Scott Spencer - A Ship Made of Paper

It’s late at night, one day or another, Wednesday, Thursday, it doesn’t re-ally matter anymore.Daniel has fallen asleep in front oftheTV set, with his hands folded in his lap and his feet up on the coffee table.It is a shabby threadbare sort ofsleep, mixed in with the sounds ofthe movie he has been watching— The Guns of Navarone —as well as the still unfamiliar ru-minations ofhis house.His dream life is thin and discontinuous, just im-ages, moments, nothing quite memorable, it’s like reading the spines of the books in a vast secondhand shop.Here he is decanting a bottle ofred wine, trying to push a mower through wet grass, being driven to court byAnthony Quinn, and then Ruby appears, she looks overheated, as if she’s been running, she opens her mouth and instead ofwords or any hu-man sound there comes the chime ofa doorbell, dingdong dingdong …

Daniel awakens, his heart racing.He tries to get up but his legs are gran-ite.He grabs his trousers, pulls one leg offthe table and then the other, it feels as ifhe’s been left for dead on the side ofthe road.The ringing of the doorbell is continuing.“Just a second!”he cries out.

He doesn’t have the presence ofmind or the sense ofselfpreservation to ask who it is, he simply drags himself through the living room, passes beneath the little oval archway to the foyer, and opens the door to find Iris on his porch, wearing a sweater that is much too large for her—Hampton’s?—and dark glasses, though it is eleven at night.The air smells ofnight-blooming flowers.

“I need to see you,”she says.

He reaches for her, pulls her to him, and as he embraces her he feels a sickening twist ofintuition:Hampton has died.She nuzzles her face into the crook ofhis neck.He pulls away to get a better look at her.

“Are you all right?”he whispers.

”I just had to get out ofthere.”

“What’s going on? Has anything happened?”

“Hampton’s mother is there, and his sister, with her daughter, Christine, this skinny ten-year-old nervous wreck, scared ofher own shadow, constantly bursting into tears.They’re all nervous wrecks, and between them and the nurse there’s no room for me.I can’t pee without some-one knocking on the bathroom door.”

“How’s Hampton?”

“The same.Every day, the same.Except stronger.He takes walks, he eats, but the speech thing, you know.He can’t leave the house because he cannot speak.He has one word.Da-da.Da-da, da-da.It means yes, it means no, it means I’m hungry, I’m cold, it means whatever he wants.

And believe me, everyone is meant to understand that this da-da means he wants a soft-boiled egg and that da-da means he wants a back rub.”

Her voice is level, slightly hard, but her eyes show the injury, the pity, and the fury ofliving with a man who has been ruined.

“It feels really strange,”Daniel says.“You know.That I’ve never seen him.”

“How can you?What would you do?Walk in? Pay him a visit?”

“I don’t know.But it just seems strange.I feel I should.After all…”

“Well, it just can’t happen.”She is startled by the harshness in her tone.“Maybe sometime,”she adds.“Just not now.”

“I need to take responsibility,”Daniel says.

”I’m taking responsibility,”Iris says.“Every day.And that’s enough.

He doesn’t even know exactly what happened to him.He certainly doesn’t think it had anything to do with you.I would have to draw him a series ofcartoons, and he still probably wouldn’t understand.Come on.Please.I don’t want to talk about it.I need a break from all that.”

Brusquely, even roughly—he forgives and even enjoys the bullying haste ofit—she leads him to the bedroom, pushes his shoulders.He falls onto the bed and she swoops onto him in a fury ofneed.He tries to speak against the sorrowful pressure ofher kisses and their teeth click against each other.

He feels that she isn’t ready yet, but she wants him inside ofher now.

Her sudden intake ofbreath whistles through her clenched teeth.Her eyelids flutter and she presses her fingers into his back, urgently.She whispers the details and the extent ofher pleasure into his ear, and even as he feels the joy ofbeing with and within her, a thought presents itself: Why, he wonders, didn’t she let me make her ready before I entered her?Why didn’t she let me touch her, why did she want me to push my way in? It is a thought ofsurpassing pettiness—how could the man who once had longed so fer-vently for the chance to kiss the instep ofher foot now quibble over the details oflubrication? But even as he continues to make love to her, even as he feels the sweat pouring offofhim, even as he times his movements so as to bring her pleasure, to hear that stunned, despairing, and unde-fended little yell she makes, even as her grip tightens and he feels himself drawn into the inevitable engulfing swoon ofcoming, even now he cannot repress the memory ofthat sharp little intake ofbreath.The conclusion is inescapable:the forceful penetration is what she is used to, that is what she once had with Hampton, and this is what her body craves, this is what she hungers for, and—right now—this is what she requires.

Yet somehow, through force ofwill, and by doggedly obeying the commands ofhis own desire, he is able to stay with her, and now they lie next to each other, panting and relieved.In the dim light ofhis bedroom-in-exile (he cannot imagine making his life in this house;he occupies it like a fugitive),Iris dozes off, her legs pressed together, her arms at her side, like a child miming sleep.A gentle snore hovers above her lips.

Daniel props himself up on his elbow and gazes down at her.Her breasts are nearly flat against her, the nipples elongated and with a slight droop from two years ofnursing Nelson.Her belly gently swells with each breath.What ifhis child were growing in there?

Not wanting to disturb her sleep, and not trusting himself to keep from touching her, Daniel slips out ofbed and walks as softly as he can into the front room.Naked, he sits on the sofa, finds the remote control under a cushion, and turns on theTV. The Guns of Navarone is no longer playing, and he flips through the channels looking for something that can hold his interest for ten or fifteen minutes, after which time he feels he ought to wake Iris.He settles on one ofthe all-news cable channels, where a black lawyer named Reginald McTeer is holding forth about the O.J.Simpson case.Daniel has often seen McTeer’s endlessly smiling, media-friendly face onTV.The program must have sent a crew to McTeer’s office because he is seated at a grand desk, with shelves oflaw books framing a view ofmidtown Manhattan behind him.recorded earlier todayflashes on the bottom ofthe screen.McTeer is a stocky man in a dark suit and his signature ten-gallon cowboy hat, bright white with a red satin band.A picture ofhis light-skinned wife and their three fair children is on his desk, as well as photographs ofMcTeer enjoying his expensive hobbies and vacations—on safari, in the cockpit ofhis Mooney, on horseback, and with various well-knowns from the worlds ofpolitics and entertainment.He speaks like a man comfortable with the sound ofhis own voice, with the exhorting enthusiasm ofa preacher, or a Cadillac salesman.

“You know, Jim, all the media’s going crazy because Mr.O.J.Simpson got himself a team offirst-rate lawyers.Everyone’s going on about justice for sale.And I say:more power to him.This isAmerica, baby.

Everything’s for sale.You think the poor get the same medical care as the rich? Everything is for sale, top to bottom.What you’ve got to under-stand is that’s how the system works, that’s just what the man’s got to do.

InAmerica green trumps black and white.”

McTeer smiles, and then suddenly theTV shows Jim Klein sitting in the cable station’s studio, watching McTeer on a large monitor.Klein, a silver-haired man in a blue blazer, once a newscaster for one ofthe net-works, and now nearing the end ofhis broadcast career, swivels in his chair and faces another large monitor.