A Small Crowd of Strangers

by Joanna Rose

  The beads were smooth, odd-shaped pieces of glass.

  “Angela?” Pattianne said. “Angela Park? Wacky wife of Max?”

  She ran the beads through the circle of her thumb and forefinger, and they clicked cutely, and she guessed she was thinking about buying them, except she never wore purple. Elizabeth was wearing purple today. Maybe Elizabeth thought she wanted to be like her.

  “Sacred Heart, Valley Presbyterian, First Church of the Nazarene, Green River United Methodists.” Elizabeth read every name.

  Pattianne thought maybe she just wanted to dress like Elizabeth. She said, “Are you going to put it up in the window?’

  “I am not,” she said. “Sit.”

  Pattianne sat on the stool. Crossed her legs, let the blue-purple top flow down the sides of the stool, her outfit chakra tingling and balanced. Elizabeth sat in the chair, and her own purple outfit draped itself down to the floor. She opened the drawer and took out the big scissors. They made her hands look like a child’s hands. She held the flyer up in the air and cut it in half in one loud slash.

  Pattianne had never heard her say fuck before. But she had seen her make birds before. She made them out of overdue notices and mailed them back to publishers with her check. She made birds out of the Sunday funnies and dropped them in the street like litter. She made birds out of dollar bills and gave them to the little kids who came into Lamplighter Books with their hippie moms. Now she folded the first square into a triangle and then opened part of the triangle back on itself. After that the folds got smaller and smaller, and Pattianne got lost, like she always got lost, watching those small fingers instead of the paper, until one bird and then another sat on the desk. Then Elizabeth stood up and went in back.

  Pattianne picked up one of the birds, all sharp folded points.

  Elizabeth came back out shaking a silver can of Liquid Technology for the Hair.

  “Highly flammable,” she said.

  She held one bird up, the shadow of the cross on its wings, and she sprayed it. The hair spray in the air tasted like strawberries. She took matches out of the drawer, took the bird over to Kuan-Yin, and took the candle out of Kuan-Yin’s lantern.

  “Goddess of mercy,” Elizabeth said. “Lord, have mercy on us all when Jesus’s white boys start getting together in a bid for heavenly power.”

  She touched a match to the bird.

  Pattianne said, “I thought you liked Jesus.”

  The match caught, a quick blue flame up each wing.

  “Hey,” Elizabeth said. “Look who’s here.”

  And there was Michael, looking in the window, his hair its own little whirlwind, his head tipped to one side.

  Pattianne said, “Shit.”

  Elizabeth said, “What?” And then she said shit, too, and she tucked the burning bird into Kuan-Yin’s lantern and stuck her finger in her mouth.

  Michael came in, and the cranes bounced around his head as if they were laughing. He had a roll of the fliers in his hand. What showed was the shadow of the cross.

  “Michael,” Pattianne said, in somebody else’s voice. Somebody who was not there. She held up the other bird. “Look what Elizabeth made.”

  He looked down at the really big pants, and he said, “Hi, Elizabeth,” and there was a sudden smile in his voice, like he was trying to make something okay that wasn’t okay. He stepped close, tucked the fliers under his arm, and took the origami bird from Pattianne, and he whispered, “Why are you wearing pajamas?”

  Elizabeth said, “Hey, Michael, long time no see,” like she was singing a song. “We’re having a ceremony.”

  Michael turned the origami bird over, looked at it, the way you do with origami birds.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said. “You’re burning it?”

  The burning bird had actually gone out, its one blackened wing smoking. The hair spray no longer smelled like berries. More like gasoline.

  Pattianne said, “Why aren’t you in school?”

  He said, “It’s made out of the flyer.”

  Pattianne realized that when Michael was confused it came out sounding like wonder.

  “Kuan-Yin,” Elizabeth said. “Is the Buddhist goddess of mercy.”

  She looked at Pattianne, a sideways kind of a look that said, Watch me handle this.

  Michael looked at her too, the pants and the top and the purple beads and then down at the pants again. Wide as a skirt.

  “Now, then,” Elizabeth said. “Would you like some ginger tea?”

  Now then. Pattianne wondered why people said that, what it could possibly mean.

  “No, thank you,” Michael said. “Really, I just wanted to show you these. The flyers.”

  “Angela brought some,” Pattianne said.

  She wanted him to look at her face, so she could smile at him, so she could make something all right.

  “Well,” he said. “I’m on my way to South St. Cloud High. Student Congress planning meeting.” He looked at the shelf right there. Dreams. Astrology. He picked up a book with the large red title Wicca: A Personal Journey.

  Elizabeth leaned against the desk and said, “There’s construction on Front Avenue. You should go back to the highway and go around.”

  “Oh,” he said. He put the book back with great care. “Okay. Thanks.”

  There was the tiny crease between his eyebrows. He touched Pattianne’s hand, their hands down low, between them, just a touch. Then he left. The cranes pecked at the window, watched him go out the door.

  Elizabeth said, “That was not good, was it?”

  “Well, it was weird. I know that.”

  She said, “What’s the deal?”

  Pattianne pointed to the flier. “That’s the deal.”

  “I figured that much,” she said. “It’s his deal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it your deal too?”

  And Pattianne said no, but it felt like lying, like she had thumb-tacked that crease between Michael’s eyebrows with her own thumb.

  “The prayer circle,” Pattianne said. “That’s something he and Reverend Rick put together.”

  “Fucking Reverend Rick,” Elizabeth said. “What was that about pajamas?”

  Pattianne felt creeping, crawling disapproval all over.

  “The birds were beautiful,” she said.

  “Well,” Elizabeth said. Her voice had softened. “Religion makes everything weird.”

  Pattianne said, “I know.”

  Thinking, I don’t know anything.

  Outside the bookstore, Michael felt rattled. He turned right instead of left, away from the car. But if he turned back, he’d have to walk past the window of the bookstore. The wind hit at his face. He tucked the roll of flyers into his coat pocket. It was supposed to snow. He didn’t like Elizabeth and he didn’t know why. Didn’t even want to think about why. He kept walking. There was a display of blue snow shovels at the hardware store. He could hear himself saying, “I live in a place where they make a display of snow shovels. Ha ha.” He would call his dad this afternoon. His dad had a snow blower now.

  He went into the hardware store. It smelled like wood. And right there in front of him was a display of kid-sized snow shovels, four of them leaning upright against a piece of picket fence, next to a stack of bags of de-icer. He picked up one of the shovels. It was light, with a plastic handle. He wanted it. He wanted them all. He could get them for the daycare program at church. It was perfect. He could see the little boys there. It was about instilling a love of service. That’s what he would tell his dad. He took all four miniature snow shovels by the little blue handles and went to the counter. They clattered and one slipped to the floor. Michael picked it up.

  The guy there looked at the four snow shovels.

  Michael said, “I want all of them.”

  “All those too?”

  There were more, sticking up out of a silver trash can. And Michael felt a little embarrassed and said, “Well. I guess just these four.”

  “Got a l
ittle work crew going, eh?”

  Michael fished in his pants pocket for his wallet. “I’m going to get them for the daycare kids at Sacred Heart.” The roll of flyers fell to the floor and unrolled. He got out his wallet and then picked up the flyers and set them on the counter and got out some money.

  The guy said, “Donation, eh?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “How about I give you our ten percent?”

  “Great!”

  The guy was smaller than Michael, older, had a red Ace Hardware jacket. Michael wanted to shake the guy’s hand, but he was putting the money in the drawer, so he just smiled. The guy wasn’t looking at him. Then when the guy gave him his change, Michael said, “Hey, would you want to put one of these up in your window?” He turned the flyers around to the guy.

  The guy glanced at them. “Nope. Don’t believe so.”

  “Oh.” Michael kept smiling. He said, “Well, thanks very much.”

  He rolled the flyers back up and stuffed them into his pocket. He shouldered the snow shovels.

  “Thanks.”

  The guy nodded. “Very welcome, come again.”

  Once outside he kept going, around the block, instead of back past the bookstore. The sun had come out. There might be more places to put up the flyers. A yoga studio. Probably not. The wind blew in his face and smacked at the snow shovels. A law office. No windows really, just the door with the names. A used record store with posters for concerts. Probably not.

  He really needed to get going anyway. His hand was deep into his pocket, around the roll of flyers. He wanted to think of Pattianne working in a warm, friendly school library instead of that dark little shop. Burning the flyer. A ceremony. He turned the corner back toward his car. The wind hit at him hard, and he pulled up his hood. The flyers went flying, and he dropped the snow shovels on the sidewalk and went after the flyers, grabbing at them before they blew away. When he got the last one, he stood up. The sun was shining in his eyes. Elizabeth was standing in the window of the bookstore. She was just watching.

  Pattianne walked home facing right into the west wind, the wild west wind that blew in off the prairie. Invisible bits blew into her face until she was walking with her eyes almost shut. Her legs were as good as bare in the big black pants. She turned up every side street she could to get out of the wind, up Third Street for a block, past the used CDs-records-tapes store, up Fourth Street, past the Memorial Library and the International Eatery, up Fifth Street, past Smoke’s. A long, gauzy dress like a nightgown hung in the window. There was a row of posters and flyers along the bottom of the window. The prayer circle flyer was there, too, neatly taped at the end of the row, upside down.

  She never for a moment thought Jesus was a magical god come to earth.

  Now she was someone in Minnesota with a husband who went to Mass.

  A husband who prayed in a circle with a bunch of guys.

  Jesus was looming.

  Her nose dripped with the cold, and her ears tingled, and by the time she got home, she couldn’t even feel her knees. The wind blew hard against the kitchen door and yanked it out against its hinges. The house was cold, and she pushed the thermostat up to seventy-five. The wind blew against the wide, blank front window, and when she turned on the lights, the outside went dark, and there she was, in front of the bookshelves, Grandma Anthony and the wildlife parade, all of them posing in the living room. She turned the light off.

  It was Thursday. He’d be home right after school, no debate practice, no anything else she could think of. The Seasons of Minnesota calendar showed a blank October day.

  If she changed her clothes, he might not even mention she was wearing pajamas at work, which they weren’t, and which is what she should have said when she brought them home from Smoke’s and Michael had first called them pajamas. Now it was too late, now she was already sneaky, now anything she did would be about burning the prayer circle bird. Now she didn’t know what she wanted to do, besides wear long, beautiful clothes and know how tarot cards worked and what an ephemeris was. And she didn’t want Michael to make hippie jokes, and Elizabeth wasn’t really a hippie anyway. And besides, his hippie jokes were boring, and it made her sad when Michael was boring.

  It was funny though, that upside-down flyer. Jen would appreciate it. Her mother would point out that it was upside down, and Jen would appreciate that too.

  The bedroom heat vent rattled, and it was warm and dark in there, and she just sat there, on the bed where she slept with her Catholic boy. Where she made love to her young Catholic boy husband under his dark wood crucifix. Where he prayed to a Jesus who was a magical god come to earth. There were rules about their marriage, about how they could fuck and why. Some pope made the rules, and some other pope amended the first pope’s rules, and more popes made more rules, and they all handed down the rule-making rule, one to the other, until they all forgot that Jesus didn’t care about rules. Jesus hung out with whores and losers. Jesus was a political upstart with a beautiful sad face who inspired too much poetry for his own good.

  The piece of brocade hanging over the bedroom window fit as neatly as a curtain. She had made the bed this morning. There was chicken to cook for dinner. She could bake it in onions and olive oil and garlic. The whole house would smell like dinner. There were small, sane moments to be had for the asking.

  She didn’t even notice the banging on the kitchen door at first, and then she noticed it, and noticed she had been hearing it for a while, and went out there. And it was Frankie, looking in the window of the kitchen door, wearing a big puffy maroon jacket. She pushed open the screen door, and the wind blew it back against its hinges.

  Frankie caught it, and he said, “Mr. Bryn’s not home yet, is he?”

  “No.” The air was twilight blue, winter blue, cold blue. “Come in here. It’s too cold.”

  His jacket wasn’t even zipped, open to his white T-shirt.

  He said, “No, that’s okay, I just wanted to ask him to steady the ladder for me. I got to go up on the roof. That old aerial is just hanging there. I was supposed to get it down by now, and I don’t want the wind to carry it off into someone’s window or something. I got the ladder in the truck.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  Sometimes she got lucky in little ways.

  “Just let me change my clothes.”

  He looked worried at her, kind of sucking on that crooked tooth, and she left him standing there. In the bedroom she pulled off the big black pants and dropped them on the closet floor and pulled on jeans. Dropped the blue-faded-to-purple top on top of the pants, and put on Michael’s sweatshirt, and went back out in the kitchen, out the door. The wind was lying in wait for the screen door again, but this time she was ready for it.

  Frankie was out behind his truck, pulling the ladder out of the back. He tipped the ladder up, and the wind tipped it back down, and he let it fall to the ground and then dragged it to the side of the house. He leaned it up against the house, steadied it, looked up at the aerial. The aerial was swinging in the wind, dangling over the eave.

  “Is that safe?” she said. “Are you going to be able to get it down?”

  He put his hands on either side of the ladder. “Probably.”

  He flexed the sides of the ladder and started up, and she stepped close to the ladder, leaning into it, holding on to the sides. The cold aluminum burned into her palms, and the ladder bumped and jerked, but it was Frankie, not the wind. What the wind did was blow right up the back of Michael’s sweatshirt, up against her bare skin, against her neck. Her hands hurt, and it was so cold she had to pee, and it felt good to hurt like this, how sometimes it felt good to feel bad.

  Frankie yelled down, “You doing okay?”

  She yelled up, “I’m fine.”

  The ladder felt like it was cutting her hands, and she was afraid to let go to look and see if she was really bleeding, which she didn’t think she was, but it felt like she was. She wouldn’t care. She would bleed.

 
; Part of the aerial came loose, and Frankie yelled, “Watch out,” and it went blowing across the yard toward the house next door, flashing through the bare trees. Frankie yelled out, and the ladder jerked, and another big piece dropped and whipped her on the shoulder like the willow branch when they were kids and it was her turn to be Silver and Jen’s turn to be the Lone Ranger.

  Frankie yelled, “Are you okay?”

  It hurt. “I’m fine.”

  He yelled, “Mrs. Bryn?”

  She looked up at him, at his boots, and his face looking down, and the rest of the aerial whipping in the wind, and the black clouds moving fast through the dark twilight cold blue.

  “You can call me Pattianne.”

  He yelled, “What?”

  The last piece of aerial went flying end-over-end, off into the dark, into what used to be a bigleaf maple. Except now there were no leaves. She wasn’t sure. And two warm arms wrapped around her, and Michael’s quiet voice in her ear said, “Okay, babe, I got it.”

  Her hands were stuck to the cold aluminum, and Michael yelled up, “Frankie, come down from there,” and he said, all warm breath in her ear, “Okay, let go,” and she did. Her hands weren’t bleeding. She ducked under his arms and tucked her hands into her armpits.

  Frankie came down, and when Michael let go of the ladder Frankie jumped off the last rungs, and the ladder came down sideways with a quiet aluminum crash and bounce.

  Frankie said, “I got to go round that stuff up,” and he ran off under the trees.

  Michael took the ladder by the end and hauled it to the truck and slid it into the back. She stood still, watched him, rubbed her hands together, and they burned with the blood running back into them. Her shoulder stung, and her hair whipped into her eyes, and she shivered from all the way inside.

  Michael came back to her, clapping his hands together.

  “Good idea,” he said. “Climbing a ladder on a night like this.”

  She put her palms on his cheeks.

  “Cold,” she said.

  He took her hands away from his face and pulled her toward the kitchen door, and she yelled, “Frankie, come on in when you’re done.”

  He yelled, “What?” somewhere out there in the wind, somewhere out in the next-door neighbor’s yard.