February Sucks for Walter Mitty

Here are a few warnings before we begin:

• Yes, this is a February Sucks rehash.
• It deals with feminism in a not-entirely-critical way.
• It's wordy and weird, and takes a while to get where it's going.

This is a departure for me, but—like so many other readers—I've struggled with George Anderson's February Sucks. I have a theory about why it hits us all so deeply: Anderson starts with a grown-up version of a little kid's nightmare. All the elements are there—betrayal, public humiliation, shitty friends, and a big bully stealing your favorite toy. All that's missing is Jim having to read a report in front of the class without his clothes on.

The thing about nightmares, though, is that they don't survive the light of day. We wake up, or discover a magical sword, or fly away on the back of a mythic beast. We never have to fight our nightmare monsters with real-life tools.

And that's where George Anderson switches lanes—and, in the process, makes this such a hard story to deal with. He forces Jim to handle his nightmare with the tools of real life and the maturity of a responsible adult. Which means that, even from the start, Jim is playing against a stacked deck.

I think that's why so many writers try to balance the scales for poor Jim—and why it's become the Loving Wives equivalent of a comic book multiverse, in which an infinity of Jims and Marcs and Lindas and Dees play out the events of one terrible night in a multiplicity of ways. In his outstanding take on the story, Cockatoo hints at that: "I'm sure that there is at least one Possible Reality out there somewhere in which we'd somehow stayed together...But that reality wasn't this one."

I hope this version works as tribute to the canvas George Anderson created, and a tip of the hat to the Rohrshak test that February Sucks has become for some of the writers who have taken it on.

I've tried to dial down my literature geek tendencies. Well, tried and failed. The title comes from a James Thurber story about a guy who daydreams. It's a short read if you're interested; if not, the Ben Stiller movie is worth a peek...*

I hope you find this amusing... or at least interesting enough to read through to the end. Regardless, thanks—as always!—for the support, the interest and the feedback!

February Sucks for Walter Mitty

Copyright 2024 by B. Watson

Winter 2021 came in soft in Buffalo, with only a few inches of snow in November and December. Seduced by the mild weather, my neighbors and I speculated that perhaps the scourge of global warming had finally defeated the brutal lake effect that shredded us every year.

It was wishful thinking.

In January, we got hit with subzero temperatures and over 50 inches of snow and sleet—overwhelming evidence that, at least for the time being, Jack Frost was still kicking the shit out of Al Gore's inconvenient truth.

Buffalo's good about getting snow off the streets, but driving was still harrowing for much of that winter. As the owner of my own company—Jim Carlisle Marketing—I had it easier than most: I was usually able to work from home, a privilege that I extended to my employees when the weather got particularly rough.

Our specialty was producing engaging, somewhat-truthy paid articles that depicted our clients in a new and surprising way. For example, one of our customers was Timber Valley, a local retirement village. Rather than going the usual route of focusing on facilities—pools, art rooms, and semi-independent apartments—we commissioned articles on the link between exercise and delayed aging, and illustrated them with pics of Timber Valley residents on zip lines, jet skis, mountain hikes, and other strenuous activities.

Sales increased five percent in the first quarter after we started running our stories. In the second quarter, we started giving discounts for extended family members to come along, and sales went up nine percent. Later, when we pushed the #WildRetirement and #TimberValley4Life hashtags, they went up 13 percent. They were still rising.

My work isn't rocket science, but I think it's fair to say that it takes a particular kind of weird brain to position death's waiting room as life's next adventure for the Woodstock generation. Thankfully, I have that kind of brain, and I seem to attract similarly bizarre individuals. Together, we've turned the daydreaming that nearly got me kicked out of sixth grade into a career that had recently crossed the line into six figures.

This isn't to say that I spend ALL my time with my head in the clouds. My work hinges on picking out little details and building stories around them, so I like to think I'm pretty aware of what's going on—at least until I choose to let my mind wander.

Which, admittedly, I'm prone to do.

My wife Linda, on the other hand, always had her feet firmly planted on the ground. As the office manager for Sprague, Sprout and Skrewie, one of Buffalo's biggest law firms, her work involved corralling a herd of overambitious, oversexed lawyers into something resembling a functional company. I was a little nervous when she started working there—"legal ethics" is more of a punchline than a strict guideline, and I'd heard WAY too many stories about workplace shenanigans. But her first office Christmas party put my mind at ease: It soon became clear that, while Linda was basically the den mother for an office full of coked-up bonobos on Spanish Fly, she regarded her charges with a sort of disgusted bemusement.

Linda had to be in her office from 9 to 5, regardless of the weather, so I was the one who saw our kids—Emma, age eight and Tommy, age six—off to school in the mornings and picked them up in the afternoons. By default, that meant that I was also the go-to parent—the one who handled doctor's visits and teacher conferences, organized cupcakes on birthdays, and ferried the kids to playdates. I usually treasured it: My father had missed much of my childhood, and I felt lucky that I got to see my kids grow up.

It wasn't always sunshine and rainbows. That winter, school closings meant that I spent a lot of time as a full-time stay-at-home dad, tormented by the constant, muffled sound of Frozen coming out of the living room and repeatedly forced to halt my work to serve snacks, mediate conflicts, and tell stories to a pair of understimulated munchkins. Despite my best efforts to get the kids out in the yard, the glacial temperatures and towering snow drifts usually kept us huddled inside. By the time Valentine's Day was on the horizon, I was getting a new understanding of why the Donner party ended up the way it did—I think maybe it wasn't just about the food.

Linda had it somewhat easier because of her job—at least she got to spend the day talking to adults—but I could tell the walls were closing in on her, too. In a burst of optimism and desperation, she and the other wives in our circle planned a big Valentine's Day outing. The women went all out—they bought new dresses, lined up childcare, made reservations at a top-notch restaurant and found a club that was known for its good cocktails and great dancing. It was going to be a grand celebration of getting over the hump of a tough winter, and a little boost to get us through to Spring.

Linda's roll of the dice came up snake eyes when another storm hit, dumping a ton of snow and shutting down half the city. The club closed, the restaurant cancelled our reservation, and the State Police advised everyone to restrict travel to essential business. Even if they hadn't all weighed in, I'm pretty sure Linda would have wanted to cancel: Temperatures were well below zero, and her new dress and shoes would have looked weird over thermal underwear and wool knee socks.

And so I found myself on the morning of February 14^th shoveling a foot and a half of snow off the driveway. It wasn't like we were going to go out any time soon, but with two kids in the house, you really can't afford to be snowbound. Besides, it gave me a brief respite from listening to Frozen.

(The irony of Emma and Tommy's Frozen obsession wasn't lost on me. If Disney's addictive little nugget of brain candy kept the kids thinking about the magic of snow and ice, so much the better. For my part, my thoughts were drifting more toward Jack London's "To Build a Fire" and that group of rugby players that crashed in the Andes in the 1970s.)

That particular morning, the snowblower was in the repair shop and I was imagining myself slaving in a wintry prison:

Jimmy Dufresne's muscles strained as he shoved his battered shovel through the snow drift. "Cold enough for you, Red?" he called over to his friend, who was digging his own ditch through the exercise yard.

"Naw, Jimmy, I like it a few degrees colder," Red said thoughtfully. "Keeps me fresh and young. Like a beer in the fridge."

Hadley, the toughest screw in Shawshank, shouted at the two men. "You're not at a tea party, ladies! Less chitter chatter, more shoveling."

Red and Jimmy went back to it. "Cranky, cranky," Jimmy muttered, just loud enough for Red to hear. "It's almost like he's cold or something."

Red let out a cough that sounded sort of like a chuckle. "Naw, Jimmy. It doesn't get cold in hell."

Jimmy Dufresne shoveled his snow and smiled his enigmatic smile as he thought about the poster of Rita Hayworth hanging in his cell, fluttering in an ice-cold draft...

It's fair to say that, by mid-February, even my daydreams were a little grim.

Tapping my snow shovel on Linda's bumper, I cast a baleful glare at the sticker she had put there: "A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle." Fucking Gloria Steinem.

Look, I understand Steinem's little rallying cry: Humans basically NEED food, shelter, air and—at least in Buffalo in February—a really warm coat. Love, romance and sex, not so much. They're not necessary for survival, nor for defining yourself as an independent being in the world. But, Jesus, you're starting your negotiations with "I don't need you"? I mean, imagine opening a work meeting by saying "I don't need any of you fuckers." True or not, it gives the impression that you're not committed to making the relationship work.

When Linda put the sticker on her car, I had a couple of dozen printed up that said "A Man Needs a Woman Like a Lobster Needs a Chainsaw," and slapped one on the rear end of my Ford Expedition. I think she got the point, but missed the irony.

Truth be told, Linda's kind of irony resistant. I mean, she's smart, loving, and has a great sense of humor, but she sometimes gets caught up in the catchphrases. "The future is female." "My body, my choice." "Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man." "A woman's place is in the House... and the Senate."

It's not that I completely disagree with her slogans—although "The future is female" really pisses me off. I'm all for bodily autonomy, equal pay, equal political power, and equal opportunity. I'm proud of my mom and grandma, both of whom went to college, built great careers, and struggled with prejudice in the workplace. And, as the father of a little girl, I'd challenge anyone who tries to deny Emma ANY opportunities. At all. Seriously, if the kid wants to be a welder, I'm buying her an acetylene torch.

But the us-versus-them sound bites tended to creep into Linda's way of looking at the world. Sometimes, instead of seeing herself as an advocate for equality, she acted more like a suicide bomber on the front lines of a battle between the sexes, desperate to show that she was a completely independent woman who wouldn't bend to the needs of any man. As the nearest man at hand—and the guy who sometimes had to ask her to bend to the needs of our family—it sometimes felt like I was being forced into the role of opponent, not ally.

Plus the joking/not joking "I hate boys" crap got on my nerves. That kind of fake feminism started going out of style close to a decade ago, but don't tell Linda that. Seriously, don't tell her—I've tried, and it's no fun being in the position of mansplaining feminism to your wife, unless you've got a REALLY comfortable couch.

Thankfully, those sorts of arguments were rare. Most of the time, we were lovers and confidantes, die-hard cheerleaders and best friends. We shared household responsibilities pretty equitably—I was a better cook, she was better with laundry, we both hated vacuuming—and we kept the house running smoothly. Given my flexible schedule, I usually handled childcare, which I enjoyed... at least when we weren't snowbound.

Speaking of which, I was also in charge of snow shoveling. And, after the driveway was cleared and I'd warmed up a bit, we were both going to spend an hour or two rolling around the yard with the kids. Valentine's Day downtown would have been great, but as I thought about making igloos and snowmen with Linda, Emma and Tommy, I had to admit that my life couldn't be much better.

*

Linda was nothing if not determined, so I wasn't surprised when she, Dee, Jane, and the other wives rescheduled our Valentine's Day soiree—rebranded as "Goodbye, February, We Won't Miss You!"—for the last day of the month. The new, improved plan was even more ambitious: In addition to dinner and dancing, we were also going to spend the night at a nearby hotel. Linda figured that, even if the restaurant and club ended up closing, we would benefit from a night by ourselves in a strange bed doing things that would scare the children.

I was totally on board: By the end of February, I would have happily given a toe for the chance to gorge on overpriced beers and honey roasted cashews from the wet bar in a room where Frozen wasn't playing. It says a lot when a hotel room picnic starts to feel like a combination of Nirvana, Shangri-La, and the last five minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

This time around, the weather cooperated, giving us a couple of days when the temperature rose to a (comparatively) balmy 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Linda was able to shed the long underwear and her sleeveless blue dress was a vivid reminder that, under all the winter layers, my wife was a goddess. I wasn't doing too bad myself: While I had only been to the gym a couple of times since early January, shoveling snow is a great workout, and I looked pretty sharp in my best suit.

The night started out perfectly. We'd made it most of the way through another winter, the kids were doing fine, our jobs were great, and we were in love. It's a cliché, but shared struggle really does bring a couple together, and we were never closer than when we walked into Morrison's, the club where we were going to spend the night dancing before retiring to our hotel room for even more delightful aerobic exercise.

The place was jumping—apparently, we weren't the only people who were desperate to get out of the house. It was a younger crowd, and I recognized a few players from the Bills, our hometown football team.

On the dance floor, we're fluid motion. Poetry. Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers, minus the toupee. Silver Linings Playbook, minus the crazy.

I spin her out and her fingertips slide to the end of my arm. Her eyes are on mine, aflame with desire. She caresses my hand as I circle my arm around her waist. Our feet in perfect sychrony.

"Come here often?" she breathes, her eyes glittering with desire.

"Only with the right partner," I whisper into her ear. She shivers.

"Am I the right partner?"

I hold her with my arms. My eyes. "The only partner."

Her pelvis presses into me. Every nerve on my body—her body—is raw and hungry, desperately absorbing the touch of our skin through our clothes. Her breath hitches and I can smell her—beneath the perfume, beneath the familiar bouquet of her shampoo—the musky, needy scent of my wife, my partner. I feel spring welling up inside me, coming alive after months of winter slumber.

It's nice when my daydreams match reality.

When the music ended, we drifted back to the table. "My God!" Jane exclaimed, fanning herself. "I think you melted the dance floor!" Linda preened as she found her way to her seat.

"No kidding!" Dee said, her face flushed. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"We took dance lessons when we were in college," I said. "It was an elective and the professor partnered us up. It kind of became our thing."

"ONE of our things," Linda corrected me. The table broke into laughter.

"I've got the next one, Linda," Dee's husband Dave said.

Dee was smiling, so I figured she had her own agenda, but Linda quickly shot Dave down. "Nope, tonight all my dances are for my husband." Then she looked at me and her eyes softened. "I'm thinking just one or two more," she whispered, and I nodded my head.

It was a perfect night. And then Marc LaValliere showed up.

*

When Linda dropped my hand and scurried to the dance floor with LaValliere, it took me a moment to realize what was going on. At first, I thought it was a joke, that she'd turn around, come back and say "Just kidding, babe, let's get out of here."

But then she didn't.

As I watched them moving around the floor, it began to sink in that my wife had ditched me without a word. That, in the blink of an eye, I'd plummeted from the marital equivalent of an Aruba beach to an Alaska snowbank.

I started to get up, but Jane put her hand on my shoulder. "Let her have this," she said. "It's Marc LaValliere, the Bills' new tight end."

I brushed her hand off, but she clutched my arm. "Don't!" she hissed. Her fingers tightened. "It's just a dance, Jim. Let her have it." I looked at Linda on the dance floor and felt numb.

Isolated.

Looking at the smug smiles of the women at the table—and the embarrassed expressions of their husbands—I felt exposed. Humiliated. I had two choices: Do as I'm told and sit down like a good little boy, or make a scene, and make my humiliation even more public. More shameful.

Fuck you, Linda!

I imagined what I would do if this was a movie, if I was some sort of international assassin, or a former Navy SEAL with a dark past:

"Do you mind if I cut in?" I asked as I stepped up to the couple.

"Find your own," LaValliere sneered. "This one's taken."

"Yes, she is," I growled. "She's my wife."

"Jim, please," Linda said, her eyes locked on LaValliere's. "Just one song."

"I don't think so," I said. LaValliere barely turned from her as he backhanded me. Ibrahim Moizoos and Dan Smith, the Bills' offensive guard and wide receiver, stepped out of the crowd, but LaValliere held a hand in the air and they stopped.

"I've got this," he said. "Hubby's going to be a good boy and let us finish our dance."

I froze. The band switched to a haunting instrumental. Conversation stopped and the room went silent.

A flock of doves took flight behind me. I wiped my lips. Blood.

Smiling, I stood up straight, dropped my hands to my sides, and raised my eyes to LaValliere's. He was sneering.

"I don't think so," I growled. "I'm not losing to a tight end who chokes on the big ones."

I whipped out my twin Springfield Armory M1911-A1 V-12s. The guns exploded, taking out Moizoos and Smith. I dove behind one of the tables as LaValliere pulled out his own hardware, a Beretta 92FS Inox, and shoved Linda into the crowd. He fired twice. Dee's head blew apart and Jane coughed blood as she took one in the neck. Good riddance.