Joy Williams - Breaking and Entering

Five North with its cold, meticulous name … it was Jack Frost Land, it was Little Match Girl Land. The room with the river in it was the common room in which the patients could gather in the hours of the afternoon. Liberty had sat there with others, one of whom was a bald man who wore polished oxblood shoes. He always held a child’s plastic Thermos in his hand. The Thermos had Pluto on it, chasing his tail around it. You didn’t pay did you , the man would always say to Liberty. I’ve been watching you. You said you’d pay at the other register but you have no intention of doing that, do you … you pretend you’re browsing, making up your mind about something. Oh, I’ve been watching you …

The walls the river lay upon enclosed them, and Liberty remembered it being a washable surface for she had seen an orderly clean it with a sponge. The river glinted through the trees, but even then the trees had names that escaped her. The man in the oxblood shoes would unscrew the top of his Thermos and raise it to his mouth. Pluto was yellow and inside the Thermos it was yellow too. Yellow flecks clung to the bald man’s lips. You keep pretending and I’ll keep watching , he said. The river twisted through the trees. It might even have looked like the one her mother had been drifting down at the time, unaware that her daughter had died, almost died , Liberty forced herself to recall, for her mother’s hobby had then been to tie herself to a canoe and float down a quiet river, gazing through her face mask into the crystalline depths, collecting the white bones of mastodons.

River , Liberty thought, and imagined a stream so clear that it reflected the sky and everything growing and moving along its banks. So that drifting down it, on it, in it, she passed through the images of things. There was something repulsive about such a river. Floating in such a river, Liberty felt only the desire to get out …

She had promised Teddy they would go to the beach that day. It was almost noon and Teddy would be back at noon, fresh from instruction in something. She and Clem walked down Suntan toward his house. The day’s heat pressed against the crown of trees. A few old people moved quietly around, sweeping their yards with brooms, pinching off dead blossoms, sprinkling with big, old-fashioned watering cans. Duane’s perfect Mustangs adorned his driveway. They were black, red, white, black; a Fastback, two convertibles and a Shelby. The black Shelby had NIGHT MARE in script upon the trunk.

A large picture window exposed Janiella doing exercises in Duane’s trophy room. There were silver cups from rallies and car shows on the shelves, and on the paneled walls were the heads and hooves of deer and the bodies of fish. Liberty watched as Janiella did the Plough, the Cobra and a lengthy headstand. Snook and bass and baby tarpon gazed absently down upon Janiella as she moved on to alternate nostril breathing. With a finger pressed against her nose, her shut eyes snapped open and locked on Liberty’s. She got to her feet and sauntered to the door. Her blonde hair was twisted into an elaborate roll and her haunches were firm and heroic in their proportions. A thin line of perspiration lay prettily above her upper lip. Liberty disliked her enormously.

“Hello,” Liberty said.

“The Phantom’s not back yet.” Janiella extended an arm and slowly rotated it. “I call him the Phantom because he’s never here. He’s a busy, busy child. The Phantom. The Ghost. Kids like names. Makes them feel popular.”

Liberty rubbed Clem’s paw with her foot.

“So come in, come in,” Janiella said. “Duane said he gave you a lift the other day. You lead a peculiar life, don’t you? Have you ever been employed by an escort service?”

Liberty considered placing her knuckles in Janiella’s throat. “I have never been employed by an escort service,” she said.

“I wasn’t trying to be offensive. You just look as though you might be regarded with favor by certain men.”

“Clem’s telephone number is sometimes requested,” Liberty said. “Not mine.”

“I can see why some would want to get in touch with that,” Janiella said, frowning, “but not me. What kind of a vocabulary has he got? I was told that a German shepherd could understand eight hundred words.”

“He knows a few words,” Liberty admitted. “Love, angel, ice cream, retribution …”

“Goodness, was he raised in a monastery or what?” She raised her arms over her head and jiggled her wrists. “What do you think of Duane? Do you think he’s a little crazy?”

“He’s a little crazy.”

“He was sort of cute for a while. I’ve always been attracted to the primitive. I sometimes confuse primitive with genuine. It’s a fault of too much education, I’d be the first to admit it. Duane’s always trying to surprise me now. He can’t do it. He was cute before he started trying to surprise me. As for shocking me, I’m unshockable. I have diabetes and a partially webbed foot. The foot drives most men wild. As for my father, I loathe him. I’ve loathed him ever since the death and burial of my horse, Spritzer. This was long ago. Spritzer was old and feeble. My father dug a hole in the pasture with a back hoe. The veterinarian was called, and we led Spritzer by the halter to the hole. The veterinarian gave him an inoculation and he instantly toppled over and in. The hole was the precise width and depth, which was a great relief to my father, but I’ve loathed the man ever since the day Spritzer fit the hole. I may sound like an unhappy person but I want to assure you I’m not. Never have I considered myself an unhappy person. I have fun.” She smiled at Liberty. “You resent me considerably, don’t you, I have just the tiniest of inklings.”

“It’s Teddy I’m concerned about. You’re just passing through.”

“I probably am just passing through, but what about you?” Janiella laughed. “The family situation intrigued me for a while, but its potentialities are just something I’m going to have to deny myself. I’ve been slumming if you want to know the truth. Rednecks have always given me a flutter, but family life is paranormal in my opinion. There’s no anticipation in family life. I’ve had some nice orgasms in this house, and I’ve introduced the concept of candlelight at dinners. But that’s about it. The Phantom is cute, but he lacks immunity. His heart’s a doormat, poor kid. He’ll know everything, but he’ll never learn.”

“You do this for a living?” Liberty asked. “You just spread joy where you can?”

“Do you know that big guy?” Janiella asked. “The guy who sells houses?”

“I know Charlie.”

“Drunks are so much trouble, aren’t they.”

“He’s a friend of mine,” Liberty said.

“You do look as though you’re abstaining, but that look can be very sexy. There’s a pallor to you that a tan can’t quite hide. But pallor appeals to a lot of men. It’s that suggestion of confinement. It’s difficult to believe you’re a babysitter. I had an experience with a babysitter when I was a little girl.”

“I’d prefer not to know about it,” Liberty said.

From the river there was the sound of an outboard engine starting up, sputtering, quitting. There was silence, then cursing.

“She was a fat girl,” Janiella said, “with hair down to her waist. She was always ironing her hair. She’d come over to the house, study algebra, iron her hair, and then when it was my bedtime she’d masturbate me to get me to go to sleep. At Christmas my mother bought a little present for me to give to her. It was a bottle of perfume with a swan on the cap. Giving her that perfume was the worst, the very worst moment in my life.”