As a Thief in the Night

by Chuck Crabbe

  "Do you want to come upstairs with me?" she whispered.

  "Yes."

  She stood in front of him, half naked, her breasts falling, and held her hand out to him. He took it and pulled her in close to kiss her smooth stomach. Pulling him gently behind her, she took him up the stairs. The lines and shape of her back looked beautiful to him and he stopped to caress it.

  Lila turned the lights down to a glow in her bedroom, and he lay down upon the unmade bed. She searched through a pile of tapes on her dresser, found what she was looking for, and put it in her stereo.

  "What are you putting in?" he asked from below her.

  "Soundgarden."

  But it wasn't Soundgarden. He recognized it as soon as he heard the first few notes of the introduction. It was Ten, the same album he had come to know so well that summer.

  "This isn't Soundgarden."

  "It isn't?"

  "No, it's Pearl Jam."

  She smiled at him.

  Cars went by outside the open window and he could hear people talking in one of the neighbor's yards. Ezra held her under her ribs and pushed her further up on top of him so that he could put his mouth on her breasts.

  I admit it...what's to say

  I'll relive it...without pain

  Backseat lover on the side of the road

  I got a bomb in my temple

  and it's gonna explode

  I got a sixteen gauge buried under my clothes...I play...

  The music drowned out the voices coming from outside. He was not sure if he should take off his own shirt or if he should wait for her to do it. But it didn't go either way. She moved down his body and undid his pants and took him in her mouth. At first he thought he would come right away, but then he remembered Nick Carraway's advice: to think of mathematics problems, new clothes, and their family studies teacher Mrs. Kerr when the moment threatened to overwhelm him, and he held out. Lila finally pushed his shirt up and he pulled it over his head and threw it onto the floor. Soon she stopped and he turned her over and unbuttoned her pants. He kissed her desperately now and slid his hand down the front of her panties. Then his fingers were inside her. Holding her tightly, he pushed up between her legs and she cried out, the pitch of her voice sharp and needy. After a few minutes of this she stood up fast and took her pants all the way off.

  "Do you have a condom?"

  "In my pocket." He reached down for his pants and pulled it out. It was dark and his fingers were wet so he had a hard time opening the package. She lay underneath him, still and with her legs open.

  "What's wrong?" she asked as he fumbled around.

  "I can't see what I'm doing."

  "Go put it on the bathroom. Hurry."

  He walked quickly into the hallway. The bathroom was right across from her bedroom and he went inside without bothering to shut the door behind him. There was blood all over his hands. It had run down his wrists and forearms, dried in some places and was still wet in others. In a panic, he put the condom down on the sink and, standing there naked in front of the mirror, tried to wash off the blood. "Of course," he thought, "things can't just go normally for me. Something has to go wrong." He didn't know what to do. Should he just go back into her room and do it like he had never noticed? He didn't want to embarrass her or make her feel awkward. But surely she must already know? Or maybe it was something that normally happened but that no one ever talked about. Moving fast he took the wrapper off the condom and tried to roll it on to his softening penis.

  "Lila," he called out to her quietly, stepping back into the bedroom.

  "What's taking so long? What's wrong?" she asked. She had the covers pulled up over her now.

  "Nothing's wrong... Do you know you're bleeding?"

  "I am?"

  "Yeah. Is it time to start your period?"

  "No..." She paused for a moment. "I just bleed like that sometimes."

  He was confused. "You mean for no reason?"

  "Yeah, just every once in a while."

  "You don't know why?"

  "No. Do you want to stop?"

  "No, I mean...I don't want to. But I think we better." He felt awkward.

  "Okay," she said from under the blankets.

  Moving towards her, he said,. "Let me lie with you?"

  "Sure," she answered softly.

  Ezra got into bed and put his arms around her. They lay there, young and naked, against one another, both anxious over what had happened, but neither talked about it again.

  I see the words

  On a rocking horse of time

  I see the verse in the rain

  Ezra came home early from the party. Gord and Elsie were not home yet and Olyvia and Ariadne were sitting on the couch watching a movie. The room was dark, except for a couple of black candles that were lit on the coffee table. Ariadne had her head in Olyvia's lap and seemed to be nodding in and out of sleep as Olyvia stroked her hair. He asked where Layne was and Olyvia told him that he had already gone to bed. The sound of a new voice in the room stirred Ariadne out of her half-sleep. She stretched, cat-like and supple, over Olyvia's legs. Ezra wanted to go to his bedroom and be alone, or sleep, so when his aunt started asking him questions about where he had been and whether or not he had enjoyed himself, he was short and dismissive. He thought about asking her if she had read his poems and short story but then decided against it. At the moment he just didn't care.

  Glad to be alone in his room, he undressed, threw his clothes onto the floor as if they had been a punishment he had been bound in on some long journey, and got into his bed. He had not had enough alcohol at the party to make him drunk, but lying flat on his back and staring at the ceiling, the room spun a little.

  Was it that she didn't understand her menstrual cycle? She was eighteen and he thought not. Even though it was dark he tried to look underneath his fingernails to see if there was still blood there. Someone had pointed some out at the party and he had gone to try and wash it off in the bathroom. It was a strange thing that she had bled like that. Nothing had gone according to plan. He had thought he was going to return home drunk and happy and carrying a new secret. Instead he had blood underneath his fingernails and felt awkward. How would things be between them now? Would they try again? He didn't want to think about it anymore. He heard music in the living room. Olyvia and Ariadne had turned off the television and were listening to some of Gord's records. Nevermind. He would sleep, and it would be a blessing, and the blessing would be his escape. Provide the thread.

  Soon after he had drifted off he woke up very thirsty. He hoped he had remembered to get water before he went to sleep and blindly felt for a glass on his night table. But he had forgotten. Deciding he was thirsty enough to make the trip to the kitchen, he struggled up out of bed. The floor was cold but he liked the way it felt on his bare feet. He opened his bedroom door and saw that they had left the candles burning. Static, and a slow, even rhythm were the only sounds. The record that had been playing was over but was stuck and still spinning on the vinyl's innermost groove. Still half asleep, Ezra walked over to lift the needle, but as he did, one of the candles flickered in the dark and threw light on the floor just in front the record player. Olyvia and Ariadne were on the rug there. A tangle of long bare limbs. Now he heard the heavy breath that had been hidden under the static. He stopped at a distance and froze. He didn't want to move or breathe and he tried to back away, but his shock rooted him to the floor. Araidne's hair moved slowly over Olyvia's body as she kissed her neck and bare chest. Olyvia arched her back, pushing up her breasts to her lover, and a muted cry escaped her lips. The light shifted again, as if by design, and the two women became an indistinct, passionate shadow, a lithe, many-limbed dancer on the floor. When the flame's light fell on them again, Olyvia was staring at him. She did not speak or alert the woman moving on top of her. Her eyes like an animal's in the throes of profound instinct. Ezra stood still, held by the silent necessity of her gaze, and for an eternity he was unable to look or step away. No m
ove was made to interrupt what was happening and no gesture nor word was given to slow the young woman's caresses. Finally, Ariadne moved back up and kissed her again. Responding, Olyvia took her eyes away from Ezra and, taking hold of Ariadne tightly, turned over on top of her in one graceful movement of will and submission. As quickly and quietly as he could, he turned and retreated to his room. He shut the door as fast as he could, taking care to set it silently in place, and then hid behind it.

  Without sleep, he did not know how much time had passed. The digital clock beside his bed was always wrong. He lay in his bed and could not make sense of what he had seen or what had happened. Restless and agitated, he tried to listen to whatever was going on outside. He didn't hear anything, just the quiet of the late night. Minutes slipped by. And then he heard steps coming toward his room, and the brass doorknob turned. Ezra closed his eyes and felt whomever it was standing beside his bed. The feeling that someone was looking down at him made it difficult to feign sleep. As if he were just now waking, he opened his eyes slowly and saw Ariadne's face, like the face of an Eastern siren hovering above him in the darkness. She sat beside him on the bed. Ezra felt her breath fall like a midsummer night upon his face. Her hand moved along his arm, across his shoulder, and then slowly, with the light touch of her nails, over his face. None of it felt like it could be real...his heart trembling in its cage...the slow beautiful storm of her smell...the cloak of night falls...his disappearance under the soft swoon of her body.

  Small waves spread across the lake as Ezra stood by the shore early the next morning. The sun had already risen but was now hiding somewhere behind the clouds. From behind the rusty iron breaker wall he looked for boats upon the water. Seagulls flying close to the horizon made their plaintive cries to the morning.

  Hearing the screen door at the back of the house close, he looked behind him to see his Aunt Olyvia walking across the concrete patio toward him. Steam rose out of the cup of coffee in her hand and she had a book underneath her arm. Ezra turned to watch the water as she made her way up the tiny hill that surrounded the house. She picked up a lawn chair off its side and sat just behind him.

  "You're up early," she said, taking a sip from her mug.

  "Yeah, I don't know. I just woke up."

  "Mornings are nice here. You're lucky to be on the lake like this."

  Ezra watched a bird dive into the water in the distance.

  "Do you want to talk about what happened last night Ezra?" she asked plainly, breaking the silence.

  "What do you mean?" he said, turning toward her.

  "I mean between you and Ariadne, of course."

  "Oh, no. I'm good, really. I'm fine with it."

  "You don't have any questions about it, or about what you saw?"

  "No. I'm glad it happened."

  "Good," she said, "because I will not have any sort of awkwardness between us."

  "I know. There isn't any."

  "And I won't have you blushing behind it. You should be proud really. Seventeen, and with a woman like that."

  "Well...I am. But I'd prefer it if you didn't say anything to Elsie."

  "Of course."

  It was silent between them for a moment as the waves splashed against the other side of the breaker wall.

  "Olyvia...did...I mean, was it her idea?"

  "Oh, yes. Believe me, Ariadne is her own woman."

  Ezra nodded without taking his eyes away from the water.

  "I read the work you gave me," Olyvia said. She pulled her lawn chair even with him and sat down.

  "So what did you think of it?" He sat on the grass beside her. It was still wet from the morning dew. The sun had broken free of the morning clouds and warmed his skin.

  "Your poems are good, excellent really, but not tight enough."

  "Not tight enough?"

  "Yes. They have spirit, and are sad in the way they should be, but they're sloppy."

  "And the story?"

  "That's not good. You should get rid of it and start something new."

  "Start again? I've worked hard on that," he said, visibly put off.

  "I don't doubt that. Don't be upset. You've had a taste of art now, and that's what you want for yourself, isn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "Then stop being childish and taking what I'm saying personally. Did you give me your writing because you wanted me to tell you how wonderful you are? You won't get that kind of stupidity from me. But if you want to sculpt something pure and get rid of the excess trash and unnecessary sentiment, I'll do my best to help you. I don't suppose you've read any Plato in that school of yours?"

  "No"

  "Of course not. Schools are the great murderers of ideas and creativity. But you've heard of him?"

  "He was a philosopher, yeah?"

  "And what do you know of that topic?"

  "Not much, I guess."

  "What does a philosopher do? What is he trying to get at?"

  "I don't know. The truth?"

  "Or as close as anyone can get to it. But Plato didn't believe he could find it on his own. All of his books are dialogues between groups of philosophers. They would get together and drink wine and discuss ideas. They were all men and didn't include women in their group. Do you know why they didn't include women, Ezra?"

  "No."

  "Because they knew that women had the truth deep down in their bodies, but could never find words for it, and had to live it instead. Anyway, each of the men brought his ideas and opinions to the group. But they knew they brought their blindness too! So they would talk and argue about things, but like gentlemen. When one of them realized that his idea or opinion wasn't getting them any closer to the truth, when someone else showed him he was off the mark, he would drop his idea gracefully, like unnecessary baggage, or excess stone. Most people argue to defend their position, because they want to be right, and they feel hurt or stupid if they can't win the fight. But Plato's philosophers were detached from their thoughts, and from themselves, in the necessary way. Truth was their god, not victory, at least not in the shallow sense most of us think of it, and anything that didn't serve the truth was discarded."

  "I don't see what that has to do with my writing."

  "What's the artist's goal, Ezra?"

  "Truth?"

  "I think you're being stupid on purpose now. We're much too quixotic to get anywhere near the truth."

  Ezra did not know what the word quixotic meant, but he went on as if he did. "I'd say beauty, but not all art is beautiful."

  "That's true too, if you define beauty like a fool. Let me put it to you this way: you have Demian on your dresser. I read that in my twenties. Do you think Hesse was trying to create beauty in the blonde haired, blue eyed, perfect flower sense a simpleton sees it?"

  "Well, no."

  "But did you find it beautiful?"

  "In its own way."

  "Now you're getting somewhere. And did that beauty contain evil? Did it weave together love and tragedy and pain? Were the artist's traumas and tragedies hidden behind a false sun? Or was it all part of his composition?"

  "It was all a part of it."

  "So then, whose beauty was it? Whose beauty was he seeking?"

  "His own."

  "That's why he wrote it, out of the necessity to find his own beauty, not the one his parents or his country or his church gave him and told him was beautiful. He set out to find it for himself. That you found it beautiful was a happy coincidence, a symptom of affinity and shared rhythm. But rest assured, he wrote it because he was following his own thread, to a treasure only he could see." She paused to allow what she had said to sink in. "Do you understand?"

  "I think so."

  "You see your poems have touches of that necessity in them, but your story is a popular morality tale, and a big bore, really. Now, if that kind of simple market babbling was your beauty I would say 'so be it', but you're your mother's son, and there's a lot more to you than that."

  Ezra sat there without saying anything
for minute. "And the Plato stuff?"

  "What I'm saying to you is that you have to decide what you want. They were after truth, not praise. If you want someone to baby you and tell you your writing is wonderful, then you can give it to your schoolteachers. But if it's your own beauty, your own truth that you're after, then you have to be willing to destroy anything that's not necessary to it, and sometimes, especially at first, you need someone else to call you on your own bullshit...until you learn to recognize it for yourself."

  "And you're saying there's bullshit in my story?"

  "There's plenty."

  Before the end of the football season Ezra began receiving letters from universities. He was the league's reception leader. The letters went something like this:

  Dear Ezra,

  You have been recommended to us as an excellent student-athlete. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your successes on the football field this season. Your selection to the All-City Team in Windsor is an accomplishment of which you should be proud. It is also a testament to your hard work and dedication.

  Wilfred Laurier University has a tradition of athletic and academic excellence that is recognized all over the world. We are consistently ranked among the top universities in Canada in Maclean's magazine's yearly rankings. The Golden Hawks Football program is also among the best in the nation. In 1991, we were Vanier Cup Champions and we are perennial playoff contenders. On an individual level, we have several players who have gone on to successful Canadian Football League careers.

  The coaching staff here at Laurier is interested in learning more about you. We would like to take this opportunity to invite you to this year's homecoming game here in Waterloo. This will give you a chance to become more familiar with our program and campus. We will be in touch with you shortly to go over details. In the meantime we would like to remind you of the importance of your academic work and encourage you to continue to strive to reach your potential in the classroom.