TWELFTH NIGHT 2004
THE FRENCH QUARTER
I felt Gaby’s fresh absence as acutely as if I had stood up suddenly and found both legs asleep, a stabbing, painful space where my limbs had been just moments before. For a moment, I let the feeling wash over me, helpless, while I bent in half and rested my chest on my legs. I could feel my heart beat against my almost bare thighs. Everything felt final and hopeless and I closed my eyes against it all. I hoped I hadn’t made her late for work.
Christopher was standing on the stairs watching me. “I think I did a pretty good job. Do you want to see?” he said finally. I shook my head. “You should maybe put a headstone or marker or something. Just so you know. I stuck a bunch of sticks there, but they will probably scatter as soon as it rains.”
“I’ll do it later.” I straightened back up. In the sharp morning sun, I could see the circles under his eyes, dark smudges, like thumbprints on either side of his youthful face. He looked so tired. I was glad he was here. “Thank you.”
He smiled and ducked his head a little. “So that’s why you didn’t want to come home, huh? I would have never guessed that one. People sure will surprise you.”
“Do you think I’m a terrible person?”
He pointed behind him. “For that? Nah.” He considered. “Maybe? Who cares? I can think of many people who have done a lot worse things, some to me personally, so...fuck it.”
“What happened to you, Christopher?” I asked, looking into his big dark eyes.
He paled and swallowed nervously. “We’ve all got our bullshit,” he said, rather unconvincingly shy after all this time. He held out his hands. “I should probably wash these.”
His hands were black with dirt and I decided not to press him anymore. Let him and Ryan carry their secrets together. We all grabbed on to whomever or whatever we could in this fucked-up world, and he had found someone, so he must be doing something right. Maybe. “Come inside.” I stood up. “Do you want some coffee?”
“No thanks,” he said, following me through the next set of French doors that led to my living room. “You’re not very neat, are you?”
I had been finishing my costume the last few days and the table was covered in piles of fabric, bowls of sequins, hot glue, fabric tack, an explosion of dark beads and satin. A box of expensive dog treats I hoped might tempt Ida back into eating. A little plate of raw hamburger turning brown. So many pill bottles. Alcohol swabs and Nature’s Miracle for all the times she’d peed on herself, the floor, my rug. The clutter of a small life drawing to a close.
The rest of my house was a disaster too. One of my chairs had been duct-taped back together after Ida discovered years ago that it was stuffed with horsehair and tried to eat its insides. Stacks of books about to topple over and many empty bottles of mineral water. It was my one extravagance. Just the thought made me thirsty and I got a bottle from the fridge while Christopher went to the bathroom to wash his hands. It hissed as I unscrewed the cap and I knew why I wouldn’t be able to give it up. It was like everything was suddenly washed clean in the bursting of millions of tiny bubbles in my mouth. I was rock and mineral and the purity of European springs I had never seen, and everything sparkled for as long as I held the dark green bottle in my hand.
Then Christopher came back and took the bottle from me and drank most of it in a long gurgling sip. He came up gasping, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Holy crap, that is delicious. Why do I feel like I’ve never drunk water in my life?” He finished the bottle and then looked at it wonderingly in his hand.
“You’re probably a little dehydrated after last night.”
“I’m probably a little dehydrated after my last year.”
“I know the feeling.”
“You should maybe stop drinking,” he said, and I looked at him, surprised. “I mean, because of your mom and whatever.”
“Were you eavesdropping?”
He looked hurt. “No, you told me just a little while ago. Sorry, it’s none of my business.”
That’s right, I had told him. I really had lost control over it all.
He set the bottle of water down and looked at me with a change of attitude, a seriousness that I knew all too well. “Where’s your bedroom?” he asked.
With a sense of the inevitable and because I felt I really owed him now, I took his hand and led him to my room. My mattress was on the floor and I dropped my feathery headband onto it and tried not to look at the little fleecy pouf in the corner where Ida used to sleep. All of a sudden I couldn’t bear to look at his filthy clothes anymore and he let me strip them off of him with a kind of dumb passivity. He was almost holding his breath, as if he were scared I might stop at any minute. In his wrinkled navy boxer shorts, he was all skin and bones, like a foal who hadn’t yet grown into his joints. Without the authority of a suit, he was a little kid in a bad haircut, and he blinked at me, hopeful, sad. I could see his heart pounding in the hollow of his pale chest, and I pressed my fingers against the vein in his throat where his neck met his collarbone and it bumped against my fingertips, urgent and fragile. I shed my clothes too and lay down in my underwear, feeling the cool air across my breasts, my nipples still tacky with spirit gum. One rhinestone that had come loose from something was stuck just below my sternum. In a moment, he was on top of me, unexpectedly light and kissing me hard and messily, like he had done so many hours ago in the park. He still smelled like a laundry hamper, the sour tang of dried sweat, and his breath was thick from booze and drugs and nervousness. I could feel his dick pushing against my thigh through the thin cotton of his boxers and he nudged my head aside trying to kiss my neck, leaving a trail of wet marks. “Wait.” I pressed gently against his shoulders and he rested back on his elbows, looking into my eyes, fearfully, guiltily, waiting for a reprimand.
“Just wait,” I said. I scooted up the bed to the pillow and rested his head down on my chest. He collapsed against me, still breathing hard, and I felt the bony bumps along his spine and the slope of his ribs, evenly spaced ridges that expanded with his shallow panting. I ran my fingers through his greasy hair, and against the shorter prickling fuzz behind his ears.
“I’m sorry,” he said, tentatively reaching for my breast and then just cupping his hand to it, surprisingly gently.
“For what?” I felt the delicate curve of his earlobe.
“I’m not twenty,” he whispered. “I’m seventeen.”
I laughed. “Yeah. No shit, you dummy.”
“I just didn’t want...”
“Yeah, I know.” I brushed my fingernails softly down the back of his neck.
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t the one he was looking for, but I was the one he had found. It was enough. The ceiling fan hovered motionless above us and I could see the thick layer of dust that had settled on one side of each blade. Outside a bird called a recurring, rising question. I stroked his neck and the hollow between his shoulder blades. All at once, his body twitched and became heavy, and I felt his breath, deep and steady now across my skin. He had fallen asleep, as sudden and profound as a baby animal. I lay, enjoying the soft weight of him, holding me in place, trapped by the selfish fatigue of his slender body. The bird thrummed his request again, breaking the morning sounds into delicate shards and I let myself drift into sleep, finally falling down that ragged slope in his silent company.
When I woke up, Christopher was gone, and I was in a puddle of my own blood that had spread far over the sheets. I smiled thinking of his probable horrified confusion. A patch of sun on my wall had the gold light of afternoon in it and I felt as slow and disoriented as a patient coming out of anesthesia. I took a shower, throwing my sheets into the tub with me, standing in the pile of wet cloth as the water ran pink and fell over my head like an absolving rain. The afternoon was warm, like summer almost, as I stepped onto the balcony, tying the sash of my kimono tight around my waist and drinking from a flat bottle of mineral water I picked up on my way out. The stairs held some of the warmth of the afternoon and the wood groaned as I walked down. I dragged a flimsy iron chair scraping over the bricks of the courtyard and set it down in front of the pile of fresh dirt. The bottle made a clink as I set it down at my feet. He had set a pile of sticks like a little tepee at one end of the mound and laid a banana leaf lengthwise across the grave like a green blanket, its ends already curling up as it dried. I had cried all my tears that morning and I watched a worm curl around, tossing in the freshly turned dirt. I leaned back against the twisted iron support of the chair and closed my eyes against the sun. The breeze ruffled my robe and fluttered it open against my thigh. One tear caught me by surprise, sliding out of the corner of my eye and down toward my ear. Then the calliope started up, booming the hideous “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans” from the top of the Natchez, out over roofs of the neighborhood, summoning more tourists, more idiots, to the Quarter, to the river. But even that didn’t bother me now. I crushed a big leaf hanging just below my shoulder, creasing its flesh with my nails, and inhaled the deep, sweet, irrepressible scent of life. It was all a fucking mess. But my courtyard bloomed, thick and insistent, the shadows deep against the mossy stones and I sat waiting, I wasn’t sure for what, resigned, quiet, glad if for nothing else than to be here, finally at home again.
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Little Clan by Iris Martin Cohen.