She gets into the bed furthest from the door and pulls the blankets over her. She still has on the towels. Damp bedding doesn’t bother her. She is tired. She is often tired, but rarely sick. She doesn’t know why this is. She presumes sleeping boosts her already impenetrable immune system but she’s never seen data. Sleeping is one of her best things. She can sleep for ten hours without stirring. She can sleep anywhere; in her own bed, others’ beds, couches, backseats, waiting rooms. She considers this her greatest talent.
What do you remember about high school? he asks.
Not much, she says.
Did anyone ever get pregnant? he asks.
What a thing to ask, she says.
I think there were two such souls, she says.
What about abuse? Did any of the teachers sexually abuse the students? he asks.
What do you have in mind? she says.
He can go days without sleeping or eating and blames his job as a bartender for this. Drinking five nights a week and eating only deep fried food has his system in upheaval. Amongst his health problems are tinnitus, a duodenal ulcer, the chronic nasal congestion, atavism, and an overactive bladder.
She will never discuss his ailments.
She is on her way to graduate school to study psychology. When asked why psychology she answers because she wants to help people, specifically women who’ve suffered debilitating trauma. Past that she admits nothing.
What are we doing here? she asks.
I was hoping you would know, he says.
Do you remember what we talked about yesterday? she says.
What was yesterday? he says.
The two people here spent the previous day driving through upstate mountain roadways. They both took turns driving and spent the night in a motor lodge. They were to use this time to get a few things straight. There would be after all an understanding. Today they are sitting in a parked car in the middle of a parking lot where no other cars are parked. His hands are resting on the steering wheel and he is breathing evenly. She is sitting with her legs crossed and covered up by a floor-length coat, part of which is hanging out the passenger side door.
THE ALLERGIES
FOR YEARS I WENT TO BED EVERY NIGHT. This is when I was like everyone else in the world. I had a job, I knew people. I ate meals, bought gadgets, kept up with current events. I owned a sedan. Now my life is dry toast for breakfast and the allergies. That’s the entirety of it, all I can muster. Some think I have a disorder, a syndrome, something along those lines, but I know it’s allergies. I’ve been tested. The doctor confirmed it. What happened was I went to the doctor and said help. The doctor examined me. Then the doctor took me into his office and explained what was wrong. I couldn’t understand him, what he was saying. But it doesn’t matter, in the end, it doesn’t. I keep the windows shut but the allergies get inside anyway. They get in between the cracks in the walls or up from the basement or down from the chimney. The doctor said there’s no stopping the allergies. I think the only thing in the world I’m not allergic to is a down comforter, which is what I sleep on now. The bed I’m allergic to, even the dry toast I’m allergic to. I can never sleep in bed and never feel right after eating dry toast is how I know this. But now it’s all gone; the meals, the people, the gadgets, the job, the sedan. Now come evening I lay a down comforter on the floor and sleep on it. This is after suffering all day with the allergies. Sometimes, yes, my eyes work long enough to read a magazine or watch a little television. Sometimes I can listen to music for a few minutes before the ringing in my ears becomes unbearable. Yes, I am grateful for those days, it’s true. But I know it’s hopeless. I know I’m getting worse. Even the doctor said so. It was the only thing I understood from our conversation. What the doctor said was sometimes this sort of thing happens to people, these kinds of allergies, and in this particular case, out of millions of other cases, I happen to be the worst kind of people.
THE BE ALL END ALL
A WOMAN SAID TO ME ONCE IT ALMOST DOESN’T FEEL LIKE IT’S TWO-THIRTY.
I’ve kept this in my brain ever since, next to where I keep particular lines of poetry, but away from pertinent information. I can’t recall what prompted the statement, although it may’ve been in response to some confession I’d been dying to confess.
Women have a way of leaving their mark, of staying with you.
When lacking a satisfactory answer I always manage to compose a stoic look on my face. Brooding, even. This is because I am no good on the spot or off the cuff. I usually need days to respond to a question to anyone’s satisfaction.
This woman was beautiful in a way that makes you sorry you were born.
Example of typical exchange between myself and woman who said, It almost doesn’t feel like it’s two-thirty.
What is wrong with you?
Stoic look on face. Brooding, even.
A pregnant woman was walking her dog in the middle of the night in a park where I was sitting on a bench contemplating death and masturbation. She walked the way pregnant women walk, particularly when they are out in the middle of the night walking dogs. It is the same way fat women walk to the bathroom, halfway between a waddle and a cry for help. I don’t know if she did this every night, walk the dog this way. There are things you know about her, though, without having to ask. Mostly, she wouldn’t appreciate this kind of recognition.
If you see her say I’m sorry.
At that moment she was the object of an affection I cannot describe nor explain. I thought maybe it was misplaced. I thought maybe the affection should’ve been directed elsewhere. That is my tragedy, if I have one. Otherwise it’s not being able to make sense of such things. The pregnant woman is her own tragedy and I have almost nothing to do with it. But mostly I regarded her as a subject. Of what, I’m not certain.
In the end, I’m not sure I can differentiate between subject and object.
One could ask, What were you doing in a park in the middle of the night sitting on a bench contemplating death and masturbation? And what exactly does contemplating death and masturbation entail? And what kind of a person engages in such activity?
Stoic look on face. Brooding, even.
Perversion is one of those eye-of-the-beholder things.
I watched her walk the dog. It was a kind of ballet.
I have no real need to express anything and certainly no affinity for it. I’d rather look pensive and have others misinterpret whatever countenance I’ve affected.
All this until I am left with a pregnant woman walking her dog in the middle of the night. There was no exchange between myself and the pregnant woman walking her dog in the middle of the night, typical or otherwise. If there had been it would’ve concluded quickly.
Example of imagined exchange between myself and pregnant woman walking her dog in the middle of the night:
Is it a boy or girl?
Boy.
Name?
Butch.
You shouldn’t be out here.
Why not?
Because it almost doesn’t feel like it’s two-thirty.
Had I taken the leash from her hands and with her watching, hanged myself with it, it would be her telling this story now. Except it would be different.
Although, the sort of pregnant woman that walks dogs in the middle of the night is also the sort of woman that carries a handgun in her jacket pocket and when approached by strange men in the middle of the night tends to shoot first and tell stories later.