The story has not yet begun. The author is seated. He is examining
a
page on which a list of apparently random images in the form of single
words, phrases, complete and incomplete sentences have been written.
• a few sidewalks
• around the darkest point
• providing care is taken to keep it clean
• It will weigh 800 pounds and be pitched
in the key of A.
• The mill will be closed for three weeks.
• It varied predictably during the course
of each day,
• a lightning bolt
• "or sticky rolls," she said.
The author makes a mark on the paper with his pen, then returns to
the first item: a few sidewalks. He pictures a paved walk and places
it, at random, in the woods behind the house. He is about to place
a second walk at right angles to the first but somewhat deeper in
the woods when she enters, landing flat-footed, aims outstretched,
in the middle of the first sidewalk. She's wearing faded blue over-alls
and a striped t-shirt.
"Sticky rolls," she says as she lands.
He sets her aside.
The story is still not
begun. The author likes the cool geometrical approach the idea a few
sidewalks seems to embody. He takes five and sets them down, some
at right angles, others diagonally, in the woods behind the house.
He wants to imagine the landscape they'll eventually help to create.
He hangs an alarm clock in the tree. He darkens the air in the woods
and drives lightning into its darkest point. He takes a lighted cigar,
forces it to glow brightly, then sets it down next to a boot on the
first cement block of the nearest sidewalk.
She's playing hop-scotch on his second cement walk. He tries to ignore
her.
He's designing a fire
extinguisher for the landscape. He remembers the Power Pac that used
to hang in his grandmother's kitchen. It had a shape he always liked.
The cylinder was long and slim and the top, through which the CO2
was expelled, was funnel shaped and perfectly proportioned. The label
appealed to him too. It announced the virtues of Power Pac modestly,
in 6 pt. type. "Power Pac," it said, "is clean, safe,
odorless, non-toxic, non-asphyxiating, non poisonous, non-staining..."
You had to squint to read it.
He makes his own fire extinguisher
thick and stubby. "Fire extinguisher," he writes on the
label in letters an inch high. He starts a small leaf fire and extinguishes
it. He hangs the fire extinguisher up on a tree trunk when he's through.
He's pleased. He steps back to examine the scene he's created. The
alarm clock goes off. At first he doesn't understand where the sound
is coming from. He slaps his hands to his ears to cut out the vibrations.
Then he grabs the clock and pushes all the buttons. "When nothing
happens he hits it. He hits it a second time. And a third. He throws
it down hard against the cement sidewalk. The glass breaks.
The story begins.
The story begins in another
place. It begins in a town in northern Pennsylvania.
The man enters the town by driving across the Susquehanna River on
a cantilever bridge. The man does not think, "This is the Susquehanna
River." He does not notice the cantilever bridge. His eyes are
fixed on the road and he thinks only of the directions he has been
given. Midway across the bridge he maneuvers his car into the left
lane.
On the far side of the bridge he bears left and drives north on North
Washington Avenue. He counts the blocks. One...two...three. He turns
right at the Baptist Church. If he has turned at the correct place
he will see a Gulf station two blocks ahead, and beyond that the old
railroad station. Martz Trailways will be on the right. He sees the
Gulf station.
He draws up in the parking lot of the bus station and with his engine
still idling, leans forward and rests his head against the steering
wheel. He does not think anything. In a minute he will give himself
simple directions. Turn off the engine. Put the key in your pocket.
Open the door.
The bus station isn't crowded. There are a few people waiting for
the bus to the city, not many. At the front of the station, behind
the counter where the departure times are given, Philadelphia on the
right, New York City on the left, a single woman issues tickets and
answers the phone. "Martz Trailways," she says into the
phone, "Can I help you?" A second phone is already ringing.
He gets his ticket while she repeats her greeting into the second
phone. "Martz Trailways," she says, nesting the receiver
between her shoulder and chin and smiling at him, "Can I help
you?"
"Yes," he says. The froginess of his voice embarrasses him.
He clears his throat. "New York City," he says.
To the left of the counter a sign reads, "EXIT."He sits
stiffly in a molded orange plastic chair and watches the woman behind
the counter. Suddenly he wants to leave the place. He stands up and
walks quickly to the counter. He returns his ticket, then moves to
the side door. As he starts his car the loud speaker announces the
arrival of the bus for New York City. He backs out of the lot and
reversing his directions, turns left onto North Washington. When he
reaches the cantilever bridge he takes a deep breath. He thinks of
the work he will do when he gets home. He is beginning to feel very
happy.
The author wants to re-picture the
landscape to the rear of the house. He returns to the woods. This
time he approaches from a different direction, pushing his way through
the stand of small aspen on the north side of the house. Berry bushes
snag his pants. Almost at once he becomes aware of the suspension
of sound. He stands very still; he wants the wood sounds to return.
A twig snaps at his back. He spins quickly, catching a glimpse of
the girl's head perched on the limb of a tree. It's too bizarre. He
rubs his eyes; there is no head.
The woods darken. He pushes on, ducking under hemlock branches and
skirting the heavy growth of briars. He comes to the area where he
had placed the sidewalks. The pavements are cracked. The edges are
broken and pitted with open places. Yet he remembers oiling the forms
and tamping the concrete so honeycombs wouldn't appear. He even remembers
waiting an extra day before removing the forms.
He looks for the cigar and finds it smoldering in a pile of freshly
heaped pine needles. The fire extinguisher has been thrown down behind
a bush. It is dented and rusty. He pulls anxiously at the lever. The
tank is empty. He cannot find the boot.
He assigns the disorder a cause. He says, "The girl did this."
As
soon as he says it he knows it is true.
He hides between the branches of a large hemlock, hugging his body
close to the trunk. He thinks the girl will come; he wants the girl
to come.
Darkness comes, the girl does not.
The story begins again.
The landscape is undefined. Its contours are obscured by rain. There
is thunder.
A man is walking in the road. He's wearing a yellow slicker suit and
gray green rubber boots with yellow laces. He stops and looks hard
at the large gray ramshackle house. The house is located on a country
road three miles from town. The nearest house is a quarter of a mile
away.
The author doesn't know who the man is or why he has stopped. He
places himself at an upstairs window to watch. He stands behind the
curtain; he doesn't want to be seen.
The man in the road moves on. The author suspects he may have moved
onto the lawn, but he can't see. He slips from behind the curtain
and crosses the room. The hall is dark and thick with dust. The author
opens the door to the front bedroom and slips in. He parts the curtains.
He can't see the man. He moves quickly to the next room, and the next.
At each window he parts the curtains and looks out. The man has disappeared.
Suddenly he thinks of the girl. He wonders if she is still in the
woods. He wonders if she is safe. He's worried; he imagines the man
has crossed the yard and entered the woods. He leaves the window and
moves quickly down the hall. He takes the stairs two at a time. He
throws open the hall closet; his slicker suit isn't there. He sees
it on a hall chair. His boots are under the table. He's in a hurry;
he doesn't bother to tie the laces.
Outside he takes a quick look at the house. It's dreary. He's the
only person who lives there.
He hurries into the woods. The light is fading. The trees are no
longer separate. Water runs down his face. It's hard to see. He thinks
maybe he's lost his way. He thinks he's going in circles. He stops.
He forces himself to think about direction. He hasn't found the girl.
When he gets back the front door is open. He can't remember whether
he left it open or not. There's a puddle of water in the front hall.
He's puzzled. He pushes an electric switch. There's no electricity.
He can't decide what to do. He stands very still. The rain water runs
off his slicker onto the hall floor.
He decides to go to the dining room for candles. When he gets there
a candle is already burning. Hot wax is running onto the dining room
table.
He turns back into the hall. A pale light flickers in the study. He
walks toward it on tiptoe, but his slicker suit is noisy; it makes
a
hissing sound as it rubs against itself. He quickly removes it and
drops it onto a hall chair. He shoves his boots under the table. Then
he tiptoes to the study door.
A man is seated at the
desk. He's writing. The girl is seated in a
rocking chair behind him. Neither the man nor the girl look up as
he
enters.
The author is puzzled
by the girl; he doesn't know what to make
of her. He invents a history for her. She is the daughter of a suburban
New Jersey family. Her father is a dentist. She and her mother are
constantly fighting. He constructs a scene in which, after a particularly
heavy exchange, the girl hits her mother and leaves home, taking with
her as a memento of family life, a potted plant—an aralia elegantissima,
he thinks.
The girl hitch-hikes west, through Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois.
In Nebraska she picks up a ride to the coast where she joins up with
a lot of other run-away kids. A sixteen year old from Lake Forest
eats her aralia...
The author sighs. It doesn't fit. He goes to the window. The girl
is
swinging on a swing in the back yard. She doesn't look like a run-away.
She doesn't look like the daughter of a suburban family.
He begins to watch her closely. When he first reached the window she
was holding the inch thick ropes with folded arms and dragging her
feet in the dust. Now she changes her position. She grabs the ropes
in her hands, stretches out and pulls, then drops her legs and, as
she passes backwards over the earth, pushes hard. She does this several
times. Each time she soars higher and higher. He becomes caught up
in her effort; he wants to go down and swing with her.
Suddenly she drops her legs and turning sideways looks up at his
window.
His face burns. He moves away instantly. She's from Brooklyn, he
tells himself, trying to minimize his embarrassment with a new story.
She's the daughter of a middle class Italian family.
He sits down and covers his face with his hands. He acknowledges
his embarrassment. Then he takes up his pen and begins to doodle.
He makes odd designs, geometric figures; he writes words, place names:
Michigan, Milwaukee, Manhattan. He underlines Manhattan. He makes
a sketch of a stick figure, swinging, then quickly splats ink on it
and stands up. Did she know he was watching her? What must she think
of him?
He goes to the window. He hides himself very carefully behind the
curtain before looking out.
She's swinging on the swing in the back yard. She's holding the
inch thick ropes with folded arms; her feet are dragging. Suddenly
she knows that he's watching. She changes her position. She takes
the ropes in her hands, stretches out and pulls, then drops her legs
and as she passes backwards over the earth, pushes hard. She repeats
the effort, rising higher and higher with each push.
She knows he's standing behind the
curtain. She thinks, "He'll
want to come down soon, I’m sure of it...but he won't. As soon
as he wants to enough he'11 do something else..."
She pulls forward..."He loves me." She pushes back..."
He loves
me not." Suddenly her face lights up and she turns sideways on
the swing and looks up at his window. The curtains move uncomfortably,
then settle back into stillness. She's embarrassed him. He's gone.
She laughs and lets her feet drag over the earth. "He'll be back,"
she says aloud. "Five minutes, ten, he can't help himself, he'll
be
back." The thought pleases her. She lifts her legs and pulls
forward
again, then drops them and pushes back. As the swing starts forward
a second time she jumps off and walks away into the woods. She takes
her aralia with her.
The author stares out of the window. He stares at the barren patch
of land that lies behind the house. He stares at a few weeds and the
splotches of earth where nothing will take root.
The author thinks of Bleecker Street. Bleecker Street 1956, before
the advent of the elegant antique shops. The wind is blowing on Bleecker
Street. It wraps a newspaper around his ankle. He laughs and shakes
it free. In front of him a little boy is walking between two adults.
He holds each by a hand. The wind blows. The little boy lifts his
feet and is blown straight out, parallel to the sidewalk. They all
laugh...
He has good memories of Bleecker Street, but he will not go back.
The days pass.
He's in the middle of a story. He's standing at the window trying
to
think his way across the city to the park. He wants to get his character
to the park before noon. But he can't keep his mind on the directions.
He keeps seeing the girl as he saw her for the first time in the woods
behind the house. She's dressed in faded blue overalls and a t-shirt.
She has that goofy grin on her face. At first he doesn't notice her
feet. When he does he starts to laugh.
"Her feet are much too large," he says.
The shoemaker, a small obliging man with a bald head, moves quickly
in and squats by her side. He feels her right foot, then puts his
thumb down forcibly on the big toe. "We could give her a size
8," he says, "nothing smaller."
The author nods. "A size 8 then." He feels suddenly very
pleased with himself. He nods again, then turns away and crosses the
wide dirty city street. A small wind is blowing. It catches a page
of the news and wraps it around his ankle. He swings his leg out in
a semi-circle to get free. He enjoys the movement and allows his whole
body to turn.
There are three boys on the comer. They're watching him, staring at
him out of tough, cynical faces. One of them is about to speak to
him.
He shifts his direction. He moves down the Avenue and turns left on
4th., pleased that the way comes so easily now that he has actually
started. No one follows him.
When he reaches the park, he slows down. The park is small. It's more
like an island in the middle of city traffic than a park. There are
a few trees, a small plot of gray earth, a walk...but no benches,
no place to sit down. He stops under a sycamore, then leans back,
resting his body against the trunk of the tree.
As he relaxes he catches the familiar reflection of himself in the
window. He smiles and checks his watch. It's 11:45. He's reached the
park ahead of time.
Automatically his thoughts turn to the girl. He sees her again, standing
on the pavement in her overalls and t-shirt, her legs apart and her
arms held out, palms forward as if inviting applause. But there's
something wrong. Her pants are turned up and her shoes and socks are
visible, It makes her foot look extremely large.
"I thought we gave her a smaller foot," he says.
There's no answer. He looks around. The shoemaker isn't there. Instead
he sees the three boys. They're walking through the park three abreast.
He thinks he sees a blade flash.
"Run," he calls out.
The girl starts to run. She runs toward the street. She runs toward
the moving traffic. He follows. He can hear their footsteps behind
him. He can hear them getting closer.
"Run," he cries.
She glances back over her shoulder. Why? He opens his mouth to cry
out again, but it's too late. A car horn blows, a yellow volkswagen
swerves.
In the second before impact he sees a flash of something, a picture
of himself. His hand goes out. It touches the familiar reflection
in the window. He's in the middle of a story.
He cannot visualize the
end.
He spends more and more of his time at the window. He begins to notice
for the first time how the woods have grown rusty with the fall, how
the fields have withered and been flattened by wind and rain. He stares
for a long time at the dark stain where the drainage from the pasture
is poor. It's late—late fall, late afternoon, late.
It upsets him to be aware of how much time has passed. He wants to
think only of his story. He wants to be able to visualize the end.
He drifts back to his desk. He reads and rereads what he has written.
He is bored and dissatisfied. His head aches.
Sometimes he rests. Propping himself up against the bolsters on his
bed, he tries to empty his mind. He tries to think nothing. But his
mind is relentless. Even in sleep it persists, repeating obsessively
what he has read, questioning, looking for an end, waiting for an
end to come. She is waiting too, he knows that. Out there in the fields,
at the edge of the woods, she's waiting, waiting for him to finish,
waiting for him.
"He loves me...he loves me not...
The bus station isn't crowded. There are a few people waiting for
the bus to the city, not many. At the front of the station, behind
the counter where the departure times are listed, Philadelphia on
the right, New York City on the left, a single woman issues tickets
and answers the phone. "Martz Trailways," she says into
one phone, "Can I help you?" A second phone is already ringing.
He gets his ticket while she repeats her greeting into the second
phone. "Martz Trailways," she says, nesting the receiver
between her shoulder and chin and smiling at him, "Can I help
you?"
"New York City," he says.
To her left, a few feet beyond the counter, a sign reads, "EXIT."
He pushes through the half open door.
Rain is falling on the city—a soft little rain that barely wets
his
coat as he walks.
He takes a room south of the bus terminal, in an old hotel. He's been
there before. He thinks he's been there before, years and years before,
perhaps in this very room, but he can't be sure. They've done something
to it, rearranged it in some way. The bed, the furniture... but he
can't remember. It's comfortable enough and that's all he really cares
about.
They have changed the bath, he knows it as soon as he enters. It has
shiny chrome faucets, claw like shapes, and a white mirror flecked
with gold. The shower curtain is white plastic with gold designs.
The girl pops her head through the shower curtain. "Ta-ra,"
she says
and disappears back into the interior of the shower
.
He laughs. He's glad he's come afterall. He leans forward then and
examines his face in the new mirror. It's a pale, not unhandsome face.
The jaw is strong. It makes him feel good sometimes, that face. It
makes him feel good now. He touches the reflection, affectionately
on the nose.
Later he settles down on the bed, props himself up against the two
foam pillows and opens the book. There's no place to go yet, not yet,
and so he reads. But even as he turns the first page, the print begins
to slip away from him. He squints hard to bring it back, but it only
wavers there for a minute before slipping away again. The story isn't
very interesting...
He hears the elevator rise to the third floor. He hears the elevator
doors open and close. He hears, no, he tries to hear the footsteps,
holds his breath to hear them, wanting to know which way they'll go
on the thick green carpet, wanting to know which way they'll go on
the thick brown carpet, wanting to know....
"Stupid;" She's standing on the pavement in front of him.
"Stupid:"
she's saying.
He's bewildered, even a little frightened. "I'm sorry,"
he says, then
stops himself. He can't remember what he's sorry for; he can't remember
what he's done.
"Stupid!" she says. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
The elevator moves on to the fourth floor. He can hear the doors open
and close.
"You're not young, you know." His mother says that. "At
forty-seven
you're not young."
"Damn!" He sits up. It's dark. For a minute he remains fixed
to the bed listening to the wail of a siren as it harrows the night.
Then he relaxes. He can hear the darkness within the four walls perfectly.
He knows it is empty. He turns on the light, gets up and crosses the
room to the bath.
But there's a dark stain on his mind. He feels old and stupid.
He returns and stands
in front of the window. It's late. very late. Across the street the
buildings are mostly dark. He can distinguish night lights on the
interior stairwell of one of the buildings; in another two rooms are
brilliantly lighted. He thinks he can hear the sound of music. But
it's raining still, quietly, and he thinks he might be mistaken. In
the country a quiet rain sometimes fills the gutters with music.
He yawns. It's too late to go out and eat. Instead he crosses the
room, opens the door and stands looking down the empty corridor. Blue,
the carpet is blue, and worn. Near the elevators there's the usual
crock filled with sand. Nothing else. Nothing.
He closes the door. There's a weariness in him. If he were in company
at this very moment, every word in him would strain against the weight
of that weariness; his tongue would be thick and swollen with it.
Alone it's easier. He lies down and falls asleep.
When he wakes it's all
suddenly clear. He's done all this before,
including waking here, in this bed, with a book under his body and
his hand fast asleep. In a minute he'll go stand at the window and
while he tries to work the circulation back into his hand, he'll look
up at the water towers. He'll notice the puddles of water that have
collected on the rooves. He'll look for a long time at the yellow
brick apartment building across the way, the four windows spread out
across the top floor, and the woman, the woman seated at her easel.
He's right. There it is, there she is. He has been here before; he
has
done this before. It's incredible. Even if he were to sit down this
moment and say, "I won't do anything, nothing," it would
be something he had done before. He knows he's thought this before,
and he can't stop it. He can’t stop the feeling.
He turns away from the window. Maybe the force of his regular patterns
will dissipate the feeling. He shaves. He does it very slowly, trying
to prolong his stay in the bathroom, to keep himself away from the
window. But he's beginning to feel strange about that too. And the
feeling is lasting too long He wipes the mirror with his towel and
looks into the gray puzzled eyes. Then all of a sudden he throws the
towel down. There's no point to this. No point at all. He has to get
out of here. He has to be in the park by noon.
He's forgotten the directions. For a minute he stands on the curb
trying to think his way there, but he can't. He keeps seeing her,
not as he'll see her this time, but as she was the first time—standing
there, flat-footed, with her arms outstretched. She was wearing blue
cover-alls and a striped t-shirt. At first he didn't notice her aralia....
Her aralia! Oh Lord!
He laughs then and swings out across the wide
dirty city street. Her aralia, it was huge!
A small wind is blowing. It catches up a page of the news and wraps
it around his ankle. He swings his leg out, raises it and swings it
out in a semi-circle to free himself, then lets himself go with it
and turns a complete circle in the street.
There are three boys on the corner. They're watching him. They're
watching him out of tough, cynical faces.
He turns away, down the Avenue, trying not to hear what the one is
saying. "Hey, I'm talkin to ya. Whadda ya turnin ya goddamn fucking
back on me for?...Hey..."
He walks quickly. "Hey, I'm talkin to ya..." He keeps hearing
it over and over again.
Then he forgets. He turns left on 4th. He finds the park without any
trouble. No one follows him. He sighs and slows his pace; he's early.
It's a funny little park, more like an island in the middle of city
traffic than a park. There are a few trees, a small plot of gray earth,
a walk...but no benches, no place to sit down. He stops under a sycamore.
He leans back, resting his body against the trunk of the tree.
But he's beginning to feel strange again. It seems to him that something
is wrong, that he has no control over his situation. He's being walked
through a series of already familiar events; he's done all this before.
He tries to bring the girl back. He tries to think of her. He wants
to see her again as he first saw her. Instead she comes, frightened,
hurrying across the park, trying to say something to him that he can't
quite hear. He sees them then. The three boys. They're following her,
walking three abreast, in step. "Hey, I'm talkin to ya ..."
the one is saying. The voice is hard, cruel. He sees a blade flash.
"Run," he calls out, "Run!"
She runs. She runs toward the street. She runs toward the moving traffic
He follows. He can hear them. They break step and begin to run. They're
getting closer. And then she glances back over her shoulder. He opens
his mouth to cry out, but it's too late. In that instant she plunges
into the city traffic. A car horn blows, a yellow volkswagen swerves.
In the second before impact he sees a flash of something: a reflection
of himself, and then his hand shoots out to grab her, to try and draw
her back, this time, this one last time...
It recoils in an explosion of glass.
He stands at the broken
window, looking out over the withered fields to the woods. The blood
is running down his fingers; it is falling on the floor at his feet.
But he can see her. He can see her in the distance. She's waiting
for him as he knew she would, waiting for him to come, waiting for
the end, waiting for now.
(TOP)
