John Domini - Bedlam and Other Stories

Perhaps my description of her is incomplete, or exaggerated in places. But as I say, Priss isn’t entirely to the point, here. The only real bearing she has on the story is that after the breakup — because of the breakup — I began a strict program of running. That the breakup should lead to running seems to me perfectly understandable. I only turned twenty-nine this May.

Every day after work I ran along the Charles River. I changed in the Men’s at the bank and carried my working clothes in a pack that I wore on my back as I ran. Summer was ending. Some days the sun appeared to smile as it set, an optical illusion caused by cloud formations, which reminded me of the weatherman’s voice the morning of the day I spoke with the old woman. You see, I told myself those evenings in August and September, a hard choice doesn’t mean the end to all pleasure.

It was on one of those runs (the last of them, because I haven’t run since this happened) that I went up the wrong street on my way home and was seen again by the old woman.

She was sitting on her stoop this time. She wore khaki pants and a bulky wraparound sweater, outdoor clothing. Her elbows were on her knees and her chin in her palms. The steps appeared darker than before, not swept as often possibly, but the glass in the front door was so clean I could see a bit of the foyer inside. I could see a photograph or painting in an oval frame on a pale wall. She had let her hair grow since spring. Now it was pinned up, with a few strands shaken by the evening breeze down about her ears. Then she jumped erect and stared.

Even in the poor light there was no mistaking where she was looking. I should have dropped my chin and run on, or I should have nodded once, nodded with an affirming smile, and then turned the first corner as I’d done before. But I couldn’t repeat what I’d done before. I was tired and my thinking was gummed. I couldn’t focus on the choices available to me. And, and more than that. How was I to know why my garbage should have touched her the first time? Never mind that I shouldn’t have lied to her. I shouldn’t have, never, certainly not. But how was I to know that when I said what I did, I would somehow get past her restless looks and her fright — would get inside ? I stood silently, facing her, dipping my head to inhale.

She continued to stand erect, but I couldn’t tell if she was scanning the farther sidewalks again. I could see her hands, though. She brought both her hands up slowly, so slowly I suffered a vivid moment’s impression that she was going to hit me, lay into me with those brittle fists. I may even have straightened up to take her attack “like a man.” But she only moved her hands up past her own shoulders, setting them in the end against her temples so that the wisps of hanging hair were pinned down. Her mouth went open like mine. It was getting so dark now I would see something first and then figure out what it was, like watching a color cartoon in black and white. She sucked in one breath and held it, as if she too were gasping for air.

“Ma’am,” I managed, starting to put together some line.

“You!” she hissed.

My voice broke; I flinched. One strap of my pack slipped down to my elbow. I’m not the kind to make suggestions — I don’t make many — and I don’t expect them to take hold.

But that was her single outburst. I continued my stupid patter, too uncertain even to readjust my pack. But she merely lowered her arms and stood composed and silent. I began another argument, then let it drop.

Still I stood there. I realized I was waiting, though I could not and cannot figure out what for. But no good ideas came to me, no ideas, not like they sometimes come, wildly clapping their hands and screaming and whining, until they get through to you, no matter that you don’t want them. Nothing came to me. I only felt that I should wait.

The old woman stood, and I stood. Finally I broke away in a very slow trot, feeling against my back the flop of my rumpled dayclothes. I stopped again at the corner, still close enough to hear her over the evening rumble.

I heard nothing.

Each day the loans department receives sheets of computer printout from an intown bank. These enumerate the latest developments on all our loans, including every new penny of interest as it accrues. Lately we’ve reached such a level of organization that I need only flip through the thin cards on my desk in order to know my schedule for months in advance: number of account, date opened, date of last payment, regular amount, collateral, rebate factor, special instructions, special instructions. The coming years, also, are embraced by this system.

The old woman wasn’t a witch or an oracle. She was only who she was, and living alone. I tried to help. Who knows why she fell for it? That was a quiet street, calm houses, trellises and flower boxes, like so many of the one-ways in this area. How could I have known she’d be so…frightened, or whatever it was…to believe me? I don’t speak up often. And yet now I find myself always walking to work, in order to peek down her street. The urge to apologize is strong. No doubt it is the urge to apologize. What else could I want? Some mornings I see “her children,” what a delusion, but her door remains shut. Still I go on getting up early, to brace myself for the walk, because these days are so cold. Slowly the night’s thickness leaves my hands; slowly my few rooms grow warm. Early, 6:30 and sometimes earlier, an hour when the body’s need for heat alone will pull you hard out of dreaming.

WHAT IT IS

Empty this body out: there we have Astral Projection. And right now stop, stop thinking there’s anything so incredible about Astral Projection. Stop it right now, at the start. Because there’s nothing so incredible here, nothing occult or grotesque, nothing satanic or weird or alien. Nothing at all.

At one time, granted, Astral Projection had substance. It was hung then with weights of obscure ritual and truth, like a hammock nestling a cloud. A hammock knotted between the two hard t’s of its five otherwise ghostly-soft syllables. Ass-trill Proche-kt-shun: I can imagine a king murmuring the words, sunk in his robes. Or a sorcerer out of Disney with eyebrows sharp as the hands of a clock. In those days even the most sentimental melody could press my mind and heart together, tight, tight. But now a person can stumble over Astral Projection anywhere. Even people who’ll go no further than to switch on the radio, even they’ve heard of it. Yes switch on the repeating round of the radio dial, hear the spirit world gutted. Listen to the dim feebs calling into Dr. Joy Brown, “Up Close & Personal,” Monday through Friday 10 to 1 on WITS. Hopped-up skanks excited by mumbo-jumbo, trailer-park juiceheads making a big deal out of nothing. Never cracked a book in their lives. Don’t pretend you don’t feel the same as I do. Don’t pretend you don’t hate these people, and hate what they’ve done to Astral Projection. They’ve put all the magic in the National Enquirer:

WIDOW VISITS FIFTEEN STATES

WITH DEAD HUSBAND

Souvenirs fly through air, witnesses say

Yet in true Projection, in that moment of trust and substance I believe I once believed in, the soul leaves the body. You must remember this. Empty the body out, and the soul travels. Or if the word “soul” bothers you — what they’ve done to “soul” on the radio! — think of it instead as separating two bodies. The first of these two would be our habitual place, five senses multiplied by three erogenous zones et cetera, and the second would be another body somehow carried inside the first. The second body is “bigger,” in most senses of the word, than the one in which it lives. Likewise the second body is far more changeable, movable, extensible. Think of stuffing a large and active mouse under a teacup.