Leopoldine Core - When Watched - Stories

Henry laughed. “It was a terrible thing to do to that little dancer!”

Susan’s mouth squirmed as she animated the crime in her mind, eyes shining. “How did they find out?”

“I think there was a finger in the soup.”

She groaned.

“And later on they found other parts of her in the apartment,” Henry continued. “ Feet perhaps,” he said and Susan could hear the strange look of glee on his face. “And I think the homeless were blamed,” he said. “As if they were somehow complicit by eating the soup.”

Now engrossed in visualizing the stew, red-brown and bobbing with human meat, Susan had stopped blinking altogether. Henry still experienced her as a void. It actually relaxed him. “There are people who can be served anything,” he said. “Because they’ll eat anything.”

Susan was quiet a second. “I would never come back from that,” she said, a frost of revulsion in her eyes. “From eating someone I mean.”

“Maybe you have,” he said and yawned.

“Oh for God’s sake .”

“Well there’s really no way of knowing,” he said casually, sleepiness dulling his features once more. “And it’s good that we don’t know all the things we’ve consumed. It’s the knowing that drives people nuts.”

They were quiet for a while. Henry had his eyes closed. Susan stared brightly at the ceiling, her eyes drilling through it. “Henry,” she said, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep.” But he was already gone.

• • •

In the morning their necks hurt even more. Susan could barely sit up. After much complaining, they went downstairs and ate the complimentary scrambled eggs.

“Ugh. This was made in the microwave,” Susan said, chewing. “I can tell.”

They each drank two cups of the weak, tawny coffee, then put their coats on and walked out into the parking lot.

The roads had been plowed. The van looked okay , they agreed, brushing snow away, except for a deep scratch on one side. Susan ran her finger over it. “I’m driving,” she said with a hostile glance and Henry said nothing. It was his way of agreeing.

They packed their things and drank more of the pale coffee, then bid farewell to the bald man at the front desk, who in daylight looked more pitiful than creepy. He seemed to be the only one working there.

On the way out of town they learned they were in La Porte, Indiana, a town that seemed to have embraced its own depression, with nothing but fast-food chains and car dealerships.

“It’s so cheery and failed,” Henry remarked.

Susan laughed. “What do you think people do here?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Wait for their parents to die so they can buy a car?”

The following towns were much the same, one little museum of loss after another. “Americans are living badly,” Susan said.

“And proudly ,” Henry smirked. “That’s the problem.”

He joked in the same sneering way all day, which relaxed Susan. But whenever it was quiet, her anxiety came lurching back, punching the landscape full of death traps. She drove slowly — too slowly — often holding her breath. And when the sun sank low in the sky, burning the horizon, it didn’t matter how slowly she drove. Susan felt powerless the way people in movies were, people tied to railroad tracks, people with big luminous knives to their throats. So many ways to die, she thought, her eyes traveling to the wide gap of shadows beyond the road’s edge. Susan pictured the two of them down there, dead or dying, the car on its side. “I’m a little bit afraid,” she admitted.

“Do you want me to drive?”

“No,” she replied. “That would be worse.”

This silenced Henry. He leaned back in his chair with a glazed look of anger.

“We have to stop,” she blurted.

“What?”

“I’m shaking.”

“So let me drive!”

“No.”

She took the next exit and they went to McDonald’s, where Henry sat gruntily consuming a burger in the crude white light.

Susan sipped her soda with averted eyes, eating the occasional fry. “We’re such chickens,” she said grimly.

Henry stopped chewing and stared. “What does that mean?”

“We’ve had our heads cut off,” she said. “And we’re running around.”

“That’s more activity than I see happening,” Henry said curtly. Then he swallowed.

• • •

They checked into the Super 8 motel down the road. It was a square little room with dark purple carpeting and a jungle-print bedspread.

“I can smell every truck driver who ever showered here!” Susan hollered from the bathroom.

Henry was in bed, mindlessly thumbing through his notebook. Susan walked toward him with her brown button-down sweater hanging half off her body, the unclothed arm outstretched. She squatted next to the bed. “Feel this right here,” she said, prodding her upper arm. “Is that a lump?”

“Hold on. I’m in the depths of a sentence,” Henry said, jotting something down.

Susan waited with her arm out.

Finally Henry put his pen down and pressed the area gently. “I don’t feel anything,” he said.

She returned her exploring fingers to the arm. “I don’t feel it now either.”

Henry stared at her, at first with annoyance but then softly, with love. “I know you so well,” he said.

“Maybe you do.”

“Maybe?”

“I’m flirting with you.”

“Oh,” he said with a broad, intimate smile.

Susan changed into a long oatmeal-colored nightgown, then fetched a yellow legal pad from her bag. She crawled into bed and the two wrote in silence for a bit. Then she put her pen down and plunked her head onto his shoulder. “It’s important to feel for lumps, you know,” she said, peering down at his notebook.

“Yes,” he said. “But don’t worry so much.”

“Why not?” Susan sat upright, staring. “Health is precarious.” She waited for him to return her gaze. “There are so many little things that can ruin your perfect life.”

Henry hummed.

Susan read his four-line poem. “I like it,” she said, almost immediately. “I wrote one too.” She handed him her pad. The poem was called “At Night” and featured a couple found dead in their car. The bodies were described with frank indifference, like they were apples. “It was written from the perspective of Satan,” Susan explained. “That’s why it’s mundane,” she said. “Because he doesn’t care when people die.”

“Well he likes it.” Henry grinned.

“No.” Susan shook her head. “He’s indifferent. He hardly notices .” She exhaled. “That’s what evil is.” Susan reached over and pointed to the third line. “How do you feel about that comma there?”

“I’d get rid of it. But I’m a pervert.”

Susan laughed. “You get such a devilish smile on your face when you say something clever.”

“I know. It’s a smile I enjoy submitting to,” Henry said, removing his glasses. He sank his head down onto the pillow with a great sigh.

“I’m not tired at all,” Susan said.

“I am,” Henry said. He looked at her a moment, eyes slivered. “Most of what we do together is sleep. Isn’t that funny?”

“Hilarious.”

“No, it’s very intimate,” he said seriously. “We enter our dreams together.”

“Well,” she said, “not really together.”

“Right. We enter them privately. But our bodies are together. Think of movie theaters,” he said, gripping her arm excitedly. “Isn’t that funny? Movies imitate dreams and that’s why we like them.”

“You’re right.” Susan put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, knowing full well that she wouldn’t sleep. She didn’t even feel like trying.