“What the fuck are you doing?”
“What did I do?” I asked, rising unsteadily.
“Why are you sitting on the floor?”
“What am I supposed to do, sit on the wall?” She pointed to a chair and started hollering about how it was the latest invention. I don’t know why I didn’t even consider the chair.
“I’ve sat in chairs before, okay?” I yelled back. “I had a good reason for sitting on the floor. Did that ever occur to you?”
“What reason?”
“’Cause I have an edema build-up in my knees, and I was trying to put some pressure on the area.”
“What, you got water on the knee?”
“Yeah,” I replied, rolling up my pants. Fortunately my knees were swollen so she bought it.
“Whatever suits you.” She left the room. I sat in the chair. In a minute she returned, carrying some crumpled sheets.
“Well, what are you doing in a chair now?” she yelled.
“You made me feel uncomfortable sitting on the floor,” I mumbled.
“Sit on the fucking floor if you want,” she barked. And grabbing the back of the wooden chair, she yanked it so that I fell to the ground.
“My knees are fine now.”
“I think you’re a fucking liar about the knees.”
“Why would I lie to you?”
“I don’t know;” she replied. I didn’t say anything, and she walked out of the room. What was she doing in the other rooms? I crept to a doorway and peeked. She was making a bed. I moved silently back into the living room, went over to a bookcase, and surveyed its contents. There were a bunch of pastel-tone romances; the John Jakes historic novel series, named after frontier states and illustrated with covered wagons and cleavage; and glitzy soft-porn best-sellers with embossed red lettering. As my eyes travelled along the colorful, gumdrop-colored paperbacks, I suddenly spotted a dusty hardcover on an out-of-reach shelf: H. Lefebre’s biography Diderot. I strained high to pick it off the shelf and, upon opening it, recognized Helmsley’s Ex Libris mark—it was a first American edition printed in the 1930s. I quietly put it back, took my seat on the floor, pulled my knees up, placed my arms on my lap, and let my hands hang between my legs. I wished I thought of sitting on the chair from the start.
“Hey, hey!” I awoke from a deep sleep with her yelling and shaking me.
“Huh?” I jumped up nervously.
“This ain’t a place to sleep, asshole.” It was time to go.
“Okay,” I said nervously and asked if I could use the bathroom.
“I don’t give a shit,” she said. I went to the bathroom and locked the door. I didn’t have to do anything, but I didn’t want to leave until I absolutely had to. I sat on the toilet seat and leaned back on the tank, drifting off.
“What the hell you doing in there?” she screamed while banging on the door.
“Nothing, nothing,” I replied, opening the door.
“I thought you died in the bathtub or something.”
“No, I’m okay,” I replied, but used her idea. “Do you mind if I take a bath?”
“You just took a shower!” she hissed. But then, more gently, “I don’t care, go ahead.” She was about to close the door, but stopped and asked, “What were you doing in here all that time?”
“I guess I drifted off.”
“Well, why don’t you go to sleep?”
“I don’t have anywhere to go,” I confessed.
“Go to bed, asshole, in there.” She led me to a room where she had made the bed earlier. I thanked her, and as soon as she left the room, I tiredly thanked the darkness, which seemed to embody a great presence, God maybe…. Sleep popped me down like a pill, producing a remarkably fulfilling emptiness.
“Are you hungry?” she screamed in at me. I sat up instantly. My mind raced, trying to bridge the gap between deep sleep and what seemed like an interrogation. She repeated, “Are you hungry?”
Instinctively I said no. If I say yes, I thought, she might interpret it as me trying to make her into a maid or expecting a service from her. I was surprised to see morning light streaming in through the windows.
“At least have coffee.”
I got fully dressed, shoes and socks and all, and went into the kitchen, where I sat at a dinette table. She made herself a full breakfast—hash browns, eggs sunny-side up, three strips of perfectly crisp bacon, toast, and coffee. I longed for the smoothness of yolk, for the texture of salty bacon, and lightly done, buttery toasts. She chewed equinely. She might just as well had been chomping on oats and grain. When she had consumed barely a third of the plate, she tossed the meal into the garbage and then walked off into one of those rooms. I raced over to the trash can and scooped out a large splat of solidified egg white. But then I heard her coming and shoved the egg white deep between my sock and ankle, a cache to eat later.
She walked by the room. My God, she was dressing, probably going off to work, and that meant I’d have to leave at any moment. Angela glanced in.
“What the fuck is the matter with you?” she asked, noticing my peculiar expression as I felt the egg white slither into my instep.
“Nothing.”
She then marched off, cursing. I shoved a catsup bottle down the front of my pants. I took some bread and shoved it into my shirt. I saw a can of string beans on the shelf and shoved it in my pocket. I took a spatula and before Angela returned I frantically bent it so that it slid along the leg of my pants. Angela returned, fully dressed in street garb.
“Here’s the key to the place. Lock up and turn out the lights if you leave,” she instructed and walked out. Just like that.
When she left, I took the egg white out of my sock and found a cellophane bag. I put it in the bag along with other little bits and pieces of food she had thrown out. I wrapped up the scraps of food, went back into the bedroom I’d spent the night in, and hid them under the mattress. I then looked through her cupboards and inspected her other foods. I poured out a half box of spaghetti, which I’d found can be eaten raw if you chew very little bits. I broke up the spaghetti into four peg-size parts, wrapped a rubberband around them, and put them behind the schlock in the bookcase. She had four cans of Del Monte Creamed Corn, so I took one and hid it in one of her winter boots in the hallway closet. I hid flat things like bologna and Swiss cheese under the living room rug. I took other small items, too, not even knowing what they all were. The biggest dilemma was deciding how much food I could take without its absence being noticed.
Something occurred to me. I collected all the hidden articles of food. I checked the lock on the door and made sure that she hadn’t given me a decoy key—one that would give me confidence but not open the door after it shut. I didn’t want to leave the house, but I had to for my backup plans. So I walked around the neighborhood and soon headed toward Park Slope by walking along President Street. Then I spotted the bushes bordering a little neighborhood park. I dodged into the shrubbery and, digging as furiously as a squirrel with a prized acorn, carefully buried the little packets of food.