by Anthology
It is a ring.
A very old ring, I see as I pick it up, old and thick. The metal is crusted with a sticky black residue, but when I scrape it aside I see a warm yellow and red beneath.
It is so heavy. I pull my wedding ring out of the envelope in my dresser. There seems to be a world between them: the thin, cheap circle and the fat lump of metal and gemstone. My grandmother had been a collector of jewelry before my father frittered everything away, and she had taught me a little about judging pieces. This ring feels real. It feels like a nugget of gold pared into a ring-shape, stuck with some plump garnet or ruby like a cherry on top.
I want it to be real, more than I have wanted something for a long, long time.
Even if it turns out to be fake, it still might be worth a few bucks. But if it’s real, and I can get even a fraction of its value…I try to imagine what I might do with the money but at once I feel exhausted. It’s been so long since I’ve had something to actualize other than just getting by.
I’m afraid then: afraid of someone stealing it, afraid of the dwarves demanding it back—because it’s come from them, I’m sure of it, some kind of payment or apology for the mess with the dog. I dig in my closet until I find the packs of shoelaces they’ve been raiding, and I string one through the ring and tie it around my neck. It feels cool between my breasts, slowly warming to match my skin’s temperature.
The kitchen is perfectly clean: there’s not a hint of blood anywhere, nothing to show there was ever a carcass on the floor. Even my shoes are clean and lined up by the back door. The only proof I have that I’m not crazy are the crusted bloodstains on my pants. I strip in the kitchen, soaking the stains in the sink and throwing them right into the washing machine; after a moment’s thought I stuff other clothes on top.
The ring swings from my neck, bouncing lightly against my flesh.
A couple of half-pints of milk are missing from the fridge. I add them to the list, as if nothing has happened. And then I assemble their platter, throwing on it everything I can find: Vienna sausages and Spaghetti-Os, crackers and cheese sticks, even a bag of potato chips I was keeping for my own treat. As I shake the chips over everything else I start giggling like a child.
And then, for the first time ever, I call a taxi to work.
***
Everything looks different. The cracked sidewalks on either side of my street, is that what I walk on every day? The fences with trash clinging to them, the patchy yards, the rotting cars: in the taxi it all feels both new and distant, like I’m watching a movie of my life. There’s a homeless man in the church parking lot, he’s built a shanty out of shopping carts and pallets, and for the life of me I cannot remember ever noticing him before, though he’s obviously been there for some time.
The church sign reads, Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.
I’m still late, but for once no one seems to notice; indeed, the sensation of difference is here too. For the first time I see just how dingy the school is, how tired everyone looks. The furniture is old enough to be from when I was a kid, the lockers are scratched and dented and stuffed with books that seem from another time. For the first time too I notice the sickly-sweet odor in the air: the smell of secrets, of things being hidden.
In the cafeteria everyone is quiet and somber and it takes me a beat to remember. Ethel. I feel guilty, and guiltier still when I think of the ring under my shirt. What would she have done in my place, what kind of hope might she be feeling now? All of us trapped, and what if one of us should be given the means to be free?
Were she still alive, would I help her, now that I might have the means to do so?
I go to the break room and my name is chalked in next to Drinks. It feels appropriate. I don't have nearly enough time to prep; the ring might well be worthless; yet I can finally see how pointless half the preparation is, how this job is killing me, how at some point in those first cold days after Michael left I took my self and folded it tight and buried it somewhere deep and dark. Like the hole in the fence where the dwarves come from, shadowy and overgrown.
All of us in our cages, clapboard and chain link, booze and fists and nooses and loneliness: what if what hangs around my neck is the means to change it? Not just for me, but for another? I can’t help Ethel, not anymore. But perhaps…
Creepy lesbo, mind your own fucking business.
Yet I can imagine it: the relief in her face, the yellow of her fading bruises, the tentative smile that would signal things have changed for the better. A lightness in her step, as if an invisible hand had lifted a terrible burden from her…
I’m dragging the lemonade syrup across the floor, going through the motions by sheer habit, when suddenly the weight is gone. I look over my shoulder to see Bill holding up the other end of the barrel.
“Wasn’t sure we’d see you today,” he says.
“I was running late,” I blurt out, but he doesn’t reprimand me; in fact he seems relieved. Again the strangeness, for when has Bill ever seen absence as anything other than a black mark?
No, no, he thought I was upset about Ethel. Does he feel responsible? Or just afraid for his job?
For a while he just helps, mixing the sodas from atop the stepladder while I shovel out the ice maker and stack the cups. Everyone is staring. I catch Al’s gaze and he mouths at me did hell freeze over and I shrug. Maybe it has; maybe I’m imagining this on top of everything else; maybe it was me in the noose. It all seems possible—no, more that it seems like everything is happening all at once, all these different selves trapped in this town, this job.
Suddenly Bill says, “I had a meeting when we started the shift. The school’s got a doctor coming in next week. In case you want to talk to someone.”
Like Ethel might have wanted to talk to someone?
“I saw in your file you got divorced last year. Must’ve been hard for you.”
I set the last cup in place and look at him. “I’m not going to hang myself,” I say. “In case anyone’s asking. The hours are shit, the pay is shit, you treat us like shit, but you’re not going to get me too.”
As I speak I’m blushing, where did this come from? It’s like I’m not even speaking to him but to someone else, some invisible presence. Actualizing. He stares at me like I’m crazy and blood rushes to my face, but I don’t look away, not even as his expression shifts from incredulity to anger.
“After the shift,” he says in a low voice. “In my office.”
“But Bill,” I say, “I’m crazy with grief, can’t you tell? Write me up and there’s no telling what you’ll drive me to do.”
His face becomes a shade darker at my words; his mouth opens and closes, and then he turns on his heel. “It’s time,” he announces, and goes back into his office, slamming the door.
You could have backed me up, Ethel whispers, but I barely hear her ghost-voice; I’m watching Al take the lids off the steaming pans at the serving station. I had nearly forgotten. He takes the big ladle and stirs up the Sloppy Joe meat until the skin on the top disappears, then straightens his tray of toasted buns and readies himself.
I had nearly forgotten it’s Friday.
I should have backed Ethel up. But I’m trying now; it’s too late for her but not for myself, and maybe not for Theresa. I never believed in Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy, or anything save what I could touch and taste and smell. Yet now I have the ring around my neck, gallons of sweetened meat before me, and a dozen armed, hungry dwarves. Imaginary or not, they’ve already brought down one big, stupid animal.
Why not another?
***
On the way home I stop in the market. The sign says Ace Supermarket but there’s nothing either Ace or Super about it. For Super I need to go out to the Save More on 110, but to get to the Save More I have to walk eight blocks to a bus that comes once an hour, then ride forty-five minutes out and back. Save More is my Saturday.
The Ace isn’t te
rrible, but it’s not great either. The teenagers who work here are to a one sullen and bored, constantly scuttling out to the parking lot to get high; when the manager’s away they make it a point of turning up the radio so they can pretend they don’t hear you. For once, though, I know the song well: it was one of Michael’s favorites. I even find myself singing along as I go up and down the aisles.
The Things We Do For Love.
I had forgotten this, how easily I remember lyrics. A gift, Michael called it. We always had the radio on. I would work on my correspondence class, he would noodle along on his guitar, and inevitably I would start singing…
The pain shoots through me, fierce and hot. The things we do for love. What didn’t I do for him? What did I forget, what did I miss, that made him turn away?
I pick up the last bag of tater tots; after a moment’s hesitation I grab a bottle labeled Table Wine for myself. Not since that one night with Ethel. But she’s gone, Michael’s gone, and I have this one terrible chance to change things. I could use some Dutch courage.
As I check out, the sullen girl looks me over and sneers. I don’t blame her; I know how I look in my polyester uniform, buying tater tots and cheap wine. She can probably smell the tubs of Sloppy Joe meat in my bag as well. A middle-aged woman about to drown her sorrows for the weekend. There’s even a crease around my finger where the ring used to be, a smoothness to the skin that’s never gone away. Like I’m married to a ghost.
The song on the radio has changed, now it’s something I don’t know, something about closing a door on the world. No more, though. For once in my life I’m opening my door: I’m letting the world in, the better for me to sneak out.
***
For the first time in nearly a year nothing’s been done. The lawn and garden look the same, there’s still dust gathering on the cheap sofa, and the wet laundry is sitting in the machine. On the clean kitchen floor is an empty half-pint carton, lying there as if they had just dropped it, as if they couldn’t even be bothered walking the four feet to the trash.
Perhaps I’m not the only one who’s changed since last night.
I fill up a baking sheet with tater tots and scrape all the Sloppy Joe meat into a big saucepan. When everything is cooking I pour myself a glass of wine. It tastes thick and sweet and woody; like something a woman in charge of her destiny would drink.
It tastes like power.
Fucking the secretary. It had all been like a terrible soap opera, right down to the rumors about her blowjob skills, right down to the credit card bills: the overnights in motels at the coast, the fancy restaurants with unpronounceable wines.
There had once been a me who would have sneered at any woman undone by such a thing. Who would have been in Ethel’s seat that night at the bar: you’re better off without him, you don’t need that kind of asshole in your life.
Where had that me gone?
As the food heats up I open the kitchen window, letting the smells waft into the yard. Sure enough, after a few minutes the ivy rustles, the chain link shudders, and one by one they make their way to the porch. The one in front, the one who was cutting up the dog, keeps fiddling with his belt; I realize that it’s the dog’s collar. The mark of a chief, a leader. Some of the other dwarves wear thick necklaces made out of the rusted chain.
The leader smirks in my direction, as if he can see me through the filthy screen of the kitchen window. He swaggers onto the porch, the others following suit, rolling their hips and baring their yellow teeth in broad grins. I had forgotten about this peculiarly male pride, the strutting and the gloating, the way they side-eye the kitchen as they lean against the porch railings. One says something and the others laugh slyly. Products of my imagination or no, they had definitely changed. They had brought down the dog, which from their vantage was probably some great, howling beast; they would be insufferable for ages.
I carefully ladle the steaming meat onto the platter, ringing it with the golden tots, and lift it onto one hand like a waiter.
As if on cue, I hear Paul’s truck pull up outside. The sound of the door slamming is as loud as a shot.
I open the back door and the dwarves don’t even flinch; to a one they just look at me, a few idly picking their teeth with their knives. Nothing more than miniature thugs. As I lower the platter to waist height, however, I see their eyes start to gleam, their smiles become warmer, more genuine. One takes a step forward, eager for the food.
Something shatters in Paul’s house and he curses at the top of his lungs, a tirade that fills the night air. We turn to look at the fence, the dwarves and I, staring at the lit bedroom window, the unsteady shadow flitting across the curtains.
“Make him go away,” I say in a low voice.
Their faces turn upwards, a dozen pairs of grime-ringed eyes studying me.
“Make him go away,” I repeat. “Make him shut up.” I try to remember what I had said about the dog. “Do anything, just make him shut up,” I say, my voice thick. “Even if you have to wring his neck.”
The leader steps forward, holding his hands out; I carefully hand him the platter, as solemn as a ceremony. I have never been so close to one before, and it’s all I can do to keep from gaping: what are they? How much like me, how much different? What does the world look like, when seen with their little black eyes?
One of the dwarves clears his throat, and another chirps with impatience; the leader yanks the platter out of my hands and steps back, watching me with a wary half-smile as the others fall upon the pile of meat and tots, scooping it up with their knives and wolfing it down.
Past the fence, Paul is in the kitchen now, fumbling with a Tupperware and a saucepan. He works out at the same quarry where Michael had been manager, a shift that has him up and out at dawn. Between his hours and mine I hardly ever see him; I had almost forgotten what he looks like. Now I see that I’d mixed him and Michael up, giving him Michael’s height and broad shoulders in my mind. In reality he’s a small, squat man, the stubble on his bleary face prematurely grey. He shakes his head bullishly as he tries to work the lid off; when at last he pulls it free he spills spaghetti and tomato sauce over himself and the stove. He starts cursing again and flings the Tupperware across the room where it bounces off the far wall—
and then he starts crying, big heaving sobs over the stove, and reaches for a liquor bottle.
I feel a pang of sympathy; I have to remind myself that those were the hands that had hit Theresa, had flung her as they flung the container, like she was just another thing that won’t work right. Who won’t be what he wants her to be, who let him bring her to this shitty corner of the world and then just left her when he found someone better—
No, no, I’m thinking of Michael, that was Michael and I.
When I look again at the kitchen Paul is gone. For a moment the spaghetti sauce seems thinner and smoother, like the dog’s blood, but the sky is growing dark, I can’t really see anymore.
I turn around and the porch is empty: no dwarves, no platter. In the dirt of the yard they’ve drawn pictures, the gouges deep and fresh. There is a woman, full-hipped, and around me the sharp little knives radiating outwards like I am the sun. Beside me is a man with space between his head and his torso, between his arms and his big, bulbous fists.
I look down at my hands and they are grey with dirt. From work, or—?
In Paul’s bedroom the television’s blue glow appears, and the Wonder Woman theme song echoes faintly in the night air. I go back into my house; suddenly I’m craving a drink.
***
I awake cotton-mouthed, my head pounding. I think it must be a year ago, it’s the morning after that binge with Ethel, and I panic that I might still come face-to-face with a piece of Michael—a paper with his handwriting, a razor, his smell.
But there’s nothing left of him, not anymore. Shreds of paper cover the bed like snow. All the divorce papers, the lawyer letters, the bills, all have been ripped to pieces, so tiny I could never reassemble them. Even our p
hotos, the few I still had, are so many flakes of paper now, pieces of our bodies tossed among the drifts.
The world sways and rolls as I crawl out of bed. There’s an empty liquor bottle on the nightstand, but I can’t stand the taste of hard liquor, I would never have bought—
and then I realize that it’s Paul’s bottle.
I stumble into the bathroom and throw up, the thin vomiting of a stomach filled with booze and nothing else. Memories keep rising up: the crude drawings, the dirt on my hands, how the dwarves and the platter just vanished.
How long I stood at the fence, watching Paul and justifying his murder.
I wipe down the bottle in a fog of panic and bury it in the trash. I’m just about to go out back when the doorbell jangles; with a mewl of fear I manage to pull a sweatshirt over my smelly uniform and get to the door.
My mouth still tastes like puke as I open the door and stare at the policeman.
“Good morning, ma’am,” he says. “I’m sorry to say there’s been an incident next door. I’d like to ask you a few questions and take a look around your property. May I come in?”
Behind him there’s another cop coming up the walk, and no less than three patrol cars parked between my house and Paul’s. Three cars and an ambulance, but no lights flashing. I glimpse Theresa in the back seat of one of the patrol cars.
“Ma’am?”
I try to swallow but my mouth is bone dry; still I manage to make my throat convulse, so hard I’m sure he heard it. “Sure,” I say, my voice raspy. “Do what you need to do.”
***
“No strange noises, nothing unusual…”
I shake my head again. I’m desperately trying not to look at the back door; another cop went out into the yard eight long minutes ago, and it’s all I can do to keep from going after him. What’s out there, what has he found?
What have I done?
“Well. If you think of anything at all. Maybe even something you heard, and then decided to ignore.”
I think I’m insane, I say in my head. I think I’m losing my mind. I smile at the cop—Jones, his name tag says—and shrug. “Sorry, I don’t remember anything like that.”