LOOKING SIDEWAYS
Jane Unrue
As if an image has occurred to him of yet another teeny-tiny person having lifted off the ground and floated up, eye level to a god—that’s how he looks at you. He could be big, that big. It’s Steve. “You say you got a little roommate?” Uh huh, come in, Steve. He has his broom. Asack. In there, Steve. “Okay.” He’ll take care of it. If he can find it. That’s the trouble: finding it. “But if you’re worried, leave a light on in here, hell I’ve got the key, I’ll check in on you every now and then, check out your walls and floor.” You saw a chair behind him, wobbling in the wind. You saw the moon up there before you closed the door and got back into bed. As if a slithery creature were about to hatch right out of it, that moon, and drop down to the earth to scamper off to who knows where. Grow wings. That moon’s a motherfucker, isn’t it. Those flapping, fang-tooth bastards all come back. That moon: more hatch, drop down. The sky: chock-full, eventually, of flapping things. Their crap glopped onto everything. “You goddamn lard-ass bitch!” That’s Steve. He’s climbing down the stairs. Such heavy steps. He’ll be out there all night. Goes all around the pool and pulls the beach ball out of it. He skims it with the pool net. Moonlight: awful. Christ. You wonder if you’ll live to see the night when you will spot one in the act of crawling down a wall instead of up a wall. Each night you lie there and you see one heading up, like something crawling up the white part of the eye before it disappears. Behind a painted picture, palms at dusk, N. DiMartino. Piece of garbage. Eyelid bulges. Mother of mercy. There it is. It’s on the wall. “You stupid bitch, shut UP! God DAMN!” That’s Steve. He’s coming down the stairs. He’s got a really heavy step. He goes around and checks things. Takes care. Bulbs and things. Reloads the pop. (The snacks.) Resituates the little chairs and tables. Hoses off the pads for crap and waters all the pots and carries any garbage out into the parking spaces where the dumpster is. “Why don’t you get up off your ass?” He’s coming down the stairs. He goes all over, covers everything. Has cars towed out of here that don’t belong in here. Brooms off the big ol’ pods that fall across our car hoods. “You dumb BITCH!” And you just lie there, thinking over things like how you got to where you are, and if you’ll ever find a way to get away from here, and if you’ll stay in that new place for long or if you’ll drive right back again as soon as you have gotten there. Come home. You feel your limbs untighten. Sounds grow softer. Backs of eyelids for a screen, things now appear before you shrunken, colored deeper, outlined thicker, falling. Stars above you, red, are falling. Wind sends down a smell that’s sweet, although there’s something not enticing in the least about this kind of sweetness. “Shut up, bitch!” That’s Steve. He’s got a cell phone on him, and he’s awfully skinny. If a night’s an open door, you tell yourself, those taillight eyes of his may seem to have arrived to drag me off into the distant reaches of that doorway into who knows what. He’s got a heavy step. All skin and bones. He’s headed up the stairs. He has those two fat little kids. Rope-colored hair. The little kids take after her. Instead of hands, big bags of chips hang off the arms. They’re fat like her, those kids. They’re all in chips. Where’s she? Spread out up there, the bags and boxes all around her, while those kids are both asleep. It’s late. Squirrel eyes, she’s eating all their chips. Their snacks and pop all night. Those dirty kids. By day you see their noses by the pool, the sunshine glistening on those noses, each a double entrance to a two-way mine chock-full of looks like apple jelly. Shoes off, those kids’ clothing brings to mind the automatic towel advancer jammed so everybody has to use the same sad segment of the towel. She’s up there with them. Farting up a storm. They all live up there. Is this Steve? “Uh huh.” It’s on the ceiling, Steve. “Okay.” You wonder what it feels like, lying on a thing as fat as that. “I’ll be right there.” The salted breath, the greasy cheeks, the tongue a smear of cookie cream. Thanks, Steve. The groaning and the moaning. Sticky fingers in the air. The smell. “Just go to bed. I’ll DO it! Shut your face, bitch!” Steve. Red eyes. Oh hi, come in. “Okay, let’s get it.” Broom, his sack tucked underneath his skinny arm, shirt pocket, cell phone. He’s so skinny everywhere. It’s kind of sad to see him. Almost drifterish the way he looks, poor Steve, as he walks by. Wears shorts. You ever see that movie, Steve? “There’s nothing in here, he’s most likely up the vent.” She’s in the tub, you ask him, and it shoots out of the faucet at her when she’s in the tub? “I never seen that one, but if he’s up the vent he could be anywhere by now, why don’t you leave this light like this?” Okay. Thanks, Steve. That’s really great. Good night. He isn’t climbing up the stairs. He’s headed somewhere else. Those scrawny legs of his. Who knows. But just like that a feeling passes through. It’s like a wish that blankets over millions when the millions gather in a square in some new place where there have never been that many gathered there before. This feeling may be coming in from over by the windows, or it may be coming from inside this room. “I said go back to bed, and get them kids to bed. Goddammit ANYWAY!” That’s Steve. And that is how they’ve got to be: left open. Fucking heat. The crowded, smothered feeling that there’s nothing left to do but wait and see how many more will hatch above us now and drop down on us. Fucking climate. Seasons: all of them just crawl. You lie there and you think about, first, floating up until there’s nowhere left to float to; second, drifting down; third, floating up. You think about the bed. Steve, just like something overgrown, a bed, an animal, a fruit, a wife can pass the point at which you start to think about her differently. I saw a berry once that went too far, know what I mean, huh, Steve? No eyes. (He’s out there somewhere.) Looked like someone’s curly little dog turned inside out and stitched together, Steve. “Then tell them I’m a come and whippem if they DON’T get back to bed!” That’s Steve right there. He isn’t on the stairs, but he’s not far from there, and, yes, the sun will come eventually. For now, though, we’re not getting anything. That asshole. Shit for brains. It’s buried under everything, that sun. How could it ever hope to dig its way up out of all of that? “I’m COMING, bitch!” Call Steve. Tell Steve it’s on the wall again. Tell Steve it’s clinging to it like there’s no tomorrow. Just above the corner of the frame around the painting of those awful palms, that awful dusk. N. DiMartino. God. Call Steve. He’s headed up the stairs. Instead, you lie there and you wonder what their place up there is like. And if she got that way before or after she met Steve. Upstairs: you hear the door, and then you hear those steps across your ceiling that have suddenly brought to mind a picture of a snow-topped cottage nestled in a clearing in a wooded winter wonderland. It’s picture-perfect, though the furry woodland creatures are not anywhere. They’re all are in hiding in this picture. Thunderous footsteps. Creatures gone. The footsteps falling. You can feel it in the bed: vibrations. Steve, for lots of people life is nothing but a gentle earthly lift-off followed by a gentle journey up towards something bloodshot-looking, hanging heavy out on the horizon as if just about to drop. But, Steve, these are such giant times for me. If I can make it through the night, you tell yourself, the image having suddenly come to mind of black and scaly skin stretched far and wide and buttoned, all four corners, to the broadest reaches of the sky. Vibrations in the bed. You close your eyes. Amoon pokes through. Another, and another. All lopsided, every one, cracked down the middle. Mother of God. You lie there in the bed and feel it. Steve? Until you don’t feel anything. You wonder if it could be that she gobbled him right up.