Joseph McElroy - Women and Men

The man, as she reached their side of the street, was pretty beat-up, wasn’t he? Like his face had been swung around to either side of his high skull and the skin had fought back and sort of won. His companion the old lady — she’s fabulous for maybe seventy-seven though perhaps babbling— drew them all together. Did Grace know her from somewhere? His hand on the old lady’s arm, his thin arm tense, handling her — he liked her, knew her, and yet he had had years of separation from her or predecessors, some helpless history she had shrugged off was for him almost a danger that made him rational crazy. She moved her head softly side to side and had a white, plastic-looking rose pinned to her sky blue cardigan, talked at the same time fast, they overlapped each other like excited strangers, interested shadows, Grace felt. "Fly me. ." — surely Grace had heard the words, as in the unspeakable stewardess gig for one of the male-run, financially shaky of course airlines, "Fly me," the old lady said, "fly me — they wind up in that window, for crying out tears." Oh she was making up for lost time with all that talk. And then as Grace gained the sidewalk, the man, his stubbled face mysteriously dark-scruffy-moustached and from the temples a fan of spider threads every which way unchecked even by his strong, faintly twisted nose — he so thin and straight — turned to the beautiful old lady — what’s he doing to her that she goes on like this? — and she (saying he should really keep that moustache, it came out a different color from hair, as if she had received Grace’s projection-thought) turned away toward the shop window hopefully, and he with her; and Grace saw that with the two of them she was standing watching a show. But at first the empty window held nothing more than a gray sign, messenger service, and a rainbow star and across it, readings — psychic consultations, also then the lurking reflection of the old man.

Then a pair of twin-like people appeared and flew at each other: pummeling yet silly: yet Grace wanted to be there mixing it up with them. Their mouths were open not just for breath but for receiving, she thought; and they laughed and grimaced, but kind of hurt each other, wore a lot of rings; and the thing was, you almost didn’t know if it was girls or boys or one of each — far out! — and granting the difference between the two you felt they were warped twins with a new twist. One of each, Grace decided, as she moved up on the old couple, for the long-haired young pummeler in an old suit, no tie, had frail shoulders but stubbly cheeks and misshapen head while the short-haired one in a blue-and-gold-sleeveless jersey with an insignia had good chest development and biceps like those of Grace’s heavily-into-anesthesia dentist but soft, creamy skin. Now they hit hard, they bumped the broad window glass of the storefront, rings glinting off their knuckles, here we are, here we are, this is where we are, this is where we all are. Then the smaller, queer-headed male dropped his arms, dropped them and stood open: but was it wanting to be hit? a little M to S? but no, open to the other, his twin sister (Grace believed), who shied away, put up an arm to shield the face toughly as if to throw a punch, then faded out of the window destroyed. "Fly me, will they!" said the old lady; "why I am their rings!" But the one Grace thought was twin-sister returned and raised her bicep’d arms, brought hands together like a prayer, split them apart so Grace saw the Zodiac-like sign on the strongly breasted chest, the sister (if it was sister) turning out of profile, and what looked like smoke or some quickened reflection in the glass shot from this kid’s body in a puff of cloud, and the other, drab in the old suit as misshapen and large of head, fell forward, stricken dead, into the spell of its sibling and fell down below the level of the window only then to rise so the two of them could turn to the old couple smiling and Grace said, "Far out." The old lady clapped and clapped—"I am their rings!" — "You mean wings, honey," said the man — and she wanted to go into this place but was held back by the man who in holding her turned toward Grace whom the old lady now turned to see as if she remembered her (which was what Grace truly understood, for Grace for that moment was that old lady, jerking off into the future or reversed into the alligator abundance boots where Be crazy is Giving away in order to have what you give).

She was on her own free carpet for a long moment then not entranced by the sound of her voice on the tape of last night, remembering girls’ basketball when you got one dribble after which you had to glue one foot to the shiny wood floor like charming prisoner stretching and how the legs spread — no, she was here on a street near the bike shop, she was in two places or minds at once as she’d been seeing and freeing the old lady who seemed now to forget the show put on for her in the window of the Messenger Service/ Psychic Consultation place.

"Been a long time," said the old lady. "Martha," she said, offering her hand but cutting off her word very sharp, maybe remembering she had forgotten her last name. Grace introduced herself and ran "Martha" through hundreds of named people she’d talked to and when the Hermit-Inventor as Martha called him tried to draw her away, Grace told him to lay off, Martha could take care of herself. "Martha," said Martha, "is only one of my two given names and I’m giving it to you; the other one I gave back." "To the Indians," said her protector who now burst out laughing at what Grace had said. But he laughed so at this he seemed not to care, at the same time as he dropped the old lady’s arm — maybe her name wasn’t Martha — and said to Grace, "This is not a good place for us to be, by this window, those people in there are out of their minds."

"Which people?" said Martha, her eyes filmed with depth.

"See?" said the hermit running a hand along the angle of Grace’s arm bent at the elbow and unmoved by his touch.

"Why don’t you let her do her own thing," said Grace, wanting to be on her way.

But the old man said, "She’s much taken with you." He said it softly but the old lady Martha said, "He always does that." She shook her head. "Can’t explain. I have another name."

"I know what you mean," said Grace. "I think I have another name, too. Maybe it’s Martha."

The man said, "She wants to drink a beer now." "Morning, morning, he always does that," the old woman said. She shook her head, opened her mouth, couldn’t find the words. "I can’t explain."

"Much taken with you," the old man said, a bit curtly. "Wants to drink a beer now."

The black dude in the alligator hat reappeared from behind the van across the street where the men of the van had been having their beers; the black dude whom, it came to her, she would have her way with, was reappearing, and the van moved away from the curb in the opposite direction and Grace needed to go and the black dude was not to reappear until later, she was sure.

"But what was that show in the window all about — the brother and sister?" Grace looked from one to the other, back and forth, eye contact, bring them both in.

The old woman shrugged, it didn’t look right on her but her face clouded together and she didn’t know. Not even quite how to shake her head. The man took her arm as she turned back to the empty storefront window. "Brothers, they’re brothers, they kill each other and get up again, the man inside doesn’t know what to do with them." Her companion looked over his shoulder at Grace, shook his head in jerks as if to say, harassed, that Martha, if that was her name (it seemed to have an r and an a in it) was "out of it." He said, "Another time, kid," and the old lady said, "Old hermit crab," Grace thought, but to Grace she said, at impressive length, "He makes me out to like things that it’s really him that likes them," while her escort/old friend bending toward her caring for her (Grace knew) kept saying, "Like what, like what, like what?" and at a distance words came to Grace, a curtain opening and closing at the same time, "Well, sometimes we like the same things." And right then, Grace actively put from her mind the fact that her cassette waiting for her but on her person was a portable headache she could get rid of if she would. Like she almost couldn’t help going into the Messenger/ Psychic Readings storefront behind the empty, unfurnished window and see what weird business trip they were advertising in the window grab-ass she had enjoyed watching.