I rang the bell and then just kind of leaned there against the sill to wait. I didn’t know what time it was. After one, maybe closer to two. Lights still burned in many of the houses. Streetlights, moon and windows all had a red haze about them. I’d wrapped a handkerchief around my hand, but it was soaked through now, and periodically thick gobbets of blood would squeeze their way out and fall like slugs.
After a while I heard her coming to the door, duh-DA, duh-DA, duh-DA, in perfect iambs. She wore a short, sky-blue, kimonolike robe.
“Don’t tell me,” she said. “You wanted to beat the rest of the kids to the candied apples and other treats.”
“Already been tricked,” I said. Then: “You should see the other guy.”
“Who won?”
“I did.”
“Then I don’t think I want to see the other guy. Aren’t you getting a little old for this?”
“Tried to tell you that. Damn glad now I didn’t wear my tie-dye.”
“Sheryl’s ex-live-in?”
“The chicken man himself.”
“Oh Lew. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry enough to let me come in?”
“What? Oh, sorry. Sure. You really do look like shit, by the way.” She turned and stepped away from the door. I took a step forward. Nations disappeared, new suns appeared in the sky, planets formed around them. I took another step.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Just a little damaged in transit, as they say at the post office. Then, of course, they hand you this thing that’s taped back together three ways from Sunday and whatever was inside is crushed beyond recognition.”
“Are you?”
“Crushed? Absolutely. Many times over. But it always springs back. Well, these days I guess it’s more like it seeps back.”
“Stronger than before?”
“Not that I’ve noticed. You?”
She shook her head. “Be nice if it were true, though. Like a lot of things.”
I eased myself onto the couch.
“Tell Sheryl T.C. won’t be bothering her anymore. Actually, I’m not sure he’ll be bothering anyone anymore.”
“Must have been one hell of a talk.”
“I won’t forget it soon. You got anything to drink?”
“Might be some scotch under the cabinet from when my parents were here. Want me to look?”
“Oh yes.”
There were a couple of inches left in the bottle she put on the coffee table before me. Ignoring the glass, I tilted the bottle up. Seemed easier that way: less movement, less pain. I remembered O’Carolan asking for Irish whiskey on his deathbed, saying it would be a terrible thing if two such friends should part without a final, farewell kiss. I tilted the bottle again.
“I feel like I just blinked and twenty years went by-backwards,” I said. “Definitely an old TV science fiction show. Can’t be real life.” I looked at her. “Sorry. It’s late.”
“It’s okay, Lew. Really.”
“Tell you what. I’m going into that bathroom down there at the end of the hall to face up to some hot water and soap. Pay no attention to screams, and if I’m not out in ten minutes, you can decide on your own whether to call paramedics or the funeral home. I sure as hell don’t know which, even now.”
“Need any help?”
“Me? Look at what I’ve already accomplished, all by myself.”
“I’ll make coffee, then. Once I’m up, that’s usually it for the night.”
I stepped carefully down the hall. Must be heavy winds and a storm coming up: the ship listed badly both to port and starboard.
Ablution accomplished, nerve ends singing like power lines in a hurricane, I came back and sat as Clare poured something yellow into the cuts, smeared on antibiotic salve and bound my hand tightly in gauze.
“That’s going to need stitches. Lucky you didn’t cut a tendon or an artery.”
“It’s not bleeding anymore. It’ll be okay.”
“Lew, don’t you think you’ve worn your balls as a hat long enough for one night? Jesus!”
“Okay, okay. You’re right.”
“You’ll go to the ER?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Promise?”
I nodded and she went out to the kitchen, brought back a lacquered wooden tray with coffee in one of those thermal pitchers, two mugs, packets of sugar and sweetener, an unopened pint of Half amp; Half.
She poured for both of us and we sat there like some ancient married couple, sipping coffee together in the middle of the night without speaking. The moon hung full and bright in the sky outside, and after a while Clare got up and turned off the room’s lights. Then, after sitting again, finishing her coffee, pouring anew for us both, she said quietly, “I don’t understand what happened between us, Lew.”
I said nothing, and finally she laughed. “Guess I’ll put that on the list with quantum mechanics, the national debt and the meaning of life, huh?”
I looked at her.
“I’d come over there and sit at your feet now if I could, Lew. Just lean back against you and forget everything else. That’s what I’d do if I could. But I can’t. Probably fall, if I tried. Coffee okay? You want a sandwich or anything?”
“The coffee’s wonderful, Clare. You’re wonderful. And I’m sorry.”
A silence. Then: “You have things you’d do, too-if you could?”
I nodded. Oh yes.
Another, longer silence. “Think maybe you’d consider spending the night in this wonderful coffee maker’s bed?”
“I’m not in very good shape.”
She laughed, suddenly, richly. “Hey, that’s my line.”
Later as we lay there with moonlight washing over us and the ceiling fan thwacking gently to and fro, I mused that pain was every bit as wayward, as slippery and inconsistent, as intentions.
“Half in love with easeful death,” Clare said, striking her right side forcibly with the opposite hand and laughing. “Little did he know. But what’s left is for you, sailor.”
Human voices didn’t wake us, and we did not drown.