Dan

by Joanna Ruocco

  While she hesitated, Grady Help slowly looked Melba up and down.

  “Bev Hat isn’t dead,” he said. “Why I saw her yesterday.”

  “But that’s just it, Grady,” said Melba, forgetting his victimization as thoughts of Bev Hat’s deadness rushed back. “To know someone is alive you have to see them right now.”

  Grady Help blinked. “I don’t see a lot of people right now, Melba,” he said. “In fact, right now I see you. Only you, Melba.” Melba spun around, gazed down the empty street. Above the street, a large black bag hanging from a wire snapped in the wind. Melba shuddered. The wind blew harder. The wire was anchored at each end in a metal eyelet driven between bricks in the facades of two opposite-facing buildings, and Melba detected the low sound of the eyelets groaning. Farther down the street, she noticed the flags that usually hung so limply from the cantilevered gaffs alongside the second-story windows of the Dan Hotel leaping about, bright and agitated. The wind was active, moving around, having effects, but it wasn’t a person, and Melba looked back at Grady Help. He was right. She was the only one.

  Melba opened her mouth then closed it. How did Grady Help know her name? They had watched an animated television program about hot air balloons in adjacent folding chairs in the school auditorium before Grady Help became a victim but he couldn’t possibly remember that. He was so different back then, strawberry blond and dressed in neatly pressed chino cloth. Was it that her name was one of the names known to men in Dan? She doubted it. She knew from experience that Melba Zuzzo wasn’t a name that appealed to men, not like the names Adele Pear or Stella Duck. Once, when Randal Hans had been her boyfriend, he and Melba had gone stargazing in the swamp. They lay down side by side on a wide plank and looked up at the sky. It was a clear night, all of the stars were displayed, and for a time Melba spoke with Randal Hans about their uneven distribution. In certain regions of the sky, stars clustered thickly, so thickly some mushed together, formed clumps, each double, triple, quadruple the size of a regular star, and with an oozy, bursting brightness. In other regions, darkness dominated, rich and plain, scarcely flecked, another kind of sky altogether. It was as though the night were a batter poorly mixed, a batter into which bagged blueberries had been introduced by an amateur baker, a woman who had never worked at a bakery, who shook the berries from the bag and folded them, still frozen, into the batch, so that two distinct types of muffins resulted from the oven, the one type heavy with fruit, the other dry and light, almost a biscuit.

  “But in this instance,” said Melba, “the batter is dark like frozen blueberries, and it’s the berries that are white, milk-white. There may be such berries,” said Melba, “grown in darkness, the bushes hilled over to prevent photosynthesis, or perhaps the berries are grown in caves. Cave berries,” said Melba. “Now that I’ve said it, I feel like I’ve heard it before. Cave berries.” She hoped that Randal Hans would repeat this, like a refrain, and so the conversation might continue, although the conversation would have become something different, something more like a chant.

  “Cave berries,” said Melba. Randal Hans said nothing. Soon Melba too fell silent. She felt discomfort and fidgeted, but Randal Hans sighed and seemed to settle into the plank as though the plank were a freshly turned bed. Melba turned her head to look at him. Randal Hans was lying perfectly still, smiling encouragingly at the moon.

  “I’ve never been here before,” Melba confessed. “Have you?”

  “A few times,” said Randal Hans. “Wow, I like this plank.”

  “With other girls?” asked Melba. A damp weight struck her chest and just as suddenly lifted off. She thought it must have been a frog or maybe the feeling had come from inside her chest. She almost changed the subject, a question about frogs and hearts rising to her lips—“Do you suppose a frog transplanted in a human chest could perform the heart’s functions? They’re both muscular lumps, roughly of a size, and if the frog was stimulated with electric impulses …”—but said nothing.

  “A few other girls,” said Randal Hans, at last.

  “Were they prettier than me?” asked Melba.

  “Now a few of them were,” said Randal Hans, reflectively. “But I say that unofficially, Melba. You can’t be certain unless you think about girls in a particular way—as composites of discrete features—and then you input data about each feature into a rubric, and I have never been one to use a rubric. Even the word ‘rubric’ gives me a prickly feeling. I’d rather weed-whack a half-acre of poison celery than prepare an official statement about the prettiness of girls.”

  “Oh,” said Melba, pleased.

  “I only asked them to come to the swamp with me because they were the usual girls,” explained Randal Hans. “The ones with obvious names that everyone knows. I don’t like to point to a girl and say ‘Hey you!’ It isn’t how I was reared.”

  “Well, that’s fine,” said Melba Zuzzo, but Randal Hans wasn’t finished.

  “Your name is difficult, Melba,” he said. “It isn’t Tara Mint, for example. If you were named Tara Mint, nothing about you would be the same, I mean, at the molecular level. We all vibrate to the frequencies of our names.”

  “I know that,” said Melba.

  “Of course you do,” said Randal Hans, gently. “And you know that there are some vibrations people respond to positively and there are some they don’t. Other creatures may have completely different reactions. Think about dogs. Haven’t you noticed the way dogs chase after you? They love you, Melba. I think Melba Zuzzo vibrates in their register.”

  “Hush,” said Melba, because something, an owl perhaps, was flapping by overhead. Perhaps her vibrations were perturbing to owls? She wished she had never mentioned girls to Randal Hans. She never felt quite right when they talked about girls.

  “Owls don’t give birth in the air ever?” asked Melba, in a rush to change the subject. “Accidentally?” On several occasions, Melba had been struck by eggs while riding her bicycle, but she had never been able to ascertain where the eggs came from, from the sky or the culvert or the surrounding bushes. She began to talk rapidly, recounting where and when she had been struck by each egg, but she could tell by Randal Hans’s closed eyes and dreamy smile that he was not participating mentally in the exchange.

  “Diana Joy!” cried Randal Hans, starting up. “That’s a name that gets around! She was pretty and smart too. But you know the thing about Diana Joy.”

  “I don’t,” said Melba.

  “She couldn’t be close to a man,” said Randal Hans. “She worried too much about thermal energy. Men have higher body temperatures than women, and when they’re close—pardon this frankness, Melba, I don’t know how else to say it—when men and women join together, something happens. The female system is being heated by the male system, and the male system is being cooled by the female system. That’s all well and good, but eventually both systems will reach the same temperature and there can’t be any further energetic exchange. It’s over. Both systems are totally inert.”

  “I don’t …” began Melba.

  “They die, Melba,” said Randal Hans. “That was Diana Joy’s problem.”

  Melba breathed in and out several times, pondering Diana Joy’s problem. She was convinced that Randal Hans had brought it up because it was somehow pertinent to the two of them, to Randal Hans and Melba Zuzzo, two energetic systems vibrating side by side on a single plank. This conviction gave her a feeling of satisfaction.

  “All of this makes a lot of sense,” said Melba slowly. “I don’t want us to kill each other, Randal.”

  “We probably will, but that’s okay,” said Randal Hans. “I think it takes years of intimacy. As long as a couple doesn’t stay intimate for too long, there’s really no risk.”

  He reached out, as though to put his hand on Melba’s skirt, but Melba rolled away, right to the edge of the plank, depositing her arm into the water. She was wet to the shoulder but not at all cold. It was a lovely night and the moonbeams made the water less terribly black
than one might imagine given its dankness and turbidity. With her nose so close to the water’s surface, Melba detected a reassuring odor, fresh tar and fermented cabbage. The plank creaked as Randal Hans rolled after her. Melba felt the heat from his body warming her back.

  “There might be a cure someday,” said Randal Hans, in frustration.

  “Who would cure this kind of thing?” demanded Melba. “Not Dr. Buck!”

  “Principal Benjamin was working on the cure for something,” said Randal Hans, leadingly. “In the basement of the school.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Melba and she heard Randal Hans huff, then felt his palms on her shoulders as he pushed off from her, widening the distance between them. They lay in silence, facing away from each other on opposite sides of the plank.

  Even though it had seemed to her withholding and mean at the time, Melba was glad then that she had not given herself to Randal Hans when the opportunity had arisen in the unoccupied car of the funicular device. She loved Randal Hans and didn’t want their relationship to end in death or in non-intimacy, but what other options were there? Maybe Melba Zuzzo had a problem too, a problem just like Diana Joy’s. She wondered what she wanted with Randal Hans and she thought perhaps something like the muddled closeness one finds between a friendless brother and his friendless sister who live together in an old farmhouse and co-parent an orphan.

  Now, Grady Help’s keen gaze nicked Melba’s reverie, and it rapidly deflated. Her whole head felt saggy and she hadn’t the least idea what she’d been thinking about.

  “You’re wondering how I know your name, aren’t you, Melba?” said Grady Help. “I should hope I know your name, if you are the only person alive in Dan.”

  “But I’m not,” protested Melba, weakly. “I never said everyone in Dan was dead, just Bev Hat,” but her voice dwindled and all that could be heard was the snapping of the black bag on its wire and the lower groan of the eyelets in brick.

  “I’m not surprised that you’re playing favorites,” said Grady Help bitterly. “You think you’re special Melba, that you were made to enjoy extenuating circumstances.”

  “No, Grady,” said Melba.

  “Yes, Melba,” said Grady Help. “First Principal Benjamin, then Dr. Buck, then the bakery, and now Bev Hat. You’ve been given everything and you don’t even see it! You think there’s something else, something better, that’s owed to you … an apricot-colored poodle you can tie to your waist. You think Hal Drake should machine tiny bearings and attach wheels to your feet and an apricot-colored poodle should pull you all around Dan. You don’t even have a hobby, Melba. All you do is wait. I’ve watched it happen, the waiting. I don’t seem lithe, but I fit nicely in the cupboard beneath your sink and I’ve watched you stand there in your kitchen. Do you know what I’ve wanted to do? I’ve wanted to sprinkle the baking soda all around me and douse it with the white vinegar! Do you know what that does?”

  “Of course I do, Grady,” said Melba.

  “Of course I do,” echoed Grady Help. “Spoken like Dr. Benjamin’s hand puppet!”

  Melba gasped. “How did you know about the hand puppet?” Dr. Benjamin had given Melba a hand puppet, a bear with slightly singed fur, one morning in the hall as a prize. But for what? Melba racked her brain. Could Grady Help be right? Maybe she had received prizes for no reason.

  “Well I’ll tell you, Melba,” continued Grady Help. “Baking soda and vinegar makes a chemical reaction. It would blow Dan to Kingdom Come!”

  The mention of Kingdom Come reassured Melba, who could see now that Grady Help was raving, that he was perhaps slightly cracked. He wasn’t a redheaded person, but he was a victim and as such had often been presented with pamphlets that promoted cult beliefs.

  “The phone is ringing,” said Melba, “I suppose I should answer it. I know you think it’s all fun and games at the bakery, like it’s a theme park with lots of rides and attractions, and I spend the day just spinning and spinning in a measuring cup, or shooting weevils in a flour barrel, racking up points that I redeem for specialty goods no one else can get, but you’re wrong, completely wrong. It’s hard work at the bakery. Sometimes I cry! And when I go home I can’t sleep. You’re right I’m always waiting. It’s because I’m confused about what’s happening. Life can’t possibly be just what’s happening right now. Then you’d be right, it would just be the two of us in the cold street, talking. This would be the whole thing! It’s only waiting that makes it more than that. I’d say remembering too, but you can’t trust memories. Waiting isn’t something you can make up, not in the same way. You have no control over it. I’m glad I’m waiting because I don’t want life to be just the two of us. I don’t love you, Grady Help. Not because of your sores,” said Melba generously. “I have a carbuncle on my earlobe and I know I don’t have a figure, not like Bev Hat. I don’t love you because love is something you find in someone, you search and search, sometimes in the dark, or blindly, like a miner with a pickaxe or like a star-nosed mole, and you can search all you want in some people and you won’t find anything, and the problem might be with you, you’re not searching in the right place, but more often than not, there’s just no love to find. Some people have it and some people don’t. Maybe I have it,” whispered Melba. “I’ve always wished that I did.” She took a step closer to Grady Help.

  “Do you love me?” asked Melba.

  “Damn you,” croaked Grady Help and he lurched away from Melba.

  Melba watched him go. Grady Help did have a certain dignity! She imagined he might have ascended to a noble profession, working as a male librarian or as a dog trainer, if only he hadn’t become a victim instead. The phone was still ringing inside the bakery and Melba scowled.

  “Hold your horses!” she said shrilly. It was one of her favorite expressions. She felt the pressure of Dr. Buck’s moist, disapproving eyes every time she used it.

  “Horses, horses, horses,” muttered Melba defiantly as the phone rang on and on. She didn’t want to fetch up her skirt and apron and dash to answer and why should she? She wasn’t just the bakery phone operator. She had other responsibilities. Melba cast about for something to do, something that fell within her purview as a bakery employee but that required application outside the bakery proper. The bakery needed a paint job, but she could hardly begin painting the bakery without rollers and paint. Soap the windows? Melba’s eyes lighted on the dough dumpster. Of course! She would drag the dough dumpster out of the street and restore it to its usual position on the rectangle of wet dirt in the weedy alley between the back of the bakery and back of the druggist’s. She hooked her fingers on the handle—a greasy metal dowel that deposited a smell in her palm, and a fatty film of the sort that extruded from a hard cheese left on the windowsill—and tugged. The dumpster was heavy but by tipping it onto its wheels, Melba moved it easily into the alley. She panted slightly as she released the handle and wiped her hands on her apron.

  “I wish Ned Hat had seen me do that,” thought Melba. Bev Hat certainly wouldn’t move dumpsters around if she’d just come back from the dead. Bev Hat had always despised dumpsters. Back when Bev Hat was still Bev Horn, she refused even to empty her own lunch tray. A small girl with pink, naked eyelids and fluffy gray hairs grouped on the center top of her head would empty it for her. No one knew that girl’s name. A larger version of her was still seen from time to time near the Hat residence, where perhaps she helped with chores.

  Melba liked the alley and stood as comfortably as she could manage given her skeleton, which, no matter what her position, kept her from feeling fully at ease.

  Having a human body is like eating a fish for dinner, thought Melba. You have to be so slow and careful. You can’t just enjoy yourself. There’s always a worry about the bones.

  Melba sighed and tried to concentrate on the alley. The bakery vents hummed and dripped. She knew that the dough inside the dumpster was rising, pushing up the lid. There was so much activity in the alley, but not like a footrace or a conversation,
where it was expected that you would stagger on and there was always someone to try to get the better of; it was the unaffected and aimless activity of waste processes, not the sort of thing anyone endorsed.

  “Hello, alley!” saluted Melba.

  A screen door rested up against a lanky junk tree, and there was a cairn of oblong stones that Melba knew to be pestles though she had never seen one used. Between the stones and Melba lay something invisible.

  Jelly, thought Melba. Or maybe Mr. Sack was right, maybe it was miasma, something slighter than jelly, viscous and a little nasty, but it wasn’t just between the stones and her body, or the dough dumpster and the stones, thought Melba, it was between the stones and the stones, and between her body and her body, and the dough dumpster and the dough dumpster, because the stones and her body and the dough dumpster each existed in other times, in the past and future, and the jelly was what got in the way of seeing all the other stones and all the other Melbas and all the other dough dumpsters; the jelly kept changing its clearness, showing, for example, one Melba, then another, then another; one dumpster, then another, then another.