Living Things

by Landon Houle

  After work, Bev went to the Walmart. She needed—what? Lightbulbs and a sack of frozen broccoli.

  Driving out to the bypass, she was overwhelmed by the realization that these items were on opposite ends of the store. Work hadn’t been especially taxing, but lately, Bev was always exhausted. She felt like she never had the energy to do anything anymore. Her roots were showing, for example, and she’d have liked some new, bigger pants, but when she thought of putting on the gloves for the hair dye or going to the store to try on slacks, she just wanted to pull her hair back, put on a pair of sweats, and lie down on the couch with a bag of Doritos and a jar of peanut butter. Maybe, she thought, this was what getting old was like.

  A couple of months ago, Bev’s mother had died. It wasn’t unexpected. Her mom was sick for some time, lymphoma that was there and went away and then came back again. Bev’s father had been dead for nearly ten years now. At Twilight, Bev saw people die all the time. She hadn’t expected to take her mother’s passing so hard, but maybe she had. Something, at least, was bothering her.

  Bev’s girlfriend, Cathy, said that a period of mild depression was a completely natural response to the death of a loved one. Cathy had decided that she wanted to become a paramedic. Last summer, she’d bought an inflatable pool, and it was possible, Cathy said, for a kid to wander up, jump in, and drown.

  It only takes a few inches, Cathy said, and there was, in Cathy’s voice, a desperation so pronounced that Bev had to remind herself they were talking about the hypothetical drowning of an imaginary child. I wouldn’t even know what to do, Cathy said, and by August, she had enrolled in some courses at Tech. Her favorite class so far was psychology. Now that pool was a flat piece of rubber moldering in the yard.

  Bev pulled into the parking lot, which stretched into a terrifying expanse of asphalt. The Walmart was only a couple of years old. When they built it, they had to push down a square mile of pine and a bamboo grove. In the place of these old trees, they set in some maples, which were still so spindly, they had to be held up with ropes.

  Bev got out of the car and locked the doors. She was crossing over toward the store when she passed a woman in a Redskins sweatshirt. The woman had drawn-on eyebrows and seemed vaguely familiar. A resident’s daughter, maybe?

  How are you? the lady said.

  Fine, fine, Bev said, and even though she thought she knew the woman, she kept walking. Really, Bev didn’t feel fine. Really, she didn’t feel any better than those dying, propped-up maples.

  She passed through the automatic doors and headed toward the hardware section. Walmart was nearly more than Bev could handle, but there was also something thrilling about it. There was, in that place, everything a person would need to make her life better. Coffee makers that brewed one cup at a time or a whole pot. Lotions that filled in and eventually removed wrinkles. Wax cubes that promised to make your house smell like that perfect fall sky. The combination of excitement and terror was something like riding a roller coaster, which Bev hadn’t done since she was a teenager and couldn’t imagine doing now.

  Her heart pounded, and her mouth went dry. She grabbed a Diet Mountain Dew out of the fridge by the checkout lines. You weren’t supposed to open drinks in the store, but she did it anyway. Sue me, she said to no one. She took a long drink and belched.

  Later, she would think about going to the store, and she’d have trouble remembering what all happened and in what order. Under those bright lights, with the distant chime of the register, things seemed possible. It seemed possible, for example, that you could buy enough of all the right things to transform yourself, and isn’t that what Bev wanted? Some kind of transformation? That feeling the girls were talking about?

  Music played from the ceiling, and Bev wondered if this was Baby D. She’d been so tired earlier, but now, as she listened to the beat, to the unbelievable rush of the lyrics, she was experiencing a surge of energy. She was headed back to the hardware section for lightbulbs, when a display in the center of the aisle caught her attention.

  Bev could feel her eyes moving in their sockets. She could feel a pulse in her throat. The EastPoint Fold 'N Store Table Tennis Table. Sets up in minutes! the box said. So small, you can do whatever works for you!

  She took another slug from the bottle. There was caffeine in that drink, to be sure, but what Bev was experiencing was stronger than that. The urgency she felt came from a deeper place, the part of Bev that dared to hope for something more than what she saw in the world, something more than what she felt, more than she herself was.

  She screwed the cap back on and took hold of one of the boxes. It was heavier than she thought, and she wouldn’t be able to get the other things she’d come for, but that stuff didn’t really matter. Broccoli. How stupid! What mattered just then, what was absolutely essential for reasons Bev would have had a hard time explaining, was something out of the ordinary, was dragging this box halfway across the giant store. Sets up in minutes! she read as she heaved and shoved. Whatever works for you!

  Need some help? a man said. He didn’t work there. He was just a man.

  Bev shook her head. Nope, she said. I got it. I got it now for sure.

  When Bev unlocked and opened the front door, Cathy was on the couch under a pile of books and papers. She had the TV tray set up in front of her, and there were more books on top of that, and on top of everything was a spiral notebook in which Cathy seemed to always be scribbling very important notes.

  Here I am, Bev said.

  Yeah, Cathy said, and she moved her head, but her eyes stayed on the paper. She continued to write. Did you get the stir-fry stuff?

  Bev felt strange, like some integral part of her face had sprung loose. I got something else, Bev said. She stood in the door, which was still open. Come see.

  Cathy kept writing. Just a minute, she said. She was talking to herself.

  Bev blinked and touched her temple where there was the beginning of a terrible headache. What? she said. What are you saying?

  Prions, Cathy said. Misshapen strands of protein that cause neighboring proteins to bend out of shape.

  Oh, Bev said. Yeah.

  Bev had taken science classes for her CNA, but she didn’t remember whatever word it was that Cathy was saying.

  Come on, Bev said. It was a surprise, and she was trying to sound excited. She was trying to feel what she’d felt, what she thought she’d felt, in the store, but the exhaustion was creeping back. Her head was really hurting.

  Finally, Cathy got up and made her way to the door. Together, they went out to the car and Bev popped the trunk, and she might have been revealing a dead body for all the enthusiasm Cathy showed. Ping-Pong? she said.

  It’s not Ping-Pong, Bev said, and there was the whine again. It’s—she read the box, she pointed to each word—an EastPoint Fold 'N Store Table Tennis Table.

  Cathy crossed her arms. She looked at Bev. Ping-Pong, she said.

  It’s different, Bev said. I think it’s different.

  Bev stared at the man on the box. He had black hair and incredibly white teeth. He looked like a male Barbie. I thought it’d be fun. She squinted against the pain.

  Your head.

  It’s okay. It’s all right.

  I’ll get your Kool Pak, Cathy said. She wrestled the box out of the trunk.

  I’m just tired.

  Get one end? Cathy said. They took hold of the box. You’re right. Cathy was trying. It’ll be fun.

  Cathy had one end, and Bev took the other, and, like pallbearers, they carried the box together.

  Every Friday before Halloween, the fifth-grade class from Black Creek Elementary came to trick or treat at Twilight Nursing Home. It was one of those community outreach initiatives thought up by an ambitious first-year teacher who was no longer a teacher at all but instead worked as a part-time hairstylist who mainly just stood outside of the Klip and Kurl smoking Basic Menthol Light 100’s. Still, the tradition was carried on by a group of haggard veteran teachers who, if nothin
g else, appreciated the chance to get out of the classroom.

  They pushed the kids ahead, through the big glass doors and into the foyer that smelled like a nursing home, like coffee and white gravy and other things. And these boys and girls who had, that morning, been beyond excited to dress up as superheroes and magical fairies and glittery kitty cats were now petrified of what they were seeing—the masks which were really not masks at all but ancient human faces sneering in confusion, pain, or else in a desperate attempt at joy; yellowed claws reaching out to pinch fat cheeks; and there, too, was all manner of amputation and scar and removal of nonessential parts like noses and the tops of ears, places where cancer liked to bud and bloom.

  A few kids actually turned and ran away, and they had to be corralled and sternly spoken to by the teachers. Imagine she’s your grandmother, one teacher said. Imagine she’s you eighty years from now.

  Watching from the front desk, Bev wondered if there was something instinctual in the way the kids responded. She had a dog once that got into a pack of M&M’s. He’d eaten the colored coating off all the candies but had left the chocolate. He seemed to know it would hurt him, just as these kids, so new to their own lives, seemed naturally repelled by those so late in theirs.

  Yoohoo, Natalie was saying. Apparently, she’d been trying to get Bev’s attention for some time and was now shaking Bev by the shoulder. You got that candy?

  Sorry, Bev said, shaking her head. She reached under the desk. Yeah, here.

  She handed over the candy they kept hidden. They couldn’t trust the residents. Some would eat it all at once, and others would squirrel it away. Just the other day, they’d found forty-nine Shasta sodas hidden in a closet, and Lewis was real bad to hide bananas. Everywhere you looked—under the sofa cushion in the dayroom, on top of the tall cabinet in the PT room, even in the shower—there was a banana in various stages of rot and decay. Food hoarding was a common problem. It seemed like the residents were stocking up, preparing for something big. A major disaster, Bev thought. An apocalypse.

  Reluctantly, the kids stepped up to the wheelchairs and held out their bags. Some of the residents dropped the candy like they were supposed to. Others just fiddled with the wrappers, then ate whatever was inside.

  Mozelle stood apart from the others. She was holding something, a wadded towel. The hoarding. The finger whoopee. The issues with physical therapy. You couldn’t put much past the residents. Mozelle might just be holding a towel, but the towel, Bev knew, could just as easily be covered in something like poop which would, Bev knew, not be good on a day like today, in front of the already scared children.

  Bev came out from behind the desk and edged her way around the group until she was standing beside Mozelle. She was about to say something when Mozelle spoke first. You’re not gonna make it, she said.

  Bev jerked her head around. What?

  I said I can’t wait, Mozelle said. Her eyes were low, and she was rocking back on her heels. I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait.

  When Mozelle and any of the other residents who suffered from dementia seemed confused, it was better just to play along. It’s like dealing with a sleepwalker, Bev had explained to Natalie and the others. It’s better not to wake them up. Over the years, Bev thought she’d perfected the kind of responses that avoided both agitation and contradiction.

  I can’t wait, Mozelle said.

  You seem pretty good, Bev said. At waiting.

  Mozelle went on. It’ll be our turn soon. Mine and Lewis’s. She looked back in the corner, where Lewis was slouched, dozing on the plaid couch. Beneath one of the pillows was the black tip of a banana.

  Mozelle turned around to study the children. They’re so young, she said.

  Makes us even older, Bev said. She worked her lips into what was supposed to be a smile but wasn’t exactly.

  Maybe he’ll be an astronaut, Mozelle said. She might have been talking about Lewis. She might have been talking about one of the little boys. She might have been talking about no one Bev could see. Like Neil Armstrong.

  So when the world ends, Bev said, he can just put on his suit and get in the rocket and go someplace else.

  This was not the right thing to say. Bev knew it but said it anyway. She was feeling the familiar ache deep in her mind. Headaches, Cathy said, were a common feature of depression. But this wasn’t the regular dull throb. This was a hot and sudden popping.

  Mozelle kept talking. Whatever he does, he’ll be a hero.

  Maybe he will be a she, Bev said. Mozelle reminded Bev of her own mother. In a way, this was a good thing, and in other ways, it most certainly wasn’t. Just now Bev was grinding her teeth.

  He can do anything he wants, Mozelle said. He has his whole life ahead of him. See?

  Mozelle lowered the towel, cradled it out and away from her so Bev could see what she held, that what she held was nothing but the towel itself, and of course, it wasn’t surprising—the fact of there being no baby—but what Bev felt in that moment was a greater kind of shock, a burst of tragic disappointment that was bigger than Mozelle, that was bigger than Bev, that was bigger than all of them.

  There was, it seemed, for something so powerful, no more reasonable response than violence, and so in that second and the next, it was almost natural to Bev that her muscles would tense, that an arm with a fist would swing up and away from her side and toward Mozelle, toward everything that in that moment drew up such a fury. It was only normal to rage against the real and pure terrors of the world that Mozelle and the empty towel and Twilight itself seemed to gather and thrust at Bev until she shook, until she very nearly collapsed under the weight, the threat of it all. No child in that room was ever so afraid.

  And so it seemed right and, in fact, predictable for Bev to finally fight back, for her to, at last, strike out at the myriad forces against her. What was not expected was the other hand, the stronger hand, and those sharp nails which pierced with precision and intent, and Natalie saying Miss Bev, and Natalie smiling, and Natalie catching Bev before it was too late. Natalie saving Mozelle from what would certainly have been a crushing blow. Natalie so sweetly asking Miss Bev to please get back to the desk, to please get the children some more candy before there was some kind of—ha, ha—trouble.

  What Bev needed, Natalie said, was a good vacation. She slid over a damp curled issue of Country Living. There was a picture of a woman, a blonde, with a basket on her arm. In this basket was a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. A grinning man was beside her with a red-and-white checked blanket under his arm. He looked like the man on the table tennis box which still sat unopened in the middle of the living room floor. Bev had tripped over the box on her way to work that very morning. She read the magazine headline. You only live once! Natalie stared and clacked her nails against the counter like she was waiting on something.

  I’ve always wanted to go to Asheville, Bev said and said again at home that night with Cathy, and the second time she said it, she almost believed it. Asheville was mountains and pine trees and that day, when Bev should have been doing her paperwork, she’d read on the computer that there were even bears. She’d never seen a bear before, and she was pretty sure Cathy hadn’t either. If they ended up spotting one, Bev was sure it would be magical—like seeing Mount Rushmore or Niagara Falls, other things she hadn’t done. There was so much.

  She told Cathy they had to go. This weekend. Maybe she could take off Friday.

  Cathy had a test coming up. There was no way she could go. She’d planned on studying.

  But Bev looked so dejected, so utterly deflated, that Cathy finally relented. She’d take Bev somewhere if it was that important, but not to Asheville. She couldn’t go to Asheville, but maybe they could go over to that new restaurant, what was it called? Ceiling? Shingle?

  The restaurant was twenty minutes away, but it was away, and this was good, Bev thought. This was something. She wore a flannel under a green sweater, and Cathy had on an FDNY T-shirt and a pair of men’s cargo p
ants, and both of them seemed mightily underdressed for this place called Roof, which was—it turned out—a rooftop bar meant for what Bensburg called its young professionals.

  Women wore heels, and the men had on jackets with embroidered pockets, and Bev and Cathy stuck out, Cathy said, like sore thumbs, but no one made a move to kick them out. So they ordered fruity mixed drinks and stayed.

  It was cold. The building was only a couple of stories, but still, up here, the wind seemed to blow harder and from a different angle. Cathy’s hair was very short, but Bev’s whipped around her face, and she kept having to pull it out of her mouth.

  I feel like I’m underwater, she said.

  They drank their drinks, which tasted something like snow-cone syrup. Bev watched a couple near the edge of the roof. The man swirled his drink around and said something that made the woman laugh. She stepped out of one of her shoes, put her hand on his arm.

  Isn’t it dangerous, Bev said, to be so close to the edge?

  But Cathy wasn’t really listening. She’d pulled out her flash cards. She must have felt Bev watching her. What? she said. We’re just sitting here.

  Bev licked her lips. They were sticky from the drink.

  Here, quiz me.

  Bev took the cards. She opened her eyes wide. Then she squinted. What are, she read, the characteristics that distinguish living things from nonliving things?

  She flipped the card over and took another drink.

  Cathy closed her eyes and counted off on her fingers. There’s six, she said. Composed of one or more cells.

  Check, Bev said.

  They metabolize. They can grow. They can respond to external stimuli.

  Bev nodded. Check, check, check.

  They can—Cathy hesitated. They can—

  Adapt to their surroundings, Bev said.

  Cathy’s eyes popped open, and when she turned, Bev saw a real flash there, an unfamiliar anger. Don’t tell me, Cathy said, and Bev thought of the bears in Asheville. She’d read something about them, but now she couldn’t remember what you were supposed to do when a bear attacked. Did you play dead, or did you fight for your life?