Everyone Remain Calm

by Megan Stielstra

  “You’re not going to believe this,” I said to my friend Celeste the next day at dinner. Her fork stayed suspended in midair during the whole story. “I couldn’t really see anything,” I said, “but I think he started out as Banner ’cause he just felt like a regular guy, you know, but after the green flash he just started growing. I mean . . .” I dropped my eyes down to my lap and looked back up at her. “Everywhere. Like, I had my hands on his back and I could feel the muscles in his shoulders tighten and expand, could feel each ripple in his six-pack pop into place against my stomach. Like, suddenly he was three times as heavy so we had to flip over so I wouldn’t be crushed and”—I whispered this last part—“his penis just inflated right up like he’d taken a bicycle pump to it! It was amazing!”

  Celeste put down her fork and cleared her throat. “Shelley,” she said. “Are you . . . doing okay?”

  “Okay?” I said. “I’m fantastic!” I’d gone to a salon that morning and traded the clumpy chopped dreadlocks for a little pixie cut, and had spent the afternoon giving my new Neiman Marcus card a workout.

  “It’s just that . . . I mean . . . sweetie,” she said. “You’re telling me you’re in love with . . . the Incredible Hulk.”

  “I didn’t say I was in love,” I told her. “I said I got laid.”

  From then on, I kept the Hulk to myself. I didn’t tell anyone else about those nights with him under my bed, so there wasn’t anybody to tell when they stopped. I just woke up one morning and he wasn’t there anymore. That was the day I met Kyle, in a psychology class my junior year. A few months into our relationship we were making dinner at my apartment and he asked why all of the artwork that I owned was still stacked on the floor.

  “You’ve been living here forever,” he pointed out. “Do you need help hanging this stuff?”

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t decided on the right spot yet. Like, if I put the Bosch poster over here, above the fireplace, I’ll want to switch it to the hall, and then . . .” I trailed off when I noticed the look on his face. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He sat me down on the couch next to him, reached over, and took both my hands between his own. “I’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve spent together,” he said.

  “You’re talking in the past tense,” I pointed out.

  “I just think we’re looking for different things.”

  “And what is it with guys grabbing your hands?” I said. “If a girl is going to drop a bomb in your lap she says, ‘We need to have a talk,’ but with guys it’s grabbing your hands all the time.”

  “Shelley, I’m at the point in my life where I’m looking for a commitment,” he went on, and was going to go on more but I cut him off.

  “And I’m not?”

  He let go of one of my hands in order to wave one of his at my paintings on the floor. “If you can’t even commit to wall space you’ll never be able to—”

  I kicked him out. Then I found a hammer and banged the goddamn Bosch into the wall, lopsided. I went to my room and laid on the bed, on my back so the tears poured down the sides of my face and into my ears. That’s when I felt it. A poke, like I had laid on a rock or something. I stayed very still and then, cautiously, I crossed one leg over the other and let it dangle just slightly over the edge of my bed. Nothing happened. I shook my foot a little. Nothing. I shook my whole leg, really rattled it around, like I was doing the hokey pokey. Nothing. You’re a fool, Shelley, I said to myself, it was a figment of your imagin—but before I could finish the thought a green hand reached up, wrapped around my ankle, and pulled me down below.

  For years, that’s how it went. When I was with somebody, the Hulk was gone. When I wasn’t, he was there. I mean, really there. There in your head as you fall asleep at night. There in your fingertips when you feel alone. There after the others have all gone: the one who thought you were cold. Who thought you were fat. Who was a drunk. Who couldn’t deal with your job. Who wanted to be with you but just couldn’t right now. Who was too busy. Who was not in a good place. Who just wasn’t feeling it. I’d look down at my fists clasped tightly between theirs and think that something incredible was a hell of a lot better than reality. In fact, I started rushing through breakups so I could hurry up and get under the bed.

  “It’s not you, Shelley,” Carl said. I was twenty-five years old. He was Number Nine. We were sitting in his living room and—surprise!—he was holding both my hands.

  “I think you’re great,” is what he said. “Really great.”

  “Okay,” I said. “And?” My libido was revving, like somebody had just taken their foot off my brake.

  “I really enjoy talking to you,” he said, “and hanging out and stuff—”

  “Right,” I said. “And?”

  “It’s just that—”

  Hurry up, man, spit it out!

  “What I think I’m trying to say is—”

  I don’t have all night, I’ve got places to be.

  “I think—”

  No, I don’t think you do, Carl. This is something you couldn’t possibly understand.

  “—Just . . . be . . . friends,” he finished, and in a flash, I was on my feet. No beating of my breast, no ripping of my hair, no Why, why, why did it all go wrong? No sir, I had places to be. I said, “OkaythanksCarlitwasfunbye,” ran past his confused look and emotive hands, got out the door, into my car, and hit the streets at the corners, speeding all the way. See, I knew what would be waiting for me when I got home. It was always there—one, two, three, nine times—and I thought This is perfect! I’ll never be hurt again, because the Incredible Hulk will always take care of me.

  But then something happened that I hadn’t anticipated.

  I fell in love.

  I didn’t mean to. I’d done everything I could to avoid it, dividing my time equally between work and Hulk. But there was, of course, the occasional night out with the girls, and that’s when I met Jimmy. We were at a karaoke bar in Lincoln Square because Celeste needed to get a little Pat Benatar out of her system. While she sang, the rest of us drank, and cheered, and yelled for more and by the time she got to “Love Is a Battlefield” the place was packed and everyone was hammered.

  I pushed through the crowd towards the bathroom, slowly realizing how drunk I was by the effort of walking. I made it to the back and was going hand-over-hand down the wall when a voice behind me said, “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  Now, I know that everybody looks good when you’ve had a few, but when I turned around and saw this guy, I almost fell right over. He was beautiful. Beautiful. But, Shelley, if you go back historically, so were Breakups Two, Five, and Six. And Five, Seven, and Nine were tall. Two through Five had good tattoos, and Three had soft thick hair and Four and Six had big brown eyes and Six, Seven, Eight, and . . . which one? Three, yes, Three made you swoon when you first saw them, so . . . you see my point?

  “No,” I said aloud. “I’m not leaving.”

  He smiled, and ohhhhh, the smile (see Two and Five and Nine, please), and said, “Good. ’Cause it’s my turn pretty soon, and I’m dedicating a song to you.”

  I made it into the bathroom before I died, threw some water on my face, and looked at myself in the mirror. “No more,” I said sternly to my reflection. I pointed my finger at me and tried to look threatening. “You said no more.” Then I found my friends and said, “Come on. We gotta go.”

  “Are you kidding?” said Celeste. She had lipstick on her teeth and cigarette butts in her hair. “I’m just warming up!”

  “Yeah, Shelley, what’s your rush?” they all said, and I said, “’Cause that guy,” and I pointed at the guy, the beautiful one, the one who would be Number Ten if we didn’t get out of there quick, “is going to sing me a song.”

  This was excitement. This was information that can really ignite a table full of girls, and they immediately started taking bets as
to what he would sing.

  “John Hiatt, ‘Have a Little Faith in Me,’” Liza said, and Celeste said, “Are you crazy? Look at that guy! He’s not ‘Have a Little Faith in Me’! He’s ‘I wanna fuck you like an animal’!” and Becky said, “You can’t karaoke Nine Inch Nails!” and Celeste said she’d gladly prove the falsity of that statement, and Kelly said, “Ten bucks on ‘Rocket Man,’” and everybody was like, “Elton John?” and money swapped hands and shots went all around the table and we were laughing and silly and suddenly, booming through the speakers came his voice, saying, “Okay, so . . . there’s this girl.”

  “Yeeeah, Jim!” yelled one of his friends in the back.

  “Shut up man,” he said, and then he looked at me. “She knows who she is,” he said, “and if I don’t sing to her I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

  Celeste poked me in the back then. That poke was girl-code for Ohmigod did you hear what he just said? We all want them to say that.

  And then the music started. It was “The Joker” by the Steve Miller Band, and everyone in the room cheered, and sang along to the part about the space cowboy and the gangster and the zoop zoop—everybody always does the zoop zoop—and who cared if this guy Jim had a good voice ’cause there was one stripe of hair falling across his eye and I thought No more, I said no more, and then I looked up, and we locked eyes, and it was the part in the song that goes right here, right here, and I was hooked. I’d like to pretend I’m tougher than that. That it takes more finesse to woo me. More time and thought into my seduction, but at that moment I felt like I’d been whacked over the head with a two-by-four. By the time he got to the part about the peaches, I was ready. I would have followed him to the ends of the earth. The backseat of his car. Whatever.

  When the song was done he came over to me.

  He stood very close.

  I remembered to breathe.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came, and he stared at me for a thousand million hours ’til finally he said, “So, I’m trashed, and I don’t want to meet you like this so I was hoping we could get together tomorrow?” at which point Celeste poked me really hard and I knew they were listening, all of my drunk girlfriends splayed out behind my head like giant peacock feathers. “Definitely,” I said, and he kissed me, fast, and then was gone, and when we all stumbled out of the bar that night singing Zooop zoooop, I felt so good I thought I’d cry.

  The next day was wonderful.

  My favorite thing about it was there was another day after that which was equally as good, and after that there were more, and all those led to a single, perfect moment, sort of like how every river feeds the ocean. It’d been a couple months since we’d met and we were at the conservatory in that little outdoor garden in the back. It was one of the last warm days of fall and the sun was bright, us telling stories, us laughing, flowers everywhere all purple and perfect, and I kept thinking that word—perfect perfect perfect—and then there was a bee.

  The thing of it is, I’m allergic to bees. I was stung once when I was five, and I puffed up bright red and kept swelling bigger ’til they sent me to the hospital. One of the few memories I have of my dad before he took off is him picking me up and driving straight to a friend’s farm on the outskirts of the city. “I won’t have you afraid,” he’d said, and he took my hand and we walked right into the middle of a beehive—wooden frames with honeycombs in the middle set in circles across the lawn like a little Stonehenge—bees flying back and forth between them, around our heads, on our arms, in my hair, in my eyes like they might tangle in my lashes. I was still groggy from the drugs and very much associating these yellow and black bugs with all the needles they’d stuck in me. I opened my mouth to scream, but my dad crouched down in front of me, put his big hands on my shoulders, and said, “Shhhhh. Be still, baby.”

  We stayed there like that, me and my dad, eye-to-eye, blue-to-blue, bees on our faces, light feather-touching across my skin, Shhhhh, be still, and I wasn’t afraid.

  But Jimmy, there in that garden? He was jumping all over the place, waving his arms to get the bee away from me. I put my hand on his chest, palm flat over his heart. “Shhhhh,” I said. “Be still. It won’t sting you if you’re still.” I felt his heart thump, felt that beat travel into my hand, down my arm, pounding through my body and I knew I loved him.

  I was sure.

  That night, before I went to sleep, I sat down cross-legged on the floor next to my bed. With two fingers, I lifted the edge of the blanket so I could see underneath—there was dark. And dust bunnies. A book I’d been missing. One sock. Couple of stale crackers—and that was all. “Goodbye,” I whispered, and, yeah, I felt a little silly doing it but we’d been together for so long that I felt I owed him at least that. “I’m glad you were there,” I said. “But I don’t need you anymore.”

  “We’ve got to talk.”

  Jimmy and I were sitting across from each other in some bar and out of the clear blue sky his hands were reaching over the table, snaking around the empty beer bottles and ashtrays and drink menus. My heart started to whack against the inside of my chest and I told myself Shhhhh, be still, but nothing was and I wanted to throw things—the empty beer bottles and ashtrays and drink menus—just pick up everything I could and hurl it across the room. I wanted to cause some huge ruckus so everyone would turn and stare at us, and then, he wouldn’t be able to do it. The hands were still coming at me, and I locked mine together and stuck them tightly between my thighs.

  “Shelley,” he said, and I couldn’t breathe.

  He said, “Look at me, will you?”

  He said, “Come on.” And out of my peripheral vision I saw his palms resting on the tabletop in front of me. “Come on,” he said again. “Give me your hands.” My stomach was sinking fast and I felt the tears, those stupid ones that you can’t force back.

  “No,” I whispered. “I won’t,” and then it all burst out: “I won’t give you my hands, Jim, because of that night we couldn’t wait ’til we got inside so we made it on a couch someone had left in the alley. And I was looking for a pencil in your desk and found a list you’d made called Life’s Goals, and number three was Be a good dad. And when we first got together you told me you wanted to take it slow and you’re the first guy who’s ever said that, who hasn’t tried to get into my pants in the first fifteen seconds that we’ve known each other, and I am not ready for this to end!” With that, I stood up, grabbed an ashtray, and flung it across the room. It slammed smack into a neon Pabst sign, which shattered into a thousand glass shards all over the floor but was still plugged in and buzzing. That was the only sound in the room. Everything else was silent. Everyone in the bar was looking at me, and I felt so goddamn mad I saw red.

  Actually: green.

  A very familiar green.

  I got home fast and burst into my bedroom, the door slamming into the wall and leaving hinge marks. “I know you’re in here!” I yelled. I stood in front of my bed and stomped my feet. “I know you’re supposed to save me, but I don’t want it anymore! I want—” and that’s when the hand shot out from under the bed, bright green against the white blankets, and locked around my right ankle. “No,” I said, “not this time!” and I stepped down hard on his wrist with my free foot, really pounded on it, over and over ’til the bed started shaking and a muffled growling rose from beneath it. He pulled hard and my feet flew out from underneath and I was on my back, dragged, watching as my body disappeared under the bed—first my feet, then my calves, my knees, thighs—I slammed both hands up against the sideboard and pushed back, trying to slide myself out—there were my thighs again, my knees, my calves—the growling was louder, louder still, the grip on my right foot iron-hard and groping for my left. I tried to remember the self-defense class I’d taken after Breakup Number Three and started kicking, aiming for where I knew his groin was, and, when I knew I wasn’t hitting the mark, I flipped over ont
o my stomach and aimed my left foot at his face. That got results: my heel connected with his mouth, two hard kicks to the teeth and one more to the nose. He screamed then, lost his grip, and I crawled out from under the bed, arm-over-arm towards the door, and once I was all the way out I started to stand and that’s when I heard it—the roar—the same one my dad had imitated Saturday morning again and again—loud and deep and raw and I turned and saw the hand, the wrist, the forearm, the elbow, the bicep, bulging, the shoulder, reaching out from under my bed, across the floor towards me. The electricity was going haywire, lights turning on and off, and suddenly everywhere there was noise—doors slamming and wind blowing and the bed dragging, dragging across the floor as he tried to get at me, lunging, roaring, screaming, almost on me, I couldn’t move fast enough—he was there—no, I was free—no, he had me—my hand on the doorknob—his hand at my back—but I was through. I was out. I was slamming the door, sinking to the floor, covering my ears with my hands to block him out.

  I didn’t go back into my bedroom for two weeks. I wore the same clothes. I had bruises on my legs from my fight with the Hulk and a huge purple welt on my hip from him pulling me to the floor. It hurt like hell and I slept on my side, on my couch, huddled into a ball at night listening to the sounds coming from behind that door—banging, roaring, tremors. What I heard during the day was no less disturbing: Jimmy on my voicemail.

  “Shelley, are you all right?”

  “Shell, what’s going on?”

  “You’re freaking me out, Shell.”

  And finally: “It’s been a week. I’m coming over.”

  I was sitting on the floor when I heard that one, backed up against the wall with my knees pulled into my chest. There was banging in my bedroom, Jimmy wanted to break up with me, was on his way over, hadn’t slept in a week, hadn’t showered in longer, and I panicked. I did the only thing I could: went to the bar down the street and got drunk.