Writing Exercise 1--Kevin Eib

Carlos tossed the dishtowel onto the countertop and snapped off his yellow latex gloves. His hands had shriveled with pale from the moisture built up inside the gloves. He pressed the back of his hand against his forehead where the perspiration had bubbled up in tiny beads along the edge of his widow’s peak. How much easier life would be, he thought, if only he could convince Barry to move into a larger unit—or at least one with a dishwasher. He untied the orange and brown floral apron he’d been wearing and folded it over the back of the bar stool where he slunk back with a sigh of exhaustion. Shot glasses lined the edge of the bar. Hawaii, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Puerto Vallarta. Carlos decided on Puerto Vallarta, a gift from Aunt Lew’s vacation last winter, and poured himself a bit of Bacardi. The glass was cool and small in his hand. He threw it back with one swift motion and slid the glass into the middle of the bar, turned his attention back to the kitchen. The dishes, which had been put off for an entire week, lined the countertop from sink to wall. Carlos dropped off his barstool, pulled the apron up over his head, wrapping the strings twice around his waist, and tied it off in a neat bow. He looked down on the stove. The burners were caked with a mixture of grease and dust. Carlos grimaced at the idea of opening the door. As he bent over and pulled the oven door toward himself a strange smell of meat loaf full of ketchup and onions mingled with chocolate chip cookies wafted out. He squinched his nose at the combination. Carlos knew the stove hadn’t been cleaned since he moved in with Barry over a year ago. This isn’t going to be easy, he told himself, and grabbed at the two blackened sticky racks resting in the middle of the oven. The second his fingers touched the rack he jumped back with a hoot of disgust. “Oh no, oh no,” he chanted aloud with his soft thin hands pulled up in front of his almond eyes, full and wide with panic. It had taken him nearly a month to grow out his nails, which had scraped up against the grit, and he wasn’t about to risk touching any more of the dark gooey crud that had stuck to his skin in dirty brown smudges. He ran his fingers under the kitchen faucet with some Palm Olive gently rubbed between his fingers, but it wasn’t coming off. With long quick strides, he scurried to the bathroom, his hands held up in front of his face the entire time. He kneeled in front of the bathroom sink, his bony knees popping as he bent, and dragged out his tackle box he used as a makeup kit from the console below. Inside the kit he found the jumbled mess of foundations, eyeliners (blue, green, black, white), lashes, powders, fake blood, body paint, KY Jelly--everything just as he'd left it. At the bottom of the heap was an opaque plastic bottle. There was still a little bit of nail polish remover left. He made a note to himself to pick up a new bottle from the drugstore before the show on Friday and dabbed what was left onto several folded squares of toilet paper. The smell of the polish remover brought a smile to his face. It only took a few strokes for the marks to transfer from his skin to the tissue. He brought the bottle up to his nose and took one last whiff before tossing the bottle and dirty toilet paper into the overflowing trashcan and putting away the tackle box. Before closing the doors of the console he grabbed the Simple Green and a toilet brush. He figured if Simple Green were good enough for makeup stains, surely it would work on an oven. His walk had become a sort of glide with the toilet brush held up like a wand, the Simple Green held out at arm’s length leading the way back to the kitchen. He threw his head back thinking about how nice his nails would look in a deep red. “Jungle red, Sylvia, jungle red,” he said aloud for himself as he set down the cleaning instruments and adorned himself in the yellow latex gloves once more. This time he made one full swoop with his lanky arms, tossing the racks into the sink with a clang followed by the shedding of burnt debris. He went to work spraying and scrubbing the oven in circular motions. The circular motions gave way to more simple motions of back and forth. He felt his breath becoming heavy and short. He could feel his stomach in his throat with each new movement. My god, he thought, I’m going to pass out. As long as nothing sticky gets on me I can manage. But it was only a few more strokes and he was finishing up by wiping down the insides with a dishtowel. His stomach lurched. The towel had quickly filled with a putrid brown. He wished he hadn’t chosen the toilet brush to clean with—he couldn’t convince himself it looked like anything other than runny shit dried up on the now crusty brown bristles. He took everything that had touched the inside of the stove, shoved it into the garbage can and hauled the whole can to the back porch, gasping and wheezing all the while. Outside, his skin prickled in the brisk autumn breeze. His hand fanned furiously in front of his nose. He let it fall to his side and breathed in deeply, relaxing and letting the sweat run down the side of his smooth tan face. The trees were past changing and had taken on more browns than reds or orange. Carlos felt the nip in the air pass through his bones and decided to clean up inside and take one more break at the bar before starting in again. He washed his hands in the bathroom and splashed some water onto his face, rinsing away the residue of the sweat he’d worked up. He pursed his full lips at himself in the mirror, batted his full dark lashes and ran his fingers through his thick raven black hair. Just like Aunt Lew, he thought, just like Aunt Lew. He considered some powder, something he typically reserved for the shows, but Barry’s second shift at the restaurant would be ending soon and Carlos wanted to finish what he’d started in the kitchen.