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house_muses prompt : 12/8/08
Dec. 8th, 2008 09:37 amPrompt: 2. Sometimes...
Sometimes, on his way home from the hospital, he’ll take the eight-mile detour to the place where her apartment used to be. Used to be. It’s not her apartment anymore, he tells himself. There’s a family of three living there now: a man and a woman and their seven-year-old son. He saw them unloading a Christmas tree last week. Sitting in his car across the street, engine idling, he watched the man untie the ropes from the top of the car and drag the tree bodily into the street, his son running after him to scoop the fallen needles out of the snow. Once, the woman turned in his direction and he thought she saw him – saw Wilson -- and he had to stare up out of the windshield, pretending to be lost.
Sometimes, when the weather is cold like this, he’ll park his car around the corner and walk to the New York-style deli a block away from her non-apartment, ordering cup after cup of black, bitter coffee. He’ll sit in the booth in the back, warming his hands on Styrofoam, and watch Mrs. Klotz dress the day’s shipment of meat, her thick arms having no trouble swinging the large silver carving knife. He and Amber used to sit here and speculate about the origins of the infamous Mrs. Klotz. She was a teenage spy for the Allies ; she used to bellydance in Istanbul before she discovered that butchery was her true calling ; Mr. Klotz ordered her through a mail-order bride catalog but was too miserly to pay the return postage fee once he saw what she looked like. Wilson and Amber would order pastrami on rye and he would laugh when she’d have to blow her nose halfway through the meal, not used to the strong, peppery meat. Two days ago, Mrs. Klotz approached his table with two sandwiches, but balked when she saw that Wilson was alone.
“Your girlfriend working tonight?” she asked, handing both plates onto the inside of her large forearm. She topped Wilson’s coffee and raised a fuzzy felt eyebrow when Wilson told her that he and Amber weren’t together anymore. “That’s a real shame,” she said, then shook her head. “Well, here –“ she slid one of the sandwiches in front of him “—starve a cold, feed a fever, overindulge a broken heart. This one’s on the house. I’ll wrap the other one up for you to take home.”
Yesterday, House showed up at his place with six brown bottles and speculations about a case of psittacosis, needing to work one over so he could have a revelation about the other. Halfway through the night he got up to rummage around Wilson’s refrigerator, saw the sandwich, and devoured it. He came back into the living room, sniffling and rubbing the underside of his nose.
“Is all of your food performance-tested by JD Power and Associates?” he'd asked. “That meat was like chewing road tar. Don’t you keep anything, you know, normal around your place?”
Wilson pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to House.
"Sometimes."
Sometimes, on his way home from the hospital, he’ll take the eight-mile detour to the place where her apartment used to be. Used to be. It’s not her apartment anymore, he tells himself. There’s a family of three living there now: a man and a woman and their seven-year-old son. He saw them unloading a Christmas tree last week. Sitting in his car across the street, engine idling, he watched the man untie the ropes from the top of the car and drag the tree bodily into the street, his son running after him to scoop the fallen needles out of the snow. Once, the woman turned in his direction and he thought she saw him – saw Wilson -- and he had to stare up out of the windshield, pretending to be lost.
Sometimes, when the weather is cold like this, he’ll park his car around the corner and walk to the New York-style deli a block away from her non-apartment, ordering cup after cup of black, bitter coffee. He’ll sit in the booth in the back, warming his hands on Styrofoam, and watch Mrs. Klotz dress the day’s shipment of meat, her thick arms having no trouble swinging the large silver carving knife. He and Amber used to sit here and speculate about the origins of the infamous Mrs. Klotz. She was a teenage spy for the Allies ; she used to bellydance in Istanbul before she discovered that butchery was her true calling ; Mr. Klotz ordered her through a mail-order bride catalog but was too miserly to pay the return postage fee once he saw what she looked like. Wilson and Amber would order pastrami on rye and he would laugh when she’d have to blow her nose halfway through the meal, not used to the strong, peppery meat. Two days ago, Mrs. Klotz approached his table with two sandwiches, but balked when she saw that Wilson was alone.
“Your girlfriend working tonight?” she asked, handing both plates onto the inside of her large forearm. She topped Wilson’s coffee and raised a fuzzy felt eyebrow when Wilson told her that he and Amber weren’t together anymore. “That’s a real shame,” she said, then shook her head. “Well, here –“ she slid one of the sandwiches in front of him “—starve a cold, feed a fever, overindulge a broken heart. This one’s on the house. I’ll wrap the other one up for you to take home.”
Yesterday, House showed up at his place with six brown bottles and speculations about a case of psittacosis, needing to work one over so he could have a revelation about the other. Halfway through the night he got up to rummage around Wilson’s refrigerator, saw the sandwich, and devoured it. He came back into the living room, sniffling and rubbing the underside of his nose.
“Is all of your food performance-tested by JD Power and Associates?” he'd asked. “That meat was like chewing road tar. Don’t you keep anything, you know, normal around your place?”
Wilson pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to House.
"Sometimes."
