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Bones

by Dale Rappaneau

May 2011

Deep within the dark and decaying hallways of the Hardwick Home for the Retired and Homely, Mr. Bones sits comfortably in an oversized brown armchair. The arms of the chair are a worn light brown color, reflecting the favoritism Mr. Bones shows for the chair. Mr. Bones’s ass cheeks conform perfectly to the chair’s seat, because the springs should have been replaced years before. Scatted here and there are holes and tears in the chair’s fabric, which have become the well traversed pathways of countless roaches.

Mr. Bones himself matches the disheveled, neglected image of his favorite brown chair. He is an elderly overweight man who has not been complimented for his appearance in sixty-seven years. The last compliment came from a seaman who had returned from a three week excursion at sea. The seaman arrived ashore and saw Mr. Bones’s behind, and the seaman exclaimed, “That’s why we do it, boys! That right there is why we put in the hard, long hours, so we can do something like that for hard, long hours!” The seaman had mistakenly thought that Mr. Bones was a well-endowed woman.

Overweight may not even be the appropriate term for Mr. Bones. He is an ugly, disgusting filth of a man, weighing nearly four hundred pounds. The last time Mr. Bones saw the light of his knees was long before he received the compliment from the mistaken seaman, and Mr. Bones cannot vividly remember what his knees look like. If you were to ask Mr. Bones what his knees looked like, he would lie and fabricate a story about going to the doctors and he’d laugh and try to brush the story away.

Mr. Bones’s knees closely resemble a clump of moldy cream cheese. The kind you forget about in the back of the fridge and only remember because of the smell.

As stated before, everything about Mr. Bones is ugly, disgusting, and filthy.

Even the room with which Mr. Bones currently occupies himself is well beyond the norms of clean and kempt. Fast-food wrappers roam the forgotten floor like dust bunnies across the Arizona desert. If they are not roaming, they sit in the corners of the room in piles high enough to be confused for a large dog or a small child playing hide-and-seek underneath a blanket. Amidst the fast-food wrappers lies empty plastic bottles, Styrofoam coffee cups, countless candy bar remnants, boxes of half-eaten burgers, wads of cellophane that once protected cookies from people like Mr. Bones, unopened mail and bills, clumps of hair that have fallen out on its own accord, stale socks and underwear, and the television remote, which Mr. Bones has not been able to find for months.

The lack of a television remote has caused Mr. Bones no worries or troubles. If anything, it has further simplified his already simple life, because now he no longer has to think about which channel to watch. Everyday, from dawn to dusk, Mr. Bones watches the weather channel. He wakes up in the morning, walks to the television, turns it on, watches the weather all over the world, turns it off, and goes to bed. No choices, no worries, no stresses. That is the life of Mr. Bones.

Unfortunately, there is one thing that complicates the overweight man’s small life – his wife.

Napping one room over from Mr. Bones is the aging woman who once turned heads and had men begging for a chance to enjoy her company. Her name is Mrs. Bones, and she only gives her first name out to close friends and family. “It’s an honor, not a right,” she says when people ask for her first name.

The union of Mr. and Mrs. Bones is a complicated one riddled with an unexpected birth, a hurried marriage, and a surprising miscarriage, which left the two in a lonely union. With both being from deeply religious families, they remained together and vowed to “do their best” with each other. For the most part, they have loosely held on to that belief.

Mrs. Bones awakes from her afternoon nap, rubs her eyes, releases a polite yawn, and stretches her legs off the bed. She stretches her arms and snaps a couple bones in her body. “It’s like winding up a toy,” she says, instinctually. “Need to get those old kinks out.”

The bedroom, which is primarily occupied by Mrs. Bones, is exquisitely clean. If a drill sergeant performed a white-glove test, nothing in the room would leave a speck of dust on that white glove.

Mrs. Bones was raised in a house where the children were seen but not heard, and you always listened to the man of the house.

Mrs. Bones always listens to Mr. Bones, no matter the request. If Mr. Bones says, “I want a hamburger,” Mrs. Bones will fetch it, immediately, no matter the time of day. If Mr. Bones says, “I want to have sex,” Mrs. Bones will fulfill the request, no matter the condition of Mr. Bones’s body.

There has never been a more saintly woman than Mrs. Bones.

And now, as she wades through the trash congregating around Mr. Bones’s favorite chair, she suppresses every feeling of sadness, remorse, and regret. She rationalizes Mr. Bones’s behavior, trying to find some semblance of the reason she used to love this awful man.

“I called you four minutes ago,” says Mr. Bones. “What took you so long to get out here, woman?”

The television screams about a storm soon to hit the coast of Rhode Island. It is a small storm, yet the news anchor reads off the details as if he was reading the last rites of the human race.

“I asked you a question, huh? You just going to stand there and let me gab on about nothing to no one?”

Mrs. Bones watches the news anchor spit forth a violent amount of information about rain and wind and dew – stuff that normally is anything but violent.

“The television really takes things too far these days,” says Mrs. Bones, gently.

Mr. Bones leans forward, sinking an elbow into one of his fat knees. “Huh? What’s that you say?”

“Could you turn down the television? It’s so loud I can hardly think.”

Mr. Bones throws his arms up in the air, showing a clear sign of defeat. “I can’t find the Goddamn remote. I asked you to look for it weeks ago, and now you’re telling me to turn the Goddamn television down.” He shakes his head. “I don’t understand you anymore. You’re always telling me to do this and that and go here and do this and go there. Slow down and relax for once, huh?”

Mrs. Bones walks over to the television and turns the volume knob down. She drops her head slightly. “I’m sorry to be so pushy.”

“Well, you’ve gone and made a habit out of it, like you’re Miss Queen Bitch of the kingdom and I’m just another field peasant.” He snaps a finger at her. “We talked about this, didn’t we?”

The elderly woman gently nods her head.

“You’re damn right we did. I don’t need my wife trying to mess things up now.”

Settling back into his chair, Mr. Bones grunts and groans, showing more pleasure and appreciation over his overstuffed brown chair than he has shown for his wife in much too long of a time. This is normally a sign that he is done talking to his wife and will have no more discussion, but she remains stationary, with her head cocked to the ground.

Mr. Bones opens his eyes and finds his wife still standing in front of him, blocking his view of the television.

“For God’s sake, what is it now? Are you going to ask me to do something else for you, huh?”

She swallows a dry wad of fear and breathes deeply.

“Just spit it out, I’m missing some crucial storms here.”

She nods. “I want to go out tonight. I want to go somewhere other than here, somewhere far from our apartment. I’m sick of being cooped up here. We used to go places, Edward. We used to dance and drink wine, you remember? We used to dream about traveling the world together, Edward. Now we’re stuck here, alone, with just each other.”

Her husband scoffs and turns his head away from her. “I remember, and we used to say a lot of things, but not all of them happened.” Mr. Bones’s eyes well up with sorrow for something long lost, for the one thing that Mr. Bones has never forgiven his wife for losing. He chokes it back and looks at his wife. “And not all of them happened, so what of it? You want to go out tonight? Fine, where do you want to go? Dancing, drinks, friends, what? I’m too fat to dance, I’m too old to drink, and we ain’t got no friends, so what do you want from me?”

“It doesn’t matter where we go, honestly. I just need to get out of here.” She picks up a hamburger box that has stained the floor with its oils and sauces. “This, this is the problem right here. This is why I need to get out of the apartment. It stinks, Edward. It smells like a horse lives here.”

Edward throws his arms in the air, releasing a shockwave down the sides of his body. “Here we go again. It’s always the same thing with you. I have to clean up the room. I have to watch my weight. I have to do everything around here. When is it going to be your turn, huh?”

Mrs. Bones sniffs the hamburger box and cringes. “I’m making a reservation to a theater tonight. If you want to come, put on a suit and come, but I’m going, nonetheless.”

Her husband leans back in the chair and sighs like a balloon slowly leaking air. When the last drop of air is released from his lungs, he takes a deep, gluttonous breath. “Fine, I’ll go to the theater with you tonight. But don’t say I never did anything for you.”

Mrs. Bones smiles. “I won’t, believe me, I won’t.”

*

To say that Mr. Bones is a regular at his local fast-food restaurants would be beyond false – it would be the farthest thing from the truth. Every waiter, cashier, waitress, busboy, restaurant manager, and concession stand owner within fifteen miles of the Hardwick Home for the Retired and Homely know of Mr. Bones. This has been made sure by his insatiable appetite and his unwillingness to monitor his caloric intake. From hamburger to ham sandwich, coffee to crumb cake, Mr. Bones gobbles it up as if he were an orphaned child living on the streets.

“Give me three cheeseburgers,” he spits into a drive-thru speaker box. “No, no wait, make that four cheeseburgers and two things of fries.”

A soft female voice crackles back at him. “Will that be all?”

Mr. Bones contemplates the addition of a couple milkshakes to wash down the processed meat. He rubs his chin and runs a hand over his flabby head. If I get a milkshake, would it be chocolate or vanilla? I don’t like vanilla, but I don’t like chocolate either. I just really want something creamy. It makes me feel good.

“Yeah, why don’t you add a couple milkshakes onto that list,” he shouts.

“So, two milkshakes, then?” the voice crackles.

Mr. Bones turns to his wife and sneers at her. “Can you believe this bullshit? They always ask me the same questions, like they can’t remember me here. I thought this place was supposed to be a well-to-do establishment. You know, remembers your name and everything. What happened to those days?”

She shakes her head and shrugs her shoulders. “Things changed, Edward.”

“Yeah, well things shouldn’t change so fast. I miss the old days, when things were simple and people knew your name.” He leans back out the window of his car. “Do you know who I am? Do you remember me? I come here every single day and sometimes twice or three times a day.”

The speaker box is silent.

“Did you hear me? I asked you a question.”

“I can’t see you, sir. If you came inside, I might recognize you, but we have a lot of customers, so I don’t really know.”

“Come inside? You expect me to come inside just so you can recognize me?”

Nothingness responds from the speaker box.

“Because if you expect me to come inside, why have this speaker box here?”

This is one of the core arguments Mr. Bones has for his inability to manage his weight: fast-food restaurants are designed to encourage weight gain, so he is merely following the path set for him. Through the urban jungle, fast-food restaurants are his guides. They lead him as if he was a donkey, with a carrot on the end of a stick. Roaming from one place to the next, Mr. Bones will hit at least six fast-food restaurants throughout the day. Donuts and coffee in the morning, rehydrated eggs and reconstituted pancakes for brunch, compounded meat and chemically-enhanced condiments for lunch, a meat mixture taco for a pre-dinner snack, a genetically engineered chicken thigh for dinner, and a post-dinner snack that often leads him toward the sweeter side of life.

When his doctor asked him about his eating habits, Mr. Bones said, “I eat what the world gives me, isn’t that the point? I eat because it’s there. What else should I eat? You tell me and I’ll go eat it.”

His doctor laughed and said, “Vegetables, fruits, non-fat dairy products, and things with less sodium.”

“I eat plenty of vegetables. There’s pickles on my burgers and I always add ketchup. And mustard’s a vegetable, right? It’s a color like ketchup, so it can’t be too far off.”

“No, Edward, you need to eat raw vegetables and fruits. Do some cooking at home.”

“Who has time to cook at home? These days, life’s too busy for that. My restaurants give me what I need – cheap food.”

And that’s exactly what Mr. Bones gets: cheap food.

It fills him like helium fills a balloon, stretching him beyond capacity.

“And an order of chicken fingers,” he barks at the soft voice crackling back at him. “The sixteen piece, not the eight. I’m driving a good distance.” He leans back into the car, letting his weight settle back into the seat. Similar to his brown armchair, the driver’s seat has seen better, lighter days.

These days, everything Edward sits in resembles an oil painting left in the rain – gravity has done its damage.

“Do you really need all of this food?” asks Mrs. Bones. “We’re only going fifteen minutes. It’s not like we’re leaving the city.” She puts a hand on his thigh, rubbing it gently. She smiles at him sincerely, the way only eyes can smile. “You really don’t have to eat so much, you know that, right? I mean, you eat a lot, Dear.”

Mr. Bones’s face contorts as if he smelled something horrid. “I don’t—I don’t have to eat so much?” He scoffs and coughs and halfheartedly laughs. “You’re giving me permission? Oh, thank the Lord, because my wife has finally given me the freedom I need from this terrible burden.” He looks up and shakes his hands. “Hallelujah! Praise the Baby Jesus and every other religious twat out there.”

Those smiling eyes of Mrs. Bones absorb every bit of scorn and ridicule, protecting their master, and their smiles fade and die. “I was just trying to be nice, Edward. It’s something you could learn.”

“At this age, you can’t teach a dog to shit. If he ain’t got it by now, give up.”

“Then maybe I should give up.”

And not another word is said. The aging couple of love and laughter and passion say nothing more to each other. They merely sit in silence, imagining the arguments and conversations they should be having with each other.

Edward yells about how life has never given him a break, so why should he give his wife one?

Mrs. Bones retorts with the admittance that no one is perfect.

And Mr. Bones throws unnecessary swears and cusses at his wife, calling her a bitch and a whore and a no-good-wife and a no-good-mother.

But these are merely thoughts - electrical impulses - and have no bearing in this world, similar to the way Mrs. Bones could not bear to bring a child into this world.

A world where men and women fight because they love each other, yet make love because they hate each other. A world where people worry about starvation, yet Mr. Bones eats away his worries. A world where I create fictional characters to deal with internalized problems.

As he grabs his food and drives the car away, a single thought crosses Edward’s mind: Why do I even bother?

And then he whispers it: “Why do I even bother?” It is soft enough that his wife can hear nothing more than a mumble.

“Why do I even bother?” he asks again, louder. “Why do I even bother?” His eyes stare at something further than the windshield, the road, and the sky. “Why do I even bother?” His voice becomes louder, on the verge of yelling and screaming. “Why do I even bother? Can you tell me? Can someone fucking tell me anymore? Why the fuck do I even bother? Everything I do is wrong and nothing turns out right for me.”

He pulls the car to the side of the road and parks it abruptly, scaring his wife. She puts a hand on the dashboard, as if bracing for a collision.

Edward turns toward his wife and yells, “Why do I even bother? Huh, why? What’s the point anymore? We’ve been together for over half a century and for what? I don’t love you, and I know you don’t love me, so what’s the point?”

Like an arrow through the heart, Mrs. Bones clutches her chest. Her fingers tighten and her face clenches.

Mrs. Bones is having a heart attack.

“Oh, and I guess I just shot you in the heart with that one, didn’t I?” yells Mr. Bones.

Her face contorts and her spine bends forward. She slams her free fist against the dashboard. Each consecutive hit gets harder and harder. Bam! Bam! Bam bam bam!

Her elderly heart is struggling for one more moment of life, for a chance to say something to her husband that she has never said to him.

“Please,” she silently begs her body, “please give me one more moment. That’s all I need. One more moment and I can let this man rest in peace. I can tell him the words which have lost my tongue for so many years. It is not love. It is not hate. It is not anything that words can describe or even bring to life. Please, just one more second.”

Her fist stops slamming against the dashboard and her clutching fingers lose their initial surge of strength.

Mr. Bones has yet to realize what is happening. He rants and yells at her, telling her how stupid she is for pantomiming her emotions. “We’re adults, Emily,” he says, using the gift of her first name. “This is so typical of you. I’m trying to have a serious conversation and you say nothing, do nothing, and throw a tantrum.”

The fat man opens his fast-food bag and pulls out of grease-ridden wrapper.

Now gasping for air, Mrs. Bones struggles to breathe, hoping to gather the strength to say even just one more word. She continues to beg and believe that something higher than human will save her and spare her the chance to speak.

But no words come to her mouth; no angel comes to save her.

And Mr. Bones takes one large bite of a cheeseburger, letting the grease drip down his chin.

“We’re adults, Emily, and your childish antics are annoying me.”

And not another heartbeat is heard within the chest of Emily Bones.

Without the chance to apologize to her husband, to say how sorry she is for losing their child, she rests.