Tara Kaloz

Thank You, Uncle Henry

It began with a notebook – once unwrinkled, untouched by human hands, factory-made by machines with no input, nothing to store on the lines they’ve inked, the pages they’ve spiral-bound into order. I cannot say I was grateful at first – my uncle had thrown the water-stained relic my way when he came to visit that July.

Mom was cutting various fruits for a colorful afternoon snack. There were raspberries, blueberries, strawberries – even lychees, those exotic white puffs of flavor.

My uncle was looking over her shoulder. “I like the whole red, white, and blue theme you got goin’ on there, Kim. Fourth of July was two weeks ago, you know.”

“Do you have to nit-pick everything?” She grumbled as she wiped her sticky hands in a towel, before directing her aim at me.

“Joey, since you’re not doing anything, would you mind grabbing that cantaloupe out of the fridge for me?”

I love when they think you’re not occupied, when you most certainly are. Fact was: I had been leafing through the dirty pages of the notebook, getting layers unstuck and ready to read.

Uncle Henry had moved to the cabinets around the sink and was creaking the old wood on its rust-covered hinges. He spat on his fingers a couple times and rubbed the rust away, but the piercing squeak remained, just the same.

My mother continued to chop, but I could tell by the pacing of the knife that the noises were starting to bother her. “Joey, go get the pliers from the garage for your uncle. Your dad should be in there. He knows where to look.”

I had the cantaloupe from the fridge shoved under my arm and was halfway to my mom when I got the new directions. I decided to turn back and get the pliers from the garage and get both tasks out of the way so I could get back to that notebook.

When I opened the door to the garage, sure enough, my dad was in there, facing away from me. He didn’t hear me come in, even when I shut the door behind me and had taken a few steps in his direction.

He had an old pair of field glasses and was looking out one of the side windows. I figured he had found an interesting variety of cardinal to study, but when the hell did my dad give one shit about birds. His hands held the glasses up to his eyes in an angle, moving only slightly to adjust the focus. His view was pointed towards the neighbors’ house, the Davidsons’.

The cantaloupe began to slip, so I readjusted it under my arm. “Hey, Dad.”

I must’ve startled him because he dropped the field glasses. When they hit the cement, one of the large, round lenses broke and fell out of its place. “Son of a bitch, Joey. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He didn’t say much after that, he just kicked the field glasses out of his way and stormed off to the door. Before he slipped away, I asked about the pliers and he mumbled some words, one of which sounded like “toolbox.”

I set the cantaloupe on the floor by my feet and moved to pick up the broken field glasses. Careful not to touch the jagged fragments of the lens, I held the glasses to my eyes and pointed them in the direction my dad had. I only had half the view, but they still worked well enough. I focused in and out, adjusting for clarity. My dad had been watching one of the Davidsons’ windows. I saw the door to a shower stall and a sliver of a mirror. Then, I saw a body, naked, as it walked into my view: the developed figure, with its areas of dark in contrast to the pale pink of the flesh. I remembered the time I walked in on my mom as she was coming out of the shower when I was younger. I had always tried to suppress that image, but here was another to bring it back. The only difference was that it wasn’t my mom, it was Mrs. Davidson.

I never found the pliers, never even looked. I did find the hammer, though.

When I walked into the kitchen, my hands were empty. Some cantaloupe pieces and juice were splattered on my face, shirt, and shoes.

Uncle Henry said, “Hey, Joey. Where’s those pliers?”

My mom said, “Joey, where’s the cantaloupe?”

Later on, after lunch, I had to clean up the mess in the garage.