“Fuck Big Boy Burgers,” Larry mumbles to himself as he tries to slam the door at yet another greasy fast food joint that has refused him a job.  The slowing door mechanism prevents the satisfying slam that Larry had anticipated, so he forces it shut with his entire body.  A mother with a small child entering the establishment looks at Larry with slit eyes and pulls her boy’s wrist, keeping him close to her body.  Nothing is going as planned.

Shit, Larry thinks as he looks at his watch and blinks his eyes hard.  There is no way he is going to make it on time to his appointment. He starts running towards the bus stop, but has to stop after a block because he’s winded and his pants keep inching down.  Two blocks away from the bus station, he sees the 31 rush past him and stop, far out of his reach.   He starts running again, flailing one arm in the air and using the other to hold up his drooping trousers.  Larry is still a block away when the bus pulls out.   Sometimes Larry catches himself thinking about how it used to be and how he never had to think about catching buses.

Larry looks down at his watch as he rides the elevator up to the fourth floor and brushes hard pieces of greased hair out of his eyes, exposing his pimpled forehead.  He is twenty-five minutes late.  He squints at the bright florescent lighting as he makes his way over to cubicle 48A.

“You are twenty-eight minutes late.”  Officer Grabel states flatly as Larry sits down on the chair beside him. He recognizes the cold tin of the seat.  “I missed the bus after my job interview,” Larry replies as he starts to bounce his knee furiously.

“You think I don’t know a liar when I see one?” Grabel asks calmly, keeping his eyes locked with Larry’s as he slaps his hand hard against Larry’s knee, steadying it.  “This is strike two, Larry.  Do you know what that means?”  He doesn’t wait for Larry’s response.  “Three strikes you’re out, Larry.  I don’t want to hear your excuses.  It’s my job to make sure you are transitioning successfully back into our functioning society.”  Larry had heard that line at least seven times in the last two months from Grabel’s mouth.  He must have had to memorize it at some parole officer orientation. “If I don’t feel that you are, you go right back to where you came from.  You’re an adult.  Am I right, Larry?  You are forty-eight years old.  Now if you can’t find a job in the next week or two, we are going to have to seriously reevaluate how to handle this.”

Larry nods his head while his knee begins to thump hard against his clammy palms. He stares at the poster above Grabel’s head, the primary decoration of his soft cubicle held with purple pushpins. “Everyone has a burden.  What counts is how you carry it,” a golden retriever puppy states, a digitally forced smile reaching across his face and a colorful knapsack hanging from his shoulders.

“Now,” Grabel starts, opening a program on his computer, “Let’s get through these.  Are you clean?”

“Yes.”

“Have you been paying for sex?”

“No.”

“Have you found a residence?”

“I suppose.”

“Yes or no, Larry?  Come on, let’s get through this so both of us can go home.”

Larry leaves the office building and heads back to the Motel 6 on Fourteenth and South Van Ness.   On the way, he picks up his regular fifth of Jack and sits on the sidewalk, nursing the bottle in its crumpled brown paper bag. Halfway through the bottle, he stumbles and inserts twenty-five cents for a newspaper at the corner.  He cradles the newspaper in his arms, promising to look at the classifieds tomorrow.  Tomorrow is the day everything will turn out as planned.

He clutches the newspaper close to him as he rings the bell for apartment #3.  A man opens the door immediately, as if he has been waiting around in the entrance hall all morning for someone to ring.  His belly greets Larry before the rest of him, the buttons on his blue Hawaiian shirt straining to cover as much flesh as possible.  “You here for the job?”  The man says in a startlingly high-pitched voice that makes Larry cringe.  Larry nods, holding up the classified page with the fat man’s ad circled in green pen.

Misc. jobs around house.  Must be reliable & quiet.

“Yep, there it is,” the man says to Larry in a sing-song voice usually reserved for small children or the mentally delayed. “Right this way.” Larry follows the man into the apartment, holding the newspaper in his right hand while he pushes open the closing door with his left.  It takes a minute for his eyes to adjust to the new dimness after coming in from the fluorescently lit hallway.

The first thing that hits Larry is the smell.  It’s a pungent, body smell, similar to the one at a strip club, but markedly less arousing in this environment than the last. Muttering and then the sound of laughter from a sitcom fill the room, and Larry realizes that the only brightness in the apartment is coming from the small TV in the far corner and the gray light filtering through the tightly closed blinds.     He is standing on disturbingly-crunchy shag carpeting in the middle of the living room.  To his right is the kitchen, which is completely visible over the counter.  Larry immediately notices three microwaves, each humming and heating items he can’t make out.

“It’s no palace,” the man says.  Larry’s eyes have finally adjusted to the lack of light, and he is immediately greeted with a picture of Jesus hanging on the wall directly before him.  Larry suddenly realizes that all of the walls are slathered in pictures of Christ.  Jesus on the cross, Jesus with the Virgin Mary, Jesus at the Last Supper, Jesus crying, Jesus smiling, Jesus with a crown of thorns, Jesus walking on water.  On the far end of the living room, near the TV, is a glow-in-the-dark image of Jesus, his arms outspread, cursive font on either side of him glowing: “Jesus Lives.”

“My sister’s right over here,” the fat man’s high-pitched voice brings Larry back to reality.  He is toddling over to the couch directly in front of the television.

“Hey,” the man says, “someone’s here for the job.  His name’s–”

There is an awkward pause and Larry realizes that the fat man is waiting for him to fill in the blank.  “Larry,” Larry says quickly. “It’s Larry.”  The first thing Larry notices are her ankles.   The bone near her bare foot protrudes hard like a tumor, the translucent skin stretching over it and exposing tiny blue swimming veins, crisscrossing over and over themselves like lots of miniscule tic-tac-toe boards.  He brings his eyes up her body, tracing one particularly noticeable vein up to her thigh, the rest of her covered in a large men’s t-shirt, no pants.  She looks vacantly at the television, her skinny arms out of proportion in comparison to the oversized shirt.  Long, stringy, blond hair covers part of her face, her cheekbones protruding so far as to make her look like she must have a big smile on her face.   Instead, her thin lips are gathered into a straight line, pursed together in concentration over whatever is on television.

“This is Rainey,” the fat man states.  Silence follows.  Rainey does not draw her eyes from the television.  Disembodied laughter fills the room, followed by silence.  One of the microwaves makes two short beeping noises, and then stops humming.  Rainey jumps up from the sofa, momentarily exposing more of her upper thigh.  She runs across the room and opens the third microwave’s door, swinging it open and leaning into the cavity, breathing hard.  Larry stays near the sofa, half watching Rainey’s skinny legs, illuminated by the microwave light, and half keeping his eye on the sitcom on the small television to his left.

“She does that,” the fat man says. “You’ll get used to it.”  He changes the channel to a football game and is suddenly glued.  Larry continues to stand in the middle of the dim living room, waiting for something more to happen.  Another microwave beeps, and Rainey immediately thrusts her face into the machine.

“Hey,” the fat man beckons, “sit down.” He scoots over, making just enough room on the crowded love seat for the two of them.  Larry squeezes in, trying to feel and be as small as possible.  His back completely erect, he stares ahead at the football game.  “Look, man,” the man whispers into Larry’s ear as he turns up the television volume, “I’ve got to get out of here.”  Larry can feel the man’s hot, moist breath on his ear and tries to create more distance between them, but is trapped by the unmoving armrest.  “She’s stopped eating,” the man says.  “And I can’t handle all this religious bullshit.  I feel like a fucking criminal when I pull off.  You know?  All these Jesuses staring down at me.  How far can one guy push himself?” He pauses, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark eyes staring back at him.  “Look, I just need to get out of here, but I can’t just leave her.   She forgets to eat unless you tell her.” Larry stares back at the man’s sister, humming something softly into the row of machines in the kitchen.  “It’s a great deal, man.  You stay here.  Free food, free board.  Buy some groceries, Just make sure she eats.  That’s it.”

“That’s it.”  Larry repeats, thinking about Rainey’s body splayed out on the couch.  “Great.  You seem like a stand-up kind of guy.  Like a guy who has a clean, clean-ish, record,” There is a pause.  Larry looks at his hands.  “I don’t want to know your past, man.  We’ve all fucked up.  Can you start tomorrow?” the man asks fast, desperately.

He finds the key under the “Jesus Loves You” doormat, and slowly inserts it into the keyhole.   A similar scene from the day before greets him as he enters, except the fat man is gone.  It takes Larry another minute to adjust to the dim light, but soon sees Rainey standing in the kitchenette, in the same shirt as she was yesterday, her big eyes fixed upon him.  Larry puts down his trash bag full of sparse belongings.  “I could use some breakfast,” Larry says as she continues to stare him down.  “What do you have?”  She steps aside, an emaciated Vanna White, and motions to the kitchen.  One of the microwave clocks reads 3:30.  “I guess it’s more like lunch time,” Larry says as he slips past her, sucking in his stomach as to make minimal contact with her body, squeezing tightly between the kitchen counter and her tall frame.  An open can of tuna and half an onion sit inside the refrigerator.  Inside the freezer are two fried-chicken Hungry Man dinners sitting on top of each other and an open bag of frozen peas.  “Perfect.” Larry says, taking out the frozen dinners.  He can feel Rainey’s eyes hot on his back as he pulls the meals from the cardboard boxes and places them in two of the three microwaves sitting on the sticky counter.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Rainey says calmly, putting her large bony hand on Larry’s and pushing him away from the microwave push buttons.  “You can’t use these,” she explains.  Her grip is tight around Larry’s wrist. “They’re mine.”

“There are three of them,” Larry replies, shaking her from his hand and motioning once more towards the microwave.  “And I’m hungry.” Larry feels like he’s setting the scene.  Letting her know who’s boss.   “Now I don’t know what the fuck your deal is, but your brother hired me to make sure you eat and I–” As Larry’s finger touches the number 4, Rainey looks calmly at him and hits him hard across the face.

“I said no,” she says sternly, and Larry feels the sharp after-burn of her slap.  “I don’t know what your deal is,” she says, “but when you’re in my house you play by my rules. One wrong move and you’re out.”  She flips the switch on the oven to preheat it and sets each of the microwaves at different times with Pyrex measuring cups inside them.  two minutes and forty-one seconds, fourteen minutes and seven seconds, fifty-four seconds.  She calmly saunters over to the couch.   “You don’t touch my microwaves,” she says as she plops down, switching the channel to a soap opera.

Larry has no idea how to go about making these dinners in an oven.  The last time he had even seen an oven was before he went to jail for the first time, back when he was thirteen and living in his then-step-mother’s apartment in Wichita.   He looks on the back of the box, but sees only instructions for microwave use.  Rainey is lying on the couch, her legs splayed off to the side.  He pushes both of the dinners back into the freezer and wanders into the living room, opening the blinds.  Rainey gives him a look and continues to watch television.  “Let’s get a little bit of light in–” He stops talking when he looks back at the room.  With the light in the room the Jesus paraphernalia is overwhelming–the sheer number of sad, forgiving eyes make him feel claustrophobic and a little nauseous.  He quickly turns around and draws the blinds, coolly comforted by the return to dimness.

One of the microwaves beeps and Rainey jumps up from the couch, almost skipping across the living room and into the kitchen, putting her head deep inside the microwave.  She takes out the measuring cup, looking at the liquid inside.  She laughs aloud, puts the cup back inside the microwave, and sets it off humming again, plugging another mysterious combination of numbers into the machine.

“Where am I going to be sleeping?” Larry asks Rainey, half wondering and half wanting to pull away from the feeling still left in the air after their Hungry Man altercation.  She shrugs, making her way back into the living room.

“On the couch, I guess,” she says, looking him straight in the eyes, motioning to the love seat which wouldn’t fit a seven-year-old horizontally.  As she sits back down, another of the microwaves beeps and she jumps up again, running back into the kitchen.  She leans deep into the third microwave, whispering something while her head is inside.  Larry fixates on the flattish curve of her ass in the spotted light.

He takes a seat on the couch and flips the channel.  “So what do you do all day?”  Larry asks, switching past a hair-plug infomercial.

“Days of Our Lives,” she replies, wandering back to the couch.

“What?”

“You’ve never heard of Days of Our Lives?”  Rainey asks while looking at Larry’s blank face.  “I like that,” she says.  “I can show you a couple of things.”

Larry feels the twisting of a stomach growl as he leaves the apartment that evening and realizes that he hasn’t eaten anything all day.  After walking halfway up the dimming block, he heads into The Men’s Room on Eighteenth.  He enters and takes a seat at the bar, collapsing into the weathered bar stool which is still warm from the last patron.  His nostrils are forced to attention by the sharp synergy of cheap perfume and unwashed bodies.  Grabbing at the bowl of peanuts in front of him and shoving the salty nuts into his mouth, he sits back and gazes at Cherry Pop and some new girl with blank eyes rubbing up against each other on the stage.  Cherry Pop is wearing a tiny sequined thong and no bra, her mousebrown roots poking into her long blond locks, greasy from the early evening’s work.  Droopy breasts cover most of her skinny abdomen, moving slowly, not in rhythm with fast-paced music.  He asks for a beer from a skinny girl who can’t be too much over eighteen.  She brings him a Budweiser and as he takes the first gulp he lets out a deep breath, feels his shoulders relax and his scalp tingle. He smiles at the young waitress’ almost-exposed breasts and shoves a dollar bill between them.  She gives him a sheepish smile and wanders over to the next customer, a skinny man with Disney’s Little Mermaid on his white t-shirt.

After running out and chugging a fifth of Jack from the corner store, Larry is back inside Rosa’s; his face feels hot and courageous.   He beckons to Cherry Pop and since he is one of the last customers, she strides over to him.  She stands on the table, her feet parallel with his face, toenails painted bright blue.  “Don’t try any of your funny shit,” she says flatly as she slowly rotates her hips over Larry’s head, her eyes vacantly set on the clock above the luminescent exit sign.  He sits quietly, staring up her legs to the juncture, watching the spot as she swings her hips.  Before he realizes it, his hand is reaching between her legs, grabbing at her inner thigh and reaching underneath the sequined thong.  Cherry yelps and jumps away, but Larry has a strong hold on her leg and she falls over, landing with a loud smack and her legs splayed apart on the bar.  Everyone is  stunned. All that is audible for a few short seconds is the pulsating background music.  Larry stands up, feeling the beer and Jack swirl around inside his head, forcing him to close his eyes to adjust to his changing position. The bartender doesn’t say a word.  He heads straight to Larry and punches him hard in the stomach.  Larry can’t breathe; all the air has been knocked out of his lungs and into the room.  He feels the sticky carpet beneath him and he tastes vomit in his mouth.  “Get out,” the bartender says flatly, giving Larry a sharp kick in the back.  That night, Larry feels his bruised rib with each inhale and each exhale as he ascends the stairs back to Rainey’s apartment.

“It comes on at 1:30, I think,” Larry says. “Yeah, yeah it must have been 1:30 because it was right after we came in from lunch count.  I would sit next to the door so I could hear it from the guard’s handheld.  I’m telling you, Guiding Light has even more drama than this.  Plus, listening to the radio is just, different.  Different than having everything given to you like on television,” Larry says, feeling fair in his statement after watching two weeks worth of Days of Our Lives.

“I don’t believe it for a second,” Rainey says, jumping up to check on a microwave, “but I’ll try it if you say it’s that good.”

Larry sits on the carpet across from the radio and turns the AM stations, waiting for the familiar voices.  630 AM.  “Bertha will you please put down a card!  We know your luck so everyone brace yourselves!” a familiar voice booms from the radio.  Rainey sits next to him on the floor, her legs folded into herself, bony chin resting on bony knees.  The television is off and the only light that fills the room is from the three humming microwaves.

Twenty minutes later, a microwave beeps.  Larry leans to the side a bit, giving Rainey room to stand up and get past him into the kitchen.  He looks at her.   Rainey doesn’t move.  She stays glued to the radio, eyes glazed and fingers relaxed, cradling her face.  The second microwave beeps “ready” in simple Morse code. The two of them sit close, putting their ears near the tiny AM/FM radio, their faces illuminated softly, flaws smoothed by the yellow glow.  Rainey doesn’t get up to check until the commercial.

Today is the first day Larry will use the oven.   He is sick of tuna sandwiches and those two Hungry Man dinners are still in the freezer, three weeks after he first laid his eyes on them.  Larry sets the oven to 400– a nice, round number.  He takes the meals out of the boxes and puts them into the oven body.

The intervals between the microwave checks are getting longer and longer. A microwave beeps while a used car commercial screams from the radio.  Rainey groans and pushes herself from the floor, begrudgingly making her way over to the kitchen.  An indentation is left in the shag carpeting marking her spot.  “Half of my next dinner says that Michelle is cheating on Darren,” she says as she opens the microwave door.  “I mean, it’s like what you were saying before: “once a cheater, always a–“

“Why do you do that?”  Larry interrupts softly, testing the waters.  He leans forward and turns down the radio.

“What are you doing? Turn it back up!”  she says from within the cavern.  When he doesn’t, Rainey takes her head out from the microwave. “Come on, Larry, turn it back up.  The commercial’s about to end.”  She is holding the water-filled Pyrex cup.

“Why do you do that?”  Larry repeats, looking down at the boiling water in the Pyrex glass in Rainey’s hands.  She looks down at the linoleum on the kitchen floor.

“Because I have to.” She replies as she pours the hot water into the sink and refills the cup with cool tap water.

“No one has to do what you’re doing.”  Larry says.  “You’re sticking your head inside a microwave.  You’re heating up water in glass pitchers and pouring the hot water down the sink.”

“I am fully aware of what I am doing.  He chose me to do this, Larry.”

“Who chose you?” Larry asks, looking at the bobble-head Jesus on the coffee table and already knowing the answer.

Rainey smoothes back her hair, looking straight ahead, fixating on something Larry can’t see.  He looks at her for a moment, eyes softening, then turns back towards the radio set, shaking his head.

“I pity you,” she says. Larry turns around to see Rainey standing directly behind the sofa, looking down at him as if he were an armless child.

“Goes both ways, sweetheart,” Larry replies, turning the radio back up, wiping the beads of sweat from his forehead.

“But I know I’m needed,” Rainey says smiling, placing her delicately bruised hand on Larry’s shoulder and looking up at her Jesus with arms outstretched.  Larry looks back at her sunken eyes, a full-grown woman who hasn’t left the house in weeks.    “I know that without me, the world would crumble.”

“Something’s burning.”

As the words leave his mouth Larry can smell it.  The industrial smell of burning plastic reminds him of the years he spent inside making license plate holder after license plate holder, pouring the molten material into metal molds and hearing the satisfying drying pop when they were finished.

Both of them stand dumbfounded, watching the kitchen fill with deep black smoke rising steadily from the oven.  The smoke looks like an illustration against the light of the microwaves.

Rainey snaps out of her mesmerized trance and runs screaming into the kitchen, attempting to bat away the smoke.  “Help me!” she screams, trying to pull the first microwave from its extensive crossed extension cord circuitry.  “Larry!  Please help me!’  She gets it free and brings it towards the living room, tears streaming from her face as the black smoke threatens suffocation.  The fire alarm goes off and the small sprinklers above start to rain tiny droplets of hard water.  Larry forges into the kitchen, grabbing the other microwave and pulling it hard from its outlet.  Everything is blurry and his throat is raw and his eyes are stinging and leaking and his ears are twisted with loud human and machine screams.  Smoke fills the entire apartment and he falls to the ground, holding the microwave in his arms.  He can smell the inside of his lungs burning as he inches towards the doorway, cradling the microwave.

Once he is out the door he runs downstairs and gulps the early evening air while coughing up his lungs.   The bright sun outside the building makes his temples throb.  Tears pouring from his eyes, Larry looks around at the neighbors, all standing a safe distance from him.  Rainey isn’t outside and the microwave is still hot inside Larry’s arms.