DREAMS IN A BACKWATERPART TWOII(1) "Damn
it!" Danny says as he comes swinging in through the convenience-store
door. "Don't it seem like every time you go lookin' for
one thing you just end up findin' something else!" He
spouts this line off at me in a cranky yet somehow amazed sort of voice,
his arms spreading wide to emphasize his point, whatever that point may
be. I raise my eyebrows at him, startled by the suddenness of his
entrance, not to mention the unexpectedness of his words.
"Well . . . I guess so," I say. I have no
idea what he's talking about. But then, I hardly ever do with
Danny. And he's no help. First he glares at me – then
turns his head sharply, his eyes pushing into every corner of the store
– then turns back to glare at me again. "So, uh . . .
Danny! Hi! How ya doin'?" I chirp, struggling against
nervousness to forge some sense of normality between us. His eyes
narrow suspiciously at my words. Locking onto me like a guided missile,
he approaches the counter I'm standing behind with a sly sideways sidle
until he's positioned himself directly in front of me. I wonder:
Will he talk to me now in his "regular" voice – a kind of
low, guttural sound, emanating from somewhere deep in his throat – or
will he use one of those high-pitched, squeaky, supposed-to-be-funny cartoon
voices he sometimes comes out with? He pauses a moment. Then,
jutting his head forward: "One day I look one ways
– the next day not! Hello? Hello? Tick-tock!
Tick-tock!" Uh-huh. So it's to be the funny voices
today. But I don't think about this. What I think about
is nothing. What I notice is nothing. The blank look on my face
gives nothing away; it says only: I am perfectly normal. He
is perfectly normal. This conversation we are having is perfectly
normal. "So . . . what can I getcha?" I ask him, in my
perfectly normal way. "You can get me a pack of smokes is what
you can get me," he mutters, his face darkening now, growing troubled,
a cloud of irritation passing over its surface because of my lack of response
to something he had, apparently, only intended as a joke. He's
annoyed by my attitude of forced composure, perhaps? But I can't
help it. In the face of Danny's blithe assertions of irrationality
I have no idea how else to behave. He unnerves me. Unlike
the man who comes in occasionally talking to me in a voice that booms
with the baritone patterings of a game-show host ("And the
gentleman behind the counter has just posed the million-dollar question:
How may he help me? And what, ladies and gentlemen, will my
answer be? Could it be A: He may now help me to purchase some lottery
tickets, or B: He can show me where the grocery aisle is, or C: . . .
I haven't the foggiest idea!"). That man is inane, but not
insane. I'm not always quite so sure about Danny. Part of what
throws me off is that he looks so nice. He's dark
complected, with straight, black hair cut bluntly round a
square-shaped face, thin mustache waggling over a surly but
not unattractive mouth. It's his eyes, watery blue and
streaked with red, that are strange. They jump. They
dart. They wander about, as if wanting to be set loose from their
sockets; they have a cornered look, as if their owner feared attack.
Danny does not trust the world, and the world, in consequence, doesn't
trust him. Yet he dresses well enough, in neat, even stylish,
clothes. His body is stocky and appears well maintained. But,
where does he live, I wonder? How does he live? Does
he work? If not, how can he afford such expensive clothes? Is
anyone else bothered by the odd things he says? I suspect that people
often are, and that they generally give him a wide berth because of it.
That would account at least partially for his seeming so often to be in a
irritable mood. His strangeness is all that he has to offer,
as other people have striking good looks or a sense of humor;
but people aren't attracted to Danny. I can't say that I blame
them. He bothers me too. I keep asking myself:
How deep does his fault line run? Yet he came
into the store with a buddy of his one day, and both of them were
talking in those weirdly animated, cartoon-character voices, as if it
were all perfectly normal. And they got along great. I
laughed to hear them talking that way – but uneasily. Another fellow
who frequents the store is a short, dumpy, middle-aged man who dyes
his thinning hair a come-hither shade of golden-brown and talks in
a reedy, nasally sort of voice; his name is Gerald. Gerald
hangs around at the store for an hour or so almost every night.
Over the past couple of months he's told me, in a series of brief,
breathless installments, pretty much his entire life's history.
Let's see . . . His children are dying: one in an
institution for the insane, of complications from AIDS; another
from chronic drug and alcohol abuse. He'd previously lost two
other children as well, both when they were young: one, he says,
choked to death during an epileptic fit; another was accidentally
electrocuted. He's been married twice: the first time,
unknowingly, to a drug addict who prostituted herself; the second
time – again unknowingly – to a lesbian. When he
caught this wife in bed with another woman one day he is supposed to
have exclaimed, "Well! I was going to offer you two ladies
lunch, but I see you're having some already." Let's see –
what else . . . He told me once that he used to weigh over three hundred
pounds. He wasn't fat though – it was all muscle. He also
told me about an uncle of his who owns a private island somewhere far out
in the Pacific – with a mansion on it yet. Gerald's going to go there
to live with him someday. Oh, and he was in an automobile accident some
years back that shattered his skeletal system so entirely that the
surgeons had to replace whole sections of it. Nothing else
would do – they had to use gold. Also, he once found a dead baby
hidden inside the wall of a house he was living in. He still goes to put
flowers on its grave. Another time he saw a dog give birth to a
litter of pups that had human hands and feet – the man who owned
the dog being, apparently, a real live dog-fucker. Gerald
proposed to me one night recently – more or less proposed at any
rate. He told me that he was thinking of buying a house far
out in the country. This house was huge, he said – oh, it
was a beautiful house; and he drew me out the entire floor plan on a
piece of paper to prove it: porches, kitchen, dining room, bedrooms
. . . It's nestled cozily in the midst of several acres of
woods, and nearby it is another, smaller building, a sort of storage
structure. This he thinks of remodeling into a second house,
which he might then be willing to rent out – if he can find the
right tenant. I could be that tenant, he said. He was sure I would be
an ideal one, and he of course would be the perfect landlord, on hand
at all times to do any repairs, fix any little problems . . .
He'd give me a really good deal on the rent too; and in the evening, if
we wanted, why, we could spend some of our free time together – or not; he
wouldn't dream of imposing on me and if I wanted him to go I could
just say, "Go." And on and on he went. I didn't
really know what to say. In the end, I didn't say much of
anything. But in my mind I kept thinking, "Go then.
Why don't you just go the fuck away." The apartment
I live in is small. A converted attic, it's been divided into
two large rooms, with a bath in between. The ceiling is angled
to the pitch of the roof, which means that I can't stand upright
along the side walls; when getting out of the tub for instance, I
have to stoop. The kitchen, walls and ceiling both, were
painted by the previous tenant a bright salmon-pink.
The living room/bedroom is a kind of bright blue-green. It's
a bit like living inside a neon sign, and for the first few weeks
whenever I entered this apartment the fluorescent force of these
colors would simply overwhelm me: the walls practically glowed.
It took my eyes awhile to adjust. But eventually I did adjust,
and I no longer feel dizzy every time I enter the rooms in which I live. And I do live,
in these two capacious rooms, rather comfortably, with a couple of
neutered male cats for company. Few others are invited to come
here. This is my private domain: All non-members
are cordially invited to Keep Out. These two rooms constitute my
personal cave; also my den of iniquities, my chamber of horrors, and
my temple of self-examination. I am often happy here. Often
I am unhappy. But always I am interested. I stand a
little over 5 feet 8 inches tall. I weigh about 140 lbs.
I am slender, but nicely built. My hair is brown, greying a bit
at the temples now, but not receding. My eyes are hazel and
nice to look at, though hidden by glasses. I wear a beard
always, usually a goatee. Were my chin a little better (it does
not protrude enough), I would be handsome. I live in a
little backwater town, poor, poky, endlessly familiar: it is a town,
I suspect, like a thousand other towns found across this country,
ten-thousand towns. But here in this town in these two rooms is
where I remain, seated at my window, watching and wondering; and as I
sit here I find myself overflowing with dreams, and filled with the
desire to understand . . . People say to
me sometimes, "You seem so bright, so personable, so capable –
why don't you have a career? Why aren't you married? Why
aren't you doing more with your life?" I don't know
how to explain. I tell them, "Well, it's a long story . .
." I know, of course, that they don't really have time to
listen; what they want is a short, easy answer, and I have none to
give. So mostly they just leave me alone. I act normal
enough. But I can tell that they think me – well, just
a little strange . . . I do not. My name is Simon. TO ALL THE DICKHEADS
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