The Sky Is Falling (40 page)

“Bingo!” He disappeared into the alcove, returned with a mug. “Do you take milk or sugar? Forget it. Wait.” A milk carton jiggled at me. I nodded, still perplexed. Something had happened last night.
Ya zabyvayu
.

“Now we're getting somewhere,” he said.

But I couldn't drink the coffee. It curdled whatever was in my stomach. He sat on the bed and looked at me again. Wasn't there a bird with that same crest? Horned Grebe? Punkatoo? I was staring at his pins, but he seemed only to be thinking of what to say next. “Joe,” he finally came up with, pointing to his chest.

I pointed to the same place, at Johnny Rotten on his T-shirt, extending a can of ejaculating beer. “Joe.”

“Oh, crap,” he said. “Listen. I've got to go. You stay. Stay.” He patted the bed. “There's food by some miracle. Thank you, Mother.” He went to the alcove to show me the fridge. Mimed eating. “Eat. Eat. Help yourself. Okay? I'll be back around—” Five fingers held up.

“
Da
,” I said. It seemed funny now.

“Yeah. Da.” His boots were by the door, black and shin high and requiring a seated position to put on. He wove the laces through the eyelets, snugged all the Xs, then stomped over to the table where a stack of boot sole–thick books waited to be loaded into an army satchel. He relieved the chair of the leather jacket. There must have been five pounds of studs hammered into it and his shoulders sank when he put it on. Thus burdened, he left the apartment, calling over his shoulder, “Stay!”

I went to the window and, drawing aside the pins, watched him clomp up the street. The view was of a commercial building with a sign over what looked like a garage door.
Shipping and
Receiving.
Nothing indicated what moved in and out. I let go of the pins and looked around the room. The bookshelf was filled with science texts. The one I opened had his name written under the crossed-out previous owner's.

Joey Normal.

I cleaned his bathtub and finally took a bath. I cleaned the rest of the bathroom and the kitchen. It was the least I could do. In the fridge were a number of plastic containers with the contents written on a piece of masking tape. Chicken Soup. Meatballs. I ate a cold meatball and, though delicious, my stomach was still touchy. I considered going for a walk, but worried I'd get locked out, so for the rest of the day I slept and read. Twice the phone rang, prompting an agony of questions. Why hadn't I gone to my aunt's? I was supposed to notify the police of a change of address. Should I call them and tell them where I was? Where was I?

The phone, the questions, all unanswered.

Near five, I zipped the book up in my backpack and closed the Murphy bed.

Boring
(
5
).
Bore
(
1
).
Boredom
(
1
).
Bored
(
6
).
Dull
(
2
).
Banal
(
1
).
Idleness
(
1
).
Monotony
(
1
).
Tiresome
(
1
).
Sad
(
10
).

A group of people came down the hall when the building had been so quiet all day. “So you picked up a stray?” a woman said.

I locked myself in the bathroom.

“She might not even be here still,” Joe said as everyone thudded in. “Crap. She cleaned up.”

“Where is she?”

“She's gone. Or—”

“Knock.”

“No. She'll come out when she's ready.”

“She doesn't understand anything?”

“I don't think so.”

“Where's she from?”

“I don't know. I don't know anything about her. This guy was beating her up in the alley.”

“She's a prostitute?”

“Maybe.”

“They bring girls from other countries and make them sex slaves.” She started chanting, “Joey has a sex slave, a sex slave!” Then they lapsed into silence. I heard grunting, a thunk, a sigh. Three more times. They were removing their boots. Also, though they made noise enough for four, it was just the two of them. I opened the door a crack.

The back of her head was shaved, leaving just a tuft of bang in front, dyed Barbie pink. She was bent over, massaging her feet and, when she straightened, she looked right at me, smiling under the kilt pin stuck through her septum like a bone. Her nose was a near match in pinkness to her hair. “Hi! Joe?”

Joe popped out from around the corner, all
acne vulgaris
and smiles. “You're still here! Great! Come out! Come out! It's okay!” He pointed to himself again, this time being careful not to reference the shirt. “I'm Joe. That's Molly. Molly.”

“Hiya,” Molly said.

When I finally sidled out, Joe repeated his introduction, adding, “Who are you?”

“Maybe she's retarded.”

“Kitty,” I said.

“Ah!” and just then one of his spikes gave way completely, reminding me of a dog with one ear in a flop, though in this case four blue ears stayed cocked. “Kitty's a nice name.” To Molly: “Could be anything, right? Spanish. French. She understood ‘coffee' this morning. I wish I could remember some French.”

Molly: “
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?
”

“I see you cleaned up. Cleaned.” He mimed scrubbing. “Thank you. Thank you. Are you staying for dinner?” Forking motions. “Eat with us? Me and Molly? Yum.” Tummy rubbing. “I'm just going to fix Molly up here first because she's done a really stupid thing to herself. Here. I'll take down the bed so you can sit. Here. Sit.”

He patted the place.

“So where're you from, Kitty?” Molly asked me, so casually I nearly answered except she burst into phlegmy laughter before I could. Joe, who had gone to the bathroom to wash his hands, came back with a bottle and some sterile pads. “She has nice eyes,” Molly told him.

“Do you want a drink first?”

“Of that?” It was rubbing alcohol. “I can take the pain,” Molly said. “I love pain.”

He pulled his chair up close to hers, doused one of the cotton pads. When he dabbed at her nose, she jerked her head back with a yowl. “Fuck off! Loser!”

“Hold still,” he said. “I'm going to take it out.”

“No!”

“I have to.”

I couldn't look. Molly screeched. “Look at the pus,” said Joe.

She ran to the bathroom. More howls. “I look awful! Jesus Christ!” She stomped back without the kilt pin, which Joe was cleaning with alcohol. “Now put it through my cheek like this.”

Joe: “Meningococcus? That mean anything to you?”

“I want to cry. How can I go out like this?” and she retrieved her boots and began the trial of putting them back on.

“You're welcome,” Joe said.

“Fuck off.” She stamped one heel down.

“Aren't you eating with us?”

“I'm going home to cry. Give me back my pin.”

Joe tossed it. “Pick up some Polysporin.”

He sniffed in all the containers and decided on soup, heating it in a battered aluminum pot. He seemed very relaxed for a person with a giant pin through his lip, the kind of person who probably talked to himself and was grateful to have a mute overnight guest as an excuse. “I'm in med school. First year.” He looked at me. “This is where I would pause to ask what you do. Honest I would.”

I gave him my most dazed, uncomprehending look.

“Actually, I probably wouldn't. I'm pretty shy. I don't talk much around girls. Molly doesn't count. She's barely a girl. She's a thing.”

He brought the bowls to the table and invited me to sit. His smile, the way his acne barely registered after a few minutes, reminded me of Dr. Samoylenko, who after a few days began to strike others
as exceptionally kind, amiable, handsome even
. Even with the pin. But how was he going to feed himself? He simply ate around it. “Eat,” he extolled before pausing to consider his utensil. “This is a spoon, Kitty. A spoon. Say it. Spoon.”

“Spoon,” I said.

“Good! And this is a bowl.” He clinked it. “Bowl. Say ‘bowl.'”

“Bowl.”

He looked pleased with himself. “Soup.”

“Soup.” Sweet and salty, swimming with fat noodles and pieces of shredded meat, it was the first thing I'd eaten all day. I immediately felt about that soup the way I felt about a good book, that I would probably have liked Chekhov too, if I'd ever had the chance to meet him.

“So. Med school. I almost didn't get in. I'm trying harder now. My dad's a judge. Big shoes to fill, right? Last year I decided I didn't want to. I wanted to be a musician, see?” Joe flipped back the errant spike again. “Then my old man had a heart attack. I realized I was sabotaging my whole future. Hence summer school. I can be a musician on the side. Do you remember me singing? That was me and The Fuck Ups last night.” He pointed to the guitar in the corner. “I'll play something for you after.”

I directed my alarm into my soup.

“Guitar. Say it.”

“Guitar.”

“What's guitar in your language? Me, guitar. You? What?”

“
Balalaika
.” If there was another word, I didn't know it.

“
Balalaika
? That's Russian. That's that little Russian ukulele. Are you Russian? You? Russian? USSR?”

I shook my head.

“Something like it then? Czech? What do you call this?” He lifted the spoon.

“
Lozhka
.”

Tocking his spikes. The loose one went back and forth, metronomic. “
Lozhka
.
Lozhka
.”

After soup, he took the guitar out. There were acronyms stencilled all over the case—D.O.A., R.I.P., a plain A with a circle round it. Another one, I thought, as he bent over the instrument, untuning it. He launched straight into a violent strumming and, immediately, a banging sounded overhead. Joe rolled his eyes and stopped playing. “That's my neighbour. He's all right. We have different taste in music is all. That was the start of ‘Fucked Up Ronnie.' Remember? We covered it last night. You don't remember. You were wasted. I can't drink and play. My fingers don't work. Hey, I'm going to write you a song.”

He spent a moment plucking out a rudimentary tune, then barked out:

I found Kitty in the alley

I found Kitty in the alley

Someone was being mean

Someone was being mean

Fuck that! I don't like it!

Be nice why don't you!

He fell back on the Murphy bed, a hand on his shirt, sapped by this burst of creativity. “God. These songs just pour out of me. I don't know how. I don't even try.” He propped himself up to look at me. “You can see what my dilemma was. With med school, I mean.” Then he laughed. “You make the funniest faces, Kitty.”

He had to study. “Hit the books?” The guitar put to bed in its case, he went for one of the tomes in his satchel, dropped it on the table. “Book,” he said. “Hit.”

I slapped my hand down on the cover.

“Hey,” he said. “You're getting it.”

Joe was up till two humming “Fucked Up Ronnie.” I wondered how he could read and hum at the same time. Obviously he didn't know he was doing it since he was reading in the kitchen so I could sleep. I liked him. Because I liked him, I was going to have to leave before he found out I was a fake. I tossed on the Murphy bed, sleepless and bored and fretting. If only I could have read. And Chekhov was so close, right under the bed!

Eventually, he retired to the bathroom. I heard him washing, the stallion-like voiding of his bladder. The flush. I waited, then got up and tore a page out of his notebook.
Ya Jane, nye
Kitty. Ya Kanadka. Ya govoryu po-angliski. Bolshoye spasibo. Ty
kharoshoiye.

There was no way he would recognize a word of Cyrillic.

“Know what day it is today, Kitty? It's Cadaver Day! I have to say I'm not really looking forward to it. When I come home tonight? If I look a little pale? That will be the reason. Are you staying? Here? Stay?”

I shrugged.

“Really?” He slumped a little though his spikes stayed pert. He'd showered and regelled them, had been firing up the hair dryer off and on for half an hour. Now he was talking at me while he finished dressing. It constituted a project, putting on those jeans. The outside seams had been slit, then pinned, pins being, I realized, something of an obsession for him. When he finally got the front of his pants attached to the back, he went to get his boots.

“What's this?” He reached inside. “Ah! A clue!”

I blushed. I'd pictured him stomping around on my note all day, not noticing it until later, after I was gone. He unfolded it. “That sure looks like Russian. You're sure you're not Russian? Bulgarian? I'm going to ask around. So will you be here when I get back or not?”