You Don't Know My Tuesdays

by Jeff M

When I was touring my house, the house I wanted to buy up the street in a working class neighborhood outside Kansas City, the house I wanted to give my weekend kids, the realtor said, The Neighbor Was Just Asking If Someone Was Going To Buy This House And I Said That Yes He's Thinking About It And Wouldn't That Be Nice For The Neighborhood Wouldn't That Be Nice A Nice Man Like That His Name Is Jeff And He Has Two Young Boys and To Have Two Young Boys In the Neighborhood Would Really Be A Nice Thing A Nice Addition To The Area Because It's Been So Long Since Kids Have Been Around Here...

She was speaking above the din and crack of a cloudy vision of mine, which I beheld in one of the two small bedrooms of the house. There was a crack in the ceiling. I asked what it was; I hadn't seen it during my first tour of the house. Rule One: Take at least three tours of the house you want to buy before you buy --- and make one tour in the rain.

"Oh, they just didn't put the plaster up correctly. That's easily fixed."

I toured, I cried inside. I wanted to give my kids a house --- even if they could only enjoy it every other weekend. They were outside already, ushering in a future we all dream: they were passing a football back and forth in the high wet grass, my oldest satisfying the dreams and desires of my youngest, my small young boy, Noah, the boy who loves his brother, the boy who loves his dad.

"I don't know," I said, shoving hands deep, a few weeks before the Bailout, before the rewriting of history books.

But I knew enough to follow the realtor back to her office and sign some preliminary papers. I gave her $200 in earnest money --- which basically means you're interested, you're serious. I left the office, my kids throwing action figures back and forth at each other, wanting something to eat.

And then the service engine light comes on. I'm two weeks beyond having paid the car off, two weeks from maybe closing the sale of a home I want to give my kids, and the engine light comes on. I have $100 in savings. I have $80 in checking, and there's $15 worth of dinner to be purchased for the evening. I can't fucking believe it. I can't but fucking not believe it.

I cancel the home purchase. I do it that night, on a Saturday. A Saturday night mission. I hang the idea of giving my children a backyard to play in on the wall and throw darts at it. I fold it in half as though the dream is an oil change cupon, a promise that someday I'll use it.

I get my money back a few days later from the realtor. She understands the email I send her, that I'm in the midst of unknown financial situations, that I have no money to purchase a home in spite of what the state of Missouri claims, what the banks says I can afford. I tell her that I need to concentrate on other matters before I make such a step.

What I want to tell her is this, but don't: You don't know my Tuesdays, my Wednesdays, my Thursdays, and the weekends without my kids. You don't want the neighbors to witness me on the days I don't have my children. You don't want to see that. Tell that to the neighbors. Tell them that it is awful. Tell them that it is awful to see a grown man surviving a week without his kids, trying to find meaning after losing his kids. Tell them that.