Attic

by Katherine Dunn

  That John W.C. Toilet won’t flush anyway. No lever, handle, pull-chain, or pedal—no tank to open and trip the plug—just the bowl with a pipe running into the wall.

  In a minute I’m going to walk over there and take a closer look. It’s only three or four steps and I’d go now but I’d have to get all untangled with my legs and Dogsbody and straighten things out with the thigh-links just to get up. I could pretend I was uncomfortable on the bunk and looking for another place to sit except that there’s no cover—just the hole. You can’t sit there unless you’ve got business. I could throw something at the pot and get up to put it in when I missed. That’s not bad but I haven’t got anything to throw. Why do I have to keep that old bag of mush from knowing that I’m looking for the flusher, that I’ve got to piss? It’s not right. I’m going over there right now and stand on the toilet seat and have a look around. I guess if she asks I can say I’m trying to look out the window.

  All right, everybody up, we’re going. We’re going to march right over there. Push with hands, lean forward a little, lift, all right legs. The thigh-links. How am I going to get up onto that toilet seat? Got to kneel down on one edge—inch forward across the hole to the other side—brace arms—push up with legs—little spring—all fours on the toilet seat—hands up on the wall—catch boot-heel on edge of seat so as not to tumble in—smile down Loki—be still Blendina—I’m standing on the toilet seat. One boot planted on each side of the hole, I’m standing upright—knock-kneed with the thigh-links, but upright. It must be the altitude that makes me so sick. Lay my cheek on the wall, this cold concrete for a minute. Things are settling down again but Marie is looking my way. I’ll have to pretend to be looking out through the window. No good, the damned window is still too high. It’s also too far into the middle of the wall to see from this corner. She’s going to know if I’m not careful. I’ll have to get down right away. I guess I can jump easily enough, but there’s something between my feet. I’m standing over her shit. I’m standing over a bowl of Marie’s brown turds.

  There’s someone at the door. A white-haired man in uniform. A gentle-faced old man who starts to see me up here. “Miss Dunn? You are to come downstairs with me.” I could kiss him. My boot-heels crack on the concrete and I can feel the heat spouting from the balls of my feet from jumping too hard, but there’s no time to limp. We’re going downstairs, this old man and I, and he’ll take my arm on the stairs like a lady, so they must know now who I am.

  He holds the heavy barred gate for me to pass through and as he swings the outer door closed I catch a glimpse of Marie sitting on the bunk smoking, looking at the floor. He locks the outer door and looks at me. I’ll give him a present, my sweetest smile.

  “I’m so glad you came just now. She almost caught me.”

  He takes my arm and leads me through the dark empty lobby to the stairs and helps me down. Turning and turning with the steps in a square-cornered spiral—past the ground floor and into the basement. Through the empty steam-heated fluorescent offices that echo. There’s a run in my stocking that shows in my calf as I walk but I console myself with the height of my boots and go on with my escort’s gentle age. So far he has taken me only through open doors though there are closed doors on either side of us. We seem to be approaching one completely closed door. It is not green or metal but a cherry wood panel with a shining knob.

  He stops before the door and letting go my arm smiles at me in his leather-brown wrinkles. “I’ll leave you here. There are some officers in the next room who want to speak with you. When you’re through I’ll come and get you.” Thank you papa forgive me so warm. But he knocks quickly and goes away.

  The door opens and the teacher says “You’re late, do you have a tardy slip?” I didn’t know, they just came to get me now….He shuts the door and marches to the front of the room. He takes a notebook from a large desk and writes in it. He looks up from writing and motions at me. “Come up here.” I begin to move toward him, up an aisle between the student desks. The rows of desks are long and none are empty so I wonder where I’d sit if I had come in time. At each desk someone bends over a book. No one looks at me or seems to notice that anything is going on. They are all silent. Finally I stand in front of him and he looks at me through thick lenses. His lips spread but his teeth are clenched and the words hiss out between them without affecting his face. “This is a tight school Miss, you’ll have to learn to bring an excuse if you’re late. You sit here on this stool and let the class get a good look at you.” I sit down but none of the students move or even look up from their books. The teacher hands me a tall paper cone saying “Here’s the proper hat for the likes of you.” It’s too big for my head and perches on my ears and rocks forward and backward alternately stopped by contact with the nape of my neck or the bridge of my nose. The precarious fit makes me nervous and I’m afraid of dropping it. I sit very straight and still with my legs hanging over the edge of the stool. Too high for me to touch the floor. No rungs to hook my heels in. While I’m arranging myself with the hat and the thigh-links pressing into my legs from being sat on, the teacher is rustling around in the papers piled on his desk. He comes up with a thick manila folder and starts leafing through it, muffled hmms and mrummphs. “Now then Miss, I’m going to ask you some questions. You take this book….” It’s so big I can barely hold it in my lap. Printed in gold leaf on the moldy cover: INDEPENDENCE LOCAL LEGIS LEXICON. “You’ll notice that this volume is in the form of a dictionary. I shall ask you a question which you will not answer immediately but will find instead listed in the LEXICON under the first letter of the initial word of the question. You will find the question whose wording corresponds exactly to the one I have asked. Next to that question in the LEXICON you will find another question. You are not to answer the question which I have asked, but only the question which appears next to it in the book. You will confine your answers to either ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Do you understand?”

  Yes.

  “Then we shall proceed….Is your name K Dunn alias K Rossich?”

  (Is it true that your parents were never legally married?)

  Uh, yes, well…

  “You were employed with a transient magazine sales crew at the time of your arrest?”

  (Did your stepfather have carnal knowledge of you when you were four?)

  I have to go to the bathroom very badly. These thigh-links are pinching my crotch and this book is wet on my legs. It’s funny, whenever I feel something wet on me or hear water running I have to pee so bad….

  “Answer the question please.”

  I raise my hand with all the fingers folded into my palm and wrapped in the thumb. Just the index finger sticks straight up. He’s not looking at my hand, just at my eyes with his blurred eyes behind the lenses. I don’t have any eye liner on, not even my glasses to hide my eyes.

  “Answer the question!”

  Is he going to hit me? What was the question? Yes.

  “Did you know that the check you tried to cash in the Kresge’s store this afternoon was drawn on a nonexisting account?”

  (Are the scars on your arms from monkey bites?)

  Hee hee oh ha ha yes

  “Did you write that check?”

  (Did you become a prostitute to support your habit?)

  No.

  “Did you trick a young man into writing the check to pay for magazines?”

  (Did you become a prostitute to pay a debt?)

  If Dogsbody were in shape she’d rub her titties on his arm and roll her eyes and get us to a john pretty quick. If I could slip out of her she’d get a better rest. It’s like being a Siamese twin joined at the crotch and trying to recover from pneumonia while your other half does the Watusi. Getting all those people to buy magazines these past few months probably wore her out.

  Oh yes! never let a person think!

  “Is it common practice for your magazine crew to trick people into buying from them?”

  (What did you prostitute?)

&nb
sp; I don’t think they know who I am! I used to be in all the school plays. I got such good grades all the way through high school that none of the teachers dared to put me on detention. I was on the debate squad. I was Song Leader of the Girls League. I would have got a National Merit Scholarship but I got drunk the night before the final exam and slept through it. I was such hot stuff that they used to let me wear Levi’s to school, and when I skipped school the truant officer used to come up to my house and drink beer with me. And my mother loves me. Don’t you see I’m gifted! Sensitive, an intellectual. You can’t treat me like a common criminal. I mean I write poetry and things….This magazine selling is just a joke because I ran away from college. I live in Oregon see, not on Liberty Street like I told you. We’re civilized out there, and people can go off all quiet to private little rooms to pee so nobody knows. And if you hear the toilet flushing you pretend you don’t. God I feel funny. They are so quiet. I’ve got to piss so bad I can taste it. He standing still with his teeth showing and those lenses like oceans between his eyes and mine. Somewhere a muffled slapping sound—the speaker over the door. A flap, a slap, steady and low. I never liked night classes.

  “Miss Dunn, we must take your refusal to speak as an affirmative answer. You are accused of possession and uttering of a fraudulent check. Do you understand the charge?”

  (Dogsbody is dead.)

  I’m off the stool and toddling as fast as the thigh-links allow. There’s something hot running down my legs but by the time it reaches my knees it’s cold. The floor behind me is wet and there’s laughter around me. The students are still in the same position. No one looks at me. No one moves but the laughter rises as I lurch down the aisle. Stumbling, I brush against one of the students. His body offers no resistance. It falls to the floor in the same position it held at the desk. The face looks intently at a book no longer before it and from the chest the laughter echoes. The door. It opens and the old man is standing there with his arm braced on the sill blocking my way. I open my mouth to yell and it closes on his arm. Taste of blue wool, sound of blue wool tearing as I fall. And through the torn sleeve that reaches for me a glimpse of metal rods and pulleys moving in the sleeve.

  —

  She doesn’t seem to need any sleep at all. I can’t seem to sleep either, but she’s been marching around stamping on bugs ever since I came back up. I have never been fond of bugs, but I haven’t any such ferocious energy as hers to waste mashing them when they’re more than two feet from me. Marie’s conscientious though, she goes looking for them. She’ll cross the whole room to get one if she sees it. I might be bothered by them if I could see, but as it is the floor’s dirty and I couldn’t tell a bug from a hunk of week-old scrambled egg without tasting it.

  Marie, does that toilet flush at all?

  “The handle’s in the next room. Somebody over there flushes it once a day, early in the morning. Usually wakes you up just before breakfast.”

  Funny I never noticed how her voice cracks. I guess she hasn’t said much.

  How long have you been here?

  “Going on eleven days.”

  Why what did they bust you for?

  “I was in the car but they said if I had to they wouldn’t and I began to bawl the neighbors saw it but didn’t mind so I started to run then they brought me here and made me put my clothes on.”

  What kind of bugs are those?

  “Schwinn bugs.”

  What?

  “They’s riding red Schwinn bicycles and they’ve got these transistor radios plugged into their ears and if you stand still for them they ride up your legs and scream ‘Mama, Mama, Mama!’ ”

  The wind’s gone and the boots are long enough to keep my legs warm. I can put my hands in my armpits. The cold reaction is all in how you breathe. If you let your diaphragm tighten up and take short jerky breaths you’re bound to shiver and your rib cage starts to ache. Breathe slowly, deeply, it’s no warmer but there’s less pain.

  In my dream I can hear the slow slap of Blendina’s cards falling on one another. I remember the sound from the speaker in the classroom. The water rushes in and the echoes drowning. The soles of Marie’s sneakers are in my face. The toilet is flushing alone in the corner and the pipes moan in the walls. This is the first time I’ve noticed how much taller I am than she is. Her feet are at the level of my nose but she is clutching my knees to her breast in her sleep. My feet extend inches beyond her head. Her mouth is open showing bruised naked gums. A glutinous stream of spittle runs onto my boots. I’m relieved to see there aren’t any bug carcasses on her soles. No ichor, no carapace potsherds, just dust. My sneeze makes her eyes pop open. She sits up and swings her feet to the floor without noticing me. There’s something about the way she holds her legs together, moving them as a unit, that reminds me of the thigh-links. I stretch a little to try them out before trying anything as strenuous as sitting up. The stretch is painful. My shame of last night has left me with a clammy case of iron diaper rash. With no chance of spreading my legs to dry-air my panty crotch and the adjacent flesh will stay wet and hot for quite a while. I’m rubbed raw and the pain makes pissing urgent. I wish I’d gotten up without waking Marie. Now that whole scene begins again with a fresh-flushed toilet.

  The doors rattle and breakfast comes in but I blink and miss the action. By the time my eyes open the doors are closed and there are two paper plates beside me on the bunk. I sit up and hold the soggy plate high over my lap. Close up under my chin where the wetness won’t elicit my urinary response and I can see whether there are bugs in the food. The pancakes and the plate have already soaked up the molasses. The three-pronged plastic fork makes grooves in the sweet wet paper. The pancakes make my stomach tight and heavy. Marie is eating from the other plate and drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

  The air is damp. The gray light from the window makes the bulb’s light invisible. Outside in the square the carillon bells begin the day with “I’ll take you home again Kathleen.” The first notes fall heavily through our window.

  Marie is at the bugs again. She is silent and terrible. I’m as still as possible trying to let Dogsbody rest. She is still totally unresponsive.

  Lunch is here. Dry turkey and cranberry stain on the paper. Mashed potatoes. I have a Styrofoam cup of my own now. The old man brought it. He said “Happy Thanksgiving.” These plates follow those from breakfast onto the pile in the corner. Fewer bloody rags show on that pile now.

  —

  He’s here for me again—the old man. He’s standing patiently at the door while I make my way to him. It hurts to walk now. I mustn’t fall with Dogsbody in this condition. The outer room is brighter now. Does Marie ever leave the cell?

  “Marie? You mean the gal in there with you? Her name is Sophie.”

  We’re in the basement again. Two men in a large room. Fingerprints. He holds my hand to press each finger first on the ink pad then on the paper. A little tub of soap jelly, the ink disappears from my fingers. The other man sets up lights, a camera. I lean against a stool in front of a large sheet of paper. A feeble D.B. smile, the profile. May I have a copy when they’re printed?

  “Sure Baby, you bet.”

  I’m afraid of the telephone but it’s the law. The dial spins beneath my fingers. Buzz—click.

  “At the tone the time will be 1:13 and 30 seconds…dong.”

  Hello Horace this is K.

  “At the tone the time will be 1:13 and 40 seconds…dong.”

  Will you get me a lawyer?

  “At the tone the time will be 1:13 and 50 seconds…dong.”

  Thanks Horace, anybody will do—don’t spend a lot—

  “At the tone the time will be 1:14 exactly…dong.”

  Thanks a lot, really. It’s good to know you have friends.

  “At the tone the time will be 1:14 and 10 seconds…dong.”

  O.K. Goodbye, I’ll see you.

  “At the tone the time will…click.”

  I turn smiling to the two men. Their tee
th are showing and their scalps seem tight.

  —

  I can hear voices in the next room. They are coming in through the open transom. Marie hears them too. She leaves her bugs for the moment and goes to the door. Looking up toward the transom she hooks her fingers into the steel lattice of the inner door. She puts the toe of her left sneaker into the lattice a foot from the floor. She pulls with her arms and pushes with her left leg until she can put her right toe into the lattice above the left. She moves her left hand higher, and then her right hand. She climbs the door like a net. At the top she hooks her arms over the sill of the transom and stands in the upper strips of the lattice. She turns her head to look at me and then looks through the transom. I can see far up her skirt to where she stops being thin legs and becomes fat thighs. She shouts and her skirt shakes as she shouts. “Let me out of here! I want out of here!”

  The voices go on in the next room without a break. After a while she comes down but her neck and face are very red. She sits at one end of the bunk for a long time. I sit at the other end wishing they would take her out so I could piss.

  Marie is pissing and shitting simultaneously into that clean toilet. She just got right up off the bunk and walked over there and pulled up her skirt and sat down. I turned my face away quick and put my cheek to the cool wall but I can hear it anyway. Her water is running into the toilet water and the porcelain and water form an echo chamber for her farts. Every few seconds there is an isolated splash. She just sits there looking at the floor as though she weren’t doing anything.

  I don’t have to have a perfectly clean toilet. I could piss over her piss but I can’t piss over her shit, much less shit over it and have them mix. It would be terrible if mine came out lighter or darker than hers—you could tell whose they were. Even worse if they were the same. Couldn’t tell all mixing and twisting, diluted in the water. I’ll just have to wait till they flush the toilet tomorrow and get up before her.

  Marie is talking to someone outside. He must be in the tree near our window. During the day I could just see a naked twig dancing against our bars but I’m sure it’s connected to a tree. All I can hear is Marie and the wind but I’m probably too far from the window. She’s standing right under it shouting to him. “What you say? Eh?…Eh?…Oh sure! I’m swell!—you tell the fellas I’m fine! Eh?…Why sure I’ll be out soon….How’re you Joe? Wife O.K.? Ha ha!…Yeah Joe I know how it is! Well, you just hang tight till I get out of here and I’ll make it up to you! Yeah! O.K….Eh? What? Oh yeah goodbye Joe.”