his arms, but when he tried reaching down, he found he couldn’t.
Damngoddamngoddamngoddamngoddamn. Jesusjesusjesus, oh, Jesusjesusjesus.
Cash and Mary had disappeared. The bathroom window now held only the backyard, broken into nine panes: the crooked little dogwood traversing the lower left pane, continuing in the upper corner of the middle pane, its crown of leaves extending over the three panes above the sash, a triangle of yellowing May sky. An anxious squirrel scooted partway down an oak and studied the ground below in a head-down position. Bone still could not move.
Someone rattled the bathroom doorknob and found it locked.
Now Bone spoke. “Help!” The words resounding on the white tiles alarmed him, and he hollered, “Help! For God’s sake! Help! I’m stuck!”
The door rattled again. “Bone?”
Mary.
Hot tears rose in his throat, and outside the window, the scene shimmered like a reflection in rippling water. He realized with ironic detachment that at least his tear ducts still operated. “I don’t know. I’ve forgotten how to move.”
“What?”
“I