Applied Material Science

 Norbert walked out onto the sidewalk, temporarily blinded by the early sunset.   He walked into the Saddle Up Saloon through a cloud of cigarette smoke.  Strains of Waylon Jennings emanated from a TV in the corner, and peanut shells littered the floor.  Norbert laid his $785 on the counter.

 "Give me a double Vodka Collins.  Know anybody who needs this?" he fanned out the bills.

"Hell, don't we all?" the bartender answered.

"Keep it."  Norbert raised his drink.  "Here's to the equitable division of community property." 

He drove home, alcohol curdling in his empty stomach.  He didn't want to think about her.  Not about her in their bed, legs wrapped around some panting pony-tailed cowboy-hatted graduate student.  Claire had defended thesis boy, stood naked shouting, sweat glistening between her breasts, while the sociologist pulled on his pants and slunk from the house,

"He's a community activist.  He's forming a non-profit health corporation for farmworkers.  And he wants me to be their spokeswoman.  He actually cares what I think about HMO's restricting physician choice.  But you wouldn't understand that. You don't give a shit."

  Thursday Norbert got up early, sold his Miata to the car dealer, bought a bike off a fifty-year old paperboy just finishing his Telegram route, and pedaled to the interstate exit at Chambers Corners with a pocket of cash to give away.  The Chambers Corners Outlet Shops didn't open until ten, and the ramp was deserted.  After fifteen minutes, Norbert gave up and pedaled under the freeway.

One hundred and twenty stores were built in the abandoned Del Verde cannery and distribution center. He and Claire had lived two blocks away in a white stucco duplex that shivered when produce trucks rumbled by. He remembered the tomato sauce smell that permeated his pores on blistering nights when the plant launched into twenty-four hour production mid-June through September.  He and Claire slept naked on the back porch. He’d been completing his Doctorate in Chemical Engineering and Claire modeled underwear for Milton's and posed for Life Drawing classes. 

Their duplex was now the site of Burger Bonanza, which shimmered mirage-like in the distance as the sun began to heat the asphalt.  Norbert pushed the bike across the parking lot, empty except for a few clusters of cars left by commuters who carpooled into the city.  Lurching from Burger Bonanza's roof was a fifteen-foot tall reinforced-fiberglass cowboy perched on a bucking bronco, burger held high in his free hand.  Norbert walked to the drive-up window, ordered a Diet Coke, sat on the curb in the parking lot and stared at the cowboy.  His boots were well defined for a commercial sign.  Brown, possibly alligator.  Alligator like the boots Norbert bought Claire back in July while at the Chemical Engineers Conference in San Mercado.

He'd wanted to surprise her with the boots.  Give her something special for giving up the graduate student.  It’d been hard, but by June things were back on track.  Norbert wedged cotton balls between Claire’s toes and painted her toenails in the afternoons.  He shaved her legs, washed her hair with chamomile and lavender, and made her dinners of gazpacho and grapefruit spritzer.   The night before his trip, he stayed awake for three hours, watching her sleep, until she turned on her back. Then he bent one knee, resting her foot flat on the graph paper he slipped underneath.  He traced slowly with his mechanical pencil, following the fleshy pink curve at the top of each toe, then repeated the process with her other foot.  He took a taxi from the San Mercado airport directly to Everett's, where Everett Houston made custom footwear for the famous and the foolish, three thousand dollars a pair.  Everett asked to see Claire’s picture.  Norbert unfolded a plastic accordion of twenty from his wallet. 

"Very pretty.  Strikingly like Sandra Bullock.  In fact, I'll use her design. Your wife will love them.  Come back Thursday."

"God, Norbert!  These are truly barbaric," Claire had said when she pulled them from the box at the airport.  Norbert had called from the plane, wildly excited about his surprise and insisted she meet him there.  "Dead Alligator?  I don't even wear leather, you know that." 

And he did.  She carried nylon and vinyl purses.  Her closet was full of boiled-wool clogs, macramé sandals, canvas sneakers and imitation-leather oxfords labeled all man-made materials.

"But, they're custom made.  Guaranteed to fit so perfectly, your feet will feel naked." 

She wasn't impressed. 

"Sandra Bullock has the same style." He'd known he was pleading.  "Please, wear them for me." 

She didn't respond.  

"Just once."  He dropped to his knees.  "I missed you," he murmured into her jeans, drawing the back of her legs into him.

"I'll think about it."  She'd backed into a row of green plastic chairs.  She sat down and Norbert pulled her bare feet into his lap.  He ran his hands over her soft-denimed legs, up her acrylic sweater and stroked her throat.  She looked away from him, toward a line of people, inching suitcases with handles and scooting bags with their feet, waiting to board.  

A voice announced, "This is the final boarding call for Northern Airlines Flight 2116 to Omaha." 

Norbert stood up to go home.  "Final boarding call, Claire."  He pulled at her hand.

"It definitely is."  She'd let go.

  A car squealed away from the drive-thru window, it’s bass leaving a trail like dust.  Norbert stood up and brushed his blazer.  He didn't want to remember.  It had been 104 degrees on September 21st, the first day of fall.  The University Physical Plant went down; students had passed out in the afternoon heat.  Norbert cancelled his honors seminar and went home.  He’d been unknotting his tie, when he heard sounds in the bedroom.  Don't think about it now, he told himself, and crossed the street.  Go to the mall; hand out money.   Don't see her with the cowboy punk, legs wrapped around his waist, feet in the alligator boots, digging into his back.

He didn't see the boots, finally broken-in as Claire walked out of the condo and into the grad student's car.  Instead he smelled burning brakes and saw a bus, grinding to a stop in front of him.  He saw the road: yellow-black-yellow striped, connecting his path to the bus.  He knew Claire was smiling from the side of this bus.  She would thank him for his generosity, for helping the homeless.  She would pound on the condo door and beg him to take her back.  Norbert stepped closer to her voice.  There was a scuffing and the last thing he saw was his pigskin wingtips hit the asphalt.