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June '04 
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ANDREW BOMBACK 20 Stories About My Dead Brother, Ollie |
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Introduction to Still-Life Max Ruback
We’ve stopped drinking. We try to keep busy. We see a lot of movies. We learn backgammon. We sometimes play Scrabble, but we don’t have the patience to keep our interests up. We can’t really get together with friends, because our friends drink. We go for walks at dusk. We watch TV, have sex, fall asleep. We have less sex and watch more TV as days go by. She signs up for a painting class one night a week at the high school, called, Introduction to Still-Life. I buy a remote control car. You build it yourself from a kit. I join a local club with other remote control car owners, men and boys. It’s very competitive. We race on Saturdays. I get real into it. I think about the car when I’m at work. I fine-tune it every night, figuring out how to make it go faster. It’s all about the speed. It’s like love. On Wednesday nights, she goes to class. She isn’t enjoying herself early on. She says she’s not very good. I try to cheer her up, tell her she just started, that she needs to give it time. I tell her it’s obvious she has talent. She doesn’t believe me, though. She wants so badly to be good at something. She won’t show me her paintings, keeps them under a cloth, makes me promise I won’t look. I’m working on my car out in the porch. I’m adjusting the alignment. You wanna play? she asks. Play what? Backgammon. Let me finish this up. I’m almost done. I win my first race. I want to celebrate with a beer, but I talk myself out of it, drive straight home with my trophy in the passenger seat, glancing at the passing bars. Check this out, I say. She’ s watching TV, smoking. Cool, she says. Congratulations. I lean down and kiss her on the cheek. Where should I put it? Wherever you want, she says, stabbing out the last of her cigarette. On top of the TV if you want. You okay? Fine, she says, lighting another. Just into the movie.
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