skip to main |
skip to sidebar
While paying partial attention to each other’s company, I noticed the band-aids; spackled along the hairline cracks on the ceiling. The height of the kitchen exceeded that of the standard household ladder. I wondered how my 65 year-old friend had managed to get up there. My gaze fell into her.
With both hands fastened around a large, muted-pink candle she intently watched, from her wrist to her elbow, slow hot wax dripping and drying. Breaking her focus I asked, “how did you get those band-aids up there?” “I didn’t do that”, she said while quickly looking up at me, and then back to her arms. As far as I knew she lived alone “Who did?” “It was my housemate, you’ve never met him. He comes at weird hours”. “Well, why did he put them there?” “The upstairs neighbor tries to listen in . . . the band-aids stop him from hearing”, she said.
Trying to make sense of this explanation, I asked her a couple more questions. But, by the time she grew defensive I realized; there was really no sense to be had.
1 comment:
My friend is a madwoman, I thought. She must have put the bandaids there herself, but how? A 65 year-old woman, barely 4 feet tall--a dwarf, withered by age and care--how would she reach the ceiling with no ladder in the house? In her studio apartment the only separate room was the bathroom. The kitchen was divided from the bedroom by a waist-height counter, but even standing on that with her arms above her head my friend, M., would still be a good 2 feet from her high ceilings. I didn't want to probe too much because M. was given to fits of rage completely disproportionate to her tiny frame. She became possessed during her fits and would lash out at the nearest object or person with insane rage. She had lost many friends this way, not to mention dishes and various potteries around the house. As a result her apartment was mostly plastic which gave it a space-age look, but one curiously dated--Jetsons decor. At any rate I was curious about the bandaids. I thought, well, M. loves to badmouth her neighbors, maybe I can piece some kind of story together if I ask her about he one upstairs who "listens in", as she put it. I asked and as I was hoping she jumped in with both feet. "Ohh, him," she crowed, "he just loves sticking his big nose in my business." I inwardly cackled at the thought of a big nose anywhere near her shrunken business. "I caught him one time, up there, ears pressed to the floor, trying to hear me and my man together." This with a lurid wink. "After that I told my roommate and since he's a real ladies' man--he tried for me but I told him, no way, buster, I'm spoken for--anyway, since he's a ladies' man he didn't want any nosy neighbor in his business so he put those bandaids up there like I told him, I told him they'd keep that neighbor out and by golly just look, I don't see any ears, do you?" Bowled over by her madness I could do no more than nod agreeably--also, to disbelieve or disagree with M. is to invite a tantrum of truly apocalyptic proportions. Nothing sets her off like the idea that someone thinks she's crazy. "No, M., no ears there," I said after I regained my speech. "Right, of course not, bandaids, works every time, and believe me this isn't the first time I've gone through this," and on and on, wax running down her tiny wrinkled arms until they looked like candles themselves, yakking on about her roommate, her boyfriend, her upstairs neighbor, all of whom I knew did not exist, especially since she lived on the top floor, not disputing her though, and not for the first time I wondered, as she talked, why we were friends, what brought us together and kept me there, or kept me coming there to her plastic-furnished studio apartment with abnormally high ceilings for the area. What brought us together is simple enough, but what kept me there a Gordian knot of obligation, hot madness, and endless frustration tempered by threads of real love and affection for the lunatic dwarf. M. and I met in the supermarket. She, predictably, could not reach the can of soup she wanted and I saw this as I passed the aisle. I don't eat canned food, myself, so I had no reason to go down that aisle, but the sight of M., red with what I took for frustration or embarassment but later would learn was mad rage barely held in check, made me detour to help. I got her the soup and she thanked me as if I had intentionally placed the can out of her reach in the first place. I replied that it was no problem and that I wanted the same soup myself. "Oh, you like that one too? It's my favorite because it's the only one without ground glass. I know what they do." Intrigued, I asked her who "they" were and she dismissed my question with a wave of her little hand. She then invited me up for soup. The look in her eye as she asked me was such that I felt a refusal would be met with violence, and while I didn't fear her really--who would?--my curiousity overpowered any shyness or nervousness, and besides she was so engaging and so friendly despite her obvious instability that I couldn't help but accept her invitation. We paid for our food and walked down the street together. I was shocked by her physical strength and as we walked I began to doubt the wisdom of my decision to go to her apartment. "My name's M.," she barked. "H.," I told her, which launched a spiel about my name that lasted until we got to her building. "All the way up!" And she began leaping up the stairs two at a time. Now I was very disturbed. How could this old woman, with barely a tooth in her tiny head, be possessed of such a prodigious physical strength? We reached her door and she set her bags down and unlocked it.
i've got to get back to work so i have no time to edit this or to finish it.
Post a Comment