Ball

by Tara Ison

  He does not accuse her—on the contrary, he revels in her refinement, contrasts her constantly with other women, the coarse, withholding, pedestrian past

  a)girlfriends

  b)wives

  c)lovers

  in whom he placed such mistaken, disappointed faith, who could not rise to meet him at his level of essential truth. He understands she is not yet fully his—a subtle darkening of his voice—but he assures her she is making progress, justifying his trust. He has peeled for her his very soul to pulp and seeds and she cups it so soft in her dear hands. Whatever else he may achieve in this life, his only true dream is to die in her arms. She alone is his last chance for a profound happiness. She has not run, has not fled, and he needs no greater reassurance or evidence of the redemptive promise of her love.

  She clears her throat. She wills herself to pat, no, stroke his shoulder, his naked back, to initiate, but he stops her,

  No, he says. There will be plenty of time. They will get there soon, together. He has no doubt. It is their fate.

  ONE LATER NIGHT–ANOTHER wilting, truncated effort—he asks her, yet again, to share her pain. Her most visceral, damaging pain, the pain she hides from the world but he can discern and will rescue her from, what will at last fuse their souls and thus, successfully, their flesh. He needs this from her. But she can think of no pain worthy enough to share. She tries to remember the agonies of spirit she must have suffered when that

  a)sweet, senior-year-of-college boyfriend backed out on the eve of moving in, he just wasn’t ready, he said, although she was really awesome and everything and he cared about her, and maybe he was just panicking, yeah, although didn’t that show his unreadiness to make a commitment, even to a really great girl like her, and while it did hurt at the time, of course, her truest distress was having cleaned out her closet to make room for him and his stuff and it was too late to get those clothes back from Goodwill,

  b)cubicle co-worker she hooked up with and started dating after the office Groundhog Day pub gathering confessed he was also sleeping with Anita in Human Resources, but she kept dating him for another few months anyway, because while it did hurt at the time, of course, what she secretly hoped was Anita would feel guilty enough to push forward a raise or promotion for her, and it went on until the day he just disappeared from their cubicle to go back and live with his parents in one of the Dakotas, Anita told her, rolling her eyes, over their let’s-split-a-chicken-Caesar lunch,

  c)hot wannabe actor guy from the CinemaSoape Laundromat—who she was sort of crazy about, or maybe was just crazy about the carnal sex and his pliable porno assurance with her body, although she nursed a hope this was or could be or would be love, but what would she do with this life-as-it-comes kid she could never introduce to her friends, her parents, even after he groomed the scruff and she bought him a decent jacket and pair of shoes—agreed to her ending it with nothing more than a carefree grin and insulting shrug, and while it hurt at the time, of course, when he offered to fuck her one final time in her car, she simply shrugged back and said Sure.

  She is embarrassed by her lack of formative anguish. She feels shame at the juvenile unworthiness of her prior men, the mere and interchangeable boys she had chosen, those petty hurts; he will reassess her, realize she lacks profundity, a poet’s tender heart. When he continues to entreat she demurs, mysteriously, hintingly, as if still clutching to her delicate breast the most ineffable of torments, as if he has not quite yet earned the peeling open of her soul, and at his now darkened, newly hardened face, at the twitch in his eye, she wonders, suddenly a little afraid, how much time she has left.

  ONE MANY-NIGHTS-LATER NIGHT he calls. He is rambling, a thick-throated, inchoate stumble over sentences and words and it crosses her mind—as fear? as hope?—that he must be drunk, wasted, in the middle of some kind of breakdown,

  Are you all right? she breaks in. Slow down, what are you saying, I cannot understand you.

  He gulps, edges consonants, asks if she has ever

  a)been assaulted, taken against her will, she can tell him, such violation can happen to any woman, one never blames the victim, she is never asking for it, never seeking to be overpowered or hurt that way, even if there was no actual physical force he would understand because there is always always the threat and so the woman must submit, in the end, must spread herself wide and perhaps even take pleasure in it, sometimes that happens, it is no fault of the woman if she gets aroused, wet, orgasms climaxes comes, a woman’s body is designed that way, after all, to shudder and writhe and be possessed by the male force, and so she must confess, tell him all about it,

  b)had sex with a black guy, a Mexican or a Muslim, or a dog, what is the ugliest, most filthy, diseased thing she has ever allowed inside her, been penetrated by, taken in to her most sacred private places, sucked or fingered or fucked, because some women, very sick and disturbed women, do crave and seek out such self-punishing, unnatural defilement and so she must confess, tell him all about it,

  c)been paid for sex, whored herself out for cash or drugs or tuition, but doesn’t every woman do that, in some way, sell herself for gutter slut cheap, because even the smart-negotiated exchange for marriage or caviar or jewels is still just perfumed, marked-up whoring, a piece of rotten meat with fancy sauce and price tag slapped on, just coldhearted, frigid, viper-bitch betrayal, and so she must confess, tell him all about it,

  and he will try but cannot promise to forgive, although he may never be able to touch her again he can at least help her to repent, to cleanse herself, and so—Do not ever—there is vomit thickening her own throat now—ever contact me again, she says, and hangs up.

  SHE NURSES HER nausea with quarts of ginger tea. She asks her landlord to turn up the water heater and scalding-showers herself every day, loofahs her crawling skin to a tender-bright new. There is a mailbox slew of fattened fine-stationery envelopes addressed in a blotty, barely legible scrawl she tears up without opening. There are sobbing voicemails and then heated, imploring texts, and she changes her phone number. There are emails with exclamation-point subject lines, and she marks them as spam, then deletes without reading. There are FedEx’d boxes she refuses to accept, although the nonplussed FedEx guy tells her there is no point, he cannot register her refusal or return to sender. There are deliveries of towering, long-stemmed vases and old-fashioned boxed bouquets she drops off at the nearest Cancer Treatment Center. She leaves the still gift-tagged, grand-event dress with a fancy consignment shop—a touch of guilt at not donating to some charity auction, but even her thirty percent share of the sale will help her cover last month’s bills, this month’s rent. She casually mentions to her friends and co-workers and parents that it is simply over, ended, is all—the age difference, sure—aiming for a shrugging, just-a-fling, nothing-to-see-here tone, but they continue to reference, to ask if she

  a)has heard the rave notices and hot buzz for the L.A. previews of his play, about the record advance ticket sales for its Broadway run, the announcement of film rights already purchased by a legendary director for an Oscar-winning actress and that he has signed an above-the-title-credit, multi-million-dollar deal to write the screenplay,

  b)has seen the polls predicting a landslide victory, the pundits proclaiming this is just the beginning, or new beginning, the resurrection of his political career and a nation’s hope, a validation of progressive faith-based humanism, there is already talk of his keynote spot at the Convention, his Party-favorite, front-runner status for the next Senate seat, and who knows what political heights after that,

  c)knows the first single off the new album has already made download history and a Rolling Stone cover piece is due next month, that a retrospective boxed set of his albums is in the works with all proceeds going to school arts programs, that he is organizing and headlining an upcoming HBO concert to benefit impoverished families and the children of famine,

  and she ratchets up her shruggy indifference until they cease. She goes off-line, limits herse
lf to local TV news of weather and sig alerts and petty neighborhood break-ins and eventually sleeps through the night, finally comes and goes from her apartment without first peepholing or peering up and down the street with queasy, galloping heart.

  SIX MONTHS LATER an innocently thin, return-address-less, bulk-stock envelope slips from a sheaf of junk mail and she opens it without thinking. I ask nothing of you, it says, the penmanship lucid and precise, I cannot even ask your forgiveness. But you must know I was very ill. The stresses of my second-chance fortune broke me; the challenge of you triggered a renewed haunting by my past. I abused you in an unforgivable manner and it is the loss of you that has at last shattered my denial and forced me to confront my darkest self, to seek help from

  a)my AA sponsor. I am going to meetings every day, living one day at a time, it is so hard but so true, I finally understand the rigorous commitment it takes to lead an honest and real life, and I have no choice,

  b)a spiritual advisor. I have found a priest, a brilliant Jesuit who understands me and my struggle, is guiding my return to faith, helping me choose and commit to an honest path forward, one grounded in harmony and peace, for

  c)a shrink, a real psychiatrist. I cannot take meds with my history, but I am fully committed to the therapeutic process, grueling as it is, because I have finally chosen to be honest with myself about myself, and

  it is time to change my life. Your discretion and respect for my privacy these past months are proof of your extraordinary compassion, and I would be honored (although I have no right to be honored) if you would attend the (ticket enclosed) upcoming

  a)opening night

  b)election night

  c)concert

  and celebration event as my respected guest and my tender, tender friend.

  HE STANDS SPOTLIGHTED and dignified and steady-spined before the applauding world, and she can see, even from a distance, the fresh serenity to his face, the clear and buoyant light in his eyes. But she can also discern—she alone, she is sure—the fragility behind his soft-murmured Thank yous, the frightened boy-child pulse. She applauds with the crowd, palms slapping hard and then harder, hoping he will sense her forgiving and respectful presence, her support, perhaps notice she is wearing the (retrieved) dress he once gifted her, and when their eyes catch—You are here! she alone can hear him say—his dignified smile is suddenly a child’s joyous beam, humble and without guile.

  He holds out his hand. Heads and cameras turn, rippling the crowd with expectation. He is reaching, hoping, and she finds herself—she cannot leave him just standing there, no—stepping forward, then at his side. He seizes her hand, pulls her closer, and announces to the applauding world: This is the angel who has graced and saved me and made everything possible, the answer to my prayers. Here she is, the woman who has changed my life.

  HE UNDRESSES HER that night as if unwrapping an heirloom ornament from sepia tissue leaves, and as she lowers herself below him to the bed, as she opens to him her mouth, her arms, her thighs, as she feels him slide hard inside her with startling, spearing depth, she hears his soft voice murmur, whisper, tell her, what she will do now is

  a)pretend, pretend he is a stranger, a man of steel command, she has been carried off and she will struggle while he positions and binds her, she will cry out and beg while she is torn and split wide—show me, he says, show me how you bleed—and only then can he, will he, hear her screams and relent, will he soothe and stroke and take her so very tenderly,

  b)force him to all fours, make him crawl and howl like a dog, like the ugly animal he is, she will tame him, shame him, beat him down to dirt, will fuck him with—see, he has the tool she must use, it straps on—all her own animal rage and pain, and only when he is fully degraded can he, will he, take her, find pleasure in her, for only then will she be brought down as foul and brutal and bestial as he,

  c)lie still, stripped naked and serene, she will lie in the cold water bath—see, there is the snowy crushed ice he will pack her in so velvet soft—and when she is chilled fully and pure to white-blue porcelain flesh, she mustn’t move, no shivering, no chattering, she must not spoil his pleasure, only then can he, will he, pound his heat into her, bring her back to a hot throbbing life,

  and only then will they be truly together at last, only then will she fulfill her destiny, her fate.

  She struggles against his weight, pulls her body from his clutch, is elated at her flesh resealing shut against him, at the strength of her simmering, resurging self. She breaks his final hold on her wrist, grabs and pulls on her dress, is leaving running fleeing, is at the door, and stops.

  For he is not pursuing: he is simply lying there, watching, waiting, in wait. For her to choose. It is up to her to seize at last, for good, this one and only chance at singularity, at saving grace. She reaches for the door, pauses. Everything can be, will be, hers, it is true. But only if she—for she was never she at all, she understands, never a discerned or rarified her—chooses an existence both realized and obliterated. Yes. Only if she

  a)is a dead woman

  b)is a dead woman

  c)is a dead woman

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to the editors of the magazines, periodicals, and anthologies in which many of the stories in this collection first appeared, sometimes in earlier versions: Tin House, “Ball” and “The Knitting Story”; Mississippi Review, “Staples”; Black Clock, “Apology”; Nerve.com, “Bakery Girl;” The Santa Monica Review, “Fish”; TriQuarterly, “Needles.”

  In addition, “Wig” appeared in Getting Even: Revenge Stories (Serpent’s Tail Press, 2007); “Musical Chairs,” as “Timing,” appeared in Lost on Purpose: Women in the City (Seal Press, 2005); “Cactus” appeared in Another City: Writing from Los Angeles (City Lights Books, 2001); and “Ball” appeared in Bestial Noise: The Tin House Fiction Reader (Tin House Books/Bloomsbury, 2003).

  Thank you as well to the generous friends and mentors who offered critical feedback on these stories, and to the extraordinary Dan Smetanka, for his wisdom, vision, guidance, and patience.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tara Ison is the author of the novels The List, A Child out of Alcatraz, a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Rockaway, featured as one of the “Best Books of Summer” in O, The Oprah Magazine, July 2013, and the essay collection, Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies.

  Her short fiction, essays, poetry, and book reviews have appeared in Tin House, The Kenyon Review, The Rumpus, Nerve.com, Black Clock, TriQuarterly, PMS: poemmemoirstory, Publishers Weekly, The Week, The Mississippi Review, LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, and numerous anthologies. She is also the co-writer of the cult movie Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead.

  She is currently Associate Professor of Fiction at Arizona State University. Learn more at www.taraison.com.