"AMERICA'S FAMILY PLAYGROUND"
by Jamey Gallagher

Here in America's Family Playground we like our animals short-haired and easily transportable. Lap dogs, run-of-the-mill cats, things of that nature. We don’t normally go for your exotic reptiles, but with Evan, my eight year old stepson, it’s different. That’s all he’s into. Geckos, iguanas, tree frogs. I’ve drawn the line at snakes, but he¹s still pushing for a boa constrictor. His bedroom is a desert landscape of reptiles, littered with pieces of transformer toys, robots that turn into vehicles and vice-versa.

Right now Evan is resting his head on the living room floor, his mouth opened wide to form a cave for his leopard gecko. I don¹t think it¹s such a good idea, but discipline isn’t my thing around here. This arrangement is all so new, for all of us. I’m willing to say "no" only if he does something to seriously endanger himself, and I figure the worst that can happen here is the gecko will pee in his mouth, or Evan will accidentally swallow it. Another minor league tragedy.

The windows are all open and a faint ocean breeze pushes the gauzy curtains around. I have the fan going full-blast and the Phillies game playing on the new 36 inch. I like baseball because it¹s boring and it makes no claims otherwise. But growing up with the Red Sox in the ‘970s makes it hard to appreciate the Phillies now. It’s their uniforms that bug me, the prissy red pinstripes, the elaborate script P. Still, it¹s better than nothing. Three hours to sit in a chair with a gaping jaw, a beer between my legs. I¹m not lazy, exactly, but I take my leisure.

The gecko climbs into Evan¹s open mouth, then backs himself up and peers out, both ways. They¹re more active than you¹d think, geckos. I’m always afraid that I’ll step on one, which would be a major league tragedy. When Evan makes a spitoo sound, the gecko stumbles drunkenly across the throw rug.

"Did you see that, Bob?" he says. "Did you see that?"

"I sure did." I force a smile. It doesn¹t feel very convincing, but it satisfies the kid. Nobody but Evan calls me Bob. I suggested it early on because it’s a palindrome, something like "Dad," and I thought it would make us feel closer. Instead it makes me feel like someone else, someone I don’t really like, a hairy guy drinking beer on somebody else¹s easy chair. Everyone else calls me Robert, or if we’re good friends, Rob.

"I’m going to bring my iguana out," Evan warns me. His iguana is about as long as I am tall. It gives me the willies.

"Do me a favor, take him outside or keep him in your room," I say. If it were my kid I’d demand it, and he wouldn’t have the thing in the first place, but I have to pussyfoot with Evan. It doesn’t do much for my pride but I can’t fight the logic of ingratiation.

"No prob, Bob," he says before leaving.

Even though Evan is only eight, you can already tell what kind of teenager he’ll be. He’ll give me and Lorraine plenty of trouble, but deep down he’ll be just another geek. He’ll find something like computers or comic books to become obsessed about, he’ll get decent but not great grades, go to college, become a normal guy with a job. Like me. But not like me.

I run a blackjack table at the Sands. Small stakes. A dream job for a young guy, but it gets old fast. The transferal of money from sloppy old guys’ pockets to casino coffers is not inspiring. In my late twenties I could have asserted myself and gone on to big stakes, maybe management, but I¹m happier with the small fry. Pitiful senior citizens. Or, once in a while, a heavyweight gambling addict on his way down trying to work back his stake with five and ten dollar bets.

The way I see it, career advancement has pretty much passed me by. I just have to learn to enjoy family life. That’s why I married Lorraine.

She steps into the living room now, in bare feet, khaki shorts and an orange shirt. She looks at the beer between my legs, the Phillies on TV, shakes her head and starts away.

"No," I say. "What?"

"Walk on the beach?"

"Why not?"

There’s a wet spot on my crotch from the sweating beer can, I haven¹t shaved or showered all day, and I can smell the rich and loamy scent of myself. Still, I don¹t want to ask Lorraine to wait. Getting out of the house seems important now.

We walk out and it¹s hotter than I thought, the sun brighter, higher in the sky. The Phillies still play as afterimages in my retinas. I try to remember the score, but can’t. Evan and his iguana are playing in a hole that he’s dug in the front yard. "I’m going to get to China!" he says. If he was my kid I¹d hand him a shovel, some fertilizer, some seeds, and I’d set him to work. Instead I say "nice," and nod. The iguana has a rope tied around its neck. It sits there not moving in soil that looks blond, sandy and inexplicably sad.

"Be back in a sec, hon," Lorrain says, kissing him on the head. Her shirt balloons open. She¹s not wearing a bra and her small breasts sag down, tipped with pink smushed-looking nipples. Her skin is various tones of pink, red, and tan. A handsome woman in many ways.

We walk the two blocks to the beach and then down the sand toward a ruined jetty. A pipe they use to suck up the sand of the ocean floor is cordoned off. Sweaty blond bodies. Girls with shorts that say things like Sexy and Raunchy on their behinds, though they don¹t look either. A volleyball game.

Lorraine watches young men with wet blocky pecs out of her eye corners, as if I don’t notice, or as if I’d care if I did. We would both rather be with other people, in other places, but we’re stuck with each other, and good enough.

"Do you think the chicken will thaw in time?" she asks.

"I have to work tonight," I say.

We stand on the edge of the ocean and let foam wash over our sandals. I inch a little away from her-- I smell so bad not even the ocean can hide it. A romantic gesture seems in order, not now but in the near future. A surprise. A French restaurant or out-of-the-blue flowers, a necklace for no reason, sunset on the beach with a bottle of champagne, hedonistic sex.

Lorraine was one of the small stakes players at my table one night. She wore fake pearls and a little black dress. The man she was with wore a Hawaiian shirt and had oiled, Cuban hair and white pants. He was pulling at slots for an hour and a half without saying a word to her. I smiled. Between hands, we talked. I can’t remember what about. Her job, probably. Elementary school teacher. Kids. The Phillies.

She left with the guy¹s arm draped around her hip. A handsome, older woman. A sleazy guy. I imagined them together in a refurbished 80s sports car, her bare thigh pushed up against an eight ball on the shifter.

The next night she came back and asked me out to dinner.

That was only two years ago but we¹ve aged a lot in two years. Lorraine is approaching menopause and I’m beginning to fear her. Wicked moods, sensitivity. The sex is only okay, and it’s intermittent.

"We’re lucky to live here," she says.

Back at the house there¹s been a cave-in in the yard and Evan digs frantically with bleeding fingernails.

"Clive’s in there," he yells. "Clive’s in there."

I get a shovel and a trowel from the shed around back. First I clear a lot of the sand with the shovel, then I start on the smaller bits with the trowel until I strike iguana skin. I¹m more careful, using mostly my hands. Evan kneels by the hole, his hands on his thighs, either shocked, anxious and elated.

I clear the iguana off, but it just sits there.

"You done good," Lorraine says, ruffling what’s left of my hair.

"Is he dead?" Evan says. I realize that it could easily have been him under the sandy soil. We shouldn¹t leave him alone for even a second. Who knows what could happen.

I reach down for the iguana and I see the sand brush off its back as it lunges, digging its beak-like mouth into the web between my thumb and forefinger.

"Thank God," Evan says, as my blood starts falling onto the sand.

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Jamey Gallagher lives in New Jersey.

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PREVIOUS WORK

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"EMILE" by Emma Hooper

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