Happy People Live Here

by C. Sean McGee

9B

  At three eighteen, The Father pulled himself out of bed. He hadn’t been able to sleep all night, scared that if he allowed himself to dream, he might run into the things that scared him the most; innocuous little things, things like purple nail polish and pink umbrellas. They were little things, but they were things nonetheless. They were things that he had tried to repress, but what good was it, if after all that digging and burying, if every time he closed his eyes, like a shit that wouldn’t flush, they just kept coming back.

  The Mother had fallen asleep around three. He thought she never would. She just kept turning over the whole night, clinging onto that damn butterfly, clutching it close to her breast at first, and then tucking it under her chin for some time before finally allowing it to rest just by the tip of her hands, close enough so that when she dreamt, the tips of her fingers lightly twitched against the soft fabric of the outstretched wings.

  She took forever to fall asleep though and it was nearly dawn before she did. The Father, as he had done for so long, lay still on the mattress and heavied his breath, pretending to fall asleep while The Mother was still talking about Argentina. It took only a few heavy breaths for her to stop talking. And then she cursed, rolled over and then spent the next few hours grinding her teeth as she picked at the small colored butterfly.

  He had spent the whole time staring at the back of his eye lids, thinking of things that were common and uninteresting and being sure to make sounds and movements that people might do when they were asleep; tossing and turning systematically and grumbling, as if he were caught in some disquieted discourse in his dreams.

  At three eighteen, though, The Father was sure she was asleep. He edged himself slowly out of the bed, careful not to pull the blankets back too much. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had; it was just something that was embedded in his behavior after years of sharing his bed.

  By three twenty he was already in the kitchen, peeling an apple and waiting on a pot of coffee. And at three twenty one, he was pacing the apartment.

  He arranged the furniture three times, deciding in the end that the sofa was probably best where it was to begin with. That and he also settled on the conclusion that it would look somewhat suspicious if all the furniture had moved when he was supposed to have been fast asleep in bed.

  At four a.m., he left the movie he was watching and went into the office where he read some emails, checked the weather and he masturbated several times. And then, when he had finished on the computer, he re-arranged the bookshelf according to the size of each book and the thickness of the printed pages.

  At around four fifty, he could hear alarms buzzing in one of the other apartments, he didn’t know which. Nobody ever really talked to each other anymore. Now, they just talked about each other. It was a shame, though, being so close to other people and knowing absolutely nothing about them.

  At four fifty seven, he was standing against the front door, peering through the small peep hole into the dark corridor, waiting for a light to come on in any of the four apartments. He was counting on it being the crazy lady, the one in 9A. He wanted to introduce himself, approach her casual like, as she waited for the elevator. Maybe he could ask her name and where she worked and whether her shower took as long as his did, to warm up.

  At five o’clock, there was a song playing that he didn’t like and now he didn’t know if he should keep peering through the door or whether he should go back to the office and masturbate, one more time before The Mother got up.

  He decided to make The Mother a coffee. The sun would be up shortly and there was only so much he could handle of his own company. There was already a full thermos sitting on the kitchen table so he poured her a cup and stirred gently, careful not to make the clanking sound that irritated her so much, that of a clumsy spoon knocking against porcelain.

  The coffee wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t tepid either.

  At five-O two he crept into the room and lay gently beside his wife, lightly stroking the back of his hand against her exposed leg. He tried to nudge her, to rouse her awake, but she wouldn’t budge. Her face crinkled up like it did when he didn’t notice she had plucked her eyebrows and he was asking her what’s wrong. She grumbled as if she were a shaved and disgruntled hound, being buggered by some pestering child.

  At five-O three he said, “Babe, it’s time to get up.”

  But she rolled over and pulled the covers over her face.

  She grumbled louder.

  “It’s time to get up babe. Come on” he said, still nudging her lightly.

  But she kicked her foot and the cup tipped, spilling coffee onto the mattress.

  “Fuck it” he screamed, throwing the cup against the wall.

  It was the small blue cup, the one with the cracked handle; the one The Mother loved drinking from the most. And at five-O four it burst into a billion particles, scattering about the room – on the mattress and beside her pillow, over the pile of dirty laundry and clean clothes on the floor, and on the stack of colored diapers that were piled just below where the cup hit, still smelling of sweet coconut soap and buttoned up; ready for use.

  Ignoring the shards of blue now digging into her knees and her scampering palms, The Mother clambered over the bed as if it were the mattress that were sinking hastily, and not her faith.

  “What have you done?” she shouted. “They’re ruined. Look at what you’ve done” she blubbered, grasping at the pile of colored diapers and clutching them to her chest, panic filling her eyes as one and then two and then three of them toppled from her hold and fell onto the floor, onto a dark tepid swill on the floor. “Get out” she screamed. “Get the fuck out.”

  “You did this,” said The Father. “You know that right? You did all of this. You made me this way. You made us all this way. It was you that wanted kids. It wasn’t me. You said ‘let’s do it’. It was your fucking idea. I told you, I’m too fucked up for kids; we’re both too fucked up for kids. But you had to be right, didn’t you? None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you. None of it.”

  “You were supposed to be watching them,” said The Mother.

  The Father slammed the front door as he left.