Read Online The Republic of Love by Carol Shields - Free Book Online
Authors: Carol Shields
Ads: Link
wastes water. This really comes from when I was a kid and lived on a farm. Up near Amiota? We had a well, but not a very reliable one, and so we were darned careful about wasting water. I think of that when I’m standing in the shower, all that water just running down the drain. I’m forty-six now, and I’ve got my own family, with all the running water in the world, but I still think every single time I’m in the shower that I shouldn’t be so wasteful, and that takes all the fun out of it.”
“I feel like a jerk in the shower,” a man says. He has a youthful voice with tenor margins to it. “I feel dumb or drunk or something. It’s the steam. I’ve got this head of naturally curly hair, but in the shower it gets all slicked down so I look like a nerd. Looks are kind of like a priority, and with me, priorities come first.”
Another caller says: “When I’m in the shower I get this compulsion to count. Like how many showers I’ve had in my life? And how many more I’m going to have, all those showers stretching out into the future, three hundred and sixty-five a year, and on and on. I try to keep my shower time down to ninety seconds.”
“I find,” a woman says, “that I have a very hard time getting out of the shower. I favor very hot water, probably too hot for most people, I must have some Japanese blood in me, and I keep thinking, Oh God, now I have to get out and be cold again. I’d like to stay in there, just prolong and prolong it and never get out.”
“I study my shower curtains,” an out-of-town caller reports. “I’ve got one of those map-of-the-world shower curtains and I would recommend it to any listener. It’s supposed to be accurate, and I’m telling you, the stuff I’ve learned. South America. Africa, too.”
“You want me to be honest?” a young male voice says. “Taking a shower makes me feel sexy. I think of all the great girls I’ve known lately. I like to take a shower with a girl. Hey, can I say this on the air? Well, it’s a great way to go. And at the same time you’re getting clean.”
“The thing about a shower,” the final caller says, “is not just getting clean. A shower takes you down memory lane. You go under the nozzle and it’s like a time machine. Taking a shower, it’s like being back in the ocean or back in your mother’s womb. Safe and full of these far-out thoughts. When I’m in the shower I feel powerful, but also like I’m a better person.”
T OM HAS TO ADMIT he was touched by all the birthday cards he got for his fortieth.
Most of them, to be sure, came from listeners, mailed in to the station on Pembina Highway, and quite a lot of them were anonymous, signed simply “from a grateful listener” or “from your late-night comrade in arms.” Why would anyone go to the bother, he wonders, but his wondering is colored with gratitude.
I want to thank you folks out there for all your …
And yet, here he is bundling these same cards into a green garbage bag. It’s house-cleaning time, a Tuesday morning. This is a pigsty he’s living in, and he’s determined to do something about it, to get some order into his life. Into the garbage bag with three half-rotted apples, two empty wine bottles, the crushed cornflakesbox, last week’s newspapers, a ripped T-shirt, some slivers of soap, and an unidentifiable toothbrush, and all one hundred sixty birthday cards, plus a box of homemade oatmeal cookies (uneaten – why risk it? says Big Bruce) from a listener who wrote in hot-pink ink, “To the man who lights up my life and who I love most in the world after my husband. Hang in there, Tom, forty is just the beginning.”
“A H , T OM ,” said Tom’s first wife, Sheila. “How could I forget your birthday, and especially this birthday! Anyway, it all of a sudden hit me, wham, and I thought the least I could do was take you to lunch, better late than never, and I remembered you used to love coming to this place. I can remember sitting at
“I feel like a jerk in the shower,” a man says. He has a youthful voice with tenor margins to it. “I feel dumb or drunk or something. It’s the steam. I’ve got this head of naturally curly hair, but in the shower it gets all slicked down so I look like a nerd. Looks are kind of like a priority, and with me, priorities come first.”
Another caller says: “When I’m in the shower I get this compulsion to count. Like how many showers I’ve had in my life? And how many more I’m going to have, all those showers stretching out into the future, three hundred and sixty-five a year, and on and on. I try to keep my shower time down to ninety seconds.”
“I find,” a woman says, “that I have a very hard time getting out of the shower. I favor very hot water, probably too hot for most people, I must have some Japanese blood in me, and I keep thinking, Oh God, now I have to get out and be cold again. I’d like to stay in there, just prolong and prolong it and never get out.”
“I study my shower curtains,” an out-of-town caller reports. “I’ve got one of those map-of-the-world shower curtains and I would recommend it to any listener. It’s supposed to be accurate, and I’m telling you, the stuff I’ve learned. South America. Africa, too.”
“You want me to be honest?” a young male voice says. “Taking a shower makes me feel sexy. I think of all the great girls I’ve known lately. I like to take a shower with a girl. Hey, can I say this on the air? Well, it’s a great way to go. And at the same time you’re getting clean.”
“The thing about a shower,” the final caller says, “is not just getting clean. A shower takes you down memory lane. You go under the nozzle and it’s like a time machine. Taking a shower, it’s like being back in the ocean or back in your mother’s womb. Safe and full of these far-out thoughts. When I’m in the shower I feel powerful, but also like I’m a better person.”
T OM HAS TO ADMIT he was touched by all the birthday cards he got for his fortieth.
Most of them, to be sure, came from listeners, mailed in to the station on Pembina Highway, and quite a lot of them were anonymous, signed simply “from a grateful listener” or “from your late-night comrade in arms.” Why would anyone go to the bother, he wonders, but his wondering is colored with gratitude.
I want to thank you folks out there for all your …
And yet, here he is bundling these same cards into a green garbage bag. It’s house-cleaning time, a Tuesday morning. This is a pigsty he’s living in, and he’s determined to do something about it, to get some order into his life. Into the garbage bag with three half-rotted apples, two empty wine bottles, the crushed cornflakesbox, last week’s newspapers, a ripped T-shirt, some slivers of soap, and an unidentifiable toothbrush, and all one hundred sixty birthday cards, plus a box of homemade oatmeal cookies (uneaten – why risk it? says Big Bruce) from a listener who wrote in hot-pink ink, “To the man who lights up my life and who I love most in the world after my husband. Hang in there, Tom, forty is just the beginning.”
“A H , T OM ,” said Tom’s first wife, Sheila. “How could I forget your birthday, and especially this birthday! Anyway, it all of a sudden hit me, wham, and I thought the least I could do was take you to lunch, better late than never, and I remembered you used to love coming to this place. I can remember sitting at
Similar Books
