THE BOWL

Let me open it up for you.

There’s a gift in your lap and it’s beautifully wrapped and it’s not your birthday. You feel wonderful, you feel like somebody knows you’re alive, you feel fear because it could be a bomb, because you think you’re that important.

When you open the wrapping (there’s no card), you find a bowl, a green bowl with a white interior, a bowl for fruit or mixing. You’re puzzled, but obediently put four bananas inside and then go back to whatever you were doing before: a crossword puzzle. You wonder and hope this is from a secret admirer but if so, you think, why a bowl? What are you to learn and gain from a green and white fruit bowl?

This is when you think about the last lover you had and feel bad about yourself. This is when you stand with your pencil poised over the crossword puzzle and stare at the wall. This is when you laugh out loud, alone, to yourself, at something funny he said once about crossword puzzles and feel ridiculous for still being able to be entertained by this lover of yore who slept facing the wall and wanted less than you wanted.

You want a lot.

You go to make yourself a cup of tea and while you’re prepping your mug you spill the sugar all over the floor. It’s sticky and gets all over your feet; this bothers you; you go to take a shower. As the shower water steams up the bathroom, it reminds you of the unfinished tea, and you dash naked into the kitchen to make sure you haven’t left the burner on. The house a pile of ash with just the bathroom standing. You stand in front of the stove. The stove is off you say to it. You are off. You look at each burner in turn, then the oven part. All off. You go to take a shower and ignore your body. You use a soap puff brush instead of your hands, and when it’s done, you’re fresh and clean and disengaged and anybody.

At work: your boss has died. Really, you find out your boss has died of a heart attack, yesterday, in his shower, and your first thought is if you’ll still have a job and your second thought is mean, like you wanted him to die anyway. He was a bad boss. At your desk, you feel guilty and not sure what to do; you have no boss, what are the rules? Who can you ask? You make a few lists of things to do and then sit still and do none of them. You think about the bowl and wonder if it has to do with your boss dying, was it some kind of message. You decide it is not a message, but mere coincidence.

At lunch you order steamed vegetables because you’re remembering that you have a heart too. You feel humbled by your heart, it works so hard. You want to thank it. You give your chest a little pat. When the vegetables arrive, they are twelve on the plate, high green and matte yellow, sliced into fancy ovals and diamonds to disguise the fact that they taste so bad. You pour lemon butter all over them but feel like a big cheat. After several broccolis, you leave the restaurant with your plate still half full and shiny with grease to go visit your brother. He works in the fire department and is handsome in his outfit. You tell him your boss is dead, and it freaks him out. He wonders if he could’ve saved him, had he been there, you know, he knows CPR. Your brother has your face, but a better version, you look better as a man. You think about the women who have loved him and looked into his face while he entered their bodies, and how that’s your face, almost, but also definitely not. You feel gypped.

“Andy,” you ask him, “will you set me up with a fireman?”

He laughs. “Sure.” You’ve never asked this before, you wonder if he thinks you’re kidding.

You go home early because your boss is dead. The fruit bowl sits there, some strange reminder of something you can’t remember. You put the bananas back on the counter and fill the bowl with warm water. You let your hands soak in it, this feels really nice. You sing a little song to yourself, about fruit and bowls and warm water, a song you just made up. You wonder if you’ll go out with the fireman after all, and if you do, will he kiss you? Does a fireman kiss slow or urgent? Will he lift your shirt or run off to water things down just when it’s all seeming better?

You lie down flat on the orange carpet and close your eyes. You are feeling very lonely. There is a knock at the door, and at first, you wonder if you made it up because you are so lonely. But then there’s another knock, and this one is too emphatic to be part of a fantasy. This one is not a nice knock.

You look into the peephole. There’s a man in a suit. You wonder if he’s here to investigate if you killed your boss or not. You open the door.

“I’m here,” he says, “to retrieve a bowl.”

“What?” His eyebrows stick out from his face, adding great depth. He is an older man, he looks as though his life is not making him happy.

“I’m here to retrieve a fruit bowl. I think one of them was delivered to you this morning by accident. All wrapped up? A green fruit bowl?”

You are stunned and confused, it was not for you after all? You empty out the water, and hand him the fruit bowl and he nods. He drips the remaining drops of water onto your welcome mat. The man seems very displeased, and you think it’s something you did, but then realize it has nothing to do with you which is depressing. He tilts his head down slightly in apology, and leaves with the bowl. You shut the door behind him. You want it back. You want the bowl back. You open the door to yell after him, sir, that’s my bowl, it came to my house with my name on the wrapping, that’s my bowl, sir, give me back my bowl. But he’s gone. You go to the sidewalk to look down the street, but he’s gone. All you can see are three kids on bicycles, circling their driveways, seven years old, turning tight circles in their driveways because they’re too scared to go where there might be cars.