Tao Lin - Bed

In the morning Annie came over with a little girl. Sean hadn’t slept yet and was about to. Chris was watching TV. “Is your crab-cake recipe better than love?” the TV was saying. “Better than, um, sex?”

“Hi, small girl,” Chris said.

“This is Maryanne,” Annie said. The girl looked about five or six. She held onto a corner of Annie’s dress, which was layered red and white — she had on two dresses.

“Who’s Maryanne?” the little girl whispered. Her hand was very tiny.

“You’re Michelle,” Annie said to the little girl. “Most of what I said was not true,” Annie said to Chris and Sean. “Of course the truth is like a box of 56 crayons.” She paused. “Goddamn,” she said in a kind tone. “It’s okay to say goddamn around Michelle.”

The little girl wandered over to Sean.

“Hi, Maryanne,” Sean said.

“Michelle,” said the little girl.

“I forgot,” Sean said.

“Hi,” Michelle whispered. She moved very close to Sean. “Do you have a pet?”

Sean scooted away from Michelle then back to where he just was. He shook his head. Something was scrolling across the cramped sky of his mind, a white and messageless banner, folding across itself.

Michelle took something out of her pocket. A lima bean. She held it close to her chest and petted it while looking at Sean. Her eyes seemed flawless in a cut and auctionable way — a bit outlandish, Sean thought critically. He stared at her.

“That’s her pet bean,” Annie said. “She says it’s a dog. Michelle, share what’s its name.”

Michelle put the bean in her pocket and stepped back, away from Annie. “Let me do it myself,” Michelle said. Her face turned red. She held Sean’s hand and glared at Annie.

Sean looked at Chris, who was staring at the TV, which became very loud suddenly—“For the last twenty years I loved someone who loved someone else, who was not a thing of the human species, but a major S&P 500 corporation. So I just collapsed and fell on the bed. The bed was not a water bed. It was park bench.”

Sean made an effort to wish the world well, but then accidentally gave it — he felt this with clarity — a damning curse. He thought of maybe lying down. He was very sleepy. The little girl is holding my hand, he thought. He lost track of things for a moment, and then time seemed to pass blunderingly, suddenly, by, in a flapping bunch, like an unclogged flock of something. Sean was taken aback. Time had certain obligations, he knew.

“I’m hungry,” Chris said. He stood up. “I want the salad. The Japanese place. St. Marks.” They left for the restaurant, the same one as the night before. After eating, they stood outside. They looked at the sky. It was cloudy and a little pink. There was nothing to say about it. Annie bought ice cream. Sean wandered into a deli and came out with a coffee whose largeness seemed highly creative.

On Fifth Avenue, Annie ran ahead. She bent at her knees and jumped a little. Her ice cream cone floated up into the air, brushed against a closed second-floor window, fell on the sidewalk. Annie’s mouth moved in something like a laugh — Chris, Sean, and Michelle saw — and she ran into a store and came back out when everyone else had caught up.

“What is wrong with you,” Chris said. His voice was neutral and disconnected, more sound than language. Sean mimicked his brother aloud—“What is wrong with you”—and laughed. Chris looked at him.

“What is wrong with you,” Chris said again.

Sean laughed again.

“I’m helping you,” Annie was saying to Chris. “Doing strange things will help you. Didn’t you like that?” She hugged Chris. She looked at him.

“Sorry,” Chris said.

“You seem happy,” she said.

“No,” Chris said. “I mean — maybe.” He pointed weakly at something across the street. Sean thought of clams and laughed. Chris looked at him.

Back at the apartment, Michelle had been in the bathroom for a long time. Sean — on the sofa — finished his coffee, put the cup on the table, and felt a vague desire for the cup. I’m a red cup, said the cup. Sean picked it up, set it back. The cup was huge. Sean grinned. Annie and Chris were on the bed. “We’re sitting here waiting for Michelle,” Annie said. “We’re not doing nothing, we’re doing something.” They could hear Michelle in the bathroom, talking in hushed, secretive tones.

“What’s my job?” Chris said slowly. “I forgot how I make money. Oh. Never mind.”

Michelle came out and whispered something in Annie’s ear. Annie went to Chris’s desk and swept all the stuff there — all the useless crap, Sean thought instantaneously — to one side.

Michelle took her bean out of her pocket, and then a little bed, which was toilet paper inside of a sushi soy-sauce holder. She stole that from the Japanese restaurant, Sean thought enthusiastically. Michelle put the bed on the table, the bean on the bed. She covered exactly half the bean with toilet paper.

They were all watching her do this. “Stop it,” Michelle said. She moved her body so that it blocked what she was doing.

Chris turned on the TV — a dating show.

“The bean — the dog is treated so well,” Annie said. “That’s no good. Without pain, pleasure is an unsatisfying, irritating thing. With pain … it’s an urgent, leaving thing. Is that too pessimistic? Michelle?”

Michelle ignored Annie in a way that was visible on her face. She crawled to the middle of the bed and curled atop a blanket, which Sean had earlier folded very neatly into a square. On the sofa, Sean felt that his posture was very straight. “I feel good,” he said aloud. He felt very awake.

Annie picked up Michelle by picking up the blanket she lay on. Michelle’s face turned red and she scrunched her eyes very tight. Annie set Michelle and the blanket on a corner of the bed and then lay down. “Christopher,” she said. Chris turned off the TV. They went to sleep. It had gotten dark outside. Sean stood at a distance and looked at Chris, Annie, and Michelle. They all lay very still. They seemed to be pretending somehow. We’re not a part of your reality, they said. Look at how good I am, said the bed. Useful. Yeah, Sean thought. He looked at them for a very long time and went into an exquisite sort of daze. He felt enlightened and spearminty as gum. He went outside, walked around, bought coffee, came back, sat on the sofa. He felt like he’d hopped out and instantly hopped back in, with coffee. He watched TV on mute. He drank coffee. The TV was showing a movie and Sean found it extremely amusing and impressive. The second the movie ended, Chris woke up and said in an annoyed tone of voice that he wanted to go to the same Japanese place again. It was after midnight. Michelle took the bean out of its bed and went into the bathroom. “Be careful,” she said from inside. Her voice was sleepy and loud. “Please. Good. I love you. That’s love.” Michelle came out. She stood by the door, and began to blush.

“The bean uses the bathroom,” Annie said.

“No, stop, you don’t even know,” Michelle screamed. She faced away from Annie. She went back in the bathroom, came out, punched Annie’s thigh. They all left for the restaurant.

By Union Square, a strange man asked Annie to take his picture.

The man was strange, Sean knew, because he had on a shirt that said, “Love, Italian Style.”

Annie took the man’s camera and gave it to Michelle. The man looked worried. “Hold it,” he said. He had another camera in hand, a larger one. “Thanks so much,” he said, and moved forward, grinning. Michelle snapped a picture with flash. There was a second man, now, who was squinting at Sean from a very close distance. Sean noticed that he was staring straight through this man.