4

       The next morning started the same as the last. Andy still grumpy, Kindra still unable to keep her patience. Again, Andy refused to wake up or put on his clothes. Again, when they went to Casa de Waffles, Andy refused to talk to her.

          Today was Sunday, so it was Kindra’s day to stay with Andy. She always struggled especially with Sundays, because there were 3 meals she had to deal with feeding Andy. The problem wasn’t that she couldn’t afford it – it was just Andy’s pickiness. There’s only so many times a day you can have fries and coke. Especially with a three year old. But Kindra didn’t know how to get him to listen to her otherwise. Whenever she needed him to do something, even if it was as simple as putting on his shirt or going to the bathroom, he would sit stone still until she agreed to buy him fries and a coke.

          Andy was surprisingly thin for eating so much junk, but his unhealthiness showed in other areas. Whenever he played, he only seemed to care about what he was doing for a couple of minutes. Then he would lay on his side, face solemn, and play with his toy silently and without really moving it. It was hard to tell if he was even thinking about what he was doing – some kids will create an entire world and it becomes obvious that most of the game is taking place in their head – but with Andy, everything seemed blank.

          Kindra often watched him when he played. She usually didn’t know what to do, didn’t know if she should go over and try to figure out what he was doing and participate or anything, because usually that didn’t work. At one point, she just made up reasons for why it was okay that she didn’t play with him. From then on, she thought of those reasons whenever she started to feel guilty and she stopped herself from feeling bad.

          This Sunday, Kindra was out of things to do with Andy, again, so she picked him up off the floor and dragged him outside for a walk. Maybe they would go to a Alfonso’s, if that amused him. Or maybe to the sawmill theatre.... except the new play wasn’t actually playing on a sunday afternoon. They could try to leave the city and find a store with toy cars, but Andy only wanted to do that with his dad. Kindra decided they would just walk. She took a cigarette out of her pocket and lit it. The drag she took lifted a huge weight from her shoulders. She realized that must have been why she wanted to go for a walk in the first place.

         Andy got pissed and wouldn’t hold Kindra’s hand, which Kindra understood. She just wished he gave her credit for not smoking in the apartment. She did it for him, after all. But he was kind of young to have thoughts like that, she supposed.

          They passed the park and Kindra noticed that tents were set up. There didn’t seem to be more than 15 or so, which wasn’t very many, but the town was small and so was the park so it seemed like plenty. Kindra didn’t pay much attention to current events, she didn’t want to rile herself up over things she couldn’t control, but she did catch drift of an occupy movement – and the “we are the 99%” signs signified that this congregation was part of that.

          Kindra looked distinctly like a single mom, sporting a too-small babydoll t-shirt and no bra, smoking a cigarette, her hair in a half-assed ponytail just to keep it out of her face, and toddler in tow – so the occupiers immediately thought that she was one of them, and greeted her with their strange little finger-wiggling signals.

          Andy’s brow furrowed because, like Kindra, he thought all these people must have been pretty stupid, and now they were treating them like they knew them. Kindra let out an obviously disgusted sigh. A girl with pigtails, wearing what looked like oversized little-girl clothing, approached them with a big smile and even bigger eyes. If she wasn’t reek hippy so much, Kindra would probably label her as one of those girls who still thought it was sexy to dress like a kid and ended up looking like a cheap porn star. So, basically, an idiot.

          “Hey, are you guys here for the general assembly? We love new faces and we were about to start,” she said, smiley and eager.

          “No, we were sort of just trying to stretch our legs,” Kindra said. She didn’t smile back. She wasn’t a fan of people who tried to speak for everyone else, which she felt was pretty much all that Occupy did. Just a bunch of dirty fucking weirdos who kept trying to represent her class. She probably wouldn’t have a problem with them if they weren’t representing “the 99%” in such a negative light.

          Kindra dressed the way she did because she had to. There wasn’t much opportunity to dress any better in a town where the main clothing store is a forever 21. But these people, they looked the way they did because they liked it. That’s what was so embarrassing.

          Kindra went to grab Andy’s hand so they could go somewhere else, but he shook her off again and started to walk away. “Andy honey, where are you going,” She asked. Her nice tone wasn’t working so well today, so it came off as incredibly aggressive. This was sort of a normal occurrence with her.

          Andy had wandered over to a woman sitting on a bench. She seemed really upset. Kindra didn’t know what Andy was planning on doing, exactly, but as soon as he walked up, the woman on the bench smiled at him. Kindra could see she had been crying. Andy gestured to her shoes and the woman bent down and wiped something off of them. Kindra decided to just watch them and not interfere. Andy hardly ever openly interacted like he was with her.

3

Kindra let the laundry room door slam behind her as she went to the stairs to get back to her apartment. She was in a bit of a haze, not thinking too clearly, just doing her tasks without anything else on her brain. She folded her laundry in complete silence. It was just starting to be afternoon, and her apartment was heating up from the two windows in her main room.

          The air in her room felt like it was the same temperature as her body and everything was still, except for Kindra’s busy hands, folding her laundry. She got up and cycled around the house periodically, wading through the thick afternoon air, getting water, making her bed, looking through old papers...

          ________ knocked on the door.. It was about 5:30 – time to drop Andy back off. Kindra opened the door and let them in without saying a word.

          "Mom... mom.... mom..." Andy started.

          "Don't even go there with me today Andy," Kindra said. "I don't care what you do. Just stay out of my hair."

          Andy stood in front of her for a minute and then walked to his room without saying a word. His cheeks were already pink from the heat of the apartment.

2

A little copper bell rang when Kindra and Andy walked into Casa De Waffles. The smell of grease overpowered the smell of food. Shaniqua, the woman they regularly saw there, barely even had to glance up before typing in their usual order.

“Actually, Shaniqua, today’s sort of a special occasion,” Kindra said. “We’ll need to sit down before we order. We’re meeting someone.”

Shaniqua shrugged and moved along the line – “next customer!”

Kindra and Andy found their usual booth and sat across from each other.

“Soooo,” Kindra said, head in her hands, smile on her face, “what do you think you two are going to do today?”

Andy looked at her like he was going to answer with something exciting and then corrected himself. He just had to maintain that grumpy act. “I don’t know,” he shrugged.

He’s really too young to be doing that, Kindra thought. How did he learn to be such a pain in the ass?

“Come on dude, I know you’ve gotta have some idea. Maybe go get a new truck? Maybe go roller skating? You like that.”

“I don’t want to skate today,” he said. “I want to go to dad’s. I want to ride in a plane.”

“I’m sure that can happen,” Kindra said. Then the door jingled again and ________ walked in.

“Hey bud, you ready to go?” he asked.

“Um, not unless you plan on feeding him,” Kindra said. “He hasn’t eaten anything yet.”

“And who’s fault is that?”

“Don’t be an ass. You have to feed him too, that’s what partial custody means.”

Andy had a brilliant smile on his face. “Dad! Can we ride in the planes today?”

“Yeah, sure,” ________ said. “Say bye to your mom. Let’s go.”

Andy looked at Kindra but didn’t say anything. He grabbed his dad’s hand and started for the door. Kindra, frustrated, looked at _________. “How could he have learned that kind of attitude at 3?” She asked.

“Probably from you,” he said, and walked out.

Kindra sat for a couple of minutes and thought about Andy. She ordered some coffee and wrapped her hands around it. The way she slumped over the table, it was almost like she was using the coffee as support. Shaniqua glanced over at her every fifteen minutes, wondering why she ordered coffee if she wasn’t going to drink it – but she didn’t have time or patience to ask what was up so she left her alone. At ten o’clock Kindra finally got up, took a sip of her coffee, and left. The bell rang on her way out.

Kindra took her time getting back to her apartment. She walked on a loop across all the streets in the town. On her way past the clinic, the old blind man’s eyes followed her as if he could see. She was sick of him. She passed him every day and every day he eyed her. Some days she was sure he could see and was just putting up an act to try and look her up and down as she passed.

A tourist couple walked by and the woman clutched her husband’s arm, glancing over at the blind man, with pity on her face. The husband sighed. If he could roll his eyes without her seeing he probably would have. He reached into his pocket grudgingly and pulled out some change to put in the blind man’s copper bowl.

At the sound of the coins hitting the copper the blind man jolted his head to look in the couple’s direction, a goofy smile on his face, and said “what will come will come. Even if I shroud it all in silence."

“Oh,” cooed the woman, the pity in her face growing deeper. “The poor man’s lost his mind!”

Now it was Kindra’s turn to roll her eyes. She always heard these lines from him – he was like a broken record – but he hadn’t lost his mind. She could tell from the way he manipulated the town into giving him things that he was completely aware of all that he did.

Kindra went home, her “relaxing” walk ruined, back to the old number 202. She heard tidbits from the blind man throughout the rest of the day. The coin would hit the copper tin, always shocking her out of her thoughts, and then "Riddles – all you can say are riddles... The truth with all its power lies inside me...”

Kindra had practically memorized all of his lines by now. 

1

The day started with anger. Anger from the sun, glaring in through everyone’s windows – and anger from Kindra, who was woken up by it. Her son, who had been sleeping behind her, was also angry. He kicked Kindra in the back.

Kindra tried to pretend she was still sleeping. Not necessarily for her son, but for herself. If she just laid there, refusing to acknowledge the sunshine and the kicking, she could gain a few more minutes of calm.

Her son’s little feet remained planted on the small of her back. He grunted, angry that Kindra wasn’t waking up. Kindra didn’t bother reacting to him, she was so tired. She just rolled out of bed. Her shoulders slumped. Her knees bent. She sauntered over to the dresser and pulled the drawers out one by one, checking the contents for the clothes she wanted. Her son eyed her.

He had stayed on his side with his feet out in front of him, as if they were still boring into Kindra’s back. He followed her with his angry eyes as she changed and took some water out of the tap. When she finished her water, she paused at the counter, and then turned around to face him.

“Andy,” she said, “are you ready to get up?”

Andy just looked at her. Then he rolled over.

Kindra’s patience wore off fast. After he made her get up, surely he wasn’t going to try to avoid getting up himself. “Andy,” she said, “get up.” She walked over to drag him off the bed – and as soon as he realized what she was doing, he started to fight her on it. He kicked and held his arms close to his body, not letting her grab any part of him.

“Andy,” she said, half through her teeth.

She finally got a good hold on his forearm and dragged him off the bed – just to realize she didn’t know what to do then – and set him down on the floor. He sat there, cross legged, and glared. Kindra grabbed him a clean shirt off his dresser, yanked his pajama shirt off over his head, and quickly pulled the fresh one on. She slid his shoes on fast but got frustrated when his heels wouldn’t fit in right. He was probably outgrowing these shoes now, even though she just bought them for him. She grabbed him by the forearm again, yanked him up, and they rushed out the door – Andy still wearing his pajama bottoms.

Outside of Castle Apartments, Kindra and Andy readjusted themselves so they were holding hands. Without speaking, they made their daily trek to Casa De Waffles.They didn’t see anyone on the way, since it was already past the work rush. Anyone who was going to leave their house for the day had already left.

Kindra watched Andy's scowl turn to an expression of distaste as he smelled the stench of the town rising off of the pavement. The smell disrupted his moody routine. As Kindra watched him, she got over her anger a little bit. By the time they reached Casa De Waffles, she was almost calm again.