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The
Hemingway Resource Center Short Story Contest> Winning Entries>A
Week of Decades by S. Matheny
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A
Week of Decades
by
S.
Matheny
Sunday
In
any light, she had her mother’s hands. Especially in the light of the
emergency room that is
stark so they can see
everything. Fat wrinkly knuckles, crevices of stars and rivers. She
used to have long smooth fingers. Her mom
would brag about them, contrast them with her own, glad to
not have passed down very much of herself to her only daughter.
The one she wanted in the first place. The
one she had to birth two sons to get. She always thought her mom’s
hands looked like that because she was very
overweight and did a lot of housework. And because she started life too
young. Life for her began at age eight when her dad orphaned her by
dangling from a rope. Awareness by abrupt subtraction. She
looked at her hands. It was not about
overweight or work. Truth arrives like a slow train
that loses its brakes on the last slope of
a long journey. She was born a
paradox of young and old. The old made the young aware, which in
turn made it old. She hides her hands. An
Asian man came in. He held two syringes. He smiled broadly with metal
braces on his top teeth. From the spacing of
his teeth, he got them on recently. He introduced himself but she heard
him as she looked at him like
hearing a TV. The first needle was a pinch then a punch in the
arm. The second needle was slow, entering insidiously then drawing out
tissue nerves vessels breath. He told her to breath easy as he
tortured her. He stood over her and said You turned red. The
levity of a lead balloon. He waited for her to
cover her naked rear so he could leave. She did not care who saw her
white rear striped with pink stretch marks. She
spoke strained breathy like a tragic actress in a melodrama. She
was nauseated. She needed someone. She was a
telepathic renegade who turned against people
before they turned on her. She suffered alone because people
need explanations for suffering. They want to alleviate it. They
cannot just let it be. But now she explained
to her fetched husband the shaking the tears
the furrowing the sweating. How the warmth of his hand made it
bearable. She never understood that until now. Two shots in the big
toe. The nurse had to stop. Iodine spilled on the floor. She shook
too much for them. A shot in the other
cheek. The one trying to be invisible. The
nurse said it would be her addiction of choice. He talked to her about
something not pain-related. He found a set of 36 pastels for only
$18. Professional quality. She was not in too much pain nor too dopey
to ask if he already had some of the colors in his 24 set. She
suggested he buy additional colors individually. Two more shots in the
toe. She could not feel the nurse cutting the
nail off her big toe. The nurse pulled at it. Twisted it like a dentist
extracting a stubborn tooth. It came off. A
bloody disk. The nurse set it on a sterile pad and asked if she wanted
to keep it. She recalled the time she asked the dentist if she could
keep the tooth with the root that curved around her jawbone that took so
long to get out. He said it was bio-hazardous
waste. It was a healthy tooth. This was a
toenail rife with pus and blood. Someone with less education would come
bandage it. She lay there a long time. Blood dripped large and
thick. She wondered about fungi floating in
the air landing on her meaty toe. Two aides
came in to look at her toe. The torturing Asian with braces and a
remarkably round man with no teeth and a buzz cut asked What do you
think of it? She said it looks just like she wanted it. They walked
out laughing and satisfied. A pregnant aide
squirted saline and bandaged her toe.
Antibiotics four times per day, peroxide soaks twice per day, walk with
crutches, keep elevated, take painkillers as needed, they may
cause constipation, eat fruit, pay at the
window, come back in two days. Next time do not ignore the pain.
Monday
She
lay on the couch covered completely with the blanket from Guadalajara
except for her right foot and her head. He stood over her and laughed.
You look like a burrito, he said. What kind
of burrito, she asked. Beef, chicken, bean,
cheese, green chile, red chile, fish, goat. I don’t know.
Chicken. She wanted him to say bean and cheese.
Tuesday
The
sun was setting on the Tower Bridge in a purple and yellow sky with
orange lights glowing across the Thames before two figures who were not
them. It was a scene among many that he witnessed that he
admired that he wanted to capture as she
walked not with him as he snapped pictures around
the city, confused. As he wandered and wondered she was pacing,
looking out the window seventeen floors up,
looking at the abandoned Battersea useless
breathtaking giant pacing between the beds looking at her purse with
amber bottles inside pacing looking at her
purse pacing looking at her purse looking at her purse. She now
painted the Tower Bridge from the photo. It was black but she made it
blue in shadow and green in light. The lights
were specks but she made them suns. The figures were lost in the dark
but she brushed around them leaving white
halos standing on the bank. He left with a
kiss and she wanted him to stay wanted him to leave. She asked if
she should make dinner for him wanting him to say yes to prove
her love wanting him to say no because she did
not want to. She folded his underwear and paired his socks she threw hers in a drawer. The pain in her foot
was greater as it healed. It was good to feel something unequivocal.
Wednesday
Ben
looked at her with one eye. The other one was obscured by a lampshade.
He quickly turned his head toward the bedroom. There was nothing to
see. A stripe continued the curve of his top
eyelid down his neck. Out of the darkness in
the direction of his gaze, his brother appeared. Lumbering and
haggard from sickness. She will brush him. Ben sat in profile.
His chin like a little boy’s. He lay on the
blanket from Guadalajara. He stretched toward
her with rhapsodic eyes as if they were having a love affair. She
sneezed. Ben’s eyes were alarmed. So were Clyde’s from the floor.
After six years in her possession they still did not understand the
meaninglessness of a sneeze. Ben ran away between the vases.
Before her on the wall were rectangles
bordered in black. Black rectangles holding
rectangles of monuments, statues, flowers, toasts. A strip of four
small rectangles of goofy poses. His faces
are free. She is jealous of him. Her feet
did not reach the end of the couch. Not even close. She thought of the
documentary on TV the night previous. The Rat Pack were supplied with
endless liquor and show girls. Every man’s dream, one of them
said. Show girls whose legs would reach the
end of the couch. The documentary before that
was about corn. A guy who made hybrid corn. He was so consumed by
corn that he did not speak to his family. They could not talk to
each other during dinner because he wanted to
listen to the weather report on radio WHO in
Des Moines. He related to corn better than to people. His wife took it
out on the kids. No one knew what he was doing. Corn is corn.
His daughter is in therapy. She is in her 60s. If he had communicated
with her mom everything would have been
different, she said. If, in retrospect. If, ad
infinitum. Many times, it has nothing to do with you. Ben sits
nonchalantly by the aquarium. He glances mischievously. Naughty boys
have nothing on this cat. She whistles an
irritating tone. His ears lay back. So do
Clyde’s. He walks away. It punishes both of them.
Thursday
She
should not smile so big when she laughs. She looks ugly like that. She
has known this for many years. Once someone said she had an ugly smile,
someone who liked her. People look
down or away when she laughs hard, to not witness it. She tries to watch
it. She has a strange face. At a certain
angle a rare angle one might say she is pretty. She usually passes for
cute. But this is only when her mouth is straight. Otherwise
she is a gargoyle. She is not free. She was having a fine conversation
until she laughed too hard. She saw him look
away and went back to her desk. Ron was disappointed. She did not want
to be in the photography club. She did not
have a camera. He had other friends but they did not keep their
promises. She was glad to have that out of the
way in the morning. Her husband brought her
t-shirt design at lunch. They ate outside at a
barbecue. An elderly black couple sat a table away. The woman wore a
purple paisley top. Something her mom would wear. The man had a sweet
face. His hair was combed back, thin gray curls at the bottom. She
loved him as one loves a portrait. His
humanity captured. She loved her husband more than she let herself
realize. She loved him in a prophetic way, an intense love felt
only in loss. He sat across from her eating.
Her eyes begged him to never die, for the day
she could let him in. Then she hoped he would, so she could feel him
now. Tony’s edge was crumbling. His walls were made of sand and
water and built up high and thin. He did not
believe in jokes for fun. There is truth in every joke and he was the
incarnation. She made a joke about him. To
him. He wanted to render the joke not funny. It made her mad to walk
on eggshells for this neurotic. She drew a
picture of him at the top of her notes. He
had a time bomb on his forehead. She drew another picture. She
was eating his scared eyeball. That drawing was not convincing.
He ran from dust and boulders the same. She
wanted to tell him to stop making up demons.
They keep you from loving. She cut up sheet protectors for enough
plastic to cover her large t-shirt design. She thought of the guy at
the photography club meeting. Fat hairy. He said he wanted to be there
so he could see the reactions on people’s faces when they see his
pictures. She does not trust people who do not
have the strength to conceal their
insecurities. His pictures were not interesting. She delivered her
design to the round redhead. Wrapped in a
newspaper. So no one could see it. If no one
picked it at the contest she did not want anyone to know she had made
it. She walked through the humid air. She
tried to daydream about being beautiful or being really good at
something. But nothing would stick. The
thought appeared like a road sign.
I’m not cured. It was not her foot.
She belongs in a rainy place. This is why she
will not have children. She walked among the
drizzle overcast and was calm. She knows her future. She
will die by suicide. She is trying to find something to make
that untrue. She is painting faces. She listened to a news program on
the radio in the car. A story about a
Pakistani tennis player and his Israeli doubles
partner. It is a controversy. She wants to tell them to stop
making up demons.
Friday
She
watched the warehouse lofts turn into shacks. The boards looked placed
on top of each other. Roofs sloped like in a watercolor of an abandoned
property with a rusted tractor in front. The painter does that
for charm. The painter does not paint people
in them. The streets had names like Martin
Luther King Jr. Blvd and S. Malcolm X Ave. The shack windows offered
deals on meats or wigs. They could not provide anything but a
lease. The bridal shop had bars on the
windows. Baptist church inside a white building without windows. It was
not supposed to be a church. A stained glass window hung outside, a
bird with leaves in its mouth ‘peace’ on a ribbon at its
feet. They walked hot humid for a while to the stadium. They
were two hours early. People were getting
mohawks for free tickets. They sat on a bench
by the pond. Two red balls floated and spun large to reveal the
movement of the water. Other sculptures were
there for mystery. A family sat behind them.
Their voices said they were black. She was hot. They turned around
and saw a white man with a black woman and her kids. They walked
to a restaurant that used to be a mill. It
looked decrepit but was not. The TV was on while a violin played. A
black waiter was explaining to a Hispanic busboy what the TV was
saying. There was a shooting at an airport. Three
people died. There was a small plane crash. One died. The
violin played over the details. All of the
wait staff were black. Old or middle aged. All the cooks and busboys
were Hispanic. She felt uncomfortable. Fake demons. They ate chicken
sandwiches and fries. She tried to hear the details. He wanted to talk
about his pastel drawings. Everyone wanted to
know the race of the shooter. That would answer some questions. She did
not want to eat the fries. She had overeaten
the past two days. Ice cream. All the people
being seated were white. She wondered what the staff thought
of that. What are they being told to feel. He ordered
blackberry pie and ice cream for dessert.
Lumpy blue soup and melting mode. She was mad
because he did not get what he expected. She and he were paralyzed by
demons on both sides. He ate the soup. It was cold in the restaurant.
The violin was louder. They went outside and
sat on a park bench with a paper. A man
selling ice cream out of a pink pushcart tinkled by. He left a wake of
people eating from sticks. She looked at the ads for nightclubs
she never heard of. Before she was old enough
she imagined herself going to all the
nightclubs. Seeing everything. Not missing any more life. Dancing in
a place called Milk Bar. Where the women do not have as much milk as it
appears. Desire then fear. A mosquito bit her twice before she
realized it. It did not bite her again. The
national anthem played while she waited
outside the men’s bathroom. The guys at the hotdog stand took off their
hats like Pavlov’s dogs. She wondered if they were secretly
looking at her. Her mouth was straight. The women did not remove their
hats. They took their seats behind a fat
couple with a baby. She sat next to a guy she knew. He is Indian. There
was tension. The baby liked her. There was a
time she ignored babies. She let the baby grasp her finger. The baby
touched her toes. The baby looked at her when his mom wanted to
take a picture. It was halftime before she
talked to the guy beside her. There was
conversation about culture. She did not join. There was reason for her
to say Pakistani in a sentence she already started but she
stopped. The Indian refrained also. They wanted things to be the way
they were a month ago. After the game there
were fireworks. Music with America or USA in the
title. She watched the explosions through squinted eyes. Her
favorites shoot tiny lights in a sphere. An
audio clip of the President saying Our freedom
was attacked today. Soot rained over everyone. The Indian clapped
with everyone else. She took a picture of his face illuminated
by sparks. She wants to paint him.
Saturday
She
awoke on her back like she does when she has been sleeping hard.
He was at the dresser trying to be quiet. He rarely succeeds.
He left the room with the desired item: a pair
of socks. The clock read 7:15. She had time
to go to the lab before the art class at nine. She thought it was too
early to move around. There were other options that entailed her
remaining in bed. She could go back to sleep
and then go to the art class. But she would
miss the afternoon session for having to go to lab. She could go back
to sleep and not go to art class, take
Clyde to the vet, go to lab in the afternoon,
and paint in the evening. Clyde walked on her belly for a pat. He made
a compact curl at her side. She had not made a decision when her
thoughts floated to something she was thinking about the day
before. An evolutionary biologist at Harvard
proposed that males and females fight for
control over the growth of the fetus. This is called imprinting. But
it
was not proven to be true. It was not proven false either. She tried to
think up her own theory. A long time ago a couple had written in to
Dear Abby and said that their precocious five
year-old would make a good advice columnist.
She tried to figure it out, why some genes are imprinted. She
fell asleep without realizing it. She had a dream. She was
dressed in a long skirt and bra-like top.
Everyone looked at her strangely. The women
hated her because the outfit was tacky but her body looked good. The
men were desirous but stayed away. She was in a building like an old
university. She heard a puppy yelping and whimpering. It made
her angry because an animal was being abused
and because she would have to confront a
terrible person. She did not like to confront people who were doing bad
things. Her heart pounds and she wonders what she looks like.
Like when she told a twelve year-old boy to
stop beating the blossoms off a dogwood tree.
There was a chance he would beat her or think she was ugly. She looked
out a small window. Far below on a hill of rich green grass like in
England was a man throwing sticks to his dogs. There were two
enormous Irish setters, long wavy auburn and
brilliantly shiny, grinning and running. There
were a couple of dirty white poodles jumping around for an airborne
stick. There was a brown puppy, excited to be part of it all.
She walked up stairs to a stage in her bra-top
and long skirt. There was an audience of men
and women looking at her. She might have changed her clothes but she
already knew that she could not be anything other than what she was. She
awoke with Clyde on a purple pillow at her head. Whenever she
looked at him she thought, Sublime,
personified. Cat-ified. He was drowning in his ruff.
A fragment of her dream floated back, not a vision of it but a
detached memory of it in which she was telling
somebody that it seemed like Clyde’s ruff was
growing longer and maybe it was a sign that he was growing old. It
was 8:45. She disappointedly knew that she had time to make it
to the art class. The room was darkened even
in daylight by navy curtains. The humming fan equilibrated the room.
Her smell mixed familiarly with his. Clyde
was sublime. It was 9:05. She considered her imprinting theory again
with the goal of not falling back to sleep. A five year-old
explaining why men cheat, how to maintain your
sex life while balancing family and work,
whether or not to provide condoms for your teenager. Maybe it is not a
battle of the sexes but a mutually beneficial necessary contribution to
the fetus, a genetic argument for the need of
children for both a mother and a father. She
felt her face to see if the bumps were any smaller. Her face
was trying to be ugly. She had an arsenal of infinite
combinations of salicylic acid, adapalene,
azelaic acid, sulfur, hydrocortisone, benzoyl
peroxide, and various antibiotics and antihistamines. It seemed to be
working but her face was red blotchy. Her mind floated to the day
before, when they were leaving the home
improvement store with a light for her
makeshift studio, a corner in the spare bedroom. The sky had rained
earlier yet still held on to its gray, like
sadness after crying, and the air smelled
hopeful. She felt a small impulse to say to him, I think we should have
a baby, but did not because she knew she would take it back later and
did not want to confuse him. Another fragment of her dream
appeared, this time a vision of her stroking
the soft taut skin of a young girl’s cheek, a
young girl who liked her, maybe was related to her, and she said You’re
so pretty. The girl beamed and skipped away.
But she was pretty only in the way that all
little girls are pretty, not in a way that would predict her future. The
girl had a healing hole in the side of her head that repelled her blonde
hair. She peeled a scab from her forehead and
felt wetness. She got up. Clyde opened his eyes but did not otherwise
seemed disturbed. A strain of song entered
her head like a skinny snake Oh when the saints Go
marching in Oh when the saints go march-ing in… One of the songs
she would hum to herself when she was young,
in the backyard checking the growth of the
dandelions before they would be mowed down. Their stems could grow over
a foot tall before being cut into hollow tubes leaking bitter
milk. It occurred to her that she never understood the meaning of that
song. She let it slither back and listened to the words Oh Lord I want
to be in that number When the saints go march-ing
in… Then she realized that it is a song about
death. She went into the carpeted bathroom and sat on the toilet.
Clyde entered. Sauntering potbelly pig in fuzzy gray velvet.
Glowing in the muted light. He stopped at her
legs and presented his head. His eyes were
black marbles reflecting a point of light in each, from a mysterious
light source in the dark room. They were searching; she thought it was
his love for her. He shook his head and expelled mucous on her hand; it
had been the bewildered ecstasy of a sneeze.
He sauntered back out. His tail hovered
vertically like attached to a string, a sign of happiness, the opposite
of gravity.
The
End
©2002 S. Matheny
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