Work in Progress

“Oh fuck” Sally said. It was blue. Sally, at the time, didn’t see the irony in her statement, since it was fucking that made the stick turn blue in the first place. She looked over at the man that was sprawled out on her couch, like he had been for a few months. Carson was on and he was off. This really wasn’t her knight in shining armor, it was more like her knight in rusty metal. He would have to do, but oh fuck.
Precisely eight months and three days later that statement was racing through her mind, again. But she did not say it because precisely five months and six days ago she found Jesus, and screaming profanity is not what Jesus would. Of course, Jesus had never had the pleasure of fitting a moving, screaming something the size of a watermelon, out of his body. The cross thing really must have sucked though.


Mr. Johnson was waiting outside his wife’s waiting room, pacing in the fluorescently lit hall. His impatient steps echoed off walls past the open doors of the ill and the sobs of those that had suffered true loss. He really didn’t have the guts to go in there. He could tear apart the competing businesses, without a blink of an eye, but a screaming hormonal woman, he just could not handle.
Mr. Johnson never really understood women, of course that never really stopped him from spending about seventy-five percent of his life in pursuit of them. He had mastered the art that many young jackasses had managed since the dawn of the libido, he could get women without actually getting women.
Still, this misunderstanding made Mr. Johnson very mistrusting. He had many theories about women and was half sold on the idea that a women’s menstrual cycle was just an excuse to be increasingly bitchy once every month, or so.

The nurse, with the badly died hair and eyeliner that was smudged so badly that one could not tell where it ended and her dark circles from nights alone trying to fill the cold emptiness of her life with the warmth of a very lethal cigarette, clicked, on her ten dollar Target heels, into Mr. Johnson’s hallway. She didn’t even have time to open her chapped lips before Mr. Johnson rushed into his wife’s room.

Mrs. Johnson was looking at the thing that she had just squeezed out of her body. She loved it, but the beauty that all of her book club friends gave their first born, she did not see in this wriggling, wrinkly, bluish gray thing in front of her. Did she get stuck with some sort of reject baby, was she heartless, or did all of these young stroller pushers misremember the birth of their beloved babies, to give themselves a nice warm memory to climb into when the damn kid was crying at one in the morning for the fifth night in a row?
Mr. Johnson walked in and Mrs. Johnson could tell from the involuntary, quick, contraction of his face, that she was not the only one that was slightly let down by this nine-month-long project’s rather lackluster appearance.
“He’s gorgeous” Mr. Johnson said, just a little too quickly.
“He looks just like your mother” Mrs. Johnson said, smiling inwardly to herself.
“I don’t know he certainly has your father’s nose.”

Somehow, Mr. Johnson thought that he would do a better job naming their son. Mrs. Johnson doubted this, because he had not spent nine months in forced bonding with the little bouncing boy. Mrs. Johnson, would not admit, that she did not have a name picked out yet and her brain was unable to invent one, apart from Boy Number One. Mrs. Johnson looked desperately around the room and her eyes fell on the stack of books her husband brought her. A biography of Billy the Kid was sitting on top.
“Billy” Mrs. Johnson, sighed, in her most convincing voice.
“Billy? Why Billy? I thought that Ale—”
“Because Billy was my favorite cousin’s name. He died in the car accident when I was ten, remember? We talked about this.”
Billy never existed. Mr. Johnson didn’t know this.
“Oh, I thought his name was Alex. My mind’s just so full with the excitement of our beautiful baby boy that I must have confused the name.”


Mr. Johnson drove down the familiar street passing into the gateway of the perfect suburbia that was his neighborhood. Each home’s layout was repeated every four houses, giving their owners the comfort of feeling individual, at least as far as they could see from their own residence.
Mr. Johnson’s secure employment made it possible for the Johnson’s to live in such a _________ paradise.
Mr. Johnson was a high-ranking yes-man for a company that manufactured portable water-closets, as Mr. Johnson would tell other want-to-be socialites in parties garnished with average champagne and catered by Le Bistro de Mediocritio. Usually, the red faced, ex high school football star with a receding hairline and a swelling waistline would laugh in his face and call him a witty name like Mr. Johnny On The Spot or the porta-potty pusher.
Mr. Johnson would feel the bubbling anger and embarrassment rise throughout his body, but then he reminded himself of his parking spot. He had the second closest spot the door with “Mr. Johnson” on a bird-shit coated sign in front of it.
Mr. Johnson had worked hard for that space. Before there had been only one reserved space, one for the manager of that branch, to save room for handicapped parking. Mr. Johnson made the argument that assuming that the physically handicapped could not travel as far from their specially equipped mini-vans to the office was discrimination. The company quickly painted over the blue handicapped sign and slapped Mr. Johnson onto the wet tar. Now, Ms. Daniels, permanently chair-ridden, feels just like everyone else, if they didn’t have legs, and Mr. Johnson didn’t have to walk those extra twenty feet in the mornings—which was especially difficult when he worked out at the gym before work.

Mr. Johnson pulled into his driveway and jumped eagerly out of the car to open the door for his wife. Mr. Johnson had done this, now, three times in his life. The night, this bundle of joy was created, their wedding night, and now.
Mrs. Johnson turned around to pick Billy, lovingly, up and out of the car, and suddenly she realized it wasn’t a car, it was a mini-van. After years of vowing, throughout her teens and early twenties, that she would not ever drive a mommobile, here it was. In all it’s double sliding doors for convenience, VCR for five seconds of peace, and cup-holder for the life force that is caffeine, goodness. Mrs. Johnson just got a picture of herself driving up to her son’s soccer practice in a vest with too many pockets--filled with dirty tissues, coupons, and loose change--and jeans with an elastic waistband that fit right below her neck. She would wear a big smile that showed the lipstick on her teeth but masked the frustration she had with the repetitive nothingness her had become. This mini-van was her hearse. Sally Johnson was now dead and it her place was Mom.


Mrs. Johnson laid Billy down in his colorfully painted room. The blue was so complete that it was like being completely submerged in water. Billy had an intense fear of water all throughout his youth and the Johnsons could never figure out why.
Mrs. Johnson placed potential choking hazards in the form of a carebears with poorly sown on button eyes all around Billy and kissed him on his cheek.
She returned to the living room and Mr. Johnson was asleep in front of a television with a clear view of Mr. Leno’s pixilated chin. n


Billy was now three and the Johnsons felt that it was their duty to “God him up” as Mr. Johnson eloquently put it. Both the Johnson parents went to church as a child and even though neither would admit it taking Billy to church gave them a small bit of pleasure—they felt retribution for all of the times they were dragged to church as children. If they were drug out of bed, thrown into ill-fitting clothing and driven to a moldy old place to sit and have the elderly pinch their cheeks it was only fair that Billy had to.
Mrs. Johnson, of course would never admit this secret desire. She was the parent leader of the youth group, something that she held very close to her heart. She was teaching these kids the wonders of a God and saving them from the savagery of any other religion, but Christianity. Their eternal salvation rested entirely in her hands.

Mr. Johnson went because that is what they corporate heads did. As the preacher talks of giving up worldly pleasures to leave one’s heart light for entrance into heaven, Mr. Johnson whispered with the other men about meeting quotas and how many people the company could lay off. Then they all prayed for the well being of their company.

Billy wasn’t really sure what was going on. All that he knew was that the day after Saturday morning cartoons he was woken up when it was still night outside, put in uncomfortable clothing, and driven to a big building full of old people, always talking about this Jesus guy. The same guy “Jesus Christ” his mommy talks to when his daddy does something stupid. His mom dropped him off with a bunch of other little kids, who were crying. An old lady that smelled like windex-- which was the cheap perfume she bought at Walmart-- and animal crackers read them stories about this Jesus guy--again-- who made lots of fish and must have been an eye doctor because he helped a lot of people see. Then she told them that they should accept Jesus into their hearts. Billy didn’t know how to do this. He pictured his heart with a door on it, so the bearded eye-doctor could get in. He hoped that he could fit and that he didn’t weigh to much. It would hurt if he weighed too much. He also hoped that the door to his heart was unlocked.

Sally wasn’t sure how to get her Jesus group-- that’s what the church called the preteen, hormonally imbalanced kids, that are too young for actual church, but to dangerous for Bible school-- to listen and to feel the importance and integrity of the one hour long Sunday mornings. None of the students seemed to want to be there. They were always talking about what they would do later or what happened the night before. This time was supposed to be God time. They are supposed to read and reflect on God’s message in the Bible, or at least what the white male thought it was. Many other churches had switched to activities and rewards, but that was hollow learning.

Other than church and dinner Billy really didn’t see an awful lot of his parents. His father was at work or at the gym.

The gym was an interesting place full of testosterone, self-awareness and spandex. It was a nice gym, where all the corporate bigwigs went. It was full of personal trainer with rippling muscles and tan skin. The women, with full make-up covering their countless facelifts, walked on treadmills while chatting with their friends or listening to there Iphones. All swearing that their perfect figure was due stairmasters and treadmills when really it was the liposuction machine that was responsible for their hour glass figure. The men all tried to pick up as many heavy things as possible. Then, of course their were the juicers. Most of these guys had bleach blond hair that matched, interestingly, with the orange of their cheap spray on tans. They waddled up and down the rows of equipment winking and whistling at the plastic women and flexing their muscles. They were cool, as long s they did not drop anything. Because if they did all they could do was to bend hopelessly as the waste, because their muscles had surpassed the normal human design size, limiting their _______. Eventually they would walk away from their dropped towel or, if the fallen item was more expensive, sit down next to it and do a stretch, and pick it up non-chalantly when they were done.
Mr. Johnson just stayed on the eliptical the whole time. Many of the important business men were older and the eliptical was the perfect place to meet them. He would lure one of them into a conversation and the refuse to stop talking. they would take a steam together, get dressed than, shower. His prey would either leave thinking better of the man--Mr. Johnson was a good talker--or thinking that he had an odd fetish for older, rich men.

Mrs. Johnson didn’t technically do anything, apart from social engagements and charity work. She and the other business wives would get together at fancy benefits to raise poverty awareness. Of course, this is while they leave their child in the care of some woman who has five children and gets paid just over the minimal wage.
Before sending Billy to Elementary school, Mrs. Johnson did some extensive research. Her husband, now made a healthy living, and Mrs. Johnson felt that the Sun Valley public school system did not have enough to offer. Her drooling, little boy was sure to be the next Gates, Kennedy, or Einstein, and his Elementary school education was pivotal to his future success.
Public school was just so ordinary. Everyone could go there. Private school must be better, it was more expensive and that is kind of how the world seems to work.