The Woman Who Married a Cloud: The Collected Short Stories (55 page)

“I guess we’d better get going.”

It was not a far walk to my place but long enough to look around and appreciate things like I never had before. Now and then we’d pass a house and from just a glimpse, we knew if it had been taken over or not. But once I wasn’t sure and crept to a window to look. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see a normal family inside watching TV and eating popcorn.

“How come Mel Shaveetz and his dog were on fire when they left their house, but the caveman wasn’t? All of them were dead.”

“Because the Devil keeps changing the rules all the time. That’s the reason why so many people are unhappy in life—the rules keep changing. There’s really no way of knowing what will happen from one day to the next with this. That’s why it’s so hard for us to convince people of what’s going on. And because it’s happening so much faster now, that’s why Beeflow has become more directly involved.”

“Why doesn’t the Devil stop him?”

“Arrogance. He doesn’t see Beeflow or us as a threat. There’s your house. Do you know what you’re gonna do?”

“Stay here. I’ve got to see something.”

They stood by a light pole while I went and opened the front door. Closing it quietly behind me as if someone nearby was sleeping and I didn’t want to wake them, I just stood in the hallway a minute, being home, breathing home. My mother used to say after we’d come back from a trip, “At home, even the walls heal you.” And that’s just how I felt standing there, smelling my life in those near rooms, my eyes running over our possessions and photos on the walls that I knew the whole history of. Lucky me—all of them showed in different ways what a very good time I’d had right up until that day. Lucky me. But the Brothers had earlier said a moving van had been in front of my house. That’s why I’d come back in here—to see who had taken over our house and how they had changed things. I needed to see what was different so I could prepare my wife and somehow protect her from what was happening. But why then was nothing different in here?

Then I heard it—the
zhunk
of furniture being shoved hard across a floor. Someone else was in my house. Someone upstairs from the sound of it. The back of my neck prickled and my eyes opened wide of their own doing. I wore sneakers so I was able to cross the floor and climb the stairs with very little sound. While climbing I heard that same sound a few more times, sometimes louder and longer, sometimes short and sharp. Zhunk-silence-zhuuunk. Like that. I couldn’t figure out what it was but it was definitely real and I needed to find out about it.

At the top of the stairs I stood still and waited till the next time it came.

It was down the hall in our bedroom. Zhunk. From where I stood I could see that door was open about a third and something white was on the floor just inside the bedroom. I couldn’t make out what it was. Tiptoeing down the hall, I kept trying to focus in on what that white thing was. It came to me in stages. A piece of clothing—a shirt—a white T-shirt. And just when I realized that’s what it was, I heard the other sounds. Sex. A woman having sex and liking it a lot.

Rae doesn’t like sex. That’s been the major problem in our marriage. Once in a while she’s sort of in the mood, but it’s like when you’re sort of in the mood for pizza but can easily do without it if there’s none around. I always get the feeling she’s doing me a favor when she says yes and I can’t tell you how dry and lonely that makes me feel. She’s a woman I have always wanted to touch but it is more than clear she doesn’t want that.

A T-shirt was on the floor and when I looked I saw writing on it and knew it said ‘Hard Rock Café’. It was my shirt but it was very big and Rae liked that so she often slept in it. Her sounds kept up and they would have made any man hot. I’d known them once but not for a long time. Still, I recognized them instantly. I walked as close to the door as I could and looked in.

My wife was on our bed naked, straddling a guy who’s face I couldn’t see. She was working him so hard that their banging bodies made the bed slide on the floor. Zhunk.

Even when we did have sex, she’d never do it like that with me because she didn’t like me seeing her whole naked. It was always in the dark and she’d wear some kind of clothes—a shirt or sweatshirt so she’d never be completely stripped. As if wearing something meant she was still distant from me and this act even when it was going on.

Did I watch? Yes. Did it make me hot? It sure did. I stood off to a side and watched her do to whoever was beneath her all the things I’d dreamt of her doing with me for as long as I could remember.

What had I given to the Devil to come back here? Rae’s love for me. My love for her wasn’t enough, or so he said. So I said take hers then.

Our relationship wasn’t the best. We never had sex anymore, and we seemed to fight more than we should have. Still, I knew she loved me in her scared, mysterious way. I could see it in her eyes when she looked at me sometimes. Plus there were other things she did that overall made up for what was missing. You get along and sometimes you get along so well that you don’t think about what you’re missing because you just love them there in your life, whatever way they’ve chosen to be.

As I stood there watching my wife fuck another man, I knew the Devil had changed the rules again: no dead people had moved into my house. No
Casablanca
backgrounds or jungles were needed here. Everything was the same except for the fact my wife’s love for me was dead. What more proof did I need than what was right in front of me?

There was nothing to take. I turned and went back down the hall, down the stairs. I was planning to go right back out of the house but when I touched the front doorknob I stopped. I walked back to the kitchen and without thinking, kissed that new refrigerator. The thing that had started all this in the first place. That was all I wanted to do before leaving but don’t ask me why. It just meant something to me and that was reason enough. I kissed our silver refrigerator and it was cool metal on my lips and then it was really time to go.

“Mr. Gallatin?” Beeflow’s voice.

I stood and stared at the refrigerator. “What?”

“If it’s of any comfort, he didn’t make this happen. It’s been going on for some time. Upstairs?”

“I know what you mean.”

“You were never supposed to know about it. She was always very careful and discreet. But when you offered it to him, when you gave up her love for you—”

“I know what you’re saying, Beeflow. I’m not
that
stupid. He shows me the truth, you show me the truth ... Both of you are killing me with all this truth about my life. Was that the plan? Because what good does it do? Seeing the truth just shows you how wrong you were about things and how ugly they really are.”

“Sometimes. And sometimes it brings the genuinely good things into better focus.”

I threw up my hands in disgust. “I don’t want to hear anymore. Okay? Don’t say another word.” I left my house for the last time and started walking over to the Brothers, not really knowing if what Beeflow had said made things better or worse.

But I didn’t have any time to think about it. Suddenly from down the street came all these screams and sounds of people running. LOTS of people running. I’d just gotten to Brooks and Zin Zan when this crowd arrived. First came a bunch of men in Roman gladiator uniforms—swords, shields, sandals up to their knees, the whole bit. They came stampeding down the street slap slap slapping on their sandals. Every last one of them looked scared shitless. They all kept looking over their shoulders at what was after them.

When they were gone, a few moments passed and then came the second wave. Maybe a hundred wild-looking, screaming women in leather and animal skins, wearing headdresses made out of crazy-colored bird feathers, carrying spears and swords and all kinds of other ugly weapons, some of their faces covered in war paint, went barrelling after those scared gladiators. It was clear that they were going to catch up any minute.

After the last ones passed I said, “What the
fuck
was that?”

Brooks and Zin Zan started running after them. Brooks said, “Some dead fool chose the movie
Hercules and the Captive Women
to fill his house. But guess what—they escaped.”

“And
we’re
supposed to do something about it? Us? Just the three of us?”

We were already running after them when Zin Zan said, “Now it gets interesting.”

S
HE WALKED INTO THE
place and without saying a word, handed the man the wrinkled yellow slip of paper she had worked and fussed over for hours the night before. There were only two words written on it in careful block letters. After glancing at it (she watched his eyes carefully to see his reaction but his face remained blank), he looked at her and once more at the paper to be sure he’d seen correctly. Then he asked “Where do you want it?”

Her shoulders drooped. Her whole body relaxed at his question. She had imagined so many scenarios of how this scene was going to play out, but what the man had just said was not one of them. She’d anticipated derision or perhaps stunned surprise from him; maybe some suspicion, questions like “You want this? Why?” Or worst of all, a mean little smile that said you’re an idiot but hey, money’s money and if you want to pay for this, I’ll give it to you.

“On my hand.” She stuck out her right one, palm up. With her left index finger she pointed to the middle of the right palm. “Here. I want it here.”

“Okay.” He handed back the paper. “You want it in block letters or in some kind of special script? We’ve got a book of fonts that you can choose from.”

“Comic Sans.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want it done in a Comic Sans script. Can you do that?”

He pointed to the paper. “Like it’s written there?”

“More or less. I brought along a Comic Sans alphabet in my bag that I could show you. Can you do it?”

He shrugged. “Easy. I just spent three hours doing Hokusai waves on a skinny guy’s forearms. I guess I can write two words on your palm, right?” The sentiment was snarky but his voice wasn’t—it was only stating a fact. “Are you Elizabeth?”

“No.”

He scratched his cheek and looked at her with more interest. “Are you a thug?”

She grinned and shook her head.

“But you want this on your hand forever?”

“Yes.”

He spoke wistfully, musing to himself. “People want the strangest things on their bodies.”

“I can imagine.”

“One guy wanted a strip of bacon. Another had me do a car battery over his heart. But what do I know, huh? The guy’s got money, I give him a car battery.”

She nodded.

“Delco.”

“Excuse me?”

“It had to say DELCO on the side of the battery. He wanted it specific.”

“Specific.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“And you want ELIZABETH THUG tattooed on your palm?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s that, your girlfriend or something?”

This moment and question she’d expected. She was not a brave woman but would have to be brave now. She spoke quickly because she wasn’t used to being rude and it was difficult for her. “I’d rather not say.” She spoke firmly—the subject was closed.

He put up both hands in surrender. “Okay, I’m cool with that. You want to get started?”

He was finished in less than an hour and did a great job too. The new tattoo on her palm looked exactly as she had imagined—maybe even a little bit better.

As he worked they talked. He told her stories about people who’d come to his shop. The man who wanted the car battery was a long haul truck driver who was going blind. He was terrified of what was happening to his eyes and how he would cope with the rest of his life. He wanted the battery tattooed over his heart so he could touch it whenever things got really frightening. It would remind him of the good times and that life could be good as well as bad.

“But why a battery? Why not a truck if he’s a truck driver?”

The tattoo artist wagged a finger in the air. “Good question. I asked that too. He said trucks couldn’t run without a battery. They’re the heart of the machine.”

She wished she hadn’t asked. She liked mystery more than answers. Both as a child and an adult she never asked or wanted to know how magicians did their tricks, how special effects were done in movies, or why men gave her flowers now and then. Her life was unmysterious so much of the time that any chance she got, she avoided clarification and hungrily embraced the unknown. Part of that was because she was so unmysterious. She had almost no secrets. Nothing naughty or fishy was hidden away under her bed or stuffed deep into the closet. Anyone could walk through her apartment with a 1000-watt flashlight and a magnifying glass, snooping everywhere, but find nothing that would cause her to even blush. Just that thought alone made her despondent. She looked at people around her, friends and work colleagues, and was certain most of them had secrets or secret stashes of stuff that both mortified and delighted them when no one was looking.

A boyfriend she broke up with said he knew things were going wrong between them the same way you know your shoelace is untied before you look—a sort of loosening and slight shoe wobble that makes you check. “I basically knew it was over when I started feeling that same kind of loose wobble between us, you know?” She was hurt more by that description than by the fact he no longer wanted to be together. But he was right. Shoes have no secrets and neither do shoelaces, tied or otherwise. No passionate other woman ever lurked in
their
shadows, ready to leap out and scream Ah Ha! No operatic cri de coeurs that led to wrenching emotional scenes where the truth finally flooded out because too many dark secrets and words had been left unsaid until that moment. No, to him all their relationship added up to was an untied shoe and by extension, she was a shoelace.

That was the reason for her tattoo.

While buying coffee one morning, she’d chanced to glance at the hand of a well-dressed middle-aged woman standing nearby. A photo-realistic blue accordion was tattooed on the back of it. She was so taken both by the image and mystery of why someone would choose to have that drawn on their skin, that she covered her mouth with her hand because she didn’t know if she was going to laugh out loud or splutter in glee.