Laura Adamczyk - Hardly Children

She brings her bowl and mug to the couch, stepping over Adam’s shoes and backpack. Scooch, she says, and Adam turns forward. Scooch —how many times has he heard that from her?

Nothing?

The last time we talked he was going on about how hot this summer was and how I haven’t been out there in a while. Why, is he mad at me?

He’s not mad .

What is he then?

He thinks about his father on the swing, his skinny legs poking out from his khaki shorts, the way he’d served Adam ice cream with Grape-Nuts on top, like he had when they were kids.

He’s nothing. He’s fine.

Have you been losing weight? Sandy pinches the side of his bare stomach.

He flinches. He has always been a slender man—a certain body type, Guy has told him, is necessary for suspension—but it’s true, there seems to be less of him.

I sweat buckets up there.

Does it ever fall on people?

I don’t know, he says. Sometimes he thinks about spitting on them. He imagines them pretending to know what it all means and wanting to deflate their pretension. But the thought occurs the way a smoker long since having quit considers a cigarette—the desire rises then disappears almost at once. It’s no longer me, he thinks, with neither pleasure nor sadness. He considers himself from a dull distance.

Anyway, he says, Alex hasn’t said anything. But she’s not really there.

I thought Alex was a man.

Nope.

Ah, now it all makes sense.

What?

Those nude shorts, she says. She’s one of your girls.

It has always bothered Adam the way Sandy ribs him about women. When he lived alone and would meet up with Sandy for a drink, it wasn’t uncommon for them to run into girls he’d been dating. Slender girls with tall, pointed shoes who worked in PR or marketing, sexy assistant positions seemingly only filled with girls like this. Girls with straight hair and slick, confident intelligence. He’d see them for three weeks, two months, and grow heavy with their want, the way he could see them trying to please him. Once, one of those girls found him and Sandy at a bar downtown. A girl with dark tights disappearing into black ankle boots and a leather clutch in her hand. Thinking Sandy was a new girlfriend, she said, He’s a roamer, he gets bored. Believe me. Before Adam could respond—a beat to remember her name—the woman slid herself back into the crowd like a pickpocket. With a raised eyebrow, Sandy said, You never told me about that one. His sister’s comment bothers him more now that he doesn’t go out like he used to.

When Adam first met Alex to discuss the exhibit, she’d started out all business. In a white, windowless office in the back of the gallery, an empty desk and a cluster of microphone stands in the corner, she had him take off his shirt. She stood, arms crossed, viewing him like something she had made. Her dark blonde hair was dry and wavy down her back, and a thick set of bangs hung over her eyes. Her oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up and loose jeans made her seem at once masculine and smaller, hidden.

This is so objectifying, she said, shaking her head, eyes dazed. She began nodding. It’s awesome. You’re really attractive. Oh, I probably shouldn’t say that. She slapped her hand over her mouth, pretending to laugh.

Adam found her at once endearing and off-putting—immediately familiar with him but not secure in that familiarity. He decided to play along. Dressing, he asked, So, does that mean I get the job? But her phone rang just then. She took it from her pocket, looked at its screen, then silenced it.

I think I’m going to commit suicide , she said, all the playfulness drained from her face. He must have given her a look, because she snorted and said, Jeez, just kidding. Later as he was leaving, he saw her outside crying into her phone with all the red, open force of a teenager: I am trying to deal with it!

Adam had ducked his head and sped past her to the subway.

Opening night, suspended, he had watched her walk the circle of the gallery. She drank wine, shook people’s hands, but she often stood to the side playing with her phone or straightening the exhibit cards on the entrance table. Her short, compact body swam within long layers of gray and brown wool, looking like she’d draped an old tablecloth over her shoulders. She projected a distinctly keyed-up energy from some edge that he couldn’t see. It both intrigued and annoyed him.

I don’t have any girls, Adam says. Anyway she’s weird.

I’ll have to see her first.

When are you coming down?

Closing night, she says. When it’s all over.

THAT EVENING BEFORE OPENING, Alex goes up with Adam on the lift to watch Guy suspend him.

I feel like I should see how it’s done, she says.

You gonna stick around for the show? Adam asks.

Sure, she replies, with too much energy.

The platform is no bigger than a closet and Adam, belly down, rests his chin on his folded arms, the metal of the lift cool against his skin. Alex sits on one side of him; on the other Guy dots Adam’s back with a marker. Guy has dark hair and thick arms. He wears jeans and a black T-shirt every day like a uniform, working with the silent efficiency of a tailor or barber.

The holes from last week closed up, he says. I’m going to go just to the side of them …

Adam feels a hand run the length of his back, fingering the skin where the hooks will go. It isn’t until Guy stands and cracks his neck that he realizes the hand belongs to Alex.

Sort of makes you wonder what everyone’s like at home, she says.

When Guy doesn’t answer, Adam turns his head: Were you talking to me?

Whoever, she says shrugging. She speaks with so much forced casualness, he thinks, as though every possible response were exactly what she expected. She thumbs the elastic at his waist, sending a creeping tickle up to his neck.

Have you lost weight? she asks. Don’t get all anorexic on me.

Happens all the time to people who suspend this much, Guy says. He’s back down kneeling. Here’s a sting, he says, and with a small piercing gun, he punches a hole through the skin below Adam’s right shoulder, following it with a hook at the end of a cable.

I haven’t been doing it for that long.

Though wouldn’t that be a project? Alex asks. Taking pictures of a fat man getting skinny? You’re not fat, but it’d be very dramatic. And then by the end you’d become way too skinny, and then we’d realize that maybe you didn’t want to lose all that weight?

Guy clears his throat. Here’s another sting, he says.

What do you think, Adam, she asks. Do you want to be my way-too-skinny?

Sure.

I’m just kidding. I’d never want you to do that to yourself. This skinniness is too much. You’d look better with a few extra pounds.

You’d look better with a few less.

Guy snorts. Adam’s back shifts, quivering like the flanks of a horse. This used to come naturally. Handing out insults to see how people would react. Now it feels like someone he no longer likes hanging around uninvited.

I’m not saying you’re fat. You’re very petite, he says, but you wouldn’t know it to look at you. You’re wearing too many clothes. You’ve got to be baking. Am I right? He turns back to look at Guy. He’s on his feet, untwirling another cord from the frame in the ceiling.

It’s wicked hot out, Guy replies, not taking his eyes off his work. He kneels down and, with the gun, places the last hook and cable. He looks at his watch and says, All right, we better do this. Guy takes another, thicker cord running down from the pulley above the frame. He pulls slowly. Adam’s skin lifts away from his body, then his body lifts away from the platform. Guy raises him to head height.