The Great Night (27 page)
Authors: Chris Adrian
H
enry took extended refuge in Bobby's apartment, though they never quite officially moved in together, Henry having always maintained a separate residence even when he spent almost every night in Bobby's bed. The closest they came was living next door to each other; they had planned to share both apartments but the breakup sundered their bachelor households before they could really be joined. Bobby's continued closetedness and Henry's continued terror of invisible filth made actually moving in together complicated: Bobby needed someplace that could, with the push of a button, become a straight man's apartment should his parents come to visit, and Henry needed someplace where he could mop and scrub to his heart's discontent in his continued losing effort to eradicate the invisible contamination still radiating from his mother and from the West.
enry took extended refuge in Bobby's apartment, though they never quite officially moved in together, Henry having always maintained a separate residence even when he spent almost every night in Bobby's bed. The closest they came was living next door to each other; they had planned to share both apartments but the breakup sundered their bachelor households before they could really be joined. Bobby's continued closetedness and Henry's continued terror of invisible filth made actually moving in together complicated: Bobby needed someplace that could, with the push of a button, become a straight man's apartment should his parents come to visit, and Henry needed someplace where he could mop and scrub to his heart's discontent in his continued losing effort to eradicate the invisible contamination still radiating from his mother and from the West.
He rented his new apartment from a pleasant muttering gentleman named Bilbo, who was shy and retiring but not short or hairy-footed. It was the first home Bilbo had owned with his wife, a seventies love nest whose chocolate brown
carpet had been replaced and whose burnt orange walls had been repainted, but there was still something about the placeâa three-story loft with a floating teak staircase and track lighting even in the bathroomâthat always made Henry feel like he should prance around it in a caftan. It had twelve hundred square feet of moppable wood floor, some of which was quite old, and the whole apartment was kind of dingy. Henry scrubbed and mopped and bleached all day when he moved in, a complicated process because his old apartment had become contaminated by a sixth- or seventh-degree touch from his mother, so he scrubbed each object that made the five-block journey between apartments with the aqua regia of his obsession, a mixture of ammonia and water with a teaspoon of bleach (just enough to increase the disinfecting power of the solution without generating a deadly gas) and three dashes of rosemary shaken from a spice bottle. He didn't know why the rosemary was required, though it made as much sense, or nonsense, in its way as the ammonia and the bleach, since he wasn't concerned at all about bacterial contamination. Bobby had pointed out that he routinely left food to rot on his counter, and he ate from moldy dishes and drank spoiled milk. But if he happened to leave out the rosemary, or even failed to count how many dashes he'd shaken into the bucket, he'd have to clean everything all over again.
carpet had been replaced and whose burnt orange walls had been repainted, but there was still something about the placeâa three-story loft with a floating teak staircase and track lighting even in the bathroomâthat always made Henry feel like he should prance around it in a caftan. It had twelve hundred square feet of moppable wood floor, some of which was quite old, and the whole apartment was kind of dingy. Henry scrubbed and mopped and bleached all day when he moved in, a complicated process because his old apartment had become contaminated by a sixth- or seventh-degree touch from his mother, so he scrubbed each object that made the five-block journey between apartments with the aqua regia of his obsession, a mixture of ammonia and water with a teaspoon of bleach (just enough to increase the disinfecting power of the solution without generating a deadly gas) and three dashes of rosemary shaken from a spice bottle. He didn't know why the rosemary was required, though it made as much sense, or nonsense, in its way as the ammonia and the bleach, since he wasn't concerned at all about bacterial contamination. Bobby had pointed out that he routinely left food to rot on his counter, and he ate from moldy dishes and drank spoiled milk. But if he happened to leave out the rosemary, or even failed to count how many dashes he'd shaken into the bucket, he'd have to clean everything all over again.
He started on the bottom floor, with two buckets, one for the mop and one for the sponge, wiping the walls and doors down and then mopping himself backward to the stairs. The first floor was just the foyer, a couple of closets, and the door to the basement. He had swiped here and there in the vestibule but not tried very hard to make it actually clean: he shared it with another apartment, a studio where Bilbo's frail aged sister lived, whose spotted claws would be all over the mailbox and probably the ground outside, thence to touch the walls and
mirror as she leaned and heaved, breathless after the five steps from her threshold to the stoop. She might even lean on his door or try his knob in confusion, so it was useless to try to make any of those common surfaces safe to touch; he'd have to clean them again as soon as they had come and gone from his sight. He polished his inside doorknob with the sponge until it dripped.
mirror as she leaned and heaved, breathless after the five steps from her threshold to the stoop. She might even lean on his door or try his knob in confusion, so it was useless to try to make any of those common surfaces safe to touch; he'd have to clean them again as soon as they had come and gone from his sight. He polished his inside doorknob with the sponge until it dripped.
“Let's get a dog,” Bobby had said, a few months before.
“That's a terrible idea,” Henry said. When he saw how Bobby's face fell, he added, “I mean, it's a little soon. Maybe when I'm better. Or more better. I'm getting there.” He said something about how it would be unfair to make the dog wear shoes when it went outside, or a surgical mask to keep its sniffing nose from ever actually touching the ground.
“Maybe,” Bobby said, “the dog would
make
you better. Like if you loved it enough, all this stuff wouldn't matter anymore. Because it would get a pass on the contamination, you know? Like it would have happiness on its paws instead of dirt.”
make
you better. Like if you loved it enough, all this stuff wouldn't matter anymore. Because it would get a pass on the contamination, you know? Like it would have happiness on its paws instead of dirt.”
“I don't think that's how it works,” Henry said, though of course that ended up being exactly how it worked. “I do love dogs.” That was true: he loved them as a category but was scared of them specifically, mostly because their adorable paws were always on ground that was trod by postman's shoes that were contaminated by dropped letters and the elixir of filth that had dripped from his old mailbox when a letter from his mother had stewed for days in rainwater. His Cambridge mailman had become his archenemy. Henry tried to avoid him, but every now and then he got caught on the street and scolded for never emptying his mailbox of circulars and flyers and the occasional bill that slipped through. “No, thank you,” Henry said, as if to decline the mailman's anger, or as if the mailman were the manifestation of whatever agency sought to connect him back to his mother and the whole great
contaminated state of California. Just before Henry had moved to Bilbo's, the mailman had accused him of hiding his mail cart, because it disappeared just as Henry was walking down the little garden path (surrounded by reaching hedges that he had become skilled at dodging), trying to avoid being noticed and talked to because there had already been an exchange that week and an ultimatum given, which hinted at dangerous depths of postal rage. There was a dog, a friendly and dumb-looking black Lab, sitting where the cart had been, as if someone had exchanged them one for the other. Henry worked himself into a tizzy of worry that the mailman might touch him, a finger to his chest or a shove against his head, or that the dog, watching and wagging his tail, would come over and put his paws on him. But as the mailman closed on him, actually shouting now, the dog growled and leaped for him, not bothering Henry. He chased the mailman down the street, not seeming to mind at all the backward puffs of mace that came like toxic blinding farts from the vicinity of the mailman's ass. Henry hurried away and moved soon after out of that delivery zone.
contaminated state of California. Just before Henry had moved to Bilbo's, the mailman had accused him of hiding his mail cart, because it disappeared just as Henry was walking down the little garden path (surrounded by reaching hedges that he had become skilled at dodging), trying to avoid being noticed and talked to because there had already been an exchange that week and an ultimatum given, which hinted at dangerous depths of postal rage. There was a dog, a friendly and dumb-looking black Lab, sitting where the cart had been, as if someone had exchanged them one for the other. Henry worked himself into a tizzy of worry that the mailman might touch him, a finger to his chest or a shove against his head, or that the dog, watching and wagging his tail, would come over and put his paws on him. But as the mailman closed on him, actually shouting now, the dog growled and leaped for him, not bothering Henry. He chased the mailman down the street, not seeming to mind at all the backward puffs of mace that came like toxic blinding farts from the vicinity of the mailman's ass. Henry hurried away and moved soon after out of that delivery zone.
“It's too soon, I think,” Henry said to Bobby, standing with him next to a bench that neither of them was allowed to sit on, in a park full of frolicking dogs. “But maybe not much longer. I'm getting better, right?”
“Right,” Bobby said, though he wasn't, really, or at least he was getting better in such infinitesimal increments that he appeared to be standing more or less frozen on the road to recovery. He made the occasional visit to his psychiatrist, separated sometimes by weeks or months, and all they had really worked out in a year and a half was that Henry had a complicated relationship with his mother, and the unmemory of his lost childhood was ruining his life in exactly the way she foretold that it would. They never got to the part where they
decided what to do about it; Henry's truancy generated a lot of false starts, though it felt to him that just showing up was brave effort, and talking repeatedly about things he already knew was progress.
decided what to do about it; Henry's truancy generated a lot of false starts, though it felt to him that just showing up was brave effort, and talking repeatedly about things he already knew was progress.
He went up the stairs, sloshing the mop back and forth as he vacated each step, and washing the banisters as he went. When he got to the second floor he pushed the bucket in steps with his feet to the windows, where he paused to sponge the glass and the sills, picking up real filth now in addition to the imaginary kind, watching children at play in the playground across the street. It was late in July, and a series of holes in the ground spewed water into the air in rhythmic intervals, the noise of the water and the delighted screaming of the children sounding like a conversation. It was cheery work, for all that he was laboring in the service of his miserable obsession; cleaning made him happy and having someplace that could be made clean made him happy. He thought he understood how Snow White could have gone so cheerfully about her work, though her situation, when you gave it any amount of thought, was terribly grim.
“Let's have a party,” Bobby said, and Henry said, assuming it would be a party of two, “That's a great idea. What are we celebrating?”
“Nothing,” Bobby said. “Our friends.”
“Maybe we should wait for an occasion,” Henry said, thinking of all the people crowding into Bobby's small apartment, the hands everywhere that might have been touching the ground or the mail. And their friends were all Bobby's friends; it might make more sense for him to celebrate them by himself, someplace else, one of their houses or perhaps even in a rented hall. “My birthday,” Henry said, “is only a few months away.” At which time he could, if he wanted, ask for a cancellation as a present.
“That's a terrible idea,” Bobby said.
“No, it's not,” Henry said. “People have been having birthday parties forever.”
“I mean the waiting,” Bobby said. Henry shrugged, and they continued to negotiate, but a few weeks later they had a dinner party. It was just a few people, and Henry won the right to ask them all to take off their shoes and leave them in the hall when they arrived, a precaution that turned out not to be enough, since some of them trod on the porch in their socks and then walked inside, and anyhow who knew what they did in their socks at home? Henry did a bad job with the minuscule portion of hosting that was allotted to him, and he was sullen though he didn't mean to be sullen. But there was such a high pitch of anxiety abuzz in his brain that it was hard to listen to what people were saying, and hard to care if they had recently become engaged or gone to Morocco or treated a sassy child for diabetes or found a lovely purse at a garage sale. He only had attention for their feet.
Bobby was furious after they left, unreasonably so, Henry thought, since he had warned him he was likely to fail at this and he had tried, in his way, to appear normal. “I'll just go out if you have a party,” Henry said, very reasonably, “and mop when I come back.” Bobby could not even reply to that until he had finished washing the dishes, at which point he started in on a familiar course, saying very carefully before he offered any criticism how much he loved Henry, how he thought Henry was the best thing that ever happened to him, and how the vision he had for them, with which Henry consistently refused to cooperate, was a vision of happiness for both of them, not just for himself. There followed a discourse about guests and friends and the recipe from an African cookbook and orphan children who might one day be adopted by them as a couple, children who would roll on the floor and put shoes
in their mouths and probably run to give the postman a hug regardless of whether he was delivering bad news or good. You and me and a bottle of ammonia, he said. It's fine for now. It's fine for now, but what about the children?
in their mouths and probably run to give the postman a hug regardless of whether he was delivering bad news or good. You and me and a bottle of ammonia, he said. It's fine for now. It's fine for now, but what about the children?
“Maybe I'm too crazy to be in a relationship,” Henry said, which was his familiar response to Bobby's familiar discourse about the future. It felt like a grown-up thing to say, and like a difficult concession, and what he meant by it was
I am trying as hard as I can and it's not enough for you
or even
Why can't my weak eccentricities be adorable to you, as yours are to me?
But Bobby always heard it as a conversation stopper, childish and easy and glib.
I am trying as hard as I can and it's not enough for you
or even
Why can't my weak eccentricities be adorable to you, as yours are to me?
But Bobby always heard it as a conversation stopper, childish and easy and glib.
Henry swabbed the living room floor in broad strokes with feelings of piratey good cheer. He stopped and crossed to the kitchen, then worked back from there to the foot of the stairs up to the third floor. Bobby had seen the place alreadyâhe'd helped him pick it outâbut Henry had an ascending sense of excitement, as he mopped and mounted the stairs, over having Bobby here when it was properly clean. He had been living for weeks at Bobby's, and it was going to be lovely to have him as a guest in his house and his bed. The long sojourn at his apartment had made Henry feel like he was a guest in Bobby's life, when they should really be taking turns visiting each other's lives. He had tried to explain the notion to Bobby, but he didn't really get it. “But we're not just
visiting
,” he said.
visiting
,” he said.
“Of course not!” Henry said, but when Bobby asked him what he meant exactly, he'd changed the subject. “Let's go somewhere,” he said. Taking a trip was something Bobby had been asking about. Henry had already consented to going camping, though it meant sleeping on the ground, because postmen didn't go into the wilderness, and if he was careful about his packing, and if they were both careful about where they stepped on the way to the car, they might actually leave the larger part
of the contamination in Cambridge, and Henry would be relatively normal for the trip. Bobby wanted to go out to Yellowstone, but that was too close by far to San Francisco. He pushed a finger across the map that Bobby had spread out on the table, but try as he might it would go no farther than Nevada. So they settled on Zion, and Henry, demurring and delaying, postponed the trip for months, and Bobby stopped asking about it until Henry brought it up again that day.
of the contamination in Cambridge, and Henry would be relatively normal for the trip. Bobby wanted to go out to Yellowstone, but that was too close by far to San Francisco. He pushed a finger across the map that Bobby had spread out on the table, but try as he might it would go no farther than Nevada. So they settled on Zion, and Henry, demurring and delaying, postponed the trip for months, and Bobby stopped asking about it until Henry brought it up again that day.
They were on their way within a week, Bobby having finalized the travel arrangements before Henry could change his mind or think of a convincing reason to delay. They changed their shoes in an airport bathroom, Henry wrapping away the Cambridge shoes in layers of insulating plastic, then stowing them in their own special bag. That feat of enabling accommodation put Bobby in a foul mood for the long drive out to the park, but he was soon cheered by the abundance of natural wonder and by Henry's increasing ease. San Francisco seemed far enough away, and all the old filth of his life seemed adequately contained and controlled, so Henry took a vacation from his compulsions. He still didn't like the floor, and there were some rituals to be observed in their little cabin, but walking up the Narrows with Bobby, hand in hand on the empty stretches, it bothered him not at all to be wading in river water that flowed over other people's shoes, in which they walked through lives that might or might not have taken them through the Cambridge post office, or even through San Francisco. Some of the unseen upstream hikers might even be postmen, but he declined to even think about that and was able to appreciate instead how nice it was to go step by uncertain step over the slippery underwater rocks, and push against the current, and come through a tight canyon, the sides of which they could touch with their outstretched arms, into a clear sunstruck pool under an expanse of limitless blue sky.
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