Man V. Nature: Stories

by Cook, Diane

  What you probably didn’t know is this: It wasn’t something our man had planned or ever thought he wanted. He had a girlfriend he enjoyed spending time with and fucking. She wanted to be a nurse. And he had always loved movies and thought it would be fun to do something with them. But when he’d come upon the scene—the man, the woman, the crowd—a raw yearning seized him. He felt an urgent desire to be more than he’d ever wanted to be. He gave in to this new vision: with blood on his hands he became our man. And he enjoyed it. He was proud of his work. That story of the bank tellers? He would want you to remember that he also took seven of the female customers waiting to withdraw money.

  But now, what he would give to have taken a different route that day, so he wouldn’t have seen that man copulating, being adored, and he wouldn’t have had that feeling in his gut: That should be me.

  He felt the woman’s grasp let go and thought, Okay, now I’m dead, I’m released from all of this, and maybe that’s a good thing. But then a hand pressed gently on his forehead, and a voice said, “Hello? Hello? Hello?”

  He opened his eyes, and a woman stood over him, a different woman, one with yellow hair and wearing a nightgown. She smiled at him and lifted a baseball bat red with blood, and then he felt the sensation of something cold wrapped around his hips. He looked down to see the woman who’d attacked him, slouched to the side, rigid, her head a bloody nest of hair and bone.

  The woman in the nightgown pushed the body over onto the floor and offered our man her hand. “Let’s get out of here before the others track you down,” she said. She pulled our man up and led him past a dead body slumped in the doorway, whose matter was sprayed along the wall. It was a man. He looked a bit like our man.

  They ran through the night to another part of the city, our man barefoot and cold. Groups of young men roamed the sidewalks in search of him. They knew our man was weakened and hurt. They could smell it. They carried weapons, slapped them to their palms, jingled them if they were the jingling kind. Women lit candles in windows or on their front stoops, keeping vigil for him.

  The woman was like a ghost in her nightgown, her hair blazing white under the streetlights, seemingly invisible to the others, and our man began to believe that as long as he was with her, he couldn’t be seen. They crouched behind the postal boxes on corners when they saw gangs stomping toward them. They slunk behind parked cars to avoid the windows of bars where the patrons sat listening for any sound of our man. The woman cloaked him with her body to hide his scent with her own. He was aroused by her warmth. “Later,” she said, touching his chest.

  In the streets, sirens wailed and the city roiled, anticipating a grand change.

  The woman flew through the streets, pulling our man onward.

  “Just a little farther,” she encouraged.

  His feet were bloodied and embedded with loose asphalt, broken glass.

  “Keep going,” she begged.

  They heard barking. A pack of dogs was gaining on the scent of the blood he spilled with each step. The woman turned into an alley and leaped to pull down a fire escape ladder. She pushed him to it. Go, go, she cried, and he climbed and she climbed after him. Above, she led the way across a mile of rooftops, still hot from the deserted sun. Pigeons startled up from their roosts and marked our man’s trail through the sky for the people below to follow.

  Finally, after birds, after roof jumps, zagging to a whole other city section, the din of search parties falling behind, the woman swung open a plain door and our man threw himself inside.

  A room full of women sucked in their breath.

  Someone whispered, “It’s him.” They erupted noisily like geese taking flight.

  Our man saw dozens and dozens of women wringing their hands with need. He was afraid.

  The woman in the nightgown led him to a chair in the middle of the room.

  “You’re safe here,” she said. “Do you believe me?” She locked eyes with him, and he believed her.

  Our man woke to a naked blonde sucking him off.

  “There’s a line, but I wanted to be first,” she said. She roused him to his feet. They were in a windowless room with a cement floor; the twin bed he’d been sleeping on stuck out from one wall, and a small television on a metal arm from another. That was it.

  The woman squeezed his hand and gazed at him, and then our man recognized her.

  He pawed at her bare chest and laughed. “Where’s your nightgown?” He almost wept at seeing her.

  She rubbed at his face, wet-eyed, gasping. “I didn’t want it to get in the way. My word, you’re handsome,” she said and stroked his ears, his eyes, tried to put fingers into his mouth but then stopped herself. “It’s just remarkable,” she said. He folded her over the bed. “Oh wow,” she cried. They thrust the bed across the room.

  After he came, the woman placed her hands on the floor and threw her legs up against the wall. “My doctor says this will help,” she said, red-faced, her hair falling all around her, her breath strained as her insides sank toward her throat.

  “You’re hilarious,” our man said, near to joyful tears again. He tried to do a headstand too but fell over and laughed. “I want to spend every second with you!”

  She giggled. “Don’t distract me!”

  When she stood to leave, he asked to go with her.

  “Too dangerous, babe. You stay here.”

  Our man asked when she would be back.

  “When I can,” she said, and left.

  Immediately another woman walked in and began to undress.

  “I’m sorry,” our man said, and remembered he was naked. “You must have the wrong room.”

  The woman pulled a T-shirt over her head. Her tight breasts quivered. She had tattoos on her hips of terrible eagle faces. “I’m certain I don’t,” she said, and stepped toward him out of her skirt. She wore nothing under it.

  “Oh.” His mouth got wet without him being able to stop it.

  “They weren’t kidding,” she said, running her hands up and down his chest, her fingernails leaving a tingling map that made his ears ring.

  He cleared his throat. “That woman who just left. We’re together.” He felt ready to make a commitment, and he believed the woman in the nightgown was ready too. It would mean saying no to other women. He wanted to say no.

  She tongued his ear deeply. “Is that so?”

  He could feel the heat between her legs. She lowered herself slowly until she was sitting in his lap. Her muscles contracted under her skin, and our man could smell her scent mixed with a ripe perfume on her neck. She was so close and so eager, and he just couldn’t help it.

  A long line of women waited, and they didn’t like waiting. Many were gruff and got annoyed if he asked for a minute to himself. Some were old and others far too young, so that with his arousal came a feeling of shame. Some had ailments, deformities. They were not the kind of women he usually impregnated.

  It felt like weeks before the woman in the nightgown circled back to him. She seemed sad.

  “I didn’t think I’d need to return.” She frowned. “I thought you were a sure thing.”

  “Didn’t you want to see me?”

  “Of course.” She smiled thinly and patted between her legs. “Let’s go. I’m ovulating.”

  He surprised himself—he could see he surprised her too—by weeping as he held her, as he came, and as he watched her leave. But it was different from the first time, before he knew what these captive weeks would bring, when he just felt lucky to be alive, when he thought he’d met the love of his life and he didn’t think he would survive until he saw her next. He yearned only for her. But he could not convince himself she felt the same, and it left him hollow.

  “Please tell me your name,” our man said to the woman in the nightgown. She was curled in a ball in a corner of the mattress, as far away from him as she could be. She thought if she curled tightly enough, the baby would feel protected and so begin to grow.

  “Mary,” she said.


  He waited for her to ask his name. When she didn’t, he said, “Don’t you want to know mine?”

  She shrugged. “Sure.”

  “It’s Sam.”

  “You don’t look like a Sam.”

  “What do I look like?”

  She peered at him. He wanted so badly to conjure a feeling of familiarity in her, a feeling like, You remind me of the past, of essences of people I once cared about, of times that might have been important to me. He wanted to be the kind of important that would make her stay. She said, “I don’t know. Not Sam though.”

  The next time she visited him, he asked, “What do you do on the days I don’t see you, Mary?”

  “I work, see friends, you know.”

  That night he dreamed of her with her friends, and all the wonderful things they might talk about.

  “Mary, can I go outside?” our man Sam asked. He’d grown pale, his shoulders had narrowed, he’d formed a paunch. “I could use a run.” He crossed his arms over his stomach to hide it.

  “No, you’re still a wanted man.” She uncrossed his arms. “Don’t worry. It’s what’s inside that counts.”

  “Where have all the other women gone?” He had more free time; when the door to his room opened for another woman to enter, the waiting room looked emptier.

  “They went away to have babies,” Mary said sullenly.

  He asked their names. He knew them only by symbols—leg scar, back tattoo, palsy. He thought knowing their names would help him imagine what their children—his children—might be like.

  Mary told him: Claire, Veronica, Nan, and so on.

  “What if one of them tells where I am?”

  “They won’t. Men are all blustery and short-sighted feelings. Women are thoughtful. We think long-term. You’re good for the world.”

  He touched his cheeks. They were hot. He was blushing. “Am I good for you?” he asked. He felt sick in his heart.

  “You better be,” she said, disrobing. “You’re my last hope.”

  But he wasn’t good for her.

  Maybe outside these walls he’d been replaced. Or maybe he’d managed to satisfy each woman in the city, except one. After all the other women swelled with child and left, only Mary remained, empty. And with each visit, she grew more disappointed. He didn’t understand why she kept coming when all he did was fail her, but he didn’t want her to stop—he would have nothing left. So he tried to try harder, though he didn’t know how.

  It wasn’t a good life. But it was a life.

  When he felt most lonely, he focused on this: He had been kept. Not cast away to be chased, battled, killed. He was being cared for by a woman who still asked him to touch her again and again, and who, at least for now, believed beyond all proof that he had something to offer. And who, in their closest moments, when our man tried to give her what she most wanted, managed to abandon some bitterness and express something like joy or pleasure or peace. It might be unconscious. It might have nothing to do with him. But he called it love. And as long as he could see it in her, he would be grateful. He would miss her when she wasn’t with him, and with bile burning his throat, he would wait for her return.

  THE MAST YEAR

  Jane stuffed as many of her belongings into her purse as she could. She’d just been called to her boss’s office and she knew what that meant. Nothing good ever came from a visit to the boss’s office. If she was about to be fired, she wanted her things with her.

  But in her boss’s office she didn’t get fired. She got a promotion. With a raise—a good one. And a bigger desk. She unpacked her things and sank into her new, better chair. She’d often thought of quitting. The job had been stagnant. The commute was long. But this made it easy to stay. That day, she even enjoyed her drive home. The traffic seemed thinner and no one honked at her.

  Then, that weekend, Greg returned from a business trip with a bulge in his pocket that turned out to be a ring box. Jane watched him slide the ring onto her finger. She thought about how, when Greg moved in, his things would mix with her things until they forgot who owned what. And there would be other perks of stability, like knowing what to expect and what was expected of her. She twirled the ring, enjoying its glimmer. It was as if the world had heard what she wanted and had finally decided to deliver.

  This was how her year began. And shortly after, the first people arrived.

  One morning, Jane found a man and woman sleeping in each other’s arms near her roses. Jane figured they were homeless, though they didn’t have that scruffy look. Perhaps they were drunk and had gotten lost. Their presence unnerved her, but she told herself they would leave in a day or so, and what was the harm?

  The next day two tents stood under her willow. A few children ran around, and a man with a long beard moved landscaping stones into a circle.

  During the night, Jane’s sleep was disturbed by hammering. She woke to a crowd of men, women, and children huddled under umbrellas, tents, and tarps strung between the trees. There looked to be at least forty people. When Jane peered out the front door, they cheered.

  She called her mother.

  “Sounds like a mast year,” her mother said. Jane heard a game show in the background.

  “You mean this is a thing?”

  “Yes, it’s a thing. It’s a thing that happens to trees. But sometimes it happens to people too.”

  Her mother explained that some years trees grew far more nuts than in ordinary years. A year of abundance was called a mast year. Somehow, as if the trees were calling to them, animals from all over sensed the tree’s prodigious bounty and swarmed it. They gorged. “I’ll send you a book about it. It’s short. More like a pamphlet.”

  “But I’m not a tree.”

  “You’re like a tree. You drink water. You’re tall. You’re sweet.”

  “Mom.”

  “Jane. When people have mast years it’s because they’re having extra good fortune. Like you with your raise and engagement. Don’t you think you’re very fortunate right now?”

  “Things are going well, but—”

  “People want to join in your good fortune. So let them. You said to the world, ‘I’ve got something you want.’ You shook your limbs and said, ‘Come.’ So they came.”

  “Sorry, Mom, but I didn’t ‘shake my limbs.’ I didn’t do anything.”

  “Well, sorry, honey, but you did. They wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  “Mom.” Jane sighed. She wished she hadn’t called.

  “Jane, relax. You’ll love it. You’ll be surrounded by people who think you’re wonderful. Because you are. They’ll feel lucky. And you’ll feel like a saint when it’s over. It’s only a year. What’s one year?”

  Jane wanted to tell Greg herself, but he’d already found out from work friends. He made a big show of ringing her bell and presenting her with flowers at the door even though he had a key and could have just come inside. Jane blushed and tried to usher him in, but he caught her around the waist and dipped her into a movie-style kiss. The crowd clapped their hands. Someone yelled, “Woo!”

  Greg called out, “This woman loves me.” He puffed his chest.

  But once inside, Greg slumped. “Why are you doing this?” he whined.

  “It’s just a thing that’s happening,” she said.

  “Well, make it stop.”

  “I can’t. I don’t know how.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Aren’t I paying enough attention to you?”

  “Yes, you’re fine. We’re fine.”

  “Then make them go away. They’re going to think I don’t do enough for you.”

  “But you do.”

  “Then why are they here?”

  “I don’t know.” She kissed his neck. “Maybe I’m not doing enough for you.”

  Jane tried to wake early so she could bring Greg breakfast in bed, but he was already in the kitchen when she came down. On the table was Greg’s signature omelet, cut in t
wo and plated, and mugs of coffee, hers fixed how she liked it.

  “I also made a coffee cake, but it isn’t ready yet,” he said. His brow seemed to frown.

  “You make coffee cake?” She smelled vanilla and something bitter.

  He glanced quickly out the window. “I always make coffee cake,” he said, sounding hurt. The crowd looked hungry.

  “Well, great,” she said, settling into a chair, “I love coffee cake,” even though she thought it was just okay. “Is it your signature coffee cake?” she asked, looking at her beige omelet.

  “Why, yes. It is.” He laughed with relief, glancing out the window again. “You’re lucky. I’m a man with a signature everything.” His half of the omelet was gone, and he stood to go. He kissed her roughly, as though marking his territory. But then his kiss turned tender, and she blushed. The faces in the window were smeared with achy smiles.

  “Be a doll and take that out in five,” Greg said, took two twenties from her wallet, and left.

  She dumped the rest of her omelet into the trash. It was nice that he had signature things, but really signature just meant one, and his signature omelet wasn’t very good. She tasted a corner of the coffee cake. It was salty. Jane cut it into pieces and arranged them on a platter. She would tell him she couldn’t stop eating it.

  As she pulled out of the garage, people gathered to touch her car. She triggered the door locks. Their clothing wiped the windows. Metal jacket buttons pinged the car like rain. Their faces showed deep concentration, as if they were placing a smell that had once been familiar. They held small trinkets in their hands, wood and stone talismans, stacked brownies tied with ribbons. They offered these to her.

  “No,” she said from behind the glass. “You keep those. I don’t need them. Don’t you need them?” The brownies looked good. Her mouth watered. But no, this was what it was all about. They were in need and she could give, and then they would leave, right? She inched the window down enough to slip them the plated coffee cake. Someone in a wool hunter’s coat took it. “Sorry, it’s not very good,” she explained through the crack. “I didn’t make it. I will next time. I promise.”