Scissors Read online

  Hello? Sarah? Who’s calling? Who’s on the line? You have to come home now. Come back home. You must come back, Sarah. Come home. It’s crazy.

  DOUGLAS

  I need women. Mm-mm. Women. I want women. Young, mature, in the cradle, I don’t care. But women.

  I never stop telling them that the short story’s a feminine form. She gives you a sidelong glance at the bend of a narrow lane, and when she disappears you search all over town for her. Woolf, Mansfield, where are those broads?

  If I can find ten—ten good stories written by women—I’ll put out my special issue. But I’m never going to find them. Because I can’t put enough money on the table, not all by myself.

  What? Yes, I talked to you about my special issue. Yes I did, Gerald. I’m calling it Our Secret Lives. Or The Season of Our Secrets. No, I’ll come up with something better. I’ll bring it out in the fall and blow away the anthologies. They’re all old hat. But the magazine, the magazine will put out its special issue, and that territory will be ours for the next twenty years. We’ll piss on the competition. You and me, Gerald.

  You want to know who we’re going to piss on? I can’t believe it. You don’t read the other magazines? Look, I’m going to beat it across the street. I can cross the street and take an office on the other side. And I can publish novels. I have an offer. Yes, I have an offer. But they don’t make my dick hard, Gerald. What makes my dick hard is the magazine. And what I can do with it.

  Of course you don’t know what I’m talking about, the only reason you come here is to hang paintings. You hang your paintings and I edit the fiction. To each his own. But no, I’m not going across the street. I’m staying here with my rose window.

  I’m talking about doubling. About paying twice as much per story as we do now—that way, we attract the best. Yes, it’s indispensable. So that they’ll accept my cuts. If we double our price, they’ll stop flinching. Why do I cut their stories? Why do I rewrite them? Oh, don’t talk to me about that … Gerald. Don’t talk to me about their artistic int … their artistic integrity.

  I have a magazine to publish. Three short stories per month. Do I have to justify myself? Show my receipts? For God’s sake.

  I’ll give you one example. If a short story … Gerald. If I buy a story and I’m able to fix it by cutting it a little, or by cutting half of it, well, that’s what I do. Here’s the thing, though. A great many stories may be excellent except for one problem: a terrible ending. That makes for an awkward situation, because I can’t tell the author—I’m simplifying this totally so you’ll understand—I can’t say, “Your story is good, your ending is bad … uh … could you rewrite the end?” Because if I say that, every one of them will write another ending even worse than the first, and then I’ll be in a real fix, because a relationship, an editorial bond will have been established, and at that stage it would be impolite or incorrect to reject a story they’ve reworked at my request. That’s why I rewrite them.

  Gerald, how do you think I can make them swallow that bitter pill without paying them double? Yes, I’m a progressive!

  I have an ideal in my head. A voice for the magazine. Except I’ll never find an author who’ll say to me, “Douglas, you’re a genius. Rewrite me. You’re a god.” I’m never going to find that author. But with double the amount of cash on the table, I have a chance to approach my ideal. By constructing it myself.

  No, Gerald, it’s not a magazine. It’s a manifesto. You don’t know that because you keep your eyes riveted on those daubs of yours. But if you page through the magazine, you’ll yield to the evidence. Those short stories, all together, side by side—that’s their voice. Their voice, you understand me?

  But it’s my signature.

  RAYMOND

  You’ve reached Marianne and Raymond’s house. Please leave a message, we’re all ears, and if you’re looking for Leo or Sarah, try the soccer field, the video arcade in the middle of town, or even their school. No, on second thought, don’t try their school.

  “It’s me. It’s Raymond … uh … I don’t know what to say … I’m lost. I’m calling you from a phone booth near the highway. I left the clinic. I took the car, and it broke down. You know it didn’t have a reverse gear anymore, and now the transmission’s completely shot. I’m so sorry, Marianne. I don’t know who could have done that to you. It was me, of course. I’m stupid. It was me … I can see you, you know. I see you on the telephone. Or rather I can imagine you. You’re wearing your sister’s sweater. Her navy blue sweater. You’re holding yourself as straight as the flame of a cigarette lighter. Your hair’s hiding your cheekbones. You’re rolling a few strands between your fingers. Are you still listening to the same song? I see a glass of something on the coffee table. Magazines all around, a lot of magazines. How can you read that, Marianne? How can you believe in astrology …? And then I see your eyes. Your eyes that catch everything, your wonderful gaze. You’re standing at the window, turning the answering machine around, on the lookout for a distant signal. I’d like to be that guy on the horizon signaling to you. Someone you’d be glad to go to. Describe him to me so I can try to be like him. Pick up and describe him to me.”

  DOUGLAS

  What’s that? What does that mean, he doesn’t want to? Put him on. I’m telling you to put him on. Lorraine … Turn the receiver toward him. Ithaca, it’s Daddy. Daddy isn’t happy. Daddy has to stay at work, he won’t be home until late. Mommy’s going to have to read you “The Imp of the Perverse.” It’s going to be Mommy for a change. So you go to bed now, you hear me? Ithaca, stop that shit right now. If you don’t go to bed, Daddy’s going to come home and cut your balls off. What, Lorraine? I can’t? I mustn’t? A three-year-old doesn’t have balls? My son has … Ithaca has … oh, all right, you’re the boss.

  I’ll be home by midnight. Midnight or maybe one. I’ve got three manuscripts to read, I should be there by … that’s going to depend on … on how much cutting I’ve got to do. No, I have to do it myself. They don’t know how. I do it myself. I love you too.

  *

  If it weren’t for Lorraine, I’d forget to go home. I’d spend my life in this office and not even remember that I have a family. Do I have a family? What’s it like? Like the magazines lined up on my shelves? Like the stacks of proofs I have to correct? People in my profession take words for flesh. We can hear their hearts beat. We discover a disconcerting kinship with them.

  The hour has come. The offices empty out, and I have no more enemies. My rose window switches off. My psoriasis calms down. It’s time for my tête-à-tête with the authors.

  Outside there’s darkness. And a thousand little lights in that darkness, trying to clear a way for themselves. I can’t bring them all on board. I’m the Captain of the Storytellers, not the Shipwrecked. You go to sea at your own risk.

  However, I’m standing watch. I’m reaching out.

  *

  I’ve taken Raymond out of the wastepaper basket. His first sentence has been making me itch since this morning. I don’t know why. It didn’t have much going for it. Or rather, it had just enough going for it to get stuck in my head.

  “Ambulance sirens, that’s what I bring home with me from my nights on duty.” Sirens … I bring home sirens. From my nights. That’s what I br … I bring home sirens from my nights. Why use more words? Raymond brings home sirens from his nights. That’s all. The reader understands.

  “From midnight to eight in the morning, the sirens follow one another, or sometimes blend together, on the two-lane road that circles …” Uh-oh. They blend around the hospital, period. “I can hear them from my night-watchman’s box, first far, then close, and finally not at all, when …” More itching. Pruritus. Pruritus between two commas. “… when the lights are still on but the sound is off and the ambulances park in the back, unburdened of an injured person or a corpse.” Don’t you see that “the back” equals “exile” equals “death”? Either you choose the back or you choose death. You have too much heart, Raymond. Wh
en they park in the back, I can hear them from my night-watchman’s box. “At the moment, my thoughts go no farther than that.” Why “at the moment”? You’re already there, in the moment. “To me, emergencies are distant sounds …”—argh, distant, an adjective, a scale—“I hear from inside a glass cage.” That has to go, zip, all of it.

  So what are we left with?

  I bring home sirens from my nights. Paragraph. They blend around the hospital. When they park in the back, I can hear them from my night-watchman’s box. My thoughts go no farther than that. Emergencies are sounds I hear from inside a glass cage. Paragraph.

  Not one word too many. A single comma, after the parking lot in the back, which is death. Raymond, I’m starting to like you.

  *

  Hello, Lorraine? It’s me. Don’t wait up.

  RAYMOND

  I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you very well. I’m … The telephone’s right next to the coffeemaker. No, a diner on the highway.

  Raymond, yes. Paula gave … A friend gave me your message. I just got it.

  We’ve met, you know. We used to work for the same editor. School textbooks, right. I compiled excerpts from short stories. But the company did some reshuffling and I got laid off. It’s me, Raymond. May I call you Douglas?

  Right, I’ve sent you some … I’ve sent you a bunch of stories. Ten at least, maybe twenty. Yes, I should have mentioned it. I didn’t think you … I didn’t think you’d remember who I was.

  You read one? Which? “Who Needs Air?” Mm-hmm. Ah. But you’re calling it what? “Compartment.” Sure, why not? “The Compartment,” then. Oh, I see. A single word. “Compartment.”

  So you’re accepting it? I can’t hear you. I’m sorry, it’s the coffee ma—

  What do you mean, “No”?

  Why are you cutting it if you’re not going to accept it?

  Well, what are you taking out, exactly? Then … then what are you keeping? The argument. Nothing but the argument? You reduced the first three pages to a paragraph? And that doesn’t work. Mm-hmm.

  But then don’t take it, I don’t give a shit. How much? You’re paying twice as much as …? I see. Yeah.

  So you would cut the end. You’d cut the beginning and the end. Yes, it would be shorter like that. How far in? But that’s the middle! That’s right in the middle of the argument! “Always cut off arguments in the middle.” No, I’ve never heard that. And your students listen to you? Well yes, of course, that means there’s less to write. If they all stop in the middle …

  Hello? Mr. Douglas?

  God damn it.

  *

  Hello, it’s me, it’s Raymond. We were cut off. You hung up? You were finished. That was all you wanted to tell me? No, I’m going to sell it somewhere else. All right, I’ll think about it. Yes, I’ll send you others. I’ve got a whole raft of arguments. They’re my specialty. And thanks! Asshole.

  RAYMOND

  There aren’t any blinds on the windows in this motel. I lie unmoving, with my eyes wide open. The neon sign projects a turquoise-blue light onto the ceiling. Unless it’s the reflection of the swimming pool.

  I call up Marianne every hour. I leave a message and wait for her to pick up. When she does, even if she doesn’t say anything, even if she just breathes into the phone, I’ll know I can go back home.

  I can’t sleep. I turn on the TV. A film about a blind skater, a young girl. The story’s easy to follow, with or without the sound. But my thoughts are elsewhere. I’m thinking about “Compartment.” I don’t call it “Who Needs Air?” anymore. I imagine my story in Douglas’s version.

  The one that stops in the middle.

  “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.

  Marion leaves the kitchen.

  I should follow her, but I can’t move. 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.

  I say that to myself, and I start shaking.

  End of the story. Three cuts with the scissors, a few sentences moved around. And Marianne and I are a little more separated, a little more cut off from each other.

  Is that the way you see us, Douglas? You’re mistaken. Some hope has to remain, some source of light. Even if it’s only a neon sign on the side of the highway.

  It’s a good thing he didn’t want my story.

  Even though I could’ve used the money … I could have … I could … He edits the most widely read magazine in the country.

  I can send him other stories. What have I got to lose?

  MARIANNE

  Why did I pick up? Why did I pick up that telephone?

  I’m not sure they pulled all the bottle fragments out of my head. A shard must have remained under my skin. And now it’s circulating through my veins, poisoning me in small doses. I’ll spit it out one day. I’ll spit out the debris of our love.

  But I’m not ready. The proof is what I thought when I heard him: How’s he going to tell the bottle story? What will he weave around it? What name will he give me? Emma, I’d like to be called Emma. Or Rita, why not? The story he tells had better be successful. In case it’s our last.

  That’s what I thought, and then I picked up the phone.

  RAYMOND

  A stranger in my house, that’s what I am.

  I’ve been sleeping in the living room ever since I came back home. Marianne has quarantined me. Sarah’s back home too. Until the next time she runs away. Meanwhile she leaves early in the morning for the drugstore, where she works as a cashier. She tells us her classes begin at noon. We know it’s not true, but we don’t say anything. It’s still early when Marianne starts moving around the kitchen and wakes me up. Sleeping on the sofa hurts my back, but I don’t complain. A man must earn his place in the marital bed.

  Leo’s a tranquil teenager. He doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, doesn’t run away. The complete opposite of his sister. Maybe at twenty he’ll become a psychopath. “You should have more fun,” I tell him. “Enjoy life.” His reply: “Don’t have time for that. I’m in too much of a hurry to get the hell out of here.” That kid’s got ambition. He takes after his parents.

  Marianne and I haven’t shelved our hopes. I’ve done some arithmetic: For eleven years we’ve been going from one little job to another, from town to campus, from training courses to night school. By this time, I could have a medical degree. I could be—who knows?—a cardiologist. Except that I’ve never examined any heart but my own, and I give no prescriptions. My sole recommendation: “Keep the faith, and a bottle within reach.”

  I go out into the yard. I run my eyes over the house, peering through the sliding glass doors. People are moving about from one room to another. They speak to one another and occasionally address me. They move their lips as though warning me of some danger.

  I’ve come back but I don’t feel at home.

  *

  I had another call from Douglas. He’s clamoring for more short stories. He thinks I’m talented, he thinks I’ve got something in my belly, but he can’t say what. “Guts?” I said jokingly. There was a silence, and then he tossed out, “If you’ve got some guts, send ’em to me.”

  I looked over my stories again. Some are more than ten years old. I’m capable of lugging a short story around for years and years. I correct i
t, I grow older with it, and most of the time, it improves. My life remains the same or goes into a little more of a spin, but my stories improve.

  Perfection in what I write; chaos in all the rest.

  I sent Douglas the lot. Even if he takes only one, I’ll be happy. Let him put just one of my stories in his magazine and pay me for my efforts. Let me finally be paid for something I’ve written.

  That’s all I hope for. The guy isn’t God. Just an editor. Someone who has a vital need to hear good stories. He’ll go looking for them all the way to the end of the night.

  I looked outside. All the lights were off. I imagined a map showing our house, our yard, a wilderness, and then the city—the metropolis, streaked by the moving headlights of its traffic. High up, one window, one single window, shines in the darkness. It’s Douglas, reading my stories.

  That window hasn’t left my mind since.

  I put my typewriter on the kitchen table and started typing.

  The refrigerator was vibrating so hard it seemed it would die. I got up and struck it a heavy blow. It went back to its ordinary hum.

  In all likelihood, it’s not long for this world.

  MARIANNE

  Raymond? An envelope came for you. It filled the whole mailbox and all my mail wound up on the ground. Mom’s letter was lying in a puddle. What’s in this envelope? Did you order some magazines? The sender is … “Douglas.” Douglas something. Who’s he?