I started the dishwasher too early
Wes Vanderburgh
I started the dishwasher too early,
and forgot the ladle swimming in the saucepan. Thank you for soaking it last night. Goddamn that ramen was fuego (solo le traigo good vibes). I got up late this morning so I didn’t finish until 5:45. Under the surgical glare of the orb light. I still hate how nothing is centered in this kitchen: cabinets, sink, that light. It falls on my left side, which I suppose is helpful since that’s the hand in which I hold everything, while scrubbing with my right. But in its half-shadow, I sometimes doubt the cleanliness of a mug. Some suds spilled down the front of the undersink drawers. I usually wipe only the counter if it gets wet but not the drawers, and certainly not the floor. That’s your domain. Dishes give you the ick, and sweeping and vacuuming make me inordinately frustrated, so this is our agreement. And it’s worked so far these five years. I don’t mind it too much. I would wash dishes at the cafe when they piled up and nobody else took the initiative. And then of course in the Japanese restaurant. When my thin cotton shirt wasn’t soaked through from sloshing soap and scalding water, then it reeked of once-hot oil. The blisters on my fingers would get pruney from scrubbing, and if they burst, then that was it, no more dishes for that shift, it was too painful. James eventually fired me. What was I supposed to do? Hot water seeping in and filling the layers of my skin like the red sauce in that lasagna I made last Saturday. I always get on you to use as few dishes as possible to make my job easier and then I’m the one who ends up making the biggest mess. But the lasagna was worth it, don’t you think? Anyway, I’ll just leave the ladle in the sink and wash it tomorrow morning (hold me close, sway me more). I once saw this influencer mom showcase her daily routine. She started her mornings every day just like me: doing the dishes. When I was in middle school it suddenly became my chore to load the dishwasher before school. I wasn’t taught how to do it, only told to do so. I clinked and clanged and slopped and banged the contents of the sink into the plastic racks, only for Dad to come stomping down, angry that I had woken him. But you asked me to do this? It would take forever to gingerly place each fork into the slots in the utensil compartment. You want me to be late for school? Oh well. At least I didn’t have to wash anything. But sometimes I would put something in that I shouldn’t have, like a steak knife or the lid to the nonstick saucepan, so in the afternoons I’d get home to a lesson in domesticity. As if homework wasn’t enough of a punishment (this is my last resort). Finally, onto the dog bowls. Mirage and Stanlington swirl my feet waiting for food that won’t come for twenty more minutes. First, clean bowls! Metal is definitely the best surface to clean. Even if the hot water makes it unbearable to touch after a while. Ceramic is ok I guess, though god forbid you forget to soak an oatmeal bowl and you’ll be scrubbing that off with your fingernail. That’s what I never understand: the sponge was literally made for one purpose. And yet how often do I end up grabbing the blunt side of a knife to scrape off crusted cumin from the baking sheet? Or I’ll just go in with my nail, fuck it, but that’s only when they’re of a certain length. Too short and it’s just my finger — yuck! Too long and then I’ve got scrambled egg under them and that’s even. fucking. worse. At least you showed me the virtues of the scrubby sponges, the yellow guys that are purely abrasive with no spongy side. Those babies work really well, and they don’t turn everything blue-gray like steel wool does. Not quite as effective as those little clouds of steel that I’d use in the restaurants. But then again, they disintegrated after like two uses. The only solution would really be to stop eating, or at least to eat on only disposable materials, like my family eventually did. But that’s unsustainable, you say, as you slide another plate into the sink (i’m from where the gold and diamonds are ripped from the earth). Oh shit, the dogs! Here guys, sorry, sorry! Some consideration would be nice. After all, didn’t you see this whole pile of bowls from the soup we made last night? Sad about the divorce. Your parents think we don’t know. So we served them soup, a gulyásleves I made from a new recipe that we ended up really liking. I didn’t translate the recipe, so it took a little while, and you offered to help when the conversation was at its most awkward, and I shouldn’t have shooed you away. Sorry. Fuck I gotta buy more kibble. That will be a tonight project (miért nincs szívemen szárny). Usually I’m up and at those dishes every morning. It’s the first thing I do after peeing. Unless the pain is too bad. Or I’m just too fatigued. Or my emotions are out of control. Then they pile up like unatoned sins. I remember the last time I went to Confession. It was in elementary school. It was Ash Wednesday, I think. We all gathered in the gym and sat on the wooden bleachers. Priests from local churches joined Father Thomas and sat between us and the exits. The light bounced just as easily off the waxed floor as it did those bald heads. Sister Anne or some other administrator mcee’d the service and then invited us all to attend Confession. There was a barbed disclaimer reminding us we didn’t have to go if we didn’t want to. But we all knew — it was expected. Besides, you had the chance to skip the next class or even the one after that if you waited to get Confession. Tyler sat in front of me. I paid more attention to his stringy, waspy hair than the sermon. You remember him. Was he even more debauched than I knew him to be? Was he sitting here all this time trying to tally his innumerable sins before seeking absolution? Or was he just milking the chance to skip two hours of class and go straight to lunch? I’d never know. I myself sat there unsure of what to do for a good half hour. Suddenly I stood up and wobbled down the echoey steps, making straight for the closest unoccupied father. I made up or embellished my sins to avoid saying what was really on my mind, and then I hurried through my penance and went to class (there’s no better love, beckons above me). But that was thirty years ago or more. Now I have fully reconciled myself to the penance of daily living. The small tasks that take up so much time. But what else would I do with it? Our friends have all gone. My parents have died. Kay and Alex won’t speak to me anymore. Mirabel and Stanley are patient and silent now in their urns — I no longer have to hurry the human dishes for them. So I pay attention to each tine, pull out the straw cleaner for each of your many metal straws, and give a good pet to each drying cutting board, just to ensure it’s fully clean. The one we had for years since college steadily turned orange. Remember that? God, I would scrub and scrub that thing and each time it felt less clean. I couldn’t stand that. But that was, what, twenty years ago? I don’t even remember where we got this current set. Come to think of it, we used to have more, didn’t we? And how about that tall stein we stole from one of the breweries by Keefer Place? I haven’t seen that thing in ages. For a few years back then, we’d pilfer all our cutlery and glassware. It was a really nice stein. Heavy, felt good in your hand. Had very slight ribs along the sides which made for a really good hand-feel. I think you took it to use for painting? Of course you haven’t lifted a paint brush in, oh, ten years easily, maybe more. In either Tulsa or Boston — or was it somewhere in between? — we hung one of your paintings above the sink. It was a bright neon Ben and Jerry’s pint. As the dishes kicked up soap scum and spots of grease, it slowly took on a patina of domestic life. It muted until the flavor became illegible. I want to say it had been Cherry Garcia, but when I saw it last, I noticed layers of brown and green on there that just wouldn’t have matched the pink of the ice cream itself (memories of loving her, holdin’ her tight, every night, was that the best part of your life). I think I’ll have to get you a new bento box. This one holds the smell of whatever was last in it, no matter how much I scrub. I even put it in the dishwasher, which you’re not supposed to do. Though I can’t stand washing plastic, I love how you’ve progressively let down your mask. Real plates can indeed be so loud. Worst of all, they allow the individual foods to touch and mingle. But as a kid, if you had asked your parents to buy you a bento box because plates gave you the ick, you would have gone without dinner. You’ve learned over time to accommodate your disabilities, and therein have found healing. So now I hand-wash your adaptive cutlery, bento box, and straws every morning. I cannot fail to do so, or you’ll have nothing with which to eat. This feels a higher duty than dishwashing once was. It began as a way to avoid punishment. Then a means of making money. Then it became a daily duty, the keystone holding in place my fragile mental health. Now it has finally become a sacrifice of love, purified of all other pollutants. A way to show you I still love you after all this time. Even when my words fail and my body aches and I can’t remember half our life together, I can still do the dishes for you every day. I can gift you this small act of care so that you can in turn nourish your ailing body with the food it needs. Even though we won’t be eating for much longer now (can you feel me now, that i’m vulnerable in oh-so many ways). Yes, I hum to myself while washing the dishes. Crumbs of half-eaten songs that time took away before I had my fill. You know, it’s funny: they say that if you do something enough times, over and over and over again, then it becomes part of you. You can’t separate yourself from it, and as you continue wrapping life around yourself, you forget that you once had to carve out space for this specific thing or that it confronted you as another item on the to-do list. Dishwashing has never quite reached that level for me. Sure, when we head to Hillcrest next month and leave our independent lives behind, it will feel strange to never have to wash my own dishes again. I inherited my mother’s suspicion of others’ standards of cleanliness, so when the orderlies attend to our dishes, I will heavily scrutinize them. But it’s not like I will miss it — how much of my life have I spent in front of the sink? Too much. And now that I’m at the end of it, I wish I could have all that time back. What would I do with it? Hold your hand. We’d play more cribbage. Go for a walk together. Those dishes can wait, you said. Yes, now I see they could have (that’s what you get when you let your heart win).
