“I think that what we both need is another cup of coffee,” Carolyn said. “At the very least it’s what we need.”
I was feeling sick. We were running from the police. Bombs falling. I flattened myself on the sidewalk, closed my eyes. Saw them charred, sticking to each other.
The pacifist, the voice was saying, by undermining the war effort puts our American boys in harm’s way.
“I’ll make the couch up for you as soon as you’re ready.”
“I’m ready now.”
“I’m curious about something, Christopher. Why were you so difficult about accepting Curt’s clothes?”
I said I didn’t want to take what wasn’t mine.
“Is that right? I had the idea that it had something to do with Curt, that for some reason or other, maybe something he’s done to you, you don’t like my husband.”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t stay in his house if you didn’t like him,” she said, her tongue coming out. “I can’t believe that you would.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
She thought about it. “You’re Curt’s guest, not mine. It makes no difference to me what you do.”
I told her I liked the way she danced. The way she fluttered her arms like some kind of bird.
The blood left her face. Then she laughed, coughing.
“Forgive me, Chris,” she whispered. “Is that what they call you, Chris, Chrissy?”
“That’s what they call me.”
“And you’re very witty, Chris, do you know? Not just the things you say, but the way you are. Your spirit is witty.”
“Cut it out.” My voice too high, rising. It was like being hugged by one of my mother’s friends.
“That’s your charm, that you don’t know you’re charming. I’m embarrassing you, aren’t I? I can see. I’m sorry.”
I shook my head.
“I am. You’re blushing.”
My back to her. Looking at the red-and-gray hobbyhorse, the only nice thing in the room. It was slightly crippled. A mad screwed-up grin on its face. I thought, when she left to go to bed, I would try it out.
She sits trembling, her hands over her face.
“How you must hate him.”
I said I didn’t hate anyone.
“Is this girl — what’s her name — very lovely?”
I didn’t say anything, stared at her legs.
“What is it, that she’s young?”
I didn’t answer. Imagining Parks listening to us in his room. Carolyn, you cunt, I heard him thinking, get that boy out of my house.
“Is she sexy, a good lay?”
Imitating his voice, I said I could give her only name, rank, and serial number. No more. No less.
“What’s your rank?”
I looked at my watch, which had stopped at five after nine. Winding it (her neck snapping) between thumb and index finger. Whatever you do to her, Chris, I don’t want to know about it. The air heavier, the heat of her presence like smoke in the room. I thought what it would be to take advantage of her. Grinning to myself like the horse. Just turn the key, Christopher, and watch her take off.
“If you’re staying, sit down. It makes me nervous watching you pace like an animal.”
I sit down on the horse, side saddle, holding onto its head.
“Are you very attached to this girl?” she asked. “I can’t talk to you when you’re so far away.”
I sat next to her on the sofa.
“Are you deeply attached to this girl? Are you in love with her, Christopher?”
“Are you in love with Parks?”
She looked at me, her eyes slits. “I don’t think you know what it means. At your age, sex and love seem pretty much the same thing.”
“How do they seem at your age?”
“At my age, which isn’t such a great distance from yours”—she laughs — “both seem overrated.” I think she is about to touch my face. She picks something off the couch from behind my shoulder. A piece of lint. Blowing it through her fingers.
She puffs out her chest like a frog. “Let’s make a pact, Chrissy. No more of this ironic warfare, which I’m sure is boring us both to tears.”
A police siren outside. Starts. Stops. Lodges itself in the ear. The insects of my nerves climb the wall. The police arrive, knock down the door. Find the room deserted. I am hiding between Mrs. Parks’ legs.
“Do you feel that you and Curtis are competitors for this girl,” she says sweetly, “or are you content to have an affaire à trois? I have no idea what kind of arrangement you people want to make. No one keeps me informed.”
I don’t know why I do it. I start to get up. Wanting to smash something (wanting to get away), kiss her on the mouth. I mean to end it there, but she kisses me back, a long kiss. Her vengeance more calculating than mine.
“No,” she says. “I don’t want this.”
We sit next to each other on the couch, not touching, touching. I am not him, though in his clothes, imitating him while he sleeps. His blond voice. He has an erect and correct bearing.
“I’m not unattractive to you, am I?” she whispers.
“You dance beautifully,” I say in a perfect imitation of his voice. She smells of baby powder and perfume.
“Remember where you are, whose house this is.”
We will be back, the police say. Don’t try anything foolish in our absence.
Two women, one on each side, stroking a man’s face. “Combat After-Shave makes a man dangerous to be around.” The two women tearing the man’s clothes, making growling noises, the sleeve of his jacket coming off. Right arm torn off at the socket. The man looking dazed, his mouth smiling. “Give it to him, ladies,” the sexy voice whispers. “Give it to him before someone else does.”
She gets off the sofa. I want her to go, but when she is gone I miss her. Her hands. She is turning off the lights. In the dark, invisibly, she is back. Or moving toward me. Carolyn, you cunt, stay away from my student. His Combat After-Shave makes him dangerous to be around. Eyes shut, I see her smashed under my weight. Her head twisted, a bone like a finger sticking through her neck. My eyes come open. She is there, unharmed.
“Are you asleep?” she asks.
How can I answer?
Touching my face with her fingers, her breath lingering. “Good night, Christopher,” she whispers. She is gone.
(Good night, Mother.)
I took a cab home and, dozing in the back seat, wrestled with death, who was an enormously fat woman. Death on top pressing against me. “You’ll win your life from me by love,” she said, and though she was repulsive I gave her everything I had for the sake of survival, everything — both barrels — which woke me. Tangled in a sea of sheet on their couch. Carolyn’s odor in the air.
Getting up, I was stopped by a savage pain between the legs. A burning pain. I had the sense in the fire of it that it owned me. Saw myself on a roof. Looking through the sights of a carbine. A man wearing a hat, carrying a STOP THE WAR sign, passed. I squeezed the trigger and, holding his stomach, he sat down on the sidewalk. He looked happy I had stopped him. I shot the marcher behind him. Then another. Another. The pain easing with each shot. When it was gone, it had never been. My watch had five o’clock. Morning.
I left. My name being called as I went out, following me down the stairs. “Christopher. Christopher. Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go without me.”