Even though there was no more thinking to do, when I’d screwed every atom to the wall and held it there with as much isometric will as I could, the slightest lapse in concentration could shatter my careful derangement of the facts. The problem would start to redraw its lines and the magnificent differential equation that held each point in its false orbit collapsed and the universe sucked back up into one ex-big bang and the problem blinked its eyes like an Easter chicken and there we were again.
The problem was unstoppable. It wouldn’t quit. In moments of unguarded hilarity, I toasted it.
The problem was really two problems: me, and the problem. The problem was less a problem without me, and I was less myself without it. So we lived together for a while, trading laundry duties, discussing local politics, encouraging one another to move on from cockeyed relationships and insubstantial liaisons. The problem had a thing for problems, of course. The problem usually kept to itself, but every so often would wake me up early in the morning, thrashing on the doormat with some other problem who’d hitched onto it because it was unsure of what it wanted out of life. The problem was a little lost. It hadn’t quite fully grasped its true nature, and was foundering, apprehensive of its power to cause insane pain and misery, preferring instead to keep a journal. It blanched at the idea that anyone might find this journal and figure out what its true problem-nature was.
Well, of course, eventually I found it, and read it, and read it again. It was all about what the problem wanted to do to me, and couldn’t because of some inexplicable moral compunction not shared by any of the other problems it knew, which was why it couldn’t ask anyone for advice, and had to keep its hesitancy to itself, or else its friends might think it perverse and unfit. They were all a bit unfit themselves, but they had no problem being problems.
The problem and I now went around with each other exclusively. Neither of us dated, though there were a few one-night stands that left us both in stony silence for a couple of days. Unwilling to declare our weakness for one another, we settled for picking up each other’s towels, cooking just a bit too much food and sharing it, being careful not to wake the other up as we went in and out of the dark room, and asking the other if they were alright when nothing seemed to be the matter.
It’s wandering in the front yard. I call to it from the porch.
“You,” I say.
It looks at me with big swollen-shut eyes and continues to step around the yard with uncertainty, throwing its arms out in mute agony when it steps on a tree root or ambles too close to the storm ditch. I let it stumble around because clearly, that’s what it wants to do. I call for it to watch out for the black elm and the sprinkler valve but it makes no move to acknowledge my directions. It’s running now, this way and that, like a rat let loose on a football field, hungry and horny and scared out of its wits. It catches a foot on the sprinkler valve and hits the ground hollering and twisting, squeezing its eyes shut and holding on with clublike hands to the protruding ball-joint of its knee. Something has been wrenched and it howls and screams and gibbles, rocking back and forth on the hard pebbly grass and jackknifing in pain, spinning itself in pathetic half-circles with its good leg like a bug on a saucer. I go to help but it stops its act to wave me away, with a little apologetic smile like it’s embarrassed for me, trying to help it when I should know better. The problem is feeling sorry for me. This is the problem-world, the tired smile seems to say. You don’t understand.
So I try to understand. I go inside for a magazine and sit on the black aluminum porch swing while the problem jams its elbows into its midsection again and again trying to starve the pain out of its knee and into some more hospitable quadrant of its body. It thrashes its arms around and rises up just a little, alarmingly, like a wounded soldier following a vision, and I think it’s done for, and I begin to stand up, just a little. The problem shoots me a glare and I sit back down again. The pantomime is this: that the death of a problem requires nothing from me, or anyone else, not even a solemn nod across the fields of agency to whoever is watching over the things that are meant to die on nobody’s watch. The problem does not die, of course, but falls back and keeps thrashing, pumping itself inward in a rhythm that has no urgency about it. I go inside to make tea.
That evening, it’s limping around the yard. Slowly, like it’s been all over the neighborhood and knows this is the best place to limp. I have a twinge of guilt. This is my problem, not theirs. So I go to the garage and scramble in the utility room and dig out an old tent stake from a canvas bag and go into the front yard and pound it into the ground then take a piece of nylon cord from the trunk and double-knot it around the stake. I call the problem over and make a loop out of the end of the cord and tie it not-too-tight around its good leg while it looks at me gratefully, eyes flicking softly behind its heavy lids, breathing becoming a small contented rattle in its throat. A couple of cars have driven by while I was cuffing the problem and from each one two whitish-gray faces look out at me with nothing resembling sympathy. I wonder if the problem has been bothering their cats.
The problem stares at me obliquely, cataracts drifting into a position of gratitude. Rein me in, it seems to say. Keep me to yourself. Please. I’m no good out there.
The problem usually leaves me alone when I’m working. Occasionally, it shows up unannounced, under some lousy pretext or another: it needs the key to the toolbox, it left something in my car, it needs me to show it how to work one of my half-broken cameras. Predictably, I hit the roof when this happens. I take the problem into my office, lock the door and yell at it for hours. Everyone thinks I’m crazy. They’ve learned to avoid me when I’m like this.
I’ve told people about the problem. I’ve described every aspect of it, from its partial deafness to its bad knee to its chronic inability to pay attention, and what do these people do? They start to tell me what their problems are like. As if that was the point of the conversation. As if I’m supposed to sympathize.
None of it is germane to my problem. I keep waiting for the parallels to emerge, but they never do. People are all too eager to pull out their wallets and start showing me pictures of their problem. Look! There’s me and my problem at Big Sur. There’s me and my problem eating a giant donut. Oh, here’s a good one! Here we are painting the back porch, and we’re both drinking ginger ale and tequila out of plastic cups. We bought those sunglasses at Six Flags. And I have to grimace, and pull that grimace crosswise into a smile, and say things like, Wow! He’s sure getting big.
(Appears in L, Expat Press, 2018.)