The Transformation

by Terri Kraus

  He tried to remember which number was which, which woman was which woman, and failed. No one had made an impression deep enough to last through the dark of the evening. He piled up all four cards into a thin deck and turned them over, so his name was facing up, and slid them to the center of the table.

  He sipped at his tea, hot, sugary, almost thick with flavor, nothing herbal or fragrant about it. “I like the Russians,” Taller said to himself. When one lives alone, talking aloud is not so odd, at least that’s what Taller told himself. “No pretense. Tea like a fist.”

  Afterward Taller rinsed his mug and teabag dish, placed both in the dishwasher, walked to his bedroom in the dark, undressed, placed his clothes in the hamper, slipped on a pair of running shorts, and lay on his bed, from which he could see the sky through an eyebrow window across the room. He saw no stars that night, only a muddy darkness.

  Maybe I’m just tired of the women around here. Maybe I need something else … something a little exotic. Maybe someone like Samantha Cohen.

  He folded his hands behind his head, his eyes open in the dark, unseeing.

  And how do you think my mother might react? Or my brother? Mister Perfect. Who might be the most livid? Wouldn’t that be a wonderfully complicated situation? Serve them right.

  He closed his eyes and smiled. Then the pleased expression faded, replaced by nothing, and he simply waited for sleep to free him.

  Barth carefully inspected the remaining slices of bread, checking for the tiny blue clouds of mold that formed, sometimes in a matter of minutes, it seemed. He turned the plastic bag over and over, holding it close to his eyes.

  “I think we’re penicillin free, Rascal.”

  It took the dog a minute to lift his head and look at Barth, almost understanding him.

  Barth slipped the bread into the toaster, pressed the lever, and waited. He could see his reflection in the glass of the microwave. He could see the etched wrinkles about his eyes, deep and furrowed, and the increasing cloudiness in his eyes, the cloudiness that stole his acuity. He lifted his chin, turning from one side to the other.

  “Not all that bad for an old man, I guess. Could be worse, Rascal. Could be dead, right? Or that might be better. Maybe time to go home to Jesus.”

  Rascal did not move.

  Barth never liked the name Rascal. It had been his wife’s selection, since it had been his wife’s dog. She had been gone for nearly ten years.

  “Ten years, Rascal,” Barth said aloud, acutely aware of the passage of years since his wife’s death. An aneurism had dropped her as cleanly as if she had been hit by a sniper’s bullet while on a camping trip. She had been in the soup aisle of Wegman’s Grocery Store in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, with a can of the store-brand tomato soup in her hand.

  The toast popped up, and Barth slathered both slices with peanut butter and apricot jelly, both Rascal and himself a fan of each flavor. The water in the kettle was boiling, and Barth spooned in the instant coffee, added a packet of sugar, and two spoonfuls of powdered creamer.

  He sat at the kitchen table, slowly eating his toast, listening to the whir of the refrigerator. Rascal sat at his feet, not begging, but offering his best plaintive and expectant stare, and gratefully receiving a few torn corners of each slice.

  I wonder where that tent is. Maybe I did sell it. I got rid of too much stuff. Ellen never liked camping, I bet, but was too nice to tell me how she really felt. Maybe I could go for a drive some weekend, up to Venango County … maybe get a hotel room, watch spring spring. Maybe Rascal would like a change of scenery too.

  Barth chewed his last piece of toast, knowing he wouldn’t take a drive to Venango County—not this weekend, not anytime soon.

  Doesn’t seem worth all the effort.

  He put the plate and the cup into the sink and shuffled into the living room, picked up the remote control for the TV, and switched it on, hitting the mute button immediately. The cold flickering glow filled the room. Rascal climbed up on the couch next to Barth, circled twice, and flopped on his side. Barth flipped through the channels until he got to the weather station. He set the remote on the arm of the sofa and watched, in silence, as the perky weather—weatherwoman?—pointed at a cold front building up over Saskatchewan and a low-pressure system over the plains. Barth wondered what might happen when the two of them collided.

  Whenever someone patted furniture, Robert the Dog assumed it was a personal invitation for him to join that person at the exact spot the patting took place. And that is what Robert the Dog did when he thought Paula was inviting him to sit next to her by patting on the cushion.

  Paula, obviously surprised at his gallumping up next to her, didn’t shriek, but she didn’t treat Robert’s intrusion as welcome, either.

  “Robert, get down,” Oliver all but shouted. Robert looked at Oliver, apparently hurt. “Down. Now!” he called again, and Robert slunk off the couch as snakelike and humiliated as a dog can be.

  “Sorry about that, Paula. I guess Robert isn’t used to guests,” Oliver said, moving between the dog and the sofa, as if Robert might try to jump up again, though Oliver knew he wouldn’t.

  Paula offered too broad of a smile in reply. “No problem, Oliver. We never had a dog when I was a little girl. I think I must have wanted one, but my mother said they were too much trouble and would chew stuff up and make a mess. So we never had one. She said that my dad—my real dad, not my stepfather—liked dogs. I don’t know why she told me, but I remember her saying he had a soft spot for helpless creatures like dogs and rabbits.”

  Oliver sat next to her, almost where she had patted the cushion, but not quite so close as she had indicated. He tried to think of a cogent response, but he could summon up no reply that fit.

  The recessed lights over the coffee table were on, the lamps at both ends of the sofa were on, and the tiny halogen spotlights on the wire track lights over the sink were on. Undeterred by the brightness, Paula scooched closer to Oliver. She snuggled in next to him and, almost in self-defense, he placed his arm over her shoulder—on the top of the cushion, not really on her shoulder. She leaned into him.

  “This is nice, Oliver. You’re so sweet. I mean, taking me out to dinner after I was such a hussy, asking you out first. You don’t mind that, do you? Old friends can do that, right? It’s not like we never dated before, is it?”

  “No. Not at all. This was … real nice. Or is. I mean, it is real nice. And we are old friends.”

  Paula leaned in even closer. She turned her face up to his, her eyes half shut with a deliberate seductiveness.

  “I’m glad, Oliver. I’m glad you had a good time. And maybe … maybe we can make it even nicer.” She moved up and her face came closer to Oliver’s. “I remember how it used to be, Oliver. You remember, don’t you? Back then. When we were young and wild and … you know … excitable?”

  Just then, at that suggestion, at that tipping-point moment, the garage door rumbled into life, clanking and rolling, the electric motor slightly off-center, vibrating through the frame of the garage.

  Paula stopped, eyes wide, and asked, “What’s that?”

  “My mother’s home,” Oliver replied. “Don’t worry. She never comes up here.”

  They both waited. They could hear the car door slam and the rumble of the garage door closing. Then, instead of footsteps on the concrete driveway, they heard the creaking and groan of wooden steps, the steps leading to Oliver’s apartment.

  “Oliver! Oliver!” his mother called out, and immediately both Paula and Oliver jumped to their feet, as did Robert the Dog. Rose Barnett’s words were not accusatory but offered more as an early warning.

  Oliver opened the door even before she made it to the top of the steps. “Mom, what are you doing here? I didn’t think you’d come up.”

  “I wanted to hear about your date. With Paula.” Mrs. Ba
rnett, holding the handrail tightly, pulled herself up to the landing.

  “Hi, Rose,” Paula called out from over Oliver’s shoulder. “We had a wonderful dinner at Angelo’s, and I begged Oliver to show me his place. After you said how gorgeous it was, I just had to see it. And Oliver has been the perfect gentleman. We had such a nice time.”

  Oliver expected something dramatic from his mother, but he was disappointed.

  “That is so nice, Paula. And I love Angelo’s too. What did you have?”

  Paula and Mrs. Barnett spent ten minutes discussing the meal, the menu, the prices, the waitstaff, the state of fine dining in Jeannette, how difficult it was to find a good person to date these days, the fact that living with a dog produced all manner of objections, that Oliver was a genius when it came to contracting and decorating, and that Rose Barnett was most apologetic for interrupting their time alone.

  Oliver was nothing short of flabbergasted.

  “Oliver, what time is it, anyhow?” Paula asked.

  “Almost half past eleven.”

  She grabbed his hand. “Then you have to walk me home now. My mother will be worried.”

  The three of them made their way down the steps, Mrs. Barnett exiting quickly toward her back door. Both Oliver and Paula bid her good night and began walking down the block, turning the corner toward Paula’s house, midblock.

  She stopped him at the corner. “My mother will be up. So … let me thank you here for the best night I’ve had in a long time.”

  She grabbed him, pulled him into a surprisingly forceful bear hug, and mashed her lips against his for a period that might be appropriate for a tenth date, Oliver thought. She made it obvious that she would have preferred more, was offering more, and was frustrated their alone time had been interrupted.

  She relaxed her arms around him and leaned back with a victorious look. “We’ll do this again, won’t we, Oliver? Take it up where we left off. Okay? Tell me we will.”

  He nodded, knowing there was no other answer to that question, at least not this night. “Sure, Paula. Sure we will.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE ORGANIST PRESSED at the organ keyboard with an earnest harkening, the bass shivering the foundation of the church as Oliver hurried to the balcony, knowing his mother would never sit there, and that mothers with young children had to sit on the main floor to see the “wild child” number-alert system. He felt safe in the balcony, even though it rendered him feeling more like a spectator than a participant.

  Sometimes watching is okay, he told himself as he climbed the stairs and selected a seat well toward the back, just under the large, oval, beveled-glass window. There no one would notice if he didn’t sing along with the hymns and choruses, and he could dispense with the miming—moving his mouth as if he were singing. He could simply stand and listen, which he often told himself was more worshipful than singing badly—at least that was his self-evaluation of his vocal abilities.

  The pastor’s sermon involved something about creation and our response to it, but Oliver couldn’t stay focused. Thoughts raced about, all competing for attention, none of them finding a preeminent position.

  Afterward Oliver took his time coming downstairs. He had not seen either his mother or Paula in church that morning. Sometimes Rose Barnett came to the third service. And sometimes Paula never came at all. Today Oliver wore his more standard church outfit: khaki slacks and a blue shirt. He felt no need to overdress.

  The crowd around Pastor Dan Mosco had thinned. A few people still chatted with him, most of them familiar, all with post-sermon comments. Oliver had hoped to have three minutes alone with Pastor Mosco; that’s all the time he figured his question would require.

  “Oliver, how are you?” Pastor Mosco boomed. He boomed even when it wasn’t required. “Working hard? I hear you have a big job in Pittsburgh. That’s a long drive, isn’t it? All that gas eating up your profits?”

  Pastor Mosco lived in the parsonage behind the church, a pleasant house in which Oliver had replaced the outdated kitchen before the current pastor had been called.

  A man who can walk to work has no understanding of what an aggravation it is to commute.

  “It’s not bad. I’m staying there during the week. At least for now. There’s a shower and all that. I brought a cot with me. So it’s been okay.”

  “Being in the big city like that,” Pastor Mosco added, “would drive me to distraction. You know—the crime, the noise, sirens, and drunks and prostitutes in the alley.”

  Oliver shook his head as nicely as he could. “It’s not like that … really. Maybe a little more crowded, but not bad.”

  Pastor Mosco offered his best pastoral grin, signifying that he didn’t believe a word of what Oliver said but was much too polite to carry on that segment of the conversation any longer.

  “I have a question for you about my current project, Pastor Mosco.”

  “Remodeling question? I’ll be of no use to you with remodeling. All thumbs with a hammer.”

  “No, not remodeling. More like … more of a spiritual nature.”

  “That I’m expert at,” Pastor Mosco boomed out again, maybe even louder than before, this time adding a laugh. People were now arriving for the second service, and Oliver felt hurried to get the question out and answered so he could slip out unnoticed.

  “Well, I have three brothers working for me … or they worked for me. They’re sort of done now. They do demolition and are real good and fast at that. But the oldest brother asked me last Friday if they could do carpentry work for me on the rest of the project. I’ll make a long story short here: He said they used to be carpenters a long time ago, but two of them were arrested—one for stealing and one for manslaughter. They served time in jail, and it’s been over ten years since it happened. My question is: Is it okay … Bible-wise, I mean, if I hire them? Should I hire them? What does the Bible have to say about that?”

  Oliver figured that Pastor Mosco must field questions like this on a regular basis.

  At the words stealing and manslaughter, the pastor’s grin disappeared like a frog diving into deep water. He stood up straighter and leaned backward an inch or two. “Stealing? Manslaughter? That means somebody was killed, right?”

  “Yeah, it does. I had to look it up. You can have a car accident and if someone gets killed, that can be involuntary manslaughter. But even Wikipedia made it confusing. I didn’t ask if it was voluntary or involuntary.”

  “Killing is wrong, Oliver. So is stealing.”

  Oliver nodded. He knew that already. The morning sun glinted from the thick gold cross that Pastor Mosco wore on his lapel. Oliver wondered if he had only one cross and switched it all the time to his various suits, or if he had lots of crosses and kept one on each suit.

  “Oliver, in the Good Book, you can find this question: Can an Ethiopian change his skin or can a leopard change its spots? That’s in Jeremiah … 12 or 15 … if you want to look it up later. And in the Good Book, the answer is no. There is no changing spots.”

  Oliver nodded, pretending as if he was going to look it up later. “So … are you saying that it’s impossible for people to change?”

  “Not impossible, but very difficult.” Pastor Mosco looked over Oliver’s shoulder and nodded to a cluster of arrivals at the front door.

  “So should I hire them, or not? They are really good workers, and they’ve never stolen from me.”

  “Personally, I would say not to hire them. You have to be so careful about who you associate with. What would it look like for a believer to be unequally yoked with an unbeliever in business—especially as a boss—and you’re the boss there, right? We need to be in the world, but not of the world. We can choose to stay away from all unclean elements, to stay clean and pure in our work life as well as our home life. As a Christian employer, you don’t want peo
ple to look at your employees and base what they think of a Christian business on how those employees behave, do you? And knowingly subjecting your clients to a criminal element—well, I think you would be making a big mistake.”

  Oliver nodded, not surprised by the pastor’s answer. “Thanks, Pastor Mosco. Thanks for the advice.”

  Pastor Mosco was already slapping at his shoulder in dismissal and moving on to the new group of parishioners, booming out “Good morning!” to them so loudly that several people turned their heads, thinking the pastor was welcoming them as well.

  Oliver hurried out the side door, the door facing Third Street, along which he had parked, a few blocks from his normal spot up by the funeral home. Apparently he was successful at slipping away unnoticed, for no one called out his name as he made his way down the street, past the shuttered Third Street bar, and to his truck.

  Rose Barnett wore her slippers—pink half-slippers, actually, the kind that made a person shuffle when wearing them—even though she was venturing outside the house. She hoped the pink fur around the top of the slippers wouldn’t get dirty on the sidewalk.

  It’s just around the corner. No one will see me.

  She was wearing an ill-fitting, well-worn brown velour athletic suit as well, which was more obvious to the casual observer as to her fashion standards but less so to Rose, who never wore it for exercise. Its function was purely as lounge attire.

  It is Sunday afternoon, the day of rest, and I have every right to be comfortable.

  She shuffled and slapped down the street and around the corner. The sun filled the afternoon air, a hint of warmth to come. Instead of ringing the doorbell, which Rose knew would wake Bridget if she were sleeping, she tapped at the door as lightly as she could, no more than a heartbeat of a tap. If Paula was awake, even with the TV turned on, she would hear her.

  Rose could see the top of Paula’s head, movement, and then an eye in the rectangle of glass on the door. The latch was undone, and the door swung open. If Paula was surprised at Rose’s unexpected appearance, she did well in hiding that emotion.