Scissors Read online

  “You have more white, that’s all. You have more white than I do.”

  “Anyway, I’m there with my bags, wondering how long I’m going to have to hang around. I look at my watch. The children get out of school in an hour. I’m not talking about the children who are running around in the Laundromat. I’m talking about our children, who go to school.” She lights a cigarette.

  “I got that already,” she says. “You should cut that. Those last sentences.”

  She pulls the ashtray closer.

  “Those sentences have some importance,” I reply. “They’re important, and you’ll see why later.”

  I’m on the point of resuming the story when I have the sudden feeling that I’m suffocating. It’s a repeat of the feeling that overcame me in the Laundromat.

  I’m afraid I’ll start shaking. I turn to open a window. I lift it a few inches.

  “Who needs air?” Marion says.

  I look at her. I realize I’ve lost the thread.

  “ ‘Those sentences are important,’ ” she repeats, helping me out. “But wait. I thought I heard Theo.”

  “It must have come from outside.”

  We listen. Muffled voices and the TV set in the opposite apartment, where our neighbors turn the thing on and never watch it. A damp smell enters the kitchen. Marion shakes her head. “That’s not Theo,” she says.

  “You want me to go and see?”

  “Shouldn’t you be getting ready to leave?”

  I look at the clock and see myself in the Laundromat again, staring at the hands of the clock on the wall.

  “So school’s out soon. I’m thinking there’s no way—I mean no way at all, even if I perform some fabulous feat—to finish with the wash before I have to go and pick up the kids from school. At that moment, the matron opens two machines. Two opportunities present themselves. I charge over to them, so impulsively I forget the laundry bags. You know that in a Laundromat, in the lawless primitive jungle of a Laundromat, no discussion is possible. There’s no language, no way to assert yourself, other than dumping a massive load of laundry into the machine as it’s being cleared. And I forget the bags. I forget and pull up flabbergasted in front of the matron. ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘I don’t need any help.’ She refills the machines, closes the doors, and punches in the programs. I stand there like an idiot, with my three bags at the other end of the Laundromat. I head back to the bench. Someone’s taken my place.”

  “Close the window, Robin.”

  “It’s stifling in here.”

  “Close the window, the kids are going to catch colds.”

  She stubs out her cigarette. While she’s lighting up another one—the ashtray is overflowing, how can she have any left?—I pivot and lift the window higher.

  “I’m stifling, me!”

  When I turn around, there’s no anger on her face. She comes close to me. Cigarette in hand, she puts her arms around me and lays her forehead against my chest.

  I hear the TV, the muffled voices, and a crying child.

  “Theo,” I murmur.

  She raises her head. We freeze and listen. I think about the cartons of cigarettes she keeps with her stockings and the secret compartment in the fridge.

  Marion leaves the kitchen. I start to shake. I feel an irresistible desire to search the fridge.

  She comes back and says, “It wasn’t Theo.”

  Marion sits down again. I resume my story. The window’s down, but it’s still cold.

  I put some water on to boil and tell her the whole story.

  I tell her what I felt in the Laundromat. Running from one chore to another, from one child to the other, from Theo to Sophie and from Sophie to Theo. How can I write? I don’t mean a novel, I’ve given up any hope of that, but at least some short stories, stories that don’t take long to put together. I haven’t had even enough time to write stories for the last five years. We used to talk about doing things, we said we had to keep moving. We had some ambitions and all sorts of dreams. Now we have three loans to repay, we don’t have enough money for the heating bill, and the washing machine’s been repossessed. No magazine wants to publish my stories. Nothing’s moving, I’m not writing anymore, I’m bound hand and foot. And you know what? Those kids in the Laundromat, they’re there because their parents don’t have the time to pick them up after school. And I can’t do the wash because I have to go get my kids … Lots of people are better organized than we are. “So you see,” I tell her, “those sentences had some importance.”

  The kettle starts whistling. Marion looks at me incredulously.

  “How dare you say that? How do you dare tell me all that? You want me to describe my day to you? Is this a contest? The parent with the biggest ball and chain and the worst day wins the prize? Because I’m not so sure it would be you. I don’t think it would even be a tie.”

  She’s talking over the whistling kettle. She moves it without burning herself. How does she do that without burning herself? Sometimes I think my wife’s fireproof.

  “You have two jobs. The hospital and the library. You’re a night watchman at the hospital and three afternoons a week you’re a librarian.” (She counts on her fingers. I look at her hand and see it stroking my face.) “I, on the other hand, am a waitress. I wait tables at the university, at the Athletic Club. Every time I put my apron on, I tell myself I’m the athlete, I’m the one who’s athletic. An athlete in the morning and an athlete in the afternoon. In the afternoon, I stop at the parent institute and pick up my kits. I pick up my kits and begin to go door-to-door. Just describing the kit to the customer and explaining how it works takes a good twenty minutes. ‘No, it’s not a first-aid kit, it’s a kit for educating your children.’ I smile from ear to ear and keep some jokes in reserve—jokes are part of the job. Try selling a kit without a smile, just try it and see. You sell the kit and the smile sells you. That’s what I tell myself. And when I explain that to the boss, he talks about giving me a promotion. You could be the regional supervisor, he tells me. Would you like to be the regional supervisor? I started the job three weeks ago and he’s talking about promoting me. Pretty athletic, huh? After I make my rounds, I stop off at Winnie’s. She lets me use the restroom without ordering anything at the bar. It’s a deodorant-stick stop, the one I make at Winnie’s, because I can’t go on to my next job, flogging programs at the movie theater, if my armpits stink. And while I’m shaking the stick, I look in the mirror and say to myself, ‘How am I going to supervise the region if I have to be home by eight o’clock to put the children to bed? How? I’m asking you.’ And I don’t know why I say that, because I’m not working three jobs just so we can pay the rent and buy clothes for Theo and Sophie and get a new lawn mower—”

  “The lawn mower’s broken?”

  “We don’t have a lawn mower, you jackass. You haven’t noticed that the grass on the lawn comes up to your knees?” When she adds that last question, she throws her hands in the air. (I love it when she throws her hands in the air.) “What I’m saying is those three jobs aren’t just so we can afford to buy stuff. They’re supposed to pay for my college too.”

  I heave a sigh. Marion wants to go far, and nobody better stop her. But we have two children, no diplomas, and debts up to our necks. We’re broke, and I don’t want to give up writing.

  She empties the ashtray and says, “You just ought to stop drinking, Robin.”

  I blink. “It’s under control,” I say.

  “Under control? You’ve got your alcohol intake under control? You must be joking!”

  While she’s getting out another cigarette, I slam my fist on the table. Nobody’s impressed. It just hurts my fingers.

  And she goes backward, she rewinds her monologue. “Three jobs I can’t stand. I feed my family and put some money into my college fund.” (She can’t find any matches. For a change, she’s run out of something.) “I’m an all-around athlete.”

  I make a mental note of the alliteration.

  “God damn it! Shit!�
�� She bends over the stove and lights her cigarette from the gas burner. She inhales the smoke. She says, “I got a scholarship.”

  I stay quiet. She goes on: “They’re giving me money to continue my studies. I’m going to sign up for either prelaw or literature. I should pick law, right? Baldaccini suggests law.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “My adviser. Dr. Balda—”

  “I’ve never seen him.”

  I pronounce “Baldaccini” a bunch of times, grimacing conspicuously.

  “You must have seen him in the library. He’s got a beard.”

  “They all have beards. I’m going to be late,” I say, looking at the clock.

  I have pins and needles in my legs. Marion strokes the back of her neck. It’s a thing she does before making love.

  She breaks off the stroking and points to the room where I write. “About the study,” she says.

  I knew she was going to talk to me about that.

  “It’s my study.”

  “We should think about what we’re going to do with it.”

  “It’s a protected area. A minefield.”

  “I know, but you’re not writing anything at the moment.”

  “Have you been searching my study? Who told you I wasn’t writing?”

  “You did. You’re the one who told me. You just said it. We need that room—”

  “You need that room. For Baldaccini,” I add, not completely sure what this is leading to.

  “Fuck you, Robin! We need that room for Sophie and Theo. They aren’t sleeping well sharing one bed.”

  “Then we put in another bed!”

  “There’s not enough room. Not enough room,” she repeats. Then she starts to cry.

  I walk toward the door. Marion scurries behind me.

  “I’ve always supported you,” she gasps out. “I support your writing, your ambitions. We have to help each other.”

  “Marion …”

  I don’t know where this is leading. I don’t have the least idea. I say, “I have to go.”

  “They want my response about the scholarship. They expect it tomorrow.”

  She says that, and she’s not crying anymore.

  There’s a silence. When it’s over, I come out with, “So, Sophie and Theo—you’re going to put them away in a drawer?”

  She bursts into sobs, as if I’ve broken a bottle on her head. I leave the kitchen. I slam the front door and go down the walkway.

  Outside at last.

  What am I going to do with my life?

  I head for the car. Some children begin to cry. I don’t know if they’re ours. I hear a siren and the highway sound in the distance like a great inrush of air.

  At the moment when I open the car door, I realize I’ve left my keys on the kitchen table. I’m going to have to ring the doorbell and wait for Marion to come to the front door. I’m going to have to go back inside.

  I hear a rustling noise. I’m standing in a pile of leaves so deep I can’t see my shoes. I think about the secret compartment in the fridge. About all the compartments in all the fridges in the neighborhood. Everybody should have one, I say to myself. A secret place, there or somewhere else.

  “You just ought to stop drinking,” Marion says as she opens the door.

  I close my fingers on the keys she hands me. They’re still warm from contact with her palm.

  And I start shaking.

  DOUGLAS

  Of course it’s a favor. You think I have nothing to do but entertain all the girl students in the country? Little featherheads with A Room of One’s Own in one hand and Cosmopolitan in the other. And I’m supposed to speak to them and expose my views on fiction? Give me a break. I’ll be glad to expose my views, but not on fiction.

  You don’t want to sit any closer? You prefer the sofa? Fine.

  Where was I? Ah yes, fiction. I focus on the real, it’s all I’m interested in. Family, work, humiliation, illness, our attempts to escape all of that, and three little notes whistled in the dark before it swallows us up.

  I tell my students—I run a writing workshop twice a week, you should come—I tell them, “Pick the most humiliating thing that ever happened to you, the thing that made you feel really, really low. Then take a piece of paper and tell me the story.” They all have the same frozen smile as they remember their first french kiss, the first time they went to bed with somebody … I yell, WRITE, GOD DAMN IT! They jump exactly the way you just did and start to scratch themselves. What do you think’s going on? Inhibitions, blank-page syndrome? Just the opposite. You should see how they put their shame on display, how they jostle one another for the chance to admit their self-loathing. The novices’ confessional. I get thirsty just talking about it.

  This is bourbon, would you like some? I keep a flask in my right-hand pocket. I can’t afford to make a mistake—the other pocket has skin lotion. For my unending psoriasis. Bourbon on the right, on the left oil for my scales. Scales, I love that word. “He loved the word, but not the thing.” Do you know who wrote that? I could say that about all existence. But then there’s the word, you understand what I mean? A word like existence or scales or disaster. And the words are enough to make me hang on to the things, enough to make me want to love them. Just be sure you give me the right word. Not the one word too many. Too many words give me hives. You see my card—here, take my card, I’m doing you a favor—you can see it says there Literary Editor and the name of the magazine. I should replace that with Literary Rash. That’s what I get from ten short stories out of ten. Sometimes the eleventh one comes along, and I scrutinize it, I rework it. I don’t quit until it’s readable. Notice I didn’t say publishable. Publishable? One story out of a hundred. One out of a thousand, if I listened to myself. Except that I have a magazine to get out. I have to accept defeat. Different ways of trying your luck while you’re waiting for someone to come along.

  A voice, do you know what that is? I don’t hear many real voices these days. But my ears remain open. The magic wand is there, as ready as ever.

  Let’s go back to my students. They read their disgraceful efforts aloud. My verdict? Always the same: WHO TOLD YOU TO GET NAKED? I have to shout very loud to get it through their heads. WHO TOLD YOU TO POUR YOUR HEART OUT ONTO MY SHOES? I wipe my feet on your heart like a doormat. Who told you to describe a real humiliation? That’s what you did, every one of you.

  You think I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. And at the same time, I’ve defined fiction: Reality with a sideways step. Where’s yours? Where’s your sideways step? That’s what I ask my students. Flee sincerity like the plague, I tell them.

  You’re staring at my mail. That pile of manuscripts. Do I look at all of them? Of course. Do I read them all? Of course not. The first sentence tells me everything. Which means, it tells me whether or not I must read the next one. And so on, right up to the last word, where the decision still hangs in the balance.

  You want a test case, is that it? You’re a gambler. A gambler has turned up in my office. So much the better, I like girls who … I myself am … What an idea, putting so much Scotch tape on this thing. The sender must be the anxious type. Give me that paper knife. There, on the coffee table. Thanks. I want to open this myself. People all over the country submit their work to me. The entire nation sends me its stories: white-collar workers, blue-collar workers, immigrants, sales reps, prisoners—some serving life sentences—and the president’s wife. You want me to tell you something? All our secrets are the same.

  Let’s see whose these are … ah, it’s Raymond. What’s he got to tell me? “Ambulance sirens, that’s what I bring home with me from my nights on duty.” Raymond thinks he’s the only hospital night watchman in the country. For pity’s sake. But make a note, make a note in that little notebook of yours: “what I bring home with me from my nights on duty.” That’s the kind of sentence I run away from before I get to the period.

  Poor Raymond, he brings home sirens.

  Believe it
or not, when I go home, I still haven’t had my fill. I pick up a book of fairy tales and read one to my son. “Ithaca,” I say to him, “you’re not obliged to believe this bullshit.” He nods his head. But just so he can get what he wants, which is for me to keep on reading. He’s three years old and he’s already manipulating me.

  So why exactly have you come? You’re writing a memoir. You go to see an editor. And you ask him to define fiction. I’m not God the Father. I’m just the Captain of the Storytellers. That moniker has never caught on, I don’t know why. I owe my reputation to my skill with scissors, the talent I have for making cuts in the texts I publish.

  But there’s something else: my way of finding a word under another word. The word I find is clearer, more precise. I make an incision that liberates what the sentence had buried.

  I believe you’ve come here for my mind as well as my body.

  MARIANNE

  It’s crazy, right? But what do you want me to do, my dear? Throw him out? He’s already out. He called this morning. He leaves messages on the answering machine. No, it’s a detox clinic. He’s a regular there, it’s like he’s part of the furniture. Has he stopped drinking? No. I know my Raymond. What? Of course I call him that. I’ll say it again: my Raymond. Nobody’s going to change him. In the future, maybe I’ll be … yes, that’s it, more prudent. But don’t talk to me about experience, and don’t talk to me about wisdom. I’m broken, Claire. No, I don’t want you to come here. Suppose they call you and say you’ve got a part, what are you going to tell them? “I’m gluing the pieces of my sister back together. She lives with a writer.” Part-time writer, full-time boozehound.

  Wait, I thought I heard Sarah. No, it wasn’t her, it was the neighbors. She’s going to come back. She always comes back. What would you want me to tell her? Ten days ago, Raymond cleaned out her bank account, his daughter’s bank account. To buy himself some liquor. He cleans out her account and then he says to her, “Where’s the respect in this house? Where’s your respect for your father?” Three days she’s been gone. But she’ll come back. “Runaway at fifteen …” How does the saying go? “Runaway at fifteen, home to stay at sixteen.” Actually, I think I made that up. I invent sentences, they wind up in his short stories. I supply him with dialogue, he breaks a bottle on my head. No, I wasn’t flirting. The teachers are … affectionate with one another. At our school, in any case. The history professor? That was just to make him jealous. So he’d go into a rage. Oh, that’s something I know how to do. Besides, he was drunk. He has a mistress, you know. All … all right. Go on if you’ve got something on the stove. We’ll talk later.