She looks me straight in the eye. I want to look away or cough or pee but I don't. I can see the gears rotating free and clean in her head. “You have to first recognize stupidity to prevent it in yourself. So why not laugh? If people are going to be stupid shits, you may as well get a laugh and a lesson out of it. It's a pretty good deal, most of the time."
"Most of the time."
"Yeah.” She sobers.
The girls giggle about something that doesn't matter, and it becomes abundantly clear that we don't have the slightest clue what we're talking about.
* * * *
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so Jean and I like to keep up pretenses. Lunch is McDonald's (with a side of regret), noodles and flavor packets masquerade as dinner, but breakfast is a fair and balanced ordeal. Often there are eggs. Oatmeal is a must. Bacon is not entirely out of the question.
When we moved in together we bought an abnormally tall table from an antiques dealer. I suspected that it originated in a bar, circa 1980-1990, and thus did not qualify as an antique. Jean, however, adored it, and as I had the money from my dad, Jerry's Antiques became substantially richer. Tall tables necessitate tall chairs, and so Jerry gained two sets of clothes, a kitchen sink, and half of a soul. I wonder, sometimes, if we boosted him from the middle to upper class. It seems possible.
Our Michael Jordan table sits alongside the porch, with our Titanic chairs arrayed opposite one another. On summer days like this one breakfast is bathed in light.
Today is a bacon day. We are in the midst of June, and so the sun and the grease cause it to glisten like Barnard's Star. This seems disconcerting for a reason that is hard to pin down. Food should not glisten. One should not trust glistening sustenance. The milk on cereal advertisements glistens, and it is actually glue.
One should not consume glue. There is a lesson here.
"Have you ever thought about the end of the world?” I ask.
A fork clanks. French toast is sliced. “Yeah, I guess,” Jean says. “In a way."
I nod, make eye contact, and stuff scrambled eggs into my mouth in order to indicate that she should elaborate.
"I mean, if there's something I really want to do, and I start to tell myself that it can wait, to save it for later, I always think, ‘What if I'm sucked up by an earthquake or hit by a tire from an airplane or something on the way home?’ You can't spend every second thinking about that kind of stuff, you'd go insane or spend yourself dry, but you sorta have to sometimes. Or else you'll always push back good things."
I swallow, and my digestive system grumbles that it needs a vacation. “What if you knew the world was going to end? Like, you knew. In three months or something. What would you do?"
She raises an eyebrow. “My, you're morbid today. I guess I would do everything I could think of that would make me happy."
"Anything?"
"Why not?"
I scratch my head and pick at my ear. Small flakes of dandruff rain on the table and glimmer like fairies. “Well, I mean, what if you screwed up what's left of your life?"
She shrugs. “There's always that possibility."
She's right. Naturally.
* * * *
"Merry Christmas!"
It is July 31. Liz allows me to open my eyes. In her hands are my keys. In the last ten seconds she has stolen my keys from my jeans pocket without my noticing. I wonder if she is Catwoman. It seems possible.
"Why are you giving me my keys?"
"You get to drive me to the park!” she beams.
"Why am I driving you to the park?"
"Because I want to go to the park."
Oh. Alright, then. “That seems fair."
She scowls, lays down the tip, and pulls me from my chair. “You didn't say ‘the park.’”
"I was supposed to?” I am being tugged toward my car. I suspect that I can accomplish this on my own. It does not seem like it should be a team endeavor. I allow her to pull me anyway.
"Yes. The last three statements that we had made included ‘the park.’ You ended that. It was depressing. I've yet to make a statement without mentioning ‘the park.’ I am crafty. I am cute and bubbly and amusing. You are a washed out child actor."
If Liz were anyone else I would ask her if she is high. She is, however, Liz. And subsequently, manic-depressive. And subsequently, cute and bubbly and amusing. For the moment. “At least I have money."
"Your parents took it."
"Oh. Damn. I wasn't aware."
She opens the driver's side door to my car and ushers me in. “You're not very smart."
I don't even know the way to the park. I was only dimly cognizant of its existence. “Oh. Damn. I wasn't aware."
"You also look like an orange and smell like a buffalo."
This seems possible.
At Liz's behest I hurtle through several red lights. No one honks, no one cares. I'm smoke, a ghost. The park, in point of fact, is within walking distance of my house.
"Oh,” I say.
"You've never been here?"
I regret never having been here. It doesn't seem possible that something so immediately pleasant exists in Porterville. Sunlight branches through trees that are sculptures. There is a playground, but it is unobtrusive, and the trickle of children's shrieks and laughter only adds to the warmth the place exudes.
"No.” We get out of the car, and I don't bother to lock it. Theft doesn't exist here. It's not kosher.
"It's beautiful."
Yes. Suddenly I am an environmentalist. Direct me to the whales, I must save them. Have you seen Ralph Nader? I need a word.
"Do you want to take a walk?” Liz glances at me and smiles. My hands migrate into my pockets. I do want to walk. Yes.
"Yes. I would like that.” I am making decisions like nobody's business. All your base are belong to us.
There are occasional stampedes of bicycles (which I had in truth believed extinct), and rare passersby that smile and wish us good afternoons. There is also a man wearing a walkman who steadfastly refuses to meet our gaze, as if in deep and vital concentration on a very specific piece of bark on a very specific tree straight ahead of him. Liz and I mock him when he is out of range. If we knew the truth of his life we would probably be ashamed. We don't care.
For the most part, however, our walk is unmolested by the rest of the world. At one point our path branches. We abscond the exercise trail and say our hellos to the nature hike. Gravel gives way to dirt. Squirrels and birds rise in frequency. Trees seem to lean closer, breathe easier. You can hear it.
You can hear it.
"Do you hear that?” I murmur.
"Hear what?” Her voice lowers to match mine.
"Breathing."
We are silent. Something trills. A bird. It flutters from one branch to another, and the tree creaks minutely. Someone is breathing heavily, just off the path. It's the sound people make when they've been stabbed or shot, in the movies. Or when they're hiding. Or both.
"Yes,” she says.
It is coming from our left, off the path. I distract a phalanx of grabby twigs and bushes and beckon Liz through. We move ten or twelve feet in relative silence before I step on a stick. The breathing—maybe a dozen feet away, now, and coming from the other side of an enormous oak tree—races.
"Do you think they're hurt?” I whisper.
"I don't know. Why are we whispering? Why don't we ask them?"
I nod assent. “Hey, are you alright?"
No answer. After a pause, a hissed, “Shit.” Liz and I share a look of perplexion and step closer.
"Don't come any closer!” A man's voice calls. Not the shit hisser—that was a woman. The man sounds familiar.
"Oh.” Liz blushes. “They're—” She makes a circle with her thumb and forefinger, and inserts the opposite forefinger.
He's crafty.
The butterflies in my stomach have been crossbred with antelopes. I take another step, and another.
"Jeff!” Liz
admonishes. I'm sure this looks a little creepy.
"Shit,” says the woman behind the tree.
I'm there. This is the way the world ends. Jean, propped up against a gargantuan oak tree, resting on a crumpled sleeping bag. The sleeping bag is soaked, and I guess most of it must be sweat, because it's pouring off of her.
Girls don't sweat, they perspire. I forgot.
Jean's breasts heave when she breathes, and the mailman glances frantically from them to me. I wish he would look her in the eyes, instead. I'd feel a little better. A tiny bit.
The mailman's pants are several feet removed from his body. I don't even see Jean's. I see too much of the mailman, but too little of Jean's jeans.
I wish her legs weren't still spread. I wish she wasn't so flush.
Liz smacks my arm and tries to pull me back before she recognizes the paramours. I do not budge. I am rooted. “Oh,” she says quietly. “Oh. Oh."
They don't say a word. The mailman's hand—furry and stubby and grimy and everything wrong—strokes my wife's stomach. It's like they're bored with this. It's like they want to get back to it and Liz and I are afterthoughts. We're smoke, ghosts.
"I guess,” Jean says finally, “I want to do everything I can think of that'll make me happy."
I bite my lip until it bleeds. This is the part where you're not supposed to cry. I wonder if Liz feels weird. It seems likely.
"Even if you screw up the rest of your life?"
I am not crying. I am John Wayne. I am Sylvester Stallone. I am Jean Claude Van Damme.
Fuck.
I'm not even Jackie Chan.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Jean is not crying. Jean must be John Wayne. “Sure. Yeah. I guess."
The mailman is horny. It could not be more obvious. I am supposed to punch him in the face. He is supposed to bleed and bruise. My schwartz is bigger than yours. This is a sallow, shallow business.
I don't want to. Shit. I'm supposed to. I'm supposed to punch him in the face, and he rolls down a hill and gets dirty. And I stand over him and say, “Stay the fuck away from my wife, dickweed."
Only it doesn't happen that way. What happens is, I stop being John Wayne and run all the way to the car, where I watch the odometer until Liz catches up.
* * * *
Going home would be awkward, so I don't. I guess I have to at some point—get my TV and my pants and my ramen noodles—but I don't want to think about it. I wonder if I could sneak in, take my stuff, and sneak out. It seems possible.
Liz offers to let me stay at her place, so I do. Mostly I let the clock on the microwave tell me how much time I've wasted. The lights go down and the blinds go up. I am fetal in Liz's sole kitchen chair. I wince every time it creaks, hoping it doesn't wake her up. Sunset trades places with midnight trades places with gloaming. Their game of musical chairs seems to make less and less sense as the hours pass, until I don't even bother watching.
Liz is in the doorway. I swallow—my mouth tastes like bile—and steal a glance at the clock. It seems to have settled on 3:55 AM. I assume we are operating in the AM. Nothing is certain.
Liz is wearing an undersized nightshirt and a pair of purple panties, and I take this in only because it is something new. The various crevasses of the kitchen have grown dull.
"Would it be stupid to ask if you're okay?” she asks. Her voice is a musical hum, laced with genuine empathy.
"Try me.” My voice is a hideous rasp. I cough and make another attempt. “Try me.” My eyes sting.
She sits on the table and rubs my shoulder. “Are you okay?"
"No."
She laughs quietly. “Are you going to be?"
Outside a streetlight flickers. The world is too dead. I hope someone somewhere is jumping on a trampoline. That would be reassuring.
I meet her eyes, and John Wayne evaporates completely. There's a Dead Sea behind my eyes. “I'm as happy as I've ever been."
Her hand crabwalks down my leg and comforts mine. “You didn't answer the question,” she murmurs.
I burrow into her shoulder. “I have no idea.” Another swallow. “I should. I really should."
She squeezes my hand.
"I really, really should."
* * * *
"I guess he's always got a package for you."
Jean is preparing something that approximates barbeque. Red, white, and blue streamers adorn random outcroppings. I suspect that a party is on queue. She was never the decorating sort.
She turns around, goes limp and looks disgusted. I wonder if she follows the logic of this thing. It is not given to her to be disgusted. It's my turn. I wonder if she knows that.
"How did you get in? I didn't hear you."
"Back door key. The fact that it's my house didn't hurt.” Liz has convinced me that this is a fact that bears mention.
"What do you want?"
"Well, I'd like my things. And my house. And all of my keys. And for you to get the fuck out."
"That's it, huh? That's how it is?"
It is very possible that my brain is a firecracker. It has been lit. I restrain myself from screaming unintelligibly.
"Well I'm not fucking the mailman."
Jean emulates a disappointed second grade teacher. “Oh, fuck you. Don't tell me you never fooled around. Saw an awful lot of Liz these past few months, eh?"
My fists are very, very clenched. I am glad that I recently clipped my fingernails. I might otherwise have removed large chunks of my own flesh.
"Not—nearly—enough. Out."
Jean gives me a lopsided grin and sighs. Why is she doing this? She seemed to have a morsel of remorse when I caught her.
The adrenaline, I suppose.
"Fucking pussy. What are you going to do?"
The firecracker is erupted. My head is white pain. “Out!” I scream. I wonder if it comes out as a word. My hands are tendrils of sheer quivering fury. This is the way the world ends. I need to destroy something. I go for the TV. Cheers is interrupted mid-pun and splintered into something equally meaningless. Sparks fly. It's a wonder I didn't cut my hand. It's a wonder nothing caught on fire. My mother would be disappointed.
The message seems to have gotten across. Jean makes a hasty exit, and I stand shaking for a very, very long time.
* * * *
Sex is faith. An internal dialogue. Trust in another to do the right thing.
Liz's mouth moves from my neck to my lips in a shockingly fluid movement and I yield happily.
Oh, my God.
We are entombed in blankets, and oh man, this is nothing new, but this is good. She kisses me and she kisses me and she kisses me, and my hands are everywhere they can reach.
Our spines arch simultaneously and I can't help but smile.
"I love you,” she whispers in her meek way that makes me want to break down and cry.
Oh, God. This is good and right and exactly the point. Oh, God, exactly.
* * * *
Let's fast-forward. Because as vital as my four years with Liz are, the future's the constant end to our means, right? The eventuality of what we do now?
Somehow I trade my twenty-four-year-old body for that of a man of twenty-eight, and exchange unemployment for a contract with a minor science fiction publication. It's not much, but it's something.
Liz and I trade our places for something in the woods. With few exceptions, we want to be alone together. My only gift from my dear old dad pays for us until the first check from Otherworldly Stories comes in. Money is never too significant an issue; I'm always in the mood to splurge.
Stretching the laws of credibility, I never see Jean again. I recognize the mailman in the pharmacy once, and act as if I don't.
To Liz's concern, I become a little addicted to CNN. The space rock the size of Norway is a bigger and bigger story. It will be the closest an asteroid has ever come to the Earth, astronomers say.
We are on the happiest brand of cruise control. 2010 is a breeze. 2011 passes with hicc
ups, but nothing insurmountable.
2012 is rife with nervous energy. I take Liz out every Saturday. We investigate Disneyland. Two weeks at the beach? Hell, make it three. Nothing is small enough to disregard. Beggars receive twenties. There is a time to be charitable, and it is a vital time to recognize.
A trip to New York? Sure. The crown jewels? Let me work on that.
December arrives with butterfly-antelope hybrids in tow. My synapses make a habit of misfiring. This does not seem possible. Not at all. From what I've tasted of desire, I side with those who would prefer the Earth not be hit by a fucking asteroid.
It's popular on the news, now. The view, they say, will be fantastic. Cults form, as they do.
"This is the way the world ends,” they say.
And yet December crawls on. My sanity is on the edge of a knife. This is the point at which I am profoundly uneasy.
Hanukkah trades places with Christmas, and Christmas trades places with New Year's Eve. As night falls I watch the sky. The news was right, the view is spectacular. The asteroid, dubbed “Bucky” by some dumbfuck reporter or other, burns like a rogue star.
Liz stands in the doorway. “Do you want to come and watch the ball drop?” She grins in the dark, and crickets chirp ignorantly. “It's gonna be a rockin’ New Year's Eve."
The pun occurs to me immediately, and it hurts. “No. I'd rather not spend my time with the TV."
Liz meanders to where I stand and wraps her arms around me, sighing happily into my neck.
"Jeff?"
"Yes?"
"I love you."
"I am reassured.” It comes out clunky and awkward, but I mean it.
We are wrapped in one another as the ball drops. It is forty years before she admits to me that she wrote the letter, and by then, of course, it is too late.
[Back to Table of Contents]
We Lived in a House
Cara Spindler
Introduction
We lived in a house. It was a house in a land of robbers. Maybe other people lived elsewhere: dancers, farmers, tailors. Our house was made of stone. The trees drooped towards it, a tunnel. A cavern.
In my dreams I see their houses: there are streets with lights, and noise. Cars of bright colors. Sunlight. The sunlight here is always weak and hidden. Moss covers our roofs, our driveways. The first trick every robber child learns is to walk silently, to slip in and out of rooms without notice. We lived in a house of robbers, in a house of stone covered in moss.
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 16 Page 2