Susan Steinberg - Hydroplane - Fictions

And I watch my cat cleaning his paws at one end of the couch, wondering at the length of his tongue, wondering how his tongue keeps him clean.

There was a night alone in the graveyard. It was late that summer, almost fall. I swallowed a pill, sat in the grass. The boys all thought I was something now. Dried flowers poked up from the dirt. The boys all thought I was too bad now. The moon was higher than the top of the church. The moon was rising higher. The boys all thought I was too loose now. I was too fast now. But really I was something else. I looked for signs of our having been there. A hair in the grass from when we were there. A dropped pill. A thread. But it was dark. And I was scared. And there was nothing of ours in the grass.

The pill put clouds behind my forehead.

Big deal, I drove home high.

It was loose, light, fast.

Euphoric.

And you know this is what matters.

And now I'm in the mirror at home. I'm on my way to teach. I've got a pitiful sauce stain on my shirt, and I think, You better scrub out that stain before you teach. And the telephone rings, and mail gets pushed through the slot. The cat needs to eat. I'm running to get there on time.

Well, I get to school, and the sauce stain is still on my shirt.

I'm standing in front of a class.

A hundred eyes are looking at me.

A boy spits tobacco into a cup.

But what matters is you're with me now.

I've got you where I want you.

This is the happy ending.

A man changed my tire. He drove my car to the shoulder. He said something. Nothing. The man drove off. I drove off. There was a song I knew. A sunrise in the rearview mirror. Me and the boy fucking in the grass.