Did You Hear Me? By Mick Bennett

It’s dusk and Gail’s probably pitching a bitch by now anyway, so Carl stops down the street from their walk-up and takes a moment to examine his new sunburn in the lighted courtesy mirror. He can’t help smiling.

He’s poking his forehead with a finger after parking in the lot when Gail calls out through the bedroom window.

“Carl. Jesus, where have you been?”

He looks up at her. It’s her favorite spot. Barefoot, hair up, in shorts and T-shirt, she holds the screen door open as he comes up the stairs. He moves to hug her, but she wanders to the couch.

“I texted I wouldn’t be back until tonight.” He sits next to her and rolls a fabric pill between his thumb and forefinger before heading into the kitchen and pouring two glasses of wine. Setting Gail’s down on the coffee table, he lights a cigarette. When he rests a hand on her shoulder, she shudders.

“Okay, okay,” he says, holding up his hands. “You’re the one who decided to work this weekend instead of meeting everybody at the beach.”

She stands, closes the front door, and sets the chain lock before snuffing out her cigarette.
“You don’t want your wine?” he calls after her.

No answer.

Realizing he left his travel bag in the car, he heads back to the lot. Looking up, he imagines Gail peering out the window. At least she isn’t raising hell.

***

Unwinding, sipping wine, he hears Gail close the bathroom door. Bath water runs. It’s been months since she moved in. He knows her routine. She’ll soap one leg at a time and shave, splashing spigot water to rinse. She’ll attach the sprayer hose to wash her long hair. Lather, rinse, and repeat.Then she’ll fill the tub with water hot enough to cook an egg and soak.

Finishing his wine, he lights a last cigarette. Its glow brightens the darkening apartment as he inhales. After spinning it out in the ashtray, he follows the line of light coming from under the bathroom door. He stops and puts an ear to it. Nothing.

“Gail?” He knocks.

“I’m here.”

“I’m going to bed. I’m beat.”

“Carl?”

He regards the door. “Yes.”

She continues as if reciting a recipe.

“Last night, I stayed late to help Clair out. We had two buses show up unscheduled. After we got things under control, I started home through the alley behind Harding’s. I heard quick steps behind me. Then an arm wrapped around my neck. He held my wrist behind me and said he had a knife. He said he didn’t want to hurt me…”

In the light coming from under the bathroom door he notices flecks of sand atop his feet. One foot brushes the other. After she stops talking, he turns the knob, goes in, and sits on the john. She rests with eyes pinched closed, neck atop a rolled towel. Steam rises around her. His eyes climb aboard one of the wallpaper’s white sailboats. Schooners and sloops sail past red candy-striped lighthouses on an ocean of pale blue.

“You’re okay, aren’t you?” he asks, voice floating. “You look okay. Did you go to the hospital? Tell your mother or the police?”

“I’m fine. No questions or details tonight. Please.”

He paws the toilet paper. It unwinds into a pile on the floor. With two fingers he rhythmically spins it back up, but it tangles and won’t fit back onto the roll. He moves to the tub and sits on it with his back to her.

“One question…”

“Did you hear me?”

She’s more approachable now. More confrontable out of sight. It’s an old, clawfoot tub, white porcelain with a curled-edge rim. “Why the alley?”

“Carl.”

The porcelain’s cool on his palms. His fingers curl under the rim’s edge, and he begins to pull, pull with all his might against his own weight until arms and wrists and hands and fingers scream.

“Carl.”

“Harding’s alley. At night!” he pleads to the towel rack.

“Get the fuck out, Carl!”

From the bathroom he runs to the apartment door where he slaps the chain lock open, but as he reaches for the screen door latch, his hand glances off and bursts through the mesh. Then rushing down the stairs and sprinting on a side street’s center line until a turning car’s high beams find him and he freezes, a fugitive in a spotlight.

***

Blocks from the apartment he lies back on a curb and stares at the sky. Even the stars scold him. Well, this is what karma gets you. Look inside yourself, my friend. It happened, and you couldn’t accept it. You had to put blame on the innocent party.

Walking back, words he wants to say come to him. They form in his mind only to vanish when he wipes sweat from his forehead.

The apartment is dark. Gail isn’t in the living room. He tiptoes to the bathroom and flicks on the light. It streams across their empty bed. Drawers are pulled open. The closet has too many bare hangers bumping ends. He picks up a pair of panties off the carpet and drops them into a drawer. There’s her pillow—the special one with cooling foam. Heartened, he phones her. It goes right to voice mail.
“It’s me. I’m home. I’m incredibly stupid and sorry.”

The bathroom medicine cabinet doesn’t seem to be missing much. Toothpaste, mouthwash, band aids—all there. Her make-up still crowds the vanity’s corner—mascara, eyeliner, small bottles of lotions. Clean, folded wash cloths, body wash, and her bubble bath sit on the shelves she papered two weeks ago.
One toothbrush.

At the door he traces the torn screen with a finger. He tries to tug jagged flaps over space, but the mesh won’t reach. None of it makes sense. Blinking at the darkness, the world sleeping off another weekend, it doesn’t make one bit of goddamn sense.

Michael Bennett

Image: Bathroom taps on white porcelain from pixabay.com