Voices Carry
Barber watches them from behind the sliding glass door until they’ve become ambiguous colored dots on an otherwise empty horizon. He sips his whiskey and water, wonders whom those girls might one day become. So many experiences out there lying in wait with the power to either destroy or recreate them as women. “What are you staring at?” Barber turns casually, sees Eva standing in the doorway to their bedroom, arms folded across her breasts. Clad in one of his dress shirts, at first glance she looks like a young boy. Her hair is short, her figure petite. Visions of the earlier lovemaking flood Barber’s mind. He sees her for a moment in that most trusting and vulnerable position: eyes wide, ankles high, delicate toes pointed like a playful ballerina, and wishes such pictures would conjure different emotions in him. It is time for a joust. Combat without contact, argument without anger, life without breath. “I didn’t realize you were awake,” she tells him. A tracer of anguish lingers in the air like a foul odor. Barber ponders his options, chooses silence. Across the street a train rumbles along ancient tracks, throttles the entire apartment in the process. Glassware and place-settings rattle behind cupboard doors and Barber finds it impossible to hide his amusement. Along this particular route the only thing trains transport is trash. Even things generally associated with romance and intrigue are reduced to inelegant terms when crossing his path, as if indicative of the hollow, colorless dreams that haunt them both. Eva saunters across the room with a confident stride. Her breasts catch his eye with a distinctive jiggle as she moves from the den to an adjacent bathroom and lowers herself from his immediate line of sight. The apartment, pristine and sterile when they first moved in, now has a deciduous air often found in homes where emotion is raw. The relationship itself has a consistently transient feel. As with the horns of certain animals that fall away during a particular season or stage of growth, their lives are in a constant state of flux. Ice cubes clink in Barber’s glass, and he is grateful his thoughts belong solely to him. It is terrifying to realize that the nurturing voice in the back of his mind is not only his worst enemy, but often his best friend. He retreats to a wicker chair next to the slider, crosses his legs and notices the small fine hairs that run from his lower calf to upper thigh. They make him feel like a great fuzzy peach. “Why do you insist on sitting there without any clothes on?” Eva sighs as she floats to the bar on the far side of the den. “It’s a miracle no one complains to the police.” “No one can see in against the glare,” he reminds her. Vodka trickles into her glass. “Most hardcore nudists are not aesthetically pleasing. Why is that?” “Beauty is in the crotch of the beholder, my love.” Eva tosses her head back and laughs. It is a bawdy baritone, odd in someone so slight. But then, very little about Eva makes consistent sense. She could be twenty-five or thirty-five—her face is angular—and as challenging to decipher as the motives behind it. That is, after all, why Barber drinks. It clears the gullet while affording him the courage to face himself with whatever diminutive portion of his dignity remains. Long ago people teased Barber about his inability to pass a mirror without stopping to admire his own reflection. He is now uncertain as to exactly whom those memories should be assigned. Continuing to watch the waves lap the beach below, Barber feels her eyes tickle the back of his neck and notices her scent. Whiskey burns his throat. Barber swallows again, convinced the sensation was imagined. Liquor can no longer harm him. He is immune, a cockroach reinventing itself in the residue of progressively lethal toxins, each one targeted at a new, more resilient generation. “I can hear you thinking,” Eva says. “Why are you always such an unappealing zombie afterwards?” Zombie. What an appropriate term. Barber as a living corpse, decaying from the inside out. Eva only fires kill shots. Barber sighs. “I’m tired.” “That’s odd,” she smiles. “I did all the work.” He references additional memories. “Another drink?” Eva takes his glass. “Is watching you get drunk all I have to look forward to for the remainder of the day?” “You’re more than welcome to join me.” “I don’t need to drown myself in booze.” His eyes meet hers. “Why is that?” “There’s always him.” She cocks her head in the direction of the bedroom. “Haven’t you had enough?” “He’d take me dancing if I asked.” “So ask.” Eva moves toward the bar without response. Barber finds himself trapped in an eerie chasm between absolute intoxication and the inception of an altered state of consciousness. “Here.” Eva thrusts a whiskey and water at him. He sips, swallows. “I’m not ashamed.” Barber glances at her awkwardly. “Pardon?” “You asked me why I don’t find it necessary to drown myself in liquor,” she explains. “It’s because I’m without shame.” “Really?” “Really.” He waves at the air between them. “I can even begin to imagine such a state of bliss. Isn’t guilt supposed to be part of the package?” Eva smiles. “Not mine.” He laughs aloud for the first time in days and playfully slaps his wife’s behind. He wants very much to leave his hand there, to cup and squeeze each sculpted half, to allow his fingers to slowly slide between and beneath them. Something stops him. Arching an eyebrow, she asks, “Are you laughing at me?” “As fast as I can.” She showcases her sexiest pout. “Shall I finish with…what was his name again?” “I don’t remember.” Barber closes his eyes; sees Eva feign rapture. “Does it matter?” “Do you think he’s bisexual?” “How should I know?” “Given the right circumstances, we all are.” Barber raises his glass in mock salute. “Ah, the politics of language.” “You prefer to think of me as a machine.” She moves closer. “It’s easier for you that way, I suppose.” Barber studies her dark nipples pressing against the thin fabric of her shirt. “Sometimes.” “Truth is, it’s just a game to me.” A thin line of sweat collects in his hair, and Barber visualizes dozens of ravenous insects devouring his scalp. “Why do we do it?” “It’s an addiction,” Eva tells him. “But why do we do it?” “Shhh. He’ll hear you.” He squints, finally locates his wife through the montage of pictures clogging his mind’s eye. She is leaning against the bedroom door wearing nothing but a coy smile. Clutched in her hands is a knife—the same one she always uses. As his eyes slowly close he sees her plunging the blade into the unsuspecting stranger again and again, the spray of blood spattering their nude bodies. He licks his dry lips and smiles uncontrollably. “I’ll be right in.” Eva slips from sight, and Barber finishes his drink the same way it began. Alone. [Greg F. Gifune] [Home] |
Two little girls
in neon swimsuits wander along the shoreline. No more than seven
or eight, they pad through the moist sand giggling and talking, oblivious
to the gentle waves licking their bare feet.