Memory Succeeds by Invention by Elizabeth J. Colen
Memory Succeeds by Invention
Katherine sits cross-legged staring down into the hole. I could be wrong, but it seems bigger, like she’d pulled the floorboards more, made the hole bigger, or someone had. There are no loose boards in the room, nothing but dust and bad light and Katherine and the low hum coming from her. She’s not rocking, but neither does she seem to be sitting still. Vibrating. It could be the coke or the cold, or it could be some sadness amped up to rage inside her since Allison died, but just now she looks ready to rip right out of her skin.
“Katherine?” She doesn’t answer. Do I leave her alone. “Kate?” In one movement the floor squeaks under her, or I imagine that it does. She doesn’t move. Outside the fogged window sleet, ice beats against the house irregularly. It sounds like growls. The room is or is not filled with creatures living in the dim light. It is or it is not filled with us. It is or it isn’t a room any longer with a hole that leads anywhere.
We don’t live in this part of the house. Long condemned, the house has gaps, rotting joists. The house has black mold, what grows in lungs, asbestos ceiling locked in popcorn with the right light like galaxies, with the right light we’re anywhere. The foundation might be sinking. We are closer to god than we might be tomorrow. The rent is cheap and so we work less.
“Katherine, you’re not supposed to be in here.” I try one more time, but then back out slowly and go back down the stairs.
I know, I say to myself. I know I will find her dead. I know I will find her dead. I know I will find her dead. One word per step as I retreat; one word each wet board into the basement. I know I will find her dead. And I will have to make her alive again.
*
No one prepares you for this. Everyone in the neighborhood yelling. And then the too quiet.
*
The boy next door has a violin. We sometimes hear it. He plays fitfully. In stops and starts, so that we can’t get used to the melody. It’s beautiful—and then the strings shriek. It can be beautiful again, but it will always end in noise.
One day his father will come home and smash it against the wall. The boy will wrap sprung strings tight around his fingers, chipped wood of the instrument digging into his palm.
*
Allison gets out of the car and keeps walking, doesn’t wait for me. I will see this every day for the rest of my life. Allison’s feet lifting off the pavement. Someone’s got to burn was something my mother said once, her fingers pushing my fingers into the ashtray, lit cigarette dancing around them. Yet I have no scar here. Time fades flesh wounds or memory fails or succeeds by invention. Actual events are irrelevant. Allison gets out of the car and keeps walking.
*
When I got home that night I punched three holes into the walls of three different rooms. I fell down the stairs, not counting this time, not recognizing the sloped one, the loose board, the dip in the handrail, not holding at all. Back at the hospital, I had forty-six stitches. I had them add one or pull one because evens were done. Then all the next day I thought I was just short of two days: how long she’d been gone. But it was only the jagged wire in my lip and the lines on my knuckles. Who mistakes twine for hours, bird wing for some empty swinging. I spent so much time on the dirty floor of her room, counting dead flies under the empty bed, unmatched socks and candy foil, a cheerio, a condom wrapper, and crinkle ball cat toy from a long-dead tom. I kept waiting for her mother to call, to come pack up her things. I imagined this list of things without the bed over it, the window violent with its light, everything bright like how life begins. Without the bed shading, would the candy reappear in its wrappers, would the cat resurrect, would the flies get buzzing again?
I sleep on the floor and no one can see me from the hall. And no one comes looking for me. And the phone never rings. And I’m back in the car, back in the car, back in the car, and out of the car. And I’m never too slow this time, each time, brass knuckles fused into my fists. How fingers land blows when bunched together. How fingers find blood, like a girl finally pleased at her power.
* * *
ELIZABETH J. COLEN is also the author of two poetry collections: Money for Sunsets (Steel Toe Books, 2010) and the forthcoming Waiting Up for the End of the World: Conspiracies (Jaded Ibis Press, 2012).
Poetry editor for Thumbnail Magazine, she lives in the Pacific Northwest with her spouse, blind dog, and a passel of wild birds.
[Author Photo Courtesy the Author]
[Photo Via: Percolation2005]