It hadn’t stopped raining in almost a week. No one could go out, and our apartment was small, with no cable. I remember being very worried as I saw my dog fly by my window, twisting with the wind. I began to avoid the windows, imagining my dog’s corpse just outside, in a tangle of muscle and entrails.
Yesterday, the lights went out and Jenny almost went crazy. No TV, she yelled, running around waking everyone up. (Everyone seemed to be sleeping more those days.) There’s no TV. Somebody do something. There’s no TV. Finally, Ralf grabbed her and held her head under a pillow until she lost consciousness. No one laughed. Everyone slept.
When we awoke, it was quiet outside and it made our ears hurt. I became very sad, and slowly pulled open the front door. (We had jammed it with a side table because the locks had given out during the first two days of the storm.) Then I went to Ralf’s room and asked for some money. I said, we need water. And baking soda. I said, I’ll only be a few minutes.
Ralf was still sleeping, and wouldn’t budge no matter how hard I kicked his stomach. Finally, I went to look for Jenny and found her crying in the living room. Her hands covered her face, and I saw that, beneath her left hand, her tears were red and sticky. They took it, she said. It’s in there, somewhere. She pointed at a hole in the wall, with her left hand. I saw the empty eye-socket and placed my hand on her head in a comforting way. Don’t worry, I said. I’ll get it back, but first, I need to buy water. She said, And baking soda? I said, Yes, how did you know?
“I could see,” she said. “I could see when you were talking to Ralf. When you were trying to wake Ralf.”
Yes, I said. Ralf wouldn’t wake up. But how did you know that?
“I could see it happening.” She stood. I stepped back.
She had a faucet head in her hand. I asked her, what are you doing? All she said was, “I could see it happening.” The faucet head slammed against the bridge of my nose, the middle of my forehead, the fronts of my teeth. I choked. She said, “I could see it happening.” The faucet head connects with the side of my head, the corner of my cheekbone, the edge of my jaw. I heave, and fall forward.
I am on my hands and knees and gasp at the floor. Something round falls out of my mouth and bounces and rolls away. Jenny jumps after it, and the faucet head is forgotten. Picking it up, she says, “Here it is.”
Jenny unzips her pants and pushes them down to her thighs. She carefully rolls the eyeball up her asshole, smiling at me all the time. I moan and beg her to take it out again. “Now it is safe,” she says.
Now it is safe.
I hiss at her, from my awkward position on the floor. I cradle my bloodied head and hiss at her. I tell her, You’re a louse. You’re a pansy. I watch her take the faucet head in her hand again, and hiss even harder. You’re a coon, I say. A Spanish bric-a-brac.
The faucet head is slippery with my blood. She grips it with one hand and locks my head with the other. I am very calm. She pushes it in and my eyeball gives out with a sigh and a wheeze. Fluid runs down my cheeks, and she laughs and giggles and pushes me to my feet. Now go buy the baking soda, she says, and think about who the real Spanish bric-a-brac here is. She pushes me toward the door, even holding it open for me. The wood creaks beneath our feet and she squints at the sudden blue.
I step out, slowly, carefully, into the stillness of the morning, and wonder how it is that I came to be here.