Cheek resting on the back of my hand, melting into distraction, I press down on the backs of passing clover mites causing them to burst and bleed bright pomegranate on the pavement. For every broken carcass staining the concrete there are a thousand more living mites that vibrate and skitter across the ground, passing by the end of my nose and disappearing behind my elbow. Every Spring they are here, advancing on my grandmother’s yard like a heat rash, and every Spring she glares down at their tiny bodies and demands death. And if glares or angry, arthritic fingers pointing menacingly downward could kill, then those mites would be pressed straight through the concrete and down, down, down until they melted like ice crystals on the Earth’s core. Even Grandma’s glare isn’t that powerful, however, so she is left to rely on my uncle and his pesticides.
My uncle stands in the middle of the driveway, Giants ball cap pulled snugly down and the laces of his sturdy, athletic shoes pulled snugly inward, gripping the trigger of his pesticide canister like some dull rendition of Hades intent on bringing death to the local insect population. My grandmother watches from the front steps. “Make sure you get in the cracks,” she tells him. He rolls his eyes. She quiets and shifts, sinking against the railing and into her good knee. Then she tries again, “I think the roof needs to be patched. Maybe you can do that this month. Is David coming over to mow the lawn soon? I can pay him more this time so he can save up for his car.” Another eye roll from my uncle as he answers impatiently, “I don’t know, Mom. Text him.” She explains that, “Last time he didn’t answer,” but my uncle waves her away, “I don’t know. Call Maggie.”
Later that evening I sit on my couch, opposite my grandmother’s couch, and divide my gaze between her and the evening news: a ritual. Inside the television things are happening again, but my grandmother ignores the latest national tragedy and squints down at the smartphone she recently purchased, jabbing it aggressively with her fingers. “Grandma, you don’t have to push on the screen so hard. Do you want me to help you?” She dismisses me with a flick of her hand: a ritual. She says, “I just have to send a text to Maggie. I can do it myself.” I tell her I could learn to mow the lawn, but she says I should just pull the weeds and focus on school.
David comes later that week. He breaks a few sprinkler heads, forgets to trim the edges, and offers little in conversation, but she seems happy anyway.
But this is just a distant memory now. As distant as the sound of leaves being raked across weathered concrete, or the uncomplicated exertion of trying to vacuum carpeted stairs while my grandmother yells over the noise that my dad called and I yell back that I’ve already talked to him five times today and then I hear her laughter because she already knew that but she likes to hear it every time because it’s funny—and it is, when it’s not something else altogether. But that’s all far away now.
Now your stairs are made of concrete, rusty and grey as steel wool, decorated with cigarettes and a single, forgotten sock. You wonder if the owner of the lonely, polka dotted knee-high looked behind them, noticed the stranded sock, and then just kept ascending, not having the energy necessary to sprint back down and retrieve it. You think about this for a while and then you think you might lie down because you are very tired. In fact, you are exhausted, like someone has been punching around in your brain at the same time as blowing hot breath over the previously wet landscape of your eyeballs. You are simply headache and dry eyes and you want to sleep, but you can’t, not on this steel wool concrete.
Suddenly, you become aware that you are paused—both feet on different steps–right in the middle so that the woman quickly approaching the stairs gives you a look that asks you to move so that she doesn’t have to involve herself in a confrontation—even the trivial type. Or, you think, it might actually be you who is afraid of conflict. You take the palm of your hand and forcefully connect it with your cheek, but not really, because that would make you look crazy. You tell yourself that you have to stop writing everyone else’s story, inventing grievances they might not even have, start using “I” statements. Stop being a bad person. “I am not a bad person,” you mutter just loud enough that there is a momentary lock of gazes between you and the woman on the stairs. You lower your eyes, swivel your head, and take a deep breath. You put your key in the lock.
The key is stuck. “Shit,” you say, out loud again. You hear the woman’s door open away from your back. She escapes. You close your eyes and wiggle the key. You should tell the apartment manager about the key—after all, your partner’s key slides in like a, well, you know, so it’s not the lock—but so many steps it would take to fix it, and you hate steps. Anyway, the lock clicks open and you’ll forget about the mismatched key until next time.
There is always something to be forgotten. Like you, standing in the entry-way of your own apartment and not quite understanding what it is that you’re supposed to be doing.
The apartment is moving:
a collection of lights and
sounds
familiar shapes
that your brain can’t identify.
“Honey, close the door.
the cats
the cats.”
Brain clicks on.
The door is open and the small, mischievous cat with the green eyes is in front of me, ready to leap. I quickly reach behind and pull the door to my back. The last time she got out it was several days and it was a lot of crying on my part. “No, Simone,” I say, attempting to eye her sternly.
She chirps.