Pictures of Houses with Water Damage: Stories
Page 9
I wanted to say something to her, but tonight was certainly not the night. I was scared.
Ginny and I danced a slow dance. We returned to our table. I was trying to be sly, my eye seeking out Helen—she danced with a few guys, but mostly remained with her friends.
Mark joined us. Mark was my best friend. He was a tall, overweight guy who was into a lot of the things I was: acting, literature, rock music. We had a good connection. We’d spent many nights driving around in his car, looking for adventures that never came to us.
Mark had also come stag, with a couple of other guys.
Mark tried to get dates, but it never happened.
His tux didn’t quite fit him, either.
Mark was full of talk, and he was talking to Ginny, which distracted her enough for me to watch Helen’s movements.
What the hell was I doing? This was the senior prom! I was supposed to be having fun…
“Mind if I dance with your date?” Mark said to me, that usual hint of sarcasm in his voice.
“Not at all, sir,” said I.
So Ginny danced with Mark—it was a funny sight: Ginny was five-two, Mark was six-three.
Helen was looking at me. She had a drink in her hand, and she was looking my way. I didn’t know what to do. She waved. I waved back. Then I looked away.
What the hell was I doing? I should’ve went over there, I should’ve asked her for a dance. Helen was in two of my classes, right, she sat next to me, right—so Ginny would understand.
Ginny and Mark returned.
“Dance with me?” Ginny said.
“Yes,” I said, standing up.
“Me and my big clumsy feet,” Mark said.
I used the hundred-dollar bill to get a motel room. Ginny and I had gotten a motel room a few times—it was an exciting teenage thing to do. We drove around in the limo until our time was up. “You’re the quietest couple I’ve had in a while,” he said, “usually proms are pretty wild.”
I tipped him twenty bucks at the motel.
“We are quiet,” Ginny said when we went into our room.
“We’re getting old,” I said. “This is scary.”
We undressed and got into bed.
“Senior prom,” Ginny said. “Do you want to make love?”
My hand was on her slightly protruding belly. “I don’t know.”
“I’m not in the mood. I will if you want to.”
“I’m not in the mood,” I said.
“Okay.”
“Oh God.”
“Oh God is right.”
“We’re talking like some kind of old married couple,” I said.
“We’re comfortable,” she said, hugging me.
There were knocks at the door.
“Mark?” Ginny said.
“Probably,” I said.
I got dressed and let Mark in. Ginny pulled the covers to her chin.
“Old man,” Mark said, like he was reading my mind. “I come to whisk you away for an adventure. The both of you.”
“No adventures for me,” Ginny said. “Sleep is for me.”
I looked at Ginny.
“Go ahead,” she told me. Her eyes said it was all right.
I did need to get away from this scene.
Mark and I left and got into his car. There was plenty of booze on the floor. I picked up a bottle of Jim Beam and took a good swig.
“You’re getting boring,” Mark said.
“Fuck you. Where we going?”
“Everyone’s headed to Presidio Park.”
“And that’s where we’re off to?”
“You bet,” Mark said, revving the engine. “It’s the end of our lives tonight! Ha! Hey, you think I might get laid up there?”
“Presidio Park is on top of this small mountain,” I said under hypnosis. “It’s basically the big party hangout—people gather and party until the cops come and tell them to leave. The cops aren’t going to come tonight, not on this special night. Even cops have hearts sometimes. So Mark and I are there, drinking, and there’s all these kids from school, and from other schools too. There’s a lot of loud music. It is here that I saw the UFO.”
“You see it now?” Craig asked.
“Not now, no. I see Helen. I’m stunned. She’s still in her green dress, and those gloves. She’s alone, drinking a beer. I know this is my one and only chance. I can’t blow it. I grab a bottle of tequila from Mark’s car and tell him I have to meet my destiny. Can you believe that? I actually say that. ‘Destiny!’ But I’m already drunk. ‘Oh fine,’ Mark says, ‘just leave me all alone.’ ‘Bitch,’ I say to him. ‘Double-bitch,’ he says to me.”
“Tell me about the sky.”
“It’s a very clear night, a lot of stars out.”
“Tell me about Helen.”
“God, she’s gorgeous. She sees me coming her away, and she smiles. Her teeth are perfect and white.”
“Hey there,” Helen said. “Hello.”
I wanted to tell her she was the most perfect woman in the world; I wanted to tell her she was the invader of my dreams.
“Hi,” I said.
“Nice tequila bottle,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, it is.”
I took a drink. She was just looking at me. “Would you like some?” I said.
“Sure.” She tossed her beer away, took the bottle, and took a good long swig.
“So,” I said, looking at all the people here.
“Where’s Ginny?” she asked.
“Not here.”
“Oh.”
“She’s not—”
“It’s okay.”
“What?”
We looked at one another. What the hell was going on here?
“I know this spot,” she said. “Do you want to go?”
Oh, yes I did.
“She takes my hand,” I said to Craig. “My hand is in her small hand, and we’re leaving the general party area. She seems to know where she’s going. She knows this place well. I’ve only been up here a few times. She’s been up here many times. She’s gotten fucked-up up here, I know, she’s drank and smoked pot and maybe even had sex with a few guys. Then she says something to me, which scares me. Like she’s reading my mind. She says, ‘Yes, I’ve been up here many times.’ We’re on the other side of the park, alone, and it’s dark, and we can see almost all of the city—at least this part of the city on this side. Helen and I sit under a tree, and we drink from the tequila bottle.”
“It’s nice here,” I said to her.
“Put your arm around me,” Helen said.
I did.
She leaned into me. “That’s nice.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “I’ve seen it in your eyes. I’ve felt you looking at me.”
“What?”
“I know,” she said, and kissed me.
I was nervous.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I’m being abrupt,” she said.
I kissed her. It was a long kiss. She stopped me.
“I know what you want, David,” she said.
“You think I’m bad,” I said. “Here I am, with you here, and I have a girlfriend—”
“And she’s pregnant,” Helen said.
“What?”
She smiled. “Come on.”
“How’d—how’d you know?”
“Girls know,” she laughed. “And I’m psychic.”
“Oh,” I said.
We were silent, and both took drinks from the bottle.
“I’ve seen her sick in the bathroom,” Helen said. “I’ve seen her eating crackers. It’s so obvious.”
“Oh,” I said, and drank.
“You’re not ready,” she said.
“No.”
“It sucks.”
“It does.”
“I like you.”
“You should’ve been my prom date,” I said suddenly.
“No,�
�� she said. “No. And,” she said, “you don’t love me.”
“I do love you!”
“No.”
“You’ve been in my dreams,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “Because you keep thinking about me. I feel your thoughts. So I go into your dreams.”
We drank.
I laughed. “Are you a witch?”
“You’re getting drunk.”
“You’re not?”
“Not yet.”
“Get drunk with me.”
“I will.”
“And?”
“And?”
“And,” I said.
“You want to screw me,” Helen said. “That’s all you really want.”
“And?” Craig said.
I was silent, which prompted him.
“We’re kissing,” I said. “Man, are we kissing. Her lipstick is all over me, and her perfume. I’m grabbing at her tits and she’s rubbing my cock. I try to unzip her dress, from the back. Then something funny happens. Helen pushes me away; she has this weird look on her face. I ask her what’s wrong. She says, ‘There is much you don’t understand.’ She doesn’t seem drunk anymore. She says, ‘Look up at the sky.’ I look. And I see it. My God, I see it!”
“The UFO?”
“YES! It’s right there, hovering near us. Well—not at first. At first, it’s just this glowing dot in the sky, moving strangely. Then it gets bigger, coming toward us. Then it is there. Huge. Disk-shaped. Flying saucer, but really just a lot of glowing light. I look at Helen and she’s smiling. ‘I have to go,’ she says, ‘do you want to go with me?’
“The light is intense, too intense. It hurts my eyes. I scream. I’m scared. NO! NO! THIS ISN’T WHAT I WANT!”
I screamed.
“David,” Craig said, “you’re coming out from the memory on the count of three—one, two, three!” He clapped his hands.
I caught my breath. “Shit.”
“Shit,” Anne said, “you’re bullshitting me.”
“No,” I said, “I remember now.”
“So there’s this UFO there, and she what?”
“Yeah,” I say. “And she tells me, ‘I have to go home now.’ ‘I have to return to my people.’ I’m like, ‘What?’ and Helen goes, ‘I was hoping we’d have a moment, but my people are calling me back.’ The next thing I know, she’s standing under the ship, and this beam of light comes down, engulfing her, and she disappears.”
“And?”
“And then I watch the UFO fly away.”
“And?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I remember walking back to the party. The cops were there, dispersing people. Mark grabbed me and said, ‘Let’s go!’ In the car, he said, ‘Where the hell did you take off to?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ And I really didn’t. I was in a daze. Mark thought I was drunk off my ass.”
“And Ginny was at the motel room.”
“Yes.”
Ginny wasn’t in bed. The bathroom door was closed, and I heard her crying. The door was locked.
“Ginny,” I said.
“Go away,” she said.
“Let me in,” I said.
“No,” she said, crying.
“LET ME IN!”
She opened the door. She was a mess. She pointed to the toilet. There was blood everywhere.
“It’s gone,” she said.
Anne and I washed the dinner dishes together.
“She had a miscarriage,” Anne said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“How’d you feel?”
“I don’t know. Remorse, in a way. It was our baby. But also relief. I wasn’t going to be a father. I didn’t have to tell my parents anything. Responsibility was gone. I was free. I looked into Ginny’s eyes and I saw the same, but I also saw a mother who’d lost a child. I think I aged five years in that single moment.”
“You were too young. You weren’t ready, neither of you. Think of what your life, your life and her life, would be like right now.”
“Sometimes I think about it,” I said.
“So what happens next in the story?”
“What happens next,” I said, my hands covered in soap suds. “We still lived a secret life. We couldn’t tell anyone, and I called an ambulance to take her to the hospital. They cleaned her out. Prom night was over. She started to go to church a few weeks later. She said God was telling us something. She became born again. She wanted me to join. I wasn’t into Jesus and sin. We broke up, I guess. She met a guy in church, he got her pregnant. They got married. I went to state college.”
“Helen?”
“Never saw or talked to her again.”
“She went back to her planet,” Anne laughed.
“Sure.”
“Sorry.”
Anne and I went to the bedroom. We undressed, and got into bed.
“Senior prom,” Anne said. “I went with a jack whose only interest was to shove himself up my cunt. Do you want to make love?”
My hand was on the wiry pubic hair of her sex. “I don’t know.”
“I’m not in the mood. I will if you want to.”
“I’m not in the mood,” I said.
“Okay.”
“Oh God,” I said and laughed.
“’Oh God’ is right.”
“We’re talking like some kind of old married couple,” I said.
“We’re comfortable,” she said, hugging me.
We made love anyway.
“What about,” I started to say.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Tell me.”
“Solid Bill,” I said.
“There is no Bill no more,” she said softly.
I drove up to Presidio Park the next night. It was midweek and there were a few high school kids drinking beer and hanging out. I parked my car, and started walking to the place Helen took me to, thirteen years ago. I hadn’t been up here since. I had a small bottle of tequila in my jacket. I found the tree Helen and I had sat under, and I sat. The tree looked the same, if memories serve me well. Memory was my nemesis, this I knew. So I drank. I tried to think of Helen’s kisses, her skin, the way she smelled, the way her tits felt. I knew those sensations during my hypnosis session, but I couldn’t grasp them now. I could only think of the way Ginny felt, tasted, and smelled.
I looked at the city. The sky was mostly clear, a few clouds. Lots of stars, as always. I imagined one star coming alive, and getting bigger, and coming near me. It’s a ship.
And Helen gets out.
“Hello, old friend,” she says, all dressed up in a silver suit.
I finished the bottle.
None of it ever happened, of course.
I needed to get more in tune with reality.
Walking back to my car, I passed a young couple heading for my tree. I smiled at them. The boy looked away, the girl smiled back—bashfully. I was just some old geek to them, I’m sure.
I got into my car, and drove home.
From the sky, a flying, glowing disk appeared, and hovered for a moment over my car, and flew away.
I got out, and watched it.
I went to the flower store. They were just about to close. I bought a bouquet of tulips and sunflowers. I hate roses. Ginny loved roses. I remember, once, seeing Helen walking to a class, holding a sunflower someone had given her.
Anne was watching TV when I got home. Star Trek.
“We’re in the wrong universe, David,” she said.
“These are yours, please,” I said.
She took the flowers, and she kissed me.
The Keepers
Takayuki’s parents are studying the manual they brought to the States, trying to make sense of an old tradition fitting for the 21st century.
They don’t speak much English and that doesn’t help; Takayuki and Akiko’s translations are spotty at best. Frank and I do our best to understand.
W
e nod our heads a lot and Takayuki’s parents nod their heads and we all smile like everything is working out well.
Frank and I look at each other and shrug.
Frank is my husband of eleven years, by the way; we got married when we were both twenty-two and things have been up and down but overall a good marriage. We bought a house three years ago in Santa Barbara. Takayuki lived by himself in the house next to us. We became friends. Takayuki works in a biomedical lab and I’m not sure what he does but he seems to make good money.
Frank my husband of eleven years teaches math at the high school and he makes decent money to keep a roof over our heads.
I work part time at a bookstore and make minimum wage but Frank my husband of eleven years doesn’t mind. It’s supplemental income. My paychecks often pay for airline tickets when we want to travel.
Someday we will go to Japan.
Takayuki had often talked about his greatest love, a girl named Akiko that he left behind in Japan.
One day, Akiko showed up and Takayuki informed us that he was going to marry the woman, finally, and he asked us to be Keepers of the Bride and Groom.
Frank and I said sure, why not, what the hell.
So here we all are, the six of us: me and Frank, Takayuki and Akiko, and Takayuki’s parents—I won’t even try to pronounce their names—sitting in Takayuki’s living room and preparing for a Japanese wedding, or something close to it, that will take place next week in Las Vegas.
As Keepers, the job Frank and I are tasked with is to keep the bride and groom on the right and righteous path to the wedding altar. We are to make sure they do not stray or go astray, that things do not go awry or wrong. We are responsible for both of them arriving at the altar in one piece and smiling.
I have mixed feelings about the wedding. I don’t think it should happen.
“Anne, oh Anne,” Frank my husband of eleven years goes, “why, how can you think and say such a thing?”
“Look at the way he treats her.”
“Treats her how?”
“You know how,” I say, getting angry that Frank my husband of eleven years is acting dumb; “if there’s a bowl of rice ten feet away from him, he won’t get up off his sorry ass and get it. He waits for Akiko to serve it to him. When he wants a beer, he tells her to get one and she jumps up and does it. You saw it, that one night, you saw how he was.”