Short Thing #3

the comedian

He stared in the full-length mirror with his script in one hand and an HB pencil in the other. The eraser on the end of the pencil had long been bitten off, yet the tin casing that once had held it there, remained. He chewed at it now. It made his front teeth ache. It left a metal taste in his mouth.

The script he had written was not his best. Nothing had been in years. But he kept writing. Rehearsing his scripts in the mirror. Walking up the hallway, with hand gestures. Scribbling notes in the sides of the pages. Notes on things he struggled to get the timing on. Ideas for making his jokes better. Words that got confused in his mouth. Words he fumbled to say in time.

And things he wasn’t sure of anymore.

He was divorced. Essentially. He was a contemporary cliché. Married to a woman for near thirty seven years because that was the thing to do. She was still in the house. They were still married. That would never change. But they were divorced, too.

The irony of the times.

She hated it when he rehearsed in the hallway. She hated when he scribbled at the dinner table. She hated when he couldn’t sleep. She hated when he was writing and he wasn’t talking to her. She hated when he shut the door to the study and left her in the house alone.

He hated that he couldn’t make her laugh anymore.

When she went shopping with her girlfriends she would sit with them in the food court of the shopping centre close to her home. She and her girlfriends would drink coffee and eat a slice of cake. They would do this a couple of times a week. Or a few. Her girlfriends were in marriages similar to hers. They had similar problems. Similar discontent. No one really got along anymore. No one really made love. With words or bodies. No one really cared. No one was affected.

Something was missing.

She attributed it to youth. Youth and immaturity. Her own when she met him. That and the idea of love being something that only young people could believe in. That young people could see as lasting forever. She knew better now. That nothing lasts forever. Her body was testament to that. Her husband’s, too. And the feeling that her life was missing something grew more.

Her children no longer needed her. They certainly no longer needed her husband. They’d needed her for longer than they’d needed him, though. She used to feel guilty for that. That her children openly needed her more than him. When he was impossible, though, she felt vindicated for it. Felt that she had worked harder for those children and thus deserved to be needed for longer. Deserved to be loved more. But now they were grown.

And that was that.

She would talk to her best girlfriend sometimes. They would get into chats and cackle over cups of tea and coffee. At her best girlfriend’s kitchen table. Joking about sex and who would have to do it soon. Who would have to give it up for their husbands because it had been too long. Joking. Naughty jokes. Innuendo. Double entendre. Laughing about it.

She laughed with her girlfriends.

When she went out, he would wait for her to come home. He didn’t think she would come home and that they would be changed. That things would be better. That their divorced married life would be lifted from their consciences. But he waited all the same. It was empty with out her. As it was with her.

He would shower alone these days. His hair had changed. And, of course, his body. He wasn’t an old man, yet. But he was not the same either. As he once was. He no longer felt connected with the famous actors in the Hollywood movies. He no longer sympathised with their character’s plights. Movies were about young people. Or they were set in the past.

When they were young, they always showered together. Even when their children were around. Awake. They would talk in the shower. Discuss their days and thoughts and dreams and problems. They would never argue in the shower. Even when they were arguing. The shower was safe. They would solve the problems of the world in the shower. Not that their shower was luxurious or grand. He’d been successful, but not to the point of extravagance. But showering together, other than going to bed, other than making love, was their time. They could be and be cleaned. They could be held. They could talk without the rest of the world listening. They could be honest. Bare.

Now nearly every time he walked into a room, she had her back towards him. As though she were waiting for him to come up behind her. To turn her around to look at him. To look into her eyes. And he thought about it, too. Nearly every time he walked into a room. But he didn’t turn her around. He didn’t look into her eyes. He watched her back for a moment then carried on. He didn’t turn her around. He wouldn’t know what to do with her if he did. Wouldn’t know what to say to her. What to say into those eyes.

He had a gig soon. It was a gala night to promote the upcoming comedy festival. He knew he was invited for nostalgia’s sake. He knew his presence was more out of respect than out of popularity. He was ok with that. He’d conceded.

She never came to his gigs anymore. Her excuse was that she had heard him rehearsing his scripts for so long that she already knew the jokes. He felt it was because he embarrassed her. He told jokes about marriages. He told jokes about being married. He told jokes about her. Not her. But she knew they were. She hated him for that.

He hated her for not coming.

(c) Samantha Florence, 2011