The Room
She enjoyed the way the smoke drifted, piled up against the miniature
gray diamonds of the window screen until finally it was sucked through
by the night breeze. The old white couch sagged beneath her and the
moonlight lit her wandering hand. All along the block, windows were
open, capitulating to the sluggish waves of heat. Practicing students
at the Manhattan School of Music warred with someone‘s boom box in
the building across the street. The couch was in the corner of the
room, shoved up under two large windows that faced onto Claremont
Ave from the bottom floor of Columbia grad student housing. The only
other furniture was a mattress against the opposite wall and a low
table, littered with cigarette packs, loose change, lipsticks, matches,
and incense. She attempted to toss her lighter on the table and missed,
sending it clattering to the wood floor. Turning, she peered through
the smoke at the bed on the floor; he still slept.
When his hand brushed against
the floor and twitched, she turned away. There was a cat below the
window, a sleek gray cat on his haunches steadily eyeing her. She
rearranged herself into the cat’s pose, felt her tail switching behind
her as her back lengthened and her eyes narrowed. They remained stilly,
each on their own side of the metal screen. A low purr began in her
throat and was answered outside. Her nipples were tight, exposed to
the night air, but she did not move to cover herself; she did not
seem to feel the hairs rising along her body.
The phone rang, shrilly. The cat left, continuing to look back at
the window until he disappeared under a car. When she turned round
the man’s eyes were open and he looked at her. She stopped being a
cat and was a girl. Without speaking she crawled to him across the
cool floor. He watched her crawl and let her kiss him. She drank out
of his glass and they looked at each other. It felt then that they
had both waited too long to speak, it was awkward and perhaps they
would never exchange words again. Silence coated the room.
The
Visitor
The sirens woke
her. She stayed in bed, looking at the lovely molding that wandered
around the ceiling, stopped where somebody had ripped out a wall and
picked up around the corner, sliding into the top of a door and ending.
She remembered siren sounds and moved from the bed. She leaned out
her window in her sloppy chemise, lazily pulling straps back into
place. New York City's finest was so close to the ground floor window,
she wondered if he had been watching her sleep. When he opened his
mouth Brooklyn filled the space between them.
It was a kitchen fire near the top floor, but so many trucks had responded;
she vaguely wondered if perhaps the man's apartment building was close
to the stationhouse? The fireman was in the process of inviting her
outside to inspect his truck when his gaze moved over her shoulder.
She hadn’t heard the man enter the bedroom, but he stood with a butcher
knife loosely held at his side. It was still the early days, when
he rose first and made her breakfast, when she didn't work and slept
half the morning away and all of the night.
“What are you doing, my wild honey pie?” The man spoke to her but
looked past her, out the window. The fireman was already backing towards
his truck, weakly smiling and attempting to maintain his ingratiating
sense.
The Meal
She
was docile at the table, watching him cook. The kitchen was New York
small, with the table pressed between an old window and the counter.
She could smoke cigarettes and exhale out the window, listening to
the old radio and keeping track of who was buzzed into the building.
She liked to guess which apartment had ordered from which place for
dinner, even though she didn't know any of the other tenants, and
was a visitor there, herself. They never ate out.
He often made love to her against the wall in the hallway adjacent
to the kitchen, so that he could watch the stove. She appreciated
his meals as much for the aesthetic arrangement as the taste. He put
his fingers in her and in the pan without regard; sometimes she imagined
she could taste herself in the food.
On Broadway in the 90s
He tried, in the middle of the street, to kiss her angry mouth. She
pushed him off and ran into one of the Upper West Side super moms
patrolling with a doublewide stroller. He said some futile words.
Nobody noticed as he unabashedly attempted to placate her. They played
to the busy street, the people shoving each other off the sidewalks
or waiting for the Cross-town bus. It was late afternoon and the light
was fading, setting the buildings aglow and sparkling in the drops
of water sliding from pomegranates and tangerines.
She stalked over to the fruit stand on 96th and grabbed the most expensive
thing she saw. She took a voracious bite and tossed the rest at him.
His reflexes betrayed him and he caught it, along with the next two
she lobbed at him in the street. Her eyes were vindictive as she watched
him sheepishly pay the vendor. She smoked at the curb and eyed him
balefully. He came to her, still holding the exotic citruses, and
before she could move away he caught her arm and began mashing the
sour fruit against her mouth and nose, careful to keep it from her
eyes but stinging her lip where he had bit her the night before. Her
laughter broke her.
The Subway
The car he chose for them was warm and not crowded. They rode silently
and separately until she began burrowing between his arm and side.
He relinquished, opening his arms and allowing her to nestle against
him. He ran his fingers along her neck and behind her ear, scrunching
her short hair between his fingers like fur. He sang from Urban Hymns
as she relaxed into him. His voice was beautiful because he did not
sing apologetically. The old woman across from them in the train,
with her Zabar's shopping bags piled around her and her ancient lovely
shawl, smiled at his lullaby voice and the girl’s nuzzling face on
his chest.
He looked out
the window over her head and enjoyed the momentary reprieve from underground
between 116th and 137th. Her leg was warm against his and her arm
twitched in his lap. He continued to sing even as she slept, his voice
floating in the subway car.
Author’s Bio: Maxine is a graduate
of the creative writing program at