Aren't guys who sit around the house in boxers all day just the cutest?
Neither is this guy.
Neither is this guy.
Those Damn Star Wars Boxers by Alec Cizak
Her husband rolled his lazy ass out of bed five minutes before
she left for work. He stepped in front of her, dressed in Star Wars boxers he’d worn the day before, the ones he’d sat around
the house in, watching Tom & Jerry
cartoons on television.
When she asked if he’d sent off any resumes, he scratched his
balls and yawned. “You make my eggs?” he said.
“I got to go.” She tried to snake around him.
“You didn’t make my eggs?”
She imagined jabbing her car keys up his nose and twisting
them.
“What possessed you?” He folded his arms, stared her down.
He’d seen her father corner her like that once. Tried using it on occasion, as
though he were a fraction of the man her father had been.
She pushed around him, nearly shoved him on his ass. She
marched to her hatchback, got in, slammed the door, and took off. “Hair of the
Dog” played on the radio. Helped, just a bit.
Now, nine hours later, she drove home, negotiated curved
suburban streets filled with kids screaming and shouting like little animals.
Her boss had laid into her that morning. Barged into her office
just after she’d arrived and pointed to a stack of claims he’d left on her desk
the night before; at 5:27, to be exact. Three minutes before her day officially
ended. She made salary, not overtime. Who, or what, the hell did he think he
was?
“I’m assuming you filed those before you hustled out of here
last night, yes?”
Could a manila folder rip a man’s skin open? She imagined
slicing the edge of one down her boss’s face, splitting his eyeball along the
way.
A boy, maybe twelve, jumped his sparkling, red dirt bike over
the edge of the sidewalk, skidded directly in front of her car. She had to slam
on her brakes to avoid splintering every bone in the boy’s body. Nearly flew
through the windshield. The boy turned his head at a turtle’s pace and sneered
at her with an entitled glare men were apparently born with.
Earlier, she’d seen the same expression on the piece of shit
at the lunch counter. Her boss had thrown three more stacks of claims on her
desk. She’d have to call each client and convince them to settle. Tough enough
to put away a dozen in one day. Thirty? Impossible. Instead of going to
Margie’s Tavern at noon, she’d ducked into the office canteen and grabbed a
turkey sandwich wrapped in plastic. The man ringing out before her asked if she
understood how hot she looked in her cream-colored dress. When she showed him
her wedding ring, as little as it meant to her anymore, he called her a bitch
and then flirted with the teenaged cashier, just to make everyone else in line
wait for him.
The boy on the bike didn’t move with any urgency, either. He
hoisted his bony butt in the air, directed it at her, and pedaled as slowly as
humanly possible.
Yuppie child on a
Schwinn? her father would have said. Twenty-five points, easy.
She tapped the horn. It did nothing to motivate the spoiled
brat. So, she revved the engine. He showed her his middle finger. Without
thinking about it, she gave the car just enough gas to clip the boy and send
him and his bike flip-flopping to the curb. A clink, a clank, and the boy held
his scraped knee, wailing as though he’d lost a limb. As she drove by the kid,
she smiled and waved.
At home, she tossed meat and vegetables into a wok and
stir-fried them like a conductor guiding an orchestra through Beethoven’s
Ninth.
When her husband woke from his most recent nap, he wandered
into the kitchen, still in those damn Star
Wars boxers. He glanced at the stove, saw what she’d prepared. “Ain’t it
pizza night?” he said.
She tilted the wok, steam curling out as she dumped the meal
into a serving bowl. For a pan made of stainless steel, it sure felt light.
