by Shelby Smoak
She smiles. I slip my hand along her soft arms, follow around her shoulder and slide a tentative grip to her breast. She removes her shirt, her bra, and leans into the chaise lounge and lets out a pleasured sigh of air that is as intoxicating as our juleps. When we move to her room, we slowly unpeel our clothes in the glow of late afternoon.
“Are you sure?” I say breathlessly. “It does seem a little quick.”
“Yes,” Charlotte says. “I want this.”
She passes me a condom and in the humid Wilmington night, we are safe, are quiet, and are together as man and woman were made. Eventually, our passion cooled, our rasping breath tired out, we lie beside one another, returned to the whir of her ceiling fan and the rustling of a warm wind in the trees outside her open window. We are limp with passion, and for a moment happiness seems unassailable, but Charlotte suddenly calls out in pain.
“Are you okay?” I ask, leveling a concerned hand on her back. She draws her knees to her breasts and breathes heavy into her pillow.
“It’s some kind of stomach pain,” she says. “I suppose I’m just tense,” she adds through clenched jaw, stilted breath. She gets up to go to her bathroom and is gone for a short time before returning, still clutching her ailing stomach. “This is bad,” she says, breathing timidly.
When she lies back down beside me, I stroke her hair as I would a cat and stare far off to her ceiling tiles, and I wonder what I’ve done. A tense stillness hovers in the stagnant air between us.
I stay through twilight and into the late hours when night shrouds around us and morning grows closer. We are mostly quiet and do not say much as we eat and then later listen to music. She plays the piano for me, but it is not the same. When she folds down the piano keys’ cover, she comes to me, kisses me, and turns her head down to hide her sorrow.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I can’t do this.”
She puts a soft and beautiful hand to my face. Apologizes until, tears streaming from her eyes, she disappears into the safety of her bedroom.
Her door closes and I sit there for a while, finishing my drink, and then I let myself out and drive home through night’s ashen haze while the world around dozes in sleep. I make a desultory loop of the downtown before finally curving around the Oak Cemetery, where a thin mist envelops the marble slabs marking ancient graves. My hope seems interred there, too.
When I arrive home, I shower, and decide sleep is not for me this night, so I drive out again. I pass the estuary that smokes in the coming morning, and I arrive at the ocean pier just as the sky begins to lighten. I lie against the sand, face east, and wait for the day to happen. Soon, the sun peeks over the oceanline and tinges everything blood orange. And then heavy sadness comes. I curl my body on the sand, and, head between my knees as an unborn child, I goddamn it all. I cry out and hurl handfuls of sand into an ocean wind that flicks the grains back into my face. I spread myself out along the beach and sleep as the dawn wind gusts wildly and as the savage sun rises and burns the night away.
CHASE MANHATTAN OWNS ME
OCTOBER 1995. A COOL DAY, SLOW DRIZZLE OUTSIDE. AS I SIT GOING over my bills, I realize my summer expenses have sacked me. With each passing month, my debt spirals further in the red to the point that now I am virtually insolvent. I charge everything: gas; food; toiletries; household supplies; and, necessarily, my medical bills not covered by insurance. When the bills come in the mail, I line them up in order of their due dates, and when the date nears and my bank account is underfunded, I withdraw cash on my credit card to cover the shortage. And then when the charge card requests their payment, I forward the minimum amount.
For several months I have done this, and for several months I get on the American way; I live in debt. But now Chase Manhattan wants to talk to me. They call daily. They leave messages. I am late on my payment, they say. I am over my limit, they add. And now, they are putting a hold on my account.
In college, a Chase Manhattan employee encouraged me to apply for a card (and receive a free pizza!), and as he slipped the sheet of paper for me to sign, he ran a clean hand through his mat of thick black hair. “Now you won’t be tied to Mom and Dad’s purse strings,” he said. “And you can start to work on your credit history, something that will be very important after college when you go to buy a car, a house.” In two weeks, the card came. I went into town and bought a guitar, an amp, a distortion pedal, some cords, and threw in a few picks just for good measure. This was happiness. And when I got my college work study paychecks, I signed it over to Chase, and I felt then that I understood economics and how the world of money worked. Now, however, I am shackled to debt, to Chase Manhattan.
“William,” I say one night after an evening of endless calculations, “I can’t afford living here anymore. I’ve been going over the bills and the money I owe and I just don’t know what to do anymore. I’m broke. I can hardly afford these grilled cheese sandwiches I’ve been living on. I think it’s time I moved.”
William nods his head knowingly. “It’s been a good ride,” he says. “But I’m broke, too. It’s coming to an end.” He flips a cigarette from his pack and lights it as he leans back into the sofa. I shift the ice pack on my ankle and stare at the silent television, it reflecting the unpaid cable bill.
“I’m just tired,” I offer as way of further explanation.
“Well, you look tired, and a little thin, too.” He puffs again. “So what are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. But I’m thinking of resigning from the high school at Christmastime and moving home for a while. I need a way out of this. I have too much debt and my ankles also need a break.”
“That’s too bad. Nobody really wants to move home. But perhaps it’s for the best.” He stretches his legs along the couch. “Oh, but it’s been a good summer here.”
“It has.”
William and I have another time out on the town, but it’s not the same. We run underneath the clouded moon as the night sky ladles an early winter rain upon us. It freezes my hair as we hurry from Lula’s to a late-night dance club. Inside and drying out, I sip a beer and watch the crowd and soon become fascinated with a girl who whips her long blonde hair around and twirls her slender body upon the strobe-lit floor. She is beautiful and I pause to wonder where in the tiny town of New London I’m going to chance upon a girl like this, in a club like this. The girl dances on. The thump of the bass is the beat of my pining heart.
As the last leaves are torn loose by the winter gusts, leaving the trees a husk of naked bark, I pack my belongings and head home. The whole trip it pours rain. White-sharp lightning peals across the dark sky as I drive through Lumberton, Wadesboro, Albemarle, and then into New London.
Mom launches out the front door with an umbrella and rushes me. She scans my truck bed and the blue tarp that bulges with my things. “What’s all this?” she asks.
“I’m coming home.”
“You are?” She hugs me in a strict and loving squeeze. “I know you don’t want to move here,” she says. “But I think it is for the best. If you’re in as much debt as you say you are, you can save money. Plus your ankles really need time to heal and they can’t do that if you keep running yourself into the ground. I think it’s a smart move,” she says, beginning to grab things from my truck bed. “Besides, I’m sure it’s only temporary. It’ll give me a little time to fatten you up. You’re looking pretty thin these days.”
I hoist a suitcase of clothes and carry this inside, tossing it on the floor, and, with Mom’s help, I return again and again with armloads of my possessions until, the last box unloaded, I collapse onto my bed. Yet I am not done. Today I must take my monthly dose of Pentamidine. Luckily it is a thing I can now do at home.
I unbox the nebulizer and plug it in and prop it at my bedside. Then I go through the steps of preparing the Pentamidine, which, like my factor, is stored in separate vials of dry powder and saline. I mix the two, draw the medicine into a tiny syringe, dispense it in the aerosol canister, and bring the mouthpiece to
my lips. I breathe in the drug, breathe out. And when the medicine is spent—the mouthpiece no longer puffing white smoke—I realize that I need to factor. My ankle throbs and gives when I stand. The move has worn my body down.
I prepare my factor, wait, treat, and then curl onto my bed, holding my breath for the pain. I slip underneath the covers, let air into the sheets, and comfort my ankle atop a pillow, and then I don’t move. I try to make myself as still as the night and to sleep as best I can. Yet I stare around my moonlit room at the outdated posters and high school memorabilia pinned to the walls, and suddenly a morose lump clogs my throat. I feel I have not moved on, but have returned again to senior year. I have gone out in the world and tried to make something of myself, and I have failed and have now returned.
I brace my ankle against the ice pack, shift, and sleep while the specters of the past hold court at my bedside.
Christmas Day, just as the winter sun fades from the cold sky, Dad lights a fire in our den, and I pull a rocking chair next to it and warm my feet on the hearth while I begin a new book. Dad sits beside me and watches the fire flame while upstairs I can hear Mom, Anne, and Louise trying on their new Christmas outfits and making gasps and exclamations of excitement.
“Now, Son,” Dad says to me. I mark my book with my thumb and look over to him. “I know you’re down in the mouth about having to come home and all, but I just thought you should know that your mother,” he says, taking a sip of his Maker’s Mark, “your mother is tickled pink about your being home. She’s been like a kid this Christmas, about to wet her pants she’s so happy . . . It’s been lonely here for her, I know, with me having to work in Goldsboro during the week, you off to school, and with Anne doing her thing up there at NC State. This house gets mighty quiet during the week with just your mom and Louise here. I know that. Hell, I think if she thought it would keep you here longer, she woulda bought the whole goddamn bookstore for you at Christmas.” He sips again. Ice clinks in his glass. “Now listen to me, Son,” he says. “I want you to do something for me. You think you can do that?”
I nod that I can.
Dad stands up and stokes the fire with the poker. Flames rise and a sudden whistle of gas pops from one of the logs and plumes out a blue-yellow dance of fire. “Goddamn it,” he yells suddenly as ash spews out onto the hearth. He jumps quickly, spills some of his drink. I jerk away my feet from the sparks.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah. I’m fine. It’s nothing. Just startled me.” He rests the poker against the fireplace, settles back into his chair with his drink. “Now, Son. What I want you to do is to take one, two, maybe three days—hell, you might need a whole week—but what I want you to do, Son, is to think about what you really wanna do. What is it you wanna do with your life? Now, I know you’ve been doing this teaching and that you’ve had your insurance and had a pretty good time living your life down there in Wilmington, but you know and I know that you can’t be doing that your whole life, now can you?”
“I don’t know. I guess not. I haven’t thought about it.”
“That’s my point.” Dad’s eyes grow large and aware. “Son, it’s time. Think about it. You can’t work like other people. You’re different. You need to find something that fits for you and all you’re up against. Your mom and I can’t be here forever for you to come home to, you know.”
I lean forward in my chair and I open my mouth to speak, but Dad quiets me.
“Tsst, tsst, tsst,” he says, stilling me with his upraised hand. “I don’t want you to answer me. Not today. I just wanted you to think about it. Can you do that? Your mom and I know that you’re too smart to keep killing yourself as a teacher’s assistant. That’s no life for you. Just think about it, okay. Promise me that.”
“Okay. I promise.”
“All right, then.” He swishes his ice, swallows diluted whiskey. “Now, I’ve gotta go and re-freshen this,” he says pointing to his glass. “Watch that fire for me while I’m gone.”
When he ascends the stairs, I return to my book. The fire crackles and warms the den and it burns heat until well past midnight when it eventually extinguishes into a warm orange glow. I hear the natural creak of a floorboard, but then nothing but palpable quiet. I close my book and in my new journal, I write:
Christmas 1995. Rain, no snow, but very cold. 12:45 in the a.m. I love that—“in the a.m.” Sounds like something Henry James might write. Has a nice ring to it. The house sleeps, the fire nearby dies out, I write. I am home.
Received several gifts today: books, clothes, strings for my guitar, a pocket watch, and this leather journal which has the inscription, “Thought you might have some time to write. Love, Mom and Dad.”
So I write tonight. Record, I suppose, the events of today.
In the morning the family opened presents. Anne loved the sweater I got her, Louise the Hulk video. Dad seemed mildly amused by his Nicorette gum, but asserted that he’d yet be ever faithful to his Marlboros, a habit which, I fear, shall buy his coffin for sure. I gave Mom some fancy coffee which she quickly brewed and we both savored.
Later, my aunts, uncles, and cousins arrived and we ate a late meal and dozed off the afternoon before they all left. Then Dad entertained me with a speech which encouraged me to consider my future. I guess all sons must get that kind of advice from their breadwinning fathers. It was the low point of the day.
Read a story by Chekhov, another by Cheever—it seems my parents must have shopped heavily in the bookstore’s “C” aisle—but was then consumed by Braudel’s History of the Mediterranean also given to me for Christmas. Braudel’s prose is good, clean, and vivid. His description of the Mediterranean Sea and the snow-capped Alps rising along the horizon momentarily transported me. Oh . . . to be there. Instead of here for as long as I fear I might be. I give it five months. Maybe six. At least until summer, I suppose. It all depends on how long it will take my part-time job—which I haven’t gotten yet—to pay down my debt. My debt—that’s another thing I should write down here sometime. How it happened. How it came to be so enormous. Perhaps I’ll save that for another winter day. As for Braudel’s history, I’m not far into yet, but am already enthralled and think it grand. It is a good day when you find something like that.
So, I suppose ole Mom and Dad were right—that I would have time to write in this journal. What else is there to do but write and think in a sleepy little town like this? But there is comfort and solace in this, in writing. It makes me feel better somehow. Perhaps I should stop then before I uncover something of a sadder, darker nature. Hmmm . . . Okay . . . Good-night.
ANKLES
FEBRUARY 1996. IN THE HOSPITAL X-RAY ROOM, THE LANKY TECHNICIAN asks me to turn my left ankle out for his photo. Tall and angular, his skin is blanched and in want of sunlight, and although his manner is courteous and professional, he is brisk and offers very little in the way of conversation as he twists me into position. He says nothing of my ankle’s size, but grabs and positions it at an unnatural angle.
“Okay. That’s good. Hold it. Hold it.”
He hurries off—a stick with fast legs—behind his protective shield and presses his button. Then he repeats the process for my other, less swollen ankle, but this time when he jerks me, I wince.
“I’m sorry, but the orthopedist asked that I get a good shot of your joint. It’s a difficult angle.” So, I endure. Grit my teeth and let out a slow rasp of air.
Once handed my X-ray charts, I return to the orthopedic clinic where I wait next to an elderly man, his leg plastered in a milky cast. We smile at one another, but say nothing, and he is soon called and crutches away in slow arthritic unhaste. Eventually I am taken back, and when the orthopedist shows, he shakes my hand. This orthopedist is new and young and tall and blessed with a thick turf of brown hair that is short and combed back in a wave. Additionally, he is talkative so that in the few minutes it takes for him to enter the room, thumb through my folder, glance at my recent X-rays, scrub his hands, and then ad
just his tie by securing it inside his shirt pocket—he relates his youthful career as a fledgling football tackle.
“I wasn’t any kind of star,” he offers with a humbling smile, “but it all led to what I was supposed to do. This.” He spreads open his arms in a gesture meant to encompass the room and designate it as his chosen profession, and it is then that I note his stocky build, something like a square with thick legs and arms.
He approaches, scrutinizes my ankle with a searching glance, and when he asks me to walk, I lower myself from the table and, shoeless, pad up and down the carpeted hallway as he studies my hobbled gait. We return to the room, and as he proceeds to further examine me, I catch the sporty lingo peppered in his dialogue, no doubt a result of his deep affinity for athletics. Stooping over to better see my ankle and rolling it around in his hand, the orthopedist jokingly tells me that it is like a warped football.
“You can play with it, but it’s not ideal. That ankle is choked with fluid. We’re going to need a game plan for it because if we don’t come up with something your touchdown days are going to be over. You’re walking by flexing what we call your lumbricals.” In explaining this, he adopts a more sophisticated, medical tone. “Lumbricals are the small muscles in your feet. You’ve got them in your hands, too, but at any rate, you’re not using those in your ankle. You’re bending more with your foot bones.” He turns my joint in my hands, causing me to jump from the pain. “Sorry about that.”