Why I Don't Write Children's Literature by Gary Soto

Author:Gary Soto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ForeEdge from University Press of New England

NAPS

I asked my wife, “Are you leaving soon?” She was off to a midweek meeting at church, and I wanted her out of the house, for I had the glorious ambition to roll onto the couch, kick off my slippers, wrap a small blanket around my lower extremities, and nap. My wife was putting on lipstick and poking at her hair in the hallway mirror.

“Now,” she answered, then licked her lips to smear the lipstick around. “Why? What are you doing?”

I imagined the couch and the small blanket that I would embrace like a lover.

“A couple of things,” I answered, after some hesitation. Please hurry, I begged silently. Please just go. “Your keys are on the counter. Can you remember to pick up a six-pack for me? Heineken, por favor.”

I ventured into our bedroom, opened the closet, and considered which sweater to wear while I napped. How about the red one? I asked myself. Or the colorful one that resembles a Frank Stella painting — or both, one on top of the other? The layered look is back in, right?

My wife didn’t ask what I meant by “a couple of things.” She was suddenly in a hurry. Back in the kitchen, I followed her like a cat. She opened the pantry and brought out some shopping bags. “It can wait,” she said.

“What can wait?” Was she already planning dinner?

“It’s a mess. Get rid of the potatoes, will you?”

She meant the pantry. And the bag of potatoes with wormy roots oozing from their skins. I picked up the potatoes and followed my wife to the front door, where I slipped into my shoes. The potatoes, minus the plastic bag, were headed to the green bin.

My wife didn’t kiss me goodbye, but she did say, “You look nice in your sweater.” I was wearing the red one, with all of its buttons in the proper holes. I tossed the potatoes into the green bin as her pickup truck pulled out of the driveway. Then she was gone. I waved but she didn’t see me. I returned to the front door, parked my shoes on the stoop — we’re a shoeless household — and went inside.

I was so eager for her to leave because I was embarrassed. I did not want her to think of her hubby of thirty-eight years napping at 10:23 a.m., the present time according to our clocks — microwave clock, stereo clock, wall clock, computer clock, even my tired old man of a wristwatch. Napping should be a private matter, especially so early in the morning. At sixty-two, I’m still spry. But at seventy, I could be that geezer gripping a magazine as he nods off with his mouth open. Will my hands be peppered and my nostrils a display of unsightly foliage?

After that thought, I encouraged myself either to be productive, or to educate myself in fields far from the familiar — to learn about my car’s motor, for God’s sake. And what was wrong with woodworking? I became angry at myself for not buying a set of toothy saws at a yard sale.

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