Red Waltz

 

     I remember the house.

     I remember the house and the striped bark-cloth curtains, the blue teapot screaming.

     It was 1954.

     It was 1954 and I remember the black and white bubbles floating on Granma’s television set, the pop of champagne, the man in suit. Wunnerful! Wunnerful! I came there to live after Momma went away. With Granma and Granpap and Lawrence Welk. 
     Pap took us to a movie for Granma’s birthday. It was an old one. A man in mirror shoes, his arm around the waist of a beautiful woman whose dress draped from her horizontal body, sliding against the polished floor. Later, standing behind her, his breath on her neck.

     They can’t take that away from me.

     Pap sang those songs all the way home and in the kitchen still as he twirled Granma across the new black and white checkered linoleum floor. She giggled like a school girl. She was too happy to see he was only looking at me.

    Shall we dance, he said. His outstretched hand took hold of mine. Granma had gone to bed, sleeping pills tucked warmly in her stomach. He spun me over to the padded chrome chair and sat me down. Fingers on my spine, breath in my ear.

    They can’t take that away from me.

    That was the day I met Titus.

    Titus was black and white—the Petrov to my Linda Keene. He came through the grey that had been my mint walls in the daylight. Maybe he scurried across the tree-branch silhouette that broke through my window and wrapped around the room. He stood in the shadows like a statue.

     At first I thought he was Pap.

     It was a silly thought to have. He was much too young and much too short. I let the air back into my lungs. He said my name is Titus. Those were the first and only words he ever spoke.

     Pap cooked bacon on Sundays. I’d come out from my room and sit at the table next to Granma, across from Pap. Granma sipped her milky coffee; Pap rubbed his worn moccasin up and down the Labrador’s back. I made faces in my eggs, picking at the best pieces. Granma carried her dishes to the sink and I followed.  I watched Pap licked the grease from his fingers, 1, 2, 3, then let them worm across my freckled shoulder as I passed. Titus hated when he did that.

      Every day at four o’clock I came home to Pap playing solitaire at the coffee table. Queens on Kings, Jacks on top of Queens. Red to black. A different record spun on his table each day. Dorsey, Crosby, Elington, Ol’ Blue Eyes. That’s what Granma called Pap. Ol’ Blue Eyes.  It was a mixture of denim eyes and his baritone hum that rocked her to sleep before the pills. I loved to hear him sing. And they can’t take that away from me.  

      I must’ve fallen asleep on the couch one time because I opened my eyes to Pap standing over me, Lawrence Welk playing behind him. His fingers dangled from his arm over my hip as he stared down at me, lips dryly parted. His arm stretched until his fingers slid across my thigh. Titus got mad and threw Pap’s hand off me.

       Titus was around a lot after that. Always, almost. I only saw him at night when the shadows were just right but even when I couldn’t see him, I could feel him there. With him, everything felt…less. Like he felt things for me, like I was no more than half there, trapped in a  hall of never-ending mirrors never sure what was real and what was a distorted reflection—a mimicry.

     There was a kind of numb silence, then, that wrapped tight around me when Pap came. Like an old movie, only I couldn’t see the words on the screen. Everything felt grey. Black and grey, no white. He’s there and then he was gone and I couldn’t be sure how much time had passed. I knew what happened but I wasn’t quite sure who it had happened to. Was it me or one of the reflections? Titus was in the corner. His eyes had darkened. Or maybe I just never noticed before.

     I watched out the window one afternoon as Pap raked the frail October leaves into a fortress. He started to lean forward onto the handle; his right hand groped his chest. The rake fell. He dug deep inside the pocket of his corduroy jacket until he found his bottle of pills. His fingers fumbled fiercely, working the cap against its will. My eyes wouldn't let go, fixed on his clubbed tips.  Titus's transparent hands dug into my shoulders, grounding me in that kitchen chair but I broke free and ran out the porch door. I took the bottle from Pap's shaking hand and twisted the lid. He slid two pills underneath the thick of his tongue. I could feel Titus watching me, his black eyes scolding.  

     I tried to pretend he wasn't there.

     
     Momma and I used to go to the beach. We'd turn buckets full of sand upside down and make castles with towers and motes to protect my dolls from dragons. The dolls wore dresses and blankets made of sand but then the wind came and it pushed waves up the beach and the waves licked at my castle walls until one big one swallowed it whole and left my dolls naked and alone on a pile of dirt. I cried but Momma scooped up the sand and made another castle on a rock where the water couldn't reach. We took pictures and I still have them, tucked away in my drawer where no one--not even Titus--can find them. Sometimes I still try to make castles out of the earth.

     I watched a magpie fall from its nest once. Pap was there. He hurried into the garage and came back with a shoe box and a pair of gloves. He filled the bottom of the box with grass and leaves then gently lifted the bird and laid him on top of the bedding, almost tucking him in. I thought I heard a cooing sound coming from Pap, but maybe it was just the bird or the wind.

     He didn't live very long. The bird, that is. He couldn't fly and he wouldn't eat. Pap said that's what happens sometimes to animals that are taken out of their natural habitat. That's what happened to Momma after the doctor's locked her up.

     Your momma's dead, Titus didn't speak it but his thoughts were loud as I laid in bed staring into the ceiling that wasn't there. I already knew. And I knew that meant I would never leave this place. I buried my head in my pillow, not wanting Titus to hear me cry. I heard my doorknob turn; it rattled, too small for its fitting. The door swished against the carpet; Pap's breath was thick in the silence. Everything inside me curled and puckered but I didn't move. Maybe if he thought I was asleep...but he didn't. I felt the foot of my bed compress, the covers slither away from me, his coarse hand on my neck. Then he leaned in. His breath was hot but there was no whiskey in it. Only pipe tobacco and stale salt.

     "Your mother's with God, you know?"

     I still didn't move.

     "Come here." His hand hooked my shoulder and I rose 'til I was sitting. With the door open, the hallway light stained my bedroom. His features were sunken in by shadow. I wondered if he could tell I'd been crying then he brushed his thumb under my eye and I knew he could. 
     "Come here, girl."

     He pulled me in against him, my face pressed hard into his collarbone but I couldn't feel it. Titus was there. We sat on that bed in a moment of stagnancy. Nothing moved or changed. The clock stopped ticking. Then I noticed he was rocking, ever so slightly, his hand brushing down my matted hair. My stomach started to gurgle and the room got hot but it was all coming from me; the heat was radiating from my core. I pulled away, leaned over the bed, and threw up everything inside me. Pap's face contorted into disgust. He left the room and I thought he was gone but he returned again with a glass of water. I took it but didn't drink from it. Instead, I dropped onto my shaking legs and hurried out the room and into the bathroom. I rinsed the grey matter from my limp hair. I took a drink from the glass, swished it around inside my mouth, and spit into the sink. Rinse, spit; rinse, spit; rinse, spit. When I came up for air, Pap was in the mirror. He brushed my hair over my shoulder and ran his knuckles loosely across my back. My stomach kicked again.

     I picked up Granma's hair dryer, locked it tight in my hands, and swung it as hard as I could. It hit him somewhere (his ribs maybe?) and he let out an oof. He doubled over and I darted into the hall running for the front door. I pulled it open but it slammed shut again. His arm was outstretched over my head, pinned against the door. He dropped it and scooped me up instead, throwing me down on the stiff couch. Before I could take a breath, he was kneeling over me. He dug his eyes into mine and his breathe deepened. His hand on my hip moved up my torso, pulling my nightgown with it. Titus was in the corner; I was in the room of mirrors. Somewhere to someone, Pap was moving in and out, his mouth was open but I couldn't tell if sound was coming out. Somewhere there was music. The Lawrence Wealk Show, Ol’ Blue Eyes, Elington, Dorsey, Crosby, all of them in one mistuned melody. Suddenly he stopped. His eyes changed and he froze on top of that someone then rolled off, fingering at his heart. His breath changed too. It was shallow and panicked. He looked at the girl and spit the word jacket out of his quivering mouth. His hand lapped at the air toward the coat rack and suddenly I realized he was speaking to me.

             Jacket.

Jacket.  

     I hurried to the rack but Titus was there, standing in my way.

     "Move. Please! I have to get his pills. I have to g..."

     Titus didn't move. He lifted his head from the shadow and looked at me; his eyes were blacker than they had ever been before. He shook his head slowly and I stumbled back against the wall. Titus stood at my side and watched Pap writhe on the floor. I couldn't watch, yet I couldn't look away. When Pap finally stopped, eyes wide and empty, I turned to Titus. But he was gone. The grey slipped away and everything turned to hues of red. Suddenly I felt everything. The weight of Pap's silence, the air crushing down on top of me. The unbearable density of color. Pain. Everywhere. I couldn't breathe. I slid down onto the floor and tucked my knees tight against my chest.

            They can't take that away from me.

            They can't take that away from me.