Spider on My Tongue (10 page)

—A Manhattan Ghost Story

Phyllis is buried in a small cemetery in Brooklyn. No one gets buried in Manhattan anymore, without special dispensation—though she lived there, and was murdered there—because there's simply not enough room.

I've often wondered about bodies and cemeteries and spirit longings. Hasn't everyone? And now, here, in this little house, I wonder again, and I wonder more, because a quaint country cemetery stands only half a mile east, at the edge of these woods. I think that many of the departed who visit me here may have come from that cemetery.

But now, as I type, and think about it, that's foolish. And I realize I've always thought it was foolish. Cemeteries aren't places where people die, they're places where the dead are put after their resident souls have been liberated.

And it's an old cemetery, too. It dates to the late 18
^th
century. Very old. And I see nothing about these departed to suggest they come from that time.

But that's neither here nor there, either.

Because most of these departed seem to be naked.

I have a theory: it just came to me (I'm very quick that way). It says this—these departed people appear naked, some of them, because, after a time, they begin to shed a lot of the artifice they carried with them from life, like the artifice that is clothing. They cling to it for a while (the artifice of clothing) because it represents an existence with which they had grown very familiar, so it's an existence they don't want to leave. But, before long (longer long in some, shorter long in others), they shed this artifice, find their nakedness more real, more honest, more comforting. But, after a while (I know this), they shed that, as well (How can souls be covered by naked skin?). And then they—the departed—are completely shed of artifice—old and new artifice (old; the skin—new; nakedness). And they exist as whispers. After a while, though, that whispering becomes inaudible, even to them, and they, the departed, depart, presumably forever.

Neat theory, huh? I think so.

Here's the thing: I believe that I'm naked as I sit at my kitchen table and type this rambling, sometimes incoherent, always unreliable narrative.

Here's the relevant thing, however: I feel cold. I even believe, as I type, that I'm shivering.

Hunger high into the bones.

It feels like song.

~ * ~

Fixed my nakedness (which was a surprise—that nakedness: "Am I really naked?" I said to myself, and looked down at my little round belly and my other parts, which seemed to be retreating into my lower
belly, and I decided I
was indeed naked) and left my little house again, intent on that country store and foodstuffs. I remember what I liked: I liked chili very much, though not the spicy kind, and I always ate it with macaroni salad because the two tastes and textures complemented one another. And I loved cider, too, though it didn't complement the various tastes of chili. And I loved whole wheat bread, and lemon-poppy-seed muffins—so good on the tongue, with a great aftertaste.

I wonder if life has an aftertaste.

I wish there were someone I could ask.

And, if so, if life does have an aftertaste, I wonder how long it lasts.

A chef wrote once, "There is no taste, only aftertaste."

I'm curious as to what these departed people would say about this. I wish they would speak directly to me. I feel, at last, that I have become one of them, or that I am, at least, in their universe, and approaching their particular planet. But maybe that feeling applies to everyone—not just to me, but to you, too, and infants and young teenagers and people very, very much alive climbing mountains or rolling around on a bedroom floor while locked in an orgasmic embrace.

I remember orgasmic embraces.

Phyllis had orgasms wherever we went.

At an opera once (Puccini, La Boheme) she had an orgasm. It wasn't loud (she cared about her privacy sometimes), but it was loud enough that the people seated nearby looked over, dismayed (most of them) and elevated (some of them), because Phyllis's orgasms were things of elegance and beauty and a touch of pain (because, she told me later, she knew that they, the orgasms, were going to be far behind her before long).

She had orgasms spontaneously. We rode in taxis a lot and she had very loud orgasms in them. She screamed the names of her past lovers, my name, the names of rivers, and the names of people in history ("Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Isaac Newton!" she screamed once), as if she were searching, in her orgasm, through the soul and history of the world.

I could not match her orgasms. Mine were simply grunts and wheezes and moans followed by silence, followed by exhaustion. But she didn't care. She always said, afterward, "Oh Abner, you're lovely!"

She made me feel lovely, and feeling lovely, with her, was a very manly thing, and, of course, I enjoyed feeling manly, no matter if it was lovely only in her eyes.

Her eyes saw much, much more than ours are allowed to see, and "lovely" fit me, in those eyes, her eyes.

Sometimes I say to myself, in memory of her, "I'm lovely." I haven't begun to feel foolish about it—when I do, I'll know she's gone forever.

~ * ~

That's a grand word, don't you think—"Somesuch." It's coy and wonderfully descriptive at the same time. "Somesuch." You could say "This and that" instead, but it wouldn't be as descriptive or useful. And it doesn't mean the same thing, anyway.

I asked Sam Feary, who stands at the window continuously, now, but who tries to convince me he's not who I think he is (through a nameless surrogate with a tight grip, as related earlier in this narrative), but I know so much better (hunger unclouds the mind) than these departed, than even him (Sam, who surely has lost track of identity). It happens to the departed. It's necessary. They lose their wheels and go flying.

I asked Sam, "Is she here?" and he should have said, "Phyllis? Why, of course, my friend." To which I would have answered, "Why?" And he would have answered, "Because you're here, of course, and she needs to be where you are, even if both of you are out of reach." But he didn't say any of that, except for the last part, "Both of you are out of reach."

I threw my hard-boiled egg at him. It hit the window and splattered around him; he turned and looked at me, and, though I didn't recognize him, he said, in a voice that was unintelligible, "Be careful who you intimidate, my friend."

I laughed.

He laughed.

We should have had a party.

~ * ~

When I visited Phyllis's grave in Brooklyn, and saw it for the first time, and her name on it, I was naturally disbelieving; after all, I'd been making love to her for a while, then, and she to me, and if there was ever anyone who seemed very much alive, it was Phyllis, especially when we made love, and when we ate, and when we walked together, or went to the opera (which she claimed to love) or when she slept, or woke.

"Good morning, lovely Abner."

"Good morning, beautiful Phyllis."

This exchange took place more than once. It took place half a dozen times, though she repeated herself, her "Good Morning, lovely Abner," several times, too, so that, in the morning, it would be, "Good morning, lovely Abner," to which I'd respond, "Good morning, beautiful Phyllis," and she, from the bed, on her back, heavy blanket down to her waist, repeated, her gaze on the ceiling, "Good morning, lovely Abner," and I'd repeat, "Good morning, beautiful Phyllis," which would continue for fifteen minutes or so, sometimes longer, sometimes for half an hour. I told myself, then, that it was all right, there was no problem, because it was a game for her, like Yahtzee: it was the
How-many-times- can-I-repeat-myself-before-he-gets-annoyed
game.

But it wasn't a game at all. I know that, now.

She was stuck.

All the stuff there, in what remained of her gray matter, could not decide, after sleep (which was simply eight hours in a place I could not yet go to), what she had just said, or what I'd said, or whether it was even morning.

Christ!

Hunger high into the bones.

Hunger high into the bones.

But I miss even that—the repetition, getting stuck, and getting stuck with her, repeating myself, too, because it drew me into her world.

And now there's you, getting stuck with me in this place, this world I've meandered into over the course of decades, which is partially your world, too.

And I do not know you, at all. Or any part of you, or any extension of you,
or
you
(as I said a couple of thousand words ago-- reread it if you'd like; it's terribly poetic), and I realize I must have been lying to you, or lying to myself, or simply trying to understand
something,
which would, of course be
anything
and
everything
about
you,
which would be anything and everything about
myself

That
is the spider on my tongue. My mortal ignorance of
you,
and, so, my mortal ignorance of myself, which becomes my mortal ignorance of these departed, and my mortal ignorance of
now,
and
tomorrow,
and, of course, of yesterday.

~ * ~

My cupboards are as bare as Mother Hubbard's—except for a crowd of various insects—ants, for instance, and silverfish and black beetles. A half dozen other varieties, too. I don't know why they're here. I was taught that insects go after sugar, crumbs, water, vegetation. But the cupboards are only wood and air, now.

It's possible that these departed, in my little house and in the dim forest around it, draw insects to them. It's possible that insects are attracted to them. Possible that insects see them or smell them, or see and smell them, and find something appetizing about them.

Now and again, I found insects on Phyllis, especially when she slept. Some of them were like the insects in my cupboards. Some of them were ants and black beetles and an occasional silverfish (when I think about it, I recall that silverfish aren't actually insects [which, by definition, have three body segments and six legs], nor are spiders, which have two body segments and eight legs). I remember I swiped these creatures to the floor when I found them on her naked body (she slept naked always, and often with a smile), and then I squashed them with my foot. Some of the larger insects made quite a noise when they died.

God, I remember our meals together. She ate everything with gusto, even bread and Jell-O, cucumbers and peas. She ate
everything,
in
fact. She loved sushi, which I detested, and preferred her meat deep red: "There's nothing like eating this, Abner!" she said. "Eating this meat!"

"I can see that!" I said (I didn't eat much meat, then: I eat none, now).

"Yes," she said. "It's lovely, eating this meat!" After a few minutes, sometimes ten or fifteen minutes, sometimes longer, she would usually drop the phrase "eating this meat!" and I'd miss it; sometimes, I'd even coax it from her when I hadn't heard it in a while, and she'd usually oblige ("It's lovely, eating this meat!"), though sometimes she'd simply give me a little frown and say, "The meat is done."

I miss her gusto. I miss her skin, her breasts and her eyes, too. I find that I even miss picking the insects off her sleeping body and killing them on the floor.

~ * ~

It's always like being in a tent in the dark at this dismal house in the dim woods. I've not known anything like it before. I was never a lover of sunlight. I found it obtrusive, even, in a way, maudlin—"A day without (whatever) is like a day without sunshine," people used to tell me. And I'd
say
, Shit on that! Give me rain and storms and an eternal night.

Now, this day, I would cheerfully embrace sunlight. I'd stare straight into it with a smile.

"Abner, you're a depressed person," Phyllis said once. "It's why you love me."

"No," I told her. "I love you because you're so goddamned
lovable."

"You
love
me," she said, "because I'm just out of reach, now and always. Surely you know that."