by C M Muller
The additional information was intriguing, but unhelpful. The cup belonged to the past. There was no cloudiness to my own past, so I didn’t see how the object could illuminate any part of it. In the present, it might invoke someone else’s nostalgia, but I had no stake in it. I likewise failed to see how someone else’s dis-carded novelty could have any bearing on my future. And yet, here it was—too, too improbably for me to be contented with marveling at the coincidence.
I set it on a coffee table. I sat on the edge of the sofa and regarded it. There were several unread magazines laid out next to it; these I pushed to the floor. Looking at it was like watching, when watching is waiting—as though I expected it to move or to speak, to indicate of its own accord what it wanted from me or to instruct me what I should do. It did not, of course. It merely rested there, not quite flat on the lacquered wood. It slowly dawned on me that I should not expect information to be forthcoming from the cup—whatever clues it conveyed were present and contained entirely in its small frame and the markings thereon. I resisted picking it up and turning it over again, as I couldn’t imagine there was anything I could have missed before and there seemed to be no changes beyond a good cleaning made to the object in the five years since my last encounter. I reached for it several times with one or both hands, but I stopped before I touched it. Unwilling to disturb the cup, I turned myself over instead—I squirmed like a schoolboy at his desk, then bounced and wriggled from position to position over the sofa until I was dizzy. Until, again, as I had been at the beach, I was angry at the thing.
But what should I do with it? Why care at all, when it was so easily disposed of? This, I tried next, though the cup spent less time in the trash can then it did sitting on the coffee table. No, I could not brush aside the incredible coincidence of finding an object—this object, of which there could not be two. Indeed, the idea of aimless fortune was too incredible to entertain. It was clear other forces were at work, poking and provoking my course, but keeping silent their designs. I knew I must elevate the cup beyond its poor appearance, but I could not interpret the oracle.
I decided it was a seed. The bloom would be revealed, but for the time being, I should embrace my disquiet as a kind of initiation. I should display the object somewhere in my house and wait for subsequent understanding of its place in my life. Easily done. I put the cup on the mantle beneath the deco print, chiding myself for becoming overwrought.
I next moved it sometime after 3 a.m. that morning. Then once more before sun-up. And several times before noon.
I brushed my hands over my face and my arms repeatedly throughout the day, as though I’d walked into a cobweb I could not dislodge. When I felt particularly frustrated, I barked monosyllabic nonsense to break the silence. My anxiety about the location of the cup seemed to lend credence to my conviction that its perfect placement was the condition that, once satisfied, would allow whatever next step that waited to finally occur.
I spent the entire two weeks of my vacation trying to find the right place for the cup. I felt ill by the third day and my degeneration continued without relief. I was exhausted but could not sleep. I ate dry foods absentmindedly. I was distracted to the point I could not derive entertainment from any show I watched on TV, and every detail was lost to me the second a program concluded. I went out often, but never for long. A good feeling would come upon me in the open air, a feeling of clarity—into which erupted an inspiration of where the cup should go that seemed to perfectly resolve the matter. Eager to complete the puzzle and finally be free, I would immediately return home to affect the change. Needless to say, the inspiration never evoked the anticipated response.
Looks of concern and derision greeted me upon my return to work. Fortunately, routine bolstered my strength, if ever so slightly. I thought for the first time in two weeks of ridding myself of the thing, fate or fortune be damned. Whatever it asked of me was too much for me to give, and I began to plot my release of its influence. The idea of where to put the cup transitioned from placement in my home to disposal far away from it. I considered returning it to where I had found it, leaving it under the seat of the train. But I knew this would only lead to compulsive investigation beneath the seats (to see if I had escaped it), and though I might have little regard for the opinions of others, the compulsion would mean the destruction of my only respite—my commute.
Understand, I could not destroy it. I don’t feel this was cowardice. It was hard to trace the reason for this, but I could not reconcile myself with the idea that the thing needed destroying. Perhaps I felt it could yet mean something for me, even if I wanted nothing to do with it. Or perhaps it struck me superstitiously—as though damaging the cup might do me even more harm than obsessing over it. It was better to be done with it peaceably. But where should I leave it?
I decided I must not think about it. If I could find no place for it in my home, then considering where to discard it in the wide world was sure to cripple me. Instead, I ‘tricked’ it. I set it once more on the mantle. And then I moved to the west coast.
I found it difficult to establish a new life in a new city. I could not get a good recommendation from my previous employer. I took on a string of menial jobs. The work was no better or worse than my lost profession, it simply paid less.
I lived in a walk-up apartment over a head shop. Both sides of the street were similarly occupied the length of the block: ground floor retail, two stories of habitation above. Catty-cornered pizzerias bookended my small world.
After three years, I was fortunate enough to secure a position processing customs forms for a shipping company. I worked in a cramped office in a warehouse, surrounded by three-part carbonless forms, but somehow returned to my apartment every evening smelling of fuel and fish.
One night, slightly later than usual, I walked down the block past one pizza place, past the travel agency, past the tattoo parlor. When I drew near the recessed door that would lead me to my modest abode, I chanced to glance in the window of the antique shop.
I know I must have cried out, though I’m sure I formed no intelligible word.
There it was, in the display, situated among the worthier and more attractive pieces and the hard-to-find nostalgic curiosities:
The cup.
I trembled from head to toe. Cold sweat seeped from my brow. I did not ask myself how it could be there, because of course it would be there—for up through the terror of what the thing might do to me came the feeling that here was the thing that had been missing from my life. Here was my second, my third chance! Here was my mystery again, waiting to reveal itself. If only I—if only I—if… That was the fear I had sought to define: that no matter what I did, I would fail, I would not discover the thing I needed to do to find the meaning of the thing in my life.
Because it must mean something.
It was marked at a low price. I could have gone in and bought it right away with what little I had in my pocket. It didn’t matter if the shopkeeper didn’t like the look of me and seemed to vacillate between coming out to shoo me away and calling the authorities to task them with it. My money was as good as anybody’s. It was easily accomplished. But what then?
I relieved the shopkeeper of his decision and went to my squalor. I sat and tried not to consider every course and outcome in my head, to no avail. I went back into the street late that night and stared at the thing, barely visible in the darkened display. I looked at it and felt the weight of the thin metal in my memory. And I knew I must put opposite on the scale my endurance, and the weight I must measure was itself the act of measuring: how long could I go this time, before I decided I could not decide?
I think it is not necessary to describe how my body and soul withered near to nothing. It is likely understood already that I had several run-ins with the shopkeeper, the authorities, and a few innocent passersby. My ranting was such that the shop-keeper never quite understood what object excited me so—or he knew, and refused to be bullied by my conduct into changing his display.
I tried to find apathy, convinced that that must be the answer, but I was not born with the temperament. It was a ruse, anyway, destined to fail—hoping that I could get what I wanted by fooling myself into not caring if I didn’t. When that didn’t work, I moaned and wailed every night in my rooms until I was evicted.
The following night, when I was sure the street was deserted, I kissed the glass. Only after did I understand it was a goodbye kiss.
Goodbye. I give up.
I do not know why I expressed the sentiment with affection. Perhaps it was an apology I made to myself.
I live on the ocean now. I go ashore only when ordered.
The next time I see the cup will be the last. My prayers now all beseech that the cup be kept from me for as long as possible.
And when my prayers are finished I think at length about what I might do between now and then.
Learning Not to Smile
Ralph Robert Moore
Both hands on the steering wheel, all four doors locked, windows rolled up. Block by block, more stores boarded, dogs wandering loose on the sidewalks, graffiti that made no sense, groups of men clustered at the street corners, watching you drive by. Not a place to run out of gas.
Claire was on her way deep down into the southern end of the city, to Father Panek Village.
Named after Monsignor Francis Panek, who had somehow gotten the funding together for the city’s working poor. At one point, at the ribbon-cutting inauguration back in the nineteen-twenties, it probably did look like a village. Short blocks, small bungalows, front porches, people rocking, maybe a few teeth missing. Now it was row after row of three-story concrete project buildings for people who had no jobs, and had probably never held a job in their lives. Weeds growing out of the sidewalks, chain link fences pulled down.
She parked as close to Building B-6 as she could, to minimize the amount of time she’d be out in the open. Small canister of pepper spray in her purse.
Building B-6 was one of the older projects. A grass lawn past the parking lot, probably never walked on by anyone other than the mowing companies the city outsourced. On the sidewalk in front of the anonymous building, middle-aged Latino with a black moustache sitting behind a fold-down card table, selling corn on the cob from a large aluminum pot. But no customers. Steam.
He raised his right hand to his forehead, as if tipping a hat to her. “Senorita.”
Her tight smile.
The sounds of loud TV programs as she hurried along the concrete sidewalk, past the curtained windows of the apartments. Large flower patterns. B-6-15. Knocked with her left hand.
Kept her right hand inside her shoulder-slung purse.
Eventually, the front door creaked open. Old woman behind the brass chain lock, looking out.
“Mrs. Sweeney? I’m Claire. The social worker assigned to your case.”
The old woman closed the door in her face. Sound of the chain lock sliding off its groove. Front door opening. “Come in.”
The apartment was actually quite large, considering it was for one person.
Wide living room with a TV, kitchen in back, bedroom on the left, and beyond that, at the rear of a short corridor with sliding doors for storage, a bathroom.
The two women, one old, one young, chose chairs in the living room. Sat down.
Claire noticed it right away. You couldn’t help but notice. How to bring it up?
“Mrs. Sweeney?”
“Call me Hannah.”
“Thank you. Hannah, I couldn’t help noticing, if you don’t mind me saying, that your stomach is quite protuberant.”
Hannah’s milky eyes, half here, in the living room, half somewhere else.
Her frail voice. “What does that mean?”
“You have a noticeable bulge in your stomach.”
The old woman looked down at her seated body. At the prominent bulge in her abdomen. Milky eyes, filled with joy. “I’m pregnant.”
Claire made a note. “Really. Well, congratulations. Looking at your file, I see you’re ninety years old. Is that correct?”
Croaking voice. Smile. Yellow teeth. “It is.”
“Isn’t that kind of old to be pregnant?”
She smacked her lips, absent-minded. “I don’t know. Is it?”
“May I ask who impregnated you?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
She tried a teasing approach. “Do you mean, you had so many sexual partners you’re not sure which one is responsible for your pregnancy?”
Hannah sitting up, alert. “Oh, no! It just happened, dear. I woke up one morning, and I was with child.”
Claire made more notes, pad wobbling on her upper crossed leg. “Have you had your abdomen x-rayed? Or undergone a sonogram? Just to see if there is, in fact, a fetus inside you?”
Hannah, vague. Wave of the wrinkled hand. “Why would I go to all that trouble? I can’t afford doctors.”
“What if the state were willing to pay for a doctor’s appointment? So we could see inside your stomach and find out if you’re truly pregnant, or if it’s something else?”
“Well, what else could it possibly be?”
“Have you ever considered the possibility it may be a tumor growing in your stomach? That has distended your stomach, to where it might appear you’re pregnant?”
“Oh, I am pregnant. I can feel the baby inside me.”
“Would you be willing to have a doctor take an x-ray of your abdomen, just to be sure?”
“I don’t know. That sounds kind of fancy.”
“But would you agree it’s rare for a ninety year old woman to be pregnant?”
“I don’t know.”
“What if a doctor were to examine you, and take an x-ray, or maybe a sonogram, and the state paid for all the cost? Wouldn’t you want to know, definitively, that you are pregnant?”
Her old face. Black eyes, sagging mouth. “Well, I suppose so.”
“Could I schedule a doctor’s appointment for you, to take a look at your abdomen?”
“Would the x-ray harm my baby?”
“Absolutely not. It would just be a way of seeing what’s truly inside you, then we can decide what’s the best course of treatment, depending on what the x-ray shows us.”
There wasn’t much Claire liked about her job.
In college she didn’t know what she wanted to do, just a fair-haired girl who liked to read and didn’t hate her parents, so she majored in Education, with a minor in Psychology. Figured maybe she’d be a teacher. A girlfriend who was far more involved in campus activities, she was always on her hands and knees on the cheap carpet of her dorm room, writing big Magic Marker words on protest posters, had Claire sit in on some of her Political Science courses, then convinced her to sign up for some social engineering classes. It looked like a way to help people. “You never feel better than when you’re helping others.” That was the girlfriend’s slogan. It appealed to Claire, because it was true.
After graduation, Claire was thrilled she got a job in a city-funded social intervention program. The offices were in a bad part of town, they never had enough supplies, not even coffee unless someone brought in a can for the office to share, but she’d be with young people determined to make a difference.
Except most of the middle staff in the office, the ones who really ran things, only a few years older than Claire, really didn’t seem that interested in leaving this world a better place than they found it. What they really seemed interested in was running for Congress one day, like waiters think they’re going to become actors one day. Although there were feminists in the office, males ruled. Sexism was rampant. “Tell me you drink pineapple juice every day and I’ll go down on you.” When she reported it to her superiors, her complaints were dismissed as her being “overly sensitive” and/or “misinterpreting the intent.” There are bigger issues. Children are going to sleep hungry. Racism was also rampant, but on a much more subtle level. In the communal break room, no one eating any food item that had
been touched by a black person’s hands. An enforced hive mentality on social and political positions. Anyone who believes in God is pathetic. Everyone with an accent is a moron.
So she always looked forward, like a lot of the women did, to being out of the office, on calls. On her own.
But the calls were bruising. Didn’t take long for her to realize she wasn’t really helping that many people. Sure, she helped some, but in most cases she was just filling out forms about the damage that had already been done, and would be done again. Much like the cops she came to meet so often on these cases, who weren’t preventing crime, just cleaning up afterwards.
And you sure learned a lot about what we were capable of, on these calls. Babies held down against a stove’s burner because they wouldn’t stop crying, old women pulled out of their wheelchairs and raped behind a bush, girlfriends’ eyes that were gouged out because they may have been looking at another male in a fast food parking lot. Children who died of injected junk in a school restroom stall. All so awful it was almost comical in its absolute excess. Except it wasn’t comical. Even the cops didn’t make jokes.
The next week, Claire came by again to pick up Hannah for her appointment. She should have arrived earlier. It took the woman half an hour to leave her apartment, between checking her hair in the mirror, trying to remember where she left her purse, going back for a third time to confirm the burners on the stove were off, raising her hand in the air as they were almost out the door to indicate she had to use her bathroom before they left.