Chapter 4

Gradually, Oswald realized not everything was right inside his head, and he had a hard time dismissing the incident returning to terra firma, which now stood for terrifyingly firm. He saw things he had never seen before, as if he was no longer perceiving life as an ordinary human being, but rather something somehow removed, like things that should be familiar were no longer so and things that had never been taking shape in his tortured mind. Only, he did not perceive his mind to be tortured. It felt natural, just not in a way he had ever known it. He was no longer Virgil Oswald, husband, father, crack philosopher and astronaut. He was simply Virgil Oswald, and he needed to learn who he was, and try not to let his philologizing get in his way. That had always been the old Virgil Oswald’s greatest liability, and maybe it would stick around for the new version, but he was determined to keep an open mind. And an open mind was exactly his problem.

He surprised his wife by picking up a bohemian cookbook on the way home, by foot, from a therapy session one day, and whipping up a meal so outrageous even the kids were interested in at least giving it a try. There were as many pans and pots and saucers and spatulas and ladles and measuring cups and spoons and spices and carcasses as any of them had ever seen strewn about the kitchen, the one that was always supposed to stay clean, and collectively they resembled a yard sale on LSD, so that not a bit of countertop or tiles on the floor could be seen. Powders that might not even have been used in all this preparing covered every square inch, sauces splayed across cabinets and window curtains, sinks filled with water as if at some point a few of the dishes were going to be cleaned ahead of time but instead filled to bobbing, carrying a few of the bowls in which concoctions were concocted like ships lost in a tormented sea. Oswald suggested he’d clean all this up himself, saying he’d like a better idea of what the kitchen was, like it was something he wouldn’t scour so much as study. And his wife and his children left him to this, perhaps out of morbid curiosity, or more benevolently, to humor him. After all, mommy reminded her brood, daddy had a very stressful job, and this was not all that different from what he usually did.

Except it was. Oswald had been fastidious in the past, but never maniacal, and there was no other way to describe it, even if he didn’t see it that way as he kissed his wife goodnight and set to work. The meal, as spontaneous as it had come to his mind, seemed like only a challenge in his mind, and no such implications dawned on him as to whatever else it might appear to be, aside from the fact that it was the first one he had ever prepared. His sudden interest had really been to put the kitchen into the greatest disarray it had ever seen, and with the kids just having passed that age, he already had an idea of the limits it could be pressed to without approaching complete pandemonium. He had the energy, such as he had never experienced, for a task that would take him deep into the night, deep into the morning, and perhaps as long as into the next night. He needed to clean the room, and not just so it looked like it had before, but so it looked better than it did when they first moved in, better than the neatest freak in the world could possibly have asked for, better than the worst immune-deficiency sufferer in the world could possibly need. And none of this had anything to do with his previous interest in clean kitchens, ants-marching-about and everything.

He wanted to know the kitchen, and the only way he knew how was to create the greatest excuse ever to clean it. He would apply the same kind of tender care to cleaning it as a paleontologist does in clearing debris from a dinosaur skeleton. It was not a bit obsessive, but rather attentive.

Later, when his wife had asked Pliny to visit, Oswald demonstrated not the slightest interest in the kitchen, and when prodded to discuss that night he joked that he had landed on Mars, thank God, and he was the first one to step foot on the dusty red bowl. Why not take the opportunity? You wouldn’t believe the life forms there, and here he admitted that he was talking about the actual kitchen. “I didn’t even need a magnifying glass, or a microscope. It was amazing.”

“And not on ant?” Pliny joked, taking a swig of his Sam Adams and slapping Oswald on the back, so that he nearly tumbled off the suede sofa and onto the beige carpeting, where a groundswell from his own bottle nonetheless freckled down. Oswald fixated on the resulting stain, and Pliny reddened. “Don't zone out on us now,” he said, and immediately realized he’d misspoken.

Oswald’s wife got up, which she had already been thinking of doing, as she always did when the boys got together, and went to the kitchen, knowing full well where she was headed, to get some paper towels so she could blot out the substance, if not the stain, which was going to vanish anyway, or so she hoped. “Far be it for me to expect a couple of space cowboys to be a little civilized,” she mused aloud, aware that Oswald watched her intently during all of this.

“Hippy kayo kaye,” he said, tipping his beer, and Pliny let loose a kind of nervous laugh, and tipped his beer, too. “You ever think of getting a dog, Pam? Maybe a spaniel? It might be fun to have around the house. I bet the kids would love it.”

“Oh, kids hate dogs,” Pliny said, “like dogs hate fleas. Bad idea, very bad.”

“I agree,” Pam said.

“Thanks for nothing,” Oswald said, punching Pliny square in the arm.

“I was only joking,” Pam said. “It’s not a bad idea, it’s just that you came out with the idea like a bolt out of the blue.”

“Well, I was just looking at the stain on the carpet,” Oswald said, sounding every bit as normal as the next guy, “and it came to me. Like a bolt out of the blue.”

“There are bolts around here all right,” Pliny said.

“Funny,” Oswald said. “That would make you the nut, right?”

“That’s not what I heard,” Pliny said, and he knew he’d misspoken again.

“What did you say?” Oswald said, his voice rising.

“Nothing,” Pliny said. “It’s just, y’know.”

“No,” Oswald said, “I don’t. Why don’t you remind me?”

“This isn’t really what I had in mind…” Pam said, at a loss at what to do next.

“And what exactly was that?” Oswald said, setting his beer on the coffee table, and grabbing Pliny’s. “Did you hear how I haven’t been quite right since the flight home? How I’ve become neurotic? Must have had a good laugh at that, didn’t you?”

“It isn’t like that,” Pliny insisted pathetically, picking up Oswald’s abandoned bottle nervously and taking a swig, as Oswald took one from his own. “Look. We’re just saying. You’ve been attending counseling sessions again, haven’t you? What about the seagulls?”

“What about them? Do you think I think I’m one?” Oswald stammered.

“That’s--That’s just insane,” Pliny said.

“Yeah,” Oswald said. “Kind of figures, doesn’t it?”

“Checkmate,” Pliny suggested, and placed the bottle down again, as Oswald followed suit. “So what do you want us to say?”

“I could just as soon go with nothing,” Oswald said, “but we already know where that road leads. Yes, I feel different. Yes, I’ve done some weird things these past few weeks. Maybe I just thought I could use a change? You can’t tell me everything’s the same with you, since our time aboard that station.”

Pliny nodded, and glanced briefly at Pam, as if to say no, but not so dramatically, and Oswald saw this and understood. As clearly as he’d been seeing everything else, he was now beginning to understand the new Virgil Oswald, how he fit into the previous one’s life.

“Okay,” he said. “All right, then.”

“Listen, Plato,” Pliny said. “Listen, Virge. I’m sorry we made you so uncomfortable.”

“That was never my intention,” Pam said, and her eyes were moist, and Oswald understood it wasn’t for the reason it might have seemed. “I just wanted to know.”

“Well, now you do,” Oswald said. “I’m sorry things have to be like this, but they are. I can’t just ignore what happened, how it’s affected me.” He was concerned that by wording it that way, they might catch on to the fact that something did happen that they didn’t know about, but he was content to shrug it off at the moment. There was no way they could know, and no way he was going to tell them. Besides how could he? ‘You know pancakes, right? Well, my brain was one for an instant.’ There would be no way to explore his new life that way, at least not to his choosing. He had a job he was going to be returning to soon, and knew there was something he would need from it in this new era of his life. No, they couldn’t know. “Things change. I’d rather do that than remain static.”

“Because static really kills marriages,” Pliny said, and immediately cringed. It was Pam who hit him first, and he added, “But isn’t it great to know there are bigger idiots out there than anything you could ever become?” before showing himself the way out.

Pam grinned weakly at her husband, and relieved herself to pick up the kids from the Y. If there was another feeling Oswald could be having right now, other than somehow feeling like the last man on earth, he would gladly have welcomed it. It felt like shit.