The Shelf Life of Fire

by Robin Greene

  The next day, we rent Mopeds and drive them recklessly the wrong way down one-way side streets. I’m driving on a sidewalk. Sonya maneuvers her Moped up beside mine, motions with her map. We pull over on the street among parked cars, decide to find the Louvre and the Eifel Tower.

  We climb up the Eifel Tower, look at the Paris beneath us. We stand in front of the Mona Lisa after waiting in line for about half an hour. She is small and wonderful.

  Later, we sit at a café as a man approaches us and asks to join us at the table. We agree and try to speak French as he attempts English. After a few laughs, we become friendly, and question him about a good, inexpensive place to stay as we’ve had to check out of the YMCA because the entire place had been booked many months ago by a large group of Japanese students traveling across Europe. He replies with the suggestion that we stay at his apartment.

  Sonya tells the man, “No couche,” a slang, mostly literary term, roughly translated to “no bed” that Sonya’s dad has taught her. He had lived in Paris for the three years following his service in World War II and thought this phrase might serve Sonya in certain situations.

  “No, no, no,” the man says, shaking both his head and hands, insulted that we’d mention such a thing. Sonya and I take him up on his offer and soon follow him down many sad city streets, up old stairs that lead to a depressing little apartment above a butcher’s shop in a rundown area of Paris.

  The man introduces us to his young son, maybe seven or eight, who is playing in his room on a bare mattress. I’m surprised that he’s been left alone and that the man hadn’t mentioned him. The boy looks up, smiles. Snap.

  The man shows us his room, where two mattresses lie across a bare wooden floor. A bulb hangs on an electrical cord from the ceiling. The man explains that this is where we will sleep.

  I-40 has been stalled with traffic twice now—once with the accident, now with roadwork splicing two lanes into one. The delay only lasts a few minutes, and soon I turn onto I-95.

  Instinctively, I turn on the radio, find NPR, and listen to a rebroadcast of “Fresh Air.” Terry Gross is interviewing a young female actor whose name I don’t catch.

  “So, tell me,” Terry continues. “What made you want to act? I mean, as a child, is this the profession to which you aspired?”

  “No,” the actor says. “My dad was a neuroscientist and taught at university. My mother was a writer of children’s books. I thought I’d grow up to be a teacher or a professor. Maybe English. I always loved books.”

  I turn off the radio and think back to Paris. To that night. Did I have aspirations? Did I think that I’d become an English professor or that I’d write? The actor had such smart professional parents. A real advantage, I think.

  But we all have inheritances. Advantages, disadvantages, strengths, weaknesses. We do what we can.

  “My parents did their best,” I say aloud. And I’ve done mine.

  “Dad,” I say now. “I love you. I’m sorry that I failed you.” I begin to weep. I can’t remember my father’s face.

  Then, I’m back in Paris again. With Sonya, in that decrepit Paris apartment.

  Sonya and I are in our sleeping bags on top of the bare mattresses. Snap. Neon lights from restaurants and bars blink through a window without shade or curtain. I’m sleepy, doze off, but not completely. Soon the man wakes up. I open my eyes to see that he’s motioning to us and to his groin, standing there, naked, with an erection.

  Sonya is awake, and we’re both on high alert now. But it’s the middle of the night, and the naked man is short, thin, pitiful. His dark greasy hair is combed, fitting like a cap on his head, and his feet are apart. He points to his penis as if it were a small uncaged animal he needs our help in capturing.

  Sonya looks at me, and I look at her. For some reason the man has targeted Sonya and stares imploringly at her. Standing above us, he is ominous—primal man with primal needs. Sonya, elbows me, whispers, “Want to go?”

  We quickly discuss. The neighborhood is dangerous. We don’t know where we are or how to get back to the Paris of yesterday. And it’s still dark out; although we don’t know the exact time, we estimate that it’s about 4:00 a.m.

  “Don’t know,” I say, propped on my elbows, looking at Sonya, who nods. The man is small and unimposing, yet insistent.

  But now the man touches Sonya’s shoulder. Sonya brushes off his hand, whispering “creepy” to me, and we’re totally awake. Climbing out of her sleeping bag, her long hair disheveled, wearing sweatpants and a tee-shirt, Sonya nods at me.

  “Okay, let’s go,” I tell her, noticing the neon lights outside the bedroom still blinking in predawn gray. Grizzly, bare.

  “Yes,” Sonya says. And we roll up our sleeping bags, stuff our belongings into knapsacks, the man still standing there, now speaking rapid French in an increasingly loud voice. Thankfully, though, he doesn’t become belligerent—upset, yes, but willing to let us leave.

  On the highway, I signal to change lanes. There’s a lot of truck traffic, and the right lane is moving slowly. I rev up Ruby, make my move. Successful.

  Now, locking in at seventy-five, I cycle back to Sonya.

  Down the rickety dark stairs, Sonya and I make our way into the predawn morning, where the Paris air is cool and moist and settles into a gray fog beneath the streetlights.

  Oddly, traffic on I-95 has opened, and the sun, setting to my left, casts a last orangey glow over the landscape. I move into the right lane again, pop the cruise control back to sixty-five, slip off my sandals, and push them deep under the front seat.

  We wander the Paris streets, walking out from that grimy residential neighborhood to try to find an open café.

  Snap. Sonya and I find a café and meet two guys, an artist and his friend. The pair are young, hip, sitting at an outdoor table, drinking coffee, eating croissants.

  They’re animated, friendly, but Sonya and I eat quickly, excuse ourselves, and leave.

  The streets are cobblestone. Sonya and I walk one block, then another. Paris is waking up. Cars honk, the tawdry night veneer has been peeled back to reveal another city, more charming, trustworthy. A woman in a clean gingham apron sweeps the sidewalk in front of her shop. A man straps a briefcase onto the back of his Vespa. Two school girls in short plaid skirts, starched white shirts, bobby socks, Oxford shoes, knapsacks on their back, walk by us, giggling and holding hands. I look at Sonya, put my arm around her waist. She turns her face to me, smiles, and I realize that I love her. Snap.

  A road sign announces that I’m back in Cumberland County. Four more exits now until the I-295 connector and I get off.

  I’ve had such a busy mind, this drive home, I think. But I’m not done.

  Later in our trip, Sonya and I split up for a few days. Sonya wants to visit a friend in Germany, a girl who studied as a foreign exchange student in Sonya’s high school. I decide to hitchhike to Amsterdam, mostly to see the city and also to give Sonya time with her friend.

  On my second ride across Belgium, a businessman picks me up in his newer model Volvo. I get into the front seat, and the man, dressed in a dark suit, only speaks Dutch and French. I peel an orange on my lap—breakfast—and as I do, the man pulls the car abruptly onto the shoulder. Cars zooms past us at a hundred kilometers an hour.

  The man tries to rip open my blue work-shirt. I scream, grab his jacket lapels, thrust him against his door. “No,” I yell. “No!” Snap, snap, snap.

  He releases me, and as I unlock the door, I fall backwards out of his car, knapsack tumbling out with me. The man throws my half-peeled orange at me, as I sit stunned, heart racing, by the side of the road. He takes off, leaving skid marks on the asphalt shoulder.

  Snap. I sit there for maybe five minutes, my heart thumping against the cage of my chest, before a I hear an air horn and look up to see a large commercial truck has stopped for me, maybe seventy-five feet ahead.

  Gathering my knapsack, I toss the half-eaten orange into the nearby undergrowth, find my legs, wal
k to the truck cab. The driver, a bit grizzly, with a long auburn beard and plaid flannel shirt but a lovely smile, welcomes me. We drive uneventfully into Amsterdam.

  It’s dark out now, nearly 9:00, and I turn on my car lights. I’m ready to be home.

  thirty-one

  I pull into the driveway. I fish out my house keys, and when I open the door, Jake is there to greet me. I bend to pet him, both of us making our way into the kitchen. I put my bag on the table, turn on the light.

  “Food, Jake?” I pick up his bowl, and he follows at my heels until I feed him. Exhausted, I recheck my phone to find that it’s remained on mute. I place it on the counter.

  In the sunroom, I sit on the couch in darkness. Something, a memory, stirs. I get up, go upstairs to my study, switching on my bronze serpent lamp, a leftover from my father’s furniture store.

  In an instant, I’m back there, and see my dad working at his office desk. “Hello, Rae.” he turns to me to say, flashing a brief smile, and I now see his face.

  The room is alive. I sit at my laptop, open the file I’ve been working on—twenty-two pages—and read what’s there. A beginning, perhaps, or maybe a throwaway.

  I drill down to see if I can continue. Jake struggles up the stairs to join me. I wait a moment as he enters the room and jumps up to nap on my futon.

  I draw a lifeline on a blank sheet of paper. I write my birth year at one end and the year of my death at the other end, an optimistic ninety-two, barring suicide or fatal accidents.

  I add other dates: college graduation, marriage, Cal’s birth, first graduate degree, Will’s birth, second graduate degree. I think of my book publications but don’t add them. I think of my suicide attempt. No. My European trip, maybe.

  I crumble the paper, toss it into the garbage, and open up a new Word document. A memory stirs, and I think back to my Queens apartment, to my shared bedroom, sensing something there.

  I close my eyes: I’m in bed, under my pink winter quilt; my brother stands next to me. But the room smells bad, has a stuffy, almost acrid odor. I breathe into it.

  Then stop. I know this moment; I’ve been here before. I close my eyes and press.

  “Dennis,” I say, and now recognize that the smell is his. “Tell me the secret before you die.”

  k

  The room is dark, and we’re back in our shared bedroom in Queens, in twin beds along opposite walls. I open my eyes, and Dennis sees I’m awake. The window blinds are open slightly, letting in the faint glow of streetlights, illuminating the gray space between Dennis and me, between me and memory.

  Dennis throws back his covers. It’s early morning, and hours before our parents rise. Dennis leaves his bed and approaches mine. He’s touches the front of his pajama bottoms and strokes my cheek, telling me to relax. My jaw clenches and relaxes.

  Through the gauze of time I see him standing by my bedside—an eight-year-old boy, skinny, in baggy cotton pajamas that have a cowboy theme. They’re brown and beige, printed with a checkerboard pattern. Images of lassos, pointed boots, and cowboys on bucking horses fill blocks in the grid like cells in a cartoon.

  Dennis is with me, inside one of the cells. Like a cowboy himself, he has drawn a gun from some hidden holster, and he’s forcing it into my mouth.

  “Don’t shoot,” I whisper.

  But Dennis smiles at me, and his gun is aimed and steady, and then, suddenly, I’ve become his horse, choking on my bit, and he’s urging me to gallop. Which I can’t, because he’s holding me down, and his grip is tight. I want to scream, but I’m choking. I want to breathe fully, but I can’t.

  In the next moment, we’re back in our separate beds.

  “Dennis,” I say, summoning him now. And as I do, two faces appear—the boy’s and the dying man’s. But are they smiling or grimacing?

  The ghost-child groans as if in pain, looks up imploringly at me, but says nothing. Somehow, in this act of terrible intimacy, Dennis and I have traded places, and he is no longer the victim.

  “Dennis, I understand,” I say to my dying brother, who hovers so closely that I can smell his cancer.

  “Don’t forget me,” he says, and blows me a foul-smelling kiss.

  k

  I pace the upstairs—walk from my bedroom to Cal’s old bedroom to Will’s old bedroom and back. I’m remembering an enormous fight I had with my mother before Sonya and I left for Europe. Although my mom had agreed that hitchhiking in Europe would be far safer than traveling in the U.S., she had reservations.

  And even at that late moment, even after she had given me her permission and Sonya and I had already bought our tickets, she was nervous about letting me go. We fought for hours. I kept insisting that Europe wasn’t dangerous and I’d be fine.

  “Mom,” I tell her now. “You were right. Europe was dangerous. But the real danger was in my bedroom in Queens.”

  She stands before me, vaporous, dressed in ١٩٧٠s black pants with a royal blue pull-over sweater, too warm for the weather. She’s thirty-five years old, younger than Cal is today.

  “Did you know what Dennis did, Mom?” I ask her shadow-self.

  “No,” she replies. “I knew absolutely nothing. How could I have known?” And balancing a cigarette between long slender fingers, she takes a drag. Her cheeks suck in and her red-lipped mouth puckers. When she exhales, a large cloud of smoke surrounds her, and she’s gone.

  I try to find my anger—at her, at Dennis, on behalf of the victim-child I was, but it’s a lost thing, misplaced in the chaos of years.

  We were all victims, I think. And perhaps Dennis was hurt the most—by his assailant, by his gambling, and by now the cancer that will kill him.

  k

  “Does fire have a shelf life?” Does rage burn out? I imagine being consumed by fire, burned alive by it, like the Vietnamese monks of the sixties and seventies, who set themselves aflame, in protest. And what for?

  My mom has suffered and Dennis has suffered. And I, too, have suffered. I think of firearms, of guns, the gun that was pointed at my brother’s head when he was raped. And the gun that appeared in my dream. Perhaps my confusion about gender has its origins here.

  I’m in Cal’s old room, and I sit on the futon, turning my hand into a gun that I aim at the ghosts of my mother, my father, my brother—as I challenge them to come, be present with me. But they won’t appear. I’m alone. I point the gun at my own head and say “bang.”

  thirty-two

  It’s Saturday. I wake to another hot, sunny summer morning. I’ve not responded to my missed calls or messages; in fact, I’ve turned my phone off. I’ve been on silent retreat. No words except for those I’ve spoken to myself or written.

  For breakfast, I eat a piece of whole wheat toast with homemade apricot jam that a student gave to me as a present last semester. I eat only that and sip coffee. I sit at the kitchen table, thinking I’ll take a short walk along the Cape Fear Nature Trail before it gets too hot.

  I put on my Capri yoga pants, a black camisole, over-shirt, socks, sneakers, and I’m off in Ruby, driving the short distance to the trailhead.

  Rape. Silence. Writing. Faith. That ought to be my mantra. I walk the paved trail down the first big hill. Not a soul out. One bird sings, a long trill, followed by another bird, whose call is twittery, sharp. In the distance are muffled road sounds. A waist pack I’m wearing jiggles with loose change and keys against my right hip.

  At the bottom of the hill, I notice a side path into a wooded area and take it. Yes, ticks are bad this time of year, but I’ll take my chances.

  The path is sandy. Many of the border trees are longleaf pines, with thick rough bark, few lower branches, and tall majestic profiles lifting to the sky. Lifting. I breathe in the warm heavy morning air. I see filtered light as if broken into atoms and molecules. Matter. Stuff of the universe. And what “matters.” I think back to the museum, to Rodin’s heavy bronze sculptures. To El Anatsui’s sculpture with cut metal cans draped on the wall. Creation. Connection. With the wo
rld, the universe, the self. God in all things, connecting us like thought to action.

  Leaves crunch beneath my feet. On a fallen tree off the path, I sit in the cathedral of pines, oak, and trees I can’t identify. My heart pumps hard as I look back at the trail to realize that I’ve been walking uphill.

  Staring through the underbrush, I spot a deer, then two, three, four. Two are fawns. The large one looks directly at me, swishes its tail. I think it smells more than it sees. I breathe deeply to catch its wild, gamey scent. Its spirit is untamed, untamable.

  The four deer stand only ten feet from me—animal spirits, representing the eternal energy to meet life’s challenges with grace. Deer totem, I recall, is associated with gentleness, strength, regeneration.

  Finally, the deer move. Slowly at first, then trotting into the woods. I watch them until they all disappear. The path now is straight, level, no longer uphill.

  k

  Jake sleeps on the couch and doesn’t see or hear me when I come in. Such an old dog, I think; he won’t be with us much longer. I pet him as he wags his tail a couple of times, opening his ancient eyes—deep down in their sockets—bloodshot, struggling, before closing them to return to heavy sleep.

  Walking upstairs to shower, I first turn on the radio to break the silence. I peel off my sticky clothes, tossing them into the laundry basket. I find a cool cotton-knit sundress, take it off the hanger and lay it out on the bed as Jake lumbers up the stairs to join me.

  I shower, the water forceful and warm against my skin—a celebration. Out of the shower, I towel off and catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror—sad, worn, old, undesirable. No, I correct: beautiful. Go with that.

  I find my scar. I touch it. The uneven, pulled skin feels like a soft, embedded centipede. Then I feel my mother’s lips kissing it, hear her voice assuring me that it’s beautiful. I think of the fawn in the woods, its spirit totem: grace to meet challenges.

  “Live with it,” I say aloud. “Live with it all.”