Scott Cheshire - High as the Horses' Bridles

“Forget it. I’m calling because I want to know about your father.”

“So far, a very odd trip.” A tall, zaftig woman in peach velour crossed the street while nibbling on a hot dog. I was still hungry, and this made me think of a knish. I wanted a knish. And maybe another aspirin.

“So talk,” she said.

A city bus bulleted beside me, only inches from the curb.

“Well, to begin with, he’s sleeping in the bathroom.”

“What does that even mean? You need to give me more information.”

“Sorry, it’s noisy. Hold on.” I left from under the train and walked along the block. “He sleeps in a little red cave.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Everything’s gone to shit. And I mean shit. The house is, I don’t know what.” I took a breath. “A giant litter box, cat shit everywhere.”

“He has cats?”

“He’s become one of those cat ladies with crap and litter on the floor.”

“What else?”

“The house is a wreck, I can’t do it justice. He weighs fifty pounds. You were totally right. He’s in a very bad way. Never goes upstairs, I don’t think he even has the strength to go upstairs, and he’s living in the downstairs bathroom. I know this sounds like, What am I talking about? Give me more information. But I don’t have much more information. Are you there?”

“Okay, slow down, slow down. You okay? I don’t want to worry about you, too.”

“He sleeps on a cot in the bathroom. All day. With a cute red night-light so it’s extra fucked. And he says he talks to God in his dreams. They have conversations. He sits in His lap. He sees my mother, and kisses my mother. He’s sleeping all day. And it’s not like I think he’s crazy. I don’t know what I think. And he’s buying things on the Internet, I don’t know what besides toothbrushes and wine and cat food, and I had an experience today like I’ve never had before, like I’m the one going crazy.”

“Why the bathroom?”

“I don’t know. There are rules. He fills up the tub. And this is why I called you, I mean, why the messages. I want a knish.”

“Mmmm.”

This is the secret for walking in cities against the oncoming crowd: look down and pay no attention to others. Walkers parted like the Red Sea in front of me.

I said, “What’s amazing is I can go for days, weeks in Otter and not see as many people as I’m seeing right now. And I think he’s in pain. He’s not eating, not a bite since I got here.”

“So what exactly is he doing?”

“He sits there next to the tub. He’s talking to me about eggs. There are garbage bags in the hallway, full garbage bags.”

A hot dog cart was on the corner. There was a radio, badly spray-painted white, blaring beneath the umbrella. A game announcer said, “Be sure the Babe is rolling in his grave.” I walked over to an apartment building and sat on the stoop. “I think he’s in pain. And I think I have to call an ambulance or force him to go see a doctor.”

“Or the police.”

“I’m not calling the police. There’s no crime .”

“I mean to help him. Or the hospital for help.”

An elderly woman gave me the stink-eye as she walked by and into the building. “Talk to me about something else,” I said. “Just for a second. What are you doing? What room are you in? Describe the room.”

“I can’t believe now I have to worry about you.”

I said, “I’ve never seen your apartment.”

“I’m in my kitchen, the lightbulb over the stove. I’m dipping, as we speak, a bread heel in tomato sauce.”

“I’m starving. Tell me something else.”

“I’m reading Revelation again. Because it’s my job to read. It feels like a peek inside your brain. Every book in Hebrew is eaten by this book. It leaves nothing. I also happen to be translating a book of Hebrew poems, so I’m especially sensitive. I’m thinking of teaching it next semester.”

“You’re wasting your time with Revelation.”

“William James, by the way, you should read him if you haven’t. You’d love him. He says if you want to see the significance of a thing, you look at the exaggerations. The perversions of a thing. This is your book.”

“It’s not my book. What’s your Greek’s name?” Because I didn’t yet know.

A pause. “His name is Nikos.”

“That’s ridiculous. Are you serious? Totally predictable.”

“He’s a colleague.”

“Well, I hate Nikos.”

“The book is fascistic. And fetishistic.”

I held the phone away for a moment.

I said, “What’d you have for lunch?”

“I had a kiwi smoothie and this. A long run before my flight. We’re going to see my parents.”

“We.”

Another pause.

I said, “ We never went and saw your parents.”

“I know.”

Both of us were silent.

“But he’s not there now,” I said. “You’re alone.”

“All alone, just the way you like it.”

“Why say things like that?”

“I happen to be having a very tough year. But why would you know anything about that? I called my father and told him I wanted to see him. I’m trying to replace your dad with my dad.”

“He’s an asshole, your father.”

“I know.”

“And your mother—”

“We’re still fighting. And not to mention the book is kind of beautiful in its own terrible way. Like Texas Chainsaw is beautiful. The lighting is perfect.”

I lit a cigarette, and a fat black pug came sniffing at my feet. She looked up at me, panting, tilting her head. The owner mouthed, “Sorry,” and pulled her away.

“I heard the lighter. Stop smoking. Take this trip as an opportunity.”

I said, “More about the book, please, if this is what keeps you on the phone.”

“I quote, and when the End comes the blood will be as high as the horses’ bridles, or something like that. Why horses?”

“God’s army rides on horses.”

“But why horses? Why not as high as tank treads, if this is supposed to impress me? Or as high as a Chevrolet’s side mirrors, and for two thousand years the faithful are wondering, What’s a side mirror? What’s a Chevy?”

“I’m picturing you behind a pulpit.”

“Think of all those futuristic movies in the sixties and seventies. Everyone’s walking around in a toga like it’s the Roman senate. What togas? Here we are forty years later in the future. Show me a toga. Just one toga.”

“You’re in a mood.”

“It’s my mother. Do you need some help down there? And don’t think I’m offering my services.”

“You mean out there.”

“What out there?”

“Out there. You said down there like I’m in Mexico or Texas. I’m out here, to the right. Pretend you and your hairy boyfriend are facing a road map.”

“Oh, my God.” She hung up the phone.

I bought a knish at the hot dog stand and stood there looking up at the brown wide building, at the fire escapes that climbed and covered its face. I looked down at the food in my hands, a knish nestled in a moist napkin. I totally knew the joy of an artfully knotted potato cake baked by a bearded Orthodox on the Lower East Side, but this was a different thing entirely. Scorchingly hot on the inside, lukewarm chewy breading, a waterlogged wallet smeared with mustard. Perfectly imperfect. Just like marriage, I thought. Then I caught myself. You were an asshole. And so she hung up. I chewed, thinking of her, of her walking, talking on the phone, Sarah with a smoothie spill on the leg of her jeans, her glasses in one hand and rubbing at the bridge of her nose, Sarah in her tiny black socks and neon running shoes, her eyes going red from sad TV movies. Sarah rushing downstairs in an angry huff and slamming our front screen door. Sarah calling me a pitiful, selfish shit, and swinging a steel utensil hard against the back of my neck. I thought of how we hate and love everyone we love. And I thought of her all alone in her new apartment sitting there with her laptop, drinking coffee alone just fine without me, the Greek on his way over for some friendly consoling, and my heart broke open like a sugar bowl fallen from a shelf. I started crying, let it happen for a few seconds, and then I put a swift end to that.