Sparta

by Roxana Robinson

  When he was through, he called Claire at work.

  “Hi there,” she said. She sounded distant and wary.

  “I’m sorry about this morning,” Conrad said. “You were right.”

  “I’m sorry I sounded like—so picky.” Her voice was now warm. “It’s just—”

  “No, you were right,” Conrad said. “I’m moving out.”

  “Con,” she said. There was a pause. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s not fair for me to stay here,” he said. “Sorry I was so rough.”

  “But don’t just leave,” Claire said. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I’m going to stay at Jenny’s,” he said. “Across town. I’ll be in touch.”

  Now he couldn’t wait to get out of the apartment, with its bottles of shampoo, its steamy mirror, its fridge full of soy milk and strawberry yogurt and ice cream. Now he felt trapped here. He couldn’t explain that to Claire; he couldn’t explain anything to Claire. He had to move on; something was hurrying at his back.

  At six o’clock he was on the sidewalk in front of Jenny’s building.

  18

  Conrad sat on a battered folding chair in Jenny’s kitchen, holding a beer and watching her cook. He leaned back, tilting the chair against the wall.

  Jenny stood at the stove; she was wearing a loose yellow blouse and black tights. The sleeveless blouse exposed her birthmark: a small, dark strawberry shape on the back of her upper arm. The tights just covered her rounded knees, leaving her smooth, pale calves bare. On her feet were flip-flops with glittery straps; her toenails were painted dark blue. She held a spatula in one hand; the other was set on her hip. Steam rose from the pan, and the sound of sizzling.

  “You crack me up,” Conrad said.

  She glanced at him. “Me?”

  He pointed with his bottle. “Blue toenails. When I left, you were wearing footed pajamas.”

  She laughed and looked back at the pan. “Blue’s nothing. I used to paint them with cocaine.”

  Conrad took a swallow. “Did you?”

  “No,” Jenny said. “Joke.”

  He waited. “But you’ve done some drugs.” She had to have. Another thing he’d missed—his brother and sister growing up.

  “Just weed in college. Nothing drastic.” She looked at him. “You checking up on me?”

  “I guess I am,” he said. “Trying to figure out who you are. You’re so grown-up. I’m not used to it.”

  “You’ve been away,” she said. “We’re both different now. It’s kind of weird, trying to get to know your own brother again.”

  “You feel like you don’t know me?”

  She looked at him. “Do you think I know you?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I feel like you want to make sure I don’t.” She lifted a lid and stirred. “You don’t want anyone to know you.”

  “No,” he said, “that’s not what it is.”

  But that was what it was, as if something had slammed shut deep inside him. He didn’t want anyone to come near. But how would he live?

  “Up to you,” Jenny said. “But it makes it hard for the rest of us. Hard on the parents.” She looked at him again. “We all know you’re having a bad time.” He said nothing, and Jenny looked down again at the stove and changed the subject. “What about drugs for you? You used to smoke some weed, as I recall.”

  Conrad shook his head. “Not many drugs over there,” he said. “It’s a combat zone, plus it’s a Muslim country. For R and R you go to another Muslim country, like Qatar. Though not us, not combat units. The Vietnam War was different, it was full of drugs. Iraq’s not. Sand, yes; drugs, no.”

  She nodded. “So what’d you do for fun?”

  “Nutty stuff. On the base, guys would think up practical jokes. They’d have costume contests. Dance contests.”

  “Dance contests? Really?” She smiled.

  “Yeah. They’d have routines. Sometimes costumes.”

  “Would you compete?”

  He shook his head. “I was the boss. Sometimes I’d watch.”

  “So they have no idea that you can’t dance.”

  An old joke. He shook his head and took a swallow. “I see you haven’t moved out of here yet.”

  Jenny sighed. “I can’t bring myself to give up this place.”

  “What’s Jock say?”

  Jenny narrowed her eyes against the steam. “I don’t know what he says. He’s so tired all the time, we don’t talk about it. When we do, we fight.” She unscrewed a bottle and shook some flakes into the frying pan. “He says, ‘What’s the big deal? Why is an apartment more important than we are? What’s your message?’”

  “And? What is your message?” Conrad asked.

  “How do I know? Why should everything have a message? He’s coming over for dinner tonight, by the way. He has a night off, and he’s going to stay here.” She shook her head and stuck out her lower lip, blowing upward to lift her bangs from her eyes. They fluttered, then settled again on her damp forehead. “How’s Claire?”

  Conrad shrugged. “Good.”

  “So what happened? Why’d you move out?”

  “The Roommates were getting restless,” he said. “Time to move on.”

  “More real estate issues.” Jenny nudged the spatula against what was in the pan. “You can stay here as long as you like.”

  “Thanks.”

  The tall window beyond Jenny overlooked the street. This was a galley kitchen—the stove, sink, and fridge all in a row. Green-painted cabinets hung over the sink and counter. On the facing wall was a board hung with pots and pans, over a narrow wooden table.

  Jenny’s apartment was the third floor of an old brownstone. The house was made of solid chocolate-colored stone, with wide steps and heavy double front doors. It had once been a dignified one-family house, but now it was cut into apartments, and had long been in a state of benign neglect. Decades of grime had settled into its cracks and interstices. Inside, all the cornices and moldings had been blurred and muffled by decades of paint, the edges softened as though by snowfall.

  The front hall was dim and lofty, with high ceilings and gloomy wooden trim. The walls were a sooty white, with huge faint stains on them, like continents. The black-and-white marble floor tiles were stained and cracked. The space had its own mysterious smell, burning, slightly acrid.

  Outside, along 103rd Street, cars were parked tightly along the curb, bumper to bumper. They looked as though they had been neatly set in place forever, solid and motionless, not as though they all dispersed magically each day during ticketing time. Then the street was empty for the huge, lumbering street cleaner that came bobbing and whirling along the curb, while the adjacent blocks were full of double-parked cars, their drivers waiting patiently for the moment of return.

  All the houses along the street made brave gestures toward nature. Some of the doorways were flanked by pots of geraniums, now shrunken and wizened after a summer of erratic watering, or faltering neon-pink impatiens, fainting in their planters full of baked earth, or, more trendily, stands of tall dead grasses, which, even dead, rustled beautifully with every breeze. On one house a clambering wisteria had taken stealthy possession of the entire façade, throwing out what had been tiny friendly green tendrils but had become, over the years, giant brown python-size trunks, covering the whole building with a shaggy green pelt.

  Jenny’s apartment, two stories above the high-ceilinged parlor floor, was long, narrow, and modest. The kitchen overlooked the street, as did the living room beside it, with its bay window. In the middle of the apartment, halfway down the hall, was the bathroom, and at the back was Jenny’s bedroom. This was large and square, with two windows overlooking the backyard, and it was the reason she could not give up the apartment.

  The front door slammed. “Hello!” Jock called.

  “Yo!” said Jenny.

  Jock appeared in the doorway. He was tall and gaunt, with pale skin and short, thick reddish-brown hair. He h
ad a narrow, pointed nose and wore small round metal-rimmed glasses. His neck was long, and he had a prominent Adam’s apple. He was somehow cool, with an easy, quizzical manner. He grinned at Conrad, who stood up. They clapped shoulders.

  “Good to see you,” said Jock. “How ’bout them Braves?”

  “Still on the wrong side. I’m sorry for you, man. How ’bout them Yankees?”

  They grinned at each other.

  “So, Jen told me you’d be here,” Jock said. “How’s it going?”

  “Good,” said Conrad. “How’s the world of medicine?”

  Jock squinted and rubbed his eyes behind his glasses, pushing his fingertips into the sockets. “You don’t want to know.”

  “He gets a little time off every two weeks,” said Jenny. “But only to sleep.”

  “Sounds like us,” said Conrad. “Only for us it was every three weeks.”

  “In the sleep-deprivation competition,” said Jock, “you guys win. In fact, you guys win in every way. I have to admit, Iraq beats Mount Sinai.” He raised his hands in surrender. He moved past Conrad to kiss Jenny. He was much taller than she, and when he leaned down, he put his hands on her shoulders as though to steady her, or himself.

  “What’s for dinner?” he asked. “God, it smells good.”

  “It’s called tilapia,” Jenny said. “Which is either the name of an exotic species from the South Pacific or a made-up PR name for Mississippi catfish.”

  “Catfish is delicious, you know,” Jock said. “I’ve had it.”

  Jenny made a face. “With or without whiskers?”

  “Don’t be a fish snob,” said Jock. “You’re meant to make a sauce with the whiskers.” He opened the fridge for a beer. “Man, I stink. I’m going to take a shower. Back in a mo.”

  Conrad took another swig. Jenny’s face was intent, and the steam rose around her. She leaned over, sniffing, then poured olive oil into the pan. She shook out more flakes, then turned the heat down.

  It reminded him of a cockpit, his sister’s tiny space, where she checked and monitored, turning dials, summoning up heat and fire, sending up clouds of steam, sizzling drops of fat, the smell of herbs and garlic.

  “How did you learn to cook?” he asked. “Did Mom teach you?”

  “I guess,” she said.

  “You like it?”

  “When I have the time, and if I’m having someone over. Otherwise I eat cereal or scrambled eggs. Grilled cheese sandwiches.” She glanced at him. “Can you cook?”

  He shook his head.

  “You should learn. Maybe that would make you feel better.”

  He took another swig. “You think I don’t feel good?”

  She glanced at him again.

  “You don’t seem very chipper,” Jenny said.

  “I’m chipper,” he said. “I’m very chipper.”

  “Could you talk to someone? A therapist?”

  He gave a dismissive wave, using his hand holding the beer. The bottle slammed against the wall. “Oops.”

  Jenny said nothing. She shook the frying pan, sliding it heavily back and forth over the burner.

  When Jock came back, he looked damp and fresh, his hair slicked and dark. He rubbed his hands together.

  “Now,” he said. “Let me have a beer. Then let us have the meal. Then let us watch bad TV, and then let us become unconscious.”

  When the food was ready, they took their plates into the living room. This was long and narrow and dim, high-ceilinged, gloomily elegant, though the furniture was random and shabby. Two ponderous mismatched upholstered chairs faced the inner wall and the worn red sofa where Conrad would sleep. Near the doorway was a round table with two high-backed wooden chairs. Conrad brought in his chair and set it at the table.

  Jock took a bite and shook his head. “Hmm-hmm. That’s mighty good catfish!”

  “Don’t.” Jenny lowered her fork and looked at the white flakes distrustfully.

  “Okay, it’s not.” Jock raised his hand in apology. He had pale slender fingers. “It’s jalapeño, right? I know that.”

  Conrad poked at his fish. “Do you have a bowl to put the whiskers in?”

  “Very funny,” Jenny said. “Tomorrow, you cook.”

  This gave Conrad an odd, complicated lift. Tomorrow.

  “Actually, it’s pretty good,” Conrad said. “Whatever it’s called.”

  “Pescado de gato,” said Jock.

  Conrad said to him, “So, you’re in rotation? What are you doing now?”

  “ER,” said Jock.

  “Intense,” said Conrad.

  “That’s the word,” said Jock, nodding.

  “How you finding it?”

  “Some ways, good,” Jock said. “Everything happens at once. You go in with the whole team, working at top speed on a patient, you all work your asses off, and then you’re done. You hand the patient off to another department, and you start over with someone else. It’s an eight-hour adrenaline rush.”

  “How do you come out?” Conrad asked. “What percentage do you save?”

  “Huge,” Jock said. “Half the people coming in are just scared. Bandage ’em up, give ’em Tylenol, send ’em home. Or send them to see their primary physicians. Half the others need attention, but they’re not a big risk. Bites, burns, falls, but not fatal injuries.”

  “But the rest…” said Conrad.

  “Are serious. Out of them, we save half, maybe three-quarters. The numbers are still really good. Yesterday a guy came in while he was having a stroke. His wife brought him by cab, didn’t want to wait for the ambulance. He couldn’t stand up straight. He was leaning against the wall. Double vision, slurred speech, just walked in the door. Jesus. He was right in the middle of it. We had him down on the table within ninety seconds, hooked up, IVs, monitors, everything.” He shook his head.

  “And he was okay?” Jenny asked.

  “Fine,” Jock said.

  “At Quantico, during IOC, we went to the local ER as observers,” Conrad told Jock.

  “What’s IOC?” Jenny asked.

  “Infantry Officer Course,” said Conrad. “It was so we’d get to see what trauma was like.”

  “Takes getting used to,” said Jock. “The sight of pumping blood is a physiological shock. Your blood vessels dilate, your blood pressure drops just to see it. Some people hit the floor. Men, women, anyone.”

  “Yeah,” Conrad said. “It’s tough, seeing that stuff. Your mind kind of refuses to process. You think, No, that can’t be right. All that blood can’t be coming out of his chest. Or, That hand can’t be lying there on a different gurney from the arm.”

  Jock nodded. “Shock can paralyze you. Someone else can end up dying because you didn’t act fast.”

  “It took us a while to get over it.”

  Later they’d made jokes about it. Where did I leave that hand? I just had it. It was right here at the end of my arm. Did you take it? Hand it over.

  In-country they made jokes about everything. Politically incorrect, seriously offensive jokes about bodies in ditches, wounds, missing limbs, babies. Black humor.

  It was a way to name what was happening, to speak the horrors, to render them powerless. It was the only way you could say how bad it was. He wondered what the ER jokes were, but he didn’t know Jock well enough to ask.

  After dinner Conrad did the dishes, filling the sink with steaming hot water, snowbanks of soapsuds. He scrubbed the plates, the silverware, the pots. He set the clean dishes in the rack to dry, drained the sink, sponged it clean, and turned over the heavy iron skillet and left it in the sink. He dried his hands with a feeling of accomplishment.

  They watched bad TV. Jenny had TiVoed something she wanted to see, but she couldn’t get it to work, so they watched a survival show about a bunch of idiots on an island in the South Pacific. The competitors shinnied up ropes and jumped into the water; they clambered through a tropical forest and tried to build fires.

  “Jesus,” Conrad said, “look at them trying to put
up a tent. I’m glad they’re not protecting our asses in Iraq.”

  “They’re probably glad, too,” said Jenny.

  “What kind of asshole goes on a show like this?” asked Conrad.

  “Someone without a job,” Jenny said.

  “Someone without a higher brain,” said Jock.

  “Seriously,” Conrad said. “Who would do that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Jenny. “I can see someone wanting to do it. It’s exciting and exotic and you get to go far away, and it pays money. And they’d feel famous. It’s a big adventure. Like going to Iraq.”

  “Right,” Conrad said. “We had a lot of crossovers from survival shows to the Marine Corps.”

  He was actually glad to watch this, irritating though it was. It was a relief just to give his head a rest, to fill his mind with different images from the ones that lived in his mind. The guy with the mullet sliding down the rope into the water. The blond girls who hated each other but pretended to be friends. The snake moving through the underbrush. The skinny guy trying to put up the tent, swearing each time it collapsed.

  “Do they vote on who they like? Or do we vote?” He wasn’t up on reality shows, something else he’d missed. “Can you vote to disqualify everyone?”

  When it was over and the wrong person had lost, Jock stretched and stood up.

  “Okay, guys,” he said. “I’m dead. I’m more than dead. I’m hitting the rack. Anyone want to join me?”

  “Con?” Jenny asked. “You or me?”

  Conrad laughed. “You go this time.”

  “Night, Con,” Jock said. “Good to see you. Sorry we don’t have a guest room for you. We will when we move. Into our own apartment.” He looked at Jenny, who shook her head.

  “No problem,” Conrad said.

  Jock went back into the bedroom, but Jenny stayed, curled up on the sofa. She looked at Conrad and made a face.

  “See what I mean?” she said.

  “Dude wants a commitment,” he said.

  “I’m dragging my feet,” she said. “What do you think?”

  “Indecision is a decision,” Conrad said. “You’ve got to decide.”