Pictures of Houses with Water Damage: Stories (3 page)

Yes, I did; yes.

“How long,” I said.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“I think it does,” I said.

“The answer will only hurt you,” he said, “hurt you more than the pain you already feel,” he said, “because I can see it on your face, the way you sit down, the way your body moves, that you’re in pain.”

I drank some beer.

“It’s okay,” he said, “I know pain.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

He touched my hand and said, “Listen,” he smiled, “listen to me,” he said, “give me the opportunity to save your life.”

“What’s that?”

“I want to invite you to my church.”

“You have a church?”

“There’s a small church I attend,” he said, “and it’s wonderful.”

“No kidding,” I said.

“I kid you not,” he said.

“Does Cathy go to this church?”

Johnny smiled and said, “That’s where it all began.”

“I have no interest in church,” I said.

“I never did either, until last year.”

“Cathy doesn’t even believe in God,” I said.

“It’s funny how things change,” he said.

“Yes it is,” I said, and smashed the beer bottle over his head.

He wasn’t fazed. There was some blood, but it was like he expected me to do that.

“I understand,” he said. “This is okay.”

“It’s not okay,” I said. “Jesus, man, I’m sorry.”

He smiled. “I forgive you,” he said.

“Don’t forgive me,” I said. “Kick my ass.”

He just smiled at me.

Cathy was packing her things in suitcases when I got home.

“I did something bad,” I said. “You’re going to hate me.”

She said, “I could never hate you.”

She said, “Johnny called. I
know.”

She said,
“We
know you didn’t mean it. Everything is okay.”

“What?” I said, and: “What the…”

“Listen,” she said, “this is for the best. This is saving my life. It’s saving yours. I love the Cyclops.”

“What the hell is wrong with you two?” I wanted to yell this but it came out weak and resigned and I hated that.

I
t's a pretty cold Christmas Eve and I've been sitting at the doorstep of my ex-girlfriend's condo for some time now. I like the way the door feels against my back. I look at a moth flying around the porch light.

Terri finally shows up, holding a grocery bag.

“You,” she says.

“Me,” I say.

“What are you doing here?” she says.

“It's Christmas Eve,” I say.

“So,” she says.

“So,” I say. “What do you mean ‘so’?”

“I could call the police,” she says.

“You could.”

“I should.”

“Why?”

She goes, “
Why
are you here?”

“I’m cold,” I say.

“It's not that cold.”

“It is when you’ve been sitting out here for an hour.”

“You’ve been sitting out here for an
hour
?”

“Two hours.”

“Goddammit,” she says.

“Don’t be mean,” I say.

She says, “
Don’t
start that shit with me.”

“I’m cold,” I say; “I’m hungry.”

“
Goddammit
,” she goes.

“It's Christmas Eve.”

She says, “
God
damn you.”

Her three cats sniff at my feet. My own cats are dead now. Well, one is, having eaten a chicken bone from the garbage; the other went off somewhere and never came back.

“I can’t believe I let you in,” Terri says, going to the kitchen with her bag. “I almost had a feeling you’d be here anyway. Like a vision or a dream.”

“What's in the bag?” I say.

“Pasta,” she says, bringing out a bag of dried pasta, and then a jar of sauce.

“Did you get meatballs?”

“Of course.”

“I love meatballs,” I say. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve been dreaming about a nice home-cooked meal, like the nice home-cooked meals you used to make.”

“Are you saying that to pull at my heartstrings?” she says.

“No.”

“Yes you are.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Yes you did.”

I open the fridge and look in—it's a sudden urge.

“Help yourself,” Terri says sarcastically.

“Sorry.”

“No,” she says, “it's okay.”

I grab a beer.

“I don’t think you should,” she says.

“What?” I say.

“You know how you get, sometimes, when you drink.”

“And you don’t?”

“Well,” she says.

“I haven’t been drinking like I used to. Not these past months. I’ve cut back.”

“I started drinking more,” she goes.

We have white wine with our dinner of pasta and meatballs. We sit across from each other at the table.

“You’ve lost weight,” Terri says.

“I haven’t been eating like I used to.”

“I can tell.”

“Am I being rude?”

She smiles. “I like it when you eat food I cook.”

“I haven’t been working.”

“You look pale.”

“I’ve been cold,” I say. “No heat.”

“
Why
don’t you take care of yourself?”

“I can’t.”

“
Bull
shit.”

“I never could.”

“All your life you’ve relied on women to take care of you.”

“You make it sound so bad.”

“Not
every
woman can play Mommy.”

We don’t talk for a while. We eat and drink.

Terri says, “Christmas doesn’t mean anything to me. It's just another day. People put too much into it.”

“Is that what your step-father made you believe?”

“How can you say something so mean?”

“Christmas is dreaming about all those toys and good things,” I say. “Happiness and smiles.”

‘That's for children,” she says.

“You were right,” Terri says as we put the dinner dishes in the sink, “what you said.”

“What did I say?”

“About my step-father.”

“Oh.”

She says, “He had to take the magic out of everything, the bastard.” She asks, “You want to hear about this dream I had?”

“What dream?”

“I told you I had a feeling you’d be at my door tonight, right? Right. Well, I had this dream the other night—”

“Okay.”

She says, “I dreamt you were there, in the cold, just like you were, and I let you in. The thing is, you weren’t you. You were an alien. Well, not an alien, but an alien had taken over your body. This alien informed me of this. You were sick or something, you weren’t well, you were going to die, and the alien couldn’t stay in your body.”

“How did it take over my body?”

“I don’t know. The alien didn’t have a body, it was non-corporeal or something. This doesn’t matter, it was a dream, not an episode of
The Twilight Zone
. The alien wanted my body, you see. It wanted to jump from your body to mine. I told it I couldn’t do that. I wanted to be with you. So this is what it did: it took my soul out of my body and put it in your body, with you, then stole my body. So there the two of us were: our souls stuck in your body. The tragic thing was that you were dying, so we were doomed to die together.”

“I want to kiss you,” I say.

She turns her face.

“You can kiss me on the cheek,” she says, and I do. “Hey, do you want to watch TV?” she says.

“Are you going to sleep here?” Terri asks after the movie on TV.

“What?”

“I guess that's a yes.”

“It's cold at home.”

I get up, she pushes me back on the couch.

“I’ll get you some bedding,” she says.

She leaves and returns with a blanket and two big pillows.

“Terri.”

“What?” she says. “You didn’t think you were going to sleep in my bed, did you?”

“I was hoping.”

“And do what?” she says. “Did you think you were going to fuck me?”

“I was hoping I could kiss you.”

“Kiss me?”

“I was hoping I could hug you.”

“Hug the extra pillow. That's why I got it. You like pillows. They’re big and warm.”

“I like pillows,” I say.

“You can kiss me goodnight,” she says, after a moment.

“On the lips?”

“That's what kisses are for.”

I kiss her on the lips. I kiss her again. I try a third time, but she moves away.

“I’m sure the cats will sleep on top of you, like they always used to.”

“They miss me.”

“They do.”

She leaves to her bedroom.

I lie on the couch, with my two pillows, and cover myself with the blanket. Only one of her cats stays with me, the other two follow her.

I got the phone call while I was watching television.
Star Trek
. I think I could’ve been watching too much television.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello,” a woman's voice said, “who is this?”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Andrea,” she said.

“Do I know you?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I found your phone number. I was curious. I was angry. I called. I’m sorry.”

Angry? “I don’t understand.”

“I live in San Diego,” she said. “My husband's name is Barry Redman. Do you know him?”

“No,” I said.

“I found your phone number on the back of a matchbook,” she told me. “The matchbook was from a bar. The matchbook was in the jacket pocket of my husband's gray suit, which he was wearing two nights ago. He was out late. He came home drunk.”

“Is this some kind of weird joke?” I said. “Did Lisa put you up to this?”

“Lisa?”

“My wife.”

“I don’t know a Lisa.”

“I don’t know a Barry Redman.”

“Where is your wife now?”

“Is this a joke?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and hung up.

I went back to the television.

I love
Star Trek
.

Lisa called later that night. She’d had a few drinks. She likes to drink, and so do I. It's the one thing we immediately had in common when we met seven years ago. She was down in San Diego still, on business for the company she worked for. She’d been in San Diego for five days. This was her last night. “I can’t wait to get back home,” she said.

“I got the strangest telephone call today,” I said.

“What?”

“It was,” I said. “I don’t know,” I said, “it was nothing.”

“I’m beat,” Lisa said.

The next afternoon, I drove to the airport and picked her up. We kissed and didn’t talk. We went home. From the corner of my eye, I kept looking at her, to see if she were different.

Home, I made us two vodka tonics and we sat in front of the television. The television wasn’t on. No
Star Trek
re-runs.

“Do you know someone named Barry Redman?” I asked.

Lisa was about to take a drink. She stopped. “What?” she said.

“Barry Redman,” I said.

“Why do you ask?”

“I got a funny phone call yesterday,” I said. “A woman called. She was in San Diego. Said she found our number on a matchbook from a bar. Her husband's name is—”

“Yes,” Lisa said, “I know him.”

“A business associate?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“A friend?” I asked.

“I don’t know him that well,
really,”
she said.

We didn’t make love when we went to bed. She didn’t seem to be in the mood and I wasn’t either.

“So who is Barry Redman?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. She lay there, back turned to me.

“Lisa?” I said.

“What,”
she said. She sat up, looking at me. She pulled the sheets across her breasts. “What the fuck do you
want?”
she said. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“What the
fuck
do you want me to say?” She was crying now. “You want the truth? Okay. I’ll tell you the
truth
. Barry Redman is someone I met at a bar in San Diego. A—a man.”

“Oh,” I said. I got up, went to the bathroom. I didn’t have to pee. I looked at myself in the mirror. I put on my robe and went back to the bedroom. Lisa was on the bed, looking at the ceiling.

“Why did you give him our number?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Like I could
really
take a call here. I must’ve meant to give him my pager number and and
and
, I don’t know. I
was drunk
. I was really drunk.”

“Did you fuck him?”

She still looked at the ceiling.

I approached the bed.

“Lisa,” I said, “did you fuck him?”

She sat up.

“No,” she said. “I wanted to. But I didn’t.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I sucked his cock,” she said, looking at me.

I went to the kitchen.

I made some drinks.

I fell asleep in front of the television. Tony Robbins infomercials: how to improve your life and get rich.

Woke up to the smell of food. Lisa was making breakfast in the kitchen. She wore a t-shirt and shorts.

“Do you want hashbrowns with your eggs?”

“You sucked his cock?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Why?”

“Why?” she said. “Don’t ask dumb questions,” she said.

“Did he come in your mouth?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Just like that?”

“People come.”

“You didn’t make him wear a condom?”

“I don’t like the taste of latex.”

“That's dangerous,” I said.

“He seemed pretty safe,” she said.

I sat down.

“What did I do?” I asked.

“You didn’t
do
anything,” Lisa said. She didn’t look at me. “Our marriage has dulled. You know that. There's no—excitement. I’m a bad person, I know. We have a good marriage.”

“Have there been others?”