A. Homes - Safety of Objects - Stories

I hear them and realize they’re laughing for me. They’re celebrating the fact that I can no longer pretend. There are tears in my eyes. I’m saying thank you and good-bye. I’m writing it down because I can’t simply go out there and stand at the edge of the dining room table until my mother looks up from her copy of the Eat Yourself Slim Diet and says, “Yes?”

I can’t say that I’m leaving because she’ll ask, “When will you be back?”

She’ll be looking through the book, flipping through the menus, seeing how many ounces she can eat. If I tell the truth, if I say never, she’ll look up at me, peering up higher than usual, above the frameless edges of her reading glasses. She’ll say, “A comedian. Maybe Johnny Carson will hire you to guest-host. When will you be back?”

If I go without answering, the other ladies will watch me leave. When I get to where they think I can’t hear them, when I get to the kitchen door, they’ll put a pause in their meeting and talk about their children.

They’ll say they were always the best parents they knew how to be. They’ll say they gave their children everything and it was never enough. They’ll say they hope their children will grow up and have children exactly like themselves. They’ll be thinking about how their children hate them and how they hate their children back because they don’t understand what it was they did wrong.

“It has nothing to do with you,” I’ll have to say. “It’s me, it’s me, all mine. There is no blame.”

“Selfish,” the mothers will say.

* * *

I’m here in the linen closet, doing my spring-cleaning. I’m confessing right and left and Odessa knocks on the door. She knocks and then opens the door. She’s carrying a plate with a sandwich and a glass of milk. Only Odessa would serve milk and a sandwich. My mother would give me a Tab with a twist of lemon. My father would make something like club soda with a little bit of syrup in it. He would use maple syrup and spend all afternoon telling me he’d invented something new, something better than other sodas because it had no chemicals, less sugar, and no caffeine. Odessa brings me a sandwich and a glass of milk and it looks like a television commercial. The bread is white, the sandwich cut perfectly in half. There are no finger marks on it, no indentations on the white bread where Odessa put her fingers while she was cutting. The glass is full except for an inch at the top. There are no spots in that inch. The milk looks white and thick, with small bubbles near the top. It looks cool and refreshing.

Odessa hands me the plate. I look at her for a moment. She is perfect. I drink the milk and know that I will have a mustache. I look at Odessa and want to say, “I love you.” I want to tell her how no one else would bring me a glass of milk. I want to tell her everything, but she starts talking. Odessa says, “Make sure you don’t leave that plate in the closet. I don’t want your mother finding it and thinking I’ve lost my mind. I don’t want bugs in here. Bring it out and put it in the dishwasher. Don’t stay in there all day or you’ll lose your color.” I nod and she closes the door.

I’m hiding and I’m eating a cream-cheese-and-cucumber sandwich and having my head examined. I’m in the neighborhood of my soul and getting worried. I’m trying not to hate myself so much, trying not to hate my body, my mind, the thoughts I think. I’m hiding in the linen closet having a sex change. I’m in here with a pad of paper writing things I’ve thought and then unthought. Thoughts that seemed like incest, like they shouldn’t be allowed.

I’m trying to find some piece of myself that is truly me, a part that I would be willing to wear like a jewel around my neck. My foot. I love my foot. If I had to send a part of myself to represent myself in some other country, or in some other way, I would amputate my foot and send it wrapped in white tissue on a silk-embroidered cushion. I would send my foot because it is me, more me than I’m willing to let on. There are other parts that are also good — hands, eyes, mouth — but after a few months I might look at them and not see the truth. After a few years I might look at them and think of someone else. But my foot is mine, all mine, the real thing. There is no mistaking it. I look at it; I take off my sock and it screams my name.

I could go on for hours demonstrating how well I know myself, through my foot, but I won’t. It’s embarrassing. The foot, my foot, that I wish to wear on a ribbon around my neck is an example of grace twisted and trapped. Chunks of bone and flesh conforming to the dictum: form follows function. It’s a wonder I’m not a cripple.

I’m hiding in the linen closet, writing a declaration of independence. I’m in the closet, but the worst is over. There is hope, trapped inside my foot; inside my soul there is possibility. I’m looking at myself and slowly I’m falling in love. I’ve figured out what it takes to live forever. I’m in love and I’m free.

I want to throw the door open and hear an orchestra swell. I want to run out to the Fat Club ladies and tell them, “Life can go on, I’m in love.”

I’ll stand in the living room, facing the sofa. I’ll stand with my arms spread wide, the violins reaching their pitch. I’ll be sweating and shaking, unsteady on my feet, my wonderful, loving, lovable feet. At the end of my proclamation my mother will let her glasses fall from her face and dangle from the cord around her neck.

“Miss Dramatic,” she’ll say. “Why weren’t you an actress?”

The fat ladies will look at each other. They’ll look at me and think of other declarations of love. They’ll look and one will ask, “Who’s the lucky man?”

There will be a silence while they wait for a name, preferably the right kind of a name. If I tell them it isn’t a man, their silence will grow and they’ll expect what they think is the worst. No one except my mother will have nerve enough to say, “A girl then?”

I’ll be forced to tell them, It’s not like that. One of the ladies, the one the others think isn’t so smart, will ask, “What’s it like?”

I’ll smile, the orchestra will swell, and I’ll look at the four ladies sitting on the sofa, the sofa covered with something modern and green, something that vaguely resembles the turf on a putting green.

“It’s like falling in love with life itself,” I’ll say.

My mother will look around the room. She’ll look anywhere except at me.

“Are you all right?” she’ll ask when I stop to catch my breath. “You look a little flushed.” I’ll be singing and dancing.

“I’m fine, I’m wonderful, I’m better than before. I’m in love.”

I’ll sing and on the end note cymbals will crash and the sound will hold in the air for a minute. And then swinging a top hat and cane, I’ll dance away. I’ll dance down the hall toward the den.

I want to find my father in the den, the family room, watching tennis on television. I want to catch him in the middle of a set and say that I can’t wait for a break. I want to tell him, “Life must go on.”

He’ll say that it’s match point. He’ll say that he’s been trying to tell me that all along.

“But why didn’t you tell me what it really means?”

“It seemed pretty obvious.”

And then I’ll tell him, “I’m in love.” There will be a pause. Someone will have the advantage. My feet will go clickety-clack over the parquet floor and he’ll say, “Yes, you sound very happy. You sound like you’re not quite yourself.”

“I’m more myself than I’ve ever been.”

I want to find Odessa. “Life will go on,” I’ll tell her. “I’m in love.” I’ll take her by the hand and we’ll dance in circles around the recreation room. We’ll dance until we’re dizzy and Odessa will ask me, “Are you all right?”