Laura Furman - The O Henry Prize Stories 2005

“How’d you know it was the same one?”

“Graffiti, duh. ‘Hector loves Isabel.’ Scratched into the glass with a razor blade in, like, really big letters.” “And the cabdriver?” “His name was Jesus.” “Just Jesus?” “Just Jesus.”

The incident with Adam had been painful but finite. A city tale, one of those chance meetings leading to romance or, in this case, violence; already the bruise was fading. But the incident with Grace was more troubling, awoke in me a creeping dread. What if life was just a series of borrowed items, redundant actions, at best repetitious, at worse theft? “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But what if repetition happened regardless of memory? What if we were all condemned? I felt then that I understood the history I was reading, began to sympathize with the urge to destroy something that continually reminded you of your derivative status. Like most people, I first bought used items out of poverty, but after my fortunes improved I continued to buy secondhand from a sense of a different debt. Clothes, books, bicycles: I wanted to pay my dues to history, wanted to wear it on my back, carry it in my hands, ride it through the streets. But now it seemed history had rejected my tithing, rejected it scornfully. The past can be sold, it mocked me, but it can never be bought.

Charlie was less blasé about Grace than he’d been about Adam, but ultimately dismissed it.

“It takes three events to form a narrative. Two is just coincidence.”

“But a coincidence which is made up of two coincidences. What's that?”

“Proof that New York, as someone once said, is just a series of small towns.”

The first night, after cleaning and bandaging my wounds, Charlie had put me to bed and spooned himself behind me, his arms around me, the outline of his erect penis palpable through two pairs of underwear. At the time it was so familiar I didn’t really notice it, but later it came to preoccupy my thoughts. It was like Adam's mountain bike, misplaced, a tool for which the pertinent scenario existed only at a remembered remove. Or Graces ex libris cards, a claim of ownership on something she had no intention of keeping, like a gravestone on an abandoned grave. The night I met Grace, Charlie and I had sex for the first time since Adam had whacked me in the head, and the whole time I was unable to shake an image of Fletchers face next to Charlie's crotch. “See this? This is mine” Later that night, when I was dozing off and Charlie was leafing through the book that had fallen from my hands, I suddenly sat up.

“Fletcher.”

“What about Fletcher?”

“You used to belong to him.” Silently but victoriously, I ticked off forefinger, middle finger, ring finger. Then: “That's three.”

The next day, after Charlie went to work, I stayed in the apartment. At first I wasn’t aware that I was doing it. Staying in. I worked in the morning, ordered lunch from an Italian place around the corner. I read while I ate tepid fettuccine and kept reading after I’d finished my meal; all this was normal, or had been normal, if you disregarded the weeks I’d spent in front of Benny’s. On a pad made up of reused sheets from early drafts of stories was written “shaving cream, milk,” but after I’d finished the history I neglected my shopping and instead took a nap. I didn’t wake until Charlie called that evening after he got off work.

“Dinner? There's that new French place on Twelfth.” “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry, I was hungry, I ordered in. Mexican.” “That's fine,” Charlie said. “I’ve got some chicken in the fridge, and some work I really should get done. My place tonight?”

“Oh,” I said again. “I’m sorry. I, um. My head's pounding. Do you mind?”

Charlie didn’t say that's fine the second time. He said, “Sure,” and it seemed to me his voice wasn’t annoyed but instead relieved. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

The next day I stayed in again, working. I’d been trying to write about Adam since I’d met him, but after I met Grace the story suddenly fell into place.

In the story I am afraid to leave my apartment. I am afraid that a stranger will stop me on the sidewalk and put their hand on my Salvation

Army chest. “That's my shirt.” Someone else claims my pants. Nearly naked, I skulk indoors. But not even my home is safe. A visitor runs his hand over my sofa (Housing Works, $250). “I used to love this couch.” Another pulls open the drawers of my desk (Regeneration, $400): “What are the odds?” Finally someone waves their arms, taking in the time-smudged dimensions of my tiny apartment. “This used to be my home.” My throat is dry, and I go to the faucet for a drink. But as the water runs I wonder: how many bodies has this passed through to get to me?

But it was worse than all that. When Charlie came over that evening he glanced through the story I’d written and said, “Haven’t I read this before?”

On the third day I didn’t leave my apartment Charlie called me and told me a story:

“Once I wanted to hack all my hair off with a pair of scissors. But I had a crew cut at the time. So I went out and bought next year's calendar and marked the date a year hence with a big red X. For the next twelve months I didn’t touch my hair, and when the day with the X came up I looked in the mirror and realized I liked my hair long. I realized that my crew cuts had been a way of hacking off my hair all along.”

I said the only thing I could think of.

“Huh?”

“Your whole shut-in thing,” Charlie said. “It's not real. Or it's not new. It's just a symbol of something you already do. You’ve already done. Think about it. Where is it you’re really afraid to go?”

I thought about it.

“But you have a crew cut now,” I said.

“Give me a break, will you? I’m going bald, it's the dignified thing to do.”

When we met Charlie gave me a road map. This was on our third date. Oh, okay, our second. We’d gone back to his apartment and he spread the map out on his kitchen table (IKEA, $99). The table, like everything else in Charlie's apartment, was new and neat, but the map was old and wrinkled, a flag-sized copy of the continental U.S., post-Alaska, pre-Hawaii. Some of the creases were so worn they’d torn, or were about to.

“Now,” Charlie said. “Fold it.”

There were four long creases, twelve short, and folding the map proved as hard as solving Rubik's cube. I got it wrong a half dozen times before I finally got the front and back covers in the right place and, a little chagrined, handed it to Charlie.

“Did I fail?”

“You passed,” Charlie said. “With flying colors. Anyone who can fold a map on the first try is far too rational for me.”

“And what about people who can’t fold one at all?”

In answer, Charlie pulled open the white laminate-fronted drawer of one of those nameless pieces of furniture, a “storage unit.” Inside were several maps practically wadded up, as well as dozens of takeout menus and hundreds of crooked twist ties. He had to scrunch the pile down before the drawer would close again.

“Wow,” I said. “The map test and your messy drawer. You must really like me.”

Charlie grinned, sheepish but pleased. “It's about time I entered into a new alliance.”

By the time I understood what that meant, I thought I was ready to sign. And then Adam came along.

On the fourth day, Grace called. When I asked her how she’d gotten my number she said, “Out of the book,” and when I started to ask how she knew my last name she interrupted me and said, “Honey, I think you’d better turn on the television.”