A Ship Made of Paper

by Scott Spencer

  Mickey and Dracula go from person to person, collecting cash, credit cards, cell phones, keys, watches, and jewelry.Mickey Mouse stands over them, crouching, to collect their worldly goods;Daniel, despite having told himself to do nothing to antagonize him, cannot resist the impulse to peer through the eyeholes in the masks, to somehow make contact with the human eyes within:shiny brown eyes, young, arrogant, glitter-ing with energy.He drops his wallet and forty dollars in cash into the laundry bag, which tops it off.Mickey pulls the drawstring, ties it in a knot, and then slides the unshapely sack across the floor, toward the bar, where Frankenstein picks it up.Dracula has another laundry bag under his shirt, he pulls it out and holds it open in front ofKate.She is slow to empty her purse into it, and he prods her with the greasy barrel ofhis rifle—it stencils a little broken O on her skin, and she utters a sound of distress, more from surprise than anything else.

  “All right,”Daniel says, in a level, almost paternal voice.“We’re all going to be real, real careful here.Okay?”He doesn’t want to make a re-assuring gesture with his hand, or any gesture, but he slightly widens his eyes, as ifto say,Listen to me, I know what you’re going through.

  “Fuck you,”Dracula replies, his voice muffled behind rubber.Eventually, with everything ofvalue collected—even tie pins, cufflinks, and ciga-rette lighters—the three masked men leave.No one has tried to be heroic.

  Even as those who have been told to lie down begin to get to their feet, the Bistro remains fearfully silent, except for the sounds offeet and furniture scraping on the floor.Kate has put her arm around Lorraine, who is sobbing softly, and Daniel, who now that the crisis has passed feels light-headed, al-most giddy with relief, stands next to Kate, pats her shoulder reassuringly.

  “It was those boys, wasn’t it,”Susan Ferguson says.“The ones who ran away during the storm.I heard they were still in the area, taking things, camping in the woods, or in empty houses.It was them.”

  Kate nods slowly, her lips pursed.“I think you’re exactly right,”she says.

  ”Oh, we don’t know that,”Daniel says.“We don’t know anything.”

  His voice is completely wrong, he sounds like he is trying to jolly them out oftheir thoughts.

  Marcia Harnack, a lawyer who specializes in real estate, is standing nearby and has heard their conversation.“That’s what I was thinking, all through it,”she says.She is a woman with the body ofa strong man and the voice ofa shy little girl;she clasps her hands when she speaks, as if asking for forgiveness for being too large.“Star ofBethlehem.It’s what I thought when they first came in.”

  “Why did you think that?”Daniel asks.

  ”They were definitely black,”says George Schwab, short, hard, and hairless, a little seersucker bomb in his blue-and-white suit.He has been selling offfive-acre parcels ofhis family’s old orchards, and Marcia has been helping him structure the deals.

  “And how’d you figure that?”asks Daniel.

  ”I saw their skin, that’s how,”says George.He rises up on the toes of his tasseled loafers and clenches his small fists, as ifa lightning bolt of fury has just gone through him.“We were almost slaughtered like a bunch ofcattle in here.”

  “You didn’t see their skin, George,”Daniel says.“No one did.”

  “Don’t tell me what I saw and didn’t see,”George says, his voice getting higher, as ifit, too, had toes to rise upon.“You’ve got your own agenda.”

  By this he clearly means Iris, and Daniel’s attachment to her, but Daniel has no choice but to ignore it.By now, two ofthe customers whose cell phones have been overlooked are calling the police;others join in the speculation and argument.

  “They’re the ones who robbed the Goulianos house,”Fortune Pryor says.

  ”They completely trashed that sweet little house where Esther Rothschild used to live,”LibbyYoung says.

  “This is really fucked up,”Daniel says.He feels like standing on a chair and exhorting the lot ofthem.His neighbors have become a dangerous collective, drunk on its own bad ideas.“This is really really really fucked up,”he says, louder now.He feels Kate’s wifely, cautioning touch on his elbow.“They could have been Chinese,”Daniel shouts out.“They could have been Mexican, Polish, they could have been kids right from here.”

  “Shut up, Emerson,”someone bellows from the front ofthe bar.

  There is a scattering ofapplause, murmurs ofagreement.

  “No one saw their skin,”Daniel says, as forcefully as he can.

  ”I did.”This is shouted by George.

  ”I did, too.”

  “I did, too.”

  “I did, too.”

  The more opposition Daniel meets, the more righteous indignation he feels.His eyes burn in their sockets, fury courses through him, his legs tremble.“I’m ashamed ofthis town,”Daniel cries.

  Now Kate’s gentle touch has become an urgent tug.She pulls him toward her and says into his ear,“Daniel.Please.We’ve all heard you.”

  “Can you believe this shit?”

  “They just think you’re going on like this because you’re with Iris.”

  She says it with extraordinary kindness.Her eyes are soft with sympathy, she shakes her head.

  “Let’s just get out ofhere?”Lorraine says.“Can we please?”

  Derek Pabst and another Leyden cop are the first ofthe police to arrive, followed shortly by four members ofthe state police.It takes nearly two hours for statements to be taken and reports to be written up, and when the Bistro’s customers are finally able to leave it is nearly three in the morning.No cars have been stolen, but since all the keys have been taken, the customers must either call for a ride home or walk.It is Daniel’s habit, however, to leave his keys in his car and he leads Kate and Lorraine through the cool night rain to his car, two blocksaway.

  As he drives them back to what was once his house, Lorraine, in the backseat, exclaims,“I just don’t get it.You left your keysinyour car? I just don’t understand why you’d do that.”

  “He always leaves them in the ignition,”Kate says.They are already a mile out ofthe village, driving through the wet, luminous night.

  “It doesn’t make sense,”Lorraine says.

  It strikes Daniel that perhaps she means to suggest some foreknowledge on his part, or even a degree ofcollusion with the robbers.And though confronting Lorraine is as far from Daniel’s temperament as reaching over the backseat and giving her a smack across the face, he can-not resist asking her,“What are you suggesting, Lorraine?”

  “Everyone in the whole place seemed to know who those guys were,”she says.“And you were jumping through hoops to make them think otherwise.”

  “And?”

  “It’s just weird, that’s all.”Lorraine is slumped down, the back ofher hand is pressed against her forehead.

  “Our nerves are shot,”says Kate.“All ofus.I’ve never been robbed before.”She clutches her chest, trying to make light ofit.“Oh my God.

  I’m a crime statistic.”

  “They didn’t rob you the first time they came to your house?”Lorraine says.

  “No, not really.I told you.They wanted to use the facilities.”

  “Gross.”Lorraine shudders.“But you were right next to them.Were they the same ones who just held us up?”

  “How can she know that?”Daniel says.

  ”It’s important,”Lorraine says.“They should catch those fucking kids and feed them to the wolves.”

  “I agree,”says Daniel.“Or maybe a lynching.”

  “Our nerves are shot,”Kate repeats.She pats Daniel’s knee, and then leaves her hand resting on it.

  “They took two hundred and thirty dollars offme,”Lorraine says.

  “And my wallet, my address book, my Filofax, all my credit cards.Mylife was in that bag.”

  “That could be the problem right there,”Daniel says.

  ”Fuck yourself,”Lorraine says.

  They arrive at Kate’s house.The windows blaze with light.A weather-worn old F
ord is in the driveway.Kate sees Daniel react to the unfamiliar car and tells him,“That’s the baby-sitter’s.”He nods, surprised by the little trickle ofgratitude that goes through him.Lorraine climbs out ofthe back door, waits for Kate with her back to them both.Kate powers down her window and says to Lorraine,“I’ll be right in.I just want to talk to Daniel.For a minute.”Lorraine shrugs without turning around and trods offto the house.

  Kate waits for Lorraine to let herselfin, and then she turns to Daniel.

  “I miss you.What do you think about that? Do you miss me?”

  “Derek was acting so strange toward you in there.Did you notice that? It was as ifhe was furious with you.”

  “It’s fine.We had a communication problem, and it’s all ironed out.

  Can you answer my question? Do you miss me?”

  “Ofcourse I do.And Ruby.How is she?”

  “Fine, we’re both fine, we’d like you to come home.”The ping ofthat little hammer blow ofconfession breaks her voice.

  “Kate…”

  “You know what?”she says.“I never told you, I mean I never actually said the words‘I love you.’But I do.I love you.”Her eyes glitter, the color rises in her face.She seems moved, even inspired by her own words.Hav-ing said what was for so long unutterable, she now feels capable ofsaying anything.“I love you.You’re my guy, you’re my sweet man.I just assumed you knew, but now I see that sometimes it needs to be said.”

  “This is so painful, Kate.”

  “You’re involved in something with her that’s simply never ever ever ever ever going to work out, and I want to give you the chance to get out ofit, and come back.You deserve that chance, Daniel.You really do.Peo-ple get stuck in their bad decisions and they think nothing can undo them.Can I be honest with you?You look like you’re about to pass out.

  But I know what’s going on in that house ofhers.That man’s not going to suddenly get better.She’s going to be looking after him for a long, long time.And that’s the best-case scenario.We don’t even want to talk about worst-case.But the fact is, you did this to him.For whatever rea-son, it was you.”

  “Whatever reason? It was an accident!”

  “Maybe you’ve been looking to even the score ever since those black guys kicked you down the stairs.”

  “That’s the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard.”

  “Blacks and whites don’t get along,”she says.“Too much has happened.It’s ruined.Ifsomething doesn’t begin well, how can it end well?”

  Daniel is silent, trying to think ofsomething to say, some way ofending the conversation without enraging her, a way ofsending her into the house that won’t be humiliating.But Kate interprets his silence as Daniel’s somehow being swayed, or evenmovedby what she is saying, and she puts her hand on his chest in a familiar, nostalgic way, and then quickly leans in to him with a deep, possessive kiss.

  [18]

  Morning.Warm dusty light pours through the uncurtained windows.

  Daniel has kicked the covers offhis bed, and though he has slept only four hours, he is awake.His penis is hard, in a slightly disconcerting and even irritating counterpoint to his otherwise grim state ofmind.Re-lax, you idiot.He stares at the ceiling, with its chicken-skin paint job, and thinks about the money he lost last night.His mind is pierced by the pic-adors ofsudden money anxieties.He has made the mistake oftotaling up the money he would have made had he stayed in NewYork at his old firm.

  He is minus about three hundred grand from that lovely decision.Two years now, he has been living in the half-life ofhis former affluence, but some time ago, without his admitting it to himself, his savings were de-pleted, the clothes he had bought when he was flush had begun looking like old clothes, his hair has forgotten what it is like to be cut by a master, and he no longer has that cheerful, ironic, healthy animal sheen ofa young man with more money than he needs.He has never computed how much money he had been saving by living with Kate.Even coming up with about halfofthe monthly mortgage payments—and lately he has come to suspect that the sum she requested was less than half, that she was float-ing him to an extent—he was exempt from phone, electric, and heating bills;and groceries, which he usually paid for in full, used to cost in a month less than he was now spending in restaurants in a week.

  Courting Iris has cost a king’s ransom.Before he secured this little $1,400per month tract house—he knows he is being robbed—he was spending hundreds ofdollars per week on hotels, motels, and inns.He has spent $3,800he can’t afford on a pair ofdiamond earrings Iris can’t wear.(Sometimes, she puts them on when she comes to see him, but mostly she forgets them, and last time when he asked why she wasn’t wearing them she said that diamonds make her think ofapartheid, which struck him as unfair and aggressive.) He spends money on having her sidewalk shoveled and her lawn mowed when he is unable to take care of it himself.He brings bags ofgroceries into her house when the coast is clear, and leaves them on the porch when members ofHampton’s or Iris’s family are on hand, and he has never collected a penny in reim-bursement.He has brought her car into the shop for a new transmission and simply paid the bill.He bought her a purple-and-blackAmish quilt that was hanging in the window ofan antique store in town because when they walked by it one day she slowed down and looked at it.He forces himself to stop thinking ofthe tabs he has picked up, the munifi-cence that has been his second nature.He is not regretting it, not a ges-ture, not a penny.Receiving these things never failed to delight Iris, who, as it turns out, is becoming very careful with her money;Hampton’s cof-fers are rather full and his disability insurance is not only coming up with biweekly checks that approach what he was making before the accident but is also paying out for those occasional medical expenses his health in-surers manage to duck.Nevertheless, Iris’s frugality seems to be grow-ing.She patrols her house, turning offlamps.Daniel has watched with amazement as she scratched a single postage stamp offa letter because the post office failed to cancel it and she thought it could be used again.

  Ifanything is left over on her dinner plate, even at the humblest restau-rant, she will ask the waiter to have it wrapped—a halfofa baked po-tato, thirty peas, a chicken wing.One ofthe reasons Daniel often asks her to wear those diamond earrings is sometimes he suspects she has soldthem.

  Money money money.

  Daniel’s phone rings and he lunges for the receiver.It’s only seventhirty.He has not had time to settle on a plausible narrative why some-one would call him this early, and there is a moment ofpure fear before he hears Kate’s voice, which for some reason settles his nerves.

  “I’m not waking you, am I?”she says.This is a continuation ofan old relationship myth—because he sleeps less than Kate, she acts like he needs no sleep at all.

  “What’s up?”he asks.He struggles to sit up in bed;as soon as he stirs, the shifting ofhis blood recalls the feel ofher kiss five hours ago.

  “Ruby is freaking out here.She’s just desperate for you to take her toschool.”

  “Really?”

  “Can you manage it? It would mean the world to her.”

  He suspects there is something less than the absolute truth in what Kate is saying.Ruby may have said she would like Daniel to bring her to day care, but it was most likely a matter ofKate asking her,Would you like Daniel to bring you to school today?and Ruby saying okay.After all, months have passed since Daniel moved out ofthe house and not once in that time has Ruby requested his chauffeuring services.It seems more than coincidence that Ruby would suddenly ask for him on a morning when Kate is in particular need ofa few hours more sleep, and after a night when she had kissed him.And Kate’s willingness to turn Ruby over to him is also a little suspect—she has been consistently grudging in allowing him to spend time with the little girl who was practically his stepdaughter.When permission is granted it is always qualified with the warning that he better not be taking her to Iris’s house, and that Iris and even Nelson not be included in whatever little plan might be in the offing.Nevertheless, Daniel is not about t
o turn down a chance to spend time with Ruby and he says he will be over to pick her up in twenty minutes.

  He arrives, in fact, in less time than that.Although he comes here regularly to pick Ruby up for their sad little dates, and, in fact, was just here a few hours ago dropping offKate and Lorraine, he is taken some-what by surprise by the loveliness and tranquility ofthe house and its acres.The rosebushes, after two reluctant summers, seem to have found their confidence and now are in full red-and-white flower.The lawn is a particularly luxurious dark green.The shutters have been painted at last; concrete urns ablaze with geraniums sit on the porch.Has the place ever looked so relaxing?A nasty little stab ofenvy.He lives in a crummy rented house.Iris’s house, though certainly adequate, is also rented.Of the three ofthem, Kate is the one with roots—and how strange, since it seems to him she is the one with the least reason to be inWindsor County.Kate has left the door open, which he takes to mean that the alarm system has been deactivated and he is to simply let himself in, but he knocks and waits for her nevertheless.She comes to the door and her eyes peer out skeptically beneath furrowed brows, she seems to be im-plying he is being deliberately difficult by not waltzing right in.

  “Is she ready?”Daniel asks.Ruby hears his voice and races in from the kitchen, in practically maniacal high spirits.He hasn’t seen her in a cou-ple ofweeks and the first thing he notices is she has gotten a little chubby.In fact, she has gone from stocky to rather fat.Noticing this makes him feel petty and ungenerous, and he picks her up and holds her tightly, as ifto make it up to her.“My God,”he says, without meaning to, “you’re getting so big!”