A Room With No Corners

Charlie lived at the city dump, behind a stack of discarded phone books still in their wrappers. He used to tell people he liked it better than his college dorm, but that was before he started screaming obscenities at everyone who came close enough to hear. Priests, social workers, kindly strangers – his vivid invective spared no one.

He had a scrawny mud-brown terrier he called Fizzle. Charlie and Fizzle roamed the dump looking for odds and ends. They lived on the limitless waste and occasional kindness of strangers. Charlie talked a lot about Hegel and Palestrina and the orchid mania of the nineteenth century. He spoke quietly but passionately. Fizzle listened without saying much, his whiplike tail thrashing as he trotted at his friend’s side.

They weren’t lazy. Clambering over mountains of stinking, slippery garbage every day isn’t for the squeamish or uncertain. They weren’t crazy, either. Certainly there were more comfortable places to live, even without money. But those places had walls, and corners, and only the tiniest sliver of watered-down sunlight slipped through the glass at the right time of day. There was very little for Fizzle to sniff in those cold, hard places.

It wasn’t a perfect life. But it was something, and it was enough.

Strawberry Jam

It was strawberry, and it was a full jar, and I know it was full because I barely opened it yesterday for my breakfast toast. And now it was empty. Well, almost – there was a crisp five-dollar bill folded neatly in thirds at the bottom of the bone-dry jar. Someone had carefully drawn a sombrero on Lincoln.

This didn’t help me make a sandwich. I put my glass of milk back in the fridge. Maybe Karen next door would have some strawberry jam.

She thought she did. I stood by the door in her slightly chilly living room as she went to the kitchen. Karen came back with an empty jar, a crisp five-dollar bill folded three ways, and a puzzled look. We went together to see old man Fenty down the hall. Guess what? Same thing. Same empty jelly jar, same sombrero on Lincoln’s somber head.

By the time we made it down to the lobby the rest of the building was there. There wasn’t a speck of jam in anyone’s kitchen. We all had bone-dry jars and those weird three-folded five-dollar bills. The Pullmans were a little freaked: he was muttering, she was shouting. And even though we all knew they were a little high-strung, they weren’t alone. Our voices were high and tight, crossing each other like vapor trails behind fast-dashing fighters. I wasn’t afraid, not at first, but I was starting to be. We were all getting wild-eyed. And the fact that it was all about strawberry jam – not money, not love, not lives – was making it much worse. We all knew we were losing control over something small and strange. And that mystery amplified the fear and anger.

Accusations started flying. It was Peter in 5B.  He never talked to anyone, never tipped the grocery delivery guys, never came to Christmas parties. And Sarah was sure he’d peeped at her from the alley a few times. Taking out the trash? Sure.

But Peter was right there with his boyfriend – when did that happen? – and the same empty jar as the rest of us. And they were just as upset about their missing strawberry jam as anyone. Peter’s boyfriend knew it was some kind of deviant. The jam thief was probably rolling around obscenely on a tarp coated in our condiments. He’d laugh when he was done. And next week we’d be missing our socks, or our neckties, or our underpants. And then -

Enough of that, Laurynne Mackenzie said. This is the real world, and some Shatner wannabe isn’t going to whip off his sunglasses and solve the case in an hour. Let’s get real. We probably just forgot we’d eaten it. Or maybe there were mice. Mice are very clever – they’ve been known to make crude tools from bits of wire.

Karen and I laughed at that one. It felt good – we loosened our arms around our chests a little. Laurynne glared at us, but that was okay.

The police showed up. I don’t know who called them, but I’m glad they did. We were a mob. You could almost smell the torch smoke and rusty pitchforks. There were a few residents who didn’t come down – old man Fenty went back to sleep, the Hallorans were out of town, no one knew anything about the people who’d just moved into 4D. I was afraid for them.

The arrival of the forces of law and order calmed things down. The police looked skeptical but started taking their reports. Watching them seal the jars and the identically folded and decorated five-dollar bills calmed us. Now we were back in the reassuring world of bureaucracy. Someone would get to the bottom of this. Someone would pay.

Karen and I gave our statements and went back upstairs. I thought she was going to ask me over for a drink. She looked like she wanted to, but thought better of it. We smiled at each other a little awkwardly. I think we both felt a little ashamed of what had happened, as if it were all just another night in the city and we’d made too much of it.

I went home and watched Comedy Central until I fell asleep. Colbert was a rerun.

Your Marble Aura

You radiate stony solidity.

The sun gleams brightly on your skin, and you walk through the grocery store as a god stalking his temple. You are remote: you can be touched, but nothing touches you. You can be grasped but never held. And when you examine that can of peas, the other shoppers steal guilty, surreptitious glances at the brand.

At the checkout stand, you pay less. The pretty girl behind the register smiles up at you. She is not shy, but you make her blush. And you do not notice until you pull into your driveway and the door rises before you on a garage full of barely-used tools. Another small regret, like a faded butterfly under some leaves.

Your refrigerator is neat and well-stocked. You can find what you want and it is always fresh. Nothing expires before you’ve had your fill of it. There are no half-eaten yogurts, no shrivelled grapes, no artichokes forgotten at the back of the crisper. Your bread never goes stale.

And when you shut off the television and go to bed, your eyes close and you drift off in minutes.