Jezz’s Daily Story

He had his head down when I saw him. I saw his cheek bones, high and lean – his skin tanned and coated with grey stubble. He wasn’t smoking but there was a packet next to where he was sitting on the doorstep, between the two gardenia bushes. He was just sitting there. I didn’t cross the road to go in, I just kept on for a few blocks until I realised where I was and sat at a table outside a cafe.
    I asked myself how we got into the situation and all I could think of was the gorilla suit. I discovered it when I opened the closet to get a cardigan one morning last week – it was just hanging there, like a bearskin, shaggy and stinking of mould. I closed the closet, stepped back, looked at Ron (who was still sleeping, his blonde and brown hair tangled across the pillow) and opened it again. It was a sad looking gorilla with its plastic face drooping down about its plastic chest, between two of my dresses. I decided against the cardigan and left a note on the fridge asking Ron what the gorilla suit was all about. I had to wait for the bus, and it was cold that day. The coldest of the month, the weatherman said.
    When I got home Ron was lying on the couch, with his hair sprawled across a cushion. I was determined not to say anything to him until he explained the gorilla suit, but he didnt say anything, not until the documentary he was watching finished and he came up behind me in the bathroom and gave me a shock. He put his arms around my waist and kissed my hair and I looked at my face next to his in the mirror. The colour of the lipstick was wrong – too red. It always was, but I liked to try.
    – Hi, he said.
    – Well hello, I said.
    – I almost forgot you came in. Mmm.
    – Are you going to get ready?
    – For what?
    – For what? To go out? Get some dinner? Unless you’re going to cook?
    – Oh, he said. I hadn’t thought about it.
    – Well it’s already almost eight and there’s nothing to cook, so lets go out.
    – Okay, okay. What are you wearing?
    – Nothing, I said.
    – No, I mean, what are you going to wear?
    – I haven’t decided yet.
    – That little dress I like? The new one?
    – I don’t think so.
    – Why not?
    I didn’t answer him – I looked at his face next to mine in the mirror for a little while and he looked straight at me. I slipped out of his arms and went back to the bedroom. He called something out I couldn’t hear and then got in the shower.
    After dinner we sat quietly – he had an empty plate and mine was still full of noodles. The meal wasn’t good, and I’m sure the chicken was undercooked. He leaned back and rubbed his foot against my leg.
    – Well? I asked.
    – Well what, he said.
    – I don’t know. Did you read my note?
    – What note? Oh, the costume? Funny, hey?
    – Funny.
    – You’re angry. (He kept rubbing my leg.)
    – Not angry, just a bit annoyed.
    – Why?
    – Oh, come on, Ron. The thing stinks, (I pulled my leg away) and it’s right there in my closet. And it’s a gorilla suit.
    – Sorry. There was no room on my side.
    – No room on your side.
    – I hate the way you, ugh, he paused. Forget it.
    – Don’t tell me to forget it. You hate the way I what?
    – You repeat what I say. Like it’s so stupid.
    – It is stupid.
    – Thanks a lot. He looked away, past where I was sitting and out into the street.
    – Ugh, quit it. It’s stupid. You’re trying to be stupid. You say something stupid so you can laugh it off.
    – Someone had a shitty day.
    – Yeah, I had a shitty day. Thanks for asking.
    – Why? What happened?
    – Nothing. Forget it.
    We were quiet for a while and Ron was still looking at the street. Eventually he got up and paid and I followed him out of the restaurant and we walked home without getting gelato or a coffee. He took a cigarette out of one of his pockets and started smoking. I had to walk fast to keep ahead of his thick dirty smoke but he was walking fast too, so I just crossed the road. I watched the back of his head bobbing along with the trail of smoke behind it and the little red ember going up and down, but he didn’t look back to me once.
    When we got home he went straight to the couch and I went straight to the closet. I took it out and walked back through the living room past him.
    – What are you going to do with it?
    – Chuck it, I said.
    – Alright, he said.
    I kept walking until I got to the front door.
    – Well don’t chuck it, he said. Wait a sec.
    He came up to me and tried to grab it but I pulled it away and put it behind my back.
    – Jenn, come on. Give it here.
    – Why? What do you need a gorilla suit for?
    – I have a party.
    – When?
    – I don’t know, a couple of weeks. Give it, come on.
    – Who’s party?
    – Nobody! Fuck it, alright. Take the damn thing.
    I slipped out of the door into the night and the sweet smell of the gardenias and hurried to the bin on the street. He didn’t follow me so I waited a minute and watched the door. When I looked down at the gorilla suit and its sad face and dirty fur I lifted up the lid of the bin and squeezed it between two bags of rubbish.
    We had other arguments that night, and the night after – nothing about the gorilla suit, but he brought it up now and then. Eventually he left the house, after I closed the door and stopped speaking to him, saying something about not needing to put up with it. I got in bed with the lights on and cried until I had to go to the bathroom to wash off my face. It was a long night but he didn’t come home. I hadn’t seen him again until I saw him sitting on the doorstep between the gardenias.
    I waited at the cafe, ordering a couple of coffees and then a tea, until the barista came out and said they were closing and he had to clean the table. It was getting dark and cold anyway so I walked back towards my house. When I saw that he was still there, head down with his hand on the packet of cigarettes, I stopped. Eventually I turned around and walked back until I passed the barista cleaning up the table.