This Body

by Laurel Doud

Yeah, but Hooker's gonna give you more than shit when you give him back the package with a hole in it.

  “Shit,” Katharine swore as she found some Band-Aids and pulled the knife out very gently and quickly covered the wound. She replaced the wrapper and flipped the package on its back to keep the seams together. “Shit.”

  I gotta get this back to him. I gotta tell him I can't do this. There's probably a time limit on this kind of thing. He'll come after me when the client calls him and says the stuff didn't show up.

  “Shit.”

  . . .

  At exactly nine o'clock she arrived at Potters, a downtown bar on a long skinny corner lot. Hooker's package was in an oversized shoulder bag; she didn't dare leave it in Thisby's car with that flimsy canvas top. It was a hot night, but she had soaked through her clothes with fear, not heat. The smell of her kept her thinking that she was standing next to a stranger, and it wasn't hard to imagine the feel of Hooker's blade running across her own throat.

  It had been the longest day. She couldn't concentrate and keep the voice that whispered quiet. She prowled the apartment, trying to outdistance her own smell, and took three long showers and paced again — the voice that whispered incessantly murmuring in her ear. She had gone to the store as early as possible to buy packing tape, to patch up the knife wound. She expected the police to come barging in her door any second. And Quince? Was this her day to come? She couldn't remember. Would Quince let herself in with her key, hurt and then furious at the sight of her seemingly strung-out sister and a loaf of drugs on the kitchen counter?

  When she taped the hole and a bit of the powder dusted her fingertips, she swore they tingled as if they were having an allergic reaction.

  Just lick it off your fingers, the whispery voice cooed. What's the big deal? Hooker's not gonna know, and it's so little, it can't hurt you.

  She had her fingers up to her tongue before she curled them back into her palm, marking her skin with her nails. She washed the cocaine off, and a fleshburn dotted the tips of her fingers.

  She left the house at eight, strung so tight, she thought she might snap. And all day she had not allowed herself to hear that other voice again, that voice that floated across the room like a poltergeist, “I love you.”

  He was playing pool and looked like a hustler; he had just missed what looked like an easy shot. When he saw her, he smiled, and Katharine felt her chest ease a bit. He walked her over to the opposite wall.

  “It go okay?”

  She opened the bag that she had put the drugs in and held it up to him so he could see inside. He closed it quickly, a frown on his face. “Shit, Thiz, whaddya doin' bringing it here?.” He looked around quickly and took her back into a storeroom filled with cases of beer and hard liquor. “What's wrong? I gave you the address, didn't I?”

  “Yes, it's not that.” Her throat felt dry, and she wanted to guzzle the entire contents of the room. “I can't do it. I can't be your runner.” She suddenly needed breathing lessons. “I can't do it ever again. I'm out.”

  He looked surprised, and then his eyelids narrowed. He grabbed her wrist, and she struggled but couldn't release herself. “What's gotten into you? First you disappear for a month, then you treat me like shit, then you jump my bones, now I'm shit again. What gives?”

  “Last night was a mistake. I meant what I said”— and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful … my God, stop it —“I meant what I said last week. I'm clean, and I want you to leave me alone.”

  Hooker let go of her and just stood there. Then his whole body seemed to coil up and tense. “Are you dumping me?”

  It was Katharine's turn to look surprised. He'd said it in such a way that it sounded like, Was she really giving back his frat pin? “It's not as if we were engaged or anything,” she said, and then flinched at the look on his face. Were we?

  Katharine suddenly had a vision of Thisby and Hooker, in perhaps a rare quiet moment, curled up on Thisby's couch. She's snuggled against his chest, her head tucked up under his chin. “My parents would have a shitfit if I married you,” she says to his collarbone. His voice comes to her softly from above. “My parents wouldn't be so pleased either, but that wouldn't be the reason I'd marry you.”

  Hooker's body shifted, and Katharine jumped back, slamming her hipbone into a corner of shelving. She straightened slowly and, gently taking out the package, put in on a stack of J & B cases. “Here. You'll need to rewrap it. There's a hole in it.”

  He stepped toward her, but she moved out of striking distance and said hurriedly, “I didn't take any. I swear. Weigh it or whatever you do. I stabbed the package with a knife when I realized what you had left me.”

  He smiled, and chuckled. Katharine relaxed. He did have a way about him. “That's my Thisby. Come on back into the bar, and I'll buy you a beer, and we'll talk.”

  Is he the voice that whispers? He sounds so reasonable but … but they're not the same. “No, I can't. I mean it. I'm out. I'm sorry.” Why am I sorry? He closed in on her. “No, don't touch me.” She slid around to the door. The skin around her wrist tingled and sang. Then she was sorry. In more ways than one.

  She stumbled through the door and out of the bar, limping slightly. He followed her out but didn't cross the street where her car was parked. Her hands shook crazily as she tried to open the door, watching him watch her. He put his hands on the roof of a white Lexus two-door, and a mechanical voice spoke loudly from the automobile, “Please step away from car.” Hooker pressed the entire length of his body against the passenger door, stretching his arms across the moonroof. “You have three seconds to step away from the car before the security system is engaged,” the voice monotoned.

  Katharine got the door open but watched him in fascination until the shrill horn blew. A group of well-dressed people on the corner turned toward the sound, and some came running. She swung herself into the seat, locking the door behind her. As she drove past Hooker, he followed her with mild, confident eyes, ignoring the protestations of the car's nervous yuppie owner trying to get him to back off the paint job.

  Act 3, Scene 4

  What, must I hold a candle to my shames?

  — JESSICA, The Merchant of Venice, 2.6.41

  She knocked on Goodfellow's door, and his voice called out from inside, “Who is it?”

  “It's me. Thisby.”

  “Come on in. I'm on the phone with True.”

  He was standing in the kitchen with a towel tucked around his waist, holding the phone. He wasn't dripping, but his hair was damp and his chest had a soft, moist look to it. Katharine tried to look elsewhere, but the look of his newly showered body kept drawing her back. The towel was slung low on his hips; she could see the tan line from his shorts. He and Hooker were about the same size, and although Hooker spent more time in the gym (had, no doubt, more time to spend in the gym) she liked the shape of Goodfellow's torso, which was slim and — what am I talking about? I can't believe I was so petrified that I had to get out of the apartment, and now I'm calmly comparing their gross anatomy.

  She had come over ostensibly to bring him the new set of keys to her apartment and her unlisted phone number, but it was the idea of spending another night alone that had really made her visit him unannounced. She sat at the dining-room table and traced his profile against the backdrop of the cabinet doors.

  “I'll ask her.” Puck dropped the end of the receiver away from his mouth and spoke to her. “True's inviting us over this Saturday afternoon to his parents' house in Long Beach. He was going to call you after he called me, but since you're here … Can you go?”

  Her heart thumped erratically, but then her mood lightened. Emily and Hank. Yes, she could handle them. She could even get them to talk. Well, Hank anyway. She hadn't known what she should do next about her family and had been feeling guilty because she had been so inept, so waffling, so undecided. But now she was back on track. She felt calmer, more at ease about them than she had in days. She nodded her assent.

  When Pu
ck turned to hang up the receiver, the cord, which had gotten hooked under a corner of the towel, pulled free the tuck at his waist. He grabbed at his hip and managed to catch one side of the towel, but the other dropped down, exposing his right buttock and the port wine stain that was slanted across his skin, from low to high. It looked like a cattle brand; it was elongated with symmetrical curves and had … a divet. It was as if he had been seared by a bright-red pair of lips.

  Goodfellow disentangled the cord and rebound the towel around his waist. He saw that Katharine was staring at him. “Yeah, the ol' fairy kiss.” He rubbed the spot. “I used to think it would lose its shape or, at least, lose its color as I got older, but the ol' mark prodigious just grew right along with me.”

  The mark prodigious. She remembered that from A Midsummer Night's Dream. In the end the fairies bless the bridal beds so their children shall ever be fortunate. No harelips or skin blotches for them. None of the Bennet children were so fortunate, were they? Thisby's defect just wasn't visible, that's all.

  Puck left and came back wearing a pair of cotton drawstring shorts. He had run a comb through his hair, which lay slicked back over the top, though the waves, refusing to stay straight, curled back on themselves. “So why the unlisted phone number? The new locks?”

  “Oh, that.” She gave him the short version, leaving out the X-rated parts, but no matter how she edited it, the censors were still squirming in their seats.

  He was silent for a long time.

  Say something. Say anything.

  He was silent for a bit longer. “Well, I'm glad you've dumped this guy, but I gather you're still scared that he won't leave you alone.”

  “Yes.”

  “So spend the night here. Maybe we can think about something else — some other way to handle it — later.” He came over and stood near her. She could feel the moist heat coming from his naked torso. She leaned back, feeling uncomfortable. “We'll figure something out.” He touched her hesitantly on the shoulder. His fingertips, like the cocaine, caused her skin to feel hot.

  They really didn't talk much more that evening. Katharine was waiting for him to go to bed, and Puck was, no doubt, thinking about his troubles with Vivian. He and Vivian were fighting. “Not really fighting,” he told her, a little too cavalierly. “She just gets silent.” He massaged his kneecap. “She's good at that. Silence.” He folded his arms over his chest and looked at Katharine, his forehead bunched up over his eyes. “I know most people think she's a bit stiff, but, really, she can be different. We haven't been together for all that long, but I like her. She hasn't had an easy life. I really respect her.”

  “What's she mad about?”

  “Oh, I don't know. I'm pretty good at the silent part too.”

  “You're talking to me, aren't you?”

  “Well, sure. You're easy to talk to.”

  Katharine had to hold down the corners of a silly smile.

  Puck shook his head. “You know, I don't know. There are a lot of times when I want to talk to her. Really talk to her. About my job. What I don't want. What she wants. I think I must go about it the wrong way, though, because the more I try to get her to talk, the more she clams up.

  “She calls me the yin-yang man.”

  “Does she?”

  “She says there's not much gray in me. I want to talk. I don't want to talk. I'm serious. I'm not serious enough.” He stood up. “I don't know.”

  Puck's leatherbound copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream lay open in Katharine's lap, her fingers tracing Oberon's instructions to his fairy minions to bless the children of the newlyweds and keep them from the despised blots of birth defects. Katharine was in that innerspace where she seemed to be able to mind-walk within Thisby's life. It scared her, how easy it was to imagine herself standing at the bottom of the stairs at the Bennet house, her right hand on the newel post, her right toe tap, tap, tapping on the first step. She's on her way out to meet some friends downtown. Her parents are in the living room discussing Quince and one of her many illnesses. God, her parents like to jabber. Always in the kitchen or the living room, gibbering. She doesn't normally care enough to eavesdrop, but her father's voice catches her. “The fairies missed Quince, didn't they? Sometimes I think she is despisèd.”

  The anger that has simmered under the bedpan of her brain for years suddenly boils over. That fucking play. Our fucking lives have been scripted by that fucking play. Puck is despised. Quince is despised. So what does that make me?

  She stomps into the living room. Her parents are surprised; they didn't even know she was home. She screams and yells at them. Why can't you just accept me as I am — not as a fucking character in a fucking play. Why are we performing our lives against some moldy text? Her parents' faces are studied masks; she wants to slap them. Things then start to get jumbled. She's losing her focus, but she can't stop the words. And if Quince is so despised, how come she got all the attention? How come she got the dog and Puck and all the attention? And Puck's despised too, isn't he? Poor Puck. Poor Quince. You can feel sorry for them, can't you? But me? I'm not despised, or I'm not supposed to be.

  Well, she'll show them how to be despised. They ain't seen nothing yet.

  Act 3, Scene 5

  He told me I would forget. But how could I not remember?

  — JANE FONDA, Old Gringo (1989)

  Anne was making coffee in the kitchen, and Katharine and Robert were left in the dining room, the crumbs of their dinner still scattered over the tablecloth. Quince had gone off with friends, but promised to be back for Oberon's next feeding.

  Katharine had driven Quince and Oberon home after her work at the clinic. Thisby had been invited to stay for dinner and spend the night — only if she wanted to — and Katharine had accepted, much to Anne and Robert's surprise and wariness.

  This was the length to which Katharine would go to avoid being alone, though it was a deceptive aloneness — her mind was alive with the company of thought, fear, and voice.

  She had spent one more night at Goodfellow's, making dinner for them. It was the least she could do. She had returned both days to Thisby's apartment and found it undisturbed — no strange marks on the lock, no obscene messages shoved underneath the door, no blinking lights on the answering machine.

  Goodfellow and she had talked a lot over dinner, the bowls of their repast covering the small table. Goodfellow was a good storyteller — like his father — making a soap opera out of the daily happenings at work. Katharine's husband had always cut to the chase, and it drove Philip crazy when she wanted to stretch out the telling with prefaces and digressions and background information. So it was with great pleasure that she had told Goodfellow, in lengthy detail, about her escapades at the concert and in Ashland, even pulling aside the neck of her shirt to show him the now-faded tattoo.

  Then Puck had gone to see Vivian. Katharine thought he would certainly not come home that night, but he did — and she was glad. She wasn't afraid in his apartment, but it was nice to have someone else around, someone to talk to. It kept the whispering down and kept her from thinking too much about the party at the Dentons. She didn't want to think about how it was going to feel seeing Emily and Hank. It was enough to know that it was going to happen.

  “I think we're okay now,” Puck told Katharine when he got back from Vivian's. “She's leaving for a few days to visit her parents in Paris, Texas. She says she does this every year. It's not unusual. I think when she comes back, everything will be back to normal. She just needs to get away for a while. I think it will be good for the both of us. Don't you?”

  Anne returned with the coffee, which seemed to prompt Robert into speaking. “Hey, how's the exhibit going?”

  “Great. Good.” Katharine bobbed her head. “It's going good.”

  “Anything I can do, just let me know.”

  “No, we're fine. We've got it under control.” But then Katharine remembered her last conversation with Max; he was pressuring her about printing up the other photographs.
“Well, actually, I take that back. You can help. I'm going to need some help with the printing. Would you mind?”

  Robert's face shone.

  He's so easy to please.

  “Of course. I'd love to. No problem. Just tell me what you want done.”

  Katharine nodded. Max had essentially told her what she wanted done.

  “I got an e-mail from your Uncle Roy,” Robert continued. “He's coming up for your exhibit.”

  “I know. I got a postcard saying he'd be there with bells on.” The postcard was of a Central American version of the jackalope, half turtle, half alligator, the amateurish pasteup oddly affecting.

  “Oh, God. With Roy that probably means he'll have bells on. Literally.”

  From the corner of Katharine's eye, she saw that Anne was watching this exchange as if she were the chair umpire at a tennis match, following the ball with incredible powers of concentration.

  “Roy always did consider you his kindred spirit.” The way he said it made Katharine feel that Robert didn't think that was such a special distinction, though he was trying to disguise it. He turned sideways in his chair and crossed his arms and legs. “My brother was not an easy person to live with. I always thought you blamed me when he left the country — as if I had something to do with it. Actually, he felt he could manage his investment business just as easily from Belize as from here. He certainly could live cheaper.” He shook his head. “I've stopped worrying about what you kids are going to accuse me of, because I figure it's going to be something I had no control over anyway. It's all in your perspective.”

  Katharine wondered if Robert ever lectured for UCLA extension courses. She could see him at the lectern with his light pen, emphasizing certain paragraphs on the overhead projector.

  “I'm not being self-righteous. I was the same way as a kid too. I thought Roy got everything, and I got nothing. Roy might say differently. No”— he paused —“I take that back. Roy would say he got everything too.” He smiled at Katharine as if to convince her he was just trying to lighten everybody up.