Category: Fiction

Asha listened to the knocker fall against her door again and flipped onto her stomach, wiping her nose on the couch cushion as she turned. She was wearing the unwashed green robe she’d been using as a housedress since November. The robe had begun to stiffen, especially at the bottoms of the damp sleeves, which triple soaked whenever she triple-washed her vegetables. Her hands were chapped and gnawed and smelled of onion. In September, when Asha was thirty-six years old, she’d broken off with James, and in November she’d moved to Minnesota. To study botany, she’d told her friends, but really it was to get away from everything James; like the ocean he had permeated the buildings and the air for miles inland, and she wanted to be someplace that never smelled like salt, someplace with a long memory of frozen winter faces and decorum, someplace that had never heard her scream.

The knocker could only have been Bean from 3A. She’d met him by the snack machine in the laundry room. Bean had recently broken his television, and in exchange for being her only visitor and weekly grocery shopper, she’d given him control of her remote. Bean was twenty-nine and played hip and dumb and therefore was, Asha figured, a good influence.

“Nobody’s home.”

“You know what time it is, Biznatch, so hurry it up. Crimebomb is on and I brought ice cream.”

“It’s open.”

Bean threw himself against the door and fell into her living room, a pint in either mittened hand. One jean leg was tucked into a white moon boot; the other dragged snow on the wooden floor. His coat was open and he had on the satin yellow shirt she’d advised him never to wear in public. He didn’t look her in the eye. Self-sabotage ran in the building.

“I was called before the committee today. They say there’s a seven-year limit, even if you change your thesis multiple times. What a foul practice.”

“And you wore that shirt because … ”

“The shirt is irrelevant because I forgot to take my coat off until practically the end when they were asking me to leave. Then it came in handy because I looked lavish and cheap and out-of-place all at once, just like you said. The salad ready?”

“Finished ten minutes ago.”

“I hope you did the onions last. Otherwise the zing goes missing and the chop salad becomes more of a nudge.”

“Check.”

Bean was a master’s student admitted to the university at the behest of his father, a day trader who had given the money to replace the clouded windows of the cafeteria. Bean had begun his studies convinced that the secrets of the platypus could offset modern infertility. “Mammals are mammals, right? One hole in the platypus carries urine, feces, and eggs. It’s ingenious. Once humans are laying eggs, man, everything else will be solved.” He’d been forced to abandon his thesis, he conjectured, because Asha and the rest of her sex weren’t as practical as he’d been led to believe. After several thousand hours of televised crime osmosis, a new thesis had emerged. Bean theorized that since most of the prison killings he’d seen had occurred in the laundry room or shower, the murder rate could be substantially reduced with an every-other-week washing routine. Today he’d blamed his lack of evidence on the county prison, which when pressed had offered only a control group.

“How could I possibly have conducted research without an experimental group? It’s like the committee wanted me to fabricate results. Nobody cares about ethics, these days, man. Or inmates for that matter.”

Bean wasn’t the worst person in the world to have TV dinners with, but his lips made an “O” before each forkful, so he always looked like he was going to talk. Asha had never interrupted the possibility. She regretted that now.

“Asha, come outside or something.”

“I can’t. It’s too cold.”

“It’s going to be cold for months. Aren’t you sick of it in here?”

“Are you going to stop buying my groceries?”

“I’ll still buy them. But I feel guilty.”

“You aren’t keeping me indoors, Bean. You’re just helping me eat something other than vending-machine food.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Bean, I’ve tried, okay? But I cried just chipping the ice away from my windshield. Then the tears froze on my face. Everything is too hard here.”

“Put on my coat and my gloves and my hat and my boots. You won’t even believe how happy being outside’ll make you. We’ll just get some coffee. Then I promise we can come back.”

Asha gave in, simply because she lacked the resilience to fight, and trudged in the snow behind Bean. Her family and friends were still on the Atlantic; none of them knew she lived in a one-bedroom apartment overlooking nothing but a bus stop and that her windows rattled every twenty minutes during the day from the bus and all night from the wind; she’d told none of them she was almost out of money, or that she couldn’t focus without a horizon at her window, and no one had remarked on any emptiness in her voice or asked her if anything was missing. She’d come here to grow into someone else, but the people here had no idea that she existed and couldn’t help her change.

Asha took her eyes from her feet to gauge her distance from Bean, and slipped on a sheet of ice. She felt a scrape to her forehead, and heard a moan not unlike her own. Beneath her face the ice was bleeding; someone invisible was hurt.

When she was six years old, her family had moved to a high-rise apartment a few blocks from the ocean. She’d waited every night until the sky got so murky she couldn’t make out where it met the sea. When the water and sky were one, she could sleep, knowing her family was grounded in one holy place, and in the mornings when she woke she could see gulls pecking in the sand. Here it felt so dark from her window that there was nothing but to let everyone she’d known endlessly fall.

Asha reached up to touch her face. She was embarrassed, and her blood accused her from Bean’s stained mitten. He didn’t know she’d fallen; winter had absorbed the sound, and she couldn’t see him from where she lay. She could feel her face chapping. She wondered if Bean had ever felt invisible, she wondered if she only felt that way because she’d lost her vision of herself. He’d be circling back for her soon. Asha didn’t want to be seen that way, a woman left bleeding and alone. She dug into the marrow of the night, steeling herself in Bean’s large and ugly clothes, and stood up.

You acted all negative at breakfast, making everything heavy and chore-like. You were like this: Where is my coffee? Is there one thing on this menu that is not fried? What’s wrong with Grandma? Do people in rural America have like super strong hearts that don’t get all plugged up and clogged? Grandma is healthy and strong, why did she stay at the motel? Where’s my coffee? I can’t believe that Grandma stayed in bed.

Your wife was like this: Honey, relax. This is our vacation. You should make the most of it. Your mother is just resting. We can bring some food back to the motel for her.

Your youngest daughter was like this: Pancakes aren’t fried, Daddy.

You rolled your eyes at her and sighed.

Your older daughters were like this: Gosh, Dad, chill out!

You were tapping your fork against the plastic tablecloth and stacking the artificial sweeteners and going on and on like this. You didn’t stop. You put the sweeteners away and you said the coffee was stale and that you were going to walk down Main Street and check on the van.

You were like this: Even if the van is running and ready, and we get there by the end of the day, there will only be enough time for the girls to dip their toes in the ocean before we’ll have to pack everything up and head home.

You put on your Braves cap and tromped through the crowded diner, past everyone eating fried food and laughing. You stepped out into the blizzard with steam coming out of your ears and your mind full of complaints, like everything was serious and like you were the only one that could see that.

You were walking through the blizzard and getting your ankles wet and the thoughts in your head were like this: This sucks. This is my vacation, and it sucks. I didn’t spend the past year in a windowless office to sit out a blizzard and eat lousy fried food in some podunk town.

You found the body shop and you were shocked to see the garage door open to the elements and half a dozen guys sitting around, drinking Cokes. Snow was blowing in at them, melting and making puddles. You looked down and saw magenta rainbows swirling around in the puddles and you got all bent out of shape about it. You looked at your van and saw its innards strewn about in the puddles and on the tables.

You were like this: What the hell am I paying you for?

The guys sitting around, drinking Cokes were like this: You’re not paying us for anything right now; we’re waiting for your part.

You shook your head thinking you were talking to a bunch of idiots, and you were like this: You could at least close the door.

They told you that they’d never seen a blizzard before, but you just threw your hands at them and went back out into the blizzard. You were retracing your steps, getting wet up to your knees, and you were like this in your head: I didn’t spend the past year in a windowless office to sit out a blizzard and eat lousy fried food in some podunk town. This sucks. This is my vacation, and it sucks.

You slid back into the booth with your family and you saw that your eggs were cold and you said that you had only been gone for thirty seconds and you decided right then and there that the eggs must’ve been cold when the waitress brought them to you. You said this like it was the most obvious thing in the world, but your family was totally silent, like they didn’t believe you, so you grabbed your plate and got up from the table and marched to the bar and waited for the waitress.

You were like this when you saw her: These eggs are cold.

She wouldn’t take responsibility for the cold eggs so you didn’t leave a tip, but you saw your wife leave a tip and you decided to confront her on the way back to the motel.

You were like this to your wife: Why did you leave a tip?

She just shook her head. You could tell she was trying to be sensitive to you and attentive to your gripes, but she just kept quiet, like she didn’t know what to say.

She held the Styrofoam to-go box of waffles in her hands and was eventually like this: Did I make the wrong choice? Does your mother even like waffles?

You didn’t answer her question. You just kept turning around and pointing to your three girls, marching shoulder to shoulder with their heads down and their underdressed arms crossed. You pointed at the white specks melting on their heads and you used them as an example of how much everything about the vacation was sucking.

You went on and on, pointing back and saying how bad it was, but your wife was like this: The girls are having fun. They’ve never seen a blizzard before.

She told you to look at their faces and see how they were smiling and giggling right then and there, which got you all worked up and made it impossible for you to prove your point. You were barmy inside and your feet were cold and everything around you was painted white.

You were quiet and angry when you slid the metal key into the lock at your motel room door, listening to its smooth clicks. You were about to say something about key cards and the Stone Age but when you opened the door and looked in your room, you were shocked and disgusted and you couldn’t believe what you were seeing. Your mother was there, jumping naked on the bed. She was holding her breasts in her hands and bouncing around in circles with a big smile on her wrinkled face. The girls busted their guts and started shouting out to Grandma. Your wife started sucking air in a gasping guffaw. Grandma started laughing along with them. Then she started singing some old song, something she sang to you when you were young. This made you start laughing, but it was like you didn’t even decide to do it, it was just there, coming out of you like a long hiccup. Everyone got up on the bed and started jumping in circles around Grandma, and you were like this: Girls, we are going to the ocean.

She didn’t tell me exactly what I have to wear, she just said to “dress my ass up,” Char tells Stephan. The three dust-topped round bulbs over the bathroom mirror whiten her face to stark, a finger of pewter shadows like chalk drawings under her eyes as she leans in close, paints in tiny pointillism black eye pencil a trace line along her eyelashes. In the heavy Wisconsin dampness, her breath fogs the glass while she draws with the certain hand of a practiced child.

“That’s absurd. Your mother is ridiculous.” Stephan leans back, his hip bone juts above his low and sagging belt as he rests against the door frame; his grandmother’s bathroom has a pink tub, pink toilet, pink sink, and handrails are installed at angles on the walls. The boy is over six feet three in his platforms; spikes of his hair nearly brush the top of the thick-coated doorway.

“No jeans. No holes,” Char says.

“What does she think, you’re an idiot?”

“I’ve told her to leave me alone with the fashion. I warned her.”

“She has no idea.”

“I’ve told her so many times.”

“Did you bring that black velvet shirt?”

“It’s on your bed. With the fuzzy skirt. Remember the Goodwill one?”

Stephan finds it, the shirt flops in his hand like an overfed kitten; he spreads it out against his chest and looks in the mirror. Miniature onyx buttons close the front up to a V neckline laced with tiny black looped stitches and where he stretches it it slowly slinks back down to Extra Small.

“The sleeves have to go. Walk in there sleeveless,” he tells her.

“Do we have time?”

“When’s the hearing?”

“Two. And we have to ride bikes there.” Char puts down the eyeliner. She blinks at herself in the mirror. Distortion, camera-ready, eyes in animation, her black-caked lashes emphatic like flags for calling things home. “You’re coming with?”

“Of course.” He holds the shirt up to Char’s chest and it droops there formless. “I’m chopping the sleeves; they’re low on the sides so it’ll work.”

“Is it nympho-teenage-slut enough?”

“It will be. See, you have no tits. I have nothing else to work with.”

“The skirt. We have the skirt. It’s total fake animal-skin whore.”

Stephan has orange-handled scissors and he snips the sleeves off slowly in the lint-specked light, precise, within thread widths of seams. Moisture from the growth of mildew along his grandmother’s tile grout lines at the bottom edge of her water-trailing plastic shower curtain rises misty in the heat. It smells like algae and rain and something eroding.

“It’s Rhonda’s shirt. She will be so pissed,” Char says.

“I can’t believe you’re wearing your mom’s hacked up shirt to her DUI hearing.”

“No one tells me what to wear.”

Incense burns in Stephan’s room, Charlotte unbuttons her shorts, drops them on the floor next to his bed where CDs are stacked and sliding in a broken mosaic on the carpet. She pulls on the secondhand and sleek furred skirt, a faded velour like calico cat inbred with silver glitter. It zips up the side. She sits and pulls white socks up to her knees. Her legs inside the cotton hang sticklike where she sits, her heels dangling against the dust ruffle.

“You got my shirt?”

“One sec.”

Charlotte opens a brown lunch bag, she empties it onto the orange and green frayed afghan at the foot of the bed, chains and rings and scraps of leather and beads drop into the holes and weaves of the blanket.

“Here. Try it.” Stephan holds out the shirt, now sleek, a lank vest. “Want me to do the buttons?”

“I’ll pull it over.”

Char gets up, pulls her T-shirt over her head and holds her arms up as she leans toward him, a hunched entreaty of slim bones and naked shoulders. Stephan drops the shirt bottom over her hands and she stands. The V neckline hits her midchest. The thin spread of her ribcage shows fanlike above the buttons.

“You really have absolutely no tits, do you?”

“I’m not even fifteen yet; give me a few weeks.”

“Well, you have jewelry. That will help.”

Charlotte strings her wrists with rawhide bands, rubber circles, a wide leather strap with scuffed studs that snaps closed. “What are you gonna wear?” she asks.

“I was thinking yellow.”

“Toss me that shoe.” Char points. The shoes are black with stacked four-inch heels and a wide strap below her ankle, deranged maryjanes on a gin run. She clips silver hoops into her earlobes and stands up. “What do you think?”

“Jesus. You are almost scary.”

“Psycho child slut?”

“The judge is going to freak.”

“I want him to cry.”

“It’s Bombed-a who’s going to cry.”

“Nobody tells me what to wear.”

“What if it’s a woman judge?”

“Whatever.”

“What have you decided for drugs?”

Char goes to the bathroom to check the mirror.

“Oh my god. I look like a music video gone thrift store trash.” She walks back into the bedroom, sifts through the rest of the jewelry on the bed. A black cameo missing its pin. Screw back earring that looks like a wad of chewed gum.

“I have the usual Valiums, some new Percocets from Grandma’s elbow thing last week,” Stephan says. “What do you want? Dope? I got vodka.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Hour.”

“I have to be able to maintain, right? Nothing sloppy. I want that like droopy eye, sleazy porn girl kind of thing.”

“No drinking then. It’s court.” Stephan looks at her, raises a finger. “A couple Valium now and one more when we get there.”

“I won’t fall down or anything?”

“What are you putting on? Dear god.”

Charlotte laughs and turns to show him, a choke chain for a large-breed dog. Unruly around her neck, its throttling ring lies against her collarbone; heavy links pull it down as she moves, tethered baubles of discipline, industrial against her skin.

“That is so perfect,” Stephan says. “You are too much. Bombed-a is going to lose her freaking mind.”

“Is that the worst?” Char goes back out to the bathroom mirror and laughs again. “Should I put the leash on, too?” she calls to him.

“I don’t know. What color is it?”

Stephan and Char hold hands when they walk into the hearing room at the courthouse. The air conditioner clatters in the window and the linoleum is scuffed and bootblacked from years of heavy treads and weak cleansers. The humid weight of leftover smoke in the walls. A desk sits at the front of the room with an unplugged lamp and foam coffee cup on it and a few rows of folding chairs are lined up with a pathway down the center of them, like a jagged wedding aisle of the shotgunned. Rhonda is sitting in front and she looks back and spies them and glares. Char sees the twin lines between her mother’s eyebrows, parallel creases of rage and terror. A purse with a looped braid handle on her lap. A woman in a dark blue jacket sits next to Rhonda with a very straight back and Rhonda is so tiny that two of her would not be as wide as the woman. A man in a gray suit sits alone across the aisle from Rhonda and he stares ahead at the concrete block wall.

“This is the sorriest. Is this really even a courtroom?” Stephan says.

“There is like nobody here.”

“I guess Bombed-a did not rate the big room. No camera crew for her.”

“This room is too depressing. It’s like capacity 50.”

“Are you sure this is even legal? Is this in the Constitution?”

They sit in the back away from the aisle, the side farthest from Rhonda. The blue jacket woman looks over at them and then at Rhonda, who nods. The judge comes in and sits up front at the desk like a teacher starting class and a woman goes to a small desk to his right, the court reporter. The judge starts talking to Rhonda, Stephan reaches over with his hand cupped low at his lap and Char, taking the Valium from him without moving her eyes off the judge, palms the pill into her mouth. The adults talk on, reviewing and summarizing. Char has seen this downcast head of her mother before, from back seats and tavern doorways, in the kitchens of the concerned, through the glass that separates principals’ offices, her remorse false and ominous. Charlotte can almost feel the beating undercurrent coming now in waves from that exposed neck, her mother’s furies simmering and coiled and constant.

“What is your mother wearing?” Stephan whispers. “Is that an actual Peter Pan collar?”

“I can’t see.” Char leans forward and stretches. “Jesus. She’s wearing my dress.”

“Good god. That is yours?”

“She went into my closet and took out that dress.”

“Seriously. Honey.”

“That bitch.”

“You cannot honestly resent her wearing that thing. Look at her. She looks like a shrunkenhead baby Jane doll.”

“My Aunt Linda gave me that dress.”

“Let Bombed-a have it. Forever.”

“I got it in seventh grade. I can’t believe she would take that.”

“Ms. Basler,” the judge says from the desk. “You understand that this is your fourth conviction for Operating While Intoxicated? Do you not understand this? I don’t see that you’ve made any serious attempts at all.”

“Give me one of your rings,” Char says.

“Which.”

“Any one. Something clear.”

Stephan has collections of rhinestones on his fingers. He holds out a deep red crystal solitaire, it glows laser infused. Char shakes her head no.

“Like topaz even,” she whispers.

“Here’s my poison potion holder.”

The crystal is shaped into a faceted box and hinged; the lid opens and clips into place.

“There’s a couple Vicodins in there,” Stephan tells her. “They’re old.”

“That’s good. This will work.” Char puts it on her left ring finger.

“And is this the minor child?” the judge says and looks at Char.

Char stands up. She curls the toe of one of her shoes under her other foot, her hip dips down and she leans forward. “I’m the minor child.”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Charlotte Basler. Sir.”

“And you are how old?”

Char holds her hand out to Stephan seated next to her, she flips her hair and looks down at him. She sees he is holding back his laugh.

“I’m fourteen years old, your judge. Judging.”

“All right.”

“I’ll be fifteen at the end of the month.”

“Who’s that with your daughter, Ms. Basler?” the judge says to Rhonda.

“He’s my fiancé,” Charlotte answers. She sees her mother turn and look at her but Char doesn’t look back. She holds out the gigantic ring toward the judge.

“What’s your name, son?”

Stephan gets to his feet, his trousers are neon yellow and he’s wound ties around the ankles at the tops of his platform boots. The boy bends sideways into Char, his tie-dye shirt looks like it’s burst into flames.

“Stephan Harrison, sir. We’re in love.”

“All right, that’s fine,” the judge says. “Ms. Basler, do you know this boy?”

“Yes.”

“Are these children engaged to be married?”

“No,” Rhonda says. “They’re. Don’t. Whatever.”

“Your judge?” Charlotte says. “Your judgeship?”

“Yes, miss.”

“We are too engaged. I don’t know what my mother is talking about.”

“She may be thinking that you’re too young to be engaged.”

“That boy is gay,” Rhonda says. Charlotte gasps and pushes out her lower lip. She reaches down to scratch her thigh.

“I beg your pardon,” Stephan announces to the room.

“Not everyone is against gay marriage,” Charlotte says and pushes her shoulder into Stephan. He curls his arm around her, the two of them a mascara-smudged couple atop the wedding cake of the damaged. Char stares at the judge and puts her finger on her lip, she feels Stephan laughing, his ribs hard against her side.

“Please have a seat,” the judge tells them. “Sit down.”

“Can you feel the rage?” Stephan whispers in Char’s ear. “Bombed-a is going to blow up into tiny pieces and turn into rain.”

“Here’s me, the minor child,” Char whispers.

“And I think you’re homeless now.”

They are laughing harder, her shoulders hurt from it, the judge talks on and Char has her hand tight over her mouth.

“Let’s go. Let’s go. I am dying,” Char says.

They stand up and Char really feels the Valiums now, she trips over the leg of the heavy aluminum chair next to the aisle, it clangs like a BB shot in the stuffy room and they stumble out the door at the back and no one calls to them to stop. In the corridor the cackle of their laughing echoes, and they slump into each other as they go, arm in arm past the vending machines and a man reading a newspaper in a T-shirt that says Bud Light.

“Goodbye, mister judge,” Char calls back behind them when Stephan opens the door at the entrance. The hot air settles on them like a soggy quilt. “Did you see blue jacket look at me? She wanted to kill me.”

“I will never get over your mother in that dress. That will haunt me for the rest of my life. Was that like gingham?”

“I hope they put her in jail.”

“They won’t.”

“Minor child.”

“They never will. You’ll have to ride her around to the bars on your bike.”

They are tall in their platforms and weave as they walk to the bike rack at the side of the lot. Stephan has the key, he takes off his U-lock where it’s clamped both their bikes to the steel bars and Charlotte’s laughing still. He stops her a second in the sunlight; a tiny black thread dangles on her shoulder from the clipped shirt seam and he reaches to pull it away.

If I were a super villain who hurt people, what would my super villain power be?” Enzo said.

At first it had been paralyzing rays that shot from her index fingers. Then it had been a third eye that traveled about her body and could shoot paralyzing rays at will. Then a secret sonic vehicle that could shoot paralyzing rays from its headlights.

“I thought you’d already decided,” Joseph said. “Some form of paralyzing rays.”

Enzo tapped her mechanical pencil against her palm. She referred to it as her clickster.

“I’m sick of paralyzing rays.”

“So are we all,” Zap said from behind the bakery cash register. Zap and Joseph were seventeen. Both worked at the bakery, which was airy and full of light, with a pressed-tin ceiling that Joseph sometimes tilted his head far back to admire.

Enzo clicked her clickster and stared malevolently at Zap. Zap ignored her. Enzo was nine and she hated Zap for reasons Joseph did not understand. It was Joseph’s job to keep them apart, to keep Enzo from flailing at Zap and Zap from antagonizing Enzo. This was his destiny, to keep warring factions apart. They were angry bees and he was the beekeeper. Enzo sat at her table against the window with her clickster.

“The superhero is my idea,” Zap said. “I am the one writing the superhero book. Not you.”

“Who’s talking about a stupid superhero?” Enzo said. “I’m talking about a super villain.”

“Some people should come up with their own ideas.”

“Some people are full of ideas but their ideas are all stupid.”

It was time for the beekeeper to blow a puff of smoke. To calm the angry bees and restore peace to the hive.

“Why are you sick of paralyzing rays?” Joseph said.

“Because they only work for a little while. Then their power wears off.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“Well, now you do!” Enzo shouted. It took very little to set her off. “The evil guys are unparalyzed! You’re back to the beginning!”

“Make it permanent then.”

“Permanent?” Enzo held up her clickster and studied it as if it were new to her.

“Yeah. Permanent. Then the evil guys can never unparalyze themselves.”

“Can I do that?”

“You’re the super villain, Enzo. You can do anything you want to do.”

Gwen opened the middle drawer of her desk and saw box after box of tea jammed one next to the other. Some were decorated in pastels, others in bright reds and yellows; some featured drawings of animals or pastoral scenes, and all were frightening. Like a banner strung from the tail of an airplane, the drawer’s contents revealed an unmistakable message: Her life was pathetic.

Each tea had become for her like prayer beads to a Tibetan monk. Waking up would be impossible without Morning Thunder or Earl Grey. In the afternoons, Red Zinger and Cranberry Cove offered temporary refuge from boredom; Tension Tamer helped on stressful days—every day, really—and, after all was said and done, Sleepy Time took her through twilight and into dreams.

This addiction had snuck up on her. But was it just tea or was it more? Tea and work, she realized. Because if not for all the work, if not for the hours measured in profits gained for Marshall Stevens Investments, Inc., the tea wouldn’t be necessary. Ten minutes sipping tea before the morning commute to convince her that life was not without rewards. Tea sipped in the afternoon, with her assistant Mary, to make them both believe that work was something more, that friendship existed; tea taken to make meetings bearable, or sipped as a reward when her IRA statements arrived, a reminder that one day retirement would come and life will be full. And the worst realization of all—tea to make pee, so that all that water and rose hips would facilitate a delicious moment of release: Tea to produce this most pathetic form of pleasure, because there was so little of it in her life. Tea to hide the truth.
Gwen put the ball of her forefinger against the phone’s intercom button and listened to the sounds of Mary typing madly, beautifully, like the most passionate of pianists. She thought about inviting her, then realized that Mary, like everyone else, would have to wait for her own epiphany.

“Mary,” she said, “I’m going to the beach.”

“What?”

“I’m going to the beach.”

What is the opposite of Earl Grey, Gwen asked herself. Tanqueray. She drove to the overpriced Beverly Hills deli down the street and bought a bottle, cups, three limes, some tonic, and a bag of ice. Then she ordered the most fattening sandwich she could imagine: salami on egg bread with avocado.
“Avocado’s not like you,” said Erica, the sandwich maker, pushing forward the lovely concoction, bundled tight in white butcher paper. Once a doctor’s wife, Erica had recently been dumped “for a girl with fresh ovaries.” She wore her bitterness like the mustard and avocado stains covering her apron.

“Today’s different,” Gwen said and put five dollars into Erica’s tip jar.

Cutting through side streets to get to the freeway, Gwen drove fast along roads covered with fallen jacaranda leaves, sending thousands of bright purple petals flying behind her in a tornado of beauty. On the sidewalk a pair of Latina nannies stopped pushing their perambulators and watched her pass. Gwen beeped her horn and threw her fist through the sunroof of her BMW, enjoying this moment of false but intense solidarity. The women waved.
Forty-five minutes later, Gwen arrived at her favorite beach on a stretch of Malibu far from the movie star homes and surfer boys. Matador, it was called, which in Spanish meant either “bullfighter” or “killer.”

Gwen stuffed her food, her drinks and a bright yellow bedsheet into her backpack and started down the trail along the cliff.

What a view. To the right, boulders the size and color of elephants jutted out of the water, sheltering tiny coves that on weekends were considered ”clothing optional.” To the left lay a long, pristine stretch of sand in the middle of which sat a cluster of beach houses. On a weekend day Gwen would have gladly joined the many naked and semi-naked people sitting towel to towel in the cove area, but on a quiet weekday, with not a soul in sight, the beach seemed safer.

About a mile down the shore, just before the group of houses, Gwen spread her yellow sheet, stripped off her clothes, and lay down right in the center, beseeching the sun to sink its teeth into her. After a few minutes, she felt moisture begin to form on her upper lip, between her fingers, between her breasts.

She turned over on her stomach, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. The sheet had been in the laundry pile for two weeks and smelled—not badly, but with authority—of her life. Before she could stop herself, Gwen moved her face to different spots, searching for a familiar cologne or perfume. She found none and realized that it had been months since anyone, male or female, had left even the faintest of fingerprints on her life.

She sat up and decided to pour herself a drink, fully realizing she was using alcohol to mask her sadness, but feeling only gratitude for its existence. She chopped the limes—not easy to do with a plastic knife—and squeezed each segment into a glass, adding gin, ice, and tonic. Perfect.

As she sipped her drink and ate her sandwich, Gwen’s thoughts wandered. She eventually had a memory of a Texas woman she’d met in Puerto Vallarta, who lived in a thatched roof hut, on a beach accessible only by boat. The woman, who had the blond good looks and genteel manners of a former prom queen, had told Gwen that she’d been living for twenty years in her hut, which was built for her by Mexican Mormons.

“I was so lucky to find Mormons,” she’d said, her Texas drawl still thick. “They don’t drink, so my house was built in two weeks.”

Could she do the same? Gwen now wondered, and looked up to see a man walking toward her, far down the beach. She watched the man until he was close enough that she could see he was naked.

That’s all right, not a problem, she thought, although her own nakedness did make her a little nervous. It felt somehow different, no longer hers, or a liability. She considered putting her clothes back on but decided she didn’t want the man to think she was dressing for him.

She watched until the man was some twenty feet away and slowing down, just as she’d feared.

“Hi there,” he said, waving awkwardly.

She nodded and kept her eyes narrow and tough, the sort of eyes one might see on an old, fat dog with a terrible temper or on a naked woman with cellulite on her ass but a black belt in karate.

The man walked past her. She relaxed and watched him saunter down the beach. He was tanned the color of bittersweet chocolate. Even his posterior had been toasted dark brown. Wide and curved, it reminded her of a heart or a woman’s ass. The rest of his body seemed fairly manly—muscular back, thick calves, hairy legs. On his back he carried a light-colored backpack. From a distance it made it look as if he had a wide, gaping hole in the middle of his torso.

She watched him walk past the fourth, or possibly fifth, beach house, then she settled back down on her sheet and sighed.

“That’s fine,” she said aloud and considered dressing, in case another man came by. The next one might bother her, try to sit down, maybe even play with himself. She’d seen that before, on a beach in Santa Barbara. But back then, she was stronger, faster, angrier. She’d thrown rocks at him until he’d gone. Why, she wondered, had she never learned karate?

Or Portuguese, for that matter? Why had she not traveled to Venice? Why had she never had a child or a husband or even a wife?

Gwen considered pouring another drink, but the idea angered her. Alcohol, supposedly so powerful, but never, ever able to protect her from certain thoughts. No wonder the Mormons didn’t drink. She inhaled deeply. Who had been the last? A man from work? A lawyer from the fourth floor, or the fifth? Or was it Janey’s cousin Kate, experimenting sloppily with women in the aftermath of a divorce? Maybe the delivery boy from Pink Dot? Who knew?
Gwen put one hand under her cheek and licked the knuckles, which tasted of lime. The last two years had been soul numbingly predictable.

There was work and work parties, sometimes at classy places with recessed lighting, sometimes hotel bars done in eighties purple, every once in a while at a blues joint, where behaving carelessly and making out in the smoky corners was okay. She never met anyone who was still …what was it? Intact. It was as if their need to couple up had replaced the desire to be something special. The desire to be loved, it seemed to her, had eaten away at them like an acid, erasing everything wonderful and lovable.

“Stop thinking that way,” she could imagine her sister Margaret saying. “Thinking that way will make it impossible.”

“Make what impossible, Margaret? Make what impossible?”

Gwen rolled over and sat up, then decided to go for a walk down the beach to see if the man was there, maybe offer him a modest smile or a quick wave, some small gesture with which to make amends for her earlier rudeness.

She studied the beach houses as she passed—glass with steel beams; dark wood, a deck full of chimes (how do they sleep at night?); Spanish style in overly pink adobe; Spanish style in normal adobe. Four houses. Just as she took her eyes off the last empty terrace, she saw the man—or a man’s legs peeking out from under a light-colored tent, sitting just at the foot of the cliff. This is crazy, she thought, but changed her mind.

What was crazy about walking on a beach, naked? Nothing. Being afraid of walking naked on a beach was the crazy thing.

He was sitting, she realized, under a tiny wooden structure made of what looked like bamboo or possibly driftwood, over which he’d draped a piece of material. The structure made Gwen think of the Puerto Vallarta woman. This was a good sign, she decided.

“Hello,” she called out. She waved but kept walking.

“Howdy,” he called back.

She allowed herself to look up again, quickly, but didn’t have time to notice much, other than the fact that the man had a Kentucky Fried Chicken box sitting next to him. A man who brings fried chicken to beach is interesting, she thought. Again, the darkness of his body tugged at her eyes. That man spent a lot of time sitting on a beach, naked.

She walked as far as she was willing—a long stretch away from him but not so far that she was nervous—then turned around to see him standing about thirty feet from her, his hands behind his back.

“Oh, hello,” she said.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.

“Immensely.”

“Don’t you swim?”

“Sure,” she said, “I just haven’t yet.”

The man allowed his eyes to travel up and down her body. She decided to do the same, just as she did whenever someone ogled her breasts. Focusing her gaze in an exaggerated manner on a man’s crotch had an uncanny ability to take his focus off her chest.

She noticed he had normal arms, not cut, as her male friends would say, but nice. His chest was well shaped and covered in sun-bleached hair, which pleased her immensely. He was brown and gold, a gilded man, she thought. His hips were wide—which was expected, given his generous posterior——and his maleness, she noticed, was nicely proportioned.

He was smiling, having apparently enjoyed her inventory taking.

“Want to swim?” he asked.

“I’m a floater,” she said.

“I thought you said you swam,” he said.

“Did I? I meant to say that I float.”

“I’ve always wanted to try that,” he said and smiled. “Would you hold me up?”

“Would I hold you up?” she said.

“Sure. Water makes everybody light. Even me.”

“You don’t seem terribly heavy out of water,” she said.

They both looked down at the sand. If they were younger, they might have blushed.

“Thanks,” he said.

They walked into the water a few feet apart, not looking at one another. Though it was only June, the previous three weeks had been sunny and hot, so that the Pacific, normally so cold, was nearly warm. She walked straight in, letting herself wince once, but not noticeably. He did what she expected a man to do—at the sight of the first big wave, he dove under, his arms outstretched, as if planning to grip the wave and pull it back all by himself.

Of course he says he wants to float but he doesn’t, she thought, and lay back in the water. He wants to swim away. The houses looked totally empty—no fathers barbecuing, no kids flying kites, no mothers watching them, no maids sweeping.

The man must have swum away, Gwen thought and stood up to see. As if sensing her doubts, he popped up, closer to the shore, so far in that when he stood, the water was at his hips.

He waved at her—one of those backward “come back” waves a father might offer the kid he loves. She started swimming toward him, her eyes closed. What if I swam right into you? She thought. Just hit a wall of your flesh and came up knowing where I belonged?

She didn’t, though. She swam about five feet from him and stopped, pulled her head up, and pushed back her hair. The salt stung her eyes, but the coolness felt good against her skin.

“Were you serious about floating?” she asked.

He nodded yes and put his arms out, a California Jesus waiting for his cross.

“Lay back,” she said, and he did, so slowly she felt like a minister presiding over a baptism. When he was far enough back, she put one hand under his back and the other under his legs. She held him that way for a while, looking at his face. Perhaps he was pretending—forehead furrowed, eyes shut tight, the eyelids gently fluttering—yet he seemed to be nervous and actually trying.

“I won’t let you go,” she said.

He smiled and she noticed that his chin was shiny. Kentucky Fried Chicken. The dark gray razor stubble on his cheeks seemed soft. He probably shaves every day, she thought. His lips were nice—big and full and soft looking, as if the flesh below their skin would be as juicy and sweet as the meat of a pink grapefruit.

“You’re doing well,” she said and allowed her right hand to slide up, from his legs to his ass, which she rubbed, slowly, deliberately. If he felt it, his face betrayed nothing.

She moved her left hand down to the middle of his back and removed the other one. Still he floated. They both smiled. She felt like a famous magician, holding a man in one hand, the other hand in the air, indicating this newest stunt. “Voila,” she wanted to shout.

This is the ultimate trick, she thought, to hold someone, just to hold them like this, in water, or air, or on land or in a bed. Just you, strong enough to hold an entire person.

People are happy when you hold them. And then they’re not. Morning always comes, and, happy as they were, they want something else. “Don’t we,” she said, aloud, accidentally.

“What’s that,” the man asked.

“Don’t we?”

He gave her a big, sincere smile and opened his hands so that fists became open palms.

“Yes, we do,” he said.

He is so sweet, she thought, and imagined kissing him. Then she did. She leaned over and kissed those lips, which kissed back softly, gently.

She continued holding him for a minute then slipped the last hand away and watched eagerly to see if he would float. And he did. He kept floating.

“You’re doing very well,” she said again. She sank into the water beside him, and then swam under his body and to the shore. She walked—not slowly and not fast—down the beach. Before picking up her things, she looked back to make sure he was all right.

She climbed back up the hill and walked to her car, put her things in the trunk and got into the driver’s seat, but didn’t turn the key. She would go home now and do things differently than she would have if she’d spent the day at work. That was a fact. She would lie around in shorts and read magazines, her skin warm from the sun. She’d play old jazz music, from college, and maybe even barbecue. She owned a barbecue, didn’t she? She’d call Janey to share dinner or maybe someone who wanted more than friendship.

Tonight someone would leave a fingerprint. Tonight, she was certain, would be different, yet tomorrow would be just like all the other days. One day, though, she would wake up in Puerto Vallarta, in a house built by Mormons or Pentecostals or just regular Catholics, telling tourists a story for a round of margaritas. Not her story necessarily, but a story. And they would laugh, and so might she.

Cleveland #6

After all these years of wishing to be invisible, you’d think I’d feel okay when it finally came to pass. But no, I view my seeming invisibility with the same sort of distress that I had previously viewed attention: the impetus is negative and I am somehow inadequate. So while the ability to move through does have certain perks attached, I feel the lack of notice like a put-down. Used to be that I’d meet a glance and reflexively swipe across my nose—it must be running—cast my own eyes down. Now I look up and into and search and it’s like I haven’t any face at all.

I thought there’d be some comfort in that.

I’m not sure when I turned from a Miss to a Ma’am. I dine at a favorite restaurant where they used to call me “Princessa” and now cannot remember me from the day before. I think I’d gone three full days without really talking to anyone at all. This is where I am.

Where he is, I remember him. He tends bar at the Marriott. The context is consistent, and he has become some frame of reference here, a face I see in Cleveland. This is where I am: A hotel bar in Cleveland. And given what I told you about where I have been, can you imagine how it feels to be remembered?
Simply recognized. It had been fourteen months. And it doesn’t feel like a parlor trick and it feels like only yesterday and he asks me today about the project from those months ago and yes, it’s still in progress.

And I wonder if he saw me somewhere else, would he place me? No. He is the bartender I recognize and I am the lady in the bar. And they used to call me Princessa and you used to call me Miss and subtle bold invisible, it doesn’t matter how you see it because there’s one single way that I do.

Hawaii #1

He couldn’t quite be mistaken for a beached whale, but surely for something that has crawled out from the sea, or washed up from it. The large, hairy, middle-aged man lies on his back in that spot where the waves have broken and spread upon the shore like down. He curls and wriggles with such innocent joy, a man a dog a child, shoulder and hip heights rising, crashing, arms waving in the air, or flapping in the sand, fleeting angels. His bliss is intoxicating, water, air, and sand. So intoxicating as to heighten my own appreciation of it: of water, of sand, of air.

This man has become my own memory. He has waited his whole life for this moment. I wait for such a moment as well, when I am so oblivious, when I am dog and whale and water.

Colorado #3

My father is not buried in Estes Park, Colorado; he’s buried somewhere in New York. But I had his name carved on the stone beside my mother’s—the body is not relevant. And neither is a marker. I admit it is a memorial to me every bit as much as my father.

I have come to this grave to spread the ashes of a dog, a dog chosen by my mother and hers for a time, hers and his; then just his, then mine. The dog lived with me for six years, but was never really my own. She was and still is my parents’ dog. Even after she had outlived them.

The ashes are likely a conglomerate of various sad Minnesota dogs having died a certain day, but I name them for one particular dog as I name a tombstone for my father. None of this is a physical matter.

Or maybe something is, a physical matter. My stomach churns and my tears, so rare, will not listen, will not stop. “It’s hard to go back,” my friend has warned. “You’re different now. You’ve changed.”

And it is hard, it’s so hard, harder than I ever imagined. But it’s not because I’ve changed —it’s hard because I haven’t.

Greater Las Vegas #2

North Las Vegas is too busy going about its business to feel like Vegas proper. There is no place to gamble except perhaps the cab of some lonely trucker. But should he choose to stay in North Vegas, odds are such a trucker is just seeking a little rest, like I am.

I can’t quite tell you how the Comfort Inn is just that, or how delivered pizza is just that, too. I can’t quite tell if quiet is the experience of nature, or something quite specifically opposed to it. But I can tell you that I craved it, and can speak here of one craving fulfilled.

In fact, I slept like a rock.

Rocks sense this in me the following morning, with them in the desert before sunrise. While I am not quite familiar to these rocks, there is something familiar about me. I sleep as they do. They speak. They say: We sit here as counterbalance. We knew this city was coming. We knew you were coming too, just the same as you did. We see your childhood fire, we see your teenage dam break. We see the secrets you can’t share with any other so you’ve confided in us already.

I tell the rocks they don’t know so much as they think. I accuse the rocks of jealousy, my mobility, my flesh. I can walk from this place today, and I will. I can move far enough away that the view becomes completely different. I taunt them with the reminder that nothing is written in stone. There is the potential for beauty in every single moment. There is value in a moment, enough for a whole entire life.

And the stones say to me: What’s a moment to a rock?

Mexico City #3

Today is the vacation day of my working vacation. I should have taken it on the front end. I should have detected my own warning signal last night, when I carefully laid out clothes for the two days subsequent, then carefully packed absolutely everything else away. My actions are a physical symptom of homesickness. There are other symptoms too: Clockwatching, Disassociation, Mild Anticipatory Dread. I squander my vacation day in the city.

Clockwatching: thirty-six hours to departure. Disassociation: failure to take in present magnificence. Mild Anticipatory Dread: I am unmotivated despite great reward for small effort.

But still I walk around. I walk around and breathe and try to stay involved, though my greatest involvement is not with my setting, but with my own sense of longing. And I wonder, is longing time squandered? I try to engage in the scene, rather than turning it consciously into memory even though I am still there. I mean, still here.

Today I long, tomorrow I travel. Let me take it all with me, this day and this longing. Let me pack it up like a souvenir.

I brought you back appreciation.

Minneapolis #74

It feels good to be susceptible after all this time being immune. But that doesn’t mean I don’t fight it. Something entered me like a virus, and all the drugs in the world won’t cure this. No, relief requires time.

There is green grass in my backyard as the year turns over in Minnesota. Even the snow has surrendered. Snow, beloved ally, I should follow your lead. But surrender does not come naturally to me.

I try sabotage instead.

I wear a sweater I do not need, this in the hope of being reminded. This in the hope of being alright. But my mind’s a blank when it isn’t racing, and though recently I believed I’d up and left this planet, the universe has shrunken to my city and my room. The scent of Mars is overwhelmed by the weight of a telephone in my hand. The way the surface gave beneath my feet made me faithful then, but now I just wait for a call.

Relief requires time.

It’s warm here. My sweater finds a purpose, I walk in the thick dark without a coat. I was hoping for an incident, but the warm, wet air is enough. I pander to my vanity: happy is pretty, unbearable is just that, and I know it.

The letters on the sign above the bakery were as willful as inanimate objects could be. Hugo and Loretta kept an attentive eye out in case the force behind the mischief chose to make itself known. It never did. They had never had any trouble with the “E” until last week. The “G” was another story altogether, having annoyed them for years like a misbehaving child with its tendency to lean slightly out of line of the other letters. It often drooped, or swung with the wind; twice it had mysteriously turned backwards in the night.

The first time it fell off entirely (the first of what was to be four instances in the thirteen-year history of HUGE DOUGHNUTS) the gravity of the slightly convex cube that was the “G” collided with the forward movement of a red Chevy van which was at that moment swinging into a parking space in front of the shop. Its blue and white plastic crunched and splintered onto the hood, leaving a mess of shards in the entry way, an insurance settlement to be paid, and a revision of the identity of the bakery. At night the gap in the letters was less noticeable as the newly transformed HU E DOUGHNUTS shone through the neighborhood with the promise, not of size, but of light.

Loretta and Hugo Huge did not, in fact, embody the bulk that their name suggested. Slight people of birdlike intensity, successful in both metabolism and business, they were able to eat many of the pastries they produced (which were larger than usual—a slogan and a selling point) day after day without gaining the usual pounds and peevishness associated with their product. Thirteen years ago, when Hugo had asked for Loretta’s hand simultaneously in marriage and in store partnership (the name of which he had decided on in Loretta’s company at the Saturday night Scrabble competition), he had proposed simply.

Loretta had just finished arranging her tiles into a vertical exclamation, transforming the monotonous “chant” into the charming “enchantment.” Hugo took advantage of the fire in her eye, the call of his heart, and the magic in the room to ask, “How do you like HUGE DOUGHNUTS?”

Loretta instantly intuited his meaning. “I think I say I dough,” she replied.

They were the sort of people who liked puns and puzzles, odd hours, and controlled, hands-on labor. They took life’s surprises—tremendous financial success, bad luck with pedigree dachshunds, and childlessness—in stride and mostly with good humor.

Loretta liked the way her last name made an ironic comment on her size and gave a good chuckle to customers when they discovered that it meant more than the radius of the chocolate glazes. And, she had to admit, she especially liked those times when the “G,” acting up or falling down, reinvented the shop as HU E DOUGHNUTS. It was, well … colorful. She felt, in her new identity, not like someone who was missing a letter, or a sound, or a part of life, but like a person who had gained something: perspective, or even a separate and brilliant spectrum. She felt her banter with customers lighten; she felt her aura, or her spirit (her imagination, Hugo said) brighten with clarity.

When the trouble with the “E” began and eventually left them as HUG DOUGHNUTS, Loretta’s spirit did not soar. She felt as if she had landed in a hippie commune of pastries, where everyone was expected to touch all the time. It was sticky. “Hug a tree” or “Have you hugged your child (éclair?) today?” paraded through her mind. She and Hugo discussed the options for restoring the sign. They agreed on when (as soon as possible; neither could fathom operating under that moniker for long), but not about how.

What had happened was this: over a week’s time the blue lettering of the “E” on its plastic white cube (was the blue coloring paint? Ink? Dye? Loretta had never had an occasion to ponder it) faded until it completely disappeared. There was no explanation, and no other letter was affected. Whereas the “G”’s antics had perhaps been the work of an irritating but familiar poltergeist, the “E” seemed to have developed quickly and ominously into a black hole, imploding upon itself and achieving invisibility. Loretta secretly worried that the land on which the shop rested had become a time warp, or had always been haunted. One thing was clear: Loretta needed a change. “It’s a sign.”

“Yes,” replied Hugo, “and it needs to be repaired.” He was already defensive, anticipating her direction.

“I was thinking,” she said, “that it needs to be replaced.”

A pause.

“With what?”

“Well, I’m not sure. I mean, there are all kinds of names we could come up with. Something kooky, something lively, or … ”
“Different?”

“Yes, Hugo, different. We’ve projected our own name from a marquee for a good long time. Why not change? Especially now with the “E”; it’s providential.” She took his hands. “I feel that the sign is telling us something.”

A sigh.

“Honey, try to understand. I am the shop, you know? I am—we are … HUGE, each of us. A name, our name, doesn’t it say something? Identity, heritage, dreams, future? I’m not sure I’d know who I was if I saw another word up there in front of DOUGHNUTS. It’s like looking in a mirror.”

Loretta stared. “Sweetheart, sometimes a person needs more to look at than that.”

Though tired from arguing, Hugo rose earlier than usual the next morning and took the Scrabble game from the closet. After a quarrel, whoever had been more at fault, more unyielding, or was more willing to apologize would leave a message for the other. Hugo certainly did not think he was at fault in any way, but he sensed that Loretta felt forlorn and confused about many things, and so he took the lead. The message consisted of the words tend, dewy, travel, lovely, and lucky, spelled with intersecting Scrabble tiles.

Although they hadn’t spoken much in the shop, there was a friendly compatibility between them as they baked. Before he gathered his list, notebook, and satchel, as he did every Tuesday, to go have lunch and do errands downtown, Loretta smiled and said, “What do you mean by ‘travel’?”

“Who knows?” sparkled Hugo. “Perhaps there’s a spaceship waiting for us right now, out back by the apple tree. Perhaps I’ve learned to travel through time, and I’ll bring you back a spice from the future that hasn’t been grown yet. Perhaps … an unknown destination awaits you.”

In BOB’S, the café on the sixth floor of the Roberts Building, Hugo ate his usual mushroom omelette. For a moment, he mused on the name Bob, a strong, direct sign of confidence, and a palindrome, at that! Was his own name somehow lacking in energy, in chivalry? He thought of Loretta’s imagination, her maturing and wiry body, her tearful confession of boredom. Yes, he felt change in the air today; he felt change in his body like a butterfly flapping against his skin. Although they had finally compromised that the sign would remain HUGE DOUGHNUTS for another year, he was disturbed at Loretta’s restlessness, the claustrophobia about her. He would take her on an exotic trip, he had decided, somewhere tropical, balmy, un-city-like. Romantic.

Hugo paused in the lobby as he waited for the elevator. He would go up to the sixteenth floor from here and order a new “E” cube for the sign, talking first with John at the desk about dachshunds. Later, he would buy guidebooks at the bookstore before stopping at the market for groceries. He couldn’t wait to present Loretta with his surprise.

In the elevator, doors closed, Hugo, the sole passenger, pressed the button marked “16.” He searched for the one word he could utter to Loretta to indicate his vacation idea before he realized that no number had illuminated and the car remained still. He pressed “16” again, then “15,” “14,” “13.” Nothing. His mind settled on “Bismarck,” the sea or the islands, as his one-word clue for exotic adventure, as well as for his commitment to his and Loretta’s continuing endeavor in the bakery. His skin tingled. The cubicle jolted and the “Emergency” button lit up. Hugo wondered about the meaning of this as he rose to an anonymous floor. Or, as he thought to himself, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, how did he know he was really going up at all?