“I can’t. I don’t. But that’s different.”
“Yeah. You don’t want to fuck them. Well, that’s fine. This is fine. Go ahead and fuck that little girl on the couch. Get her pregnant, too. See if I care.”
“You’re the one who wanted me to paint again,” Alan whined, his words chasing her out the door. “What, I’m only supposed to paint zombies and you?” Ellen stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. The room shuddered and Mona’s eyes opened.
“What?” she asked, looking at Alan.
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh. Okay.” Mona closed her eyes and Alan began to correct the pink streak.
Wait a minute.
Get her pregnant, too?
“It just bugs me is all,” Eddie said. “She gets to go out and we’re cooped up in this dump forever. And I’m sick of her stock answer: ‘I guess they don’t like me.’ ” Eddie affected a nasally effeminate voice. “The fuck is that shit? No, she’s onto something and she’s too selfish to share the secret with us. This is some kinda bullshit power trip.”
“That’s crazy,” Dave said. “What could possibly motivate something like that? She doesn’t seem the type. That’s too, I dunno, devious.”
“Bitches are all devious, bro. All of ’em. I don’t buy the whole brain-damaged thing she’s putting over on us. The whole veggie thing. She knows what she’s doing and I don’t like it. Everyone in this lame building should be pumping her for how the fuck she does it.”
“She’s our savior, dude,” Dave said.
“Yeah. She’s our savior, dude. We’re her fuckin’ pets. She goes out and walks around and what? She’s touched by an angel or something? Yeah, right. She’s a person, same as us. She’s got some kinda secret and I wanna know what the fuck it is and I aim to find out.”
“And how do you propose doing that?”
“You know, sometimes you talk all fancy and I just wanna flatten you, Mallon. You pull that lawyery shit on me one more time-one more fuckin’ time-and I’ll lay you out. Count on it.”
“Jesus Christ, Eddie. What’s gotten up your ass?”
“Not you. Not ever. Look, just get the fuck outta here, okay? I wanna be alone for a while and sort some shit out.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“And thus endeth the nagging,” Abe said, sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Ruth’s wrist. No pulse. No breath. Dead. Abe sighed and moved his grip from wrist to hand, his fingers meshing with hers, his posture defeated. He didn’t look at her face, just stared ahead at the floor between his feet, nudging ruts into the pile of the carpet with the toe of his slippers, then smoothing them with the flats of his soles. “Ai, yaaaaaaah,” he sighed again, stretching it out. He tightened his grip on her hand. It had been years since he last held her hand, just held it. They used to walk hand in hand all the time. They even had correct and incorrect sides. It never felt right when he held her left hand; something seemed unbalanced. With his free hand he stroked his freshly shaven chin, a small scrap of toilet paper stuck there by a dot of blood. He plucked it free and neatly placed it on the bedside table.
“Oy, Ruthie,” he said, then sighed again. In place of tears a lot of sighing was in the offing, Abe not being given to displays of emotion, even when there was no audience. No living audience, at any rate. With reluctance he turned to look at Ruth’s visage; her eyes were still open. He hesitantly placed his fingertips on her eyelids and attempted to press them closed, but unlike the movies they wouldn’t stay shut. Even in death Ruth was contrary. He pulled the sheet over her, debating what to do next. Tell the others? He supposed he’d have to. It seemed unlikely that Ruth would be springing back to life-or unlife, take your pick. She died the old-fashioned way, free of zombie molestation. She was clean. Well, sort of. Abe wrinkled his nose. Ruth had, as it was euphemized, “voided herself,” filling the air with yet another bad smell and the sheets with something worse. How very un-Ruthlike. “Oy, Ruthie, Ruthie, Ruthie.”
So much for the family plot, he mused. Ruth had made such a to-do over her desire to be buried alongside her parents and sister. She also figured he’d predecease her-so much for woman’s intuition, too. What was he supposed to do now? She’d want a eulogy, a service of some kind. She’d expect the Mourner’s Kaddish, in Hebrew, no less, and since his bar mitzvah he’d forgotten pretty much everything. Did she have a prayer book tucked away somewhere? Probably. He seemed to recall her filching one from her sister’s funeral. Hopefully it was phonetic. He’d look later. But if he was to respect her wishes, which seemed the right thing to do, silly though it may be-pointless, even-so be it. She wouldn’t be getting the whole megillah, but he’d do his best to accommodate her superstitions as best he could. He stared across the room at his reflection in the mirror of Ruthie’s dressing table.
“Avel, vhat can you do?” Abe said in comic Yinglish inflection. In Judaism the mourner was called an avel. It was a self-admittedly bad pun. It brought him no comfort. “There goes that second Social Security check.” Again the joke didn’t help. He was bombing to an audience of none. Miriam, Hannah, and David had never laughed at his jokes, nor did their kids. Ruth had seldom laughed at them. It had been ages since he’d even attempted mirth, except for the lame waiter joke at the celebratory dinner on the roof. Everyone else in the building was listening to music again, and watching TV. Those little screens hurt his eyes. Most of Abe’s music was on vinyl. And what he wouldn’t do to be able to listen to some of his comedy records right now. The best medicine there is.
On shaky legs, Abe trudged into the living room and dropped into his threadbare upholstered chair, parted the dingy chintz curtains, opened the dusty venetian blinds. Déjà vu on top of déjà vu on top of feeling beaten down and laden with wearied grief.
More déjà vu.
A little Myron Cohen would be nice.
The door to 2B remained open at all times, that apartment being Mona’s point of entrance and egress from the building. Since taking up residence in 2A, she’d taken to keeping the door locked, especially when she was out on errands. Everyone agreed she was entitled to her privacy and security; after all everyone else kept their doors locked, so why shouldn’t she?
Karl’s knuckles barely grazed the surface of Mona’s door, his rapping so feeble even he could barely hear it. His chin mashed into the pit of his collarbone, his lower lip twitched in self-disgust. He was having such a hard time getting up the nerve to approach her. Well, duh, you think maybe it’s because you see her as some kind of heavenly force? Like some kind of earthly angel or at the very least some kind of saint or whatnot? It was absurd. Not that Mona was possibly imbued with some holy powers, but that he was petrified. She was mellow, Karl told himself. Fact was, Mona was mellowness incarnate. Nothing seemed to bother her. Not even the things outside.
Karl’s hair stood up all over.
Not even the things outside.
There was an angle he’d never considered. Maybe the things outside stepped out of her way not because she was imbued with the Holy Spirit, but rather was an emissary of Lucifer and her minions knew better than to obstruct her path, let alone devour her. It made sense. Everyone in the building was on death’s door, starving, dehydrated, vulnerable, then along comes this pristine, beautiful young girl-temptation made flesh-offering every secular comfort. Maybe in their final moments the denizens of 1620 would have found their way back to God, and here was this serpentine interloper, sent to obscure their potential moment of spiritual clarity.