Shot-Blue

by Jesse Ruddock

  Tomasin poured another drink for Stella because she didn’t need another drink. She spilled a lot on the table.

  ‘Well, good for you,’ said Stella, watching her and wanting to touch her to see what she felt like.

  ‘What?’ Tomasin asked, leaning over and wiping the table with her sleeve.

  ‘We do what we do.’ She would forgive the girl for betraying her. ‘We do it to those who get too close to our animal souls.’

  ‘What did I do?’

  ‘What didn’t you do?’

  ‘What’s an animal soul? Are you crazy?’

  ‘No, love. I should be offended by the question, but you can’t offend me.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Because you don’t want to.’

  He didn’t feel like dancing. It was one reason Emiel didn’t invite Tomasin to come. She would want to dance. But could she? She was unwieldy in bed. She would grow out of it, maybe, but for now her legs had a habit of tying themselves up in the bedsheet, by what series of motions it was impossible to imagine. One of her arms was always pinned under her torso. Her hair was in her kiss. There were pauses. He waited for her. She came over after work and sometimes they didn’t eat and grew hungry, felt unhappy, and didn’t know why. His habit was to leave her in his bed when he went out later at night.

  Tomasin listened to him get up, pull on his clothes, and comb his hair in the dark. He had very short hair and she wondered why he bothered combing it. What upset her wasn’t that he left, she thought, but that he combed his hair. And he closed the door so quietly, turning the handle like he was tuning an instrument. Sometimes, after he was gone, she knelt at the side of the bed to feel the floor against her knees. She put her head down and spread out her arms and hair across the top of the bedspread. The floor needed to be swept – she could feel the dirt pressing into her kneecaps.

  Emiel and Stella were at the lodge drinking in the afternoon, alone in the world apart from the boats crossing the bay. The boats beat the waves in a baiting rhythm they both liked.

  ‘What is this? When it touches my tongue, it singes.’ Emiel was determined to match Stella glass for glass.

  ‘It does,’ she agreed.

  ‘Does it have a taste? I can’t taste it.’

  The bottle had no label. It was swish. Noah Coke charged eight dollars for one, twelve for two. She would buy more that day.

  ‘I don’t know what it is, but I like it,’ she said.

  ‘It works.’

  ‘You need it for strength, Emiel. You don’t look strong these days.’

  ‘I’ve never looked strong, I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Do you want to be weak? That suits you?’

  ‘You call me weak for your entertainment. I’m not, I’m fine. I’m just not strong,’ he said. ‘If I felt weak, I’d tell you.’

  ‘You look a bit weakly.’

  ‘I don’t look like anything.’

  ‘You look like a boy who’s lost his ball and doesn’t know where to find it, or what to do now.’

  ‘At least I’m not unkind.’

  She could be unkind. It came naturally and was part of some of her earliest memories. But if she was unkind, it was not for her own benefit. She did it for the people.

  Emiel thought how he hated her smile but loved her mouth.

  ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

  ‘You better keep drinking,’ she answered him, taking another drink herself. ‘I can tell you’re unhappy.’

  Her face should have twisted as the swish hit her throat, but didn’t.

  ‘How’s your wound?’

  ‘Keb told me I’m not allowed to swim. He says the water will soften the wounds.’

  ‘You’ve been swimming, I guess?’

  ‘I try to hold my head out of the water, but it feels best when you dive under.’

  They filled their glasses.

  ‘I don’t like going under,’ said Emiel.

  ‘When you’re under and you can’t take a new breath, that’s what I like. You get to feel how long one breath lasts. It has an arc: everything’s calm, then it’s not. Like life.’

  ‘I’m not drawn to the water. I see that people are.’

  ‘I swim to feel better,’ said Stella, ‘but then I have to get out.’

  Emiel felt strongly for her and wished they could always sit and talk like this.

  ‘When I was young, I could stay in the water for hours. I could stay all day and never stop for lunch. I was so at peace with myself. Now I’m not.’

  ‘No.’

  They tapped glasses to that.

  ‘You look older today, like an old man.’

  ‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘Don’t look at me then.’

  ‘You know who’s young?’ Stella asked, answering before he could anticipate her. ‘Your girlfriend.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call her that.’

  ‘What would you call her?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call her.’

  ‘I don’t mean aloud. I don’t care about that. But in your thoughts, to yourself, what do you say?’

  ‘I don’t say anything.’

  ‘If that’s true, then you’re unkind after all. You’re unkind, too.’

  Emiel put his glass down and rubbed his eyes. He was getting a headache.

  ‘You shouldn’t rub your eyes like that.’

  ‘I don’t know if I’m awake today.’

  ‘So when you’re not with her, you don’t think about her?’

  ‘I don’t, honestly.’

  ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘I don’t think of her unless she’s here.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Unless she’s right here,’ he said, looking around. ‘She’s not here. I’m not thinking of her now, see? The only thing is, sometimes I wish I could do something for her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She wants something from me.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘It’s not me she wants. It doesn’t have anything to do with me, but there I am, so she preoccupies herself. Here I am, I mean.’

  ‘Here you are,’ said Stella.

  ‘An old man.’

  ‘There’s something you could do for her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You could bring her dancing with us. You could take her by the waist, not gently, and dance tonight for a long time. You should. Your father wants you to dance.’

  That was not something Emiel wanted. ‘Why not gently?’ he asked. ‘I’m not saying I will, but if I do, why can’t I do it gently, Stella? Why does everything have to be hard?’

  ‘If you’re too gentle, there’s nothing worse, Emiel.’

  ‘You think she wants to dance?’

  ‘I say you take her dancing.’

  ‘I thought about it. She doesn’t have the shoes.’

  ‘Don’t be so specific,’ said Stella, finishing her drink by spilling half across the back of her hand.

  ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t do it for my sake.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll do it just because.’

  ‘It’s not right to fuck her ad nauseam, then refuse to take her dancing. You’ve turned it all around.’

  ‘I’m not refusing.’

  ‘And we’re leaving next week.’

  ‘We are, but we’re not sentimental, are we? Why are you thinking about this girl so much? Are you okay? I’ll take her to the dance for the hell of it, I will, but not because we’re leaving.’

  ‘You must be a gentleman, but not too gentle.’

  ‘I’ll do it for you,’ he said with his eyes fixed on her mouth, trying to guess what she was going to tell him next.

  ‘Do it for yourself.’

  ‘I knew you were going to say that.’

  ‘The girl, she complains.’

  ‘And you listen?’

  ‘Even if I didn’t listen, I would hear her.’

  ‘She complains about me?’

  ‘Not e
xactly.’

  Emiel got out of his chair and crouched low in front of Stella. He wanted to kiss her, but the last time he’d tried that she had pushed him in the throat with the palm of her hand. Her hands were hard. So were her arms. They were like the arms of a mother of many children.

  ‘I don’t care about her,’ he said.

  ‘Let me finish, now that I’ve started. It’s important.’

  ‘What could be so important? This sucks.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to tell you. I thought you should find out, but you obviously don’t want to know.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The girl complains. I’ve been trying to tell you all afternoon but you don’t listen to me.’

  ‘All I do is listen to you.’

  ‘She complains about eating.’

  ‘She pretends she’s sick so she doesn’t have to work,’ he said. ‘She told me that. She idles. I would blame her, but we do too.’

  ‘She’s like us.’

  ‘Not exactly.’ He didn’t want to talk about her anymore.

  ‘Maybe exactly.’

  ‘She complains to feel close to you,’ said Emiel.

  ‘That makes no sense. It annoys me when she complains.’ Stella put her hand in his hair and pulled a little.

  ‘I think she’s in love with you. Just like everyone. And I hate them all,’ he said. ‘I hate them for it.’

  ‘Not everyone, just you. And you’re drunk.’

  ‘You’re insane.’

  ‘I’m insane?’

  ‘Say something that isn’t complicated,’ he cried. ‘I don’t want one of your riddles. It isn’t fair, Stella, I’m not good at them.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering if she’s pregnant. Do you really want me to say that?’

  It was the first thing Tristan noticed. She was wearing someone else’s shoes and they didn’t fit.

  When Tomasin saw Tristan’s silhouette through the slats of the floorboards, she tried to laugh but her feet hurt too much.

  He pulled the string-and-washer necklace out of his shirt to show her that he was wearing it.

  She swallowed her laughter dryly like water crackers and it stuck to the sides of her mouth and the back of her tongue. She needed a sip of water and to slip out of these shoes.

  Tristan stared up with his neck sharply bent and held the necklace. He pulled on the string like he might lift his body up by it, as if his body were an anchor he could raise to her. The string dug a fine line into the back of his neck, almost cutting into him, but he didn’t feel it. Or he did, but didn’t care.

  It was like they had each other by the wrists and were spinning in tight circles. They both felt sick and wanted to let go but feared the letting go. He thought Tomasin had come back to sit beside him, but she was upstairs. When would she come down? And why was she walking like a heron, with stick legs?

  She wondered what he had around his neck and why he was pulling on it.

  Their eyes met through the floorboards, with nothing to say, waiting for the other to do something.

  Tomasin looked down and breathed.

  Tristan did nothing but look back at her, holding his breath and the necklace.

  Then she stepped forward and with one of her boots blocked him out.

  ‘I thought you wanted to dance,’ Emiel said, coming up beside her.

  ‘I don’t feel like it.’

  ‘But you’re here. Don’t you like it?’

  ‘I feel tired. Do you feel tired?’

  ‘We should dance.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘People dance in summer. I thought you wanted to come here with me?’

  She went to lean on the end of the piano, but as she did, the music rose up, growling at her and scaring her off.

  ‘You need something to eat, a piece of fruit? I’ll get it for you.’

  ‘I don’t need a piece of fruit.’

  ‘I can hold you up, come on.’

  Trying to dance, Emiel and Tomasin brought themselves to bear on each other. They worried they felt too little, then worried about feeling too much, only to end up feeling nothing but a conviction that something bad was happening between them, they didn’t know what.

  Tristan watched her do it to herself. How many times had she told him that she could dance? Now all she did was get carried around the dance floor by an old man.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered at Emiel’s shoulder.

  He could tell she was hungry by touching her. She was against him but slipping down. Her dress was cotton, its only thickness in the stitches of the hem. There was nothing to hold, and Emiel suddenly hated how young she was. He wondered what he was doing. He wondered if he should hold her very tightly or let her fall to the boards. He was paralyzed, he was dancing. They both were.

  Tristan needed her to come down from there. He needed it for himself. He’d been waiting. He also needed it for her. She used to be at ease, and it was in her walk, and now it seemed she couldn’t walk. She was being held up – her feet a breath above the floor – and it wasn’t like she was floating along. She was being dragged.

  ‘Don’t be surprised,’ Stella had told Emiel. ‘That’s just painful.’

  ‘I am surprised,’ he remembered saying.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  He deserved it. What he didn’t deserve was Stella’s involvement. It had to be her of all people to tell him what was going on in his life. When she’d told him, he felt nothing, only wondered how he should feel.

  ‘Now you’ll have a past,’ she’d said. ‘Welcome to the club.’

  He’d never conceived of having a past. He didn’t know what that meant.

  Watching Tomasin go, he thought about following but instead stayed close to the piano, where no one could talk to him. Girls lose babies, he thought. He didn’t wish this and never would, assuring himself, but he thought about it. Because they did. If your thoughts never appall you, then you must be dead, he went on thinking. He didn’t know the man playing the piano but felt they were friends. Every note seemed to last a long time. Every note singled him out and told him he was probably right about most people, if not everyone: they were beggars to feeling; feeling was their god, they sat at her feet, pulled at her dress, tore off little ratty pieces of it, begging to be touched in turn. There was a reason the gods wore no shoes in the statues and the paintings. People had stolen them off their feet.

  Tristan dragged his feet to let her know he was following. When she started to run, he stopped and watched her disappear in the turns of the path. Rows of stones lined the path to mark its edge, and he chose one with a flat top and sat down. He wondered if it was one of his stones – one he’d helped to carry and set. It was a grey rock, no lustre. It was one of his, he thought, because they all were. Looking down the row, they were like gravestones. If Tristan came from anywhere, if he had family, this was his lineage, this row as grey as a day of slow-coming rain. The sky on those days was a stone. The stone he was sitting on was a piece of that sky, and so were all the stones he’d picked up and thrown into the water. He knew some things others took for granted weren’t true. He knew he didn’t own anything, not a stone. No one owned a piece of land, not a cabin, not a lamp, not the oil in the lamp, not the oil on his skin.

  ‘I don’t care what you think of me,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t see you,’ he said, looking up at her. She’d come back to him.

  ‘How could you not see me? You followed me here.’

  ‘But you ran away. I sat down.’

  ‘You’re a faster runner than I am. You could have caught me.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to be caught.’

  ‘Here I am,’ she said, impatiently.

  ‘I thought you were gone.’ He spoke like he was afraid to wake someone sleeping nearby. He was afraid to wake something in himself. He had to give up before she would come back – was that it?

  ‘So what do you want?’ she asked.

  He didn’t
think he wanted anything.

  ‘You’re religious,’ she told him. ‘Do you know why I love saying that about you? Because it’s true. It’s not even a joke, it’s not funny,’ she said, beginning to cry.

  It was impossible that she should understand him. The problem was sometimes it seemed she might. Sometimes she did. He wanted to cry too, but couldn’t, so she was doing it for them. He wanted to know if there would be another time together. What was he supposed to do if he wasn’t allowed to think about her and wait for her through winter? It was about surviving time, being together and not alone. Did she know the end of summer meant fall? That’s what he wanted to ask her. Did she know how late they were in making up? That she was leaving? Is that why she was crying?

  ‘I talk about you,’ she said, confessing. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying, but I talk about you all the time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I talk too much. I don’t feel well,’ she said.

  She was asking for permission to go.

  ‘Don’t go away,’ he said.

  Tomasin dropped to her knees, pushing off the ground quickly. And now she needed to brush the dirt off her hands, but since that would admit what had just happened – she’d fallen down on the ground – she didn’t brush them and the dirt stayed matted to her palms. She spread her fingers out not to feel it very much.

  ‘I don’t feel well either,’ he told her.

  She fell again, but this time he gave her his arms to pull up on, and she took them.

  Tristan stood at the door of Keb’s screen porch. It was a long porch with siding up to his waist and screen to the ceiling. It was a porch that might have had a table and many chairs, but there was only one chair.

  ‘It’s you again,’ said Keb.

  ‘I’ve never come here,’ said Tristan, pressing against the screen. He shouldn’t have pressed like that, the screen could stretch or rip, but he liked the cool porous feeling of it against his skin. He liked how it separated them but only slightly. If he needed to, he could get through.

  Tristan saw Keb’s hands on the arms of his chair, curled and clenched like he was holding oars. He’d worked so hard with them for so long they’d clawed up. Tristan knew the same thing would happen to his hands.

  ‘How are things with you?’ asked Keb.