Death Rattle - Part IV
In Part III, the narrator’s girlfriend suggests she download a cognitive behavioral therapy app to help with her “mood-killing” depression. When she’s let go from Wheel of Bestsellers, her girlfriend comes to her defense, and the couple is invited to a sandstorm party at Marta’s house.
I drove us to Marta’s house with the hope of embracing my new station in life: the unemployed cuckold chauffeur. My girlfriend flipped her mirror up and down what felt like a dozen times. Her expression was more anxious than excited, which intrigued me until I understood that she probably had butterflies.
I asked, Are you okay?
Yeah. Your hair looks good.
Her palm found my bare thigh. I compelled myself not to flinch. My heart would only shutter to sex if I let it. My girlfriend removed her hand, sensing discomfort, but I grabbed it and tugged it back to my lap. She smiled gently at me.
Marta’s neighborhood appeared like a mirage off the vacant main road. It was a marooned colony of gated luxury, the houses new and beige and tall as soufflés. We got out of the car. I lugged the six pack of Modelo out from the backseat and followed my girlfriend to Marta’s stone stoop. I stood a few feet behind her as though I was her child.
She turned around to giddily whisper, This is an adorable casita.
Sí, I said without changing my expression, wondering if my passivity would peeve her. Often, she required overt enthusiasm to feel emotionally supported. But I couldn’t force a smile when it didn’t spark on its own. I wanted to be a person who could dress my face up to appease her, but I wasn’t.
She didn’t appear to mind, though. Instead of glaring, she said, Thank you for coming.
I studied her. Marta opened the door, and my girlfriend began blinking. She stuck her hands behind her back and picked at her fingernails. I waited for her to say something, but she seemed unable to conjure an appropriate greeting. Marta smiled, not speaking.
Eventually, I said, Hi.
Hi, Marta said.
Hey, my girlfriend said.
Inside, the house looked almost identical to ours—same layout, same finishings, same vaulted ceiling. I quickly learned that the party was less of a party than a family reunion. While Marta gave my girlfriend a tour, I stood with a cousin by an enormous bay window and awaited the mythical dust monster. After a few silent minutes, the cousin stepped onto the porch, and I followed. Together, we stared at the beige slab of sky.
He fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out a toothpick. While he poked at his gums, I examined him. He was good-looking in a circumstantial way, like men at the airport. He had a shaved head and dense facial hair that he meticulously managed with gel. A semi-circle scar ran from his mouth to his nose, like the jaw of a dog had once latched onto his face. I thought about having sex with him. Forcing myself to picture the geometry of a penis every so often was probably useful for closure. Exposure therapy. It worked for arachnophobes.
I asked, Do we just wait for the dust?
He didn’t say anything, just continued to poke himself with the toothpick. I told him I preferred the sandstorm to the monsoons of Florida, where my parents now lived. The jungles shook themselves clean. The streets sloshed into waterways.
He scratched his face with the vehemence of an infested dog, and then he flicked the toothpick to the ground. He fiddled out a vape from his pocket, electric green, all nicked at the sides. He took a turn and offered it to me, smiling. I shook my head. We were hovering inches from each other. I imagined myself caressing the lump in his sweatpants, feeling it harden under my hand, if only to show my girlfriend what I could do. Penises were the most fascinating appendage—if you could detach them from the person, they were hardly threatening. Instead, they allowed you to determine, in real time, how an interest in you grew. An evolutionarily marvel.
Eventually, the cousin slipped the vape back into his pocket.
Nothing’s coming, he said.
*****
In the living room, I accepted a syrupy margarita from Marta’s giddy little mother.
You were very sweet to bring the beer, she said.
Oh, sure, I said, glancing at the unopened Modelos.
We’re very glad to finally meet you. Your sister has been so generous to our Marta.
I kept my expression steady. My girlfriend and I looked alike, even though her father was Korean. We couldn’t call men homophobic when they asked us if we were related.
That’s good, I said.
I once spent a summer living with my sister, she said. It’s a special memory. I hear you’re having a wonderful time in Texas.
I smiled. This smile was cold and maniacal, and I felt it in my chest, like it was propped up on a yardstick. My girlfriend entered the room, Marta following closely behind like she was eager to catch something my girlfriend dropped—tissues, dandruff. I found the scene sort of pathetic. I debated approaching the pair to share our newfound genealogy. My dear sister. I could stick my tongue into her mouth and send the room into hysterics.
As my girlfriend cut a thick slice of blue sheet cake, I waited for her to notice me. Her light eyes still held the same stifled worry she’d shown at the front door. When she finally glanced over, I beamed hard enough to ensure she’d never forget what I looked like, hard enough for my face to permanently wound her. My memory would feel like biting into ice. But she smiled back, almost gratefully, and I didn’t understand.
The rest of the family had started to crowd around an enormous flatscreen. I wondered if they planned to watch the dust storm approach us from miles away. We might get to see the wrath of nature summoning its particles, releasing fury like a delayed plague. Instead, the TV showed people in long sleeves standing beside a semi-drained creek. Hundreds of people, bewildered and hunched in the sun. They were crossing the border a few miles away.
A reporter dubbed El Paso a hospitable haven. He repeated the city’s slogan a few times without context. You Better El Paso Up. I didn’t feel any sadness as I watched the suffering in HD. I had no right to; I wasn’t going to do anything to help.
Marta rested a hand on my girlfriend’s shoulder as though they shared a traumatic past, but my girlfriend shrugged her away. I left the room to piss out the margarita, feeling oddly at ease. Could insanity arrive so quickly, like a slap? My urine was the same color as my drink. This urine belonged in outer space. I laughed at it, and then I looked up at the portrait hanging over the sink, a sad-eyed Princess Diana wreathed in pink roses. I laughed at her, too.
I didn’t leave the room for ten minutes. On the closed toilet seat, I flicked through pictures of my girlfriend on my phone. I had no pictures of us together, somehow. To a stranger, our relationship would have looked like an obsession. I stared at her face and pretended I didn’t love her.
When I finally stood to leave, both my legs were asleep. I shoved open the door, knocking into Marta, who shuffled backward as if she had been eavesdropping. She smelled like she’d been standing too close to a candle. Up close and alone, I understood her sex appeal. She knew how to apply her mascara so her eyes flared, which made her look like everything in the world intrigued her. Her fingers were long and deft, and her nails were short, painted red.
Sorry, she said. I didn’t realize it was occupied.
I beamed at her.
I should thank you for coming, she said, as though she was debating her manners.
You should.
I wondered if we were experiencing sexual tension. I had no clue what sexual tension felt like anymore. I wanted to projectile vomit straight into Marta’s face, like I was a television wino, but I’d only ingested one drink. Marta glanced over my shoulder. I continued to block the hallway like a bouncer. She could piss when I allowed her to do so.
She asked, May I?
How was it?
Sorry?
We agreed on everything, so you don’t have to pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. How was it?
I’m sorry, but I actually don’t know what you’re talking about.
Don’t be cutesy. If you’re old enough to screw my girlfriend, you’re old enough to own up to it.
Oh, I just gave her a tour of the store—
If that’s what you want to call it.
I’m not hiding anything. Really, I’m really not just saying that.
You know, I thought I was pathetic, but you’re even more pathetic than me.
I think there’s some misunderstanding. I mean, of course, I find her really pretty, but she’s in a relationship with you. She made that very clear.
Really? Doesn’t appear to stop you from following her around like a dog.
Her face reddened.
I’m so sorry, she said. Really, I’m very embarrassed. I promise I’ll give her—I’ll give you both—space. I just thought we had some things in common. I didn’t realize I was making a fool of myself.
She darted around me into the bathroom. I wondered if she was going to cry. The sound of the door slamming behind her made me wince. I headed for the front hall, too flustered to reenter the party. My girlfriend said my name, but I continued outside, automatically closing my eyes in the sunlight. The car was a deathtrap. Seething air panted from the vents. I wanted to drive somewhere familiar, but I knew nothing here except my girlfriend. No memory in all of Texas existed outside of her. I didn’t think it should have been this easy to walk into a new life. One second, you’re in an apartment on Marlborough disposing of squatting cockroaches, and the next you’re in the desert, sweating and rattling and wishing your mother would send you something more meaningful than spices. The question was whether you sought this new pain. The question was whether you preferred it.
I googled WOB, and the site was a 404 page. Unavailable, non-existent. It didn’t matter, really. I knew what I’d see if I’d had the chance to spin.
A knock on the window startled me. My girlfriend was holding a quarter of the blue cake suffocated in layers of Saran wrap. She looked half-asleep.
Let’s go home, she said.
*****
I drove back the long way so we could pass through the aptly named Scenic Drive. We skirted the steeper east side of the slope. Juárez and El Paso flared together in the night like doomed lovers. To the north, the jagged, purple silhouette of the mountains faded into the blackening sky.
I pulled into the empty lot and turned off the car. The silence was abrupt and satisfyingly chilling. Six years earlier, my ex-boyfriend had chosen a similarly abandoned locale to palm my head into his lap and scream until I obeyed. I thought back on this scene quite often, trying to deduce what had sparked it. An acute need to prove his masculinity, perhaps. I’d seen him as indestructible and therefore immune to insult, mockery, diminishment. I was only able to see this now that my girlfriend felt the same about me. I could still blame him for his violence. I could pity and hate him. He’d cried afterward, heaving sobs, like his insides were built from water pumps. Cruelty was fear.
I asked, Why did you tell Marta’s mother we were sisters?
I didn’t know if they were homophobic. They don’t think Marta’s into girls.
Oh, she’s pretty obvious about it.
Yeah, maybe.
It was strange. When I asked her about what happened with you, she kept denying it.
Oh.
Yeah.
Well, that’s probably because we didn’t actually do anything.
Hm?
I mean, I thought about it. I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know.
What? Do you want my congratulations?
I don’t get why you’re being so awful. It was your idea. And I didn’t even do anything.
I don’t actually know if I believe you, is the thing.
That’s fine. I don’t care. What you can’t seem to fit into your brain is that I don’t want to be with any random person, I want to be with you. That’s the whole fucking problem.
I don’t see why you couldn’t have said all this earlier.
Because it’s hard to say. It makes me feel sick and sad. And it makes you angry. You’re angry right now.
She started to cry.
Let’s get out, I said.
She looked over at me. Her tears had smeared her mascara, and she looked sleepy and nauseated—from cake, from tequila. That face was still cherubic, though, adorable when wounded. I wanted to kiss her, but I got out of the car. She followed, grunting softly, her flimsy limbs dazed and heavy. It would take one shove to send her rattling down the hillside. I could scream for her, and then I could try to forget. We stood a few feet apart and stared at the twin cities.
It’s terrible what’s started to happen to all these people, she said.
Nothing’s changed. You’re just closer to it now.
She covered her mouth to muffle a sob, scrunching her eyes closed as if to retract her tears. After a moment, she stepped towards the canyon and studied its depth, unknowable in the darkness. I dared myself to push her, gently enough that she might have thought it was a mistake.
I don’t think you actually see me, she said. Like, who I am.
Yeah, you don’t see me either.
I see you better than anyone. That’s what makes you so mad.
Right back at you, honey.
Okay. I want to go home.
Let’s go.
We got back in the car. She sniffled and draped a hand over my lap. I could ask myself if I wanted this or something else, but the question was a waste of time. I already knew the answer. All this we’d done before.
Savannah Horton was the 2021-2022 St. Albans School Writer-in-Residence. Heidi Pitlor selected her story from The Cincinnati Review as a Distinguished Story for the Best American Short Stories 2020 collection. She has published in The Raleigh Review, Subtropics, and The Drift. Her novel opening has been longlisted for the First Pages Prize and the CRAFT First Chapters Contest. She is a graduate of the University of Florida’s fiction MFA program, where she received the Porter Fellowship.
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