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Down in the Dirt v061

The Down Payment

Peter Kwiatkowski

    John poured the Ramon noodles into the boiling water and waited for the noodles to turn from crisp to tender. He added spices and then a little salt and pepper from the kitchen cabinet.
    His girlfriend watched him carefully.
    “Is that dinner?” Joanne said.
    “Yes it is.” He smiled and scooped a spoon of hot soup up to his lips.
    “You gonna tell me what’s going?” she said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Oh I don’t know.” She shrugged. “The fifteen cent Ramon noodle soup. Your broken turn signal light. All of a sudden you pack lunch to work. Have you declared bankruptcy or are you just too cheap and too lazy to eat something that takes time to cook?”
    He laughed. “It’s very nutritious and satisfying to the soul. The package says so right here—,”
    “Sure.”
    “Try some. Chicken or Beef?”
    “I’ll take a rain check.” Joanne said. “You know that’s just some hot water mixed with spice and God knows what kind of animal disguised into tiny specks of meat.”
    “Well if I had to choose between cat and dog—I think I would go with the cat meat,”
    She slapped his arm. “Stop it. You know I love cats.”
    He laughed. “Yummm. Me too.” He made satisfying chewing noises and sucked the noodles into the tiny o of his closed lips.
    “Cats are good.”
    “Ha-Ha—Ha.” She said sarcastically. “Someone is in a good humor tonight.”
    He said, “You and your Atkins diet. I’m going to buy you a calculator for Christmas so you can stop adding all those calories up in your head.”
    “Not funny.” She said. “Can you be serious with me for a moment?”
    “I am serious.” He blew on the steam, put the spoon up to his lips and ate with slow slurps. “I can’t imagine what would happen if you didn’t carry the one and ruined the diet by eating an extra cookie or brownie,”
    “John—,” She gave him a look. That look. He had to stop.
    “Okay. Okay.” He said.
    She breathed deeply for effect. “Tell me what’s going on.
I know you’re hiding something.”
    “I told you. Nothing’s going on. Everything’s completely fine.”
    “I can always tell when you’re lying to me—,”
    He rolled his eyes and finished the sentence for her, “—and you’re doing it right now.”
    “John—,”
    He put the spoon down and wiped his face with a napkin. “Alright. Fine.”
    “Yes?”
    “I’m saving up for a down payment.”
    She frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous. Your car isn’t even that old. You just have to fix that blinker, get new tires and rub on a few coats of wax. I thought we went over this.”
    “It’s not the car.” He said. “I made the down payment on a ring.”
    “A ring?” She squinted her eyes, lost in deep thought. “The ring? John are you saying that—,”
    “Yes baby. I didn’t mean for it to come out like this—but what can I do about it now.” He slowed his breathing down. “Will you marry me?”
    She smiled. And then laughed. “Of course I will.” She said. “Of course John.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek on the lips and then back on the check again.
    “Here,” he said and brushed her aside. “I’ll be right back.”

~*~


    He came out of the bedroom carrying a small black jewelry box and a bouquet of flowers behind his back. “Here honey,” He kissed her on the lips and said, “Close your eyes.”
    She closed her eyes and arched her back up straight like a little girl, anxious and ready to open the first gifts of a sweet-sixteen birthday party. She felt him slide something cold and metallic up her finger. It felt heavy. Full. Not like the other rings she was used to. “Can I open my eyes now?” she said.
    “Not yet.” John said. “Just a while longer.”
    He adjusted the ring. Twisted it. He walked back into the bedroom and shouted, “Keep them closed!”
    “They are closed!” She shouted back.
    When he finally said she could open them—he was kneeling on the floor—dressed up in a suit and tie.
    “I can’t believe you got all dressed up for this.” She laughed. “You are so cute.”
    He took her hand into his.
    She noticed the ring. “Oh.” She said. “My God it’s so beautiful. John—,”
    “Baby look at me.” He said. “You know you mean everything to me, right?”
    She nodded. Her face flushed red. The living room started blurring in her eyes.
    “You have done so much for me. We’ve been together for five years and I have been so lucky for that.”
    She nodded quickly. She put her right hand on her chest, and felt clumsy for some reason, she had always imagined how their relationship would play out up to this moment but tonight it had all felt so different.
    “I want you to be mine forever. I want to be the luckiest. I want you to be my wife.”
He squeezed her hand.
    “Yes John. I want that too. I will—,” She smeared a tear away from her eye. “I will be your wife.”
    They hugged and kissed. He held her in his arms. She brushed her fingers through his hair. Minutes later they were in the bedroom, making passionate love as if it was their first wedding night, and after they had satisfied each other they both laid silently on the bed, staring off into space and each thinking about their new future that would soon be tied together by marriage.
    An hour later Joanne turned the nightstand lamp on and looked at the ring, “I can’t believe you.” She said. “It’s completely gorgeous.”
    He kissed her forehead and said, “I love you.”
    She admired the ring turning it every possible angle against the light.
    “John,” she said.
    “Yes dear?” he said.
    “How much?”
    “Joanne, you know I can’t tell you that—,”
    “How much was it? I’m just curious.”
    “I won’t tell you.”
    “John,” she smiled. “I’m going to get you.”
She made hand gestures up in the air.
    “If you tickle me—,”
    She was already moving on top of him, tickling him all over his chest and arms.
    He laughed. “Stop. Please Joanne.”
    “Tell me how much you paid and I’ll stop.”
    “I’ll get depressed if I tell you. I’ll start to think about all the cups of Ramon noodle soup I’ll have to eat to pay it off. How many cat lives I’m going to be forced to take.”
    “John—,” She said. “You’re not funny. How much?”
    He grunted. He was annoyed. “Fine.” He said. “I paid eleven hundred.”
    “What? How much?”
    “Eleven hundred.”
    “You know that’s way out of our budget.” She said. “I’m sorry, it’s not that that I’m being ungrateful or anything—but John you know that’s a lot of money. You know we can’t afford that right now.”
    “Well I had some help. I donated—,” he said. “—you know what forget it.”
    “What did you donate?”
    “Can we not talk about this now.”
    “I just care honey. That’s all. What did you donate?”
    John closed his eyes. He was silently debating with himself in his mind. Choosing the right words.
    “Sperm.” He said.
    “You donated sperm?” Joanne said.
    He nodded.
    She bowed her head and rubbed her thumb and index finger against her temples. “When did this happen?”
    “Yesterday.” he said.
    “I want you to go back,” she said.
    “I can’t.” he said.
    “I want you to go back and tell them you’ve changed your mind,”
    “I signed the papers, I can’t do anything now.”
    “Tell them you’re sorry and that it was a mistake and you’ll give them the money back.
    “You’re not listening honey to what I’m saying—,”
    “Jesus,” she said. “How much did they pay you?”
    “Honey—,”
    “You’re going to tell me how much they paid you.”
    He grunted. “One thousand five-hundred.”
    She took a deep breath and got up out of bed and sat on the edge. “You know money doesn’t mean much to me.” She said. “An expensive ring is not going to win me over.”
    “Baby it’s not like that. You know it’s not.” He felt sick to his stomach. Why did she pick moments like these? It really wasn’t a good time.
    “I don’t think you have any idea how serious this is.”
    “Let’s talk tomorrow. I’m tired I have to get up early in the morning.”
    “No. We’re going to talk right now. This doesn’t really faze you? Does it?” Her voice became high pitched. “That you could just go off and do something like this.”
    He exhaled. “I’m sorry baby.” He looked at his watch. “It’s ten o’clock. I know a good place that’s open late. We can still catch dinner and relax tonight. Just me and you.”
    “No. I am not going anywhere tonight. I am staying right here.” She pointed at the bed with her index finger, “—and you’re going to answer my question.”
    She made a face of disgust and said, “Are you really okay with this?”
    He shook his head and folded his arms. “Honey you know I love you. I wouldn’t have done it if knew this would be the way you’d react,”
    “The way I would react?” she said. “I guess I should be perfectly fine with it. Maybe I should say—John since you in your consideration took care of the ring let me be so generous also and put the down payment on our honeymoon to Tahiti. I’ll suck some cock on a corner for a hundred bucks. Whoo-hoo I can make some extra cash with my body too.”
    “Don’t talk like that.” He said. “Please.”
    “Do you even know anything about sperm banks?”
    “I’ve had it on my mind for awhile.”
    “I thought we were supposed to talk about things like this together. John we were supposed to make these kind of decisions together.”
    “It was my choice.” He said sharply.
    “Your choice? Bullshit it was your choice. Some kid is going to be running around in a few years with your genes, looking like you and never even having the chance to know his real father who was just looking out to make a quick buck in the name of technology. You don’t create life to just give it away—,”
    “The kid’s going to grow up in family. Nobody said anything about giving anything away. Christ honey, you’re making it sound like this is some kind of experiment, the child is going to grow up just like you and me in a caring environment with two parents.”
    “How do you know that?” she said. “Technology doesn’t make it okay.”
    “I never said that. Can you please stop twisting what I say?”
    Joanne started putting her clothes on. “I can’t believe you—John—I don’t even know— where to start—I wanted to bare your child. I wanted to be the mother. You know I realize that might sound weird to you, but it means a lot to me.”
    “Honey I know. I know.” He touched her arm.
    “Don’t try to calm me down.” She shouted. “Don’t fucking try to calm me down.”
    “Maybe I made a mistake, maybe you’re right I should’ve talked it over—,”
    “It’s too fucking late John.” She said. She got up and brushed her hair back with her fingers. Her hands were shaking. “I never knew my dad. You know what I would give just to find out what he looked like? Who he was? This kid—in a few years when he grows up and realizes that his real father traded a part of him for a diamond ring to a sperm lab just so that his girlfriend would marry him—you think he’ll understand that?”
    “Sweetie you’re pouting. You’re not thinking straight.”
    “How’s this for pouting John,” She screamed. “Fuck you, fuck your ring, and fuck your future bastard child.” She stormed out and slammed the door hard enough for the white paint to chip off the wall and fall to the carpet.



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