A Ship Made of Paper

by Scott Spencer

  ”I hope you can get it running again.”

  “My brother’s home from theArmy.He can fix it, for sure.Is it okay ifwe come over in the morning?”

  “Ofcourse.”He slows down.There are dark, luminous eyes peering from beneath the trees at the side ofthe road.Deer.You never know if they’ll come leaping into the path ofyour car.

  “Both my brothers are in theArmy,”says Mercy.

  ”So, are you the youngest in the family?”

  “Yeah.”She sighs, fidgets in her seat.He can tell:she is getting ready to ask a question.She circles it like one ofthe deer tramping down the tall grass.“What rights does a teenager have?”she says.

  “About what?”

  “What ifa teenager wanted to move out or something? Do you ever do that?As a lawyer? Sheri Nack said I should ask you.”

  “Does Sheri want to leave home?”Sheri is a doughy, dog-collared girl who looked after Ruby a couple oftimes—until Kate started noticing liquor was disappearing.

  “Not really.”

  “But you do.”

  “Yeah.”

  They are almost in town now.The houses are closer together.A gas station.A plant nursery.The Riverside Convalescent Home.A little empty vine-covered cottage that once was a real estate office—Farms and Fantasies—run by a guy fromYonkers who turned out to be a drug dealer.And then, the blinking yellow light that hangs on a low drooping cable a few hundred yards from the village itself.A soft rain is falling and the wind is picking up, swinging the yellow light back and forth like a lantern held in the hand ofa night watchman.

  “There are lawyers who specialize in family law,”Daniel says.

  ”I don’t know any lawyers, except you.”

  “What is it you want, Mercy?”

  “I want to move out.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.I’ve got to get out ofthere, Mr.Emerson.I’ve got to get away from them.Maybe get my own place.Maybe I could be a nanny orsomething.”

  “Seventeen’s a little young.Can’t you wait a year?”

  “Ayear?”The cold light ofthe streetlamps leaps in and out ofthe car, flashing on her face, with its furious, hopeless expression.

  Before he can think ofwhat to tell her, they arrive at her house.It’s a small yellow one-story house, with a steep set ofwooden stairs leading to the front door.The porch light is on and two moths fly around and around it, as ifswirling around a drain oflight.

  “Are you all right, Mercy?Are you going to be okay?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Are you safe?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Ifyou want to come in to my office, and talk about it, you can—anytime.You don’t need an appointment, it doesn’t have to be a big deal.

  You can just come in and we can talk.”

  “Is there any kind oflaw for me?”

  “There’s something called the Emancipated MinorAct.”

  She’s silent for the moment.Daniel has for the most part suppressed his own adolescence, and he finds it difficult to project himself into what exactly it feels like to be Mercy’s age, to be in that jumble ofmisery and helplessness, hormonal energy and sheer lassitude.

  “There’s case law,”he says,“in which the court has required parents to pay for rent and food for emancipated minors.”

  “You mean they’d have to pay for me even ifI moved out?”

  “It’s not really my specialty.I’d have to look it up.”

  “I guess I’d feel really guilty,”she says, smiling for the first time.

  ”Guilty? Why?”

  “Well, they’re my parents.I don’t want to hurt them.”But the smileremains.

  “You don’t have anything to feel guilty about.You have a right to make yourselfhappy.You’re not obliged to stay where you’re miserable.No-body does.”

  She nods quickly.She’s heard enough.She opens the door on her side.The light comes on in the car and she glances back at Daniel.

  ”Thanks, Mr.Emerson,”she says,“really, thank you.”And then, right be-fore she slips out ofthe car she puts her arms around him and touches her forehead against his chest.

  Daniel waits until she is safely in her house, though he wonders ifher house is really safe.She opens the front door and waves good-bye, and a moment later the door is closed and the porch light goes offand every window in her house is opaque.

  He backs away from Mercy’s house and onto Culbertson Street, the beams ofhis headlights filled with fluttering moths.He turns on the ra-dio, as ifthe voice ofreason might be broadcasting from somewhere on the dial, but there are only love songs, urging him on.

  He tries to pretend to himself that he has no idea where he is going next.But after a minute or two, he must admit that he’s heading toward Juniper Street, where Iris lives.All he wants is to look at her house— once—and then he’ll be able to return to his own, he’ll be able to walk up the stairs to the second floor, tiptoe into the bedroom, disrobe, slip into bed next to Kate, close his eyes.

  A few moments later, he’s in front ofIris’s house.TheVolvo station wagon is in the driveway;every window in the house is slate black.It means they are asleep.In bed.Together.Daniel’s hands tense, he lowers his head until his forehead touches the steering wheel.Go home,he says to himself.

  Yet a competing inner voice also weighs in on the matter, a sterner, hungrier, more focused selfthat he has somehow managed to keep at bay for his entire life, and this voice wordlessly wonders:All around you life seethes, grasps, conquers, and here you are, thirty feet from what you desire most and all you can do is quake, all you can think about is Go home.

  He pulls away.He switches on the radio.Van Morrison singing“Here Comes the Night.”

  Upstairs, in bed, Hampton sleeps in his customary pose ofnoble death: flat on his back, his legs straight, his toes up, his arms folded across his chest, his fingertips resting on his shoulders, his face waxy and unmov-ing, his breath so silent and slow that sometimes it seems not to exist.

  He dreams ofthe train.He is getting on in NewYork, at Pennsylvania Station, presumably on his way up to Leyden.TheAmtrak conductor who directs him onto one ofthe cars looks familiar, a white guy, the guy who is always on Chambers Street selling souvlakis and hot sausages from his steam cart.Here you go, Mr.Davis, the conductor says, gestur-ing to an open door.Steam pours up from the tracks, onto the platform.

  Hampton walks through the steam and steps on the train, and he won-ders why the man has called him Mr.Davis.Has he mixed him up with somebody else, or is that just the conductor’s idea ofa black name?

  In the dream, Hampton is wearing a Hugo Boss pin-striped suit, a Burberry raincoat, with the lining, a scarf, gloves.The train is hot.Every-one else is dressed for summer;most ofthem seem to know each other.

  Perhaps they are some club on their way to a lake somewhere.He is sweating.He feels sweat in his eyes, feels it rolling down his ribs.Oh my God, he thinks, and presses his elbows in, as ifhis armpits were the source ofthe most terrible stench.He scans the aisle for an empty seat.

  And he notices a few rows to the rear a couple ofblack men, real back-country, old school all the way, one dressed in overalls, the other in a yel-low velvet double-breasted suit and a purple shirt.They are passing a bottle ofbeer back and forth and laughing at the tops oftheir voices.

  Hampton does not even want to make eye contact with them, but they make it impossible for him to ignore them.Hey, man, come on over,says the one in the velvet suit, and Hampton has no choice but to march over to them and say,You’re not just representing yourself on this train, you know.And as soon as he says this, he notices his mother, sitting primly on the other side ofthe aisle, with her hands folded onto her lap.She purses her lips and nods, as ifto commend his job well done.

  Next thing, the train has started and he is sitting beside a white woman, who seems to have moved as far from him as the seat will allow.

  She leans against the window as ifthe train has taken a sharp turn.He continues
to keep his elbows pressed against his ribs.He thinks,I wish they’d turn the air conditioning on,but not only is the air conditioning not working but the reading lights are sputtering offand on.He looks out the window.They have left the tunnel.The late afternoon clouds lie along the horizon like broken stones, red, orange, dark blue.The river is dark lavender, the prow ofa rusting tanker parts the waters in a long lumi-nous chevron.Beautiful, beautiful,he thinks.And then he says to the white woman,My stop is an hour and a half from here.She smiles at him grate-fully, she knows he is trying to reassure her.I’m just going to close my eyes for a few minutes,he says.She looks at him, and then shakes her head.Is she warning him not to?

  And then he sees Iris.Like everyone else, she is dressed for warm weather.She is wearing a sleeveless blouse, shorts, sandals.She is walk-ing right past him, carrying a bottle ofclub soda and a bag ofpretzels from the refreshment bar.Somehow, he knows he must not say anything to her.She sits in a seat three or four rows back.She is traveling with a white man, who looks familiar.He takes the bag ofpretzels from her, tears them open, but before either ofthem can eat one ofthem they begin to kiss, passionately.First one long kiss and then another and now the white guy is practically climbing on top ofher.Desperate, Hampton turns to the woman next to him.Get a load of that,he says to her.And as soon as he says this to her, she claws at his face with her long fingernails.

  He awakens, frantic with confusion and anxiety.He is not used to nightmares;normally, he isn’t even aware ofhis dreams.It takes him a mo-ment to realize that he is safe, at home.He props himself up on his elbow to guard against falling back to sleep—that world, that terrible dream world ofthe train is still there, waiting for him to tumble back in.He forces his eyes open, looks to Iris’s side ofthe bed.It’s empty, the sheet in her space is cool.He is about to call out to her but then he sees her, stand-ing at the window.She is wearing a baggy pair ofmen’s boxer shorts and a once-redT-shirt from which most ofthe color has been bleached.

  There is a glow out there, rising up from the headlights ofa car.

  ”Iris?”says Hampton.

  She turns quickly.“You’re awake,”she says.

  The light in the window is caught in the back ofher hair.He can’t make out her features, but he senses from her voice and posture that he has interrupted her, or startled her.“Who’s out there?”he asks her.

  “No one.”She turns, looks out again, as ifto check her own story.

  “No one.”

  “I just had a nightmare,”he says, reaching his hand out to her, beckoning her to bed.He knows that he should not be so commanding—Iris has even told him as much—but the gestures ofthe favorite son, the always-sought-after man, come from the deepest part ofhim.To change these things would be like changing his voice, it would take constant vig-ilance.She finds him arrogant, but he doesn’t feel arrogant.It just seems to him that his being found attractive is a part ofthe natural order of things, and when Iris resists him, or is slow to respond, it irritates him, not because he is a potentate and she is his lowly subject, but simply be-cause a mistake is being made.

  The sight ofthose long, outstretched fingers illuminates Iris’s nervous system with a rage that ignites like flash powder.She wonders ifshe ought to hold her ground or go to him.Sometimes she has the energy to resist him, but each time she does she enters into the conflict with the knowledge that it will extend through the night.

  Hampton switches on his reading light.His cranberry-colored pajamas are streaked with night sweats.He sits up straighter, arranges his pil-lows, and then reextends his reach for her.

  “Are you okay?”she asks.

  He pats the sheet on her side ofthe bed, indicating where he wants her to be.Sometimes she thinks about the men who have wanted to go to bed with her and whom she refused, the good men, handsome, clever, large-hearted men, and how strange it is that life would deliver her to this point:treated like a little dog who is being beckoned to hop up onto the sofa.

  Okay, ifthat’s how he wants it.She bounds across the room, leaps onto the bed, falls forward onto her hands and knees, facing him.Then, completing her private joke, she lets her tongue hang out and she pants.

  He counters with excruciatingly contrived tenderness.He strokes the side ofher face.“We have to sleep,”he whispers.

  This is night language, code;somewhere in the blind, improvised journey ofmarriage, sleep has come to mean sex.It has come to mean let me lose myselfwithin you, let me begin the fall into the silent heart ofthe night between your legs.“Are you tired?”has become an invitation to make love;a loud yawn and a voluptuous stretch ofthe arms are sup-posed to function the way once upon a time his coming behind her and pressing his lips against the nape ofher neck did.

  She continues to pant like a dog, until his frightened, confused expression is replaced by a frown.She takes her place beside him.She lies flat, she feels her blood racing around and around, as iflooking for a way to leave her body.Each time it makes its orbit around her, she feels warmer and warmer.

  “I can hardly wait for you to finish your thesis and for us all to move back to NewYork,”Hampton says.This is meant to be a kind ofsweet talk, signifying that he misses her, that he cannot carry much further the burden oftheir weekly separations.But Iris knows what he isreallysay-ing:I hated those people tonight.

  “I’m sorry it’s taking so long,”she says.She’s tempted to go back to pretending to be a dog, but she thinks better ofit.She feels his long, hard fingers closing around her hand.He lifts her right hand and very care-fully, emphatically, ceremoniously places it on his penis, and then he presses down on the back ofhis hand and lifts his hips up, as ifrespond-ing to her, though he is only responding to himself.

  She pulls her hand away from him—but before he can complain, she rolls over, drapes her leg over him.Lifting herselfup on her elbow, she looks down at him and says,“Pretend you’re raping me.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t hit me or anything, but rape me, really really rape me, tear my clothes offand force yourselfinto me.”

  “Are you serious?”

  She nods yes.

  ”Iris,”he says, in a fatherly, admonishing tone.But her request has already had its effect on him.His hardness feels urgent, brutal.He grips the band ofher shorts, gives it a tug, waits to see what she will do.

  Iris rolls onto her back, she lifts her chin, closes her eyes.She is about to be erased, obliterated, but on her own terms.

  “Who should I be when I do this?”he asks.His throat is dry, his voice has a small fissure running through it.

  She feels herselfsoftening at her center, the way a peach will ifsomeone has dug their thumb in, softening, beginning to rot.“You’re just you and I’m me,”she says.

  “This is strange,”he says.

  ”Shhh,”she answers.“Come on.It’s all right.”

  She has a sense ofhim as completely under her command.She is controlling the situation, him, the night belongs to her at last.But then he surprises her.He tugs her boxers down, fast, with something expert and irrefutable in his movement—just one long pull and they are around her knees.And then before she can even take a breath he turns her over swiftly and a little cruelly, and then the weight ofhim on top ofher presses her nose and mouth into the mattress and all she can think is, Jesus, he is really going to do this to me.

  Daniel comes home, closes the door quietly behind him, and tiptoes with exaggerated care across a minefield ofsqueaking floorboards.He is like the henpecked hubby in a cartoon, sneaking back home after a night’s carousing.He sits on the steps, takes offhis shoes, and ascends to the sec-ond floor in his stockinged feet.

  Knowing it will only increase his agitation, in some hapless way courting the self-torture, he looks in on Ruby.His love for Kate’s child has taken on the harrowing qualities ofa crime in the planning stage.She is the night watchman in a store he is going to rob, she is going to be in harm’s way.He has a dream ofhis own happiness, and ifhe is lucky enough to one day attain it, bold enough
to seize it, man enough to keep it, that joy will be paid for, at least in part, in Ruby’s tears.

  Her bedroom is so dark he cannot see her, but he hears her slow breathing.He feels a kind ofthud in the center ofhis consciousness, as if he has just knocked something down to the carpet in the dark.

  As he feared, Kate is waiting for him, fiercely awake.Her pillows are stacked up to support her back and she rests her head against the wall, exactly in the center ofthe bedposts.She has wrapped her arms around her chest and she flutters her fingers on her upper arms.Instinctually, his eyes scan her bedside table:a stack ofbooks, a little tape recorder for the taking ofher own dictation, a little blue Chinese bowl holding a United Airlines sleep mask and foam rubber earplugs, and—what he was look-ing for and what gives him the sour pleasure ofa hypothesis con-firmed—a bottle ofzinfandel, in which she has made quite a dent.

  “I’m sorry,”she says.

  ”For what?”

  “For giving you a hard time, in the car.”It seems she means to be somehow repentant, but her words are delivered with a little tremor of sarcasm on the edge, though he is not sure who is being mocked—he for being so touchy, or she for behaving badly?

  “It’s all right,”he says.“It’s fine.”

  “I had no right.”

  “It’s okay.It’s just…youknow.Talk.”He feels as ifhe is evading her conversation, she is the bull and he is the matador.

  “I would like to apologize,”she says, her eyes narrowing.“And I would like you to accept my apology.”

  “You did nothing and said nothing that needs an apology.”

  She shakes her head, amazed at the depths ofhis treachery.

  ”You won’t even give me that?”she asks.

  ”I wouldn’t know what I was giving.I really have no idea what this conversation is about.”

  She takes a deep breath, pours herselfa little more wine, a scientifically minute portion that splashes at the bottom ofher tall glass.“Daniel, I have this terrible feeling about you.No, sorry, not about you.Sorry.

  But about what’s happening to you.”

  “It’s late,”he says.“I’ve had a long day, we both have.Tomorrow’s Saturday, we can talk tomorrow.”He has peeled offhis socks and now he is stepping out ofhis trousers.For a briefmoment he has allowed himself to wonder what it would feel like ifhe were getting undressed to get into bed with Iris Davenport, and now that the thought has presented itself he cannot get rid ofit.It just flies around and around within him, like a bird that can’t find the window that let it into the house.