I saw Mother reaching toward the spill, but the time that was left to her was so scant as to be immaterial.
The little incident of the accidental spill had the fast pace of a race, hitherto neglected or unknown.
“Go home!” Mother said. And I didn’t look so good to her she said. “How dare you tell me what to do—when you threw me away! You threw your brother away, too!”
Within a month, Mother was dead.
I inherited her glass carafe with its hand-cut, diamond-and-fan design, which we now use on special occasions.
We do well and we’ve accomplished many excellent things.
“Don’t do it that way!” I had cried. My daughter had tried to uncork a bottle of wine, but since I thought it was my turn, I took it from her.
Here are other methods I use to apply heavy pressure: I ask her where she is going, what does she want, how does she know and why. She should increase her affectionate nature, be successful and happy. Mentally, she must show me she has that certain ability to try.
BANG BANG ON THE STAIR
I said, “Would you like a rope? You know that haul you have is not secured properly.”
“No,” he said, “but I see you have string!”
“If this comes into motion—” I said, “you should use a rope.”
“Any poison ivy on that?” he asked me, and I told him my rope had been in the barn peacefully for years.
He took a length of it to the bedside table. He had no concept for what wood could endure.
“Table must have broken when I lashed it onto the truck,” he said.
And, when he was moving the sewing machine, he let the cast iron wheels—bang, bang on the stair.
I had settled down to pack up the flamingo cookie jar, the cutlery, and the cookware, but stopped briefly, for how many times do you catch sudden sight of something heartfelt?
I saw our milk cows in their slow parade in the pasture and then the calf broke through with a leap from behind—its head was up, its forelegs spread.
“Don’t leave!” Mother screamed at me, and she had not arrived to help me.
She tripped and fell over a floor lamp’s coiled electrical cord.
There’s just a basic rule of conduct that applies here—also known as a maxim—so I held out my hand.
She gripped and re-gripped my palm hard and all of my fingers before hoisting herself by pulling on me.
She kept tugging on my hand on her deathbed also for a long stretch, until she died. For don’t little strokes fell great oaks?
A girl from the neighborhood rang the bell today to ask if I had a balloon. I didn’t have any and I hadn’t seen one in years.
“That’s all you need?” I asked her. “How about some string?”
I noticed that the girl’s eyes were bright and intelligent and that she was delighted, possibly with me.
I went to search where I keep a liquid-glue pen, specialty tape, and twine. I kept on talking while I pawed around for some reason in the drawer.
A LITTLE BOTTLE OF TEARS
It should have been nicer—our friendships, our travel, our romances secretly lived—if we weren’t so old. But still it was an interesting situation to be in.
We all but ignored the wife’s tears—which could have filled a small bottle.
And the wife was petite and well groomed and I knew why she was crying. She thought her trials were all about adultery at that time.
As the evening proceeded, the wife cheered up for some of it and her conversation was drawing us in with topics she knew we would feel comfortable talking about, because potentially our relationship could be adversarial and her husband was tending to pontificate, showing off his legal wings with paragraphs upon paragraphs.
You find yourself in a situation where you have agreed, agreed, agreed, agreed and you realize this is not such a good agreement.
How did all this end? Oh, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine—although our process of digestion—they’d served us kartoffelpuffer and sauerbraten—was not yet complete—when the husband said finally about his wife, “Bettie’s tired.”
To my mind—she’s hysterical, sincere, easily distracted, and not adaptable. I remember when I wanted to know even more about her.
They lived only on the ground floor—the rest was rented out. A trestle table, where you could put your gloves, stood in the long hall that had stone floor tiles set on the diagonal.
Bettie’s thumbs were as I remembered—heavy and clubbed—and she wore the eye-catching turquoise ring, circa 1890, with three pearls, that I knew she was proud of because I had given it to her.
“Bettie’s tired,” the husband repeated.
“I am tired,” Bettie said.
And there was no polite way for him to tell us, “Fuck off now.”
There’d be no more condescending talk, no fresh subjects, never likely an opportunity to privately reminisce with Bettie about the times when we were side by side, experiencing that alternating rhythm forward and back.
“Can we give you a lift home?”
“No, that’s not necessary, we drove,” we said.
I went into their bathroom to urinate before we left. I am a man, if that wasn’t clear before this, and not a drunken one, not cruel—and I was holding myself then, gently—somewhat lovingly, to relieve myself.
I washed my hands and face and looked into the mirror. My face has changed so much recently. The lines of age were drawn everywhere like the marks made by a claw, and they looked to me freshly made. Then there are those growing fleshy abutments around my jaw and under my chin.
It was rainy outside and we were significantly dampened by the time we reached our car. And, in addition, a smelly ailanthus tree tossed a pitcherful of storm water—as if from a sacred fount—all over my head. There were continuing showers—it was dripping, gushy.
Still it was all so charming and heartening—that is—the summer storm, and the trees and our sky, alongside those several memories of Bettie and me.
My wife said to me en route, “Well, I suppose I’m on the wrong track, too.”
Of course, it took a long time for her to go downhill, all the way down it.
Meanwhile, we became very friendly with the DePauls—Clifford and Daisy.
They lived in an apartment crammed with blue-and-white china, for one thing. I thought Daisy usually looked pensive and sad and my wife thought that her scowl meant that she detested us.
A large oil painting of a female nude—hands together as if prayerful—had been suspended over their mantel. Their apartment was in disarray.
But, there’s always a moment before it all becomes okay.
WHEN I WAS OLD AND UGLY
The creature had come absurdly close to our window. It had lifted its chin—face—specifically toward mine while we were at breakfast in the country.
I’d say the animal looked and looked at me and looked, ardently.
I was reminded how to fall in love by meeting its eyes and by how long the rendezvous lasted—until doomsday, say.
I am unhappily married. Today I was dressed up in red-fox orange—orangutan orange—apricot orange, candlelight orange. I had on a wool plaid coat and had been racketing around my city precinct doing errands.
Returning home, while in the elevator of our building, facing the closed door, I combed nearly every hair—all that thinning hair along the sides of my skull.
That massive man that I didn’t know at all, who had a stiffness of manner at the back of the elevator, he acknowledged me. And the doorman Bill had not averted his eyes.
No, not the sort of thing that I usually report. No, that I had withdrawn the tortoiseshell comb from my purse to do the smoothing with and then re-stowed it on the way to 3A, our apartment.
The comb I keep in the quilted sack, where I also conceal a tiny toothpaste, the easy-to-carry traveler’s toothbrush, and my eyeglass-lens polishing cloth.
The carpet was unmarked by dirt, but one important thing in our foyer was m
issing—the color with the green leaves in a vase. The old floor gets better with age, but boy it needed to be cleaned up—then it will shine.
I also have affectionate and friendly wishes for the brass, crystal, silver dishes, vases and pitchers.
My conversation with my husband was as follows: “Are you all right? What do you want? You’re looking at me.”
In the park I had wanted to talk today to a bird who wasn’t interested in talking to me.
Lust and temptation are sometimes personified. I heard the bird cry—Chew! Chew! I took pains to say Chew! Chew!—loudly, too.
PALM AGAINST PALM
It is a pity there is also the nature of the surface of the skin—combined with the error of her eyes and the divots at the centers of her breasts.
Her tiny skirt is much like a figure skater’s skirt that may—as she lets her legs fling forward to walk—flap.
Clap. Clap.
The girl—to get here—goes in the direction of the vanishing point, on up the steep grade.
These living quarters with the man, that she has entered, are bordered in the front by bluet and merrybells and by the myrtle and foam flowers at the back.
Her exit requires her to go through a door that shuts, ta-ta!—with those two little beats of sound.
Come along!—for wonderful it may seem that those hills are presenting themselves not just as technical details or as small regions near the tollway.
Did she see those birds that were falling like leaves?—the leaves that were flying like birds?
The girl will extend herself to travel and to sway beyond the sweepgate into somebody else’s household and she will hurry to meet up with somebody.
So when she arrives at the northern suburb, she finds a high house with a heavy gate. There is a seat near the door.
Whose house is this?
There is a tent bed, a hearth, and a sectional bookcase.
“At least I don’t keep people waiting. Am I doing everything?” the girl asks.
“Hey!”
“Now look at you.”
Then she was pulling her blouse together and she went to get a glass of water, a pot of coffee.
The brightly scaled moon was rising, but this girl never became a well-liked businesswoman with a growing family in the community.
Neither is she endowed with any remarkable qualities. We never spoke of her specialized skills or of her inclination to be otherwise. My fault. Go fuck herself.
Apology accepted.
HUMAN COMB
A pastel portrait of the deceased Mrs. Meldrum senior, as a young girl, was placed over a console table with flared legs, and I stared at Mrs. Meldrum’s face and got to know her, for no purpose, for no benefit, none. But like a bird, I might have been eating out of her hand!
Her son, Melvyn, had forgotten he’d invited us. And thank you, Melvyn, for that. He suggested gin, rum, Scotch, rye, sherry, schnapps, Pepsi, cold tea, or beer.
And here I was in the company of a private detective and other pet owners. Some of them became scornful when the conversation centered on the next election or on Melvyn Meldrum’s unsympathetic mother and what was really so bad about her.
And even though I have no teeth—they’d all been pulled, because I was set to get implants and my dentures were just too painful to wear—I consumed a Diet Pepsi and some soft pizza topping.
This is not to say I am old. Far from it! Sometimes I just go to any lengths—and I had gotten started clearing out my God-given, skimpy, and in some cases, my diseased teeth.
So Melvyn had come to the door dead drunk and had told us we might as well come in for a drink. And where was his wife Yvonne, just then? She was upstairs getting ready for a different social event.
Yvonne Meldrum, when she appeared, brought in a tray of Limburger cheese, saltines, and Cheddar Goldfish.
And, I don’t forget what has happened to my pal Jack—he was there—a man I’d once had a fine time with—with my legs hanging up over his shoulders.
I wrote a note to the Meldrums after our return that it was so lovely to see you, so much fun. It was a joy.
Did Melvyn’s wife Yvonne leave him? Had she planned on finding somebody else to take her by the breasts? Because that night, while we ate, when June Hockett said, “Get Yvonne,” we discovered that Yvonne had left the premises!
I believe that this incident occurred before Vic’s and my son was born—soon after my divorce from Jack.
Had I been unhappy with Jack? Well, certainly Jack had been very woebegone.
One of the little girls at the party played a child’s version of a sad song on the spinet piano, while the other younger girl came up behind her to spoil it.
Vic said, as we went out for a taxi, “That was fun.” He stood just beyond the curb, stretching his arm out and by and by we arrived at our hotel.
Back in New Paltz, the next day, I needed to, but I could not go to the post office, but I could groom our dog Demon because it was Labor Day.
When I comb out Demon’s hair I may use a human comb and I always get under his belly. Sometimes I use an undercoat rake. I don’t ever use medicated shampoo for the genital area. And, I don’t need to imagine the pain of any teeth rotting out of Demon’s head!—so I let the vet tend to that.
But I have never had any discussion with Vic about whether he, Vic, is actually a jealous spouse—or about what happened to Yvonne.
I am unemotional about the abrupt ending of friendships and there’d be no purpose, no benefit, none, to exploring these subjects further—such as: have I come clean enough?
I am—yes—utterly at ease in the company of others, secretive, sexually active, quite adaptable.
And many have said of me, I hear—She’s very charming.
The following stories have appeared in Harper’s: “A Little Bottle of Tears,” “Living Deluxe,” “Girl with a Pencil,” “A Gray Pottery Head,” “With Red Chair,” “Head of the Big Man.”
These stories first appeared, sometimes in a slightly different form or with a different title, in the American Reader: “Try,” “How Blown Up”; in Granta: “Specialist”; in La Granada: “Gulls,” “Of the True and Final Good”; in The Lifted Brow: “The Mermaid Pose,” “Glimpses of Mrs. Williams,” The Skol”; in London Review of Books: “Lamb Chops, Cod,” “Perform Small Tasks,” “Removal Men”; in PANK: “Lavatory”; in Queen Mob’s Tea House: “There Is Always a Hesitation Before Turning in a Finished Job”; in Salt Hill: “Flying Things”; in Tammy: “Palm Against Palm”; in Tin House: “At a Period of Exceptional Dullness,” “A Mere Flask Poured Out,” “Sigh”; in Unsaid: “Head of a Naked Girl”; in VICE: “Cinch,” “Greed,” “Personal Details,” “The Thickening Wish,” “When I Was Old and Ugly”; in The White Review: “Love, Beauty, and Vanity Itself.”
“A Mere Flask Poured Out” was reprinted in The Best Small Fictions 2015.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Diane Williams is the author of eight books, including a collection of her selected stories. She is also the founder and editor of the literary annual NOON, which is acclaimed both in America and abroad.
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