Grrowl! E-Zine © 1997, Amelia E. Wilson. All rights reserved. Works copyrighted by their individual authors.
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by Ro London
We are writing partners. Co-collaborators. We used to be lovers; the kind that has little to do with love, everything to do with excess. And that kind of love gets used up quicker than you might think.Now the portent of my creative success keeps him awake.
"It's nocturnal harassment," he tells me. And it is with an almost imperceptible shift in his chair and with a raspy voice which denotes the certain pleasure of his having been given either permission or an excuse, he tells me too that the male animal is not naturally monogamous. "A pride of lions for instance," he continues. "The male will have many mates and mate often while the female is faithful for life."
I close my eyes. God bless cable, I think. "That's me," I surprise him. "The male. I am Leo." My stare invites him to disagree. He sits back and defends himself with crossed arms, thinking about this. His smile goes and then returns to a smaller degree.We're opposite, a round table between. Much weakness of heart and strength of character holds us apart. And around and around ideas and cries of spirit circle wildly blurring the edges. He's in a black turtleneck. Very black. A vortex. Suction. I stuff my ears to keep from getting in too deep what he thinks I'm beyond sensitivity to. I'm sun deprived and he fiddles with the batteries to my flashlight. Sit back. I tell myself. Fold some stray hair behind the curl of your ear. Take a cooling sip of water. Swallow. Let certain questions dangle in the air.
Their apartment consists of foyer, EIK, library (a hallway of four sparsely-stocked shelves with questionable literature; a closer look reveals a few books that were mine), living room, bath and boudoir. I stepped back around this last particular turn to look away from my own reflection in a full length mirror across the carpeted room. I'd been startled to find myself already inside.
The living room had an antique bureau with mirror which, despite its unquestionable beauty, seemed awkward in its habitat. The hardwood floor was swathed in an acquired-by-marriage Persian rug of deep reds; more shades than I had lipsticks to match. And strung across the kitchen door and tied in place at either side with gold cords were harem beads softly clacking from the invisible motion of their cat. The seating, a burgundy widewale corduroy sofa/fouton and a delicious looking over sized easy chair/chaise in claret chenille wide enough for two, was arranged for entertainment for which one received a monthly cable bill and not conversation. So I kept my head swivelled unnaturally to the left, his Dianetics paperback on an end table stood sentry between us.
It was perhaps that he felt already bare, or instead wanted so badly to undress, that he scampered here and there lifting things to show. A picture, for instance, from New Year's Eve buried in a glossy pile. A careful choice which spoke more of what had been held back.
We crouched at his open refrigerator sorting through the organic produce that is delivered in a wooden crate right to the door every Monday. We traded back and forth passing over hands and under our curious noses something green and leafy; I thought dill, he suspected fennel. There was something exceptionally ripe about that moment. Side-by-side, close, fondling fruit.
He ordered soup. So I did too. I wanted furiously a glass of Chardonnay. They didn't serve alcohol. That he was happy with just a pitcher of water made me feel like a sweating addict and I coiled from the steaming mushroom barley just in case. I took off my glasses to eat.
"Can you see me, now?"
"Yes." I answered plainly. "I can see you, just not the particulars on the No Parking sign behind you." He twisted in his chair to, what? make sure there actually was a No Parking sign. Or to measure his own ability to see beyond my minor infirmity. He'll never forgive me for being too lazy to care for contact lenses, I mused. Is it that my computer doesn't judge me, that the solitary of what I do allows me to be less distracted by the siren song of the bathroom mirror and thus all the remedies that follow?
"Can I tell you?" I say. "I've been having this recurring dream that I'm in a run away elevator that crashes through the roof of a building. The car is always crowded and I can very clearly feel my fear, but I'm rather resigned to the outcome despite the fact that everyone around me is panicked and screaming."
Holt interrupted confidently, "You wake up before impact, right?"
"No, that's what's weird." I settle out of my excitement and reach for the water glass that I still wish was wine. "We go flying out the roof, like Willie Wonka, and then I wake up."
"I think that's positive."
"Really?"
"Well, people usually dream about falling and here you are going in the opposite direction. Isn't up always positive?"
"I never thought of it that way."
"Apparently."
"What about your dreams?" I delved.
"Falling in love. I miss it."
"Ah, yes the days when love lasted only twenty minutes and then you were on your way."
"That's part of it. My ego and I have not been speaking. It's been a long separation and I miss the conversation. He wonders what's happened to me."
"At least he's willing to forgive you for the abandonment."
"Yes, but he expects me to work on it and offers no suggestions."Three days later Holt's on the phone because for the moment he's captivated by, as he puts it, this "Poetry in a Box thing" that an acquaintance has introduced him to at a dinner party. "Have you heard of this?" he asks as incredulous as though we were talking about the light bulb. "They are little refrigerator magnets, hundreds of them," he educates me. "These different words, these great words!"
He's excited. I try to calm him down. I tell him that my refrigerator is too littered with hundreds of little magnets; that mine are Shakespearian Insults. "NO! No," he corrects me. "These are poetry. I'm going to lay them on the floor," he goes on. "And this is how I'll compose!"
Now, I can see the floor that he's describing. In my mind, I can color in the room around him. I know now just where he's standing from the echo of his voice. I liked it better before when there was no truth to it--when it was entirely of my making.
I tell him as kindly as I can that he first has to know what all the words mean before they can be of any use to him. But alas, for the moment it seems my usefulness has been usurped by a Box O'Words. Who knew?
# It's a breathtaking, satanic alchemy
that lovers make when they shift to hate.
Yet even in hate the whole person is turned toward you.
-Jill Neimark, Bloodsong
Ro London has appeared in the January, 1997 issue of Grrowl! with her short story Car Bomb.
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