Wave

Dear Brother,

I want to jump into my life.  Like a cannonball jump off a pier.  

Everything feels suspended.  Like gravity doesn’t work.  

Floating.

Are you dead again?  Or just gone from me (again)?

Wherever you are, I’m thinking about you. Holding my breath.

I remember the last time you waved at me.  Just casual.  Maybe you knew it was the final time.  I didn’t look you in the eye.  Was surprised to see you appear at my door.  You gave me back my painting.  The one you liked so much.  You rolled it up.  There was a coffee spill along the back of it.  You kept it in the hallway of your new apartment, but I didn’t see it up when I visited.  

Just as if everything were fine.

As if you didn’t already have it all planned.

As if, when you went to swim in the river (why the river?  You hated it, the current was always too strong for you) you were expecting to come back.

I should have hugged you, at least.  Or looked you in the eye.  Not brushed you away.

(Not been afraid to look into your eyes.  Afraid that I’d be caught up in your current.  The undertow of your gaze; you suck me in and I can’t breathe.)

Looking back,  at all those moments of Normal, I have come to regret everything.  So afraid that I will miss something crucial in the future.  I watch everything now, pay attention to ALL the details.  Trying to figure out what I have missed.  All the patterns, every pattern.  When things repeat, when things become predictable.  You were never predictable, but oh-how I tried!

I still love you.  And kick myself for going there again. For letting you in again.  

For that knock at the door.  I was distracted by the dog barking, how he wouldn’t calm down, and how I wanted to give him a treat so he wouldn’t be afraid of a knock at the door, but he was barking so much, he didn’t recognize the treat.  I opened it, it was you, it was my painting. (you had rolled it up, nearly destroyed it, tape to tape)  “You rolled it up.”  I meant it to be meaner, maybe.  Maybe accusatory.  Maybe something to make you feel bad.  But you seemed to be in a rush too.  I don’t remember anything you said-but it wasn’t much-if anything.

I do remember, you waved.  As if it was nothing.  Probably you said goodbye.  

I stopped looking at your face by then.  I held the delicate rolled up painting  in my hand and was too happy to close the door.  On your waving arm, on those eyes that might have wanted a reflection. A moment to talk.

But there was a barking dog and others waiting for me to finish dinner.  

I wanted to invite you in.  For dinner and conversation and friendship.

But you had mostly stopped talking by then.  Definitely stopped socializing.  I can’t imagine you would have come in, even if I had invited you, especially if I had invited you.  

I regret that you didn’t try to stop me.  That you didn’t try harder.

That you waved goodbye to me.

===

I am sinking into a pond.  A museum in Germany, perhaps.  A grim place indeed, a place of fairy tales and a pond covered with white lilies.  But once you get too close, they suck you in, like you are sunshine.  You breathe in the pond scum, you turn green. The creature from the black lagoon.  Your hair becomes seaweed.  Your skin becomes like a mermaids, puckered, slimy and eventually you look down and the rest of you is covered in scales.  

You become someone else, someone you don’t recognize, but you don’t hate this new you.  You’ve fallen into the dark eye which reflects the night.  Or the blackness of your eyes have begun to spill out and you erase the world in front of you.  

THE BASEMENT DUNGEON

He waved to me.  As if it was all nothing.

I know that he is tall.  I can see through the blindfold and pretend the light bulb is difficult to adjust to.  I have not seen his face clearly, but I know his movements.  I recognize him.

I know that he is trying to disguise his voice.  Putting on some kind of show, so that nothing comes out normal.  

He tries to whisper when he’s talking to me.  Sometimes, he gets up close to my ears, on the side, not close to my shoulders.  (My brother knows exactly where I am ticklish) He whispers and I smell his (strange) bad breath.  I’m not nervous when he’s talking to me.  It’s when he is quiet that I worry.

But he doesn’t know that I can hear him when he is upstairs on the phone.  And that was it.

His voice.

Is Bearded.

With my eyes covered, my ears are stronger, my imagination. I know he’s The Suit.  But I pretend I don’t.  I pretend to be more scared than I am.

Maybe he will murder me (probably).

My brother is dead, and he may have killed him too.  Or maybe everything is a game.

If THAT is true, then fine.  I’m eager to play the game.  I can wait it all out.  He doesn’t seem to be violent, just crazy and perverted.  I’m stronger than that.

There must be a large piece of furniture in front of the door he uses.  I hear him move it as it scrapes along the floor.  There are 12 stairs, the second from the bottom squeaks.  It takes him another 10 seconds to come to my door.

I undid the ropes the first day.  Well, loosened and wiggled my right hand out of them (something I could always do easily).  I can still get back into them like gloves when he comes to the door.  Once, I forgot and had to work my way back in, just as he was coming in the door.  When he leaves during the week, he is nice enough to keep me on the bed.  In the beginning, he kept me on a chair during the day, which just made me uncomfortable.

He leaves food for me, but must suspect that I have some leeway.  My hands are tied behind me when he is here.  But during the week, he ties my hands in front.  He also leaves the door to my room slightly ajar.  It only opens in, and even then only enough to get my hands through and a can of soup the long way.  Not enough for me to escape.

Or so he thinks.  

He kisses me goodbye on the cheek on Monday mornings, before sunrise, and then he goes off to catch his plane.  He drives off and then I know I am safe. (Sunday night/before sunset?)

I remove the bolts keeping the hinges on the door.  I was surprised how light the door is, hollow and cheap.  I could kick it in if I wanted.  But that would leave evidence of what I did.  He’s not careful and only looks for what he can imagine.  Which isn’t much.

I think he doesn’t know what to do with me now.   A few weeks ago, he came in with what I think was a knife.  And that’s when I started talking to him.  The only one who knew where I’d be swimming that day is/was my Brother.  He wants to feel wanted that way.  So I called out to him.  Told him story after story, until I was confused myself.  

I am/was/is Scherazade.  1001 nights, begging not to be killed.  Telling a compelling story, whispering it into his ear every night as he comes.  Any other woman might have the same powers.  My blonde friend, who play-acts at being a little girl, a princess.  The one who gave me advice about how to “please a man”.  He wants to give orders, and he wants you to follow them.  He will smile when you do what he says. BUT the trick is to smile when you see that he is happy.  The aphrodisiac of teaching, of submission, of the exchange of technique.  Take all the complexities out.  This is not about reason or feminism or being equal to each other.  

But all her relationships involved men who tripped over themselves to bring her drinks and dinners and gifts.  She talked in a sexy baby voice, got irritated with them when they stopped paying attention to her.  Constantly focused on herself.  As a friend, it got her cut off from deeper conversations, I never had any patience for girls who pretended not to be intelligent.  For girls who asked questions over and over, “Enough about me, what do YOU think of me?”

The friend who was so in love with her own oil paintings, especially those she copied from photographs.  Of animals.

So I play along.

He blindfolds me, so some of that is easier.  He also wears a condom and pulls out.  He is softer then, more gentle.  In these moments, I know he regrets having done this, and does not know how to get out of it.  

If he is who I think he is, his wife just had triplets.  They may be about a year old by now.  He goes home to a screaming household.  But at heart, he can’t bear to harm anyone.  Just wants some sex.  And someone to pay attention to him.

He hated that I always contradicted him at work.  All those times at lunch when I thought he was laughing loudly about me.  He was just trying to show off in front of the others, all the popular boys at school.  

The only issue is the periphery, the security system.  There is an electric fence, I know, I’ve tried to cross it.  The ones they have for animals is supposed to just offer a minor shock.  This one can KILL you.  He told me and when he took me to test it out, I got an extremely painful burn on my ankle where the device is.  (SCENE)

Frankly, I’m afraid of that.

I think he is too.  Doesn’t know how to dismantle it, take it off, undo.  Doesn’t know if he will be shocked as well.  Dead.

Has made me promise that I would never press charges.  But doesn’t have enough faith in me (or my acting ability) to let me go.  Sometimes I sense he wants to.  Like I am an animal, a bug, he has placed in a jar.

I can withstand anything.  Sometimes I believe myself.  If only he’ll let me swim again, I can forget everything.

==

My Brother has come back.

I have infinite patience with him.

I do not have infinite faith.

He talks to me through the windows.  

Our plan is to wait for The Suit to come back.  He dismantles the system so that he can get in.  (Is the car safe?)

My brother will hide in his car.  Or sneak in when he arrives.  He’ll be waiting for him.  My brother is 6’4”.  He is big and broad shouldered and strong.  

I don’t know why he hasn’t saved me yet.  But I trust that he will.

At least, I think it is my brother whispering to me through the windows.