Just Jeans and Shirts

 Just Jeans and Shirts

       By Danny Rogers (the chickener)

Herman ran till his breathing evened out and his general agitation subsided. Peggy had dumped him. God! And after all these weeks! And why? Who the hell knew. Oh well, he thought, I’ll find another woman. There are more fish in the sea. Maybe another man. “Shut up,” he said out loud. “Don’t go there.” From the path he picked up a stone that looked vaguely like a daisy flower and threw it into the forest on his left. On his left was forest, on his right, field. A stream trickled in the distance, he could hear. A frog indicated by its owling a swamp nearby. And on the branch above his head lay a cloud that resembled a tawny catamount. Wicked, he thought. Just wicked. What a wretched, wild and wonderfully wicked morning.

       Susanola had dumped him before Peggy, and Rachella before Susanola, Whisper before that, and earlier, Duchess. And a bit further back a series of dumpings had left him almost breathless with their swiftness of succession.  Dump, dump, dump, dump, dump, dump, dump. Susanola was an interesting case. She lived in a walk-down on Wellington close to the Hava Java shop on the street that ran behind the Winnipeg Concert Hall. She made her living selling lamps and shades that she constructed from assorted things she found in dumpsters. She ate food that he had never heard of before, dishes that she concocted from whatever she found in the grocery isles that caught her attention. She would walk by bacon and farmer sausage and fall on pickled hog’s feet and candied ham ends. She would reject buns and kringles and cheer over five pounds of croutons in a plastic bag. At the counter she would pay for these, plus asparagus, hot mustard sardines, eggplant in oil and water, wisteria nubs (whatever the hell they were), celery salt, a bag of grapefruit and a variety of bulk candies. These would together make up her meals for the next week till she ran out of ingredients. She liked to tongue his ears till they hurt in hopes of bringing him to climax.

       Rachella simplified her dressing to the point of interest for Herman. She got up mornings and draped on a commodious towel still damp from last evening’s shower. Niftily tucked and angled it made her seem unearthly slim, her ankles flickering underneath as she moved about the apartment. Her shower cap went on before she got under the spray. Green with some designs on it, but large, covering her ears and most of her neck. Then, out of the shower, dried and damp, jeans of a dark blue usually came on next, without underpants. Then a shirt buttoned up to the neck, long-sleeved, often with a bold, flowery pattern on a white background. No bra. A bracelet followed and that was it. She wore two or three things and shoes reluctantly if she had to leave for somewhere. Her clothing drawers were empty except for a stack of jeans and shirts neatly folded. No sock drawer, no underwear drawer. No drawer with odds and ends of ornaments or hair ties or caps or hats. Nothing except jeans and shirts. She loved to rub her fingers over her own breasts while he watched, her eyes almost closed as if she were fully self-involved, and then suddenly turn over and get on top of him, hurrying into a series of amazing contractions that would leave him fighting for air, so surprising and precipitous they came.

       Her boss told him about Whisper’s tendencies. That was how he found out, and when he did she left him fairly quickly after that. She worked in a shoe store on Williams in the heart of Ukrainian Winnipeg, one specializing in shoes for big men. Rubber boots, work boots, hiking boots, that sort of thing. Her job was essentially to check the figures of the five clerks working there and determine if any of them were cheating. She had found a few of these and they were let go immediately. Feeling sorry for them, she always hugged them and kissed them on their last day at the store and worked them around to the storage room where no one went from one day to the next and made love to them there as a sort of farewell. A don’t-take-it-too-hard gesture.

       She was born and raised in Boston and her favorite singers were Ryan’s Fancy, Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers, and various other maritime folk singers. She flew to Florida once a year for holidays and sun and did not know the amount of money in her bank account at the end of the month. She just hoped there would be enough. Her bum in his face left him feeling oddly happy at the end of each session of loving. Usually morning before work and evening right after work. She did not make love to him on those days when anyone was fired from the business.

       Dutchess loved him well in every way. She was perfect. Her Madonna figure satisfied his sense of aesthetic balance. Her two preterdaemian feet slanting neither right nor left when she walked or ran, shod or barefoot, pleased him but also convinced his careful eye, trained in deviations, of their absolute alignment. When she disrobed, which was not often, he signed the logbook without question. Her topsail and spinnakers caught all the breeze and hurried her ship along. She made quick way over the briny sea, docking now in Tahiti, now in Caramazoo, with never a fear for her safety or demise, travelling so expertly over her own waters. Her breasts were two bunches of fruit hanging on a laden tree above him on an island shore. She was in every way his superior. He did not care to discuss her with anyone or even let himself think about her. He never looked at her directly. She was his greatest personal achievement and he would from now on look to men he had told himself when she left. Her habit at night was to crawl under the covers when he slept and to suck on him till he woke, and then when he was finished to hold his head on her bosom, rocking him as if he was a little boy, a small Don Juan, and croon him to sleep. He ran very fast and hard just now remembering. Oooo, a stone’s throw from another lover now, he knew.               

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