Joy Williams - Breaking and Entering

Willie flicked a switch on a copper-plated console recessed in a wall. There was music. Strings. A mawkish movement in progress. Willie’s gesture was too smoothly casual to be insolent.

“Aren’t those little toggle switches nice?” Chrissie said. “They’re so much nicer than knobs.”

“Yeah, put on some music. Mi casa su casa , or whatever the hell it is they say,” Howard said.

Willie accepted a drink. Liberty sighed. It was cold out and they just had the truck and nowhere to go exactly. They could stay a while, she supposed.

Chrissie had, at some point, tied an apron around her waist. There were tiny blue flowers on a white background and the pockets were edged in lace.

“You’ll like this story,” she assured Liberty. “I know you will, it’s a love story. Now, Howard,” she said coyly, “you just let me tell it now.”

It seemed to be a story about love. There were a lot of details involved. Disappointments. Misunderstandings. Matters of no importance. Lust. Monotony. The landscape this was all played against was a little blurry. Squalid places sometimes that produced a sense of freedom. Other places. The weather … There didn’t seem to be a sense of weather. Not much sickness. Trials. Days. Days of it.

“It got so I could have killed the bitch,” Howard said good-naturedly. “My little Chrissie.”

“We were just like almost everybody, but I took it upon myself to change.”

“She abducted herself,” Howard said.

“It took a while, but inside and out I changed completely.”

“Down to the color and curl of her snuffy,” Howard said.

“Howard, don’t make it ugly. I’m telling.”

Howard pouted.

“So inwardly was I transformed, I became unrecognizable,” Chrissie crooned.

“The weight loss helped,” Howard said. “And the face lift. To say nothing of the tucks both tummy and eye.”

“Howard, Howard,” Chrissie said. She paused, thoughtful.

“You assumed a new identity and became dead to your old world,” Willie said. His tone was optimistic.

“Yeah, help her along. She needs help,” Howard said.

“My return was met with neither joy nor sorrow. It wasn’t even met with surprise.”

“That’s because you were so successful,” Willie said.

“Sometimes I think I’ve done it,” Chrissie said. “Sometimes I’m not so sure.”

“She wants to be all the other bitches there have been for me. Well I’ll tell you, sweetheart, you can’t.” Howard tipped toward her, caught himself, worked his way back into the chair.

“He makes it all sound like sex,” Chrissie protested.

“You got mushy edges, Chrissie, you know that?” Howard said.

“I’m not talking sex!” Chrissie wailed.

“We all want our lost nature restored,” Willie said.

Liberty wished that he would not participate in Howard and Chrissie’s evening quite so keenly.

“If we could just take a sleep cure, like,” Chrissie pondered. “I really need a little more sleep than I get. I’m kind of afraid of sleep.”

“Afraid I’m going to get her,” Howard said without much interest.

“Shapes,” Chrissie said earnestly, “it’s all shapes.”

Willie agreed.

Liberty thought that this was becoming dangerous.

“Chrissie,” Howard said, “we got guests tonight. Liven it up, will ya.”

“Don’t push me Howard.”

“Some simple pleasures are just a bit too simple, Chrissie, you know,” Howard said.

“You were telling the story of the avenger’s return,” Willie said in the same kindly, oddly optimistic tone. “But you’ve got to go beyond that. You have a new power.”

Chrissie looked at him gratefully. But she was troubled. “I want to start over,” she said.

“Our Chrissie can really ball up a story,” Howard said.

“Howard is older than Chrissie, you might have noticed,” Chrissie began. “When she was a child, just a child, she was molested by this man Howard. She was where she was, he took her away, he put her back. It was a matter of moments.”

“Seduced,” Harold said. “Not molest, seduce , Miss Malaprop. Jesus, our Chrissie gets younger every year. What’s your driver’s license say, huh? What’s your driver’s license say?”

Sentimental music swirled and swelled around them.

“She was just a child, he stole her innocence,” Chrissie said doggedly.

“I would suggest just gliding over this part if I were you,” Howard said, “this part never having worked for you particularly well in the past.”

“He can’t touch you,” Willie said. “He’s a voice in your head.”

Chrissie smoothed her apron. “He can’t touch me,” she said. “He thinks he knows me but he doesn’t know me.” She seemed to be speaking to the apron.

“She’s playing with her own head tonight,” Howard said.

Chrissie raised her eyes and nodded at Willie happily. “I’m falsely known but that’s my power. I’m the other one he thinks I’m not. I’m both myself and the other person.”

“The other person was better built actually,” Howard said. “She wasn’t so stupid.”

“Words,” Willie said. “Shapes. You want to leave them behind. You want to climb clear of your wrong beginnings. You want another life.”

“I want to win,” Chrissie said.

“You won,” Willie said. “Everything is valid tonight.”

“I’m victorious,” Chrissie said. “I won. I didn’t lose.”

“We are all contestants,” Howard said, “but we are not all winning contestants. Our Chrissie will never be a winning contestant.”

Chrissie looked vexed. Then she put her hand in her apron pocket, took out a gun, leveled it at Howard and fired. A fan of blood struck the aquarium glass. Howard fell from his chair onto his back. Liberty’s ears were ringing. She was standing, she thought. Willie was standing. They were all standing except Howard, who lay unmoving on the floor. His eyes and mouth were open.

“I don’t like temptations,” Chrissie said. “I don’t respond well to temptations.”

“You can deal with them in several ways,” Willie said. “This, perhaps, wasn’t one of the better ones.”

“They come at you … they don’t quit …” Chrissie tossed her head. “If they’d just quit sometimes.”

Willie had his arms around Liberty’s shoulders and was moving them backward toward the door.

“You’ve got to be strong,” Willie said.

Chrissie looked discouraged.

Howard lay on the floor in what seemed a parody of death, but he was dead.

“You two have done this before,” Willie said reasonably.

“Yes, yes,” Chrissie said. “But this isn’t good, you know.”

Willie was sympathetic.

“We’ve lost a lot of ground here,” Chrissie said. She was speaking carefully again, covering her bad teeth.

“Well …” Willie said.

“Yeah, well … see you.” Chrissie scratched her head. She looked at her fingernails, then at Howard.

Willie and Liberty were in the truck, traveling fast on a raised, graveled road winding through marsh. Drowned trees fled from the twisting headlight beams.

Liberty was crying. “You weren’t in control of that. Something happened there. You were encouraging them, directing them, but you weren’t in control.”

“But you were the one who got us out of there. You were wonderful. It was you.”

She couldn’t remember.

“The two of us together,” he said, “but mostly you. It was an accident and you calmly dealt with the accident. You were extraordinary.”

“I couldn’t have,” she said. “I did nothing. We should have done something.”

“Sometimes there’s nothing you can do.”

“You made that happen. You could tell that girl was sick. She was disturbed, both of them, why did we stay there?”