Logorrhea

by John Klima

You shook your head and laughed again. “What, do I have teeth cancer? I’m not afraid of dying.”

  I stared out at the water, at a lobster boat heading towards Ellisport. “Lots of people have fake teeth,” you said. We walked back to your cabin.

  After breakfast this morning I brought two of my books over to the lodge and left them on a table in the reading room. My other books are there, all the stories I wrote about you. We are on an island, surrounded by the reach and the open Atlantic. I am surrounded only by you.

  What we took: cell phones, computers, paper, pens, paints, canvas, guitars, a harmonica, wine, scotch, beer, vodka, marijuana, amphetamines, cold medicine, sleeping pills, cigarettes, volumes of poetry, warm clothes, iPods, two white Persian cats. What we left: wives, husbands, children, cars, houses, air conditioning, TVs, radios, pets, houseplants, offices. Everyone keeps talking about those cats.

  Everyone here is working on something, feverishly. You are doing The Marriage Project. You interviewed me and I spoke of my brief marriage. How inconsequential it is. All those interviews, all those people telling you about their first marriage. All those chopped-off voices. Yesterday I saw a letter on your desk dated months ago, when the mail still came on time. Little Buddhas lined up on top of your computer. Taped to the wall above the piano, pictures of your children. The two grown girls; the three children by your second wife. I sat on the chair in front of the mike and removed my glasses. Not for vanity, but because if I saw you clearly I would not be able to speak. The air inside the cabin was close, pine resin and cigarette smoke, marijuana, Shambala incense. Your sweat. The tang the medication leaves on your skin; bitter. You wore jeans, leather moccasins, a tie-dyed T-shirt. I shivered uncontrollably and asked if I could wear something of yours, so that my voice wouldn’t break up for my trembling. You gave me a brown zipped sweatshirt with yellow stripes, a fake heraldic sigil. The kind of thing someone might wear in high school. Did you wear something like this, a jacket, a sweater? I can’t remember.

  There is a painter here named Annie. You’re obsessed with her.

  “Annie, she’s a feral artist,” you told me. We were in the lodge kitchen. The cook was chopping parsley for dinner at the long wooden countertop. Bottles of wine on the long mahogany table Billy made, your iPod on the counter. The Beach Boys, Outkast, “Hey Ya.” Happy music. The cook was dancing. “She gets up every day before the sun comes up and goes out to her rock and just stays there all day, waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “Who the fuck knows. The right moment. The final curtain. She stays there all day, she only comes back here at dinnertime to eat. She doesn’t talk much. She paints, just this one spot. Her rock. She’s been coming here for three years now. I don’t know when she sleeps, she works all night and goes out again at 4 A.M..”

  Annie.

  That night I met her at dinner. Tall, rawboned, long straight straw-colored hair. Slightly rough skin, wide-set grey eyes. She wore stained khakis, a blue sweater, ancient hip waders. Big hands, the nails chewed down to nothing. She spoke very softly, her gaze flickering around the room the whole time.

  “So you just go out there and work?” I asked. We were drinking red wine, moving slowly around the perimeter of the room. Annie kept her head down, her hair obscuring her face. Now and then she’d look aside, furtively, then gaze at me head-on for a moment before turning.

  “Yes.” Her voice soft, without affect yet musical. A swallow’s voice. “On the far side of the island. By the rocks. Those trees there.” She held her wineglass in one hand and kept the other hand in her pocket. “That tree. Yes.”

  “And you just…wait?”

  She looked up. Her eyes flared. “Yes.”

  Her expression never changed; only those eyes. As though something moved inside her skull, cutting off the light. “Yes,” she murmured again, and walked away.

  “You know what I started to think about?”

  You stared out at the edge of the woods, cat fir and moss-covered boulders, birch trees. Sea urchin shells broken on the rocks. “A woman having sex with a dog. Like a wolf or something. If she tries to get away, it rips her throat out.”

  I laughed. “I would never say something like that.”

  “Yeah. A really big dog.”

  Each cabin contains a single bed—a cot, really—so narrow it can barely hold one person, let alone two. At night I lie beside you as you sleep, your head turned from me, your arms curled up in front of your face, your fingers curled. Like one of those bodies at Pompeii. On the windowsills burn candles in small glasses. The smell of smoke on everything. My own skin; my mouth. Everything burns.

  You asked me, “Have you noticed how you can smell things here?” We sat on the cabin steps, sheltered beneath cat firs, and watched rain spatter the rocky beach below us. “Things you never notice back there, you can smell them here. I can, anyway. Like I can smell my brother when he’s way down the path. And Annie—I went down to her place yesterday and I knew she wasn’t there, because I couldn’t smell her.”

  “Can you smell me?”

  You stared out at the water greying beneath the storm. “No. You smell like me.”

  “The light,” I said. “That’s what’s different for me. The light everywhere, it’s so bright but I can look right at it. I can stare at the sun. Have you noticed that?”

  “No. I mean, a little, maybe. I guess it’s being on an island—the water everywhere, and the sky. It must all reflect off the rocks.”

  “I guess.” I blinked and it hurt. Even with my glasses on, the dark lenses—my eyes ached. I turned and looked at you. “Hold still, there’s something caught…”

  You grimaced as I touched your tooth. “A piece of fluff,” I said, and scraped it onto my finger. “There.”

  I stared at the tiny matted wad on my fingertip. At first I thought it was feathers, or a frayed bit of cloth. But when I held it up to the light I saw it was a minute clump of hair, silky, silvery-white.

  “That’s weird,” I said, and flicked it into the rain.

  That evening before dinner I stood on the porch at the lodge and stared out to sea. The wind so strong I wondered about the windmill, that sound like an airplane preparing for takeoff, steady thump and drone. When the wind dies, the windmill stops turning. Power fluctuates, the lights flicker and fail then shine once more. A vast black wedge of cloud loomed above the reach and sent spurs of lightning across the water. Each bolt seared my eyes, my nails left little half-moons in my arms but I didn’t look away.

  “You should be careful.” Annie came up beside me, wrapped in a brown sweatshirt with yellow stripes. She pulled the hood up, her hands invisible inside the sleeves. “It will hurt you.”

  “Lightning? From way out there?” I laughed, but turned so she wouldn’t see my face. Your shirt. “I think I’m okay here.”

  “Not lightning.” She crouched beside me. The hood spilled over her forehead so that it was difficult to discern her features, anything but her eyes. “Oh, poor thing—”

  She reached for a citronella candle in a large, netted glass holder. A brown leaf the size of my hand protruded from the opening. Annie tilted the glass towards her, wincing, then stroked the edge of the leaf.

  “Polyphemus,” she said.

  It wasn’t a leaf, but the remains of a moth, forewing and hindwing, each longer than my finger. The color of browned butter, edged with pale orange, with a small eyespot on the forewing and a larger eyespot on the hindwing. The spots were the same vivid sea blue as your eyes but ringed with black, as though the eye had been kohled. Within a sheath of yellow wax I could glimpse its body, like a furred thumb, its long feathered antennae and the other wing, charred, ragged.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said. “That’s so sad.”

  She lifted her finger, brown scales on the tip like soot. “The eyes, when it opens its wings suddenly they look like an owl’s eyes.”

  She set down the candle and pressed her hands together, palm to palm, then spread them.
“See? That’s how it scares off whatever tries to eat it.”

  “What’re you looking at?”

  You came up the steps, stopped beside Annie and glanced down at the candle.

  “It’s a moth,” I said.

  “A Polyphemus moth,” said Annie.

  You stared at it then laughed. “What a way to go, huh?”

  You lit another cigarette. I held out my hand and you gave me the lighter. I flicked it and stared at the flame, brought it so close to my face that I felt a hot pulse between my eyes, you and Annie blurred into lightning.

  “Hey,” you said. “Watch it.”

  “She keeps doing that,” said Annie.

  “Listen to this.”

  We were in your cabin. Another night, late. We’d left everyone else by the bonfire. A meteor shower was expected, someone said; maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. No one could remember when. You sat in front of the computer and stared at your files, lines, and graphs, adjusted the volume then leaned back. “Listen.”

  Crickets. Outside faint laughter and voices from the fire, wind, but no insects. The crickets were inside with us.

  “You’re recording crickets?” I asked.

  “No.” Your brow furrowed. “I don’t know what the fuck happened. These are the files—”

  You tapped the monitor, columns of data with initials beneath them, words and numerals. “Those are my edits. But something got screwed up. I played them back this afternoon and this is all I get.”

  A steady line moved across the screen as crickets sang. You stood abruptly. “Come on, let’s go look for Annie. I want to see if I can find her in the dark.”

  We walked into the woods. Behind us the sound of crickets faded into your cabin. The dull orange glow from the bonfire disappeared behind the trees. It was cool; autumn weather, not August. Wind brisk with salt and the scent of rugosa roses in bloom along the beach. Sky filled with stars, so many stars; a lake that holds a burning city.

  Annie’s rock was on the far side of the island and faced the open sea, a narrow spur of granite like a pointing finger. A fissure split its center, water pooled there and the pinpoint reflection of stars. You took my hand so I wouldn’t fall. Twisted birches grew between the rocks, their leaves black with salt. Even in the dark I could see them.

  But we couldn’t see Annie. You called her name, quietly at first, then louder. At our feet waves lapped at the rocks; behind us, in the ferns, crickets. I heard bats ricochet and whine above our heads. You kissed me and we fucked on the rocks, my hands and knees soaked and bloodied. Your nails broke my skin, everything hurt so much that lights flashed behind my eyelids. I blinked and the lights were still there, streaking down the sky, a soundless eruption of green and crimson.

  The voices by the distant bonfire softened into insect song.

  The wind died, the windmill, the sound of a falling plane silenced. You held me and we were completely still. Neither of us came. In the trees above us the muted flutter of wings and two round eyes, green not blue; a soft flurry as it lifted from the branch and something soft fell and caught between my teeth.

  “That was an owl,” you whispered. “I think it was Annie.”

  You laughed. As we walked back to the beach we heard a low wailing from the other side of the island, one voice then another, and a third. Coyotes. Everyone was gone. The bonfire had burned to embers. You gave me your lighter and I started the fire again, fed it birch bark and twigs and red oak logs until the flames rose. In the sky above the sea things fell and burned. I watched as you walked along the beach, the red tip of your cigarette as you danced and swayed and sang. In the darkness something swooped above your head.

  You should be careful, she whispered.

  I held my hands in the flames until they glowed.

  * * *

  S•Y•C•O•P•H•A•N•T

  sy·co·phant 'si-ke-fent also—'fant

  noun

  : a servile self-seeking flatterer

  * * *

  Plight of the Sycophant

  ALAN DENIRO

  THE BORDER BETWEEN the two worlds is hard to describe but easy to feel under the skin. Even a few miles away, you can sense its effect, in ways that you’ll probably never understand. Much like when a person puts a gun in your mouth (though this has never happened to me). The bullet doesn’t leave the gun—anticipation is its own weapon. And fear. One must never forget fear.

  You can have this unsettling feeling on either side of the border, though you will likely prefer one side to the other. One world to the other. The sun will be bright, as it always is in this part of the world—except, perhaps, in September—and the giant angels will be patrolling the mist, as they always do. There will often be rainbows, on account of this bright sun and the mist. They grow boring.

  The border is not actually a wall, but a waterfall. No one knows where the water comes from; there is never a cloud in the sky. But the water comes. The angels are rather mean and swear a lot. They wear bright yellow ponchos, with a red script in their language up and down the sleeves. There is only one checkpoint, one place to cross by foot (although it is not advised) or car. The cars have to be coated in a certain type of myrrh, or else the border patrol will not even consider letting you cross. And even then you have to have the right kinds of papers, the right bribes. And—the hardest part—the right attitude. Angels will detain a person trying to cross for months, sometimes years, trying to find out what attitude a border-crosser might have. What desires they have. Their prisons near the gate are little cottages and are actually kind of cute.

  Sometimes the angels are satisfied by the answers and sometimes they are not. Some travelers end up leaving their cottages, and some do not.

  This is all, of course, from my perspective, from my country. I have never been to the other country. I have not had appropriate business to take me there. And I’m afraid of the angels. They’re not actual angels. That I’ll grant you. They don’t fly, or sing, or help people. But they are certainly tall—seven feet, maybe eight feet in height. They don’t have wings, but their guns do. I’ve seen one of their guns fly, once. I was emptying the grease trap from the store—surely the nastiest job in the history of the world; believe me, there’s a lot of competition—out in the garbage pit closer to the waterfall. One of the angels had to re-strap his boot and the gun flapped furiously to stay aloft, like a hummingbird, and it did. The wings fluttered in a manner that my eye couldn’t catch. I was watching it all with binoculars; the pit wasn’t that close to the waterfall, and anyway, I didn’t have a garbage permit, so I had to watch out for patrols. Fees and levies were designed to keep us safe—but if I actually paid them, then we’d be operating at a loss. Plus the scavengers around the pit liked the grease, and they were bold night and day—green bears and millipedes large as my arm. I was already risking an arm and a leg.

  Anyway, the pawn shop where I work is in sight of the border. It’s the last chance for a traveler to get rid of his or her belongings before going over to the other side—or maybe pick up something that might be useful farther down the road. We also sell fuel. By popular demand. And also hot dogs, frozen goods, pop, batteries, and the like. But we’re not a convenience store. We sell a lot of beer and guns. Not the angels’ guns, but regular guns. They’re not allowed across the border, so people get what they can for them. There’s always something going on in the shop—a lot of tourists come through, just to get a look at the waterfall, but you still get bored at the register. A pawn shop is a pawn shop.

  No one comes back from the other side. In case you’re wondering.

  And just where does the water go, once it has fallen? You’d think that the ground would flood, but it doesn’t. There might be grates leading into a sewer system, or something. There might be a vast, underground ocean under the surface of the earth, where mer-people live ordinary, screwed-up lives in screwed-up mer-civilizations, and no one can figure out where that waterfall comes from. I couldn’t say one way or another, and ther
e’s no chance I’ll find out.

  There was only one time, years ago, when I came awfully close. Or at least, I thought I did; now I’m not so sure. I’m not sure what side I come down on. It was the time I was a sycophant, and it wasn’t pretty. I was twenty or thereabouts, young and stupid, and I’d only been at the pawn shop for a year. I had wandered for a while before that, and since I couldn’t find a way past the border, I stopped and looked for a job. No one liked to pump gas and pawn guns in sight of the angels, so the station was always hiring. Turnover is hell. But I kept my nose clean. I had a trailer that I was actually proud of. No one lived around me. I had no idea how lonely I was, especially after my double shifts.

  It was at the tail end of one of those double shifts when a woman came in to tell me her car broke down, and could she get some help. It was Sunday, going on evening, and no one credible in town was going to jump-start her car, or fix her flat. Which was where I came in. She had her hair in a beehive bun, and wore a T-shirt that looked wooly and too warm. I figured she was driving from a ways off; she had a funny accent. I asked her where her car was. About three miles that way, she said. She pointed north, parallel to the border. My brother’s still in the car. He’s guarding it.

  Like an angel? I said. I…I guess, she said. It was even more obvious she wasn’t from around here.

  I smelled her, then—acrid, sour raspberries. It didn’t smell like the stench of a long road trip, but neither did it smell like perfume. But I was bored all the time, like I said before, and so the intrigue won out against my better judgment. She was something different. I decided that I could be some use to her, and the blood in my head pounded.

  Okay, I said. I’ll help you in fifteen minutes. Can you wait fifteen minutes? That’s when I get off.

  She thanked me, and she seemed sincere, and she smiled. I became aroused. She was perfectly pretty, and I wasn’t ashamed to notice this. It was a reaction—I knew that I wouldn’t act on the reaction ever. It just wasn’t how I operated, to make huge, unyielding assumptions about what a smile meant.