The Path Of All That Falls

by Franz Neumann

  Blakey walked. 3.4 miles, while sounding short, turned into a substantial walk in his condition. He made it up the path, dusted now with first snow. The dog didn’t bark, so he knew they must have taken it with them to the mountains. He lifted pots, felt under the fancy welcome mat, then walked around back. The yard had a wood and metal playground and a giant trampoline that looked, with the pristine layer of light snow, like a giant sugar-dusted chocolate cake. He found a key under a ceramic frog and thanked him, patting his head gently.

  He kept the lights off once inside. He was thirsty and poured himself a glass of water in the kitchen. He then washed and dried the glass. He had seen the TV dramas and knew it’d be foolish to leave the glass in the sink, saliva primed for DNA snatching. He felt his way upstairs and found the kids’ rooms and the doctor’s bedroom. Blakey’s ex-wife’s clothes filled a quarter of a walk-in closet. He could smell her shampoo in the pillow and saw that she kept the same side of the bed as she had with him. An old photo of her sat on the doctor’s side of the bed, like she had been there since their high school romance years, ready to greet the doctor’s every morning with a smile. The room began to spin, so Blakey lay down on the bed, then eased into a short nap because he had forgotten how comfortable a good mattress could be, having slept on the sofa for so long now. He waited for dreams, but none came. He was empty. When he woke, he looked for a nursery, but found none. Would some of the doctor’s kids bunk together, or would the office next to the master bedroom be the nursery? Or, would he, Blakey, get full custody? If the boy was his, then there’d be shared responsibilities, even down to naming him. Would he come here to help out in those first weeks, or would she live in his apartment? No, no, all unlikely. Would the boy grow up here in this house, with the doctor and the doctor’s kids and a house that, he noticed now, could be dangerous for a toddler? Who needs this many electrical outlets? he thought to himself, counting sockets as he moved down the hallway back to the sweeping staircase (with enough space between the banister posts for a child to slip through and fall to the hard marble floor below. “I had my back to him for just a second. Just a second!”).

  Blakey finally found the answering machine in a nook off the kitchen, its red light blinking like a beacon. He tried to delete the message but there was only one button on the answering machine, a pager to locate the handset, and he didn’t hear any ringing anywhere in the house.

  Outside, Blakey was surprised by the amount of give in the trampoline. He swept clear a body’s worth of snow and lay on his back, the answering machine on his stomach. It was too cold to sleep. He stood and bobbed up, down, up, down, then jumped, heaving himself upward into the cold night air, and with each bounce he could see a little more over the hedge to the neighbors. A lit window. A man alone at a sink. Then turned away. Then gone. Lights out. He was flying into darkness.

  It seemed to take hours to come home. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a pre-dawn glow. It was a little scary, the sky looking poised to catch fire. He threw the answering machine into a dumpster. Back in his apartment, wide awake from the cold and the walk, he didn’t even want to consider sleeping on the couch. He must buy a bed, he reminded himself. He made a new sign, Buy a bed!, and taped it to the mirror in the bathroom. He washed his face and felt better. He had said terrible things, thought terrible thoughts, but had taken them back now. He was getting his shit together. And then he did what he hadn’t done for so long. Blakey called Mexico City. He grilled his brother, a chemist there, for the ins-and-outs of his profession, taking notes as his brother spoke. Then he chatted with his sister-in-law, once a minor soap-opera star in Mexico. He’s never been to Mexico or seen their house, but in his mind he always pictured a sprawling hacienda with tile floors, the big two-foot-wide variety, and his sister-in-law walking around in bare, manicured feet and wearing a robe, or eating melon balls in the kitchen while reading foreign newspapers, or sitting in bed and reading fan mail aloud to his brother. Her story was surprisingly dull. All the same, he made a few notes before he asked to talk to his brother again. His brother asked him about Lizzie, and he told him the truth—she was happy, doing well. He told his brother about his book projects and asked him for weather ideas. He wrote down “ball lightening.” He wrote down “fish falling from sky,” and remembered how much he liked talking to his brother. It was strange, being in the same time zone, yet with so much longitudinal distance. He wondered if his brother was going gray, too. His brother had to leave to go to work, he said, and Blakey promised to call again soon.

  He rolled and lit up and shuffled through the stack of LPs he’d picked up from the garage sale, settling on a Burl Ives’ album. Mr. Ives sang “The Owl and the Pussycat” while Blakey began working on the last half-inch of Tequila from the bottle. How could we still call cats pussycats, in this day and age, he wondered? O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love, sang Mr. Ives, What a wonderful Pussy you are, you are. What a wonderful Pussy you are. $50 bucks says Burl was thinking what I’m thinking, Blakey wagered to the parrot. And then, not even to the B-side yet, an idea descended on Blakey that seemed so brilliant he said brilliant out loud. It was an epiphany. He immediately rounded up his ex-wife’s eighteen-pound Calico cat (All of Dr. Foley’s kids were allergic to cats), and the parrot, Gimme, (who only said gimme, gimme, gimme) and sat/perched them side by side on the kitchen counter as, “get this” he informed them, “get this!”—bride and groom! He was going to make something right in this world and form a new union for one that was lost. Gimme wasn’t an owl, but he’d do. Blakey officiated, rendering an eloquent little speech about the blessings of life-long companionship, all the while keeping his eyes on the shy, purring, and possibly hungry feline bride. Gimme was half-asleep. A reception followed immediately afterward in the living room, complete with Tequila for all, metal cup for the parrot, saucer for the cat. He cut up little slices of cheese and put them on crackers. He pulled down the shades to keep the rising sun at bay, then put some mellow night-invoking Miles on the stereo. Watching the bride and groom feast, Blakey felt an immense sense of satisfaction descend upon him. It was like a buzz while sober. He fell into his first good sleep in a month.

  The hangover was debilitating. While dumping the contents of the freezer into a garbage bag (the door had been left open all night and morning), he noticed blood on the floor. And then the feathers. And then, in another room, the parrot. Dead. Later, because at the moment it hurt too much to walk, he found the one-eyed cat, or rather the cat who was now one-eyed, perhaps Gimme’s last act. He managed to drop the cat off at the veterinarian and then, back at the apartment, told himself that now, now, with casualties on his conscience, with a freezer full of pizzas gone to waste, he needed—no must—get his shit together. First, he unplugged the stereo, then set up his laptop and deleted all his unread e-mail. He sneezed and the air was atomized with the scent of Tequila. He got up to dump the last of the vodka into his orange juice, but held the bottle upside down over the sink instead. After all, this is what fathers do, isn’t it? he thought. Shed bad habits, get serious, face up to reality, do the right thing. The weed disappeared down the toilet so, so slowly.

  Blakey found the factory-direct mattress store easily. It was all glass and aluminum, like it’d been a car dealership in another life. The late afternoon light came in sideways, all glare, and his shadow stretched over the rows of mattresses. It was hot inside, and he had to squint from all the sunlight. He was the only customer. The saleswoman approached and rather than say he was just looking, then buy a mattress anyway, he put himself completely in her hands. She asked about the sleeping situation. Wife, partner, alone? She explained how there were mattresses designed for each situation. He accepted the complimentary soda and listened to her and looked at their demonstration mattress with the corner cut-away that let him peer inside (mostly coils in empty space). He lay down alone on a twin, then tried a queen-size, then she lay beside him so he could feel the difference. The sunlight fell behind another building at th
e far end of the parking lot and the flickering fluorescents above were suddenly noticeable and unbelievably harsh. He closed his eyes. He told her about the couch he was sleeping on, then just a tracery of info about his failed marriage to explain why he was sleeping on a couch. And, yes, the mattress was comfortable (Lord, it was so comfortable, but he couldn’t admit it or he’d sound so desperate). He told her about the books he was writing so he would sound gainfully employed, and she told him a little about herself. For his book, she said. Blakey discovered she was not just mattress salesperson for the months of October, November and December. She told Blakey how she used to be a dancing instructor. This was after the semester in a dental school academy, but before a weekend in truck-driving school, three years in the army, one year at a defense contractor, six years in a back office, two years at a day care center, three years, three years! she said, in a shoe store. Blakey figured that put her about thirty-five or so. Lying next to her on the mattress, he could only see her sideways but she was good-looking sideways, a nice profile, really white teeth, and bright eyes. Thirty-five seemed about right. Staring up at the grill of the ceiling speaker from which “Sailing” played, Blakey noticed that there was a cherub quality to Christopher Cross. Blakey’s hand covered hers for the rest of the song. A minute like this, maybe, not saying much. The longest he’d been with another woman, in private, for years. It was perfect, until the first commercial. He felt it, just lying there on the mattress. This was the one.

  The mattress arrived the next day. He didn’t have a frame, but they threw one in. He called the mattress store to thank the saleswoman for her help and they talked for an hour, through three periods of holds, including one that was twenty minutes long and involved a sale. He wrote a new entry for the occupation book while he waited.

  FACTS ABOUT SALMON COUNTERS

  Number: Hydroelectric dam operators employ at least a dozen people to count salmon run populations, chiefly in the Northwest.

  The Daily Grind: Salmon returning to spawn navigate around dams by climbing water-filled chutes known as fish ladders. A salmon counter sits behind a window mounted into one side of the top of a “ladder” to observe the fish as they continue upstream.

  Trends & Growth: Future career growth is expected to decline as dam operators increasingly adopt technology to automate fish counting.

  Compensation: Depends on employer but ranges from $10,000 - $15,000 a year. Will be expected to assume other duties during non-spawning season.

  Titles: Also known as Salmon Population Engineer, or, in one case, Jeanette. Sweet, sweet Jeanette with the hip-length red hair with faint gray highlights. No longer counting fish but currently salesperson of the month in factory-direct sales at Sweet Dreams Mattress Co.

  Jeanette was already at the coffee bar that Friday night. They sipped doubles because it was cold out now. He said it was a cold snap, like the weather man had said, then he said that’s what the weather man had said in case Jeanette had watched the same forecast and thought Blakey was unoriginal. There wasn’t enough breathing room inside to feel comfortable, and being too early to invite her to his apartment around the corner, they sat in her car with the heater sapping the battery. He looked at the fingers he’d felt but never seen closely. She wore wool gloves with the finger parts cut off. Small, delicate fingers. Nail polish, but it was too dark in the car to tell the color. The tip of her left index finger was bandaged. He imagined her cutting a bell pepper, shiny-side up, the knife slipping. Damn. Happens to us all. Because the drinks wouldn’t fit in the car’s cup holders, Blakey held her coffee as they drove. Jeanette sucked on a stick of rock candy from the coffee bar. They moved, slippery at first, a few fishtails, then straight, past the dark laundromat, then the park and trees so beautiful it came as a shock to seem them. Jeanette pulled over before he even thought to ask her to.

  Later, for the weather book, he wrote:

  HOAR FROST

  Hoar frost can occur in all areas where temperatures drop below -25 F. Typically manifested as white ice crystals on tree branches, hoar frost requires a combination of sustained freezing temperatures, high humidity, and little wind. Hoar frost has been observed from pole to pole, with crystals reaching as much as an inch in length. (Blakey was pretty iffy about everything he was writing now, but the important thing was to make the third, or was it fourth?, deadline. Fact checking and revisions could follow.) Examples of possible usage: Covered with hoar frost, the tree was as delicate as lingerie. Or, lit by the park lights, the trees seemed dipped in sugar. (First kiss, there, in the car. First kiss in a decade. Jeanette tasted sweet and natural, but still somewhat bad for you, like all sugar.)

  In his apartment, Jeanette spilled her cold coffee on Blakey while attempting to show him her tattoo. He only saw it after he cleaned up the spill, and this time she was less discreet in displaying a salmon tattooed on her upper left ass cheek. There was more detail and color there than he thought possible in a tattoo. They cleared the table to the wall so Jeanette could show Blakey some dance steps he did not want to attempt. And though he thought he hated dancing, he found that this wasn’t so. She taught him a tease of cha-cha-cha, both coasts of swing, the foxtrot. He turned off the heater but not until they were both drenched with sweat. If this were a movie, he thought to himself, this would be the moment they’d take each other. But not only was Blakey exhausted, he could smell himself and it was the odor of a mailman on a summer day: sweet, pulpy, and ink-sour. She asked if she could take a shower, and after she finished, he took one himself, noticing the light rings of her hair in his tub. Despite being hot, the hot water felt wonderful to him. He thought again of how, in a movie, they’d have taken a shower together, even on a first date like this one, and how, in that movie, there’d be pans and cuts of kisses and caresses, hands running down sides, a quick but tasteful butt shot or two. Blakey extended his shower by another ten minutes to allow his erection to go down. He dried, dressed and hoped Jeanette hadn’t become bored, or fallen asleep, or left. He had a fleeting image of Dr. Foley standing in his apartment, holding hands with Jeanette and her smiling up at him. But he found Jeanette sitting alone on his new mattress, towels around her hair and body. She’d turned out all the lights, and the only illumination came through the windows. Light snow falling, caught in the street lights.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. And she said it so honestly that Blakey was afraid she had forgotten she was only wearing towels and that he should look away in case she noticed. Except, she turned her head to him just then, and smiled. The sex, the sex was cool, slow, comfortable. It wasn’t like dancing, but like watching someone dance. Appreciable, not hard work. Like he had known her for much, much longer than just a week.

  Blakey woke an hour or so later with a dull headache. He brought back a bottle of aspirin from the bathroom and they each popped a couple and downed it with a shared glass of water and then looked outside at the snow falling, just small specks of snow. And then, this time, the sex was just like dancing. And then, even later, it was shower steam and hands on tile, the water dripping off Jeanette’s nipples as though she were lactating. But it wasn’t comfortable and he couldn’t finish anyway—and instead they stood together in the shower, laughing and making funny hairdos out of shampoo and Jeanette’s long, long hair. She was punk rocker, then alien, unicorn, Princess Leia, Big Foot, beautiful.

  The phone rang during the night and he heard his ex-wife’s voice on his machine. “Just calling to say Dr. Foley took the saliva test himself and it’s a match. 99.9 percent,” she said. “So nothing for you to worry about.”

  Jeanette turned in her sleep and moved away from him. Blakey sat up in bed and waited for the sadness to come. But it didn’t come. It stayed far outside, tiny shreds of sadness like the falling snow. He settled back into bed and spooned Jeanette.

  In the morning, after Jeanette left for work, Blakey lay on the bed and played with one of her long stray hairs, the only one he could find in the bed. He liked her, really liked her.
She was like a vacation from his life. Could he stay in Jeanetteland longer? What was the immigration policy? He stepped out of bed to reach the phone and call her at work when his big toe squashed something soft, yet hard, too. Like a raisin. If it were spring, he’d easily mistake it for some exotic tree seed, some sidewalk fruit that got embedded in his sole and lifted up to his apartment. But winter was upon them now, and this was no fruit. He looked closer. It was the cat’s eye. For the rest of the morning Blakey felt terrible about the cat. He hoped some amicable peace could develop between himself and his ex-wife’s cat, some forgiveness on both sides for the things that had made the relationship with the parrot come apart, whether rooted in betrayal, alcohol or the more primeval animosity which had doomed the arranged marriage. He realized he felt more remorse for this failure, than for the breakup of his own marriage. After all, no one had died during his divorce. There had been no physical violence (and none inflicted on Dr. Foley, unfortunately), no trips to the E.R.

  He drove to the veterinarian and picked up the survivor of the marriage. The feline widow was ghastly looking thanks to twenty-three stitches and the bruising. She was shaved in places that he didn’t think would have needed shaving. There was something embedded where her eye once took root, like the knot in a bellybutton. He felt afraid of her a bit, afraid he couldn’t rely on his expectations of cat behavior from one who’d survived such an ordeal. In the apartment, he used a ruler to open the door to the carrier. She wouldn’t have anything to do with him and didn’t come out for an hour. Blakey didn’t play any music that evening.

  The next evening, he drove to the mattress showroom and left the car running. This much he knew: when his half off the equity money came in, he and Jeanette were going to have some fun. Go someplace warm, like Puerto Rico. Or maybe visit his brother in Mexico and talk about when they were younger and start over with those memories as his rootstock. He’d spend, say, $10,000, just like that, on a room with an ocean view, breakfast in bed, swimming, sleeping. He could see Jeanette smiling at him from a hotel pool. If, in all the sex they would certainly have, in the margins of failure, he got her pregnant, he would be ready for the feeling and even, he knew now, want her to be. And then, when he got back, he’d find a regular job. Something steady. There were a book’s worth of career ideas in his head, though none appealed to him yet. None called out to him, saying, “Join us Blakey. Become a ____________.” He’d like to own a record store that sold nothing but Hawaiian music. Maybe ukuleles, too. Buying and fixing up old houses also appealed to him—though he knew he had little grasp of repair work. Teaching also seemed plausible, at least the concept of teaching, but only to bright kids, kids with good taste in music and no B.O.