A Ship Made of Paper

by Scott Spencer

  ”Oh shit, here she comes, perfect timing.”

  “Who?”

  “Kalilah Childs.This girl, this kid, I keep running into her in the library.She keeps trying to get me to join the Black StudentAlliance.”

  “Maybe ifwe start necking she’ll go away.”

  “Too late,”Iris says.

  Moments later, Kalilah Childs is at their table, a dark, fleshy nineteen-year-old girl in faded denim overalls and work boots, wide-eyed, cornrowed, wearing a multitude ofrings, bracelets, and necklaces.

  The jewelry is, for the most part, African, though she also wears a pearl necklace given to her by her parents when she graduated first in her class from her Quaker high school in Philadelphia.A scent ofsandalwood is on her clothing.Rarely serene—she is acknowledged as a genius at Mar-lowe, and the pressure is immense—Kalilah now is particularly agitated.

  She looms over Iris and looks as ifshe might pounce upon her.

  “Have you heard what happened toAlysha?”Kalilah says.She doesn’t acknowledge Daniel’s presence.“Three guys jumped her at that pizza place out on Route One Hundred, and one ofthem kicked her in theear.”

  “Oh no,”Daniel says, though as soon as his expression ofshock is uttered, he realizes that in this particular situation he is meant to be quiet.

  “Is she all right?”Iris asks.

  ”She had to go to the hospital.Now she’s in her dorm.Her mother’s coming up from Brooklyn to take her home.”

  Iris nods, taking it in.“Actually,”she says,“I don’t think I know Alysha?”She says the name uncertainly.

  “You would ifyou ever came to a meeting,”Kalilah says.The finger she shakes at Iris has three rings on it.

  Iris presents Kalilah with a slow, composed smile, one that would have stopped Kalilah in her tracks ifshe were two years older or ten per-cent more perceptive.

  “When am I supposed to go to a meeting, Kalilah?”Iris says.“I’m trying to get my work done and raise a family.And going to school when you’re older is really difficult.You can’t understand.You’ve got a supple young brain, and all this fire and certainty and sense ofpurpose.I’m struggling just to get through, and don’t have anything left to go to any damn meeting.”

  “You’re not old!”Kalilah says, her voice rising—it’s hard to say ifit’s out ofconviction or discomfort.“And we need every one ofus.Look at what happened toAlysha.”

  “I’m sorry for what happened to her.”Iris puts particular emphasis on the final pronoun.

  “Well it could have been you, or me, or any one ofus,”Kalilah says.

  “That’s why we need the Black StudentAlliance, and that’s why you need it, too.”As Kalilah says this, she turns slowly and lets her eyes fall to rest on Daniel.

  “You know what, Kalilah?”Iris says.“I don’t join clubs, or groups, or any ofthat stuff.Okay? Oh, sorry.Kalilah Childs?This is Daniel Emerson.”

  “Nice to meet you,”Daniel says, halfrising from his chair.

  ”Hello,”Kalilah says, her face pleasant, a little placid.

  Daniel thinks this would be as good a time as any to leave.Iris senses his thought and places her hand on his wrist.

  “What ifmy friend Daniel wanted to join your club?”Iris says.

  “Would that be all right?”

  “No, and anyhow I bet he’s not even a student here.”

  “Well, let’s say he was.Then could he join?”

  “Come on.It’s forAfrican-Americans only, students and faculty.”

  “Well, I would never join that kind ofthing.I don’t think I could be friends with Daniel ifI joined a club that excluded him.How do you think I’d feel ifDaniel belonged to an organization that didn’t allow African-Americans? Do you think that would be all right with me?You think that wouldn’t be grounds for ending the friendship?”

  “Well, he does belong to a group that excludes you,”Kalilah says.“It’s called the white race.I presume you’ve heard ofit.Try joining it.”

  “Daniel didn’t join it,”Iris says.

  ”Well, he’s in it.”

  “Actually, I resigned,”Daniel says, at last able to speak.“But it’s like the Mafia, you know, they keep pulling me back in.”

  “That’s pretty funny,”Kalilah says.

  Iris looks at her watch.“I’ve got class,”she says.She picks up her briefcase, zippers it shut.A tremble goes through her hands and Daniel realizes just how angry she is.“You know, Kalilah,”she says.“You’ve got a great future ahead ofyou in politics, ifthat’s what you choose.”

  “That sounds like a put-down, coming from you,”Kalilah says.

  ”You just don’t take no for an answer, and maybe that’s good.But it doesn’t work with me.You think you’re the first person who’s ever told me I need to be doing this or that for my people?You think I haven’t heard it from both sides ofmy family?And both sides ofmy husband’s family, too? I’ll tell you the same thing I say to them.You believe in free-dom? Great.Then let me be free.Is that so hard? I’ve got one little life to live, that’s all, that’s the whole thing.Don’t I have the right to live it the way I choose?Why do I have to do what you want me to do?Why do I have to join your group, and say you’re like me and I’m like you and we’re all together? It’s really shit.You know that, Kalilah? It’s total shit.

  And ifyou want to talk about racism, let’s think about this—you look at me and all you see is brown skin.You don’t know what I’m going through in my life.You don’t know what kind ofresponsibilities I’m dealing with, or what the pressures are, or anything else.You don’t know what I eat, or where I live, or what I want, you don’t know ifI sleep on my back, or ifI’m wanted for murder inTennessee.All you’re registering is the pig-mentation.So how are you different from some white racist?”

  “You don’t give us a chance to know you,”Kalilah says.

  By now, Iris is standing.“That’s what I’m doing now,”she says.She kisses her fingertips and touches them against Daniel’s cheek.Then, be-fore another word can be said, she turns and walks quickly away.

  Daniel and Kalilah watch her cross the cafeteria, and then are left with each other and the silence between them.

  Thanksgiving arrives.Daniel and Kate are fleetingly bound together as they collaborate on a story to explain the bandage on Kate’s forehead, as well as her black eye, as they sit at the dutifully laden table with Ruby, and with Carl and Julia Emerson.

  The Emersons are amazed but not inquisitive as they listen to the story ofKate’s car’s jammed accelerator, and Daniel, to lend some verisimilitude to the tale, hints darkly that a very serious lawsuit may be in the offing and that Kate may be living on easy street by next year.“And I’m going to get my beak wet on this one, as well,”he says, uncorking the wine, walking nervously around the table and filling glasses.

  Carl and Julia look as ifthey have recently graduated at the head of their class in the Prussian PostureAcademy.With their shoulders squared, their backbones straight as pool cues, they surreptitiously warm their hands, rubbing and squeezing them under the cover ofthe starched linen tablecloth.When the turkey is brought steaming and fragrant to the table, they follow it carefully with their eyes but make no comment, no ooohofpleasure, noahhhofanticipation.Their faces show no gaiety;in fact, they came close to not showing up at Kate and Daniel’s house at all.

  After more than seventyThanksgivings, the thought ofmissing one struck them as being something less than tragic, and, further, they both suspected that somewhere during the long, gluttonous, tryptophane-infused afternoon there was a very real chance that their son would fi-nally vent his rage over being eased out oftheir will.

  Daniel, for his part, has no such plan.He is glad his parents are here, glad he and Kate and Ruby do not have to face this holiday feast on theirown.

  Kate, too, is glad for the Emersons’presence.Though she does not find them altogether agreeable company, and, more important, she is quite sure they don’t care for her—her southernness makes her seem alien to them, her l
ife as a writer seems vain, her single-motherhood was bad planning, and they also suspect she is a lush—they are, nevertheless, family, and right now the idea offamily seems important to Kate.

  As for Ruby:everyone’s voice seems too loud.The food smells like medicine.Her patent leather shoes, unworn for months, feel full of sand.She feels continually as ifshe has to go to the toilet, but when she does nothing comes out.Her stomach has hurt her all day, and the day before that, and the day before that, too.She cannot stop wondering what everybody would do ifshe pounded her fists on the table and screamed.

  Three hours later, Carl and Julia, exhausted by the meal, by the concertina-wire tension in the house, Ruby and her constantly imploring them to get down on the floor with her and watch her play with her Le-gos, or to read to her, leave.They leave what is left ofthe fifteen-pound turkey, leave bowls ofstuffing, quivering masses ofcranberry sauce, a casserole ofyams and Brussels sprouts, two pies, pumpkin and pecan, they leave a spatter ofcandle wax on the heirloom white ofthe table-cloth, bowls ofnuts, wine glasses blurred by greasy fingerprints.In the end, not very much food has been consumed, and even less ofit has been enjoyed, but the meal is registered in the Great Book ofHolidays, and Daniel’s parents, much to his surprise, give him a last-minute embrace as they are making their way out the door—a little eruption ofaffection that he believes to be expressive oftheir boundless reliefto be finally getting out ofthere.“Stay in touch!”Carl shouts over his shoulder, as they scam-per toward their car.The sky is a flat chalky black, the murkiness ofwater in which a paintbrush has been swirled.

  Daniel closes the door, turns to survey the conditions ofhis house arrest.He cannot see the dining room, but he can hear the angry clatter of dishes being cleared;nor can he see the little den in which they keep theirTV, but that, too, he can hear.Ruby is watchingLittle House on the Prairie,her favorite show.It seems to be aThanksgiving special, she wants to watch make-believe people enjoy the holiday.Daniel will wait a few moments before going in to join Kate on cleanup—right now, he is sure she is slugging back the wine people have left in their glasses, and he doesn’t want to walk in on it, doesn’t want to have to react.He checks his watch.It is only a few minutes past eight o’clock and he stands at the edge ofwhat remains ofthe night, feeling hopeless and beset, as ifpeer-ing across a river too broad to cross.He imagines the dinner over on Ju-niper, probably in all the confusion and conviviality ofa large family gathering they are just sitting down to eat.He imagines the laughter, the little side comments, the well-worn repartee ofbrothers and sisters.

  Daniel forces himself into the dining room.Sure enough, the wine glasses are all empty.They are all four on their side and placed around the turkey carcass on the great white platter, which Kate has just lifted offthe table.Daniel collects the two bottles ofChilean cabernet and, as he suspected, they are both empty, not even a little tannic slosh at their base.He hates to calculate, but the math ofthis is inevitable.Two bottles equals twelve nice glasses ofwine.He himself has had two, his father one, his mother her usual festive zero, leaving nine for Kate.Nine glasses ofred wine do not a lost weekend make, but nevertheless:it’s still nine glasses.But wait!There’d beencocktailsbefore the first bottle had been uncorked.A dish ofolives and a little platter ofsmoked salmon, both of which Daniel had picked up himself that morning at one ofLeyden’s new gourmet shops, obligingly openThanksgiving morning.The little appe-

  tizers had been laid out and Kate had asked,“Who wants a drink?”No-body really did, but Daniel, thinking he was somehow covering for her, said he’d have one, too, and she brought out a quart ofone ofthe Nordic vodkas and poured a neat one for Daniel and one for herself, and now that he thinks ofit she drank it down with nary a shudder, so the chances are it was not her first little taste ofthe day.

  Daniel is unable to help himself from making a bit ofa show ofputting the empties in the recycling sack.“Poor old soldiers,”he mutters over their socially responsible grave, and when Kate fails to react to that he pushes the matter.“That was pretty decent wine, wasn’t it?”Kate is at the sink, with her back to him.The scalding water rushes out ofthe tap—he’s got to remember to turn down the temperature on the hot-water heater, while he is still on hand—and a cloud ofsteam rises from the basin.She is motionless;the plates and glasses remain on the counter next to the sink, and Daniel figures that she is waiting for him to do some real work here, something a little more useful than checking the empty wine bottles.He joins her at the sink—he will rinse and she can put things into the dishwasher, the pots and pans can soak until morning.But as soon as he is next to her, or, really, a few seconds after that, because it takes a few beats to come up with the courage to glance at her, he sees that her face is a deep sorrowful pink, her eyes are shut, and her hollow, downy cheeks are slick with tears.He places a hand on her shoulder.

  “Get your fucking hand offofme,”she says in a whisper.

  He lifts his hand slowly, lets it hover in midair for a moment, and then brings it to his side.

  “What do you want me to do, Kate?”

  “I want you to die.”

  He sighs, shakes his head, and says,“Short ofthat.”He can scarcely believe he’s said something so glib, he tries to cover it quickly.“Why don’t I clean up here?You did most ofthe cooking.”

  She picks up the five dinner plates and drops them into the sink.They land with a crash, yet somehow none ofthem break.Then she goes for the platter upon which the turkey still stands, but Daniel stops her before she drops that, too.He slowly wrests the platter from her.At first she resists, but then she seems to lose interest in creating any further havoc.She puts her hands up, steps back, like a criminal who has just been disarmed.

  “You want to do the dishes? Do the fucking dishes,”she says.

  He is so imprisoned by the grisly emotional logic ofa love affair at its end point that he almost shouts, No, goddamnit, he willnotbe doing the dishes.True, Kate cooked the turkey but he, always the more domestic one in their sinking domestic partnership, was responsible for the cran-berry sauce, the vegetables, the salad.And what is there to cooking a turkey?You put it in the oven, deck it out in some sort ofReynoldsWrap biohazard suit, peek in on it every hour or so, and in the meanwhile you can be sneaking little pulls on the oldAbsolut.But then, sanity and self-interest, not always boon companions, do a little synchronized swim-ming across his brainpan and he realizes that his relieving Kate ofall household duties would be the very best thing he could do right now.

  “Fine,”he says,“I’ll be glad to.You should get some rest.”

  She looks him up and down, wanting to quarrel but too exhausted and too full ofwine to bother speaking.She is wearing flowing black trousers, a white satin blouse, she has braided her hair up in a little deft twist, but all her beauty has fallen into a heap.She drags her feet as she trudges across the kitchen, the little squared heels ofher black pumps scrape and bang against the floor;they are the noisy, tottering footsteps ofa little girl wearing her mother’s shoes.Daniel doesn’t say anything more, he is afraid to look at her.He doesn’t want to do anything to im-pede the progress ofher retreat.All he wants her to do is go upstairs, lie down, and then pass out, dressed, undressed, makes no difference.

  He rinses the dishes, the glasses, the silverware, sticks everything that fits into the dishwasher, and then, thinking that ifKate is really going to pass out she will have done so by now, he creeps up the steps and looks into their bedroom, where, sure enough, she is not only in bed but un-der the covers, with the lights out.A little exhausted sigh oflight from the hallways casts its pale dull depressive patina into the bedroom; Daniel can make out what seems to be Kate’s white blouse and the tips ofher shoes on the floor.So:she has undressed.Meaning:she is not nap-ping, she is turning in for the night;this is not a pit stop, this is a crash.

  Kate rarely mentions her briefhusband, but more than once she has told Daniel that Ross loved to fuck her when she was passed out loaded.Al-cohol was like cement blocks tethered to her sleeping brai
n, sinking it twenty fathoms deep, rendering her impervious to human voices, bark-ing dogs, sanitation trucks, phones, alarm clocks, light, cold, heat, shaken shoulders, kissed lips, fingers up her vagina, and, from time to time, full copulation.Every so often, however, she would be briefly aroused from her stupor and come streaming up to the surface ofcon-sciousness like a scuba diver swimming up through a thick red velvet ocean ofwine, and catch Ross at it.She would either tell him to stop it, or she would not—both responses had their dark satisfactions.

  The result ofone ofthose sneaky copulations was Ruby, and now Daniel slips out ofthe bedroom and goes downstairs to check on the little girl, who has dozed offin front oftheTV.Some nitwit in charge ofpro-gramming has decided to showPlatoonon Thanksgivingnight.TheSamuel BarberAdagio for Strings is on the soundtrack, its piercing melody ac-companying the men as they kill and die in the lush jungle.Daniel digs be-neath the sofa cushions and finds the remote, mutes the sound, hoping to protect Ruby, but the sudden absence ofsound awakens her.

  “Hey, Monkey,”Daniel whispers, hoping she will remain drowsy.

  ”What’s this?”she says, looking at the screen.

  ”Nothing,”he says, hitting the offbutton.“It’s time for bed.”

  “What was that?”

  “A movie.”

  “Can I watch it?”

  “You won’t like it, honey.It’s not for kids.”He sits next to her.“Are you feeling okay?”

  She hates to admit it—mainly because she doesn’t want him to use it as an argument against her watching theTV.Nevertheless, she would like some sympathy, the occasional magic ofan adult’s commiserating voice.

  ”My stomach hurts.”

  “Still?”he asks.

  She nods.She detects alarm in his voice and it brings tears to her eyes—the strange kind, the kind she knows will not be shed.

  “Where does it hurt?”