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SEATTLE, WASHINGTON:
The red taillights of the car in front of him flash on, and Harold Woolly steps on the brake to stop his little station wagon. He looks at his reflection in the rearview mirror, unconsciously pulling his thin brown hair over the bald area in the center of his forehead. He reaches down, turns up the volume on the radio, and hums off key with the gospel singers. The brake lights in front of him flash off and he gets a break when a trucker is late to respond.
Harold stomps on the accelerator and darts into the right lane, receiving a loud blast from the trucker’s horn. It’s like a war zone on the freeway. Everyone’s in a hurry, and as inconsiderate as possible. Even the air is deadly while stuck in traffic.
Twenty minutes later, he eases onto the exit ramp into the parking lot beneath the Corporate Bank Building. The elevator takes him to the thirty-eighth floor, and as he rushes past the receptionist, she hollers his boss wants to see him first thing. “This is not good!” Harold mumbles as he tosses his briefcase onto his desk and hurries to the manager’s office. He draws a deep breath and steps through the doorway.
“You’re late again, Woolly!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stuckford,” he says to the pompous man in a tailored suit sitting behind the desk. “It’s the traffic, sir. It’s getting worse every day.”
“That’s no excuse! I don’t have a problem getting here on time.”
Harold stares at the desktop. He knows better than to say he can’t afford a nice big house on Lake Union like his boss. As it is, he leaves two hours early to make it on time, and adds another two hours to his workday just to get home. “Yes, sir, I’ll do that.”
“Good. What’s the status on the bank merger?”
“I’m having a hard time convincing them, Mr. Stuckford. Their board of directors thinks their stock will double by next year.”
Stuckford glares at Harold. “You’re not aggressive enough, Woolly! Now either you start threatening them, or I’ll get someone else to handle the merger and you’ll be looking for another job. Is that clear?”
Harold indicates it is, then returns to his desk and spends the better part of the day, including his lunch break, on the phone. When he finally leaves the office, he wishes all the other cars on the highway would run out of gas so he can be the only car on the interstate.
By the time he finishes the commute home, he’s mentally exhausted. He retrieves his briefcase from the backseat and shuffles along the sidewalk to his front porch, then enters his three-bedroom, rambler-style house. “I’m home, Cally,” he hollers toward the kitchen.
Cally Woolly wipes her hands on a dishtowel as she steps around the wall from the kitchen and smiles at her husband. “Hi, Dear. Dinner is almost ready. Why don’t you change clothes now, so we’ll be ready to go to choir practice as soon as we’re through eating?”
Harold sighs deeply at the thought of more work. “I really don’t feel like choir practice tonight.”
Her normally soft hazel eyes harden into fierce orbs in a scowling face. “It’s only two weeks until the concert, Harold!”
“But Cally, I can’t even carry a tune. You’ve told me enough times. I get tired of just mouthing the words.”
“Well, if you don’t practice, you’ll embarrass me by mouthing the wrong words!”
Harold releases a frustrated sigh. “You go ahead without me. I’ll go next week.”
Cally storms back into the kitchen and Harold walks down the hallway, pausing at the open door of his daughter’s room.
He sees seventeen-year-old Pamela sitting at her desk, but she doesn’t notice him standing in the doorway. He studies the posters on the walls, and they’re all of professional women soccer players.
He continues down the hall to Mark’s bedroom, but his fifteen-year-old son is not there. Paintball competition posters cover the walls, and camouflaged clothing lay scattered on the floor, below the replica guns and rifles hanging from a wall.
He continues to his bedroom and changes clothes. When he returns to the kitchen, Cally is standing silently at the stove with her back to him. “Did we get any mail?” he asks, hoping she might have calmed down.
“It’s on the counter,” she says without turning.
Harold grabs the small stack of envelopes and sits at the table. He sees bills, bills, and more bills. They never seem to stop coming. At the bottom is an official-looking envelope addressed to Mark, with A.O.S. printed in the upper left corner, and a Post Office box number in Idaho. He thinks about opening it, but knows his son would probably enjoy opening it himself.
The back door suddenly burst open and Mark Woolly rushes through, slamming it closed and peering out the window. A bright yellow substance is splattered on the left shoulder of his camouflaged shirt, and he’s holding a long-barreled paint gun in his right hand. He glances over his shoulder at Harold. “I’m all right, Dad. It’s just a shoulder wound.”
“Go wash up for dinner,” Cally tells him.
Mark spins around, devastated, as though about to be executed. “But Mom! Brian is hiding behind the fence and I can sneak out the front door and nail him!”
“You can nail him tomorrow. Now, go wash up for dinner.”
“All right,” he says and shuffles across the kitchen, disappearing around the corner.
Cally sets plates and silverware on the counter. “Fix your own plate,” she snarls to Harold as she takes hers into the living room.
Harold stares after her. So, it’s going to be one of those nights. Pamela will come in and fill her plate, then disappear into her bedroom. Cally will sit in front of the television, and Mark will join him at the table. A moment later, Pamela appears.
“Hi, Dad,” she says as she walks to the stove and piles stroganoff onto her plate. “You upset Mom again, didn’t you?” she says as she walks past him, disappearing from the kitchen without waiting for a response.
Harold watches Mark walk to the stove. He’s tall for his age, like his sister, and still growing, and has no problem piling a mountain of stroganoff onto his plate. He’s glad his son likes to buy clothes at the thrift store, instead of demanding new clothes, as his daughter does.
Mark grabs four slices of bread before sitting at the table. “Mom’s really pissed.”
“Hey, watch the language,” Harold says grins.
“What’s the matter with her this time?”
It always amazes him how his children can be so observant. This time is right. It seems he and Cally are arguing a lot lately and she’s getting even more demanding. In the past, he usually gives in to her demands. He fell head over heels in love with her in high school, though she always ignored him. She was one of the most attractive and popular girls in his grade level and always dated the jocks. In their senior year, he caught her on the rebound from a doomed affair with a macho football player, who dumped her for a cheerleader from another school. He gathered enough courage to ask her to the senior prom and was elated when she accepted.
That night, she talked on and on about wanting a more sensitive kind of guy, and on impulse, he asked her to marry him. When she said yes, he was shocked with elation, but she also stipulated they would have to elope to Nevada that night or the deal was off. He was so happy he could hardly control himself. He took her to her house so she could grab some clothes. He didn’t even bother stopping at his place and drove straight through to Nevada, and she’s continued to tell him what to do since that night.
Harold and Mark both look up when they hear the door into the garage slam shut and hear Cally’s car starting. It’s getting worse. Now she isn’t even saying goodbye when she leaves.
Harold loses his appetite and sits watching Mark shovel bread and stroganoff into his mouth, as though he’s starved. “This came in the mail for you, Son.”
Mark quits eating and tears open the envelope. He brings out a letter and starts reading.
“What does AOS stand for?” Harold asks.
“Army of Survival,” Mark replies and dumps two brochures onto the table.
Harold picks one up and studies the information. The brochure has pictures of men and women in camouflaged clothing, posed in various stages of combat. One picture is of a group of men and women standing at attention in front of a raised cabin. On a porch behind them is a tall, dark-haired man with a black patch over one eye. “Where did you learn about this?”
“From Brian’s Essex’s older brother, John. He heard about it when he was in the Marine Corps.”
“That’s strange, Max Everex never told me he had another son.”
“He’s from Mr. Everex’s first marriage. He doesn’t come around much. Brian says it’s because neither of his parents like him. I think he’s a neat guy. He let Brian and me hold the awesome guns and weapons he carries around in the trunk of his car.”
Harold is suddenly alarmed. It’s one thing for his son to play with toy weapons, but quite another for him to play with real ones. “Where is Brian’s brother now?”
“Here, I think.” Mark holds up a brochure. “That’s where he was headed when he left.”
Harold relaxes a little. That’s a relief.
Pamela appears and sets her plate in the sink, then sits at the table, looking very serious. “When you and Mom get divorced, I want to live with her.”
“Not me,” says Mark. “I want to live with you, Dad.”
Again, Harold is surprised how astute his children are to have noticed the rift forming between their parents. “Now, wait a minute, both of you. Who said anything about a divorce?”
Pamela looks at him, her expression one of forbidden knowledge. “I heard Mom and Ms. Stoker talking, and she told Mom to get a good attorney and take you to the cleaners.”
Harold’s jaw hangs open. He had no idea Cally is planning on a divorce. He looks at Pamela. “Uh, how long ago was this?”
“About three weeks ago.”
“What does take you to the cleaners mean?” Mark asks.
“It means Mom is going to get all of Dad’s money and property and put him in the poorhouse.”
Harold’s mind is reeling with the information. How can Cally do this to him without even talking about it?
Pamela interrupts his thoughts. “I just wanted you to know what I want, Dad, so it will be easier in the custody battle.”
Harold stares after her as she stands and leaves the room. He looks over at Mark, who’s finishing his stroganoff as though nothing is wrong. Mark gets up and puts his plate in the sink, then walks toward the back door. “I’m going to find Brian so we can finish our game.”
After the door slams shut, Harold remains seated and tries to cope with the devastating news. I don’t want a divorce. Why didn’t she talk to me about it? Maybe she really isn’t going through with it? Maybe it’s just talk?
Harold remembers accidentally discovering where Cally hides old love letters from her high school flings. He slowly gets up and walks down the hall to their bedroom. He opens her bottom dresser drawer and digs around beneath her lingerie until he finds the ribbon-bound stack of letters. On top is a copy of a petition for divorce. He sits heavily on the bed, and as though in a dream, he unties the ribbon, opens the document, and reads the demands. Cally wants custody of the children, the house, child support, and maintenance payments.
He stares in the dresser mirror in shock. It’s all true. She’s taking me to the cleaners.
His fingers feel numb as he re-ties the ribbon and replaces the bundle in the drawer. His mind is whirling, and after the mental stress of work and the commute home, it’s more than he can take. He doesn’t have the willpower to confront Cally when she comes home.
He feels as though he can’t breathe. He needs some fresh air, so he slowly gets up and walks down the hall. He glances into Mark’s bedroom and sees all the guns hanging on the wall and takes two steps past the door before turning and entering the room. He stands in front of the of guns, carefully studying each one. Most of them are obviously plastic, but near the lower right corner is a real-looking silver pistol. He gently removes it from its peg, feeling the weight of the metal as he lovingly runs his hand along its smooth barrel. This one will do. So beautiful. Yes, this one will be perfect.
He carries it back to his bedroom, sits on the end of the bed so he can see himself in the dresser mirror, and the man reflected back looks like someone else. An old man with sunken eyes and a big nose. An old man with hardly any hair. He watches the old man in the mirror raise a beautiful silver pistol with his left hand. Ha! He exclaims inwardly. It’s someone else. The man in the mirror is left-handed, and I’m right-handed.
Harold stares in fascination as the old man turns the pistol and places the end of the barrel against his temple. The old man in the mirror grins at him, and Harold watches him pull the hammer back with his thumb and pull the trigger. The hammer falls as if in slow motion, and he hears a quiet click. In the mirror, the old man’s grin changes into a mocking grimace.
He decides he needs to leave for a while. Without thinking about it, he walks to the garage, retrieves an old suitcase, and returns to the bedroom. In something of a dream state, he packs a few clothes and his suit, and unconsciously tosses the silver pistol on top of the clothes and shuts the lid. He doesn’t notice Pamela staring at him as he walks past her bedroom. He mechanically grabs his briefcase by the sofa and leaves the house.