I’m one move away from becoming ‘Dirty Scrabble’ champion. Winner gets to play ‘Strip Scrabble’ with Janice. The transvestite has the Q and a triple letter square is open. Thirty-four points for QUEEN is right under her double-D’s. She winks a glittery lash in my direction and takes nine points for KISS. Thank you, Ronnie. I owe you, man. I lay down my last five tiles, PENIS. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is fifteen, plus thirteen for BOINKS and I’m out.”
My new friends disperse: Ronnie goes upstairs, Jimmy Wing down. Zach makes tracks for a club called Sneaky Dee’s. Zoe gives me a peck on the cheek before heading to her nightshift at Nestle. “Glad you came Mr. H. Don’t let the twins con you into Cocoa Puffs in the morning.”
Morning? Happy Birthday to me. I’m spelling LUCKY.
The dawn of my forty-third year began with a nightmare: mourners milling around my casket whispering, ‘Doesn’t he look like himself,’ and, ‘I never knew he collected doilies.’ Terror catapulted me from bed. I drank beer for breakfast, loaded four generations of Hoffstader family crochet into hefty bags, tossed them to the curb, left the door unlocked and went to work.
No one said happy birthday, not even Marjorie Mohave, the math teacher, the subtraction expert.
Last period, Zachary Sweet skulked in the doorway sporting Doc Martens, skater shorts and an ethnic tunic. I asked, “New look?”
“Thought I’d shake things up.” Zach is the kid most likely to blow-up the planet or save the world. He extended his hand. “Here.”
“What’s this?”
“For your birthday.”
‘M’ and ‘H’ Scrabble squares hung from a leather lanyard. They summed everything up: I, Michael Hoffstader was worth seven points.
“Sir, this may sound weird but Jimmy Wing had a dream last night. It’s really important that you come play Scrabble tonight.”
“Who’s Jimmy Wing?”
“He kinda came with the house. He said he saw you where roads divide. One to life, the other…like…you know.”
Every loser guy wants to believe the universe has a message for him and so I followed Zach home. In the kitchen, Ronnie, the ebony goddess/god was stirring pots. Zach pushed me forward. “This is Mr. H.”
Ronnie sized me up. “Good choice.”
“Ronnie came with the house too.” Zach smiled as big as he ever smiled. “Come out back.”
In the backyard Jimmy Wing was dropping plates while Zach’s Mom knelt toward Mecca. The ghost of my Aunt Morag hissed, ‘Filthy, wicked boy,’ as I lusted after Janice Sweet’s ass. It’s an angle never presented on parent/teacher night. She rose, dusting her hands on her jeans. “Jesus seizus, you really came.”
Jimmy bowed. “The tiles spoke, Janice.”
I surveyed the yard. A mosaic, wild as a Gaudi masterpiece, filled the space. “You’re an artist.”
Janice flushed scarlet. “Me? No. I’m just a maid.”
The fragments near breathed. “No, definitely an artist.”
Zach said, “See Mom. Jimmy was right.”
“About what?” I asked.
“Jimmy tells Scrabble fortunes. He’s gonna do yours.”
Zach spread tiles face down on the table. Jimmy Wing meditated then opened his eyes and began blindly picking tiles. He placed HISTORY MEETS ART on the board. MAJOR came next. He said. “Cruel villain.”
Spooky, I called Morag, Major with a capital MF.
Letters were added and rearranged. Jimmy sighed, “MARJORIE, betrayer.”
The Scrabble squares revealed all: Michael Hoffstader’s life sucked. Jimmy looked up, kind of staring through me with ancient far-east wisdom. “Your next forty-three years will be filled with…” He lifted hidden letter after hidden letter, spelling out: LOVE, FAMILY, PURPOSE, “…only if you are willing to play.”
Janice scrapes cake off the plates. “You up for another game?”
Am I up for it? Lady, I’m camping in my boxers: fire’s lit, tent’s pitched.
“Or do you want to just talk?”
No, no, no. I want to spell, spell, spell: JEANS, SHIRT, BRA, PANTIES… “Sure, talking would be nice.”
She rinses glasses. “I can’t believe you came.”
Not yet, but please Jesus, please… “Why?”
“Someone like you doesn’t have dinner with the likes of us.”
I’m a gut-sucking, hair-thinning, history teacher, with the allure of faux paneling. “Janice, this is the best birthday, heck, the best day of my life.”
She smiles, kind of shy and does something so wild Meg Ryan might’ve done it in a movie, finger-paints icing on my neck and licks it off. She flavours her lips with a sugar rose and lifts her face, looking more sixteen than thirty-six. I’ve kissed five women in my life, and that includes the fifty-cent kiss I bought from Sadie Hurley in eighth grade. This kiss is sweet, soft and oh—so—warm, with the slightest brush of tongue. BIRTHDAY tiles are reconfiguring into HARD BY IT.
“Grammy, I’m thirsty.” A sleepy twin is in the doorway, holding what looks like a size twelve Wellington.
“Darcylynne, there’s water by your bed.”
“I want Kool-Aid.”
“I’ll Kool-Aid you from here to kingdom’s corn if you don’t get back into bed.” Darcylynne retreats. Janice looks wide-eyed. “Sorry, did I wreck everything?” I shake no while gentling bottle-blonde strands from her cheek. She takes my hand and leads me to her bed.
By the faint light of the hula girl lamp she buttons her blue and white Holiday Inn uniform and pulls her hair into a pony tail. I gaze up from the pillow. “You are so beautiful.”
Her hand covers her mouth. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
“Okay. You’re breathtakingly spectacular.”
She kitten-crawls across the bed, kisses my chest, my neck, my cheek. “You were the best time that ever had me.”
That’s good, I think. Tonight I’ll bring her a box of Aunt Morag’s dishes and maybe she’ll play ‘French Maid Scrabble’ with me.
Sweet lips brush my ear. “I’ve got an early shift. You can come tonight if you want.”
I drift back to sleep dreaming of precisely that.
The tail on a black cat-clock counts out seconds. Pewter light bleeds through a geisha robe suspended across the window. The walls are jammed with her paintings, kind of Matisse meets Escher at Disneyland. The clothes I ‘lost’ are neatly folded on the chair. I never want to leave but sneaking out before the house wakes seems expedient.
Her bedroom door opens into the kitchen. Zach glances up from filling bowls with Alphabets. He says, “Darcylynne, Jennylee take breakfast to the TV.” He pours two mugs of coffee. “Come on. It’s nice sitting outside on Mom’s cracked plates.”
“I should go.”
“Um, sir, I really need two minutes.” In the backyard Zach straddles a giant sea turtle and I settle on a blue lizard. He asks, “Do you like my mom?”
“Yeah, I really do. But you’re my student and…”
“Not for long. Graduating, remember.” He dips his finger into his cup and swirls. “Um… Mr. H., you kinda got punked yesterday. Jimmy Wing doesn’t tell fortunes.”
“But, he knew…”
“You told me about Major MF when my dad was beating on me, remember? And the whole school knows Mohave dumped you.”
“The tiles…how?”
“That game’s so old. Jimmy’s memorized the wood grain of each tile.”
“Your mother knew?”
“Hell, no. She’d skin me. You can’t ever let on. Jimmy telling her fortune is the only way we get her believing she’s not shit.”
“So, it was just a joke on your dumb-ass teacher?”
“What? No, sir. You’re the best teacher we’ve ever had. If not for you, Zoe would’ve dropped out when she got pregnant and I would’ve packed it in long ago.”
“Then why?”
He searches the trees then connects eye to eye. “Mom picks the biggest tools in the box then gets screwed, hammered too. No one’s ever treated her good. Gramps was a twisted fuck. Zoe’s dad’s a Nazi, mine’s a bastard. I know you’d treat her nice.”
“Zach, you can’t manipulate people.”
“Isn’t that what history is? She not dumb, you know. And she’d never screw you over.”
“But she should choose.”
“She’s had a thing for you since the first time you told her Zoe and me weren’t snail shit. But she’d never believe you’d be interested. And you’ve got a rule book up your arse. If you were taking care of her then I wouldn’t worry so much going off to school.”
I teach seated behind my desk because my pants betray me each time I think of Janice. All day, words scramble and reorder. I return to my uninhabited house. The Major’s hall sampler: THE WAGES OF SIN, belts me. The letters animate, transmute before my eyes, EASE FIGHTS WON or NEW SOFT GEISHA. I contemplate SAFE WHITS GONE and tally the points. Without someone to play with the score always equals zero. A WEIGH SOFTENS. I like that one. I pack up Morag’s good china wondering if they’d let me play ‘Sweet Family Scrabble.’ HUSBAND, DAD, GRANDPA… MAJOR HUNK with a capital M.H. might be worth a million.
Published in Wicked Words Anthology, 2009