Miranda July: The First Bad Man

No one said anything.

Suzanne swayed a little in her long skirt. Carl rubbed his large stomach and raised his eyebrows, waiting for takers. The last time Clee had been to the office she was fourteen. Her pale hair was pulled back into a very tight ponytail, lots of eyeliner, big hoop earrings, pants falling down. She looked like she was in a gang. That was six years ago, but still no one volunteered. Until someone did: Michelle.

THE BEEFALO HAD A PRIMAL AFTERTASTE.I wiped the pan clean and ripped up the white paper with Phillip’s name on it. Before I was even finished, the phone rang. No one knows why ripping up a name makes a person call — science can’t explain it. Erasing the name also works.

“I thought I’d give a shout,” he said.

I walked to the bedroom and lay down on my bed. Initially it was no different than any other call except for that in six years he had never once called me on my personal cell phone at night. We talked about Open Palm and issues from the meeting as if it wasn’t eight o’clock and I wasn’t in my nightgown. Then, at the point where the conversation would normally have ended, a long silence arrived. I sat in the dark wondering if he had hung up without bothering to hang up. Finally, in a low whisper, he said, “I think I might be a terrible person.”

For a split second I believed him — I thought he was about to confess a crime, maybe a murder. Then I realized that we all think we might be terrible people. But we only reveal this before we ask someone to love us. It is a kind of undressing.

“No,” I said in a whisper. “You are so good.”

“I’m not, though!” he protested, his voice rising with excitement. “You don’t know!”

I responded with equal volume and fervor, “I do know, Phillip! I know you better than you think!” This quieted him for a moment. I shut my eyes. With all my throw pillows around me, poised at the lip of intimacy — I felt like a king. A king on his throne with a feast laid before him.

“Are you able to talk right now?” he said.

“If you are.”

“I mean, are you alone?”

“I live alone.”

“I thought so.”

“Really? What did you think when you thought about that?”

“Well, I thought: I think she lives alone .”

“You were right.”

“I have a confession to make.”

I shut my eyes again, a king.

“I need to unburden myself,” he continued. “You don’t have to respond, but if you could just listen.”

“Okay.”

“Yikes, I’m nervous about this. I’m sweating. Remember, no response necessary. I’ll just say it and then we can hang up and you can go to sleep.”

“I’m already in bed.”

“Perfect. So you can just go right to sleep and call me in the morning.”

“That’s what I’ll do.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Wait — you haven’t said the confession.”

“I know, I got scared and — I don’t know. The moment passed. You should just go to sleep.”

I sat up.

“Should I still call you in the morning?”

“I’ll call you tomorrow night.”

“Thank you.”

“Good night.”

IT WAS HARD TO THINKof a confession that would make a person sweat that wasn’t either criminal or romantic. And how often do people, people we know, commit serious crimes? I felt jittery; I didn’t sleep. At dawn I experienced an involuntary total voiding of my bowels. I took thirty milliliters of red and squeezed my globus. Still rock hard. Jim called at eleven and said there was a mini-emergency. Jim is the on-site office manager.

“Is it about Phillip?” Maybe we would have to rush over to his house and I could see where he lived.

“Michelle changed her mind about Clee.”

“Oh.”

“She wants Clee to move out.”

“Okay.”

“So can you take her?”

When you live alone people are always thinking they can stay with you, when the opposite is true: who they should stay with is a person whose situation is already messed up by other people and so one more won’t matter.

“I wish I could, I really wish I could help out,” I said.

“This isn’t coming from me, it’s Carl and Suzanne’s idea. I think they kind of wonder why you didn’t offer in the first place, since you’re practically family.”

I pressed my lips together. Once Carl had called me ginjo, which I thought meant “sister” until he told me it’s Japanese for a man, usually an elderly man, who lives in isolation while he keeps the fire burning for the whole village.

“In the old myths he burns his clothes and then his bones to keep it going,” Carl said. I made myself very still so he would continue; I love to be described. “Then he has to find something else to keep the fire going so he has ubitsu . There’s no easy translation for that, but basically they are dreams so heavy that they have infinite mass and weight. He burns those and the fire never goes out.” Then he told me my managerial style was more effective from a distance, so my job was now work-from-home though I was welcome to come in one day a week and for board meetings.

My house isn’t very big; I tried to picture another person in here.

“They said I was practically family?”

“It goes without saying — I mean, do you say your mom is practically family?”

“No.”

“See?”

“When is this happening?”

“She’ll come with her stuff later tonight.”

“I have an important private phone call this evening.”

“Thanks a bunch, Cheryl.”

I CARRIED MY COMPUTER OUTof the ironing room and set up a cot that is more comfortable than it looks. I folded a washcloth on top of a hand towel on top of a bath towel and placed them on a duvet cover that she was welcome to use over her comforter. I put a sugarless mint on top of the washcloth. I Windexed all the bath and sink taps so they looked brand-new, and also the handle on the toilet. I put my fruit in a ceramic bowl so I could gesture to it when I said, “Eat anything. Pretend this is your home.” The rest of the house was perfectly in order, as it always is, thanks to my system.

It doesn’t have a name — I just call it my system. Let’s say a person is down in the dumps, or maybe just lazy, and they stop doing the dishes. Soon the dishes are piled sky-high and it seems impossible to even clean a fork. So the person starts eating with dirty forks out of dirty dishes and this makes the person feel like a homeless person. So they stop bathing. Which makes it hard to leave the house. The person begins to throw trash anywhere and pee in cups because they’re closer to the bed. We’ve all been this person, so there is no place for judgment, but the solution is simple:

Fewer dishes.

They can’t pile up if you don’t have them. This is the main thing, but also:

Stop moving things around.

How much time do you spend moving objects to and fro? Before you move something far from where it lives, remember you’re eventually going to have to carry it back to its place — is it really worth it? Can’t you read the book standing right next to the shelf with your finger holding the spot you’ll put it back into? Or better yet: don’t read it. And if you are carrying an object, make sure to pick up anything that might need to go in the same direction. This is called carpooling. Putting new soap in the bathroom? Maybe wait until the towels in the dryer are done and carry the towels and soap together. Maybe put the soap on the dryer until then. And maybe don’t fold the towels until the next time you have to use the restroom. When the time comes, see if you can put away the soap and fold towels while you’re on the toilet, since your hands are free. Before you wipe, use the toilet paper to blot excess oil from your face. Dinnertime: skip the plate. Just put the pan on a hot pad on the table. Plates are an extra step you can do for guests to make them feel like they’re at a restaurant. Does the pan need to be washed? Not if you only eat savory things out of it.