In the Mean Time

by Tremblay, Paul

  Florida rests the flashlight beam on this last and largest dirt clod. Something else is hanging from it, almost dripping or leaking out of the packed dirt. After staring for as long as she can stare, and as her house breaks into pieces above her, Florida realizes what she is looking at is a swatch of cloth, perhaps the hem of dress. She can almost make out its colour. Green maybe. Or blue.

  Although the previous night was more about the rush of her discovery, of the growing things, and of her flashlight game, looking at the basement now and seeing what she sees, specifically the cloth, Florida remembers walking the basement floor in her rubber boots, walking on what she couldn’t see. She remembers what it felt like: the unexpectedly hard and lumpy soil, and she now knows she was walking upon the bones of the one who disappeared, of the runaway.

  Florida shuts off the flashlight and throws it into the basement. Leaves rustle and there’s a soft thud. She climbs the stairs in the dark, thinking of all of the bones beneath her feet, thinking of stories about spiders getting their arms and legs torn off by tweezers. Florida is furious with herself for not recognizing those bones last night, but how could she be blamed? She never really knew her mother.

  Florida runs up the basement steps into the kitchen and stumbles over and past the continued growth. The knocking on the front door is no longer subtle, no more a mysterious collection of doll’s hands. The sound of the knocking is itself a force. It’s a pounding by a singular and determined fist, as big as her shrinking old world, maybe as big as the growing new one. The door rattles in the frame, and Florida screams out with each pounding.

  She shuffles away from the mud room, and into the living room. Angie is still there, but is up and out of the nest. She’s kneeled between the stalks that have erupted through the floor. She pinches the shoots and leaves between her fingers, plucks them away, and puts them in her mouth.

  The pounding on the front door intensifies. Her father said if there was a knocking on the door, then the world was over. A voice now accompanies the unrelenting hammering on the door. “Let me in!” The voice is as ragged and splintered as the living room floor.

  Florida shouts, “We need to go upstairs, Angie! Now now now!”

  More pounding. More screaming. “Let me in!”

  Florida imagines the growing things gathered outside her door, woven into a fist as big as their house. The leaves shake in unison and in rhythm, their collected rustling forming their one true voice.

  Florida imagines her father outside the door. The one she never knew, eyes wide, white froth and foam around his mouth, spitting his demand to be allowed entry into his home, the place he built, the place he forged out of rock, wood, and dirt—all dead things. His three-word command is what heralds the end of everything. She imagines her father breaking the door down, seeing his oldest daughter eating the leaves that won’t stop growing, and seeing what his youngest daughter knows is written on her face as plain as any storybook.

  Angie doesn’t look at her sister as she gorges on the leaves and shoots. Then Angie stops eating abruptly, her head tilts back, her eyelids flutter, and she falls to the floor.

  Florida drops the water jug, covers her ears, and goes to Angie, even if Angie was wrong about there being no more stories.

  Florida tells Angie another story. Florida will get her up and bring her upstairs to their bedroom. She’ll let Angie choose what she wants to wear instead of trying to force the green dress on her. They’ll always ignore the pounding on the door, and when they’re safe and when everything is okay, Florida will ask Angie two questions: What if it isn’t him outside the door? What if it is?

  Harold the Spider Man

  Most people don’t like spiders: all those twitchy, crawly legs, the white thread that spills out of their abdomens and how it feels when you walk into their webs, like something trying to get inside your skin and poke around, maybe snack on your blood and innards, and maybe it’s one of those horribly special spiders from Japan, the kind that eats your secrets.

  If there’s a spider in a house, most people squish or squash or vacuum it up, or they run away while flailing their own twitchy appendages and then beg for someone else to do their squish-squashing for them. No one really seems to be deterred by the threat of bringing rain with the death of a spider anymore. Even if the house is a hovel or unkempt or as messy as the messiest mess you can imagine, the owners of the messiest-mess house would likely kill the spider and wrap it up neatly in a wad of toilet paper, then flush it down the toilet.

  Harold wasn’t afraid of spiders though. Harold does seem like a silly name for The Spider Man (no, not the superhero or even a regular run-of-the-mill hero), but it was his name and we can’t fix that. He never killed spiders in his house. And after his brittle bride Alicia died, Harold shared his home with countless spiders.

  Alicia was sickly and thin and was always melodramatically suffering from various flavour-of-the-week ailments. Most thought she was a hypochondriac, but as if to prove the naysayers wrong, she went to bed early one night and never woke up.

  After the brief and ill-attended funeral, Harold let the everyday house spider go wherever it wanted, which was usually inside his bathtub or sink, or in the corners of his ceilings. Daddy Long Legs liked his finished basement, hanging out by the air hockey table that no one used anymore. Harold went out to his yard and the wooded area across from his house and relocated scores of local arachnids. He transferred white egg sacks and hung them off light fixtures and doorknobs. Spiders that he found under heavy rocks he placed gently under his end tables. Garden spiders set up shop in his kitchen, spinning webs between his box of Frosted Flakes and a bag of pretzel rods. He went to his computer and he made phone calls, purchasing carton-loads of spiders, spiders, spiders. After those packages arrived, there were tarantulas tickling the keys of his great-great-great grandfather’s piano, their songs always tense and high-pitched. Brown Recluse spiders hid and kept to themselves. Jumping spiders jumped on the guest bed that no one guested on. Hunting spiders wandered the house in packs and attacked the phone whenever it rang, which wasn’t all that often. Harold had to keep his living room desert warm so the trap-door spiders living inside his couch and using the cushions as trap-doors would be comfortable. He had fisher spiders hanging out above bowls of water, bird-catching spiders in the upstairs guest room, and funnel-web spiders in the doorways. He even had some of those crazy secret-eating spiders from Japan that just had to be seen to be believed.

  Harold briefly emerged from his home to accept condolences and well-wishes from his neighbours. He told some of them that Alicia fell victim to a nasty case of Lyme disease, while he told others she died from an esoteric flu, and yet to others he blamed her death on a mosquito bite and eastern equine encephalitis. Regardless, Harold explained that while he wasn’t afraid of spiders, he was deathly afraid of ticks, and that he was also afraid of the fleas that lived on mice and rats, and he was afraid of the rats themselves, and birds, and mosquitoes, and flies. He was afraid of all these creatures because they carried the diseases that felled his Alicia. They carried diseases with horrible nicknames like Black Death, or viruses named only by capital letters and numbers, or diseases named after someone who likely isn’t too happy with having a disease with their name on it, or diseases that sounded vaguely exotic but were extremely painful and deadly. Harold reasoned that spiders ate mosquitoes and fleas and ticks and flies, and there were larger species of spiders that even ate mice and birds, and if he surrounded himself with spiders he’d never catch Alicia’s diseases. He’d be safe.

  Suffice to say, no one wanted to visit Harold’s house anymore. No matter how much you say you’re not afraid of spiders, try confronting a houseful of them. And all those webs everywhere you went! For the few brave souls who insisted upon visiting The Spider Man, Harold took to greeting them in this way: “So, Miss Muffet, where will you be sitting? Ha ha!” Not a very funny or plea
sant way to enter The Spider Man’s house: in fact most agreed it was rather creepy, even sinister, especially after he tried to force curds and whey upon them (curds and whey, of course, being slightly more frightening than the spiders from Japan). So they stopped going to Harold’s house. Even his parents discontinued their visits and only called.

  Harold became infamous, with legends of his deeds and misdeeds springing up instantly among the children in his neighbourhood. The younger kids believed he could talk to spiders, and some believed his late wife had transformed into a spider that he kept and fed, and she would use a giant web to catch and devour any child foolish enough to walk near their house. The older brothers and sisters of the neighbourhood insisted that they, in fact, once knew a boy (whose name no one could remember) who had disappeared after last being seen near Harold’s house, and that all that was left of the boy was a sneaker they found in the woods, hanging in a large web.

  The adults in the neighbourhood gossiped about Harold too, and they guessed at the secrets his house of spiders might hold. Their tales generally concerned his relationship with Alicia and the nature of her demise. Their stories were cruel, salacious, and hardly worth mentioning.

  Everyone left Harold alone. He almost never left the house, and on the few occasions that he did, he took a pocketful of spiders with him.

  Harold’s spiders weren’t all that appreciative of his efforts. Because of the sheer number of spiders in the house, there wasn’t enough food to go around. Initially, Harold would open windows and use lamps to attract moths, or bring in boxes full of mealworms but it still wasn’t enough, would never be enough. The funnel-web spiders didn’t like mealworms and bird-catching spiders didn’t like moths and the secret-eating spiders from Japan didn’t—well, you get the idea. So the spiders were forced to eat each other.

  The tarantulas didn’t have their hearts in it when they attacked the raft spider, and the trap-door spiders didn’t move so fast when dragging nursery-web spiders underneath the couch cushions. The secret-eating spiders from Japan didn’t do or eat much of anything. They were too depressed as Harold refused to feed them what they needed.

  It was obvious, even to Harold, that he hadn’t thought things through. He did miss having visitors and playing air hockey in his basement, and he felt terrible that his spiders were eating each other, but he did not have a solution. He wasn’t about to bring in the food his spiders really wanted.

  Harold didn’t know what to do, so he continued mindlessly catching and ordering more spiders to replace the eaten ones. He couldn’t keep pace with their appetites. The more spiders he brought home, the faster they disappeared, even the spiders in his pocket turned on each other. Eventually, the only spiders left in his house were two of the secret-eating spiders from Japan.

  Harold still lives alone with the two secret-eating spiders. Some days they clean his house, tearing down the other spiders’ webs and traps and food stores before they dutifully deposit these remnants of their old comrades into the trash. Most days the two secret-eating spiders follow Harold around the house. They glide on his carpets and tickle the linoleum in the kitchen, each with one of their arms wrapped around one of the other’s arms as if holding hands. When Harold The Spider Man rests, they sit at his feet like trained dogs.

  Harold stares at the secret-eating spiders. He thinks of Alicia and is resolute and tight-lipped. And the secret-eating spiders stare at him. They stare and they are patient, waiting to finally be fed.

  Rhymes with Jew

  Diane rhymed words with “Jew.” They were silly, nonsensical rhymes. She was in love with the simple rhythm, the hard monosyllables ending with lips pursing into the ooo sound repeatedly. As a child, she drove her mother crazy with it. Mom, in her English sprinkled with Yiddish, said her daughter was a schlemiel, said her daughter was a giant pain in the tuchis, said she wasn’t respecting their heritage, said people would think she was a shikseh.

  It’s approaching sundown on the Sabbath. Diane was too weak to go to Temple today. But she said a Kaddish for her mother. Now in the middle of her tea, there’s a knock on her door. This older-than-Abraham woman who now forgets more than she remembers finds two Jews (she notices the delicious rhyme) on her doorstep. Two young men she has seen at Temple, two young men said to be attending a secret yeshiva, two young men wearing tattered and worn suits (she knows the suits likely comprise their entire wardrobe), two young men wearing yarmulkes. She marvels at their chutzpah for being so public with their faith. Yes, she supposes there are still a few of them left. A few Jews. Mm, that rhyme. . . .

  The young men don’t have to tell Diane why they are here. No need to talk about the new Homeland Faith taxes placed upon synagogues, and the purchase of kosher foods and all things Jewish are so burdensome, so aggressive, so clear in their message. Like so many young people, they are poor in pocket and in spirit. She knows they want to leave the Red States and go to the Blue, but they don’t know how to leave and they don’t know where the Blue States are. They haven’t found the Blue in their libraries or on televisions and computers. Even their rabbi only has rumours, and of course, Diane’s name and address.

  Diane invites the young men into her home and offers them bailies despite the late hour.

  She tells them, “Sit.”

  She tells them, “I’m not what I used to be, but I can still talk, and drink. We’ll drink, fill our lungs with cigarette smoke and die sooner rather than later, if we’re lucky.”

  Two weeks before the government grants and subsidies expired, Gail Goodwin (who had earned millions with home alarms and other personal security products) privatized and financed a social work department loosely affiliated with Charlotte State Hospital. One year after her start, Gail hired Diane, despite her apparent status as grossly under-qualified. Gail wore turtleneck sweaters even in summer, jeans, thick glasses, and chewed gum to keep from smoking. Gail was always as serious as her sweaters.

  This is how Diane remembers their first conversation:

  Gail said, “I hate gum.”

  Diane said, “So do I. Makes me feel like a cow working a cud.”

  Gail said, “We live in the eighth poorest county in the country.”

  Diane said, “When I left the house to come to this interview, my mother said what I had on was a shmatteh, a rag. But I think I look appropriate, if not nice.”

  Gail said, “Racial, religious, and ethnic discrimination coupled with the price structure of consumer fashion makes it easy for poor people to appear to be middle class.”

  Diane said, “Am I allowed to smoke anywhere in the hospital?”

  Gail said, “Many of our clients believe they are a part of the disappearing middle class. They have no job security. Everything they own is on credit. They are living one pay check away from homelessness, but believe they are middle class and they believe that what is good for government and corporations is good for them.”

  Diane said, “Could I have a piece of gum?”

  Gail said, “While it’s not difficult to appear economically stable, it is difficult for the poor to get enough to eat and to keep warm.”

  Diane said, “I have no prior professional experience in this area, only amateur experience. I’ve spent my lifetime in a family desperately trying to appear economically stable.”

  Gail said, “Obesity is the new disease of poverty because the poor can only afford to eat the wrong things.”

  Diane said, “My mother wants me to work here. She says I’d be mixed up, lost, farblonjet without this good work.”

  Gail said, “Recently, one client of ours ran naked through a local swamp, then emptied his shotgun into a small herd of cows that belonged to a neighbouring farm, still pumping and shooting even after being out of ammo. We have too many clients who periodically exhibit the kind of violent behaviour that warrants a stay in our hospital. But you know what? They recover after
about two weeks of food. These people’s nutritional needs are so far from being met that two weeks of hospital food changes them. Nine months out of the year they eat rice, cornmeal, sawmill gravy, maybe a vegetable if it’s summer, maybe fast food if they have a little money, maybe meat from a stolen hog off one of the farms.”

  Diane said, “Pigs aren’t kosher.”

  Gail said, “You start tomorrow.”

  This conversation may or may not have happened as described. It is more likely an amalgam of twenty-five-plus years of her relationship with and memories of Gail. Regardless, the reciting of this conversation confuses the young men. They tell Diane they don’t understand what any of this has to do with getting them to the Blue States.

  Diane tells them, “Stop nuhdzing and hush up.” She appreciates, even envies their impatience. Impatience means they hope.

  She tells them, “In due time, you will hear what you need to know.”

  She tells them, “You will hear everything. You will hear about Sandra first.” Diane pulls yellowed newspaper clippings from the top of her refrigerator: an obituary paper-clipped to a short two-piece article. They shake in her hand but only because her hand is always shaking.

  Unlike the greying memories of Gail, Mom, and just about everyone else who was important to her, Diane remembers Sandra.