Mushrooms

Felix came over twice a week, usually unannounced. Laura and I would be sitting
at the kitchen table under a single 40 watt bulb, bugs bouncing into it, ragtime
music playing over the stereo, starting at each other, or doing whatever it is you
do when your waiting for something better to come along.  And then the door
would be kicked open, and there he’d be, relieving us from that palpable nothingness that existed between us like Schrödinger's cat.

Felix wore the same thing every time came over and you got the feeling that he
might have a dead animal in the glove compartment of his car just incase he saw
a cute girl jogging down the street that needed road kill tossed at her. “Fur is
murder,” he’d probably yell and then hit the gas and grab the pack of cigarettes
out of his right sleeve and light one up to celebrate the moment. The feeling was
almost as satisfying as that feeling he got when he hid across the street from
Kearny high and shot kids with a pellet gun as they walked home.

Felix came by twice a week to check on the mushroom cakes that were
developing in several mason jars in our broken oven. “About three weeks,” he’d
say looking over the whitening organic mass in a mason jar and then he’d put
the jar back in the oven. Seven days later he’d come over. “About two weeks
maybe? And we’ll move them to a terrarium.”

“Ten more days,” he’d say four day’s later. The mushrooms received more care
and attention than the baby I was growing in Laura’s womb.

“How long after they go to the terrarium?”

“Maybe two weeks for the first flush and then we gotta soak them in water and
then the second flush will start to grow.” And then he’d take a sip from his bottle
of Seagrams then he’d leave Laura and I to stare at each other.

And Laura sat across from me, at the vintage table her previous boyfriend had
found for her, and stared at me while the ragtime music played on the radio and
the bugs overdosed on the forty watt. And Felix would walk through the door.

“First flush will be ready by tomorrow. Those fuckers had a growth spurt over
night!”

And Laura told us, “I’m going to my aunts house tomorrow because I don’t wanna
be here watching you idiots getting high when I won't be able to because of the baby.”
And then she took a drag off of her cigarette. The nothingness that existed between us
was a fragrant menthol.