C4 Issue 1: Winter 2011

by Chamber Four

  “It’s okay. Just leave it there,” said Eldeen.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you—”

  “Happened when I was six. Fell off a horse I had no business trying to ride. Broke the damn thing so badly, there wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it. Not out where we lived, anyway, in the boondocks.”

  “Oh, I see. I’m sorry. I was going to ask how long you’ve been married.”

  Eldeen smiled and put her hand on her forehead. “Oh, right. Seven years. Why?”

  Cliff took a minute to answer. Beau’s snores were deep and strong. “Marriage isn’t always easy, or intended to always make us happy. It’s companionship that counts. As long as you’re good companions most of the time.”

  Eldeen said nothing.

  “My wife was a good companion, even when she didn’t understand me,” said Cliff.

  “What didn’t she understand?”

  “My wanting to feel young again, and explore the world.”

  “Oh.”

  “She thought I was—avoiding reality.” The shadow of past conversations passed over his face. “So, I practiced. Reality, I mean. That’s why I told you right away that I was seventy-two. To get used to how it sounds.”

  “Are you? Used to it?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you know what they say. ‘You’re as young as you feel.’” Down the hall Beau turned in bed and mumbled something.

  “Can I offer you a nightcap?” Cliff asked.

  “Well—” Oh, who cares? she thought. Beau wouldn’t wake up until mid-morning, at the earliest.

  “That would be lovely,” she said. They walked across the road in the silver light of the August moon, and as they climbed the stairs, he patted her shoulder.

  * * * *

  Ty watched the barmaid’s ass as she wove around the crowded tables. For once his hands were clean. He was in a good mood. He’d actually sold a painting, to a friend of his mother’s, which wasn’t quite as exciting as selling in a gallery to a stranger, but it was a start. Now he and Beau were celebrating. After the hangover from Madeleine’s, Beau had stopped drinking for four days. Today was Friday, and he was ready to pick up where he’d left off.

  One of Beau’s neighbors, the retired cop, came in with a woman a lot younger than he was. Ty looked up.

  “Hey, you know who that chick is? She’s a stripper,” said Ty.

  “No fucking way.”

  “Way. I saw her at Tattler’s once.”

  “Since when you hang around strip clubs?”

  “Always looking for inspiration, you know?”

  The retired cop looked at Beau, then leaned over and whispered something in the stripper’s ear that made her giggle and bring her hand to her mouth. Maybe he’d seen him the night he came home from Madeleine’s, flopped against the old man like a sack of flour, as Eldeen put it. So what if he had? What if Beau had gotten blotto? Mr. Law and Order looked like a guy who did that a lot.

  After a couple of minutes Ty asked, “Old lady with her charity again, is she?”Beau nodded. It was really getting to be too much. He’d decided that Eldeen didn’t need a kid, but to work in a nursing home so she could play checkers and listen to stupid stories about the good old days. What the hell was wrong with her, anyway?

  “She’s unhappy,” he said. It had come to his mind suddenly and explained everything.

  “About what?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “That’s bad. Unhappy women make unhappy men.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  “I made it up.”

  “You’re full of crap.”

  “Hey, you tell me I’m wrong.”

  Ty had a point. Eldeen had made him unhappy. And it was all because of Pops over there across the street. Beau would talk to him and suggest that maybe Eldeen shouldn’t visit so much, that she needed to be with people her own age. But then he’d just sound like a fool. Eldeen was going to have to come around on her own. With a little encouragement, of course.

  “Give me forty bucks,” said Beau. “No, better make it fifty.”

  “What for?”

  “Roses. I’m getting Eldeen a dozen red roses.”

  “Buy them yourself.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Jesus. I treated you to rounds all afternoon, now you want more from me?”

  “It’s a loan, that’s all.”

  Ty stared into his beer. Then he reached for his wallet, removed two twenties and a ten.

  “Come with me. Help me figure out what to write on the card,” said Beau.

  “How about, with love, from your deadbeat hubby.”

  “Fuck off, will you?”

  But Ty went along, steered Beau towards pink roses when the red weren’t available, saying that yellow or white weren’t romantic enough, and told Beau to write To the love of my life, lovely as these are, your beauty far outweighs. Beau thought it sounded stupid, but he wrote it anyway, word for word.

  * * * *

  Eldeen blushed when she saw the flowers, and her eyes went big and bright, like a kid’s. She read the card. Her mouth turned down. She patted Beau’s arm, then limped into the bedroom. He heard her crying. He had no idea what to do. How could he comfort her because she was embarrassed at his gift? Where was his You’re so good to me, I never should have neglected you, and I promise to do right by you from now on?

  For a few days, Eldeen didn’t visit the old man. Then she mentioned that he’d gone out of town.

  “Elks convention?” Beau asked.

  “Stop it.”

  “Where, then?”

  “He has a friend in Pittsburgh.”

  “Bet they’re painting the town red. Closing the bars. Hitting all the hot spots.”

  Eldeen’s mouth pulled into a narrow line. She sat down, picked up one of his socks that needed mending from a wicker basket she kept by the couch, looked at it, and threw it to the floor.

  “What’s your problem?” Beau asked. He didn’t think it was her period. That had been the week before. Maybe she was coming down with something. Whatever it was, he hoped it wasn’t catching.

  She closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry. Look, I’ve been thinking. If you can’t find a job, why not take a class at the community college? The recession won’t last forever, and in the meantime you can learn something new,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Computers. Cliff says—”

  “I don’t give a shit what Cliff says.”

  Beau went outside to mow the lawn. He’d mowed it only two days ago, but he needed something to do, and it was too early for a beer. He thought about visiting Ty in the garage he used as a studio, but Ty was pretty weird when he was working, so he kept pushing the mower back and forth.

  * * * *

  The kids that belonged to the family in the trailer park were running around, playing tag. When they saw Beau sitting on his stairs, they stopped. Their four heads came together in a huddle, then they exploded with laughter and ran away.

  Assholes, Beau thought. He was in a lousy mood. Eldeen was out again, he didn’t know where. The truck was gone. She hadn’t left a note. She used to, all the time, but now she came and went without a word. Beau had no idea what he’d done to make her this way.

  A few days later, Eldeen came in from outside, stood in the kitchen, and said she was leaving. She was going to Arizona with Cliff. She and Cliff were in love. She knew Beau thought she was crazy, she knew he didn’t understand, that all he saw when he looked at Cliff was an old man. His body might be old, but his spirit was young, and his soul timeless. Those were her exact words. Cliff made her feel what she’d never felt before, that she mattered, that she could belong to someone without feeling owned and all used up. Beau sat on the couch in silence while she went on and on in a calm, even voice, waiting for her to say it was a joke, that she was getting him back for something and wanted to teach him a lesson.

  She stopped talking for a minute, m
aybe to give him a chance to speak. He realized then that she’d been standing the whole time, leaning so hard on her crutch that her knuckles were white.

  “You feeding him Viagra or something? I didn’t think guys that age could still get it up,” said Beau.

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “I’m disgusting.”

  Eldeen said that Cliff was better in bed than Beau was. He’d had lots more practice, knew what women needed. Beau’s head was in his hands by then. She had another confession to make. She’d been at Cliff’s house one afternoon when Beau was out and the neighbor kids must have heard them in the bedroom, because all of a sudden, there they were, with one heaved up on the shoulder of another, giggling and laughing. She realized then that she couldn’t go on, sneaking around, that she had to come clean.

  “Clean isn’t the word I’d use,” said Beau. It was dreamlike now. None of this was really happening. She asked him to try to understand, to see that they’d been over since he’d come back from Iraq, that in time he’d be happier without her.

  And then she was gone. Her ka-thump ka-thump went down the stairs, across the street, followed by the slam of car doors, and the slow acceleration of a very big, very strong motor.

  He said her name. He said it again, and remembered the gun. He went to look. She’d left it right there, in the bedside table. He picked it up. There was still time. They had quite a while before they hit the interstate. He moved the gun from one hand to the other and knew it would be easy and right, that he would do it in a second without thinking twice, if only he could figure what to do after that.

  Creation

  by Margaret Finnegan

  The usual geniuses had red and blue first-place ribbons on their science fair boards. The usual geniuses themselves stood in front of these testimonies to their brilliance and wore the nonchalant confidence of the high achieving.

  Willie—not being a usual genius—did not have a ribbon on his board. Like the rest of the rabble, he stood by his board in lonely silence. Occasionally, he pulled at the too-large tie his mother made him wear and, when he thought no one was watching, gazed at passing girls.

  The mother of a boy he’d played with in elementary school came up to him. “Willie! Look how big you’ve grown. I wouldn’t have known you but for the name on your board.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Kleeve.”

  “Don’t you love the science fair? What’s your project? Show me.”

  Willie pointed to a box standing on a table. The box was full of sand. In one corner there was a pool of water, and, in another corner, there were some plants that looked like corn. In a third corner, an earth-colored blob kept banging against the side of the box.

  Mrs. Kleeve crinkled her brow in the good-natured way that mothers of usual geniuses do. “Hmm. What have we here?”

  Willie fiddled with the knot of his tie and looked down at his shoes. It took all his strength not to melt away like ice cream. It was just so embarrassing. His project was so simplistic; he saw that now. It was something a kindergartner could have done. No wonder he hadn’t won anything. “It’s a carbon-based life form,” he said.

  Mrs. Kleeve bent down and took a closer look at the blob. “Really? I haven’t seen one of these in ages. Very unpredictable, aren’t they? Still, there’s always something to be learned from them. What’s your question?”

  “Given self-awareness and knowledge of its own impermanence, what will a carbon-based life form do?”

  “And your conclusion?”

  “Bang constantly against the side of a box.”

  Mrs. Kleeve straightened up and laughed. Willie felt his face grow hot. “Like I said,” she said, “very unpredictable.

  “Well, it was nice seeing you, Willie. You should come visit Howard sometime. I’m sure he’d love that.”

  Willie watched her walk over to Howard and his red- and blue-ribboned board. God, he hated Howard. God, he hated everything to do with Howard, including his mother and his ribbon and his stupid self-contained expandable galaxy.

  He looked over at his blob and frowned. He flicked the side of the box and sent a tremor running through it. The blob froze and then fell to the ground and gnashed its little teeth. Jeez. These were the stupidest life forms ever.

  Mary Ellen Dilbeck slid up beside him. He felt her long hair graze his back. Willie liked Mary Ellen. She wasn’t a usual genius for one thing. She was just a normal girl—normal, not ugly, and nice to him, which was a pretty much unbeatable combination. Plus, her breath smelled like the Red Hots she always sucked on. It made him a little dizzy, but he liked it.

  “You see Howard Kleeve’s board,” she whispered with a roll of the eyes.

  Willie shook his head.

  “It’s covered with equations and twelve-syllable words. He’s so full of himself. And, of course, he’s advancing to State. Ten bucks say Bello nominated Kleeve before he even saw his board. I say, if no one can pronounce some loser dude’s title, the dude definitely shouldn’t win anything.”

  Willie nodded. He tried to think of something clever to say, but all he came up with was, “Totally.”

  “What’d you do?” he added.

  Mary Ellen pulled out the wand of her lip gloss and applied it without even looking. “Something lame,” she said. “How about you?”

  He pointed to the box. “Carbon-based life form.”

  She bent down and peered inside. “Ah... it’s so cute. Biped. That’s advanced.”

  Willie bent down next to her. “Not advanced enough. Bello gave me a fricking B-.”

  Mary Ellen rolled her eyes again. “Mr. Bello is such a prick. I like your biped.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” She put her hand in the box and picked up the blob—then she dropped it. “Gross. It peed on me.”

  “It’s got issues.”

  “Why?”

  “It has self-awareness and knowledge of its own impermanence.”

  Mary Ellen stood up. Her mouth was wide open and her face was turning kind of purple, and it wasn’t a good purple. It was a bad purple, a judging purple, the kind of purple girls’ faces turned when teachers gave them bad grades and were forevermore cursed as evil.

  “That’s so mean,” Mary Ellen said. “It’s scared.” She ran a finger across the back of the blob. “Poor thing.”

  “Just because it’s self-aware doesn’t mean it has feelings,” said Willie, sounding sulky when he meant to sound funny. He smiled at Mary Ellen to try and make her understand, but that just made her purple face shine neon.

  “It may not have feelings like we do, but it still has some sort of emotions.”

  Now it was Willie’s turn to roll his eyes. “I doubt it,” he said, which was exactly the moment he knew he had truly blown it.

  Mary Ellen’s mouth dropped even wider, and then she just walked away, just straight away, sending her long hair rustling in outrage.

  Willie banged his head against the table. Then he banged it again and again. When he stood up his friend Martin was staring at his blob. “Dude,” said Martin. “Why is your carbon-based life form humping the box?”

  Willie looked over at the blob. He nodded. “Ahhhhh.”

  * * * *

  That night, even though the science fair was over and Willie was stuck with the fricking B-, he started to make another blob. His mother said, “What are you doing? You haven’t even finished your math homework.”

  “It won’t take long,” said Willie.

  “It better not. Math matters, you know. Math gives you options. Universities look at math grades more than anything else. Howard Kleeve is being recruited by top-tier schools—and he’s fourteen.”

  Willie grunted.

  “And you know why?” said his mother. “Because he’s good at math, and he works hard. His mother told me he spends four hours a night studying math.

  Blah, blah, blah, heard Willie. Blah, blah, blah. Howard ass-kissing Kleeve. Blah, blah, blah.

  Willie took his car
bon polymer clay and rolled it in his hands until it became warm and the brown mixture began to stick to his hands. Then, with his fingers, he formed the clay into another biped blob, a little smaller this time, about the size of his fist. The blob yawned, as if awakened from a long dream, and it stretched out its pudgy limbs. Willie gave it self-awareness and knowledge of its own impermanence and watched as little drops of salt water leaked out of its eyes.

  He deposited the new blob on the other side of the box from the old blob and let them eye each other from across the distance.

  Sometime later, after Willie finished his homework and watched a little TV, he went back to the basement to check on the blobs. Right away, he could tell something was wrong. Something red was smeared all over the sand. The pool of water was tinted pink, and the new blob lay floating on top of it, dead.

  “No,” sighed Willie. He picked up the new blob between his thumb and forefinger and placed it face up in the sand. Its skin had gone gray, and its eyes looked like glass, and even though it was just a blob, Willie felt his skin crawl.

  Then it dawned on him: Where was the other blob? His eyes followed the smear of red back to the old blob’s corner, but the blob wasn’t there. No, the blob wasn’t there at all, but a little way down—toward the corn—there was more red. Willie’s eyes followed the color to a barely vibrating quiver of corn stalks. He pushed aside the plants. There was the blob, trembling and leaking salt water and making strange, soft, guttural sounds.

  “What did you do?” whispered Willie. “You killed it.”

  The blob trembled and leaked, trembled and leaked.

  Well, this is ridiculous, thought Willie. These blobs are the worst blobs ever. Clearly, they can’t handle any advanced psychological variables. Clearly, advanced psychological variables make the blobs go fricking nuts. That’s what he should have told Mr. Bello. That’s what he should have written on the board. Jeez. What fricking messes these blobs were. No wonder no one ever experimented with them anymore.

  Enough was enough. This experiment was over. Willie picked up the smooth stone used as the basement doorstop and prepared to smash the blob. He lifted the stone high above his head. With a thud it hit the sand, sending grainy particles sailing in all directions. But the blob had moved. It had eluded the stone and now the blob was on its feet, running from side to side, tripping in the sand and standing up again and running some more. Its moan morphed into a shrill scream.