Hieroglyphs_of_Blood_and_Bone

by Michael Griffin

  "Got no plans, so I'm bringing your usual, dummy, plus whatever my spicy lady here wants. For me it's Salmon Red Curry, four stars, and maybe to split, a Hot Basil Fried Rice."

  Sadie decides on number fourteen, some vegetable stir fry with chicken, three stars. I continue protesting until Karl stops listening. He really doesn't seem to mind the idea of me butting into their dinner plans. I feel ridiculously grateful, almost emotional at the prospect of spending time with them. It's been several weeks since I've shared a meal with anybody.

  "A gift like this carries intention." Sadie says, referring to the book I still hold. "A girl makes you something like that, it's special. She made this thinking of you. She put both of you inside it."

  Karl stands, pulls car keys from his pocket. "It's got pictures, at least. Not that I have any idea what the fuck's going on there, no offense."

  "It means she's not interested in just any man," Sadie insists. "Guy is her focus."

  "If I got a book like that..." Karl moves to the door, pauses with his hand on the knob. "...I'd go pick up Thai for my roomie and best girl."

  "Sure you don't want me to go with?" Sadie asks.

  "Nah. You entertain the old man." Karl slips out.

  I feel strange, discussing with Sadie this gift which feels bound up in the intimacy I shared with Lily. I get up, head toward my bedroom, intending to stash the book. On my way I shoot a glance into Karl's room, specifically looking for the book I found on his bed earlier. Now there's nothing on the bed, or the headboard shelf, other than Karl's usual dog-eared motivational and self-help paperbacks. None of these remotely resemble the book I saw, or thought I saw. Karl never went in his room after they came home. Sadie slipped away to the bathroom. I guess she could've gone in there, seen the book and hidden it. Why would she?

  I slip my book under my mattress, and arrange bedding to hang over the gap. Now it's hidden, safe.

  When I return, Sadie picks up where we left off. "Women give important gifts to men who give us their most intimate selves. It's like a trade."

  I'm not sure what to say. Part of me would love to talk more about Lily, but I'm not sure I remember all the details I invented the first time I described her. "She's amazing, but so completely unlike me."

  "Karl says you're completely unlike everybody." Sadie giggles with disarming sweetness. "But the same's true of Karl, I guess."

  "We fell together in this incredible way, like a dream, and remained like that a long time. But when I left, I was frustrated. I expected to learn more about her. Maybe it was too soon."

  "She was already revealing herself," Sadie states with firmness. "Also, that's why she gave you what she did."

  "I know it's unreasonable. I haven't known her long enough to demand too much."

  "A little unreasonable," Sadie says gently. "When someone gives you a lot very quickly, you shouldn't demand more, more."

  I believe she's right, but part of me remains frustrated she won't reinforce my sense that I have a right to ask more of Lily. Maybe next time I see her, I'll back off a little, but still I feel I had a right to expect an answer or two.

  "Don't worry, we all do it." Sadie's grin flashes bright, friendly and non-judgmental. "There's no formula for how things should proceed. You plow ahead, hoping you'll get what you want, but sometimes the other person resists, so you just let up a bit. Karl and I had a little of that, at first."

  It's a relief, being let off the hook. I should let it go, relax, just be friendly. But I can't help it, can't stop myself blurting out what's running through my mind. "I heard you screaming, with Karl," I insist. "A sound like a wild animal, all night."

  Sadie looks down, smooths the hem of her dress over her thighs. "Karl said there was a night, I was away, you thought you heard sounds. Him with someone. A woman."

  "You must've been here. It was you."

  "No." Sadie doesn't look happy, shakes her head a tiny bit, jaw set.

  "I got up, Karl's bedroom door was open. You were sitting on the edge of his bed."

  "Why do you think it was me?"

  "You were alone, naked in the dark. Why was Karl gone?"

  "That never happened." Sadie's hands slide down her thighs, clutch her knees. She appears to be weighing the possibilities, argument or anger. When she looks up, her face is neutral. "You don't get to tell me I was here. I wasn't."

  "I'm not trying to get Karl in trouble. I'm not saying he was with another woman. It was you."

  "No, Tiger," Sadie says, imitating Karl's drawl.

  "Then what," I ask. "What did I see?"

  Sadie doesn't appear upset with me, and I'm hoping she doesn't hold anything against Karl because of what I've suggested. I hate having dampened her bright smile and easy nature.

  "There's no way to know," I say, trying to make her feel better. "I think sometimes I confuse dreams with real things."

  Neither of us speaks again until Karl returns with a paper bag full of Styrofoam containers. We eat in front of the TV, watching the last half of Caddyshack, and drinking bottles of Hop Karate IPA Karl brought home.

  The movie's almost over, at the scene where the priest blames God for his perfect golf round being ruined by gale winds, rain and booming lightning. Karl stands, yawning. Sadie gets up, follows him to the bedroom. The door clicks shut.

  A lot has changed since the night I heard Sadie. Why does tonight blur together with that other time?

  I mute the movie, but this makes me feel self-conscious so I turn off the TV and go to my room. What sounds I can't help hearing are different, much quieter than before. Bits of words, muffled laughter. No howls. No screams.

  Chapter 16

  The role of delusion in the remaking of selves

  I'm motionless, alone here, stuck between unbearable history and the possibility of a better future no less terrifying. Days spent living within the book, trying to intuit significance from sketched shapes, colors, textures. The more I absorb, the more I believe that, on some level beyond the explicable, I understand. Comprehension can be intuitive or poetic, rather than concrete. Maybe in time, more will clarify, become solid.

  I should return to Lily. What's stopping me? I'm afraid if I go back, I'll find her gone.

  The front door deadbolt unlocks with a click. Hinges squeak. The sound of Karl arriving home.

  I close my book, try to stand and nearly fall, my knees and back stiff from too long lying inert. I listen, wondering if it's Karl alone, or Sadie too. As I venture out, Karl approaches our connecting hall, alone. He clutches a paper bag shaped like a bottle.

  "No Sadie?" I ask.

  "She suggested you and me ought to hang out a while."

  Despite having wished Karl would come home, I'm unsure how this prospect makes me feel. "You don't have to worry about me. I'm fine." I remain within my doorway.

  "Sadie can't stop saying how you're this so-great guy. Also, with me being gone so much, it's probably time you and me have a boys’ night."

  "She's not coming?" Was she put off by the things I said while Karl was getting take-out Thai? Maybe she wants Karl to set me straight. It's possible it's no more complicated than what Karl suggests, just a night to sit around drinking, talking like we used to.

  "I think we can survive one night away from our women, Tiger." Karl shrugs, and there's something off about the gesture, like an imitation of Karl performed by someone who barely knows him. An imposter, told Karl often shrugs, seeking to imitate the maneuver but failing to capture the grinning, loose-shouldered impertinence of my actual roommate. This isn't Karl at all. This thought arises out of certainty Sadie is making him do this, a submissiveness so out of character. Then the idea evolves. It's not even him. Maybe I haven't seen the real Karl in a while. This man is so far removed from the person I've known, they don't appear to share any common traits. This one doubts. He hesitates.

  From the paper bag, Karl slides a fifth of Johnnie Walker whisky. He holds it up as if uncertain how I might react.

  I grin, rel
ieved. "Planning to share?" This is what I need to help me forget. To shut off my mind.

  "Believe that. Good and smoky."

  I go to the kitchen for two glasses, one with ice for Karl.

  "Anything exciting at work?" Karl asks, fake casual, holding something back.

  I try to read him. Clearly he's got some kind of story he wants to tell. "You've been gone a long time."

  Karl takes his glass, counts ice cubes, seems satisfied. "Well. Constant has me working a special project. Out on the road."

  I pour two fingers each, thinking already we both know this tale is a lie. Maybe he thinks I'm fooled. He launches into an overly detailed story, describes every conversation with Constant leading up to Karl being sent out to Astoria, a little town way down the Columbia, on the Oregon side, where it meets the Pacific a hundred miles down. He calls it a reconnaissance trip, says Constant intended Karl to spy on competitors there and in Gearhart, then across the bridge in Ilwaco and Long Beach, Washington.

  Numerous details prove he's lying, especially compared to what I already know. Constant's open expression of anger in the office, and open, loud talk about firing Karl. His discussions with Jeannine and Tammy about written warnings and documentations of malfeasance already existent in Karl's personnel file. Especially Constant asking Tammy whether an offer of the yard superintendent job, currently Karl's position, might be enough to lure Tammy's son-in-law back from Christiansen Shipworks. Constant isn't a good enough liar that his frustration and anger could possibly be an act. All this background only clarifies the flaws in Karl's over-embellished tale.

  Karl's an entertaining liar, so I let him continue. He describes every detail of meeting, in the Safeway parking lot on his way into Astoria, this shipwright Joe something. Karl claims this old guy Joe used to work at Constant's, and immediately fed Karl all the intel he needed, so Karl and Sadie never actually had to leave the hotel room to figure out everything that was happening with shipbuilding, repair and salvage in that whole region. He and Sadie could just hole up, having fun and getting paid. Karl shows real delight in the telling.

  I figure if a storyteller seems to believe and enjoy it themselves, this goes most of the way to convincing the listener. I almost start to consider the possibility Karl's confabulation might possibly be true, that Constant might actually send Karl for nearly a week in Astoria, a little town where within twenty-five miles in every direction there can't be three actual competitors to Constant's operation. Even if he did send Karl, would he put him up in a nice hotel with his girlfriend, and let him run wild on room service? Of course not, and if he did, he wouldn't have been ranting all week about Karl's absence. So clearly I see Karl's deception, yet he goes on spinning, believing he's got me fooled. I wonder how many times I've done the same, offered some version of events, but deceiving nobody but myself?

  "This amazing old hotel, restored, refurbished..." Karl trails off. "What do they call that? Anyway, some ancient place from like a hundred years ago, right in the middle of town, across from where they do that Sunday market. All the hipster art kids and sorry-ass beach drunks."

  "That's the Elliott." I don't mention the reason I know this, which is that Michelle enjoyed visiting there at least once every year. If Karl finds out I've been to Astoria and the Elliott hotel at least thirty times, it'll put a damper on this whopper of his.

  He gulps deeply from the Johnnie. "Yeah, we stayed overnight, I mean, bunch of nights, like four. No, six. Super nice room, like, shit, the nicest bed I've ever slept in. I need to get me a bed like that. Sadie loved that fucker like you wouldn't believe, not just the mattress part. On top there's this super plush comforter, maybe a foot thick. Goose down I think it was." Karl holds his hands out, palms separated by a gap of at least eighteen inches, presumably demonstrating the thickness of this incredible bedding. "Felt like we were buried under feathers six feet deep. You can't hear the outside world through it. Shit, we barely left that bed for two minutes all week."

  I finish my whisky, go to the kitchen and retrieve the bottle. "So. Constant really sent you to Astoria for work?"

  "Man, would you believe once we settled into that place, with two bottles of this here brown party liquor and a case of this red wine Sadie picked up, we never opened that door again but for room service food?"

  "Since when are you a wine drinker?" I enjoy wine myself, but I've heard Karl's enthusiastic disparagement of the stuff so many dozens of times, I never considered having a bottle in the house.

  Karl pauses, eyes wide, as if I've seized upon a crucial flaw in his tale which requires him to scramble for explanation. "I drink what Sadie likes, Tiger. That's all. Keep your woman happy, things are easier. Lethe Hills Vineyard, that's what it is." His face relaxes, and he offers his glass, jingling the lone remaining ice cube while he loudly chews the rest. "Speaking of drinks, hook me up here. I don't give a shit about ice. So, what about this woman of yours?"

  I mistrust Karl's curiosity about my situation. Usually he only wants to talk about me when he senses a weakness he might pin down and exploit for amusement. "You mean Michelle?" Despite his pretense of sincere interest, I can't imagine he actually wants to hear me describe the stumbling path that ended in me meeting Lily, or whatever name I substituted when I described her before. Or if he does, he'll only want to hear the pornographic details.

  "No, dummy." Karl looks at his watch, then at me. "This new lady, what did you say she was called?"

  I consider telling him everything. Lily's real name, the true story on the river near Cayson's. I hesitate.

  "You damn fucking pussy, I knew it. I knew it! There's nobody. You made up all that shit."

  "I did meet someone." I study him, trying to gauge what I can say. It's time to reveal at last a few pieces of truth. "I just don't want to jinx things, acting like I own her. Nothing's really solid or definite. Certain details remain, ah, up in the air."

  "Yeah, I mean, duh. We're talking about girls, right?"

  I shake my head, look down in my drink. "Karl, sometimes I think you don't like women much."

  "Sure, some I don't. I like some, dislike others. That's how it ought to be, both men or women. They're all different. I don't feel the same way about every single woman."

  "I know they're important to you from one angle. In the six months I've lived here, you've been with how many?"

  "It's been more like a year, dummy. Anyway, we're not talking about fucking. We're talking about the other stuff."

  I feel the whisky in my head, fumes rising from my belly, my throat. "That stuff, that's the tricky part. Sex happened easily with her. It's the relationship side I'm concerned about. I admit, I'm worrying a little. Then I thought maybe the book meant something, especially after what Sadie said." I sip again, lean back.

  "What?" Karl looks confused. "What book are we talking about?"

  "The book she made." I try to read him, looking for deceit. "I showed you. Sadie said it had to be important, a woman giving a gift like that. Something she created from—"

  "Whatever you say, man." Karl shakes his head dismissively, looking like himself again. "Must have been another of your boring-ass stories, because I got no memory here whatsoever."

  I almost stand, go to my room and retrieve the book, but restrain myself. I'm not sure I believe he actually doesn't remember. Maybe for some reason he's just pretending there's no book, that I haven't shown it to him, that he doesn't have a nearly identical book of his own. Could be he's playing dumb because he wants another look, wants to compare mine to his.

  "You saw it." That's all I say.

  "Whatever, dude. Anyway, you know, I'm not about tagging maximum ass any more. I'm changing a bit, maybe growing up. Settling down, in a good way. Anyway, maybe we both finally have a shot at outgrowing these traits that hold one back."

  This last phrase seems so out of character, I almost laugh. Like some line he's been rehearsing, words he heard in a movie and kept repeating until he internalized them. "Outgrowing traits t
hat hold one back. I hope I am." That's all I can say. "Outgrowing traits."

  Karl rubs his mouth with his knuckles. "God damn, this is hitting me. I never had any lunch. Is there something I can eat on, so this whisky don't do me in?" Now he not only looks like Karl, but sounds like himself. He stands, goes to the kitchen and comes back with a box of rye crackers I know are old and stale.

  "Let me tell you something she wrote." I blurt this out, without having decided to reveal this.

  "What, from this book?"

  While I refill my drink, I consider where I want this to go. "No, not that. Michelle. This letter she left."

  "Aww, shit no, Tiger. We are not going to talk about how bad you miss your fucking ex. Not tonight."

  "Not that. I want to know what you think of an accusation she made." From memory, I summarize the only part of Michelle's letter not centered on herself, about me compartmentalizing everyone.

  "Yeah, she's right there," Karl says. "You know I hate the bitch, but she's pretty much dead on."

  I feel anger rise, and try to convince myself he simply misunderstood. "She says I need to feel in control of others, psychoanalyze people and put them in slots. Then I'm no longer dealing with actual people who think for themselves, only interacting with collections of traits. Then if a person acts outside my expectation, I freak out and insist they're being insane."

  "I don't want to piss you off, but you do that, especially at work. Think you've got everyone nailed down."

  I want to keep explaining, try another angle, but give up. "I thought you might say she's wrong."

  "It's all right, Tiger. You're a good boy. It's just like you skipped the last stage of growing up. Most guys in their teens, early twenties, life thickens their skin. They get dumped by girls, fired from jobs, crash a car, go bankrupt. But you glued yourself to your first girl and married her. You two built this, sorry, but this mind-fuckingly boring suburban existence. You never actually lived yet."