FUGUE

1. Dinnertime

I sit across the table from my husband. It is dinnertime. I made steak and green beans and homestyle potatoes and even clipped two red roses from the bush in the backyard; they stand in a vase between us which is clear so I can watch the stems drift in the water as he speaks.

He puts his elbows on the table. He opens his mouth while he chews. He gesticulates with his fork, prongs out.

Me, I nod and nod. He tells me all about work. The memos are misspelled, he tells me. That new secretary can barely speak. I listen and chew with my mouth closed. The potato, no longer hot, breaks under my teeth, melts across my tongue, my upper lip seals to my bottom lip, and everything is private inside my mouth—loud and powerful and mine. A whole world of noise going on in there that he can’t even hear. Reaching forward, he spears a big piece of potato with his fork. He lifts it up, takes it in, bites down. I watch the food disappearing in his mouth and it’s my food and I bought it and I made it and I have to will my hands to keep still because I think I want to rescue it. I want to rescue my food, thrust an arm across the tablecloth, spill the drifting roses, dodge his molars, avoid his tongue, and seize it back, bring it all out, drag it down into the dish, until there is just a mush of alive potato between us, his stomach empty, my mouth still closed.

2.

Inside the pill factory, the muttering worker was switching things around.

“I’ll put the yellow pills in here,” he said to himself, mutter mutter, “and the white ones in here.” He took the bottles to the child-sealing machine and went home.

Two weeks later, outside in the world, people with prescriptions fell down dead. The muttering worker read about it in the paper, felt a surge of importance, and decided it was time to move on. He called the pill factory office and told them he quit. They asked why. He said allergies. They said: Allergies to what? And he said, Allergies to the telephone and hung up.

This was the fourth job he’d grown tired of in a month. Two weeks before he’d gotten a gig teaching English to immigrants. He’d taught them the wrong things. He’d said: pussy means woman and asshole means friend. During the week, one female student got propositioned. Two men were beaten up. They stomped into their classroom, bruised and confused, but their misleading muttering teacher was long gone—already shaking the hand of the pill factory boss, in fact, his eyes flicking with interest on the vats of colored ovals and the power hidden beneath their shells.

But now it was time to change again. The muttering man put on a tie and looked at himself in the mirror. This always made him spit. He projected it out, pleh, littering his face. The muttering man had been an ugly child. He had been an ugly teenager. Now he was an ugly adult. He found this pattern very annoying.

This time, he applied for a secretarial job. Decided he needed to do something calm and quiet for a while, like memos. Here he met his match: loud man.

Loud man wore a necklace, talked very loud and was very honest. He looked everyone square in the eye and said, Let me tell you what I honestly think and then did just that.

Muttering man hated him for several reasons, one being that loud man was his boss, another being that loud man was loud and the third and final and most awful being that loud man was good-looking. Really good-looking.

Muttering man went to loud man’s house with a gun.

“Hello,” he muttered, “I’m here to steal from you.”

Loud man didn’t quite hear him right. “You’re here to what? Speak up.”

“Steal,” said muttering man as loud as he could which was not loud at all, “I want to steal things. Like some jewelry. Like your mirror. Like your wife.”

Loud man was angry, flushed a becoming pink and said many things, including Let me tell you what I honestly think.

“Please,” muttered muttering man, “tell away.”

“I think you’re my employee!” said loud man in a huge voice, “and I Think You’re Fired!”

Muttering man fired the gun and hit loud man in the knee. Loud man yelled and sat on the floor. Muttering man squared his shoulders and took what he asked for.

First, he told the trembling wife to wait at the door. He tried to catch a glimpse of her face, to see what kind of woman such a good-looking fellow would nab, but he couldn’t see much underneath her overhanging hair.

Next, he told loud man to remove his gold necklace which he happily slipped over his own ugly head.

“I’ve never had a necklace,” he muttered, pleased.

Finally, he walked up and down the halls looking for the perfect mirror to snatch. He passed several boring oval ones but when he turned the corner and walked into the master bedroom, he found exactly what he was looking for. Hanging on the wall, just opposite the large bed, was a huge rectangular mirror in a lavish silver frame. Mumbling under his breath in delight, muttering man gently lifted it off its hook. This mirror had been reflecting loud good-looking man for years and so had turned soft and complacent, and was likely to be kind to even muttering man’s harsh features. He took a quick peek at his necklaced self and fought down the blast of hope.

With some difficulty, he angled the huge mirror under his arm and shoved the wife into the passenger seat of the car, leaving loud man howling in the house. Muttering man started the engine and took off down the street. He glanced sideways at the wife, examining her profile, searching for beauty. She was okay-looking. She didn’t look like a movie star or anything. She looked sort of like four different people he’d met before. She stared straight ahead. After fifteen minutes, he dumped her off at the side of the road because she didn’t talk and muttering man wasn’t good with silent people. Plus, he wanted to be alone with the mirror.

“Bye,” he said to her, “sorry.”

She watched him through the window with large eyes. “That necklace is giving you a rash,” she said. “It’s made of nickel.”

He itched the back of his neck. Before he pulled away, he threw her a couple cigarettes and a pack of matches from the glove compartment. She gave a little wave. Muttering man ignored her and pushed down on the gas. Less than ten miles later, he slowed and pulled to the side of the road. He lifted the mirror onto his lap. Running his fingers in and over the silvery nubs, he fully explored the outside before he dared to look in. He could sense the blob of his face sitting inside the frame, unfocused and patient, waiting to be seen.

3. Visitor at Haggie and Mona’s

“Mona,” said Haggie, “I’m tired.”

Mona was stretching her leg up to the edge of the living room couch. “You’re always tired,” she said. She put her chin on her knee.

Haggie settled deeper into the green chair, the softest chair ever made. “Hand me that pillow, will you?”

“No.” She reached forward and held her foot.

Haggie sighed. He could feel the start of that warm feeling inside his mouth, the feeling that he could catch sleep if he was quiet enough. He felt hyperaware of his tongue, how awkwardly it fit.

Leaning down, Mona spoke to her knee. “You’ll just doze off and you sleep way too much,” she said. “You practically just woke up.”

“I know,” he said, dragging a hand down his face, “you’re absolutely right. Now hand me that pillow so I can take a nap and think about that.”

“Haggie,” said Mona, switching legs, “come on.”

Mona was Haggie’s one remaining friend. The rest had gone to other cities and lost his phone number. Haggie sat around all day, living off money in the bank from a car crash court settlement, while Mona trotted off each morning to work for a temp company. She typed something like a million words per minute. She was always offered the job at the place she temped, but she always said no. She liked the wanting far more than the getting, and, of course, was the same with men. She had this little box in her room containing already two disengaged engagement rings. She’d told the men: Sorry, I can’t keep this, but oddly enough, they each had wanted her to. She seemed to attract very generous men. As a memento of me, they said, little knowing there was another such souvenir residing in a box on her dresser.

Haggie tugged on his tongue. It felt mushy and grainy and when he pinched it hard, he felt nothing.

“Are you doing anything tonight?” she asked, chin on her other knee.

“Me?” he garbled, still holding onto his tongue, “tonight?” Mona swung her leg down, and gripping the side of the couch like a barre, began a set of pliés.

He released his fingers and swallowed. “Tonight?” he said, clearly this time, “nothing. Those bowling friends of yours are having a party but I said no. They asked if you wanted to go but I said you didn’t. Do you?” He paused. Mona didn’t answer. “They all want you, you know.”

“Really?” Mona, in mid-plié, dimpled up, pleased. “Which ones? All? Really? What exactly did they say?”

Haggie scratched his head. He didn’t even know if it was true, he just liked to see Mona leap for things.

Mona bent down and touched her head to her knees. “I have a date anyway,” she said, voice muted.

Haggie let his body slump into the chair. He hated it when Mona went out—the house felt dead without her. “Hey,” he said, “please. The pillow?” He pointed again to the couch, just a few feet out of his reach. His blood felt weighted, each corpuscle dragging its own tiny wheelbarrow of rocks.

“Haggie.” Mona shook out her legs and looked at him. “Go outside.”

“Blech,” he said to the ceiling, “I hate outside.”

She walked over and stroked his hair. “Do something good,” she said, “Haggie. Do something.”

He leaned briefly into her hand. She smelled like vanilla and laundry detergent. “I really would,” Haggie said, “you know, really. If I could only get out of this damn chair.”

Mona touched his cheek. She stood next to him for a moment, then gave a little sigh and disappeared into her bedroom. Haggie turned his head and watched her doorway for a while, eventually closing his eyes. After forty-five minutes, Mona emerged, shiny, in a brown dress. Haggie was drifting off.

“Hag,” she said. “Wait, wake up, I have a question.” She twirled around. “High heels or not?” Haggie shook his head awake, looked at her and tried to focus.

“No,” he said after a minute, voice gravelly, rubbing an eye, “you’re too peppy already. Wear boots,” he said. “Weigh yourself down a little.”

She stuck out her tongue at him but vanished into her bedroom again and came out in two minutes wearing lace-up brown boots.

“Lovely,” Haggie said.

There was a knock at the door.

“There he is,” said Haggie, “Monsieur Pronto.”

Mona looked at her watch. “No,” she said, “I’m picking him up. Are you expecting anyone?”

He laughed. “My illicit lover,” he said. He sank deeper into the chair. “Maybe we’re getting mugged. Didn’t I tell you? We should get bars on our windows.”

The knock interrupted again: rap rap rap.

Mona went to the door. She peeped in the peephole. “It’s a woman. Who is it?” she called.

A muffled voice came through.

Mona looked at Haggie. “Should I let her in?”

“Is she cute?” he asked.

Mona rolled her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said, “her hair is covering her face.” She opened the door.

“Hello,” said Mona, “how can I help you?”

The woman tugged off her wedding ring. “Please,” she said, holding it forward, “please, will you take this in exchange for a place to stay?”

Haggie burst out laughing.

Mona shook her head. “Oh no,” she said, “I can’t keep that.” The woman’s hand was trembling as she held the ring forward, and the edge of her dress was charred black.

“Haggie,” Mona said, “shut up. Stop laughing. She wants to stay here.”

“Fine,” he called from the chair, eyes closing. “But tell this one to keep the ring.”

Mona opened the door wider. “Please,” she said, “come on in, you look so tired.” She took the woman by the elbow and guided her into the living room. “Haggie,” she said, “get out of the chair, Hag, can’t you see this woman has been through something terrible and is about to collapse?”

Haggie sat there for a second. “But the sofa,” he said, pointing ineffectually.

Mona glared at him. “Haggie.” The woman’s legs started to curve beneath her. Haggie put one hand on each arm of the chair and hoisted himself up, wobbling a bit on his feet.

“Where are you from?” Mona asked, leaning down to relace the top of her right boot.

The woman closed her eyes. “Sinai,” she said. Haggie sat on the floor.

“What did she say?” Mona whispered, relacing the left boot for the hell of it. “Did she say cyanide?”

He looked up and noticed the woman was already asleep.

“Faster than me, even,” he said with respect.

“Do you think she’s a poisoner?” Mona hissed.

Haggie laughed.

“Sssh,” said Mona, “she’s sleeping.”

“Her dress is burnt,” he said.

“I know,” said Mona, “she smells like smoke, too. Camp-fire smoke or something.” She stood up. “Listen, Hag, I’ve got to go. Are you okay? Should I stay? What if she poisons you?”

Haggie made an attempt at a scared face but he couldn’t get himself to do it. He felt too tired. “Go, Mona,” he said. He laid his head back on the arm of the sofa.

Mona paused. “Do you think she’s sick?”

“She’s just tired.” His voice was fading. “She just needs some sleep.” The sofa arm dug into his neck. “I can’t believe she wanted to give you her ring.”

Mona smiled and checked herself one last time in the mirror. As soon as the front door closed and the clop-clop of her tightly laced boots faded away, Haggie tried to doze off, but the floor was hard beneath him and the air felt clotted and thick without Mona stirring it up, and he couldn’t find the familiar relief of that slow descending weight.

Heaving himself up, he sat on the couch. He almost twitched, craving the comfort of his chair. The woman snored lightly now. She had flushed skin and her eyelashes made simple black arcs on her cheeks.

“Hello lady,” said Haggie, “wake up and talk to me.” She kept sleeping, sending out her breath to the air and pulling it back in. Private.

It made him feel worse to be awake when there was someone else there that was asleep. The house seemed twice as big and twice as lonely. Dragging himself up, Haggie lumbered over to the bathroom. He wondered: was it possible to die simply from an absence of tempo? Sure, Mona was ruled by some kind of frenetic march, but there was no doubt that something was moving her inside—Haggie’s internal rhythms were so slow that he wondered if they counted as rhythms at all.

Inside the bathroom, he opened up the medicine cabinet above the sink; sometimes Mona kept sleeping pills in there that she used when she was too wound up. Which was often. Holding the mirrored door, Haggie took down the tiny red-brown bottle. He read the label. Do not exceed two in six hours. Haggie spilled them out on his hand; they shimmered like miniature moons. I’m bigger than she is, besides, he thought. He took nine, his lucky number, and washed them down with a handful of water from the tap. That should do something, he thought. Because I don’t have my chair. And I’m tired, he thought again. I’m very tired and I want to sleep. He sat down on the floor of the bathroom and waited for a strange feeling to overtake him. The woman in his chair stopped snoring and the house filled with darkness and quiet.

4.

When he had finished exploring every knob and bump in the frame, he took in a breath and got ready to face the mirror straight on. He fiddled with the itchy gold necklace. This time would be different, in this fancy man’s mirror, this good-looking man’s looking glass. He crossed his fingers inside the chain and let his eyes shift in and focus.

5. At the Side of the Road

That night, I sleep in a bush. I don’t sleep very well there, but I never do, I’ve never been a good sleeper. I can’t ever get comfortable. So it’s okay; the dirt on my cheek is okay, doesn’t make any difference to me. A pillow is no better.

I dream about my husband. I am dreaming that he is going to the refrigerator to fix himself a sandwich, my food, my bread, my self—digested then gone—and that’s when the shot rings out and that’s when I’m off, in the race, I’m off. He grabs his knee, and I’m out the door. I’m a racer, I’m so fast. In my dream, I run a lap around the world and some people in another country build a monument around my footprint.

When I wake up, I want to walk for a long time, I think I could walk forever and never get tired. I take one of the cigarettes that man left me and smoke it, it’s been a long time since I did that, and when I stub it out in the bush, it catches on something and the bush starts to burn. Just near the bottom, but it is burning, the bush is on fire. The air is dry, sure, but it was one tiny cigarette and so I am shocked and I look at the bush burn and then I think: maybe this is something spiritual. Here, by the side of the road, just me without any money, just me wanting a new place to go, this is the time for something spiritual to happen, this is my right timing. I wait for God to speak to me.

The flames snap and hiss.

A couple drivers pass by and slow: Want a Ride? but I shake my head, no, and it’s not because I’m worried about rapists, I’m not. Something is about to happen here—something big. I’m going to hear what this bush has to say to me and then I’m going to walk forever by myself since I never have and because it’s a better quiet outside than it is in a car and because all I took was one puff and I set something on fire. Me. The bush keeps crackling. I wonder, what will it tell me? What is it that I need to hear? I lean in closer and listen with my whole being. I can’t tell what it’s saying. I can’t find any words, just that fire sound, the sound of cracking and bursting. I start to feel a bit panicked—what if it speaks in a different language? What would I do then? The warmth of the flames flushes my face.

I speak English, I whisper to the bush as a reminder. Talk to me. I’m listening.

6.

Same ugly man.

7. Back at Haggie and Mona’s

At one in the morning, a key turned in the lock and Mona tiptoed into the living room. She could see the shape of the woman still there, lungs lifting and releasing. She felt a surge of pride that the runaway was alive and had stayed, and eased herself down on the couch across from the woman and unlaced her boots.

It had been a great date. He’d been one of those men who kissed hard, trying to merge their faces. Hand at the back of her head. It was quite urgent kissing for a first date but she liked that. She left the boots by the couch, tiptoed into the bathroom and flipped on the light and there was Haggie lying on the floor, legs tucked into his chest.

“Haggie,” she said, stopping still, “what’s going on?”

He craned his head and looked up at her with enormous eyes.

“I committed suicide,” he said. “But it didn’t work.”

“What?” Mona squatted on the floor.

“I mean,” he said, “I just wanted to sleep and sleep, sleep and sleep, so I took nine pills, nine dangerous white pills, those pills you use to sleep sometimes? I took them hours ago. Hours and hours ago. Nine of them. I’m sure of it. And I feel fine.”

She stared at him. “Did you puke?”

“No,” he said, “I didn’t even puke.”

“Haggie,” she said, “are you okay?” She reached forward and felt his forehead. “You’re not feverish,” she said. She sat down next to him. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” he said.

She stared at him still. He stared back. Standing up, Mona pulled the bottle down from the medicine cabinet and read the label. She looked down at him and shook her head. “Nine?” she asked, and he nodded. She kept shaking her head, placing the bottle back on the shelf and closing the door. Then she squatted down next to him again and touched his hair. Her voice was quiet. “I’m worried about you,” she said.

“I know.” He reached up an arm to grasp the counter. “Me too.” He pulled himself up. “But still, it’s all so strange.”

Mona grasped his elbow. “Do you need help walking?”

“No.” He shook his head. “That’s the thing. I don’t.”

He walked into the living room and stood against the back of the stiff sofa, facing the big window that looked out onto their small backyard. Mona followed him in.

“She’s still here,” she whispered, pointing.

“Did you have a good date?” Haggie looked at the woman sleeping. Her entire face was relaxed. He thought she looked beautiful.

“Yeah,” she said, “it was really nice. He liked the boots.” Haggie smiled. “Are you going to sleep?”

“I guess not yet,” he said, “I’m feeling pretty awake right now. I think I’ll just stay in here.”

“Okay.” She touched his shoulder. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

He nodded. “I’m good,” he said. “Good night, Mone. Sleep well.”

Mona picked up her boots and pattered into her bedroom. The woman shifted in the chair. Haggie went over to her and gently rolled the chair forward until they both were in front of the window. He looked at their reflections silhouetted in the glass. She still smelled like smoke and it smelled good. He remembered Mona: what if she poisons you? and smiled. He sat on the arm of the couch and watched their undetailed shapes in the glass. Once Mona went to the bathroom. Other than that, it was perfectly still. After several hours, sunlight began to seep into the backyard, slowly opening out the flatness of the glass and revealing the grass and one tree. A dew-covered white plastic chair. An empty wooden bird feeder. He watched as their silhouettes faded from the window and dissipated into the morning.

8.

He started to cry, same ugly man, always: that tidal wave of disappointment. Transformation impossible. He pulled the itchy fake gold necklace off and threw it at the glass where it made an unsatisfying clink; he let out a small, ineffective spit which didn’t land on the mirror at all but instead arced down and splatted onto the fancy silver frame. The muttering man started to rub the spit into the frame, but as he did, the saliva seemed to remove a bit of the silver. “What?” he said out loud. He leaned forward. He rubbed more. Silver paint lifted off, thin and papery. Beneath it was scarred wood. The muttering man licked his finger and rubbed again. The paint continued to peel off. Darkened silver, iridescent black, collected under his fingernails, on the tops of his fingertips. Ignoring his face, he hunched down and kept rubbing. What do you know, he said, mutter mutter, well who would’ve thought it was a fake frame too. He rubbed the entire frame until his hands were black and it was no longer silver at all, but just a rectangle of flawed bumpy brown wood.

Turning the mirror around, he opened up the hooks and removed the glass from the back. Then he hung the frame around his neck. “Will you look at my new necklace,” he said out loud, to the empty street. “This one doesn’t itch at all.”

9. Mine

I sit with the bush for a long time but it says nothing to me. It continues to burn, still mainly near the bottom. I listen harder and harder, feeling a certain despair build, wondering if it will ever reach out and talk, if ever I will understand the message meant for me, but then, just as I’m listening as hard as I possibly can, it hits me, pow, like that: of course. It is saying nothing. It’s a listening bush. It wants me to talk. My burning bush would be different, my burning bush would be like me.

So I clear my throat and I tell it things, I talk to that bush. I don’t think I’ve ever said so many sentences in a row before, but I talk for at least an hour about myself—about me and my husband and my mother and my allergies, and sometimes I don’t know what to say and then I just describe what I see. The street is gray and paved. The ground is dry here. The sky is cloudless.

It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful to talk like that. After a while, I’m exhausted and I think I’ve said enough. I feel great but my throat is dry and I need some water, so, thanking it over and over, I leave the burning bush by the side of the road for somebody else. And I start to walk.

It’s hours later when hunger and fatigue hit, and I find myself in front of one house, the only house on the block without bars on its windows. That’s the one I knock at. And that’s the one that answers. It’s a nice place. It is quiet inside. Just as I’m dozing off, ready to really sleep for the first time in a long time, I think about my husband and where he is, what he’s doing. I like to think he’s limping around the house, shouting my name, sitting on the bed and looking where the mirror was and staring at the grain of the wood. I like to think he opens the refrigerator and sees me inside.

But truthfully? Let me tell you what I honestly think.

I think, maybe he hasn’t even noticed that I’m gone.

But. I have.