The Hungry Artist

V4 of WordRiver Spring 2012 is now available for purchase. It includes my short story, “Arms and Hands.” Enjoy! http://wordriverreview.unlv.edu/2012/

The cat purrs. A whistling sound comes from its nose. She lies in another room but can hear with her eyes closed. She cannot hear the padding of the cat’s feet.

He’s been practically deaf since age three. Now a grown man, he simply turns down his hearing aid when he needs to think. For example, now in a loud bar, he nods his head while instigating lines of rhyme or reason.

The cat is under the cabinet. She can tell by the jingling of its bells. It must be licking itself or stretching its feet. She chooses to listen to the bells rather than the people speaking on TV.

He sees a finger coil a curl, the snatch of an earlobe. That one smiling and laughing will have trouble sleeping. He can tell by the way her hands tremble while she’s drinking. And how she looks away and stares into the ceiling.

I don’t remember, she says, to one particular book on the shelf. So she pulls it out and begins reading it again. And it all comes back to her, as in a feeling. The cat pounces on her lap. Unexpectedly. She kisses its feet.

He will memorize the bar scene like a movie script and remember it vividly, mostly because he doesn’t drink. And then one day – for the life of him – he won’t be able to recall the details, or the order in which they happened. He won’t remember the reasons. When he goes to the bar again, he won’t even notice the brand new furniture.

The names are new and so is her mood. She scoots the cat off her lap. It lands on its feet. She lies down on the couch. The cat returns to her lap, licks her cheek. She talks in her sleep. It nibbles on the last page read. Something about the beginning and the end.

Clock strikes eight, on the hour, twelve hours after waking up late at eight. Day has turned to night. Still sit idle.

Eyes opened at 8 o’clock in the morning to the sound of a bird chirping outside the window. Or was it the sound of the lamp by the bed going click-click-click, or the kitchen clock tick, or hum of the fridge.

Chirp of one became chirp of several – the chorus of the world. They and the world awoke all at the same time, and the quiet of the night burst into song. It is all.

For one could lie in bed forever like this. Let the drizzle softly tap the metal. To lull or to wake.
One sits alone.
Between the hours.
Between the tryst.

My dual monologue, “God is in the Ceiling,” from my completed collection, Myths & Meditations, and two hybrid poems, “sunrise. sunflower. unblinking eye.” & “Father Said,” from my collection in progress, Specter, are now published in the 15th Year Anniversary Issue of Big Bridge Magazine. The link is available in the Bibliography.

You’re running. It’s dark, not pitch dark, not because to call it that is all too easy, but because it’s not so dark that you can’t see anything. You run in the dark rather than the bright because light is harsh and distracting. You run through run-down baseball field overrun with dead grass and weeds, yet you pick up speed. You spot someone else (you thought you were alone) who like you, is running very fast, so fast that you can’t make out who. The sky predicts rain. Notice I didn’t say it looks like rain. It doesn’t rain, but you smell it. You’re running and it seems not fast enough, endlessly. At last, you come upon a chain link fence. The fence is very high with no means of exit that you can see. Instead, two fences meet to form a formidable corner. There’s yet another runner, not the same as the first. This one isn’t really running, but is there, and aims an automatic weapon of some sort, yes, with a sharp edge pointed at you. You know what you must do. You can’t stay on the ground or surely he will peg you. You climb the fence. You hurdle yourself over and so does the first runner right after you. This isn’t what it’s like, Jackie. There’s no room for metaphors. You’ll say this is about me. Why then do I say you? I you, believe me Jackie, this is no simile. What’s your real name? Jackie? See? Stands for nothing. Just Jackie. You know a good book that you love? That you can’t put down, but have to keep reading, savoring every phrase of meaning? It isn’t and is you. You keep reading Jackie. Run Jackie. You say you can’t. You’ve never really tried. One runs for fitness, another to win a race. Neither is running. Notice I didn’t say neither is really running. Neither is running, period. You’re running. You make it over the fence without getting pegged. You run down a dark, twisting alley, nearly pitch-dark. The asphalt is slippery because now it has rained. You run into another chain-link fence, and there once again is the non-runner, the just there, with his automatic weapon aimed directly at you (at least it seems it’s aimed at you, even though there’s another runner, maybe two or more out there, and you’re certain that he’s after them too, not just you). This fence is even higher than the first, and at the top are sharp spikes, and loops of wire. Notice I didn’t say like anything. Spikes so sharp and wire so tight that if you try to hurdle yourself over, you will certainly be impaled. You watch as another runner – you don’t know which, as it’s nearly pitch dark – is pegged to the fence before even making it over the spikes so sharp. Yet your legs move you over the fence, for they are made to run. Gripping the wider part of a spike, you hurl yourself over the fence.

*
Magda despises her name. The way others say it, and even more, the way she pronounces it: Mag-da, each syllable with equal stress. It has always sounded incomplete. “Is that short for Magdalena?” people (understandably) ask. Understanding their need for a straight answer, she says, “No.” That gets it out of the way. The truth is, her parents named her Magda so that people would stop to ask this very question, take notice of her out of all the others. Or they simply felt it too tasking to call out a name with four syllables out of six other children who also happen to have names.

*

We lay on our backs topless, our faces turned to each other. Noses only inches apart. We stayed in this position for quite some time. He was the first to say it.
“I’m feeling a kink in my neck.”
“Yeah, me too.”
So we shifted to our sides. We observed each other blink. I focused on his lazy eye. It was sexy the way his eyelid curved over the pupil, like a peepshow. I separated my lips, just enough to savor his hot breath. His tongue did a striptease, wagging and then rolling. My tongue mocked his. They never touched.
After some time passed, it became difficult to remain on our sides without falling into each other. And so I thought up a brilliant idea. I asked him to lie on his back with his arms spread out and his legs closed tight. I then utilized my athletic arms and legs to hold my body right above his. I balanced my weight on my hands below his armpits and the balls of my feet around his ankles, bending my knees slightly for stability. The tips of my nipples nearly brushed his chest.
Neither of us spoke now. I thought of her, their bodies and tongues entwined. Him dragging her body down the sheets so as to thrust deeper. But this was all the better. This was something she would never have. My arms began to tremble and I focused on the tip of his nose, the tiny flakes of dried skin and the tender pink underneath. Furry black coils peeked out of his nostrils. He crossed his eyes and I giggled. We shadow-rubbed our noses together. I felt aroused with every non-touch.
Before we could further explore the sensations of this position, my limbs began to shake, my body nearly caving in on top of his. I managed to swing my body over, landing on my back.
I purposefully licked my lips as he stared at me sideways. His lazy eye twitched, twice in a row. He was aroused. He then rubbed his reddened cheek and pondered.
He took nearly the same position as I had, suspended right above my body, his chest nearly touching my breasts. Only he kept his legs closed and balanced on his feet between my legs. As he remained steady in this position, I flapped my arms like wings and opened and closed my legs like scissors.
The nearness of his body proved too much for me. I stuck my tongue out, reaching for his lips. His eyes grew wide as I flapped my arms and opened and closed my legs faster.
The more he trembled, the more I reached until I managed to lick his lips. They tasted like salted Chap Stick. His body gave way and he landed on top of me. I wanted to wrap my arms and legs around him, smothering first his mouth and then his chest with open mouth kisses. And then he would pull my hair back and suck on my neck.
He removed his inflamed body from mine. We were once again face-to-face. He shut his eyes, and his breath was cool and sweet. I watched him fall asleep.
If he had been sedated.
Or fickle.
Or weak.
I would have:
Traced the curve of his eyelid with my pointer-finger’s fingertip.
Licked his eyelashes, one eye at a time.
And then his chin. And then his cheek.
Aimed the tip of my right nipple into the hollow of his mouth.
Pressing it against his wet tongue.

But I won’t have it.

When I was a little girl
I used to speak like a little girl
cry laugh and play like a little girl:
Ouch! There’s a thorn in my thumb! Take it out!

Mary in the oval mirror
behind mommy’s steady head
watched and wept for me
and my thorn in the flesh.

Mommy (not Mary)
dug ever so slowly
in the grooves of my thumb
as I squealed and squirmed
like a little piggy girl.

Stop little piggy
Mommy (not Mary) warned
as she yanked and pulled
at my finger thorn

Little piggy girls
must bleed
till they come to be
big little girls

who mourn
no more.

He was naked, on top of the sheets, I underneath. He reached over my body and switched the lights on. No, no shut them off, I grumbled. In the dark, always in the dark. I thought of how he couldn’t come, not even after he rubbed himself, for over twenty minutes. I poked my head out of the sheets, squinting at the bright light.
I need a fag. I need to smoke a fag. Absolutely. (His favorite word – absolutely).
You have to have one?
Yes yes.
I don’t have a lighter.
I will go in the kitchen then. Where is it?
Turn right in the hallway, first door on the left. And please, be very quiet.

Will you be my friend?
What kind of friend?
A friend. You know, with respect. We can have sex sometimes, but always respect.
We’ll see.
But can’t you tell me now? Will you be my friend?
Let’s just take today, and see what tomorrow brings. We never know what tomorrow will be.
I’ll go light my fag now.
Put your pants on, just in case. I hope the alarm doesn’t go off. It’s so loud. It’ll wake my flat mates.
It can’t, it won’t. I have a smoke alarm in my flat too.
When he opened the door again, he was not quiet. He slid off his pants and stood there, stark naked, covering his member with one hand. He shrugged his shoulders and stood there uncomfortably, removed his hand and looked at me as if to say – so what do you think?
With the lit cigarette between his fingers, he lay back down on top of his side of the sheets. My naked body still underneath.
I need an ashtray. But you don’t have one do you?
He reached for my plastic cup, the one with the screwing lid. The lid was screwed shut with water underneath. He unscrewed it.
Here, I’ll use this. What do you use this for?
It’s to keep water by my bed, to take the pill in the morning, and some pills to heal my aching stomach.
Look, there’s cigarette ash floating in there. See, some guy has already been here before me.
There had been Anh Tien, the Vietnamese waiter I met a couple of weeks before. He had not tampered with my plastic cup. He did not smoke, and neither did I.
That’s not true. Where? I don’t see any shreds.
Oh yes.
The smoke. The alarm. Be careful. The alarm is awfully loud. Please be done.
Then everyone would know. Everyone would know.