Asunder

by Robert Lopez

  Is it a boy or girl?

  Boy.

  Name?

  Butch.

  You shouldn’t be out here.

  Why not?

  Because it almost doesn’t feel like it’s two-thirty.

  Had I taken the leash from her hands and with her watching, hanged myself with it, it would be her telling this story now. Except it would be different.

  Although, the sort of pregnant woman that walks dogs in the middle of the night is also the sort of woman that carries a handgun in her jacket pocket and when approached by strange men in the middle of the night tends to shoot first and tell stories later.

  So the story could involve a shooting and let’s face it, every story should involve a shooting.

  Or else someone who can make sense of things.

  Or else a quick and resolute conclusion.

  Example of story that involves a shooting or someone who can make sense of things or a quick and resolute conclusion:

  The park is empty. The man is not contemplating anything. The woman is not pregnant. The dog is not walking and the circle is not circling.

  The gun is where any can find it.

  LONG WALKS, SHORT PIERS

  * * *

  THE MAN CONSIDERS CALLING THE WOMAN ON THE TELEPHONE but the woman is never home. The man had called earlier and left a message. He does not want to call again without hearing from her first. The man is waiting for the telephone to ring and is considering what he should do while he waits. The woman is busy. She says this to him, she says, I am busy. The woman works a full-time job, a part-time job, has one dog, two cats, a dying grandmother and six close friends with whom she is always gallivanting here and there.

  The man decides to shower. It is after noon and the man has been out of bed for five minutes. The man is naked and bleeding from his lip. Sometimes the man will bite himself in his sleep. The man takes a gauze pad from the medicine cabinet and wedges it between his lip and gum like chewing tobacco. Last night the man drank scotch and threw up. The man did not want to drink scotch but there was nothing else to drink. He didn’t know how the bottle of scotch ended up in his cupboard or how long it had been there. The man didn’t think the woman left the scotch in his cupboard because the woman doesn’t drink. He offered her a glass of wine once and she said to him, I don’t drink. The man responded by saying more power to you. Neither the man nor woman understood what he meant by that.

  Last night the man sat at his kitchen table and poured himself shot after shot of scotch. This is the only way he can drink scotch. To him scotch tastes like fermented bile, like poison. This is why bartenders ask drinkers, What’s your poison? because of the way scotch tastes. The man lined up three shot glasses on the table, always keeping at least one glass full. The man drank shots of scotch and watched a baseball game on a six-inch black-and-white television. Every time an out was recorded he’d drink a shot. For every strikeout, homerun, or double play he’d drink two shots. Whenever he had to drink two shots he made sure to pour another right away so there wouldn’t be three empty glasses in front of him. He did not want to see three empty shot glasses on the table. That was his one rule for the evening. He kept the scotch bottle to the right of the three glasses. The man didn’t care who won or lost or whether or not it was a good game. Middle of the fifth the man considered driving to the liquor store so he wouldn’t have to keep drinking the scotch. The man figured he’d throw up if he kept drinking scotch. Instead he stayed at the kitchen table, watched a beer commercial, cursed at the television and kept drinking. The man watched the whole game, which featured nineteen strikeouts, three homeruns and two double plays.

  The man removes the gauze pad from his mouth. The stain on the gauze pad is more pink than red and it resembles the outline of some small European country. The man thinks there might be something wrong with his blood. That he might be anemic or diabetic. He pours himself a glass of water and swallows three aspirin. He swallows each pill separately instead of all three at once. He gags while swallowing the third pill. He pours himself another glass of water and climbs into the shower. He always showers when he has thrown up the night before or wants to call the woman on the telephone but doesn’t because she is probably busy. In the shower he cleans himself with a washcloth and then uses the same washcloth on the tile. He cleaned this way the first time because he forgot to bring a separate rag for the tile into the shower with him. The man did not want to have to get out of the shower and dry off and go to the hall closet for a rag. He did something similar once when he forgot to bring a towel into the bathroom. That time he left a trail of water from the bathroom to the hall closet and had to mop it up afterwards. This was after he’d already slipped in the hallway and cracked his head open. The gash was deep and he bled for hours. This blood was rich and red and looked like the blood of a healthy virile man. The man should’ve gone for stitches but he did not want to get stitches again. Last year the man had to get stitches for his eye when a bartender punched him. The man cannot remember why the bartender punched him though he assumes it was justified. It was not the first time someone had punched him in a bar. The man did not want to have to drive to the emergency room and explain himself to another doctor so this time the man mopped up the floor with his head bleeding. One hand pushed the mop around the hallway and the other held a towel to his head. After every third or fourth push he’d examine the blood on the towel. He did not know what to look for, what any changes in color or volume might indicate. He was dizzy as he did this and thought he might pass out and die. He stumbled to the nightstand in his bedroom and on a yellow legal pad wrote the words I knew it in barely legible script. The man cannot remember why this was important to him, to write this down. He suspects it had something to do with his interest in suicides and the notes suicides leave behind. The man has borrowed several books from the library concerning famous suicides. He does not allow himself to think about his own note for long and has never mentioned the incident to the woman. A week later he tore out that page from the legal pad and threw it away. The man remembers this every time he forgets to bring a washcloth or rag into the shower with him.

  The tile man told him he should clean the tile with white vinegar and warm water. The tile man did not say if he should do this once or regularly so the man has cleaned the tile every day now for a week. He keeps a jug of white vinegar on a mat outside the shower.

  What he’d tell the woman if she were home is that he has new tile. She said something about the tile the last time she was over. She said, There is mold on this tile. The man said to her, I am allergic to penicillin myself. The man did not know what else to say so he said that. They were in the bathroom when they said this to each other.

  You should do something about this mold, she said.

  I’ve been meaning to, he said. I keep forgetting, he said.

  It makes people sick, mold does, she said.

  After the conversation in the bathroom he walked her to the door. He almost put a hand on her shoulder but remembered the woman does not like to be touched. She did not say this out loud but the implication was clear. She had flinched when he put his arm around her at a movie, then she uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, and the maneuver concluded with her leaning on the opposite armrest. He put the hand in his pocket instead. The man suggested they go to the shore next weekend or the weekend after that. The woman said she was busy. She said her friends and her were taking a class together and going for coffee afterwards.

  Every time he has reached the woman on the telephone she says to him, What are you doing? and then says That’s good after he says Nothing much. The man does not like the way the woman conducts herself on the telephone, like she is reading dialogue from a script. He wants to say, I am talking to you on the telephone when she asks her question but never does. Instead he says, Nothing much, because he cannot think of anything else to say.

  What are you doing?

  Nothing much.

  That’s good.

 
One day he hopes to ask her what’s good about it. He doesn’t know how she will answer or if she will answer at all. She will probably say That’s good to whatever he says. He never considers asking her what she is doing. The man knows the woman will relay this information voluntarily. He knows it will have nothing to do with him and then she will tell him she is busy.

  My grandmother is having an operation. They want to see if she has lung cancer. Did I tell you that?

  Yes.

  I don’t know what’s going to happen.

  How could you?

  I was going to visit her when you called.

  Earlier the man had left a message for the woman on her machine. Now he is waiting for her to call back, for her to give the green light to a weekend at the shore. Last night the man drank scotch at his kitchen table and watched a baseball game. At three a.m. he threw up into an old maroon sweater draped at the side of the bed. The man knew drinking scotch was a mistake and he knew he wouldn’t need an old maroon sweater. He couldn’t remember how he came to possess this sweater nor could he remember ever wearing it. The man’s house was filled with things he couldn’t account for. Plastic hangers in the closet, a pair of white briefs in the dresser, a plastic cigar cutter, hip flask, two antique lamps, the small black-and-white television. The man thought maybe someone had a key to his apartment and was using it for storage. This morning he threw out the old maroon sweater along with the empty scotch bottle. He considered recycling the bottle but then reconsidered. The man lit two matches to mask the smell of scotch and dried vomit and burned his fingers. He liked the way that felt, the sharpness of it.

  The man decides this is too much waiting for the telephone to ring, for the woman to give the green light to a weekend at the shore. He drives to the park where he finds an empty bench. He sees oldsters walking, fishing, and boating. Dozens of oldsters walk along a designated path, all of them going in the same direction like they are on a carousel. Other oldsters cast fishing lines from the pier. They wedge their poles into the railing so they don’t have to hold them. The man looks into various coolers to find blues and bait and tackle and other things he cannot identify. The man has never been fishing, though he would like to someday. He sees geese, ducks, gulls, blackbirds, squirrels, right construction boot, compass and a sign that says Re-Elect ___ for County-Executive scattered everywhere around. He takes a cigar from his coat pocket and tries to light it. The wind does not allow him to do this. The wind turns the flame into a spastic belly dancer. He puts the lighter and cigar back in his pockets and stands up. He limps along the path like the oldsters do but in the opposite direction, counter to their clockwise. He says out loud to two passing oldsters, Long walks, short piers. The oldsters look at him like he is a criminal. He walks to his car and drives home. He calls the woman to get green light to weekend at shore. There is no answer. He leaves a message that says, Today I bled all over the hallway and mopped all over the floor and hangs up. The man thinks he has done well for himself with this message. He is pleased. He decides to take his clothes off and strips naked. He locates a tattered copy of a men’s magazine at the bottom of his sock drawer. He pours baby oil into his right hand and successfully masturbates into a mildewed washcloth he’s fished from the hamper. He puts the washcloth back into the hamper and walks to the bathroom. He showers. He does not clean the tile because he forgets to bring either a rag or a clean washcloth with him into the shower. After the shower he dresses. He drinks a glass of water and swallows three aspirin all at once. He gags and tastes the rotten chemistry in his mouth. For the first time today he brushes his teeth. The man then recovers the soiled maroon sweater from the trash and walks it to the backyard. He is careful not to touch the part of the fabric he threw up into. He throws the soiled maroon sweater in one of two empty oil drums behind the shed. He pours lighter fluid into the drum, lights a match, and drops it into the drum. He goes inside to retrieve the magazine he masturbated to and frisbees it into the drum from fifteen feet. When the magazine lands in the drum it has no effect on the fire and the sound it makes is dull and muted. He pours more lighter fluid into the drum, collects sticks and twigs from behind the shed, takes off the t-shirt he is wearing, and drops all of it, the sticks, twigs, and t-shirt into the drum. The man then goes back inside and gathers the cigar, cigar cutter, plastic hangers and six-inch black-and-white television and puts all of that into the drum. He does not dance around the fire like a pagan or say anything out loud. He doesn’t consider putting anything else into the drum, either. Not things he recognizes as his own or the other things he cannot account for. What he does is warm his hands and breathe in the fumes. He takes the kind of breaths doctors tell you to take when they examine you, before they have to stitch up your head because someone punched you in the face or after you fell in the hallway and cracked your head open. The odor is foul. He wonders what is most responsible for the foul odor, if it is the synthetic fabrics or the dried vomit, the dirty magazine, the television, the plastic hangers, or if it is all of them put together. He feels poisoned. He feels it in his lungs, in his stomach. He thinks he might vomit again so he positions himself over the drum. He leans in and waits. The man dry heaves four times. He does this loudly like he is trying to scream the poison out of him. He takes his hands off the rim, stands upright, and takes three steps away from the fire toward the house. The man is tired and his back aches. He is thirsty but does not want to go inside for water. Should the telephone ring the man will not hear it from where he is behind the shed. The telephone does not, in fact, ring. There is only the sound of the fire and two birds chirping back and forth to each other. He moves in again and stands over the oil drum. Everything in there burns like kindling.

  THE INDIAN FROM INDIANA

  * * *

  EVERYONE WAS AFRAID OF THE INDIAN FROM INDIANA BECAUSE HE WAS DRUNK AND FROM INDIANA. We were afraid he would embarrass us in front of everyone. We were afraid he would ruin our evening. None of us were sure where Indiana was and so we didn’t know how the Indians from there behaved. Some of us had heard of Indiana and one of us said out loud that it might be somewhere in the middle of the country. Then another one of us said they do a lot of farming there and they play basketball and the country is flat as a sheet of paper. We didn’t know if all Indians from Indiana were drunks like this one but one of us said he didn’t think so. He said they wouldn’t be good at basketball and wouldn’t be able to farm if they all were drunks like this Indian here. We didn’t even know if that’s what you called someone from Indiana, an Indian, but it made sense to most of us. We were gathered together for a celebration but I forget what we were celebrating. There wasn’t much to celebrate then so even the slightest victory, a morning without incident, for instance, would be grounds for a celebration. None of us knew how the Indian came to be where we were. None of us had seen him before. Eventually this Indian from Indiana cornered me into a discussion about language, specifically the English language and where it came from. I don’t know what made him think this was something I’d want to discuss. There is nothing about me that says I like to talk about the English language and where it came from. Maybe it was because he was an Indian that he thought otherwise. Maybe this is what goes on in Indiana when they’re not farming and playing basketball. He seemed to speak English like he’d been speaking it his whole life but he was drunk so you couldn’t tell for sure. The rest of us were at the bar when he cornered me so I was on my own. Had I known this was to happen I would’ve accompanied the rest of us to the bar. I wouldn’t have let myself get cornered by an Indian had I known better. I almost never know better beforehand and this is why I often find myself in these sorts of fixes. At any rate, this Indian went on to say English derives from the languages of love. This is when I took the glass of water beside me and drank from it. I was hoping it was gin in the glass or vodka but it turned out to be water. I looked down on this Indian to see if maybe he’d fallen or had decided I wasn’t the one to discuss this with. He was drunker now than he
was before. His eyes were halfway shut and there was spittle on his chin and beard. It was good he was short so I could drink a glass of water and look down on him at the same time. I felt like I needed to keep an eye on this little Indian. He was still there beneath me by the time I’d finished the water. I waited for the rest of us to get back from the bar. I didn’t know what was taking so long but I figured they’d be back soon. This way the Indian would be distracted and skulk away. I’d seen him skulk away several times that night. His habit was to approach someone on their own, do some talking and gesturing, then skulk away when others joined them. I was waiting for this to happen when it occurred to me he was referring to Romance languages. In his drunken Indian head you can see how he would get from there to there and for a second I was filled with something, a feeling I cannot describe. It was almost like love, maybe, or awe, for all Indians everywhere, their complexities and foibles. So I told him he was right, that English comes from the languages of love. I figured there was no harm and the Indian might appreciate it. I don’t think he heard me, though, because the rest of us were approaching and the Indian was already in retreat and like that he was somewhere else. The Indian stayed on through the night but we never saw him again and none of us knows what became of him. Whenever the rest of us gather to celebrate something these days we’ll take turns telling stories of that night and the Indian from Indiana. Almost none of these stories are true but that doesn’t stop anyone from telling the stories or listening to them. It is embarrassing is what it is, that we find these sorts of tales amusing. The rest of us know this full well and the ones that don’t suspect it.

  BURYING THE SURVIVORS

  * * *