Static!

by Michael R Collings

  Payne had drunk more than usual that night. He wasn’t drunk—not quite. He had carefully stayed on the sober side of that thin line. Instead of feeling pleasantly relaxed, however, he felt oddly tense, nervous. The feeling increased as the evening wore on, transforming from a light and wholly accountable first-date sort of jumpiness when he raised his hand to knock on her door, to an intense, discomforting sense of something desperately wrong when she leaned against him where they sat together on the couch and he smelled her perfume and the light lingering fragrance of the shampoo in her hair and felt the warmth of her breath against his neck. She laid her hand on his leg and scratched her fingernail lightly against the taut fabric.

  The room flooded with heat. Payne was not naive. He was not sexually innocent; certainly he was not a virgin. And Cathy was attractive in every way he could imagine. She was beautiful—and he wanted her. He wanted to draw her even closer, wanted to touch and whisper and love.

  Instead he stood suddenly and strode to the door. A clock on the wall chimed midnight as he reached for the knob. The witching hour.

  In a fluid movement, Cathy rose and was beside him.

  “Payne,” she said. Her voice rose barely above a whisper. She tilted her head up and kissed him on the lips, a kiss warm with affection yet tinged with disappointment. He reached for her. One arm held her tightly against him. He felt her hips against his. His other arm hung stiffly at his side. The fingers clenched and unclenched along the seam of his jeans.

  Payne felt suddenly and inexplicably fatigued, as if half of him had just won an exhausting endurance race but the other half—the darker half—was about to break away and begin running again. He broke away.

  “Thanks,” he said. “For the dinner. I wish I could stay but I...I’ve got to leave.”

  “Don’t...,” Cathy began. He placed his finger against her lips, feeling their warmth and moistness. He wanted to feel them again pressed against his own. He almost kissed her. Something flickered behind his eyes—a fleeting image too evanescent for him to consciously absorb. Inside of him, the pull away from her intensified.

  “I know,” he said. “But I have to. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she answered, her voice dropping.

  He nodded and moved toward the elevator at the end of the hall. The elevator doors slid open just as he reached them, as if they had been waiting for him. She watched him. He hesitated before stepping in.

  For a moment, he almost turned back to her, then he entered the shadowy interior of the elevator. He seemed to favor one leg.

  In that final moment of hesitation, though, he looked over his shoulder and smiled at her and raised a hand in a twist that seemed a wave. Or a gesture of dismissal.

  “Call me, okay?” She waved back. The elevator doors slid shut with a quiet whoosh and Payne was gone.

  When Payne arrived home and pulled his car into the drive and killed the engine just outside the garage still crammed with Aunt Emilia’s trash, Nick’s windows were dark. Wheeler was either out or asleep, Payne decided. He walked slowly around the house to the front door, enjoying the coolness of the evening, wishing that Nick would stick his head out a window and invite him over for a talk.

  He wanted to talk.

  He needed to talk about the evening even though nothing had happened. Especially, perhaps, because nothing had happened. He climbed the steps to the front porch carefully, wondering why he was coming in through the front door when he usually used the kitchen door. He glanced to the side and fought off an impulse to sit in the glider and swing, swing, swing through the darkness and the coolness.

  His leg still pained him. It had started as he got into the elevator, a knife-sharp hitch in his hip that now made his foot scuff the worn planks of the porch. It had made the trip home a minor version of hell, pumping up and down on the accelerator to change speed with the erratic night-time traffic, and now it made him limp noticeably. His hand curled tightly against his leg for balance.

  He stared at the glider as if daring it to creak its way through the night, propelled by a ghost or the wind or whatever. It remained still. He forced his curled fingers open and pressed his palm flat against his thigh and planted his feet flat against the porch and shifted his weight from his good leg to his bad until both bore him equally. The hitch disappeared. He unlocked the door, reaching awkwardly across his body with his right hand and pulling the key from his pocket, as if to prove his control over his muscles. When he stepped into the house, it was with his right foot first, his hip swinging smoothly now and without pain.

  He hurried through the living room and down the hall to the kitchen, switching lights on as he passed. The house was still; it seemed to be waiting. The planking in the hallway creaked when he stepped onto it from the living room rug. Creeeeeak—like something out of The Fall of the House of Usher.

  “Shut up,” he said. No reason to spook himself by thinking stupid things like that.

  In the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of ice water from the refrigerator and pulled a chair over to the telephone. He lifted the receiver and, without hesitating an instant, he dialed Cathy’s number. He sat back, tapping a finger against the headset as it rang once, twice, three times, four.

  “Hello.” Her voice sounded tired, sleepy. He sat up straight and pushed his glass away, sliding it smoothly across the white counter.

  “It’s me.”

  There was a pause.

  “Yes.” Her voice was cautious, but he thought he detected a hint of something more—hope, forgiveness, maybe more?

  “Look,” he said in a burst, “I’m really sorry about tonight. I guess I just didn’t feel like myself. Headachy, tired. You know how it is sometimes.” Lame lame lame dumb dumb dumb his internal censor chanted as he spoke.

  He was gushing, he knew, the words spilling out of his mouth before he heard them in his mind. He hated doing that. He hated people who did it. His hand tightened on the receiver, knuckles white, as he glared at the white ceiling and clenched his teeth until the muscles in his jaws stood out in garish relief against his skin.

  She was speaking now. He had missed something but at least she wasn’t mad. She sounded relieved, not at all tired.

  “…sometimes. I get like that after the audits. It’s just part of life, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” he said, trying to cover the fact that he had missed part of what she said. “But I’m sorry anyway. Everything was so nice, the dinner and the music and everything. How about....”

  Before he could say tomorrow night, the receiver screeched. A fire-burst of static drilled through his head. With a yelp, he jerked the receiver away. Even after the sound stopped, his ear whistled and buzzed like a manic power saw. Beneath the ringing he felt twinges of real pain, physical pain that bore inward toward his brain. He gingerly put the receiver next to his other ear. Holding it was awkward, but at least he could hear clearly.

  “…did you say?” she was saying. “I didn’t hear you. Some kind of interference on the line.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “There was some static here, really loud. My ear is still ringing.”

  “Nothing like that on this end, but it serves you right for behaving like you did. Even Ma Bell thinks you were a cad.” She laughed and it took any sting out of her words.

  He laughed with her. It felt right.

  “I guess it does, at that. I behaved like a real jerk and my telephone is trying to let me know.” He whistled that idiotic doo-di-doo-doo theme from Twilight Zone and they both laughed again.

  “Anyway, how about”—he hesitated, moving the receiver an inch or so away from his ear—“tomorrow night?”

  “I’d love to.” The softness of velvet.

  “I’ll cook up something special for dinner, I owe you that much. We’ll watch a film or something, and then....”

  “And then…whatever. Sounds good. See you then.”

  “See you, Cathy. Good night.”


  When he hung up the receiver, he stood for a few moments with hand still on the receiver. He grinned boyishly at the sterile white wall.

  He felt good.

  He stretched, twisting his torso at the hips in a cross between a toe-touch and a stationary jumping-jack. He reached out with his right hand, fingers extended and straight, tendons knotted and strong beneath the skin. His ear stopped ringing.

  He felt good, all right. Damn good!

  He slept deeply that night, so deeply that he did not remember dreaming. Even though he tossed on his bed and wrapped himself in the light covers and was drenched with sweat for most of the night, he did not wake until the alarm rang in the morning. He didn’t remember dreaming at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Cathy arrived at the house on Greensward just before five. She was half surprised to see Payne waiting for her at the open door, looking native Californian in tennis shorts and striped polo shirt. She almost laughed at his boyish eagerness—he was down the steps and at the sidewalk before she had pulled her car to a stop. He dashed around the car and opened her door, bowing low and sweeping grandly with his arm.

  “Milady,” he said his face tight with mock seriousness. She stepped out of the car and surprised herself by dropping into an impromptu curtsy, holding out the hem of her light summer dress as if it were ten pounds of brocade and pearl-encrusted silk.

  “My Lord.”

  They laughed. Payne gave her a quick hug and steered her up the sidewalk to the house.

  The place seemed subtly different as she entered, not quite as glaring as it had been the first time she had visited. Today, the white walls seemed muted, and the TV screens were dead, unreflective gray squares against off-tone walls. It was pleasing, she decided, whatever the difference was.

  Payne, on the other hand, was more demonstrably vital, more vibrant. Seated in the kitchen, she watched him bustle through the final preparations for dinner, her interest and her own arousal growing as he reached and stretched, pulling glasses from high cupboards and in the process emphasizing the smooth line of his arm, back, thighs, and calves.

  “Let me help,” she had offered almost as soon as he had escorted her to a chair in the kitchen.

  “Nothing doing. Tonight it’s my turn to do for you. And you’ve never lived until you’ve lived through...that is, enjoyed one of my home-cooked...uh, experiences.”

  “Uh-oh. Now I’m scared.” But she knew that the sparkle in her eyes belied her words and that Payne knew it as well. Instead of helping, she watched.

  It wasn’t an unpleasant task. Payne was handsome enough, but she had known that from the first time she saw him on the beach south of Zuma. He was also self-assured tonight, less nervous, less upset than on the night before. He moved with a quiet strength she found particularly appealing. She liked the way he smiled and the way he dressed—the pale blue of his shirt and the startling white of his shorts set off his tan and emphasized the muscles of his arms and legs. In spite of a nagging hunger that reminded her that she had eaten nothing since gulping down an English muffin at breakfast, she wished heartily for the meal to be over.

  For his part, Payne was thoroughly enjoying himself. He knew Cathy was watching him; he knew because he surreptitiously watched her watch him. Her attention made him feel stronger and more masculine, more desirable, even sexier, though he had rarely consciously thought of himself in those terms before. Her feelings for him resonated through the air whenever he passed her, even when he stood across the room and chopped and sliced and poured and stirred, stealing quick glances as often as he dared. Once he crossed to get a cube of butter from the refrigerator and inadvertently—but oh, how very advertently it was—allowed his forearm to brush against her sleeve. The fleeting touch jarred him more than he would have imagined, and he quickly returned to his chopping and slicing.

  As it turned out, dinner was wonderful in spite of Payne’s half-serious warning about his culinary expertise. The food was pleasant—but that was not the source of the pleasure. Payne was thoroughly enchanted with Cathy, and she, in turn, felt easily comfortable with this Payne, who was more like the man she had met at the beach than the fellow who had run out on her the night before. That rather distant, slightly frightening, unaccountably cold stranger seemed permanently banished. This Payne was, instead, warm and gentle, funny at times, always concerned. She felt special.

  After dinner, they washed the dishes together.

  Payne didn’t have a dishwasher even though he had thought once or twice about buying one. Basically, he wasn’t sure he needed one and he wasn’t sure the provisions of the will would allow for one. He had almost called about it one day, had the telephone in his hand and had dialed the first four numbers of the lawyer’s seven, when he had to...well, he couldn’t quite remember now what had distracted him, but he had remembered something and felt compelled to put the phone down and check on it. Something to do with the television in the living room, he thought. At any rate, he had never completed the call. He disliked doing dishes by hand, but there were so few of them with him living there alone that it didn’t matter that much.

  But at first he didn’t want Cathy to help.

  He took the plates over to the sink. While he was standing there, she blew out the two candles that were flickering away their last inch and switched on the overhead light. He was scraping the remnants of dinner into the garbage disposal, his back to her. She rubbed her fingers lightly against his shoulders and said, “Okay, now it’s my turn. I’ll clean up.”

  “No,” he said, rather too sharply as it turned out, because she dropped her hands and he heard her step away from him.

  He turned, smiling broadly as if it had all been a joke, planned from the beginning. It might well have been, because he knew no reason for her not to help.

  “Let them wait, I mean. I’ll take care of everything tomorrow.”

  “No, really, please. I don’t mind. I’d enjoy it. And you went through so much work to get dinner ready. It’s the least I can do.”

  He smiled at her last phrase.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “But only if we work together. I think I must’ve dirtied every utensil in the place, and it wouldn’t be fair for you to have to face that stack alone.”

  So they worked together, passing dishes, silverware, pots and pans back and forth between them. Things were right again. The momentary sharpness was forgotten as they worked, stacking old-fashioned, translucently white china cups and plates, dropping equally old-fashioned heavy silver-plate knives and spoons and forks and serving pieces into little velvet-lined slotted segments in the drawers. Payne even decided to scrub the bottoms of the copper-clad pots and skillets, something he had neglected for the weeks. He sprinkled the white cleanser across the bottoms of the pots, noting with pleasure the brightly glowing copper emerging as he rinsed the cleanser off. It gave him a feeling of accomplishment, of finishing something. When he got to the last skillet, the thirteen incher that was crusted with burned-on guck from who knew how many spills while he was cooking breakfast, he shifted the pan to his left hand, stretching his right, curling and uncurling fingers that were becoming stiffer and stiffer as they worked.

  He rinsed the pan and balanced it on the stack in the drainer, then turned to see if there was anything left on the table.

  “Not there!” he shouted abruptly as Cathy started to put a bottle of steak sauce on the top shelf of the refrigerator. “On the middle shelf.”

  She looked up startled. “But what dif—”

  “On the middle shelf,” Payne repeated. “Please.”

  Some of the earlier sharpness trembled, barely discernible beneath the layering of his voice.

  “Well, all right,” Cathy said, allowing her own voice to take on overtones of irritation and huffiness. “But really, Payne,” she turned as she spoke, letting her smile suffuse her face, “you are such a real pain. Such an old woman about your kitchen.”

  For a second he stared at her, his ey
es veiled and—for a flickering breath—frightening. Then his eyes cleared and he laughed.

  “We’ll see who’s an old woman,” he said suddenly, leaping across the kitchen and enclosing her in his arms and planting a kiss on her lips.

  The kiss lingered longer than he had intended.

  “Well,” Cathy said finally. “I take it back. Certainly no old woman.”

  Payne looked embarrassed and a bit confused.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to....”

  “So, now you’re going to make it worse by taking back the best dessert I’ve had in longer than I can remember. Well!”

  She turned away in a mock-fury, then burst into a fit of giggles. Payne looked startled, then joined in. After a long while, they calmed down enough to breath normally.

  “That’s it,” Payne said, glancing around the spotless kitchen. “What now?”

  Cathy smiled. “Your choice.”

  “How about...a game or something.” His voice trailed off into silence. Her smile deepened at his words, as if to say poor fellow, he doesn’t dare ask for what he wants. If he choose to play a game, I’ll take him up on it, and I can play that game better than he can. She smiled more broadly.

  “Chess?” he finally managed to suggest.

  She threw her head back and laughed out loud, a long vibrant laugh that bounced off the white walls. “Sure, why not. Chess it is.”

  She linked her arm through his and steered him from the kitchen, down the hall, and into the living room. He palmed the light switch as they crossed into the room. Whiteness glared from all sides. She sat on the sofa; he squatted on the carpet, his chest level with the board, with her knees directly across from him.

  “Black or white?” he said.