Everyone but You (15 page)

Evan has gotten the upper hand, clearly. Cass and I look at each other. She shrugs. We sit in silence. It is this moment, as
Medea
suggests, when a woman takes a man for her master, that she is exiled from her home and dispossessed.

L
ATE THAT SAME NIGHT
, Cass haunts our apartment. She sobs, speaks to herself, quotes lines from the play. Until they are on stage, actors live in a kind of darkness, a limbo. For all actors, I decide, life is only a performance, and events on the stage are the truth. There is no way to argue it otherwise.

Other news: I found two of my Wagner CDs mysteriously cut in half. My Nietzsche book is missing. Cass is working up to something. There is evidence of this all around.

A
T EIGHT O’CLOCK
the next night Evan arrives, script in hand. He drags in the cold, along with a trail of slushy snow. He says, Hello, Moira, and shakes my hand with great formality, as if there weren’t other things besides his extended arm that I have seen protracted and stiff.

I am finding you a little unbearable of late, I say.

He says, I have absolutely no idea what you mean by that.

Cass says nothing. She watches us from the futon, where she’s been firmly planted all day. She twirls her hair and stares in a morbid way.

Jesus, Evan says, addressing her next. What’s gotten into you?

Cass ignores this inquiry. The awkwardness between Evan and me seems to please her, and she smiles in a vindicated way. Evidence, evidence. Cass slides the small medallion back and forth. There are signs of deterioration. I go to the kitchen and down another cup of coffee. I watch as Evan sits down next to Cass and places his hand on her knee, but she brushes it away. Cheater, she accuses.

Evan is an ennobled Jason, an actor to the end. He says,
Even if you hate me, I cannot think badly of you
. He kisses her hand.

She says, I could kill you right now, if I wanted. She nods knowingly, makes a slicing motion across her throat, and then kisses him full on the lips.

Thespians!

I down the last of my coffee and decide I will have no part in the evening. I collect miscellaneous books from the table (along with a few
Cosmos
) and gather my coat. I tell them I will be at the library, but Evan, not wanting to be alone with Cass, says: Moira, you can watch. He tells me, We need an audience, don’t we?

As if this is a good option. Look, the whole thing is getting sticky, I say. I am no fan of acting, I tell him. Or the classics.

He says: Have you seen
Medea
? There’s no telling what she might do. He laughs nervously. I sit, and even though I feign disinterest with a copy of
Cosmo
, I am forced to see Jason and his Medea embracing, her body limp, her wild eyes gazing at me. Evan, I decide, gets some kind of sick pleasure from all this. Having two women (possibly more) has made him bold. Cass begins to cry.

It’s true, I am beginning to feel amoral.

Later that night I wake to hear Evan through the walls, his groans in synchronicity with the rhythmic banging of the futon against the wall. They have made up. He has taken advantage of Cass’s affections, possibly gotten her to shower. I get up from bed and peer around the corner of my doorway. Cass is sprawled out under Evan. She pulls him closer, strokes his hair. It is a sad and fearful sight, to see them, the contours of their bodies, the pliability and frailty of their flesh, the frenzied way in which they come together again and again, and how, when finished, they disconnect, spent, exhausted, still only themselves.

Medea
opens in two days and will run for one week only. After the play ends, I can only hope that things around the flat will return to normal.

M
R. TANNEN CALLS
the next day and says he has received complaints of lewd activity, sexual trysts, loud noises. I tell him he’s got the wrong flat, even though the air smells thick with sex and there are two used rubbers in the bathroom trash. I am on a bit of a caffeine kick. I am missing my Nietzsche book, and my music has been destroyed, not to mention other things—pride, morality, the start of any affection that might have moved me to love Evan. Mr. Tannen cares little about any of this, of course. He’s a short man with thinning hair and it’s widely rumored that he sleeps with students in exchange for rental discounts. I say: Look, Mr. Tannen, I am in no mood for harassing phone calls, but he tells me he’s heard rumors about both Cass and me, that he’s on to us and has our number. He says, The walls are thin, miss. He clears his throat after every sentence. After he clears
his throat for the fourth time, I say: Are you touching yourself, Mr. Tannen? Are you?

He tells me I’m insane.

I
CAN NO LONGER
hold any eye contact with Cass. She wears the same clothes from yesterday—an old flannel shirt, yoga pants, and sneakers. She stands at the kitchen counter and butters a slice of burnt, crunchy toast. In the middle of breakfast, and for what reason I don’t know—love, abandonment, fear—Cass sobs uncontrollably. After she eats, she lies on the futon, watching
The Price Is Right
, and when I tell her it’s almost time for classes, she yawns in a sedate way, shifts, and turns under her blanket. I sort through mail: coupons (there is one for
Irish Spring
, which I discard); a credit card offer; a letter to Cass from her old high school sweetheart, who still, after all this time, writes; and a letter from Mr. Tannen to all his tenants saying that unpaid rent is subject to prosecution.

Tannen is out to get us, I say. I toss his letter on the coffee table.

Tannen is a pervert, Cass moans. And Evan is no better. She rouses herself, drapes the blanket over her shoulders, and goes to the window. She stares down to the park below us.

By nine at night, there is other evidence of problems: Two empty wine bottles are in the trash. I find Cass’s research paper there, too, which Klodhaven has given a D. Later, I wake to find Cass standing over me. She leans in close, a knife in hand, and I can smell the acrid stench of wine on her breath. She speaks of betrayal, in both friendship and love. She says: Some friend you are, Moira, then she quotes
Medea
, saying,
I wish I might
die
. She slides the small medallion back and forth. She stumbles back, falls to the floor, and then stretches out, turns, and sleeps.

I could press charges—I would be within my rights—but instead I decide it’s enough that I stop seeing Evan altogether, that I put my torrid little affair behind me, and journey anew into the future. I cover Cass with blankets and return the knife to the safety of the kitchen drawer.

S
OME MISCELLANEOUS FACTS:
First, when considering the ethics of power, right and wrong, good and evil, there is no place for attachment, as attachment corrupts. Nietzsche, before he became so lonely and morose, sitting around listening to Wagner, all philological and suicidal, knew this fact, subscribing to what he called a pathos of distance that grows from differences between certain classes of people (actors, ethics students, a perfect case in point). Now, as I am faced with Cass’s weeping, with my own feelings of guilt, I wonder if distance is really a possibility bewteen flatmates. There are, as Nietzsche also knew, occasionally attempts at reconciliation, times when certain types of actors/thespians and nonthespian sorts come together despite their differences. It is becoming clear to me that despite Evan’s rather classical detachment and Greek obsession with his penis, and despite my own cynicism and judgments and concern with literary discourse, Cass has
suffered
. That we are
alike
in our suffering. Tragedy, absurdity, and meaninglessness all abound because of one plain and simple fact: I have been an inconsiderate friend.

O
N THE MORNING
that
Medea
is scheduled to open, the park’s groundskeeper finds Cass lying in the snow, dressed in a pink housecoat and clogs, laughing wildly and trying (unsuccessfully; she is drunk) to make angels. The ruckus drives me downstairs and out into the cold. I huddle with other students and watch, shivering, as the groundskeeper tries to help Cass up. She bites him, draws blood. The police are called. The dean is called. There is a suggestion, as she lies there, shaking, that she might need help, that she is rambling incoherently and possibly an indigent, but the dean disconfirms this, tells everyone about the incident with the freshman. Icy blood lines Cass’s mouth (from the biting episode), and her whole body turns blue from overexposure. Someone (I don’t know who) covers her with a blanket. The police escort her to a hospital (mental institution).

L
ATER, IN MY DESPERATION
, I go to the dank, ill-smelling hospital. I ask the desk nurse how they are certain Cass is not simply Method acting, how they know she is not playing out a derivation on the act of revenge, abandoning the knife and poison for a form of self-destruction instead. The nurse, who looks a bit like a female version of Nietzsche, seems alarmed by my appearance (cut-off shorts, a T-shirt, no coat, hair a mess). She assures me that Cass is clinically depressed and a danger to herself, that she has probably been like this for years. She says: Are you a sister?

An unlikely proposition, you she-man, I say, but thank you. I want to see Cass.

The nurse tells me that Cass is in an “extreme state” at the
moment and that I can come back in a day or two. I am going to be up the creek with rent problems, but I tell her, this philosopher-nurse, that I am a millionaire.

She asks me if I need some sort of assistance.

No, I say, of course not. You’ve done enough, I tell her/him.

T
HE COFFEE SHOP
is already abuzz with news of the “nervous breakdown,” and the people in my department, a serious and sober bunch of nose-pushing bibliophiles, say they are concerned that all actors possess, at some profound level, feeble minds. When I come to the table, they say, Christ, what’s wrong with you? They produce judgments as I leave. I am certain I am already the butt of their ridicule.

An understudy, an up-and-coming freshman, has taken over Cass’s part as Medea.

Evan calls to ask about Cass, but beyond that, we have little to say. I tell him we betrayed Cass, that our cynicism and detachment collectively have done her in. He sounds apologetic and tells me in a glib way that he understands. He says that even though he feels exhausted and sad, he will continue to play the role of Jason, as this is what Cass would have wanted. He tells me that when
Medea
closes, he will sleep for years.

I am filled with some indescribable sensation, some need for Cass, and a feeling of duty toward her. I drive to the hospital, but when I arrive, Cass is being escorted out by an older couple, possibly parents or grandparents. Cass appears to be a wholly fragile thing. When she spots me getting out of my car, running toward her, tripping in slushy snow, she turns her head away, denying me atonement.

I
SPEND MOST
of the days and weeks afterward sitting in Cass’s room, filled with regret. I tell myself, I ought to have been nicer, that a little kindness and consideration goes a long way, especially with regard to flatmates, if not the world at large. All action, I realize, is bound by space and time, and each moment, significant and insignificant alike, is unrecoverable. This premise, I am certain, is at the root of all falls, from grace and sanity alike: We cannot get back our lost time.

I am thinking seriously about quitting school.

I am definitely, at the very least, quitting German philosophy.

At night I no longer sleep. I imagine I hear Cass roaming the flat and am burdened by both dreams and nightmares, all of them involving her and, oddly enough, a school of thought Nietzsche abandoned. My dreams mimic the conversion on the road to Damascus. In them, Wagner is playing in the distance, and as I ride on a horse, the strains of music grow weaker. Cass waits on the side of the road, and when I pass, she asks me why I have persecuted her. I fall, weeping. In my dreams, I lose my identity, change my name. These dreams, at the end, are filled with a certain quality of hope. In my nightmares, Cass’s ghost haunts my room with a knife, a possessed, tragic, lonely figure, and she tells me only that I will pay, that our sins follow us into eternity.

I have begun to sit in on Cass’s History of Drama class. Professor Klodhaven has noticed and eyed me suspiciously, but he has said nothing. Yesterday, when I tried to hand in a paper I’d written for Cass, one which I am certain would have earned her an A, Professor Klodhaven refused to accept the work. He looked at me as if I were deranged.

On the fifth of the month, Mr. Tannen stops by the flat to remind me of my commitments. When he sees me, he seems to take pity. He does not look like Redford except that he has, I am sorry to say, blue-gray eyes. He tells me that he will deduct fifty dollars from my rent if I am having problems, and I am so grateful for this kind gesture, I sleep with him. Afterward, when he tells me we can sleep together every month, I come after him with the knife I now keep under my bed.

I
LIVE IN EXILE
. The desk librarian finds me asleep in the book stacks, my head resting upon a shelf. Around me, there are pages and pages torn from Nietzsche’s books and scattered about. The librarian demands to know who I think I am, but I cannot tell him. He turns me in to the dean, who places me on probation and orders me to see the school counselor. The counselor is a
humanist
, and so I have found my little corner of hell. In his waiting room, there are endless copies of
Cosmo
, reading material that paves the New World. I weep inconsolably and tell him I cannot go back to the flat, that I have suffered through long, lonely nights there and fear for my sanity. He suggests only that I learn forgiveness and love.

I nod desperately.

Mr. Tannen, however, is out to deter me. This morning, I receive a certified letter in the mail demanding overdue rent and money for damage to the floors. With it, there is a crude, handwritten note, telling me I was the worst piece of ass he’s ever had. He tells me I have cost him money, he repeats that I have ruined his floors, and if I do not remit payment, he says, he will have his day in court.