Spectacle: Stories

by Susan Steinberg

  There was what one could call a clearing, and there were trees. There was what one could call a waterfall.

  And there was me looking at the waterfall. There was the friend looking at it too. There was the guy sticking his hands into the water.

  I didn’t want anything in that moment. I mean I didn’t want to want anything. I don’t know exactly what I mean.

  I know I wanted to be a different person than I was.

  I wanted to see the waterfall as beautiful.

  I wanted to be less beautiful than the waterfall.

  I wanted to want to be that.

  But when my arms began to ache, for we’d been all day hiking, I said, My arms.

  The guy said, Your arms.

  The friend said, What do you mean your arms.

  He walked over to me.

  He said, It should be your legs.

  He said, Where.

  I held out my arms. He touched them. And the guy just watched. He did nothing to stop it. He too was too scared.

  After the hike, we drank in the car. And after we drank, we went for a ride. It was early evening and summer and perfect. And I loved in that moment the sound of the crickets. I loved in that moment the color of the sky. And the back of both guys’ heads in the front.

  As a child, I could never make up my mind. I would want both toys. I would want both dolls.

  Old maid, my father always said.

  You’ll end up with nothing, he always said.

  Or both, I always said.

  If one was truly charming, one could have both.

  Just look at me charming my father’s ladies as a child.

  Look at them giving me things to keep.

  I would hold out my hands, which were filled and refilled.

  And look at me getting the toy and the game.

  Getting both new dolls.

  Getting both dumb guys.

  Look at me hiking up my skirt.

  Look at them now all scared of me.

  Look at me running through woods.

  I was utterly disgraceful.

  Just look at the sun about to set.

  Just look.

  The guy had to piss. The friend pulled off to the side. The guy went into the woods. The friend and I stood by the car. At first it was nothing, just standing. But then he lifted me onto the hood of the car. It was just to be funny, I was thinking. But I wasn’t thinking. I mean to say there was no thought.

  But that’s not true. Because I was thinking something as he lifted me up.

  I was thinking of something wrong to think.

  And when his face was near mine, I thought of the guy.

  And when he said, Pretty face, I thought, Pretty face.

  And when I said to stop, he said, Stop what.

  And when it was me on the hood of the car, it wasn’t me on the hood of the car.

  And when I was a girl on the hood of the car, I was a guy on the hood of the car.

  I didn’t know where to put my hands.

  The guy had come out from the woods by then. He was standing at the woods’ edge. He was looking at us like I don’t know what.

  Like, Fuck you two. Like, I will kill you two.

  I want to say I was drunk. But I was more that thing after drunk. That thing between drunk and sleep. Or drunk and regret. Or drunk and drunk again.

  And the truth is I knew where to put my hands.

  Because I was predatory.

  That’s not the word.

  I was perverted.

  That’s not it.

  I was something though.

  Just some little thing.

  Just some charming little thing.

  I wish I could give you a climactic moment. But there is no climactic moment in this. There is no such thing here as climactic. In a story about a hike, there is only a circling around and around.

  In a story about me and guys, there is only a circling around.

  And in a story about a story.

  In a story about the father.

  Mine taught me all the wrong things.

  Mine taught me how to be that girl.

  Mine taught me how to be that guy.

  So thank you, Father, thank you, thank you.

  And thank you, trees, for not noticing me.

  Thank you, birds, for not noticing me.

  Thank you, windows, for keeping the universe on its side.

  For keeping me on mine.

  My father would wake me mornings, his face too close, shout, Rise and shine, in my face, and I wanted his face far away.

  And I wanted it farther and farther.

  And when it was as far away as it could be, it still wasn’t far enough.

  It was still right there, my father’s face, in front of my face.

  My father ready to give me away.

  My father ready to throw me away.

  Whenever you’re ready, he always said.

  I’m waiting, he said.

  Old maid, he said.

  Still waiting, he said.

  Then he died.

  I should say there were moments in childhood worth something. I made tents from sheets like anyone. I dug holes in the yard.

  My father threw me into the air, caught me.

  He threw me into the air, caught me.

  He threw me into the air.

  It wasn’t so different in moments. I wasn’t so different from you.

  I was falling, like you, for something.

  The guy stood by the edge of the woods. I wanted him to stop looking at us. I wanted him to stop looking like that. And I would have said something smart, like, Take a picture. But I was thinking instead that he could get hurt. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was the shadows on the road. Or his smallness next to trees. I was thinking of the stories of the woods at night. I knew what could happen in the woods. There were monsters. There were witches. There were killers.

  So I sent a thought to the universe. And I sent it again. I sent it again.

  And when he moved from the woods, I was a believer in something.

  And when he reached the car, I was not.

  Because then I remembered.

  What.

  I just remembered.

  What.

  Desire is desire for recognition, and I was controlled by desire just like you.

  I was fucked up just like you.

  The guy walked up to the car, said, What’s going on, and I said, What.

  And he looked at the friend and said, You know what, and the friend laughed and said, What.

  Now, I see why this was wrong. All of it. I see.

  But in that moment I was too in love.

  I don’t mean with the friend. I don’t mean with the guy.

  The ride home was the radio loud. It was none of us saying a word. It was my drinking what was left to drink. It was the friend dropping the guy off first. It was the guy slamming the door.

  Then it was just me and the friend in the car. And we pulled up to my place. He followed me inside.

  I swear I was thinking, No, and, No.

  I swear.

  This is not the time to ask me what I was. Though if you did, I might say a child. I might say the child I was as a child, landing hard on the grass and lying there until the world went dark.

  It was my father who said to send your thoughts.

  It was he who said to tell the universe what you want.

  Back then I wanted the things one wants: a doll, a dog.

  Back then I pictured the universe as a thing one could understand: a two-dimensional scene with grass at the bottom, stars at the top.

  My father would say, Don’t tell me, as he stumbled across the yard toward some lady waiting on the grass.

  He would say, Tell the universe what you want, as they stumbled to the car.

  Night would scatter across the grass, across the house.

  I would meet the guys at the edge of the woods.

  I would be that monster in the woods. That killer. That witch. Tha
t girl running wild, her skirt hiked to her waist.

  At some point you become something other than girl. At some point you become confused. Then you’re that from that point on.

  I waked the next day and he’d left. I suppose he just got in his car, went home.

  It’s not like we had some kind of thing.

  It’s not like he was a permanent thing.

  It’s not like anything was.

  The dog next door. My father’s ladies. My dolls.

  I don’t know where these things went.

  And I don’t know where my father went.

  I mean he died, of course.

  I mean nobody knows where he went, of course.

  To the other side.

  Dumb thought.

  I don’t know what to make of that.

  How it wants to be deep.

  How it isn’t deep.

  And I don’t know what to make of you.

  How you’re just like me.

  How you think you aren’t.

  And I don’t know what to make of birds.

  How they stab their faces at the cold, hard ground.

  How they’re fucked up just like us.

  UNDERTHINGS

  My boyfriend hit me in the face with a book. It was an accident, his hitting me. He only meant to hand me the book. He meant to hand the book back to me. But my face was in its path, he said. It was in its way, he said. And so the book connected with my face. And so here we are.

  I guess I must have closed my eyes. Because I didn’t see the book hit my face. But I heard it hit, if you can imagine. It made a sound against my face. I can’t describe the sound it made. But imagine, if you can, the sound.

  Then I watched at the mirror as a red mark spread across my face. It transformed my face into another face. By which I mean a face I knew. By which I mean a lot of things.

  It was an accident, his hitting me in the face with the book. Accident, he said, dropping the book, holding up his hands. Accident, I later said to my brother. Bullshit, my brother said. He hit you with a fucking book, he said.

  As kids, my brother did his thing, I did mine. His things were, for the most part, boy things. Mine were, for the most part, not. But they were not what I would call girl things. I was not a girl who did girl things. I was a girl who worked on puzzles. These were puzzles that took weeks to solve. And when I solved a puzzle, and I always solved them, I felt brilliant.

  After my boyfriend went back to sleep, I walked outside. Outside was the rest of the world. Outside were the people of the world. It was a regular day for people. There was work and there were the other things that people do. And there I was with them, walking with them, through rain.

  My father wanted to become an astronaut. But he did not become an astronaut. Because, he said, he would not have passed the physical. So my father went into business. He became a businessman. There were sales and deals and men like my father. There was a product of some sort he sold. It was nothing like being an astronaut. But there was hope for my brother, my father said. He could still become one, he said.

  My boyfriend was brutally killed in his dreams. Sometimes he was stabbed. Sometimes someone’s hands were squeezing tightly around his throat. And there were zombies too. And witches too. And sharp-toothed animals chasing him through woods. It was called night terrors, what he had, and he would wake up screaming and run through the room. On the worst of these nights, my boyfriend and I were terrified. We never knew what was going on. We would often stay up all night, those nights, waiting for the room to turn light. But they were often funny, those nights, the next day.

  We had all been out the night before. It was me, my boyfriend, my brother, and a girl. It was an upscale bar my boyfriend liked. My brother did not like upscale things. He liked the trashy bars in his part of the city. He liked the trashy girls in those trashy bars. My brother thought my boyfriend was a prick. And my boyfriend thought my brother was a prick. But I should say it was my birthday. That we were at the upscale bar to celebrate my birthday. My boyfriend bought the first round of drinks. And my brother bought another round. And my boyfriend bought another. And at some point my brother pushed up his sleeve. He wanted to arm-wrestle my boyfriend. He said he would wrestle him through the fucking table. My brother was big. He worked at a gym. It was a gym where big guys went to get bigger. My boyfriend was not so big. But he was tougher than my brother. He was tough in another way. The bar was crowded and people were staring. My brother stuck his elbow to the table. Then my boyfriend stuck his elbow to the table. Then my brother and my boyfriend gripped each other’s hands.

  I walked all the way to my brother’s part of the city. At my brother’s place, I rang the bell, then rang again. Then I called his name from the street. I was surprised to hear the front door’s click. Surprised to see my brother standing in his doorway. And before I was even down the hallway, he was looking too hard at my face. It was terrible, how he was looking. Terrible, how banged up I was. I had seen those banged-up women before. I had seen them on streets, all terrible looking, all banged up. It was wrong, the way my brother was looking. Dumb, how we were just standing there. I said, Is your girl here still. He said, She’s not my girl. But is she here, I said. Fuck you, he said. I knew my brother way too well. I knew he fucked her and sent her home. He often fucked them and showed them the door. I held up my hand for a high five. My brother was that guy, always holding up his. I said, High five. But he left me hanging, my hand up high.

  There was a day I had solved a difficult puzzle. And I went into my brother’s bedroom and told my brother how I had solved it. And my brother said he understood how I had solved the puzzle. And he suggested a different way of solving it. And his way of solving it was somehow better than mine. And it was in this moment I saw his brilliance. I hadn’t seen this brilliance before. And I knew it was more brilliant than mine.

  I should say again we were in the bar to celebrate this thing that went right, once, years before, the thing being, simply, my being there, that miraculous spark that kept on going, and there I was.

  And I should say that my brother won, of course. He slammed my boyfriend’s knuckles into the table as hard as he could. People in the bar applauded. The girl kissed my brother on his mouth. My brother went to buy a round of drinks. My boyfriend was angry and he looked very angry. Your brother’s the biggest prick, he said. But my brother was not the biggest prick. He was buying us a round of drinks. He’s not the biggest prick, I said. There are way bigger pricks, I said. And my boyfriend said, What does that mean. And I guess this was when the fight began. My boyfriend said, It must mean something. You must mean me, he said.

  It was dumb how we were just standing there. I said, Let me in, but my brother didn’t move. I said, Let me fucking in, but he just stood there staring at my face. So I pushed past my brother and went to the kitchen. His kitchen was the worst kitchen ever. It could barely fit two people at once. It could barely fit even one. The kitchen table was not in the kitchen. It was outside the kitchen. It was against a wall in the other room. In the refrigerator was a case of beer. I took a beer. My brother squeezed into the kitchen. He grabbed my arm. He shook the beer from my hand. It rolled to somewhere, to under something. Then my brother pulled me from the refrigerator. He pulled me from the kitchen. He pushed me into a chair. Then he sat in a chair. And we sat, like anyone, on any morning, at the kitchen table.

  My mother left three dolls in the house and my father gave them to me. They were my mother’s dolls from when she was a kid. But I was not a girl who played with dolls. And I did not want my mother’s things, besides. So I gave the dolls to my brother. They wore dresses from other countries. My brother named them girls’ names. He kept them in a row on his dresser. I don’t think he ever played with the dolls. I think he just wanted to keep them like that, in a row.

  My boyfriend walked ahead of me home from the bar. I was fine with not walking next to him. We were in a fight, and I was fine. I was used to our fights. I was used to
the door slamming in my face. I almost loved when the door slammed in my face. Because it meant my boyfriend would sleep on the couch.

  On my brother’s kitchen table were dried dots of something red. There were crumbs of something white. It was a mess, the table, a mess, the whole room. My brother reached toward me as if to grab me. What happened to your face, he said. And he could have grabbed my shirt or my arm, but he didn’t. What happened to your face, I said. I was pushing the crumbs into the dots. My brother was watching me do this. Tell me, he said. You tell me, I said. He was watching me pick off each red dot, which was made from something, ketchup, pizza, I don’t know. He said, Tell me. He was getting angry. I didn’t care if he was angry. He had every reason to be angry. It was an accident, I said.

  My father’s dirty underthings were always all over the house. There was nowhere to go except for my bedroom, where his dirty underthings were not. So one day I collected all of his dirty underthings in a bag. And I took the bag out to the yard. And I shook the bag out onto the grass. It looked absurd, all those dirty underthings all over the yard. But it made me laugh for a second, the utter absurdity of this.

  I slept better when my boyfriend slept on the couch. That night I had slept straight through the night. But in the morning a bird flew in through the bedroom window. It was filthy, circling, crashing crazy into the walls. I was screaming for my boyfriend to help. I felt dumb screaming for help. I felt dumb screaming at all. The bird left streaks of dark on the ceiling. Feathers popped out from its wings. The bird is not a metaphor. It’s not meant to symbolize anything. It was just a bird.

  I should say there was one puzzle I never solved as a kid. In it, a hotel has an infinite number of rooms. There is someone staying in each of the rooms. Then an infinite number of people walk in. They each want a room, and, though the rooms are filled, they each get one. The question, of course, is how.

  I picked at the red dots on the table. They came up from the table in perfect circles. My brother said, Stop that. I said, Stop what. He pointed to my hands. He said, Stop that. It was like he was the one older and I was the one younger. It was like he was tough and I was not. I said, Where’s your girl. He said, She’s not my girl. There was no reason to talk about the girl. She was trash like all of the girls. I said, She wouldn’t fuck you. He said, Yeah, right. I said, Yeah, right. She wouldn’t fuck you, I said. Then my brother slammed his fist into the table. The crumbs on the table jumped, and I would have laughed if things had been different. But I didn’t like how my brother was acting. He was trying to act tough. And he looked tough. But that didn’t mean he was tough. He said, Tell me the truth. I said, What truth. I said, I told you the truth. I said, There is no truth. But what did I know about truth. I was only fucking around. And my brother knew I was fucking around. So he reached across the table. He grabbed my arm. He squeezed too hard. He said, Tell me the truth. I said, Let me go. But he squeezed my arm harder. I hadn’t thought he could squeeze it harder. I could feel the bone in my arm. I could feel the bone about to snap. He said, Tell me the truth. I said, Let me go. I felt like I would cry. But I was not the type of girl to cry. So I said, He hit me in the face with a book.