Susan Steinberg - Spectacle - Stories

And I wanted it farther and farther.

And when it was as far away as it could be, it still wasn’t far enough.

It was still right there, my father’s face, in front of my face.

My father ready to give me away.

My father ready to throw me away.

Whenever you’re ready, he always said.

I’m waiting, he said.

Old maid, he said.

Still waiting, he said.

Then he died.

I should say there were moments in childhood worth something. I made tents from sheets like anyone. I dug holes in the yard.

My father threw me into the air, caught me.

He threw me into the air, caught me.

He threw me into the air.

It wasn’t so different in moments. I wasn’t so different from you.

I was falling, like you, for something.

The guy stood by the edge of the woods. I wanted him to stop looking at us. I wanted him to stop looking like that. And I would have said something smart, like, Take a picture. But I was thinking instead that he could get hurt. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was the shadows on the road. Or his smallness next to trees. I was thinking of the stories of the woods at night. I knew what could happen in the woods. There were monsters. There were witches. There were killers.

So I sent a thought to the universe. And I sent it again. I sent it again.

And when he moved from the woods, I was a believer in something.

And when he reached the car, I was not.

Because then I remembered.

What.

I just remembered.

What.

Desire is desire for recognition, and I was controlled by desire just like you.

I was fucked up just like you.

The guy walked up to the car, said, What’s going on, and I said, What.

And he looked at the friend and said, You know what, and the friend laughed and said, What.

Now, I see why this was wrong. All of it. I see.

But in that moment I was too in love.

I don’t mean with the friend. I don’t mean with the guy.

The ride home was the radio loud. It was none of us saying a word. It was my drinking what was left to drink. It was the friend dropping the guy off first. It was the guy slamming the door.

Then it was just me and the friend in the car. And we pulled up to my place. He followed me inside.

I swear I was thinking, No, and, No.

I swear.

This is not the time to ask me what I was. Though if you did, I might say a child. I might say the child I was as a child, landing hard on the grass and lying there until the world went dark.

It was my father who said to send your thoughts.

It was he who said to tell the universe what you want.

Back then I wanted the things one wants: a doll, a dog.

Back then I pictured the universe as a thing one could understand: a two-dimensional scene with grass at the bottom, stars at the top.

My father would say, Don’t tell me, as he stumbled across the yard toward some lady waiting on the grass.

He would say, Tell the universe what you want, as they stumbled to the car.

Night would scatter across the grass, across the house.

I would meet the guys at the edge of the woods.

I would be that monster in the woods. That killer. That witch. That girl running wild, her skirt hiked to her waist.

At some point you become something other than girl. At some point you become confused. Then you’re that from that point on.

I waked the next day and he’d left. I suppose he just got in his car, went home.

It’s not like we had some kind of thing.

It’s not like he was a permanent thing.

It’s not like anything was.

The dog next door. My father’s ladies. My dolls.

I don’t know where these things went.

And I don’t know where my father went.

I mean he died, of course.

I mean nobody knows where he went, of course.

To the other side.

Dumb thought.

I don’t know what to make of that.

How it wants to be deep.

How it isn’t deep.

And I don’t know what to make of you.

How you’re just like me.

How you think you aren’t.

And I don’t know what to make of birds.

How they stab their faces at the cold, hard ground.

How they’re fucked up just like us.

My boyfriend hit me in the face with a book. It was an accident, his hitting me. He only meant to hand me the book. He meant to hand the book back to me. But my face was in its path, he said. It was in its way, he said. And so the book connected with my face. And so here we are.

I guess I must have closed my eyes. Because I didn’t see the book hit my face. But I heard it hit, if you can imagine. It made a sound against my face. I can’t describe the sound it made. But imagine, if you can, the sound.

Then I watched at the mirror as a red mark spread across my face. It transformed my face into another face. By which I mean a face I knew. By which I mean a lot of things.

It was an accident, his hitting me in the face with the book. Accident, he said, dropping the book, holding up his hands. Accident, I later said to my brother. Bullshit, my brother said. He hit you with a fucking book, he said.

As kids, my brother did his thing, I did mine. His things were, for the most part, boy things. Mine were, for the most part, not. But they were not what I would call girl things. I was not a girl who did girl things. I was a girl who worked on puzzles. These were puzzles that took weeks to solve. And when I solved a puzzle, and I always solved them, I felt brilliant.

After my boyfriend went back to sleep, I walked outside. Outside was the rest of the world. Outside were the people of the world. It was a regular day for people. There was work and there were the other things that people do. And there I was with them, walking with them, through rain.

My father wanted to become an astronaut. But he did not become an astronaut. Because, he said, he would not have passed the physical. So my father went into business. He became a businessman. There were sales and deals and men like my father. There was a product of some sort he sold. It was nothing like being an astronaut. But there was hope for my brother, my father said. He could still become one, he said.

My boyfriend was brutally killed in his dreams. Sometimes he was stabbed. Sometimes someone’s hands were squeezing tightly around his throat. And there were zombies too. And witches too. And sharp-toothed animals chasing him through woods. It was called night terrors, what he had, and he would wake up screaming and run through the room. On the worst of these nights, my boyfriend and I were terrified. We never knew what was going on. We would often stay up all night, those nights, waiting for the room to turn light. But they were often funny, those nights, the next day.

We had all been out the night before. It was me, my boyfriend, my brother, and a girl. It was an upscale bar my boyfriend liked. My brother did not like upscale things. He liked the trashy bars in his part of the city. He liked the trashy girls in those trashy bars. My brother thought my boyfriend was a prick. And my boyfriend thought my brother was a prick. But I should say it was my birthday. That we were at the upscale bar to celebrate my birthday. My boyfriend bought the first round of drinks. And my brother bought another round. And my boyfriend bought another. And at some point my brother pushed up his sleeve. He wanted to arm-wrestle my boyfriend. He said he would wrestle him through the fucking table. My brother was big. He worked at a gym. It was a gym where big guys went to get bigger. My boyfriend was not so big. But he was tougher than my brother. He was tough in another way. The bar was crowded and people were staring. My brother stuck his elbow to the table. Then my boyfriend stuck his elbow to the table. Then my brother and my boyfriend gripped each other’s hands.