by Alex Behr
He crossed the room to the doctor and put his finger on her forehead. She pushed it away.
“The kids tease me about my name, Troy Carter,” he said. “They sing: ‘Toilet Farter, Toilet Farter,’ and I chant along. I’ll do anything for them.”
He pressed her forehead again. “Do you understand?” he asked. She pulled down his hand and twisted his wrist between her thumb and middle finger, pressing on a nerve. He dropped to his knees. She squeezed harder and her voice got deeper.
“I don’t need a red button here,” she said. She let go, and he tried not to faint. He had touched the red button so often, though, that his animal brain, the thalamus, had gotten stronger.
“My father died recently,” she said. “We didn’t get along. I hope it’s OK to share. I like to be open with my patients when I think it can be therapeutic.”
“Your dad. Your poor dad!” Troy wanted to cry, but his tear ducts were dried out. “I wish I had a dad.”
The doctor told him to lie down on the concrete floor. She reached for a box from a shelf and put on a ribbed latex glove. Troy lay on his back, clothed and quivering.
“This won’t hurt,” she said. She stuck her hand in his mouth and pulled his cheek outward.
“No,” he moaned. He wanted the chirps from the smoke alarm to stop. He tried to relax, but her fingers felt like crabs. He resisted the urge to bite. She must have sensed his discomfort. She smiled and took her hand out.
“Anything you’d like to say?”
“I’m punching a hole in the wall, and the water is seeping down and out across the top of the window, as if by magic, and dripping into a series of plastic cups. And I know there’s something clawing inside my throat.”
“Yes, Troy. Something is inside you. A pigeon’s claw.”
“A pigeon’s claw. A wolverine’s claw. Something just stuck. Can I get some water? I’m so thirsty all the time. I try praying. Nothing helps.”
“First a hug.”
They embraced, kneeling awkwardly on the floor. Troy felt light-headed. He focused on the jingling of her silver bangles. He closed his eyes and breathed in her soft, ribbed sweater and thick bra strap. He opened his eyes and saw dandruff on Dr. Grable’s shoulder. The flakes made her seem so human, so vulnerable.
“How did he die?” Troy stammered.
“Let me get you some water,” she said. She walked over to a pitcher on a table.
Troy sat up. He noticed she didn’t move right. She walked steadily, with no adjustments for the thin air. It felt different in here. More buoyant. The air smelled bad. It was making him sick.
“My dad was doing germ warfare in the garden when he died,” she said. “He had a heart attack.” She handed Troy a glass of water. He swirled it, and sediment rose from the bottom.
“Remember, we weren’t close,” she said. “He was poisoning the caterpillars.”
“It’s bad to kill,” Troy whispered.
“They were eating the broccoli,” she said.
She knelt by him, getting ready to put her hand in his mouth again. Maybe she was an android. Why would a normal woman touch him? He hated androids. They ruined everything for the lovers on Mars. He took her hand, cold under the latex glove.
“You said I could touch you?” he asked.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
He bit her hand, ripping the latex through to the skin and spitting out pieces of flesh. The skin tasted like a rubber band, lightly scented with baby powder. He gagged. But if he ate her synthetic skin, maybe it would calm his stomach. Like a poison ivy cure, eating what harms him to build immunity. She slapped him across the face, which was part of her programming.
The doctor looked on the floor for the skin, which wriggled and glistened. Troy stepped on her hand. The android could focus only on her skin. She couldn’t fight back. Under the skin, was a titanium core, laced with glowing wires. Troy didn’t have much time, but there was so much skin to eat. But it tasted so bad. He was afraid he’d vomit again. Her skeleton was as shiny as the coins refunded to Laundromat customers.
Troy squatted down, his knees cracking. He picked up a piece of skin and dangled it in front of her.
“I know why Laundromats and your office are blue,” he said. “Orange and red make you want to leave—like the orange walls of lice-removal stations or fast-food joints. Blue makes customers want to stay and add more quarters. You want me to come back. You never want me to get well.”
“Bad, bad Troy,” she said. “Toilet Farter.” Her voice crackled. He stood up and got the cow’s skull. While the doctor rocked back and forth, making twittering sounds, he hit her face with the skull. Her eyeball popped into the machinery inside.
Troy made sure his lucky pebble was still in his pocket. He said a prayer to the rock spirits, thanking them. He paid attention so even the worst moments on Mars made sense, so when he finally sacrificed himself in the crater, he would have something worthwhile for which to atone.
SENTIENT TIMES
Evidently the cat shat behind the couch. Or was that word evidently somewhat absurd, adding a frisson of snobbery to a crass act, or was shitting less crass if a cat did it? What if worms were involved? Or if dried shit had to be cut from the cat’s tail? And if the cat were ill, did this story suddenly veer to sentimentality?
She was getting divorced. All marriage vows were lies.
The husband painted with She-Artist and her boyfriend, He-Artist, for three days in the basement, during which She-Artist and He-Artist held their hands in buckets of cold water. The ultimate ménage à trois.
The wife cried around her husband like she was a baby. The husband told her she dampened his creativity. She didn’t value his soul.
“Was marriage hard?” she asked.
“It’s hard to exist,” he said.
She talked to her mom. Her mom said, “Sometimes I think, where has my life gone?”
She comforted her son. Her son said, “I like to munch and pee.”
THE SHREW OF D.C.
M. waited until the answering machine picked up. The light blinked and she dared him to speak. She touched her toes on the rental-beige carpet, and when she stood up, she picked up the receiver. “Hey, babe,” he said.
He told her it took the shrew longer to find the clothes hamper when she drank. That’s what he brought up, right away, even though they could be recounting their rendezvous in the private hallway—the one with the eagles embossed in gold above the doors. He said the shrew had thrashed around their private rooms just now and forgot that she had a maid. Her dry-cleaning pile—her worsted green suits—made her irate. The press corps made fun of her clothes, especially that bitch from The New York Times. His wife looked at the size of her skirts and wanted to slice hunks from her ass. M. could tell he said that part cautiously. He knew she didn’t like her ass, either. Since she was his mistress, he had to be tender about that part of her anatomy.
She put her happiness in something external and unreliable—the big glub of him.
“She found out you bought that ficus. She put it out on the patio and it died,” he said. “Oops, hold on a minute, babe.”
M. wrote balls on her hand when he put her on hold. She licked it off.
She didn’t tell him that the ficus was called the weeping fig. If she’d told him, he’d think she was referring to herself, whom he called Ms. Weepy-Woo, when she wasn’t breathing heavily, pretending to orgasm. He said all the women he’d been with were loud, so why was she so quiet?
Everyone figured she was stupid and truly believed he’d leave the shrew for her. Mostly, he liked to inform her, via her vagina, or her mouth, or her tits under the Calvin Klein bra, of the times he’d been with others, because she triggered all of them.
He wouldn’t stop talking even when he was pressed against her; that afternoon she’d seen a trail of dust that the housekeepers missed in the hallway. He had one hand holding her head down and the other on his private phone, talking to the prime minister of Ireland.
That nosy bitch secretary knocked. “Sorry, babe. You know, I love you, honey,” he said, and shuttled her out the door.
Now, while on hold, she looked down at her dress, the one she could barely afford to have dry-cleaned, at the splotches of dried cum. His sperm tasted like a mouth full of buttermilk and heat, and she often kept it in her mouth and pressed her tongue against it. She tried to taste the spot on her dress, but her finger tasted of salty chips. She hung up the phone without saying goodnight, took off the dress, and placed it in the back of her closet, just in case.
THE SCORPION
A rusted Ford Falcon eased into the parking lot from the access road. It hailed from the 1960s: a two-door sedan with dog-dish hubcaps. Barb remembered them. She liked the Falcon’s taillights; they looked like wanton tits. Caked-on bugs obscured the license plate, and the chrome bumper sagged. Even the turn signal blinked at half-speed.
Barb sat outside the motel office under a mildewed patio umbrella. She couldn’t open it all the way, so it listed to the right. She dotted her nails with yellow polish. She was trying to redo the daisies painted at the salon down the highway. The polish had gotten chipped last night. Her painted dots blurred into the yellow, like a broken egg. Barb imagined her mother saying, “Make sure your cuticles are trimmed and your nails look pretty, so your boyfriend knows you care.” She doused a cotton ball in nail polish remover and wiped off the mess. The odor stung like a line of speed.
Barb fanned herself with a local casino brochure. She pretended not to notice the car headed toward her. Ants scrambled over the dirt and weeds by Barb’s feet, and the heat seared her toes. Normally she’d be inside the office, with the AC, but not today. Too depressing. She adjusted her butt in the plastic chair.
A rubber ball lay in the grass. She should put it in the lost-and-found box, but the kid who owned it, a girl with a runny nose and a Malibu Beach Bum t-shirt, was long gone. Indian gambling was about the only thing happening on this side of Clear Lake, California, besides hot springs and pot farms on government land.
The Falcon parked next to Barb. She took a sip of water and wiped her mouth. She pulled a scab from the underside of her wrist. It exposed raw skin that pulsed in the heat. The driver rolled down the window and smiled. His tongue poked out between his tobacco-stained teeth.
Barb squinted behind her sunglasses. The guy could be in his late thirties, about Jake’s age. His lank blond hair hung behind his ears. He picked a flake of tobacco off his tongue and flicked it out the window, as if he were dismissing her. But she hadn’t done anything. Not to him. To Jake, true, but it wasn’t her fault. She stood up and adjusted her terry-cloth shorts. Her thighs were crosshatched with grooves from the chair. On one leg, the lines covered a bruise.
“Need a room?” she asked.
“I’m looking for Jake,” the man said. “I’m Terrence—an old friend.” He got out of the car. He was holding a deflated duffel bag. His thin cotton shirt was frayed at the collar, and he wore brown old-man pants. He coughed and cleared his throat.
“Hot enough?” she asked.
“When’s he coming back?”
“I haven’t seen him. Maybe he’s at the casino or with his ex-wife.” Barb kept her voice flat, but approachable. Her leg quivered, so she jammed her hand on it to get control. Her mom had claimed she’d craved dog biscuits when she was pregnant; she’d even eaten some. Maybe that’s why Barb turned out strange.
She wiped her forehead. Yesterday Jake had sat across from her. He was tall with a dirty tan. He sucked the pulp out of a mango and licked his upper lip. Fidgeting, he tossed the green peel on the gravel for Barb to pick up later, after they fucked for the last time.
Jake yelled at her—as if he were here now—to pay attention. To not screw up. Terrence was an opportunity, like she’d read about in self-help books people left in the rooms. Maybe he had something to do with Jake’s drug deals, but those guys had code names. She couldn’t guess by looking if Terrence was “Squirrel,” “Grapehead,” or “Dead Guy.”
“You look like a smart girl,” Terrence said. “Jake owes me money, but it’s nothing we can’t work out.”
The phone rang inside the office. “Maybe that’s him,” Terrence said. He walked toward the office door. Barb shoved her chair back and it toppled over. She hurried after him, brushing against a saguaro cactus. A flower, white and gooey, bloomed from its side.
The office rug shimmered with broken glass and bits of plastic gravel from a smashed aquarium. A few black snails clustered on the damp shards. The jigsaw puzzles Barb had planned on gluing together lay on the rug. She didn’t have the heart to throw them out.
Terrence gave the phone to Barb without saying anything. She watched Terrence, only half-listening to Gloria—the only other guest, if her pain-in-the-ass sister could be called a guest—berating her on the line. Terrence paced the room. He opened desk drawers and looked on the bookshelves. “There must be a pack around here,” he said. “You and me, we’ll get a game going. What do you play? Poker? Crazy Eights? We should do something fun till Jake gets back.”
A couple of nights ago, Jake had chased Barb around the desk and pulled her down behind it, not caring that her knees banged against the legs of the metal chair. He took out his Leatherman knife from his pocket and poked the blade through her shirt until it pressed against her nipple. “Don’t flinch,” he said.
Now, with the phone cradled between her neck and shoulder, she sniffed her shirt. It smelled like Jake—like motor oil and dusty leather. She believed him when he said she was beautiful. She missed his stuffy weight on her.
Barb sat on the desk, jiggling her leg. She had a clear path to the door. If she could only get the keys to the Falcon. Maybe she could play strip poker for the keys. Get her sister in on it.
Terrence picked up the coffee carafe that held rescued fish. Black mollies swam in murky laps. “What’s going on?” he asked. Without waiting for her to answer, he opened a blind and punched a button on the AC unit. The machine sputtered to life, spewing cigarette smoke and a chilly whine. He found a pack of cards and tossed an ace on the floor.
“Who’s that?” Gloria said to Barb on the phone. “Who drove in?”
“I’m helping a guest,” Barb said to her.
“But there’s a scorpion in the bathroom sink!” Gloria said.
“I’ll help you with the goddamn scorpion,” Barb said.
She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. “Sorry for the mess,” she said to Terrence.
“Some party,” Terrence said. He flicked a queen at her. “Does Jake cheat at cards? Yeah, he cheats,” he said, looking at Barb’s face. “You like cheaters?”
Barb got a key from a hook on the wall. “Here’s your room key. Your room’s by your car. Checkout’s at noon. Since you’re Jake’s friend, it’s on us.”
“I’m going to take a look around,” Terrence said. “Don’t go anywhere I can’t find you.”
After Terrence left, Barb picked up a splintered baseball bat from behind the desk. She wrapped a white guest towel around it. She didn’t want to alarm Gloria.
Barb headed up the iron staircase. Sweat soaked through the crotch of her shorts. She tried to wave it dry. A line of sweat ran down the front of her shirt, settling under her bra.
Her foot caught on a torn piece of green AstroTurf, and she clutched the metal railing. “Shit,” she said. She looked down at the pool and shook her head at a blue tube top floating on the surface. Makes the place look trashy, she thought.
She reached the landing and wasn’t surprised to see Terrence, smoking and carrying a bucket of ice. “I thought you’d need my help,” he said.
He must have gone up the back way. She wondered what Jake would make of Terrence. Was he a threat or a pansy-assed gangster poseur?
Beige drapes covered the windows of her sister’s room. Barb knocked on the door, though it was cracked open. She stepped inside, avoiding the bed sheets wadded on the floor. Terrence followed her.
Glor
ia beckoned them to the bathroom door. She had thick red lips and round cheeks. Her eyeliner raced under her eyelids to meet the half-moon of blue eye shadow from above. Her large tits were squished into a low top. She looked sleazy, but Barb didn’t say anything.
Barb blinked and took off her sunglasses. She saw Gloria’s lips moving, but couldn’t focus on the words. She rolled the bat in her hand and forced herself to cross the room.
The heavy bat and the steam from the shower shrunk the bathroom. The faucet dripped in the stained sink basin. A towel, rusty at the edges, hung on a hook. When Terrence squeezed Barb’s shoulder, she brushed him off. Ass.
“It bit me after I got out of the shower,” Gloria said. She held up a swollen finger. “My armpit hurts, too. I think my blood is poisoned.”
“Let me see your finger,” Terrence said. He dropped his cigarette and moved Gloria under the bathroom light. “It could be a sting. You can’t usually see the entry wound. Sometimes scorpions bite when they mate.”
“Thank God you arrived.” Gloria smiled at him and leaned forward, as if she’d fall into him. He dripped ice onto her fingers and palm.
The scorpion hunkered in the sink. It was about the size of Barb’s thumb, and its body was golden, like a piece of sap.
“What are you waiting for? Kill it!” Gloria said.
“Go bionic on the bitch,” Terrence said, laughing.
Barb slammed the tip of the bat against the scorpion. Its guts oozed milky yellow, forming a crescent that echoed the shape of its crushed body.
That evening, Terrence and Barb became drinking buddies. They sat on the patio by the Falcon with bags of ice cooling their feet. “It’s a hot day. And that’s a leather seat, and I got a thin skirt,” Barb recited.
