| Fiction: paper |
Posted by
dubclerk on Monday, November 12, 2001 - 12:33 PM PST
The paper, with its folds and rough edges, each thick with weight, but delicate enough to back me off with a cut, reminds me of the paper targets I used in the backyard as a kid. This paper, fat with wrinkles, offers her possibilities beyond the yellow college-ruled rose after rose after rose she is accustomed to using for verses of love and pain, blackened with wet double crossings of heavy ink, smeared, wasted, bitter similes and catastrophic metaphors. The day! The day will be wonderful when her story comes true, when her words actually mean exactly what she intends. But still, the paper may end up in the trash, crumpled yellow and black, bumblebee rose, still full of stings. Full of itchy poison. Someday. But this is now and this paper is empty as this future is blank - waiting for just the right thought to come through just the right pen.
last day, being paper --
She lifts my shirt and writes on my back as I grind the mash of wetness into pulp for pressing and drying. I work the muscles in my arms and back slowly so she won't be annoyed with me. She finally falls asleep and I go quietly into the bathroom to look in the mirror. She has written up the side of my neck -- this is where his blood flows to his brain -- backward so I can read it in the mirror. I stretch and twist to see my back and it says -- spinal adjustments are healthy for the entire body -- then the writing spirals around my kidneys and disappears behind the elastic of my boxers. I don't need to see the rest to know what the words say. I rush silently to her drawer and pull out the papers she has been writing on, only to see those words are also backwards. The dresser's mirror reflects my face, an explanation resting below my chin, partially read as -- . . . I have no will but am totally responsible for my degrading life. I have been given a gift, but it is wasted on indulgence and pity. I am going to kill somebody soon. I hope it isn't myself. There is time to . . . --
day one
. . . silly, silly. Paper. He's given me paper. I've had enough. One year is enough to know. Good thing, now I have something to write him a note on. I ? (definitely "I") have no will but am totally responsible for my degrading life. . . jokes all the time . . . going to kill somebody soon. I hope it . . . hurts. So, this is real paper. Feels like my underarm. Soaks up all the ink. There's my life -- on paper. I can catch it easily. There. It's back. Too easy.
Once, my mother gave me a broken doll for my tenth birthday. She said it broke on the way home that very day and she didn't have time to get another one. Besides, it was the last one and I should be grateful. Strange. I was. It was my favorite doll, seeing my future inside its wrecked body and tilted head. Unsure adult words and intonations. Unable to steer around things to come. Limp, ready for action. Someone else's action. I dressed it in the finest doll clothes, leaving past favorites cold and in the corner of my smelly new room. I hid my dirty underwear beneath the bed. So I wore the same two pairs over and over, trying to keep the rest clean. All the while, my doll had the best and cleanest clothes. Practice. Practice. Washing my grown up clothes would be this much fun. I'd get to drive and eat junk food all the time. Potato chips, fries, bacon, candy. I'd scribble in all my books and burn things when I was certain never to need them again. Ashes, final dust. Damn, he shows up at the worst times, bothering me. Knocking. Knocking. Knocking. He says, "Honey are you all right?" I was almost lost, with my doll and within my future. "Honey?" Honey? why honey? Will people smear me, eat me, and then shit me out?
day two
. . . so maybe I like the paper. Where did it come from? never seen anything like it at the mall no back home no I don't know. Mystery. He looks very proud that I like it enough to carry it with me. I might need to make a note to myself:
- finish laundry
- grocery store
- write letter to Grandma Keller
- make chicken for dinner
- watch news (look for friends)
While driving I had an idea for a children's show - Rugby the Rhino. He would challenge all the other animals to various games, eventually leading to a game of rugby to break a tie. Who could possibly beat a rhino at rugby? Had to write it down. Had to keep driving. Hard work was ahead. At the light, now stopped - time passed too quickly and I barely started the note. Had to drive toward hard work ahead. Hard work. Then the daydreams started about the children's show. Costumes, other animals' names, their games, lessons on life embedded in the story. Green light. Go forward to hard work. The paper came in handy. Secret 'thank you' to you. Silent thanks.
day three
. . . home! He sent me home. "Cut! You're not paying attention. Get lost." The cameras shut down and I left in a hurry. My paper had been sitting in the warm car all morning, growing, curled up in the glovebox. Don't even own gloves. On the way home the air-conditioning blew the paper, smoothing out the curls, flattening it back to normal. No stupid chances now. No mistakes. My newest doll. I still feet the hot lights on my bare skin. No directors here. $250 an hour, I gave up $2000 today. By next week I could be naked and cold in some rotting corner downtown. The new clothes I have could be gone. Interchangeable anyway. Any size 4 could slide into them and then wiggle right out, with cameras . . .
. . . still rolling. Don't let her stop. Make her promises, whatever. Candy! There's still a lot of candy left, honey. Don't you want some candy? Go for a fast drive? -- let you sit in my lap and steer the car too if you want. That's better. (Tilt her head. I said keep the fucking thing working.) Come on, give me smiles. Don't look over here honey, just keep . . .
. . . working.
I haven't told Grandma Kellor anything, but she probably knows. She knows everything about me it seems. Seventh grade starts tomorrow and I'll be the only one with a hole in her body that bleeds all the time. Suzy won't call anymore. I wish she would give me back the toys that I let her borrow. Sometimes I hate her more than anybody - except that man who calls me Honey.
day four, on paper --
She writes about my every move, my every move, my every move. A bit obsessed with her new gift, she never leaves it alone, even takes it into the bathroom, perching it on the towel rack beneath the window as she showers. I stare into the keyhole and see the paper sprinkled with tiny drops of shower water. The water stops and I nearly fall over, backing away from the door, as if a monster was about to come out after me. She sits on the couch, almost next to me. I look at the paper on her robed lap as she stares at the television news. Her wet thumbs press restlessly into the scratchy paper, holding. I spy my name and read about me being outside the bathroom door just minutes before. A chill slides into my legs and I stare into the television too.
day five
He felt like fire to me, melting my plastic head. He came home from work as I was finishing a long poem about two men in love. He wouldn't understand a man's world of love and how easy it must be having so many enemies. Here, everyone wants to be my friend. Drinks after work. No imagination. They always see the doll in me. All my sweat and skin, but they always want more - really just wanting the same show over and over.
My fingertips burn, smelling of sulfur and powder. I was afraid to touch the paper for fear of catching it on fire and ruining my future. The ideas about the show are hiding in my head, almost ready to come out and live. I backed them into a corner, making them behave until I was ready for them. How else do you keep a wild animal from running loose? People could be hurt. Property damage.
day six
I have to keep the bathtub half full of water in case I burst into flames. The cats are confused. The phone keeps ringing, messages . . .
Honey, ready to come back to work? Everybody misses you. Call me.
It's me again. Call me damnit.
Do we have everything for the veal? Wine?
Time to celebrate. They liked the last one a lot.
We need to talk.
I think I can see him from here. I concentrate hard and there he is on the wall - a shadow of nerves and a balloon for a head. Bouncing around the office, begging people to work for him. Type type type type lunch type type type type. Fear is everywhere he looks. Mirrors in purses, cars, washrooms, buildings across the street capture and expose the future, fear. I'm writing it all down on my newest doll. Our baby. A gift for me from him. Strange that I'm grateful because I never wanted this from him. Thinking too much. Tired from all the work - dressing and undressing. Keeping my underwear clean in the top drawer, never used. Sometimes work can involve so little reward.
day seven, in paper --
Dust and fibers fill the flat day. We are trapped by the weather. First come the rains, then the humidity, drenching the neighborhood. By noon, the streets are dried by the heat, unwalkable now. The sunshine of coming evening bleeds through the trees, turning the space beneath the boughs into a yellow-green tunnel of living leaves. She snaps at my suggestion for lovemaking, then turns cold and goes to the kitchen. I try to follow but she stops me at the doorway with a spray of cold water from the sink's hose, screaming, "Get out! Get out of here!" The water soaks me front to back, going right through my body. I'm weak, my back folds. I float to the floor, needing the weight of her foot to hold me down - safe from the fan's snickering breeze.
day eight
The weather continues on its stifling cloudy way, pressing down on me, making the house swell. The front door sticks when I try to run through it, creaking with pressure. A waterstain forms on the floor, the outline of his folded body, like a murder scene, his head all tilted and curious. I picked him up like a dust bunny and put him to bed. A poorer dear than me. His face drained, looks beautiful as a blank page, fevering for speech.
day nine
Announcements in the mail:
New Arrival! / Prices Lower Than Ever - 3 Nights for $10,000 / Adult Material Enclosed / Have You Been Injured? / New Diet Solution Awaits / Valuable Coupons Inside / Dated Material Enclosed.
Cousins come to visit.
day ten, under paper --
I awake to darkness. The corners of the bed cover are tied to the bedposts, trapping me beneath. Then I feel the weight of her as she reclines into a familiar position, smothering me. I resist little because she intends to let me live. I can feel the pressure as she writes, pauses, then continues on with the secrets about me and how I am so easily trapped. I lie still, hardly breathing, because her pen is a weapon wanting to deliver with pain.
day eleven
I dreamed his cock was twice its usual size. I simply couldn't do anything with it so I sat in the corner, relieved. I said, "I'm sorry, but you'll have to put that somewhere else." I haven't the room. Do you think I'm completely empty inside? (he stares pleadingly at my hands) No. These hands are for writing now, not for that thing between your skinny legs.
day twelve, out of paper --
She's tearing the place apart looking for more. Me telling her, "Honey, Honey, I made the paper myself. It'll take time but I'll make more," doesn't calm her frenzy. I have removed all the paper from the usual places, but now I feel panic in that she may uncover the hiding place during her attack on the rooms of the house. I'll need it to make more for her. She will not write on anything else. She has grown accustomed to the feel and weight of it beneath her burning right hand.
day thirteen
Bastard! He's trapped me again. Where did the blanket go? the rhinos? the water? My protection against addiction. He knew. My diet of pulp and fiber is over; the baby is dead. I searched all the corners, under the mattress of stifling and stuffed heat, all the kitchen drawers and cabinets. Gone. His hot head grins, spills out answers to every damn question I have: a fountain; a library's brick wall; a universe's middle most-star blinking madly. He's dancing around the house pointing at the objects in the room, feeling the drapes, looking over his shoulder, grinning and mumbling all the answers I'll ever need. What am I to him? A bread-machine, a falling star, a reverse dictionary.
day fourteen
He's pulled the wallpaper off the nursery walls, tore it into tiny pieces, and filled a large bucket with the scraps. In goes water, a glue mixture that he has made in private, and other bits from around the house: shredded match stems, embroidery thread, a calendar with a few months marked through with black marker, happy face stickers, and receipts. He sweats through his green t-shirt. I rip through it to see the skin and muscle below. Now we are working hard.
The black marker's sharp point works as well as a pen's tip on paper. He works the mash slowly and I continue with my work.
dubclerk
R. Steele
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