Parents

Steven did not like to speak of his parents.  As far as he was concerned, they were responsible for much of what he is.  Cold, calculating people, they refused to ever acknowledge the innocence that is the birthright of all children.

            For the first 12 years or so of his life, he did not even know his parents’ names.  His live-in au pair eventually clued him in that these two strangers who occasionally sat at the other end of the table were his parents.  He remembered the night when the family lawyer sat him down and explained what his duties as the only son entailed.  He forced 13 year old Steven to read and sign a 45 page document.

            Whenever Steven had a complaint, or wished his parents presence, he had to submit a letter to the box outside their bedroom.  For his fifth grade science fair he had to wait two weeks for a response.  Even then, it was non-committal.  His father, a successful CEO, ran everything like a business.  This included his relationship with his son.  He treated Steven like the boy in the mail room.

            His mother was a hypochondriac and neat freak, and it was from her that Steven most took after.  She would inspect his room with a white glove, and any speck of dirt was sternly rebuffed.  She was also agoraphobic, which meant that Steven never went anywhere as a child.  His sunny days were spent in the library, listening to one of the few things his parents let him have in abundance, music. 

            Steven thought about all these things as He listened to his bass player, Leonard, tell him stories about the things his parents did.  It was then that Steven started to realize that, perhaps, he and Leonard had more in common that he realized.

The Decision

                Steven had given it deep consideration for a long time.  One of the few habits his parents had instill in him that weren’t completely crippling to his psyche was to always be incredibly thorough.  He always took at least 20 minutes to read a menu at a restaurant.  Picking something on Netflix to watch took upwards of an hour and a half.  When he applied for his current job, it took him almost 6 months.    The process that brought Leonard into the band had been incredibly exhaustive.

                So Leonard knew what it was to be confident in a decision.  He had good reason to never doubt himself ever.  This nervousness that he felt was completely foreign to him.  He had done all the research, created his customary charts and graphs, and thought out many possible scenarios.  It made sense to ask Susan to marry him now.

                Then why did Steven had this pit in his stomach?  It must be the possibility that she would say no.  Steven was not accustomed to taking risks, another habit he had inherited from his parents.  He carried an umbrella every day, regardless of the weather.  He always had a ten dollar bill in his sock, and he had 3 life insurance policies.  His dentist hated him due to the fact that he never had anything wrong with his teeth.  He brushed and flossed three times a day.

                So, when he decided to ask Susan to marry him, it was a completely logical decision based on research and thought.  Financially and legally it made a lot of sense.  They got a long quite well- Steven had never met a woman who understood Steven’s “particular” ways as much as Susan.  Also, Steven was quite sure that Susan felt the same way.  They had discussed several times the logical steps their relationship was bound to take.

                This must be love, Steven thought, that annoying, non-quantifiable thing that caused people to feel and do strange things.  This was the only thing that could explain why Steven, a man who spent a year researching what hat to buy, was worried that Susan would say no.  Or, if she said yes, what would happen after that.  Steven wished the universe did not torture him so.  Steven sighed, put the ring in his pocket, and opened the door.

Dibs

Steven stood in the window with his coffee mug in his hand. He looked out at the scene before him and grimaced. The street looked like a yard sale of the damned. Lawn chairs lay in the street like plastic corpses. Here and there he saw an odd baby stroller or plank of wood. He made a double take as he glimpsed a clothes line, complete with shirt, adorning one spot. This was Chicago in the time of dibs.

This bizarre phenomenon happened every year around the same time. Whenever Chicago got a big snow storm, a sense of entitlement would swell up amongst the population. All sense of moral decency and good will would go out the window. Steven observed neighbors who would greet each other cordially on a normal day resort to near blows over a tiny patch of shoveled asphalt. If Steven was a keener observer of the human condition, he might be inclined to dig into this pattern further. Surely there must be some kind of deep, primitive instinct behind man's willingness to resort to such chaos.

Steven himself was not participating. He had smartly made room in his garage days ago. The temporary set back of not being able to use that wonderful space for his other passions was offset by the pure convenience of being above it all. He got to float above the pettiness on a bed of concrete and carefully shoveled snow. He could use his vehicle at his leisure, no slave to the aspirations of his neighbors and their petty, pathetic, attempts to own the un-ownable.

Steven knew in a few days it would all be over. Either the weather would break, providing the heat to melt much of this prodigious snow pack and render dibs obsolete, or, and Steven preferred this option, the city would come through and haul everything away. Steven quite enjoyed the idea that somewhere there is a vast dibs graveyard. A lot filled with chairs and buckets and broken senses of superiority. They should give tours. Steven would certainly venture out in this weather for that.

Happiness

Steven could not remember the last time he was this happy. The entire city was in a state of virtual lock down. The weathermen and the news casters all advised against venturing outdoors. They said that being outside for more than 10 minutes could cause frost bite and hypothermia in these conditions. School were closed and people were scared. The homeless of the city were in a state of peril. Steven was in a state of joy.

Everyone in the city was being forced to live the life that Steven aspires to everyday. His ideal state is at home, shades closed and doors locked, isolated from the outside world. But, life always gets in the way, He inevitably has to go to work, or Susan wants them to go to dinner, or he has to go to the doctor due to his foot infection. Whatever it is, his routine was always cut short. But now that wasn't really possible. Surprisingly, work told everyone not to come in. Susan is content to just huddle on the couch in a blanket, and his infection was well under control. Even the paper boy wasn't a threat. His parents did not want him riding on a rickety metal frame in below zero temperature.

So, Steven was at peace. Nothing to do but sip his brandy and listen to Led Zeppelin records. They had been saying on the news that this cold snap might last a week or more. Steven could barely contain his excitement. This was better than a vacation to some far off, malaria infested tropical island, or some uninteresting historical site filled with knuckle dragging tourists. This was a paradise of Steven's own design, a perfect oasis of control and calm. If nuclear winter descended down, or global warming struck its final blow and transformed the city into a frozen wasteland, Steven would smile, tip his glass, and listen to Misty Mountain Hop again.

Impound

Steven grimaced as the loud, droning elevator music blared over the loudspeaker. The florescent lights and the stifling heat in this tiny room made Steven feel like he was in a sauna. Sadly, Steven was not relaxing on a bench somewhere, he was in a long, slow moving line, waiting to talk to some unhappy person about getting his car back.

Steven had awoken that morning to find that his 2010 Toyota had been stolen right off the street. Worse, it had not been by some loner looking for a quick buck, nor by some nefarious, shadowy organization intending to use it for some kind of fast and furious scheme. It had been commandeered by the city. The very city that Steven pays taxes to and supports. They had decided to arbitrarily post a sign on his street that allowed them to take his car hostage, then force him to pay money to get it back. If he wasn't so angry, Steven would have been impressed at that kind of extortion.

So here he was, fresh off a 25 dollar taxi ride, in a terrible part of town, already late for work. His boss would never let him hear the end of this. Somehow he would make this all Steven's fault, as if he did all of this intentionally. Steven profoundly hated that man. He also hated every other living thing in this room. They were all hindrances to him. It was all a constant reminder of why he hated going out in public, save for occasional forays with Susan and band gigs with Leonard.

The door slammed as another person entered the room, loudly agitated and yelling at everyone he could. Steven avoided eye contact as best he could and tried to make himself smaller. He did not need that now. As much as he agreed with the man, he had to get out of here as quickly as he could, and for that to happen he had to suck it up and cooperate. He could think of few things he would rather do right now.

He finally got to the window, only for the bored, inattentive high school graduate to tell him that the paperwork he needs was in his car, which happened to be in their lot. Now he had to go out and speak with another person he did not care about, retrieve the document, and start all over again. He wondered how many people just gave up. Many of the cities used car lots could be stocked exclusively with the leftovers from these places of despair. This was going to be a long, long day.

The Cold

Steven was miserable. He sat on his couch, blanket pulled up around his ears, and just shivered. It had been 2 days since the heat had stopped working. His landlord had insisted that it was getting fixed ASAP, but Steven was skeptical. He wanted to call his landlord again, to ask what the hold up was, but that involved moving into the cold, and that was simply out of the question right now.

Steven hated the cold. There was simply no way to escape it. When it is hot, you can turn on a van or drink a cold beverage. Cold isn't like that. When you are cold, truly cold, you can feel it in your bones. It seeps into every fiber of your body. Any temporary relief you may gain, like a hot shower, or shopping in a warm store, are simply stalls to keep the cold away for a moment.

Steven thought about all this as he waited for Susan to get home from work. Steven hadn't had work today because his boss Mr. Elliot, didn't want the employees trying to make it to work in this weather. Of course the old man had inadvertently doomed Steven to a day of shivering and sniffling. His coworkers were probably enjoying their day off, sitting in front of a fire with a good book, or enjoying a nice meal.

Not that Steven was surprised by any of this. This was just another case of the universe conspiring against him. This had always happened to him. Once, when he was 8, he was locked in a refrigerator of a gas station for 30 minutes before his parents noticed that he wasn't in the car. Then they made him apologize to the attendant for giving him more work to do. That had taught Steven a valuable lesson about both heat loss and gas station workers.

The phone rang, and Steven briefly considered moving to answer it, but only briefly. The voice mail would get it. Perhaps it was his landlord calling to tell him the heat was fixed and to beg his forgiveness. Maybe he would even give him a discount on rent. But, it was only Susan, telling him she was stuck in traffic and would be late for work. This was Steven's life now, cold and misery.

The Baby

Steven looked down at the tiny person at his feet, and felt nothing. Susan's nephew, Aaron was staying with him for the afternoon while Susan and her sister Nancy went shopping. Without warning, the little primate had been thrust into his arms and they had scooted out the door before Steven could begin to mount a protest. So now he was stuck here with this little moron for the rest of the day.

Aaron was almost two. He spoke but little, preferring to just stand there and stare at Steven with those cold, lifeless eyes. This was not the worst part. He would bother Steven while he was trying to work with his senseless crying. This was also not the worst part. The worst part was that he was mobile. A child that age, who has just learned to walk, is basically a divining rod. It immediately sough out and found any possibly dangerous or life threatening things in the room. Twice already Steven had to keep Aaron from frying what little brains he had in the light socket.

He had come up with a novel solution. He had completely encased the child with pillows, thereby negating his ability to move, see, or pretty much do anything. The child continued trying to get around, however, and ran around the home like a giant marshmallow with an Iron Man shirt. Steven had turned on CSPAN, to keep him occupied, but that had not yet peaked his interest. Steven had tried playing some Rush, as well, but Aaron did not appreciate Getty Lee as much as he did.

The child seemed hungry, but Steven did not know what small children eat. All he had in the fridge was old brie and chicken Pad Thai. Neither one peeked the tiny person's interest. Steven thought he could get some macaroni and cheese delivered, but he didn't want Aaron getting sick and ruining his beautiful carpet.

In the end, all Steven could do was sit here trying to work, with a small child grasping at his leg, as he waited for the mother to come home