The Calendar Factory

The first hint that theres any water leaking in is the cold around my feet, down by the brake and gas petals. Its coming in through some crack in the floor I cant see. It creeps up my calfs and then the headlights go out as we nosedive deep into the mud of the riverbed’s bottom. Kenny’s voice in my head says something like, ‘Wait til the cars full of water before opening the door. Otherwise your fucked.’  Now its up to my waist, the magazines and styrofoam coffee cups are floating, and Im trying to get Skyler out of his babyseat but I cant reach. I unbuckle myself and turn around but gravitys changed its mind and the car’s overturning in the strong current, Im in such a state. Soon its my upper half that’s underwater and my legs that are dry, theyve switched places due to the bubble of remaining air inside the car seeks the highest point as the car flips. And the water the lowest. The only light now is the maplight. I breathe in a gallon of river water, filthy and dark. Im upsidedown and the baby’s looking down at me. I got you baby. I got you. Push the door open, it all rushes in, the pressure’s too great and suddenly BANG a loud loud explosion like one of Kenneth’s pistols going off. And then for some reason Im in our house sprawled in the Lazy Boy in front of the TV with the remote in my hand and a little fire in the ashtray and its suddenly the Fourth of July. I must have passed out after work, I worked so hard cleaning out there guest house. Theres nothing in my arms, no Skyler no nothing. When you sob hard like this its feels like someone tearing your throat out and your chest hurts, its not you controlling it, its someone else whos very very mean making your body curl up in pain. This wasnt the worst one I ever had, theres another nightmare where Im watching the frantic divers, the helicopter’s spotlight going up and down the river, over ad over again. And I can see Skyler in the water, Im pointing to him and yelling that hes right there hes right there, but the men cant see what I can see, and there sedating me and loading me into the ambulance. And I cant lift my arm to point anymore cause its full of lead, and I cant form the words to scream at them where he is, and I hear the policeman say there giving up the search and waiting for dawn. But hes right there, if theyd only look.

Out the window I see the mare in the backfield is all lathered up over something, covered in sweat. I dont realize whats got her all riled up until BANG another explosion tears the sky. Is it a thunderstorm no of course it aint, just look at the TV screen: HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY. Firey blooms in the sky over Central Park or Times Square or whatever they all call it down there. Then a shot of fireworks over the Green Zone in Bagdad, soldiers celebrating with Coors Light in there hands. It’s the Fourth, don’t you realize, all the littler exploding caps that come right after the first major one, and then backfield with the terrorized mare in it gets all lit up with the purple and white falling sparklies. That Bastard.

The mare’s hopping around, tossing its head, showing teeth, and I rush out the back door to the backfield. Shes gonna lose that foal if she dont calm down. Her shadow creeps along the grass beneath her as the falling sparklies drift back to earth and fizzle out. That Bastard. Goddammit shes only a few days into the program, and the semen was only delivered a few days ago. Although it was due last week, thats when the vet told me she was optimum — no good outfit out of Idaho cant get there semen in the mail on time, Ill never work with them again. That was expensive semen, now some City Bastard who thinks he can fill up the great upstate outdoor night with his rockets is gonna cost me good money. And I might as well have shot her up with a syringe of peanut butter seeing all the good thisll do me.

Another series of BANGS for about five minutes nonstop, patriotic red white and blue burning in the night sky. Oh thats nice. If only it werent so loud. I take the mare into the barn. Its panting heavily. Hop in the Chevy, drive down that dirt road to the City Bastard’s place, a cabin. The next explosion has these missiles that shoot out in all directions like a corus of banshees.

I pull up and its this guy and his family having a BBQ. Theres a few BMWs and Land Rovers parked in the driveway there looked like there right off the lot. People are milling about, right away you can tell there not from these parts. A lot of chunky horn-rimmed glasses and flannel and fake Wellingtons. And different races. Theres a few people have turbans on. Oh no this wont fly.

The Man of the House if you can call a slim metrosexual that is in the yard with the fireworks setup, and he looks like hes just getting started, and this is gonna be a long night. The man looks ready to invade Iraq himself with all the firepower hes got set up.

I walk up to him with my fingers in my ears.

‘Uh, hello? My mare’s all worked up into a lather on account of your fireworks.’

‘Eh?’

‘My mare!’

But he dont know what Im talking about.

‘I got a pregnant horse just up the road, shes only a few days pregnant, and all this excitement its not good for her uterus. Can you stop?’

He just looks at me. ‘No, Im sorry, lady. I dont think so.’ Hes got one of those foreign accents, like from the movies.

‘Cant you, you know, pack everyone up and just drive down to Woodstock for the night? Im sure they must have some sort of fireworks display for the children and all.’ I look over at a cluster of the little brown kids. 

The metrosexual guy looks at the kids, then back at me. Hes clicking the BBQ lighter in his hand. ‘Lady, its the Fourth of July.’ Like as if to say Im an immigrant, lady, and I gotta tell you about America? And he turns around to go off and light some more A-bombs.

Well. I drive back home, check on the mare, who of course shes having herself a nervous breakdown. The explosions go on for a few more minutes, and so I get fed up and decide to call Kenny at work.

‘Hello?’ One of the bigshots in the control room answers.

‘Kenny there?’

‘Sylvie Chamberlain?’

‘Just get Kenny. Im in a hurry.’

‘Just a minute. Let me page him for you. Hey Dave, watch this…’ And whoever it is on the other line doesnt even have the curtesy to put me on hold as he gets on the PA to yell, so I can hear it too: ‘KENNY CHAMBERLAIN! CRAZY LADY, LINE ONE! KENNETH CHAMBERLAIN, CRAZY LADY ON LINE ONE!’ Great, you lose a child to a river but this new management doesnt care about your feelings. Your not like a person to them.

‘Hello?’ after a minute or two.

‘Why do you let them say that about me?’

‘What is it?’ Kenny’s out of breath.

‘It is so embarrassing to have people speak about me like that, and for you to just sit by and allow it — ’

‘WHAT IS IT!’

‘Whats wrong with you?’

‘Fuck-up in the press room. The new guy put the wrong dies on, in the wrong order. And no one caught it until fifteen minutes into the run. So now I got twelve pallets of calendars where March and April are preceded by July and Januarys all the way at the end of the goddamn year. Its all out of order. You know of anyone who could use a calendar thats out of chronological order? I swear I will knock that new guy on his ass someday…’

‘Listen, can you come home?’

‘Fuck did I just say. We’re gonna be here til three in the morning tonight. Im already working my day off as it is. Reggie Peck already argued with me to get me to work holiday.’

‘The mare’s all worked up over the fireworks.’

‘Ah hell, is that what you called me up about? Theres paper flying all over that room in there, and they need me to teach em how to tie there shoes, and your getting after me over the damn horse? Jesus Christ I told you dont ever call me ‘nless it’s a real emergency!’

‘You call a few hundred dollars of wasted Idaho sperm isn’t an emergency?’

‘Not now. I cant come home right now!’ 

‘Fine. Ill just have to let the cops handle it.’

‘You go to it then. You just go ahead on.’

‘Alrighty then. Thanks for your support.’

CLICK.

So I speed dial the sheriff’s office, and when I get hold of someone finally I say I want to file a noise complaint. And they breath the biggest sigh in the universe and tell me ‘But it aint after 10:00 yet’ so I tell them about the mare and the foal and the semen delivery, and show them how this is money lost and its practically destruction of private property to make a horse about due to nervousness brung on by loud noises. So after a long pause during which I can hear the sheriff shouting in the background and a door slamming, they agree to make a house call.

‘Now theres turbans up there on the hill, so you might want to get Homeland Security on the horn,’ I say. ‘Maybe they forgot there green cards. I hope.’

Theres only a few more explosions but then about 9:30 they stop. There. Im out in the barn stroking the exhausted mare, calming it down. But then I need some calming down too so as soon as I make damn sure its safe I take my menthols and one of the hidden flasks of blackberry brandy and take a little drive. A night drive. I drive and drive, and theres some other flashes in the sky but there too far away to cause a disturbance. And I find myself turning down that old road by the river and pulling up to that bouquet tied to the railing, barrier, whatever. Guardrail. It wasn’t put up til after my accident. Too little too late. They always overreact afterwards, when nothing can change whats happened. A little structure with a roof on it to keep the rain off the little teddybears and crosses that people left here during the weeks and months afterward. But now Im the only one who comes here on a semiregular basis, which seems right, this place belongs to me. I remember the hollowness I felt whenever anyone looked at me, on the floor of the calendar factory, when I tried to return to work, after. A big recurrent joke there on the factory floor was we used to ask each other what day it was.  You could really honestly forget. And if you ever forgot an anniversary working at a calendar factory you were in deep doodoo. Specially if your significant other worked there too. Which a lot of them do, husbands and wives. Fathers and daughters. Before they brung in new management and a lot of us got shitcanned.

But for some reason I lost track of time, lost track for real. I kept asking people: ‘What day is it? How long has it been?’ and they realized I wasn’t kidding no longer. I was like still trapped in that mud, I couldn’t move. The factory men, who used to all come to me for advice, to vent to me about there wives or girlfriends or other problems with women, who used to come talk about money difficulties—now they stayed clear of me. They would all file by my workstation, where I sat with the stacks of calendars piling up all around me, a backlog. Id refuse to look up at them. Now that I had the problem, I couldn’t help them, they couldn’t help me. And staring at stacks of calendars with puppies and duckies on them all day every day after a while can get to you.

So I guess I had what they all want to call a nervous breakdown. They told me to take the rest of the day off. And that day off turned permanent.

If it were the old management they would have given me something, some easier job that would let me take home something at the end of the week. But these new people, these French owners, wouldn’t give you a hand if you were dangling off a cliff by your pinkie finger. Theyd probably step on your hand and laugh at you as you fell down. Thats what theyre doing to our boys over in Iraq. Those French are just as bad as Arabs if not worse.

Now that our president and our nation is at war, Skyler’s bouquet by the roadside is done up in patriotic colors. As if his ghost still could have a care for patriotism. I remember a spirit who had a spirit. America lives on in the rituals I do for Baby Skyler, who when he died couldnt hardly count to three or tell you what the color ‘green’ or ‘red’ meant when we pulled up to the one stop light in our town, let alone know that three colors red white and blue together stands for something important like American liberty or soldiers out there dying for our foundational freedoms. Maybe hed have been a soldier or an artillery man. More likely hed just go work in the calendar factory, gluing cardboard corners forever. But at least thats something. I have put all my fears into one thing instead of dealing with them separately, one by one, in single file. So Skyler’s memorial gets the red white and blue, when really its got nothing to do with him. He was too young. The pressures become too great, the fears too many. So now I cant keep the walls separating them upright anymore. The mourning and the hope for the nations future have all become one single thing. I come here at night so you wont never see me by the side of the road, but when you drive by on your way to work in the morning youll see what I leave here, every day.