The Whole World Over (19 page)

Stan was obnoxious, you couldn't get around that, yet Saga decided
that maybe he was just one of those people cursed with a face that put
you off no matter what he was thinking. The first thing he said that
night was "Where is he? Let's see him." Rude, but this was business.

He'd taken the dog from Saga's bag and simply held him close for a
few minutes, until the dog stopped shivering. Then he'd examined him,
all over but gently—looking for fleas and rashes, Saga figured. Stroking
the dog's belly, Stan muttered, "Wormy as hell, poor guy."

While he made his inspection, Saga forced herself to look around.
The furniture was coated with gray fur, the windows so filthy the panes
had no shine. No bookcases, no rugs, few pictures on the walls. But she
also noticed that the fifteen animals she could count looked clean and
healthy. Two larger dogs had come over to Stan and tried to jump up to
check out the terrier; Stan lifted a knee, ordered them down, and they
obeyed. He used a calm voice. She liked that.

Finally, still carrying the dog, Stan led Saga upstairs. He did not invite
her to follow him, but he didn't tell her not to. They went into a small
room, and he shut the door behind them. Newspapers covered the floor,
and except for a food bowl, a water bowl, and a cushion, the room was
empty. (The "room," Saga noted, was smaller than the pantry at Uncle
Marsden's.)

The terrier ran straight to the water.

"He has to stay in here alone?" said Saga.

"He has to be quarantined—obviously—till I can get him to the vet."

Well, of course, thought Saga. She sat on the floor by the cushion and
waited for the dog to stop drinking.

"So what kind of a name is Saga?" Stan said.

"It's one of those childhood names that just sticks. I'm Emily, really.
But nobody calls me that." Nobody other than her doctors.

"Like you told big lies—or what?"

"Something like that." She was glad she'd found Stan, because of
what he did, but she didn't feel much like talking to him. She wondered
if she should say good-bye now and leave, if despite his own rough manners
he'd find
her
rude.

He crossed his bony arms and, for a moment, watched Saga petting
the dog. He gave her another unnerving smile. "Want a beer, Saga? Seeing
as you came all this way." He opened the door. "He'll get along fine.
I watch over everybody here. No-brainer, it ain't about money or fame."

So she followed him down to the kitchen. Stan washed his hands at
the sink and made sure Saga did the same. "Sit," he said in a neutral
voice as he went to the refrigerator. The counters were covered with
stacks of papers and magazines. The only place to sit was at a table
taken up almost entirely by a cage in which a white rabbit—fat, immaculate,
sleepy-looking—chewed mechanically on a turnip, devouring it end
to end. While Stan's back was turned, Saga sneaked a finger between the
bars and stroked the rabbit's shoulder. The rabbit turned its rosy eyes
toward her and pushed its nose against her finger. "Hi," she whispered,
putting her face close to the cage.

"Kindergarten bunny," said Stan, startling Saga. "Did his time with
several rounds of the poky little monsters and then, all because one of
'em one year had an allergy, was about to be shipped off to the torture
labs of Monte Fucking Fiore." As he talked, a dog slipped through a
flap in a door that must have led to a backyard. (Saga imagined a narrow
patch of dirt, a space no less dreary than the space indoors.) "So,
Budweiser do? That's it around this watering hole."

Since the accident, Saga hardly ever drank alcohol, but she accepted
the beer because she thought it might make her less nervous. She asked
Stan how he'd started taking in animals.

"When I learned, not a minute too soon, that taking in people—
wives, girlfriends, moochers, assholes, whoever—is a miserable waste
of time."

Stan must have been about fifty. Was he implying he'd had a wife,
even more than one? Saga wondered who would have married the guy.
She wondered if he had children; she hoped not. But then he told her
about the group of people he'd organized to look out for strays, rescue
abused animals, take calls in the middle of the night if someone found
an animal hit by a car. They posted leaflets all over the city to broadcast
their services. "That so-called Animal Welfare Society up in Manhattan?
'Society'? More like charnel house," said Stan. "Penitentiary. We're like
the Guardian Angels of the animal world. And it ain't a world of charm
and style, let me tell you. Some people get us, some don't. They don't?
Well, to put it politely, tough excrement." He told her about cockfighting,
dogfighting, satanic sacrifice. Someone in the group had a big backyard
on Staten Island; he took in the roosters and goats. Snakes, lizards,
and ferrets went to a vet who lived on Long Island, birds to a flutist
from the Metropolitan Opera who had a soundproofed loft on Liberty
Street. "Like they say, it takes all kinds."

Stan opened a kitchen drawer and pulled out a sheaf of lime-green
papers. "Here. Take some to fancy-ass Connecticut. Can't hurt. Maybe
get us some bleeding-heart patrons from the retriever set." Saga took
the leaflets. They read:

We are the
TRUE PROTECTORS
of the urban animal kingdom.

We look after, heal, and give shelter to:
DOGS, CATS, PARROTS,
BIRDS, PIGEONS, LIZARDS, TURTLES, IGUANAS, SNAKES,
MONKEYS, RABBITS, GUINEA PIGS, GERBILS . . .
everything
except rats from the subways and mice from your stove.

We have
ADOPTION SERVICES
for pets of all kinds. We know
THE BEST VETS
all around the city and beyond.

WE REFER FOR LOW-COST SPAY AND NEUTER—DO IT
NOW!! HELP US HELP THE ANIMALS. CALL US ANYTIME. WE
NEED VOLUNTEERS. WE ARE THE ONLY TRUE PROTECTORS!

There were no pictures, no decorative borders. It looked serious,
political. Like a . . . Saga groped for the word. It was a red word. If she'd
told Stan what she was thinking, he would probably have said, "Nobrainer,
honey."

All at once she felt envious of Stan, never mind his grubby little
house. She was sorry that she didn't live in the city (where people could
be odd without explanation), that she couldn't be a part of his group,
that she wasn't quite independent enough to make these choices. Stan
said the group met every Tuesday night at a falafel joint around the corner.
(What was falafel? Had she ever known?) "Come if you like," he
said, without encouragement.

Manifesto
—that was the word, the red word she'd been searching for,
she realized as she watched the bunny lick its paws.

She had another beer. (Why hadn't she left?) She noticed that Stan
had already drunk four or five. She said she had to go, but could they
check on the terrier first? Up in the quarantine room, they found the little
dog fast asleep on the cushion in the corner. "Happy?" asked Stan as
he closed the door.

"Who's that?" said Saga as they stood in the hallway. From the floor
above, she heard voices. As she listened, the voices turned to music.

"Radio. Jazz and blues tonight," said Stan.

Saga must have looked as if she expected more, because he laughed
and shook his head. "All right, Nosy Parker. I have a cat of my own who
likes the radio. She gets my bedroom to herself, because she doesn't get
along with the guests. She's this Siamese vixen that nobody else would
take because she clawed nearly everyone who met her. Well, I discovered
it's true after all, that thing about music and the savage beast. Wanna
meet the little terror?"

Saga looked at her watch. With a pang of anxiety, she noticed that it
was already too late to catch the last train to Connecticut. "Can I use
your phone?"

"Sure. But come meet Sing Sing. I promise not to let her maul you."

The beer had softened Stan, or maybe it had softened Saga toward
him. She followed him up a staircase that tilted badly toward the wall.
The banister was chipped in places, exposing paint in four or five different
colors. You had to hold on or you'd fall to the side.

Stan got to the top first and turned to see her moving cautiously,
slowly. "Great sobriety test, my stairs. And honey, looks like you might
just
flunk.
"

"I don't have my full equilibrium," she said defensively—though she
had to admit that two beers had affected her far more than she would
have guessed.

"Hey, who does?" said Stan as he opened one of two doors at the top
of the stairs. Inside was a room that Saga had imagined (or hoped)
would be a crisp, clean oasis of domesticity, another likable surprise
about this sandpaper man. But no. The first thing she saw was a movie
poster—
The Maltese Falcon
—tacked to the wall. Below it, a gooseneck
lamp cast a cone of light onto a hastily made bed, navy blue sheets without
a blanket or quilt. At the foot of the bed cowered a Siamese cat with
shredded ears and a stump for a tail.

The cat began to whine at that eerie pitch unique to feline distress.
On the radio, a lady singer with a big voice happened to be yowling
as well.

Stan turned the radio down and then swept the cat up in his arms, as
if receiving a low pass in a football game. "Now now, none of that, you
she-devil!" he said between clenched teeth. To Saga's alarm, he tossed
the cat up toward the ceiling, so that she flipped over in midair, then
caught her with ease. He thumped her rhythmically on her backside several
times and imitated her earlier moans. "Yeeeaaah-oooo, eeeaaa-hooooooooo!"
he moaned. When he stopped, the cat was purring,
kneading her paws on the sleeve of his shirt.

"See?" said Stan. "I've just got a way with the dames." He pointed to
a phone on a table and motioned for Saga to sit on the edge of the bed.
Picking up the receiver, Saga had to be careful not to topple a tower of
books (science-fiction novels), three bottles holding various amounts of
beer, and a glass of cloudy liquid with a dusty film on top.

"Yuck," she said quietly. The receiver was sticky.

"Oh chill," said Stan. "Everyone else you know has a maid. I don't
squander my money like that. Other ways, but not that way."

Uncle Marsden was out at a lecture that night, she remembered with
relief when she got the answering machine. "I missed the last train, so
I'm staying with a friend," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow afternoon."

"Ho
ho,
" said Stan. "Would I be that lucky friend?"

"Of course not," said Saga, though she was no longer in touch with
anyone in the city and did not know yet what she would do—probably
sleep on a bench in Grand Central Station. (Could you even do that anymore,
since the fancy renovations? What if you couldn't?)

And right then, just like that, Stan pulled her to him and kissed her—
not in a forceful or threatening way, but surely and calmly, as if there
wasn't a chance in the world she'd refuse his advances.

At first she did, not shouting but pushing at his chest. She was angry
and shocked, not afraid. How could someone who took care of helpless
creatures be a menace? "Stop," she managed to say, though he wasn't
letting go of her body.

"Oh really?" He was smiling his unpleasant smile, but then he was
running his lips around her ear—the ear on her good side, the sensitive
one.

"Really," she said. "I do not know you!"

"Oh please let's dispense with knowing, Story Girl," he said in a
whispery voice against her neck. "Knowing is so . . . cumbersome."

Cumbersome.
She saw something like a large puffy white-blue bank
of clouds. And in the opportunity of silence that opened as she contemplated
her picture of this word, Stan slid a hand under her shirt and
beneath the elastic band of her bra, slipping it up past her breasts.

He'd pushed her back—without resistance, really—against the pillows,
which smelled musty and earthen. The ceiling that Saga could see
beyond his head was textured, patterned in curlicued squares. It was
light blue, just like her vision of
cumbersome.
Odd coincidence, she
couldn't help thinking.

So almost by accident she paused, letting him caress one breast and
kiss her mouth, and then she found herself wondering merely if she
could get pregnant this time of the month. She had a sudden elusive
memory of the last time she had wondered such a thing . . . and here was
David's unwelcome face.

It was so very long ago, or it seemed so long ago, that she had last
been held like this. (
Is it all right?
whispered David's face.) Because she
was curious, even eager, to remember how it felt, or perhaps because she
wanted so badly to banish David, she let Stan continue. She could feel
his hard penis like an exclamation point right up against her thigh. He
wasn't rushing it. Reaching for common sense, she pushed at his chest
again. "No, really. Stop."

Now he was on top of her, and a part of her knew she should fight,
but she didn't. Stan pulled himself up from the waist to look her in the
eye. He was panting slightly as he said, "You take a while to make up
your mind, Story Girl. I don't think that's really fair in a situation like
this, do you?" And he resumed kissing her.

His mouth tasted like beer—as hers did, too, no doubt—but it wasn't
a bad taste. It was one of those tastes that called to her from her past,
her not-too-distant yet light-years-away prehistory, when she had
assumed so many things (for instance, that it was stupid to go to a
strange man's house without anyone even knowing where you'd gone).
But how senseless and silly so many of those assumptions had become in
hindsight. Why not this one, too? That he was essentially raping her, or
at least taking advantage of her.

The word
rape
—a very dark purple, strangely royal—sent a tangible
chill through her body, like a halting of her blood. But this did not feel
like what she imagined rape to feel like. She liked the warmth of his
body, and she liked the softness of his mouth.