And Yet They Were Happy Page 2

  we? #2

  In the park, everyone is dehydrated. Like shipwrecked sailors who’ve finally reached land, everyone sprawls pathetically on the grass. Babies born in winter learn, for the first time, of sun. Skinny girls and fat girls pull up their skirts, revealing everything. Grass sticks to their thighs. The sky blue shirts of the college boys are soaked with Frisbee sweat. A teenager sits under a tree, struggles with his guitar, bestows upon everyone mismatched chords, a king throwing coins to the poor. Everyone is sunburned. A young man and a young woman lie side by side on the grass. Her heart swells, swells, shrinks, shrinks, swells, swells, shrinks, shrinks. Unaware of this turmoil, his heart plods patiently. Your joy—it shall be unbounded. Swelling, swelling, shrinking, shrinking. Are there a million people here? Nowhere near a million, you’re so bad with numbers. Fine, then, are there two hundred? Way more than two hundred. Fine, then, Mr. Perfect, how many people? Your joy—it shall be unbounded. Today, someone has turned twenty-five. So young, yet now this person’s age can be easily measured in terms of centuries. Old people find shaded benches, wishing to avoid dehydration and sunburn. But when you’re young, being dehydrated and sunburned resembles being drunk. Your joy— Shrinking, shrinking, swelling, swelling. That child over there has absolutely no fine motor skills! Look! Whenever he tries to throw the ball it slips right out of his hands. We’ll have children. Won’t we? —it shall be unbounded. Are you thirsty? I said, are you thirsty? No. Your— You’re thirsty, I can tell, I can see it in your eyes. I’m not thirsty. Shrinking, shrinking. You are thirsty. It shall be unbounded. That baby’s mother has a huge ass. I hope I never have an ass like that. She has a nice face. I wish that kid would take a guitar lesson. Swelling, swelling. Aren’t you happy, today of all days? Shrinking, shrinking. Your joy—it shall be unbounded. Hey, today of all days, can’t you be happy? Swelling, swelling.

  we? #3

  He gets sad when he sees the small room where she slept as a child. The walls are too empty, the windows too large, the floorboards too cold. Alongside those windows, an old-fashioned desk and chest of drawers. Outside those windows, the frigid mountains. At night, the wind delivers a low mournful monologue, squeezing through the spaces around the windows so as to distribute the grief more evenly. Also at night, dead neighbors float up the hill of brambles and hover there, looking in, feasting on the sight of a neighborhood girl all grown up with an East Coast boyfriend now. Lorraine who grew geraniums (everyone’s least favorite flower, a stinky flower, Geranium Lorraine they used to call her)—Mr. Mason who made cinnamon doughnuts at Halloween and ceramic eggs at Easter—the Seversons’ golden son who was once king of the swim team. Their faces are pale and not unfriendly. But even so. A bit of privacy would be appreciated.

  He says, “No offense, but this doesn’t seem like the kind of room where a little girl could feel happy or safe.” He’d like to do something to it, hang posters of rock bands or Beat poets, replace the white quilt with a tacky flowered comforter, rip CDs and books off tidy shelves until the floor was covered in the crap it ought to be covered in. “Know what I mean?”

  She doesn’t defend it; it seems silly now to mention all those shameful sentences she wrote in this room, to tell him about the deer and lilac branches and unidentified monsters that sometimes rubbed against the western window, to bring up the night when she stretched the telephone cord and leaned into the northern wall and called someone trembling and trembling spoke to that person until morning.

  No, he is not wrong. He’s more than right. He’s gotten used to her; he knows things about her that she hasn’t told him; and this is good. And yet—wasn’t it something—to be that lonely—lonely, lonely, as she’ll never again be?

  we? #4

  I’m desperate to know where Bob Dylan is right now; maybe he’s across the bridge, or across the globe, or maybe he’s dying.

  Years ago, when we didn’t touch each other tenderly except during sex, I sat on the steps while you skateboarded down the sidewalk with a few strangers. It was nighttime. It was springtime. You glided noisily through the darkness. You wore a black sweatshirt with a hood. Your face was a shadow except for your dully gleaming eyes. Because I no longer had your features there before me, I forgot what you looked like. You were slim, strong, impenetrable, incapable of being possessed. I was an explorer, arriving exhilarated at a stone door that wouldn’t budge. I tore a silver gum wrapper in half again and again. My heart became a metal bucket, tipping over, saltwater onto sand. Parts of you were lost to me. No matter if I married the person skateboarding darkly through the spring night; he’d never be mine.

  Now you lie in a bed, hooked to an IV, your face pale, the room pale. In the aggressive light your face has no shadows. Your bloodshot eyes open and close. I leave for eight minutes and when I return you’re almost in tears. You clench my hand in yours, though clench isn’t the right word for such frailty. I come close so you can smell me rather than the hospital.

  Eventually you joined me on the step. You pinched my shoulder. We didn’t yet have methods for expressing the things emerging between us. You shook off your hood and the streetlamp shone orange on you. Though it made me ache, I pulled your hood back up.

  I want this to be published so Bob Dylan might read it before he dies. These sentences are the closest I can get to rock ’n roll. How pathetic. This is the closest I can get to a skateboard, a shadowed face. May there be some kind of drums or darkness in the white spaces between the words.

  we? #5

  Once there was a person whose sadness was so enormous she knew it would kill her if she didn’t squeeze it into a cube one centimeter by one centimeter by one centimeter. Diligently, she set about this task. Alone in her room, she grappled with her sadness. It was quite a beast, alternately foggy and slippery; by the time she managed to grip it, her skin was sleek with sweat, soaked with tears. (The sounds coming from her apartment worried the neighbors. What was that shy little woman up to?) She twisted her sadness like a dishrag. It strained against her, tugged, pulled. She sat on it to shrink it down the way old-fashioned ladies sat on their snakeskin suitcases.

  Then, finally, there it was: a small white cube.

  She slipped it into her pocket, went outside, noticed orange lichen growing on tenements, ordered lemonade in a café. The checkered floor nearly blinded her—it looked exactly like joy, and she almost covered her eyes. But instead, she fingered the thing in her pocket. Her eyes became bright prisms; they made her irresistible, and soon she had a friend. One day, passing some kids in the street who had just lost a die down the sewer, she discovered a die in her pocket. “Wow, lady,” they said. “Where’dya get a blank one?”

  “Gosh,” she said, “I really can’t remember.” And she couldn’t.

  You know that book where they went all over the world and took pictures of families in front of their homes along with everything they owned? A hut in Kenya, a suburban house in Texas, a Tokyo apartment? I always loved to see the precious and unprecious items, the woven blankets and the TVs, the families standing nervously alongside. Sometimes I look around our home and imagine everything out on the street. But I hope that someday, when they come to take our picture with everything we own, it will just be us, standing before a building, your arm around me, a blank die in my palm.

  we? #6

  We formulate intricate plans for what to do if we get separated. If you don’t make it onto the subway before the doors close, I’ll wait in the next station. If you fall in love with someone, I’ll poison the tomatoes in her garden. If I fall in love with someone, you’ll hammer nails into the wheels of his bicycle. If you leave me, I’ll write a book and become famous; when you read it you’ll realize I know more about you than you do, and you’ll come home. If I leave you, your drawings will garner you a solo show at an important gallery, and I’ll become just a person in a damp coat hobbling through rooms full of cruel manifestations of herself, and I’ll come home. If I get sad, you’ll cover me with leaves until I can’t breathe
; once I’ve suffocated sufficiently, you’ll unbury me and my infinite grin. If I grow distant, you’ll press tacks into the soles of my feet until the color returns to my cheeks. If our baby is born deformed, we’ll build a cradle for it out of twigs and moss, like the nests made for infant monsters in medieval times. If you die in a gruesome crunch of metal, I’ll locate all your body parts and burn them to ashes; I’ll carry you with me in a jam jar that’ll always get us held up in customs. If I slice my wrist cutting the potatoes, you’ll slice yours cutting the carrots. If I drown in the lake, you’ll buy a canoe and paint it white. If I start to see shimmering parakeets when it’s just pigeons, you won’t give me to the doctors; you’ll tell me I’m Duchess and therefore always right. If you lose part of your brain, I’ll feed you waffles drowning in syrup, I’ll change your diapers, I’ll take you to the carnival. If your memory is destroyed, I’ll make labels for every single thing in the world. Lamp. Spoon. Hand. Applesauce. Spiderweb. Eyelid. Cup. Tree. You. Me.

  the fights

  fight #1

  A cupcake and a bottle of scotch stood on a subway platform. In the fluorescence, the scotch lacked its rich amber glow. It looked orange and muted, teetering dangerously on the platform’s edge. The cupcake pushed the bottle of scotch back to safety, smudging its lavender frosting in the process. To everyone else, the bottle of scotch looked like a drunk young man with bloodshot eyes and a wrinkled shirt; the cupcake looked like a tired young woman with bloodshot eyes and a tense neck. But the bottle of scotch and the cupcake knew they were a bottle of scotch and a cupcake. Embarrassed, the cupcake inched away from the bottle of scotch and stared wistfully at a normal couple. “A cupcake and a bottle of scotch stood on a subway platform. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke,” the cupcake said. “Or a great joke,” slurred her companion. “Don’t fall, idiot!” the cupcake muttered. “Love me!” the bottle of scotch implored.

  A man in a suit and a naked woman stood on a subway platform. In the fluorescence, her limbs looked thick and awkward, but under milder light, she’d be lovely. They embraced. “Goodbye.” “Goodbye.” “I’ll never see you again, will I?” To everyone else, the man in the suit looked like a man in a suit and the naked woman looked like a woman in a dress. But the man in the suit and the naked woman knew he wore a suit while she wore nothing. “Are you cold?” Down the tunnel, the train’s howling white eyes.

  Long after midnight, I’m awoken by the sound of your shivering body. Yes, it makes an actual sound. I can hear the racket of your bones. Why didn’t you get under the covers, idiot? Your body is too drunk to realize how cold it is, so I must realize it for it. Come here, idiot, get in, crawl in, I’ll hold you until your blood turns from scotch back into blood, until your bones turn from icicles back into bones.

  fight #2

  He slams her face into a maple tree until the bark is imprinted in her skin. She becomes a maple tree. He taps her for syrup. She poisons her sap. He falls beside a stream. She becomes the stream. He vomits in the stream. She slaps his face. He feels rejuvenated by the water and goes to punish the tree. She becomes a honeybee and stings him. He yanks her wings off.

  She robs a bank and brings the money home. He buys champagne and calls the police. She escapes from prison, finds a glass bottle, and searches for him. He gets a job as a clown. She can’t smash him with the bottle while he’s surrounded by children. He juggles swords and glares at her. She goes home and crawls into bed.

  He sits on her and sings songs with hateful lyrics. She pours boiling water over his sleeping body. He becomes a poisonous teabag in her teacup. She drinks tea and falls into a dead sleep. He drags her to the bathtub and drops the hairdryer in. She gets electrocuted and becomes a ravenous fire. He flees the bathroom. She devours the towels, then pursues him. He becomes a drip on the leaky ceiling. She approaches, radiant flames howling up the walls. He evaporates. She explodes out the front door. He becomes a rainstorm.

  She races down the block, burning desperately. He mists. She rages through intersections, searching. He drizzles. She sees some litter and, suspecting it’s him, burns it. He rains and rains. She realizes the rain is him. He pours down. She leaps up. He smokes and steams. She sputters and gasps.

  Two marble statues appear in someone’s yard. A man and a woman. They’re splendid. A miracle of the Lord. Many poor, sad people come to place marigolds and copper coins at their feet. The marble man and woman gaze at each other with a look that cannot be mistaken. That look—it helps people. Their hearts become strong, and marigolds pile up in the yard.

  fight #3

  Sometimes a strange man and woman appear in our apartment. They have a terrible marriage. They throw their snakeskin suitcases down in the living room, pop open the brass snaps, and pull out their foolish, expensive clothing. Soon their belongings are strewn over every surface. Clinging to each other, we hide in the corner. Meanwhile, they stride bitterly through the rooms. They fight in the morning and leave for work without apologies, their minds still fizzy with hate. They enjoy hatred, the crazy freedom of it, the delightful abandon, almost like shedding the pull of gravity, taking flight from the stupid safe green earth, no longer handcuffed by the idea of home. They whisper cruel things and leave and return and whisper other, crueler things, their tense jaws no longer serving to muzzle their tongues, words unleashed to punch and pinch. Hate untethers them; they float. They float upward, upward. They cook, but fail to use enough butter. The food turns out dry and unsatisfying. Our plates prefer to jump out of their hands and shatter rather than serve them another meal. Our wineglasses crack rather than enable them to drink. They’re forced to buy packaged crackers and cookies; soon there are crumbs everywhere. The desk, the bathtub, the bed—no place is spared the niggling filth of crumbs. They never scrub anything. The counters become sticky with unattended spills, the couch is stained, the coffee table nicked. And still they detest each other. They say, You clean it up. No, you. No, you. No, you. No, you. Even our invincible jade plant withers. Terrified, we curl ourselves into balls and roll ourselves into the closet.

  When we reemerge, our plates and wineglasses sit tidily in the cupboard. The jade plant is thriving. The invisible suitcases are gone. The invisible man and woman are gone. We sigh. We go to the bed, where there are no crumbs. For a while, we forget about them. But soon we will begin to prepare ourselves for the next time they come and invade us.

  fight #4

  Because he sometimes forgets her, she’s forced to do certain things, such as pirouette precariously around the apartment. She leaps; she adds flourishes. He keeps reading the newspaper. She abandons her ring on the bureau, but that’s not the kind of thing he notices, and, eventually, defeated, she slides it back on. She cooks a five-course dinner that calls for the most expensive spice in the store. This spice is the pollen of a flower, a fact so lovely it makes her whistle the whole way home. She peels each grape with a knife, and by the time the meal is ready her hands are covered with Band-Aids. “Nice,” he says afterwards, absentmindedly refolding his napkin, and offers to do the dishes. The next day she carves an ice-sculpture in the kitchen, a life-size likeness of herself. Arriving home after midnight, he does not register the ice girl, except to remark “Gosh, hon, your lips are awfully cold tonight” before heading into the bathroom. The following morning he curses the mysterious puddle in the kitchen that brings him slippingly to the floor. Another morning there’s a life-size likeness carved out of chocolate sitting in her chair. Hiding in the closet, she watches him peck the chocolate girl on her sweet melting lips. He says something particularly affectionate as he slides on his sunglasses. Exhausted, she puts away her carving tools. Later, she begs him to accompany her to the park. He comes, irritably. The lake has begun to freeze. Dismayed ducks and indifferent swans drift in the unfrozen areas. She wants him to listen to the sound of the ice broken by the frantic wings of the birds, ice clinking against itself like crystal goblets. A goose, attempting to land with a splash, hits ice instead and slides. He
laughs uproariously. “That’s not funny!” she says. “It’s funny,” he counters. “Please,” she implores. Then she notices something—the ice has crept all the way to her toes, and below this clear new ice, bright orange leaves are frozen into place.

  fight #5

  Today Mary looks so cold, so absurdly serene, standing there in the rainy churchyard; finally I approach her. “Hello,” I say, “would you like to come inside for tea?” “A nice offer, but wouldn’t they miss me?” she says, nodding toward the passersby on the sidewalk. “Oh they won’t notice,” I lie. “Well,” she says hesitantly, “I wouldn’t mind tea.” Her voice is higher than I’d hoped—I’d been anticipating something deep, rich, chocolaty. With surprising youthfulness, she steps off her pedestal and jumps over the soggy bouquets.

  In my kitchen Mary stands awkwardly (and here I’d always assumed she’d make me feel awkward). She selects lapsang souchong, the blackest, smokiest tea; I had her pegged as a chamomile girl. Perhaps I’ve made a mistake. She’s not what I expected. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs.

  With that, my hope returns and I want to tell her everything. “Don’t apologize, I’m glad you’re here, I have questions for you.” She seems relieved; her weird, soft smile reappears. “Mary: do you ever feel like a bar of soap that keeps getting used until it disintegrates into a mushy little bit of nothing?” “Um … no,” she says sweetly. “Mary: in springtime I see you when I’m walking home at night. The crabapple trees are puffy pink above you, and behind you the stained glass windows of the rectory shine bright red, and—” “The water’s boiling,” Mary interrupts. Frustrated, I try again. “Mary: did you see me crying in his arms last Sunday? We were passing by the churchyard, and I was feeling desperate and small and bad and stupid and awkward, and you were standing there so serene, and I—” “Do you have cream?” Mary says. “Mary: did you see me?” “I didn’t. I’m sorry.”