Susan Steinberg - Spectacle - Stories

I’m talking about a generic performance of guy.

I’m talking about strapping on the proverbial pair.

But I never had to.

Because there was this second guy walking down the sidewalk.

And this is the point.

This second guy was walking down the sidewalk and the second guy had seen the whole thing, had seen me scrape this first guy’s car, had seen the first guy smack his head and yell at me, and the second guy walked up to the first guy and called the first guy an asshole.

And the second guy got up in the first guy’s face and told the first guy to get back into his car, said there wasn’t even a scratch, said, I’ll call the cops if you do not get the fuck back into your car right now.

And the second guy asked me if I was okay.

And the second guy called me certain names reserved for women, certain other names I’d been called before and would be called again.

It was then I became some sweet thing.

It was then I pushed something down, pushed something else out.

It was then I knew I owned the situation, meaning I knew I now owned both guys.

It’s not something I want to explain.

If you’ve got the parts you understand.

As for the rest of you.

Just know I knew it was good to be a woman.

Meaning it was very bad to be a woman.

And the first guy squeezed into his car and left.

And the rain slowed.

And the sun, at some point, came out.

Listen.

There’s a chair across the room and were you here with me now, sitting in the chair across the room, I would get out of bed, I would walk across the room to the chair, I would sit at your feet, my head in your lap, my head demanding you pet it.

And you would pet it how I wanted it.

And bricks would loosen from the walls.

And sidewalks would fissure.

Animals would run to their dark holes filled with leaves.

I’m just saying.

Would I own you.

Do you think I would.

I’m just saying something.

I’m just saying I’m kind of a whore.

Which is not to say don’t like me.

Because I’m also kind of sweet.

Which is just to say.

The world should no longer be about wanting and wanting the way it was when I was younger and dumber, drawing in my bed, drawing some asshole’s name on my hand, and hearts.

But here we all are.

Meaning here I am wanting again.

The utter inconvenience of what I am.

The utter inconvenience of it all.

But I was just so fucking powerful that night.

I was in the backseat of my car that night.

I had a stolen stereo on my lap.

I was feeling like a superstar.

The kids up front were singing again.

And the bar door opened and the guy whose stereo I stole stumbled out.

Someone turned down the radio.

Someone was laughing, then everyone was laughing, even I was laughing my head off.

And the guy whose stereo I stole stumbled out with that girl on his arm, the girl stopping to untwist the strap on her shoe.

One of the kids up front said, Who’s she, and my legs were shaking, then I wasn’t laughing, and I almost screamed out the window, I’ve got your stereo, you dumb fuck.

I almost waved the stereo around, almost smashed it to the street right there in front of the bar, in front of the guy and the girl, and I would have screamed something, would have done all of this, but the guy driving my car sped off before I could scream.

Next someone turned up the radio and some song was on, and the six of us were riding up some burned-out Baltimore street.

There was no one on the street but us.

We were screaming out the words to this song.

Then another song came on and we knew that song too.

And it was only us, the six of us, singing on this crazy, burned-out Baltimore street.

I was just so fucking powerful in that moment.

Like how I’m just so fucking powerful in this moment.

Like how I kind of, admit it, own you.

I don’t.

I mean I kind of, admit it, have you.

No.

I mean I think this is the climax.

This is it.

This is it now.

I rolled down the window and pushed my body, hands first, arms next, head next, upward through that open space and threw the stereo as hard as I could.

I heard it smash to bits against the side of some burned-out building.

I think you saw this coming.

I think you think, Big deal.

But someone could have gotten hurt.

I could have gotten caught.

It’s enough that I feel like shit.

Because I would have done almost anything that night.

Though I resisted hard at first.

Not stealing the stereo, which I didn’t resist.

I mean something about the guy whose lap I was on.

He pulled me back into the car like a savior.

He whispered to me to spend the night.

I said, No way.

And he said, Why not.

And I said, Because.

And he said, That’s not an answer.

And I said, It’s the only answer you’re getting.

But later that night, when it was me and him on some sidewalk somewhere, he came closer, nearly tilting his head, and I closed my eyes, pretended.

There are things that now I know.

Nothing deep.

Like that only the guy is the guy.

Like that objects are only objects.

Listen to me.

It had been a hundred degrees that day, and it was a hundred degrees that night, and after the guy and I hooked up, we were lying on top of his sheet, sticking to his sheet, a fan droning on the tilted dresser.

And I was already looking at the door, I was already thinking of moving like a ghost toward the door, I was already thinking of moving like a ghost away from that burned-out city, and I was praying for the apocalypse, I was praying for that final standstill, and when the standstill came, I moved.

It wasn’t the real standstill, of course, but a tease.

Still, it felt real.

Still, it lit the proverbial match.

It looked like a window and I went through it and landed here.

All this to say I’ve learned a few things.

All this to say I will not steal your things.

All this to say if I did steal your things, I know now the things will not have your name.

And they will not have your eyes.

And they will not smell like your sweat forever.

And they will not make me remember your hands on my face.

Or what song was playing when you tilted your head.

Or the lie you said that I believed.

They will only make me remember the sound the stereo made when it hit the burned-out building.

A sound I can’t describe.

A sound that was more like a color.

A color that was more like a pain.

A pain that was more like an answer.

; there was the time I stood outside; it had snowed the night before; a sound in the distance could have been voices; it could have been something else; it could have been machinery; it could have been just in my head; I wanted the sound to be something else: waves crashing to the sand, an ocean I was standing in, an ocean I was drowning in; I wanted to be sinking into sand; but I was standing in snow under a tree; I was standing in my underthings; there was something about just standing there like that; there was something about just standing still, the sky about to turn light; I was not in a state of dire need; but I’d been up late thinking of dire things; I’d been thinking, for instance, of the reasons girls love love; I’d been thinking, as well, of the reasons guys love war; I every day bought the paper from the box on the corner; I every day spread the paper across my bed; I was reading up on various wars; I followed wars in various places I didn’t know; I was becoming well informed on battle; I was becoming well informed on invasion; because there was nothing going on where I was at all; there was nothing going on where I was but snow; everyone had gone away for the winter; everyone loved to leave for the winter; and yes,