by
Tom Lombardi
1
under the bed
In early fall in the year of 2000, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, NY, a thirty-year-old man named Hemore climbs a firescape ladder, clambering toward his soon-to-be ex wife's window. Her bedroom window, that is. Should he have to jimmy the thing open, he brought along a screwdriver, the plastic handle of which he's got clamped in his mouth. Tastes like shit. Tastes like shitty plastic, actually. Hemore's heart beats criminally. Man, if she'd just returned one of the six or seven phone calls he'd left in the last two months, he wouldn't have to resort to such borderline criminal behavior. Wait, wonders Hemore, clasping a rusty rung, is this criminal?
No, he decides, she owes him a chat. Then again, he felt the same burning certainty when he'd decided he wanted, for the fourth time or so during their marriage, a divorce. And now that it's looking as though it's actually going to happen, the mere prospect, no matter how much his mind attempts to justify it, numbs him with sadness.
He's sad. She's mad. Goddamn.
"Yes. I am very upset," she said upon hearing of the location of his recently acquired 200-square-foot apartment, "I mean, of all the neighborhoods in Brooklyn, you had to choose mine? How can we move on when we're living so close to each other? It's just so Freudian, don't you think?"
"Sew buttons!" Hemore barked back, "don't you think?" "Oh yeah," she said, "like you didn't steal that expression from me." "What're you talking about? I've been saying that since I was a kid." When he heard her sigh into the phone, he said, "Look, honey, I completely understand why you're upset, but it's $550 a month rent-stabilized. That's unheard of and you know it, I mean, was I supposed to not take it cause you lived nearby? I mean, I mean-you know what I mean?"
Dial tone. "Bitch!"
Their last conversation. Now, what worries Hemore, sweat stinging his eyes, is the prospect that she might be right, for every morning he is reminded of her when the subway arrives; when the doors boo poom and Hemore enters at once curious and terrified of seeing his soon-to-be ex wife standing there among a crowd of silent, work-dreading straphangers.
Freudian! An entire premise of psychology built on theories formulated by a neurotic, intellectual cokehead. "Ever spend," Hemore will ask his soon-to-be ex wife-her name is Samantha-"a night in a bar talking with a neurotic on coke? You wouldn't trust a word he says much less his psychological calculations concerning the emotional dynamics of your family, right?"
When she nods in agreement, he'll ask her to take him back. Once she's agreed, he'll make love to her . . . real slow-like, leaving her underwear on and so forth, using his tongue to tease her pussy until the cotton is just soaked. She loves that! Unless, of course, she's been seeing someone else, some guy teasing her in ways Hemore never imagined, rendering his teasing method cliché and tired and so forth. If she is seeing someone, he'll have to really prove himself. Should have brought a briefcase so as to prove his case, what would she think of that, would she laugh? Of course! Give Hemore five minutes alone with his wife and he'll make her laugh. Should have worn a suit too, along with the briefcase, and fake glasses. And a jury! Should have brought a freaking jury, a bunch of civilians who'd rather be anywhere else . . . except for the unemployed, of course, who'd appreciate the distraction.
A chat.
But there is no jury. This ain't a court. And frankly, her dismissal only leaves Hemore with the haunting conclusion that his wife's already replaced him. This, he tells himself, reaching the landing outside her bedroom window, is the right thing to do. Then why's his heart shivering?
Carefully, he removes the screwdriver from his mouth. Then fumbles it. "Fuck," he whispers, watching it clang down four flights of firescape ladders, where it eventually clatters atop the yellow path of concrete.
Quick, he decides, think! He lights a cigarette. What do you know, after fifteen years of smoking, the habit actually serves a purpose. After all, in this sort of neighborhood in Brooklyn, when a neighbor across the courtyard spots a shaggy-haired white guy climbing a firescape ladder, only to light a cigarette upon reaching the landing, the watchful neighbor just assumes the fool got locked out and all is well. What sort of burglar smokes a cigarette leisurely before breaking in? In law, the dubious act is known as "breaking and entering," not "smoking and breaking and entering."
Across the courtyard, a light goes on. It's just that time of evening when almost every working soul in the country is scurrying to get home after a long day's work. Suddenly, Hemore wishes he was coming home to his wife the normal way, not via firescape. His heart is expanding; his lungs are on fire. He should forget he ever conceived of this insanity-Sam will never know. He can clamber quietly back down the way he came and move on with his life without Samantha for once and for all. Hemore's stubbing the cigarette out against the brick wall when he notices that Samantha's window is open about an inch. Okay, thinks Hemore, suddenly elated, now that's Freudian!Standing in Samantha's bedroom, Hemore begins to pace, the wooden planks creaking beneath him. What sort of burglar paces? All of them! He really has to take a dump. No! It's just nerves. He sticks his head outside the window—what sort of burglar sticks out his head to check for rain clouds shortly after entering?—and, seeing nothing but a purpling, starless sky, retreats.
He lies atop her bed, burrowing his face into the pillow, the feathers ensconcing his head, smothering his thoughts . . . a wave of relaxation rushing down his back, breaking at his colon . . . ah, the pillow smells of her, a hybrid of lemon fabric softener and a trace—just a trace!—of human scent: a pretty girl's underarm, the inside of a pretty girl's turtleneck on a Sunday afternoon, the sole of a pretty girl's leather pump, a pretty girl's lower back gleaming with sweat as she removes her tank-top after a long run, all those scents with which budding straight boys long to familiarize themselves.
Hemore wants to lie here forever. The light is dying outside, it looks cold.
He jumps off the bed. And begins to inspect the framed photos Samantha has displayed atop her dresser, mostly the same ones she'd put up in their apartment. Except, this time, there is no Hemore. Oh man, that's just fucked up . . . oh wait, he notices, staring at himself in a photo, there he is! Upon revisiting the photo, though, wherein he stands four people from his wife, with an arm around her older sister, he thinks he could be anyone, a brother, a cousin, a neighbor. If his replacement comes over and surveys her photos-a little something courting motherfuckers tend to do-what will he think when he spots Hemore standing six feet from Samantha on the other side of the photo? Nothing. He'll assume Hemore is that shaggy-haired neighbor who, despite being asked over for "a" beer, drank eight, gobbled two burgers (one of which he'd insulted within considerable earshot of the cook), ate two bowls of potato salad, an entire bag of Lay's potato chips (along with its accompanying spinach dip), and accidentally knocked over the little nephew's birthday cake, all the while, when he thought no one was watching, intermittently ogling Samantha's oldest sister's butt. But that's not how it went down. Hopefully Samantha will remember next time she glances at the photo that it had been a wonderful afternoon of Badminton playing and barbecuing and so forth, during which Hemore had been a perfect gentlemen. And here he stands like a criminal in her bedroom, years later, basking in the radiance of that wonderful afternoon, when Sam had walked around barefooted in those cutoff jean shorts that unapologetically displayed every inch of her at once powerful and feminine thighs; the white tank-top clinging to her breasts; the long, dirty-blond hair encompassing a smile that destined to break the hearts of many boys . . . goddamn if she didn't look as though she'd emerged from a wheat field. And Hemore remembers staring at her and thinking, I am safe. "Come on, babe," Sam had laughed, "serve the birdie!"
"Serve the birdie," the nieces cried in unison, "serve the birdie!"
"But you took the pictures of us down."
"What?"
"I'm standing in your new room, where you now live with your new roommate, and you took the pictures of us down."
"You need to set me free so that I can truly live."
"Serve the birdie! Serve the birdie! Serve the birdie!"
Hemore also remembers, much like the imaginary slob of a neighbor who'd so rudely drunk that beer and insulted the chef, that he too had intermittently ogled Samantha's older sister's butt . . .
"Donde, Mami?" What!
Oh, he realizes, returning from his thoughts, just someone in the hallway.
Quickly, he opens the top drawer of Sam's dresser. Then burrows his hands into the clumps of underwear, the pile warming his fingertips. Where's that pair, the see-through ones with the purple hem? Ah fuck it. He yanks out a random, gray pair. Sniffs them. Nothing there, wait . . . nah, it's just detergent. He stuffs the panties into his jeans pocket, and then switches on her reading lamp.
He's scanning the bookshelf for that notebook of hers. Rilke (oh, like he didn't buy that for her!), all her psychology books . . . ah! He once read her journal years ago and told her he'd done so, for which she'd berated him something awful, but things are different now, right? With one eye shut, Hemore begins to flip manically through the pages, his heart thumping at the mere sight of her scribbling. He reads:
I'm so sick of fighting with my mother, I swear, I should . . . "Jeez," he whispers to himself, "don't you know what a comma splice is?" He should send her ten pages worth of semi colons in the mail; that'll teach her how to properly join sentences.
I wonder when I'll ever stop fighting with my loved ones . . .
Yeah yeah yeah.
Then, on the last page:
Missing my husband, missing the cat, it's not as bad I'd thought, I hope he's okay but I just can't talk to him right now. Still, I miss the friendship. Weird, dating Bob now, I never thought I'd date a man named Bob-Seriously? thinks Hemore, Bob?-it's going okay, the sex is great, but, I don't know, I wonder how long it can last . . . when did life get so freaking complicated? "Huh," Hemore says, his heart sinking, "the sex is great."
Outside, a car with an abnormally loud bass beat creeps by, rattling all kinds of things—fire hydrants, baby strollers—within the vicinity. Quickly, Hemore returns the notebook, turns off the light and, working strictly off of instinct now, shimmies himself under the bed.
Sharing the cramped space with a few pairs of shoes and some shoe boxes, his head begins to inflate. He pats the pocket where he stuffed the panties, should he sniff them again? Nah. Hemore waits. And it isn't long, as he watches the last fabric of dusk slip out the window, before he worries about making matters worse between his soon-to-be ex wife and himself, and it isn't long before he falls soundly asleep.
And it isn't long, either, before Hemore begins to dream . . .