What We Tell Ourselves
Shoshanna was so focused on remembering that she didn’t notice the man walk out of the neighbor’s tree line and stand near her, though he didn’t notice her either, both of them staring at the house.
“Brown,” the man said, and this got her attention, forcing her head to turn and look up. The person looked weatherworn, missing a top tooth, she could see the gap. The boots he wore were caked with mud up to the ankle and the tweed suit he wore seemed too much for the warm spring weather, as did the wool slacks, both of which were torn at the joints and spattered with black muck. His hook nose seemed comically red and broken at the bridge, with eyes sunken back farther than they should, hidden behind a wild bowl of hair that was see-through thin at the top. His bow tie was undone.
“Brown,” he said again, “I remember more brown.”
“It was,” she said, “But that was a while ago.”
Her voice stirred something inside of him and he looked down to her. The bird-like shape of his face made her run through a catalog of relatives and neighbors, knowing that he was important in some way, but unable to figure out why.
“Oh,” he answered back, “I think I was supposed to meet somebody by this tree.”
He paused for a moment, looking at the state of his hand and wiping it against an equally dirty pant leg.
“I’m Horace, do you mind if I sit and wait?”
She watched him rub the tips of his fingers with his thumb on his free hand and a shudder of recognition ran through her. Horace was the name of her imaginary friend from twelve years ago.
Shoshanna got up after a minute, and Horace let his hand fall to his legs, she gestured for him to sit down and he brought himself down slow, hands out behind him, like he feared he might collapse onto the stump. Shoshanna didn’t turn around as she fished the keys out of the baggie and put the biggest one to lock on the side door and entered the house she owned for the first time.
--
The water still ran inside the tap in the kitchen, but stayed room temperature when she fiddled with the temperature knobs. The small splash that she lapped up to her face did little. She moved back from the sink and stared at the kitchen from the farthest point back, staring at the cabinets doors all open, their black interiors reminding her of the tall flutes of a pipe organ she had watched while her father had gotten married the second time. That church was as white and cold as the house was now. She thought that maybe this is what happens to daughters who lose a father and don’t know what to blame, that they see things in its wake.
Almost all of the doors were open, not just the cabinets, as she crossed from the kitchen, the basement door was thrown open, and she could spy the bathroom, her sisters, and father’s room at the far end of the living room, all ajar. The air in the house smelled like paint and dust. She slid out of her loose sneakers and ran her black socks over the cream white of the living room carpet, swaying her foot from side to side like a metal detector looking for the copper splotches from her cut knees. She cut her knees a lot as a kid climbing the big elm, it was something that her and Horace did when her father met the woman who would become his wife after his workday. Whenever she was let back inside she would leave a trail of blood from the kitchen to the carpet, where it would pool under her as she sat Indian style. Her father always hated it. But the cleaners had done their job and she couldn’t find a spec of herself.
The bareness of the living room made her itch, so she farther into the house, towards the room she once had. The door to the room was closed, and she felt fear going for the handle, like he would be there, on the other side, to scold her for leaving blood. But the door opened like a feather thrown, lazy and slow, and inside there was still a great whiteness but at its center was a mound of brown. Horace’s slumped form was in the middle of the floor, sitting Indian style, his hands rubbing his knees. He seemed to sense her, as the door made no noise, and spun his head so that one big green eye could look her all over. From here she could count the red veins. The way he looked was so different, such a juxtaposition to the grinning boy that fell out of the big elm, right in front her. She had been reading Nancy Drew, a really good one too, the case of the Whispering Staircase. Shoshanna had loved Nancy because she solved mysteries and didn’t rely on guys for help. Horace had landed on his back; limbs splayed and seemed as surprised as Shoshanna to be at the base of the tree. He stood and his clothes were a size too large for his thirteen-year-old frame. Shoshanna had made the tree sacred then, for having delivered her friend, and had spent as much time as possible outside with the tree and with Horace. The tree is where Horace slept at night; he climbed to the top branches and disappeared in the leaves, or in the winter climbed so high that she could see him from her window. She had protected him by laying down a ring of green army men, all in powerful stances, their rifles or pistols or radios raised to attack or call for backup from anything that would threaten Horace as he was asleep.
Shoshanna thought he couldn’t look more broken then he did now, as she walked in a large arc to his side, where her bed used to be. The closet door was open and Horace still stared up at her.
“The closet,” Shoshanna spoke, ”is that how you got in?”
Horace nodded, and slouched over a bit more. She had let him in way when her father found her opening the front door for Horace at night.
“I feel tired. Can I sleep here?” he mumbled out.
“Horace,” She wasn’t sure of how to answer. This was her house now.
“My legs hurt like I was running.” Horace spoke into his lap.
“Were you running? Horace, where have you been?” Shoshanna got within distance of his long arms and stopped herself.
“I was trying to find the house, but its hard in the whiteness. I was supposed to meet the Queen of the Trees. Please, can I sleep here and wait for her?”
And Shoshanna didn’t know what else to do, he had fallen asleep in the middle of the floor. She left the room and closed all of the open doors so that they did not slam and wake him, even the eleven cabinets and the basement. And she left out the side door.
--
She had told her boss the same thing she said to her boyfriend, that “Dad’s stuff is hard to manage, I’m going to need a few days.” And they hadn’t questioned, they had acted the same way as if she was sick, no questions, just keep going. So she did. And she crossed back to her side of the bay in the morning rainstorm to find Horace in the basement of the house, curled up on the concrete floor, curled in a long “C” shape around one of the two supporting pillars. It was colder in the basement with all of it stripped bare. Her father had furnished it like a second living room, thick brown carpeting that felt good on sore feet, a plush couch, even a television, but it was all gone. When she was older this had been the place she had fled to, where she did homework, and one time kissed a boy named Ronnie, because he was taller than her and had nice calves. He was sweet but quickly sorted away from her. Everything had transience in this house it seemed.
“Wake up Horace,” she tried. “Wake up. I want to talk to you.”
He didn’t move, didn’t seem to breath, his mouth open. He still smelled, worse even.
“Horace,” she brought her voice up. “You can’t sleep in on rainy days.”
That brought an eye open.
“I’m tired Shoshanna.”
A little ball of energy popped in her gut as she spoke her name. It was like falling back into roles, putting on a play.
“I know, you’ve been running. But Dad says you can’t sleep in on rainy days.”
Horace rolled his head up, and then with stiff arms drew himself to sitting. His hair looked thinner, most of the black mess around the crown now a ruddy pink.
“Dad isn’t here.”
The energy popped and fell into something soft in her chest.
“Oh, you know? I wanted to talk about that yesterday—to tell you.”
“I figured it out.” He spoke, not upset, just stating.
“And do you remember me?” she asked, bending at the knees to meet him face to face. His skin cracked and flaked around his nose. He had lost another tooth in his smile.
“You’re the Queen of the trees.” He picked himself off the ground, using the pillar to hold onto. Shoshanna wanted to help him, but he waved her off. “Shoshanna, you don’t have to help me.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Yeah.” He said and straightened out the line of his pants. There were more holes in his pants, two slits on one pant leg. And again Shoshanna tried to remember how they left one another, it was at the elm tree and he was walking away, and she thought her father was behind her. Shoshanna leaned her head against the pole.
“Can we talk a little bit?”
“Okay.” He said, rubbing his fingers again, dirt spilled from each swirl of finger on finger to the slate gray floor. “I got something I wanna tell you too.”
Shoshanna moved away, towards the stairs.
“Can we do it upstairs? Its cold.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Horace took swaying steps past her and started to climb obediently. His movements were slow, lumbering and twice he had to stop to swing his legs at the hips.
“They still hurt.” He said at the second to last step before they each hit the kitchen and walked to the living room. Horace sat Indian style on the floor again, and looked up at Shoshanna, who ran her foot over a red splotch in the middle of room, right before the four indents left by the coffee table, where she had let her knees bleed. It hadn’t been there the day before. She tapped the crusted surfaced again with her socked toes and got Horace’s attention.
“Do you know anything about this?”
Horace craned over the spot and smelled at the spot.
“This is blood.”
“I know. Did you bleed?”
Horace shook his head. He looked up at her, confused.
“Why would I bleed?”
“I don’t know.” And it was quiet for several ticks of the wall-mounted clock in the kitchen. Shoshanna hadn’t remembered putting batteries inside it.
"I'm sorry Shoshanna."
"Why are you sorry?" Shoshanna sat low, trying to get his eyes, but he ran his hands over his long hair and covered them.
"I'm sorry because I didn't know it would be so bad. I wanted to help. I thought you should do it. I thought it would make you feel better."
"Horace, what are you talking about?"
"Before-When you told me to go away, I wasn't mad. I knew you made Dad mad, both of us. I told you to go find out what they were doing. He wouldn't have gotten mad if I hadn't said. But...But I just wanted to know, and you wanted to stay outside, but I wanted to know. It wasn't your fault."
And for a moment there is the smell of her father's work clothes, paint thinner and acrid things, piled up by the foot of the door, the pressure of wood against her forehead and of two sets of eyes, red and close, watching with mouths that we touching but now pulled a part, each not breathing but looking like they were. And Shoshanna was outside, to the tree, energy pushing her out, to Horace, who was excited and scared as her father stormed out after her.
"I shouldn't have asked." He said, and for the first time that day he looked up at her, eyes red like from crying, but not red, too tired to cry.
Shoshanna took three sucking breaths and blinked her eyes hard. And after a minute of stillness she could see clearly.
"Horace," she said. "That's not your story for today, is it? That's hardly a story worth remembering"
"Oh, no its not." He said, shifting himself to his knees now, hands up and fingers moving. "I have a good one. Its good, I promise."
"Good." she said. "But make it about Dad.”
In the past Horace had told her stories, and that had made them friends. It was all that she needed out of him. He replaced Nancy Drew and became a soothsayer, whenever a day felt wrong, or things weren’t quite right, Horace had a story to tell.
“Did we ever talk about the green fields of Aberdeen?”
“No, tell me, please.” Was always Shoshanna’s answer. And they sat Indian style beneath the elm tree and he would tell his, his arms out in swooping gestures.
“Aberdeen is famous for its fields of green, the rolling hills and bluffs are covered in shiny green grass that sways when the wind blows and gets as tall as a newborn giraffe.”
“Really?” was always her second question.
“Really, its harvested by the community co-op, they work together and get equal pay so nobody is offended and then they sell it to the Easter companies. The green grass from the green fields of Aberdeen is shiny grass that’s always in your Easter basket.”
She’d always laugh and then the side door to the garage would open, the one with the knot so high, and he father would call her inside because he’d just gotten home. She remembered that she told him the story about the green fields of Aberdeen.
“Honey, that shit’s just plastic.” Was all he said.
After sitting in silence Horace nodded his head and raised his fingers to his lap and rubbed them with his thumbs.
“I got one.” he said. “Its good.”
Shoshanna saddled down to sitting next to him, the side of her foot still on the reincarnated blood.
“It was when the house wasn’t all white yet, it was just a little, the corner by the garage. I was in the tree, because it was raining. It was what I used to do, when I got too scared running I came back and went in the tree. But the leaves were mostly gone, and there was just enough to cover me near the top. A branch was broken, a big one, that went closest to the house, it was in the yard. The tree didn’t feel right, It smelled bad in the tree, like rotten. It was so bad that I didn’t notice Dad standing in the rain. I didn’t hear him or see him move, but he was there. And he was staring up at the tree, and I thought he was looking at me, but I don’t think he saw me because he was just standing. He was like that for fifteen minutes, his grey sweatshirt getting real wet. He wiped at his nose and there was a bright blue bracelet on him. He looked at the bracelet and then walked into the garage. he took the power saw from garage and he.”
Horace stopped and stared, and even turned around and looked through the kitchen for a moment before turning back to face Shoshanna.
“He cut down the tree. He cut down my tree. I didn’t know what to do, you weren’t there, so I ran out into the side yard, and then there was white for a while. I didn’t have the tree, so I just had to run in the white until I found my way back. I ran a lot Shosha, I ran a lot.”
Shoshanna nodded.
“You and me ran a lot.”
“This was worse.” He said. “This was real bad. There was nobody to call us home, I was the one who sent me out, so nobody was there. Nobody.” And he let his arms fall to the ground. After a moment of silence Shoshanna understood that he was finally done talking.
“Do you have more stories, Horace?”
“Yeah,” he said, “Yeah, there are a few, I can probably remember more.”
“Good,” Shoshanna stood up and he rocked as if to get up and she held out a hand. “Its okay. I decided that this will be your house for a while. As long as you can give me stories about Dad then it’ll be yours.”
Horace bit his lip and Shoshanna started towards the side door. She made it to the cold door handle and turned the key before he spoke up.
“I get to have the house?”
“Yeah,” she said, “But you can’t stop telling me stories.”
“Mmm-hmm” was all he said as she walked out the door.
Over the next month she came by everyday, and everyday Horace had a story to tell her. He also found things, and brought things back. In her room he found a blanket, a watered down purple fleece with bright pink satin edges that he held or sat on when telling stories. In the basement the shaggy brown carpet sprung up like moss on the floor and lower parts of the walls. And each time she came back he was thinner, even though he left some of his favorites each time, kettle cooked potato chips, chocolate bars and peanut butter, maraschino cherries. They were untouched on the counter-top. Shoshanna got to hear a lot of stories, Horace had remembered Thanksgiving from a few years ago, when they had all drank too much wine and the last thing her father had said to her was “That’s really big.” It was in reference to the amount of wine in her glass. She had smiled at him and said, “ Go figure.” Horace had seen Daisy crying in the kitchen by herself. He had seen her father in a wheelchair, and then with his work boots on the next time. And then he had come back and there was no one, and by then he kept coughing, harder and harder, even when his stories didn’t have the depth they did, he still wanted to tell them.
One day, Horace said he needed a few days to get a story together. It was harder for him to remember, he had told so many stories. So for a week, she didn’t go to the house, which Horace had brought to life, so much so that the bloodstain was wet and fresh her last trip. For the first time in a while she had a meal with her boyfriend. She had been coming to the house directly after work and then spending her nights with Horace, only crossing the bay again to sleep. They hadn’t talked in some time and they still didn’t that night. They watched movies from her father’s terrible VHS collection, westerns or foreign films that were sent to him from a friend of the family. She had found some at the bottom of a box entitled “junk shit” beneath a stack of dirty clothes in her apartment. They had watched them all a few weeks back and she had asked him what he thought of them.
“They seem as boring as your father.”
And she hadn’t spoken to him for an hour after that even though he thought he had said something good, and she disliked that he apologized and said it was her fault anyway for making him think it was true.
When she came back to the house, Horace was in the middle of the living room, sitting Indian style. There was a coffee table behind him.
“Is it okay to hear the story?” Shoshanna asked.
Horace nodded, and she sat down, a bit closer to the door this time so she could face him full on. After a moment where he took three breaths in a row, like he was trying to fill his lungs to the brim he began.
“Dad was asleep in the back yard, in the folding chair that he kept in the garage. He had been out of work for a few days and was upset. And then his wife came out and found him sitting and she had different hair than I had seen her have before, it was just barely there, like mine is now. And she stands over him for a moment before she sits on him, right on his lap and he nearly throws her off before he knows what’s going on. He looks at her and he holds her hand for a while and his hand is so big he doesn’t hold it tight, just rubs her fingers. Its real quiet except for the sprinklers swishing slow in the neighbor’s yard. Its so nice where I’m sitting that I shut my eyes for a while. It was warm, warmer than any other time I came out of the whiteness. And when I opened up my eyes she wasn’t sitting on him anymore, but he still was in the chair, except his arms were tight and his jaw was too, like he was raking in each breath. She was standing with her hands to her chest and moving around him real slow. “
He paused here, and Shoshanna was afraid he had forgotten the rest for the time he took. But he took a shallow breath and went on, his eyes on his hands.
“I got up. I hadn’t done that before, not in the day, and I walked towards them, but she didn’t see me because she ran away, inside I think. And I walked towards Dad, and his arms were still tight, I could see them working, and he shook like he was cold, but the sun poured all over him, making the little hairs on his face light up silver. He saw me Shoshanna, he saw me when I walked out. I looked in his eyes and he wasn’t mad to see me like I thought there would be, he was confused, like he thought maybe I would be taller, that kind of look, like you’re surprised to see how someone has always looked. That’s what he looked like before he stopped shaking.”
Shoshanna felt a weight and taste like pennies in her mouth and couldn’t wade a voice up threw it. The will had said medical complications due to a stroke. And she wondered how thin Horace could get. How many more stories there could be floating around inside of that loose fitting suit.
“It was real warm that day.” Said Horace. “I felt warm when I started running again.”
--
Her father had told her that being alive was like being a photo album, and that being dead was like being a photograph.
“You remember people and places, things you like, and then you tell the to somebody else, and they tell you about their pictures. When you go through life its all about framing the shot up nice and leaving a good picture for the next person, so they’ll spread the word, so they’ll like the picture.”
She had agreed with him, because she knew that he would get up from the couch and rub her head and then leave her be.
“Just don’t forget.” He said, “We’re all pictures.”
At the end of the month Horace ran out of stories, and couldn’t move from his spot on her blanket next to the copper stain in the living room. He was a wicker man, stick thin and staring at her. There was a different energy in the house; she knew it as soon as she got out of the car. Horace knew it too, and they held a long stare from where he sat and her at the lip of the kitchen. Finally, Horace spoke first.
“I don’t know what to do Shoshanna. I don’t think I can run.”
Shoshanna held a finger to her lips and walked over him. Horace looked up at her, his mouth thin, his eyes big. She told him she had a plan, all he had to do was listen to her. He agreed, he didn’t know what else to do.
“Now bring yours knees to your chest and tuck yourself in tight.” Said Shoshanna, rounding her arms and gesturing him.
He paused for a moment, taking in what he had to do, and with sputtering, jerky, movements that sent taughtness all the way up his neck he brought up his knees, settled again and then wrapped his arms around. He still looked up at Shoshanna.
“You sure I won’t start running?”
She shook her head. “No, but I don’t think so.”
“Oh,” he said, but he seemed placated, tucking his head into his knees and Shoshanna pulled the edges of the blanket over him and tied him up, making a double knot at the top.
“Can you go lower?” she asked.
“Mmm-hmm.” He replied and the top of the bundle sank a bit and she tightened the knots on the top.
“Maybe a bit more?” He hands were on top feeling for air pockets.
“Mmm-hmmm.” Strained though this time. She tightened the knots more and then a bit more. The bundle was big enough to carry in her arms and she picked it up and didn’t feel him shift or his weight, like the inside of the blanket was filled with downy cotton. She felt him let out a breath and some more loose air escaped and she tightened down the knots as she laid him in the passenger seat of her car. She drove to the north side of the bay and tightened the knots down more when she got to the other side of the bridge, to her apartment, and again when she laid the bundle, now small enough to carry under one arm until it was nothing more than the size of a small melon. From the closet came the box “junk shit” and she laid it on the floor. She put the documents she had gotten from the manila envelope on the bottom, then the load of army men she had bought, and the key-chain cork from the ring of keys and nestled on top was Horace’s bundle. Shoshanna got to her knees and tightened the knots one last time and Horace struggled in the bundle. Shoshanna brought herself close and whispered something just out of hearing and Horace stopped. She put the top on the box and left it on the top of her bed for the rest of the day.
