The Size Queens Video Premier of “Spinning World” + “Carefree” by Adam Klein

Spinning World from The Size Queens on Vimeo.

On their sixth album Save The Plant! The Size Queens interrogate the shape of contemporary protest. With allusions to the Baader-Meinhof group, Edward Snowden, Indian Maoists, Squeaky Fromme, Aum Shinrikyo, the escapism of pop S/M novels, and exploited workers in the service of government officials, “Save The Plant!” conveys the exultation and poignancy of revolutions, pointed and pointless. The Size Queens provide a glimpse of malcontents and those who wish to contain them: the prison industrial complex, the NSA, and worried parents. There’s no beeline to liberation, and those who are free must leave someone behind, shackled to the hope of returning to normalcy, or–in the case of the song Spinning World–to undertake the mission of saving at least one’s houseplant.

Video directed by Liz Bull
All Songs Adam Klein & Michael Mullen © 2014 Comfort Bringers Music
Musicians who played on this song: Adam Klein — Vocals. Michael Mullen — Piano, keyboards. Ethan Gold — Bass. Carlos Forster — Backing Vocals. The Wally Sound — recording, mixing, mastering.
On the Cover: Jose H. Villarreal “See What I See”
For more material on The Size Queens: https://thesizequeens.bandcamp.com

C A R E F R E E
by Adam Klein

We had problems with the bank loan; that’s why we took the rental. We arrived late at night and turned on the house lights. It’s a nice house, we commented. I can’t remember which of us said it, or who agreed. We may not have even said it.

The house we were renting was furnished. The truck with all our things had been rerouted to a storage facility in Phoenix. We rented a house near Carefree. The topology reminded me of the last scenes in Close Encounters of The Third Kind: desolate and monolithic and cordoned off, as in the movie, in response to an artificial plague, although the cattle here were healthy, docile behind pens. We saw them from our windows. The furnished home would bring a temporary sense of stability, if one thinks of stability that way: in terms of furnishings and fixtures and linens.

Whoever was here before had a reverence for their things; that was clear. We wondered if in the desert things were more revered. We had wondered about this because on our way to the rental, and in the desert generally, the houses are low and stucco—as though crouching in the brush, hiding their stocks–and there is a sense of inhospitable space all around. Or perhaps it’s hospitable space if you know the desert and its bird-pecked saguaros, snake trails, and lightning storms. On our first visit, my wife and I saw our first scorpion, clear as glass and on a sidewalk outside The Cheesecake Factory.

As we approached the rental we could see mammoth stone mountains, as though some giants had set them up in a crude game. Some peaks were smooth, exactly as if they were formed in a mold. In either case, we had come from Florida; we knew nothing about rattlesnakes or roadrunners or the gamble quails that ran in packs with a kind of tumor that protruded from their heads.

At first we were told it would be a month before the bank loan would be approved. We were pleased that the rental house was so well-stocked; we would save money by not having to purchase canned food, dish soaps, paper towels, detergent, sandwich bags, toilet paper, everything down to spools of thread and spare buttons. We were enthused by products we hadn’t intended on using: cupcake tins and the multi-colored paper cups that sit within them, only slightly paler from being so old. There were Yardley hand soaps, Dial body washes, Pearl Drops toothpaste, and jars of Noxema and Dippity Do. Such old brands, one of us said. In the case of the Yardley soap, some separation of the product had occurred and the most vigorous of shaking would not get the elements to blend. My wife said it was just the color that had risen. The soap could still be pumped and had retained its lavender fragrance. It’s only the color that’s changed, she said. It’s probably less artificial this way.

The master bedroom had a nice TV, the most modern of their appliances. Flat screen and large enough to stretch the image so that even poorly shot television shows looked like film, with that black border at top and bottom. There was apparently enough copper in the outlets so that even with the cable turned off, we were able to access TCM and other specialty channels. My wife and I had never much gone in for films of that era, but with mostly waiting to do, we found ourselves watching the classics, films I had said I’d seen but never had, including It’s A Wonderful Life. Go to the pantry, my wife said at the film’s end, and get something for us to snack on. There were so many choices. I hollered out to her, but she couldn’t hear. There was an unopened can of Poppycock. I brought that into the room, and we both ate it. It tasted fresh, though I was sure they didn’t sell it in cans any longer.

On the way to the room, I wore a pair of bath slippers that were left under the pantry shelves. My feet fit them perfectly, all the way to the heel. It seemed I had many pairs, from airlines and hotels, that didn’t fit. My wife wore a nightgown she found hanging in the closet. It looked like a patterned oven mitt. Though I didn’t mention it, the night robe unsettled me. Later, we put out the lights on the matching armoires at exactly the same time, as though we agreed to it. We had adapted to each other and didn’t need to discuss much. All around us were marvelous examples of adaptation: creatures eating spiny aloe plants and dreaming under the dry earth. It was a temporary place, I thought, but desert life had begun for us.

It was too hot to go outside, and most of the days my wife and I changed the settings on the thermostat. I would bring it down, and then she’d get cold, pull a Member’s Only jacket from the hall closet, and turn it up, and then I’d grow hot. Do you need to keep turning it up? I asked. But instead of answering, she threw a matching jacket at me, and asked me to try it on. Under the fan, it could get cool, so I kept the jacket folded on my lap, waiting for those few moments.

The refrigerator was stocked. Even the deep freezer was layered with foil-covered and labeled steaks, hamburger patties, salmon, and pork chops. But for breakfast my wife made pancakes with an old box of Aunt Jemima mix, something we normally wouldn’t eat. She used a lot of butter and they were crispy on the edges and we used a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth syrup in the refrigerator, running it under hot water to remove the crystallized caps. There was a row of Mrs. Butterworths in the pantry, as though on call.

In the afternoon, we poured Snow Crop frozen orange juice into a tumbler and mixed it. My wife and I marveled at the label, neither of us having any memory of the brand. It’s odd, I said, that some of these brands are old and others new, but the quantity of them makes them all seem like a preservation project. Maybe they’re snowbirds, my wife said, considering the people behind the products in the home. Or they run a warehouse out of here, I said. We watched the older television, a massive Sony, in the den, not talking but intermittently shaking the ice in our glasses. It grew pink outside, the face of the mountain darkening behind the blush of clouds, and my wife pointed out an owl that had lifted a small rabbit high into the air.

Though we were liberally using the many things in the house, it was perhaps the usage that made us feel we owed something to the domicile. My wife began to Swiffer the tiles. You don’t have to do that, I said. I want to leave it the way we found it, she answered. And besides that, there are so many Swiffer pads in the laundry room. You should really look in there. At first, I thought it odd going to look at an abundance of Swiffer pads. But later I did go in, and I was impressed, and also saw the Shark, an instrument designed to steam the floor and rugs, and considered using it.

I sat at the large desk in the den, going through the drawers, not in an effort to find anything, but to marvel at the order of them, the surplus of post-it notes, paperclips, and rubber stamps—all bold words including CANCELLED, SHRED, CONFIDENTIAL. None of them appeared have been inked, though there were red and black shrink-wrapped inkpads. There were at least fifteen boxes of Swingline staples and manila folders, and empty invoice pads with carbon paper. There was nothing in the hanging files, but there was a labeler on the desk, the old fashioned kind that embosses white letters. I embossed the word ‘mail,’ labeled a file and closed the drawer.

That week I don’t remember us doing much besides taking out the garbage on Monday night. We were impressed that we had not purchased anything in the garbage bag, not even the bag. We are luxury survivalists, my wife said. I saw from the blinds someone walking a dog, a small, ratty puppy with white fur that had turned yellow. The owner had the same color hair, and walked slowly, as though her knees were out and the dog pulled her along with diminished enthusiasm. Later, we picked up the mail, addressed only to Resident, and rather than putting it into the recycle bin, I put the stack into the file folder I’d created. We definitely didn’t need the coupons, but weekly mail collection seemed the least we could do for whomever owned the place, the previous tenants we imagined. Though we could not imagine them, exactly. Nothing appeared to show personal taste, except a taste for value. In some ways, this seemed easier to negotiate than trinkets from various vacations or mugs with their names emblazoned on them. But we began to wonder, in earnest, if there were any names attached to the rental, if the online ad we had responded to was placed by the child or children of elderly parents, now in a nursing home, or if the house had become a default storage space for an out of state couple.

There was an old Norelco electric razor and I tried it out, slapping my cheeks with Aqua Velva aftershave. My wife, at the sink beside me, was applying Lady Schick hot curlers to her hair. That will be a different look for you, I said. Yes, she answered. I think my mother used this set. She stepped back and looked at herself with the curlers in her hair. Do you think I need the Grecian Formula? I asked. Maybe just for the sides of your head. I hadn’t noticed my hair going gray above my ears, but this would take care of that. As we both worked on our grooming, we fell under the spell of items in the his-and-her drawers, and my wife began to wrap a blood pressure pump around her thin arm. I used the bunion cream and cuticle clippers. And then my wife did the most peculiar thing: she emerged from the walk-in closet hunched over a rolling walker. For a moment, I felt stunned, and then I recognized my anger. Why are you using that? I asked. Because it’s in the closet, she said, turning to look at me with a cold eye. Well, is there another one? I asked. There’s a cane, she said. That’s when we began to move carefully, as though choreographing our movements, and in some cases, repeating that choreography over days that segued as seamlessly as one TV program into another.

One night–I’m not sure of how long we’d been there–my wife asked if we’d heard anything from the bank. Nothing, I said, though I’d already applied labels to three files to collect the bulk of Resident mail. I felt only slightly alarmed that I might have missed it.

The next morning, or sometime during that week, I found my wife masticating with great concentration, her head bent over what looked like a bowl of grain cereal. Maybe it’s too old, I said, watching her bottom jaw shifting almost mechanically from side to side. We have plenty of other options in the pantry. She waved me away with some incomprehensible words. The walker was parked beside her breakfast chair, and she dabbed at her mouth with a Bounty towel. I felt annoyed at her using the towels incorrectly. We had plenty of napkins; there was no need to put a reusable towel near her mouth. In either case, I had oatmeal and leaned on my cane as the water boiled, still wearing the T-shirt I’d slept in and the loose underwear I’d found in the walk-in. I liked the slippers I found in the pantry; they really cushioned my heels. When I sat down, I realized that my wife was wearing dentures. What are you doing with those? I asked. Your teeth are fine. Besides that, they’re someone else’s teeth! I soaked them in Clorox, she said as though her mouth was full of wet bread. What’s got into you? I asked. Sea-Bond, she struggled to say. We have Sea-Bond.

I was using the Shark on the area rug when my wife, her hand over her mouth–either to hold in place the second set of teeth, or to hide that she was wearing them–went into the cabinets above the washer/ dryer and returned with two large hearing aids. Twisting them in, she sat in the office chair in front of the television in the den. Is the Shark too loud, I asked? No reply. I tapped my four-legged cane in front of her. She took out one hearing aid. I asked the same question. I can only hear static with these, she said. Why use them? I asked. She didn’t answer. I understood that this wasn’t personal; she had retreated into some area inside her head where the sound of static made more sense to her than language.

We turned out the lights again at exactly the same time. The dentures were in a glass by her bedside. I heard the fizzing when she dropped Polident tablets into the water. I sat and listened, imagining the bubbles attacking the teeth, just as they would in a commercial. I could not shut my eyes. In the faint nightlight, I watched the slow-moving fan above. Finding myself unable to sleep, I decided to walk out into the kitchen and pour myself something from the rolling bar. The inventory was old, with unfamiliar bottles. One was shaped like a black man playing a bongo, wearing a yellow hat that was also its plastic bottle cap. I wasn’t sure if it was racially offensive, or if it was Cuban rum. In either case, I pushed it to the back of the cabinet. Maybe Mrs. Butterworth is also racist, I considered. With this thought, I felt discouraged and opted for an unopened bottle of Smirnoff wrapped in old holiday cellophane. The cellophane was so old it stuck to my fingertips. I washed my fingers and sat in the kitchen, in the blue light of the microwave clock, drinking.

I wasn’t ready to sleep. I went out the front door and noticed the neighbor walking the dog, only now, she seemed to bounce along, spry and energized, and it was so late, at least 10 PM. Behind me, I heard an owl shifting in the chimney and a terrible cry. I closed the door and moved rapidly on my cane, fearing the bird had somehow gotten inside. I grabbed a flashlight and tried to look up into the gas fireplace. The beam just bounced along the walls, and finally reached the area where the owl perched on a screen. Meanwhile, the squealing grew unbearable, and I recognized it as a rabbit, slow prey to that sharp beak tearing fur from its bones, hooking into the wounds. And then a small bone clattered to the bottom of the chimney and the owl hooted again, I imagined, like a satiated belch. The rabbit was silent. The experience troubled me deeply. I had never, except on The Nature Channel, witnessed an animal devouring another. The chimney had amplified the struggle, and I was sure my wife had awoken but I heard nothing, no query or movement from her.

I went into the den thinking that in the morning I would fish the bone from behind the metal woodpile in the fireplace and show it to my wife, tell her what she’d slept through. I imagined the bone perfectly cleaned, something you could wear, like a shark’s tooth, a very unlucky rabbit’s foot. I sat at the desk and opened the drawer with its files of Resident mail. I began to leaf through the piles and noticed a bank notice with my wife’s name on it. I opened it and read that our loan was approved, that the money had been wired into our account. I wanted to go into the other room and notify my wife that I’d somehow missed the notice, and that we could now take our things out of storage and move to our new home, across town.

I didn’t want to wake her. I put the letter back into the file. I wasn’t sure how long it had been since she stopped listening to anything but the static of the hearing aids, or how many days I had been oblivious to the letter’s arrival. I only knew it felt right to replace the letter back into the folder and not trouble her with it until the morning. I hoped I would remember to tell her we had been approved and could now move to our new place, but the nights were very long, and each day I woke up with fewer events I felt compelled to recall.

I wandered into the bedroom and flashed the light across her body, scooped in the seated position of the electric bed. She was perfectly still, a pair of bifocals she had plucked from a drawer down on her nose, the earpieces in, and her eyes moving rapidly beneath the lids.

***
Adam Klein received an MFA from The New School in 2009 and was an Assistant Professor of English at The American University of Afghanistan. At the end of 2013, Dzanc Books published his edited anthology of short stories: The Gifts Of The State: New Afghan Writing. He is also the author of High Risk’s Lambda Book Award-nominee, The Medicine Burns and a novel, Tiny Ladies. His work has appeared in Fourteen Hills, openDemocracy, MIT’s Performance Art Journal, and in the New York Times At War Blogs, among other places.