Light of Falling Stars

by J. Robert Lennon

  “Hi,” she said. “Have you got a dog? Or a cat, maybe? A black one?”

  “I have a black dog.”

  “I think it ran out into the street. I might have hit it, but I didn’t find it lying anywhere.”

  The man frowned, then picked up his jacket. “Otto?” he called out. “Otto?” They stood still in the grass, listening. “Otto?” Anita called. “Let me,” he said.

  They walked around the building, peering into the shrubs. When the dog didn’t appear, they crossed the street and walked around the neighbors’ house. “Otto?” the man said, and a quiet whine came from behind a white picket fence dividing this house from the next.

  Anita followed the man. They found Otto in a rough dugout between the yards, cowering in a little black ball.

  “Hey, boy,” he said. “You okay, boy?” The dog emerged, his tail swinging slowly in a tentative wag. He seemed to be walking fine. The man knelt in the dirt and scratched his head, and the wag turned full force on him. “Good boy.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine,” he said, seeming to add silently, No thanks to you.

  “He just ran out.” She noticed that the man’s hair was the exact color and texture of the dog’s.

  The man lifted the dog into his arms. It whined in protest, and the three of them walked back across the street. Anita felt bad about the entire incident, and scratched the dog’s head. His tail wagged, and thwacked against the man’s jacket. No one spoke.

  “Okay, well,” she said, back in the yard. “I’m really sorry.”

  “No harm done.”

  They stared at each other for several seconds, and then Anita returned to the car. It was then that she looked back and noticed that the building was an apartment building, and the small sign she had seen earlier read “For Rent.”

  She got out again and looked more closely. A studio was available, three fifty a month, utilities included. She went back to the man, who was bent over the lawn mower, doing something to the blade. “Excuse me?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know anything about this apartment for rent?”

  He nodded. “I’m the landlord.”

  “I want it. The apartment.”

  He looked over at Otto, who was snuffling in a patch of weeds at the edge of the yard. “You nearly killed my dog.”

  “It was an accident! Or it almost was.”

  He stood up and sighed. “You want to take a look, I guess?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I want to see it, yes.”

  * * *

  She moved in the next day. It was a lovely and reasonable place, if a little small; it had a lot of turn-of-the-century perks to it, like a built-in bookcase and a gas stove, a laundry chute and a dumbwaiter that didn’t work but that you could look up into and see where it emptied into other apartments. Kathy took her out to get furniture and helped her set it up. She got a futon, the kind you could turn into a couch without anybody’s help, and a soft chair. She got a dresser and a small dining table.

  From Kathy’s apartment, she called Paul and was relieved when the machine picked up. She left a message—her new address, where he could bring the car. She kept herself from tears until Kathy had dropped her off at the new place, and then lay on the floor, where it was hard and she could feel her bones and muscles grinding against one another.

  And here, she tried laying bare those things about herself she had come to see as poisonous: her rage to make life safe for others, which had less to do with what they needed than what she needed to see about them; the plane crash, which no more belonged to her than the land it fell onto; the control she strove to exert over herself, which had leaked out into everything around her and corrupted it into the appearance of general and lasting imperfection. She lay on the hard floor struggling to make these ideas, which she knew to be true, take physical form inside her, a form that could be beaten down. But it was too difficult, and she wasn’t moved. Instead, she drew the sobs out through force of will, inventing the first so that it charged her body for the second and the third, until they came of their own accord. They shook her, rattling those deadly parts of her, giving them rudimentary definition. For once, she could feel them living there, waiting for expulsion, and after a while she slept dreamlessly, the floorboards pressing their shape into the softness of her cheek.

  Afterward, she sat on the porch, eating ice cream from the corner grocery two blocks away, and watched children playing in the park, under the streetlights. Later a van came, and the children all bundled in and were taken away.

  * * *

  The next morning she would take the film she’d found to the mall, and have it developed at the one-hour place. She would hold her breath opening the envelope, certain its contents would sting her, certain she would find herself adrift in sentiment for what surely would not be the last time. But the photos would be as opaque as the black canister they came from—blurry shots of a drunken party in an apartment she’d never seen before, filled with people she didn’t know. A plump, red-haired woman posing in most of them, a beer bottle held close to her head, to make sure it got into the frame. She would wonder where Paul had gotten the film, if the pictures had been switched at the developer’s. But by the time she thought of that, she would be out of the mall, and her relief such that she would toss the pictures into a trash can without a thought for her ten dollars, or whoever else would never get to see them.

  She shouldn’t have slept with Larry. Now, when she saw him again, she would be picking up the threads of something already in progress, and it would be difficult and complicated and not fully her own. It would not be a new love.

  But then again, new love wore off. She wondered exactly how long that took: weeks? seconds? Or maybe love could just miss the opening act entirely and never be new. They had histories, after all; their lives were messy.

  And that was something she knew she would have to get used to. Clutter. It might even be fun, like falling asleep in a leaf-strewn yard with the rake lying unused beside you. She would call him, and he would come to her new place, and they would be nervous together, the way strangers are when they’ve met before, have maybe talked about mutual friends, but have never had an actual conversation.

  20

  Bernardo looked for a pay telephone, but for some reason there weren’t any. A haze of gravel dust hung over the streets—they had just, it appeared, been resurfaced—and though it didn’t seem to bother anyone else, it made Bernardo cough, and he had to squint to keep it from his eyes.

  He walked along Weir, which seemed to be the main street through downtown, and peered down all the cross streets. He saw no phones. Soon he came to a road he recognized, Cedar, the one that Paul had come into town on. He’d walked in a circle. On the corner, somebody was tottering around in some sort of inflatable costume. A gray box? When he came closer he could see that it was a telephone, a gigantic cellular telephone.

  He’d seen these around Reggio. He hated them. At first only the businessmen and drug lords had them. Then they started turning up among teenagers, who talked loudly with the windows open at stoplights. Why would you want a phone with you all the time? Now apparently they were in Montana, USA. The costume was elaborate and silly, with every button painted onto the keypad and a thick rubber antenna wobbling on top. It was coming toward him now, its arms wiggling at its sides.

  “Hello! Hello!” The phone stepped into his path.

  “Hello.” He looked closer, to see where the eyeholes were, but he didn’t see them. “Do you know where is a telephone?”

  “Ha-ha!” the phone said, in a young man’s voice. “I’m a phone.”

  “No, no. A phone you pay.” He pantomimed feeding coins through a slot.

  “No need for that, if you’ve got a Cellular One cell phone.”

  Bernardo shook his head and continued walking. The phone yelled: “Hey, wait! Here!” He turned to see it running toward him, holding out a tiny folding phone. “Use this.”

&nb
sp; “No, I…”

  “Please.” It handed the tiny phone to him. “Go ahead and make your call. Notice how clear it is! That’s because we have cells all over Montana and the West, guaranteeing crystal-clear…Actually, is it a local call?”

  “What?”

  “Actually, maybe I shouldn’t…Here, let me dial.” He snatched the telephone back. “What’s the number?”

  “No—I need a book!”

  “You said phone, not phone book.” The phone’s hands found where its hips would be, if it had them.

  “Goodbye.”

  “Don’t mock me!” the phone called after him. “It’s honest work, man!”

  * * *

  He found a bank of phones on a corner in front of a small grocery store. They were covered with graffiti, and the cords that had once held phone books dangled emptily. He walked another block down Weir, but now he could see that it dead-ended in the weeds next to the train tracks. There weren’t any other booths.

  He stopped walking. This was his new home, this dry and unfriendly place. This was where he would be without a house or job. There were no cars on this stretch of the street, and the sun shone down blankly out of a grim sky like muffled music from a neighbor’s party, as if it only shone upon this place incidentally, as if it were doing its real shining elsewhere. Bernardo took a deep breath, and his body rejected it, coughing it back out in a series of painful spasms. He felt forsaken by God, if there was one.

  He turned and saw himself in the window of a nearby storefront. It was strange to see his own body in its entirety: he used to look pudgy and sallow. Now, beyond all likelihood, he was lean, almost rugged. Behind his reflection, he noticed a painting in the window, propped on an easel, of a cowboy kissing a cowgirl near a campfire, backed by a blazing red sunset. There were some lumpy horses tied to a nearby tree. It was a bad painting. Deeper in the relative darkness of the shop, he could make out a man standing behind a counter, talking on the telephone.

  He walked in. The place was an art gallery. On the floor before him was a large clay pot with Indian-style drawings on it: bison running around, people shooting arrows at them from horses. Nearby, also on the floor, stood a wrought-iron sculpture of a cowboy that rose six feet into the air; the iron bars formed the cock of his hip, his raised arm, the brim of his large hat.

  “Oh, certainly,” the man was saying to somebody. “Oh, most certainly.”

  Bernardo went and stood at the desk. The man didn’t look up. A painting hung over the man’s shoulder, this one an arrangement of paint splatters that vaguely resembled a cow. The colors were extremely bright, as if the cow were bathed in fluorescent light.

  “No,” the man said. “No. No. No, he’s not.” A long pause. “I’m afraid not, no.”

  Bernardo cracked his knuckles.

  “You’re entitled to your opinion,” the man said. He was short and wore a white silk shirt with a band collar, black pants. “You can think that if you want. I’m not going to stop you.” He listened for a moment, then abruptly hung up.

  Bernardo waited. The man didn’t raise his head, but began instead to shuffle some papers. He picked one from a pile and read it.

  “Hello?” Bernardo said.

  “Yes.” The man did not look up.

  “I look for a telephone book.”

  “We don’t have a public phone. Go over to the Kwik Stop.”

  “No, only the book. I look for address.”

  Finally the man looked up. His face betrayed a mild contempt, but mostly his features looked so bored and lethargic that they seemed in danger of sliding off his face. It was hard to take offense at such a face.

  He reached under the counter and came up with a ragged-looking phone book covered with scribbled notes and numbers. He handed it to Bernardo, folded his arms over his chest and tilted his head.

  “Thank you.”

  There were no Pattis in the household listings. His heart lurched. He lingered on the P’s, staring at the space between Patsun and Paul.

  “Are you finished?” The man hadn’t moved.

  “No.”

  “I’m very busy.”

  Bernardo looked up. “You go work, then. I don’t take anything.” The man did not seem satisfied with this. Bernardo, irritated, heard himself adding, “These things too bad to steal.”

  The man’s face reddened and he stalked off.

  Bernardo turned to the business listings: bowling, cabs, cafés. “Carpet.” And there it was: a small display ad, a tiny icon of two men unrolling a carpet. “PATTI FLOOR AND WALL, 2110 SPEEDWAY.” And beneath that, a list of services marked with bullets—“linoleum, wallpaper, tile, paint, Marshall’s largest selection of fine carpets for home and office.”

  He looked around for the proprietor, but didn’t see him. From somewhere in the back of the gallery came a quiet voice. He tore the page from the book, folded it three times and stuck it into the pocket of his pants.

  On the way out, he stopped before a freestanding wooden totem that stretched from floor to ceiling: a series of grotesque human heads. The top head had wings sprouting out where ears should have been, and the bottom rested upon two bloated feet. Each face was carved in a cartoonish expression of disgust. Tongues stuck out, cheeks ballooned, nostrils flared. Was it supposed to be funny? The place bugged him, and he headed for the door.

  But it was blocked by a couple of thick, short men in uniform. He thought for a second they were twins. Their hair was cut to the same length—barely any at all—and shone yellow in the sunlight; they both wore tiny blond mustaches. He noticed that one was fatter, the other older. The older one had a steely cast to his hair, and his bulk seemed to be mostly muscle.

  “What’s the problem here, sir?” the younger one said.

  Bernardo held out his hands: empty.

  “He’s a nuisance in here,” the proprietor said behind him. He had returned without a sound, apparently from calling the police. Now he came around the counter and stood directly behind Bernardo, as if some mistake might be made about who should be arrested. “He tried to steal my phone book. He’s been touching the art.”

  “Maybe you should leave now, sir,” the young cop said. He leaned slightly forward, resting his hand on his holster the way police did in American movies.

  “I touch nothing. He gives me the book.”

  The cop raised his eyebrows in the direction of the proprietor.

  “He is a danger to these valuable works. He has no right to be here. He is trespassing.”

  “Why don’t you just come outside, sir,” the cop said now. Bernardo looked at the other cop, the silent one, whose arms were crossed over his chest. The face, the posture seemed to indicate that it was only a powerful act of will that kept him from swinging at someone, anyone.

  “I have done nothing.”

  “Please, sir, step outside.”

  Bernardo turned around to face the proprietor, and was pleased to note that this upset him. “Why you do this?” he asked, but the proprietor turned his head away and sighed loudly.

  The older cop’s hands fell to his hips, where an array of objects hung: a radio, a gun, a pair of handcuffs.

  Bernardo walked out. As he did he heard an electric beep somewhere in the gallery, and the sound set off a wave of rage. All he wanted was one simple thing from these people: what was the problem? He saw a beer bottle lying on the sidewalk and he rushed up and kicked it. It clinked across the street, spewing beer in all directions, and rolled to a stop against the tire of a car.

  “Was that yours?” came a voice. “Was that yours?” It was the silent cop. In the dusty sunlight, the gunmetal of his mustache gleamed. It made him look like his insides were made of lead. He walked up and grabbed Bernardo’s arm, and a bolt of pain coursed through it, thinning to a tingle at the fingers.

  “No.”

  “Why’d you do that? You could hurt somebody, do you know that? You could damage property.” This last seemed to have a mesmerizing effect on the man, and he pulled
Bernardo closer. “You could damage property!”

  “What! No, I…”

  “You come off the train?”

  “The train?”

  The other cop approached them now, holding a small notebook and a pen. “Sir, do you have somewhere to go this evening?”

  “Go?”

  “Is there someone in town you’re staying with?”

  He looked down at himself: the torn shirt, the wrinkled pants and worn shoes. “I…my son.”

  The older one shook him. He was beginning to lose feeling in the arm. “Are you drunk?”

  “Drunk!”

  “You heard me!” The man’s forehead had become slick. Behind him, the gallery owner stood in his window, calmly watching.

  “Your son, sir?” It was the younger cop, moving closer.

  “Yes…yes. I…He does not know I am here. I try to call him…”

  “Maybe you should let us do that, sir.” He set the pen to his notebook. “Your name?”

  “I tell you when he leave my arm,” Bernardo said.

  “I’ll let you go when I think you won’t be kicking shit into the street.” Veins pulsed in the older cop’s face. Bernardo tried to yank his arm away, but the grip only tightened.

  “No!”

  The younger one closed the notebook and clicked shut his pen. “Maybe we’d better handle this at the station.”

  * * *

  He rode in the backseat of the police car. There were no handles on the doors, a metal grate between him and the policemen. Nobody spoke.

  Perhaps it was fitting that it would end this way—it wouldn’t be the first time Bernardo had procrastinated until it was too late. He should have told the authorities right away that he survived the crash, and thrown himself on their mercy. Or asked Paul to help him—why didn’t he ask Paul to help him? Instead, he was a crackpot plucked off the street. If he still thought it was worth learning lessons, Bernardo told himself, this would be a good one, that stupid pride only led to humiliation. He closed his eyes.

  They drove three blocks down Weir before the older cop pulled the car into the parking lot of what appeared to be a deli. He opened the door, leaving the car running, and walked in. Bernardo watched through the front window as he wended his way through the shelves of snacks—bright plastic bags, bottles, colorful boxes—and brought something to the counter, where there was a line.