Chronic pain is a real motherfucker.
Finally, even though he knew it was coming, John gives up. He feels lower than low. A guy’s crew is supposed to be his crew forever. Boys for life. Always down for the gunfight.
If real men don’t give up on friends, then it’s time for Robert to admit that he’s not a real man.
“I can’t do this anymore, bro,” he says. “This is it. If you won’t get out of this apartment, I’m not going to call you or write you. And I’m not coming back.”
John is making a threat, not so different from the one he made against Christine.
Robert shrugs. “I already told you not to call me.”
“I know I’m the only one left,” John says. “I know Sara doesn’t talk to you anymore. Neither does your brother. You don’t work. You don’t leave this place. You’re dying here.”
“Sara is a fucking lying whore,” Robert says, in a tone so matter-of-fact he might be listing what kind of soup cans he has in the cupboard. “My brother doesn’t care, you know this. And I can’t work. I can’t sit at all. And I can’t even stand up for thirty minutes before I have to lie down for an hour, so who is going to hire me?”
John starts to answer, to offer ideas, to suggest for the thousandth time Robert find a home-based job, do something, but the fact is that John is exhausted. He’s done all of this before. Robert always has a reason why that solution won’t work.
And then, without warning, it slips out.
“Are you still reading that goddamned diary?”
Robert slowly shakes his head, not to say no, but as if to say John is the one who is crazy.
Robert shuts the door.
John stares for a moment. He stares at the welcome mat, the filthy, tattered mat.
Then, John leaves.
John feels a weight lift. He did all he could. No exaggeration, no self-congratulating hyperbole—he did all he could. Robert has made this life for himself and won’t fight to get out of it.
That’s on Robert, not John.
John won’t come back. And he won’t call. And he won’t email.
John is done.
* * *
Dear Diary,
I’m so tired of people using me. I’ve come to realize that it’s better to not talk to some people at all rather than let them walk all over me. Sometimes I think it’s better if I don’t even bother, if I just stay home.
Maybe being alone is better than being hurt.
But I wish I wasn’t alone.
—Julia
* * *
“Sweet, a welcome mat,” Robert says. “I wonder if they’ll let me keep it?”
Sara watches Robert shift the armful of shirts on hangers to his other arm, then fumble for the keys. He doesn’t want the shirts to get tossed into a corner like the last time he moved, so they are the first things he brought up from the U-Haul. Sara holds the rest of his hanging clothes.
John reaches out a toe, gives the mat a tiny kick.
“Dude, that mat is nasty with a capital T,” he says. “Just get a new one.”
Robert smiles, shakes his head. His blonde curls—the hair that Sara both loves and is jealous of—shake in time.
“Fully furnished apartment,” Robert says. “The mat counts as a furnishing.”
John leans against the hallway wall, struggling under the weight of a box of canned goods and mismatched, scratched frying pans he schlepped up five narrow flights of steep stairs. The place is a fifth-floor walk-up—no elevator. Robert could have just given his canned goods to a homeless shelter in Cleveland and then made one lousy trip to the grocery store, but no; he packed up everything in his kitchen and brought it with him to Philly.
Sara is excited that Robert is here. So excited. Their long-distance affair has gone on for just over a year. They met on a business trip. She should have told him she was married before they had sex that first night, but it had been so long since someone flirted with her, hit on her, told her she was beautiful. So long since a man made her feel wanted. Robert did those things. And after, he wanted to see her again. She told him she was married—he said that was okay, he got it, but he still wanted to see her again.
Sara knows she should have left it as a one-time thing. She did not. Her husband lost interest in fucking her years ago. Didn’t she deserve to feel desired? Her business trips had given her the opportunity, her body the motive, and Robert flying to meet her the means.
And now, he’d moved to her city. He’d taken a job here. Robert was smart, very much in-demand and recruited by several companies, but he chose here. She could see him every day if she wanted. Every day. Thrilling. Terrifying.
“You told us the landlord was coming,” Sara says to Robert. “Don’t you have to wait for him?”
“Wait for her, you sexist pig.” Robert waggles his keys. “And, no, we don’t have to wait. She mailed me the keys. She’ll be here soon, probably.”
He adjusts the shirts again, puts the key in the lock and turns. It makes a metallic squealing noise that reminds Sara of a baby bird begging for food. She doesn’t like the sound. She’ll make sure to oil that lock for him.
They all step inside.
The air seems stale. The windows are covered by heavy curtains. But the look of this living room, the unused feel… she wouldn’t have been surprised to see sheets over all the furniture.
Sara is impressed. The word retro doesn’t do it justice. Maybe antique is more like it. The last owner must have had a serious thing for the roaring twenties—the apartment looks like a set from a working-class version of The Great Gatsby. Plush chairs of curving, carved wood and faded maroon fabric. A matching couch. End tables with marble tops and three legs ending in carved, clawed feet. Recessed bookshelves complete with leather-bound books. A tarnished brass lamp with strings of beads hanging from a stained-glass lampshade. They don’t make furniture like this anymore.
“This place is so cool,” she says.
Robert smiles wide. He was obviously hoping she would like the apartment. She does. Very much. She imagines how much fun they will have here together.
“Sorry I’m late,” comes a voice from the door.
It’s a woman, early thirties, attractive and skinny, with perky hair that screams I can rock the latest fashion no matter what it is. Sara is instantly jealous. Instantly worried. Does this woman live in the building?
Robert walks to her, all smiles.
“Hi, Janet—so nice to meet you in person, finally.”
She shakes his offered hand, smiles up at him. “You too!”
Does Robert always have to be so charming? Sara wonders if he’ll get tired of waiting for her to leave her husband, if he’ll hook up with this Janet. She has a ring on her finger, but Sara knows first-hand that Robert doesn’t really consider that an obstacle.
Janet spreads her arms, gesturing to the apartment. “Great, right?”
“Amazing,” Robert says. “The video didn’t do it justice.”
John clears his throat.
“Ah, sorry,” Robert says. “These are my friends, John and Sara.”
His friend? Sara is instantly mad—is he just saying that so he can hit on Janet?—then remembers herself and feels stupid. She’s made it clear to Robert that he must not acknowledge they have any kind of romantic relationship. She’s not ready for her husband to find out. She’s just not.
John adjusts his box of canned goods—his hands are full, but he extends his pinky. Janet laughs, gives it a gentle shake.
She offers her hand to Sara, who shakes it automatically. Sara knows she’s being weird—this woman has done nothing.
“Pleased to meet you both,” Janet says. “I’m the building super.” She turns to Robert. “You didn’t really need dishes—the kitchen is loaded.”
She leads the way. Sara, Robert and John follow.
If the living room is like a time capsule from the twenties, the small kitchen is like warping into 1976. Avocado-green stove/oven, fridge, dishwas
her; dark wood cabinets; yellow and green floral-print wallpaper. Everything is worn, but not beat up. The wallpaper has a few seams that are slightly raised, but not so much that Robert will have to worry about tearing it out. At least, not right away—the kitchen is in good shape, sure, but it is hideous.
“This is awesome,” Robert says.
“No doubt,” John adds. “Straight out of Mad Men.”
Sara doesn’t bother to correct him that said TV show took place twenty years before some twisted soul invented this obscene combination of colors and patterns.
“The living room is kind of roaring twenties,” Sara says. “Why is the kitchen, um… not?”
Janet shrugs. “No accounting for taste, I guess. I’ve been the super for three years, but Mister Desmond—the previous tenant—moved in six years ago. I think the place was as-is when he moved in, but I really couldn’t tell you. Kind of kitschy, no?”
“Kitschy,” Sara says. “That’s one word for it.”
John opens the fridge. It’s empty. He wrinkles his nose a moment before a faint waft of mildew hits Janet.
“Stinks a bit,” Janet says. “Cleaning crew said fridge would air out, but if you want we’ll get you a new one.”
John shuts the fridge door, looks at Robert, raises an eyebrow.
“A new fridge,” Robert says. “Will it look exactly like this one?”
Janet shakes her head. “Nope. Afraid the building owners won’t spring for a vintage appliance. Plain white is your only option.”
“Oh, hell no,” Robert says. “I’m not changing one thing about this kitchen.”
“Goddamn right,” John says. “This is classic.”
Sara sighs. John is a perpetual adolescent in a grown man’s body who thinks everything is “classic.” She’ll have to subtly work on Robert’s taste—she’s already taught him how to dress better. Doesn’t look like a clown anymore, can’t have him living in a clown castle.
She’s struck by a sudden thought.
“Mister Desmond just left all of his stuff,” she says. “He didn’t… die here. Did he?”
“Blargh,” John says.
Janet shrugs. “No, he didn’t die. He was just gone. He stopped paying rent three months ago. We couldn’t track him down. Cops couldn’t, either. We waited to see if anyone came for his things, but no one did. Even his neighbors didn’t know him. Kind of a shut-in, I guess. At least he didn’t die here—that happens more often than you’d think. People live alone, don’t have anyone, they just… pass on… and no one knows until the smell spreads.”
Robert laughs. “Worse than the smell of this fridge, I imagine.”
“Hope I never find out,” Janet says. “Well, Robert, you have the key. If you need anything else from me, let me know.”
Robert thanks Janet, sees her out.
Sara wonders just what Janet meant by if you need anything else from me.
John and Robert head down to the truck. Sara starts unpacking the canned goods. She can’t wait to be done— because when they are, John will leave, and she can finally get her hands on Robert.
He’s here. She can have him over and over. Every day, if she wants and can pull the right strings.
* * *
Every day.
Samuel has stopped visiting. You know what? I’m glad. That’s right, Dear Diary, I AM GLAD! He’s not a good man. He’s not a good person. Did I tell you that he tried to pin our relationship troubles on ME? He said I was “different.” Well, I am different, because I won’t be his pushover any more.
It’s so funny, Dear Diary, but reading Clyde’s words has helped me a lot. I never met him, yet I feel close to him. He understands what I’m going through. I mean, I understand what he was going through. Are those the same thing?
Anyway, I think I’m done dating for awhile. Today’s men are not yesterday’s men.
—Adele
* * *
Robert is naked, sitting in the chair in his bedroom, reading. The bedroom has a similar feel to the living room, but is more modern—if circa 1950s can be called “modern.” He doesn’t know how long this furniture has been in here, but it’s well-made, built to last a lifetime. As far from IKEA as you can get. No one makes stuff like this anymore. Scuffed up, sure, but still in good shape. Oddly, he loves the bedroom decor because it makes him feel closer to grandparents that all died before he was born: they might have had stuff just like this when they were his age.
And right now, any feeling of family, of connection, is so important.
Sara has tried several times to get him to redecorate. All subliminal stuff, passive-aggressive, trying to get him to suddenly not like what he obviously likes. She doesn’t seem to know he knows she’s doing that. Sometimes you have to let women spin themselves out… easier than a confrontation. But her efforts are getting annoying—why spend money on new furniture when everything in this apartment is free and perfectly good? The chair he’s sitting in isn’t really comfortable, for example, but it’s not un-comfortable, either.
Sara walks out of the bathroom, toweling off her hair. She’s naked. Robert loves the way her body looks with the afternoon sun filtering through the bedroom’s lace curtains. She smiles at him. He doesn’t smile back. Not because he doesn’t love her anymore—he does—but his heart is heavy and there is nothing in this world that can cheer him up.
“Oh, baby,” she says. “Did it hit you all over again?”
Robert starts to speak, stops. Three weeks now, and he still can’t talk about it. He nods.
“She loved you,” Sara says. “How could she not?”
Robert says nothing. Sara’s comment is stupid, shallow. Of course his mother loved him. Of course. But now she’s dead. Losing his father years ago was hard, but it wasn’t like this. Now, both parents are gone—a sharp, undeniable break from Robert’s childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. No one to lean on anymore. He is on his own.
And, because the years keep constricting, he realizes more and more that it’s not if he will die, but when. The logical understanding of that concept has always been easy—feeling mortality finally sink in deep and set up shop is much harder to accept. The time from now until dead used to feel so forever far-away that it wasn’t real. Not anymore. Now he senses the days flying by so fast, the end—whenever it comes—might as well be tomorrow.
Sara steps closer.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.
His annoyance with her is shifting toward anger. If he wanted to talk about it, wouldn’t he have said so? Talking doesn’t solve anything. And if she really gave a fuck, she would have come to the funeral. But she couldn’t, of course. She couldn’t travel to Georgia on such short notice, not without arousing suspicion from her husband. She could fly all over hell and high water to fuck Robert, but she couldn’t make up one lie to come with him when he needed her most?
“No,” he says. “I don’t want to talk about it. Thank you, though.”
She gives him a sweet smile. “Okay. I’m here if you need me.”
Which is utter bullshit. Robert knows this now. He moved here six months ago. He knew she was married. Maybe he didn’t realize it at the time, but he came hoping she would leave her husband. She hasn’t. He’s beginning to think she isn’t going to. Ever.
Sara looks at his book. “What are you reading?”
“The diary of the previous residents. I found it in the bookshelf in the living room.”
She holds out her hand, asking for the book. He hesitates— he doesn’t want anyone else to touch it; he shouldn’t have told her about it, should never even have let her see it—then blinks away the irrational thoughts and gives it to her.
Sara looks at the page Robert was looking at. She starts to talk, stops, brings the book closer to her nose and sniffs. She makes a face, like the odor is slightly offensive.
“Leather-bound,” Robert says. “Nice, right?”
Sara forces a smile.
“Kind of,” she says, then l
ooks at the page. “I thought the previous tenant was some guy named Desmond. This is signed by Julia. Who is that?”
Robert shrugs as if he doesn’t know. Julia was the tenant before Carmen, who was the tenant before Desmond. Adele came before them, just after Clyde, who has the oldest entries in the diary. Why they all made entries in the same book, Robert doesn’t know. Why none of them took it with them, Robert doesn’t know. But, the book is very cool—almost like the apartment is a time-ship, with the residents chronicling their lives. It’s fascinating to think that people older than even his grandparents lived here when they were his age. Somehow, it makes the past more real. It’s a strange sensation, a… a connection… and he likes it.
Sara frowns. She reads out loud: “There is a vibration to this apartment, something I can’t explain. I feel so at home here. I need that right now, because Alphonse hasn’t written me since I told him about the baby. And I don’t want him to write anymore, anyway. A real man would have done the right thing. I don’t ever want to see him again. Everything seems so dark in my life right now, so I thank God for this place. Signed, Carmen.”
She closes the diary, losing Robert’s page. Isn’t that just like her? So selfish she doesn’t even think of his needs. Sara hands the old book to him.
“That’s creepy,” she says. “I wonder if that woman had the baby here.”
Robert shrugs, as if he doesn’t know that fifteen pages later, Carmen’s entries stop when she is six months pregnant. Desmond moved in sometime after that.
“It’s weird that there’s some random diary here,” Sara says. “Maybe you shouldn’t read it.”
“Maybe you should mind your own goddamn business,” Robert says. “You want to tell someone what to do, what to think? How about you try that out on your nut-less husband.”
Sara’s eyes widen.
Dark Cities Page 13
