Susan Steinberg - Spectacle - Stories

There was a night my boyfriend waked me, screaming. Then he was rushing through the room, and I was screaming too. Then he was in the hallway, then at the door, then running down a flight of stairs, and I was running after him, screaming, Don’t. Outside were cars and people on the street. My boyfriend ran out, screaming, They want me. I screamed, No one wants you. He screamed, Yes they do. Then he was running into traffic.

Then I was running too. Then someone else screamed. Tires screeched. I grabbed my boyfriend’s arm.

Next we were standing on the sidewalk. People were staring at my boyfriend. My boyfriend asked how he had gotten there. I guess he meant to the sidewalk. But either way, I did not have an answer. Because it was just too huge a question. Because it was probably a miracle. I mean how the fuck did I get there. How did anyone get there on that street. Some miraculous spark that just kept on. I knew nothing about miracles. I was not the one to ask. But I knew how to get my boyfriend up the stairs.

I could have solved that puzzle at any point. It was a nothing puzzle to solve. But I waited years to solve it. Because I did not want to solve it. A hotel with an infinite number of rooms. I just loved the thought of that hotel. Just imagine that hotel.

Look. What if there was no bird. What if there was no bird flying through the room. What if there was only me and the book. What if I made up the bird.

And what if I was holding the book like this. And what if I was standing there like this. And what if I made a face like this. And what if I felt like a zombie. And what if I felt like an animal. And what if I felt just like a guy. And what if he opened his eyes like this. What if he looked at me like this. I said to my brother, You have never seen terror like this.

I should have started with this: After my boyfriend hit me in the face with the book, everything stopped. And followed with:

I mean the rain and every blade of grass and every leaf on every tree and air and light and time and

I should have started with this: After my boyfriend hit me in the face with the book, everything started. And followed with:

I should say there were good times with my boyfriend. The morning after he ran to the street, we laughed pretty hard. We laughed at his saying, They want me. And at my saying, No one wants you. And we laughed at the sound the tires made. And at the person who screamed. And at his dumb-as-shit questions. And my dumb-as-shit answers. We laughed pretty much all morning.

But one day I would be at my brother’s again. I would have another mark on my face. The mark would be on the same side as the other mark. But it would be flatter than the other mark. It would not be from a book this time. And I would know something then that I hadn’t, before that day, known.

And on that day, as my brother stood to leave, I would tell him the unsolved puzzle. I would hope that he would solve it. I would hope his brilliance would return. I didn’t want my brother to be my father. I wanted him to be my mother. The question, I would say to him, is how. How, I would say, but he wouldn’t care. He would leave his place. He would find my boyfriend. And I would sit there, waiting.

But before that day was this day, and it seemed the rain would never stop.

And streets would flood and bridges would fall and people would die, and no one ever predicted all that rain.

And did you want to hit him, my brother said.

I was not that type of girl.

I was my father’s daughter, not my father.

I didn’t hit him, I said.

And the rain would fall for thirty days, and it seemed the rain would never stop.

But did you want to hit him, my brother said.

And a day would come that would be the last.

Not the last of the rain, but the last of the days.

And no great man would come to save us.

No great man would ever come.

And I would hold up my hand for a high five.

And my brother would hold up his.

One does not start with mourning doves.

One cannot start with doves surrounding the bedroom.

One starts with the trip to Sausalito, the quick ride over the bridge, the city shrinking in the side-view.

One starts with the trip, as the details of the trip are simple: Mexican food, espresso.

The details are simple: houseboats and the theater where one remembered seeing a film on a first date, a blind date, some years back.

The date himself, one remembered, was beautiful, the night itself, and if one felt to sleep with him on the first date, one would have gotten, one would guess, the second date.

The film was foreign, fine, two perfect people falling in love.

One cannot start with mourning doves surrounding the bedroom, several in windows sitting on branches, making their hollow sound.

One cannot start with doves looking through the windows to where one lay in one’s bed, still, too late to be lying still in one’s bed.

One starts with something lighter, light, the Mexican food, the espresso, and, walking past the theater, one told one’s friend about the blind date from years back, how beautiful his face was; how sentimental the film; how one fell for it, still, the perfect people falling in love; how after the date, one went back to his place; how one was asked to take off one’s shoes; how one was asked to lie in his bed; how one did not go all the way on first dates; how that was back then; how this was now.

One’s friend laughed, and all that mattered, in this moment, was this moment.

All that mattered in the next moment was the pulling in one’s gut as one laughed too.

One mentions the pulling as it too is a detail, the detail that made one stay in one’s bedroom, shades drawn, the following day and the following day, but it was a great day, this day, to be on the other side of the bridge.

Everything was a metaphor this day.

Like the bridge itself.

Like the lack of traffic on the bridge.

Like the doves cooing from every branch that morning in bed, and one read the doves as a sign of something to come.

One was right to do so; everything that day was a sign.

Not from the universe, as one now knows the universe is not in control, as one now knows the universe is not calling the shots, as one now knows that neither is there human control and neither is there fate and neither is there an explanation for what there is.

There is just the endless dialogue between one’s own soft brain and one’s own soft brain.

One has to accept this.

It was just a morning.

It was just a visit one had to get to, and as the birds flew off the branches, one by one, one got out of bed, one pulled on clothes, one left.

It was just the usual: one’s body transported as if pulled by strings.

Then the wait, feet up, for the doctor to enter, the doctor who called one Baltimore; How’s it going, Baltimore, he’d say, and laugh.

After, one felt the need to leave the city, to see it shrinking in the side-view.

And when one felt like being alone, one left one’s friend at the table, one stood outside in the wind, looking toward the houseboats, feeling half-pathetic, half-heroic.

Which is to say half-oneself, half — someone else.

Once back inside, one didn’t explain the events of outside, that while one’s hair was whipping about the way one would imagine, there was a pulling in one’s gut.

One only said one saw the houseboats, a man in a straw hat standing on one, sweeping its floor, and this seemed a metaphor too.

But for what.

One does not know.

Perhaps something about out with the old.

Perhaps something about each man for himself.

Perhaps something about that.

The story itself is a force inside; the doctor afraid to move closer; one’s insides afloat, quivering black and white on a screen.