The Heaven of Animals

by David James Poissant

  He didn’t want to be here, but neither did he want to insult Marisa. She and Lorrie had been, if not close, at least closer than he and Joshua had ever been. Lorrie wouldn’t have wanted him mad at Marisa, and so he’d tried hard not to be.

  Tables rose low from the floor like collapsed TV trays, and Mark reached toward the nearest for a USA Today. The paper informed him that the president, as per tradition, had pardoned a pair of Thanksgiving turkeys. The birds would live out their remaining days at a game ranch in Virginia. He put the paper down and shut his eyes.

  A long morning had given way to an interminable afternoon. All day, he’d watched Joshua do his thing. The talks were collages of history and statistical tidbits: how many trees had gone into the construction of this ship; how many tons of steel had gone into that one; the precise dates during which a particular vessel had been seaworthy and why it no longer was. Men and women with sunglasses and shopping bags nodded, smiled, and held their squirming children’s hands. Occasionally, someone posed a challenging question. Joshua had the answer, always, and, each time, an awed murmur rose from the park visitors like the call-and-response of a crowd watching fireworks.

  Mark understood quickly why Joshua had stuck with this job. Here was work that allowed—no, encouraged—his brother’s love of trivia, his brother’s very nature: that relentless, uncompromising know-it-allness.

  Was he jealous of the attention his brother got, the applause at the end, the admiration over facts probably forgotten before the shopping bags were unpacked, before the sunglasses left these people’s heads? Jealous when, back home, he was lucky to keep the attention of two, three kids a class while he filled the marker board with conjugations or spoke at length about the subjunctive mood? Maybe he was. He didn’t want to be.

  A door opened to the waiting room, and Mark heard his name. He stood and followed a woman in white down a white hall to a small, white room. The room smelled like mint and incense. At the center of the room stood a long table. An O, like a spare tire, hung from the table’s end. A few cabinets and a counter hung from one wall. One might have mistaken the room for a doctor’s office if not for the lighting—dim—and the flicker of a candle on the countertop.

  “You may disrobe and lie down,” the woman said. She handed him a white towel, then she left the room.

  He didn’t move. A minute later, there was a knock at the door and Marisa walked in.

  “Oh,” she said. “You’re dressed.”

  He hoped, right then, she’d let him off the hook. Together, they could tell Joshua whatever she wanted, whatever it took to keep him from lying down on that table.

  But, no, she was giving him instructions, smiling, stepping out of the room.

  When she returned, he lay naked on his stomach, face tucked into the table’s spongy O. The towel covered his middle. The position wasn’t a particularly comfortable one. It hurt his shoulders to lie flat with his hands at his sides, but it seemed wrong to let his arms hang from the table in air.

  Marisa asked how his morning had been, how he liked the ships and whether he was enjoying the city. There was an opening and closing of cabinet doors, the scrape of a lid coming loose.

  He said it was fine, all of it fine. That the day had been good.

  “Your brother is so smart,” she said. “I watch his presentations, and I’m amazed.”

  Something cold splashed his back, and then Marisa was rubbing vigorously. The oil warmed where she rubbed. He felt the towel fold down from his lower back, felt it tuck in around his waist. Through the O, he could see only the octagonal pattern and white grout of a tile floor.

  “You have great skin,” Marisa said. “Some backs, you should see them. They’re so bad, I have to glove-up. And then the clients get mad because it doesn’t feel the same, the latex. And how do you point out politely that they have too many zits or a rash or open sores?”

  She rubbed hard, but her hands were soft, uncallused. Gradually, he relaxed. He felt warm all over.

  “I get it now,” he said. “I get why people like this.”

  He meant it. He closed his eyes. The room swayed. Light burrowed up his back and burst into his shoulders, then radiated, hot and bright, through his whole body.

  “You’re very good,” he said.

  “I’ve been at it a long time,” she said. Then, lowering her voice, she said, “But not much longer. I’m in school.”

  She was studying sign language, she said. As a translator, she’d help people communicate with one another. The idea captivated her, how a gesture became words, how words became the movement of hands.

  “I want to be that conduit,” she said.

  In Burlington, he’d had a pair of deaf neighbors. Summer evenings, he and Lorrie would sit on their porch and talk while, across the street, the deaf couple sat on their porch and spoke with their hands. Always, he’d have to be reminded not to stare. But how could he not stare? The movements, the transmissions—they were beautiful. And Marisa’s hands . . . the choice was perfect. The language had been made for hands like hers.

  She worked his back, pressing, kneading. Her body’s shadow glided through the candlelight and over his small patch of tile. Her fingers navigated his shoulders. She moved to the end of the table, and her shirt’s hem grazed his hair.

  He lifted his head, and there was her arm at his face. Veins pulsed, delicate and blue, the image suddenly lovely, this wrist, pale and soft-seeming, and these veins, tattooed in the shape of a tuning fork to her skin. Her wrist brushed his chin, and he kissed it.

  It lasted a second, maybe less, a kiss so close to a breath, he let himself believe she wouldn’t notice. But already Marisa was backing away. Her hands left his shoulders. He sat up, careful to keep himself covered. She was as far from him as the room allowed, backed into a corner beside the cabinetry and counter. The candle’s flame danced by her wrist.

  “Watch yourself,” he said.

  She brought her hands to her chest, but her eyes didn’t leave his.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Why did you do that?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t know. He couldn’t say why he’d done it, couldn’t fathom the impulse or the compulsion to follow it. Or, he could fathom the impulse. Impulses came and went: the stove that said Touch, the red light that said Run, the ledge that whispered Jump. They came unbidden and, like the wishes of children, went ungranted. Far as Mark knew, it was this way for everyone.

  Why this one, though? Why a kiss? Why now?

  “Joshua would be so hurt if he knew.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t tell him,” he said.

  Marisa’s cheeks puffed and her bottom lip lengthened. She exhaled, and Mark felt the wind across the room. She lifted his brother’s clothes from the counter and set them on the table beside him. She moved to the door, opened it, but stopped short of the hall. She turned and stood in the open doorway.

  “He’s sorry,” Marisa said. “I can promise you that. He’s embarrassed. He’s ashamed. We both are. We should have come, and we didn’t. I can’t explain it. There’s no explanation good enough even if I could. All I can say is that we’re sorry. But you know that. You have to know that.”

  The towel was bunched at his waist, and he smoothed it to his knees.

  “Is that why you came?” she said. “To make us say it? To tell you how sorry we are?”

  “Not you,” he said. “I want to hear it from him.”

  Marisa looked away. Her hands clenched at her sides, and the material of her pants ballooned from her fists.

  “You won’t,” she said. “You won’t, and, what’s more, you know you won’t. Joshua doesn’t work that way. Which is why I’m saying he’s sorry, so you’ll know. Because he can’t say it. And because that should be enough. For a brother. It should be enough to know.”

  Knowing it, it should have been enough.
And wasn’t. He didn’t know what would be.

  “He cried, you know?” she said. “That letter? He wouldn’t let me read it, but I found it, and I read it. It was . . . awful.”

  “I was angry.”

  “You’re still angry. And none of us knows what to do. We can’t go on until you give the word, and you’re not giving it.”

  Her hands relaxed, fell open at her sides. She turned and pulled the door shut.

  He dressed quickly. The towel he left on the table folded in a tight, white square.

  . . .

  At the apartment, he showered. He wanted the smell off of him, the oil and the candle smoke. He stood beneath the showerhead until the door rattled.

  “Hey, save some water for the rest of the planet,” Joshua called. “Okay?”

  His brother, the park ranger who would save the Earth except for the million cigarette butts he’d add to it.

  He cut the water off, dried, and dressed. The room was steam-filled, condensation collecting on the mirror, the faucet, the backs of toothbrushes. Everything glistened in the wet. Beside the toilet, a bin overflowed with the wavy pages of old National Geographics. He left the bathroom damp, his brother’s shirt bunched at the armpits and plastered to his back.

  He found Joshua on the couch. He was still in uniform, shirt tucked but unbuttoned to the belt, a white T-shirt beneath. Mercifully, the hat had been removed. It perched, wide-brimmed, beside him on the couch. Joshua held a controller and, on screen, a man in silver armor lunged and leapt. Joshua’s body bobbed in time with the little man.

  “You want in on this?” he said. “I can make it two-player.”

  “I’d rather go for a walk,” Mark said. “Clear my head.”

  “Marisa will be back soon,” Joshua said. “If you wait, we can all go.”

  But Mark didn’t want to wait. He didn’t want to be there when Marisa got home.

  “I’m just going to go now, if that’s okay,” he said.

  Joshua didn’t look up. There was a scream as the knight plunged his sword into a short, hobbity-looking thing. The creature collapsed, blood jetting from its chest, then it flickered and disappeared, a pool of blood left in its wake.

  “Take the road down to Lincoln,” Joshua said. “The first side street will bring you to Baker Beach. It’s less than a mile. And be sure to check out the boulder end of the beach. Great view.”

  Mark felt in his pocket. He was missing his phone.

  “Really, though, Marisa should be home any minute.”

  Mark moved to the spare room. He pulled the covers from the air mattress, one layer at a time, shook them, then lifted the mattress.

  “Joshua?” he said.

  He dropped the mattress. He patted his pockets, then pulled them inside out.

  “Joshua,” he called.

  He retraced his steps down the hallway to the living room. He shook each of his shoes over the doormat. He opened the front door and glanced outside. He shut the door. His hands shook.

  “Goddamn it, Joshua.” He moved to the center of the room. He stood between his brother and the TV. Joshua craned his neck to see around him.

  “Move,” he said.

  “Help me.”

  “In a minute. Move.”

  A cord, gray and umbilical, uncoiled from a box on the floor and into the controller in Joshua’s hands. Mark grabbed and pulled.

  Joshua stood. “Hey.”

  Then his hand was on Joshua’s wrist and squeezing. The controller dropped, and he kicked it across the floor. He swung, but it was Joshua’s fist that found his face.

  He fell, arms windmilling. There was a crash, and he was on his back, the TV beneath him.

  “What the fuck?” Joshua said. He stood over him.

  “I can’t find my phone.” He brought a hand to his eye, rubbed it, then blinked the world back into focus. “You hit me.”

  “You took a swing,” Joshua said. “I swung back. It’s reflex.”

  Joshua offered a hand, pulled him up, and, together, they turned to take in the damage. The TV was shot, its screen a spiderweb. The coffee table’s legs were gone, the gaming consoles crushed. Cords snaked out of the mess like intestines.

  Joshua cradled his right hand in his left. The human hand had a bunch of bones—Joshua probably knew how many—and Mark wondered whether one or two had snapped.

  He left Joshua standing over the TV. In the bathroom, he touched a fingertip to each of his teeth. He felt the bridge of his nose. Nothing bled. No, the fist had caught him in the eye socket. Even now, blood surged to the surface. By morning, there’d be a perfect ring.

  Something else in the mirror caught his eye. Past his reflection, on the windowsill, beside the toothbrush his brother had given him: his phone.

  . . .

  Dark water, blue sky, and already the sun was setting, just enough light to whiten the sand. A few beachgoers lingered, umbrellas bent to block the wind. One couple sat side by side reading books. Another dipped hands into a shared bag of potato chips. Another walked the shore. A dog, white and brown, raced seagulls up and down the beach.

  Mark stood at the water’s edge. To his left, the land curled into a point. To the right, a rocky outcropping, the boulders he guessed his brother had been talking about. Beyond the rocks rose the giant legs of the Golden Gate Bridge. He counted cars. There were hundreds, so many traveling at high speeds, neat and safe in single-file lines. He wondered how many cars crossed the bridge each minute, then thought how that was exactly the sort of thing that Joshua would know.

  He’d made it out before Marisa made it home. But what came next? Maybe Marisa would say nothing. Maybe she’d take one look at the television and tell Joshua everything. Either way, Mark would be asked to leave. This would give him two days to kill. He pictured himself cross-legged on a motel bed, Chinese takeout in his lap. Or else a Thanksgiving dinner of Heinekens and mixed nuts in a hotel bar. Whatever came next, he knew he’d brought it upon himself.

  He pulled off his shoes and socks and rolled the cuffs of his pants to his knees. The sand underfoot was cold. He stirred the surf with a toe, and the water was colder. He couldn’t tell whether the tide was going out or coming in. He walked up the beach. The sand was scooped out in places, hollowed by wind, and he tucked his shoes into one of these hollows before returning to the shore. He picked the rocks and the bridge as his destination and walked toward them.

  The beach was a confusion of seaweed and cracked shells, twigs and clear, bulbous sacs, like jellyfish minus the tentacles. He knelt, picked up one of these, and weighed it in his hand. The thing was cool and rubbery. He squeezed, and a stream of water shot from the sac’s middle. He tossed it into the water and walked on.

  By now, the sun had set, but he could see people gathered at the rocks. A tent glowed yellow, and a couple moved in rhythm to music that emerged, choked and reedy, from a radio. A small fire in a rock-lined pit shot orange sparks into the air.

  He was cold and growing colder. He sat and felt the sand wet through his pants. He pulled the phone from his pocket. He lived with the fear that if he didn’t listen, saving and resaving it daily, the message might be lost.

  He pressed a button, and there it was, her voice on the phone, her last words: Mark, this is silly. When you’ve calmed down, call me. Please. I may be a while. The roads are ice. There was a long pause before she said: For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.

  How long had it been? How long between the message left and the bridge? Seconds? Minutes? Had the first car struck her hanging up?

  Quickly, is how it would have happened, over before she had time to be afraid. Everyone said so, and he wanted to believe them. Wanted to, and didn’t. What had she thought, seeing the guardrail, then going through it, ice rising to meet her, then opening to let her in?

  Had he been the last thing on her mind? Had she
blamed him or forgiven him?

  He saved the message and flipped the phone shut. He stood. He could whip the phone into the ocean and be free, but that was just another impulse. He’d long since memorized the message, heard it with or without the phone pressed to his ear. He’d never be free.

  And say he did it, say he managed somehow to forget her words, there were still home movies, photo albums—her picture to stare at and how, accusingly, she stared right back at him—still the old house to drive past. He’d wept to see Lorrie’s flowers dug up, her gardens turned to grass.

  He moved down the beach. At his approach, the campers stirred. The two dancers separated. The woman moved to a sleeping bag on the sand beside the fire, and the man joined another man at the water’s edge.

  When he was close enough to see, Mark stopped. The men were naked.

  One, the man who’d been dancing, was maybe twenty. He had a potbelly and the jowls of a bulldog. He kept his gaze steady on the horizon. The second man was older, tall and thin. His hands were on his hips. His elbows stuck out like trowels. His hair, brown shot through with gray, was long and tied back in a ponytail. The tail touched the small of the man’s back. A beard, tied in a matching tail, hung from his chin. The wind pressed the man’s beard to his waist, a waist not indicated by tan line or pants.

  The older man turned only his head in Mark’s direction. The beard was bunched in places, banded by silver coils.

  “It’s not polite to stare,” he said.

  Mark hadn’t meant to, but it had surprised him, the sight. He’d heard of nude beaches but thought they were a myth, like those highways out west said to have no speed limits. If those highways existed, he’d never seen them.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s the beard. It’s impressive.” This was true. The rest of the man was unimpressive, shriveled, pinkie-sized in a pocket of dense, gray hair. He’d imagined nudists were nudists because they had something to show off, but he guessed not.