Black Rabbit and Other Stories (12 page)

Back in the classroom Bradley went tent again, but Mr. Chiasson came to the window and peered in. “Time, young man. Time.” His face melted away. It was quiet for a moment. Then he could hear Ryan sobbing. Mr. Chiasson softly spoke to him. Jesse was quiet. Where was she? He peeked out the window and saw her standing a few feet away, expressionless. She stroked her finger across her throat and nodded. Bradley ducked down and curled up.

Jesse left before too long, with the others. Bradley came out of the tent. He approached the cage. The skeleton watched. The globe was quiet. Rafael's cheek pouches trembled. He was wise, Rafael. He understood. Bradley opened the cage. The rodent froze. Bradley had stroked the fur once before but not since then. He stroked now. Rafael tried so hard not to move. Bradley lifted him out of the cage. He held him to his chest and rocked from side to side. A loud clang behind him caused him to drop the hamster.

Bradley's father stood there in greasy blue jeans and a dark green jacket short on the sleeves. He didn't look too pleased.

Bradley was afraid to look down to see what had happened to Rafael. Was he hurt? Did he escape? His father glared at him with his hateful black eyes. Bradley wanted to say something, anything, but his mouth wouldn't open.

“What the fuck was that?” the father asked.

Bradley took a deep breath. “Rafael.”

“Don't sass me, boy.”

“He's a hamster.”

“You've gotta be kidding me? Is that what I pay my taxes for?” He spat on the floor and pushed Bradley's shoulder. “Go on, get your ass moving.”

“But I should . . .”

“You should what? Move it, you little prick.”

The father said things all the way to the house. He said he was sick and tired of this nonsense, that Bradley had to come to a reckoning. That's right. A reckoning. He kept saying that word. It hit you. They drove past the house. They continued down to the park and climbed out of the truck. They walked to the monkey bars. He made Bradley get up there and hang. He told him if he let go he'd get no supper. Bradley lasted ten seconds. The father kicked the snow.

Give me a screech in the morning. Give me a bloody good screech in the morning, in my ear. Another mouse smeared on the Victory. The pockmarked walls receiving blunt yellow light. I'm on the floor. I fear the day ahead. My dreams did nothing special. Chased by grunting hogs again over their rutting grounds, slippery going. Yet I take no stock in dreams. Nothing more than little movies to help pass the long night, reminding one of nothing more than life itself, garbled, chaotic. What is this life inside my head? I shower and dress. Isn't life this? This getting dressed for it? My sandals stink. Adrienne came back from the coast but didn't call me last night. I told her never to call me again, and she didn't. I expected her to call one more time. I have to wash my sandals.

Cold coffee in the café next door and the morning paper and nothing better to do, though I'd swear that wasn't the case to a stranger. Tragedy, and politics left and right. And too much baseball coverage, too much golf, for the swingers of the world. I have no beef. I am not bitter. I only ask for a place to rest my elbow when I'm flagging. Adrienne didn't call and today I cannot think of her. Head out in the sour morning rush and the violent universal mind of the world. I feel hopped up. I'm bouncing on my toes. I used to box a little. I can still go if I have to, but my hands hurt, my hands hurt like hell.

“Watch where you're going.”

“What about you?”

“What about me, punk?”

The old guy refuses to relent, like some small rabid red-mouthed species of terrier. His cruel cane, too, I note. A right to the jaw would square him. But I'm not that way. I make progress. I know why the mail is slow: three posties at the corner talk about the soccer game. What soccer game? Meanwhile the people wait. I buy nuts from Bulk Foods. Munch them as I head down to the drugstore to fill a prescript for antidepressants. What month is it? It doesn't matter. Maybe June. June is good. The good light, the ease.

Crossing Montrose Avenue changes things. Grey sedan runs red, takes down man on bicycle. A spinning wheel annoys everyone watching. The driver jumps out, enraged. He shouts at the fallen cyclist. The wheel continues spinning. The cyclist springs to his feet, starts kicking the unscrupulous driver. We could all applaud him. But he doesn't stop for a while. Then the driver drops. The cyclist berates him, and what is this?

“Buddy,” I say. “You made your point.”

“Hey, you fucking squarehead,” cries the cyclist, “you want some of this too?” He jabs his foot into the driver's spine.

The revolution begins. Flags flow over the landscape, horses. A trumpet blares. I bounce on my toes. He misses my knee on the first swipe and I catch him in the shoulder with a right hook. Hits my thigh with a second hoof, but his hands drop to his hips and my left followed by a right ends the story. Now another man takes offence.

In shorts with hairy legs and leather sandals, he charges from behind a parked car. Downs me with a shoulder blow. My pills dance across the asphalt. Now I'm the victim. Yet this isn't true, apparently. The sun in the sky, the falcon flying close to me, and the emptiness of everything surrounding these events: the universe feels hollow. A siren interjects. Two men in black leather clutch me. Something wrong down there, my hip numb. They rough me. They throw me into a black van. Then black inside. Then black inside my head.

Come winter they'll bring me back my shoes. They'll give me back my crucifix. Come winter I'll know where I stand in the system. I won't fool myself into thinking there's an easy way out. Cramps grip
me now when the weather chills, when rain threatens. When the rain arrives at last, the cramps let up, but a constant pain persists. Hot baths help. Massages. My masseuse, Kaelin, lost her license last month for failing to pay registration dues. Came over to my place with her massage board and worked me over.

I'm too young to be so fucked up. Kaelin told me I was too young to be so fucked up. Hurt my feelings. I could think of more fucked up people. The guy next door with Tourette's, blathering all day and night. What about him? But Kaelin had a point. I'd let everything go to shit. What was wrong with me? I'm more sober today. I realize there's nothing I can do about the mayhem of the world. I'm better off keeping a distance. My last woman fled when I grew too engrossed with her. She told me she was afraid. I asked her what she was afraid of. She said she was afraid of making a terrible mistake.

I'm crippled then. Hobbling around like an old man. Kaelin suggested a cane. But I'll have none of that. A cane.

I met Adrienne at a poetry launch. She had no face at first. She talked. I watched her mouth. Another time she wore black-rimmed glasses and a red lycra top. I told her my story. Then we began a story.

The present holds more attraction. I want to wash my hands of everything preceding this moment. Not possible of course. But pleasant to think about. We'd been seeing each other for six months. Summer dragged on, then autumn. Life was killing me, but love lightened the load.

Then she was in Chicago. I waited for her return. And yet not happily. I visited George. George was a priest, but he gave up the cloth to write a play. On his eighth draft, something wasn't working. He hadn't bathed for days.

“Structurally,” he said, “I find no fault. But perhaps I'm fooling myself.”

“What do the boys say?”

“They say they like it. But can I trust them?”

“They mean well.”

“Exactly.”

George hooked up with a local amateur theatre troupe, amateur
being the operative word. He wanted his play staged. We all make compromises. Sometimes there's no choice. He bared his nicotine-stained teeth. Lit another cigarette, rubbed his sparse beard. Foot smell, forgotten vegetable matter, baby-powder, and the smoke behind everything, the smoke in the atoms of that interior. He wore no socks.

“And you're in love,” he said.

“Yes.”

“That's nice. Ditty and I were in love once. I swear. After being a priest for so long I didn't think love was possible. She was a beautiful girl. When we got married I felt free.”

“Where is Ditty these days?”

“Out west with a one hundred pound ass-less goof.”

“You're still bitter.”

“Sour's more like it. Sour.”

George liked feeling that way. Fuel for the drama. Without malaise, without sourness, nothing clicked for him. I wanted to tell him more about Adrienne. I wanted to tell him everything but knew he might not want to hear my testimony, so I buttoned my lip. He had his own gorillas choking him out. I'd always admired George, though I never wanted to emulate him.

“So tell me about this girl,” he said.

“I thought she understood me.”

George smiled. “Let me tell you something, pally. Understanding brings responsibility.”

“How do you mean?”

George lost interest in the conversation. He waved me off. I left in a tilted position. What was he getting at? When Adrienne returned from Chicago, I had no words for her. She kissed me but smelled different.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I don't know.”

“You don't love me anymore?”

“It's not that. I still love you.”

Adrienne's bloated face angled toward me. Her dark red lipstick daunting.

“I still love you, Adrienne. I've just had time to think.”

“Thinking's dangerous.”

“I know.”

We went to her house in the Beaches. She refused my advances; then changed her mind. Then I changed mine. We did nothing. I made risotto. We ate, drank vino. She told me about Chicago. About the river, the food, the architecture, blues bars, Wrigley Field. I didn't want to hear anymore.

“What's the matter now?” she asked.

“We have to talk.”

“Isn't that what we're doing?”

“No. You're talking.”

Difficult man, making her life so tight. So tight she couldn't move, she couldn't breathe. She wanted to puncture me and watch me flop around the room until no gas remained. Then she wanted to float off.

“We have to talk,” I insisted.

“Then talk, talk.”

“You understand me, no?”

Adrienne frowned. Weary from the flight, weary from the parties, from the hotel debaucheries. And yet love beamed from her like so much warm light. I didn't understand what that was, why it blunted my dread, why it illuminated the darkest closets of my self. For a time, anyway. And then nothing helped, nothing brought laughter, nothing turned the clock back, nothing made music. We were stuck.

Only later, after the barricades come down, and the parade floats retire to the grand tent, and the clowns pull off their noses, only then do things come into focus. We pack up our peanuts, scrape the cotton candy from our heels. Then look out for elephants.

Adrienne sent me home.

“I'll talk to you in a couple of days, when your mood improves.”

I walked home without self-loathing. Maybe a mistake after all. Maybe a little self-loathing goes a long way in the world. A legless man on a stool at the corner held out his hand. I wanted to ask him
who set him up like that. I wanted to ask him what if he had to go to the bathroom. I gave him a few coins.

“God bless you.”

“He didn't you,” I said under my breath.

“Come again?” said the legless man.

“Never mind, it's not important.”

“God works in mysterious ways.”

Not so mysterious, my friend. I walked. And the sky pink all of a sudden, the western sky pink, and they said this wasn't a good thing. My legs felt longer than usual. The road dipped ahead. Trees sighed. Raccoons climbed down. The sun died out. Then night, and the stars above, a partial moon, and cooling air. Bats spit from silhouette branches, silent dogs scuffed behind fences, a woman with a wide white face passed me. Was she smiling? Her black hair massed over her temples. I know this woman, I thought. I don't know this woman. She disappeared under the viaduct.

What of the love one finds at the bottom of a barrel? What of love in the naked morning, under the slime-tinged light? What of love coming up from the drain wearing a fruity straw hat? I said my prayers at night. I didn't know of any God. But said my prayers. Home at last. There I pondered the day and its vicissitudes. Maybe I was stubborn.

The neighbour knocked.

“What is it?”

“Look,” he said, showing me the puncture wounds in his palms.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“You don't know?”

I did know, but it bored me to tears. I feigned ignorance. On to me, he recoiled with disgust. He could now return to his flat and bake himself a cake.

I only did what I did. I couldn't help the others searching for fellow disciples. I couldn't bring anything to their tables. They made me regret life.

I was looking forward to winter already, if it wasn't winter already. A look out the window confirmed that a few rusty leaves still clung to
the branches, autumn hanging on by a hair. The plump annoying squirrels overdue for a winter fast. The air like steel. My teeth ached. I shut my mouth. I retired to my bedroom. I wanted to call Adrienne but I was afraid. I'd give her time.

Time passed.

I was absolved of wrongdoing in the bicycle trial. Adrienne returned from California. But no word from her yet. Nor have I called. I've decided not to go that way. It's up to her.

And still, spontaneity invades the dead street: a man with a bad voice attempts to sing a song in a register too high for him. His effort splutters. It's not that I take issue with him or with the toneless banality of the street, but I imagined better music at least, better songs. I cannot call Adrienne. She wouldn't be friendly now if I did.

On the subway a man elbows me in the ribs. Dark blue business suit, brown tasseled shoes, briefcase. He doesn't apologize. I dare say it was deliberate. But I give him the benefit of the doubt. We have to coexist somehow. And then another elbow in the ribs, same exact spot.