The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison Page B

I’m pretty sure botched) recitation of Rimbaud.
    Once she starts talking about aerial dance and static trapeze, and the difference between a double cutaway and a triple cutaway half, I know that I could love Katya. As she regales me with the details of her job at the dinner theater, I playfully press her for information regarding the sword swallower. I press her for information about her family, her dreams, her future. I want to know everything, every sad little detail, all the ways in which she’s been broken or mishandled by life. My Katya does not disappoint. She is forthcoming with the details of her life—her childhood in Connecticut, her stint as a stripper, the profound freedom she feels letting go of the trapeze bar—a bit of reckless verve that makes me want to lean over and kiss her big chapped lips. I am fascinated by her life, mostly because I’ve been granted access to it.
    Th e empty Tsingtao bottles begin to congregate near the center of the table. I haven’t had four beers coursing through me in months. I will not surrender to their downward pull tonight. If I’ve retained a shred of dignity after the fall, I owe it to the wisdom that it’s better not to tempt old Bacchus with my mental and emotional instability and risk running that blurry gauntlet once more. I am here, at least in part. I am in the now, to some degree. I am engaging the circle of life. Hopefully, I’ll remember it tomorrow.
    â€œYou totally remind me of someone,” she says, considering me over the rim of her green bottle. “Like someone famous. Wait! I know who it is!”
    I’m dreading the answer. “Who?”
    â€œJohnny Depp.”
    I am in love with this girl.
    KATYA’S APARTMENT BUILDING would’ve looked right at home in East Berlin. Situated directly behind an old hospital, colorless and hemmed in by concrete, the floodlit complex evokes a desperation familiar to me. I follow Katya up the walkway, through the heavy glass door and down the brown carpeted corridor, clutching a six-pack of Henry’s. Th e interior of her studio is no less stark than the outside. Sparsely furnished, walls unadorned, there is little sign of life here. Th e wood floors are painted gray. Th e windows look out over the empty hospital parking lot.
    Katya sets her purse on the kitchen counter. “I’m never here,” she says, as though she could hear my thoughts. “I used to mostly stay at Todd’s.”
    Todd must be the Goat Roper, I figure. Katya looks different now in the glare of the apartment. Her hair seems less voluminous. Her skin is scalier. Her big eyes look less sultry and a little more bulgy. She looks crazy in her raincoat and leotard. Somehow I like her better for all of this.
    â€œGo ahead and put those in the fridge if you want,” she says, removing her raincoat. Kicking off her clown shoes, she retreats to the bathroom.
    I stow the beers in the barren fridge, crack one open, and stand around to no purpose in the glare of the kitchen for a minute or two, planning my next move. I wonder if my breath is bad and swish a little beer around in my mouth, just in case. Th e overhead light fixture is a gallery of dead moths. You can practically smell their singed wings. Th e lone decorative flourish is a picture of a dog stuck with a magnet to the door of the fridge. It looks like a border collie or some kind of cattle dog, nuzzling curiously right up into the camera lens.
    â€œ Th at’s Timber,” she says, emerging from the bathroom in jeans and T-shirt.
    â€œYours?”
    â€œWas.”
    Drifting toward the living area, I take the only available seat on the edge of the futon under the window, where I prop an elbow on the sill and gaze out over the lighted parking lot, hoping I strike a thoughtful pose.
    â€œSorry, I don’t have any music. I mean, I have music, just nothing to play it on.”
    â€œI know how you feel.”
    â€œYou