Fish in the Sky (16 page)

“Still into comics, huh?” she asks.

I nod and pretend to go on reading
Tintin,
but instead my eyes fall right between the legs of Eliza, 22, art student, currently a cocktail waitress.

“Idiot,” she says, and disappears into her room.

I turn off the lamp, take my flashlight out of the drawer, slide under the comforter with the magazine, and pull the comforter over my head. Under the comforter the small beam of light creates mysterious shadows; I’m like a Stone Age man in his cave. The girls on the pages seem to come alive in the half-light, crawl out on the sheet, and writhe with pain, stretching their long fingers to the ceiling of the cave, tormented by the burning in their flesh, their sighs and moans echoing in my ears. They’re cruel and gentle simultaneously, pulling me closer to them, closer, closer, until I disappear into their restless embraces, completely mad and enchanted, mesmerized and insane, locked up in the Stone-Age man’s cave, where all emotions and thoughts are wiped out and only the raw, bloodthirsty instinct of the beast rules, suffocating everything that’s tender and beautiful in my consciousness with its ever-burning lava of lust.

I feel a sharp kick in my lower stomach, and a scorching electric wave twists and turns up my spine, blowing my brain into pieces.

For a long time I lie still, sweating and out of breath, in a coma. When I finally come to my senses, I stick my head out from under the comforter. The only thing I hear is the low bubbling sound from the water pump in my fish tank; apart from that, everything is quiet. I jam the magazine under the mattress, turn myself to the wall, and draw my knees up to my chin. The sweat cools down on my skin, and I shudder. I am ashamed. It feels like I’m lying stark naked in the wilderness, utterly alone, despised by everyone. These beauty queens are nothing but delusion and deception. Witches that lay their snares for humans, just to lead them into eternal damnation. I was lured by their sweet promises, but they lured me out into the desert, where nothing awaits me but certain death. And there I die.

Is man a beast or a civilized being? Can one behave like a beast but still be civilized at the same time? Are we just human beings on the inside but beasts on the outside? Is it beastly behavior to fiddle with oneself, or is it human behavior? I’ve seen cats and dogs do it, but that’s instinct; that’s cleanliness. What can it be called, what I’ve done? It’s not cleanliness, but is it instinct? Is it maybe a natural step on the road to becoming a grown-up? But then why do I feel so bad? Why do I feel like a lesser human being? I’m so small I disappear into my bed, blend into the floral pattern on my sheets, feel awkward with every move I make, blush from listening to my own breath. I don’t dare to open my eyes because I know I’ll suffocate from shyness just seeing my own body, my hands, my fingers, my face in the mirror. I wish something would happen, something terrible and overwhelming, so I could stop thinking about this. If only there were a volcanic eruption or a tsunami. Then nobody would bother speculating why I look so strange. Because what has happened must be written all over my face. I should have jumped into the ocean the other day when I was in the mood. Now I don’t dare to get out of bed ever again. I’m just going to lie here, completely still, with my eyes closed, and wait — wait until everything has changed, everything’s different, until I’m sixteen or eighteen or something.

From the kitchen, I can hear Mom’s and Auntie Carol’s voices. It’s Saturday morning, and Carol has arrived for a cup of coffee. On Saturdays she delivers
Business Week
to the fancy houses on the west side of town because she claims it’s healthy exercise. As it happens, she’s a subscriber to
The Socialist Worker
newspaper, because she’s left-wing, but maybe delivering
The Socialist Worker
isn’t quite as healthy, I don’t know, but I’ve always found it a strange policy to actually be helping the enemy spread his word. But Carol’s way of seeing it is probably that this way she’s making
Business Week
pay for her subscription to
The Socialist Worker.
It would be just like her to reason like that. She and Mom agree on everything. They agree, for example, that the prime minister is a jerk and that the right-wingers are the same old pains in the asses, out to line the pockets of the rich. They can rant on endlessly about this and about the countless ways the powers that be conspire against them.

Their voices carry up the stairs and into my room, and I pull the comforter down so I can hear what they’re talking about properly. They’re probably chattering about everything that’s wrong with society — criminals in government, criminals in the unions, and criminal employers.

“He can thank his maker that he’s still alive,” Carol says.

This is the tone of voice she uses when she’s talking about my father, and I sit up in bed and listen harder.

“I don’t understand what he’s doing out on that ship anyway, with that woman in her condition,” she says very clearly.

“Well, it’s a good salary, isn’t it?” Mom says in a low voice.

“Of course is it,” Carol says. “You don’t think a woman like that would give up a man like my brother; oh, no, they know how to nail them, first chance they get.”

“It takes two,” Mom says, even lower than before.

I climb quickly and silently out of bed and creep to the top of the stairs to eavesdrop. Mom offers Carol more coffee, and then there’s just the sound of cups hitting saucers.

I’ve left my weird mood behind me, under the comforter, but my mind is filling up with questions, lining themselves up in a row. Did Suzy nail my father? Nailed him how, exactly? And what takes two? And how does that affect my father’s salary?

When I walk into the kitchen, they fall silent as if they’re deep in thought and squint at me through the cigarette smoke over the brims of their coffee cups. I get the chocolate for my milk and try to make it look as if I’m completely ignorant of the situation and haven’t heard a thing. But they keep looking at me in this strange manner without saying a word.

“What?” I ask.

Then Mom leans toward me and places her hand on my arm and talks in a very soft voice.

“Your father is in the hospital, Josh. It’s nothing serious, just a checkup after that accident the other day.”

“Goddamn fool,” Carol growls, and puts out her cigarette. “Risking his life for some big corporation. And the only thing they do is send him for some stupid checkup so they don’t get sued by the insurance company.”

“He’ll be in overnight,” Mom says, and strokes the back of my hand.

“Well, so he says,” Carol adds. “You see, there grows a lovely flower out in the country,” she says, giggling, and lights another cigarette.

“Maybe you’d like to visit him,” Mom says, and I can tell she doesn’t like the way Carol is talking, but as usual, though she’s offended, she doesn’t say anything. But I sense exactly how she feels, and suddenly I want to embrace her because now I feel like her. And I want to ask her forgiveness for how wicked and deceitful I’ve been. But I say nothing and I don’t move but fill up with grief and regret and loneliness until my face swells from the bottled-up emotions, which I keep down by clamping my lips tight, just like my mom does. If only Carol wasn’t here, then I would have let go.

“Can I go today?” I ask.

Mom gives Carol a questioning look, as if she controls the visiting hours at the hospital, like she’s in charge of everything and Mom nothing. As if Mom can’t decide if I can go and visit my own dad at the hospital.

“Wait till tomorrow,” Carol says. “Then we’ll see if he’s still there.”

“Maybe you’d like to go and play with Peter,” Mom says, and suddenly I realize she wants me to go away so she and Carol can keep on talking about this thing that’s obviously none of my business. I slurp my chocolate milk and instantly couldn’t care less about how Mom feels. And I don’t want to beg her forgiveness anymore, don’t feel I’ve been bad or deceitful at all; I’m just me, and it’s none of her business what I do with my life.

“Maybe,” I say, and walk out of the kitchen.

As usual, Carol makes a comment, which she doesn’t mean me to hear, but I hear it anyway.

“How moody he’s becoming!”

I want to turn around and scream at the bitch, but my mother’s genes grab at my throat, so I turn blue in the face instead of uttering the slightest word.

Moody
in Carol’s language means being an idiot or retarded or both simultaneously. If only she could hear the insults and swearing piling up in my throat. I put my clothes on and feel even smaller than when I woke up; I’m shrinking continuously, and soon I’ll disappear for good. No, I’m not going to Peter’s. I want to be on my own today, completely alone. Still, I’m not brave enough to go to my hollow; the seagull might have taken it over, the rotten beast. Ambushing me and screaming at me and scaring me to death. I’m going to the hospital to visit my father. If he’s asleep, then I’ll sit by his side until he wakes up, and nobody can pull me away from him.

Gertrude opens her door and peeks out.

“Can I talk with you?”

She hardly has anything on, but when I enter her room, she’s wrapped a bathrobe around her.

“What?”

“Will you do me a favor?”

“Like what?”

“Mike has invited me to a party tonight.”

“So? Why should I care?”

“Could you tell your mom that I’m at a school dance and might be late because after the dance I’m visiting my girlfriend who’s babysitting?”

“What girlfriend?”

“There is no girlfriend, of course.”

“Oh?”

“I’m just asking you to tell your mother there is one.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?”

“Because she’ll see right away that I’m lying. And I don’t want to lie to her, either.”

“But you think it’s all right for me to lie to her?”

Gertrude reaches into the pocket of her bathrobe and hands me a bill. I look at it in her hand, or rather, I’m making it look like I’m looking at the bill. In reality I’m looking at her bare chest where her robe has opened slightly. She has a very thin gold chain around her neck and a tiny birthmark just a little lower, right where her breasts begin to fill up her skin.

“Will you do it or not?”

I pretend I have to think about this. I dig my fists deep in my pockets, sit on her bed, and try to make it seem as if I’m looking right past her, but I’m gobbling her up with my eyes. Her scent twirls up from her sheets, and I could sit here all day long just breathing in. Most of all, I want to lie down in her bed and drown my face in her pillow.

“Answer me,” she says. “Yes or no?”

“All right, then,” I murmur, and put my hand out.

She reaches forward and places the bill in my palm, but at the same time the robe slides off her thigh so I can almost see all the way right up to her groin.

“I have to get dressed,” she says.

“You want me to tell her now?” I ask, just to prolong my stay a bit.

“Of course not. Not until tonight after I’ve left.”

“Dad’s in the hospital,” I say, and suddenly I want to ask her to come with me to the hospital to visit him. I wish she were my big sister; then I wouldn’t have to ask her.

“What happened?”

I tell her about the checkup because of the accident on the ship and I try to talk slowly. It’s so nice to sit here in her room, I want to stay longer, want to sit and chat with her about something, anything, and breathe in her scent. But she’s impatient, has no time to listen, is in no mood to talk to me, and cuts me off.

“And what in God’s name was he thinking, risking his life, expecting a baby and all?” she says.

My narrative fades out to stutter and mumble and my jaw drops a little.

“Huh?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Uh, no. Yes, I did,” I add quickly so she doesn’t think I’m a complete idiot.

“Well, that’s how it is,” she says, crossing her arms over her breasts and giving me a firm look.

I haul myself out and traipse along into my own room and sit on my own bed. This is all too much for me. Too many things happening at the same time, as if the world is falling apart all around me and there’s nothing I can do to prevent it. Why doesn’t anybody tell me anything?

So I’m getting a half sibling, a little brother or a little sister out in the countryside. Where the hills go on for so many miles that it takes days to walk across them, where the lake is so deep you could never reach the bottom, where the summer is so warm that you can run in your shorts all day long, where the scent of nature is so strong you can taste it. All this my father would tell me years ago and always with the promise that we would go there next summer. Next summer. But we never went there, and now he’s gone and found a woman there and they are expecting a baby.

Carol has left seven Camel stubs with pink lipstick in the ashtray. I sit at the kitchen table, watching Mom as she puts potatoes in the pot.

“Is Trudy awake?” she asks, and looks out the kitchen window at something in the far distance.

“Yes,” I say.

“Lunch will be ready soon,” she says.

Her blank face reflects in the glass; there’s a low screeching from the latch on the open window; the wind is blowing harder.