A Ship Made of Paper

by Scott Spencer

  She seems to have gotten there before him.She looks at him with great seriousness and says,“Say something to me.Tell me what I want to hear.”

  His first instinct is to declare his love, but something tells him not to.

  ”I’ll tell you this,”he says.“I’m not going to crowd you.I know your life is complicated.”

  “It is,”she says softly.

  ”More than mine.IfI lost everything, it wouldn’t be that much.I’m not married.I don’t have a kid.”

  “You have Ruby.”

  “She’s not really mine.”

  “Yes she is, the way you love her.And ifanything happened, you might never see her again.That would be so terrible.”

  “It’s not like you.You have a good life.You have your son, school, your life, everything.I don’t want to be a problem.”

  “So what do you think ofme?What do you think ofa woman who’d fuck some guy in her husband’s bed?”

  “I don’t know.Maybe she should be taken out and stoned to death in front ofa vast crowd.”

  He smiles to let her know he’s kidding, but she doesn’t find it funny, and the timing irritates her.

  “Well, nobody needs to know, do they,”she says.

  ”What are we supposed to do?”he asks.

  ”You think I’m going to change my whole life because you slept in this bed last night?”she says.Her voice is a little sharp, which she regrets.

  But, really.

  “Yes, I think I do,”he says.“I’m sorry.I’m going to figure out a better way to feel.And in the meanwhile, I promise to behave.”

  She makes a silencing gesture.She thinks she hears something, a noise from down the hall.

  “Nobody’s awake yet,”Daniel says.

  She listens again.He’s right;the house is silent.She hears the distant whine ofa snowmobile, powering through the white enameled stillness ofthe world like a dentist’s drill.She kisses him.

  “You’d better go back to the guest room,”Iris says.“Nelson could walk in here any second.”

  “All right.”He leans out ofthe bed, as ifout ofa life raft, reaching down for what is left ofthe night’s wreckage—his shirt, his underwear, his pants.

  She feels a sudden gust ofdesperation at the sight ofhim beginning to leave.What ifthis never can happen again? He looks at her over his shoulder as he gets out ofbed.His reddish, slightly wrinkled little be-hind.She dives across the bed, grabs his hips, he makes it easy for her to pull him back into bed.When they have stopped rolling around, he has ended up below her, his head between her legs, his mouth kissing her opening as ifthey were the lips on her face.At this point, it is barely ex-citing, it’s comforting, it feels warm and kind and devoted.

  Footsteps.Have they been getting closer all the while? In a panic, Iris lifts herselfup and twists away from Daniel.Her pubic bone bangs against his teeth.He looks bewildered, but she doesn’t have to tell him to get up, he knows what’s happening.There is apat pat patoffootsteps getting closer.He rolls out ofbed, grabs the clothes he gathered minutes before, makes a vain attempt to cover himself.Iris pulls the covers up to her chin.

  It’s Scarecrow.The old dog waddles in, head cocked, her long lilac tongue out, a good-natured glint in her blue eyes.

  “Thank you, Jesus!”Daniel says.

  They are so relieved, they share the hysterical laughter ofthe near miss.Iris does something she hasn’t done since she was a little girl:she covers her mouth while she laughs her gummy laugh.And Daniel pre-tends to have a heart attack, grabbing his chest, staggering, falling back into the bed.Iris strokes his long, soft hair.She leans over, kisses the taste ofherselfoffhis mouth.

  Nelson’s footsteps are softer than the dog’s.He is right next to the bed before they notice him.

  “I’m cold,”he says, staring intently at Daniel.

  [8]

  Hampton was still pinching black powder out of his back pocket, rubbing it be-tween his thumb and forefinger.His fingers were long, poetic;you could imagine him playing piano, stroking a sleeping cat, caressing a woman.He tossed the powder into the darkness, as if scattering ashes after a cremation.Then he raked a handful of dead leaves off of a wild cherry tree, one that was still standing, and used them to wipe his hands.“I used to make Iris laugh all the time.”

  “I used to make Kate laugh, too,”said Daniel.He said it because he had to say

  something.He couldn’t simply let Hampton go on about Iris and not say any-thing in reply.It would be too strange, and it would be suspicious, too.However, what he said was true, meant.“First couple of years, I had her in hysterics.”

  He noticed that Hampton’s shaved head had suffered a scrape.There was a

  little red worm of blood on the smooth scalp.

  “Kate doesn’t think you’re funny anymore?”

  “No, she doesn’t,”Daniel said.

  ”Iris thinks you’re funny.Maybe you’re funnier around her.”

  “Maybe she’s just very kind.”

  “Or very lonely.”

  Daniel must move quickly now that Nelson has crawled under the covers to be next to Iris;he slips out ofher bedroom and into the hall, where he dresses frantically and with more clumsiness than he thought himself capable of, before going into Nelson’s room and waking Ruby.He shakes her awake.Time to go, sweetie.She nods, accepting the wisdom ofhis edict.She never argues with anything he says.She assumes he knows what is best for her and what is correct.Ifhe serves her peas and corn, she eats peas and corn.Ifhe tucks her in bed, she closes her eyes.Ifhe tells her there are no such things as ghosts, she believes him, she doesn’t even ask him to look in the closet.Daniel dresses her hur-riedly, and then carries her down the stairs and through the door to the stunned, frosted, broken world outside.

  His car has been spared.No trees have fallen on it during the night, though there are twigs and branches stuck in the snow on the roofand windshield.Next door, not thirty feet away, a dogwood has snapped in two;its crown rests on the roofofthe house, right next to the chimney.

  Ruby stares at it with no small measure ofawe, her eyes open so wide that the whites show above and below her pupils.Daniel gathers her closer, though he, too, stares at the tree, feeling creepy but spared.

  No one has yet come out to shovel a sidewalk or clear a driveway, though the snow has finally stopped and the sky is a ridiculously cheer-ful blue.The blanket ofuntouched snow stretches as far as he can see—untouched, that is, except where trees or branches have plunged through the surface.At the far end ofthe block, a long coil ofpower line lies curled into itselflike a snake in a basket, every now and then spitting out a warning venom ofbright-orange sparks.

  “We’re going home, honey,”Daniel says.His hands caress her cheeks, smooth as glass.

  Though there is no road to drive on, Daniel goes through the motions ofleaving anyhow.Feeling at once drunk and ill with the flu, he brushes the snow offthe front-door handle, yanks the door open, breaking the brittle spun-sugar sheet ofice, slides into the car, and gets the engine started.Ruby climbs into the back and puts herselfinto the child seat, slip-ping the straps over her shoulders.While the engine warms, Daniel clears the windshield and the back window, and then brushes snow and debris off the roof.He gets back into the car and looks at Ruby.Her eyes are swollen with exhaustion, and she is shivering.“You all set?”he asks, and she nods.

  He puts the transmission into reverse and guns the motor, hoping to shoot over the hump ofsnow at the end ofIris’s driveway.It doesn’t quite occur to him that ifthe road crew hasn’t cleared Iris’s street right in the center oftown, then there is no possibility ofany ofthe roads being cleared, least ofall the dirt road where he and Kate live, well out oftown.

  His car’s back wheels spin uselessly.He puts the transmission into reverse, goes back a foot or two, and then puts it in drive, hoping to free himself by creating a rocking motion, back and forth.Soon, however, the spinning tires are melting the snow beneath their treads, and soon after that there rises the sharp odor ofburnin
g rubber.

  “You know what?”Daniel says to Ruby, turning to look at her, smiling, trying to be as casual as possible.“Even ifwe get this stupid car out ofthe driveway, we still might not be able to drive all the way home.

  There’s so much snow, honey.”

  “What about Mom?”Ruby asks.

  ”Well, she’s the lucky one, isn’t she? She’s already home.”

  “Can’t we go home, too?”

  “Don’t worry.We will.”He looks back at Iris’s house and tries to gather the courage to go back in.She is likely tending Nelson’s abused sensibilities, but he has a little girl out in the snow.

  Just then, he hears the urgent whine ofa small engine revved to its upper limits, and a moment later an oversized, gaily painted snowmobile careens into view.It’s Ferguson Richmond—airborne for a moment, as he comes over a rise, and then bouncing offthe snowy street, raising up fans ofpure powder.He takes a long, looping turn, and a moment later he pulls into Iris’s driveway.

  Daniel looks up at the second story, expecting that curiosity about this noise will have brought Iris to the window, but all he can see is a blaze ofreflected sunlight in the glass.

  “EnjoyingArmageddon?”Ferguson asks.“Beats the hell out oflocusts, doesn’t it?”His voice rings out like a blacksmith’s hammer.He wears neither a hat nor a helmet.His thinning hair is soaked, his bushy eyebrows hold little balls ofice.“What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to get home,”Daniel says.“What about you?”

  “Iamhome,”Ferguson says, with an excited, expansive wave.“And I wanted to see ifthis thing would work.”He pats the snowmobile as ifit were a horse.His hands are so red it looks as ifthe skin has been peeled offthem.“And this Mexican kid who’s doing some tile work for us was going crazy, so I took him over to the trailer park to be with his wife and kids.Since then I’ve just been cruising, surveying the damage.It’s fan-tastic.Worse than I expected.”He smiles broadly.“Want a lift?”

  “Can you manage both ofus?”

  “We’ll soon find out!”

  They set offwith Ruby sandwiched between them.Block after block ofutter stillness and silence.Ferguson makes educated guesses where the turns would be, trying to adhere to what be believes is the road, and then he slows down as they drive through the center oftown.No store is open and no one is on the street, except in front ofthe old brick fire-house, where a dozen volunteers are trying to clear the way, using chain saws and snowblowers.

  At the far end oftown, Ferguson cuts through a thirty-acre cornfield, taking a shortcut.The snowmobile hits an unexpected bump in the field.

  A splash ofwet snow.The curved tip ofthe skis thrust black against the scrubbed blue sky.Daniel grabs hold ofRuby’s jacket.Up.Up.And then down with a thud.

  “Are you okay?”he cries out to her.

  She nods nervously, her shoulders hunched, breathing shallowly through her mouth.

  I’m putting her in danger,he thinks.Is anything worth putting her in harm’s

  way? Or even hurting her feelings?What was I thinking?And poor Nelson.What must it have been like for him to see his mother in bed with a stranger? Poor Iris.

  And now he is going back to Kate, whose intelligence he suddenly fears like a loaded gun.They are speeding through a landscape ofruined trees and blinding snow.They come to Chase Farms, where a dozen Holsteins stand in a foot ofsnow, staring at one another, and then at the ground, and then at each other again.They seem puzzled by the sudden disappearance oftheir pasture.Above them, the blue dome ofsky is start-ing to crack away like cheap paint, showing the cement underneath.

  “Stop here!”Daniel calls out.Without asking why, Ferguson slows to a stop, and Daniel slides offthe seat, gives Ruby a little squeeze, and then runs into the wrecked and tangled woods opposite Chase Farms.He is sure Ferguson assumes that he is going into the woods to take a pee.As soon as Daniel’s out ofsight, he pulls offhis gloves, then scoops up a large handful ofsnow and presses it to his face, scrubbing back and forth.

  He must.Most adulterers have the luxury ofmodern plumbing with which to wash the scent ofsex offbefore they return to their official life.

  But Daniel feels he bears the scent ofevery kiss, every secretion, on his hands, his face, his hair.It’s a painful business, washing himself with snow, but his anxiety acts as a partial anesthetic, and when he finishes with his face he grabs still more snow and squeezes it between his hands.

  As it happens, Kate is not in a position or a mood to detect the scent ofin-fidelity on Daniel;she is frightened and a little drunk, and when Daniel and Ruby enter the house they find her in a frenzy ofactivity, trying to maintain some sense ofdomesticity in a house without lights, heat, or water.The only household appliance that works is the kitchen stove, which runs on gas that comes from two silver cylinders near the back door, and Kate hovers continually over this stove, cooking everything that would otherwise spoil, grilling the salmon, scrambling the eggs, broiling the chicken, and steaming the vegetables—without tap water, she uses club soda that she allows to go flat in the bottom ofthe pot before turning on the flame.At one point, Kate has something simmering on all six burners oftheir Garland range (inher-ited from the house’s previous owners) and is swigging on a bottle ofver-mouth as well as a bottle ofgin, as ifto mix a martini in her mouth.

  When she is not discussing in hair-raising detail last night’s invasion by the Star ofBethlehem boys, Kate’s spirits are darkly manic, her jocularity seems to scan the horizon for likely targets.To Daniel, she says,“This is some romantic, ain’t it?”and pulls his hair, not quite hard enough to be thoroughly aggressive.“I hope you’re hungry,”she announces to the house, singing it out, like some nutty kid imitating an opera singer.“And I hope you like really really shitty cooking.”Though it is cold in the house, she is flushed, little drops ofsweat collect in her facial down.“Come on, Ruby, I’ll play hide-and-seek with you.”And when Ruby declines the in-vitation—the last thing the child wants to do is slip into a closet or slide under a bed in a house filled with darkness and cold, a house that is in-creasingly unnerving to her—Kate doesn’t only look disappointed, she seems offended, as ifshe herselfwere a little girl, a lonely little girl, suf-fering the rejection ofa playmate.

  Without electricity, home life is less private than ever.They are cast back to some preindustrial reliance on each other.When the home technolo-gies are up and running, each member ofthe family can be a self-sustaining unit, in a private room with its own source ofheat and light, listening to music on his own set, watching a movie, purchasing dried apricots from Haifa via the Internet.With only the fireplace for heat, the hearth becomes the locus oftheir lives.IfKate takes a candle to light her way to the bathroom, Daniel and Ruby are left in darkness.

  Rubyhas to be next to atleast one ofthem, and the constancyofher presence, along with her nervousness and her boredom, begins to wear on Kate.Finally, however, Kate is able to coax Ruby to go upstairs, giv-ing her a candle and convincing her that the little red radio in her room will afford her some entertainment.When Ruby is finally out ofearshot, Kate makes a martini for Daniel and hands it to him with a certain force-fulness that tells him he had better accept it, though, in fact, he would like to remain coldly sober, so as to defend himself ifKate should turn her intelligence against him, and also to continue trying to figure a way he could leave the house, make it back into town, and see Iris.

  “You know when I told you about those men coming into the house last night…”

  “I thought you said they were boys,”Daniel says.

  ”They were men,”Kate says.“Maybe some asshole lawyer could argue they were juveniles, but they were thudding around here like a herd ofelephants.”

  He wants to sayBy“asshole lawyer”I assume you mean me,but why borrow trouble?

  “And ifthey had found me,”Kate is saying,“then I promise you it wouldn’t have been some boyish prank.”

  “Well, thank God they didn’t,”Daniel says.He takes another sip of his martini and
realizes that he has practically drained the glass.

  When Kate veers closer he eases away from her.He is sure that he still reeks oflast night, and then it strikes him that he ought to do some labor, something that might work up an exculpatory sweat.“I’m going to bring in some wood for the fireplace,”he says.She looks at him a little strangely.

  The sky is a deep blue, almost purple, with a crescent moon bobbing up and down in a stream ofpassing night clouds.The temperature is mild; with a fire in the fireplace, they’ll be warm enough inside.Daniel stands for a few moments on the porch, where oak and ash logs are stacked against the gray clapboard ofthe exterior wall.The stillness and clarity of the evening are almost unbelievable—how could such tranquility follow such chaos? Daniel takes a deep breath, spreads his arms out:Iris.Twoof the three old locust trees in the front yard are down, one has been split in two, the other has been completely torn out ofthe ground, its taproot unearthed.A few scattered stars pulsate, diamond chips in the velvet.He wonders ifshe is okay.She cannot bear the cold.She might have low blood pressure, she should have it checked.Maybe the road crews have al-ready cleared out the center oftown, maybe she’s already up and around.

  Maybe the power has been restored on Juniper Street.He hopes so.She shouldn’t be sitting alone in a dark house.He wonders ifHampton, learn-ing the extent ofthe storm, has returned to his family.

  He brings in several armloads offirewood, and places them all carefully in the large iron ring near the fireplace.The air is dank in the house.

  The smell from the fireplace is pleasant, however, and the three ofthem sit on the floor in front ofit, enjoying its warmth and the comforting light.Kate continues to drink, though Daniel doesn’t know exactly what’s in her glass, and he doesn’t feel able to ask her.But watching her drink makes him want to get drunk—despite the risk—and he makes his way into the kitchen, holding a candle that drips wax onto his knuckles with each step.He comes back with halfa glass ofbourbon and sits down on the hooked rug in front ofthe hearth, where he and Kate have been play-ing Uno with Ruby.Normally, playing with Ruby like this is one ofthe things that make Daniel feel life is worth living, and the same could be said for sitting in front ofa successful fire, getting a little loaded, even go-ing to bed with Kate after she’d been drinking.But tonight, everything seems fraught and dreary.How can he be here, stuck, trapped, put into a position in which every word out ofhis mouth is a lie? How can he be go-ing through the motions in this sad and threadbare life, a life that now is—he hates to think it, but he must—little more than a terrible obstacle between him and simple human happiness?