Susan Steinberg - Spectacle - Stories

I said I wanted to walk a tightrope. My father said, Do you want to be killed. I didn’t want to be killed. I wanted to be something else. I wanted to be between living and not living. Just for the time it would take to walk the tightrope. Just for the time it would take to make it to the other side. Or for the time it would take to fall. Over my dead body, my father said. I would go to school like everyone else. I would read and write like everyone else. I would graduate like everyone else. I would go to college. I would get a job. I would live in a house. I would have kids. And eventually I, like everyone else, would die.

There’s nothing to say about the service. Someone spoke. Then someone else spoke. Then someone played guitar. Because she played guitar. Because it’s how she would have wanted it. That’s what everyone said. She would have wanted it that way. As if anyone ever could really know. I hardly even knew the girl. She went to my school. I sometimes smoked with her after class. I sometimes saw her in Club Midnight. But it was always a lot of us drinking. It was her and it was the guy from the couch. It was others too, and we sometimes talked. And perhaps I lit her cigarette once. Perhaps she cupped her hands around mine. But she went off to study abroad. And I, as you know, did not.

In my bed we talked about who knows what. Those nouns that emerge in bed. What passes for deep. Life. God. I know you know how I must have felt. And at some point we just fell asleep. And while we were sleeping, saviors were being called upon. Saviors were showing up to help. Bodies were pulled from the wreckage. The scene was played and replayed and replayed. And we lay there.

But this story is not about the guy. He just happens to be in it. Like paint on the walls. Like sound in the air. Like hydrogen. Like oxygen.

It’s a miracle, my father said. I saved your life, he said. My father had food on his face. The TV droned in another room. The wine was almost gone. A holiday at my father’s house. A miracle, he said.

When the phone rang, my dreams were of ringing. And when I waked and answered, I meant not to answer. But there I was, saying hello. And there was someone else saying, Wait. Saying, Get up, get up. I already knew it was something big. I’d already had a premonition. If I were someone else, I would tell you more. I would tell you what I was told. But I’ll just say the world was then an open door letting cold air in.

And I’ll say it was like a supernova, how I thought of supernovas. A split second of silence. An explosion in the sky. Then a shooting outward and shooting outward. And some things landed. And some things burned. And some flew through clouds. Or fell through clouds. Or crashed into bodies they never knew until they crashed.

I’m sure the people in the bus all died. There was no way, the bus turned over like that, they did not. I wanted to drive out onto the field to see if I could help. But I kept on driving up the road. I had somewhere to be that night. There was no way I could have helped.

I kicked the guy awake. I said, You should leave. I said, Please leave. I said, Leave. And I left too. I watched the guy walk through the snow. I found my car parked terribly. I didn’t notice the tires at first. I didn’t see that two of the tires were slashed. It looked almost right, the car tilted like that. And I drove it like that. And I kept on driving, until I found help.

After the service, we stood outside. The guy broke down in a way that made me ashamed. He tried to hold my hand. I told him, please, to not do that. I told him, please, to go away. I wanted to be alone, I told him. I didn’t want to be touched, I told him. I walked to behind the church. I know I should have been nicer to him. But the holidays were over. There was too much snow on the ground. And I had a thought. I thought, You don’t know when your last snowfall is. It was such a fucking stupid thought.

But this was the shift, if you’re looking for one. I was leaning against the back of the church. I was saying words that sounded like prayer. I was saying words that sounded like fuck and help.

And I heard a plane. And my brain said duck. My brain said now and now and now. There was a lot going on. There was snow, and there was the sound of snow. The moon was out when it shouldn’t have been. The moon seemed close enough to touch. And there was the guy in the way of the moon. He said to get up. But I couldn’t get up. And he said, Get up.

A mechanic looked at my tires. Someone doesn’t like you, he said. But it was a miracle, he said, that I’d made it there. I agreed it was a miracle. It was a miracle, driving on two slashed tires. A miracle had pushed me hard through the snow. The mechanic told me to wait in a room. There was tinsel on the floor. There was a fake tree in the corner. There was the smell of oil and the smell of smoke. And the snow was really coming down. And the mechanic was beautiful, with black beneath every nail.

I could clearly see the scene on the ground. And if I had been someone else, I might have been putting out fires. I might have been pulling bodies out from the wreckage. I might have felt heroic, diving headfirst into the mess. And if I had been someone else, I might have been a body in the mess. I might have been a body pulled from the wreckage. Instead of a body on a couch. Then in a car. Then on a bed. Instead of a body starting something it would have to stop.

I could clearly see the scene on the ground. But I couldn’t see the scene inside the plane.

At dinner, I asked my father why things were the way they were. And my father said, Not my fault. Because it wasn’t my father’s fault, the world. He was too small to take the blame. He was only a person, for God’s sake. It was no one person’s fault, the world. Nothing that small was ever to blame for something that big. I said, Then whose fault is it. And he said, Not mine.

I often imagined crossing the tightrope. I knew to stare straight to the other side. I knew to hold the stick steady. I knew to force the crowd to be silent. And then, when I reached the other side, I knew to force it to explode.

The mechanic would keep my car overnight. I’d shredded the tires. Shredded the rims. Something was ruined underneath. He drove me home in a tow truck. I tried to think of things to say. Like something about how he chose his job. Like what, was he good at fixing things. Or did he just like cars. But it was such a terrible-feeling day. I wanted to tell the mechanic that. But I hardly knew the mechanic. And I hardly knew the girl.

If I were someone else, I would make something up. I would say she and I did things together. Or we were best friends. Or we were in love. But I’ll just say I lit her cigarette once. I’ll say I was shaking as I lit it. I’ll say the fire kept going out. I’ll say it turned into a private joke. I’ll say, Enough.

I looked as the pen scratched down my arm. It had felt like a feather. Or like an ant. But I was thinking ghost. And I said, Stop. I meant, Go. I meant, Stay. I meant, God. And I stood. And he stood. And on our way out the door we crushed the pills with our boots.

I could clearly see the scene from the ground. It looked, from the ground, like meteors falling. Not like plane parts falling.

But like fire falling. I could see the town go up in flames. And I would hear its name every day for the rest of my life.

The mechanic said to have a good day. But it was already not a good day. It was already a terrible day. And I thought to invite him in. I would take his coat. I would make him tea. I would tell him about my night. That it was very good and it was very bad. That it could have been love. That it would never be love. And I would dig out the black from beneath every one of his nails.