Lydia Cooper - My Second Death

I pull my head back and push in the second door. It opens on a bare room with a wooden floor, a window without curtains, a metal bed frame. Another door to the right. I push through it into a tiny bathroom with chipped green tiles.

There is a cat standing in the sink, licking water puddled around a soap dish.

I just stand there for a second and stare at the cat. I don’t know what to do with it, so, in case it’s Aidan’s and he doesn’t want it escaping, I just shut the bathroom door so it won’t escape.

Then I push my boxes into my bedroom and go back out into the kitchen. I look around for a trashcan and find one under the sink, two crumpled silver cans of Bud Light and a squashed carton of Chinese food leaking onto the bottom. I hunt around and find a bottle of Lysol spray. I spray down the sink and countertops and rub them with paper towels.

In the freezer I find a tissue-wrapped copper plate and a box of photographic negatives. In the silverware drawer are a box of matches, a set of paintbrushes, a can opener, and a corkscrew. I open the oven and there is a pizza box sitting on the middle rack. I pull it out. Dried, cold crusts and a round white plastic container of congealed garlic butter. Christ, he’s disgusting. But my brother Dave is a bit of a slob, too. At least Aidan doesn’t seem to be the sort who leaves his underwear lying around. I don’t understand how anyone can stand clutter. It feels — unnatural. Unhealthy. Like you’re shedding pieces of yourself in public.

I stuff the empty pizza box in the trash and pour half a bottle of vinegar in the stove, then dump in the remainder of a box of soda from one of the cupboards. White foam expands and crests.

After I strip-clean the kitchen I go back to the bedroom and climb over stacks of boxes. I open the bathroom door. The cat has brown and black tiger-striped fur and yellow-green eyes. It turns and looks up at me and its pink tongue curls around its thin pink nose. I hold out my hand. The cat thrusts its head up, arching into my palm. I pick the cat up. Its throat crackles, the vibrations translating into my ribcage and rattling my bones.

At my bedroom window I stand like Nero with the cat draped over my shoulder. The evening sun breaks through a shelf of clouds and catches the myriad cracks and smears on the pane and turns it to molten ore. A sheet of burning fire illuminating the grungy street. After standing at the window until I recognize the creeping muscular ache of obsession, I blink and turn away.

I sit cross-legged on my neatly-made bed with my laptop open in front of me. I have folded and hung all of my clothes and stacked my books on the shelves. When I shut the closet door, the bedroom is empty except for a bent reading lamp and the single bed. The windowpane fits crookedly in its wooden frame and consequently exhales cold air. I am huddled in a thick sweatshirt that says Alcatraz on the front. I think the sweatshirt used to be Dave’s.

I hear a noise through the bedroom wall, the apartment door opening. The jingle of keys. Double thuds as he kicks his shoes off.

It is quiet for a bit. Then I hear his footsteps in the hall. They pause in front of my door. And then retreat.

I figure he doesn’t know how to approach me, doesn’t want to startle the tiger in its cage. I should set the tone here. Establish the rules of conduct. I get up and go out into the living room.

He is on the couch, slouched so that his curved spine rests in the crack between the cushions, his neck propped up on a crushed pillow. His jeans are stained and there is a crumpled button-down shirt lying on the floor. The TV burbles quietly. He is cradling a can of beer on his bare stomach. The winter sun leaking through the window glitters like warped glass on his skin. He is thin but there are traces of muscle across his bare shoulders, his wasted-looking chest.

He turns his head when I come in.

“Hey, Mickey!” His smile stretches the skin under his eyes, pushes his eyebrows into flaring dark streaks. “I thought you were going to call before you moved in. But then I saw your car outside.”

“I parked in the back.” A narrow gravel alley beside the house leads to a communal lot between this house and a couple others, each also subdivided into apartments. Rather than paralleling on the street, I chose to park in back. The idea that I would worry about the safety of the neighborhood per se, as my brother fears, is patently ridiculous. But I do admit to some flutters of anxiety on the Chevelle’s account.

“Yeah. But it’s pretty recognizable, even for a junker.”

For a second I don’t know what he means. And then, thinking about the gravel lot out back, I understand and a blinding rage seizes me.

The lot, with its zoological array of rusting-out behemoths, looks like a cross-section of the death of the American auto industry. The Chevelle is the second oldest vehicle in the gravel lot, seconded only by a 1970 pea-green Buick station wagon so ugly it looks like a renegade prop from a low-budget Stephen King film.

After a long silence, I say, “It’s pretty recognizable.”

“Yeah.” He just keeps smiling, his eyes wrinkled to slits. I don’t know what he’s enjoying so much.

“It’s a matte-black restored 1970s muscle car,” I say. “So yes, it’s recog niz able. What are you, some kind of vehicular philistine?”

The smile falters at this. He scrunches his nose and rubs his forehead. “I guess I don’t know much about cars.”

“And you called it a junker.”

“I just meant—”

“And put a fucking shirt on. I didn’t sign on for any randy Art Students Gone Wild experimental living project.”

He drops his hand and laughs. It’s a surprised and happy sound. “Geez,” he says. “Is this all about your car? I’ll never say anything bad about it ever again, cross my heart. And I’m sorry about the shirt.” He reaches for the shirt and shrugs into it, buttoning it halfway. “I got paint all over myself today.” The cat sidles around the corner of the hall and minces into the room. It twines through my legs, drapes its tail across my ankles.

Aidan notices and with the hand holding the beer motions to the cat. “I forgot to tell you about the cat. It’s not mine. My old roommate left it. We can chuck it out if you want.”

“I don’t mind it.”

He watches me. Then he turns his attention back to the TV, lifts the remote and turns up the volume. He takes a drink and when he lowers the beer a yellow liquid runs around the lid. I can smell it from the hallway, a pungent, bready smell.

“Your brother said you didn’t like animals.”

“I like them okay.”

“So it’s just people.”

I nod.

He grins again. His eyebrows tilt upward at the edges when he smiles, an odd muscular contraction that makes his face demonic. “It’s okay,” he says. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

I don’t know what he means.

But I’m not here just to play happy roommates.

“That house across the street,” I say.

He takes another sip and glances up. Drinking could be a delaying mechanism, but he looks barely interested. “Which one?”

“That house with the yellow tape. The condemned house.”

“Oh, yeah?” He grins. “I think it’s a crack house.”

I don’t say anything.

He frowns. “It’s okay,” he says. “I mean, since I’ve been here there hasn’t been much crime. I think it was, you know, condemned a while ago.”

“Oh good,” I say. “For a minute there I was concerned for my safety.” He’s not taking any bait at all. Fine. I can play that game, too. “I’m going to the store now. To get food. Do you need me to get you anything?”

He waves the beer at me. “Nah, I’m good. Thanks.”