A Ship Made of Paper

by Scott Spencer

  Saturday afternoon.Daniel brings Kate and Ruby to the train station be-cause Kate has decided to stay in NewYork until power is restored in Leyden, and twenty hours later Iris calls:Hampton has gone back to the city.Daniel is at her house in minutes.They bathe each other, nervous that Nelson might awaken, but unable to exercise any more caution than locking the door.“I never realized white people could get so dirty,”she whispers to him, rubbing the soapy sponge onto his shoulders, smooth-ing the lather down his silky chest.“I look like a burn victim,”he says, holding his arm next to hers, comparing the colors.They make love in the guest room, out ofsome shared tact, and sometime during it Iris says,“I feel really safe with you, it’s such a pleasant way to feel,”and though she says it in a purely conversational tone, as soon as the words are out she bursts into tears, and he holds her, afraid to ask why she is crying.He leaves her house as dawn breaks gray and pink in the high in-nocent sky, home ofGod and all the angels;never has he known such happiness.He drives past the twenty-four-hour road crews, waving idi-otically at them,bless you bless you all.Iris is home from her seminar at two that afternoon, they have two and a halfhours before it’s time to col-lect Nelson.Conversation, confession, and sex.“You’re killing me,”she says happily.Soon all the roads will be cleared, even the houses miles out oftown will have power restored, Kate will be back, life will return to normal.He no longer looks kindly at the road crews, their around-the-clock busyness seems like some terrible meddling.One last night with Iris, a few more hours, and the ferocious sexual project reveals itself: they are tearing each other apart, devouring the flesh until nothing sep-arates them.

  [9]

  As far as Daniel was concerned, this was torture.It might be better just to come out with it, tell Hampton:I love Iris, and she seems to love me.We belong together.

  We do feel bad.Oh shut up about feeling bad.Do you think he cares? He’d like you to have brain cancer, that would be the sort of suffering he’d like for you.

  Whyare youoffering up your stricken conscience—to make him feel you’ve been punished sufficiently?Are you so afraid of him?And with that question, Daniel at last connected to the core of what had been plaguing him from the mo-ment he and Hampton set off together in search of Marie.It was not really about conscience, after all.He’d been wrestling with his conscience for months now, they were old sparring partners, sometimes he pinned it to the mat, sometimes it slammed him, it didn’t really amount to much, it was a show, like the wrestling on TV.And besides:theworstsort of remorse was preferable to what had preceded it, the infinitely greater agony of longing for Iris.Remorse was the payment due for the fulfillment of his great desire.And it was, finally, a payment he was willing to make.No, it was not his conscience that churned at the center of him, making him cringe inwardly when Hampton stepped too close to him.It was fear, physical fear.

  Like many men who find love when they are no longer in the full bloom ofvigor and health, Daniel has made a promise to himself to get back in shape.For a couple ofnights, he tried doing calisthenics at home, but it seemed disrespectful to Kate to be grunting out sit-ups in the same room they conduct their wounded, slowly expiring relation-ship.Those exercises were a kind ofcelebratory dance ofhealth, and his workout wear ofbaggy cotton shorts and a baggier old grayT-shirt was in fact the uniform ofhis new devotion:they may as well have borne Iris’s name on the back.He is in training to be her lover.One day soon Kate will understand that the sexual Mount Everest Daniel is in training to scale has nothing to do with her, and when this grim domestic knowl-edge is complete Daniel does not want her to conjure a vision ofhim do-ing abdominal crunches on their bedroom floor.

  As a less ostentatious form ofbody toning, Daniel decides to forego lunch and to spend the time vigorously walking through the village of Leyden, which now, nine days after the October snow, is just getting back to normal, with businesses long closed for lack ofelectrical power finally reopening, and employees finally able to show up for work.The mood ofthe town is festive, as ifat the victorious end ofa war.No one can get enough oftalking about what befell them during the storm and the blackout, what they learned, what they lost, how they coped.

  Daniel’s great story ofthe October storm, however, cannot be told, and its necessary suppression has dampened his normally gregarious nature.

  He is content to replay memories ofhis days and nights with Iris with-out any interruption as he walks the circumference ofthe town’s com-mercial center.The problem really is that walking doesn’t feel like exercise, and as soon as he makes it once around the village, he realizes that he looks halfmad speed-walking in his suit and street shoes, and also that he is too young for walking, speed or otherwise, to make much of an impact on him.On his second time through the village, he hears someone call his name, and though he has promised himself that he will ignore all distractions, he stops immediately and turns to face Bruce Mc-Fadden, an old friend from Daniel’s childhood days in Leyden.

  “Hey, bro, what it is,”McFadden says in some vaguely self-mocking approximation ofblack street slang, putting his palm out for a little skin.

  McFadden, a tall, flimsily knit-together man, with long, lustrous brown hair, bright-green eyes, and a pale face with hectic bursts ofcolor at the cheekbones, is about as black as a Highland fling, and normally he does not speak in anything approaching hip-hop patois.But a love ofblack cul-ture is the original cornerstone ofhis friendship with Daniel, and Bruce still likes to black it up.And because, right now, Bruce doesn’t happen to know any black people personally, saying“bro”and talking about Satchel Paige and Miles Davis, Chester Himes, HowlingWolf, AntonioVargas, Peaches and Herb, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Liston, Sonny BoyWilliamson, and all the other black Sonnys, is something he saves for his occasional meetings with Daniel.

  Except for a few years inAlbany, where he went to medical school,

  Bruce has never lived outside ofLeyden.He is a part ofa thriving med-ical group, but his personal life is conducted at the very pinnacle ofcir-cumspection—no one has any idea what he does when the sun goes down, ifhe drinks, or sits alone watching television, or whether or not he has a lover, and what the gender ofthat lover might be.Even Daniel, who loves Bruce, cannot say what the mysterious doctor has devised for getting through the nights.

  “Why are you walking around like that?”Bruce asks Daniel, standing in front ofthe luncheonette, with a half-eaten tuna sandwich in one hand and a paper napkin in the other.

  “Exercising,”says Daniel.

  ”You can’t get exercise walking around like that, man.You want exercise? I’ll teach you the greatest ofthe white man’s sports.”

  With that in mind, Bruce convinces Daniel to meet after work at Marlowe College, where Bruce is going to teach Daniel how to play squash.

  It’s Friday;Hampton is coming back to town, and Daniel is grateful for the diversion, the company.Rather than go home and get his Nikes, shorts, and aT-shirt, Daniel buys all these things new and arrives at the gym a few minutes before his five o’clock date with Bruce.He immedi-ately goes to the glass wall overlooking the college’s swimming pool, an immense turquoise parallelogram surrounded by red and white tiles—Iris is a swimmer and Daniel is hoping that luck is on his side.

  But the pool is empty.An elderly man, probably a professor, with an enormous bald head, ears as large as fists, a barrel chest from which fur rises up in fifty separate geysers, sits in a wheelchair at the edge ofthe pool, grimacing at a young man with light olive skin and shoulder-length hair, probably his physical therapist.The sight ofthe old man fills Daniel’s heart with urgency:time passes, bodies decay, every day spent without love is lost forever, the time cannot be recaptured or made up for.The professor’s legs are as thin as a child’s.He wraps his trembling, chim-panzee arms around the young man’s neck and allows himself to be hoisted out ofthe chair and lowered into the deep end ofthe pool, just to the left ofthe double-decker diving boards.As soon as the old man is in the water, he disappears, and Daniel for a moment thinks he is the w
it-ness to a tragedy.But then the old man emerges;he has swum to the cen-ter ofthe pool, and he continues to propel himself with breast strokes, expelling water from his mouth in a long arcing spew.

  Bruce arrives, and Daniel follows him into the locker room.In the large, windowless room, with its industrial gray carpeting and the smell ofsweat and chlorine in the air, a dozen or so college students are in var-ious states ofundress.Their movements are nervous, they dress hur-riedly, with elaborate bashfulness about their young, fit bodies, slipping into their shorts while they keep a towel wrapped around their midsec-tions, showering in their bathing suits.The older men, the guys in their fifties and sixties, display without shame their deteriorated bodies, their flaccid bellies, hunched backs, saggy asses, and flamboyantly uneven testicular sacs.

  “Did you hear the news about those kids who broke out ofStar of Bethlehem?”Bruce asks.

  “What happened?”Daniel cannot hear any mention ofthem without a feeling ofanxiety and remorse.

  “Fucking crime spree, baby.All up and down the river.”Bruce smiles, shakes his head, it’s hard to say ifhe means to be rueful or admiring.

  “I guess they’ll catch them sooner or later,”Daniel says.

  ”I wouldn’t bet on it.Cops up here are not used to anyone giving them any resistance.”

  Daniel and Bruce begin to undress and Bruce asks the inevitable question:“Where were you during the storm?”

  “Actually, I was trapped in someone else’s house for the first day ofit.”

  “Oh my God, I would hate that,”Bruce says.He tosses his loafers into the locker.

  Daniel glances around the locker room to see ifanyone is within earshot.Several lockers to the right, a skinny, gloomy-looking man in his late fifties, breathing heavily, bathed in sweat, unfastens a complicated knee brace.

  “I was at Iris Davenport’s house.I ended up spending the night there.”

  Daniel has promised himself never to mention this, but now he can’t quite recall why it’s so important to keep the secrecy intact.

  “Iris Davenport?What a fox.She looks a little likeWhitney Houston, don’t you think?”

  “Not really.”

  “She’s been to my office.Confidentially? I tested her for glaucoma.It runs in her family.”

  “When?”

  “Months ago.She’s a pretty girl,”Bruce says in a distant voice, as ifhe were piecing together his memory ofher as he speaks.“Her eyes are fine, by the way.”

  “Yes,”says Daniel.“I could walk into her eyes and never come back.”

  Bruce glances away, clears his throat.“Whatever,”he says.Then he adds,“What’s she like, anyhow? I found her sort ofhard to get a read on.”

  “She’s honest, she’s steady, she’s always present.She’s pure without being a puritan.She’s liberated without being a libertine.”

  “All right.Now you’re starting to frighten me.”

  Daniel blushes;in the company ofanother man, the pitch ofhis own ardor seems suddenly absurd.“I’m being undone by this whole thing,”he murmurs.“I’m totally in lovewith her, Bruce.”The reliefoffinally being able to say this to another person has upset his balance, the way you would lose strength in your legs and stumble forward after finally being relieved ofa load offirewood.

  “Oh dear,”Bruce says.His sneakers are laced;he stands up and puts his hand on Daniel’s shoulder and gives it a comradely pat.“It’ll pass,”he says, as ifto comfort Daniel.“Let’s not even talk about it.”

  The squash courts are on the second floor ofthe gym, a row offive white rooms with hardwood floors, the back wall ofeach made ofshat-terproofglass so that the games may be observed.All ofthe courts are empty when Daniel and Bruce arrive;they take court number one and Bruce teaches Daniel the rudiments ofthe game, beginning, as is the masculine custom, with the rules.Bruce seems fixated on the rules, rat-tling them offin a stern fashion, as ifsuspecting that Daniel might be try-ing to figure a way around them.When they finally begin to hit the ball, Daniel is confused by how little it bounces, how its hollowness and soft-ness render it practically inert, and he wonders how this game will ever provide him with exercise.But the ball becomes livelier as it heats up, and after twenty minutes on the court Daniel is breathing heavily and feels the first trickle ofsweat going down his spine.

  They hear the thump ofa ball being hit on an adjoining court;another game is in progress.

  “You’re a good beginner,”Bruce says.“Want to get a drink ofwater?”

  They open the glass door and walk out into the broad corridor, at the end ofwhich is a water cooler.The first thing Daniel sees is Iris sitting on one ofthe brightly colored red-and-black benches in the hall.His heart flaps like a toucan in a cage.Iris sits there, with Nelson draped lan-guidly on her lap.She wears a copper-colored down vest, a Baltimore Orioles cap, jeans, and rubber boots.She glances at Daniel, and then looks away.Surely she has known all along that he is here, they all must have seen him through the glass on their way to court two.Is this really her strategy?That they should ignore each other? It doesn’t seem wise.

  And he is, ofcourse, incapable ofcarrying it out.

  “Iris!”he calls out, as ifseeing her here were one oflife’s funny little surprises.He grasps Bruce by the elbow and steers him over toward Iris.

  ”I believe you two know each other,”Daniel says.He feels hot breath on his leg and looks down.It’s Scarecrow, hitched to a dark-blue leash, wag-ging her tailless hindquarters and panting excitedly.Daniel is unreason-ably happy to see her, as ifthe old dog had risen from the dead.

  ”Scarecrow!Are you a member ofthe gym?”

  “Hello, Iris,”Bruce says.Noticing the confusion in her face, he adds,

  “It’s Dr.McFadden.”

  “Oh yes, I’m sorry.I…”

  “I’m out ofcontext.”He gestures toward his long legs.“You never saw me in shorts.”

  Daniel chooses to take this remark as somehow scaling the pinnacle ofwit.In the midst ofhis laughter, he notices that Nelson is scowling openly at him, an exaggerated grimace, completely unencumbered by any sense ofsocial grace.He is like a bad actor miming displeasure in a silent movie.Quickly, Daniel diverts his own attention to the squash game taking place in court two.

  Hampton is playing against his younger brother, James.JamesWelles has his brother’s—and, indeed, his entire family’s—light copper com-plexion, but his appearance is far from Hampton’s carefully groomed, businesslike image.While Hampton wears tennis whites, James is dressed as ifto go fishing with a bamboo pole:in cutoffjeans, a faded rustT-shirt torn at the shoulder, black sneakers splattered with paint, and no socks at all.He has the merry and defiant eyes ofa boy who always knew he was his mother’s favorite, no matter what sort oftrouble he caused.He has recently grown a little scraggly beard—hardly a beard, really, just three sprouts ofwhisker, a kind ofFu Manchu fountain springing from the center ofhis chin.His long hair is a complex nest of braids, culminating in a thick, glistening ponytail.

  Daniel stands behind the glass wall and watches transfixed.James moves around the court as ifscarcely subject to the laws ofgravity, bounding and whirling, airborne, his braids flapping, his shoelaces flapping as well, letting out little yelps ofpure animal joy, his youthful, handsome face alight with the bliss ofhis own physicality.The ball hits against the back wall, and James runs after it with the antic, spendthrift energy ofa pup, in fact he overruns it, but no matter—he returns the ball by hitting it through his wide-open skinny legs, punctuating the cir-cus shot with a whoop and a raised fist.

  Hampton’s reply to his younger brother’s showboating is to return the ball in the most rudimentary, formal, and correct way possible.In fact, all ofHampton’s moves on the court could be used in an instructional video, the way he cocks the racquet over his head before each stroke, the way he bends his knees, his short, punchy follow-through, his return to the center ofthe court after every stroke.His movements are dogged, mechanized, and tireless.The only emotion he shows is a slight reddening
around the ears and throat when James makes a particularly unorthodox shot, since these are met with squeals and cheers from Nelson.

  “Don’t cheer against Daddy,”Iris whispers to her boy.

  ”Uncle James is funny,”Nelson says.

  Bruce catches Daniel’s eyes.Let’s go,he mouths.Daniel shakes his head and Bruce sighs impatiently.

  Daniel forces himself to turn away from the game, though by now it feels as ifthe fate ofhis love affair with Irisrequiresthat Hampton be van-quished.“How are you doing?”he asks Iris.