Writing Contest Winners

2nd Place (tie)

Sick Day

by Jerry Cavanaugh

THE FIRST FEW times the phone went off, I attempted to ignore it. But it was three rings and click. Three rings and click. Jesus, you know? Like they're avoiding the machine. The one goddamn workday I sleep in—on purpose, anyway—and someone's messing around.

I crack an eye: It's 7:17. Too early for telemarketers. And though I'm expecting the long-distance birthday call from my mother, she'd likely just leave her singsongy message like most years. It starts up again, and I'm out of bed and ticked because now the smart money's on Betsy, probably just arrived at work and, knowing I'm still home, compelled to take the opportunity to immediately report her misplacement du jour: the forgotten cell phone, the lost apartment keys, something. I scoop up the receiver—here, my annoyance made manifest—and regard it in my cupped hand like a 4-H judge considering the heft of a farm kid's blue-ribbon squash.

"Hello." Flat as Kansas.

"Turn on the TV." Yeah, thought so. Betsy and I fought again last night, so she gets a concentrated exhale, all sleepy warm air and nostrils.

"Why? What? You know I'm sleeping in."

"You'll see. Just turn it on."

"No, no, let me guess—um, your best friend from way back in Brownies took a bus trip to New York, and Al Roker's talking to her right now outside Studio 1A."

"Damn it, Kevin, just turn it on. They're attacking New York."

BETSY AND I have been living together for three years. It was better at the beginning. Something new, a bigger apartment, easy sex: the usual. Back then she used to dismiss marriage as much as I did—two children of divorce, natch—but I know she's changing. She teaches second grade, and the kids don't help; it's always Miss Decker this and Miss Decker that. Mouths of babes making a case against me every time they have to go pee.

One night toward the end of last school year, she comes home and tells me that this little shit Hunter Snodgrass (that's my "little shit" there, actually; can you imagine a better name for a little shit than Hunter Snodgrass?) goes:

Miss Decker, are you married?

No, Hunter, that's why I'm a Miss.

Do you have a boyfriend?

Yes, Hunter, I have a very nice boyfriend.

Miss Decker, aren't you kind of old for just a boyfriend?

Ouch. If they didn't sign that kid's birth certificate with a shit pencil, they should have. So I don't know if it's me or her Clock or the kids or the catty looks from the marrieds in the teachers' lounge, but it all made for a chilly summer. We fight a lot now— little things hiding the big things—and I think we're getting close to drawing that line.

Shortly after I turned on the tube and hung up with Betsy and used the word "Holy" in front of every expletive I know, I called my cube neighbor Mikal for the state of the office. He was way into the project manager thing and I knew he'd be there already; I work for this gung-ho Internet company downtown and someone's always there. He tells me there's a rumor gaining ground about a bomb threat at the Northwest Mutual building just a few blocks away. When I heard that I didn't even bother to call in sick; I just slipped into my gray lounge pants and a clean black T-shirt, pulled on some thick hiking socks, started a big pot of coffee, and hunkered down on the couch.

After a few hours of death and destruction, I go out for our morning paper. I wipe away a spider and a few dead leaves and scan what's above the fold: a pixilated kids-in-a-park seasonal shot, another traffic story. Root vegetable recipes inside, Section E. Jesus, now this whole ink-and-pulp thing is just a remnant, a clay tablet etched by wretched, cave-blind hunchbacks. The Sumerian Picayune. What the hell could they possibly tell me tomorrow? Headline: "Oh, Just Fuck It: We're Watching CNN, Too."

Back upstairs the sun's breaking through the blinds, wide, pale yellow parallels creeping across the carpet. I pad around the kitchen, open and close a few cabinets, the refrigerator. I finally decide on the chocolate ice cream, which I eat standing in front of the television spooning it absently straight from the half-gallon container.

Later I have a beer and think about Betsy. Would they let the kids watch it at school, or is it all too much? I decide they wouldn't; you'd think they'd have learned their lesson when the Challenger explosion blew millions of impressionable minds right there in the classroom. You just can't trust live television.

When the sun stripes start climbing the bookshelves, I go pour a big Jameson's with ice and toast myself happy birthday. It goes without saying, of course, that the date—this date, my date—will never, ever be the same, not for the rest of my life. Self-involved, I know, but it's true; think about your own. I get an idea to start the "BirthDay of Infamy" club, maybe make all last century's Dec. 7s honorary members, but when the news anchor highlights the fact it spells out 9-1-1, I just forget it.