Know Not Why: A Novel

by Hannah Johnson

  “Ah,” is all she says.

  “Just a forewarning.”

  “Right.”

  And so we sit there, two tragic specimens of humanity, swinging slightly back and forth.

  +

  It warms up outside just enough to rain. Our winter wonderland turns into an icy death trap. The ten minute drive to work is enough to give me like six damn heart attacks. I’m an okay driver; apparently everyone else on the road is a psychopath.

  Everybody’s working today. I’m not looking forward to seeing Kristy, like, at all. Or Cora, considering she could have made more of an effort to tell me about the whole Kristy-not-being-single deal. I don’t want to see Arthur either, but at this point, that’s like saying, ‘I breathe on a regular basis.’ Intrinsic to existence. Too obvious to mention.

  Kristy’s back to looking perfect, and she’s as bouncy and happy as ever. She greets me cheerfully, and that really gets under my skin. I guess I liked the idea that we would have some shared anguish and shame The Day After. But apparently even that’s too much to ask. She’s all pleasant, all, ‘Morning, Howieee!’, and I realize that seeing me isn’t making her want to curl up in a ball and die because she did have no idea. She seriously thought I just wanted to be good buddies. How naïve, how adorable. It really pisses me off. Didn’t her dad ever give her the Boys Only Want One Thing speech?

  “Are you okay?” she asks. “You seem sad.”

  “No,” I reply, but I don’t put much effort into it. “I’m great.”

  “Oh, good,” she says, resting her hand on my arm. Platonically. “For a minute there I thought you were mad at me or something!”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I say, trying to scoff and instead just making this pitiful, wheezing sound, because this is what she’s reduced me to. “Why would I be mad at you?”

  Cora sends a knowing smirk my way.

  “Anyway, it’s a good thing you’re in a good mood,” Kristy continues, lowering her voice, “because Arthur isn’t.”

  “He isn’t?” I’m interested, sure, but I don’t get that happy soaring feeling in my soul.

  “He moved out of his apartment last night,” Kristy explains, blue eyes wide. “He had to come stay with me and my roommate Nikki, you could tell he was so embarrassed. Oh my gosh, I felt so bad for him. He looked so sad, and even though we made a bed up for him on the couch and everything, I don’t know if he slept—”

  Captain Tragedy himself comes in, and Kristy’s quick to go silent. He looks sick, and sick of it all. Underneath his apron, he’s not wearing a tie, and his shirt is rumpled. This makes me sad; this makes me question my faith in the world. Maybe a couple of days ago, Arthur Kraft The Second being so beaten down he couldn’t even work up the motivation to put on a tie would have been fandamntastic. Now, though, it just seems like a universal epidemic, what with the deadened look in his eyes and the way I feel like a fucking moron every time I look at Kristy and the rain pounding down hard and steady outside.

  “Hi, Arthur,” Kristy coos, like you would to somebody whose best friend just died.

  “I thought you were going to mop the floor before we open,” Arthur replies, brisk and toneless.

  “Yeah, I was just about to—”

  “I’ll do it,” I find myself saying. I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s completely delusional. Maybe it’s just this residual instinct, this need to convince Little Miss Taken that I’m worth it, I’m such a nice guy, you’d have to be crazy to pass up on this one over here. I don’t know; all of a sudden I just want to mop the goddamn floor more than anything and good luck to the motherfucker who tries to stop me.

  Arthur looks at me. Something stirs on his face, behind his eyes, and I can tell that he’s pissed. “I asked Kristy to do it.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “but I don’t mind doing it.”

  “Neither does she, I’m sure,” he says – lightly, but firmly. Well, tough, pal.

  “I don’t mind,” Kristy agrees. She bops up and down, enthusiastic. I can tell it’s because she’s uncomfortable. “I like mopping. Pretty much anything with warm water and bubbles—”

  “Don’t bother,” I interrupt. “I’ll do it.”

  “Kristy’s mopping the floor, Howard,” Arthur says, all and-that’s-final, like I’m going to listen to him.

  “What, you want her to do the dishes and make dinner next?” I snap. “And I told you, it’s Howie—”

  “It’s part of her job to help keep this place clean.” Arthur’s starting to raise his voice now. “And it’s not your place to comment on—”

  “Yeah, well, guess what, I’m commenting, I’ll do it—”

  “I didn’t ask you to do it—”

  “Too bad, I’m doing it—”

  “No, you’re not—”

  “ENOUGH, crazy-asses,” Cora interrupts, looking at both of us like we just started flinging shit at each other. “I’ll do it.”

  And she does.

  Stuff dies down after that – Arthur and I don’t get into any more shouting matches – but there’s still something simmering in the air, like it wouldn’t take much to set it all off again. I’m in this weird mood, where on one hand I just want to kick back, close my eyes, never think about anything or do anything again, like I’ve been awake for a thousand years and could really use a nap. And then, at the same time, there’s this weird jolt, this angry unceasing feeling like bugs scuttling around underneath my skin trying to force their way out. It leaves me a little on edge, needless to say. I wouldn’t hate punching somebody in the face right now, needless to say.

  At around noon, the bells jingle and a group of high school kids comes in. They’re loud and laughing; one of the guys is toting a video camera. Cora and Kristy are both taking their lunch break, so I guess this one’s on me. The kids ignore me and stomp on by, trailing footprints across the clean floor. I watch them as they head to the fake flower aisle, overhearing snatches of conversation like “Do you remember what kind we’re supposed to get?” and a lot of “I don’t know”s. I hear a few things about “crazy,” and I pick up on the fact that they’re talking about Ophelia, that it has to be something to do with Hamlet.

  Now, I’ve had to read Hamlet for like every English class I’ve taken since high school, and I know my motherfucking (or motherwantingto – if you subscribe to that interpretation) Hamlet. And so I head over there, and there’s a weird feeling in me as I do it. After a few steps I realize, well, by golly, this just might be what it’s like to feel qualified.

  “Hey,” I say, “you guys need any help?”

  “We need some flowers for a school project,” one of the girls says.

  “Hamlet?” I ask nonchalantly.

  “Yeah,” the girl replies. “We have to make a movie of act four, scene five for our English class.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Not really,” one of the guys says. “It’s due sixth period.”

  Ah. Ergo video camera.

  “We need some flowers,” another girl says, “for when Ophelia goes nuts.”

  “Rosemary,” I say knowingly. “Pansies. Rue. No violets.”

  And I don’t expect anybody to, like, faint with awe, but I get nothing. Or, well, not quite. I get:

  “Yeah, sure. So, which ones are those?”

  … fuck, I have no idea. I’m not a flower expert.

  “How ‘bout you guys just pick out whatever looks good,” I suggest. My inescapable lameassery strikes again. “And then I’ll ring you up.”

  I go back to hang out behind the counter. I hope they fail. Who leaves a movie until the lunch period before it’s due? It’s not like I was ever spectacularly brilliant in school or anything, but that just seems ridiculous.

  After a couple of minutes, Arthur comes in. His eyes immediately fly to the kids, suspicious. Artie probably doesn’t approve of people under the age of eighteen even existing. Hoodlums, hoodlums all.

  “What are they doing?” he asks me.

  “Getting
stuff for a school project,” I reply, shrugging. Suddenly, the kids don’t seem so annoying. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m Team Them, all the way. What sick bastard doesn’t support young minds being enriched by the Bard?

  “Hmm,” Arthur says. He keeps an eye trained on the youngins.

  Ye Olde Noble Hamlet Filmmakers come up to pay five minutes later, all of them toting big bunches of flowers. I wait to see if Arthur wants to ring them up, but he just stands there, hovery and annoying and useless. Maybe I should take some pity on the guy, considering his girlfriend tossed him out on his ass, but it’d be a whole lot easier if he didn’t suck so bad.

  I ring the flowers up. “That’ll be $48.22.”

  Their jaws drop in unison. “Fifty bucks?”

  “$48.22,” I correct, because, hey, that extra $1.78’s gotta ease the blow a little.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Yep,” I deadpan. “They’re really free.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No,” I say. “I was kidding. It’s $48.22.”

  “This is retarded,” one of the guys declares. How are you going to argue with that eloquence?

  “Well, just hurry up, lunch is over in like twenty minutes,” one of the girls urges.

  “No way I’m paying for these,” the guy shoots back.

  This leads to a big festival of “Well, me either!”, “Well, I’m not gonna!”, “I only have a five,” “How are we gonna get lunch, then?”, and so on, and so on. I stand there, feeling so awkward that I start to wish I could just give them the damn flowers. Privately, in fact, I can’t help but agree. Fifty bucks for fake flowers? Really?

  But it’s not like I can give them away. Especially with Mister Doom ‘N Gloom hovering around.

  “Maybe,” I suggest at last, because this is getting too stupid for even me to handle, “you could just get a few—”

  And then I stop talking because, all of a sudden, one of the guys bolts.

  I kid you not: bolts. Sprints out the front door, flowers in hand, cackling his head off. The door slams shut behind him. The bells go into a mad jingling frenzy.

  “Oh, shit!” another guy yells gleefully, and immediately follows suit.

  “Oh, God, you guys!!!” a girl cries. “Stop it!”

  I stare. Because, like, what else are you going to do? It’s just – I – shoplifting fake flowers? They’re not even real flowers!

  And, okay, not like that’s the issue at hand, but still.

  One of the girls goes, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” but they’re all giggling like crazy. They drop the flowers they’re holding and rush out after those … well, okay, ‘hoodlums’ might actually be an apt description.

  “Jesus!” I say, turning to Arthur. I’m willing to make (temporary) amends. “Can you believe—”

  But I don’t even get to finish my sentence, because he’s got this look on his face – this look that’s kinda scary, this look that means business. He starts, with freakish efficiency, to take his apron off. There’s this fraction of a second in time where I realize what he’s going to do, where I can’t quite bring myself to believe that he’s going to do it.

  Surely, I think, Surely he’s not…

  And then he does.

  Arthur Kraft the Second – tieless, homeless, a man with nothing to lose – throws his apron down onto the counter and sprints, without a word, out the door after them.

  “Are you serious, man??” I shout after him.

  Apparently, he is.

  I have no idea what to do. Do I help him?

  Okay, wow, I have no trouble figuring that one out, actually: no. No I don’t. Fake flowers might mean enough to Arthur that he’s willing to run out into the icy rainy elements to regain them, but guess what? That same flame of devotion doesn’t burn bright in my heart.

  So instead, I survey the mess left behind, the flowers that didn’t get brutally shoplifted. After spending a little time just staring at them, I start gathering them. Might as well have things straightened up so Artie can’t pitch a hissy fit when he comes back. If he comes back.

  Oh, Christ, if he breaks his tailbone or something, I am so not dragging him to the hospital. Dude can just deal.

  I head over to the fake flower aisle. There’s mud tracked onto the floor, and a bunch of the stuff got knocked out of the racks. I’m struck by this disgruntled sense of You young people today that scares me a little. You’re not supposed to be feeling that at twenty-two, are you? I mean, technically I still am a young person. I like to think.

  Whatever. I start picking the flowers up, straightening things out, putting stuff back where it belongs. (Or, well, where I think it looks okay. I don’t quite have specific places for things memorized yet.) To be totally honest – no-shame honest – I like the fake flower aisle. It’s nice to be surrounded by color and, I dunno, some facsimile of stuff that blooms, stuff that’s alive.

  I take my time putting the flowers back. It’s nice, mind-numbing work. I’m sick of thinking, and so I don’t. Every time a thought threatens to traipse into my brain, I stop it in its little thought-tracks and put more effort into staring in front of me. Put one yellow flower next to another yellow flower. Kristy who? Futile existence what? These things have no presence in my world. This one’s kinda shaped like this one; put them together? Sure.

  I’m almost done when I hear the door open, the momentary roar of the rain. Then it shuts again, and there are slow footsteps. God, I’m so not in the mood to put up with glitter glue-wielding lunatics.

  Luckily enough, I don’t have to. It’s just Arthur. I look over and there he is, standing at the start of the aisle. He’s breathing hard, soaked to the bone. His hair is dark with rain, plastered close against his head. He’s shivering. Of course he is, crazy bastard.

  “No luck?” I say.

  “No.”

  “Too bad.”

  Then it gets quiet. I watch a raindrop slide down his face; it makes it all the way to the floor. Pretty impressive, for a raindrop.

  “None of those are in the right place,” Arthur says, looking at the flowers. He comes to stand next to me, staring at my crappy handiwork.

  “Yeah, well,” I say, “how was I supposed to know?”

  I expect him to get snippy at that. He doesn’t. He looks like he wants to for a second, but then it’s like he gives up, like he realizes how totally pointless it would be to even try to bother with me. Yeah, baby, that’s how I roll; that’s just the effect I like to have on my fellow humans.

  “Give me those,” he says, nodding down toward the few flowers I haven’t put back yet. There’s a part of me that wants to fight it, but I’m pretty sure that’s also the part of me that’s stupid. Like, fine, it’s not like I exactly dream of being a fake flower arranger. Let old Artie here take care of it. It is his life’s calling and all.

  So I hold the flowers out to him, and I do feel sort of, like, lamely weird about it, like, is there ever a scenario where one guy hands another guy flowers and it’s not a little questionable? But maybe I should get used to this feeling, this daily sense of emasculation, because I’m pretty sure it comes with the territory.

  Arthur reaches over to take them. As he does, his thumb brushes my thumb, and it’s so cold, this sudden shock of cold. The flowers get dropped. They make a slight, swishy sound as they hit the floor.

  “Shit,” I say, my voice sounding really loud in my ears.

  And then he kisses me.

  It’s—

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know, I don’t know.

  It’s my brain turning off, it’s nothing. It’s a feeling. It’s a mouth on mine, and fuck it. Fuck my whole goddamn life, man. Just fuck it. I don’t move away like I should, but neither does he. He puts one of his hands on my face.

  Then the bells on the front door ring. We break apart and I open my eyes.

  And there’s Arthur looking back at me.

  We stare at each other. My mind turns back on gradually, clunkily, the
way lights go on in a warehouse, row after row, click-buzzzzz – click-buzzzzz – click-buzzzzz.

  “Excuse me!” comes a little old lady voice from out front. “Excuse me! I’d like to return this, if you don’t mind.”

  “Absolutely,” Arthur says loud. He’s breathless, but he regains his poise so fast it’s scary. Scary and awful, infuriating, something about it makes me sick. He casts one last look at me. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Then he turns, easy as that, and goes to help our shiny new dissatisfied customer. Like it’s that simple. “I’ll be right with you.”

  And so I’m left standing by myself, shaking like I’m about to bust apart into atoms, fake flowers on the floor at my feet where I dropped them. We dropped them.

  Chapter Five

  “He’s in love with him,” the girl next to me declares fervently that night at my Shakespeare class. “It makes such perfect sense. It enriches the story as a whole so much.”

  I work really hard on not stabbing myself in the brain with my pencil.

  “And how’s that?” asks Professor Herrick.

  “Well, in a way, it turns Shylock and Antonio into equals, even though they’re pitted against each other the whole time. If Shylock’s a Jew and Antonio’s a homosexual, that leaves both of them on the outskirts of society, right? Shunned or whatever.”

  “Marginalized,” Herrick suggests.

  “Marginalized. Which has this great irony – like, Antonio’s all disparaging to Shylock, but then it’s like he’s in the same boat. Not to mention that it really heightens the – like, the parallel tragedy between them, where they lose the thing they love most, because Shylock loses Jessica when she marries Lorenzo and Antonio loses Bassanio when Bassanio marries Portia.”

  “Interesting.”

  I’m really starting to wish I hadn’t come. There was a minute or two where I thought about it. But staying home would make today different, like it’s not just any other Friday, and that, that’s something I’m not down with. Sure, weird shit happens sometimes – weird, weird, crazy-ass shit, the kind of shit that will melt your brain if you think about it – but you just gotta ignore it, you know? You just gotta … keep on keepin’ on. Like, whatever, man.