Robert doesn’t know why he said that. His sudden burst of anger ebbs.
Sara slowly moves her arms, covering up her nakedness as if they hadn’t just fucked like banshees an hour earlier, soaking the sheets with sweat. She doesn’t know she’s doing it, probably, but the idiocy of that affectation makes his anger return. A crazy thought: have I really been putting my cock in someone this stupid? Did I really MOVE HERE to be near THIS?
“I’m going home,” Sara says quietly.
“Well, your home certainly isn’t here.”
She blinks.
Is she going to cry? Looks like it. And even that makes Robert mad.
He stands. Naked, he takes his diary to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
Robert hopes Sara will take the hint and let herself out.
* * *
I’ve thought about killing myself. I don’t have anyone. People walk up and down these halls. No one knocks. Sometimes they see me and nod, or just hurry past without looking at me. I know in the past my appearance was better. It’s not my fault I’m sick, even though the doctors told me there’s nothing wrong with me. Like they even care.
There was only one neighbor, Mrs. Sheldon in the apartment next to me. She always said “hello” and asked about the weather. But I saw someone else coming out of her apartment this morning. Mrs. Sheldon moved away. I wish someone would have told me.
She was the last person in this building that I knew. Why should I bother meeting more people? They will just move away.
Sometimes this apartment is so silent. I can’t hear anyone else in the building. But it’s nice here. Kill myself? Maybe I would, but when I’m in here, it’s not so bad. It’s really bad when I go outside for groceries and see an entire city’s worth of people who could give a shit if I live or die. Maybe no one is here with me, but at least this is my home.
I think it’s time to give up on the outside world.
I’ll just stay in more. At least Daisey loves me.
She’s a good dog.
—Clyde
* * *
“Dude, calm down,” John says. “Why are you acting like this is a personal attack on you or something?”
John doesn’t understand what is happening. He is moving away, starting a new life with Christine, and Robert is being one Grade-A giant douchebag.
“So what am I supposed to do?” Robert asks. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
The question depresses John, and also angers him. For a year now, he’s been the best friend he could be, catering to Robert’s every need since the accident. Isn’t a year enough? Hasn’t that been plenty of time for Robert to recover?
“I’m not moving for another two months,” John says. “Can’t you find someone to help you before then? Have you called your brother?”
That is a question John has asked often, with increasing venom over the past twelve months. Robert’s brother, Frank, has sat on his fat ass in Sacramento and done nothing. Since Robert’s accident, Frank has been to visit—once—for a grand total of twelve hours, six of which were spent at the Philadelphia Zoo with his wife and daughter while Robert stayed in his apartment.
In fact, since Robert broke it off with Sara, John is the only one who comes to help Robert. Robert should be grateful for the help—not be a giant asshole when it’s time for John to move on with his own life.
“Look,” John says, “you can get groceries delivered. As for stuff around the apartment, can’t you ask your neighbors?”
Robert’s eyes narrow at the word. He speaks with forced patience, as if John is stupid and needs things explained to him over and over.
“I don’t know them, John. I know you.”
John tries to hold onto his temper, his absolute exasperation. Yes, he understands Robert has chronic pain—or at least thinks he does—but if John were in his shoes he would handle things so differently. John wouldn’t give up, which Robert seems to have done.
“Have you even tried to meet them?” John asks. “Jesus H. Christ on a stick, Rob… are you so helpless you can’t even knock on a fucking door?”
“Are you so helpless you can’t stand up to Christine? Have you even tried? You get laid for once in your life and she leads you around by the dick? Does she have your balls in a jar up on the shelf, John?”
The words sting, and not just because of the hate that’s laced in them. John’s face flushes red. Yes, Christine demanded they move. Yes, she said if John didn’t go with her, she would leave him. John is in his thirties now—most single women his age are losers. They are single for a reason, and those reasons won’t change as they get older. He loves Christine and is sure he won’t find anyone as great as she is. John is a man, yes, but deep down he knows that Christine has all the power in their relationship.
Knowing that is one thing—having your best friend rub your nose in it is another.
“Fuck you,” John says.
“Fuck you back,” Robert says. “Glad I finally learned what kind of a person you really are. I thought you were my friend.”
John’s hands clench into fists, and he comes an eye-blink away from throwing a punch. If Robert wasn’t so hurt (or thought he was so hurt), John would lay him out.
They have known each other since freshman year at college. In all that time, John has never wanted to hit Robert.
“I can come back from time to time,” John says. “I can help you find people who can come here, do the things you can’t.”
Robert shakes his head. There are tears in his eyes.
“Don’t bother,” he says. “Maybe being alone is better than being hurt.”
John’s anger vanishes. He knows that phrase, that exact phrase.
“That’s in the diary,” John says.
“So? It doesn’t make it any less true.”
John doesn’t know what to say. Robert seems to read that nasty-smelling old book non-stop. It’s weird. And Robert isn’t just reading it, he’s writing in it. New entries. Robert has changed since he started reading that thing.
Since he came to Philadelphia.
Since… since he started living here.
“You need to move out,” John says. “This place, Rob… I think this apartment is bad for you.”
Robert sneers. “You want me to move somewhere else? Where? I can’t lift a goddamn thing, and I can’t afford a new place. How about I come live with you?”
John’s face feels hot all over again. Christine would never go for that—and Robert knows it.
“Just go,” Robert says. “If my back wasn’t so fucked up, I’d throw you out. Leave me alone.”
John has run out of words. Emotions spin through him: anger, frustration, loss, shame.
He walks through the living room he once thought was so cool. When he reaches the front door and opens it, Robert shouts: “Don’t bother coming back.”
“Don’t worry about that,” John says.
He slams the door behind him.
* * *
Dear Diary,
Fuck them all. How did I go so wrong choosing the people in my life? I don’t know what’s harder—seeing them abandon me, or knowing that I am such an utterly poor judge of character. I’m alone now. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
I hurt, all the time. No one understands what it’s like to spend every minute of every day feeling like there is a spike in my back. I can barely move.
This morning I dropped some pretzels. I can’t even bend over to pick them up.
What kind of life is this?
If I was a dog, someone would just put me down.
At least I have my home. I’m so grateful I found this place before my injury. Without this apartment, I’d be completely and utterly fucked, instead of just completely fucked.
—Robert
* * *
Sara doesn’t know why she calls. She doesn’t know why he answers—it’s been so long since he picked up the phone.
“What do you want?” Robert asks.
<
br /> He doesn’t even sound like the same person anymore. His voice is thin, brittle as fine china. The man she adored—maybe even loved—is no longer there. In the two years since he moved to Philly, the twelve months since she last saw him in person, he’s changed. Chronic pain does that to a person, she’s read.
“I… I have something to tell you,” Sara says.
“Make it fast.”
She wants to ask him how he is, but she knows that won’t float. In the few times she’s talked to him since they broke up (if “breaking up” is something a married woman can even do), when she asks about his pain or how he’s doing for money, he says something awful and hangs up on her. So this time, as bad as it is, she knows she has to get right to the point.
“Robert, I’m pregnant.”
The pause is heavy. Thick.
“Whose is it?”
Anger at those words, but it doesn’t last. Maybe she deserves that reaction.
Sara has been reading the Bible, and just started going to church for the first time since she left her parents’ home. She needs to be tolerant, forgiving. Learning about the miracle inside her has changed her, instantly and permanently. She was sinful before, but that is over. She’s not living for just herself anymore.
“My husband’s,” she says.
The next pause is longer than the first. Can silence be accusatory? This silence is.
“So much for you not fucking him,” Robert says. “I get hurt and can’t perform for you anymore, and you go back to riding that pony? I guess I really was just a piece of meat for you after all.”
Sara literally bites her tongue. Yes, Robert’s inability to make love was difficult. It made her try again with her husband. She now knows all of it was God’s will, the proof being the new life growing inside her.
“That’s not how it went down, and you know it,” she says. “You told me to get out and never come back—that was a month before your accident.”
“And you ran to your hubby. I guess you didn’t have to run far, seeing as the guy sleeps in the same bed you do.”
His voice sounds strained. Like he’s in pain. He’s always in pain. Sara doesn’t doubt this, but come on—at some point doesn’t he have to embrace the pain and get on with it? Make the most of his life?
“I want you to be happy,” Sara says. “I really do.”
“And I want you to die, you fucking whore.”
The phone clicks. He’s hung up on her.
Sara feels so sad for him. Maybe if Robert finds God, he will heal. Then he can start his life again.
She has to admit it—she can’t help Robert anymore.
It’s time to put the Robert phase of her life behind her.
* * *
Robert shakes.
This is impossible, this can’t be happening. His hand… it’s dissolving. Like steam from a cup of tea, but thicker—like white mist wafting off dry ice. His skin bubbles… not boiling, exactly, but something else.
How? How can this be?
And why does it feel good?
The mist rises up, moves toward the wall on an unfelt breeze. The walls… they seem to be absorbing him, breathing him in.
Robert feels… loved. As if the crazy things he’s seeing are some kind of giant hug from this room. No one loves him, but this apartment does, he can feel it.
It’s been so long since he felt loved.
Robert shakes his head. The peaceful feeling in his chest, it’s a delusion—he is fucking evaporating.
He knows he has to get out.
Robert tries to rise from the old-fashioned couch, the place where he has sat in the few moments per day where he can sit. Why he sat down this time, he doesn’t know; his back is screaming, feels like someone is dripping acid on his spine, the same way it feels every goddamn minute of every goddamn day… but that doesn’t matter right now.
Doesn’t matter because he’s hallucinating. He’s going insane.
Robert looks at his right hand: the skin is spotted with negative spaces. Through those, through the clouds of vapor or mist or gas or whatever the fuck is rising off of him, he can see raw muscle—red, glistening, wet.
“Oh, God,” he says.
This can’t be happening. It can’t.
But… didn’t something like this happen to Carmen?
In the diary, she wrote that her foot went through the floor, blended in. Robert thought she was some crazy, lonely lady, but…
He looks down, at his feet. The left one is fine, but the right one… it’s… it’s… sloughing. Like his bones are slowly liquefying, like his flesh is chocolate melting into the old rug.
“Oh, God,” he says.
But he doesn’t believe in God. Or he didn’t until this very moment.
Robert wobbles… the foot won’t support him anymore. He tries to take a step, but he can’t—he falls.
The fall is terrifying because he knows the pain is coming, a one-second eternity of dread, then his body hits the floor. The agony that shoots through him crushes his spirit. Feels like a sword just slid into the small of his back, razor edge radiating through his belly, his ass, his legs.
His hand—the skin, only a few patches left, slowly drifting away. And now the muscle, the twitching muscle, is misting off in a cloud of pink.
Robert tries to roll to his shoulder, but the pain. Jesus Lord he will believe now he will believe in anything that makes this all go away.
He fights through the agony, pushes himself to hands and knees in an ultimate effort of will.
Robert shakes his head again, so hard it rattles his brain. He can’t give in to this.
“Oh, Gaw…”
He can’t make a “D” sound? A strange taste in his mouth, a hotness in the air he breathes. His tongue… turning to gas?
Robert wants to scream, but he can not—his throat doesn’t work right.
His body lurches to the left: his left hand is flowing into the rug. Flowing, or being sucked… a thick milkshake through a thin straw…
The skin of his face dangles from his head like swinging snot, globs dripping down grayish-red, his life making wet stains on the rug. He sees similar stains, old and dry stains—how could he not have noticed those before?
He falls flat, the remains of his cheek smacking wetly. He sees things in the rug: dirt that the vacuum missed… bits of popcorn he dropped and was unable to pick up… and is that a dog hair jammed into the rug fibers? Robert doesn’t have a dog…
No, but Clyde did.
That dog hair is eight decades old.
Robert can see his skin slowly sloughing into the rug, melting into the fibers, through them, to the hardwood below.
He tries to move, tries hard… but he can’t.
Robert gives up. Robert gives in.
He is the only one here.
No one is coming to see him.
His neighbors have never visited.
The people Robert once loved, who once loved him… he chased them away. He burned those bridges with gas and dynamite and even nukes, destroyed them so they could never be fixed.
Robert realizes he is going to vanish.
That sensation of love, of belonging, pours through him again, stronger than before. Overwhelming. Placating.
Finally, Robert relaxes. Robert accepts.
Will he join Clyde and Adele and Julia? Carmen and Desmond? Are they somehow still here, a part of the furniture and walls and rug and floor?
If he does join them, will it be like a family?
Family… that would be so nice.
WHAT I’VE ALWAYS DONE
by
AMBER BENSON
There’s only so much suffering you can endure before you break. Not like a plate that arcs across the room and shatters on the floor––oh, nothing so dramatic as that. More like a hairline fracture you can’t see until you hold it up to the light.
That’s what happens to the psyche when it bends too far.
One tiny crack and you are never whole
again.
Only mended. Maybe.
* * *
Gorgeous George. Double G for short. The nickname was silly––but that’s because only the ridiculous ones stick.
He was missing four front teeth and had a nose like a twist tie, all kinds of bent. He kept his head shaved and the immense ripples of fat on the back of his neck were like mountains. He wore size fourteen dress shoes that were old, but well kempt, having never seen a day without polish. The three-piece black undertaker’s suit that he put on each and every night was as tight as a tourniquet, the pale ivory buttons glinting like silver dollars in the glow of the streetlight.
“Heya, Double G,” I said. I was being nonchalant, hoping the word hadn’t trickled down yet.
It had.
“Can’t leth you in.”
Not a lisp. The missing teeth.
I stopped in front of the door, cocked my head, squinting, wrinkles forming in my brow.
“Can’t leth you in,” he repeated.
I bit my bottom lip and nodded, eyes switching lazily from side to side. Like I was thinking about what he’d said, understanding his predicament even.
“Okay, I hear that.”
His shoulders lowered almost imperceptibly, but I saw it. Saw he wasn’t really consciously worried about keeping me out, but still something in his lizard brain had told him to be wary of me. Now that I’d backed down without a fight, he could relax.
I wasn’t much to look at. Not the kind of guy a muscle-bound bouncer outside a private club in a rough part of a middle-class city usually had to worry about. Yet the old lizard brain had engaged when I’d stepped up to the door. Double G was more intuitive than he realized.
I started to turn away, but stopped. Spoke with my back to him.
“I’m going to fucking kill you after I kill her.”
We were alone. The street was empty, the cold keeping the rabble indoors. My voice carried on the wind and it was cold as a knife sliding into a warm gut.
“Excuth me?” he asked, incredulous.
He was having a hard time believing what he’d heard.
I turned back around and grinned at him.
“You heard me.”
He frowned, uncertain now.
“Excuth me?” he repeated. Lizard brain wasn’t so quick on the uptake now. If I were him, I’d have slipped inside the club and locked the door behind me. Grabbed the manager, called the police… run for my life.
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