That Longcase Clock… Tanya Jacob

FICTION Tanya Jacob

That Longcase Clock at the End of the Hall

The day the cat was killed, Maddy watched her mom wind that damn clock with her same little smile, cranking the gold key into its funny little hole, as grandma wandered around the dining table in her see‐through lingerie while her nurse snuck a cigarette on the front step, while her brothers scraped their forks against the table and dripped the last bits of potatoes and corn from their open, awful mouths while that clock sat heavy on the white carpet, at the end of the hall, mom humming along to that terrible ticking all sing‐song. It made Maddy’s teeth clench. Truly, there was no point to these silly, endless family dinners. Always being six o’clock sharp and never over until that clock was wound, thirteen years of her life wasted for this nonsense so far, burnt up in boredom, when all the while she had some very important matters to attend to back in her bedroom.

The longcase clock had been left by the previous owner, or maybe the one before that, no one was sure. Cloaked in pine wood and

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always counting, no birds printed around the clock face, no farm scenes or flowers, just black numbers and wiry hands and that was that. Then near the bottom, a long silver pendulum behind a square of smoky glass. It was too heavy to tip, too tall to place anything on top, old and faded and always suspect. Her brothers avoided it at night and the cat avoided it entirely (or used to). The clock face glowing round and white over the wooden suit, like a pale‐faced ghost or a porcelain reaper, feetless and shadows for arms, nothing like the Russian doll mom would try to compare it to. And mom would say to it, Good morning, Mr Clock! and Maddy would roll her eyes and click her teeth, and mom would say, We’ll be back soon old Mr. Clock and Maddy would fiddle with her jewelry and pretend not to hear her. And mom would sing along with the pendulum while the boys knocked over the kitchen chairs wrestling and playing tag, and grandmother would nap by the television and the nurse would paint her nails. All the time, her mom would smile and hum.

Maddy knew better. She knew this life didn’t deserve a sing‐song background score. A mountain lion had eaten grandma’s cat this morning for Christ’s sake, and worse, grandma was too far gone to even notice. Maddy had seen it herself, the mountain lion snatching the cat, as

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she ran out the back door too late, one second the cat was on the ground and then in the lion’s mouth, legs ripped off and thrown, and that’s when it happened. When it was almost over and the cat must have known it, he turned and with more than a hiss – with a war cry really – gave the lion one great slash across the face, all claws and fangs. The mountain lion didn’t seem to notice, although he bled a little, and then just like that the cat was nothing but a few flung pieces and the rest gone. Maddy had walked back inside with her stomach all a mess, that poor pathetic thing. And there it was, that fucking clock, cold and uncaring, unchanged, ticking away like it was teasing her, or maybe waiting. Once her mom finished winding it she said There you go you lazy old clock! Finally, Maddy picked up her plate and glass and put them quickly into the kitchen, then without a smile to any of them she escaped to her bedroom and slammed the door. This afternoon the jar had arrived by mail and exactly two hours ago she had applied it: her deluxe facial crème that was going to get rid of the horrible blemishes. She had felt the cool sizzle on her face all through dinner and couldn’t wait to see. Maddy sat down hard in her desk chair, pulled herself close into the mirror and was completely disgusted to note that it was all the same. A little worse, if

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anything. Maddy’s irritation stayed at a constant low rumble as she touched the blotchy corners of her frown. Of course this too had failed and she’d return to school in two months invisible at best and a monster at most probable. She pushed the jar of crème away from her mirror and began to begrudgingly fix her hair this way and that, rubbing her braces with her tongue and poking at her stomach, and even there she could hear the pendulum. For a moment she felt guilty to have forgotten the cat, but then quickly her mind wandered to where she and the girls would go later that night, and would she maybe be in movies someday, if this acne cleared up, and wondered if maybe she’d grow another inch this summer the way some of the boys had, or was it true that boys kept growing after girls, and then she started to hear it—it had been many months since she’d heard it—her grandmother’s laughter, not the way she remembered it really, but like a giggle. Like a little girl. Maddy opened the door and began to walk back into the hall.

She stopped when she saw her, sucking in her lips and trying to hide herself in the remainder of the hallway. There she was, naked this time, her favorite grandmother, one hand cocked on her hip, her eyes lighting up at the sight of Maddy. Hey doll, you know if the show’s

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started? It’s getting cold out here, you know if it’s started?

The cat and now this. Maddy began to cry and right like that she was there, mom, still smiling, still in that sing‐song way, and she put a jacket around her own mom and glanced back at that longcase clock sitting on the white carpet, Oh I see. Are you causing trouble again you dirty old dog? And the nurse ran in from watching her favorite soap, all apologies, and walked Maddy’s grandmother back to her room, everything quiet again but the pendulum.

But still mom stood by that clock and Maddy watched her in secret, and then it happened. Her mom’s face dropped, just for a moment, and she kicked that clock, right in the smokey glass, easily enough, like she did it all the time, in the morning or late a night when they all were asleep or at school, hard enough to make the glass shudder. She watched as her mom stretched her arms out behind her, making herself tall like when Maddy was still a child, humming again now at the ceiling, at the dull stucco that was both earless and ugly, she smiled and hummed to it all the same.

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POEM Ho Xuan Huong Translated from Vietnamese John Balaban, Translator

Spring‐Watching Pavilion

A gentle spring evening arrives airily, unclouded by worldly dust.

Three times the bell tolls echoes like a wave. We see heaven upside down in sad puddles.

Love's vast sea cannot be emptied. And springs of grace flow easily everywhere.

Where is nirvana? Nirvana is here, nine times out of ten.

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