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"I think I'll go say hello." He took a long step back. He quivered, goo in a
sack of skin.
"Bob?"
"Yes?"
"Is that a dance you're doing or what?"
"The music "
"You don't do the frug to the 'Blue
Danube.'" Backing away from Cindy was an evasion, of course. He should go to
her, and let her spend her rage on him and then ask her for the blessings of
the night, but he had not the courage. Over the years of their marriage she
had remade herself in an image he preferred, but now that he couldn't pay her
way anymore she was back to her old self, the real Cindy a stranger he had
from time to time glimpsed in moments of rage or passion. There were jets of
rebellion flaring.
And yet and this was the most awful part
the strangeness of her anger was what was making her attractive. Her rage was
a fierce aphrodisiac.
All the rules were changed; reality had come unstuck, danger and the
unexpected now reigned.
His bones shifted, scuttling beneath his skin.
Step-by-step he backed down the hall. Cindy snorted, a derisive, cutting
noise. The light streaming from under Kevin's door was yellow and rich.
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He had to hide, to get away, to save his family from this absurd horror
His bones were oozing in his skin, his muscles bubbling as if they were
carbonated glue.
He stumbled, fell against Kevin's door, lurched into the room.
The whole place was done up in blue construction paper. From Kevin's record
player there blared the "Blue Danube." He was waltzing around and around with
a girl in his arms.
"Dad!" They stopped waltzing.
The girl held out a soft, child-fat hand, smiled around a bucking reef of
teeth. "Pleased to meetcha."
To take the hand Bob had to concentrate all of his attention on his own arm,
force it forward, scream in his head for his fingers to open. Then he had to
draw his hand back, which was like pulling against a cold river.
The arm wanted to go straight out before him, the hand to crunch and twist
itself into a new form.
This must not be allowed to happen, not here, not now. But he wanted to, his
body wanted to, it had wanted to all day, to just burst its old skin and
become the new, magic self that belonged to the wild.
Both children looked at him, the little girl's face flickering fear, Kevin's a
mix of amusement and concern, "Dad, have you got a sore throat?"
"Rrr no!"
"Then why do you keep growling?"
"Your dad is really weird."
He finally managed to lurch out, caught himself leaning forward toward all
fours, scuttled into the living room, and hit the phone. He fluttered through
Cindy's directory, a pretty cream-colored book with roses pressed in the
Lucite cover that Kevin had made last summer at camp. Here was
Monica's home number. Thank God, what a convenience when your wife and your
psychiatrist are such good friends, no need to gabble to some gum cracker at
an answering service.
Ring.
Please.
Ring.
Oh, please.
Ring.
"Monica, thank God you're home."
"Who is this?"
"Bob; I need help."
"Are you hurt?"
"No, Monica, I'm changing. I swear."
"You sound like you've got a mouthful of
Brillo or something."
"I swear, my whole body Monica, it isn't a psychological problem, it's real.
I've got to have help."
"Can you come to my office?"
"Please, I don't think I can get out of the apartment."
"Is Cindy there?"
"They're both here. And a little friend of
Kevin's."
"Give me ten minutes, Bob." She hung up. He slumped over the phone, breathing
deeply, trying for control, clutching his chest, huddling in on himself.
Evening light gathered to waltz time from Kevin's room.
Bob crept into the darkest corner he could
find, the coat closet.
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His body gave itself to its rebirth. He wrenched and quivered, saw waves
passing through his muscles, felt the grinding reorganization of his bones.
His organs seemed to have become detached from their moorings. They swooped on
cold comet tracks down new paths inside him, freezing and burning at the same
time, while he gasped and gargled, trying not to scream.
"Tales from the Vienna Woods" gave way to the "Acceleration Waltz," and the
pop of a bottle of fizzy apple juice. Bob stared at the faint light coming
under the door of the coat closet. He darted his ears toward the rustling
sound of movement Cindy was coming down the hall. Now she was in the living
room. "Bob?"
He pressed back against the wall. The smell of overcoats filled his nose: his
own coat smelled of moldy money. Perhaps that ten dollars he had lost had
worked its way down into the lining. There was a faint aroma of Paco
Rabanne coming from Cindy's coat. Either she had taken to using it or had
walked arm
in arm with a man who did.
Didn't Monica's husband use it? That, or
Aramis. Bob did not care for fragrances on his own body. His ears followed
Cindy as she came to the center of the room. The light increased. She had
turned on the lamp over by the TV. "Bob?"
The downstairs buzzer sounded, blasting the silence in the closet, making Bob
chortle out an involuntary growl of surprise. Cindy came across the room,
lifted the receiver of the intercom. "Yes?"
"Cyn, it's me."
"Oh, Monica, come in."
A few moments later they embraced with swishes and a ripple of ginger kissing.
"Why did you come?"
"He phoned. Where is he?"
"I think he went out."
Light burst into his eyes. There stood Cindy holding Monica's airy mink. She
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