Joshua Mehigan

This fastening, unfastening, and heaving— this is our life. Whose life is it improving? It topples some. Some others it will toughen. Work is the safest way to fail, and often the simplest way to love a son or daughter. We come. We carp. We’re fired. We worry later. That man is strange. His calipers are shiny. His hands are black. For lunch he brings baloney, and, offered coffee, answers, “Thank you, no.” That man, with nothing evil left to do and two small skills to stir some interest up, fits in the curtained corner of a shop. The best part of our life is disappearing into the john to sneak a smoke, or staring at screaming non-stop mills, our eyes unfocused, or standing judging whose sick joke is sickest. Yet nothing you could do could break our silence. We are a check. Do not expect a balance. That is a wrathful man becoming older, a nobody like us, turned mortgage holder. We stay until the bell. That man will stay ten minutes more, so no one can complain. Each day, by then, he’s done exactly ten. Ten what, exactly, no one here can say.

None of us understands our story better than this nonentity, unconscious slip of nature, nonetheless our common parent dilating at the bottom of the sea. The parent, too, of octopus and pony, of reefs and villages, once it was strange simply for being not a rock itself— not rock, but a blank sleep on a rock shelf. And, deeply sympathetic to the rock, to sea and sea-dust washing through its skin, it knows, although it doesn’t know it knows, that minds and their milieux are all one thing. Some see its way of thinking; most, not yet. Still, one day, just by living, all will find reason enough within themselves to think the single thought forever in its mind.

I get there early and I find a chair. I squeeze my plastic cup of wine. I nod. I maladroitly eat a pretzel rod and second an opinion I don’t share. I think: whatever else I am, I’m there. Afterwards, I escape across the quad into fresh air, alone again, thank god. Nobody cares. They’re quite right not to care. I can’t go home. Even my family is thoroughly contemptuous of me. I look bad. I’m exactly how I look. These days I never read, but no one does, and, anyhow, I proved how smart I was. Everything I know is from a book.

The clear orange bottle was empty. It had been empty a day. It suddenly seemed so costly and uncalled for anyway. Two years had passed. They had passed more or less the way years should. Maybe he’d changed. Or maybe the doctors had misunderstood. It was June. The enormous elm tree was green again, and the scent of   hyacinth reached through the window and followed wherever he went. And the sky was the firmament! His life was never better. Each small white spotless cloud that passed was like a long-wished-for letter. But then he remembered his promise. It came like a mild cramp, and it sat there all day in the back of   his mind like a gas bill awaiting a stamp. He saw three faces that Sunday, mother, sister, niece, all with the same kind, brown, scared eyes that brought him no peace. The sidewalk sparrows were peeping. His whole house smelled like a flower. But he remembered his promise. The drugstore said one hour. Back home again, he was tired. The label said caution, said warning. He left the clear orange bottle on the lip of   the sink till morning. The insert said warning, said caution. The insert said constipation. It said insomnia, vivid dreams, and hypersalivation, and increased urination, and a spinning sensation. It also said night sweats, and agranulocytosis, and strongly suggested a full glass of   water be drunk with all doses. The insert said all this, the insert he never read. But he didn’t have to read it to know what it said. The bedroom was calm with moonlight and the breeze through the screen was cooling. Through the elm leaves the shivery light on the wall came like quicksilver pooling. But   just before five, something woke him — a close whisper — or maybe a far cry — and the bedroom was queasy with light the color of   lapis lazuli. He lay there listening hard till six, till seven, till eight    ... At nine he remembered the bottle. But nine, nine was too late. “Don’t take me!” cried the Clozapine. “Don’t take me!” cried the pill. By ten he was feeling restless, with a whole day left to kill. “Don’t take me!” cried the Clozapine. “Yes, don’t!” cried the medication. And the bright yellow morning seemed suddenly edged with a shady fascination. Why should he go to his workplace? Who was his supervisor? He had a sickening feeling that he was becoming wiser. His room filled up with interest. He had begun to think! He thought of the knives in the kitchen and the bottles under the sink. He thought as he switched the stove on or stood at his shaving mirror, or reached for his belt in the wardrobe. Thinking made things clearer. Even the bedroom window, the open window full of sun, continually hinted at something that should be done. But he was crooked and useless. He was a piece of shit. And so, as everyone knew he would, he failed to go through with it. “Don’t take me!” cried the Clozapine. “Don’t take me!” cried the drug. Just then, the telephone rang. Just then, he ripped out the plug. “Don’t take me!” cried the Clozapine. “Don’t take me!” cried the poison. And the door of   the house creaked open, and the cellar door lilted and murmured, and the garden gate groaned and yawned and let a little noise in. There, just outside his window, lurked life like a cheap cartoon. He shut the sash, locked it, and checked it, and checked it all afternoon. He lowered the blinds on that world, no longer an agent of   it, but then, with one finger, pulled down a slat and set his eye above it. At first it was grimly amusing, at last it was grimly grim, to watch all those hunched, hurried people, who made like they weren’t watching him. The neighbors were thinking out loud. They knew he was no fucking good. So he slumped on a stool in the corner like a bad little snaggletooth should. They called him a dirty pig, and laughed, and said he shouldn’t exist. Sometimes they made a tsking sound, or oinked at him, or hissed. They hissed that he was to blame for everything, and everyone knew it, and that if   he weren’t such a pussy he’d know what to do, and he’d do it. He lay on his side on the rug unable to move at all except for his big right toe, which dug and dug at the wall, which dug at the wall, which dug. “Don’t take me!” cried the Clozapine. “Don’t take me!” cried the cure. And they begged him to sew his mouth shut just to make goddamn sure. “Don’t take me!” cried the Clozapine. “Don’t take me!” cried the poison. And the gate to the wicked city gaped, and the gates of the temple screamed and screamed, and the gates of the garden groaned and yawned, and the gates of the ziggurat gabbled in grief, and sucked all life’s sorrows and joys in. His thoughts were advancing like wolves. He lay still for an hour and a half, then reared up onto his rickety legs like a newborn calf. Then     rug hall stairs porch stoop street and the blacktop humanly warm on the soles of   his naked feet. His walk was stiffened by fear, but it took him where he was going, into the terrible world of children and daffodils growing, and friendly people helloing, and the Super out doing the mowing, and the two old sisters out in wool sweaters with their wrinkled cheeks pinkly glowing, and the pretty lady who would give birth by Christmas barely showing but showing, and the policeman helping to keep the lazy afternoon traffic flowing, and time itself slowing, and none of them, none of them knowing that an odious axis was forming, that it would not be controlled, that schemes were afoot, that a foot was a thing for a jackboot to hold, that the street was a movie set, that it was not warm and sunny, that a creditor was calling who could not be paid with money, that the world was like a sliver of   iron held in the hand, and his mind the lodestone above it that made it stir or stand, that the air was slowly changing to a color they didn’t know, that he was a famous doctor on a television show. But what could he do? Even friends would take these facts for lies, and he couldn’t tell who the enemies were, though he felt the hot breath of their eyes, so he kept his big mouth shut and tried to play along, and plowed down the street toward the coffeeshop as if nothing at all were wrong. He tried not to notice the numbers painted on garbage cans. He tried and he tried not to look at the black unmarked sedans. The coffeeshop smelled like coffee, but it felt different inside. A new waitress went by. She winked. He kept his eyes open wide. Everything screamed “Run away!” But he wasn’t really there! So he stood by the gumball machines and smiled and tried not to stare. “The power is yours!” said a T-shirt. “Look for lightning!” reported the weather. And the stranger who offered the Sports section said, “It’s all there, Chief. Just put it together.” Then wild-eyed out of the kitchen stormed a small, hard old man, shouting in a strange language and waving a frying pan, shoving him out the door and into the chattering street, shoving him, waving, shouting, and pointing at his feet, at his bare, gray feet. Then came the dark blue uniform, the badge glinting in the sun, and the belt jangling like a storm trooper’s as the boots broke into a run. “Take that!” cried the patrolman. “Take that!” cried Johnny Law. Street, knee, neck — cuffs, curb, jaw. And the flatfoot pushed him, bleeding, into the sleek cruiser, and he heard all the gawkers thinking that he was a pig and a loser, and his chin throbbed, and the handcuffs ate at his wrist, and he would be hacked into pieces soon and would not be missed. “Don’t take me!” cried the victim. “Don’t take me!” cried the threat. But the angry back of a head was the only response he could get. Lying on his side like a child at the end of a big day, he gazed up through the window and watched it all slip away. The little pen where they put him had a toilet but no stall. Here and there a message scarred the gloss-white wall. Time passed. But you couldn’t tell it on the trapped fly ticking the ceiling, or the flickering light overhead, or the sore on his chin congealing, or on the sound of the other pigs in the other pens, squealing. When the men came, he was ready. He talked. They took it all down. And soon they were back in the cruiser, on their way across town. Then, into the mirrored building, over the waxed lobby floors, down miles of echoing hallways, through the heavy brown doors, into a humming beige room with a bed and a river view, and an outside lock, and jailers who wore white instead of blue. “Take that,” smiled the doctor. “Take that,” smiled the nurse. He pressed his lips still tighter, and things got worse and worse. “Please!” threatened the nurse. “Please!” growled the doctor. He raised his fists to cover his mouth, but the nurse was too close, and he clocked her. Now into the room came the big men, who did not clamor or shout, but pinned him with ease to the bed, strapped him down, and went out. And the doctor was there again, trailing a spider web of cologne, and the doctor told what would happen next, in an expert monotone, and the nurse took a needle and emptied it into his arm, and they both left, content that he could do no more harm, and he fought, and the straps cut his shoulders, and he gnawed at his lip, and it bled, and he held his bladder for three long hours, then shivered and pissed the bed. When the doctor came a fifth time, it was long past dawn. They’d found him a room, said the doctor, gently restraining a yawn. The next two days were sleep, and words through a fine white mist. Then he woke inside a machine whose motion he couldn’t resist: “Tick-tock,” said the clock. “Creak, creak,” said the bed. “Drip, drip,” said the sink. “Throb, throb,” went his head. “Ho-hum,” sighed the night nurse. “Heh-heh,” said the sicko. “Why? Why?” screamed the patient. “Howl, howl!” cried the psycho. “Wolf! Wolf!” cried the boy. “Gobble, gobble!” sang the freaks. “Sa, sa!” cried the king. “Tick-tock,” went the weeks. “Bang, bang,” said the tv. “Teeter-totter,” went his brain. “Click, click,” went the checkers. “Pitter-patter,” went the rain. “Bring-bring,” said the pay phone. “Snip, snip,” went Fate. “Jangle-jingle,” went the keys. “Clank-clink,” went the gate. “Bye-bye,” said the nurse. “Bye-bye,” said the guard. “Bar-bar,” said the doctor. “Baa-baa,” said the lamb. “My, my,” said his mother. “Boohoo!” cried Bo Peep. “Bow-wow,” said the wolf. “Baa-baa,” said the sheep. In the car away from that place, the family had a pleasant chat. He seemed fine again, and humble, though his speech was oddly flat. He said that the halfway house where he would be residing was located on a quiet block and had green vinyl siding. There he met new people and watched the television, which did not watch him back or speak to him with derision, and he performed certain tasks, meant to teach certain skills, and he got small checks from the government to pay his enormous bills. Each night he fell asleep, and each morning he got up, and he washed down his medicine and squashed the paper cup, feeling, in all, much better, more in touch with common sense, and also slightly bored by the lack of consequence. And the church bells rang and a dinner bell tinkled and the school bell tolled and called all the good girls and boys in. And all of them brought all their toys in. And all of them swallowed their poison.

On the crowded hill bordering the mill, across the shallow stream, nearer than they seem, they wait and will be waiting. Rain. The small smilax is the same to the fly as the big bush of lilacs exploding nearby. The rain may be abating. On the quiet hill beside the droning mill, across the dirty stream, nearer than they seem, they wait and will be waiting. The glass-eyed cicada drones in the linden draped like a tent above three polished stones. Aphids swarm at the scent of the yellow petals. A bird comes to prod a clump of wet fur. The ferns idiotically nod when she takes it away with her. Something somewhere settles. On the crowded hill bordering the mill is our best cemetery, pretty, but not very. All are welcome here. Sun finds a bare teak box on the tidy green plot. It finds lichen-crusted blocks fringed with forget-me-not. Angels preen everywhere. On the crowded hill bordering the mill is our best cemetery, pretty, but not very. All are welcome here.

Nothing has changed. They have a welcome sign, a hill with cows and a white house on top, a mall and grocery store where people shop, a diner where some people go to dine. It is the same no matter where you go, and downtown you will find no big surprises. Each fall the dew point falls until it rises. White snow, green buds, green lawn, red leaves, white snow. This is all right. This is their hope. And yet, though what you see is never what you get, it does feel somehow changed from what it was. Is it the people? Houses? Fields? The weather? Is it the streets? Is it these things together? Nothing here ever changes, till it does.

Aluminum tank indifferent in its place behind a glass door in the passageway, like a tea urn in a museum case; screaming-machines that dumbly spend each day waiting for gas or smoke or hands or heat, positioned like beige land mines overhead, sanguine on walls, or posted on the street like dwarf grandfather clocks spray painted red; little gray hydrant in its warlike stance; old fire escape, all-weather paint job peeling, a shelf for threadbare rugs and yellowing plants; sprinkler heads, blooming from the public ceiling; all sitting supernaturally still, waiting for us to cry out. And we will.

The fair rolled into town surprisingly intact, like a plate unbreakable because it has been dropped and glued so many times that it is all glue and no plate. The fair was no fair. But, oh, it was a thrill! The fair slid into town just as a clown slides into pants. The fit was loose but right. The sheriff  had a job directing traffic. The barber was the sheriff  for a night, and people paid to see a human ape. They frowned to find her happy and alive. The fair spilled into town like a box of tacks. Later that month, in with the rest at church, were people no one knew, though none could tell exactly who was who.

It was her first time coming home from college. She headed downtown for a drink or two. Her girlfriend went home early. That was Christmas. Now, under sapling pine trees in the clearing, snowdrops are coming back to their old places. They had been gone a lifetime. Now they stand, poised like a choir on the verge of singing: Nature is just. There’s nothing left to fear. The worst thing that can happen happened here.

This is the place it happened. It was here. You might not know it was unless you knew. All day the cars blow past and disappear. This is the place it happened. It was here. Look at the sparkling dust, the oily smear. Look at the highway marker, still askew. This is the place it happened. It was here. You might not know it was unless you knew.