she might have cabbage stew stewing in the Sheila got nervous being in the house alone.
crock-pot, puffi ng its pungency throughout She bought a dog, a black poodle named Sug-
ar, to keep her company. Burglars are afraid
the house while she watched her story.
of dogs, even poodles. Sugar would watch
Sometimes Aaron would come home late, af- General Hospital with Sheila, that long snout,
ter having stopped for drinks with the paint- both dignifi ed and absurd, pointed like the
ing contractor he worked for. He was out of barrel of a gun at the screen. Aaron never
the door before dawn, and worked until fi ve liked the dog, eventually confessed that a
P.M., six days a week. She wanted him to poodle made him feel queer every time he
have a drink, if he wanted a drink, but she walked her. Sheila pointed out that Sugar was
didn’t want him to have fi ve drinks. He was a black poodle, to which Aaron retorted that
a good man, if. She couldn’t accept Boston he would rather own a pink German Shep-
again. She tried to keep dinner edible if he herd. Sheila giggled and kissed Aaron. Every
arrived at seven, or eight. At nine, she would two weeks she took Sugar to the groomer, to
throw everything out, and watch the news keep her fur sculpted in its French, cartoony
while drinking what may be her twelfth can way. When the mailman arrived, Sugar would
of Tab, and smoking her cigarette, feeling its go manic.
weight in her lungs.
They were trying to have a baby, although The dog was like General Hospital. The dog
was not a baby.
Aaron always worried about money.
In Boston, there had been a mis-
carriage.
During tourist season, during
the week, Sheila didn’t like tak-
ing the Volkswagen out to the
beach by herself, the way some
of the men would look at her.
Like she was a medium-rare slab
of prime rib. Sometimes Sheila
could not bear it. Without the
tourists, mostly old people and
families inhabited the shoreline.
She could sit in a deck chair and
read her magazines, sleep while
cocoanut oil quickened her
fl esh. On Sundays, she coaxed
Aaron to go to the ocean.
One Sunday, during the season
when tourists swelled over the
beach, Aaron and Sheila drove
out in the Charger to the water.
Overhead, the overtures of dusk
burned in swirls of bronzes and
blues. Sugar craned her skull
out of the passenger window.
They parked at the public lot,
surrounded by the gnarled pad-
dles of sea grape. Once on the
sand, the couple could barely
walk between fl esh, and Sug-
ar misbehaved like a nuisance,
psychotically insistent upon
sniffi ng everything. The seagulls
squalled overhead. Aaron squint-
ed into the blinding sky, afraid a
glop of white shit might squeeze
out of the humidity. Sheila could
Orlando Arts & Culture, v. 2.6
feel his tension in her own bones. “Let’s go
back home,” she whispered, as he yanked at
Sugar’s leash.
“No,” said Aaron. “The crowd’ll scatter in a
bit. Let’s just wait.”
“We could go home and come back.”
“Wait here,” Aaron said. He walked past the
parking lot, across the street, and into a liquor
store. Sheila sighed, watching its tinted door
swing closed. She crammed towels back into
the front seat, and hopped up onto the Charg-
er’s hood. Sugar put her paws on the glossy
white fi berglass, and lifted her snout the Shei-
la’s face. Sheila unsnapped Sugar’s leash. The
dog leaped onto the hood, and sat upon her
hind legs, looking like a French sphinx. Sheila
scratched the poof of black wool atop Sugar’s
head. Sheila looked through the shade of her
sunglasses at the distant ocean sighing.
Aaron arrived with a six-pack of Pabst Blue
Ribbon, which felt more patriotic than the
fourth of July. He yanked a cold cylinder from
the plastic holder, and gave it to his wife. The
beer felt beautifully cold in her hand. It could
not possibly taste as beautiful as it felt in her
hand. Aaron got back in the car for a moment,
but didn’t start it up. She could feel the vibra-
tion when he opened the glove compartment
for something. Then Aaron came out, sat on
the other half of the white hood, and popped
open his own Pabst. I am beautiful, thought
Sheila, I am happy, as the beer’s temperature
rose to meet that of her body. She looked out
to ocean, with Sugar keeping watch to the
south, with her husband sitting near her. We
are in this together, she thought. Everything
is going to be okay.
This ekphrastic story was written for Florida
Overtures, Undertones, and Subplots, a col-
laborative art show and reading sponsored
by The Gallery at Avalon Island and Burrow
Press.
You can see more at:
TheDrunkenOdyssey.com
48