4/12/12

Three Aces
By Wayne Scheer


Toby Locke stood at his open living room window watching the mid-afternoon mist sizzle on his neighbor's roof. It created enough steam to make it look like the house was on fire. Welcome to an Atlanta summer, he thought. He walked through the house, opening the few windows that moved easily and turning on the overhead ceiling fans. He could fuss with the remaining windows, but it wasn't worth the effort. Letting in the humidity and the ninety-degree air wasn't going to cool down the house.

The air conditioner had stopped working. He called three different repairmen and the earliest any of them could come was in two days. He even spoke with a neighbor down the street to see if he knew an air conditioning man he might recommend. Calls were made, but no one was available.

So, Toby stripped down to a pair of shorts and made the best of it. "I'd wear less," he told Stella, his wife, when she called from work, "but the sight of me naked might scare the neighbor's dog."

"I feel guilty," she told him. "Me in my air conditioned office and you sweltering in the house. Do you want to bring a book and come here?"

"No, I'm fine. Besides, I don't want to be that close to work. I'm retired, after all."

"Rub it in, why don't you?" She laughed. "Only seven months, three weeks and four days to go for me, but who's counting?" Before getting off the phone, she reminded him to drink plenty of water.

"Yes, mother," he said.

Toby loved his wife. They'd been married for almost thirty-eight years and they still talked to each other on the phone a couple times a day and emailed each other sexy comments, like two adolescents. Although he was happy being alone during the day, he looked forward to her coming home at night. Come six o'clock, he felt like a puppy dog waiting at the door with his tongue hanging out.

He also loved his life. He had retired before he became bored with his accounting job and discovered he could paint. Not well enough to become rich and famous, but well enough to amuse himself and a few local gallery owners. He priced his work at just enough over the cost of paints, canvas, framing materials and commission to feel good whenever he got a call that one of his paintings sold. Of course, if he added the amount of time spent on the picture, he knew he would earn more working at McDonald's.

Through the years, he and Stella had their share of financial setbacks and health problems, but nothing they couldn't overcome. The bottom line, Toby always told Stella in his best accountant demeanor, is they had each other. Therefore, their assets always outnumbered their deficits.

When friends asked how he kept so positive, even after the near fatal automobile accident from which he still limped a bit, Toby had a ready-made reply. "If you're dealt three aces, how upset can you get if you don't draw a fourth one?"

Toby spent a good deal of time thinking about the self-contained world he had created. He led a sheltered, dull life, he knew. Although he had worked around people who made and risked their fortunes, that kind of life never appealed to him. All he ever wanted was a steady salary and set hours, so he knew when he'd be home every evening and how much money he had to live on.

He and Stella had traded adventure for routine, money for free time, and now that their hair was turning white and the extra pounds were accruing like interest in a 401K, they appreciated their choices more than ever.

Still, Toby thought, the house is hotter than anything Dante ever imagined. He turned on a floor and a ceiling fan in the guest bedroom that had been converted into a studio. He began painting. He had no idea what he would paint, but he knew he wanted to use cool colors--light blue, whites and light grays, maybe a soft green.

Part of his consciousness watched as he painted a large cube at the top of the canvas. With the aid of some light grays mixed with blues, the geometric shape became a melting ice cube. Painting quickly, he added heavily textured layers of paint to depict a sky and a beach filled with activity--people playing volleyball, swimming, dancing. In the corner of the beach, holding hands, were two tiny figures cooled by the melting ice cube. Three playing cards, all of them aces, were spread out on the sand in front of them.

Seeing that it was nearly six, Toby rushed to add some glittering yellows and oranges to the beach and some stark white splashes to the water. When he heard Stella at the front door, he put down his brushes and kissed her.

He let her complain about her day and ask about the day's mail and phone calls. While she got out of her clothes and into a shower, he cleaned his brushes.

"So what did you do today?" she asked.

"I painted an I-love-you picture." He showed her the canvas and she looked at him like the heat had fried his brain.

"Let's go out for dinner and I'll explain it to you," Toby said.


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Wayne Scheer has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net. He's published stories, poems and essays, in print and online, including Revealing Moments, a collection of flash stories, published by Thumbscrews Press, (http://issuu.com/pearnoir/docs/revealing_moments.) Wayne can be contacted at wvscheer@aol.com.