Spider on My Tongue (11 page)

"But you're not," I said. "I touch you every day."

And she smiled and said, "Oh Abner, you're not a fool, so why do you say such things?"

~ * ~

Sam is here.

Phyllis is here.

They're the only ones that matter.

The others, these departed, don't matter at all. They move through me like hunger pangs. They come and go, come and go. Sooner or later, they'll be somewhere far beyond me.

Sam and Phyllis keep me company because they're my friends.

I've asked them to join me for dinner.

I have no idea what to make.

I have so little.

I have only cupboards as bare as Mother Hubbard's.

No. I believe I have eggs. I have always prepared eggs well. All kinds of eggs. Scrambled and over easy.

Though it occurs to me now, upon this moment, that I threw the eggs at a window.

But there is one. One egg.

I could walk to the little country store and buy more. I could buy bread, too. And butter. I could also buy coffee.

I could invite everyone here to a delicious breakfast.

~ * ~

I remember this: it is a great chore to bring a cup brimming with hot coffee from its saucer to the lips without spilling some, which is how I learned to bring the saucer to the area of my mouth
with
the cup, so it (the saucer) can catch the spillage.

~ * ~

Dark tonight.

Awakened just minutes ago by this: "AABBNNEERRR!"

I opened my eyes and thought I'd gone blind. I sensed no one nearby who might have said, "AABBNNEERRR!" —no one other than the murky presences in my house.

"AAABBBNNNEEERRRR!" I heard.

"Phyllis?" I said. "Phyllis?" I repeated, and glanced about for some point of light. "Am I blind?" I said. "Have I gone blind?"

"AAABBBNNNEEERRRR!" the voice said, and I tried to decide if whatever was speaking was above me, or to my right or left, or at the foot of the bed, or on the bed itself.

"AAABBBNNNEEERRRR!"

"Who
are
you?" I screamed.

"AAABBBNNNEEERRRR!"

"Who
are
you?" I screamed.

"AAABBBNNNEEERRRR!" the voice repeated, though with greater insistence and urgency, as if making some point.

"Tell me your
name!"
I screamed.

"AAABBBNNNEEERRRR!" the voice repeated.

And there was silence.

And I became aware, once more, of the murky and intrusive presences that exist with me in my little house in the dim woods.

~ * ~

Back from the country store with groceries.

I have whole wheat flour. I have butter. Margarine. Cooking oil. I have a quart of lard. Pound of bacon and same of hamburger. Same of eggs—a dozen. Gallon of milk. One percent. Crisco. Baking soda. As well as almonds as well.

It will be no small chore cleaning the cupboards out of the insects inside.

~ * ~

Lard is comfort food. Lard is the energy of protein. Lard has saving capabilities.

I have cooked the bacon and the hamburger.

I have sat at table.

Phyllis was at it to my left.

She covered my hand with hers and helped me eat.

I ate.

And slept.

I am a goddamned fool.

~ * ~

It comes to me that Phyllis once had a jawbone which worked and that she thinks about that fact or has thought about it at some point in her time here, in this dimension, her new dimension, or that she has thought about her muscles, or her feet and arms and hands and realized that their very existence, her very need of them, and they of her, spoke eloquently of her mortality, which is the same with her lips and ankles, and her entire biology.

And mine. My entire biology.

For the first time in a long time I believe I need to use the bathroom. I had forgotten what a telling and wonderful part of life that is—using the bathroom, enjoying a good productive bowel movement and the enormous relief of urination.

~ * ~

There and gone.

~ * ~

Took a dump and a pee.

I evacuate my bladder, therefore I am.

~ * ~

I smile into my mirror. It's not a bad smile, despite the overwhelming sadness behind it, which is profound and honest and makes the smile endearing.

Sam is there, in the mirror.

Phyllis is there, too, in the mirror, near him, behind him, near him.

Both of them smile, too, though their smiles are unknowable and invisible.

The passing misery is in the mirror, also. And each facet of it (each of its million facets) remembers its parts its jawbones and fingers, its musculature and its need of feet and genitalia. Each is locked in, set in, here, stuck here, stuck here.

In my little house in the dim woods.

I love my smile and the fact of my urination.

~ * ~

And that is what it is. It can be nothing else. It is the passing misery.

I've figured it out.

I've figured it out.

I'm the fool with a brain that works all right.

Food feeds the synapses. My mother told me that. So understand this—
Listen
to your mother!
Eat your lard and your whole wheat.

My smile is as broad as Montana tonight.

Did I tell you that my little house in the dim woods is located in Montana?

I didn't?

It isn't.

It's in some other state.

I think Vermont.

I think New Hampshire.

I think New York.

But shit, nothing matters less than the state I'm in. Oh, I'm still laughing.

I hope you're laughing with me.

I could not find the doorknob. I was in the room, in the dark in the room, and I could not find the doorknob. I looked for a light in the room, a light to turn on, and there wasn't one, and I could not find the doorknob. I found the door easily, but I could not find the knob on the door so I couldn't get out of the dark room. I reached for the place where the doorknob had to be, where it always had been, but no matter where I reached, I couldn't find it, and I could not get out of the room, though I searched for hours and hours, and then, eventually, for days, and, after a time, for weeks, but I couldn't find the knob, and I couldn't find a light in
the dark room. And I kept searching because what else was I going to do except search, what else
was
there to do but search for the knob, feel around the edges of the door in the dark for the knob, but I could not find it, and so I knew, at last, after a very, very long time, after months, I believe, after what could have passed for months in
someone's
universe, that I was dead.

And then I found the knob, and I got out of that room.

People in coats and hats, people carrying umbrellas, carrying
briefcases, carrying babies on their backs, and people lugging
groceries home; people arm-in-arm; people in polo shirts, in hand
me-down dresses, in gray suits, people laughing, sweating, people
carrying tennis rackets, showing off new shoes, coaxing youngsters
to come along, people looking in shop windows.

Old people who have trouble walking, old people jogging, old
couples smiling affectionately at one another, as lovers do.
Teenage couples with their hands on each others' rear ends; boys
on street corners learning about lust.

It was daytime.

And Manhattan's streets were crowded, as they always are, then.

—
A Manhattan Ghost Story

They—these departed--tell me there is nothing quite as meaningless as death.

"Nothing," they say, "is quite as fucking meaningless and as fucking misunderstood as death."

"It's simply a
passing away,"
they say.

"Just a
passing away,"
they say.

"It amounts, after all, to no more than passing through a doorway that isn't a doorway into a room that isn't a room in a house that's an entire goddamned universe," they say, without apparent irony.

But then they laugh. After that line. The "goddamned universe" line.

"It's like giving up crayons for one's fingertips," they say. And they laugh at that, too, as I do.

Such humor.

"Is there pain in dying?" I ask.

"Oh yes, in dying," they say, "but not in death. It takes your breath away, and then you hear, and then you see."

Such humor.

"And what about hunger?" I say.

"Good God," they say, "we
need
it,
hunger,
every last one and all of us, else we wouldn't
be!”
which makes them laugh as well.

And I say, "But what of me?" and they fall silent.

~ * ~

It is this about hunger: it's neither underrated nor overrated. It is simply what it is—need, and they (these departed) are correct, of course; we wouldn't
be
without it.

And so they, these departed, come and go like hunger pangs, and I am left only with shadows I can count on one hand, on two fingers, and
need,
which is hunger, too, and hunger, which is hunger.

~ * ~

You see, understand this, I came upon them on a blue note on a bald table making hay in the sunrise, and so I shot them, and so.

And:

“Full House," she declared. “What do I need with a full house?" and spread her legs.

And:

These are my puppies. Take one. Take one. Give it your home. Take one. Take this puppy. Take this puppy. These are my puppies. Take one. Give it your home.

~ * ~

My clothes are becoming loose.

Perhaps I should get naked.

I have always enjoyed it. Naked. Ennjoyyed it. Ran around naked as a child. Young child. Verry very youngg child. Two years. That's the time for nakedness. Two years. That's the best time for nakedness.

~ * ~

So many things in those other stories that were never told, and only because I didn't remember them or I didn't have the time to tell them, and I want so much to tell them here, but I don't have the time, of course (You can see that, can't you? You can feel that, can't you? That I don't have the time. I don't have the time.). This is like one very exquisitely long extended gasp I'm involved in, or a long and exquisite exhale—I can't tell the difference. Exhales, inhales, blue faces on blue tables.