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

