Why the Tree Loves the Axe. Jim Lewis
the bed and began to load it from a pile of shiny brass shells, one by one by one. I stood speechless on the floor. Beautiful, he said when he was done, and I began to back out the door, but before I could get away he spoke up. Go on and tell. Go on and be a snitch, be another disappointment. It won’t help you sleep one bit.—Only then did he look up at me. Because you didn’t sleep last night, did you? I know. Poor little princess. You got out of bed at about two in the morning and went to sit at your kitchen table, buck naked, but you didn’t care. You made tea and read magazines, and wondered what your next man is going to look like.
He was exactly right about that, and at first I thought he’d been spying on me; but he couldn’t have been, my shades had been down against the streetlights, and anyway, he hadn’t left Eden View in years. It was just that he’d suddenly laid me open, and he was watching my thoughts right through my forehead. I felt him where he shouldn’t have been and I panicked; but in a moment I’d collected myself and concentrated on a hell I conceived for him. Can you hear me now? I thought. Just mind your own business. I turned on my heel, walked out of the room, and carefully shut his door behind me; but I never told a soul about the gun.
At last I had a free night and a little self-possession, and I took a bus out to visit Bonnie at her bar. I found her watching over an empty room; it took her a moment to recognize me. Caroline? she said. That’s you, right? She laughed with delight, and I was delighted to hear her. I’m so glad you made it, finally. No one’s coming out: they’re all at home with their families. Behind her the bottles stood, with their cool glass, caramel colors, and invocations of the country, each one topped by a plastic spout. Come on, keep me company. Let me make you one of those fancy drinks, I never get a chance to make them.
We started talking and we didn’t stop. We went on, the girl and I, gently and carelessly, drinking our drinks and mentioning this and that. This trip down to Padre Island, that neighbor’s barking dog in the backyard. I can’t sleep, said Bonnie. Or if I do, all I dream about is dogs. Does that ever happen to you? When you dream the same thing over and over again?
Only when I’m awake, I said, and she laughed before I did.
Another drink, a sound in my ears. Slowly the world was reducing to just we two, our faces, our small questions and confessions. I lied to my doctor, I said to her. I lied to him, I don’t even know why. He asked me if I’d ever been hospitalized before, and I said, Yes, once, for pneumonia. Which I never was. But I didn’t want him to think I was … inexperienced.
Of course not, said Bonnie. Because otherwise he wouldn’t respect you.
Was there another drink? Some time later I stood, stretched, and looked around the room. I’ll be right back, I said. The bathroom was cold, and I was quick. When I was finished I studied my face in the dark mirror under the dim blue junkie lights, my skin perfectly clear, smooth and glowing, my eyes hidden in shadows.
Do you have any brothers or sisters? asked Bonnie when I returned.
Not really, I said. I was the only baby born to my mother alive: she had one miscarriage before me, and another after, so there I was. She didn’t talk about it, but there I was.—I held my hands out on the table as if I were cupping an invisible infant.
She sipped and stared at the bartop. I have some stepbrothers somewhere, she said, but I never see them. My mother’s dead, and my father could be anywhere, you know, so I don’t know a soul except for you. Even though I’m sort of very social. Sociable. But just to a point. I don’t really know a single person, except for the people that I see in here, and I only see them here. And you. Does that make you uncomfortable?
I said, No, not at all. I was playing brave and everclear, but in fact the moment was painful; the debut of a friend was so great a moment that I could hardly stand to consider its consequences. No new lover with his hand on my naked ass could have gotten close to me so quickly.
She was embarrassed, she looked down and nodded. Looked up. Without flinching she rose from the table and went to make us each another drink, and I walked over to the jukebox, played five songs, and forgot right away what they were. We met at the table again. We were too good for anybody.—Boo! to the bosses, to the rude ones and the tattletales. I like that shirt, said Bonnie. It was loose and black. I like the buttons.
Later, she talked a little bit about mothers who ran their boys in gangs, and I answered her with a brief elegy on child brides, rooming-house whores, and after-hours abortionists. She told me a story that began with a description of a piece of one-hundred-year-old lace, and another that ended with the sentence, I had to change all the locks on my fucking doors, which cost me about two hundred dollars that I didn’t have. I told her a few things I had learned about landlords, which led me to a remark on the saleswomen at makeup counters, and another on table manners. I added some thoughts on the smell of burning hair. She made a point about skin, and the nerves beneath the skin, all the while gently stroking the inside of her wrist with the index finger of her other hand.
I was married, I said, out of nowhere.
Tell me, tell me.
His name was Roy. I met him in New York, he worked for the City. So what happened … I fell in love with him, and then I married him. I took his name.—I took his name. We lasted about a year.
How was it? she asked.
It was perfect until it ended, I said, and then it was a perfect tragedy. Bonnie pursed her lips and lowered her eyes, and I gave her a moment … I married him, O.K., and I was faithful to him, but I couldn’t stay married. I left, and when I left I didn’t take anything, but that didn’t make it any better. Well … that was long ago and far away …
A middle-aged man walked through the front door of the bar, looked around at the room, and found it deserted but for the two of us. We stared at him. He hesitated for a moment, and then said, Sorry, and left again.
I changed the subject, I didn’t really want to talk about New York. I have this fear of heights, I said. I’ve had it all my life. I get it when I’m on a balcony or near a high window, or when I’m looking down a stairwell from a few stories up. But it’s not that I’m afraid I’m going to fall, or someone’s going to push me. It’s that I’m afraid I’m going to jump. I start to hear this voice in my head, and the voice is me. Go on, I say to myself. Just go on, just jump.
Bonnie nodded. When I was younger, she said—and then she started laughing and couldn’t stop, and I laughed along with her without knowing what was funny. She began again. When I was younger, I used to fake not having orgasms.
Not having orgasms, I said.
Right. I would just stare at the ceiling, even when I was getting all ganged up inside, trying not to show it. It was a lot of work. But I didn’t want some guy to know he’d made me lose control, so I’d lie there going—she made a noise like a matron trying to suppress a cough. I had this one, poor little skinny boy, who thought it was his fault and went down on me for about an hour, and never even knew how many times I busted.—She exploded with laughter, so violently that she had to wipe her chin. Oh God, she said. Oh fucking God. Who told me I was nothing but a place to put things?
I went to the jukebox again, she went behind the bar to mix us another round. When she returned, she sat the glasses down on the table and immediately lifted one of them up again. What time is it? I asked.
She pointed to a clock behind the bar that read eleven-thirty. About eleven, she said, and sighed. I’m drunk, she went on. I’m dry and I’m drunk. She interlaced her fingers and turned her palms out so that her knuckles cracked loudly. I’m dry, and I’m drunk, she said again. So this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to start paying more attention to things. I’m not going to go around in my little daze anymore. You’re so much smarter than me, more thoughtful, right? You always try to know what’s going on. I bet you don’t get caught at things the way I do.
I’m going to finish everything I start, I insisted. You have far more self-control than I do, I can tell, you don’t give up as easily. So I won’t write letters that I never send; I won’t put the book down on page