Susan Steinberg - Spectacle - Stories

But I sat in the tow truck for a moment longer than I should have. A song was playing on the radio. I knew the song from some other time. There were holiday lights in all of the windows. There were holiday lights in all of the trees. It was warm in the truck. And outside it would not be.

The night before, I’d slept the deepest sleep. And I waked not knowing what I was waking into. And the phone kept on ringing. Someone saying, Get up, get up. My father saying, I saved your life. My father saying, Miracle. The guy in my bed saying something.

The night before, he’d told me a story. He was half-asleep. He whispered it into my hair. It was about a time at Club Midnight. A time he was messed up and had to leave. It was snowing. It was morning. He was waiting alone for the bus. But then this woman came walking through the snow. The woman wasn’t wearing a coat. She was holding a knife. She held the knife up to his face. She said, Give me your money. But the guy had no money. And the woman said, Do you want to be killed. Then he started to fall asleep on me. And I said, How did you answer. But he’d already fallen asleep.

When I imagined falling from the tightrope, I imagined what I would pass on my way to the ground. The hats of the people in the crowd. The necks of the people in the crowd. Their shoes as I crashed as hard as I could. I imagined breaking every bone. I would lie there waiting for someone to help. And a guy would rush to save me. And the crowd would be thinking terrible thoughts. Because I fell. Because I was saved.

I picked up my car the following day. But the mechanic wasn’t there. It was another mechanic I didn’t like. He gave me my keys and walked away. I knew I was going to cry. And I didn’t know why I was going to cry. And I didn’t want to cry right there. So I went into the restroom. It was an awful room. It was the smallest room. And I didn’t want to cry in there either. So I ran water in the sink. I scrubbed my hands as hard as I could. I scrubbed my face and neck and arms. I scrubbed extra hard at the first four letters of my name. And how unsettling to see its faint bluish trace. How unsettling never to see it again.

I don’t know who slashed my tires. I sometimes think it was her. Because it happened when she was flying. I mean it happened when she was dying. She was becoming a ghost in a world of ghosts and almost-ghosts.

I sometimes think she meant it as a joke. Because she and I had a private joke once. But I mostly think it was a desperate stranger on the road.

But of course I knew her. I lied to you. Of course I lied.

This story is not about me. As it turns out, I’m just a detail. Like the sky. Like the snow. Like the car you think was real. Or the bus you think was real. Or the plane you think was real. Or the premonition that, you should know, was not.

It wasn’t technically a crash. It was technically an explosion. It was technically a lot of things. Like the end of things. Not of everything. Not to everyone.

And I would hear its name each day for the rest of my life. Every day from that point on. Fucking stupid as that is.

I stared across the table at my father. I asked again whose fault it was. My father tried not to look at me. He said, Not mine. And I said, I know. I said, But whose. And he said, Not mine. He said, Not mine. He lifted up his empty glass. He threw the glass at the wall. The glass shattered. Dinner was over. The holiday, over. It was snowing again. The roads were a mess. I put on my coat. I walked to the door. Over my dead body, my father said. Murder, he said. The roads were a wreck. But I had new tires.

And I had somewhere to be that night. We would all meet up at Club Midnight. I would sit on a couch. I would drink my drinks. There would be pills to take, and clouds would form.

For a while, I would hear a plane and fall to the snow. And I would wait for the plane to pass overhead. Or for the plane to crash. Or for my brain to tell me what next.

And once, lying in the snow, I watched as a bird crashed into a bird. I hadn’t known such a thing could happen. And there was no one around to tell it to. And I don’t know what I would have said, besides.

And once, lying in the snow, I watched as the moon moved across the sky. And I hadn’t known that one could watch it move.

And once I looked up into a face. And if I were someone else, I would tell you more. But this is not the place for adjectives. This is not the place for any words. Not even, Get up. Not even, You’re fine. Not even, It’s not your fault.

Because words are about desire and desire is about the long-tailed birds in the trees.

And desire is about the long-tailed birds as long-tailed birds. Not as metaphor. Not as signifier. Not as anything other than what they are but long-tailed birds switching from branch to branch.

Predatory, this guy I once met called these long-tailed birds.

Magpies, he called them, because they were, and what did I know of birds.

They will chew off your face, he said.

He said, Your pretty face, and touched my face.

When I watch through a window, I feel watched through the window. When I press my face to a screen, I feel pressed from the other side.

But nothing in trees wants to know what goes on in rooms. Even when I scratch like a cat at the screen. Even when I make sounds with my tongue and teeth.

And when I send words from my brain to the tops of the trees, by which I mean stars, by which I mean something else, the universe, even then.

I was taught to do this as a child. I was taught this would work, sending words from my brain. Taught by whom, I can’t remember.

It was someone who knew about that which listens.

It was someone lying still on the grass, saying, Come here pretty, saying, Not you.

It was someone who knew the universe.

It was a father, of course I remember.

Some father lying still on the grass.

Some father still lying after dark.

As the world went on around him.

And the world went on without him.

But this isn’t a story about the father.

It’s a story about a hike in the woods. It was me and this guy and this friend he had. I never wanted to go on the hike. I mean I never thought it would be a real hike. I thought we’d find a rock, just me and the guy, and sit and stare at the view.

But the friend was in from out of town. He wanted to go on the hike with us. He knew all the trails that no one else knew.

And he would drive, the guy said.

Come on, he said.

We were standing at my door. I hadn’t dressed for walking up trails. I’d only dressed for sitting on a rock. I’d dressed for charming this one guy. And here was the guy, dressed to go on an actual hike. And there was the friend, dressed for a hike, as well.

The friend called out, Do you have a hat.

He called out, Do you have real shoes.

His voice was such a tough guy’s voice. It seemed like work to talk like that. All the work it took to try to be that guy.

I said, No.

I said, Do you.

He was wearing sturdy shoes. And a sturdy coat. And he stood all tough. It seemed like too much work.

He said, I have real shoes.

I laughed.

I said, Do you.

Trust me when I say I wasn’t flirting. I didn’t like the friend. Though later, this will all sound like a lie. Later, you will think new things of me. You will think some things you don’t think now.

But trust me it was the guy I liked. I wanted a date just me and him. We’d sit on a rock and pretend some things about the universe. About beauty. About other abstractions I didn’t understand.

I said to no one, Give me a cigarette.

I didn’t smoke. But I sometimes wanted a cigarette. Smoking made me feel better at times. I can’t explain it. But of course the friend walked up to me. And of course he struck the match.