Hotel California - 1. Story

hotel

california

by corvus

 

 

 

Leonard wasn’t sure what was uglier, Mrs. Watson or the tea set. There was something about the jaw, the neck, the mascara on the verge of dripping onto the coffee table. On the other hand, Leonard had never seen such ugly teacups. All of it radiated from a teapot almost the size of his head.

“It was in the cards,” said Mrs. Watson. “So you see, I knew you’d come to for the flat.”

“Really?” Leonard said politely.

He’d known this wasn’t going to be an ordinary apartment complex. The ad had asked for a ‘male, thirty-ish, Scott-Irish descent with a dash of the English, high tolerance for figurative shit.’ Because he had expected from the moment he read the ad that he’d be that man, it had been the last place he went to. The others did not want him, unfortunately. He had no money.

“You see, my place here is very special because everyone here is fated to be here,” Mrs. Watson continued. “They were born for it.” She smiled, revealing very even, very fake teeth. Then it dropped off her face with a plop. “’course, that’s until fate moves them on again.”

“You were sure I would come?”

Mrs. Watson chuckled. “Leonard, Leonard. You’ll see that fate is one thing you’ll never be able to run from.” She reached over the table and patted his arm. He suppressed a shudder. The skin was dry, cool, like wax paper.

She got up and perched a pair of heavily jeweled glasses on her face. “Name, Leonard Blast.”

“Bast.”

“Nnh. Same thing. Occupation, unemployed. Marital status, committed bachelor. Sexual persuasion, ambivalent. Favorite color, undecided. How am I doing so far?”

“Very good.”

“Ooh. Very good.” Mrs. Watson fluttered a hand over one sagging breast. “You certainly know how to flatter an old woman, Mr. Blast.”

“Bast.”

“Same thing.” She slipped back into her chair, crossed her legs like a man. “The pay is a hundred dollars a month. I’m sure, despite your current job status, which I’m sure will change soon, you can manage that?”

“Yes.”

“In addition, you are to sit with me every Sunday afternoon at three for tea.” Mrs. Watson grinned, catlike and feral. “You’ll be right after Ozaku, and before dear Jonathan, who prefers to be called Mika.” A pause. “You’ll report to me on the behavior of all the other tenants. Gossip, Mr. Blast. I want gossip. I live for it. There’s so little that sustains an old woman.” Her voice trailed off wistfully. The moment passed. “Anyway. I believe you’re all ready to move in?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Watson sniggered. “Yes, seeing as you have no furniture, no clothes, and only what’s on your back. And a private little fund your grandmother set aside for your when you were only ten.”

For the first time, Leonard paused and stared.

“It’s all in the cards, dearie,” Mrs. Watson murmured, her hand like wax again on her arm. “I do believe you’ll like the company. I have a feeling that you’ll be making special friends with your neighbor. He’s a very nice fellow, though a bit uncertain about things—just like yourself.”

***

The plate on his door read, ‘LEONARD B.’ The one on his neighbor’s door was shorter: ‘JOE C.’ Leonard wondered if Joe would mind moving aside the large potted plant sitting between their rooms. Its leaves were halfway blocking his door.

The first and only person Leonard met that week was Ozaku, a thinnish little Japanese who spoke so quietly and rapidly Leonard had trouble understanding.

“You live where? Oh, in thirty-two. Hey, I live in forty-two. Right above you. Let’s hope I don’t leave the faucet on, haha.” Ozaku grinned, bobbed his head, and made a sound like wing beats.

The next few days passed quickly. Leonard was surprised at how easy it was to find a job.­ He had interviewed for a nine-to-five position at an accounting firm with no real hopes in getting it, and was pleasantly surprised when they called. He wondered, without believing it, if Mrs. Watson had done something. Apparently, the previous clerk had died suddenly on a family vacation to the Florida Keys, struck by a flying fish that had leapt out of the water at the wrong place and the wrong time.

Leonard decided not to be early on Sunday. He deliberately loitered in his living room, which had only an ugly green sofa that he thought he had seen somewhere before, and three phone books stacked in a corner. When he did arrive, Mrs. Watson was restless and reproachful.

“You’re late!” she hissed, pointing at the clock. “Two minutes. This is intolerable! I expect punctuality! Promptitude!”

Leonard found out, a few minutes later, the real reason behind Mrs. Watson’s distress. “It’s that Ozaku,” she sighed. “Nice fellow. Quiet, dependable. Pays his bills on time. Always smiles and nods at me when he sees me.” She sighed again. “He asked if he could have a guest for a few months. A German blonde he met online. Did he think I was stupid?”

“What’s wrong with his having a guest?”

Mrs. Watson sighed. “I forgot you didn’t know. Do you know happened to the last one?”

Leonard said he didn’t.

“Poor Ozaku has obsessions of the worst kind. The last one was from Sweden. He probably still has her fingernails left, and sniffs at them longingly at four thirty in the morning.” She sighed again, wistfully. “The poor thing.”

She inquired after his health, his job, what he thought of the new fashion of having pet dogs the size of hamsters. “And how do you like your neighbors, Leonard? How is dear Joe, by the way?”

“I haven’t actually met him.”

“Haven’t met him!” Mrs. Watson was shocked. “But you’re neighbors! Didn’t he come with a housewarming gift?”

Leonard paused. He had come home last Thursday and saw something round and flat on his doorstep. On closer inspection, it looked like a pie that had been punctured in the middle by a set of high heel shoes. There was a note next to it, smeared with cinnamon and apple sauce, saying, “Enjoy!” in loopy block letters.

“Well, you’ll have to get to know him! It’s in the cards. Bad things happen if you don’t follow the cards.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I read, when I was very young, that I would have a musical death. That’s why I don’t have any records, CD’s, tapes in my flat. None at all.”

“Uh-huh.”

Leonard had a few more store-bought cupcakes, listened to Mrs. Watson complain about the neighbors across the street, and was shooed out at a quarter till four. Apparently, he’d exhausted his hostess’s nerves with his lack of any real news.

***

The accident happened Friday when he came home. Really, he didn’t mean it. Leonard was dragging out an old table he’d found in the back to throw away, when he knocked Joe’s plant clean off the landing. A second later, Leonard cringed at the resulting crash.

“Fuck.”

He took the stairs down, two at a time. He heard a few doors opening and looked up to see Ozaku’s spectacled face peering over the railing.

“It’s all right!” Leonard called. His voice echoed up the stairwell. “Just an accident.”

He was standing next to the starburst of dirt and pottery on the cement. The faces above had disappeared. He was alone now with the corpse of Joe’s plant, which looked strangely like a mermaid with its hairy roots exposed and leaves folded demurely like fins.

Ten minutes later, all of it was packed away in plastic Albertsons bags and tucked into the dumpster behind the flat. Leonard went up the stairs slowly, planning his apology as he went. He’d say he was sorry. He’d offer to buy another plant. He wondered how much potted plants cost. He hoped the one he’d smashed hadn’t been expensive.

Joe was, unsurprisingly, not home. Leonard went inside. He closed all the windows and took out the whiskey. It was never too early to start.

The knock came about three hours later. Leonard had to squint at the door to make it focus, and stumbled over the only chair in the room as he crossed the floor. He frowned through the peephole. It was a woman.

He opened the door. “Hello?” he mumbled.

“Sorry for bothering you, but—have you seen a potted fig? I’m fairly sure it was here this morning.”

Leonard blinked. The woman had short black hair, shorn into a Chicago bob. Her lips were very red, and she was wearing an air-stewardess sort of skirt and blouse, which accentuated broad shoulders.

“Are you Joe?” Leonard blurted.

“Joe? Oh, Joe! I’m Joe’s sister. Audrey. You must be Leonard?”

“Ah. Yes, I’m Leonard.” They shook hands. Leonard put his into his pocket, and found himself feeling like a schoolboy. “Do you happen to need your fig right now?”

“Well, you see, I keep my keys in the pot—I never carry them around in my purse—so I’m quite locked out right now.”

“Oh,” said Leonard, and comprehended this.

“Of course, I could borrow your fire escape, if you won’t mind, and check to see if I left my balcony door unlocked. It’s probably not, but you never know. It’d be quite Breakfast at Tiffany’s, wouldn’t it?”

Leonard agreed it would. “Is that the only set of keys you have?”

“Well… yes,” Audrey said slowly. “Only, I don’t know where Joe is right now, or I’d ask him. But anyway, do you know where my fig went?”

“Ah…” He paused. “There was an accident.”

“Accident?”

He explained and apologized. The well-rehearsed words spilled out. Audrey looked surprised and said, “Oh.”

“You know what?” Leonard said abruptly. “I’ll go down and fish out the key for you.”

“Oh, you don’t need to…”

He stumbled on the first step and had to grab the railing. Audrey asked something, but he waved her off. He could smell the fruity scent of her perfume. Like figs, Leonard thought. He wondered what his body might look like at the bottom of the stairwell.

By the first landing, he had regained control over his feet, and managed to comment that he rarely saw Audrey or Joe at all.

“Joe has the day job, and I have the night job,” said Audrey. She added, rather quickly, “I work during the day, too, of course, and Joe has nightshifts as well. So, we’re pretty much never around.”

“Yeah,” said Leonard. “I’m a clerk.”

They reached the dumpster behind Mrs. Watson’s complex, and Leonard began shifting through the trash.

“It’s in a few Albertsons bags,” he said. It seemed to him, as the soft rot of garbage shifted under his feet, that most of the bags in the dump were Albertsons bags.

“Is this it?”

“Oh yes,” said Leonard. “That must be the fig part.”

They found the pot part of it a few seconds later. Audrey poured the dirt and broken earthware into a pool of halogen light, and shifted through it like a boy looking for worms.

“Found it,” she announced.

“Oh, good.”

Audrey scraped the dirt and broken shards back into the bag. Leonard wondered if he should help. Even from where he was standing, he could see that Audrey’s fingers were very fine, very slender: artists’ fingers.

They went back upstairs.

“I’m sorry about that,” Leonard said again when they’d reached the last landing.

“Don’t worry about it,” Audrey said. She smiled. “G’night, Leonard. I’m glad we finally met.”

Leonard nodded and said he felt the same way.

He wandered onto the balcony, whiskey in hand. The alley was like the skin of a snake, coiled behind this and several other buildings. He leaned farther out and could see the dumpster, the dim halogen lamp. The whiskey glass dangled dangerously above the pit.

He heard the sound of a door opening. Light flooded the primroses and bromeliads of the balcony adjacent. A moment later Audrey appeared. She went past the plants, put her hands on the metal railing, and stared intently at the night.

“Hi,” Leonard muttered when she finally noticed him there.

Audrey nodded back. Her expression was unreadable in the dark. “Hi,” she said. They said nothing for a minute. Then Audrey retreated as though embarrassed, shutting both the balcony door and the curtains and leaving her plants in the dark.

Leonard stayed there for a while, and then went back inside. The whiskey glass was still in his hand, though it would have made a beautiful sound on the ground below.

***

Saturday morning, Leonard woke with an obnoxious headache. He wallowed in it for a few hours, dipping between sleep and a haggard restlessness, before he crawled into the kitchen and had cheerios.

The walk to the nearest supermarket took twenty minutes, and he decided it might’ve been wise to phone ahead and ask if they sold potted plants. When he reached the “local” Home Depot, it was nearly five, and his headache was back with peculiar vengeance. He took the bus back with the pot between his feet and a stalky baby fig between his legs.

Joe was not home; nor was Audrey. Leonard could have left the plant on the doormat, as Audrey or Joe had left the pie. He didn’t. The air coming through his windows that evening was cool and smelled almost of begonias from the neighboring balcony. Leonard went to bed early.

Mrs. Watson greeted him with an outstretched hand and a smile. Leonard took it and wondered if he was supposed to kiss it.

His hostess sighed. “Chivalry is dead,” she said flatly. “Sit.”

Leonard sat.

“I’ve been looking through my family photos,” Mrs. Watson said, turning a page of the photo album spread before her. “The cards told me so, though I have no idea why. This is my nephew. Strapping young man, isn’t he?”

Leonard looked at a photo of a squat teenager with mean little eyes and agreed. He nearly jumped when he felt something wind around his ankles.

“An Andalusian housecat from Naples,” Mrs. Watson explained, pushing aside the photo album and dabbing her mouth with a napkin covered with pink floral patterns. “I heard that Germans are highly allergic to them. Here, kitty-kitty!” She cooed and ducked under the table.

Leonard did not think a cat had six limbs.

“Did you meet Joe?” Mrs. Watson queried, her voice muffled and quite disembodied.

“Not yet,” said Leonard, “but I did meet his sister, Audrey.”

A thump and a yowl. Mrs. Watson emerged and adjusted her wig. “What did you say?”

“I met Joe’s sister, Audrey.”

“He does not have a sister,” Mrs. Watson said flatly.

Leonard paused. “But I met her. Last night, in fact.”

“Oo-oh,” said Mrs. Watson, and smiled in a way that told Leonard that she knew something he didn’t. “Was she tall? Broad-shouldered? Hair like that chick’s in Pulp Fiction?”

Leonard watched her fuschia-colored nails trail through the cat’s fur, and felt the edges of understanding hover at his mind. A moment later, they clicked.

“Yes,” Mrs. Watson said, and rolled her eyes. “Typical of dear Joe. At least he didn’t introduce himself as his wife!” She sniggered. “Imagine that. Funny, yes?”

Leonard smiled dryly. “Yes. Very funny.”

Mrs. Watson sniffed and sipped her tea. Leonard kept his silence.

“There isn’t any problem with the flat, is there?”

“No, everything is fine. Thank you.”

“And how do you like the tenants? Besides Joe, whom you like very much, of course.”

Leonard ignored the last comment. “I haven’t seen much of them, except Ozaku, a bit.”

“Yes, he likes to stick his nose in everyone’s business,” Mrs. Watson said. “Well, I’m glad you’re so well-adjusted, Leonard. We’re going to be your friendly neighbors for a very, very long time.” She beamed at him.

“Oh? I guess that was in the cards?”

Mrs. Watson chuckled behind her lips. The movement made her breasts jiggle inside the laced dressing gown like two animate melons.

“You’re learning fast, my dear. Do you know why I call this flat Hotel California?”

Leonard frowned. “It’s called Hotel California?”

Her face dropped with disappointment. “You didn’t know? But it was on the advertisement? Do you not read, Mr. Blast?”

“Bast—”

She made a piffling motion with her hands. “You can’t escape. Unless you die.” Mrs. Watson smiled indulgently. “I can’t stop you in that regard. Alas.” Her voice changed. “Nothing can stop that immutable marcher. Nothing.”

She stood and turned so that her back was to him. Silhouetted against the curtains, she looked more than ever of one of those faded-beauty characters Leonard had seen in some rickety black-and-white Hollywood films. In fact, the impression was almost perfect, except for the wig, which Leonard noticed was askew.

“Do you believe in the afterlife, Mr. Blast?”

“I—”

“I do not believe in it. A human is only a bag of blood and flesh. Pop it, and that’ll be the end. But there is such a thing as fate.” She half turned, her profile becoming, of all things, somehow simian in appearance. “Life without fate is empty, but fate without afterlife is cruel. Can the world be any more despairing?”

Leonard said he did not think so. A few moments later, after listening to complaints about the change of tenants across the street, he was released. It was only when he stepped through the doorway of his flat that he stopped and wondered if this was the same doorway he would be entering, every day, for the rest of his life.

***

The balcony next door was lit from the inside. Leonard took the potted fig from the bathroom, where he had been keeping it for the last few days, and went to the landing. The door still said ‘JOE.’ He knocked.

“Hi!”

It was a man, a stranger, who greeted him. Leonard blinked, and remembered after too long a pause that he was supposed to speak. He was too busy imagining that face with a black wig and makeup and being surprised at how different and yet similar the look had been.

“Are you Joe?”

“Yes! Yes, I’m Joe, you must be the neighbor? Leonard?”

Leonard said that he was.

“Pleased to meet you—I’m sorry I didn’t drop by earlier, but things have been so hectic lately. Is that—?”

“A replacement,” said Leonard. “Shall I put it here?”

“Oh, you really didn’t have to do that.” A pause, as Joe considered the plant, and Leonard considered Joe. “Would you like to come in for—” Joe shrugged. “Tea? Orange juice?” He hesitated. “Beer?”

They settled on beer. As Joe went to fetch it, Leonard studied the sitting room. It was a mess. Magazines were scattered across the floor, there were newspapers everywhere, and clothes and plates mingled together. There was nothing obviously belonging to a woman.

“So,” said Joe. “Uh.” He cracked open the beer can and looked at it. “I heard from… my sister… that you two met, the other night.”

“Yeah,” Leonard managed. He almost laughed. Typical of him, really, not to see the painfully obvious. Joe was an awful liar. He was already fidgeting, as though the sock-strewn couch he was sitting on had turned into one of the cactuses on the balcony

Joe went on. “I suppose you must’ve met Mrs. Watson?”

“Yeah. I had tea with her today, actually.”

“Did you?” said Joe. He looked distressed.

“Yeah. She’s pretty interesting to talk to. Lots of dirt on everyone.”

Joe chuckled nervously in agreement.

“She usually makes me leave early, though. I really don’t have any gossip on anyone at all. I’m awful at noticing things.”

Joe straightened. “Really?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Leonard wondered why he was keeping this up. Maybe it was the certainty of his knowledge, and certainty of Joe’s ignorance. Certainty was rare. He wondered if Mrs. Watson had told Joe, as she had told him, that they were supposed to become “friends.” He wondered if he himself believed it. He did not; and yet it gave him a feeling, which he knew probably deserved to be dismissed, but which he could not fight, perhaps did not wish to fight.

“She told me who your sister really is,” Leonard said at last.

Joe froze. “And?” Another pause as Leonard waited. The silence stretched. Then Joe sighed and buried his head in his hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… I mean—” He lifted his head, but his eyes would only meet Leonard’s for a brief flicker. “It was stupid of me. I knew it was stupid. But I’m just not… used to it—telling people—about—it, I mean.”

Leonard cut him off, before he could sound even more miserable than he already was. “It’s okay.”

“And It’s not like… it’s not like I’m gay or anything.” Joe’s voice cracked. He glanced up anxiously in the following silence. There was already a bit of gray in his hair, which Leonard could see was in the process of recession. But the lips were soft, hesitant.

“Sure,” said Leonard. He pretended to study the beer can. “I’m gay, actually.”

“Oh.”

Leonard looked at the other man. He felt disdain, pity, and tenderness—he was surprised by the tenderness. He could feel the silence filled with a thousand possibilities. The air was muffled with them. One of their beer cans made a loud crack!, and Leonard felt his heart jump.

“We’re even now,” he said at last.

“What?”

“I broke your plant, and you made me think you were someone else.”

“But—but that’s nothing! And you went ahead and bought a new one.”

“And now I know it was you all along.”

Joe hesitated. “Well, if you want to see it this way…” He trailed off, looked up, and smiled. It was an anxious smile, but there was an element of relief in it as well. Leonard found it easy to return.

By the time he left later that night, Leonard had learned a great deal about his neighbor. Joe was a horticulturalist by day and a drag queen on Fridays and Saturdays. It was a blessed life: he loved both his jobs. In the hour or so that they talked, they said nothing about the past, about why Joe had lied, about the present.

The stairwell was too quiet. Was everyone asleep? Leonard wondered. Or were the tenants staring at the TV, the wall, the ceiling? It was like a zoo at night, the beasts waiting docilely for the next day’s visitors. They were all a part of Mrs. Watson’s collection, and Leonard knew he was one of them. Would he have struggled against it ten or twenty years ago? He didn’t know. At least he’d a new “friend,” even if it wasn’t as Mrs. Watson’s cards predicted. Or maybe it had been in the cards, as everything else was in the cards, and Mrs. Watson hadn’t been able to see it. She was only human, after all.

***

It happened that Friday. Leonard had gone to work and found the place closed due to an emergency termite infestation. He went back and watched television. At half past two, he heard the sound of a balcony door opening, and saw Joe, wearing a wig and the air stewardess dress, lean on the railing.

Leonard turned off the television and shuffled onto the balcony. “Hey,” he called. “Want to come over for a drink?”

Joe turned, startled, and then nodded. He was about to slip back in, when Leonard waved him over. “Don’t bother changing,” he said. “You can just take the fire escape.”

Joe chuckled nervously. He didn’t bother keeping his voice in Audrey’s tenor when he spoke. “It’s kind of Breakfast at Tiffany’s in reverse, isn’t it?”

Leonard smiled. “I’ll get something to drink,” he said.

Things might have ended up differently if Joe had gone in first. Leonard did not know it at the time; his only thought, as he broke ice cubes into two glasses, was that Joe not be afraid.

He went back to the balcony with a bottle of Cointreau.

“You start pretty early,” said Joe.

“It’s never too early to start. Half day today?”

“Kind of.” Joe took the proffered glass. “Thanks.” He made a face after the first sip. “I’ll have to get used to this.”

“The liqueur?”

“Yeah, and—well, this.”

Leonard waited. He could see, on the street below, the new tenants moving into apartment opposite. It looked like a big affair. There were two full-length U-Haul trucks and even a small crane. They were attaching something that looked like a wrapped-up piano to the end.

“You’re the first person to live in this flat since I got here.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. And that was a while ago.”

“Hmm,” said Leonard. He wondered how long that had been. “Are there any flats still empty?”

“Don’t think so.”

Leonard jingled the ice cubes in his glass. “According to our landlady, we’re supposed to live here to the end of our days.”

“She says that to you, too?” said Joe. He didn’t look surprised. “I was kind of creeped out about it when I first got here, but I’m used to it now. Joanne’s pretty harmless, even though she says all sorts of weird things about everyone else.”

“Joanne?” Leonard blinked. “You mean—Mrs. Watson?”

Joe giggled. “You call her that? That’s so…”

“What?”

They were interrupted by a tremendous crash, one accompanied by a jangling of piano keys, a smattering of broken glass, and a yowl Leonard couldn’t tell was from a cat or a human. He got up and peered over the railing.

“What happened?”

Leonard frowned. They were standing next to each other on one side of the balcony. “The crane broke.” Half of it had snapped off and was lying across the street. Standing next to it was the piano, looking as though it had been wheeled onto the pavement and not dropped out of the sky.

“Is anyone hurt?” Joe asked.

“I don’t know,” said Leonard. “I think we should go look.”

“Won’t we just get in the way?”

“No,” said Leonard. He didn’t understand the urgency he felt: it was only when he’d hurried through his flat and onto the landing that he remembered Mrs. Watson’s words from two weeks ago.

Joe was right behind. “Bother,” he muttered, fixing the wig on his head. “They’ve all seen me like this anyway, I think,” he said, his voice suddenly softer.

Several doors had opened, and Leonard could hear footsteps shuffling down the stairs. He slowed but did not stop in front of Mrs. Watson’s second-floor door, and moments later he was part of the small crowd of onlookers and workers, looking both frightened and embarrassed in their orange safety hats, mingling at the entrance.

“Is the police coming?” Joe asked. Nobody answered. Leonard approached the piano. The wrapping it had torn, and he could each slender black leg, like that of a horse. He looked up, following the crowds’ pointing. The window and half the second story wall now had a gaping hole.

“Whose piano is that?”

“Someone call the police.”

“There’s someone coming.”

The crowd, still talking quietly, watched the new arrival come up the street. It was not a police car or an ambulance. It was an old Buick, as brown and flat as a woodlouse. The Buick went up as far as it could, which was in front of the crane that barred the street, and stopped. A woman emerged from the driver’s side, and, simultaneously from the passenger side, a teenage girl poured out and began gawking at the crane.

The woman stepped towards the crowd and removed her sunglasses. There was now only the mangled carcass of the crane between her and the rest of them. “Is this… the Hotel California?” she asked.

Leonard, because he was closest, felt her eyes on him, and so nodded in reply.

“Good,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if we’d come to the right place. Mary, don’t do that. Mary!”

The girl, all bony limbs and straw-straight blond hair, let go of the crane with reluctance. “But I’ve never seen a broken crane before,” she said.

“There was an accident,” Leonard said, pointing at the second story.

Mary gasped in awe. “Wicked!”

“Mary!” the woman hissed. “It looks awful. Is anyone hurt?”

Leonard said they did not yet know, and, presumably, the police and firemen would be here any minute.

“I’m sorry,” said the woman, “I haven’t introduce myself.” She held out her hand. “I’m Anita Carey. Please call me Anita.”

They shook hands.

“And this is my daughter Mary. She’s thirteen.”

“Mom,” Mary said irritably, “I can introduce myself.”

“We’re looking for—someone we know,” said Mrs. Carey.

“We’re looking for my dad,” said Mary. “He calls himself Joe, or that’s what my mom says. I wouldn’t know—I haven’t seen him in seven years.”

“Mary!”

Leonard turned. Joe had disappeared.

A minute later, there was still no sign of firemen or police, and Leonard was wondering, as he led Mrs. Carey and her daughter up the stairs, past the second floor landing, if perhaps no one had called.

“Do you believe in nihilism, Mr. Bast?”

“Mary!”

“I’m not sure what that is,” said Leonard.

“It’s when you, like, think that everything is pointless, and nothing means anything at all—”

“Oh,” Mrs. Carey said softly.

They had reached the fourth landing. Leonard followed Mrs. Carey’s eyes; she was staring at the potted fig.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “This must be the one we had in front of our house. It was the only thing he took when he left.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Mom, if it’s the one Dad took, wouldn’t it have grown by now?”

“Oh, Mary, what do you know?” Mrs. Carey said through a muffled nose. She gazed mistily at the fig. Leonard shuffled in awkward silence.

“Aren’t you going to knock, Mom?” said Mary.

“Of course,” Mrs. Carey sniffed, and proceeded to do so.

There was no response. Not after she tried again, not after Mary began to lean impatiently over the railing, not after Leonard did so as well: he could hear people, the shuffle of voices and footsteps, two flights below.

“It’s only four o’clock,” Leonard said. “You could probably try again later.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Carey said. “He’s probably at work. How stupid of me not to have thought of that.” She hesitated. “You won’t tell him that we’ve been here, will you?”

“No,” Leonard said, quite honestly.

“Good,” she said, clearly relieved. “Thank you so much for your help, Mr. Bast. Mary, stop doing that. Mary!”

“Can we go home now?”

“We’re going to the motel.”

“But Mom—!”

With a last glance at the door, Mrs. Carey turned and began to descend the stairs.

Leonard waited until they were out of view before opening the door to his own flat.

“Joe?” he said, keeping his voice soft. The room was still, and the sunlight through the curtains fell in unmoving slants. “Joe?”

He was not at all surprised when the balcony door opened, and Joe peered inside.

“They’ve left,” Leonard said.

“Thank God,” Joe muttered. He took off his wig and immediately put it back on. “How did they find—? Nevermind. I can’t let them see me like this. I can’t let them see.” His hands trembled.

“I didn’t know you were married.”

“She should’ve divorced me a long time ago.”

“I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

Joe’s eyes were helpless. “I thought it’d be best for them. I thought they’d move on.”

“Your daughter clearly has,” Leonard said coolly. “And I’m sorry your wife hasn’t.”

He went to the kitchen to mix himself a drink. He clenched at the glass and wished, as he had many times before, that it would break, that the sides would shatter in a starburst of glass.

He went back to the sitting room with two glasses.

“What did you say about Mary?” Joe said.

Leonard shook his head sharply. “Never mind.” He took a deep breath. “It’s all a bit much.”

Joe nodded in agreement. “I’ll take a week’s leave,” he muttered. “Go a few cities west and stay in a motel. They’ll be gone by then. They can’t stay here forever.”

“Your wife has been tracking you down for more than ten years.”

Joe’s face scrunched. “I know.”

“Actually,” Leonard said after a moment, “is it so bad? I mean, that you like to dress up as a woman.” Leonard shrugged. “Tons of married men have weird tastes. I’m sure you’re not the only one.”

“It’s not just that. It’s the whole thing. Being married, and… I can’t stand it. I don’t want any of it. I do love her. Just not the way she wants me to. I told her so in my goodbye note—I even told her to get herself a divorce—but I guess she read it the wrong way.” Joe stopped to chuckle, and Leonard responded with a faint smile.

“I could run away again,” said Joe. “Just disappear, like I did the first time.”

You can’t escape, Mrs. Watson had said. Unless you die.

Joe buried his head in his hands again and groaned miserably.

Leonard stirred. “You don’t have to go out of town,” he said. “You can stay here for a week.”

Joe looked up. “Here?”

“Here. In my flat. For a week, or two, or however long it takes.”

“You’ll let me?” Joe’s face collapsed with relief. “For however—”

“Yes,” Leonard said, cutting Joe off. He stood. There was still a good amount of brandy left in his glass. He threw it back and swallowed it in one harsh gulp.

“You’re okay with this?” Joe said. His voice was soft, but deep, not like the voice that would have matched the black wig and lipsticks. Leonard felt himself shiver and was glad his back was turned, so he would not have to see if Joe had noticed.

“I am.”

“We’d better tell Joanne, then,” Joe said excitedly. He got up and straightened his wig. “I don’t think she’d mind, but I’ve found that she minds less if you tell her things right away.”

“I don’t know if—” Leonard began, but stopped.

There was a small cluster of people on the second floor. They were all tenants of the building, Leonard recognized. Mrs. Watson’s tenants.

“What happened?” Joe asked.

The door was still open, although someone—the police, perhaps—had sealed it off with yellow caution tape.

“It was the crane.”

“No,” someone countered. “It was the piano.”

“How could it have been the piano?”

The china set was still there, and the elaborate cabinets covered with ornaments were untouched. The deep, snow-white rug hadn’t moved, and Leonard, in a moment of distraction, noticed the cat curled up under one of the chairs. But what held his attention was the thing in the center of the room: the table with its bloodstained cloth, and tarot cards strewn in the hardening muck.

***

Mrs. Watson’s nephew appeared less than twelve hours after being notified that his aunt had been killed by a falling piano. He was as squat as he had been in the photo taken in his adolescent years, and his eyes had, if anything, gotten meaner.

Leonard had answered the door because the knocking on the other side of the landing had been loud enough to wake the dead. At least, it had woken him, and he did not think, with the hangover drilling a hole in his head, that he could possibly stand the same knocking on his own door. He’d gotten up, wondered whether or not to wake Joe, heard the knocking again, tossed a blanket over Joe’s lightly snoring face, and went to answer the door.

“Are you also paying only a hundred dollars a month?” Theophilus Watson barked.

“Yeah?”

“Un-be-liev-able,” Watson muttered. He turned to go.

“Is that it?” Leonard said incredulously. “And who the hell are you?”

Watson’s grin was almost ghastly. “Theophilus Watson. Your new landlord.”

Leonard stared at the retreating, sweat-stained back, and wondered if Mrs. Watson’s predictions could hold true even with her death.

The previous night, after the police had finished their interviewing, Joe had carried out an exodus of his refrigerator’s contents, and Leonard had tasted for the first time the wonders of foie gras and mille feuilles. In return, Leonard had decided to show Joe how to drink hot whiskey.

“It’d be better if we had a lemon, but this is good as well.”

Joe took his glass gingerly.

“It’s not that hot,” Leonard said.

“I know,” said Joe. “I got scalded once when I was a kid. I was six, I think. I knocked a big bowl of French onion soup all over myself. Mostly here,” he said, tracing a line from his rib to his hip.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. I’ve still a scar,” said Joe. “It’s huge and ugly.”

They both chuckled, and Leonard wondered what it looked like, and wondered if Joe, when taking off his shirt at the pool, in the shower, the bedroom, would put an arm in instinctive self-consciousness over the discolored patch.

“Still can’t believe it happened,” Joe murmured.

“No.”

“I mean, the chances of it having happened!”

“She couldn’t have known.”

Joe gave a bark of laughter. “Known? I mean, how frequent are falling pianos?”

Leonard felt his lips twitch with the hint of a smile. Mrs. Watson had been querying the cards moments before the piano swung through the window and killed her. Was that what she had been asking, what her death would be? Had she seen the piano on the street and felt a chill clutch her spine? He could see her, bent over the table, going through hand after hand, as if she could somehow flush away the Major Arcana of death that was turning up again and again…

“I wonder who’s taking over the apartment,” said Joe.

“Her nephew.”

“How’d you know?”

Leonard shrugged. “Just a guess.”

They had another glass of whiskey before Leonard decided, feeling only slightly dizzy, that they should move on to some Drambuie.

“We’re drinking to get drunk,” Leonard declared when he came back.

“I figured,” Joe said. He hiccupped.

“I’ve always wanted to throw something onto the street,” Leonard said. “Something made of glass. Like this.” He lifted his shot glass. It had a picture of a camel on it, and said ‘DUBAI’ underneath.

“Mm,” said Joe. “I can’t believe the piano didn’t break.”

“But the crane broke.”

“The crane broke,” Joe agreed.

“The piano didn’t.”

“The piano… What’s Mary like?”

“Who?”

“Mary,” Joe repeated.

Leonard remembered, finally. “Your daughter?”

Joe nodded. “Does she look like me?”

Leonard stared. Joe looked back, his wide hazel eyes unblinking, and for a long moment, Leonard forgot that he was supposed to be making a comparison.

“She’s blond,” Leonard said at last. He tried to think of something to add, but could only remember bony elbows and knees with pink skin.

“I was blond too when I was a kid,” Joe said, sounding a little defensive. “They said that she had my face. Maybe that’s a bad thing. I don’t know.”

They were silent for a moment, both waiting for something. And then,

“How’s Anita?”

“Your wife?” said Leonard, and wished he hadn’t said it. “She looked good.”

“Yeah, Anita’s a worrier. I used to tease her about it, but she didn’t like to be teased. Actually I don’t like to be teased either,” Joe added. “She’s thirty-five this year. Her birthday’s in December. December fifth, exactly.”

Joe took another mouthful from the tumbler. Leonard watched.

“Mary… Mary could do anything. She only started walking a few months before I left, but she could do it before that. She just didn’t want to. But one day when the boy next door was over, he took her doll or something, and she got up and was running after him like she’d done it every day.”

“You miss them.”

“Yes. Yes, I miss them.” Joe’s eyes were getting puffy. “At first it wasn’t so bad, and then… and you’ve no idea—”

He sniffed, trailed off into a silence.

“You could probably meet them without them knowing,” said Leonard.

Joe looked up, eyes unfocused. “Huh?”

“You know, dressed as Audrey and all.”

“Audrey?”

Leonard supposed Joe wasn’t used to getting pissed. “You know—wig, makeup? What you’re wearing now?”

“But… I can’t let them see me!”

“They won’t know it’s you,” Leonard said slowly, as though to a kindergartener, and went up to get some Cointreau as Joe processed this.

Another shot later, Leonard was aware of the world spinning very steadily around his head. He was also staring at Joe, who was babbling something about plants, and realizing that he was feeling oddly less content than usual when at this stage of drunkenness.

“She wanted me to get a real job, too,” Joe slurred. “Plants aren’t real jobs, ‘pparently.”

“Yeah,” said Leonard. “So you’re not…”

“Didn’t know how to water plants either. Flooded them. Killed them in a week.” A hiccup. “S’ I had to take the fig along. I’d had it for ages and, you know, there’s its baby out back.”

“I don’t get it,” Leonard muttered.

“Huh?”

“Nevermind,” said Leonard, staggering up. It was a long walk to the kitchen, and when he came back with a glass of water, Joe was half asleep and mumbling to himself on the chaise lounge.

“Get up,” Leonard said. “It’s too cold here.”

Joe muttered something incoherent. Leonard managed to haul an arm over his shoulders.

“C’mon, just a bit more…”

An interminable time later, Joe was a feebly moving lump on the covers, and Leonard was trying to hold a glass of water steady.

“Drink,” he instructed.

Joe drank. His body was curled up as though he were six years old and not in his mid-thirties with hair that was already receding. Leonard took the glass, dropped it, swore, decided he was too tired to pick it up, and wandered to the other side of the bed.

“Mm,” Joe muttered.

“Joe,” Leonard said. The world was spinning, but that was okay, because Joe’s face, with its eyes half closed and lips curled in a smile, was spinning with it. “You’re not… not gay, are you?”

“Mm,” Joe said again, and Leonard left it at that.

*** 

The moment Theophilius Watson was gone, Leonard leaned against the wall and let out a deep moan. His temples were killing him. He’d also stepped in a puddle of water when he’d gotten out of the bed. And, worst of all, there was a puddle of vomit on the other side.

“Joe?” he called, wincing. “Joe!”

Half an hour later, they were both seated at the dinner table and looking like victims of a nuclear holocaust.

Joe groaned. “My God…”

“Maybe we should have a hair of the dog,” said Leonard.

“Huh?”

“You know. Taking a hair of the dog that bit you last night. To make it better.”

When Joe’s face was still blank, Leonard sighed and said, “Maybe we should have a bit more Drambuie. Just a bit.”

Joe made a sound of such utter despair that Leonard was unsurprised when two crows, perched on the balcony outside, suddenly took wing with loud and menacing caws. He shivered. It was a cold day.

They had leftovers for lunch, which worked out nicely as neither of them had an appetite anyway. Leonard was glad that it was a Saturday, as he could vegetate in front of the television as brainlessly as he wished. He could hear Joe washing the dishes in the kitchen. This, thought Leonard, minus the headache, might very well be domestic bliss. He wondered if there was some way of making Anita Carey stay without her ever coming by.

There was a knock. Leonard sprang to his feet and switched off the television. Joe hadn’t heard it. It came again, and Leonard realized that it was on the neighboring door.

“Joe,” Leonard hissed, “They’re here.”

Joe shut off the water. He looked immediately paler. “Anita?”

Leonard nodded.

“God,” Joe muttered. He yanked off his gloves. “What do I do?”

“Be Audrey,” said Leonard.

“What!”

“I thought you wanted to meet Mary.”

“But they’ll know it’s me!”

“They haven’t seen you in seven years. I’ll say you’re my cousin.”

There was another knock. This time, it was from Leonard’s door.

“Can’t I just stay in the bathroom?” Joe whimpered.

Leonard turned. He wished he didn’t have a headache. “You can do whatever,” he said at last, as the knocking came again. But you can’t escape, he thought.

He looked back to make sure the living room was empty, and opened the door.

“Mr. Bast?” said Anita Carey. “Thank goodness you’re here. Have you seen my husband? Mary, don’t do that.”

“No, I haven’t. Sorry,” he added, when Anita’s face fell almost touchingly.

“I don’t understand. He can’t have known, can he…?”

Leonard made sympathetic sounds. “Would you like something to drink? Some tea, maybe?”

Anita hesitated. “O-oh…”

“Can I use the bathroom?” said Mary. “Please?”

They went into the living room, Leonard leading them as slowly as possible. “Sorry about the mess,” he said, kicking one of Joe’s shoes under the sofa. “I wasn’t expecting to have visitors.” He pointed at the small passageway between the kitchen and his bedroom. “The bathroom’s there.”

Mary went down the hall, tried the door, and came back. Anita remarked on how beautiful the view was; Leonard agreed and hoped that Joe wasn’t planning to hide out in the bathroom the whole time.

“I’ll get you some tea,” said Leonard. “Would you like anything, Mary?”

Mary fidgeted. “No, thanks.”

Leonard went to the kitchen, discretely picked up one of the empty drambuie bottles from the floor, and put on the kettle. He had opened his cabinet, which had twelve varieties of whiskey and three varieties of tea, when he heard the bathroom door open and another set of footsteps down the hall.

“Hello?” said Joe, his voice a soft coo. “Oh my. I didn’t know Leonard was having visitors.”

“Hi Audrey,” said Leonard, nearly bumping into Mary as he stepped out of the kitchen. “This is Audrey, my cousin.”

“How do you do?” said Joe, or Audrey, or whoever it was.

“Oh—very well indeed!” said Anita, a little flustered. Leonard felt he could understand. That night he had first seen Audrey, or Joe, had been a very tipsy one indeed, and the lighting had probably been rather forgiving. Standing as he was in the three-PM sunlight, Joe looked too tall, his skin too painted, and his lipstick much too red. Leonard felt like telling Joe to go back to the bathroom and wash off all the mascara. He did not need a Mrs. Watson look-a-like over the tea table.

They sat down.

“Leonard mentioned your plight to me,” said Joe. “I’m very sympathetic.”

Anita made sounds of acquiescence. “It’s just that the whole thing is such a mess,” she said. “If only I could see him and talk to him! I’m sure we could sort it all out.”

“Yes,” cooed Joe. “But you know men—impossible to talk to.”

“Joe wasn’t like that,” Anita said stoutly. “He always listened.”

“Yes, yes. But…” Joe sighed.

“But what?”

The bathroom door slammed open, and Mary marched back into the living room. Both Joe and Anita straightened in their twenty-dollar chairs, the set of which Leonard had gotten in a garage sale a week ago. There was an awkward silence. Leonard wished Joe would quit staring so much.

“Have you… had a look around town?” Leonard said.

“Not quite,” said Anita. “We’ve been—busy.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Calling everyone in the phone book to ask whether they’ve seen my dad.”

“Mary!”

“My,” said Joe, his exposed chin now very pale, “What dedication!”

The kettle began whistling, and Leonard got to his feet.

“Mary, go help Mr. Bast, please.”

“Oh,” Joe said quickly, “She can stay. Leonard can handle it himself, I’m sure.”

Leonard actually could not, since he had not gotten any tea trays, nor would ever have thought to purchase anything so useless, and so it took him two trips to bring back the three teacups and the one glass of juice.

“What is this?” Mary said, peering suspiciously over the rim.

“Mango juice,” said Leonard.

“Mango juice?”

“Haven’t you had it before?”

Mary shook her head vigorously. She tried it and smiled. “Wicked!”

“Mary…”

“Wicked’s not a bad word,” Mary protested.

Anita gave a deep sigh and looked up to her right, trying to exchange a long-suffering glance with a fellow woman. Joe, however, had a rather funny smile on his face, which Leonard knew, with an answering twinge in his chest, wasn’t a smile at all.

“Say ‘thank you’ to Mr. Bast.”

“Thank you Mr. Bast,” Mary said dutifully.

Leonard smiled. He decided he liked Mary. She evidently hadn’t been stifled by her mother’s henning.

“D’you have any other unique flavors besides mango, Mr. Bast?”

“Mary!”

“I’m afraid not,” said Leonard.

“It must be… incredibly difficult for you,” said Joe. “Having to raise her by yourself, I mean.”

“Oh, believe me,” said Anita, “it is.”

“You know, I do know what it’s like. My mother raised my brother and me by herself.”

“Oh?” said Anita. “That’s interesting, because Joe was also raised by only his mother.”

Leonard and Joe both exclaimed variations of “Really!” and “Interesting!” in surprised voices. Leonard was feeling as though someone both blindfolded and drunk was waving a scalpel behind his neck.

At this point, Mary interrupted. “Mom, can I go to the balcony?”

“You’d better ask Mr. Bast that,” said Anita.

“Of course,” said Leonard, and added quickly, “though I should take a look first,” because he wasn’t sure if he had cleared away the shot glasses and overturned Drambuie bottles. He got up and regretted it after catching the stricken look Joe sent him. Well, there wasn’t much he could do, Leonard thought. He’d pick up the pieces one way or another.

“I’ll be on the balcony,” Leonard called and shut the screen door.

“Hey, look,” said Mary, pointing down from the railing. “You could just drop your trash into the dump. You’d never have to take it down.”

Leonard smiled. He watched her clamber across the railing and stop on the side facing Joe’s balcony.

“Whose plants are those?” Mary said. She realized before Leonard answered. “They’re my dad’s, aren’t they?” she said flatly.

Leonard said they were. Mary stood looking at them for some time. Then she noticed the fire escape. “Hey, look at that. You can just climb over onto his balcony.” A pause. “D’you think it’d be all right if I went over?”

“I don’t think that’s really polite…”

“Well, my dad’s not home, so he wouldn’t know,” Mary said, “and if he is home, then he’s being really rude, not answering us.” With that, she swung herself onto the fire escape and was soon brushing aside the bromeliad leaves. Leonard followed, suddenly feeling very sympathetic towards Mrs. Carey.

It was the first time Leonard had been on Joe’s balcony. It felt surprisingly spacious for the amount of branches and leaves that were snatching at his clothes. His own balcony seemed desolate by comparison.

“I guess he does love his plants,” said Mary.

“Yeah,” said Leonard. He wondered what Joe would say if he accidentally pushed one of the begonias off the balcony. He wondered, too, what Joe had really felt about the death of his fig, the only thing he’d taken from his old life.

“He doesn’t lock his balcony door, either,” said Mary.

“I don’t think…” said Leonard, but Mary had already slipped inside. This was too much, he decided. “Mary!” he called, entering after her.

Mary was hovering at the entrance. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s probably not a good idea to go wandering into someone else’s flat while they’re not there,” said Leonard. He glanced about, making sure in that brief moment that Joe hadn’t left something incriminating around, like a discarded wig.

“Even if it’s my father’s?”

Leonard hesitated. “Even if it’s your father’s,” he said, but noticed that Mary was half-smiling.

“Well, I’m kind of used to not having him around. So it’ll be okay.”

“Indeed,” said Leonard, not sure what he could say in reply.

She lingered at the doorway. Leonard followed her glance, hoping she hadn’t found a filled-up bra or some other bric-a-brac Joe had left lying around. Instead, she was staring at an oversized teabag the color of an exploded pomegranate.

“‘MRS. WATSON’S FINAL SOLUTION,’” said Mary.

Leonard nearly jumped. “What?”

Mary must have caught the change in his voice, because her next words sounded suspicious and innocent all at once. “That’s what it says. Right here.” She pointed, without touching, the little tea bag.

Leonard picked it up. The words were in a fancy, curling font that would not be out of place in front of saloons in an old Western. Mrs. Watson’s Final Solution, it said across the top. The bottom half, where Leonard expected to see a picture, was left suspiciously blank. He turned it over. 1. Open package, it said. 2. Put in boiling water. 3. Enjoy. Below that were three lines. To err is human; to forgive, divine; to forget, what could be better?

Leonard put it down quickly. For a moment, he wanted to drop it over the railing and watch it flutter into the dump. But he didn’t. He only muttered that it was interesting, herded Mary across the fire escape, and suppressed the feeling that he had left a ticking bomb in Joe’s flat.

He pushed open the screen door and stopped short at the sight of both Joe (or Audrey) and Anita sobbing over the tea table.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bast,” said Anita, frenziedly dabbing her eyes. “P-please excuse us.”

“Oh no, take your time,” said Leonard, retreating awkwardly and wondering just what Joe was doing with his wife.

Some minutes later, during which Leonard had to warn Mary off the railing three times, they heard Anita calling, “Mary! Time to go. Mary!”

There was more dallying at the entrance.

“It’s been so good talking to you, Audrey, so good,” said Anita, still dabbing her eyes. “V-very few people understand what’s it like to be… to be in such a situation.”

Joe made soothing noises. Leonard felt he was watching a high wire act as Joe petted Anita’s back and guided her to the door.

“Thank you for having us, Mr. Bast,” said Audrey. “Actually, Mary and I will be staying here for the week, at least.”

“Oh!” said Joe. “How lovely,” he added with, in Leonard’s opinion, a rather ghastly smile.

“I would love to have you and Mr. Bast over for tea, perhaps tomorrow?”

“Oh, that would be… that would be lovely, but… well, I’m afraid…”

“Unfortunately, Audrey’s booked with me already,” Leonard said. “We’re going spend the whole day with an old friend. He’s in town this week.”

“Oh,” said Anita, looking rather put out. “Well, maybe some other time.”

Joe and Leonard made sounds of agreement, and Anita turned to go. “Mary! We’re leaving now!”

“I know, Mom,” said Mary from two landings below.

Anita thanked them once more, assured Audrey that her ear and shoulder were a tremendous balm to her difficulties, and hurried after her daughter, who had disappeared completely down the stairwell.

A few seconds later, Joe and Leonard were both collapsed on the sofa in the living room. Joe, though Leonard, looked as though he’d survived a six-year war by hiding in someone’s storm cellar.

“Well, that’s that,” said Leonard.

Joe tilted his head in a brief, infinitesimal nod.

They had microwavable pizza for dinner. Leonard didn’t comment when Joe slipped out to eat, and wasn’t much surprised to find Joe staring across the fire escape at the ferns and bromeliads on his balcony.

“Want some?” said Leonard, holding up the scotch.

Joe shook his head.

“Just a bit?”

Leonard poured out a second glass. After a moment’s hesitation, Joe accepted. They drank in silence. Or, rather, Leonard drank and wondered if Joe would ever stop staring tragically at the ferns.

“Thinking?” said Leonard at last.

“Yeah.”

“Just curious, what did you tell Anita?”

Joe shrugged. “That I… understood, I guess.”

“Hmm. Do you?”

Joe laughed, a bit hysterically. “Do I understand?” he echoed. “I… I don’t know.”

Leonard waited. The night was not as cold as the day had promised, but it was cool enough that Leonard was glad to have the scotch.

“She’s going to stay here for a week, but what if that week turns into a month? Two months?”

“She’ll have to go back at one point,” said Leonard.

“You don’t know her,” said Joe. His eyes were large and round and looked to be brimming with tears, even though he’d barely finished his first glass. “Back when we’d just met—”

He stopped.

“Drink,” said Leonard.

“What?”

“It’ll make things easier.”

Joe chuckled incredulously. “Are you trying to turn me into an alcoholic?”

Leonard only smiled wryly. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Joe drank. Leonard held out the scotch bottle and filled Joe’s glass.

“Anyway, you don’t know Anita. She’s the sort of person who can look at a blank sheet of paper and read something off of it. She’d never accept that I’m not her Joe, whatever that’s supposed to mean. But at the same time—” Joe faltered. “I can’t let her know! I can’t.”

“Mm.”

“And Mary! Mary— Oh, God.” Joe was almost sobbing.

An hour later, the scotch was gone. Leonard tucked the bottle under the chair and listened to Joe repeat everything Anita had said about Mary’s skinned knees and skirmishes at school.

“And I wasn’t th-there for her!”

“Shh,” Leonard soothed.

“Would it be nice if you could just forget it, you know? Forget everything.”

Leonard froze.

“Forget?”

Joe looked up, having caught the shift in Leonard’s voice. “Yeah, forget.”

“Is that one of…” Leonard paused, making sure to get the words right, “‘Mrs. Watson’s Final Solutions? To err, human; to forgive, divine; to forget, what could be better?’”

Joe’s mouth had dropped open. He gurgled. “How did…?”

“I followed Mary onto your balcony. Don’t worry, I don’t think she saw anything else.”

“Oh,” said Joe, after a long pause had passed.

Leonard wondered, in the silence, what he might say. Something to convince Joe that the desire for disremembrance was a soft and deadly snake. Sadly, he realized he himself didn’t know why that was so—and, moreover, weren’t his scotch and whiskey also means of forgetting? He didn’t know why the little tea bag filled him with terror. He glanced at Joe’s mouth, which was soft and puckered in a slight frown, and his eyes, which still had traces of mascara at the edges, and got to his feet.

“It’s late,” said Leonard. “Last night was pretty rough.”

“Yeah.”

“Where’re you going?”

Joe paused, one foot on the fire escape. “I thought I could just sleep in my own flat. I don’t think they’d come during the night, and I’ve been such a bother…”

“Stay.”

Joe stopped. “I couldn’t...”

“You can.”

They were quiet. Leonard’s words hung between them, like invisible strings in an old clock. Leonard waited, held Joe’s eyes in the darkness, felt sweat prickle his skin.

“I…”

“Come on,” he said. Joe stepped up from the fire escape. As Leonard shut the screen door behind them, he felt his heart racing.

“I’ll just sleep on the sofa, then.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I’m the one inconveniencing you, I don’t want you to sleep on the couch.”

“I won’t.”

Joe’s eyes were stretched to the size of lemons. Leonard wished he could say something or make a soothing gesture or otherwise dispel the anxiety and uncertainty, but his own heart was at the back of his throat, and he wasn’t sure he could open his mouth without making an odd croak.

“I—I’m not—”

Leonard swallowed. “Not what?” When Joe didn’t answer, he added, “Gay?”

Joe’s head inclined a fraction of an inch. Or it tilted to the side, Leonard couldn’t be sure; all he knew was that the pounding in his temples was making it hard to think yet strangely easy for words to lurch out of his mouth, and he said,

“Then you’re not. I don’t care, it doesn’t—doesn’t matter. But you’re scared. And you ran away from your wife and daughter and do nothing but water plants all day like some old queen, and… God”—Leonard shut his eyes but forced them open again—“you’re pathetic, but I still like you, I like you a lot, and I’ll put up with whatever shit you’ve got for as long as you need, and I’m—”

Then he ran out of things to say. Joe stared, and Leonard took a deep breath, hoping something would fall out of his brain and land on his tongue just to cover up the silence that was scaring him to death.

“You’re—?”

Leonard shut his mouth with a click. “I’m no better,” he said.

“What?”

“Just— Never mind.”

They were silent. Then Joe got up, moved to the bathroom. “D’you have a spare toothbrush?”

Leonard didn’t. He dawdled in the kitchen, refusing to wait on the balcony, and felt ridiculously relieved when Joe returned with the toothbrush and a half-hesitant smile.

Fifteen minutes later, Leonard was waiting in his old pajamas, which had a hole or two and stains he hoped Joe wouldn’t notice. He sat very still. Joe emerged, and Leonard had the oddest feeling that they were in a nursery from the amount of pajamas they were wearing.

“G’night,” said Leonard. The lights went out.

“Night.”

He pulled back the duvet and slid in. The sheets felt cold. He was surprised by his own daring when he reached across the bed. Joe felt warm and solid. They were as quiet as the dead, but Leonard was listening to their breathing, each breath a monument as he drew closer. Arm reached around chest now, and Leonard was so hard it hurt, so careful not to touch Joe with his erection that his arched back hurt too, but it was okay, because he couldn’t remember having felt this way before, couldn’t remembering being so happy to be in such discomfort. He stared at the darkness of the back of Joe’s head and fell asleep listening to their breathing.

  ***

They awoke the next morning once again to loud knocking. Joe scurried into the bathroom, but there was no need, because it wasn’t Anita or Mary at the door. It was Theophilius Watson.

“What’s this?” said Leonard, trying to make sense of the paper Watson thrust at him the moment he opened the door.

“Your eviction notice.”

Leonard stared. “You can’t do that. My lease goes till next year.”

“It would’ve if my aunt had filed everything right away,” Watson said, leering. “But she didn’t. So you’ve only a week.”

“Wait a minute,” said Leonard. He stepped onto the landing, wishing his head were clearer. Theophilius waited, fat arms crossed and a gloating smile on his face. Leonard swallowed the urge to punch that smile and said, “What’re you raising the rent to?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” said Watson. “I’m kicking you out.”

“Why?”

Watson stopped with one foot off the landing. He turned and seemed to brace himself. “I don’t want any faggots living in my building,” he growled. Then he was gone.

Leonard stood for a moment in silence. Then he went to the bathroom and knocked the door. “It’s not them,” he called.

Joe came out, wig in hand. “Oh, good,” he said. “Who was it, then?”

The words seemed to stick in Leonard’s throat. “The nephew. He’s kicking me out.”

“What?”

“He’s kicking me out because—” He stopped, and it took a moment before he could go on.

Joe paled. “Oh,” he said at length.

“So I’ve a week,” he said.

“A week? But…”

“Yes,” Leonard said shortly. “A week.”

He went to the kitchen. A week— That was all he had.

“That’s discrimination,” Joe said, coming to the counter. “You can’t be allowed to do that.”

“No, but what am I going to do? Sue him?” Leonard laughed bitterly. “If I’d enough money for that, I wouldn’t be living here.”

Joe was silent. “He said—” He stopped.

“Yes,” Leonard said, nodding slowly. “I guess, once your guys’ lease expires…”

The cards had said forever! Leonard thought angrily. This had only been two weeks. Now he’d have to leave, search once more for a place that’d have him. It’d be zero all over again. It was unbearable, even after so much, that life could be so cruel. But he’d no choice. And just last night—

He swallowed, turned to watch Joe stare into space, his face pale and set.

“I’ll probably hide out in one of the motels, stay out of your way,” said Joe. “I wish I could help you move out and try to find somewhere, but…”

“Yeah,” said Leonard. It’d been accident that’d brought them together. Accident, and the tinkering of a nervous old woman who was now dead.

They had lunch. Joe watered his plants. Leonard sat in front of the television until he could bear it no more and went to his telephone book. He thumbed through to the ads, shut the book, and wished that Joe were inside.

Something had to change.

Dinner was some sort of pasta, which Joe made with eggs and little green things, and a nice red wine from Naples. Joe complimented the wine, and Leonard remarked on the pasta, and he could tell neither of them wanted the silence that fell, as still as a head of lettuce, but which fell regardless.

It was midnight. An hour of staring indecisively at the screen door and thumbing through the phone book without reading, Leonard went onto the balcony. Joe was on the chaise lounge, a book about orchids, their petals, and their sex lives in his hands.

“Hi,” said Leonard.

“Hi.”

Leonard sat. “Good book?”

“It’s absorbing,” said Joe, not very convincingly.

“Mm.” Leonard shifted. “I’ve been doing a bit of thinking.”

“Yeah?”

He took a deep breath. “I thought it might be easier for things if we kind of stuck together. You know, with finding a flat, that kind of thing. Seeing how Mrs. Watson’s nephew is such a bastard, unless you guys do something, when your lease comes up next year—”

Joe looked away. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Leonard said as well, said it again, waited for the words he’d offered to disintegrate. He was already wishing miserably for the conversation to be over.

“It’d be tough to find another place like this,” said Joe. “I mean, this balcony is amazing, really. It’s huge. Great for my plants. And there’s so many windows, too.”

“Yeah.”

“And this job is great… Both jobs, actually. So I really don’t know what I’m going to do at the end of this week.” Joe looked up. He was smiling helplessly. “I can’t keep taking days off, and Anita said that they have all summer for this.”

“All summer?”

“Yeah—three months. I don’t know what I can do. I can’t keep my job if I keep calling in sick, but I can’t let her know. Something has to give.”

Something has to give. Leonard swallowed. He’d come with the proposal, half expecting it to fail, that they jump ship and go, but he hadn’t thought that it might fail because of this. Something had to give, and seeing the hollow look on Joe’s face, knowing that it must be on his as well, he realized that there was no hope for them. It was they who would once again run, once again hide and deny themselves…

Wouldn’t it be so much easier to forget, to let it all go? Leonard balked. Turned cold at the thought. But they were trapped. There was no way out.

He went back inside, but stopped at the entrance.

“I’m going to bed,” he said.

Joe turned. “Good night.”

“Yeah, night.” He paused. “I won’t be bothered if you come.”

Joe nodded.

Leonard lay awake, even though he was so numb and tired that even the slightest inattention would’ve tilted him into sleep. But he pulled back every time, jerking awake at sounds real or imagined. The room flattened into a shadowy half-sleep. Then the door opened, and Leonard felt the bed depress with the heat of another body, one that accepted the arm he offered. He slipped into sleep, and the fuschia teabag spread its terrible wings. One moment Leonard was sitting with Joe in the kitchen, and in the next, they were on the balcony, trying to dodge the dangerous edges of the floating teabag. Or was it falling? At any rate, it was pulling the figs off the edge. You can’t do that! Leonard shouted. You’re dead! He wasn’t sure what happened next, except that the teabag changed color and began to look like one of the large slabs of mascara hanging from Mrs. Watson’s face. This time, the slab did slide off, and Leonard realized with a sinking feeling that it would break into pieces when it hit the cement under his balcony. The question was, would he hear it? would his eyes be open or closed?...

 ***

Leonard woke up woolly-headed and tired and almost regretting having Joe in close proximity: it hadn’t been evident last night or the night before, but Joe was a snorer.

Work began without coffee. The only tea available (“Soothing Hibiscus”) was packaged in suspiciously violent shades of pink. Leonard had a strong sense of foreboding as he brewed it, and felt almost fatalistic as he stared out the window, the simmering liquid at his lips. A crow flew past. He drank.

The sunlight, saturated with hues of orange, slanted against the buildings at oblique angles when he left. It seemed determined to turn his attention to the walls, the complex hieroglyphics of graffiti and cracks. He stopped in front of the Hotel California. There, written to the side, was a message he’d never seen before: SOMETHING HAS TO GIVE.

Someone tapped his shoulder. Leonard jerked around.

“Help me carry?” said Ozaku, pointing to a large cardboard box swathed in wrapping paper.

“Sure,” said Leonard, still a bit unsteady.

They struggled up the three flights of stairs, Leonard behind, Ozaku ahead.

“So what is this thing anyway?” Leonard puffed.

Ozaku muttered something in an apologetic voice.

“What was that?”

Another unintelligible response. Leonard found out soon enough in Ozaku’s doorway. Part of the wrapping paper got caught and ripped away enough to reveal a large black grill.

“Barbecue,” Ozaku barked.

“Oh, nice,” said Leonard. “Do you need me to help you get it onto the balcony?”

“No, no,” said Ozaku, and Leonard found himself fairly pushed out the door. “Thank you! Thank you!” The door shut.

Leonard felt a chill creep down his back. He remembered what Mrs. Watson had said about Ozaku’s proclivities. Maybe she was wrong. After all, she was wrong about a lot of other things. But it was enough to make the silence of the stairwell heavy and tomb-like. Leonard climbed the last flight slowly, which was probably a good thing, as it alerted him of the fact that Joe wasn’t the only one waiting in his flat.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Bast! We were wondering when you’d be back.”

Leonard mustered a smile. “Hello, Mrs. Carey.”

“Say ‘hello,’ Mary!”

Mary looked up. Her eyes were half-lidded with boredom. “Hi Mr. Bast.”

“Mary!”

“Where’s Audrey?” said Leonard.

“Oh, I think she’s in the kitchen. She said she was making tea.”

“Ah,” said Leonard.

“She’s actually on the balcony,” Mary piped up.

“Mary!”

“You’re facing away from the balcony, Mom,” said Mary, sounding immensely bored. “Of course you didn’t see her.”

“Oh, come, Mary, why would Audrey go on the balcony while making tea? But it has been a while,” said Anita. She leaned forward and dropped her voice. “Is Audrey quite well? She seemed a bit distressed this morning.”

“Morning?”

“Yes, we came as soon as we could,” said Anita, beaming. “I even brought some chicken for lunch and pecan pie for dessert.”

“Ah,” said Leonard. “How—nice.” He looked down quickly. Joe had just appeared on the balcony and was now creeping through the doorway.

“Let me—let me go check on the tea,” said Leonard.

“Can I go with you?” said Mary, halfway out of the chair.

“No! I mean, don’t worry about it,” Leonard finished lamely, and hurried out.

He found Joe standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking more like a scarecrow than a man. Leonard took one glance at the empty mug, the kettle on low boil, Joe’s bloodless and mascaraed face, and snatched the undeniably fuschia teabag out of his hand. It was, he saw, thankfully unopened. He flung it onto the counter before dragging Joe into the hallway.

“It’ll be just a minute!” Leonard shouted.

He almost slammed the door. “Were you going to drink that?”

Joe set his jaw defiantly. His face was pasty under the wig and awful patches of mascara. “Maybe,” he said.

“Do you realize what’d happen? You’d forget everything! What if you forget who you are, everything about yourself?”

“I wouldn’t know if I did.”

Leonard buried his face in his hands. Then he looked up. “They were here all morning, weren’t they?” A nod. “It was awful, wasn’t it?” Another nod. “Just tell them.”

Joe choked back a sob. “I can’t!”

“You can. Or I’ll tell them.”

“No!”

“I will. You need to escape. It’s the only way.”

“I can’t…”

“I’ll tell them for you. I’ll say it. I’ll do it for you.”

Joe was trembling like a leaf. “I—no.” He grabbed Leonard’s arm with both hands. “Leonard, please, don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it…”

Leonard swallowed. “I’m here,” he said, and then Joe was in his arms, shuddering. “It’ll be okay. I’m here.”

When Joe pulled back, enough of his face was stuck to Leonard’s shirt that he actually looked recognizable.

“You can wait here,” Leonard offered. “I’ll go tell them, and we’ll go from there.”

Joe took off his wig. “Okay,” he said. “Just… tell me when to come out.”

Leonard nodded. He took a deep breath. “Here goes,” he muttered.

He opened the door.

The flat was empty.

“Anita?” he called. The hallway was empty. “Ani—”

He stopped. Anita and Mary were standing in the doorway of the kitchen, looking at him with curiously blank faces. Leonard frowned. “Anita?”

They looked at each other. “Are you talking to me?” Mary said, finally, “Or her? It’s her, isn’t it?”

Leonard swallowed hard. “I’m talking,” he said slowly, “to your mother.”

Mary blinked at him. “My mom?”

Leonard wiped his palms against his shirt. “Excuse me,” he said, and walked into the kitchen. “Fuck,” he whispered. There, on the kitchen counter, were two empty mugs. Between them was the opened teabag of Mrs. Watson’s Final Solution. He whirled at Mary. “Did you do this?” he demanded, pointing at the empty teabag.

“Excuse me!” said Anita, sounding extremely shocked. “Did you just use strong profanity in this young lady’s vicinity?”

Mary, looking rather terrified, gave a small nod.

Leonard groaned. The groan intensified when angry knocking began resounding from the front door.

“Who the hell is that?” he muttered, going into the living room.

The knocking became even louder.

“COMING!” Leonard roared and swung the door open.

He was greeted by Theophilius Watson’s purpling face. “You faggot!” Watson shrieked, waving a sheaf of papers in the air. “Do you know what that old hag did? Do you? Have you any idea what that bitch did, hmm? Do you—”

Leonard lunged. Watson yelped and tripped over himself backwards.

“What’d she do?” Leonard snapped, looking through the papers. “What the hell is this?”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” Watson barked, “It’s a legal document giving this whole building to you pussies for the rest of your fucking lives!” Theophilius Watson balled his hands into fists and began punching the air. “It isn’t fair!” Tears leaked from his eyes. “It isn’t fucking fair! I’ve been waiting for ages for the old hag to kick the bucket, and I don’t even get anything!”

Then, the air exploded. Leonard fell to the ground. He wondered if he was going to die. Abruptly, it ended. A long moment later, he removed his hands from his ears, and heard the answering crash of plants that’d been shocked off Joe’s balcony.

Leonard got up and leaned over the railing. The door to Ozaku’s apartment had been blown right off. Half a second later, the charred black body of the barbecue grill came rolling onto the landing.

“Shit,” Leonard muttered. “Someone call—!”

“We’re gonna die!” Watson blubbered, his eyes two frenzied ping-pong balls going beserk in his sockets, his fat little hands gripping Leonard’s shoulders with convulsive strength. “Oh my God! We’re gonna die!”

Leonard pulled back his fist, aimed, and landed a very sloppy punch. It did the job, however, because Watson gave a little squeak and collapsed. Leonard hobbled over the body, slammed the door behind, and stopped.

Joe was standing in the middle of the living room. Leonard couldn’t tell if he was trembling in shock or fury.

“It was Ozaku,” Leonard said. “His barbecue exploded. We have to call the police.” He took a step further, but stopped. “They drank it when we were inside,” he added, trying not to sound too shaken. “They don’t know anything anymore.”

“I saw.”

Leonard hesitated. “I’m sorry.”

He went quickly to the phone and dialed the police. He said everything very fast, hoped he’d given the right address, and returned the phone to its cradle.

He went to the kitchen.

“Excuse me?” Anita said, standing up. “The other man wouldn’t tell me who he is, but I’m certain I’ve seen him somewhere before. Do you happen to know his name, and, really, why we’re in his apartment right now?”

“I think he’s kind of familiar too,” Mary added.

Anita frowned at the girl. Leonard let himself be pulled aside. “And I’d like to have a word with that girl’s parents,” Anita whispered. “She has the most forward disposition I’ve ever encountered.” Leonard watched, fascinated, when Anita froze. “She is… rather familiar, though,” she said, troubled. “Very familiar, in fact…”

Leonard freed himself. “Excuse me,” he said. He was almost out of the kitchen when he stopped and took the scotch and pair of shot glasses.

Joe was standing at the railing, looking at the sky.

“Hey,” said Leonard.

Joe didn’t respond.

“I called the police. I guess they’ll be here soon.”

The air was almost cold.

“So what’re you going to tell them? Joe?”

Joe shuddered. He turned and stepped away without accepting the glass that Leonard held, offering. “The truth,” he said flatly. “Who I really am. Their husband, their father.” He disappeared into the room.

 

Leonard shuddered. He didn’t understand. And yet he did. In that moment, more than any other, he was aware of the terrible distance between them, like the pit from balcony to balcony, bridged by only a twist of metal, a rusted thread through the air. Leonard looked back over the edge in time to see the flash of sirens and hear their wail echo deafeningly through the alleys and blind ends of the slums and streets. There were four flights between his hand and the ground. He wondered what Mrs. Watson’s cards might have said, if there was any hope, for there must still be hope. This couldn’t be the end. He let go of the shot glass—and waited.

 

© Corvus

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