Place alarms on the doors. Not the kind that require a monthly fee to connect to a monitoring service. No, just the cheap battery-powered ones that adhere with double-sided tape. Open the door and hear the insistent squawk of the plastic box. Feel safer. When you prepare to move, forget to take the alarms down. Potential tenants will tour your tiny space and notice, with excitement, the alarm box on the doorframe. Explain that the alarm cannot alert the police or the fire department or the call center of a private security company. The alarm doesn’t actually do anything except beep and wake you if you try to leave the house while sleeping. Divert their nosy questions about somnambulism. Reassure them and say that the house has never been burglarized.
Install alarms at new place. Fall asleep on couch and wake up in different outfit on top of your bed. Laugh at yourself. It’s happened before. Make sure your dog is inside and return to your bed until morning.
Wake up wearing pajamas. Make coffee. Look for your toaster. Begin to realize that last night’s episode involved moving the toaster to an illogical location. Check each room, looking where no reasonable person would place a toaster. Check the pantry. Check the laundry bin. Look inside shoe cubbies. Check the home office and discover a tower of books that you’ve read this year, books you never consciously placed in a tower. Notice the toaster, perched on your worn copy of The Magus like an oversized Christmas star. Pick up the toaster and detect more weight than one should expect from a small appliance. Tilt the toaster and watch water pour out from its dial and two slots. Hope that Sleepwalking You considered, and avoided, the perils of electricity when submerging the device. Hope that Sleepwalking You didn’t dunk the toaster in the toilet. Wash hands and order a new toaster.
Tell not-quite-yet boyfriend about the toaster. Be forewarned. He will now sneak up on you as you make a nighttime cheese snack because he assumes you wouldn’t consciously choose to eat at three in the morning. He will now recount anything that happened the night before to make sure you remember it. Sometimes you won’t remember it.
Research sleepwalking. Learn that alcohol is a trigger but choose to drink anyway. Drink only two glasses of wine and still do things you can’t remember because you’re a sleepwalker. Do not tell anyone about these episodes. They will just assume you were blitzed.
Go on vacation. Let Sleepwalking You wake your boyfriend and ask him to take a shower with you. Sleepwalking You will start the shower and climb into the stream of water. When the boyfriend climbs into the shower, Sleepwalking You will leave without explanation.
You will wake up as you finish buttoning your flannel nightshirt. Notice that he is staring at you, wrapped in a towel, soaking wet, and the clock reads 3:00 in the morning. Make him explain to you why he is soaking wet. Watch his astonishment as he realizes he’s finally witnessed an episode.
Consider seeking professional help. Do more research. Realize that this requires sleep labs and overnights in cities that are hours away. Resolve to not drink wine before bed.
Drink La Croix before bed after grading papers. Decide to reward yourself. Put on your favorite Christmas onesie, the one that makes you look like a giant penguin, and watch a movie on the couch.
Wake up two hours later with the cops at your door. As soon as you hear the persistent knocking, you know it’s the police. No one you know would knock like that or holler “Ma’am” through the door. You will notice a distant barking and then realize why the police were called. Sleepwalking You let the dog out. Open the door and apologize to the cops. Watch the cops laugh at your onesie. Replace the batteries on your alarms.
Explain to your boyfriend that the episodes happen in clusters, then disappear for years at a time. When he insists that you need to get help, stop dating him.
Wake up at sunrise fully dressed and on top of a neatly made bed and wonder if you can harness your power for good. When you were little, you once fell asleep in the middle of the day, or at least that was the explanation you settled upon. One minute you were reading in bed and the next — actually three hours later, you could tell by the clock — you were sitting on a couch in the basement as your father spoke with you about what you’d missed on the show he was watching.
You asked him if you’d said any words, if he knew you were asleep. He said that you weren’t asleep, that you asked what he was doing. In your cognitive absence, he had explained the entire plot of two episodes of The X-Files, including one about a gargoyle. “Remember,” your dad kept saying, “remember about the gargoyle?” He reminded you, as though repeating the plot would resurrect your memory: the artist told Mulder that the gargoyle made him kill. More than anything, your father could not believe that his thorough summaries fell on uncomprehending ears.
You later found episode summaries online. You told your dad that you vaguely remembered the conversation you had. You wondered if you actually recalled the episode or if you’d fabricated a memory based on your father’s dedicated recap, because as you read the words, you saw the image: the bloody outline of a gargoyle on the concrete wall. The most probable reality is that you lied — to your dad and to yourself — because a part of you worried that something was deeply wrong with your brain. Another part of you, the part that usually wins, would rather not think about cognitive impairments or disease.
But of course you were asleep, or else you would have remembered those three hours. And what happened to the hours before you descended the stairs and spoke to your father? Did you eat any dog food? Isn’t it possible that you would walk outside, expose yourself to a stranger, and return to the house, none the wiser? As an adult, you will worry, what if Sleepwalking You commits a crime? As an adult, you will also worry, how could people not know that you weren’t really there?
You watch a documentary about a man who sleepwalks out a third-story window and survives. You read articles about people who sleep-kill their lovers. You forgive your ex for insisting that you need help. You ask him to meet you for coffee. The coffee turns to drinks, then dinner, then drinks at your house. Despite the drinks, you remember going to bed after a satisfactory but rather unremarkable act of coitus. After, you remember scrubbing your eyes with a face wipe as you sat on the toilet.
In the morning, you find the mascara-stained tissue on top of the trash, next to two condoms. What you don’t remember is climbing on top of him, removing his shirt, and kissing the entire length of his torso. In the morning, he stretches in the slats of sunlight your blinds let in. He smiles, sated, and says, “That was really fun last night.” And you will think, how fun was I? And after you answer that question for yourself, you will wonder about Sleepwalking You. You ask him to describe what he means, and he obliges. He details the intensity you cannot remember, a position you rarely use, and how quickly you returned to sleep after. What did my eyes look like? you ask. It was dark, he’ll explain, and you will feel resentment blooming: how could he not tell?
You will doubt him. You think of all the rotten men you’ve known, all the rotten men your friends have known: the men with tequila in the trunk pushing a few shots too many and giving blackout come-ons, the men with insistent dicks and runaway minds, the men who touch you when you least expect it, only to insist that you prompted it. There was a look, or something. And sometimes, flimsiness aside, their words linger.
Sometimes you think, maybe there’s something I don’t know about myself. You picture yourself rising up in the darkness, eyes shut with dreams. You picture yourself peeling the sheets off him, coaxing him into wanting you, pulling him up and taking him in, and even at the thought, you will feel the soreness between your legs thrumming pleasantly, as if pleased by the memory that is not a memory.
You will wonder: should I blame him? You will cry, and he will hold you, and you will decide to make rules. If we follow the rules, you think, nothing bad will happen. If he follows the rules, you can trust him again.
Together, you arrive at an agreement. If you have already fallen asleep during the evening in question — even if only for a mo
ment — he must ask you the following three questions, and you must respond in a satisfactory manner before he proceeds with any intimate gestures. Even if you were to pull him forcefully from the pillow by the lapels of his old-timey nightshirt, he is to resist your advances unless you can provide a cogent, nuanced response to the following:
1. What is the last thing you ate?
2. What would you like to do?
3. What makes you think you’re awake right now?
The experiment works until it fails. One night, you are asleep and he is half-asleep. He forgets to ask the questions. You wake up on top of him. “What’s wrong?” he asks when you stop moving, when you pull away and face the wall. He remembers the questions then, and he holds you, telling your hair over and over, “I’m sorry.” You ninety-nine percent believe him. You feel ninety-nine percent comforted.
There is nothing that will convince what remains in that one percent of you, so learn to live with it. Perhaps you will get better at compartmentalization. Your relationship will continue on a linear trajectory: the consolidation of living quarters, the procurement of a cat, discussions of procreation, et cetera.
Or perhaps you will listen to that part of you that worries. Perhaps you will think, do I really know him? On particularly troubled evenings, you wonder, who do I know, really?
When he is munching loudly on tortilla chips, when you are staring at him chewing, he swallows thickly and asks, “What are you thinking?”
You should lie. You know you should lie. But you will tell him that you have trust issues, that your mind feels like a betrayal or your body feels betrayed or both or neither. “Maybe I’ve been raped,” you’re horrified to hear yourself say.
His hands retreat from the chip bag. “What makes you say that?”
“How many times has someone slept with me without my knowing?” you say. “How would I know?”
“How would they know?” he asks.
This is when you will channel your anger. You accuse him. “How could you not tell I was sleeping?”
“I couldn’t tell,” he says. “I swear.”
“But you should have known,” you say. Because you were asleep, each and every time, you cannot know what you looked like to him in the groggy darkness. You blame your body for looking awake. You blame your somnambulant eyes for seeking, finding, and focusing on his in the moonlit room. You imagine your body as a self-driving car; mind, optional.
When he tells you he can’t sleep with you until you figure this out, you remind him that the nearest medical facility equipped to study sleep patterns, equipped to wire you like a rat and observe Sleepwalking You, is five hours away. You remind him that you have an individual healthcare plan with a high deductible. That you don’t get paid for sick days. You give him all the reasons until he finally leaves.
You expect him to return. For months, when your phone chimes, you will think, this is it. He’s finally reaching out to me. You will never reach out to him. That one percent will not allow you. When you miss him terribly, you will think of answers to the questions he never asked. You will imagine that you answered them, that you both laughed, comfortable in the knowing.
1. We sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor and ate vanilla ice cream with fresh basil sprinkled on top. Then I climbed into bed, too tired to keep my eyes open. You kissed my lashes. You held me.
2. I would like to trust you.
3. I don’t know. I feel awake. I think I’m awake. Do my eyes seem like my own? And my voice? Please. Give me a puzzle, a riddle, and I’ll solve it.
You imagine him sitting in your bed, posing this question:
There are three lovers. One lover always tells the truth. Another always lies. The third lover will only respond with randomness, but you don’t know which is which. You may ask three yes-or-no questions. How do you tell who is who?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Earlier versions of some of the stories in this collection have appeared in the following:
“Milking.” Mississippi Review, Volume 47, Number 1&2, Summer 2019.
“Steering” (appearing in this collection as “The Neighbor’s Cat”). Juked, Number 15, March 2018.
“Spores.” Pleiades, Volume 35, Number 2, Summer 2014.
“Like the Love of Some Dead Girl.” Notre Dame Review, Issue 47, Winter/Spring 2019.
“Overnights Welcome.” Beloit Fiction Journal, Volume 32, Spring 2019.
“Landline.” Day One. Amazon Publishing. August 2017.
The title of the story “Like the Love of Some Dead Girl” is a phrase taken from Ask the Dust by John Fante.
Deepest gratitude to everyone at Blair, especially Robin Miura and Lynn York, and thank you to Carmen Maria Machado, who judged the contest that gave my book such a wonderful home. Thank you to the editors and journals that gave some of these stories their first homes: Chris Fink at Beloit Fiction Journal, Adam Clay and Rachael Fowler at Mississippi Review, Ryan Ridge and Ashley Farmer at Juked, Phong Nguyen at Pleiades, Carmen Johnson at Day One, and the editorial team at Notre Dame Review. I am forever grateful for the support I received from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Tin House Workshop, and Black Mountain Institute while working on these stories.
I’m thankful for the time, support, and community offered by the writing programs I attended at the University of Mississippi and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Thank you to the friends who made these places intensely memorable and formative, and to those who eagerly discussed their writing and the stories and poems that inspired them: Brett Finlayson, MaryBeth Finlayson, Olivia Clare, Hanna Andrews, Leia Penina Wilson, Natasha Sushenko, Sean Breckling, Christine Bettis, Becky Robison, Lizzie Tran, Josh-Wade Ferguson, Travis Smith, Jimmy Cajoleas, Marty Cain, Kina Viola, Kaitlyn Wall, Rachel Smith, and Laura Godfrey. To the Stake Out work-shoppers who kindly offered feedback on my writing: Tim Buchanan, Brittany Bronson, Timea Balogh, Zach Wilson, Joe Milan, Dan Hernandez. And to Lorinda Toledo, who generously read many drafts of these stories and offered encouragement when I needed it most.
Thank you to the Weird Lady Monsters: Yohanca Delgado, Sarah Gerkensmeyer, Kathryn McMahon, K. C. Mead-Brewer, and Nancy Nguyen. To R. L. Maizes, for sharing wisdom. To my family in Vegas, Jeffrey and Victoria Poland, who welcomed me to a new city and cheered me on. And to Thade Correa, who — when I could not imagine living another year in L.A. — told me about an MFA program in Mississippi and changed my life forever.
To the teachers and mentors who have inspired me through the years — Maile Chapman, Doug Unger, Beth Rosenberg, Richard Wiley, Jesmyn Ward, Nic Brown, Jack Pendarvis, Tommy Franklin, Chris Offutt, and John Brandon.
Thank you to my parents, Fonda and Vernon. Without your love and encouragement and many childhood trips to libraries and bookstores, this book would never have been.
And to Michael — my great love, my favorite wordsmith. Thank you for being my partner, supporting my dreams, and keeping this conversation going that I never want to end.
What Makes You Think You're Awake? Page 21