You Can Never Spit It All Out

by Moore, Ralph Robert

  The snow was falling straight down. Mustn't be any wind outside.

  It hadn't snowed in town the past five years. He pictured the cemetery. Her head stone, like a child, feeling snow for the first time. Her red hair, her blue eyes. He went into their bedroom closet to smell her clothes. He could still smell her on her dresses, her blouses. But like a garden, the fronts of her blouses, the seams of her dresses, the collars of her sweaters, the waistbands of her slacks were flowers that could be smelled only once each visit. A second sniff to the same stretch of silk, cotton, wool, there'd be nothing.

  At the bottom of their closet, behind empty shoes teaching dance steps across the floor, the small brown trunk of her personal stuff. Placed at the back of the closet the day she moved in.

  He had never looked inside. He figured one day she would show him the contents, if she wanted.

  But now he got down on his knees. Wrapped his forearms around the back of the trunk, dress hems caressing his spine. Like holding her, but not. Pulled the trunk through the high heels.

  Carried it in his arms, about the weight of a baby.

  Placed it on their unmade bed.

  Lifting the lid.

  Inside the coffin, a young woman's tidy arrangement of sacred objects.

  A father's triangular medals from a war we won. Movie tickets, restaurant matchbooks, motel postcards, none of which he recognized, but which he accepted. Photographs he had never seen before, her as a child. Holding each one out of the trunk. The upraised arms, the red hair she hadn't yet learned how to style. Looking into the succession of small blue eyes, careful not to wet the pictures with his tears. A red ribbon. Who knows what that meant to her. He didn't. But that was okay. Tiny pink and white ruffled outfits that looked like they had been worn by favorite childhood dolls. Grade school report cards ("Emily is a sincere little girl who actively participates in school projects.") What a wonderful sentence to read about her. Would he ever read a sentence like that about himself?

  And at the bottom of the carton, a pink pastel notebook, the size of a passport.

  He could tell, just looking at it, the fact its pages didn't lay flat, but were swelled within the cloth covers, that it wasn't an empty notebook. It had been written in.

  Lifting the front cover was like looking into her mind.

  He expected the entries to be from twenty years ago. Little Emily recording her teenage thoughts, falling in love on every page. But in fact the first page was dated only five months ago.

  He recognized her blue-inked handwriting right away, of course.

  The first entries were about him, lots of sentences ending in juvenile exclamation points, the periods at the bottom of the exclamation points a tiny drawn circle, or sometimes, a heart.

  But then, the entries started talking about Russell.

  He sat on the carpet in front of the closet. Silently reading, silently reaching up, flipping over the top corner to the next page, to read more.

  All the stomach-turning details. He did this, and then that, then that, and ten minutes later, he did that.

  Her anger, her confusion, her fear, her shame.

  Near the end, one of the last scribbled entries, for the first time in twenty pages, another exclamation point, another period at the bottom of the exclamation point a tiny drawn circle. And after another blue sentence, an end with a question mark, the period at the bottom of the question mark a drawn heart.

  Roaring in his car down the country roads, towards Wayside Motors and Body Shop. Keeping his eyes on the road. Keeping his hands on the wheel.

  His brakes shot up plumes of dust in the lot outside the bay doors. Russell, inside the garage, got on his cell phone.

  Ben banged out of his driver's door, stalking across the lot to the garage. Chef's knife in his hand.

  Russell threw his forearms over his face, knees bending to make himself smaller. "It was her! Vickie! She did it! I don't know how she did it, but she did it."

  Ben, confused, held the knife up, in stabbing position.

  "The insects. How Emily couldn't brush them off. She did it. I didn't have no part." His frightened face peeked out from behind his forearms. "I didn't even know, Ben. God's honest truth."

  "You raped her!"

  Russell nodded behind his upraised forearms. "At first. More or less. Not really though. I just imposed myself on her. But I didn't kill her. That was all Vickie's doing."

  "What's wrong with your right hand?"

  Russell glanced at it. The hand was shrunken, turned inwards. Fingers shorter. It looked like a dog's paw. "She did that, too." He burst into tears. "I don't know if she's gonna punish me more, or if that's it. I just don't know, man. It's eating me up."

  From behind him, Ben heard a car skid into the dirt lot.

  Vickie bounced out, came charging over.

  "Ben! Put down the knife! You do not have my permission!"

  He turned on her. "What does Russell mean? You caused Emily's death?"

  "Russell's speaking out of turn!" Long face looking around Ben, she glared at Russell. Russell let out a keening sound, falling on his knees, holding his hand and paw up to Vickie, tears down his unshaven face. "Please don't hurt me no more!"

  "He's crazy, right? How could you get insects to swarm Emily?"

  Vickie was beside herself. Rolling her eyes. Angry. "Ben, listen to me! Your girlfriend was a cunt! Yes! She seduced my Russell! Yeah! The truth hurts! She was evil!"

  "What are you talking about? I read her journal! He forced himself on her!"

  She stopped in mid-word, mouth open. "What? What journal?"

  Russell, groveling on the garage floor behind them, let out a frightened sob.

  "It was you who started it with her? Is that true, Russell?"

  Russell was trying to say something, but only terrified sounds came out.

  "You did something so Emily would die?"

  She flapped her hands at her hips, exasperated. "She was pretty! I agree! So what? But she wasn't going to stay pretty forever, Ben. And once you've seen pretty a few times, it gets boring." Rolled her eyes. "Borrrring. What you need is dirty. Dirty gets the job done. I can be dirty with you like she never could. Remember how good we were at Halloween?"

  "You selfish bitch! You fucking, ugly, selfish bitch!"

  She snarled at him. "Vickie always gets what she wants! Vickie's the birthday girl! Every day!"

  Ben raised his knife. Went running at her.

  She stepped back. "I'm pregnant!"

  He stabbed the air once or twice, but stopped advancing.

  "Yup! I'm pregnant." Nodded her head vigorously, staring at him. Pursed her lips. "You can check with Dr. Aronson. And you're the father. You're finally going to get the children you want, Ben. From me." She put her hands on her stomach. "I'm pregnant with your child."

  He let out a frustrated snarl.

  Didn't know what to do next.

  "So are you going to be an abortionist? Kill an unborn child? Your child? Just to get back at me?"

  His feet shuffled on the garage's concrete floor. All that energy, but nowhere to send it.

  "So what should we name her? I'm thinking, Vickie. Don't you think that'd be the perfect name for our daughter?"

  After a moment, he lowered his knife.

  Vickie wins again.

  Her smug eyes.

  Her triumphant grin.

  Some of her molars were missing.

  IMPERFECT BOY

  A heavy suitcase hanging from each hand, you make your way down the city's dirty sidewalks. Shoulders dipping left, right from the weights, like a hunchback. People you pass, and there are a lot of them, don't look at you. They look at your two suitcases.

  You stare up at building numbers until you see, brass screwed into concrete, 538.

  Using your right knee, you push the wood-framed glass door open. Hobble into the dark lobby, slow close of the door behind you quieting the street noise of cars, arguments, music.

  Your off-campus apartment is
on the second floor.

  No elevator.

  You struggle with your baggage up the lobby's wide staircase, to the landing halfway up, pausing to catch your breath. Glance out the dust-filmed window at the plot of weeds and short trees behind the building.

  At the top of the first flight, you lug your suitcases down the dim hall to a door marked 538c.

  Set the suitcases down.

  Straighten up, sweat on your forehead.

  Knock.

  Nothing.

  Knock again.

  A woman's scream behind the door. Muffled sounds of a fight.

  The door swings open.

  A young man your age, naked, blond goatee, slanted red cuts on his hairy chest. Hands blocking the entrance, holding onto the door jamb, the edge of the opened door. The naked man does a double-take. Backs up, indrawn stomach, blond pubic hair, long cock dangling. Hands leaving the door jamb, door. He looks scared. "Who are you?"

  "I'm Patrick Morgan. I'm renting a room in this apartment."

  "Yeah! You sent us a check! I thought you were our food!"

  "May I come in?"

  "May you come in? Seriously? Come the fuck in! Sure! I'm Chris, man. Glad to make your fucking acquaintance!" He snorts.

  There are a dozen people in the living room. More than you thought would fit in what was advertised, on the Online Student Rentals Board-NYC, as a three-bedroom apartment.

  You set your two suitcases down on the carpet. Look around at different interior doorways. "So, which bedroom is mine?"

  Everyone stares silently at you, from couches, chairs, carpet, windows.

  Standing between your suitcases, you try to find a friendly face. See a roomful of people leaning sideways, watching you, whispering.

  A knock at the door.

  A black-bearded man, wearing pants, gets off the carpet, plods to the door. "Finally!" Swings the door open. Kid holding two big, square pizza boxes, one atop the other. Steam rising. The black-bearded man twists his angry face around to Chris. "Ask the newcomer what his share for the pizza is."

  You speak directly to the black-bearded man. "For pizza? What should I pay for two slices?" You can smell the pizzas. The tomato sauce, garlic, oregano, cheese. They make you really hungry.

  He looks at the naked guy with the blond goatee. "I think he should pay five dollars, man! This ain't no fucking fly-over state. He got it?"

  You contribute a five dollar bill.

  After all the pizza is eaten, your two suitcases still on the living room carpet, everyone's back to you, whispering, you ask again which room is yours.

  The black-bearded man, whose name you realize by now is Rudo, sits up on the sofa, scratching his left armpit. He looks at Chris. "Ask him where he's from."

  "Pennsylvania. Is there some reason why you won't address me directly?"

  Rudo stares at Chris. "Pennsylvania? Hey Chris, tell him Pennsylvania doesn't exist, dude! Doesn't he know that?"

  "So which room is mine?"

  "Tell him Pennsylvania is just a big, steaming pile of shit the American Airline planes dump on their way from the east coast to the west coast. Ask him what's it like living in a big, steaming pile of shit. Let him know I'm totally sincere in my question. I might decide to write my Master's thesis on the big, steaming piles of shit American Airlines drops while flying from coast to coast. He'd be my first interview subject. It would be a real honor for him."

  Out of all the people in the living room, there's one person you noticed right away. You look at her now, her slim frame, shoulder-length yellow hair, bedroom eyes. "Do you know which room is mine?"

  Rudo snorts, thumb and forefinger playing with his nipple. "Chris, tell him not to ask Gretchen, man. She's totally fucked-up. Her parents put Quaaludes in her baby food. He didn't know that? Those Quaaludes deboned all the bodies in her brain. All the rest of us have flesh and blood bodies in our cerebrum. With fur! All Gretchen has in her lobes are animal skeletons."

  Gretchen closes her eyes. Opens them. "Don't listen to Rudo. Your room is the one right over there. Holly's old room."'

  Chris, still naked, nods. "There's a malignant force in this neighborhood. An old man. He lives across the street. One time, the old man poured gasoline on his pack of pit bulls, lit them all on fire, then ordered them to attack us. That's why we have a free room. Holly never came back from the hospital."

  You nod, very slowly. "Okay."

  Gretchen smiles. It's a nice smile. A different smile from the smiles given by girls you know in Pennsylvania. "Each night one of us has to cut themselves and leave a blood-soaked rag outside our front door to keep the old man away." Her cheeks get red. "The girls use menstrual blood, which is even more effective." She raises her thin shoulders. "Unfortunately, we've started to synchronize our periods, something that happens when women live together, so there are long stretches when our menstrual blood isn't available."

  "Okay."

  "There are some faces in the apartment. We try to control them, but it's really hard to do in a city apartment."

  "Okay."

  Gretchen's sleepy eyes slide left. "Also, there's a gang in this neighborhood. They come by sometimes. We just let them do what they want. Usually, they just take our food, and any goods we've bought. They don't violate us."

  "Why don't you guys live somewhere else?"

  "We've tried that. It's actually worse elsewhere. Over on the west side, college students get lynched every night, from street signs."

  "I'm kind of surprised to find this out. All the ad said was, Large, sunny apartment."

  "Well, it is large, by New York City standards. Plus those windows there are north-facing."

  Despite your growing alarm at what you're 'getting yourself into', you have to admit, sneaking glances at her while she holds her drink at the end of her knees, long fingers caging the cold glass, smoky eyes looking down, looking up as she clues you in on all the rules of survival here, you like her. Forehead maybe a bit too broad, nose a little long, but her face is the type of face where you can still see, past the lipstick and life experiences, the little girl she used to be. Her hair and eyes and slimness make you forget all the bad things you've just heard.

  That's what happens when you're young, and away from home for the first time.

  You wake up your first day in your new bed. Take an elbow-raising moment to realize where you are. No childhood bedroom anymore, movie posters on the walls, blue skies and bird songs outside your window. Just street noise, yellow teeth of old windows across the way, smell of car exhaust.

  You feel uneasy. Can you really fit in here? Survive? Flourish? Be better than Betty?

  You woke up earlier than you needed to, probably out of anxiety, bad dreams. Your molars hurt. You must have been grinding them.

  On your brown nightstand, burnt with black lines of long-ago cigarettes, the book you read before turning off the light. Nabokov's critical study of Gogol.

  Chest still under the bed covers, you reach for it.

  As you pick it up, faces scurry from between its pages.

  You let out a cry. Drop the weight. Jerk backwards on your bed, faces spilling off the night table, crawling up the wall behind you.

  Young faces, old faces, different races, haircuts, facial hair, good cheekbones, braided ponytails, slanted eyes, little bones between nostrils, big lips.

  You try to smash them, but most are too quick. Running into cracks, laughing at you.

  For every face you see, there are probably hundreds more in the walls.

  You take a shower, after inspecting the ceiling, walls, behind the toilet.

  Out in the kitchen, a lot of people standing or sitting around, smoking, kissing.

  Gretchen isn't there.

  One of the burners on the stove is free.

  You pay Rudo for two eggs, fifty cents each, and a tablespoon of butter, a dollar. Chris handles the negotiations.

  Wash out a small non-stick skillet you find under the sink. Melt the butter. Add the two egg
s, stirring them in the pan to make scrambled eggs.

  From the front of the apartment, a loud noise.

  Everyone crowded into the kitchen snaps up their heads. Looks down at their bare feet.

  Some guys you don't recognize stroll into the kitchen, dressed in black leather.

  "Do I smell eggs?"

  You try ignoring the gang member, using your wooden spoon to move your eggs around in the hot butter, remembering the happy times from your childhood in Pennsylvania, the Saturday mornings with the radio on while you and Betty would cook breakfast for your mom and dad.

  "I do! I smell eggs."

  The gang member, shorter than you, curly black hair, the tattoo of a red heart under his left eye, with little blue letters that spell 'Dad', watches you self-consciously swirl the thickening eggs. He puts his gloved hand on your shoulder. He smells like licorice. "Are those my eggs?"

  Knees shaking, you quietly swirl the eggs, avoiding eye contact. "No, these are mine."

  His brown eyes hold yours. "So they are mine? Make sure you cook them until there's some brown on them. I don't like my scrambled eggs to be too runny. That's like eating sperm. Other men eat my sperm, but I don't eat theirs. Some other time, when I am not so hungry, you and me will be back in this kitchen again, entangled around each other down on this linoleum floor, and you will eat my sperm. Just like all the other gentlemen and ladies in this apartment have eaten my sperm when I told them to. Eventually."

  You know, there's a point in a bullying situation like this, early on, when you decide if you're going to be a hero, or a coward.

  After the eggs are sufficiently browned, you, stomach growling, tilt the skillet to one side, slide his eggs onto a small white plate the gang member holds confidently in his right hand, smirking.