#1. Patrick and April

Striking Out

A novella
by Matt Bloom


#1. Patrick and April

It took sixteen hours for the baby to come. It was a boy, though Patrick and April and all the family had known that for months. But all those sonogram pictures couldn’t prepare them to see little Eric for the first time. He had gained nine pounds inside of his mother while Patrick watched and felt the kicking and squirming along the way. Meanwhile April had watched her husband and studied the awe in his face when he touched her. She knew he often needed her gentle hand to reassure him that everything was going to be all right, and now they had proof in a thirty-second old baby boy.

Patrick breathed shallowly as he looked over his exhausted wife, whose arms shook as she lifted them to take her son. He brushed a hand over her sweat-soaked hair and left it there. His other hand was on her shoulder. He looked from hand to hand, and back again, and at her eyes, which were fixated on the baby. He knew that just below his gaze, Eric was trying hard to focus on his father, but Patrick couldn’t quite summon the strength to look back.
In fact, it scared all hell out of him.

* * *

Patrick’s affair had begun and ended the same week the doctor believed Eric was conceived.

He had been working with the Fraternal Order of Police, making phone calls to raise money, for several months when Susan started. He noticed her across the room basically because there were no other very attractive women in his call center. He didn’t talk to her at all until a couple of months later, when the manager rearranged the office to accommodate increased personnel and they wound up side by side. Even then they said little more than “Hello” and “Goodbye” to each other, and communicated mostly through silent smiles from time to time.

April was a waitress at a local cafe. Six months before the affair, she came home late one night after work with a headache. She was fuming mad and couldn’t wait to vent to Patrick, who had been at the apartment watching television all night.

“Pat, I’m sick,” she said as she fell through the door.

Patrick put the TV on mute. “What’s the matter?”

April kissed him and plopped herself onto the couch. She tossed her pouch onto the coffee table in front of them. “Dick.”

“Oh,” Patrick replied knowingly.

“That fat, sadistic bastard. Why doesn’t he quit? Doesn’t he want more out of life than to screw me over all the time? I’m sick of it. I am so sick of his bullshit.”

“What happened?”

“First off, because we’re short tonight I get stuck with about nine tables.”

“Geez.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re only supposed to have five,” Patrick recalled.

“Yeah. And so I’m already going like crazy, and when you’re that busy you’re gonna make some mistakes. So I had a couple of complaints, but I took care of it. I didn’t get this lady’s coffee, I forgot silverware a couple of times, drinks, that sort of thing. Nothing major. But this one old, crotchety geezer gets all bent out of shape because I brought him regular coffee instead of decaf. He said he told me three times he wanted decaf. Please. He told me once, in an undertone, that he wanted decaf. Fine. I apologized, but it wasn’t good enough for him. No, he had to ask for the manager, and guess who was on tonight?”

“Dick.”

“Hell yes, Dick. And let me tell you, he chewed my ass out. He gives me this whole damn speech about my attitude and how I need to shape up and how I’ve been written up before and blah blah – ugh! I could have kicked his ass right there. I mean, sure, maybe I had some edge to my tone, but is it my fault we were short girls? That’s not my damn fault. I could just pop that man’s head off his neck, I swear.”

Patrick shrugged. “What’re you gonna do?”

“I’ll quit, that’s what I’ll do, next time he pulls that shit.”

“April, you know we can’t –”

“Oh, I know, I know.” She grunted. “But I really want to sometimes.”

“Well, I guess you could look around some. Couldn’t hurt.”

“Yeah,” April said, staring at the TV with her arms crossed. “I should.”

They sat in silence for about a minute, watching the muted TV.

“God, I’m hungry,” April said, and walked into the kitchen. “How was work?” she shouted from the other room.

Patrick sighed. “You know. Nothing to say. Work was work.” “Yeah,” she replied absentmindedly.

“You know I’d like to quit sometimes,” Patrick shouted from the couch. “Remember how I went to college and got that degree thing? How I was so excited that now that I’ve graduated, I can finally fulfill my dream of hitting strangers up for money?”

April chuckled. “Yeah.”

“I should go back and ask my professors if this is what they meant by ‘public relations’.”

“Hey, don’t you be getting any ideas, though. If I can’t quit, you definitely can’t. One of us needs to be working full-time, or this sister’s not gonna be too happy.”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to risk making you unhappy.”

April poked her head out into the living room. “Are you being sarcastic?”

Patrick shrugged. “I like to think there are two people in this relationship we’re trying to keep happy.”

“Oh yeah? Well fine, if you feel like it, you quit your nice, cushy, air-conditioned, full-time sit-down job any time you like, and see how you like living on what a waitress can make. Not all of us are brainiacs with college degrees.”

“All I’m saying is, sometimes we brainiacs get a little bored making phone calls all day. One fine day I think I’d dig something a little more challenging.”

“Oh, and us dumb people are just fine waiting tables forever?”

“No, babe, c’mon. You know that’s not what I mean.”

“You just be thankful for what you got. We’ve talked about this, Pat. You wouldn’t have time to look for something else during the day, and we got a lot to save up before we can afford to have you not working.”

“Holy crap, calm down. I’m not quitting, I’m just talking.”

“You better be,” April said, returning to the kitchen. “Scare me when you talk like that.”

“Don’t worry,” Patrick replied, unmuting the TV. “I’m not going anywhere.”