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Order this writing in the 2009 book Crawling Through the Dirt

Sit-Ups

Quint Bromley

    Martin Dobbs was losing his hair. It was like a curse. He blamed God, but he also blamed his grandfather. He didn’t want to lose his hair. He didn’t want to lose it anymore than he wanted to lose an arm or a leg. It was part of him; that’s how he saw it. The very idea of going bald was terrifying. It was driving him crazy.
    Literally.
    He checked his watch, hit the dayglow button: 9:32 p.m. He was at work, the Golden Eagle Retirement Home where he had been a janitor for six years. He rolled his cart down the main hallway; stopping briefly to chat with Miss Evans, an elderly woman with an easy smile, bad hip and far away eyes. She suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. But her sunny attitude toward life was an inspiration to Martin. Because of his baldness, he always had a black cloud over his head. Sometimes it rained. He would talk it over with Miss Evans and she would tell him not to worry so much, that it was trivial in the overall scheme of things. Within the maze of her dementia she would experience moments of prolonged clarity. “Life is short,” she was fond of saying. Martin respected her but on this issue he was steadfast. Easy for her to say, he thought. She’s got hair. He emptied her waste paper basket and said goodnight. From her bed, she smiled and then lowered her chain-linked glasses to her chest. Martin rolled his cart down the hallway, passing three dark rooms. It was lights out at the Golden Eagle but the chandelier in the lobby was still glowing; the dimmer set to LOW. He looked across the street. He saw his mark, plain as day, through the beauty shop window. She was at her station talking to another girl. He could vaguely see her face in the mirror, between a sink and one of those recliners with attached hair drying unit. He looked at the pink neon sign in the window: Kelly’s Cuts. He didn’t know her name. He knew some of the others, had even asked one out—Nicole. She rejected him and he felt quite certain that it was because of his male pattern baldness. She was a hairdresser, after all.
    But this one is different, he thought. He was sure of it. She wasn’t like the others. She was fresh and clean, like a nun.
    He put the cart back in the utility closet, walked over to the break room and punched out on the Hamilton time clock. In preparation for tonight, he had taken the bus to work. He drove his Nissan truck to a parking lot on 1^st Street, paid and then walked to the Long Beach Transit Mall, an island platform downtown. He was ready, as ready as he was ever going to be.

#

    He locked the front door and crossed Figueroa Street. He worked in Carson, not far from Victoria Park. It was now 9:45 p.m. When he got to her jeep he looked around, made sure the coast was clear and then climbed into the back. He took the mask out of his coat pocket and put it on. While he waited, he tried to cover himself with a beach chair and a large mesh bag. On the bag was a picture of a bright red sun, tilting catamaran and seagulls.
    He began to feel sick.
    When she finally got in and started the engine—that’s when he felt most scared. He had half a mind to leap out, expose himself and run away. He longed for a rain coat. He felt helpless and full of doubt. He knew his life would never be the same. He looked up at the streetlights, tall buildings and telephone wires. His eyes were getting red and watery. She was listening to Pearl Jam. Soon she was singing along.
    Eventually she merged onto a freeway. Martin figured it was the 91, but he couldn’t be sure. There were long spaces of darkness. He saw clouds and the flashing lights of airplanes...

#

    He heard a garage door open, saw wooden beams, cardboard boxes and a plastic pool with yellow, red and green fish painted on it. It reminded him of Dr. Seuss, the way the fish looked: red fish, blue fish. She shut off the engine. Martin hesitated. As she stepped out of the jeep, she was still singing.
    Three minutes later the garage light went off. It was pitch black except for the outline of the door leading to the house. He crawled out of the jeep and tried it—locked. He heard a television, balled up his fist and smashed it into his overhanging gut.
    There was a refrigerator next to the door. He opened it and light filled the garage. He saw a worktable cluttered with tools, coffee cans and a vice grip. Nailed to the skeletal frame, above the table was a map of Earth; lines of demarcation covered it, crisscrossed like a spider-web. He looked around for a place to hide.
    10:47 p.m.
    The light had gone out under the door and he no longer heard the TV. He took off the mask and rubbed his thinning scalp. The moment had come and gone. He had lost his nerve. He felt relieved, actually. He took a deep breath, let it out and then shook his head. He was glad he hadn’t gone through with it. He wanted a girlfriend, that’s all. He hated himself. There was a stack of board games next to an exercise bike. He wished he could play one with her. He imagined the two of them rolling dice, palming cards and smiling.

#

    The refrigerator light illuminated the equatorial lines of the map. He stared at the Earth, studied lines of longitude, latitude, saw a tiny island in the Pacific and wanted to be there. He made a mental note of the coordinates and yawned. He couldn’t keep his eyes open. He wanted to go home. He crawled back into the jeep, closed his eyes and slept.

#

    He woke up at 5:07 a.m., got out of the jeep and looked for a place to piss. He saw a five-gallon water bottle next to a record player. The bottle was empty except for some change, mostly pennies. He slid it over with his foot, unzipped his pants and relieved himself. He briefly recalled a dream, something about female vampires. They were slowly taking over the world. Martin was the only one who could stop them. He had to drive a wooden stake through their vaginas. He thought it was pretty sick, the whole idea of it, so he tried to forget. As he looked around the garage, wondering if he should stay in the jeep or go back to his hiding place, light seeped through the space around the garage door.
    An hour later he heard the TV.
    Footsteps.
    The door swung open. He was waiting for it. The mask was already on his head. He squeezed a little bit tighter between the water heater and the wall. He wanted to close his eyes, but didn’t. He heard two voices, a man and a young boy’s. The man asked the boy if he had kissed his mother goodbye. The boy answered yes. Martin heard the engine start and then the creak and groan of the garage door as it slowly opened. He peeked around the water heater and saw the jeep curving backwards. He was exposed! He ran over to the washing machine, ducked behind it and banged his knee on a pipe. He peeked around the smooth white surface and saw sunlight flashing against the jeep’s bumper. The sudden flow of light was straining his eyes. It was difficult to see. He couldn’t tell if the man in the jeep saw him or not. He struggled to make the adjustment, blinking his eyes. The garage door began closing. He ran as fast as he could, slammed down hard on the concrete and rolled sideways. When he looked up the jeep was turning left. Then it disappeared.
    Safe.
    He glanced at the house, and what he assumed was the bedroom window. A white drape covered the view. He took off the mask, purple with yellow lightning bolts. In the early morning sun he saw that he was in a suburban neighborhood. There was a newspaper on the grass, the Wall Street Journal. He heard a dog barking in the distance. The sidewalks were clean and the lawns well nourished with Miracle Grow. He looked down at the mask balled up in his fist. He thought of the Blue Demon, his favorite Mexican wrestler. Martin was a big fan of the Lucha libre. He liked the masks, and the fact that some of the wrestlers took on the identity of their disguises, be it folk heroes, animals or gods.
    He got up, brushed himself off and started walking. He felt sore all over, especially his side. At the end of the cul-de-sac he pushed south. He turned left at the bottom of a hill, walked a quarter mile, turned right and headed west on Imperial Highway.
    He found a bus stop.
    When the bus arrived he dropped a dollar-fifty in the till, asked for a transfer and grabbed a schedule. As the bus jerked forward, he sat in the first empty seat. He studied the schedule: map-lines, numbers and zones.

#

    He stepped off the bus in Long Beach, a stone’s throw from his studio apartment on Broadway and Esperanza. He unlocked the dead bolt, set the alarm on his clock radio and turned on the fan. It cooled the room and also cut out the noise of the city. He pulled the bed down from the wall, took off his clothes and lay down. Listening to the fan, he pictured the map of Earth. He saw longitude and latitude, calculated lines to a fixed point, and remembered that island in the Pacific. He felt antsy, unable to relax. He got up and poured a glass of milk, adding some Hershey’s chocolate syrup. Then he opened the blinds and turned on the TV. He picked up the remote and began flipping channels. He stopped at an exercise program. Soon he was on the floor peddling his legs like a bicycle. It felt good. He kept peddling until the instructor changed the exercise. Presently he was doing sit-ups. His fat, hairy body was sweating profusely. Luck. That’s how he thought of it. He kept going, counting along. He thrust his body upward again and again. “You’re a lucky man, Dobbs,” he said, out of breath. He was breathing deeply, forcing his torso up to his knees. A feeling of exhilaration came over him. He pushed his body harder. The space between his elbows and knees felt like the Grand Canyon. The instructor changed the exercise to jumping jacks. Martin kept doing sit-ups. The fan rotated across his body, back and forth, back and forth...He felt the cold air sweeping across him. “I’m lucky,” he repeated, sucking in air. “I’m the luckiest man on earth.”

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