The Voices in Our Heads

by Michael Aronovitz

  “OK,” she said softly.

  They still slept together. No, actually to hell with the euphemisms, they still fucked. Sleeping had nothing to do with it, and an outsider would think the whole thing humorous, especially considering Bruce’s shortcomings. Right off, he was dorky as all hell to look at with his thick lips, slumped shoulders, pot belly, and duck feet. And on top of that, he was a chronic whiner, always with nosebleeds, or a knee brace issue, or the jaw that was clicking and driving him nuts, or the joint in his big toe that was sore. Every month or so he would agonize over his throat hurting on one side or the other, and he was convinced there was some imbalance in his inner ear caused by planes flying too close overhead. It had taken years for them to find a place of employment he could stomach. His complaint was that he had some kind of eye allergy that made him extra sensitive to mold in the walls. Dating him had been an absolute carnival in terms of oddball freakery, and Becky had always seen it as some fantastic artistic endeavor. He farted in public, analyzed incessantly, dragged you down the long road of his neurotic little life journey, and actually had the balls once to show up at his brother Steven’s apartment for a Super Bowl game with his laundry. He asked Steven’s wife to throw it in for him, for God’s sake. “What?” she’d said with a bright little grin. He’d shoved the basket in her arms then and muttered something about her knowing her own washer better than he ever could. It wasn’t that Bruce was impolite. He was just direct, without filters. The family wanted him to watch TV with them? Well, he had laundry. Solve the problem with the quickest efficiency.

  She had disconnected the call and was rocking a bit, the phone still resting against her cheek. She actually ached inside; GOD, he was a good lover. She frowned, hated herself for the needs she couldn’t control. It was absolutely oxymoronic, and there had to be a better term for it, like socio-sexual dichotomy or something. He was the greatest nerd on the face of the planet, ugly as a troll, and the most masculine person she’d ever known. With all his little physical traumas, he was insistent on keeping his membership at the Jewish Y current, spending most of his time in the pool (for stamina) and in the weight room for his little finger and wrist strengthening exercises (for her, not him). He knew what she wanted and went about maintaining it with such robotic efficiency, such mechanical ferocity, that it made her knees weaken. He’d asked what she needed through the early years, and probed and researched and studied until he’d developed a routine that was an absolute symphony.

  Two years ago, he’d been working late at the hospital and Becky had been considering writing an article on pornography, relating it to Swift’s fascination with urine and nipples. She’d turned on HBO, cued up some late-night special on sex toys, and, after skipping over the introduction, observed a women being screwed by a mechanical dildo machine called “The Bunny Fucker,” a simple piston device on a four-legged tripod, penetrating the woman from behind as she stood, legs spread a bit, bent at the waist over a barrel, elbows propped on it. She was coming and sweating and moaning as if possessed by aliens, and when it was done, the machine just slowed to a dead stop. Function over, time to clean and store.

  “My God,” Becky had managed, arms folded across her stomach. “That’s just like Bruce.”

  She’d gone downstairs, opened the cabinet above the sink, and pawed through the cans of Campbell tomato no emergency was ever dire enough for, and the sleeves of saltines that must have been from the seventies. She’d reached into the back and gotten down the half-gallon jug of Zinfandel. When Bruce had finally gotten home, she only remembered slurring something like, “When you fill my vagina, you empty my heart,” and the next morning she asked for a separation. He asked for Julie and the house, and she agreed (at least for now) as long as he bought her a nice little place close by. There, she kept up her writing and her planning and her oddities, while Bruce kept on with his own breed of weirdness. And after they did the deed nowadays, at least it was clear that she was supposed to leave. It was all good, well, at least manageable in terms of honesty and expectations, though she knew she had to do a bit better with Julie than she had lately. Oh, she was going to rescue her right after crawling out from under the rock Laure had lowered on top of her, sure, but what about now? Bruce certainly put food on the table for Julie, but he never played with her. In his own awkward way he held her when she needed it and kissed her goodnight and made sure the covers were properly tucked at the bottom of the bed for a “maximum warmth factor,” but he didn’t braid her hair for her, or take her sledding, or watch the latest Toy Story movie, or bring home a surprise chocolate bar once in awhile.

  For some reason, that last image of a big Cadbury or Carmello or good old-fashioned Hershey’s dark chocolate stuck in Becky’s head all through the 12:00 staff meeting, her lunch of a banana yogurt and a browned apple, and the 2:30 seminar, mostly abandoned because of the lethal combination of bad weather, the semi-late hour, and the fact that it was a Friday. At 3:00 her usuals showed up to hang in 329: Missy Schindler, Rachel Waters, and Lindy Michnowicz, all a bit too thin and overwhelmed, dark tragic eyes, lonely but hopeful. They brought a guy from the dorms that they had nicknamed “Fluffy” because of his hair, and Becky connected right away because he was wearing a knit winter hat indoors with tassels and a pompom. Connecting was her thing after all, and her office was often jammed with these geeky groupie types; yes, work was work, but she had to live a little too, right? At 4:40, she gathered her materials, stocking up for the weekend, and headed home into the night, which had come on early. The wet sleet had turned to icy gusts coming across from the west. The sky was dim and the clouds black. 476 was mostly deserted, veils and curtains of powder dusting along the asphalt like ghosts.

  Hershey bar. Becky didn’t want to detour all the way down to the Broomall exit to go wait on line at the Superfresh. Best to take the Springfield exit and hit the Hess at the edge of Drexel Hill. It had a candy rack, and it was on the way. Julie would be so surprised!

  Becky made a left into the gas station parking lot, snow darting beneath the overhead floods in swarms. She pulled to the side between the free air pump and two green dumpsters and exited her vehicle. Her skirt flapped hard against her knees, and she put up a hand to shield her face from the pepper spray of frozen sleet. She had been polite, parking away from the gas islands, and now the walk over to the cashier shack seemed more of an ordeal than she had anticipated. Wind howled in her ears, and she squinted back to see if the no-parking zone to the side of the booth was still vacated.

  Something moved back to the left, across Route 1. She saw it at the edge of her peripheral vision and turned toward it. Nothing. A deserted highway, the streetlight suspended on a dull silver pole hanging across and bobbing slightly, the Drexel line shopping center on the other side, parking area mostly vacant except for two cars in front of the nail shop.

  Then she saw it again, from behind the Goodwill box at the near side of the lot over there. There was something perched on it, something at the back top edge that looked like a huge rat or possum or something with fur, bristling in the stiff wind. It slowly rose upward and it wasn’t a rat or a possum or a lost kitty cat, it was a dark blue parka hood with the face blackened out, and he had been crouching back there. Now he stood tall, chest and shoulders visible above the top of the container, staring at her across Route 1.

  Becky looked over toward the booth with its three windows, the bookends marked Snack Corner and Beverage Corner, racks in front of each. The middle one was unoccupied; she could see what looked like cigarettes stacked on the back wall, or at least it looked that way from this distance.

  Back across the street, the parka man had moved from behind the Goodwill box. He stood beside it now, long arms hanging down, billowing snow pants, huge black boots. Becky actually considered going and rapping on the booth glass just to have a witness, but changed her mind. This was silly. Time to get back in the warm car, get on the cell, and call the police.

  She walked back to the driver’s side d
oor, fingered the keys, pulled up the wrong one, and dropped them.

  “Fuck,” she said, bending, grabbing, scratching a knuckle on the cold concrete. She straightened and looked across the roof of her car. The thing had advanced his position to the middle of Route 1, standing on the double yellow line between a cross-hatch of traffic, feet spread, hands dangling. Becky had a scream building in her nose, and she tried the keys and forced the wrong one, the one she always mixed up because her copy to Bruce’s Mercedes was so similar to her own, and she tore it out, shoved in her own, and wrenched open the door.

  By the time she turned the ignition, he had gained the near curb, and the engine roared on, and Becky grabbed the wheel and screeched the tires. She burst forward, almost crashing into the Dasani ice machine, and pulled a hard left past the diesel pump. She gave a wild glance for oncoming traffic, and since there was no time to seek out the exit recess in the curb she just shot the edge, bumper coming down with a metallic scrape that she was sure threw sparks. She came back around, ran the red light she had just observed bobbing in the wind, and gave a wild stare back at the gas station parking area.

  No one was there. Dead empty.

  She drove home, tears streaming down her face, a crooked grin plastered up the side of her cheek.

  What an asshole!

  He’d tucked his yellow notepad in the back of his pants, and now he was adjusting his hat, forefinger and thumb gently pinching the front brim, fingers of the other hand delicately supporting the back. Oh, so quaint!

  “That’s it?” Becky said. She’d been wringing her hands, and they were still twisted up, pushing the skirt down between her knees a bit. He put his hands toward his hips, knuckled one, and rested the other, oh so unconsciously, on the butt of his service revolver.

  “Ma’am,” he said.

  “Becky, please.”

  “Professor,” he corrected. Took a deep meaningful breath. “It’s cold outside.”

  “No shit.”

  “Pardon?” He was leaning in a bit now, eyes raised, the condescending Daddy. Becky flickered her glance away and back, muttering out the side of her mouth, “Sorry.”

  His arms went to the stereotypical folding across the chest, and yes, he went up on his toes, the son of a bitch. He took a second to “gather his patience,” and gave a brief, distasteful glance around her small living room. Then back with the high-beam eyes.

  “Look, ma’am. I got three accidents on Springfield Road and a jackknifed tractor trailer on City Line near the U-Haul place. A kid fell down at the skadium and another went missing three hours ago in the woods behind the high school. We have multiple reports of snowball peltings by teenagers, some of the things filled with rocks and batteries, and there’s been word that the power station might have a division on the fritz. I got trees down on five different side streets, twenty-odd call-ins for stalls, and I’m short-manned. And you want me to get excited over a guy out in a winter storm wearing a parka.”

  “He followed me.”

  “Can you prove it was the same guy?”

  “I didn’t get close enough to dust for prints.”

  Now both sets of knuckles curled on both hips, the lean forward, and the head cocked at a bit of an angle.

  “The Hess was on my way here, professor, so I checked your story. Denny Hennassey says you caused a scene and tore out of there like a teenager making donuts in the high school parking lot. Says you almost hit his water container. That true?”

  Becky could feel her face redden deep.

  “This guy, this, Hennassey, was never there! I looked in the booth for help and I could see straight through that middle window to the cigarette rack.” She gave a crazy laugh. “Didn’t know anyone was dumb enough to smoke those things anymore.”

  She searched his eyes and got lost in cold steel.

  “Professor, Denny’s been working that booth for twenty-two years. Says you stomped around that lot like a lunatic.”

  “He’s lying.”

  “Is anything I just said untrue?”

  To her horror, Becky realized she was playing with her hands more overtly now, knotting up her fingers just as she had as a girl, there’s the church—there’s the steeple—look inside—there’s all the people, she couldn’t help it. She broke up the affair and actually shook it all out, looking at the officer, half laughing at herself, wanting him to join in with it.

  “Look,” she said finally, hands resting on her knees curled and awkward. “If this invisible counter-man saw me, through some other window or from around the corner to the men’s room, I certainly did not see him. Concerned? Yes. Crazy woman? No indeed. And you’re telling me he didn’t see the giant in the parka coming across the street?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “That’s how my report’s going to read.” He winked coldly. “Unless you want me to issue you a citation for disturbing the peace in a deserted gas station parking area.”

  He turned to go. Got to the door and gave a half-pivot of the head.

  “Think I’ll go out to the squad car and have a Marlboro, if it’s all the same to you. Professor.”

  She didn’t walk him out. At least she had that to hold on to.

  The shower felt good because she’d turned it on so hot, and was an anger-shower, and she didn’t want to primp, condition, or think, just scour. When she was done, her skin was raw and tingling, and the room was so misted there was condensation inside the framed Donald Duck cell she’d bought at Disney so many years ago now that she’d barely come to notice it anymore. But the haze in there made her think of the window in her office, and the sleet running down in furrows revealing nothing behind the oak tree out there. Right, and there was nothing behind the Goodwill Box either, nothing standing in the middle of Route 1, nothing advancing to the near curb, and students never chose to argue rather than do the work, and men in positions of authority never took advantage of those too polite to demand service. And that wasn’t even it! What just happened downstairs was misogyny, plain and simple. It was an old cliché and she despised herself for flying the flag, but there it had been, right out in the open in her shitty little living room in the shitty little house she’d settled for. Becky cursed aloud, rubbed the wetness out of her ear extra hard, and gave the hair on the back of her neck a last brisk go-over.

  She put on her cloth robe and thumped out into the hallway. She marched downstairs, checked the front and back doors, grabbed the cordless, and hit off the lights. If Bruce thought she was going to saddle up and make her way over there to spread her thighs for him at this point, he was insane. She suddenly felt horrible for Julie, especially since she’d never gotten the chocolate bar she hadn’t been expecting anyway, and she punched in Bruce’s number fully intending to entertain most of the conversation with her daughter. Then to hell with the dissertation she’d planned on restructuring all night, and to hell with Laure, the old putz. She’d snuggle up under her warm covers, enjoying the long blank stares of her wall-mounted Greek and African masks, her pictures of tree-climbing goats, her steel trash sculpture that looked like a robot in a Shakespearean pose, and then fuck ’em all, she’d get out her Mary Tyler Moore reruns and watch them past midnight. Maybe with some popcorn, kosher pickles, and green tea. Maybe she’d run with scissors. She got halfway up the stairs, numbers all punched in with the exception of the last “4,” and then she heard it.

  Water dripping. Distinct. Steady, there was another, and it wasn’t a faucet-to-porcelain drip with that certain little “toink” or “plink” almost like an afterthought. This was a drip that splatted on wood.

  Shit.

  It was the roof again. There was a leak just inside the doorway to her walk-in closet at the end of the hall upstairs, which she had duct-taped up in there the best she could underneath the grate in the false ceiling until she got around to convincing the sellers to call and go get the boys back to better apply the tar coating they’d sworn they’d completed out there. />
  She walked heavily back down the stairs, through the living room, and into the kitchen where she pulled her cutlet knife out of the block. Had a forged tip; wouldn’t break off like the ones on the steak knives she’d tried. She smiled wryly. Bruce would have scolded her for never buying a toolbox, let alone the standard implements that would fill it up. But she hadn’t stripped those tight little Phillips cross-slots in the grate’s set screws yet, had she? Becky tromped back toward the stairs, the grin on her face withering. She didn’t appreciate his ridicule even if it was projected.

  Since the screen on the cordless had long gone dark, Becky pressed the “off” button, hit “talk,” and got another dial tone. She felt like bitching, to tell the truth, and she had the area code punched in just after mounting the landing. Somewhere between deciding not to get the chair from the office until she’d given a preliminary assessment and trying to remember which side of the closet the light’s pull-string was on, Becky managed to punch in six more numbers, all but that last “4” again, and she opened the closet door and she screamed.

  There in the archway he stood, a huge black shadow filling the void, and the phone tumbled out of her hands, the glow from its little square face cover spinning, bumping, then settling, coming up in a V-shape that cast the giant before her in a tilted wash of faint, sickly green.

  Something snapped, and Becky went wild, jabbing the cutlet knife hard up into his dark face area rimmed by the parka hood, into his chest, into his throat. Somewhere, way off to the side it seemed, her common sense told her that he was wearing some kind of mask inside the hood, that her blade wasn’t penetrating the coat either, that he wasn’t fighting back or moving really, except to swing a bit backward like meat in a walk-in freezer.

  For what seemed like an age she just kept stabbing, gashing, shrieking, and moaning.

  Slowing. Stopping. Panting.

  She reached in and turned on the light. There was a line coming out of the top of his hood, and the far upper end was a hook, curved over an exposed wooden beam in the ceiling just below the grate. She sat down hard. There was a space of about a foot and a half between the floor and his boots. A huge drop of moisture was gathering at the heel, melted snow from outside, a big old pregnant drop gaining ballast, the cordless there beside her casting little prisms in it.