Serendipity Green by Rob Levandoski Page A

computer chips in their buttocks and brains, these two unappetizing people copulate right there on the couch, with the light on, and the drapes wide open, with Rhubarb watching from the top of the sofa, the scent of Pine Sol, Ivory Soap, and hazelnut wafting.
    Howie Dornick walks home at one in the morning, wishing his mind was full of fresh memories of wonderful sex. But it hadn’t been wonderful sex. It had been horrible sex. It was obvious from Katherine Hardihood’s shaking knees that she had never had sex before. And his excessive sweating and inopportune passing of hazelnut-scented gas hadn’t helped matters. Nor had his penis. It hadn’t been in contact with a vagina since his year in Japan in the early sixties, and just like Japan, it had remained rubbery and ambivalent throughout.
    Still, the kissing beforehand had gone fine, as had the hugging afterwards. After they each spent some time in the bathroom cleaning up, they had another cup of coffee, and shared a bowl of Cheez-its, letting Rhubarb lick their orange fingertips while they watched public television’s umpteenth re-broadcast of Yobisch Podka’s 1991 performance with the Santa Fe Symphony.
    When he reaches the porch of his unpainted two-story frame on South Mill, Howie Dornick presses his face against the raw gray clapboards and cries. In the morning he drives all the way to Wooster. Passing the Wagon Wheel Restaurant, he spots a car in the parking lot that looks just like the American-made Japanese luxury job D. William Aitchbone drives—same pewter paintjob and everything. He drives on to Bittinger’s Hardware and walks straight for the young man standing behind the cash register, who has shorn bootcamp hair, an earring, and a tee-shirt that reads BONE HEAD.
    â€œHow can I help you?” the young man asks in the friendly, efficient voice the hardware-selling Bittingers have been using for ninety years.
    Howie frowns at the tee-shirt. “I need some house paint.”
    â€œYou’ve come to the right place.”
    â€œI’m painting my house. On the cheap.”
    â€œGotcha.”
    The Bittinger boy leads Howie Dornick down the wallpaper aisle to a pyramid of paint cans by the nail-nut-bolt-and-screw display. “Not our best, but the best for the price,” he says, using a line he’s heard his father and grandfather use a thousand times. He taps on the can lids as if they’re a stack of bongo drums.
    Howie stares at the pyramid of cans, in his head trying to multiply the sale price by the number of gallons he figures he needs. He doesn’t like the total he comes up with. “Anything cheaper?” he asks.
    â€œNothing I’d feel right selling you,” the Bittinger boy says, another well-practiced family line jumping off his tongue.
    â€œI’ve got to do this on the cheap,” Howie Dornick says.
    The Bittinger boy knows the Bittinger credo: Sell up if you can, sell at sale price if you must, but sell something if you call yourself a Bittinger . And he wants to stay a Bittinger, at least until he graduates from Ohio University. He studies not only his customer’s shabby clothes, but also the poverty in his eyes. “If this is too steep, we’ve got some stuff in the back I could give you at a real good price.”
    â€œI’m interested in a real good price.”
    The boy gives his customer the follow-me Bittinger wave and starts down the wallpaper aisle. “Once in a while somebody orders a custom color, then doesn’t pick it up, for whatever reason.” He turns down the garden tool aisle and gives the seed rack a spin just in case his customer might want to plant something. “Where you from?”
    â€œTuttwyler.”
    â€œI went to Squaw Days once. Almost entered the tobacco-spitting contest.”
    The small talk tempts Howie Dornick to ask the Bittinger boy about the message on his tee-shirt. “What makes you a