The Recluse
by Harriet Garfinkle
You think you know what life you are living. You are sadly mistaken.
I came to California tucked inside a leather valise, lodged between the freshly ironed European linens and tatted lace. I came from Alabama where my kith and kin still reside. They have large broods — hundreds of arachnid offspring with southern drawls, big hair that wilts in the humid summers. I’m a shut-in, a misanthrope, and a recluse. I live an undisturbed routine inside the carved Chinese cedar chest that you’ve stashed in the attic. The wooden warriors on the bas-relief fight a centuries old battle. I’m hoary now, and I struggle to move my feeble, bristly legs. All my hundreds of children have fled.
I am my mother's child. But I was born near the clang of the cable cars and the keening of the foghorns. I’m the adventurous one, traveling south a hundred nautical miles on the breath of the ocean to come to this place perched on a high cliff. I live in the small opening between the roof rafters of this drafty building. Awaiting the chance to spin a web. To make babies. To feel fulfilled.
You came to the literary camp late, so you got the dregs. Top bunk. You picked up a crazy woman — another writer — from the airport. You didn’t know her. It was a mitzvah, a kindness. A New Yorker. Not Jewish, and even more neurotic. But her flight was late. You hate to be late. You drove like Bertha Mason Rochester along the Big Sur cliffs. You might have a death wish. It’s a wonder you arrived.
The other bunks already sport hospital corners, pj’s laid out for the night, and suitcases stowed beneath the beds. Beside one low bunk, there’s a CPAP machine. Your upper bed quickly becomes snarl of scratchy sheets, tangled bedclothes, and your own duffel bags. There’s nowhere else to put your stuff. You hit your head on the low ceiling and start to cry. It reminds you of camp when you were a teenager. You’re always trying to fit into tight places, even now.
Lights out in the bunk room after a welcoming cocktail party. You pull out your kindle to read a little bit, and when you look at the ceiling less than 12 inches from your face, there I am staring down at you. When you when a kid, you were traumatized by the sight of a long -forgotten great aunt of mine. You yell, “Spider!” The writers you barely know are now your best friends. Lights on. CPAP mask off. A cup is found. Your lower bunk mate clambers up onto your sagging mattress and encloses me inside one of those red disposable party cups. She slides a piece of paper over the top. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Who knows what malice I could perform if given half a chance? Your bunkie carries me outside and deposits me in the bushes by the front steps. You all feel virtuous.
I feel lost, exposed. I crawl under the wooden stairs to cover my shame.
You came to the narrow street South of Market. The uneven pavement is littered with discarded needles, urine-soaked baby diapers, and stained mattresses, the wool batting mounding in drifts in the gutters. Human and canine excreta exhibit track marks — evidence of vagrants roving these streets. Hollow ghosts of plastic bags hover like sentinels, fluttering up and down the narrow passageway. You’re a writer and an actress. You came to this haunted alley to get a headshot.
I am also my mother’s child, one of thousands dispersed to the four winds. I was the shy, timid one, slow to mature. I never wanted to leave home, so I’ve settled into a discarded running shoe in this old brick building a mile from my mother. Any moment the photographer could decide to wear them. He never does. He’s too lazy to actually run. I worry about my mother. She’s on her last legs, but I’m reluctant to leave my own nest to visit her.
You ring the doorbell on the concrete blockhouse. It has an iron outer door. The alley has the same name as you, and you think that's funny, and maybe a good coincidence. It's not. The photographer has a round, friendly face and a paunchy belly. You think he's warm and cozy. He's not.
The photographer asks what you are wearing. You're embarrassed because you're always cold or too hot. It's a parka with a fur lined hood. He says you look cute and like the girl next door, and he's going to photograph you in your hood. You didn't know you looked like the girl next door. Was the girl next door Jewish? He takes a bunch of photographs of you, and then he tells you that you’re beautiful. He tells you you're the sexiest thing he's ever seen. He comes closer. His breath is sweltering. He touches you, and it's electric because the man you're married to doesn't touch you with any voltage. You melt a little but, still, you think, No. I'm married. You say it aloud. But he's on top of you, and the voltage is searing.
I bite him.
You put your parka back on and walk out the barricaded door, not knowing. You are a cistern. Your shame is runnels carved into the sides of your cheek and in your armpits, tainted sweat, dripping dirty rainwater.
The photographer doesn’t realize what I’ve done. He doesn’t know that his skin will fester and extrude pus, that his tissue will become necrotic, that he will writhe in pain and confusion, with fever and chills, the same way he has made women struggle to free themselves underneath his heavy weight. He will die without understanding. You will never have the satisfaction of seeing his anguish.
I will watch for you, dangling from a thread.
Harriet Garfinkle is currently shopping her literary psychological suspense, Waltzing on our Knees, to agents. She was one of the creators of the original production of the play, Purple Breasts, which, after receiving top billing at the Edinburgh Festival, had full-page coverage in the NY Times. Her short fiction has appeared in online journals such as the RiversEdge Journal of the University of Texas and Gris-gris Magazine of Louisiana State University, among others. She's been honored to win several Effie Lee Morris Awards from WNBA-SF. Her artwork can be seen at http://www.harriet-garfinkle.com, and she can be reached at harrietgarfinkle@gmail.com. She is currently at work on her second novel, “Fast Forward/Slow Rewind.”