Tribulations

by Richard Thomas

  There it is again, that scratching at the side door, the sliding glass door.

  Mom will take care of it, she always does. She’ll see what it is.

  “Mom?” I say a bit louder.

  My bare feet hardly make a sound on the carpet as I ease down the stairs to our living room below. I have the floor plan memorized.

  Where is she? I stop at the bottom of the stairs, a shape moving around on the back patio. Across the living room the bay windows are filled with moonlight, red and tan brick and rooftops, treetops, dark sky, and in the distance the Flat Iron Building. The shape of that building has always bothered me. I’ve been inside it before. It has curved hallways that seem to go on forever—around every turn a different studio—a painting, raw canvas, hair and glue, and pieces of fractured metal littering the floor.

  She’s been tired a lot lately, Mom. Working too much. The bags under her eyes get darker each day. She is losing weight, and it doesn’t look good. In the sunlight her brown eyes have a bit of yellow, her teeth always dirty as if coated in fur.

  The bathroom, that’s where she is. I find her there a lot these days, crying. One day, Daddy was on a business trip. The next day his clothes were packed in boxes, sitting by the front door. They went down the street to the Ark Thrift Shop without so much as a sigh. There were calls from his office, questions, but no answers. She says she doesn’t know anything. I heard his voice that last night, I swear it. Half asleep, there were hushed voices and the tinkle of broken glass—a low growl in anger, a scuffle. Half awake, I felt a dull thud vibrate through the apartment, and then I fell back asleep. A dog barked next door and his voice was silenced. I don’t believe he just left.

  In the bathroom there is a pile of her clothes by the utility room door, just waiting to be washed. They reek of grease and cigarette smoke. In the dim light they looked torn, stained with syrup or coffee.

  Garbage. She couldn’t sleep so she took out the garbage. That’s what it was.

  A shadow passes in front of the glass. Not a cat, that’s for sure.

  Something falls over, metal and heavy, a crack and a squeal and something is hurt—a raccoon maybe? A dog?

  I slide the door open and there is a gust of cold air, and her robe lies abandoned on the ground. It is pink and lies crumpled, as if hurt. In the alley there is the stench of garbage, something rotten and foul.

  The back door slams shut and a pale figure disappears into the bathroom. I grab the robe and slide the side door shut. At the bathroom door I hear her sobbing. There is hair everywhere, as if two cats had been wrestling—dark black and grey, long and filthy.

  “Mom? Is that you?”

  “It’s okay dear, go to bed.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Long story honey, really boring.”

  “But, your robe...”

  In the dark kitchen the bathroom door creaks open and her hairy hand shoots out. Long, sharp nails extend into the air, brushing my arm, the yellow tint gleaming. In a flash the robe is gone, a gasp in my chest, my breath rushing out of my body. The door shuts, with a slam and a click.

  Here voice is low, barely a growl, trembling and scared.

  “Go to bed, baby. Please.”

  On a Bent Nail Head

  We had a deal, my wife and I, and it was something we planned on keeping. Whoever went first, they’d find a way to communicate from the other side. She would often scold me, Rebecca—telling me with a twinkle in her earthy eyes that if I hooked up with some blonde hussy too soon after her departure that she would haunt me in every possible way. And I warned her that if she took up with one of my friends, no doubt visiting her to provide comfort in her time of need, that I’d do the same. These were the jokes we made with each other, because we were young and had no fear. We were eternal.

  The woods that stretched out for miles behind our starter home, they held a darkness that would creep into our yard, over the faded fence, trying to steal our candlelit laughter. The concrete slab would hum with the language of crickets, cars rushing by in the distance, tires meeting the road, busy people off on important errands. And we’d sit in the fading light sipping cold beers that huddled in a bucket of ice, our skin sun-kissed, arms taut from labor in the flower garden, swimming at the local pool, from grasping each other tight with slick flesh and lips pressed together.

  We talked of children quite often. We’d left the city and driven north all because a woman was raped in the alleyway behind our apartment. It changed the way we wandered the streets at night, restaurants full of glowing candles and the smell of garlic, glasses clinking as the city grew drowsy with sleep. It was no longer a community, no longer a place where you gave a head nod to the dreadlocks, uttered a greeting to the tattooed arms, grinned at the soul patch, ear buds filled with drum kicks and bass guitar beats. It took one look from Rebecca, coming home from work on the Blue Line el train, her dress shoes in a bag, sneakers on her feet, tight skirt wrapped tight around her curves and motion, one look from her and I knew it was over. We had to move.

  She walked past me into the kitchen, pulled the cork out of a bottle of red wine, and drank it straight from the bottle.

  “Honey, you okay?” I asked, turning away from the computer, jeans and boots, flannel shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows.

  “Am I fine?” she asked, one hand on her hip, an eyebrow arched. She rubbed at her collarbone, at the tiny indentation where her throat began. A sigh filled her up, her hand caressing a silver locket that had once belonged to her grandmother.

  The room was fading, shadows pushing out of the corners, draping over the furniture of our tiny one-bedroom apartment. A frying pan sat on the stove, sausage grease, peppers and onions, the faint tinge of something going rancid. She turned away from me and walked towards the bed down the back hall, unzipping her skirt. The door slammed and the room eased into a wash of darkness. No, she wasn’t fine at all.

  ****

  Six months we’d lived in the new house, two miscarriages under our belts. So we stopped. Not just the sex, the trying, we stopped being who we were, a couple. We became instead, two bodies that passed each other, floating on water that was slick with oil, bumping into each other with muttered apologies and blinking eyes. I kept telling her we were young, that it was okay, it wasn’t her fault—there was nothing to be upset about. She ate my words and swallowed them down, vomiting into the toilet late at night, her anger, and anxiety laced with wine and cigarettes and hatred.

  So I started leaving her notes, when I went to work. I was only waiting tables, nothing special, but I hated to leave her alone. She kept calling into work, sick she said, her panties dotted with blood. They gave her time, the office would be there, they knew about the rapist, they knew her body was failing her, and they were not yet fed up with her rain clouds and sneers.

  The notes were physical manifestations of my growing desperation, and I made sure they came from my voice, an adult. I didn’t want her to think I was playing games with her, sing-song nursery rhymes from our now dead offspring transcending space and time. I signed them, too. Always love, always and forever. I told her I loved her, unconditionally. There was a bouquet of flowers, just through the gate, and down the path, to where the dirt became a fork in the woods. But she had to get up and go get them.

  When I came home late that night, the house was quiet, a thin sheen of electricity, and a bouquet of flowers on the kitchen table, a faint smell of roses and lavender offering us some peace. I took in a breath, and headed for the bedroom where I pressed my body against her quiet frame, and held her tight for just a moment.

  ****

  She went back to work. But the notes continued. Back and forth they went. Waking up, my arms aching from carrying trays of food, a small card of peach stock sat folded on the kitchen table, leaning against the vase. So I ventured into the woods. The edge of the dirt path seemed as if it had been swept, but I smiled and shook my head, surely imagining these things. At the fork in the road a single nail w
as pounded into a hearty oak, and on a piece of string a small package dangled, wrapped in light blue paper, twisting in the faint, flowery breeze. I took the loop off the nail and opened the present, a crimson candle sat squat in thick glass, a musky scent of sandalwood and red currant. We used to light this candle in the city, and the thick sweetness would fill our tiny bedroom, our bodies always willing and draped over each other, lips and teeth and immersion. When she came home from work I was waiting upstairs in our bedroom, the candle burning, lying on the bed, and she slipped out of her clothes without a word. In the echo of the fading evening her moans became sobs, and I held her, and told her everything would be okay. We fell asleep early that night, the darkness pulling us under.

  I bent the nail head trying to hammer it back into the scarred flesh of the tree, trying to tie a bottle of red wine to a string that kept pulling the metal out of the tree. I laughed to my invisible audience, leaves rustling and branches snapping, the distant sounds of suburban life like a television show turned way down low.

  The path to the giving tree was now dotted with yellow dandelion heads. The path to the tree now had a trail of votive candles, blinking in and out in the sighs of the watching forest. And we were trying again. Trying to make a family.

  ****

  We didn’t talk about it, it wasn’t three months yet, that was the superstition we had to embrace. You don’t say you’re pregnant. You don’t get too excited. We’d been down this path before. Three months, we had to wait. And every time she got up to go to the bathroom, every time she shrieked over a spider, I thought we’d lost out yet once again. So we smiled and held hands at the dinner table, we ate meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and we stared at the forest, the one tree that stood at the fork in the road, and wondered if we should still be honoring the shrine. It was getting cold out now, it could start snowing at any time. Or it could just be frigid for months. We burrowed in, we hunkered down, a fireplace filled with licking flames, and the couch swallowing us up as we held on to each other, voices silent.

  Four months. Five months. Six months, and still, we kept our mouths shut. She was starting to show. We kept our secret. Always and forever, we said. Until death do us part.

  Every time that I came home from work and found an empty house, I lost my breath and stalked the encroaching face, waiting for the inevitable, waiting for the other boot to drop. And then I’d find her asleep in our bed. Or I’d find a note saying she was out with friends. Or I’d check the voice mail, she was working late, hiding her bump, afraid to say anything out loud.

  I went out to the tree and tied a tiny cross that I’d made out of twigs to the bent nail head that leaned rusty against the bark. The woods were silent and unresponsive.

  ****

  Pulling on my leather coat, I hopped into my sensible beige sedan and drove home, late. I was tired and greasy and tense. As I pulled up into the driveway, the phone started buzzing. I pushed on the brake as the garage door opened, the screen filling up with numbers and light—one message, two messages, twelve messages. I pushed open the car door and dashed into the garage, her shiny black ride quiet in the night. I pushed open the door and dashed into the kitchen, yelling her name—Rebecca, Rebecca.

  On the kitchen floor was a slick of red, turning brown on the hardwood floor. A rug by the sink was pushed to one side, black heel marks skidding across the wood, a plate on the kitchen table, empty except for crumbs, a glass of milk nearly empty, red lips ringing the rim. And the quiet—so much quiet.

  I listened to the messages, first from Rebecca, then from the doctor. And then I drove to the hospital, numb.

  ****

  It was suffocating, the family, the friends. They filled every corner of my house, and I wanted to yell at them, tell them to leave, to just leave me alone and get out. And every time I opened my mouth, my brother would wrap his arms around me, and hold me until I couldn’t speak. The eyes would dance over me and I’d look away, reaching for whatever bottle I could find, and repeatedly, they’d vanish from my fingertips, until the house was finally empty, my brother asleep on the couch, my parents long dead, her family gone at last and the last thing I remember is the shine of the silver locket lying on her pale neck, her eyes closed, and the whole weight of it all dragging me under.

  At some point in the middle of the night, her elbows push into my sides and I wake up to an empty bedroom, the taste of bourbon on my lips, thirsty and disoriented, a headache looming at the edges of my skull. I stand naked in the room, the layout of the house that never became a home, unfolding in front of me, silently down the carpeted stairs, slipping out the back door, the cold air slapping my skin. The back gate is open, my feet turning to slabs of concrete, as I stumble down the dirt path, a dull glow of the moon overhead helping to light the way. I pause at the fork in the road, and swinging in the black air, a silver locket on a chain, her necklace left for me in the ever-expanding woods, swinging back and forth.

  And I know that Rebecca has kept her word.

  Dance, Darling

  To see them in the grocery store, with their hair all pinned up, their faded grey suits freshly pressed and their red lipstick blazing, they were somebody’s grandmothers, eyes twinkling, hushed conversations over grapefruit and green onions, their secrets buried deep. But if you looked close, there were hints of something more—faded ink on both of their wrists, consecutive numbers of 140603 an 140604. If you watched them fill up their grocery cart, you’d have to look close, for the bottle of cheap bourbon nestled in between heads of lettuce and bags of hard candy. The prescription bottles were quickly shuttled into their leather purses, a quick smile to the pharmacist, no eye contact between them, the nightmares that would come later that night still hours away. They wouldn’t talk about it in the daylight, Lucy with her blonde wig hiding the radiation treatments, the cancer long gone, but the shadows and screams still right around the corner. They talked about very few things that mattered, in the daylight, Darcy chain-smoking, her dry skin like faded parchment, her bloodshot eyes always rimmed with tears, pushing the cart across the linoleum, one wheel rattling out of sync.

  The boys would help them to the car, sunshine on them like a searchlight, a moment in each of their tiny bird hearts where their ribcages rattled, wings fluttered, and the echo of gunshots caused them to stutter a step, grab the young man by the bicep, and gasp in hushed voices—curses muttered to the hot tar of the parking lot below their clumsy feet. They apologized, always, but the boys didn’t mind. The sisters were part of the history of the store, always together, never just one. They tipped $1 and only $1, whether it was a grocery cart overflowing with toilet paper and family size bottles of aspirin, or a bag of apples, fresh from the local orchards. Nobody knew if their last name was actually Cipher, because they always paid in cash, never with a credit card, never revealing that little bit of history. And when Lucy and Darcy pulled out of the parking lot in the long Cadillac, something out of the 1970s, a car that Johnny Cash might drive, black death stretched out forever, their wraparound sunglasses comical on their withering faces, the boys would wave, and pause for a moment. For under the floral perfume was a hint of something sour, something going bad.

  It wasn’t much of a choice, the dancing, the games they had played, the roles they fulfilled. They told each other, over rocks glasses splashed with amber liquid, ashtray overflowing, the sun setting behind torn blinds and faded drapes—that they had no choice at all. They were children then, five years old—too young for labor, worthless in the eyes of the pale demons that descended on the captives with random acts of violence and hatred. The gas chambers were always there, a threat that was never empty, faces they knew constantly disappearing, their parents long gone, the screams of their mother like talons over their cold, white skin, slicing them open—the dead eyes of their father two dark orbs that would float in the night sky for eternity. They shut down, Lucy and Darcy, the tears that flowed only drawing more attention, the rough hands of the guards eager to shake them, to bark
orders at those that stood around them.“Schweigen,” they would yell, “Schweigen die kinder.” Silence the children. So they went mute.

  Years. A lifetime expired. And yet, they survived, the sisters. Not without effort. Darcy in a bathtub, the razor long and eager to nip, her forearm opened up as a sacrifice, the numbers carved out and left floating on the surface of the crimson water. Lucy learned first that they were inseparable, now—always within earshot, always a head cocked listening for the silence that meant success had been found, death recognized with a loving embrace. No, not on her watch, she’d mutter. And when she finally could hold Darcy up no longer, sinking into her own darkness, a needle and a spoon, again it was her arm that begged to be broken, severed, stabbing at the fading ink that branded her skin, numbers that reminded her of what she was—a commodity, a piece of meat, something to be sorted, stacked and put on a train to a distant land. As if hearing a noise that only a twin can hear, Darcy appeared in the doorway, out of breath, her waitress apron still on, her fast hand slapping bare skin, Lucy trembling and crying out in anguish, the open hand coming again and again, across her face, knocking her to the floor, snapping the syringe in half, holding her as they collapsed to the floor.

  The men knew they were damaged, but they filled the room anyway, lined the stage, as the Cipher Sisters danced. It made no sense, the dancing. It triggered hazy memories of phonographs spinning, glasses clinking, men in dark uniforms, fires blazing in stone hearths, women in pearls laughing the death laugh of survival, hands on shoulders, lips at ears, hems rising up in an effort to coerce. “Tanzen, lieblings,” the women would say, settling in whatever lap was free, the men like wolves with their teeth bared, hair bristling beneath their caps, skulls trembling with dark deeds. Always together, the rooms lined with mirrors, the stages ringed with dull bulbs, holding each other up, pushing each other down, as the dirty money fell to the stage floor, wadded up, folded in half, tucked in garters and gathered with shaking arms. They were lost. Backstage they would find each other again, pick up the pieces, filling their handbags with rent money, whispers and cigarette smoke, empty pint bottles dropped into garbage cans. “Dance, darlings,” Darcy would chuckle, “If only for a moment.”