After I played the crazy guy, I played the quiet, responsible guy. My reward for that performance was getting to play the husband, the father, and the seasoned storyteller. It’s been a good run, and maybe those are the roles I’ll end my career with.
Knowing I could play another role seems to give me the option not to. Writing the parts, as many as I can as fully-imagined as I can, lets me play them without losing myself in them.
These are the tales I tell myself about myself. Everything I’m telling you here is true.
See Me
“Company!”
That was the signal the three little boys had been waiting for. They sprang into action.
They stripped to their underwear. They hid, two behind doors at opposite ends of the living room and the other behind the edge of the archway to the dining room. They waited for the exact right moment.
The brothers had had plenty of time to practice their game. Company hardly ever came to their house. A few of their father’s drinking buddies would come over, a neighbor or two now and then, and their grandparents, always looking profoundly uncomfortable, as if afraid they’d hear a story they’d rather not know. The boys’ friends never came. The bear in the house kept them away. During the long summers, when there was no school, it was as if the family were a world unto itself.
In the fall, when schoolmates traded stories about the summer, the oldest brother couldn’t tell that most of what happened every summer of his life happened in his head. He couldn’t explain that the world he lived in shared only a few vague features with theirs. He didn’t dare admit that his best friends had no more presence than a dark line of clouds in a swift-moving sky.
The company sat on the couch and the parents sat in the chairs and the four of them were telling stories. Despite or because of the dearth of books in the world they lived in—hardly any in their house, a single rack of paperbacks at the drugstore, no library in the whole county—the brothers were growing up immersed in stories. Their father gave them plenty of stories—often drunken and obscene, often violent, sometimes over-the-top emotionally. Everyone had a story to tell: about the Civil War battle nearby, about hermits and moonshine and incest.
Now the parents and the company were telling stories about how the old lady McGowan had passed on after suffering all those years, poor thing, and her children were squabbling over who got the sideboard that the boys’ mom said was an antique and had been in the family for generations and their dad said—like he was enraged that the mom was so dumb—was just a piece of junk.
It was Saturday, so the dad had been drinking all day. The middle brother had found the bottle of Jim Beam right out in the open on the porch and emptied it into the toilet, risking but this time not incurring the bear-like wrath. As always, as if by black magic, another bottle had appeared, not to mention a case of Budweiser. It was Saturday, so the mother had been cleaning and cooking all day, and now she was all dressed up and fluttery as a chicken to have company in her house.
The oldest brother (author’s note: that would be me) went first, just like they’d planned. The mom was passing around the tray of brownies and fancy white napkins when he stuck his spindly bare right leg out from behind the door and wiggled it a few times, shouting, “See me! See me!” The middle brother shot his spindly bare left arm into the open archway and waved the hand like Miss America, screeching, “See me! See me!” The youngest brother, who always had to go last because he was the youngest, balanced on one foot and held onto the door jamb with one hand and did a crazy half-dance with his spindly bare other arm and leg and crowed, “See me! See me!”
The name of the game was “See Me!”
“See me! See me! See me!” they chorused, and then ran away on a river of giggles to hide in their room.
They couldn’t hear the mom’s words but they figured she was saying she was sorry and how embarrassed she was and she didn’t know why her sons would behave like that. Probably she had tears in her eyes. They felt sort of bad. The dad growled, once again, that those boys were driving him crazy. This scared them, but it was probably the point of the game. There was never anything calm about the man. When the brothers really got to him, he had a face like a slavering cartoon bear. People were afraid of him. That’s why company hardly ever came. That’s why Mr. and Mrs. Glover left in a hurry. The brothers were afraid of him. “See Me!” was a way of calling out the monster, calling his attention to them just to see what would happen next.
“See me! See me! See me!” the little boys whispered to each other as the heavy unsteady footsteps came toward them down the hall.
The Day He Died
The day he died he was eight years old and something terrible happened that day but he’s not sure what it was. He was too busy dying.
The day he died it was a hot summer day and nothing gloomy or sad about it, just hot, maybe a little too hot because his head was so full of the heat he couldn’t think straight.
The day he died they all came and worked on him as if he were a car that had broken down and they were shouting and arguing and he was so embarrassed he wanted to apologize but could not speak.
The day he died was very much like the day he was born.
The day he died the insects all put on their secret ears and came right up to the door, listening.
The day he died the world finally showed the other colors it had been hiding from him.
The day he died there were new sounds in the air but nobody was applauding.
The day he died every dream he’d ever had turned itself inside out and emptied its pockets.
The day he died windows lost their transparency.
The day he died the floors rolled up into the corners.
The day he died the roofs flapped once, twice, and then were gone.
The day he died the doors broke out of their hinges and walked away.
The day he died all the telephones rang but there was no one on the other end of the line.
The day he died the pond froze over quietly with him inside.
The day he died he got out of his bed and climbed up the stairs. There were new windows on the second floor for him to look out of but it took all his strength to get them open. Finally he stuck his head out and looked around. Everybody he knew was out there going about his or her business but looking much older than just the day before. They all glanced up at him and smiled. Then the house turned and went into the bathroom, stood in front of the mirror. He could see the whole house now with him inside. He looked just like his father as he stood at the sink and washed his hands.
School’s Out
It had been a day like any other. The paper boy had been late, and when he did arrive threw the bundle the size of a phone book so hard against the door one of the small bordering panes cracked down the middle. Next door the couple had fought for a while, driving the husband out to mow the lawn the third time that week.
Clouds drifted by, rapidly at first, then more slowly. In the trees the squirrels played their little tambourines.
It was the day he realized he had lost understanding. He still had the basics down well enough—he could understand simple sentences, if they did not involve issues of morality or existence. He could still drive his car, operate a garage door opener. He knew which end of the telephone to speak into, carefully selecting his words to avoid offense. He knew which end to hold to his ear and pretend to listen.
But he no longer understood why he did any of these things. He no longer understood why he even bothered. He did not understand why he got up in the morning. He did not understand why he was unable to sleep. He did not understand what everybody seemed to be trying to tell him. He simply did not get the secret message of the world. He simply did not know how other people saw him.
In the long afternoon of the world the cats rode their silver bicycles into the sunset. The cows whispered together of troubles in the pasture. His wife was leaving him, and now he did not understand if she’d ever loved him at all.
> The list of all he had not understood as a child would have flowed out the door and down the sidewalk where pedestrians would have had good reason to fear their footing. He had not understood if he was loved; he had not understood if he was lovable; he had not understood if he was safe; he had not understood if he was normal; he had not understood if there was even the smallest place in this world for him.
As he grew older he had seemed to obtain a kind of beginning understanding. Yet now, as he was entering the final quarter of his life, he did not seem to understand anything.
Out on the lawn, the dogs played an awkward game of croquet. They had plenty of enthusiasm, but a poor understanding of the rules.
Not knowing what else he could do, he grabbed his lack of understanding and took it for a walk outside. The trees had begun their premature descent into the ground. Before disappearing completely, they were broad leafy bushes, contracting in their shyness. The birds circled overhead in confusion. The squirrels angrily packed up their instruments and headed west.
In his stroll through the long afternoon of the world, his lack of understanding sang of the joys of openness and flexibility. His lack of understanding grew wings and flew away.
He returned to his empty house and sat on the edge of his bed. His mouth tasted like tangerines. “School’s out,” he said to no one, as outside the houses disappeared one by one.
Finding Melanie
Wherever Steve went, whatever he did, he was looking for Melanie. Getting up in the morning—for a while not being sure whether he was awake or asleep, whether it was morning or afternoon or midnight, and seeing no reason to worry about the distinctions; listening to the creaks and cracks of his joints the way you’d listen to an old house settling even though it had been on the same site for a hundred years; sitting on the edge of the bed until his head cleared; fumbling for his slippers—he was looking for her. Reading the paper, he was looking for her. Walking around the block, chatting with neighbors, making soup, watching the six o’clock news. He was looking for Melanie, who’d left him after forty-eight years but could not be lost to him forever because he would not be able to live without her.
This lovely spring morning he’d decided to stay inside and conduct an organized search for her in the house. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of that before, and now it seemed obvious that she had to be in here somewhere. Where else would she be? Anticipating that it would take several days to find her in this big old place, too big for just the two of them and unthinkable for him alone, Steve whistled almost cheerfully as he brewed tea and worked out a plan.
He started in the basement. Getting down the stairs wasn’t easy, and he tried not to think about climbing them again. For Melanie, he could do anything.
She wasn’t in the laundry room, where detergent grit had caked on the inside edge of the washing machine lid and a white sock lay on the floor. Her sock. A gift from her. A sweet clue. After all these years, Melanie still gave him a pleasant little thrill.
She wasn’t in the pantry. The cobwebby metal shelves were half-filled with cans and boxes and bags of foodstuffs. Steve pocketed three cans of chicken noodle soup, touched by how she took care of him. When one of them fell out and rolled, he didn’t try to retrieve it.
She wasn’t in his tool room. He didn’t go past the doorway. She wasn’t in the space behind the furnace where nothing worth storing was stored anymore. She wasn’t waiting at the outside door that hadn’t been opened in many years and might not even open anymore, might not even be a door. She wasn’t anywhere in the basement. He hadn’t thought she would be. But when you love somebody, you search everywhere.
When, sweating and groaning, he finally made it to the top of the stairs, he had to sit in the kitchen for a long time before he could go on with his search. Everything ached. Everything ached for Melanie. His heart wasn’t beating right, maybe another heart attack, maybe just an old and damaged heart needing time to recover from exertion, but he knew what it really was: Melanie had left him and broken his heart.
He hoisted himself to his feet, collapsed back onto the chair, wished for his cane, yearned for Melanie. If he waited for the chest pain and shortness of breath to ease, he’d never find her. The bones of his skull creaked from the weight of the second floor above him and the attic above that. If he had to search up there to prove his love for her, he would. Again he pushed himself upright. Vertigo made everything shimmer dangerously. The need to find Melanie stayed steady.
He found her then, not ten feet away from him, doing dishes at the sink with her back turned. Thinking to kiss the nape of her neck, he took two, three, four steps toward her, and she was gone.
“Melanie.”
He found her again in the dining room, watering her plants. She was beautiful among the sun-glossed leaves, and for a long moment Steve stood and watched her, leaning on the sideboard for balance. When he began to make his way around the table, intending to take her in his arms watering can and all, she was gone.
He found her again in the living room, slippered feet up on the hassock he’d made for her decades ago, lap full of embroidery. He started to kneel at her feet, which would have cost him plenty, but she was gone. He found her again in the front hall, putting on or taking off her blue coat, and he hurried to hold it for her for the pleasure of her body against his through the soft cloth, but she was gone. He found her in the leaded glass window beside the front door and his eyes filled to become prisms like the glass, but before his vision cleared she was gone.
Another painful climb for Melanie. Steve set his jaw, grasped the banister, pushed and pulled himself up to the landing. His need to stop and rest there was almost overwhelming, and Steve panicked. He had to find Melanie. Longing for Melanie made his heart hurt and his breath come short and shallow. Meaning to force his left foot onto the next step, he lost his balance and cried out. Welcoming the pain in his chest as her hand on his heart, as proof of his devotion and hers, Steve fell at last into the arms of his beloved.
Tidal Pool
The tiny woman with the wild and brilliant white hair was all but swallowed by the massive wheelchair and all its electronics and accoutrements and appendages, but her eyes bright as slivers of mirror held no signs of distress. She rocketed the chair along, gunning for adventure, her grandchildren struggling to keep up.
“Baba Kate! No!” the small one insisted. “Is dangerous!”
Kate instantly wheeled around and circled shark-like, finally scooping up the giggling child. The child leaned over and whispered something into her grandmother’s antique hearing aid.
The chair stopped itself as a woman in uniform strode in front of it and smiled. “Are you here for ‘The Pool of Life?’ “
Kate frowned. “Do they still really call it that?!”
She never said anything without an exclamation point.
“Treacly, I know. But it’s always been called that. And museums are, well, traditional.” She gestured toward a hall leading off to the left. “You’d best hurry—no entrance after the show starts.”
Kate’s chair bucked and started up again. The little girl on her lap shrieked.
They took their positions around the ring encircling a huge metal bowl, at the bottom of which was set a gigantic plate whose painted electronics changed pattern as people moved their heads side to side. Once all the positions in their ring were occupied, the seats spread and locked. Kate’s wheelchair was on a shimmering plate that held her firmly in place. Then this ring lifted and tilted to give the observers a better view of the floor of the bowl.
The little one cried because she wanted to sit in Baba’s lap during the show until her older sister shushed her and held her hand.
Her baba said, “It’s okay, sweetheart! You watch extra carefully in case I miss something! Then you can tell me a story about it later!”
Kate looked around as other rings rose, tilted, and locked. She smiled as the bells for each ring triggered randomly as they ended their final checks. There w
as a hush of anticipation. Even her grandkids were still, the little one with her thumb in her mouth peering down at the multi-colored disk. Then, “Oh, Baba, how pretty!” as the colors rose out of place and began to blend, blurred edges dissipating as a fluid climbed the walls. When it reached the level of the lowest ring where Kate and her grandchildren sat, it stopped. It shimmered, waves began to form which splashed to the edge with a yellow halo of spray. The younger children laughed and the oldest looked mortified when the youngest tried to touch the spray, exclaiming, “Hey!” as her hand halted at the invisible barrier.
Clouds formed above the fluid and lightning rang down from the ceiling far over their heads. The mist and fluid began to swirl, picking up speed until it looked like the side of a tornado.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, the swirling stopped, the lines of force broke apart and fell away. Inside the bowl there was now a primitive landscape: part of a volcano cut away so lava was visible bubbling upward, and great lizards, early dinosaurs, the narrator explained, and Kate thought what an obvious thing to say. Listening a bit longer and finding nothing more surprising, she decided to tune out the rest of the narrative; she didn’t have time anymore for someone who couldn’t tell a decent tale.
The fluid and the electrical storm came and went, and each time revealed a different scene to have emerged from this imaginary tidal pool. At one point the volcanoes erupted, sending great sparks and hurtling embers into the air, driving the children back into their chairs. “Baba, it scared me!” Kate responded with a pat and a smile.
She didn’t fully understand the technology, even though she’d read everything she could before coming here. In all that mountain of material she hadn’t found an explanation that satisfied her for how these flying reptiles could look directly at you and respond to how you looked and behaved, how the ancient people would answer questions, even sing songs or perform bits you requested.
The Man on the Ceiling Page 11
