Steve Tem - Ugly Behavior

Then he was behind her, pushing her face roughly into the large squares of wire mesh. She could feel the checkerboard pattern etching into her soft skin. Getting her feet beneath her, she pushed back against a crate launching them both backward through the air. She could feel something breaking beneath her, something in the man’s body, as they slammed into the floor. But he simply groaned and said, “Darling.”

Across the hall there was the open door to a dingy bathroom. She crawled up off the man and scrambled through the door on her hands and knees, locking it behind her. She stood up. The bathroom was brightly lit by six huge incandescent bulbs mounted in the ceiling. Judging from the heat they gave off, she imagined they had been burning for some time. Blood like red greasepaint smeared the fixtures. On the other side of the door a high-pitched man’s voice—imitating a woman—began chanting her name.

She screamed back at him, “What did I do? I’m a nice person!” Then she laughed huskily, the laughter bringing bile up her raw throat.

A knife blade slipped through a crack in the door panel, moving back and forth first in a sawing motion, then a chiseling one. She grabbed a piece of broken pipe off the floor and started swinging at the blade, finally snapping it off. She released a strained whoop of victory. “What kind of lover would you be?” she screamed through the door.

“I loved you!” the man shouted on the other side.

Jane collapsed into bleating laughter. The loud music faded from her head, exhausting her. “No one can make love to me,” she said, finally, quietly. “I am too afraid of all these sharp edges.”

A thundering on the other side of the door, and then the door disintegrated in rage around her. Clouds of dust floated in brilliant crimson light.

Maxwell saw himself in the bathroom’s mirrored, blood-stained wall. Jane’s face floated at his knees, gazing up at his reflection in a way which resembled longing, but which he knew might be any emotion at all. He realized, now, that he could never know what Jane really felt about anything. With a scream he plunged the blade into his own belly. He looked down at what he had done to himself, examining the knife handle curiously, as if it were his umbilical cord suddenly reappeared after all these years.

He sank to his knees behind her, touching her torn shoulder with one hand.

“I am too afraid,” she said.

“We’re all afraid,” he said.

“Am I going to die now?” she asked.

“No,” he replied, gazing down at the blood seeping from his belly. She did not move away. He would always be thankful for that, as he closed his eyes, and in his long dream carried her back upstairs and into his bed.

I let myself in with the key she had given me and tried the light switch by the door. Nothing. I stepped into the living room, outlined in the yellow neon that seeped through the windows from the fast food place across the street. Paper crinkled under my shoes and there was a sharp crunch now and then like she’d left cracker crumbs or bits of pretzel all over the floor. And sharp smells like cheese and liquor and bad perfume, but then Liz had always been a lousy housekeeper. I could never have lived with her, myself.

I tried the light switch by the dining room. Still nothing. Now I figured it was a fuse problem. The whole circuit was out.

The rhythmic shush of the cars out on the wet pavement was so loud they sounded like they were in the next room. The fractured reflections of their headlights washed the dining room walls in waves. Dark patches spotted the walls. Even with that stingy bit of light, I could see that bowls of food had been turned upside down on the table.

Somewhere in the apartment there was a snuffling sound, then a wet whimper. “Liz?” I moved toward the bedroom.

She was sitting on the floor, down in the shadows by the bed. “You’re a little late…” she said softly, with the hint of a slur. I figured she’d started drinking when I didn’t show up on time. I really couldn’t complain, however; I’d had five or six gin and tonics and a couple of beers myself before coming over. They’d filled up the spaces, and these days I felt like I had a lot of spaces.

“Honey, I’m sorry. It was hard to get away.”

“It’s always hard to get away. So what? You still gotta do it.”

“You’ve been drinking.”

She laughed. “I’ve never been more sober. Come sit beside me, lover.”

So I went over and I sat down. The carpet there was damp. In the dim light I couldn’t see her expression, just a white sliver of teeth, the blue cast in one of her eyes. “So why the dark? You didn’t pay your bill?”

She laughed again. “That’s just like you, lover. Everybody knows it’s more romantic in the dark.”

“I don’t know from romance, but I like to see what it is I’m getting into.”

She laughed again, leaned over, and gave me a big, sloppy kiss. Her lips were wet and salty, like those pretzels maybe, and smeared with something sweet and heavy. A sauce or a chili, I couldn’t tell; the liquor had killed my taste buds. Then I thought about the spilled food in the dining room. “What’s all the mess out there? I take it Walter didn’t like dinner again? That why you invited me over?”

She chuckled wetly. “Walter never liked my cooking. We had a fight, that’s all. Now come here and taste some more of me. That’s what you came for, isn’t it? Not to criticize my housekeeping.”

She had a point. I edged closer, then stopped. Something about the way she smelled. “How long you been sitting here? You hurt or something?”

Liz laughed so hard she started coughing, coughing so hard I thought she was going to choke on it. “No, lover. Way past hurt.”

I felt awkward sitting there beside her, especially with the funny way she smelled, so I got up and sat on the edge of her bed. Their bed. Walter’s and hers. “So is he coming back anytime soon? You guys have a big fight?”

She snorted. “And you’re horny, right? You want to get something going before he gets back? Well, get back down here on the floor. I don’t want to mess up the bed.”

I was mad, and I was getting disgusted. I didn’t like being around Liz when she was drunk. And the way she smelled—I was beginning to think that maybe’d she’d wet herself. “I was just showing my concern, Liz. If you weren’t such a mess you’d see that. Christ… at least you could straighten things up around here. What’d you two do, have a food fight or something?”

“Is that what you tell your wife? You tell her she should be cleaning the house better? Is that your excuse for going out and finding something on the side? Something like me?”

I held my breath, thinking fast, but having no real place to go, the thinking just running around in circles. So I stopped thinking. “How’d you find out?”

“Walter told me all about it. He explained things real good.”

“So Walter found out about us? Or did you just go and tell him? Dammit, Liz.”

“Walter wasn’t stupid. Not like me. I guess he knew for a long time. He said you were just playing with me. He laughed a lot when he told me that. I always used to hate it when Walter laughed at me like that. Like I was the dumbest person he’d ever heard of. And maybe I was.”

Right then I knew I was supposed to correct her. No, hon. You’re one smart lady, you are. Don’t let him put you down. He just doesn’t understand you. That had always been my role. But I just couldn’t do it. Maybe it was because she smelled so bad. How could you tell a woman she was smart when there was crap all over the walls and the floor and she smelled so bad? “You better get yourself cleaned up.” It was all I could think of to say. “Maybe I can help you.” I prayed she’d say no. I was trying to figure out a good exit line. I wasn’t liking being alone in the dark with her, even though before that night I’d wanted it all the time. You and me in the dark, hon. And then she’d be kissing me all over, her lips wet, her teeth scraping just enough to excite me. Wet kisses in the dark. She’d been so good at that. Who cared that she was a lousy housekeeper? I wasn’t her husband.