Right after she says Don’t with a familiarity I find disturbing our replacement couple arrives. They look like they just got released from a concentration camp. Their limbs are impossibly thin, so much so that I want to hook them up to an IV and have them lie down. They are wearing sandals and have yellow toenails. Their eyes are similarly jaundiced. I don’t think either of these people will live another day.
These are great, the male one says. You can tell he is the male one because the other has two emaciated breasts under her tank-top.
Aren’t they, though, the despicable next to me replies.
They all turn to me as if it’s my turn to speak, my turn to say something nice about the paintings, the house, the dog. Instead I say I’m hungry and I wonder what’s for dinner.
The skeletons, after consulting each other first, say—I know we’re both starving.
The despicable looks at me in a way I’m sure means something but I don’t know what it is.
A fire truck screams by and for a second I expect firemen to burst through the door, administer CPR to the skeletons and liberate the dog. Everyone turns to the front windows to watch the truck drive by but no one is moved enough to go outside. The sirens are loud and then trail off into people whispering things about paintings and the dog’s whining.
I haven’t been offered a drink and I wonder why not. I see three others cradling glasses on the other side of the room.
There is no indication food will be served any time soon. I don’t smell anything cooking and I’m not sure there will be. No one is running into the kitchen to check on anything. I don’t know what made me think there was going to be food involved.
The skeletons move on to the next painting and I follow the despicable to a painting hung in the alcove. I can’t tell one painting from the next. They are all the same these paintings and I am finished pretending to look at them.
I listen to the whispering around the room. I hear someone say Define a glass of water and someone else say I like it when someone tells me they’re a musician and it turns out they’re a drummer. Another says I think the composition here is a little obtuse.
In the alcove the despicable and I stand opposite the pregnant woman. There is also a man standing and whispering with the pregnant woman. One assumes he is the sire. The two of them look like they were hand-picked to breed. Both are tall and stout and have fine skin, hair, and teeth. He probably covered her in a stall under supervision.
This is the kind of woman that should be pregnant 365 days a year. The day after she gives birth to one she should conceive the next.
The despicable positions herself between the pregnant woman and me.
My wife, the one I left in the living room, enjoys the company of other people and seeks it out whenever she can. This is the kind of affair she will drag me to. I have stood in big rooms under oscillating ceiling fans before but cannot say I am comfortable in such environs. I prefer to be in my upstairs study with the air conditioner on and the curtains drawn. My wife calls it the cave. She has never called me a caveman because of how it might reflect on her.
I don’t know where she meets the people we socialize with. I don’t think they are colleagues. My wife works alone in our house. I’m almost sure of this. There is a table set up in our dining room and people come in and out of the house at all hours.
Secretly she resents me for not having any friends. She tells me this, as she is not good at keeping secrets. I forget what it is I tell her when she says this to me.
I think I do have a few friends but I forget who they are and how to contact them.
Now the word literally is being bandied about and this bothers us despicables.
These people should be drawn and quartered, the despicable says.
They should be shot and hung from the highest pole, I say.
I thought this would be different, she says. I was under the impression this was going to be something else, she says. Then she says, And it’s hanged from the highest pole. People are hanged, not hung.
I say to her, Is it me or does it seem like everything in here is a photocopy? Even the dog looks like he’s been left in the wash too long. That can’t be a real dog, I whisper.
A replication of something half-observed and half-misunderstood, she whispers. Then she leans in and whispers Inadequate means to obsequious ends into my ear. She puts her hand on my shoulder again and this time rubs it.
This is something my wife does. She likes to rub my shoulders and back and tell me things I don’t quite understand. She is an advocate of alternative medicines and homeopathy. She drives twenty miles to buy organic fruits and vegetables from a farmer’s market. There are lifestyle magazines around our house, in the bathrooms, the kitchen, etc. I think she might be a masseuse, my wife. This is probably why people come to the house all hours of the day. We do have a massage table set up in the dining room where a dining room table should go. Around the table are crystals and statues of Indian gods. There is a mobile hanging over the table, too. Paper butterflies dangle from the ceiling and sometimes it looks like they are flying.
My wife has strong capable hands but they don’t look strong or capable. Her hands are thin and ladylike. Her hands look like a strong wind could blow them clean off her wrists. My mother told me to marry a woman who had hands like this.
I don’t say it out loud but I wonder what kind of a massage the pregnant woman gives. My guess is she can rub your muscles into next week.
These people should be run through and handed their own entrails, I say instead.
Extinguished, cleansed, she says back.
Crucifixion, they should bring back crucifixions, I say.
After I say what I say about crucifixions the despicable and I walk toward the front door. I think she is my wife but even if she isn’t I might spend the rest of my life with her. As I think this I hear the dog whining but am glad I can’t see it in its cage. The pregnant woman and her sire are looking at us and seem upset when I say Vaya con huevos to them. Their expressions resemble both the unblemished wall and the paintings on the wall. There is probably an Indian or Chinese or Russian word that describes how these things look but I wouldn’t know it. The other four people, including the two skeletons, are whispering and pointing in our direction. I can’t hear what it is they’re whispering but I don’t have to. I know because it is on their faces. It is all over everyone’s faces.
MAN ON TRAIN WITH FLOWERS
ON TRAIN WITH FLOWERS then next to me sits woman even much prettier than woman I buy flowers for so she’ll love me and cure my situation. My situation needs attention more than what I can give it. And I think about my situation more than what is probably healthy. Must be I was born that way.
The woman I buy flowers for I hope will think about my situation and want to help cure me. She is nice woman with cloudy eyes and soft legs, almost like she ain’t got no bones and the muscles have decided to lay down and die.
Let me talk about my situation. My situation is complicated. It can have a life and or a mind of it’s own but almost never rarely sometimes gets me in trouble. That is all I want to say about my situation.
Instead let me talk about nice woman who I hope might help me and cure my situation. She has light blonde hairs all over face and is one of those kinds of woman that almost knows what it feels like to have situation. She knows it sometimes often needs attention.