Wednesday, March 13. 2019 // The Statement
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Wednesday, March 13, 2019 // The Statement
T
he rapping is light, light enough that Otis
wouldn’t have heard if he wasn’t (gasp-
ing) awake. Fortunately (unfortunately),
Otis hasn’t been sleeping since the incident, so he
stumbles across the dark apartment to reach the
door even as fair knuckles brush against peeling
wood again. Maple, maybe. Or pine. Otis doesn’t
care much for details. Another man (an earlier
Otis) may have checked the peephole. Otis grap-
ples with the door chain. He yanks the door for-
ward.
Otis cannot afford to be a drinking man, and
he has learned from longer and longer stretches
of highway in his semi-truck how to stay alert
enough without sleep. So, when the arm standing
upright on its shoulder in the poorly
lit hallway waggles slender fingers
at him, his mouth opens just a crack
(real) before he waves back.
It’s Sunday. A week has passed.
Otis is tired; Otis has been tired
since he was 13 years old and work-
ing late nights washing dishes to
help his mama pay rent. He stares at
the arm, glowing pale white in the
dim. It (she) tilts to one side at the
wrist, listening. “It is the cause,”
Otis mumbles, and he has been
expecting (her) company. He opens
the door wider. The arm passes
through on dainty fingers. “It is the
cause.”
O
tis had always found driv-
ing
comforting.
There
was something about that
control as he gripped the steering
wheel, that stretch of unknown
road, that known that he was leav-
ing behind. Some truck drivers
griped about the distance, or slow
tolls, or tasteless food dripping with
grease, or stiff necks and backs and
who knows what else could ache
besides, but that feeling (control,
freedom) was enough for Otis. Otis
was a simple man.
Desiree hadn’t found nearly the
same thrill. She liked to listen. She’d
driven her parents’ groaning old
station wagon for as long as Otis had known her,
so maybe that was part of the problem. Still, she’d
come along most of the time, most of the time
halfheartedly. It had been easy enough to get her
into the car that night, then, even as the lingering
sun cast dark shadows up and down the street.
T
he apartment is quiet, and Otis shifts
his weight while he rubs the back of his
neck. He can feel a headache starting to
spread, and he wonders wildly when he had last
cleaned up around here, made it presentable. It
has been a week (still weak), at least.
Otis knows he must be the first to speak, (she
can’t say anything) but what can he say? There’s
no room for small talk here. He clears his throat,
opens his mouth, clears his throat again. “How
have you been?” Barely a whisper. The question
stands between them in the cramped darkness.
Pale fingers pause in stroking the carpet. The arm
raises. The (empty) ring finger beckons slowly to
him.
Otis slides to his knees without registering he
is doing so, feels the edge of the couch press into
the small of his back. “How have I been?” Deflec-
tion. He’s always been a fan. The hand closes
once, opens again slowly. “It’s been, it’s been-”
Otis studies his own hands, wide and calloused
and smudged with grey. “Quieter and lonelier
than I thought.”
Desiree had used to say Otis was the most pas-
sionate man she’d ever met, but he does not like
to wear his heart upon his sleeve. He prefers to
carefully cover it with a jacket.
D
esiree had had the brightest red hair
Otis had ever seen; it had the frighten-
ing, beautiful quality of fire. Fire was
(destructive) mesmerizing, after all, and spread
(devoured) quickly. He had told her without mean-
ing to when he’d first seen her at the downtown
pharmacy. She’d laughed, and Otis thought — at
the time — that the hair and the laugh could keep
him warm for the rest of his life, if she’d allow it.
Seeing her while she saw him, came to him, had
filled him with a wonder that didn’t ebb away. His
mama had always said to be careful with pretty
girls, but Otis found that that was wrong. The
pretty girls had to be careful with you.
The last time he’d seen her, her eyes had been
closed; her skin was a soured milk; her hair was
fanned out and curled but much too (lifeless) dull.
She’d been silent. She’d seemed small. Stiff. He
felt he couldn’t get to her, but maybe he hadn’t
tried enough. There had been too many rela-
tives pushing against him, the room was stuffy
and salty with tears, he couldn’t think. It was no
wonder they’d opted out of a big family wedding
and gone to the courthouse instead. Simple. Yet
here Otis had ended up anyway, exactly as he had
avoided. Alone.
Nobody had known, though. They didn’t. He
had made sure of that.
The last time he’d seen her, really seen her, she’d
been silent, too. In a differ-
ent way. Otis hadn’t minded
— he had been driving — but
having her scrunched in the
passenger seat of her bat-
tered station wagon with
her arms tight against her
chest, then one dangling out
the window wasn’t easy to
forget. She was chewing on
her bottom lip. Otis could
feel the embers of her kin-
dling anger. He remembered
being
afraid
she’d
draw
blood, a trickle that’d run
down her chin. After that, he
didn’t remember much — the
way a child will gaze at the
night sky and rush home to
scribble the stars in crayon,
but when the picture’s done,
they see all they’ve really
managed to capture is the
black.
O
tis wants to turn
on the radio. He
isn’t sure if the
situation will be made bet-
ter or worse with a wail-
ing, fading ’80s band filling
the corners of the silence.
He decides the situation is
already leaning towards the
worse side of things regard-
less of soundtrack, so crosses the tiny living room
to turn the knob on. Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car”
washes through the dark. You got a fast car. Is it
fast enough so you can fly away? When Otis turns
back around, the small white hand is in his.
He knows the hand, perhaps better than his
own. A man doesn’t spend too much time hold-
ing (caressing) his own hand. The hand is soft and
slightly dry from the unforgiving October air. The
nails are short and neat and strawberry-pink.
Desiree’s father had been rich, so she had never
had to work. Not until she’d been with Otis. Her
hands should have been pristine. Otis hated even
then (even now) the scraggly skin of hangnails
she’d pull on while she waited for the lawyer’s
office phone to ring. She didn’t mind, it was fun
to talk to all those different people, she’d say, but
Otis knew better. He usually did.
So I remember when we were driving, driving
in your car. The hand in his tugs him forward,
away from the radio, to the carpet. Otis closes
his eyes (kill the lights) and sways. And I had a
feeling that I belonged. I had a feeling I could be
someone, be someone, be someone.
He’s not much of a dancer, but then again, he’s
never been. It’s easy to pretend, always easier, and
Otis thinks that despite everything he deserves
easy. I’d always hoped for better, thought maybe
together you and me find it. I got no plans, I ain’t
going nowhere. He feels the hand in his hair slide
down to the back of his neck. How many times
had they danced in front of the couch, Desiree’s
shoes off and her laugh making new harmonies
while her hair tickled his ear?
And your arms felt nice wrapped around my
shoulder and Otis keeps his eyes closed.
T
hey had wanted to keep her closed, but
Otis didn’t think that was fair. Or right.
Or something, he hadn’t been sure, he
hadn’t been thinking clearly, but he knew that she
could not, should not, be contained in that way.
Besides, she looked fine, the people had done a
remarkable job with her, those who loved her
(those who loved her) had the right to — wanted
to — should see her. Just that one little thing was
missing, was all, and it wasn’t as great of a deal as
some of them seemed to think. It could be (worse)
hidden.
Though he couldn’t help but wonder where
exactly it was and why they couldn’t find it. There
was only so much edge to a road, and even pieces
are eventually found.
Tragedy, that was the word they all murmured.
Thrown in whispered grains of rice at a wedding
they hadn’t (been invited to) attended. And it had
been, it was, Otis had never argued. Yet the word
had never been enough, nor had its de thesaurus
brothers. Perhaps this stemmed from Otis’ blank-
ness on the night, in the night when he was ques-
tioned by the blue men when they found him.
You don’t remember, they’d assured him. Was
that relief? Otis couldn’t tell. But sometimes he
thought he’d seen her — next to him, then gone,
then standing in the street incomplete, red and
blue and white strobes slicing through the dark-
ness of the night.
She was looking at him, he knew, but he couldn’t
see her eyes.
O
tis has lost his sense of time, though
on the road he’d been one of the few to
glimpse the full, peach-orange blush of
dawn. He has not seen a night like this. He may
not be seeing it now. The radio is only sound (you
gotta make a decision, leave tonight or live and die
this way) and she is only touch, but by God, how
he’s missed feeling. Warm (cold) fingers trace his
ear and he remembers more, remembers less.
“Is there pain?” The hand moves slowly to his
shoulder, and the patch of neck left behind sud-
denly erupts with gooseflesh. Otis tries to catch
it at his waist, hold it there (keep her there). The
forearm slides down his leg, is flat, is still. Otis
gazes at it, his own hands frozen.
A snap of fingers sends him reeling back, sharp
and then gone.
Had there been pain is perhaps the better ques-
tion, the one that’s crossed his mind the most,
most difficult to dissipate away. There must be,
there must have been, but he’s sure, he’s sure that
it matched his own after that (he shouldn’t have
stayed for that conversation, he shouldn’t have, it
was just gossip, just rumors, why had he accepted
drinks and truths from a coworker after a too long
shift) conversation. Otis’s mama had once told
him to look out for turning points. He’d scoffed
and said he didn’t think real life was as cut and
dry as that, thank you very much (but oh God, he
could see it, feel it, now).
There was pain. There always had been. He just
hadn’t uncovered it until that night in the smoky,
dark bar.
Otis knew he had not taken for granted that
he was a lucky man. Sure, he had worked hard
and long to get that promotion, but he didn’t
disregard luck’s role in it. He heard what people
whispered, but he didn’t mind. He knew Desiree
was too beautiful (good) for him, but he had not
once (until then) considered that she would look
somewhere else. Need someone else. She had seen
him, been his, and chosen him. Otis. If she had
left, Otis would have followed. Otis would have
eventually stopped, watched her go until she was
just another color of the horizon. Otis would have
been sad, but that would be all.
Instead, Otis had been angry — a surpris-
ing and ugly color on him. It flared deep in
his belly, alive for the very first time and
greedy, reducing everything to blacks and
reds and Otis couldn’t see anything until
everything was over. Then he saw it all, oh
yes, vivid and so (beautiful) grotesque.
O
tis grips his coarse hair and pulls,
gritting his teeth. He is getting
ahead of himself, or not ahead
enough.
The hand is slowly slinking over the near-
ly bare shelves of the living room (Desiree’s
lipsticks and candles and candies are gone,
Desiree is gone), somehow elegant, somehow
belonging. She’s looking for something, Otis
realizes, but doesn’t make a move to help.
“How long?” He whispers, and he doesn’t
know what matters most — how long (she’ll
stay, she’ll love him, it’s taken to get to his corner
of nowhere) has it been since they danced?
The hand closes around a pen.
T
hey had told him to see someone, just to
talk, just to cope. Talking isn’t a solu-
tion. Words are words, nothing more.
Any rational mind knows, and Otis has never
(before) lacked in rationality. Still, when the car
crashes (though you’re making a living driving)
and your wife is (not whole) taken and the thing
you’re most stuck on is her (possibly) cheating,
maybe talking is the best you can do. Maybe talk-
ing is the life preserver (it just takes one) that will
scoop you out from that dark and treacherous and
unforgiving water.
But Otis hadn’t listened. Otis hadn’t talked. He
(had already sunk too far) couldn’t.
She’d never given him an indication that she
was unhappy, unsatisfied. He hadn’t questioned
her. What happy man would? She had been con-
tent sucking on a strawberry lollipop, feet bare,
eyes bright while he (exaggerated) described his
travels — that was their love. Desiree had never
gone far herself — though now she had, she’d
beaten him now, in a way. In other ways it’s as it
always had been, him ending up on top.
She whispered that he was good enough for
her while he slipped away in the morning, keys
in hand, so he believed he was. He was under her
spell (the world was) but goddamn if it wasn’t
ecstasy.
Watch your temper, his mama had said, squint-
ing at split knuckles. Otis had, but it’d slipped
away in the dark.
T
he hand grasps the pen, tilts it up so the
gold in the nib glints in ever failing light.
The pen passes (scritch, scratch) over a
crumpled newspaper clipping with a big (black)
bold headline. Otis (cannot look away) isn’t sure
if he watches for a minute or an hour. The pen
drops; a crease in the newspaper is smoothed out.
Fingers linger over the headline before moving
aside. The hand is poised on the shelf like a min-
iature (broken) ballerina. Otis’s stomach is ice
(what is he feeling) while he bends over the paper.
The words are in his handwriting. I am not
what I am. Otis reads them as if there is a ques-
tion mark.
O
tis hadn’t been (isn’t) a saint. He’d never
claimed to be. But he had been good to
Desiree, he had (for the most part). And
it seemed that the most part was the best a hard-
working man could do. Otis was a hardworking
man — he got enough money to scrape by, plus a
little extra; he was respected; he could buy her
pretty things. Like the cardigan, the emerald-
green (like the green-eyed monster, his mama
had told him to beware the green-eyed monster)
cardigan that reached her knees and seemed
to make her hair glow. It was Desiree’s favorite
thing to wear.
She’d slip it on as soon as she got home from
work (maybe that’s why Otis came to loathe it),
he’d feel the softness on his cheek while she’d kiss
him hello (warm and milky sweet and fire), he’d
grasp it fully for a moment, clenched tight in his
fists before he released it to the floor while she
slid onto the bed. How he loved her skin under his
fingers, the paradox of it all, and maybe it was this
accompanying sensation that had made him so
(crazy) angry. The beer slurred his senses, made
his movements (his mind) sloshy, but the anger
burned red and bright and he hadn’t noticed her
or her pretty, pinched face as much as he’d noticed
the absence of the sweater.
“Where is (he) it?” It had been too loud, but Otis
was too hot. Perhaps she’d tried to answer, but he
remembered only grasping her arm (tight, naked,
tight) and shaking her (he’d never hurt her before,
he wouldn’t again). “You left it in his bedroom,
didn’t you? Draped across his couch?” Proof. Per-
haps she was confused. Indignant. Angry.
All he’d known for sure was that she’d cried.
And sure, a sobered Otis huddled on his own
sofa with a cup of black coffee and a nervous,
skirting Desiree could admit that this whole nasty
episode was perhaps an overreaction. Except.
The sweater was nowhere to be found. Not in
their apartment, anyway.
I
t’s amazing how easy it is to unravel him
(Otis is a simple man). Just the one line,
yet Otis feels (tired) undone. He can wear
a mask for everyone, anyone else. He should have
known he wouldn’t be able to hide from her. He
hadn’t had to. Wasn’t he lucky?
Otis considers the drying ink, the sentence, and
wonders how much she knows. Foolish. She can-
not know anything.
She hadn’t when she’d gotten into the car. He
hadn’t when they’d gotten into the car, not really.
Long ago he could’ve said that there was nothing
else to do. Otis doesn’t care to lie.
She’d look radiant in white (but he never got
to see her) and her father wasn’t there, and he
should’ve known or maybe somehow the prom-
ise (the cause) had been less, reduced, left like a
crumpled cardigan in a corner somewhere
where no one remembered to look.
She’d loved him, though. Hadn’t she?
Hadn’t he?
“No.” He faces the hand, the arm (his
love) and it stills in the careful caressing of
the bookshelf. “I’m not what I am.” White
fingers grasp a corner, crumple the paper
into an orb. “And neither were you.” The
apartment is still. Otis isn’t sure how much
time has passed. Laughter grapples for
footing in his throat, but he’s not sure he’s
won. Darkness seems to press close around
him, yet in it, somehow, is light. Otis thinks
of the violence in the flash of a comet plum-
meting to (reality) earth, the flash of head-
lights, of triumph. The fingers crawl slowly
towards him, and
Otis realizes that he isn’t afraid (was that
what it had been, had it been fear in her
face?). The hand strokes his chin, comes to rest
on the side of his face. She is still perfection. He
wishes for an instant that he had kept her finger-
print, her handprint, the kiss of her mouth some-
where on a napkin. The hand is warmer now, and
Otis thinks he can almost feel a pulse there.
There is much (and less) left to do. Otis thinks
to make himself a cup of tea, to release the patient
parade of words waiting in his throat, to turn off
the music. He declines all three. His bare feet
scuff the floor as he strides to his (their) bedroom.
At the doorway, he pauses, turns, extends his own
arm out to the one that perches, unmoving, on the
living room carpet.
She (not halfheartedly) accepts. It is not hard.
Otis slides under the covers and moves to his
customary side for the first time since the inci-
dent. She will stay, but soon she will leave, and
her presence is softer now. He will leave it to time,
and all will eventually be well. Otis hasn’t been
sleeping, but his eyes fall shut and he sighs into
the blackness of the night, asleep as soon as the
hand rubs his neck, curls up against his pillow.
He is still sleeping when the first cold rays of
sun slope in through the window, when pale fin-
gers crawl across his chest and close around his
throat.
BY ABIGAIL PROVENZANO, STATEMENT CONTRIBUTOR
Otis
Darkness seems to
press close around
him, yet in it,
somehow, is light.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE JEGARL