by Mike Wehner
“We’re not going to goddamn Sausalito, we’re going home. Ask him Alex, his family lives above the funeral home they own in Oakland.”
“Sounds fishy, but it’s better to dress dead people than make them.” I said.
“Wrong way, I need eggs, wrong way.”
“Eat the egg on Alex’s shirt or wait until we get home.”
“Em, you have to take me home or my dog will die.”
“Do you have eggs?” Erin said.
“Maybe,” I said patting her on the head.
“Driver, take me to the eggs. Alex will direct you,” she looked up at me, “we need to go to Sausalito though, best breakfast.” Erin dug her nose between my pepper-pasted shoulder and the back seat, took in a deep breath and fell asleep.
“You good with that Alex?”
“Yeah, she can take the train back to town after we get some rest.”
“Erin,” Emily called.
“She’s out.”
I followed the cracks on the empty road and Emily followed my directions. She hummed a low, pop melody to stay awake. Every time I moved Erin stuffed her nose deeper into the seat.
“You know I was kidding earlier about the sex thing right?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Is she really sleeping?”
“Yeah.”
“Has she told you how long it’s been since she’s been out with anyone?”
“Sort of.”
“Did she tell you why?”
“Sort of.”
“So you know what she’s been through?”
“I know enough to be careful.”
“Be good to her, she’s my favorite person. I don’t think she’s ready, if I’m being honest.”
It was the worst way to end the day. I leaned on the cool glass window for comfort and instead the vibration made my jaw buzz. I hurt in that moment more than ever. I hurt for what was lost and what was found. For who I was, for what I was, and what I used to be. I no longer had a direction, my inner compass spun, every part of my consciousness felt untethered, floating loose in an impermeable sea of nothingness.
I grit my teeth. John and I always liked the same girls. Impossible women. Nothing could have been more impossible.
My hopes for Erin realized my fears of John.
A contradiction too complicated for daybreak. A day ago I was chasing answers that were either good or bad, now they were both. One team was going to win and my interests were fully vested on both sides. Flip and flop. Love her grace, honor his memory. One will betray the other and the only one thing was certain: I didn’t have much time. The clock was the limit test of my own sanity, this was pulling me apart.
Emily begged Erin to go home with her, but Erin followed me to my door. I walked fast, tried to lose her in Annie’s tangled garden.
The dog shot up the stairs to make when I opened the door. Erin traipsed into the living room and peeled her stained shirt over her head, it hung up on her necklace. She kicked her shoes off in the middle of the living room and dug her thumbs into the top of her pants. Down they went, around her hips. Down, around her knees, down, down, down. She disappeared into my bedroom. The water from the shower fluttered and I stood paralyzed in the doorway, halfway in, halfway out.
“That faucet is tricky,” I said through the door. It had taken me twenty minutes to figure out the day I moved in.
“It’s fine, come on in.”
Steam surged out from beneath the door. She’d figured it, figured me out. The shower curtain was opaque with geometric shapes at the top which faded to a clear bottom. Her wispy calves were the only part of her body at full resolution. I sat on the toilet in my boxers, petrified. Erin twisted at the knobs.
“Should I leave the water on?”
“Yeah.”
I slung a towel over the top of the shower, she stuck her head out the side of the curtain.
“You’re being quite a gentleman.”
“I don’t want to be fired for sexual harassment.”
She buckled the towel underneath her armpit. Her hair was dry and pinned up. Erin kissed me and when I pushed myself towards the shower she yanked me back towards the door. Stage direction. Erin went into the bedroom and I shoved my head underneath the hot water hoping to melt.
The job I could handle. The banter. Brushing hips. Fake friendship, that was fine. We can do dinner. A fake double date? No problem. A real date? I can fake that. I liked her a little, what was the harm in that. A kiss. That was tough but I got through it. Oh you think you love her? Don’t be an idiot, you love all of them you lecherous cunt.
Now she was naked, in my bedroom. That I couldn’t handle. No window to jump out of, the bathroom’s cinderblock walls were surrounded by stone and dirt. Under the shower I scrubbed at my skin so hard it turned red and puffed. The water beat on me as it cooled and I scrubbed more. No matter how much friction I applied I couldn’t get clean. The water got so cold my testicles retreated into my stomach. I stayed in the shower. Maybe she’ll fall asleep.
I shut the bathroom light off once I was dry. Zeke was in the doorway and I shoved him out with my foot so he didn’t accidentally jolt Erin awake with the cold tip of his curious nose. There was a porthole window over the bed, the legal minimum. It let in tiny streaks of light from the street. Silence and near darkness calmed me.
“You don’t let him watch?” she said. Her voice almost knocked me down.
“He’d want to join, you already made out with him so I can invite him back in if you’d like,” I said from over there in the dark, trying to buy more time. A sneaker crunched under my foot, I turned on the lamp next to my bed. Erin took my hand in hers and pressed it to my heart, her forearm straight down my chest.
She reached back to the lamp.
Her other hand pinched the top edge of my towel.
Click.
Twenty-three
The feminine reflection in the bathroom mirror was wearing a set of mismatched nobody-is-going-to-see-me-naked-today underwear and staring at me when I woke up. It was small comfort that this wasn’t planned, that I wasn’t a target. Erin was digging around in a drawer and I wondered if she left the door open when she peed.
“What are you looking for?” I said from the bed.
“Tweezers.”
“Behind the mirror, top shelf, right side.”
She grimaced when she opened the cabinet, a real man isn’t so organized. A real man would pick at himself like an ape.
“There’s a blond hair in my brow, do you ever get weird hairs?”
Life was a weird hair. “Yeah I get a big black one on the back of my arm once a month.”
Shoulder to shoulder we searched each other for rogue hairs. I combed my hands up and down her arms looking for something I could jerk out of her. I took the tweezers and yanked a few hairs that were perfectly clear just to hear her squeak.
I shoved the toothbrush in my mouth so I didn’t have to talk while she ran her fingers across me and dug out rough patches of dead skin from my back. It was a game of chicken, someone had to talk about what went on in the bedroom but it wasn’t going to be me. I was conflicted. Filled with shame that I’d crawled into bed with her but ever grateful to the universe for afflicting me with my first case of erectile dysfunction.
Mouth overflowing of aqua foam, it was my turn again and I inspected the backs of her arms. I squeezed each tiny tube looking for some remnant of the triceps muscles that were supposed to be there.
“I don’t get them on my arms but I get a giant blond hair that grows out of the top of my right ear. I never remember to check for it, so if I get a funny look from a stranger I’ll run to the bathroom all clammy and self-conscious to see if it’s come back.” Erin ran her thumb along the edges of my ears.
“Don’t move,” she said.
“Fuck!”
The outside of my canal burned where she tried to rip part of me away.
“Don’t be a pussy.” I jerked back after a second failed att
empt. The root went deep. The sting lasted a second and she set my head back in place with her fingertips to search for more. I yipped each time she yanked.
“It would hurt less if you had good tweezers, these have no bite,” she said.
“Are you enjoying this?” This was payback for being unable to perform. At least we had been up all night and I had a legitimate excuse. It didn’t take much convincing to get her to go to bed and stop tugging on my dysfunctional member.
Right before she plucked she set her thumb on the fleshy bump in front of my earhole and it made a huge whoosh in my head. The sound telegraphed her strike and crinkled my nose. She ran her fingers slowly over my scar.
“How’d you get this?”
The lump in my throat grew. I snapped the tweezers out of her hand and turned her around.
“Baseball injury, gravel tore me up sliding into second.”
“Ouch.” Erin turned her attention to my neck.
“Tell me about your friend that’s coming to visit.”
My mind was so busy fighting between perception and reality, lust and memory that I’d forgotten about Charlie. He was the least complicated person I knew, but right now he was a huge complication.
“A friend from college, Charlie. My best friend, really,” I said and felt the pressure bubble under my feet. All the repressed emotions rising like punched-down dough, out of sight and mind.
“Where’s he live, Chicago?”
“Oregon.”
“What’s he do there?”
“Works for the state. He’s a ranger or warden, whatever you call the people who prevent poaching.”
I grabbed my phone and opened our last conversation where Charlie was losing his mind because he’d found out Komodo dragons were venomous. Erin next to me, I invited her to look so she’d stop grooming. A few finger flicks of bear and wolf memes and she got the gist.
“Oh, one of those guys,” she said. Passionate people understand each other. I never had a passion, so maybe that’s why I found Charlie so cloying at times.
Food helped me understand him. Until then I simply existed, but Charlie knew why he existed. Food gave me a purpose, which wasn’t any better than finding one in trees or bears or salmon. Charlie’s unending enthusiasm for the wild used to be grating and I thought it was because I didn’t share his interest—it was because I didn’t have anything to offer in return, no subject of my own to put a shovel in and dig. That was how humanity thrived, people digging different places and sharing. The revelation that I had a shovel and spot was tempered by the fear Erin would find me out and bury me alive.
I set my phone on the sink and stepped behind her. How long I’d imagined this slasher snapshot. Alone. Hands around her throat, playing with her hair in a damp basement. I’d seen this moment in my head a thousand times. I squeezed and she said, “lower.” She was supposed to scream. A defective déjà vu, I wiggled my thumbs between her shoulder blades and shook my head in disbelief. I ran my hands over her cliffs and peaks, pleasing to the eyes but not to the hands. The collarbone, the shoulder blades, the notches running down her spine—she lacked continuity, felt reassembled.
Erin held her hair up and careened her neck to the left, I looked down at my hands.
“I have to get back to the restaurant,” she said.
“Take my car, I’ll take the train in a while.”
I tossed her a fresh shirt and caught the glare of the sun off the white dust jacket of her book beneath my side of the bed. The copy was now well worn.
“You alright?” she said with half a shirt over her head.
“It’s been a crazy week.”
“I feel the same way, trust me. Don’t worry about last night, it’s not a big deal.”
I stepped in front of the bed and patted my crotch like a good dog returning a tennis ball. Erin walked into the kitchen and opened two cabinets before she found a glass for water, her steps light and happy.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
I was supposed to be the one asking questions. I couldn’t believe how she worked, lived and loved. It didn’t matter to her what happened back there, she was always right here, right now. And she was happy about it. A dead body in the living room, a dead dick in the bedroom—there wasn’t anything she couldn’t shake off.
I told her about a bakery down the street where she could get a croissant and what smelled like good coffee. Her kiss goodbye was full of hope and joy and relief.
After she left I slid her book out from under the bed with my big toe, then shoved it back shaking my head. The phone buzzed. I tried to get my toe to stick to the cover to lift it open while I mashed at the phone’s keyboard.
Crappy Mike: You work today?
Me: Yeah, at three
Crappy Mike: Meet me for lunch in town, it’s important.
Me: K, I need an hour, I want a burger.
◆◆◆
We met at Scoop’s Diner. It was in a strip mall so it lacked the standard aluminum facade, but the inside was pure American yesteryear. There was a white comedy duo on the wall in blackface next to the coat rack. Mike stared off through the slats of front window when I walked in. His arms bent in an A-frame on top of the laminated menu.
I slid a Corvette looking chair across the black and white tile, Mike knocked over the metal napkin holder putting his arms to his side.
“Are you sure they have burgers here?” I said.
“Don’t get all foodie on me now.” Mike pushed back from the table.
“Campy, fast, and cheap,” I said, “just how I like my girls.”
“That’s not what I hear.” He had a concerned tone.
“What do you mean?” I perused the milkshakes, my stomach in need of something cold and frothy.
“Emily told me Erin stayed with you last night.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” I said and hoped mocking the military would lead us away from the conversation he wanted to have, maybe devolve into a heated debate on foreign policy and if that failed a frank discussion on the irony of putting makeup on dead soldiers.
“Real talk Alex, are you guys dating?”
The thick hammies of a middle aged waitress waded by and the air filled with seared cow and fried potatoes.
“We have been on one and a half dates, I wouldn’t call that anything.”
Out loud I called it nothing, inside it was something. A gooey caramel center wrapped in a million rubber bands and my fingers ached from straining at the middle.
The waitress slid us two plastic glasses of water and promised to be back soon to take our order.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said and took a long pause.
I turned my head to soften the blow, to ease the transition from delusion to reality.
“I just found this shit out, so don’t think I’ve been holding out on you,” he looked down then flipped his eyes up to build momentum. “Erin killed somebody. Not by accident either, she killed her damn boyfriend, shot him point blank.” Gasp.
Careful not to overact, I sat there and pretended to be stunned. I took long pauses between questions and bites of double cheeseburger.
Mike stopped by Erin’s that morning with a fast food breakfast for Emily. She was distraught when he got there. While they ate spongy hotcakes she dished that Erin never dated anyone because of this horrible thing she had been through.
“Then she showed me this.”
Mike reached deep into his leather satchel and pulled out the book. I saw John and Erin in the shadows that rose up from the bottom of the cover, walking together holding hands. The book clanked on the table.
“It’s her story,” Mike said, “Emily told me to read it, said it was the only way for me to understand. I can’t emphasize this enough, she said every word of it was true.”
Deep and sincere, he was worried about everyone. I scooped as much ketchup as I could onto my last thick-cut fry.
“I know you must be shocked,” Mike said, “I am too. I don’t think she’s
a serial killer or nothing like that but you need to be careful. I’ll read this today, you want it when I’m done?”
“No,” I said with three head shakes, “I’ll talk to her.”
“There’s one more thing, when Emily handed this to me she took my hands and told me if anyone ever tried to hurt either of them again, she was ready. She’d fucking gut them. It was scary.”
“That was your chance to ask her out.”
“I think she sees me as a security blanket or something. After this shit I’m not sure I want any part of her. Those eyes can summon demons. She’s had bad shit happen to her too, unlucky ladies I guess.”
I paid for lunch and Mike pulled me in for a hug when I tried to shake his hand goodbye.
◆◆◆
At Essen I evaded questions from the other cooks about the red eggs and noodles that were front and center in the cooler. It was the perfect distraction. Erin whirled around the kitchen, the scent that followed her made me as afraid as ever. Only now instead of being afraid of what I was going to do, I was afraid of what I was going to lose. The twisted frenzy of the kitchen, the catharsis in imagination, impractical love. Difficult was exciting, my life of shortcuts now taking the long way around.
“Alex, what is all this Asian shit?” Tommy said holding up a plastic container of pickled shitake mushrooms.
“Do you see a wok? I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said.
Ramen wasn’t going to be on the menu any time soon. It was an investigation into the unknown, a shovel full of dirt from somewhere neither of us had ever dug. We found each other in that hole.
Erin called tickets out less authoritatively than usual and her minions took notice. The cooks took turns accusing her of being stoned or withholding a good review. When I accused her of getting laid Tommy balked and held up a container of poached eggs, “she doesn’t have time for that when she’s making this mysterious shit after we leave.”
“Tommy, those are eggs,” Miguel said.
“Yeah? Then why the fuck are they red?”
