The Family Unit and Other Fantasies

by The Family Unit

  “Sorry,” he shrugged when he heard—why did she tell him? It was stupid—as their paths crossed again, she driving out of the parking lot, he carrying a bag of trash to the communal dumpster. “You did your best.”

  Since he owned cats, Faye figured he was probably a warm person, but he sounded so brusque and fatalistic that he appeared kind of cold. And didn’t he ever go anywhere? Still, she always ran into him, so what did that say about her and her travels? (Besides going to work, she meant, and even now she was just going to get some paper towels, a carton of OJ, and some ant traps at the Buy ‘n’ Fly and come right back.) So she put up her car window and, without another word, drove away.

  That night, she tried again, tried harder, went farther. She stepped outside, stoned again (though she’d only had enough for one joint and the rolling paper was so old it crumbled in her hand, leaving a lot of the pot in her lap), wearing her PJ bottoms and T-shirt, and stood without shoes or socks on the cold asphalt, the food at her feet like small stones in a sacrificial ceremony. This time, she called the cat, made a welcoming sound, sent kisses out into the air. But just as when she used to playfully kiss over and over again the necks of boys in high school and they would squirm away (what was the matter with men?), the cat kept his distance.

  Faye fell asleep on the living room floor, inches away from the door she hadn’t remembered closing. She hadn’t pulled the drapes and the rising sun woke her up, heating and almost hurting her face. When she squinted to see outside, she had to stare to make sure. But it was true: most of the food was gone. The cat had come, eaten it, stayed alive. A fat little blue jay stood pecking at the few pellets left.

  “It was probably just birds or squirrels.” She bet that’s what Ed Koch would have said, so she didn’t tell him. She sped right past him early the next evening when she saw him exiting his building at the exact same moment she was driving away from hers, their schedules again bizarrely coinciding. (And she had actually called a co-worker she hardly knew and was going to see the sequel to a movie she hadn’t even liked, that’s how socially active she was; Ed was just planting a little tree in the complex’s garden area.)

  After the movie, Rita the bartender at Coco’s—for this was whom she had called—stopped her car at a light on the highway going home.

  “I’d like to go over there with you,” Rita said softly, pointing with her head. “I think that’d be really nice.”

  She had indicated a dark, as yet undeveloped field to their left, off the road, covered in tall, waving, camouflaging grass. (A sign nearby announced that condo building would start soon but hadn’t yet.) Rita had spoken mischievously, not menacingly. She reached over and touched the back of Faye’s head, drifting a few fingers under her hair onto her neck, with as gentle a touch as could be imagined. Faye felt a bubbling begin in her breast; she saw water starting to boil on a stove or something; it was a new feeling, she didn’t have the words. But at the same moment, a cloud moved away from the moon and it lit up a small muscle in Rita’s right arm, which had tensed with the effort of moving her hand. It was as if nature, the world itself, was warning Faye, and she felt afraid.

  “I think I’d just like to turn in,” she said, shaking her head, and ended it.

  When she got home, Faye poured more food than ever on the cement, hoping perhaps foolishly that it would be an incentive—“More of the same thing at the exact same low price!” like a strange supermarket sale—especially since the cat had clearly liked what he had consumed. She again made the sounds of love into the night, though her mouth was dry from all the soda she’d had at the movie and the joint she’d just finished. (Rita had agreed to give her some of her own before letting her off. Faye had offered to pay and Rita had seemed offended, for some reason. She could still taste the chocolate that had been on Rita’s tongue when she had kissed Faye goodnight, holding her chin still with surprisingly strong fingers and inserting it forcefully between Faye’s firmly closed lips before giving up. It had been from Milk Duds at the movies, Faye figured, and her memory of it faded along with the taste.)

  This time, she dozed off on the patio, in a plastic lawn chair that had already been there when she moved in and which she hadn’t removed. Before she did and thought she might, she considered what the neighbours would think (and had she locked the glass door when she closed it? Could she not get back in? It would be almost funny to be stranded out there in her free Coco’s T-shirt and gym shorts—almost). But it was a warm August night, easy to get lost in, and soon she dreamed of someone, something, standing over her, a big paternal tree like the one in, what, The Wizard of Oz, with a knot for a mouth and crazy fat branches for arms.

  She was awakened by the sound of a scraping across the stone. She squinted and saw the base of a steel table also left by the last tenant, without its glass top so it always looked to her nude or just strange, like a planet with its sky unscrewed and stolen. It now stood at an angle, had been shifted a little, just enough for her to notice. When Faye fully opened and focused her eyes, she saw what had done it, what had obviously sprung onto the patio and accidentally slapped it to the side.

  The cat was there, eating the food. He was red, as Ed had said he would be, though she was surprised and alarmed by the dinginess of his colour and the patches of fur that were missing from his coat—from fighting, she guessed. He was thin, almost but not quite bony, and he had a long, handsome head with an equine—no, that was for horses, like hay—with whatever word meant an impressive snout. He ate diligently and carefully, too proud to gobble and reveal his hunger, she thought. He did not seem to notice she was there.

  Faye sat up in her chair, trying not to make a noise. She failed: the backs of her thighs had stuck to the plastic seat as she slept and now they made a little popping fart sound as she ever so slightly raised herself. The cat turned, suddenly. He stared at her with eyes at once wary and not hostile—inquisitive. He did not seem rattled. Maybe he was only sorry he had awakened her.

  This projection of personality was as if she had added a sheer layer upon him, the way a soul “escapes” from a dying person in a movie, only with the film going backwards. To Faye, he now seemed coated by this extra protective impression, glowed with it even. It allowed her to approach him without fear.

  Faye moved slowly on her knees across the cold stone to where he was. The second she came within reach, he sprang. He didn’t scratch her, didn’t hurt her in the least. Instead, he placed his two front arms—legs? Paws?—around her neck and hugged her, his mouth at her ear, softly and wetly whispering things that only she could hear but would never understand (as it had been when she heard him cry): the words, or whatever they were, for thanks.

  “Well, that’s very nice,” Ed said—she couldn’t help herself, she had had to tell him. Leaving her apartment the next morning, which was Friday, she had seen him wheeling a cart of clothes to the laundry room. She had immediately rushed back inside—figuring she’d buy mouthwash, a candy bar, and a box of tampons at the new Drugall’s later—gotten her own laundry and followed.

  Luckily, Ed was alone there, leafing through an old seventies romance novel someone had left on the “Take a Book—Leave a Book” shelf.

  “Nice?!” she said. She couldn’t keep shock and even anger from her voice. It was such a condescending word, what you called a boy in high school you wouldn’t even consider kissing, or a meal cooked by a friend the effort of which you wanted to praise but which you never wanted to eat again. Ed didn’t even look up when he said it; then he moved from skimming the book to a washer, where he started pouring in bleach.

  “Yes. That certainly is very nice.”

  Faye hadn’t even started cleaning the clothes she brought in; they still sat overflowing from a bag in the corner. Now she forgot all about them and the supposed “coincidence” of running into him. She followed Ed back to the bookcase from the washer as she had followed him there in the first place, and she didn’t care if he knew wh
y she had come.

  “No, it was more than nice. It was. . . .” But how could she describe it? It was so intense—not just how glad it had made her feel to summon and help the cat, but how proud she had been to be the only one who could. The physical sensation of his arms (legs? Paws?) around her neck and that helpless, moist, and mysterious communication in her ear. It had felt better than being with a baby, the times she had held and heard one—even her baby sister the first time she no longer hated her as a child. It was certainly better than it had ever felt with a man, the times with their tongues tickling at and then actually in her ear; whoever said that was so hot must have been a comedian, because it was like a bad joke! How could she tell Ed, who now looked at her with an expression of being-happy-for-her so benign and bloodless it made her furious not to know the words for how wonderful—unforgettable—it had been?

  “I only meant, you have a lot to be proud of,” he said, trying to ramp up his praise, but by his obvious insincerity making it worse.

  Faye turned to go; she wouldn’t wash her clothes. Let him laugh at her; let him tell all his friends—if he had any, which he obviously didn’t. And it was about time Ed washed his clothes—she could smell the checked shirt he had on halfway across the room, that indescribable musty aroma that always meant lonely old loser. She started dragging her laundry bag, which was so stuffed that a pair of underpants fell out (which she noticed with horror had its own slight musty tang). She was bending to embarrassedly pick it up when he said, quietly, not calling but as if he were still standing right next to her, “But don’t expect too much from him. I’d hate to see you get hurt.”

  Faye turned, slowly, still bent over, shoving the panties viciously back into the bag the way she had once seen a French farmer on TV force-feed a duck before slaughter. “What?”

  “He’s a stray now, you know. He always will be.”

  Faye took her time reaching her full height again. Now she understood. Ed wasn’t being judgmental or superior or even indifferent. He had a much more basic reason for trying to dismiss her accomplishment, for trying to deny her the first—and she suddenly understood what it was and was shocked even to think that it was this—feeling of love she had ever experienced.

  “You left food out for him, too.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You’re just jealous.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re jealous that it was me and not you.”

  That night in bed, Faye remembered with pleasure the shocked look on Ed’s face—or maybe the look she imagined him having, for she had turned away and walked out right after speaking. Let him chew on that, she thought. The food idea was meaningful because wasn’t that what this was all about? She had provided crucial nourishment to someone, something, and received sustenance in return, and he had not. Her mind was especially sharp tonight for she hadn’t smoked—didn’t have any left to smoke, actually, but would not have if she did, she was totally sure. (She had hoped Rita might cough up some at work, but while Faye had smiled at her several times, the bartender had only winked back at her once, strangely, camera-like—even made a little clicking sound with the side of her mouth as if to officially record and forget her, and then ignored her entirely.)

  After her new routine—pouring the food and puckering and puckering—Faye was determined to stay up and wait for the cat’s return. But in case she fell asleep, she set the alarm for three. Before she did indeed pass out, she could have sworn she heard the cry again, but only once and from far away. It might have been a fantasy or the whistle of a train, passing through and going away for good.

  The sound faded into the beep of the cheap travel alarm clock on the floor by her bed. Faye slammed her hand down, missed, knocked it over, and kept chopping down blindly until she broke it and it stopped. She rolled from bed, totally naked, for the sunset hadn’t caused any cooling and she had feared the air conditioner racket might make her deaf to the cat’s coming back. Squatting, lean, almost hairless and baby animal-like herself in the dark living room, Faye drew the drapes. Eyes shone back at her from the patio.

  But they were not her cat’s eyes. They were eyes surrounded by what children and TV commentators always call a mask, as in a burglar’s mask—and that’s what the raccoon seemed to her tonight, a thief. Faye banged on the window to scare him off, yelling at him through the glass, though she knew it was pointless. The animal only looked up once, indifferently, and then went back to eating, using its paws in an efficient, human-like way.

  The next night was even hotter, so she kept all the windows open and lay waiting nude above the covers. She watched a drop of sweat roll like a pinball from behind her ear (where the cat had held her), slip milkily from her nipples, fall down between her breasts, over her small flat belly and into her navel where it pooled. As more balls emerged, she imagined herself a pinball machine—they had one at work—and shifted and squirmed ever so slightly to direct the sweat to the shallow hole, her behind tensing and sticking a little to the sheet as she did. Moving in this way—causing a fair amount of friction between her legs—began to make her dizzy, and soon Faye fell asleep to escape the feeling that was approaching, her last sight her own twitching hand poised to move from the side of her bare thigh.

  She slowly came to, alerted not by a sound but by a smell. At first she thought it was gas—the stove? No, stupid, it was electric. And wasn’t there (didn’t there have to be) a carbon monoxide thing, monitor, alarm—and besides, didn’t that have no smell? She slowly understood that it was not a chemical odour or anything man-made, not something human even. It was coming from an animal yet it wasn’t like the smells one perceives in passing on the road. It was different, lasted longer, was more piercing—probably because it was closer, coming right through the screen on the window to her left. It could only be from a skunk, warning another animal away from food it saw and wanted.

  Faye ran to the glass door again. She crouched small, nude, and sticky—a dewy faun—and looked out. She saw, to her dismay, that all the food was gone, the cat nowhere in sight.

  Who else was there to tell? As much as she had hated—and the word was not too strong—the way Ed Koch reacted to her experiences, he was the only one who knew of them. The next late afternoon, which was Sunday, fearing the night that was ahead and what would and wouldn’t happen, Faye found herself in the vestibule of the building from which he always emerged, checking the names on the mailboxes and then banging desperately on his door.

  It turned out that he, too, lived on the first floor, one door over from hers, a few buildings down. It reminded her of those pink and blue man-and-woman towels hanging side by side in bathrooms in old movies, and she didn’t like the idea at all.

  “Well . . . Well. . . .” This time, he didn’t know what to say, wasn’t so fast with the condescending retort, was he? Of course, to be fair, Faye realized that first he had to accept the idea of her being in his apartment and on the verge of tears, so what she said might take some time to sink in.

  Ed was in a bathrobe at five P.M. (though it was over his clothes—the same kind of clothes as ever), and his musty smell was indistinguishable from the one all over his apartment: this was where he got the smell. There were also the extra odours of cigarette smoke and—coming from Ed’s surprised open mouth—red wine. They were especially strong on the couch where he put Faye; she breathed through her lips.

  “I’m afraid that something’s happened to the cat,” she said, blubbering now; she couldn’t help it, it was so embarrassing. “Like he was hurt in a fight or, or—something worse.” She couldn’t say killed.

  She looked up from her hands, which were joining and separating in her lap, and saw where she was. It was a living room filled with books, papers, and magazines. There was an old framed photo on a bookcase of a woman with an infant; it could have been from ten or twenty or fifty years before. The place was decorated so darkly Ed’s overhead light and standing l
amps were defeated in their efforts to illuminate it. The best they could manage was a dim, exploratory glow, like lanterns shining in a cave—and yes, this was how Ed’s apartment felt to Faye, a lair. The air conditioning was on so high it was as cold as a refuge lost climbers find in rock formations, where sensation soon ceases.

  “Oh,” Ed said, sitting beside her on the too-soft pillow. “I see. Well, that’s possible. I’m afraid that’s always been a—possibility.”

  His voice, his tone, they were again so unsentimental, so cavalierly accepting of life’s cruelty—even appreciative of it—that she hated them. Why had she come? And why couldn’t she stop talking, which would only make her hear them more?

  “I hope it’s only temporary,” she said. “If he doesn’t come back, I—I don’t know what I’ll do. If he had never come, it would have been one thing; I would have forgotten. But now that he has, it—it hurts so much.”

  There was silence for a time before Ed spoke again. “I know, I know. And I’m sorry.”

  It took Faye a second to realize that Ed’s tone had changed. There was the tiniest bit of tenderness in it now; it was the tone he might have taken with a child.

  Faye wasn’t sure how it made her feel. Before she could decide, Ed’s arm had wrapped gently around her shoulders. He began whispering to her, his words slurred and unintelligible, maybe meant to comfort, maybe not. It was an awful parody of the gesture and sound that had meant so much. Faye felt strangled and then frozen: her heart seemed to stop, not beat faster.

  At the exact same moment, one of Ed’s cats—he had three, she remembered now—climbed out of a pile of dirty clothing, made an awful effort to do so for it was obviously emerging from hell, which she now knew was cold and not hot. It hissed at her, its eyes fried, and Faye couldn’t stop screaming.