A Strange Commonplace Read online

  On the Roof

  JANET’S HUSBAND, AL, WAS MAKING AN ASS OF HIMSELF, AS he usually did at parties lately. With a few drinks in him, he turned into an irresistible lothario, good God. There he was, drunk and clumsy, with his shirt off, dancing with a girl who was no more than eighteen. Nobody in the hot, crowded apartment paid any attention to him, but Janet was, nonetheless, embarrassed and angry. He had acted, since their arrival, as if he didn’t know her, as if she were somebody he’d bumped into on the street that evening. She went into the kitchen to make herself another drink. There were two men there, drinking straight whiskey and eating the cheese and crackers and pretzels that had been laid out on the counter. One, a short redhead, had an open, somehow friendly yet blank face, and the other, a black man, looked like a bank officer, in a dark suit, white shirt, and carefully knotted tie. Janet didn’t know them, but then she hardly knew anybody there, save for the host, one of Al’s friends from work, a prig of a man whom she despised. You’re not having too much fun it looks like, the black man said. The other man looked fleetingly at her legs and then up into her face, smiling candidly. Oh well, she said, a party, you know, and shrugged. She looked around into the living room and saw Al with his hands on the girl’s hips, swaying erratically to “Just For a Thrill,” the damn fool. I know what you mean, the redheaded man said, and a drag of a party, too. They all laughed, complicit. The black man suggested that they go up to the roof and smoke a little, you dig?, that might help things along. Maybe the party will be better when we get back. Or at least look better, his friend said. Janet hesitated, but why not? Why not? She was tired of being humiliated, she was tired of being ignored. She thought to tell Al that she was going up to the roof for some air, but knew that he would immediately become the possessive and jealous husband and make a scene. Sure, she said, let’s go up. She liked these young men, if only for the fact that they weren’t the other young men at the party, laughing and shouting into each other’s faces, desperately hip. It was a warm, sticky August night, the moon hazy in an overcast sky, the smell of rain in the air. She was suddenly very high, very very high, they were all high, smoking two fat joints of hash. Oh my goodness, she said, I am so stoned, so stoned. She wasn’t, however, so stoned, wait! as to want this, wait! No, wait, no! she said. The redheaded man was kissing her in a frenzy, and roughly squeezing and pulling at her breasts, while the black man was pulling her skirt up and clawing at her panties, come on, bitch! They pushed her down onto her hands and knees and she felt the black man’s weight on her back and then he was in her. They were raping her, you’re raping me! she said, you bastard! She felt him coming in her and she started to cry. Her head felt as if it were floating free of her shoulders and then the redheaded man pushed a spittle-wet finger into her anus and pushed himself brutally into her, while the black man held her head between his hands. The pain traveled through her gut and up her spine and into her head, a blazing agony behind her eyes, and she sobbed and screamed, drooling onto her torn blouse. The black man slapped her across the face again and again while the other man moved wildly in her, grunting. Fuck the bitch! the black man said, fuck the cunt bitch! The man pulled himself out of her and came on her buttocks and thighs, panting. Then they ripped off her blouse and yanked off her skirt and half-slip as well. One of them threw her torn panties in her face and the black man put her skirt and blouse and slip under his jacket, laughing. Go back to the fucking party like that, bitch, see if it’ll be more fun! They left and she sat there, shivering and weeping in the soft rain that had been falling for some time. Her brassiere was soaked through, and one of the straps was broken. The cupola door opened and Al stood there, the cold light of the stairway behind him. Janet? he called. Janet? I can’t even dance with somebody without you getting all pissed off? Jesus Christ! She sat, biting her hand to keep silent, her knees pulled up to her chest, her torn panties clutched to her vagina. Her entire lower body throbbed and burned and she thought that she was going to move her bowels. Where the fuck are you? Al yelled.

  The Jungle

  WHO IS HE? WHO IS SHE? IS THIS HER HUSBAND? WHAT IS he doing here? Is she drunk? Is this apartment on Riverside Drive? Or on Bank Street? Is this a bathroom? A hallway? Tissues? Who is he and where did he go? He says he’ll fix her face? Fix it? What does that mean? Why is the floor sliding around? Is she going to vomit? Who is the woman in the photographs on the wall? Is this her bathroom? Or their bathroom? Why does the woman in the photographs look like her? Are they photographs? Or drawings? Do they look like her sister? How long has her sister been dead? What was her sister’s husband’s name? Why did she go to bed with him? Because her husband went to bed with her sister? Did he really? Where are her shoes? Or one shoe? Did she have both shoes on when he took her into the bathroom? Or down to the hallway? Why did she go with him? Is she really Claire? Or is she Inez? Or Cora, or Anna? Who is she? Who is he? Is he Pierre? What is he doing at the party? Is her husband jealous of him? Or jealous of her job? Is he jealous of her? But why? Why is the bathroom floor so familiar? Or the hallway floor? Why did she marry this old man? Is he really that old? Maybe this man is her sister’s husband? Or, rather, was her husband? Did she marry Ray after Claire died? Why? Is Claire, then, her sister? Or was? Are Ray and Pierre brothers? Or is Warren Ray’s brother? Are Ray and Warren and Pierre brothers? Did Claire really die of multiple myeloma? Or a botched abortion? Why is the bathroom floor so filthy? Is it a bathroom? Or a hallway? What does he mean, fix her face? What did he see in that whore at that party? What does he see in that girl at this party? Is she what her mother would have called a chippie? Why did he give her a cigarette? Didn’t she stop smoking a long time ago? A month ago? Last week? Yesterday? Why did she stop smoking? Does she want to live forever? In bathrooms and hallways? Why is he laughing? Who is he? Why is he adjusting her clothes? Is he fixing her clothes? Why did she want to go down to the street with that filthy man? What filthy man? Warren or Ray or Pierre? Is her husband Pierre? Or Warren? Or Ray? Is she Claire? Is she losing her mind? Don’t they say that if you think you’re crazy then you’re not? Who says that? Freud? Jung? Adler? Ferenczi? Is she really a wreck? What does he mean by badassid? Is he fixing her face and her clothes because she’s a wreck? Why is she all wet? Is it raining? Why is it always raining when they go someplace? Does she have amnesia? Why is the man showing her a detective’s shield? Is he a detective or is he a fake? Is Pierre a detective? Since when? Is she going to throw up again? Is this man a black man who looks white or a white man who looks black? Does it matter as long as he’s a detective? Is he a detective or is he a fake? Why is he taking her clothes off? Because she’s a wreck? To wash her? To fix her? To fix her in the shower? Who is he? Who is she? Why is there a shower in the hallway? Who is she?

  In the Bedroom

  IT WAS ABOUT 10:30 WHEN JACK GOT HOME. THE LIGHTS were on all over the house, but Anna wasn’t there, even though the table was set for supper, another cold supper. She was really cute. Through the kitchen window, he saw Joey sitting on the back steps, silent, his face vacant, his shoelaces untied, as usual. Anna always said he was driving her crazy, that there was something not right with the boy. Jack opened the back door and took his son by the hand. “Hello, Daddy,” he said. “Mama shut the door on me.” He didn’t seem upset and there was no evidence that he’d been crying. He certainly wasn’t frightened. Maybe there was something the matter with the kid, he was a little slow, but a lot of kids are slow. Jack made him a sandwich and poured him a glass of milk. “Eat your sandwich, Joey, and I’ll put you to bed, it’s very late. Where’s Mama?” Joey didn’t know, he’d been playing in the backyard and when he tried to come in because his shoes got loose, Mama wouldn’t open the door. She was all dressed up and had her furry coat on. Jack put him to bed and went downstairs to pour himself a whiskey. All right, so he’d seen Jenny, but just for a cup of coffee, it was over, he’d told Anna again and again that it was over, what the hell is she pulling now?

  And at the meeting, Lawl
ess had given him most of Nassau County, a goddamn gold mine, Thermo-Fax couldn’t ship the machines fast enough to keep up with the orders, not to mention the copy paper. He wanted to surprise Anna with the news, something fresh and good for a change, but now it was all spoiled. She locked the kid out? And in her fur coat, what the hell is that about? She was probably at her sister’s, what a piece of work she was with her dumb cop of a husband. He could see Anna now, sitting at the kitchen table, pissing and moaning about what a son of a bitch he was and swilling beer.

  Anna went into the first saloon she saw, a place called the Melody Room, and sat at the bar. It looked like a decent enough place, and there was another woman at the bar with her husband probably. Just the three of them on this Monday night. She ordered a Seven and Seven and bought a pack of Chesterfields from the machine near the phone booth. She staggered a little, and after she finished the drink, knew that she was pretty well gone. “He doesn’t love me any more,” she said to the bartender. “Take it easy, sweetheart,” the bartender said, “just take it easy.” She nodded and ordered another drink and then another in what seemed like a minute. The couple at the end of the bar was looking at her, and then the man walked over and picked her fur coat up from the floor. “The floor’s not exactly clean, Miss,” he said. “He won’t sleep with me any more,” she whispered to him. “He won’t, you know, do anything with me any more.” She was crying.

  Jack called her sister, but Anna wasn’t there. The bitch was pleased to hear that she’d just left. “Maybe you’ll get home for supper now once in a while before midnight,” she said. “Mind your fucking business,” he said and hung up.

  The couple at the bar lived on the same street as Jack and Anna, and the husband suggested that he take Anna home, she was really tight, he told his wife, not making any sense, and might get in trouble alone like that. “I always thought she was a drunk,” his wife said, although this was the first time that either of them had seen her anywhere near drunk, the first time, for that matter, that they’d ever seen her in a bar. “I really think I ought to take her home,” he said, “it’s a fifteen-minute walk and I’ll be back in no time.” His wife looked at him. “We’ll go together,” she said, “we’ll both go.” He laughed and shook his head.

  “Christ, what the hell do you think I’m gonna do? What do you think I am?” She smiled knowingly at him, an infuriating smile, smug and aggrieved. At that moment, whatever trust that still existed in their marriage disappeared.

  While Jack thanked his neighbors, Anna was telling them what a big shot salesman he was, how he could lay the law down to the branch manager, he was fearless, a hero, that’s why he had this great territory in East Flatbush and Canarsie, where there were maybe five businesses, but he was such a tough guy that he couldn’t bear to scare the boss by complaining, by quitting, God no! But he was great at meetings, oh! those meetings! He spent so much time after work at those meetings!, tell them about the meetings, Jack. Jack thought of how sweet it would be to strangle her right there, watch her turn blue, the fucking cunt. The couple backed away, nodding and smiling, then turned and walked off. “Come in the house, you drunk bitch,” Jack said. “Get in the fucking house before I kill you!” He pushed her in the door and slammed it. “Joey out in the cold and dark with his shoes falling off,” he said. “Oh, really,” Anna said, “now you know what I put up with all day, every all day.” “You’re his mother!” Jack shouted.

  “She must be miserable with that guy to talk that way in front of strangers,” the husband said. “And what about him?” his wife said, “married to a drunk who just walks out whenever she pleases it looks like? Don’t they have a little boy? And did you see that dress she had on? Not much left to the imagination there.” “It looked all right to me,” he said, “that green dress you have looks like that.” “It does not,” she said, “not a bit! Looks all right to you! Maybe you’d like to take her out for a drink some time.” “Oh, for the love of Jesus,” he said. But he would, indeed, like to take her out for a drink, and a lot more. There was something lost and sweet in her face that appealed to him.

  Jack pulled Anna into the living room and then saw the shards of the teapot on the floor, the teapot that Mom had given them for their first anniversary. She broke the teapot! Mom had told them that she’d looked for something really lovely and found it in Chinatown, and hinted that it had been very expensive. This was a lie, and he knew it. His mother had bought it in a local hardware store.

  He turned to Anna and said, “You don’t give a damn about anything, do you? Joey, me, my mother, your mother, not a goddamn thing,” and then hit her across the face with the back of his hand and hit her again. She fell down and sprawled against the sofa, bleeding from her nose and mouth. “You bitch!” he shouted, “you mean drunk bitch! And I got the Nassau County territory, not that you give a shit!” At that moment, in Jack’s righteous mind, there had been no other women he’d slept with, certainly no Jenny, who had ceased to exist: he was understanding and faithful and self-sacrificing and noble. There was only Anna, who had no faith in him, who was a bad wife and a bad mother and a drunk trying to pick up men at a gin mill. He helped her roughly up from the floor and prodded her up the stairs in front of him. “Clean your face—and take that dress off, you look like a cheap whore!” He put his hand on the small of her back and pushed her into the bedroom. She fell again and sat slumped against the footboard of the bed, whimpering, bubbles of bloody mucus at each nostril. Her legs were thrust out before her, her legs open, and her dress had slipped to her upper thighs. He looked at her, instantly aroused, got down on the floor, and raped her.