The Grifted

It was Saturday at the mansion. Grandfather had finished breakfast. It was Enza’s day off and so I bussed the dishes to the kitchen. “You’ve turned into a nice young man, Jim. You’re sure to carry on the family name well. There’s so much waiting for you,” he called from the rear sun porch. I rinsed his plate and looked around. I tried to imagine more.

The doorbell rang.

In hindsight I’m sure she moved much more slowly. In the moment, though, as soon as I opened the door, the scam artist had her hand in my pocket, was leading me on a tour of my own home, starting with my bedroom.

“Trust me,” she breathed in my ear, her hands sliding down my abdomen and robbing me of my shirt.

“Who are you?” I asked, and her face blossomed several tiny smiles.

“Let’s just say my soul is full of guests.” She looked around. “Do you have the time?” I was confused, excited, stupid. I pointed to my watch on the dresser.

She grabbed it, scanned the face, and shoved it into a pocket before she lifted her dress over her head. She was on me, my clothes were off before I even registered the muffled clank of my watch against the floorboards. She worked her thumb into my mouth, fit her other hand into the stirrup of my collarbone, and pushed herself around. While she had me distracted, she examined the room for weak underbellies. She was good; I was gone and she was figuring out exactly where everything would be. I gathered myself snugly into some fantasy as she raided the surface of my desk from across the room. My face shut tight with my rising detachment until she forced a plea from me.

Her clothes were back on and she was up, wandering the room, opening doors and drawers before I’d even opened my eyes again. Her hands seemed full. I didn’t ask her to leave.

My grandfather called my name.

“Are you Jimmy?” she asked with a mouth full of teeth. I nodded, unable to focus. “You should probably respond to whoever’s down there calling you then, cowboy.” I nodded again and she threw my pants at me. As I stretched my shirt over my head, I kept thinking, carpetbag pockets, carpetbag pockets, carpetbag pockets. Her hands closed around the collection of small liquor bottles I’d been gathering for years and when I heard them land inside her dress, the clatter sounded farther away than the bottom of her pocket. I kissed her neck, blindly, hesitated leaving her, not because I was afraid of why she was there, but because I thought she might be gone before I made it back.

When I reached Grandfather, he asked me to wheel him back inside before he asked who was at the door. “Just a canvasser,” I lied. My lips felt swollen, roughed up. I wanted him to be able to tell. I could hear her steps above me. She was in Grandfather’s room now. Something shattered. I heard the drag of wood against wood. Grandfather’s hearing was almost gone, and he asked for his book. Everything in me sank with relief and I tried to pretend it hadn’t.

I rushed back upstairs. The room in which I’d left her was empty. Only the bed, the dresser, a night table remained. The Tiffany lamp was missing, each drawer purged, the windows bare of their tapestry curtains.

I ran to Grandfather’s room. The furniture was gone. The Oriental rug which had cloaked the ancient mahogany floors had been taken away. Holes hid in plain view where pictures, nails had once been. I shook my head, trying to startle everything back into view. My sight went blurry, looked more occupied for a second, then settled into emptiness.

I moved numbly to the library. There was nothing. Even the heat of the sunlight through the skylights was absent. I could hear her downstairs now, but I hadn’t seen her pass me. How she must have moved.

I descended the service stairs, emerged in the kitchen, now the plain white interior of a box. No countertop, no pipes emerged where the sink had once run. There was only the rectangular absence of the doorway to the dining room. It felt hard to breathe, like the oxygen was fleeing the air.

The dining room loomed pitch black, and as soon as I walked through the doorway I could not even see the way back into the kitchen. No light stretched in. I could still hear the intruder ahead of me. I felt for the next doorway, but all I encountered was space. I tried to find a wall, but no matter how far I wandered, the only solid objects the room held were the floor and my feet. I heard the hard click of the heavy front door and moved towards it, but several minutes later, I had still not arrived. “Grandfather?” I called. The silence answered me firmly.

I was lost, exhausted, full, satisfied, alone.

When all you have is everything, the only thing left to desire is for every bit of it to be taken away.