Katherine Dunn: Attic

This bare sheet metal bunk cuts deeply. When I stand up there will be red creases in my thighs.

That small window high up in the wall has bars for me but no glass for the wind and this is Missouri November. A dank and Independence November. I feel that. I can smell the filth of Marie — smell the soggy paper plates and rotting scraps piled in the corner — smell the ancient fish scent of the bloody rags beneath the paper plates. I could sleep. The light helps close my eyes — the smells are personal, intimate — my blouse is thin but my boots come up to my knees. I could sleep, except that I have to pee.

I had to even as I left my peanut butter and banana sandwich at the lunchroom table. Even while I walked up to the Kresge counter with the check and stood silent during the attack on Dogsbody, even across the square. I have been sitting here for hours having to piss but never thought about it or recognized the cramp and pressure until now. The thigh-links do their job too well. They hold my legs so tight, so close together that I was never tempted before. It’s one of Blendina’s tricks, massaging the Queen of Diamonds around the midriff. Dogsbody is rumpled and still but the bladder swells and sings. It presses and pokes and shouts fatness — cater to me — bend for me — spread your legs for me.

Once I would have jumped for it. Now the steel eyes vie with the sloshing membrane. Now there are thigh-links. I will not walk over to the cold porcelain while Marie is awake. I will not lift my skirt to show the steel at my crotch to her. I will not crouch and spray myself through unwillingly clenched legs while anyone can see me.

That John W.C. Toilet won’t flush anyway. No lever, handle, pull-chain, or pedal — no tank to open and trip the plug — just the bowl with a pipe running into the wall.

In a minute I’m going to walk over there and take a closer look. It’s only three or four steps and I’d go now but I’d have to get all untangled with my legs and Dogsbody and straighten things out with the thigh-links just to get up. I could pretend I was uncomfortable on the bunk and looking for another place to sit except that there’s no cover — just the hole. You can’t sit there unless you’ve got business. I could throw something at the pot and get up to put it in when I missed. That’s not bad but I haven’t got anything to throw. Why do I have to keep that old bag of mush from knowing that I’m looking for the flusher, that I’ve got to piss? It’s not right. I’m going over there right now and stand on the toilet seat and have a look around. I guess if she asks I can say I’m trying to look out the window.

All right, everybody up, we’re going. We’re going to march right over there. Push with hands, lean forward a little, lift, all right legs. The thigh-links. How am I going to get up onto that toilet seat? Got to kneel down on one edge — inch forward across the hole to the other side — brace arms — push up with legs — little spring — all fours on the toilet seat — hands up on the wall — catch boot-heel on edge of seat so as not to tumble in — smile down Loki — be still Blendina — I’m standing on the toilet seat. One boot planted on each side of the hole, I’m standing upright — knock-kneed with the thigh-links, but upright. It must be the altitude that makes me so sick. Lay my cheek on the wall, this cold concrete for a minute. Things are settling down again but Marie is looking my way. I’ll have to pretend to be looking out through the window. No good, the damned window is still too high. It’s also too far into the middle of the wall to see from this corner. She’s going to know if I’m not careful. I’ll have to get down right away. I guess I can jump easily enough, but there’s something between my feet. I’m standing over her shit. I’m standing over a bowl of Marie’s brown turds.

There’s someone at the door. A white-haired man in uniform. A gentle-faced old man who starts to see me up here. “Miss Dunn? You are to come downstairs with me.” I could kiss him. My boot-heels crack on the concrete and I can feel the heat spouting from the balls of my feet from jumping too hard, but there’s no time to limp. We’re going downstairs, this old man and I, and he’ll take my arm on the stairs like a lady, so they must know now who I am.

He holds the heavy barred gate for me to pass through and as he swings the outer door closed I catch a glimpse of Marie sitting on the bunk smoking, looking at the floor. He locks the outer door and looks at me. I’ll give him a present, my sweetest smile.

“I’m so glad you came just now. She almost caught me.”

He takes my arm and leads me through the dark empty lobby to the stairs and helps me down. Turning and turning with the steps in a square-cornered spiral — past the ground floor and into the basement. Through the empty steam-heated fluorescent offices that echo. There’s a run in my stocking that shows in my calf as I walk but I console myself with the height of my boots and go on with my escort’s gentle age. So far he has taken me only through open doors though there are closed doors on either side of us. We seem to be approaching one completely closed door. It is not green or metal but a cherry wood panel with a shining knob.

He stops before the door and letting go my arm smiles at me in his leather-brown wrinkles. “I’ll leave you here. There are some officers in the next room who want to speak with you. When you’re through I’ll come and get you.” Thank you papa forgive me so warm. But he knocks quickly and goes away.

The door opens and the teacher says “You’re late, do you have a tardy slip?” I didn’t know, they just came to get me now….He shuts the door and marches to the front of the room. He takes a notebook from a large desk and writes in it. He looks up from writing and motions at me. “Come up here.” I begin to move toward him, up an aisle between the student desks. The rows of desks are long and none are empty so I wonder where I’d sit if I had come in time. At each desk someone bends over a book. No one looks at me or seems to notice that anything is going on. They are all silent. Finally I stand in front of him and he looks at me through thick lenses. His lips spread but his teeth are clenched and the words hiss out between them without affecting his face. “This is a tight school Miss, you’ll have to learn to bring an excuse if you’re late. You sit here on this stool and let the class get a good look at you.” I sit down but none of the students move or even look up from their books. The teacher hands me a tall paper cone saying “Here’s the proper hat for the likes of you.” It’s too big for my head and perches on my ears and rocks forward and backward alternately stopped by contact with the nape of my neck or the bridge of my nose. The precarious fit makes me nervous and I’m afraid of dropping it. I sit very straight and still with my legs hanging over the edge of the stool. Too high for me to touch the floor. No rungs to hook my heels in. While I’m arranging myself with the hat and the thigh-links pressing into my legs from being sat on, the teacher is rustling around in the papers piled on his desk. He comes up with a thick manila folder and starts leafing through it, muffled hmms and mrummphs. “Now then Miss, I’m going to ask you some questions. You take this book….” It’s so big I can barely hold it in my lap. Printed in gold leaf on the moldy cover: INDEPENDENCE LOCAL LEGIS LEXICON. “You’ll notice that this volume is in the form of a dictionary. I shall ask you a question which you will not answer immediately but will find instead listed in the LEXICON under the first letter of the initial word of the question. You will find the question whose wording corresponds exactly to the one I have asked. Next to that question in the LEXICON you will find another question. You are not to answer the question which I have asked, but only the question which appears next to it in the book. You will confine your answers to either ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Do you understand?”