She said, ‘Mute! Retard! You want to just sit there? Creep!’
She said, Snitcher! ‘Snitcher’ from a teacher – the adult world’s adoption of a children’s insult, used to label those who had done an allegedly bad thing that was really an intended good thing that might look like a bad thing for a good reason, or, a bad reason. The buster had gotten busted. The world had turned itself upside down on him. The misunderstanding, miscommunication, misinterpretation; it still sickened him.
She said, ‘Sicko! Motherfucker!’
She said, ‘Fuckingmotherfucker!’
He remembered what her voice reminded him of: a voice he had loved in childhood, the voice of the man in the chocolate syrup commercials who went on about the thick, rich, deep, dark, milky, velvety stuff. That man had the ideal voice for chocolate. That was it. Hers was the voice of the thick-rich-deep-dark-chocolate man.
He popped a bagel into the toaster. He ate it slowly and even managed to look her in the eye a few times as he ate.
She ran out of names to call him. She sat on the floor, like a retired puppet. He had no other furniture to offer her but boxes, and of course his chair – but he could not get himself to offer the chair. She was still bundled in her coat. When he was convinced that she was done shouting, he toasted her a bagel and placed it on a plate.
She grabbed the bagel in her hands, squishing it down to dough, in the manner they handled complimentary stress-relieving balls at his old office, and said ‘I’m gonna kill you.’
‘Look who’s looking at you, asshole.’
She had undoubtedly grown up in the city. She did what they did not do in the city unless out of hostility – she stared. She stared at him with a mean resolution. He stared back. For a very long time, lengthy paragraphs of silence, they just stared. Until she got up, shuffled aimlessly, kicked a couple boxes, and made a noise.
It was apparently a sob.
She said, ‘Do you know what we go through? We go through hell, asshole.’
We. It terrified him. It could also mean she had causes.
He wondered what she could do. She had said it plainly: kill. That was her goal. That was that. That plus the fact she could have other causes. Plus the fact she could have causes and be crazy. He thought about it harder and concluded it wasn’t too much to think she was crazy. The city said, Crazy yourself.
But he was worried; about her causes. If she was right, if she was crazy, where to draw that line; her misunderstandings, his. Because at an early age, he had learned. He recalled a certain sundries store of his youth, where the young son of the owner, roughly his age, had worked. They were almost friends. The young son had asked Henry if he could draw. Henry said he had done it before, he could, but maybe not well. The young son asked him what he drew. Henry shrugged and named various school projects, maps of the world, dinosaurs, dead presidents. The young son concluded that he could draw people. Henry shrugged. The young son phrased it differently: would he draw people? Henry said he would if he had to. The young son went further: what about naked people? Henry thought about this, and admitted he’d rather not. The young son told him there were free cigarettes or ice cream or whatever he wanted from the store in it for him. Henry thought further. Before he knew it the young son took out a piece of paper and a pencil and ordered him to draw. He wanted a naked woman. Henry choked back the lump in his throat. He took a while to lightly sketch a smallish naked woman. The young son told him it wasn’t so great but it would do OK. Henry got a free Astropop that day. Another time, he got a radio. He got other things as well. One day, the young son demanded a naked man. Henry told him he would rather draw naked women. The young son told him to do it, he had to, and besides, it would be easier. Henry did not know what to do, so he did his best. The young son looked at it and suddenly got angry, accusing Henry of drawing men and women the same. He suddenly wasn’t so sure of Henry’s naked women. Hadn’t he seen a woman? Hadn’t he seen himself? What was he trying to do – hustle, steal, shoplift? The young son told him to get out or he’d call the cops. He crumpled the paper and Henry ran out, thinking of course he knew, of course men and women were different, of course. It had just been a mistake, a mis-rendering, a bad translation …
She said, ‘Do you hear me?’ over and over again.
Then, ‘I am tired,’ she said, done.
It wasn’t the window – the window hadn’t done a thing but gotten conceived in a bad spot. It was the chair’s fault. He wondered why he had ever put his chair there. He remembered: because his desk was there. Maybe it was the desk’s fault. He had spent a good deal of time thinking about it. In a studio, you had options, too many options. Desk near radiator? Dresser near desk? Bed near radiator? Bed near window? Radiator near dresser? Desk near window? Desk near window. He thought it would be the best thing. He had read it somewhere, that it would be good for him, as well as for the general wellbeing of the room, to have his desk beside the window.
He wondered why he had never put up curtains. He remembered: nobody had curtains in the city. Blinds at most, and usually open blinds. In those other towns, people were always worried about privacy and protection and inner lives, things like that. Here the city said, What the fuck are you looking at? Oh, you’re looking at me? Go the fuck ahead, the city said, go the fuck ahead.
It was different watching her in person, up close, and ‘live.’ It was like running into a famous film star taking out the trash (something he had not yet seen, but anticipated he soon would once he began to go out in such a famous city).
She was herself with him soon enough. He recognised that.
She would scrape her nose with the tip of a nail, raking up dead cells.
She would scratch her shoulders, crossing her arms over her chest to reach the opposite shoulder.
She would whimper, rant, yell, choke up, go quiet.
She would pace and then sit down again, always at the one corner under the window, sometimes with her thick legs wrapped around each other, often in a peculiar knot, which made them look slimmer and limber.
Once, she did something he liked. She got up and put one foot up onto the sill to tie her white nurse-style sneaker. It reminded him of that certain girl who lived in his old teenage mind, the girl in the short skirt on the spring day, hiking a leg up against the bark of a tree to tie her shoe. He did not know who exactly that girl was, only that it was a girl he was sure had romped through the minds of most men at some point in their lives.
He thought it looked nice, but he did not understand it. Tying her laces when she wasn’t going anywhere.
Constantly, like a child’s wind-up toy car, he bumped into the wall that was the idea: what-to-do. He sat down next to her, wondering what she would do. He imagined abuse. To his shock, she said nothing. She reached over to the distorted mass of bagel, ripped off a piece with her teeth, and chewed. She kept chewing. He thought she might need water. He went to get her water, but by the time he returned, her head was tipped back and her eyes were closed. She looked asleep. He sat down next to her again and tried to fall asleep as well.
When he opened his eyes, her eyes were open too. He had one thought: they had done it. Almost, in a sense, with a few of its intimate connotations intact, they had slept together.
The idea bore a bad acid. He felt sick. The city had a saying, he thought, and he remembered: he told the idea to take a walk; Take a fucking walk, jackass.
‘Sex, is that it? You want me? Is that what we’re getting at?’ she said.
‘I have kids, you know,’ she said.
‘I’m not afraid to admit that I’m scared,’ she said.
‘They don’t live with me,’ she said.
‘But you know that, you know I live alone,’ she said.
‘God, what time is it,’ she said.
‘You think I do this every day?’ she said. ‘I do not do this every day.’
‘How are you going to pay me back, asshole?’ she said.
She took the plate beside her, and with b
oth hands slammed it against the floor. She could break things, this woman. He worried that the broken pieces might be the only weapon he would have to defend himself, when the time came.
When the doorbell rang, they both looked at it, then each other, accusingly. He wondered if there was any chance she had called the police and he imagined she wondered the same thing.
He looked through the peephole. It was the young girl from downstairs, in pink flannel pyjamas, squinting through her glasses with sleepy eyes, smothering the shaggy blue rabbit tucked snugly in her armpit.
He looked back at the woman: biting her lip, staring at the ground, in plain view. It wouldn’t look right. He would have to be careful. He opened the door just a bit. He fought the urge just to run out, and instead stepped out on the doormat.
He asked if he might help her.
‘Can you turn the TV down, sir?’ she said. ‘Some people have to be up early, you know.’
He apologised. She had started to walk off when he had an idea. He yelled for her to wait, adding that he would like to know more about those goods she had been selling the other day …
‘Yeah, sir, I got the knives. I’ll show you tomorrow again, if you want ’em.’
He told her he needed to see them now, if possible.
Certainly it was possible. She rolled her eyes. ‘Which one? I have my two best sets left. Bundy, Bush. Your choice, sir.’
He was going for cheap, sharp, big, impressive, safe.
‘Bundy. That’ll be $129.99, 61% off the list price. Cash or cheque, sir?’
The price was still very high, didn’t she think?
‘Whatever, sir!’
He fished out his chequebook and pen and filled it out. She tucked the cheque under her arm. He asked her when he would get the knife set.
‘Oh, soon,’ she said, ‘I promise. It’s worth the wait, sir, it’s a steal!’
He told her to run right back with it. She sprinted off with a quick careless wave that he hoped meant goodbye and not whatever. Had he not written her a cheque that was guaranteed to bounce, he could fear that she had just robbed him, mugged him in the most professional way possible.
He closed the door and prayed the woman hadn’t heard a thing. The transaction seemed ripe for misreading.
Instead, he found her lost in her own world. With her back to him, with hands gently resting on his glass, the woman was gazing out his window, at the light beyond her own window.
‘I am tired,’ she said, later.
It was later. He hadn’t stayed up all night in ages. All he knew was that they were somewhere around the point where late meets early and things get really confused.
He was ashamed not to own a clock yet. He used the radio announcer on the AM news to tell the time, but thought it would be inappropriate to turn on the radio.
He tried to look past her and out the window. He saw nothing but the dim light of her living room. With windows like theirs, there was no telling what shade of blue the sky outside had in store that moment.
Suddenly there was song. The silence was singed with a tinny chorus. It was a tune he knew and a tune he liked. It was a tune from his childhood.
It was ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’!
It was her cell phone.
The woman, who worked, of course, had a cell phone. She fished it out of her coat, with little surprise.
She said, ‘Morning.’
She said, ‘Oh, geez, yeah, thanks, sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I can’t ride with you today. Can you tell him I might be late? Tell him, in fact, I might need the day off. Can you do that?’
She said, ‘Just stuff, you know. Oh, no everything is fine, really.’
She said, ‘Love you!’ and hung up.
She put the phone away. Her face suddenly collapsed into her palms. Even muffled, he could make out the words ‘What the hell am I doing.’
He had instincts; he did not have answers.
When he heard the knock on the door, he thought one thing: the Bundy. He rushed to the door and opened it, without looking through the peephole. He was eager for the girl and her gift.
Instead there stood the two maintenance men. Their greetings, as usual, came in the form of nods, which Henry returned.
‘Bettina has sent us to check your locks,’ the shorter one said.
‘May be a problem with your locks,’ the taller one said.
Henry told them he had no such problem, no such complaint. He told them to come back some other time.
‘Bettina has sent the order,’ the shorter one said. ‘It will only take a second.’
‘Good safety to have your locks checked,’ the taller one said.
He told them he was not arguing with that, but it was late, or early, in any case, a bad hour, he had things, work, affairs – until he remembered: their tools. He knew how this went. The men would come, ‘work’, leave their tools …
The Bundy would have won, but tools could do too. He seemed to remember hearing that women backed down at the sight of tools.
He did believe in safety. He told them to go ahead.
‘It will be very quick,’ said the shorter.
They fiddled with the doorknob, shaking it, jiggling it, oiling it, each taking turns standing outside and then in, opening and closing the door, over and over.
‘The door is fine,’ the shorter finally announced. And he began to place their tools inside his bag.
Henry announced that there was no way they could leave – yet. There was more work to be done, he was sure.
‘Please call Bettina if there is a problem,’ the shorter said.
‘Back once Bettina sends the order,’ the taller said.
He tried to plead with them, that there were other doors with locks, the bathroom door, certainly that was what the damned Bettina meant –
‘Bettina said the front door,’ the first man said. ‘We will gladly check the other doors once we have an order for them.’
He stood in their way, trying to reason. They were adamant. Eventually they pushed; pushed their way right through Henry, as if he were just some insignificant ghost.
As they speed-walked down the hallway, Henry called to them, asking if they could just lend him something, a screwdriver, a power drill, anything, so he could just fix things himself –
‘Please call Bettina and place the order,’ the first man said.
‘Other doors to check now,’ the second man said.
He closed the door, and leaned his forehead against the wood, thinking, until he heard her ‘Shithead’ – suddenly too loud, loud enough to be too close.
‘Oh, I heard that. I’m on to you. I know what you’re up to, bastard!’
He must have forgotten what the city always said: Always, always, keep your bags packed.
‘I want to sleep,’ she said, ‘in your bed. Now.’
He wondered if in the pockets of her coat – the pockets that had housed her cell phone, after all – the woman could be harbouring a weapon.
He wondered how to hold a plastic knife with dignity.
She said, ‘Oh, c’mon, at this point, isn’t this what we’re expected to do?’
He had not yet heard her black, black laugh. It was bad.
She got up and grabbed his hand. Her hand was colder than he expected. What he expected was the moment when the nails dug deep into his palm.
He did not remember her name, but he could never forget her, that certain young girl in his schoolyard. The girl had only been at their school for a day. It was enough. At recess she singled him out, said, You, come over here, you. She grabbed his hand with her nails, nails he noticed were torn jagged and dirt-packed. She led him behind a trailer in the schoolyard, an empty trailer the kids called ‘the Matson,’ because painted on it was the enigmatic word ‘MATSON.’ The kids never had much use for the Matson. It was too obvious a spot for hide-and-seek, too appendage-less for proper play. She, however, had a purpose for it. Without warning, still holding his hand, she kicked hi
m hard in the crotch. She said, There. He bent over in pain, trying to hide his tears. She ran off, and the next day she was gone. Nonetheless, he told the teacher – not the full story, not where she had struck him, but that she had struck him, and hard.
Teacher had smiled, and patting his head, explained, Oh, that’s just what girls do when they like you! She had made it sound like sunshine. It was something that he, and apparently all adolescents at some point were told of – how a kick in the crotch could (sometimes) mean a kiss, how it would come like a hurt that was not meant to hurt, how situations were often just situations but also sometimes their inverse.
She said, ‘What else do men and women do?’
She said, ‘Isn’t it what they want us to do?’
They. He froze. How did he know what those theys really did, what the other theys really wanted? How did anyone really know?
He opened his eyes. She was at the window. She was standing on the inside ledge, leaning carefully on his glass, hands clutching the frame. She was looking straight at him.
She said three words: ‘Take it easy.’ That was all.
She walked out the window, one sizable thigh after another, out of his world and back into hers. She left his window open. He watched her shut and lock her own.
He locked his own door; once, then again, just in case.
And he stopped watching.
NEW ZEALAND FLAX
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
The early purple orchids are plentiful this year. So plentiful that Frida wonders if they really are as special and rare as she believes. In her field they’re as common as the other flowers of June, the clover, the buttercups. The yellow one. Bird’s Foot Trefoil, sometimes called scrambled egg. Still, she swerves around any patch of grass graced by the chubby little orchids – turgid, phallic, episcopally purple – but mercilessly slices through buttercups and clover – the latter is the bees’ favourite thing, and smells nicer than the orchids, when the sun shines. Little islands of long grass with an orchid or two dot the ‘lawn’ – that’s not the right name for it. The patch of field that she cuts, so it’s like a pond of short grass in a forest of long rough stuff.
A Kind of Compass Page 20
