Asunder

DISAPPEARING RAILROAD BLUES

I’M CALLING HER FROM THE CAR. It is her phone and her car and I’m calling to tell her that when she goes to the driveway there will be nothing there for her to drive. I imagine she will be confused. I have never called in the middle of the night and have never called from her car. I don’t think I’ve called more than four times this year.

Whenever the phone rings she knows it’s probably not me on the other end is what I think I’m saying.

There is something wrong with the language. She said this out loud in front of other people. I can’t remember who the other people were. They were men and women, no doubt, children maybe, strangers, kinfolk, acquaintances. It didn’t matter. I looked good in my suit. A gathering replete with servants and uncooked meats and women in dresses and shoes and without the free drunk and new suit I would’ve stayed home. She bought the suit I looked good in. I don’t even go with her to buy the suits. She comes home and hangs them in the closet. That was my job we’d decided. I declared twelve kinds of bankruptcy last year so it was good I had this to fall back on. There were others who looked good in their suits. None of us acknowledged each other.

I am in the car and not sure where it is I should go. The windows are open and the radio is on and I’m trying to remember what it is I have to do with myself. I need to vacuum, which is an odd thing to recall or note. I always forget to do things like vacuuming. People say this. They say, When was the last time you vacuumed?

Only certain people are scrutinized this way.

There is almost nothing to say about these kinds of people.

I maneuvered between groups of suits and shoes and found an unoccupied place at the bar. Everyone was glassy-eyed and cordial, drinking unnaturally-colored drinks. I leaned against a wall. I shifted weight. I changed expressions. I fashioned a Chinese star out of a beverage napkin. I compiled a list of partygoers I’d have sex with and under what circumstances. Finally, I snubbed the waiters. Chopin or Handl or Listz or Mozart was coming in from speakers I couldn’t locate. This is when I discovered the balcony on the other side of twin French doors. One of the waiters I’d snubbed opened and closed a door behind him while toting a tray of cold duck meat. I followed him out. The balcony had an ornate copper railing, although I’m just guessing it was copper. The color resembled that of a penny, which I think is made from copper. I don’t know anything about metals—heavy metals, alkaline metals, any of them. I don’t know anything about anything. People scoff when they hear me say this, they call it modesty or hyperbole or whatever it is they say.

I don’t even know what people say about what I say.

There’s a light bulb somewhere that needs changing, too. I don’t remember which light bulb, or which lamp, let alone the wattage.

I made friends with two European drinkers out there, Gerald and Patrick. They were guilty of poor diction and gesticulating like they were on stage. I ridiculed them to their faces. They didn’t take umbrage. They knew better or they didn’t understand me. Still, the way I carry myself is see me coming better step aside a lot of men didn’t a lot of men died. I’ve always been this way. Meanwhile the cold night went all the way up to the sky and was dark everywhere else. It was all over everyone at the party and between everything. Good weather for a consultation. We were the only ones who stayed on the balcony for more than a few minutes. Others came and went, some to smoke cigarettes, others for I don’t know what. It was too cold for all of them. They said so. They asked,

Cold enough for you?

Not nearly enough, no, I answered.

They didn’t say anything after that. I knew it wasn’t an honest question.

The balcony overlooked a public park, the way balconies do in this city. This balcony wasn’t one you could plummet off of; there were other balconies and an awning over the entranceway. One would have to dive, one would have to take a flying leap. No one at the party looked capable of any athletic maneuver. In the park were joggers, homeless chess players, riff-raff. Gerald and Patrick asked which park it was. I said it was the Ish Kabbible Memorial Park. They laughed like idiots. We took turns throwing ice cubes at what we thought were squirrels, but what were probably rats. I would’ve proposed a wager but the Europeans were especially good at this. Regardless, she was right. Sometimes it takes me all day to read the newspaper.

When put to it I try to answer questions is the problem.

Almost anyone would know better.

Her phone is always ringing but I don’t know who it is that calls. She won’t say. Still, the phone never rings in the middle of the night. She was sleeping when I left. It is late and she has been asleep for hours.

She is beautiful when she sleeps.

The exterminator came over last week and dropped heavy on the kitchen counter. Susan was in the upstairs bathroom. She pretended to be sick but I heard her puffing on cigarettes and talking on the telephone. Best guess she was talking to Gerald or Patrick. She thought Gerald was charming and Patrick had savoir-faire.

On the ride home—

What did you think of Lane?

Who?

Lane from the balcony.

I didn’t talk to any Lane.

I saw you talking and drinking with him and Gustave. Lane was the tall one, with the hair and eyebrows and Gustave was wearing the alpaca sweater.

Sorry.

On the balcony.

Oh, Gerald Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzgerald.

You’re beneath contempt.

I didn’t know any of them. Gerald or Lane or Ish Kabbible. I heard someone say the name once and laughed like an idiot. I didn’t think it was a real name, a real person. There is no accounting for what went on before I was born, I’ve decided.

I don’t think the exterminator was at the party. He looked unfamiliar. I like unfamiliar people best. If I had my way I would only associate with people I didn’t know. The exterminator plugged himself in and worked the crevices. Grim, he said. Dim, he said. I was eating a sandwich. The Brothers Sum, I said. In my head it was a joke. The exterminator had his name embroidered on the left breast of his jumpsuit. I wanted to ask if he picked the jumpsuit out himself or found it hanging in his locker. The overhead lights were on and the cabinets were open. The exterminator squirted a foul liquid behind the counter. There were two more bites left. I considered offering him the rest but left it there on the plate. You can’t offer an exterminator half a sandwich.

They don’t want me to drink anymore. No one ever says so out loud. It’s the way they look at you, the gestures, expressions. The exterminator looked at me like I was part of the infestation, like I was responsible. Susan says it’s the way I carry myself. When I’m not see me coming better step aside I carry myself in a knapsack, or else in a leather briefcase. Mostly it’s Susan upstairs in the bathroom that doesn’t want me to drink anymore. She said when I drink I lose boundaries. I don’t know what this means, though sometimes I pretend otherwise. Sometimes I tell her I’m not a cartographer.

We have tiny ants coming up from the dishwasher. They come in battalions of ten to twenty. Susan noticed them first. She is always filling up the dishwasher or emptying it. We run the dishwasher twice a day. Everything goes on its own plate or bowl in this house. In the morning there are plates for the waffles and butter and a bowl for the syrup. I don’t ask Susan certain questions, why the syrup can’t stay in the bottle, for instance. Or why I’m not allowed to eat sugar anymore. She knows things I don’t.

I was supposed to call an exterminator weeks ago. I forgot to do it when I was supposed to. I’m always forgetting what I’m supposed to do when I’m supposed to do it. Susan says this is indicative of something, but I’ve forgotten what. Doubtless, this proves her point.

An hour before the party—

Who called last night?

When?

I don’t know, late.

I don’t remember.

The phone doesn’t usually ring at that hour.

I don’t have to explain myself in my own house.

The car is low on gas. Whenever I take her car I always have to put gas in it. This is why she likes it when I take the car. This is the first time I’ve taken the car without her knowing it, though. This is the first time I’ve taken the car and maybe won’t return it. Which is the reason I’m calling. Otherwise, she’ll be confused when she finds her car missing and perhaps upset.

Susan and I live in the same house. It is her house. I also maintain an apartment on the other side of town but I do most of my living at the house. That was her suggestion and the word she used. She said, Perhaps you should maintain your own apartment. This was when she invited me to live with her at some party. She said it out loud in front of a group of people I didn’t know. She knew I couldn’t maintain my own apartment but I figured she would maintain it for me. I said yes, I think. I don’t remember if I said yes exactly but I did find myself living in her house after we got back from the party.

Sometimes I stay at the apartment for a week or two at a time. Susan doesn’t like when I do this. She says so. She says I could at least call. I almost never call.

I go to parties with her. Sometimes I will put on clothes and Susan will tell me they are the wrong clothes. That the pants are dress pants and the shirt is casual and that I look like an idiot. She will tell me to put on one of the suits she bought for me. This is when I’ll say, What suit? And she’ll say, The brown one hanging in the closet. Then I’ll go in there and find three new suits to wear.

After one of the parties at home—

Fantasies are one thing, perversions another, she says.

Lines should be clearly drawn, I say.

I am not closed-minded, she says.

I say, There but for the grace of God.

You are only after one thing, she says.

And it’s a shame I don’t know what that is, I say.

Can we please have a normal exchange, she says.

I say, Quid pro quo, quid pro quo, two times fast.

You’re doing it again, she says.

I beg to differ, I say.

We never spent an entire night together before I’d moved into her house. This was her idea and something she was adamant about. I never asked for an explanation nor had I ever seen her sleep at that point. I liked to watch her smoke cigarettes then. That was enough for me. She would draw on a cigarette indifferent to the smoke, like she didn’t care where it went or what it did to her. Then she’d blow the vapor up and out of the corner of her mouth, smoke rising from a chimney. I’m lying about not having watched her sleep. One night I was in the easy chair adjacent to her bed, waiting for a taxi to pick me up. It was late and her husband was somewhere else. She didn’t have a car then so taking her car wasn’t an option, let alone calling her from the car. She was beautiful in that bed with one of her legs protruding from the top sheet. The leg looked like it was poised to take a step. It looked like a scene from a movie, something that required a smart ad-lib from a seasoned actor. I thought maybe I should cover her.

I didn’t know anything about the husband. She never said anything about him and by the time I found out I’d already seen her smoke a cigarette.

On the radio a singer is bidding America good morning and asking how we are. I don’t think he expects an answer.

I’m responsible for maintaining the car. Taking it for oil changes and new tires and the rest. None such was ever said out loud, but it was understood. My other responsibilities are also domestic. I’m to vacuum and do laundry and look good in suits. Sometimes I’m given a list in the morning. The list is prioritized, meaning I go to the first store first and so on. I buy something. Sometimes I buy two things. Sometimes the first thing I buy is contingent on buying the second thing. Sometimes the first thing is useless without the second thing. I take the thing or things home and wait for Susan. Susan comes home and says it’s the wrong thing or things. That I misunderstood what I was supposed to buy. Otherwise I misjudged something, instead of buying X amount of the thing or things I bought Y. I have to go back and return the things. I have to remember the receipt, which we keep on a tray near the oven or in a folder marked receipts.

One night a year before I moved into her house—

Does any of this bother you?

I think it does, yes.

In what way?

I’m not sure yet.

Thought I’d ask.

I think you drink too much.

I imagine that’s true.

Does it you?

Does what me?

Once it was a bathroom-ceiling fan. It was third on the list. (Sometimes the list isn’t composed by priority, it turns out.) The upstairs bathroom was being redone. After I’d moved into the house Susan decided to make some aesthetic changes. She hired a contractor to demolish the bathroom. It was my job to make sure the rooms were taped off to keep the dust out. Every morning during the demolition I took off the previous day’s tape and re-taped the bottoms and tops of the doors. I was good at this. After that I was to be home for when the various workmen showed up to do work. These included an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter, someone to put up the drywall because the carpenter had a bad back, and a painter. During this time I had to buy or pick up certain things for the workmen to be able to do their work. This included a bathroom-ceiling fan for the electrician to install. I went to the store and bought a ceiling fan. Turns out I was to buy the sort of ceiling fan that sucks air out of the bathroom, an exhaust fan. I’d purchased the sort of ceiling fan that has blades and revolves at various speeds blowing air around the room.

I think the ceiling fan was important so Susan can smoke in the bathroom. She doesn’t let me watch her smoke anymore. I said something about watching her smoke and she took it the wrong way. I think I may’ve said it at one of the parties in front of a group of people I didn’t know. So now she smokes her cigarettes in the upstairs bathroom while I am downstairs eating sandwiches and wearing suits.

Certain patterns of behavior tend to repeat themselves, like history. I wouldn’t call it a vicious circle, though. I’d call it a vicious figure eight.

I am driving. She is sleeping and is beautiful when she sleeps. I’m not sure if I’m beautiful when I drive. I do look good in the suits Susan buys for me, though I’m not wearing one now. The gas tank is nearing empty so I will have to remember to fill it up. The singer on the radio is saying he’s the train they call the City of New Orleans. I don’t know how he is a train and not on a train but it’s a good song anyway. I’m calling her to tell her that when she goes to the driveway there will be nothing there for her to drive. After that I don’t know what I will say. We might discuss the calls or the drinking or the smoking or the people at the party. I’ll probably start by telling her that I’m in this car but am not the car itself. She will probably be confused. I almost never call from the car and almost never say anything out loud.