Stuart Dybek - Paper Lantern - Love Stories

It starts to snow. Telling you about it now, with dust floating in the sunlight and the door open on a summer afternoon, it seems impossible that’s the same doorway buried in drifts. I lived in a haze of frosted windows, like being trapped inside a burned-out lightbulb, the whole world muffled. No more deliveries pounding, so little traffic I could hear the planes overhead like they were taking off down Twenty-second, and I’d wonder where that sumnabitch went—maybe he’s in a loud shirt playing the ponies at Hialeah, while I’m here wearing my fur coat like a bathrobe and I’m still chilled to the bone. It’s a fox fur the sumnabitch helped hisself to off a boxcar because the color matched my hair. He’d wanta go out walking, me in red heels, bareheaded, buck-naked under that coat.

I’d start self-medicating earlier and earlier. I could sleep the day away like I was hibernating, but not the night. One night there’s wino laughter. I go to the porch windows. Lacy flakes floating from outer space. Roofs, wires, fences, pavement, everything outlined in snow and moonlight. Our Mustang’s a gaping hood and a white engine. The winos have made a snowman in the alley. He’s wearing a trash-can cover like a coolie hat. His eyes and grinning teeth are beer caps. He got a beer can snout, a wine bottle hard-on, and a pair a grapefruit-sized white balls. Snow balls. I guess that’s why they’re laughing. Beyond him, over Pani Bozak’s fence, the owl’s standing guard over that beautiful laundry frozen on the pulley line. Who but a crazy witch hangs wash to dry in a blizzard? In the Dark Ages, they’d a come for her with torches and a stake.

Gusts hiss off the roofs; the sheets are back, waving in the moonlight! The winos have vanished down the alley, leaving the laughter behind like it’s the snowman laughing. Whoever’s laughing is laughing like they know that the whole time Frank’s been gone, with deliveries pounding, the phone ringing, mail piling up, and me waiting for that sumnabitch to come back, just so I could tell him he ain’t wanted, that whole time, he’s been just across the alley shacked up with the szmata behind the boarded-up door. I been concocting bullshit about where he’s gone, while everyone in the neighborhood, down to the winos, knows I’m a goddamn fool. And now, to top it off, he’s letting me in on it, upping the ante, like he and the szmata are flying their flag of fucking right under my nose. Ever wonder what it must feel like to sleep on sheets like that?

Jesus, how I wanted that gun then. How I wished for another chance, like I had that night he came home in his filthy socks, to cut his sumnabitching throat.

I put on my galoshes and slog through the backyard out into the alley in my nightgown and fur coat, with a butcher knife like I’m auditioning for Psycho . When I hack the grin off the snowman’s face, his head goes poof!

I stand in Pani Bozak’s yard staring at the halos on the candles through the szmata ’s curtains like they’re hypnotic. Her back door’s boarded up, so I go around to Twenty-first Street. The plywood’s off her front door, but the windows are still boarded like the house is abandoned. There’s a boot-high spiked iron fence with a rusted open gate, and six steps up to the door, which is unlocked. It opens on a dark entryway. The inside door is locked. I put my ear to it, but can’t hear nothing. When I step back outside, I notice that below her nameless mailbox stuffed with junk advertisements there’s a latch you can put a padlock on same as at the Deuces.

That night’s the first, since that sumnabitch left, I sleep. I wake like an animal curled in my own fur. It’s Saturday. Nobody in the neighborhood has shoveled, but there’s a twisty, trampled path just wide enough for one, that goes for blocks like it’s leading to St. Pius. After a big snow, you can see that people don’t walk a straight line.

The church is empty except for the blind organist practicing hymns. Her muzzled dog is staring down from the choir loft. This time I got a scarf to cover my head. No one’s praying to the Virgin. I don’t even know if Father Julio’s there, but as soon as I kneel down in the confessional, I smell his aftershave. I been waiting to smell it again for weeks. If Jesus had a smell it would be sandalwood.

Bless me Father for I have sinned. My last confession was maybe a month ago.

You’ve been in my prayers ever since, my child, he says. I prayed you’d return, and the Lord sent you. I’m sorry I failed you. The Lord will never fail you, but his servants lack his perfection. Thank you for another chance. Tell me what you’ve come out in the cold for. I promise anything you say here is protected by the Seal of Confession.

I can tell you anything?

Nothing’s too secret.

Can I ask a question?

I’ll answer if I can.

Is the aftershave you wear sandalwood?

I don’t wear aftershave. What else have you come back to say?

When I was a little girl, Father Julio, I remember the nun telling about a saint who was poor and lived in a hovel, but he had the sweetest smell. Did you ever hear that story?

Probably she was telling about Saint Francis.

Was he the one who had Christ’s wounds? Was it the wounds that smelled so sweet?

There is that legend.

Do they hurt?

Is this what you came in the cold to talk about?

Is it a secret? One that’s safe to share in here?

The pain Christ suffered, he suffered out of great love for all the children of God. He suffered to give us eternal life.

And when others have the wounds, what are they suffering for?

The last time you were here you were having problems with your husband.

It’s not a problem anymore. I took care of it. It’s why I came to see you again.

I’m listening.

To beg forgiveness. To do penance.

Christ died that we might be forgiven. Never forget that he is a God of compassion, not of vengeance and punishment. Can you tell me what you are seeking forgiveness for?

Remember me telling you the sumnabitch was shtupping the widow across the alley?

Yes.

So, I will tell you my secret. Late last night, while they were sleeping naked, I cut their throats. They woke choking on blood while I set fire to her house. Maybe you heard all the sirens from over on Twenty-second?

I hear his breathing again through the cloth partition and this time feel his breath, a wave of sweetness. He’s crying.

Father Julio, is it like the way there’s secrets you can’t share even in confession, there’s also certain sins you can’t forgive?

He’s still crying when I leave.

The organist is practicing the Ave Maria and her dog has his muzzle raised, softly howling to match some pipe in the organ. I don’t bother to light a vigil candle.

I follow the path back to the Deuces. Not one person comes the other way. I sit drinking vodka like I’m my only customer at the bar, and wait for it to get dark. When it’s late, I dig out a padlock from Frank’s railroad junk, and a funnel, and a fuel can I fill with kerosene for his space heater. I shove a couple railroad flares into my coat pockets and step out the back.

Last night’s footprints are drifted over. There’s tire treads from a garbage truck probably where the snowman stood. Over Pani Bozak’s fence, the szmata ’s laundry is still hanging in the floating snow.

I walk to Twenty-first, through her gate, up the stairs, and take the junk mail from her box, step inside, and close her front door quietly behind me. There’s no light. I wouldn’t flick it on if there was. I listen at the inside door, and then, all but blind in the dark, crush the advertisements and pour kerosene over them and over the floorboards, careful not to splash it on my coat. You’d never get that smell outta fur. But I haven’t eaten all day, maybe all week, and in that dark enclosed space the fumes jab right up into my brain and leave me so dizzy that before I can light the crushed papers and clamp the padlock on the door, I gotta step out and suck cold air. Finally, the dry heaves pass. I’m shaking.