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If you missed it, read Part One HERE.
Enjoy Part Two.
Saturday.
Days don’t feel the same when you’re not working.
Monday isn’t Monday.
Friday isn’t Friday.
And weekends sure aren’t weekends.
Except Juliet is home.
And the kids are mainlining mommy time.
She’s got Daisy on the bottle in her lap, and Ryan’s flying around the living room like in the Jamiroqai “Virtual Insanity” video.
That’s from the 90s.
God, even my pop culture references are getting old.
Future son to future dad: “Dad, what’s a music video? And as a follow-up question, why exactly did you want your MTV so badly?”
Future dad to future son: “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
With the kids somewhat under control, I slip outside to do some manly stuff.
Like mow the lawn.
I put my hat on backwards.
Cool Dad.
I noticed both my neighbors on either side of me have mowed their lawns in a horizontal pattern, not so subtly suggesting that I join in.
They were perhaps unaware of my rebel nature.
I defy their peer pressure and mow diagonally.
Gangster.
I finish mowing and bagging the clippings and I’m in a full sweat.
I hear someone yell, “Looks like you could lose a deer?”
What? That doesn’t make any sense. I never had a deer.
I see Ty Rasmussen looking at me from his lawn across the street.
Ty Rasmussen, Nora’s husband.
“What?” I yell back.
“I said it looks like you could use a beer?”
A beer. That makes much more sense.
“Sure. Love one,” I say.
My feet don’t touch the ground as I float across the street after that free beer.
The Rasmussen’s house is larger than mine. It’s what the developer named the “Secretariat Series”. The models are all named after Triple Crown winning horses. Even though all the houses in our neighborhood look about the same, if you get a bunch of homeowners together, they all ask each other, “What series do you live in?” It’s all just a not-so-subtle way to gauge how much money you have versus everyone else.
Or at least how much money you were able to finesse out of the bank before the housing market collapsed.
I live in the “Seattle Slew Series”, but I don’t live anywhere near Seattle. It’s confusing, I know.
I give Ty Rasmussen a firm shake. No elbow, no wiggle, no tickle.
He walks over to the garage door and taps in a code. The door opens to reveal not a garage the way my house has a garage.
There’s no lawnmower, no garbage cans, no plastic kid’s pools, and most importantly, no cars.
It isn’t a garage at all.
It’s a man cave.
It’s like a personal sports bar.
There’s green artificial turf on the ground.
A long polished oak bar with three beer taps and a faucet and stools.
A monster 60-inch crystal clear flat screen TV on one wall and two smaller flat screens, one over the bar, and another on the third wall, you know, just in case you want to turn your head.
A Golden Tee video game machine.
A dartboard.
A 10-point stuffed buck’s head on the wall.
A fluorescent Old Style sign.
A popcorn machine.
Two cushy brown leather chairs sitting on a swiveling platform.
There’s even a little hotdog roller cooker with a couple dogs already traveling down the assembly line.
God, I hope Ty’s got a good surge protector for all this stuff.
I see a football signed by all the 1985 Bears. Hanging on the walls are bats signed by Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson crisscrossed, a poster of MJ dunking over another hapless victim and a signed Jeremy Roenick jersey, also framed.
And under a glass case, I see a set of broken headphones on top of a blue Cubs hat.
“Bartman?” I ask, pointing.
Ty shrugs and smiles, then reaches for a glass pilsner from a mini freezer behind the bar. The word “NEIGHBOR” is printed on the front. He pulls down the handle of the tapper.
And beer comes out! I know, I know, I should have expected that to happen, it is a beer tapper after all. But still, it’s awesome to watch.
He hands me the frosty glass of beer, nods toward the leather chairs and says, “Take a seat.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” I say, sinking into the leather chair.
Ah, this is the life. I’m more of a basement guy myself, and it must be hell to park outside in the winter, but I can see the appeal of having your own sports bar in the garage.
I’d probably have to hire a bouncer to keep the wife and kids out.
The enormous TV screen is playing an English Premier League soccer game. I don’t know the teams. Someone in sponsored jerseys versus someone else in sponsored jerseys running around in seemingly no rush to score a goal while occasionally faking an injury.
But my God does it look great on the flat screen, all that green grass and the fans in the stands going nuts. I’m hypnotized soaking it all in, not realizing how long I’ve been ignoring my host who’s busying himself by wiping an imaginary water stain on the bar.
I spin around in the chair and say, “You’ve got a great setup here.”
He smiles. “It’s great for when you want stay home but still get away.”
Yes.
A man could get used to this.
I’m usually reluctant to take on new friends, especially ones that live so close, and hence are hard to ignore without it getting awkward.
But if Ty flipped on a little baseball, I could easily see myself settling in for a long afternoon.
I take another frothy sip of brew.
Smooth.
Malty.
Hoppy.
Do I detect a hint of pine needle?
“What kind of beer is this?” I ask.
“Mad Hops. It’s a local micro from Dented Keg Brewery out in Plainfield. Looks like you could use another?”
I look down at my glass surprised.
I see the bottom.
That went down fast.
“Could I start a tab?”
“Your money’s no good here,” Ty says, grabbing my glass.
“That’s good, because I only brought Canadian coins. Mostly loonies.”
Ty refills my glass and hands it back.
“You have one kid?” he says.
I finish another long deep sip. “Two actually, Ryan’s a little over two, and Daisy’s now about six months. You?”
I ask, but I know.
“No. I’ve got a lot of life to live before I can make that kind of commitment.”
What did he mean by that? Was he implying that my life was over? We looked about the same age. I’m 33. Was my life effectively over?
Never mind, sometimes I answer my own questions.
“Well, it’s a lot of work, but it’s rewarding.”
That’s something parents say but they have no idea what it actually means.
“Especially with two of them,” he says.
“Yeah, the first kid is like a really cute personable alien slash pet-like thing. They dominate your life, but you can at least keep it contained. The second kid is like being taken over by an army. Your house is now occupied territory.”
He nodded, but didn’t laugh. I thought that was a pretty clever line. Tough crowd.
“And what do you do... for work?” he says.
Oh, he knew. Or at least his wife had to know. She’d seen me taking Ryan and Daisy for walks and at the pool on weekday afternoons.
“I used to be in sales, but now I’m actually a stay-at-home dad.”
“Oh good for you.”
Screw you and your tone.
I nod and take another deep sip.
“I couldn’t do that. My career means too much to me.”
And there was the chisel.
I muster up a smile and say, “And what do you do?”
“Have you heard of Rasmussen Tool?”
“I’ve heard of one,” I say.
“What?”
“I mean, I think I’ve heard of it. Hammers, wrenches, Phillips screwdrivers, that sort of thing?”
“No, actually we manufacture parts for farm equipment like tractors and combines. My father started the company.”
“So you work for your dad?”
Dagger!
“My father died three years ago. I run the company now.”
Dagger retracted.
Things get awkward for a second, but thankfully Nora walks through the inside garage door.
“Hello, I see we have company,” she says.
Looking like a million bucks.
“I brought snacks.”
She’s carrying a plate of hot pretzels.
I up my original estimate to two million bucks.
“Thanks, honey,” Ty says.
“Thanks, Mrs. Rasmussen,” I say.
She laughs.
I still got it.
“Thanks, Calvin.”
She knows my name!
“Honey,” he says to her, then looks back at the inside garage door.
She gets it. “OK, I know you don’t want any girl cooties in your MAN CAVE.”
“Bye,” Ty says.
That would not fly in the Recker household.
And like that, she’s gone.
“Help yourself,” Ty says.
I take a steaming hot pretzel from the plate, dip it in one of the two mustard bowls and take a bite.
And hand to God, cheese pours out the center.
Liquid gold.
“Delicious,” I say. “Where’d you buy these? Meijer? Dominick’s? Jewel?”
“Nora made them,” Ty says. “She’s always whipping up something homemade in the kitchen.”
“You picked a real winner there, Ty. You sir, are a lucky man.”
“She’s cheating on me,” he says.
I stop chewing my pretzel.
I wish I had a jetpack so I could rocket out of this uncomfortable situation.
“Well that makes sense, she’s much better looking than you.”
He looks right at me.
“I said that out loud, didn’t I?” I say.
I hate when I say exactly what I think.
“Yes.”
“Sorry.”
“No, don’t be. You’re honest. You say what’s on your mind. I like that.”
“What makes you think that she’s cheating on you? Beautiful women make men’s brains go haywire, like you don’t deserve her so you assume she’s out looking for something better?”
I’m trying to give the guy something.
“I found a strange hair in the bed.”
“Could be yours. You could be losing it.”
“It’s short and light brown.”
Ty’s hair is black.
“And curly.”
“Oh.”
“And I’m not losing my hair by the way.”
Keep telling yourself that, buddy.
“Still, you found one stray hair, that’s not enough to go accusing your wife of cuckolding you.”
Cuckold is one of my favorite words, and I so rarely get a chance to use it in polite conversation.
Cuckold.
Cuckold.
Cuckold.
“I also found a condom wrapper stuck underneath a decorative pillow. And to answer your next question, no, I don’t wear them.”
I don’t know what to say. I sip my beer and look for a skylight I can crawl out of.
“Let me ask you this, Calvin. When your kids take their naps, do you use those monitors?”
“Baby monitors? Yeah, why?”
“I’ve heard that their frequencies can pick up other houses.”
“That’s true, sometimes Ryan hits a different channel and I’ll start hearing conversations from some other house. I’m not sure how far they range, though.”
“Do they range at least across the street?”
“Sure.”
“So you could hear what’s going on in my house?”
“If you had a baby monitor too and I was tuned to the right channel.”
“And if you were home during the day with your monitor tuned to the right channel, you could hear what’s going on in my bedroom when I’m gone?”
“Uh...”
“And look out your window and see when my wife comes and goes while taking special note of who she’s with?”
“I suppose I would be in a unique position to do such a thing, but maybe you should try hiring a private detective.”
“I believe that’s what I’m doing.”
Me?
The only investigating I do is rummaging through the house trying to find a misplaced Binky.
The only trouble I get in is when I’m changing a smelly diaper and I find myself out of wipes.
And could I really drink the amount of cheap whiskey a private detective needs to work effectively?
Since college, my tolerance for hard alcohol is down to about nil.
“I don’t know...” I say.
“I’ll pay you five hundred dollars.”
Five hundred bones? Five hundred smackeroos?
That would buy a lot of diapers.
“What exactly would I have to do?” I say.
Come back tomorrow for Part Three of "Monitor".
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