“Is that all there is?” asks Louis. We look around. It seems it is. The diner is empty. Jams and butters and honeys are everywhere. Poppy has disappeared into the kitchen. Possibly forever. We look out the window. Out on the street are a few orange and red and green bouncing balls neither Louis nor I have even seen before, but otherwise not much else. Our friend Ferguson runs past us. I knock hard on the glass and call out, “Hey, Ferguson, is that all there is?” But he doesn’t hear me. “Go on without us,” calls out Louis. But Ferguson has already gone on.
“Look,” says Louis. “Something fell out of Ferguson’s pocket.” Louis and I rush out of the empty diner to see what it is. Two identical black seahorses lie on their sides. Their heads are touching. I am careful not to get too close. There is something wrong with these seahorses. It is possible their heads are attached. It is possible neither one is my black seahorse. It is possible they are not alive.
“So is THAT all there is?” asks Louis. He waves his arms around, messily. He seems angry. I don’t know if by THAT he means the seahorses or my feelings about the seahorses or my still missing black seahorse or the flash of Ferguson or the broken tower forever ruined or the orange and red and green bouncing balls which are all still bouncing or life in general or eternity or his undying love for me which might be dying a little on account of the seahorses and on account of kissing Poppy.
When we get home Louis C.K., my husband, piles all our seahorses in the middle of our twin bed and starts shouting. I think back to the two identical black seahorses. What, if anything, belongs to me? I mean, really belongs to me? I look up at Louis. Our bed is shrinking. Every day he destroys me. And every day I destroy him in return. Little tiny bits of destroying. It’s barely noticeable. We have a baby somewhere, but it is too small. Louis is piling and shouting and piling and shouting. I see bruise seahorse and growling seahorse and rotten seahorse and close-up seahorse and wooden seahorse and happy seahorse and the empty one, but I don’t see black seahorse. I call Ferguson. He doesn’t answer. I leave a message.
We go through this every night. In the morning everything is fine.
“Louis?” “Yes, Seahorse?” Louis calls me Seahorse. “Have we gotten to the sad part yet?” “Yes, Seahorse, we have.”
“When do we get to the funny part, Louis?” “Soon,” says Louis. “Soon.”
Louis C.K. and I go to the misty boneyard. Ferguson is there. He is swaying back and forth, like he’s praying. In the middle of the boneyard is a water fountain. I take a sip. Louis takes a sip. He looks around. “Whose bones are these, Seahorse?” I look around. “Probably ours,” I say. Louis puts his hand over his mouth and spits. A tooth falls out. A small one. It is hardly essential to Louis’ mouth. “Have we gotten to the funny part, Louis?” “No, Seahorse, not yet.” He gives me the tooth to hold. I shift it in my palm. It is ice cold.
In the space where Louis’ tooth once was is a tiny white seahorse, flashing bright.
We slow dance in the misty boneyard. When Louis isn’t looking, I let his tooth fall out of my hand and disappear into a pile of bones.
Ferguson is still swaying. He shakes his fists in the air, opens them, and out flies a shower of black seahorses. I count fifty. Maybe more.
I collect them all. I stuff them into my shirt.
I am hungry. I want more black seahorses because my black seahorse is still missing. Louis C.K., my husband, and I go back to look for the seahorses that yesterday fell out of Ferguson’s pocket. It is a long walk from the misty boneyard to the diner. It takes us two full days, but we get there. The seahorses are exactly where we left them. With the tip of his thumb, Louis flips them over and quickly jumps back. The seahorses crack apart. There is writing on each belly.
On one seahorse it says, “I do not belong to you.”
On the other seahorse it says, “Neither do I.”
Louis begins to laugh. Then I begin to laugh. Then Poppy emerges from the sunshine and she begins to laugh too. We are rolling on the ground laughing. I am laughing so hard my chest hurts. Like I am being shot in the heart over and over and over again by bullets in the shape of all the black seahorses that will never belong to me. I want to ask Louis if this is the funny part, but I am laughing so hard I can barely breathe.
I want to ask Louis if this is the funny part, but when I catch my breath and look up Poppy and Louis are gone. The only one to ask is a police officer whistling in the distance.
In the morning everything is fine.
THE SEVENTH WIFE
When the husband’s seventh wife is sad because she was not his first wife or his second or even his third wife the husband brings her fish. He brings her Cod and Sole. He brings her Mackerel, Herring, Eel, Bonnetmouth, Trout, and Bleak. He brings her Barb, Ghost Carp, and Ghoul. The husband does not want his seventh wife to be sad and so he brings her Flounder. He brings her Mullet, Snook, Pickerel, Salmon, and Perch. He brings her Grunt. He brings her Bitterling and Milkfish. He brings her Tuna.
He doesn’t even ask her to gut them. He guts them himself.
She doesn’t want all this fish, but fish is what he brings her. Her face is puffy from crying. She opens her whitish melancholy mouth. A little like a fish the seventh wife looks, but the husband has not realized this yet. “Did you know … Paul?” begins the seventh wife. She takes a few bites of Trout. “Did you know sixteenth-century natural historians classified seals, whales, amphibians, crocodiles, even hippopotamuses as fish?” She chews a little Mackerel. “Where’s my hippopotamus, Paul? What were you thinking, Paul?” Paul is forever in the soup for touching and kissing and marrying those women. For all the fish he brings her there is always too much fish and there is fish missing. The seventh wife pushes some Bleak around her plate. “Where’s my Seal,” mutters the seventh wife grimly.
And where are ex-wives one through six now? Where are Amy and Carol and Amy, and Amy, and Carol, and Bernadette now? They are peering in through the window. They have arrived with a side dish of yams. They clutch one another and demand their fish be boiled and fried and baked and poached. They look furrier than Paul remembers. Wilder. The seventh wife pushes her Snook away. She has lost her appetite. As usual, Paul is filled with remorse. He wishes his seventh wife were a duck. The only duck swimming around in his duck pond.
THERE’S A HOLE IN THE BUCKET
I look at the bucket. There is unquestionably a hole. An entire family could live in this hole. “I see the hole,” I yell. “Call Mendelssohn.” My husband, Dear Henry, calls Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn comes right over. We look at the bucket. There is a hole. Mendelssohn studies it. He takes some notes. The southernmost edge of the hole is silent, possibly frozen. The northernmost, rough and forgotten. Mendelssohn sniffs it. “Smells like gone,” he says, “just as I thought.” Mendelssohn cups his ear, listens to its center, and jots down: “A slight trace of harp. The bare cry of a faraway boy.” “With what shall we,” asks Dear Henry, “fix it?” The flower in Dear Henry’s breast pocket is a pink I’ve never seen before. “Lean close,” says Mendelssohn. We lean close. “This is going to be a nightmare.” Dear Henry and I nod our heads. We know already we will need to fetch the water with a bucket to fix the hole but we will have no bucket to fetch the water to fix the hole because the bucket with which we would fetch the water has a hole. A white balloon wafts over Dear Henry’s head. We are failing miserably. “With what,” asks Dear Henry, “shall we fix it?” He asks again because even though we know how everything ends, the ending remains unimaginable. “With straw,” says Mendelssohn, hopelessly. “With straw, I guess,” says Mendelssohn again. I look around for straw. Dear Henry opens a can of sardines. He pulls back the tin lid and offers me one. “No thanks,” I say. “Looking for straw,” I say. He offers a sardine to Mendelssohn. “Why not,” shrugs Mendelssohn. “Sardines are caught mainly at night,” says Dear Henry. “I know,” says Mendelssohn, chewing slowly on the fish. “They are caught when they rise to the surface to feed on plankton,” says Dear Henry. “This i
s when they’re caught,” says Dear Henry. “They’re caught at night when they’re the hungriest.” “I know,” says Mendelssohn. “Everybody knows.” “Except, I guess, for the sardines,” says Dear Henry. Mendelssohn laughs. “It’s not a joke,” says Dear Henry. “Sorry,” says Mendelssohn. “I’m sorry too,” says Dear Henry. “For what?” asks Mendelssohn. “Just for everything,” says Dear Henry. “The bucket, and the hole, and just everything.” Even though I am certain when I find the straw the straw will be too long and I will need to cut the straw with an axe but the axe will be too dull and I will need to sharpen the axe with a stone but the stone will be too dry and with a hole in the bucket there is no hope for ever fetching water to wet the stone, I am nevertheless still looking around for straw. This is the song we’re in. I hate this bucket. “I hate this bucket,” I yell. “More than the hole?” asks Dear Henry. He looks so sad. “The hole is the hole that the hole should be. It’s the bucket that’s destroying us, Dear Henry. It’s the bucket.” I look at Mendelssohn. I mean I really look at him. Every day he looks more and more like my mother. “With what shall we fix it, Mendelssohn?” I am exhausted. How many times can a person ask the same question? Mendelssohn kneels gently beside the bucket and reaches all the way in. His dark soft curls cover his eyes. “Liza,” says Dear Henry, grabbing my arm, “I think we’re dying.” With a stone in his hand, Mendelssohn reaches all the way into the bucket, past the hole, past god, and summer, and almonds, and shame, and the ocean, and mice, and love, and fevers, and worship, and snails, and teeth, and lilac, and forgiveness, and a song about a bucket with a hole in it, and past all the children singing the song, and past their children singing it, and their children’s children, and past my broken heart until he reaches the oldest water and wets the stone. He pulls the stone out and sets it right on top of Dear Henry’s head as if Dear Henry were a tombstone and I’ve come to his grave to mourn him. The wet stone glistens so brightly I need to cover my eyes. “With what,” asks Dear Henry, “shall we …” I can barely hear him. The song is fading like a song. It is what it is. I remove the wet stone from the top of Dear Henry’s head and bury it in my pocket. I notice that the crack shaped like a bucket on Dear Henry’s cheek is spreading. There’s a hole in that bucket too. I look over at Mendelssohn. He is building a whole entire city out of buckets. “There are holes in all of these,” says Mendelssohn who is now covered in holes under a sky covered in holes lit by a moon covered in holes kept by prayers covered in holes. Off in the distance, I can already see the people coming to live in Mendelssohn’s City of Holes. There are so many people, and they are so beautiful and hopeful. And they too are covered in holes. They each carry a bucket. And in each bucket is a hole. This is the song we’re in.
DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING, STAND THERE!
It all began with the milk.
The milk belonged to my lover, Mr. Rabinowitz.
For a long time something beautiful was going to happen.
But this was not the beautiful thing.
Had the milk landed on my nose as my lover, Mr. Rabinowitz, swears he had intended, we would’ve had a judderous laugh about it.
But Mr. Rabinowitz fucked up.
Just yesterday I accompanied my lover, Mr. Rabinowitz, to the forest.
How could he have forgotten so quickly?
I think there were thieves.
My lover, Mr. Rabinowitz, dipped his thumb and fore-finger into his cereal bowl and flicked the milk (that once belonged to him) at me.
In the forest I was frightened.
In the forest there were thieves.
In the forest my lover, Mr. Rabinowitz, showed off his wilderness skills by reciting Waiting for Godot.
“Excuse me, mister. The bones. You won’t be needing the bones?”
But I did need the bones.
The milk landed not on my nose but on my newly bought, barely worn dream rush chemise.
My mother warned me that without the bones no one, not even Mr. Rabinowitz, my lover, who loved me one hundred times a day, would ever love me.
Could ever love me.
I needed the bones, but I could not admit to needing the bones.
The economy was failing and my dream rush chemise was ruined.
Forever?
Possibly forever.
Mr. Rabinowitz, my lover, was just joking around.
We were unemployed.
I heard a thud.
“Did you hear a thud?”
“It’s your mother!” cheered my lover, Mr. Rabinowitz.
“She has come with the bones?”
“She has come to save us from our economic woes?”
“Very funny.”
In literature a character’s “fatal flaw” requires she take a metaphorical or literal plummet.
“Don’t just do something,” said my mother, “stand there!”
So I stood there.
A long time ago I wrote a book.
The main character’s name was Beatrice.
Shortly after, my mother had a baby and named her Beatrice.
Then she had another.
She named that baby Beatrice too.
Then she had another.
She named that baby Beatrice too.
Mr. Rabinowitz, my lover, is named Mr. Rabinowitz because you cannot name a baby Mr. Rabinowitz.
But I did need the bones.
My mother took the bones away while I just stood there in my ruined chemise.
Would never love me.
Could never love me.
This was not the beautiful thing.
I was groggy with milk, which is another way of saying I was ashamed at my inability to start yelling.
At my mother.
For taking the bones.
At Mr. Rabinowitz.
For flicking the milk.
At all the Beatrices.
For not being the real Beatrice, although my mother claimed each of them to be.
At my mother.
For claiming each of them to be.
The real Beatrice lives in the book I wrote a long time ago.
The real Beatrice is terrified of nests, and string, and cashews, and Poland, and carousels for good reason.
There are stains that happen suddenly and can never be washed out.
“And if they could?”
“We would be saved.”
“For god’s sake,” said my mother, “Mr. Rabinowitz, your lover, was just joking around.”
Speaking of jokes, let me tell you a joke I once heard at a funeral.
His wife had died young and he told the joke at the funeral because she loved the joke, every day she loved the joke, and now he had to live a life he couldn’t bear to live without her so he told the joke.
“What’s red, hangs from a wall, and whistles?”
“What?”
“A herring.”
“A herring? But a herring isn’t red.”
“All right! So you paint the herring red!”
“But a herring doesn’t hang from a wall.”
“All right! So you take a hammer and you nail the herring to the wall!”
“But a herring doesn’t whistle.”
“All right! So it doesn’t whistle!”
“I don’t get it.”
“And if we dropped him? (Pause) If we dropped him?”
“He’d punish us (Silence. He looks at the tree.).”
Just yesterday I accompanied my lover, Mr. Rabinowitz, to the forest.
Would never love me.
Could never love me.
In the forest there were trees.
“I thought you said thieves,” said the Beatrices.
The economy was failing.
We were unemployed.
“Unemployed people, Mr. Rabinowitz,” said my mother, “should not be flicking milk.”
They started kissing.
“Who?” asked Mr. Rabinowitz. “Who started kissing?”
“You and my mother.”
“All right!” said my mother. “So we started kissing!”
“I don’t get it,” said Mr. Rabinowitz.
“Don’t just do something,” said the Beatrices, “stand there!”
So I stood there in my ruined chemise while my lover, Mr. Rabinowitz, and my mother kissed and kissed and kissed.
“You’re sure you saw me, you won’t come and tell me tomorrow you never saw me?”
“Of course not,” said the real Beatrice.
There are stains that happen suddenly, and can never be washed out.
For a long time something beautiful was going to happen.
But this was not the beautiful thing.
This was the beautiful thing.
“I saw you,” said the real Beatrice.
The herring started to whistle.
“You saw me?”
“I saw you.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am thankful for support from the Sustainable Arts Foundation Award that allowed me time to complete this book.
To Danielle Dutton and Martin Riker, for this dream come true. To my oracles: Amber Dermont, Kristen Iskandrian, and Amy Margolis. Thank you for your friendship and your spells. To Will Walton, my army of one. To Avid Bookshop, one day I will write you an 800-page love letter but for now I forever salute you. To the Crying Room. To my students, thank you for the honor of bearing witness. To Wynn Walter and Kathy Setzer for guiding my sons with love and tenderness while I wrote many of these stories. And to the women of Athens who gave me a sweater when I needed it most, especially: Samara Scheckler, Hope Hilton, Shira Chess, Deirdre Sugiuchi, and Sarah Baugh.
To my father, Richard K. Mark, dear healer, thank you for always being there for me. No matter what. Rain or shine. And to my mother, Cindy Worenklein, for heaven and earth. To Jay Worenklein and Harriet Bass, the kindest, most loving stepparents in all the land.
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