Hydroplane: Fictions (3 page)

Lord she was glorious in that dress. Fresh, I would venture, brilliant.

And good to see the Chinese wilted flower pattern, perhaps outdated, of black and red on a night so wet. Fastened off-center, as it was, and short, I spied her knees despite my speed through the doorway, and suntanned they were, brilliant, golden.

My mother would have piped in, Cheap, but this girl, she struck me, and I struck her as well, though, funny, with the door is how I did. And she didn't flinch when it smacked her, though I did flinch outright, feeling the smack, then seeing her brilliant, static poise.

She was glorious in that light.

But here's me talking of a girl, of a dress, when I had rushed in rain-soaked, gasping, lord, like a wet dog, as the old saying goes, into the ladies' room, my hair matted flat, my skirt dripping wet as if water sprung from leaks in the skirt itself.

My mother would have said, Dry those clothes, had I shown to her house wet as that. Dry up, she would have said, pitching a towel. She would have said, A drowned rat is what she looks like, and I did look a sight, squeaking wet shoes across the tiles, squeezing water from my hair with paper.

I knew I had to rush—there was no denying—time was flying past.

There was dinner waiting and talk—we had hardly talked all year, I with my life, my mother with hers. There were neighbors waiting, and here I was late, the drive one more hour, at least, and what kind of daughter, yes, yes, I had heard it. I should have called more often, I should have driven quicker; I had heard it all. I would rush.

But I was soaked to the bones, as they say, and drying, not thinking of the reason I had rushed in first, which was to use the room, so to speak. How odd to say, to use.

And I was too soaked to use anything, really, my skirt matted smack to my legs, heavy with wet, and dark.

And this girl stood poised under the heat light, bone-dry, glorious in Chinese flowers, not looking at me, at my burst through the door, but looking only at herself in the mirror.

I would explain my lateness to my mother.

I would tell her weather, Bad weather, I swear.

She would say, She brings bad weather with her, She always has, Am I right.

She would say, The rainclouds must follow her around, all the times she's rushed in soaked from rain.

The neighbors would laugh behind their hands. They would
give the looks that say, We shouldn't be laughing at the poor thing, should we.

And I would explain my look. That weather was to blame. That I dried my rain-soaked hair with paper, I swear, in a tavern, in the ladies'.

My mother would say, She could have stopped off, cleaned up, dried a bit more to be decent, for decency still counts, Am I right, And anything less than decent is not worth the drive.

Tell me if I'm not right.

I went into one stall, the girl into the other, both of us locking, unbuttoning, and sitting, though I never, in general, sat all the way, but here, for some reason, I did and hard. The seat was hot from the heat light, I ventured, so hot I could have slept there and waked in hours, days, when someone happened to knock and wake me. I could have slept there, head to the door.

And I started to drain, my mother's word, more decent, she thought, than piss or pee or whatever we said as kids.

I spied the girl's black slipper under the divider, and I thought how small; my feet would never have fit in shoes so perfect and small, and how curious, too, her shoes, they were dry. In a blinding downpour. How odd.

I thought, did she hear how my big, soaked shoes had squeaked across the tiles on my way to the stall like a bad hinge worn from use. I could have blushed, were I that type, and had she heard my shoes, cheap as they were, squeaking across, and she must have heard, her shoes being so curiously dry; they were slippers; who wouldn't have heard.

Like buffalo, my mother once piped through a smirking mouth. Like a whole herd of buffalo coming through the house, and I laughed with the neighbors. You're funny, I said.

Well, this girl must have been on her way out, and the rain must have rained during her dinner, for she was dry. And I was
sure she had already eaten, for she did seem, somehow, already fed, satisfied, it seemed, in the way she took her time.

I slowed my speed to hers.

I thought of her hands, small, propping her up from the seat.

I thought of her face, her gaze on the door of the stall.

And I knew her date waited at the bar, a wiry one, chewing a toothpick, taking a mint for later.

And I could tell they would leave, these two. He would take her somewhere, to a lot, to sit, to kiss; I knew this part, the rush.

There was no denying the heat of hands on the back.

My mother would have said, That animal, had he been mine looking so rough as that, looking him toe to face as he sucked his toothpick waiting for his girl.

My mother would have said, And where does he work, Am I right.

She would have smirked, She had better not bring that one home.

The neighbors would have laughed into their shirts, their knees.

I would never have brought one home.

The neighbors had daughters too.

And the daughters never brought them home.

And if I told the neighbors a thing or more of their daughters. I had spied those nights in summers. I had seen a thing or more.

But I would watch my tongue. I always watched it.

I was decent, I was.

So much so, I thought to tell her to wait—it was storming sideways—and I almost did tell her, looking at her perfect slipper, Wait. But we were in separate stalls, as it was, and I would never have struck up talk.

I was decent.

And surely her date would say, Let's wait; he had brains, sure, and would buy the drinks—for him something cheap in a shot glass, for her something sweet with a cherry. But strong.

She could take it.

I could tell.

And perhaps I would have a drink at the bar with the girl and her date, a shot, perhaps, and quick I would eat; I was starved.

We would clink our drinks, give a toast to life, then laugh at the storm, at the three of us sitting there, caught.

I would leave soon as I could; I would speed. Just one more hour, then dinner, reheated, but I needed to dry before my mother saw me so soaked.

I sat hard, draining, not wanting to rise just yet, and she was beside me, a wall between us, a thin divider, and she drained as well, and drained, it seemed, at the very same pressure, the very same pitch and speed.

Crazy to think such thoughts I thought. But I wasn't one to blush.

I could barely pull up my rain-soaked skirt.

I heard her rise, adjust.

And I wondered of this date outside the door, some wiry steady, I knew he was. He was wiry-fingered, and I wondered of him. Of them. Of what they would do in the lot. I knew of tongues, the taste of mint; I knew nights in lots, hands hot on my back, those wiry ones I loved.

Then barefoot, creeping across the grass, I could see my window. I was golden.

But the neighbors' windows always lighted. Their curtains parted shining squares of light on the grass as I pushed up my window.

Caught.

I always wondered how to fit in.

I almost always found a way.

The neighbors' lights went off. The grass below my window blacked.

And I watched the ceiling from the bed, thought of the night, of the lot, of the wiry one, the rush of him, whoever he was, and I stayed in bed still feeling his hands, still hearing the suck and suck of us.

It was summer.

At night I returned to the lot.

So I knew they were going to sit in a lot, these two, perhaps the one out front.

My car was in that lot, the keys in the car, the motor running. I had so needed to drain the last several miles, I parked and ran, not thinking.

And now I opened the door to the stall, ran water, faced the mirror, faced her face in the mirror.

I would explain her face.

How satisfied.

And I would explain the weather.

It was thought to be drizzling but grew to a downpour, I swear it.

My mother would shake a plate of blackened food below my face, saying, That ungrateful, The dinner was cooked and recooked and recooked.

The neighbors would nod their heads, make the faces, then the arms around my mother's back that say, You've worked so hard and she's still good for nothing.

Let her go already.

I would say, Surely I'm good for something.

Surely the neighbors knew I was.

My mother would pitch the plate to the table, storm to her
room, slam the door, crying, dramatic.

I would shake my head, say, That leaky faucet, and laugh alone.

I would wait with the neighbors until dark, until one of them walked me to my car, said, Go.

It was always this.

I was always late.

I was always waiting, then leaving red-faced.

And here I was on my way.

I would stall.

It was glorious with the hum of the fan, the flower soap smell, the sucking sound of the drains. And lord she was tall, I saw, as we soaped our hands in side-by-side sinks under the light.

I would explain her turn of the faucet, the steam in the mirror.

Then she was gone from the mirror, so I turned my faucet.

So it wasn't just me there.

You see.

It never just was.

If I told the neighbors, Look.

It wasn't just me there.

I would tell them, Look.

Those brainless good-for-nothings, and they knew it, the neighbors, their animal daughters I had seen in lots at night.

Take a look at your girls.

I would watch my tongue.

I would watch it go.

Your girls, I would say.

Banged-up knees and brainless.

Sweet they seemed.

Indecent.

I had the rush of hands on my back until late. The girls had
hands rushing all the way up and up. And more. I knew. I had spied.

Just they came home early. They were sweet in their dresses. A hello to their mother, the father, a kiss in the air, and everyone went to their rooms.

Just they were animals that way. Rushing through it. Rushing home.

And they didn't sleep but went to their windows, the daughters, their mother, the father, to catch me. They waited for me to walk across grass, to catch me at my window, golden.

Sure, they always caught me.

I almost always fit right in.

But that once I pushed my window up. The neighbors' windows lighted. It rained.

And the rain had tapped the car in the lot; it had streaked the windows. It was warm in the car, getting hot, hotter, then later, and he said he would drive me home. The rain, he said, but I wanted to walk across the grass.

I walked as slowly as I could.

I pushed my window upward.

My mother stood in my lighted square.

Sure, I couldn't fit.

I almost said, Well, look, I can explain.

I almost said, Let me in.

But she pushed the window down on my fingers, hissing, You indecent good-for-nothing.

The neighbors' lights went off. The grass went dark. It rained.

I sat beneath my window, fingers wilted in the grass until the rain stopped, the sun rose, my mother left for work.

Indecent, they whispered behind their hands.

Not me. Their girls.

This time I would say it.

Animals.

Brainless.

And I would run to my car, my mother steaming in the doorway, Where do you think you're going so soon, you ungrateful.

Let her go.

I would drive the way home and never return.

I would say, Look, I've let you go.

I would laugh alone. I'm funny, I would say.

I laughed aloud in the ladies'.

The girl turned off her faucet.

So it was her in the mirror, alone, you see.

So I turned my faucet to be with her.

I felt it when she looked at me.

I can explain her look.

It was good for something.

So I looked back.

But she was gone from the mirror, rushing past me, drying her hands on her Chinese flowers.

She reached for the doorknob and pulled.

I wanted to say, Not yet, Wait.

I wanted to say, The rain.

She left streaks of wet across her dress.

She was gone from the room in a rush.

And I was brilliant, lord, in the mirror.

I was static, poised, drying out in the light.

The last guest, the redhead, late and standing in the doorway, the door half open so that only half of him is seen before he pushes the door to fully open, as he can do this if he wants, as he can push the door to fully open as he's been invited by the hostess and is, therefore, never needing to knock, but needing only to push the door.

The last guest standing in the doorway, pressing out his cigarette on the vestibule wall, letting the cigarette drop, crushed, in a spray of sparks to the vestibule floor, then shaking his raincoat from his shoulders, the raincoat sliding to his elbows, then to his wrists, then to his fingers.

The hostess drunk already as it's late and as it's her place and as she spent the better part of the week setting up for this evening with help from her two friends, lugging bags of bottles and candles into the house and painting walls and pounding nails into the walls and cleaning sinks and shaking rugs, and hoping, it's clear to me, that no one will ruin the evening, as things are as they should be, crowded, candlelit, somewhat drunken, and knowing, as I do, that things often get ruined by other things, by an over-drunk guest, for instance, knocking into walls or slipping on a rug or climbing the staircase to an upstairs place to wake the neighbors who sit at home alone in the evenings, the neighbors who peer through their peepholes, rather than open their doors, and who call the cops, insisting that the music be shut down, that the crowd disperse, that the hostess sit alone on her bed for the rest of the evening as she does many evenings.

The last guest crossing the threshold, pushing through the crowd, pushing through the room where I sit by a window, pushing through the kitchen where the hostess sees him pass and straightens, then pushing into the bedroom of the hostess where he drops his wet raincoat to the pile of wet coats piled high on the bed.

The hostess hoping, mostly, it seems, that this redhead will show, made obvious in her sudden though sloppy alertness when he crosses the threshold late and she attempts to straighten her sloppy stance, then attempts to follow him through the crowd in her tight backless dress, wobbling on pencil-thin heels, and made up, I don't have to say like what, just heavily, though fading, running, will suffice, and pushing, too, through the crowd as if on a mission, pushing everyone out of her way, saying, Has anyone seen my cat, looking to the floor as if for the cat, then up to the face of the last
guest to arrive whom she stops, pressing her palm flat to his chest, on his way from the bedroom where he has left his raincoat on the top of the coat heap, Have you seen my cat, No.

Arriving early and knocking on the door, and the hostess saying, Help yourself, to a drink, to a chair, and helping myself to the chair by the window in a room as no one else sits yet in that room and as the chair faces the door to the vestibule where one can watch guests arrive and push into the bedroom where they leave their wet coats on the bed.

Knowing none of the guests, not even knowing, really, the hostess, who rarely utters more than an occasional weak hello, eyes averted, in the vestibule or out on the grass.

His red hair, this last guest, from where I sit watching him talk to the hostess, who strikes a match for his cigarette and who clutches his elbow when a heel goes wobbly, this one's red hair reminding me of a boy from seventh grade, a new kid with hair the same shade of red, and the same translucent eyes and lashes, and uncanny the sameness in the shape of the face, this guest pushing through with those same thin hips, the same liquid swagger, first one jutting hipbone then the other, a sort of swivel, which reminds me, also, of another kid from seventh grade, a boy-looking girl I hang out with before the day I move with my mother to another place for a different school, for eighth grade that is, the detail to remember, the move for eighth, as I have been taken by my mother from the first school and its bad influence, this boy-looking girl who says of this redheaded kid at school, Firebush, whispering it into my ear in every class he's in with us, especially science as we sit behind him and see how the hair molds to his neck in small flame-shaped waves, and we are no good anyway with science, Firebush, when
he walks past in the hallway holding his books loosely, walking in that liquid swagger, that cocky fuck-you walk I fall for, Firebush, her lips pressed to my ear.

Two cops shining flashlights in the window near the chair where I sit, and striking, with the flashlights' lightbeams, his red hair across the room, so that for a moment his hair glows as if on its own, as if the light shines from within his head or from within each thread of hair, looking like not just fire but something more, the sun, perhaps, or some kind of holy fire rather than some scientific fire, more like a painted golden halo of sorts and less like the fire burning in science off a curl of soft metal, and if you look it blinds you says the teacher, and so we look, and the hostess noticing, too, this golden halo and looking startled into his lighted hair before noticing the lightbeams, how the light just comes from flashlights shining from the other side of the window, and the hostess saying, Shit, the cops.

Smoking in this boy-looking girl from seventh grade's bedroom the thin, brown cigarettes her mother smokes and leaves in packs on the kitchen table for us to steal, not meaning for us to steal them, but not understanding how we cannot resist any temptation, including smoking, including starting fires in the basement, including calling this new kid on the telephone from this girl's dismal bedroom, this new kid whose mother is now the crossing guard at school and wears blue cop-pants and stands on the corner outside their house to help us cross the street, but we never cross at the corner knowing we are too old to need help crossing a street and would rather cross a block away and cut through her backyard garden and hide behind the neighbor's tree hoping we will see the new kid walk out from his house, but we never do, and calling him after school, whispering into the telephone through a thin sweater to muffle our voices, Can we come over, Can we touch your firebush.

Living above the hostess and often hearing her in her bedroom from my bedroom crying to her friends on the telephone in the evenings that no one likes her in the way she wishes one would like her.

The cops knocking hard on the door and asking the two friends of the hostess who answer the door if they can please get the hostess, the cops' stiff hats in their hands dripping rainwater onto the vestibule floor, and the hostess walking wobbly in her pencil-thin heels and tight backless dress, holding a dishtowel to use to dry the floor, which gets wetter the more the cops stand there dripping and dripping, and the hostess saying, Hiya fellas, and the cops saying, Turn down the music, We've had complaints.

Thinking of approaching him, this last guest, of saying, Okay, it's you and me now, or, Come with me, or, Let's split this scene, as there is something that needs to be said about how he resembles this kid, It's uncanny, What, You look just like this kid from seventh grade, So, And could easily be him, the older version of this kid who now, like me, of course, is older, and thinking of what could happen if he, the last guest, would just play with me a bit, If you would just humor me and pretend to be this kid from seventh grade, And why would I do that, So that I can work a few things through.

The two friends of the hostess locking themselves in the bedroom to fuck, and everyone knowing that this is why they have locked up in the bedroom, first, as they're drunk, the two friends, all evening stumbling about the place from room to room, and, second, as they've been groping each other all evening, as well, provoking more than one guest to utter the predictable, Get a motel room,
provoking the friends to take the bedroom and not come out despite an occasional hard knock on the door, despite leaving the hostess stumbling about drunk on her own, despite the fact that other guests' coats are piled high and drying on the bed, a selfish move, perhaps, on the part of the two friends who are only, obviously, thinking of themselves and of fucking, but a favor, somewhat, to the hostess, as no one can get his or her coat when it's time to leave and it's raining, so that no one leaves unless willing to leave with no coat, so that everyone stays somewhat late.

Thinking of approaching this guest, now that he stands alone, now that the hostess is looking at the cops' wet black boots, now that the cops are stooped and drying the floor with their own handkerchiefs, it looks like, boys being boys, even the ones in blue too flirtatious to let her use her clean dishcloth on the wet and muddied vestibule floor, one cop flirtatious enough to pick up the pressed out cigarette of the last guest and present it to the hostess as if it were a rose, and the hostess unsure of what to do, unsure, one can tell, if this is a flirtatious move on the part of the cop and so she accepts the crushed cigarette with two fingers, and the last guest not watching this, not watching the hostess, but lighting a cigarette and standing by a wall, alone, watching what seems to be nothing but is really the window, behind which seems to be nothing.

Calling the new kid on the telephone and the new kid saying, Leave me alone, and us saying, Let me touch you, and him saying, Who is this, and us saying, It's your mother, and him saying, I'll kill you girls, and us saying, Fuck you then, and him saying, Fuck you then, and us saying, Okay, fuck us.

Holding the door to the vestibule open for the hostess in the daytime as she lugs her bags of paper plates and paper napkins and
bottles and candles up the sidewalk and to the door and says to me with no perceptible emotion, Come tonight if you like, and both of us knowing I am invited as what seems a courtesy but is really a selfish move on the part of the hostess, knowing that one must invite all of one's neighbors, dull or not, who live in the house or in surrounding houses to lessen the risk of calls to the cops from one's always-home neighbors always complaining of noise.

The hostess unaware of how thin her ceiling is, unaware of how much can be heard though my floor, her ceiling, like her crying in the evenings on the telephone to friends, crying, I hate my life, before she decides an evening with friends will fix things.

The hostess squeezing back through the crowd, still clutching her dishcloth, saying, Turn it down, to whomever can turn it down, and, when it's turned down so that those close enough can make out the sounds of the friends in the bedroom, and I don't have to go into the details of these sounds, the sounds of the bedsprings and so on, and when the cops seem to have left for good after one last, Don't make us come back, said in a possibly flirtatious way as if daring the hostess to make them come back, the hostess saying, Turn it back up, and, when the music is up and loud enough to feel it in one's bones, the hostess dancing for us, for the crowd, pulling her dress over her knees so that one can see she wears nothing under her dress, and all the guests watching, clapping, as she shakes herself out, fanning herself with the dishcloth, everyone laughing, except for the last guest who stands against a wall watching what seems to be nothing but is really the window where two headlights shine inside and light his hair, and the hostess seeing the light on his hair as she has been looking at him and hoping, it seems, that he will look back, but he never does, and the hostess looking outside and pulling down her dress, though not all the way, and
saying, Turn it down, to whomever can, and opening the door to the vestibule where the cops stand dripping rainwater to the floor, Hiya fellas, Turn down the music, I did already, We've had complaints, Well, who's complaining, Look miss, Are you complaining, We'll arrest you miss.

Knowing that to show one must pretend to like the hostess and her preparations for evenings such as these, her incessant pounding of nails which gives one a headache and the incessant paint fumes which drift though the cracks in the ceiling and rise through one's floor and worsen the headache, not to mention the awful dust floating up when she shakes her rugs, the dust floating through one's window which makes one want to march downstairs to the hostess and say, Stop that fucking shaking already, Stop that fucking pounding.

Knowing that to show one must pretend to have never been bothered by the sounds of drunken guests from prior evenings at the home of the hostess fucking in the bedroom below one's bedroom, therefore, provoking one to get oneself off, yes, imagining a three-some with the drunken friends, as other over-drunk guests stumble up the staircase to pound on doors in the most drunken minutes of their evening, interrupting, calling, Wake up everyone, before the hostess lures them back downstairs with a flash of her legs, as seen through the peephole.

Knowing that to be there when cops arrive, for cops will always arrive despite who has been invited, is to say to the hostess, I am not the neighbor who complains, I can be trusted, I deserve the invitation.

Calling this new kid until he leaves his telephone off the hook and
all we get is the busy signal, and we are stuck, the two of us, sitting in her dismal bedroom on the dusty shag rug, looking at each other and bored with nothing to do but science now that we have smoked all the cigarettes.

Thinking of saying to the last guest, Come with me, to pull him somewhere, though not to my place as his knowing where I live is his knowing I am a neighbor and that I was invited only as a selfish move on the part of the hostess, his knowing quite well, as do all the guests, as do I, that her neighbors are of the pathetic and dull sort, the always-home sort, everyone knowing, too, that to invite one's neighbors is to reduce the risk of calls to the cops, and thinking of getting the last guest, therefore, into the bedroom of the hostess, after, and if, the two friends come out, and doing something in there with him, something risky, something involving some kind of role-play in which his role is that of the new kid from seventh grade who, when I go to return my tray in the cafeteria, grabs my tits from behind and squeezes hard, pressing his cock against my ass, saying, Stop calling me, and, You're ugly, leaving me crying and curled on the cafeteria floor with a crowd of kids around my body.