Anne Boyer

 

Sledgehammer

You are looking at a woman with a broken heart. This is what I wanted to tell the cashier at the Kum-N-Go. I wanted to find one of those necklaces, one with a heart split in two, and wear it on a chain around my neck. I wanted to throw bricks in his windows, kick down his door.

You see, I wanted to tell the cashier at the Kum-N-Go, this is what happens when you turn forty. The gals at the office gave me a birthday card with a picture of a little ant falling off a cliff. Over the Hill.

The gals put black balloons in my cubicle. I played his dictation that day, each correspondence starting with "Dear." I had my nails done because we were going to go out for margaritas after work.

I was wearing a magenta, low-cut, wrap-around blouse. I bent down in his office to pick up my indigo gel-pen, bent over just enough that he could see the Wonder-Bra underneath. I thought this is a nice guy, not like the others. I should have told that young lady running my card: I've been around, you'd think I would know a nice guy.

I needed a sledgehammer. I should have told that gal at the Kum-N-Go that when Willie came to my father's office that Saturday morning, he was polite, holding the snowy styrofoam cup of Folgers.

Polite, young, handsome in an awkward sort of way, his arms too long for his suit sleeves, his feet too long for his legs. Not Willy, the heartbreaker. I'd tell the cashier. This is what happens when you turn forty. They don't want you anymore, throw you away.

I don't remember what Willy looked like. Retarded, probably. Big. We could never lift the sledgehammer far off the ground, the Mize kids or me.

My Dad's friend Mize would come over Saturday nights with his wife and three blond kids. It took me years to realize that Mize was his last name, not the word "Mice." I'd play with his kids, but they all looked like mice, giggled like mice, ate little cubes of cheese.

Mize wore a t-shirt, tight and powder blue, with a picture of the Monopoly card for "Get Out of Jail Free." He was a public defender. His job made him sound like a superhero, but I wouldn't want Mize to defend me: mighty-Mize. My father would be better. I knew he could yell "I'll spank your butt." My father would start all his stories, "Well let me tell you . . ."

Well let me tell you, little Miss Kum-N-Go. These men will break your heart.

I spent my Saturday mornings at my father's office. My father had me Hoover, wipe Lemon Pledge on the desks, Lysol the bathrooms. After I cleaned my father gave me a dollar and sent me to the discount bakery to buy a couple of Hostess pocket pies.

Exit number. Exit number. What a sham, to call in sick.

He could see right through it, the day after my birthday and all. I bet that heartbreaker would laugh when I didn't pass by his office, smile and say "Hi." But I wanted to tell the cashier at Kum-N-Go, if this isn't sick there is no sick at all.

I pushed the buttons on my radio. Where were the oldies? Forty, with wrinkles, empty bottles of stoplight red Nice and Easy and a root canal to prove it. Stay away from men, I wanted to tell her.

I was scared, I wanted to tell the lady at the Kum-N-Go. She was a pretty gal, a little tired looking, but with a tiny gold cross on a chain and long brown hair. When she smiled, she showed one snaggle tooth. She had a bracelet on, with something like diamonds in it. Reminded me of me.

Saturdays, I watched my father's clients going in to see him, each one different, some humble, some perfumed, and they all came out relieved, shaking his hand.

We went out for margaritas after work, and the gals must have invited that sneaky asshole. I must have had too much to drink. I would have told that cashier I am not much of a drinker, really, but it was my birthday.

We dipped our chips in the same bowl of salsa. Usually I'd cackle with the gals later about dipping chips, how we brushed our hands up against each other. I felt his hand. I started making suggestions, rubbing my shoe against his leg.

The clients would tell me something about what a good lawyer my father was. I would blush with pride. That was my father, I should have told the gal, such a good man.

I had just finished cleaning the office and fetching my pocket pies. Carol, my dad's girl, always had a stack of Harlequins by her typewriter. I'd read through them while my father worked.

"Let me tell you . . ." my father would say to Mize over the barbeque in the back yard. Willy was in my father's office when I came back.

"I got something I need to tell you." Willy said. At least that's how my father said it, imitating the slow, retarded voice.

"Well what is it Willy?"

"You know that gal, Wanda, from the halfway house?"

I bet my father leaned across his best up desk: "Now Willy, you know I'm not your lawyer right now. That means whatever you tell me . . ."

"Yes, but I got to tell someone."

"Now just hold on here . . ."

"I killed Wanda. It was me. She done me wrong. She broke my heart." My father would always laugh, stretch out the word heeeee-arrrrt, and end it with a sound that could have been a t or a d. He'd turn the hot dogs.

If I had it to do over again, I'd tell that young lady at the Kum-N-Go to go call her father. So what if he didn't want me, if he laughed. That asshole broke my heart.

I read Carol's harlequins those Saturdays in my father's office, skimming forward to the sexy parts. The heroine, usually with green eyes and auburn hair - like me, I thought - she always got the guy. She always put up a good fight, though. She never dipped her chips in the salsa, suggested to Forest or Lake or Rod that they go back to her apartment for some fun. Play hard to get, I should have told the gal at the Kum-n-go.

"Be back in a bit," my father said to me, and guided Willy right out the