The Girl Next Door (35 page)
“Telling you she’d thrown out the photos, for one thing. Telling you to do the same. But cutting you off. That was the main thing.”
Cutting you off.
He thought of his dream and suddenly it clarified and almost startled him. He realized that in the subtle inversions dreams will make it hadn’t been Gerard sitting tied to the chair at all. It
was Bass
. Unable to move or defend himself, unable to speak or argue his position. Waiting, nodding sadly in recognition
of Gerard.
And finally cut off at the very moment of awakening.
He thought of his dream and suddenly it clarified and almost startled him. He realized that in the subtle inversions dreams will make it hadn’t been Gerard sitting tied to the chair at all. It
was Bass
. Unable to move or defend himself, unable to speak or argue his position. Waiting, nodding sadly in recognition
of Gerard.
And finally cut off at the very moment of awakening.
“She knew it wouldn’t work. She was trying to do you a kindness by not letting it go any further. And herself a kindness too. Me, too, of course.”
Bass thought about it. Finally he nodded.
“I had a dream about you,” he said. “I lit a cigarette. You took it from me and threw it away.”
“Pushy little bastard, huh?”
“No. It was for my own damn good.”
They split the bill.
“You asked me if I loved my wife,” Gerard said—
though he hadn’t, exactly
. “If
you
love her you’ll do the same as she tried to do for you. Metaphorically at least, throw those damn pictures away. Tear them into little pieces. Maybe someday when we’re old and grey, you can take a new one.”
though he hadn’t, exactly
. “If
you
love her you’ll do the same as she tried to do for you. Metaphorically at least, throw those damn pictures away. Tear them into little pieces. Maybe someday when we’re old and grey, you can take a new one.”
“Or maybe not.”
“Or maybe not. Nice meeting you, Bass. This never happened but I’m sort of glad it did, if you know what I mean.”
Bass ordered another beer and sipped it slowly, thinking things through.
A little while later he switched to scotch.
Midway through the second one he stepped outside for a smoke and watched the street life. Nannies and brisk young mothers with double-wide strollers. Truckers delivering paper goods and dairy. A woman across the street jogging in place at a stoplight and shouting furiously into a cellphone. A guy in a mohawk, moccasins and fur earmuffs, stripped to the waist, all buff and tanned.
What’s with that
? he wondered.
Tonto
Nuevo? Earmuffs in August? It seemed there were people out here way more strange and obsessive than he was.
What’s with that
? he wondered.
Tonto
Nuevo? Earmuffs in August? It seemed there were people out here way more strange and obsessive than he was.
He went back inside and finished his scotch and had another. He sipped this one for a long time. The bartender made no effort to engage him in conversation. Sometimes they just knew.
He paid for the beer and scotches and headed home
Home was as he knew it would be. Empty. Empty of Laura, mostly.
He poured himself a final scotch he certainly didn’t need and sat back heavily on the couch and sipped it and he supposed he must have dozed for a little while because the next thing he knew his face was wet with tears,
he
was crying in
his sleep now for chrissake, that was different
and he thought of the dream and what the dream maybe wanted him to do so he went to the kitchen and opened the drawer and took out the knife.
he
was crying in
his sleep now for chrissake, that was different
and he thought of the dream and what the dream maybe wanted him to do so he went to the kitchen and opened the drawer and took out the knife.
He looked at the long heavy blade. It needed honing but he guessed it would do the trick. He looked at his fingers spread out on the counter. A symbol, he thought. That was what dreams were all about, weren’t they? Symbols for what still needing doing in your life? He lit a cigarette and thought about it some more.
Nah,
he thought. That’s more loco than the earmuffs. Not even the tip of a pinkie. You didn’t want to take this dream terminology too damn literally.
Nah,
he thought. That’s more loco than the earmuffs. Not even the tip of a pinkie. You didn’t want to take this dream terminology too damn literally.
Besides, something else had occurred to him. In his dream, the end of his affair with Annabel was loss, pure and simple. Symbolized by a few missing fingers. He thought it was more complex than that.
You lost something, sure. But when you did you added something too.
Scar tissue
.
.
He could live with that.
He put down the knife and stripped off his shirt, pulled deeply on his cigarette and then pressed it slowly to the flesh directly over where he imagined his heart to be. He wanted the burn to last. Here’s to you, Annabel, he thought. He smelled his chest hair burning and another sweeter smell beneath it and felt something like a hornet’s sting, sharp and abrupt and then fading to a bright throb as the ember gutted out.
He tossed the butt into the ashtray and headed for the bacitracin.
Roughly seven years later preparatory to Annabel and Gerard’s tenth anniversary party he stepped out of a steaming shower and admired the pale white circle that stood out plainly against his glowing flesh.
Laura was already waiting, dressed and ready to go.
She always was a bit ahead of him.
RETURNS“I’m here.”
“You’re what?”
“I said I’m here.”
“Aw, don’t start with me. Don’t get started.”
Jill’s lying on the stained expensive sofa with the TV on in front of her tuned to some game show, a bottle of Jim Beam on the floor and a glass in her hand. She doesn’t see me but Zoey does. Zoey’s curled up on the opposite side of the couch waiting for her morning feeding and the sun’s been up four hours now, it’s ten o’clock and she’s used to her Friskies at eight.
I always had a feeling cats saw things that people didn’t. Now I know.
She’s looking at me with a kind of imploring interest. Eyes wide, black nose twitching. I know she expects something of me. I’m trying to give it to her.
“You’re supposed to feed her for godsakes. The litter box needs changing.”
“What? Who?”
“The cat. Zoey. Food. Water. The litter box. Remember?”
She fills the glass again. Jill’s been doing this all night and all morning, with occasional short naps. It was bad while I was alive but since the cab cut me down four days ago on 72nd and Broadway it’s gotten immeasurably worse. Maybe in her way she misses me. I only just returned last night from God-knows-where knowing there was something I had to do or try to do and maybe this is it. Snap her out of it.
“Jesus! Lemme the hell
alone.
You’re in my goddamn head.
Get outa my goddamn head!”
alone.
You’re in my goddamn head.
Get outa my goddamn head!”
She shouts this loud enough for the neighbors to hear. The neighbors are at work. She isn’t. So nobody pounds the walls. Zoey just looks at her, then back at me. I’m standing at the entrance to the kitchen. I know that’s where I am but I can’t see myself at all. I gesture with my hands but no hands appear in front of me. I look in the hall mirror and there’s nobody there. It seems that only my seven-year-old cat can see me.
When I arrived she was in the bedroom asleep on the bed. She jumped off and trotted over with her black-and-white tail raised, the white tip curled at the end. You can always tell a cat’s happy by the tail language. She was purring. She tried to nuzzle me with the side of her jaw where the scent-glands are, trying to mark me as her own, to confirm me in the way cats do, the way she’s done thousands of times before but something wasn’t right. She looked up at me puzzled. I leaned down to scratch her ears but of course I couldn’t and that seemed to puzzle her more. She tried marking me with her haunches. No go.
“I’m sorry,” I said. And I was. My chest felt full of lead.
“Come on, Jill. Get up! You need to feed her. Shower. Make a pot of coffee. Whatever it takes.”
“This is fuckin’ crazy,” she says.
She gets up though. Looks at the clock on the mantle. Stalks off on wobbly legs toward the bathroom. And then I can hear the water running for the shower. I don’t want to go in there. I don’t want to watch her. I don’t want to see her naked anymore and haven’t for a long while. She was an actress once. Summer stock and the occasional commercial. Nothing major. But god, she was beautiful. Then we married and soon social drinking turned to solo drinking and then drinking all day long and her body slid fast into too much weight here, too little there. Pockets of self-abuse. I don’t know why I stayed. I’d lost my first wife to cancer. Maybe I just couldn’t bear to lose another.
Maybe I’m just loyal.
I don’t know.
I hear the water turn off and a while later she walks back into the living room in her white terry robe, her hair wrapped in a pink towel. She glances at the clock. Reaches down to the table for a cigarette. Lights it and pulls on it furiously. She’s still wobbly but less so. She’s scowling. Zoey’s watching her carefully. When she gets like this, half-drunk and half-straight, she’s dangerous. I know.
“You still here?
“Yes.”
She laughs. It’s not a nice laugh.
“Sure you are.”
“I am.”
“Bullshit. You fuckin’ drove me crazy while you were alive. Fuckin’ driving me crazy now you’re dead.”
“I’m here to help you, Jill. You and Zoey.”
She looks around the room like finally she believes that maybe, maybe I really
am
here and not some voice in her head. Like she’s trying to locate me, pin down the source of me. All she has to do, really, is to look at Zoey, who’s staring straight at me.
am
here and not some voice in her head. Like she’s trying to locate me, pin down the source of me. All she has to do, really, is to look at Zoey, who’s staring straight at me.
But she’s squinting in a way I’ve seen before. A way I don’t like.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about Zoey,
” she says.
” she says.
I’m about to ask her what she means by that when the doorbell rings. She stubs out the cigarette, walks over to the door and opens it. There’s a man in the hall I’ve never seen before. A small man, shy and sensitive looking, mid-thirties and balding, in a dark blue windbreaker. His posture says he’s uncomfortable.
“Mrs. Hunt?”
“Uh-huh. Come on in,” she says. “She’s right over there.”
The man stoops and picks up something off the floor and I see what it is.
A cat-carrier. Plastic with a grated metal front. Just like ours. The man steps inside.
“Jill,
what are you doing
? What the hell are you
doing
, Jill?”
what are you doing
? What the hell are you
doing
, Jill?”
Her hands flutter to her ears as though she’s trying to bat away a fly or a mosquito and she blinks rapidly but the man doesn’t see that at all. The man is focused on my cat who
remains focused on me,
when she should be watching the man, when
she should be seeing the cat carrier, she knows damn well what they mean for godsakes, she’s going somewhere, somewhere she won’t like.
remains focused on me,
when she should be watching the man, when
she should be seeing the cat carrier, she knows damn well what they mean for godsakes, she’s going somewhere, somewhere she won’t like.
“Zoey! Go! Get out of here!
Run!”
Run!”
I clap my hands. They make no sound. But she hears the alarm in my voice and sees the expression I must be wearing and at the last instant turns toward the man just as he reaches for her, reaches down to the couch and snatches her up and shoves her head-first inside the carrier. Closes it. Engages the double latches.
He’s fast. He’s efficient.
My cat is trapped inside.
The man smiles. He doesn’t quite pull it off.
“That wasn’t too bad,” he says.
“No. You’re lucky. She bites. She’ll put up a hell of a fight sometimes.”
“You lying bitch,
” I tell her.
” I tell her.
I’ve moved up directly behind her by now. I’m saying this into her ear. I can feel her heart pumping with adrenalin and I don’t know if it’s me who’s scaring her or what she’s just done or allowed to happen that’s scaring her but she’s all actress now, she won’t acknowledge me at all. I’ve never felt so angry or useless in my life.
“You sure you want to do this, ma‘am?” he says. “We could put her up for adoption for a while. We don’t
have
to euthenize her. ’Course, she’s not a kitten anymore. But you never know. Some family ...”
have
to euthenize her. ’Course, she’s not a kitten anymore. But you never know. Some family ...”
“I
told
you,” my wife of six years says. “She bites.”
told
you,” my wife of six years says. “She bites.”
And now she’s calm and cold as ice.
Zoey has begun meowing. My heart’s begun to break. Dying was easy compared to this.
Our eyes meet. There’s a saying that the soul of a cat is seen through its eyes and I believe it. I reach inside the carrier. My hand passes
through
the carrier. I can’t see my hand but she can. She moves her head up to nuzzle it. And the puzzled expression isn’t there anymore. It’s as though this time she can actually
feel
me, feel my hand and my touch. I wish I could feel her too. I petted her just this way when she was only a kitten, a street waif, scared of every horn and siren. And I was all alone. She begins to purr. I find something out. Ghosts can cry.
through
the carrier. I can’t see my hand but she can. She moves her head up to nuzzle it. And the puzzled expression isn’t there anymore. It’s as though this time she can actually
feel
me, feel my hand and my touch. I wish I could feel her too. I petted her just this way when she was only a kitten, a street waif, scared of every horn and siren. And I was all alone. She begins to purr. I find something out. Ghosts can cry.
The man leaves with my cat and I’m here with my wife.
I can’t follow. Somehow I know that.
You can’t begin to understand how that makes me feel. I’d give anything in the world to follow.
My wife continues to drink and for the next three hours or so I do nothing but scream at her, tear at her. Oh, she can hear me, all right. I’m putting her through every torment as I can muster, reminding her of every evil she’s ever done to me or anybody, reminding her over and over of what she’s done
today
and I think, so this is my purpose, this is why I’m back, the reason I’m here is to get this bitch to end herself, end her miserable fucking life and I think of my cat and how Jill never really cared for her, cared for her wine-stained furniture more than my cat and I urge her toward the scissors, I urge her toward the window and the seven-story drop, toward the knives in the kitchen and she’s crying, she’s screaming, too bad the neighbors are all at work, they’d at least have her arrested. And she’s hardly able to walk or even stand and I think,
heart attack maybe, maybe stroke
and I stalk my wife and urge her to die, die until it’s almost one o’clock and something begins to happen.
today
and I think, so this is my purpose, this is why I’m back, the reason I’m here is to get this bitch to end herself, end her miserable fucking life and I think of my cat and how Jill never really cared for her, cared for her wine-stained furniture more than my cat and I urge her toward the scissors, I urge her toward the window and the seven-story drop, toward the knives in the kitchen and she’s crying, she’s screaming, too bad the neighbors are all at work, they’d at least have her arrested. And she’s hardly able to walk or even stand and I think,
heart attack maybe, maybe stroke
and I stalk my wife and urge her to die, die until it’s almost one o’clock and something begins to happen.
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