The Heyday of the lnsensirive Bastards
A girl in a tube top and cut-offs called out, "You insensitive bastards!" We waited for her to follow up, but she just crossed her arms and pulled her feet up onto the couch. "She can't mean us," I said to Clete. Stu's trembling finger indicated one person after another, moving around the room, naming the witnesses. He included the dogs, the big blond retriever, Ruff, and the yappy white terrier, Ready. When he came to me, who he didn't know from Adam, he said, "K-K-Keen." That's how I got this name I still use. To call it an alias is only technically correct. Eventually I went off to explore. The candlelit house had wild, watery shadows on its walls, a fickle stream of bouncing light and insistent waves of dark, like scales of light on an actual stream. A breeze would agitate the candles, and the walls became the wide chopping sea. Human forms at the base of the wall, their heads upturned to watch the dreamy business, seemed to be praying. Some of them touched my shoulder or the soft places above my hips and said forgettable things about the brilliant, rocking light. Later, I got hungry and found a jar of maraschino cherries in the cupboard. I filled my mouth, sweetness trickling down my throat. I thought I might hunt down a bed. In the stairway, I came across the body of a dead girl and swallowed one of the cherries whole. She lay on her back, her head higher than her feet, staring through an open skylight. There were no candles on the stairs. I had to let my eyes adjust. She was dressed in a green tube top and nothing else, but the body seemed innocent, her skin as soft as the cherries that pressed against my tongue. The soles of her feet were black, and a trickle of blood ran over one pale thigh. I couldn't decide whether she had fallen down the stairs or given up on the climb and taken a seat, only to die in the process. Her face may have been in moonlight, as it was impossibly white. One thing 路 was clear-she was not supposed to be looked at like this. I unbuttoned my shirt and draped it over her. "Thanks," she said. I jumped back and tumbled down the stairs to the landing, hitting the back of my head. When I came to, she was gone and Clete was kneeling beside me. Other people were stepping over my torso to go upstairs or come down. "These creatures have strangely human qualities," Clete said, "like recuperating ghosts." He lifted his eyes to follow their movement. Even in this situatiOI')., he and I thought of these house squatters with a combination of condescension and ironic pride, owing to the van and our independent living skills. "How many people are at this shindig?" I asked. Clete didn't answer. He waited for the landing to clear. Then he leaned close and whispered, "Wilt thou be made whole?" Summer 2005
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