Chapter 1 #11
Why not get off him? Couldn’t I see he didn’t feel great?
Anyway, it was dull. A dull topic. Maybe not to me, though.
Maybe to me it was interesting. Maybe I was the type of gal who couldn’t tell dull from interesting.
Maybe I was the type of gal who had a bit of the dullard about her. Was I? A ditz? A moron? A dope?
My eyes (as they had done in that previous realm, when I found myself insulted) filled with tears.
Causing a delicious feeling of sudden power to arise in him.
Airhead, he whispered fiercely.
Space case, dumb bunny.
Then, as if to drive in the knife:
Stupid bitch.
—
I went into a crouch, leapt up through the ceiling, rose higher and higher through the night air, everything below growing smaller, smaller, more schematic:
Turrets, cupolas, finials, walls of glass, yards, greenhouses, separate shingled studios, sheds, pools, cabanas.
I swooped low, rolled over onto my back.
Because I could.
And because it calmed me.
To be called “stupid”? “Stupid bitch”?
By this undersized, foul-mouthed lout?
Who brought harm to birds?
And associated with hideous, low companions?
No.
No, thank you.
It was sometimes good, when rattled, to think in the highest possible register.
And, by this, preserve one’s elevation.
So:
The low-hanging midsummer clouds had fled and the canopy of trees overhead resembled a vast mouth in mid-laugh, framing a panorama of twinkling stars that, given the staggering wealth below, seemed to shine upon the neighborhood by compunction, as if hired for the evening to do so.
(Yes.
Better already.)
The streets of his neighborhood below seemed, in their affluence, to be asserting their right to be lazily curved; they lay like tremendous snakes, traceable in the darkness by the irregular contour of ornate carriage lamps, one per spacious lawn.
Beyond the neighborhood lay a forest.
Beyond the forest lay a six-lane avenue.
Along that avenue I went, ten feet or so above it, right down its middle.
The world along it was like the world I had known and yet not like it at all.
Some tendency suppressed and kept within decent bounds in my time had been unleashed and any shame about it so intensely rationalized that it no longer occurred to anyone that the swollen ugliness everywhere was a direct result of the heedless indulgence of some pervasive acquisitive hunger.
If I might say it that way.
Greed, greed, one could taste it in the air.
The gas stations were not the simple cubes of my time but garishly lit fortresses of glass, the enormous signs looming over them seeming to quarrel with one another by way of hideous scrolling slogans (“Special Heinek 6-PAC $12 Fri–Mon LottoMondo YES!!!”), the commerce proceeding therein possessing a fierce yet desultory quality, as if all pleasure had been wrung from the exchange, the money below changing hands with a feeling of mutual resentment, as if obtaining it had been too hard on the one side and the need for it too great on the other for any joy to pertain around the transaction.
In a vacant lot, among long reedy grasses, lay an abandoned couch.
I dropped down onto it.
Well.
Never before had I felt such aversion to a charge.
And, in truth, had begun to hate him.
—
As if drawn there by my presence, two figures of our ilk approached: a handsome black man and a rotund white woman who radiated a likable, perplexed kindness, as if, in life, her tendency to foul up the smallest thing had rendered her perpetually cheerful, placing her somehow permanently beyond humiliation.
He carried a rudimentary rifle and wore an outfit of rugged buckskin and moccasins marked by extensive wear and an almost unimaginable density of skillful stitching.
She, in “flip-flops” and an immense, baggy “T-shirt” marked with a star and the words “Dallas Cowboys,” was continually and absent-mindedly slapping a bulging wallet against a pair of frayed “cutoffs.”
I got hit and killed just there, she called out to me cheerfully.
It was “game day,” her friend added. Clyda here was making a “chip run.” She got distracted, and—
It was a eclipse, Clyda said. I had one of those “viewer thingies.”
There were “chips” positively everywhere, said her friend. And Clyda lying motionless there among them.
What’s funny, Clyda said, is that the place I’d just been? For the chips? Used to be right here. Little meat market. Manny’s.
That also sold chips, her friend added helpfully.
For your part, William, Clyda said. You died in a humble lean-to. Just there.
Near present-day Jiffy Lube, William said.
Brownstone Branch being, at the time of your death, Clyda said, not a proper paved road at all, but a narrow footpath through the woods, used by Comanche and Caddo.
I was making my way east, William said. To Louisiana. Hoping to reunite there with my sister. Suddenly falling ill, encountering the lean-to, I resolved to encamp there for the night.
But you never did leave that lean-to, said Clyda.
Never did, said William sadly.
William was a trapper, said Clyda. One of the best.
And Clyda was “between gigs,” he said.
But enough about us, said Clyda.
(But it would not be.
I knew their type:
Tormented, obsessive, grasping, decidedly not elevated. Generally to be avoided.
And yet here I was again, as in life: held in place by politeness.)
You did not succeed in viewing the eclipse, said William.
My viewer thingy ended up over there in the weeds, said Clyda.
And is there still, said William. Albeit returned to dust.
You never reached your sister, said Clyda. Your corpse, partly devoured by coyotes, remained rotting in that lean-to, through the long, unseasonably cold winter that followed.
But enough about us, William said.
They turned to me with difficulty, doing their best to feign a modicum of interest.
You, ma’am? said William.
What’s your story? said Clyda.
They seemed to be bracing themselves in case I might answer.
No doubt your end was fascinating? said William.
My end? said Clyda. Was fascinating. To me. In my final moments, I was hit by a second car. Can you believe it? That’s when I knew I was definitely not making it back. To Adrian’s. Where my friends were.
Waiting for the chips, said William.
Adrian’s house? said Clyda. Gone. There was no house there for a while, then there was this different house. Then that one got torn down. And now?
Forest, said William.
All forest, said Clyda. Jeez Louise.
In the final hours of my suffering, said William, two cowpokes came by, saw that I was of the darker hue, and rode on.
Heartless, said Clyda. Not even a drink of water did they offer.
It was hard, said William. Hard for me.
It’s hard for everyone there at the end, said Clyda.
Hard for you too, ma’am, no doubt? said William.
Both were trembling with the effort of trying to avoid once again turning the conversation back to themselves.
To no avail.
Then night came on, William said. And I thought: I shall never see another sunrise. My sister will forever wonder what became of me.
I couldn’t believe it, honestly, said Clyda. I actually felt my spine crack. And never did find out who won the game.
She looked at me hopefully, as if I might know.
When Clyda first arrived, William said, I had been here nearly one hundred and fifty years. And alone, always alone.
Alone no more, Clyda said. Am I right?
Alone no more, said William. Truly. What a happy day that was for me.
For me? said Clyda. Not the best.
But now? said William.
No complaints, said Clyda.
And yet, said William.
Sometimes boring, said Clyda.
At first her story completely bored me, said William.
Likewise, said Clyda.
Because it was not my story, said William.
Same, said Clyda.
Then, gradually, we learned, said William. We became, with time, nominally more able to endure listening to one another.
And now we hardly mind it at all, said Clyda.
Although, always best to be brisk, said William.
Keep things snappy, said Clyda.
Brevity much preferred, said William.
Get through your deal as fast as you can, said Clyda. So as not to bore William.
So as not to bore Clyda, said William.
(Good God.
Were they recruiting me? Auditioning me?)
The end is hard, William said.
Hard for everyone, said Clyda.
Hard for you too, ma’am, no doubt? William said, with a prompting nod.
Well, no, actually.
The end had not been hard for me at all.
—
For me, it had just been: sliding into the car, thinking about where to buy the roast (Humbolt’s?
O’Malia?), then about autumn (did the cold weather cause the leaves to turn or did something chemical happen inside the trees at the same time every year?), putting the key in the ignition, turning the key, and then—
No pain, no fear, just a feeling of disinterested interest as I found myself propelled up through the roof, “I” going off in one direction and what was left of “Jill ‘Doll’ Blaine” going off in, well, several others.
Then, as if flung by an invisible hand, “I” kept going, across town, tracking Tremaine Avenue, cutting across Elman Park, being guided, it felt, to some specific place, and soon I was nearly there, and found myself zipping through the gray picket fence of a unkempt yard, making a beeline for a grim-looking fellow who sat at a metal table nervously smoking, and then I passed directly into him, coming, in this way, to know rather too much about him.
Over me washed a feeling that no one got me, no one liked me, I could always tell from the first minute I met someone, by that snot-assed look on his or her face, like, Ugh, no no no, get away from me, dirtbag, pronto.
And that starts to eat at a guy.
You think I’m shit? Okay, you got it, I’m shit.
Watch your wallet, watch your back, watch your house, fuckhead.
Like that.