The Home for Wayward Clocks (41 page)

Then one afternoon, while watching a movie, Marcus made a wonderful discovery. The movie was an old one, a black and white, but everything was black and white on Marcus’ t.v. At a moment of high drama in the movie, Marcus coughed to the swelling music and a dab of phlegm flew across the room and hit the television screen. Right on the starlet’s deep-Y cleavage. Bullseye, Marcus thought, and pumped his fist in the air.

The lit candles flickered and the problem candles sat in Marcus’ lap, wicks clogged with wax waiting to be dug free. Marcus used the knife he buttered his toast with that morning and he planned to use it later to slice the film of his ninety-nine cent t.v. dinner, this week’s special at the Save-A-Lot. Plus he had a coupon which brought the price down to forty-nine cents and with the remaining money, the saved money, he splurged on a York Peppermint Patty, something he saved special for dessert.

Whittling at the candles, Marcus stared at the television where an old woman and her daughter stood behind his phlegm smear and in front of a grandfather clock. The camera focused in on the pendulum. It wasn’t moving. “It stopped this morning when he died,” whispered the woman. “Just like it stopped on the day your grandfather died.”

Marcus pondered that idea. A clock that stopped when someone died. His eyes flickered around the room and he counted the spots of color, although he already knew the sum. There were more purple candles than any of the others. A long life. A clock stopping could stop it.

Pulling himself out of his chair, Marcus walked around the house, tallying the clocks. On the television sat the clock from his ex-wife, a gift on their first anniversary, a silver heart with the words, “love you for all time” scrolled around the edges. There was an AM/FM clock radio in the bedroom, green digital numbers glowing throughout the day or night, even when the power went out, because it had battery backup. Marcus chose it especially because he never wanted to be late for a day with his students, especially with his girls, and he never was, until now. In the kitchen, there was the special catalog splurge, a clock featuring Harley Davidson motorcycles, a different hog for each hour, the clock’s chime the growl of an engine, bought to celebrate the raise a few weeks before the melon girl tattled. You regret telling the bitch now…you thought she was different. Thought the lowcut t-shirts and spread legs in mini denim skirts and the quick kiss and grope in your car one afternoon after she cried and confessed her crush meant she would understand, would lay on your bed the way those porn girls did, and like it.

All of the clocks ran and told accurate time. But Marcus didn’t feel any supernatural mumbo-jumbo going on between him and them. He figured he’d live even if they died. He knew for a fact that he lived when the silver heart’s second hand froze for an entire eighteen hours before he inserted new batteries, $1.99 double-A’s on special at Walgreens, down to a buck-fifty with his coupon.

So Marcus sat back down and thought some more about the clocks, about dying or not dying. And he wondered what would happen if there was a connection with a clock, a magic connection, and the clock could stop and stop him as well. But if it kept running…

Forever?

Marcus sat forward and shut off the television so he could think. If a clock ran forever and it had a magic connection with the owner, then the owner would live forever too. He’d seen a lot of old movies and read old classics where clocks stopped when their owners died, but why not the reverse?

Because no one ever thought it through before? Never thought outside the box?

Marcus smiled and pumped his fist in the air.

But what kind of clock? The clocks he already had were worthless for that sort of thing. He loved the silver heart, but if it didn’t help his marriage to last, how could it help him to live? And he loved the motorcycle clock too, but in a different way. Each time it growled the hour, Marcus felt a surge of power, as if he straddled a hog right then, flying down the freeway. But motorcycles didn’t seem appropriate for sustaining life.

So Marcus studied the candles. Maybe a purple clock, like the purple candles? A grandfather clock like in the movie? And then he decided he’d just know. Just like he knew which girl to chat up on the internet, which girl to keep after school for extra credit. Just like he instinctively knew what color candle to buy for every need. Marcus even bought them without coupons, that was how strongly they reached for him, knocked him over. Granted, the candles hadn’t provided for everything yet, but it was difficult to keep them all burning at the same time and if just one sputtered out, then the magic was gone, like a bad bulb in a Christmas tree string. But still, there was that day when Marcus had all the green ones burning at once and he found a twenty-dollar bill on the sidewalk. Another time, he had the yellows lit for twenty-four hours straight and then he witnessed a car crash and the police officers quoted him and his name got in the paper.

Though the red candles in the bedroom, they never got Marcus anywhere. Since his wife left and the melon girl tattled, he always slept alone. Shaking his head, Marcus settled in to the project at hand. There were still seven candles to unclog, but he set them aside and placed the fixed ones back in their places, their wicks lit and dancing. After making sure that all the rest of the candles were burning throughout the house, Marcus stuck the remaining seven in his various coat pockets and left. If the candles weren’t in the house, they couldn’t be counted among the ones that didn’t work.

So where to go to find a clock? Marcus hit the clock shop downtown, an obvious choice, but nothing there felt right and besides, the prices were way out of an unemployed teacher’s league. Marcus never knew clocks could be so expensive. A lady in a green dress tried to talk him into a payment plan on a beautiful grandfather clock, almost like the one in the movie, although it was oak instead of black and white, but he had to turn her down. Choosing the hardware store next, he found a few nice shop clocks, shaped like saws and hammers and busty, big-butted women. Marcus studied those for a while, especially one woman in particular, sitting with her arms braced behind her and her breasts thrust out. But those all ran on batteries and Marcus just wasn’t sure about that. Until he got a job, his life would be dependent on whatever battery coupons he had that week and what would happen if the clock started to run down when he didn’t have enough money to buy them, even with a coupon?

So Marcus kept searching through the Hallmark, the Dollar Store, even the Walgreens and the Save-A-Lot, until four o’clock when he stopped at a Kwik Trip and bought a newspaper and a plain cup of coffee. He still felt great about his lifesaving discovery, a miracle, really, even though he hadn’t found the clock yet, so he splurged and bought a chocolate-chocolate chip cookie too.

Sitting outside behind the convenience store, Marcus leaned against the wall and opened the paper to the classifieds, like always, but this time, he looked at the For Sale ads instead of the Help Wanteds. There were a few clocks and he closed his eyes after reading each description, waiting to see if any leaped out at him, but none did. In a way, he felt grateful…there wasn’t a clock in the paper going for less than two hundred dollars. Deciding to skip the job ads, Marcus moved back to the sidewalk and sniffed the air like a dog.

And something pulled him to the left. He felt it. Distinct.

Before he even entered the Goodwill, the magic gripped him. His skin pebbled up and his fingers itched, reaching for the mystical connection. But wandering up and down the aisles, Marcus saw nothing. Just the usual collection of mismatched plates and glasses, kitschy welcome signs with missing L’s, black and white t.v.’s just like the one he had at home. Then he was drawn toward the showcase. It was usually full of old costume jewelry and maybe some broken pottery or tarnished silver, but today, there was something else. A clock.

A miracle.

Marcus stared through the glass at it for a while, wondering if the clock was really all together. He could see every part because there was no wooden case hiding the insides from view. The clock was as bare as the girl in the blown-up photo from the internet on his bathroom wall. Marcus liked to light her with bright white candles, white for purity, because when he found her, when he found just the right one, she would look just like that and still be a virgin. Marcus looked at her every night when he took his bath and then he thought of her among all the red candles in his bedroom and sometimes, it was like she was really there.

Marcus decided the naked clock must work because every part was moving, a burlesque of timekeeping as the pendulum swayed back and forth, directing all the wheels and gears behind her. Marcus knew it was the other way, the gears directed the pendulum, but still, the rhythm was so strong, it was easy to believe otherwise. Marcus kept putting his face closer and closer to the showcase, his breath fogging up the glass, and he wondered if this was the magic connection. Did she want him?

Then it struck him. Of course this was the clock. What better for life-sustaining than a clock with everything exposed? If a part was about to break down, he’d know it at the first rub, the first creak, and he’d fix her before she even had a chance to stop. It was just so obvious.

When the tomato-breasted clerk asked if he’d like to see something, Marcus pointed to the clock. As she retrieved her, she bumped her against the counter and Marcus shuddered, but the clock still ran. She was brass and shiny and Marcus thought how pretty she would look with all the candles lit around her. If he kept lighting the candles. Why would he need candles when he had eternal life?

The price was five dollars, the same price as almost a whole week of his suppers on special at the Save-A-Lot, but Marcus paid quickly. He knew he had to show the clock that he understood the magic connection. He was prepared to sacrifice the almighty dollar and possibly a week of dinners in exchange for the clock’s gift, the gift of blood that flowed and replenished in a consistent rhythm of time, a heart that shadowed every move of the pendulum.

Then the clerk pulled off the protective glass dome and reached for the pendulum. Marcus gasped. “No!” he said and snatched the clock away. “I’ll just carry her like this.” The tomato-breasted clerk warned that the clock would probably break on the way home if it wasn’t stopped and properly packaged and it couldn’t be returned, but Marcus knew she wouldn’t, he’d make sure of it. He had his life in his hands.

It was difficult, walking home, balancing the clock on cradled arms and stopping every few minutes to make sure she was running and not just jostling back and forth. A few times, the pendulum smacked one of the four golden legs that stood the clock on its pedestal and when that happened, Marcus swore he felt his heart banging into his lungs. But he made it home, both he and the clock in one piece, though he was breathless and worn out.

Wandering throughout the house, Marcus tried to decide where the clock should stand. It needed to be a central place, a place where he could keep an eye on her even if he wasn’t in the room. The kitchen opened to the living room and he could see her there if he moved the chair at the table closer to the archway. He always kept the bathroom door open so he could watch the t.v., which meant the living room was in plain sight from there as well. So the living room was the ideal place and Marcus wished for a moment that he had a pedestal, something large and carved and ornate, something fitting for a life-saver, a lifesustainer. But then he wondered about the bedroom, out of sight down the hall. And what about sleeping? What if the clock stopped then?

It wouldn’t be a bad way to die, during sleep. Better than a painful heart attack or a knock-you-off-your-feet stroke or getting hit by a bus. But this wasn’t about dying well, it was about living forever. Marcus set the clock on a fresh new paper towel, the pattern pretty and purple, centering it on a table near the recliner.

If he was going to live forever, he would never sleep again.

Marcus thought about that for a while, watching the clock tell his life’s time, and his eyelids already felt heavy. He thought about never shutting them, about never sinking again into a gray mist speckled with the green of money, the yellow of flashing cameras and the silver of microphones, the pink to red to purple of sex. Hot dreams of lying with the just sprouting bathroom virgin on a bed surrounded by flames and melting into her body, her skin as warm and smooth as wax. And then he decided sleep was worth the risk. If the worst thing that could happen was an orgasmic death in the arms of his pornographic virgin, then it was okay. What a way to go, really.

Except Marcus didn’t want to die.

Before sitting down, he had to unload the seven candles in his pockets, so he arranged them around the clock. Carefully, he freed each of the wicks, then lit them. The flames flickered against the glass dome, the shiny brass, and Marcus sat back and confirmed the clock’s beauty. The sight made Marcus feel warm. Already his blood flowed more smoothly and he felt his heart rate slow, his breath even out as the clock took over. Marcus felt so much better.

In the kitchen, he used the butter knife to slice the film on his t.v. dinner. As it cooked, he snuck peeks through the archway to make sure the clock was still running. Marcus ate propped in his recliner, putting the television on, and then he spent the night supposedly watching sitcoms and sports events, but really studying the seductive sway of the pendulum’s hips. It was amazing, really. He felt like he was humming with a new life. Ticking.

Eventually, the glow of the candles, the clock’s serenade and the lowered volume of the television put Marcus to sleep. He woke with a start, checked the clock, went to sleep again. Woke with a start. He didn’t have a single dream, his moments of sleep were too short. When morning came, Marcus still swore he felt his veins opening, his heart beating with a new strength and purpose, but he was very, very tired.

How many nights had he spent waking up to check the candles? Or reading all the out-of-reach jobs in the classifieds? Or refusing to answer the jangle of the phone because of the bill collectors; that is, until the phone was disconnected, bringing with it a sad, but welcome peace? And now there was this clock.