Vintage Fringe: Killing McGinty Safely
In the driveway he grappled with the grocery bags, getting them out of the trunk of the Saab, trying to pick up all four at once, fool that he was, bending and lifting like this in such cold weather, at his age no less, something would go, pull, snap. But there you were, he was in a hurry to get inside, hated being watched, and old lady Meltzer next door was at her usual post by her kitchen window looking out at him. Nosey old biddy. Standing there half hidden behind those yellow vinyl curtains. As he straightened up a ray of the dying sun glanced off the lenses of her glasses. Did she think he couldn’t see her? It was a horror to be seen shopping at the best of times, people looking at what you bought, seeing what you ate, what kind of soap and facial tissue you used. My god, how did they stand it? The very idea of complete strangers knowing such intimate details was an absolute horror. And yet here he was, in his driveway in broad daylight. Ah, but, he thought, it is we who are watching you.
He pushed the trunk lid closed with his elbow and started toward the side door. Was she charting his trips to the supermarket now? Estimating the contents of his freezer? She’d been curious about him, perhaps even, if truth be told, a little afraid of him ever since her grandson had disappeared. Little Aaron. Right out from under her nose. Without a trace. He’s not far Granny, he thought, stepping carefully around a patch of ice on the black asphalt. Right next door. He turned at the bottom of the steps and used the railing to reposition one bag and get a better grip on it. He didn’t need to look to see her out of the corner of his eye, still at the window watching him. She really was irritating. He had fantasized about what those vinyl curtains would do if touched with a flame. How the brown melt would eat into the sunflower pattern. Mrs. Meltzer smoked. Such a thing could well happen. She wore yellow-patterned dresses that looked like they were made of the same flammable material as her curtains. If touched with a flame, he thought, the old bird and her glasses would melt down just like the curtains.
He took the steps carefully, gingerly as they said, whatever that meant. Carefully meant with care, gingerly obviously meant with ginger. How in the world could non-native speakers be expected to learn a language riven with such insane expressions? He shifted the bags to attack the door. His back wasn’t what it used to be. Too many years of Santa lifting children, ha, ha. The fourth lumbar vertebra. That was where Krafft-Ebing located the ejaculation center. Oh, he’d pay for it in the morning. Five-thirty and the light was already fading. In California the Safeway store had been open all night. One could get up, as he regularly had, at three a.m., and be perfectly alone in frozen foods.
He remembered the days in Palo Alto when he had to take his laundry to a Laundromat, exposing his underclothing that way, having all those promiscuous gray metal vanes and porous, water-sucking surfaces pasting themselves to his intimate garments. What an outrage! How had he survived it? He pulled off a glove with his teeth and worked with rapidly numbing fingers at getting out his keys. He began fitting them into the double locks and deadbolts. Nippy, as they said. Nippy out. What a word. And how odd that only the weather could be nippy. That puppies, even though they had coined the phrase, so to speak, even though they were by far the nippiest creatures in the world, could not be referred to as “nippy.” As in, ‘Harry, the dirty bastard, has a very nippy puppy.’ No. In a student essay he would circle that in red.
