I put the article aside and looked at my piles of cits. There couldn’t be that many more to go before all fifty were in place. When I counted, I discovered that there were only three more to be found. It wasn’t likely those three would answer every question these policemen had. But Mary Anne’s tone implied she thought she was answering everything.
I rubbed my eyes hard. I wanted to fill in the holes. I might not have the whole story then, but at least I’d have the satisfaction of having all the words. For once.
I grabbed yet another pile and flipped through it. Then another. And another. I found a
Teaglass
cit. I kept going.
I’m not sure how long I worked. The room spun around me. Cits fell onto the floor. I found another. I folded myself forward and tried to ignore the twisting sensation in my stomach. I didn’t wish to spend any more time hanging over the toilet. At this table I could at least get someone’s story straight, if not my own.
I’d never been able to tell the story because I didn’t know how to end it. Six months of chemo, one year of careful medical maintenance, and now five years ahead. A neat little package, wrapped beautifully, with a ribbon and a little tag on top that says
But he’s okay now!
This was the gift everyone wanted from me, and I couldn’t give it. I refused to. Because it was the kind of gift you find under a Christmas tree at a bank. Nothing sincere about it. Nothing inside.
More cits. The ache subsided. Another
Teaglass
cit appeared. I threw down the stack I’d been shuffling and grabbed the stack of
Teaglass
cits. I checked the numbers again. They were all there. All fifty. I leaned back in my chair and read them all at once.
How did I get here? Even the stories I’ve asked you to tell, Red, were only another way for me to ask that question. Now I suppose the question might mean something else? If here means this office, this very physical place, well, my story’s not so different from that of others who work here. I was a good student. I like books. Languages aren’t difficult for me. I graduated with the highest honors, but had no serious grad school plans. My
advantaged
background and education led me here somehow, and I was dropped rather unwittingly into this most bizarre job.
1
I felt unworthy of the place at first, but a year passed and I grew accustomed to it. Never did I feel quite worthy, but at least accustomed to feeling unworthy. I felt so insubstantial here that I thought it a joke, at first, when Scout took an interest. An
overachiever
one year my senior in both age and company experience. In the early days, I wondered why he bothered with me. Now I’m just grateful, for those and other days.
2
So I had a boyfriend. I’d lucked out. But it still wasn’t much like what I’d imagined adulthood should be. But had I really visualized adulthood before this? Who had the time, between papers on Plato and Kant, between summa and magna? And then this semblance of adult life simply happened. I settled in here, learning to accept the hushed, endless days and appreciate Scout’s Friday night cooking and odd little kindnesses. I tried not to despair too much in the notion that this
holding pattern
of identical days might eat up life while I waited for weekends.
3
But we are talking about how I got here. And here in a different sense. That story begins, oddly, quaintly, with a cup of tea. Every morning, after his smile disappeared into his corner of the office, there was one other luxury. A cup of tea. A glass of tea, since my drinking glass from home doubled as an unconventional tea vessel. A teaglass, if you will. Teaglass. Is that a word? Every day I’d make a
nebbish
of myself, going down to that pointy, constipated cafeteria woman, and asking, Oliver Twistlike, “May I have some hot water please?”
4
She warmed that water with her hatred. She sighed plagues into that water. I didn’t care. In this chill and inhuman place I was obedient and invisible to everything. I needed that tea to remember I was alive, warm-blooded. I always carried the tea slowly up the stairs and to my desk. I drank it with careful relish. No spilling on the citations. No slurping, no satisfied
Aaaah! Such noises would echo through the cubicles and start an uncomfortable collective shifting of the editors and
editrices
in their seats. So I always sipped quietly.
5
One day, though, something happened. What so distracted me that day? What was I contemplating? The humbling folly of lexicography? The possible universes that might exist at the very tip of my
ballpoint
pen? Whatever it was, I wasn’t tending my tea with the usual care. I elbowed the glass onto the floor. Crash. Splatter. Gasp. Tea everywhere. Not only around my own desk, but onto the feet of a certain sour-faced editor who didn’t try to hide his disdain.
6
Everybody looked up. I think I saw a few glares. Maybe I was imagining it. Scout says that in my head I turn this place into a fairy-tale dungeon, exaggerating its darkness and its cold. Interpreting harmless social ineptitude as clammy, crooked-nosed villainy. (Why can’t you just call a
nerd a
nerd? he’d say.) Imagining towers and spires on the place. (Is that why you keep your hair so long?)
7
Lexicographers rarely make messes. I had no idea where to find a cloth, dustpan, and broom. Or if any even existed in the building. The secretary went to fetch a custodian, but returned with only a push broom and a plastic bag. Feeling like a
schlub
, I cleaned everything up while everybody watched. I
picked up the big pieces first. The jagged spike attached to the base of the glass. Then a large rounded triangle shard. Tried not to make too many unsettling clinking noises with them. Then I swept up the small shards, and slid everything into the bag.
8
Only you, Red. Only you acknowledged the mishap. You mentioned it offhand when you came to give me yet another
paperbound
book from your home collection:
Beyond the 38th Parallel
. I didn’t confess it then but will confess it now. I hadn’t even read the last book you gave me. You told me it wasn’t exactly an academic piece of work. Just some pretty good firsthand accounts. Diaries. Letters. I thanked you for it and you winked. Just don’t spill anything on it, you said, and then sauntered off to the secretary’s desk for your midmorning flirtation.
9
At the end of the day, the bag was still at my feet. It was moist inside, which made it more embarrassing. It seemed something that definitely should not be in my possession. A bloated, disembodied organ, full of shrapnel. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. It didn’t seem appropriate to stuff it in my tiny wastepaper basket. The custodian wouldn’t be anticipating glass. He might cut himself. I took it with me instead. I’d find a Dumpster on the way home. Or just put it on the curb for the
trash man
, and then forget about it. To fling the bag onto a curb or into a Dumpster would probably give me some satisfaction.
10
Scout had class after work on Thursdays. That was the only day of the week he didn’t drive me home in his diminutive Chevy. He was multilingual already, but for some reason he was determined to add German to his impressive repertoire. On Thursdays, I went to the library and he went to class. I’d always take the long way home, meandering through the park. That day, I
riffed
through the pages of your book as I walked.
11
The park was abandoned, as was usual for that hour. I actually had wondered a couple of times if it was dangerous, wandering the more isolated, tree-hidden road through the park when the sun was setting. But when you think of yourself as invisible, the possibility of crime seems fairly remote. Crime is a concern for women who have jewelry that might be snatched, or attractive, creamy white necks that invite slicing. For women who read too many rape scenes in too many novels, worrying themselves into needless
hang-ups
about walking alone, looking into the backseat, opening the front door to men in ski masks. I’ve never been any of these women.
12
Besides. The shattering of that glass and the breaking of that anemic silence was enough violence for one day. No more seemed possible. I looked up from your book and there, all of a sudden, was a man. I thought he looked familiar, but from where I couldn’t say. The library, perhaps? He had scraggly gray hair, pulled into a
ponytail
. I smiled hello. He was wearing a black concert T-shirt with lightning flash letters. I
don’t remember the name of the band. It must have been a band I’ve never heard of.
13
And now we’re approaching the difficult part, and I’m delaying, wasting time and words. My method is feeling ridiculous already. These words. They fit into my narrative with all the subtlety of a
whoopee cushion
at a ladies’ auxiliary tea. You like that one, Red? It feels to me like you would. It feels like what you would think of my work. But I digress. Because here is where everything changes. Here is where I cease and the story begins.
14
Good book? said the man. I stopped and tried, for a second, to assess the meaning of his question. The meaning of the moment in general. Was this a weird thing, the approach of this man? His asking about a book? Could he even see the cover? He was about the right age to be a Vietnam vet. Maybe he was interested in all manner of Cold War military interventions in Asia. But still, wasn’t this encounter maybe a little
off-the-wall?
15
If I’d had long enough to think about it, would I have realized what this moment was going to be? Too late. He grabbed me hard by my hair. Then I knew what this moment was. Every brain cell screamed the answer, but too late. A
sonic boom
of survival instinct, but too late. He had me locked against his
body with the crook of his arm. There was a brown car a few yards up, and he was dragging me to it. I opened my mouth and bit down hard into his arm.
16
He let go. Maybe he was in pain. But more likely he was amused. He grabbed my hair again, and pulled my face into his. I don’t remember when I dropped the book. I only remember realizing that my hands were free but for the bag on my wrist. Not very bright, he breathed into my mouth. Just like I thought. I knew you’d be—But he didn’t finish, because both of my hands had grabbed the bag, my right hand grasping the base of the broken glass through the plastic, and mashed it into his neck in one quick, upward thrust. Have you ever seen a baby fitting a toy block into a correctly shaped hole? It was just like that. A swift and natural act. But afterwards, mystified, openmouthed surprise. Is it possible this man and I shared a common emotion, in the seconds that followed? We stared at each other, both stunned, him with his hand at the puffy white collar now stuck to his neck, me untangling my left hand from the bag’s bloody plastic handle, now dangling beneath his chin. He let go of my hair and stumbled toward the brown car, making gurgles that sounded like Fuck. I watched him stoop and gag for a moment before I ran. I don’t really remember running out of the park. I only remember surfacing at the street that runs by the back entrance. And then walking the rest of the way, breathless but comforted by the headlights that were now whizzing by in the dusk. After I got home, I sat at my kitchen table for I don’t know how long, doing and thinking nothing. It wasn’t until at least an hour passed that I noticed the cuts on my hands and wrist, and not for a while after that I got up and
cleaned them and covered them. And it wasn’t until the next day that I began to worry about your book.
Beyond the 38th Parallel
, so hastily
deep-sixed
in the park.
17
Scout called after his class, which broke my trance. He talked about a pickup truck driver who had cut him off on his way home, and to whom he had seriously considered giving the finger. And then he wanted to know why I was being so quiet. He asked what was up. I said not much. Why didn’t I say more? Why didn’t I cry or fall on the floor in fits, screaming Outrage!
Eek!
Blood! Guts! Take me to the police!
18
And why didn’t I call the police? For one, the police department never seemed an institution that had much to do with me. Dull-witted mustachioed
machos
in coordinated light blue dress shirts. Like a high school football team dressed up before Homecoming Weekend. Big, dumb, brutal boys pretending to be gentlemen. Who are they trying to kid, and what use would I have for them, especially just then? I doubt my sentiment about this point will ever change, at least with respect to my special designation, and their peripheral relationship to it.
19
Alone in my apartment, it seemed best to stay silent, and stay put. I was alone but surrounded by just enough humanity to feel safe. The nameless couple in the apartment on one side,
the unemployed Tarot card man on the other. That old woman adjusting her thunderous Craftmatic upstairs. I put on my
pj
s and watched TV all night.
20
Scout drove me to work the next morning. We talked about the usual things. After he parked the car, he asked me what happened to my wrist. Vegetables, I said. It was a short and
unscripted
version of a story I had half-prepared earlier, for this very purpose. Something to do with chopping vegetables, I had thought, would have a touch of realism. I got out of Scout’s car to ease the transition from that conversation to another. The work day went without incident. No policeman came.
21