Basement Shade
Letting my arms hang at my side but still holding onto the knife and the meat tenderizing hammer I said, “My mom actually paid $175 to see James Van Pragh in the Shrine Auditorium last year.”
“Ohhh, wow, lucky lady. Stoddard said.”
Oddly, whatever fear I’d been experiencing gave way right then to a morbid curiosity. “Were you a suicide,” I asked. Stoddard sat back down at my father’s workbench and smoothed his hair. “What makes you ask that?”
“How was it?” I asked.
“Oh God. How was it for you being born or falling off your tricycle for the first time?”
“Those are rites of passage in life. You took yours.”
“Yeah, well. I suppose you’re going to ask if I regretted it.” Stoddard scratched at his scalp.” Yes I did. I do. I was a jumper. Off the old Great Northern Bank building downtown, eight stories of dirty plate glass reflecting the Minnehaha Falls. It was around 4:45 on a Friday afternoon, and I had fantasized about doing it way too many times to chicken out. So I drove my mom’s Camaro to the bank and walked right into the elevator and up to the penthouse suite — penthouse in a bank, what a joke. I got onto the roof and went to the back side of the building and stood there at the edge. I remembered all those silent movies where Harold Lloyd is always hanging from clocks by his fingers. I figured I’d stand there for a while and get up the courage. And then down below, this asshole sitting on one of those big tricked-out Honda Gold Wing motorcycles with lots of lights and studded saddle bags and everything, shouted up at me, “Jump motherfucker, I’ve got to get home for dinner.” That’s right when the cop tried to grab me. But he fucked up. I jumped anyway. I hope I made that fat fucker with the Honda happy. And on the way down I thought, oh man, my mother is going to hate me even worse than now. And she does. Believe me, she does.”
My mom woke me. I was on the couch in the living room. Cable was out again; just digital snow and white noise.
“Did you cook a steak?” she asked, nodding at the carving knife and meat tenderizing hammer on the floor. “You didn’t leave a mess this time,” she said. “Thanks. Good work.”
From the basement I heard the muffled sound of a door closing. I tugged at the blanket that covered me. It had gotten colder.
