There's Something I Want You to Do Page 5

  “What’s Runaway Mom?”

  “That’s her blog,” Lucy says, sitting up and stretching. “He’s helping her with it. It’s going to be real popular. All the kids at school want to read it.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Daddy, didn’t you ever want to run away?”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t think I ever did.”

  “That’s weird,” she says. “Everyone else does.”

  —

  Corinne lives across town now, in a little one-bedroom apartment. My mother goes over there on Friday and takes her to Bible class. Corinne gets disability payments from the government, although we worry that those funds will soon be cut off. She comes over here once or twice a week for lunch or dinner. Everyone is mostly getting used to her and her ways, but Astrid has taken up smoking cigarettes (though not my brand) on the front lawn after dinner, a bold move for a woman in midlife.

  One time I went to Corinne’s blog. Just one time. I opened up Runaway Mom, and I read what Corinne had written there a day or two before.

  How many chapters does life have? It has many chapters, and you’ll notice that when the passenger train you’re on is headed in the wrong direction, it’s often moving so fast that you can’t get off it without hurting yourself. I threw myself off the particular train I was on and was seriously injured for years. I wish I knew what God wanted from us. I don’t think He wants anything from me anymore, but I think He once did, and He said so. Sometimes you run away to leave something behind, and sometimes you run away to get somewhere. I did both. At least I didn’t kill myself. At least I didn’t murder anyone.

  That was all I wanted to read of her blog. I went out to the garage and opened a beer and smoked a few cigarettes out there in silence. I was thinking.

  When I was about eight years old, I took my sled out to one of the city parks. This was the day after a huge snowfall, many inches, but the sledding hill was packed down by the time I got there, and quite a few kids had their boards and saucers and sleds, and they were all screaming happily. I climbed up that hill and flew down on my sled, and after about thirty minutes I was screaming happily, too. I was out there so long I got frostbite on the tips of my toes, and when I came home my mother put me into the bathtub with lukewarm water. I was so happy, I didn’t care about the frostbite, and it didn’t hurt too much. It just burned. And I didn’t think I would remember that day—you don’t really think you’re going to remember those times when you’re happy—but I did. It’s funny, the staying power of happiness. I finish my cigarette and put out the stub in the empty beer can.

  I can hear Astrid calling to me out the back door. “Wes?” she says. “Wes? Where are you?”

  “Out here,” I yell from the garage.

  “Come in, honey,” she calls to me. “It’s suppertime.”

  So I get up from the floor and go into the house, where they are all waiting for me.

  Chastity

  On a Wednesday morning while he’d been shaving, Benny Takemitsu heard a woman’s scream from down the block. He’d propped open the bedroom window with an old hardback that he planned to read someday, and the May air, carrying the scream, blew in softly over his desk and made the papers tremble. He rushed to the window, the soap still on his throat. How far away was this woman? Benny couldn’t tell. And what kind of danger was she in? Nothing was specified. The scream began on one tone and then rose higher as it increased in intensity like a police siren.

  Through the venetian blinds, he saw the early-morning sunlight flooding everything, including the blossoming lilacs near his building. Two floors below, a jogger accompanied by a border collie had stopped, and both the jogger and the dog were turned in the same direction.

  Benny felt the scream burrowing into his body. The sudden jolt of adrenaline made his heart race and his hands clench. Maybe the screaming woman was in an apartment somewhere, screaming at her husband; maybe he’d forgotten her birthday.

  After he finished shaving, Benny sat down on the chair and put on his socks, thinking of the miscellaneous human noises that had disturbed him after he had moved into this building. Two blocks down, a corner bar, Schnitzler’s, became a pandemonium factory during summer nights. At closing time, young men, emptied out onto the sidewalk, would bellow their warrior-challenges into the darkness, and the women occasionally lifted their voices in high-pitched alcoholic outcries. Lying in bed, Benny imagined their flushed, belligerent, happy faces.

  And the young couple in the next apartment over! During the summer, when their windows were open, their prideful love-yelps acquired carrying power. One of these days, she’d get pregnant, and then her baby would do all the screaming.

  At his desk, he moved aside some bills and his checkbook before beginning to write an e-mail to his girlfriend: Dear Reena, I miss you so much. I just heard something, and I thought u might be interested. Somebody made a noise. Yelling. A scream maybe. It’s funny about noises like this in the city. You fry the eggs, you listen to the radio, you check your e-mail, you go on as if nothing has happened, you

  But no: there it was again. A second scream. He put on his shoes, ran down the stairwell, and stepped outside. He turned northeast. The day presented him with brick and asphalt, scraggly warehouse-district trees, a school bus, a construction crane in the distance, the sun shining over them all. A scream—but no screamer. Another jogger passed by and frowned at him. Overhead, a large black bird was flapping around, chased by a sparrow or a starling. He couldn’t tell one bird from another. Stopping for a moment, he saw a ringlet of red hair on the sidewalk, as if someone had violently yanked it out from someone else’s scalp. Benny went back inside and after breakfast set off for work.

  —

  That night, Benny began his daily walk along the Mississippi, avoiding the park at the end of the street where he had once been mugged. He still retained a limp from being hit in the leg that time with a baseball bat. They had struck him from behind and just above the knee. He hadn’t seen them. It was like being struck by God. When he had fallen forward, a large man had reached into his pocket and grabbed his wallet before Benny could twist around to see who it was. The mugger had grunted quizzically as his fingers wormed inside Benny’s trouser pocket before he took what he wanted. Well, the wallet had only been a wallet. Benny had canceled the credit cards and gone to the DMV to replace his driver’s license. Tonight the air above the river smelled of vegetation, a green turtle–like aroma thick with reptilian life, but despite the attractions of the watery stink, Benny did not cross the street to the sidewalk beside the river until he had passed the unlit park where demons sat coiled patiently in the shadows waiting for him.

  On both sides of the Mississippi, outdated buildings with limestone foundations that once housed mills—flour and lumber and woolen mills, once the source of the city’s wealth—stood in bleached floodlight like museum artifacts that no one was permitted to touch anymore.

  He detoured past a coffee shop and through the front window saw his friend Elijah, a pediatrician who had moved to Minneapolis from the Bay Area a few years ago. His friend was sipping espresso and reading a copy of City Pages in the corner. Benny went inside.

  “Doctor.”

  “Takemitsu.” The pediatrician took another sip of his espresso. “Funny. You don’t look Japanese,” he said automatically, for the hundredth time, peering at his newspaper. They’d been friends ever since they’d met at a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party precinct caucus, where they’d both volunteered to be delegates to the county convention. They canvassed in their neighborhood, and on Election Day they both drove oldsters to the polls.

  “What’re you reading?” Benny asked.

  “The sex advice column. I’m married, so it’s irrelevant. How’s tricks, by the way?”

  “Tricks? Oh, the tricks are fine,” Benny said. He sat down. “So, Doctor, you’re not home again? How come you’re hanging out in a downtown coffee shop at this hour? What’s the appeal?” The questions were all rhetori
cal, a means to get conversation started. Benny knew perfectly well why his friend was sitting there.

  Elijah seemed to droop for a moment. He had a heavy five o’clock shadow and bags under his eyes, and he pretended to ignore his friend. “Fuck you,” he said tiredly. “I’m decompressing. Just came back from rounds at the hospital, and I’m not ready for the homecoming. I’m embittered. See me? An embittered man sits before you. Would you explain to me what got me into doctoring? I can’t remember now.” Benny said nothing. The doctor shook his head. “It’s hard to witness, kids being sick, kids with mitochondrial disorders, kids being brave, et cetera. I feel like Ivan Karamazov or somebody like that. See how fat I’m getting?” He reached inside his coat and snapped his suspenders. “And what about you, Mr. Architect?” Elijah, his spirits visibly lifting at the prospect of irritating his friend, leaned back and finally grinned affectionately at Benny. “Did you design any big-box stores today? In one of those new beautiful Bauhaus strip malls they have now? Fluorescent lights and linoleum to remind us all of our proud humanity? Man, I do love strip malls. Incidentally, you kinda look like a vampire tonight.”

  “That’s how you know I’m Asian. All the great vampires are Asian.”

  “I’ve noticed. Except you don’t look Asian. You just look like a vampire.”

  “Vampires are hot.”

  “Benny, you sound like a girl when you say that,” Elijah said, still smiling amiably.

  Benny shrugged. “So I sound like a girl. Big deal. Girl vampires have it going on. Anyway, people dig sexual ambiguity. They find it attractive. And Reena likes me.”

  “Likes? What about loves? And she doesn’t live here, does she? Your pale vampire complexion hasn’t moved her to move here, I’ve noticed.”

  “We need our solitude. She doesn’t…I don’t know. She doesn’t want to commit.” He pronounced the word as if he were holding it at a distance, with a pair of tongs. “And, get this, she says she doesn’t want, or like, children.” The doctor shook his head in disbelief. “Which is all my mother ever wants out of me, those grandchildren. I can’t do it alone. Hey,” Benny said, “speaking of girls, I heard a girl screaming this morning while I was getting dressed.”

  “Not in your bedroom, I hope.” Elijah sat up and examined Benny with a kind of doctor-expression. “And?”

  “I didn’t do anything until she screamed a second time. Then I ran outside. But there was no one there. Only this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ringlet of red hair.

  Elijah examined it. “There’s something I want you to do,” he said. “I want you to get rid of that.”

  “Why?”

  “You shouldn’t be carrying someone’s hair around in your pocket. It’s like a horror movie. ‘Creepy’ is I think the right word for carrying hair around in that manner.”

  “Okay.” Benny put it back in his pocket. “When are Susan and you going to invite me to dinner again? I miss your hospitality. I miss the free meals.”

  “Oh, any day now, possibly when we like you again. But that hair is a kind of disincentive. You could invite us to dinner, you know. One of those meals? That you cook? You could open the door for Elijah and Susan. You could heat something up. You could make a social effort.”

  “Soon,” Benny said. He stood up. “Soon. Doctor, I’m on my aerobic walk, and I gotta get my heart rate elevated.”

  Elijah gave him a dispirited goodbye wave.

  —

  Three weeks later, on his way out to his evening stroll, Benny passed two of his friends, the lesbians from down the hall, Donna and Ellie, just outside the building. They referred to themselves alphabetically as “the D and the E,” and tonight they were walking their keeshonds. Engaged in conversation, they waved to him as he crossed the block. He waved back, not wanting to interrupt them. When the two women were talking together, the bond between them—heads turned in a mutual gaze, slightly bowed, the conversation quiet and slow and half-smiling—seemed more intimate than sex. Their friendship, no, their love, resembled…what? Prayer, or some other category that Benny didn’t currently believe in.

  By the time he reached the Washington Avenue Bridge across the Mississippi, he had worked up a light sweat. He planned to cross the river, turn around, and then head back. He would shower before bed and be asleep by midnight. Tonight the joggers and lovers were out in force, along with the shabby old men who held out their hands for money. A panhandle was like a scream: you never knew what was appropriate, how much help to offer, what to do.

  Crossing the bridge on the pedestrian level, he counted the number of people on foot. He liked taking inventories; solid figures reassured him. About seven people were out tonight, including one guy with a backpack sprinting in Benny’s direction, two people strolling, and a young woman with a vaguely studenty appearance who stood motionless, leaning against the railing and staring down at the river. The sodium lights gave them all an orange-tan tint. The young woman tapped her fingers along the guardrail, took out a cell phone, and after taking a picture of herself, dropped the phone into the river below. She licked her lips and laughed softly as the phone disappeared into the dark.

  Benny stopped. Something was about to happen. As he watched, she gathered herself up and with a quick athletic movement hoisted herself over so that she was standing on the railing’s other side with her arms braced on the metalwork behind her. If she released her arms and leaned forward, she would plunge down into the river. One jogger went past her without noticing what she was doing. What was she doing? Benny hurried toward her.

  Seeing him out of the corner of her eye, she turned and smirked.

  “Stop!” he commanded. “Wait. Don’t!” He wasn’t sure what to say. “What are you doing? Who are you?”

  “I’m nobody. Who are you?”

  “I’m just Benny,” he said. “That’s dangerous. Please. Why are you doing that?”

  “No reason. For fun. A cheap thrill. I’m bungee jumping,” she said. “Only without the bungee. See the cord?” She pointed down to where no cord was visible. “Just kidding! It’s imaginary! Also, I’ve been feeling real cold behind my eyes,” she said, “so I thought I’d do something exciting to heat myself up.” Her speech style was oddly animated, and she seemed very pretty in a drab sort of way, like an honorable-mention beauty queen who hadn’t taken proper care of herself. Something was off in the grooming department. Her long brown hair fell over her shoulders, and her T-shirt had a corporate logo and the words JUST DO IT across the front. Her eyes, when she glanced at Benny, were deep and penetrating. Her feet in sandals displayed toenails polished a bright red, so that under the streetlights they had the appearance of war paint. She gave off a shadowy gleam. “I’ve been feeling kind of temporary lately,” she said. “How about you, Benny? You been feeling permanent?”

  He reached out for her arm and clasped it. “Yes, I have. So. Please come back,” he said.

  “Fuck you doin’?” she said, laughing. “Don’t harass me. Let go. Let go of me or maybe I’ll actually jump.” Irony was the new form of chastity and was everywhere these days. You never knew whether people meant what they said or whether it was all a goof.

  “No,” Benny said. “I don’t think so. I won’t let go.” To his astonishment, a couple strolled past them without paying them any mind at all. He thought of crying out for help, but noise might panic this woman, startle her, inspiring her to make her move, unless she was playing a late-night prank. After all, she was grinning. Dear God, he thought, the perfect incongruity of that grin. He felt a sudden resolve to hold on to her forever if he had to.

  “This isn’t a big plan I have,” she said cheerfully. “It’s just a personal happening.” She waited. “Don’t you ever want to get on the other side of the boundary? It’s so exciting over here, so lethal. It looks back at you.” She waited. “So much fun. And against boredom? Boredom,” she said urgently, “must be defeated.”

  “You shouldn’t be standing there. It’s a terrible idea.�
�

  “Don’t be like that,” she said, staring down at the river. “Okay, maybe it’s a terrible idea, but it’s my idea.” Now she appeared to be sneering. She had a blue barrette in her hair. “Do you think it would take a long time to fall? What would falling feel like?” She tipped her head back. “I think it would feel like being famous. I’d laugh all the way down. I’d sign autographs.”

  “No. It would feel like nothing. Then like being ripped apart by water. It’d really hurt.” He waited with his hand around her arm. He was quite strong; like everyone else he knew, he went to the gym and kept fit, and just when he had begun to consider how much she weighed and how long he’d be able to hold on to her if she leaped off the ledge and dangled there, he remembered to ask, “What’s your name?”

  “I won’t tell you,” she said. “Okay, yes, I will. It’s Desdemona.”

  “Thanks.” He moved slightly so that he was behind her, and still holding her arm, he moved his other arm so that it encircled her waist. A car honked at them. “So-called Desdemona,” he said, “please come back to this side. Okay?”

  “Um, no? Just leave me alone? Besides, don’t you even want to get on the other side of the railing with me? How about some solidarity? Don’t you ever want a thrill? Or a chill? Or a spill? Stop touching me!”

  “No.”

  She laughed. “Such a spoilsport. Such a square.” She twisted her head back. “You must be from around here. You smell of the Midwest.”

  He held on to her for another minute. Either he was trembling or she was. Finally she shook herself as if possessed by a thought. She turned around and clambered over to where Benny was standing. He released her. His heart was pounding. “Okay, I give up. Would you really have held on to me for good?” she asked. He nodded. “So that if I was dangling, you’d keep me? I thought so. You look sturdy. And stubborn. What’s amazing is your investment in me, all the coins you dropped in my slot.” She chattered nervously. “I’m such a dope, I really can’t follow through on anything.” She still hugged the railing, though on the pedestrian side, and continued to glance nervously down into the water now and then. “Did you really think I was going to jump? Would I have done that?”