Poem #5: The Last Refrigerator

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The summer before i turned 17
I worked for two weeks delivering
washers, dryers and refrigerators .
I wasn't built for moving appliances,
and two weeks was all I needed of that job,
but that last delivery--
some cul-de-sac in Sterling Heights,
a one-story brick ranch, like every
one-story brick ranch on the street, and
a brand-new fridge-freezer, side-by-side model.
In off-white.
Anyway my partner and I knocked on the door
and I noticed that all the flowers outside are plastic.
The door opened to the sound of Lara's Theme
and a large woman in housecoat
"You're late," she said, and shows us in;
we have to take the old fridge out,
and on our way to the kitchen
we pass the plastic-covered living room
everything hermetically sealed,
like it was a museum, the whole house
covered in some sort of plastic film,
even the big console hi-fi, which is playing
a selection of hits from the Vienna Boys' Choir,
and in the spotless kitchen:
every appliance ever designed by Ron Popeil--
even the Chop-O-Matic--
And the lady of the house is looking over the new fridge
while her husband, frets behind her
and she's going "no, no look--there's a scratch!, Right there!"
and he's whining "No, honey, that's not a scratch,
you don't have to send it back, please, honey,
not again, let's just keep it, OK?"
and just then the kid, maybe little Junior, the only child,
steps out from a bedroom down the hall.
It was his eyes that got me: that 1,000 yard stare,
like we weren't there, the new fridge wasn't there,
his parents weren't there. He just walked right past us
to the living room, and we heard the needle
scratch across the whole album
of the biggest hits of the Vienna Boys' Choir
and the kid walked back past us slowly, back to his bedroom
while Mom and Dad acted like nothing's happened,
they're still arguing about whether
there's a scratch on the fridge
and I think to myself
these people will be murdered in their sleep
by a 14-year-old wielding a Ronco appliance.
We left them with the new fridge,
and I quit that job two days later.
I never did like Sterling Heights.
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