The Sky Is Falling

by Caroline Adderson

  I was still standing on the street working up the nerve to find a phone and call her, when a second van pulled up and Dieter got out. As soon as I recognized him, I started walking away fast, but he saw me too and caught up.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  I tried to pull out of his grip. “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

  “No? Well, we’re getting the story straight. Because we’re in deep shit here. We are fucked.” He dragged me along. No one we passed looked at us twice. They thought we were drunk.

  Dieter didn’t like the Irish pub we came to first. He bullied me farther along the block, then down a stairwell wallpapered with photocopied posters, into a pit where everyone was dressed like ghouls. Faces were stuck through with pins, as though their features might drop off. A leper bar. He shoved me through the crowd. “What do you want?” he shouted over the noise of the band.

  “Nothing!”

  “Wrong!”

  “Vodka then,” I said.

  Dieter shouted to the bartender, who was wearing a dog collar and black lipstick. When he let go of me to pay, I didn’t try to escape. I didn’t think I could. He stuck the glass in my hand and, on the first sip, my eyes watered and the room diffused even more, as though there were two disco balls. The band was shrieking, goading the people on the dance floor who were leaping around, smashing into each other, pogoing. “Were you in on it?”

  “No!”

  “I should believe you? You’re such a liar!”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I’m not!”

  “Right! I found out something about you! I found out you’re not even Russian! You told everyone you were Russian just to get into the group!”

  “I never said I was!”

  “Drink your milk, Kitty!”

  I took another sip, choked.

  “And Pete! Pete is such a hypocrite! But you all love him! He can do no wrong! He can make bombs and that’s just swell with all of you! You’ll still sleep with him. Drink that! I am so fucking tense here!”

  I drank down the rest.

  “Or T-t-t-timo! T-t-t-t-imo’s everybody’s darling! Or that stupid fucking kid! I hate you all! Know why?” Saliva sprayed my face and I thought that, quite possibly, he was the ugliest person in the room. “Because you hate me!” he said.

  Something that might have been a waitress brought a tray of beer to a nearby table. Dieter went to speak to her. Again, I could have left, but I actually felt sorry for him then with his headband of an eyebrow and his goggly glasses and his rage. I didn’t care what happened to me anyway. My life was ruined. At any moment the bomb would fall and put me out of my misery. Good, I thought. Dieter came back, demanding money. I handed over my backpack and he dug through it, found my wallet full of dull American bills, took a few, then let the backpack drop. I picked it up and hugged it to my chest. My book was in it. That was all I cared about.

  “And poor little Sonia! She’s probably a lesbo too!”

  “She’s not!”

  “Well, you’re one for sure!”

  I started to cry.

  “You’re all a bunch of man-hating dykes and I hate your guts!”

  He kept on like this until the drinks came. I drank mine willingly this time. Dieter kept calling me “Kitty” in a derisive tone every time I sipped my “milk.” It was so weird. He couldn’t have known about Anna Karenina. Soon the things he was saying became inseparable from the ugly things the band was screaming. They merged into one song to thrash around to. Abruptly, half of it ended on a discordant strum and I heard someone say, “We’re going to take a break.” Dieter carried on. “I’m getting out of this mess! There’s no fucking way I’m taking the rap for Pete and a bunch of dykes! We’re going to get the story straight! Right?”

  I said, “I’m going to throw up.”

  Somehow I made it to the bathroom, where it was twice as bright as in the bar. All the scarecrows were lined up at the sinks pinning their faces back on. When I finished vomiting, they made room for me to splash myself with water. One of them asked, “Are you okay?”

  Dieter was waiting outside so he must have escorted me there. I squinted around. We were in a short dark corridor at the end of which a sign glowed. Exit. Vykhod. I made my way toward it, dragging one shoulder along the wall, falling against the handle—air! Taking great draughts of it, I stumbled out. In the alley, people stood around in clusters. Someone was playing with a lighter, making the flame climb higher, while someone else sliced a hand through it.

  Pozhar. Fire.

  A bottle went flying. There seemed a very long delay before it smashed on the cobblestoned street.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Kitty?”

  I clutched my backpack to my chest. Book. Kniga. “Nowhere.”

  “That’s right. You’re staying with me until we figure out what we’re going to say.”

  “I told you. I don’t know what happened.”

  “You’ve fucked me around before. Remember? Remember the recruitment centre? You were going to back me on that. Look what happened.”

  Dieter’s next shove prompted a few white faces with bruised eyes to turn curiously in our direction. “Did you ever talk to Sonia? You didn’t, did you? Or maybe you did. Maybe you said nasty things about me.”

  It wasn’t that I began to be afraid—I hadn’t stopped being afraid—but now I realized I was going to get hurt. He pushed me again, hard enough for my head to flop back and smack the bricks. A silver ball of pain released, rattling all through my skull, binging off my synapses. I sank down and began to conjugate. “Ya zabyvayu, ty zabyvayesh . . .” I forget. You forget.

  “Get up!”

  “On zabyvayet . . .” I opened my eyes. Some of the ghouls were closing in behind Dieter, drawn by the scent of violence. I curled tighter, teeth chattering. Dieter slapped the back of my head again. “My zabyvayem.” Again. “Vy zabyvayetye . . .” I was conjugating for my life.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” someone asked me.

  “Oni zabyvayut,” I answered.

  “Fuck off, man!”

  “You fuck off!”

  “Leave her alone!”

  I heard scuffling and grunts. Dieter: “Fuck you!” Steps running off.

  Someone touched my arm. “Are you okay? Hey? Hello?”

  I lifted my face. How had he spoken? His lips were pinned together. “Can I call you a cab?” He was dressed in pins too, a kind of silver armour of them. “Where do you live?” he asked. “Do you want to go home?”

  His blue spikes formed a halo.

  “Nyet,” I said.

  Dawn oozed through a curtain of pins. I had no idea where I was, how I’d gotten there, but I knew my headache had something to do with it. There was a guitar case propped up in a corner, but barely any furniture. The bed itself was a Murphy bed that folded into a rectangular recess in the wall. One small room I was alone in with a tiny alcove kitchen. I assumed there would be a bathroom, and there was. That was where I found him, curled up asleep in the tub.

  Snippets came back as I stood in the bathroom door. A different room he’d asked me to wait in. Bottles on a table. The reek of brimming ashtrays. I could have anything I wanted except a clean glass. When the noise started up again, it was like the end of the world. Even the walls had shuddered.

  The next time the pins were sparkling. Now I saw that they looked pretty with the sunlight on them, fixed together in long chains. “Oh,” he said, peering down at me. “You’re awake.”

  He looked different in daylight, less fierce by half, spikes crooked after a night spent in the tub. His nose hooked slightly, almost meeting the pin in his lip. There were pins in his ears too, but the most predominant feature was his skin, which looked purplish and sore to the touch. The pins, my headache, his acne. I winced.

  “Good morning! Do you understand anything I’m saying to you? No?” He sighed in his Sex Pistols T-shirt. “Coffee?”
/>   I sat up. It was the same word in Russian. “Kofye.”

  “Bingo!” He disappeared into the alcove, returned with a mug. “Do you take milk or sugar? Forget it. Wait.” A milk carton jiggled at me. I nodded, still perplexed. Something had happened last night. Ya zabyvayu.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said.

  But I couldn’t drink the coffee. It curdled whatever was in my stomach. He sat on the bed and looked at me again. Wasn’t there a bird with that same crest? Horned Grebe? Punkatoo? I was staring at his pins, but he seemed only to be thinking of what to say next. “Joe,” he finally came up with, pointing to his chest.

  I pointed to the same place, at Johnny Rotten on his T-shirt, extending a can of ejaculating beer. “Joe.”

  “Oh, crap,” he said. “Listen. I’ve got to go. You stay. Stay.” He patted the bed. “There’s food by some miracle. Thank you, Mother.” He went to the alcove to show me the fridge. Mimed eating. “Eat. Eat. Help yourself. Okay? I’ll be back around—” Five fingers held up.

  “Da,” I said. It seemed funny now.

  “Yeah. Da.” His boots were by the door, black and shin high and requiring a seated position to put on. He wove the laces through the eyelets, snugged all the Xs, then stomped over to the table where a stack of boot sole–thick books waited to be loaded into an army satchel. He relieved the chair of the leather jacket. There must have been five pounds of studs hammered into it and his shoulders sank when he put it on. Thus burdened, he left the apartment, calling over his shoulder, “Stay!”

  I went to the window and, drawing aside the pins, watched him clomp up the street. The view was of a commercial building with a sign over what looked like a garage door. Shipping and Receiving. Nothing indicated what moved in and out. I let go of the pins and looked around the room. The bookshelf was filled with science texts. The one I opened had his name written under the crossed-out previous owner’s.

  Joey Normal.

  I cleaned his bathtub and finally took a bath. I cleaned the rest of the bathroom and the kitchen. It was the least I could do. In the fridge were a number of plastic containers with the contents written on a piece of masking tape. Chicken Soup. Meatballs. I ate a cold meatball and, though delicious, my stomach was still touchy. I considered going for a walk, but worried I’d get locked out, so for the rest of the day I slept and read. Twice the phone rang, prompting an agony of questions. Why hadn’t I gone to my aunt’s? I was supposed to notify the police of a change of address. Should I call them and tell them where I was? Where was I?

  The phone, the questions, all unanswered.

  Near five, I zipped the book up in my backpack and closed the Murphy bed.

  Boring (5). Bore (1). Boredom (1). Bored (6). Dull (2). Banal (1). Idleness (1). Monotony (1). Tiresome (1). Sad (10).

  A group of people came down the hall when the building had been so quiet all day. “So you picked up a stray?” a woman said.

  I locked myself in the bathroom.

  “She might not even be here still,” Joe said as everyone thudded in. “Crap. She cleaned up.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s gone. Or—”

  “Knock.”

  “No. She’ll come out when she’s ready.”

  “She doesn’t understand anything?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Where’s she from?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about her. This guy was beating her up in the alley.”

  “She’s a prostitute?”

  “Maybe.”

  “They bring girls from other countries and make them sex slaves.” She started chanting, “Joey has a sex slave, a sex slave!” Then they lapsed into silence. I heard grunting, a thunk, a sigh. Three more times. They were removing their boots. Also, though they made noise enough for four, it was just the two of them. I opened the door a crack.

  The back of her head was shaved, leaving just a tuft of bang in front, dyed Barbie pink. She was bent over, massaging her feet and, when she straightened, she looked right at me, smiling under the kilt pin stuck through her septum like a bone. Her nose was a near match in pinkness to her hair. “Hi! Joe?”

  Joe popped out from around the corner, all acne vulgaris and smiles. “You’re still here! Great! Come out! Come out! It’s okay!” He pointed to himself again, this time being careful not to reference the shirt. “I’m Joe. That’s Molly. Molly.”

  “Hiya,” Molly said.

  When I finally sidled out, Joe repeated his introduction, adding, “Who are you?”

  “Maybe she’s retarded.”

  “Kitty,” I said.

  “Ah!” and just then one of his spikes gave way completely, reminding me of a dog with one ear in a flop, though in this case four blue ears stayed cocked. “Kitty’s a nice name.” To Molly: “Could be anything, right? Spanish. French. She understood ‘coffee’ this morning. I wish I could remember some French.”

  Molly: “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?”

  “I see you cleaned up. Cleaned.” He mimed scrubbing. “Thank you. Thank you. Are you staying for dinner?” Forking motions. “Eat with us? Me and Molly? Yum.” Tummy rubbing. “I’m just going to fix Molly up here first because she’s done a really stupid thing to herself. Here. I’ll take down the bed so you can sit. Here. Sit.”

  He patted the place.

  “So where’re you from, Kitty?” Molly asked me, so casually I nearly answered except she burst into phlegmy laughter before I could. Joe, who had gone to the bathroom to wash his hands, came back with a bottle and some sterile pads. “She has nice eyes,” Molly told him.

  “Do you want a drink first?”

  “Of that?” It was rubbing alcohol. “I can take the pain,” Molly said. “I love pain.”

  He pulled his chair up close to hers, doused one of the cotton pads. When he dabbed at her nose, she jerked her head back with a yowl. “Fuck off! Loser!”

  “Hold still,” he said. “I’m going to take it out.”

  “No!”

  “I have to.”

  I couldn’t look. Molly screeched. “Look at the pus,” said Joe.

  She ran to the bathroom. More howls. “I look awful! Jesus Christ!” She stomped back without the kilt pin, which Joe was cleaning with alcohol. “Now put it through my cheek like this.”

  Joe: “Meningococcus? That mean anything to you?”

  “I want to cry. How can I go out like this?” and she retrieved her boots and began the trial of putting them back on.

  “You’re welcome,” Joe said.

  “Fuck off.” She stamped one heel down.

  “Aren’t you eating with us?”

  “I’m going home to cry. Give me back my pin.”

  Joe tossed it. “Pick up some Polysporin.”

  He sniffed in all the containers and decided on soup, heating it in a battered aluminum pot. He seemed very relaxed for a person with a giant pin through his lip, the kind of person who probably talked to himself and was grateful to have a mute overnight guest as an excuse. “I’m in med school. First year.” He looked at me. “This is where I would pause to ask what you do. Honest I would.”

  I gave him my most dazed, uncomprehending look.

  “Actually, I probably wouldn’t. I’m pretty shy. I don’t talk much around girls. Molly doesn’t count. She’s barely a girl. She’s a thing.”

  He brought the bowls to the table and invited me to sit. His smile, the way his acne barely registered after a few minutes, reminded me of Dr. Samoylenko, who after a few days began to strike others as exceptionally kind, amiable, handsome even. Even with the pin. But how was he going to feed himself? He simply ate around it. “Eat,” he extolled before pausing to consider his utensil. “This is a spoon, Kitty. A spoon. Say it. Spoon.”

  “Spoon,” I said.

  “Good! And this is a bowl.” He clinked it. “Bowl. Say ‘bowl.’”

  “Bowl.”

  He looked pleased with himself. “Soup.”

&n
bsp; “Soup.” Sweet and salty, swimming with fat noodles and pieces of shredded meat, it was the first thing I’d eaten all day. I immediately felt about that soup the way I felt about a good book, that I would probably have liked Chekhov too, if I’d ever had the chance to meet him.

  “So. Med school. I almost didn’t get in. I’m trying harder now. My dad’s a judge. Big shoes to fill, right? Last year I decided I didn’t want to. I wanted to be a musician, see?” Joe flipped back the errant spike again. “Then my old man had a heart attack. I realized I was sabotaging my whole future. Hence summer school. I can be a musician on the side. Do you remember me singing? That was me and The Fuck Ups last night.” He pointed to the guitar in the corner. “I’ll play something for you after.”

  I directed my alarm into my soup.

  “Guitar. Say it.”

  “Guitar.”

  “What’s guitar in your language? Me, guitar. You? What?”

  “Balalaika.” If there was another word, I didn’t know it.

  “Balalaika? That’s Russian. That’s that little Russian ukulele. Are you Russian? You? Russian? USSR?”

  I shook my head.

  “Something like it then? Czech? What do you call this?” He lifted the spoon.

  “Lozhka.”

  Tocking his spikes. The loose one went back and forth, metronomic. “Lozhka. Lozhka.”

  After soup, he took the guitar out. There were acronyms stencilled all over the case—D.O.A., R.I.P., a plain A with a circle round it. Another one, I thought, as he bent over the instrument, untuning it. He launched straight into a violent strumming and, immediately, a banging sounded overhead. Joe rolled his eyes and stopped playing. “That’s my neighbour. He’s all right. We have different taste in music is all. That was the start of ‘Fucked Up Ronnie.’ Remember? We covered it last night. You don’t remember. You were wasted. I can’t drink and play. My fingers don’t work. Hey, I’m going to write you a song.”