Karolina Waclawiak - How to Get into the Twin Palms

I wanted him to fuck me again but I didn’t know how to ask so I backed away and let him close his eyes and waited for the sleep sounds to start up again. They finally did and I left the room. I walked from the bathroom to the kitchen to the living room, sat on the couch, waited, got up, waited, stood in the dining room and stared at the smeared fingerprints on the glass table and started to clean. The sofa was pushed in 6 inches on one side. The remnants of the previous night looked almost violent. But it wasn’t violent. It was nearly boring, ordinary sex, but still better than nothing.

NOW HE WASN’T MOVING, JUST TAKING UP MYbed. I tried to move the couch silently. When being silent I usually made the most noise. The sofa creaked and squealed as I moved it 6 inches back into position. I waited to hear something, but just heard the sounds of sleep. Was it impolite to ask him to leave?

I should have told him I didn’t like sleeping next to people. I should have told him I had to get up early. But he knew I didn’t.

There was a knock at the door. I checked myself in the mirror to make sure I looked like I hadn’t just gotten fucked or maybe to make sure that I did.

“I have another fish.” My neighbor was standing there, his mustache more trimmed on one side than the other. His glasses were smeared and I had the urge to clean them with my table cleaner.

“Really?”

“Mackerel.” He held up the bloody package. He smiled and waited for my impression of this fact.

“Excellent.”

“I will gut one for you.”

“No, no.”

“And smoke it. You love smoke. I see it.”

“I don’t really like smoked fish.”

“It’s what we do. It’s what we eat.”

It was of no use. He wasn’t listening.

“I bring tomorrow.”

He walked away smiling and I shut the door. The conversation of the smoked fish had woke up Lev, who was scratching himself and stretching in the doorway of my bedroom.

“Who was that?”

“My neighbor, next door.”

“ Derevenshina .” He spit the word out and turned back to the bedroom.

“What’s that?” I followed him. He wasn’t waiting. He wasn’t getting ready to fuck me again. He was putting his socks on. Looking for his underwear. His pants.

“Peasant.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

All of a sudden I didn’t want him to go. I wasn’t sure what I wanted from him, not to leave yet, for sure.

“I have things to do.” He wouldn’t look at me as he said it. I knew he didn’t like being asked. I wanted to ask him again. I wanted to own him. I wanted to let him own me. He got dressed and moved past me quickly. Told me he’d see me around.

He didn’t say it like that.

He said, “I’ll see you.”

Not around. Not later. Not soon.

When he left I went back into my room and I stared at my sheets. One corner had pulled away from the mattress. On his side. It had crumpled beneath him and stayed like that while he creased it and sweat on it. My sheets were floral. Decidedly childish. Laura Ashley. My mother sent them to me the first time I lost my job. She felt a new set of sheets would be a fresh start. The old ones had roses that were too big and the navy backdrop was supposed to cause anxiety dreams. That’s what Cosmopolitan magazine said. The anxiety my bed sheets were causing me in my sleep were causing me to be late to work which caused me to be fired. But now, these sheets were worn through. The middle faded, the rubber band threaded around the frame of it was loose, causing just this kind of pull to happen and exposing my cheap mattress. I hoped he hadn’t noticed.

I fixed the sheets. They were still damp on his side. They felt sticky and I didn’t want to be in them anymore. Dried sweat layered with new sweat. His smell. I inhaled deeply. It started making me sick. I kept inhaling anyway. Till the nausea came. I got up and ran to the bathroom. Kneeled in front of the toilet and waited for it to come up and when I saw that he had left a ring of shit in my toilet… it did.

Afterward, I decided that washing the sheets would be the best idea. I pulled them off. I put them in a pile in my room and turned on the ceiling fan and turned it on full blast. I waited for the smell to rush out of the windows and into the alley. It didn’t. It clung to the mattress where he laid and labored. It clung to the mattress. It clung to the walls.

I tried my first attempt at leaving then.

THE LITTLE LIMB OF THE GAS GAUGE SAID MYcar had six gallons of gas in it. My rent was due in two days. My check from the government was already in the mail. It would probably come on the third day. I could hold everything off until then. If I took the 405 Freeway I would sit in traffic for hours and my car would overheat and I would be down to two gallons of gas. Minimum. It was 3 p.m. I pulled some clothes together. I had to rush. I left the sheets in the washer of my building. I didn’t have enough quarters for the dryer. Someone, maybe the fish man, would take pity on me. More likely I’d find them in a pile on the floor on the concrete, mildewy and dank, but I didn’t care.

I drove down Sunset Boulevard, through the winding of billboards. My favorite part was coming up. The Chateau Marmont was looming over the boulevard looking French. It negated the advertisements for slim jeans and elaborately rhinestoned pop-star fragrances and made things look stately.

The cars weren’t snaking back and forth yet. Heading back to their apartments from Century City assistant jobs and executive jobs and movie lot jobs. I knew this because I had placed temp candidates for them and I knew where the hot jobs were. Century City. Near Cheviot Hills and Beverlywood and Rancho Park and everything that sounded nice.

I kept driving through Bel Air. Stared at the gates, took the turns quickly on Sunset, where I always pretended to be a race car driver, past the Jacaranda trees, and pulled alongside the 405 and saw the jam. In both directions, the cars were slowly stalling and stuck. Traffic had started early so I would have to continue further.

When I came to the mouth of Sunset the ocean was in front of me. I pulled right onto PCH and drove alongside the water. The sun had burned through the fog. The sky looked endless and the houses were pouring down all around me. I pulled over and crawled down a dirt cliff onto the sand.

I sat on the beach and stared at the expanse of sky. The waves crashed down and the water wanting to smother me. The sun was too much so I wandered into an embankment next to a house. I hoped they weren’t home and wouldn’t come after me. The sheen on the water was making me sick, making my eyes hurt. I closed them but the flicker was still there. I touched my hands to my face and his smell was still on me. It smelled like dried saliva, it was sour and I didn’t want it on me anymore. If I went to the water I would throw up in it. I went down and sat in the embankment and covered my hands in the cool, damp sand hoping the salt would take away the smell and closed my eyes. I rubbed them deep in the sand in a frenzy, purposely taking off layers of my skin.

I rubbed them raw and then I fell asleep.

“Get up and get out.”

I opened one eye at a time. A middle-aged man in yellow swim trunks was kicking at me. He had gray chest hair rolling down his chest in white ripples. He saw me staring and got self-conscious. He stopped kicking, then collected himself and started nudging me with his toe.

“Stop kicking me.”

“Get up then.”

“Jesus, give me a second.”

I was slow to get up. He kept his foot near me and I swatted at it.

“Get out of here,” I said.