can. My mind is an enormous unscrolled newsreel. Bring some aspirin. I have a splitting headache.
Gray
Myers walked the lobby end to end. Two doormen stationed for night duty stared impassively after him. He passed them over and over. Didn’t know he was married… Oh, he had a splitting ache for the guy, all right. He’d make a watermark on the pavement with Gray’s brain. He wondered what the laws here were.
The world teemed out there, unmoored. He plugged letters into the screen, felt less every moment, felt nothing, felt dull. The gift shop closed. Behind the glass sat the T-shirt and postcard set-ups, the beach equipment, scuba stuff, drown book, sand machine. He wandered down another hall. Found the restaurant. Empty, dim. Coat check in its cubby-hole. Tablecloths covering their four edges. The window had a view of the city. The hotel, perched on its rock like a rat, its head bobbing over the whatnot—the waterline of town, the sunk sun. A pattern of antennae on rooftops, pale lines of sky. Inside was orderly, milk-clean, as if implying that the mind could be like that, as if that drastic mess in the brain could be straightened. You could go inside and smooth everything over like a fresh roller of paint over dirty walls, hide the filth underneath, cover it over, shove it down in there, hard.
Sure, I’ll come. Where are you, Gray?
Above him, down hallways, doors shut. Guests performed their weary nightly series of floss, undress, sex. Clocks rocked to a stop for the dark hours. The doormen held their deadpan positions.
Myers believed in nothing and nobody, but somebody had an eye on him, must have, or else he would have paced all night. Somebody corralled him like a little mouse in, yes, a maze, lifting this wall, blocking that entrance, drawing a line down a corridor, an arrow for him to scurry over, a pellet at the foot of the door. And the night finally ended with him sitting down on the bed, at the edge of it, wedged into this country (how’d he get himself into this?), in the one room Gray obviously wasn’t (at least he was in the right country now), eyes closing, leaning back, his thoughts going along the edges, along the windowsill, the shower-stall ledge, along the night table, the edge of light and the space on the other side of the door, through it, over it, to the woman he’d left behind.
Chapter Six
It took a month for Myers to see that she was following someone else.
At first he noticed nothing but her. Her figure on the street filled his mind. He saw no one in front of her. Then he did. Once, twice. The same shuffle, the slouch in the crowd. At last it was plain: she was following a man.
Long jacket, briefcase in hand, hat. A man. A year or two younger than Myers. A little thinner, an inch shorter. Not so unlike Myers. He hiked along. People collected on the sidewalks. He drew into them and emerged without any special flair. He raised a hand to adjust the forward tilt of his hat in the same way Myers might.
That’s what she was doing. She watched from the corner or she sat on a bar stool a few feet away. She waited for the man to come out of shops. She followed him down stairs to the subway. In rain, she stepped his paintbrush line, slickered by Myers who had berated her into wearing rain gear that morning, knowing she’d be out in a storm following some goddamn man around.
And this: she did not know him . Or rather, he did not know her. He never bothered to look her way, nod or smile, never worked his way to her table to say hello, never held open the door if she was behind him. Now and then he pivoted and she swerved into his view. He did not take her in. His eyes went over her, unstirred, buzzless. She did not heap up his heart in any way at all.
The three of them were walking along like a shifty Simon Says. Myers tracking his wife tracking a stranger. The stranger was pulling them along like a string toy.
What the hell did she think she was doing following some guy all over
Gray
Myers walked the lobby end to end. Two doormen stationed for night duty stared impassively after him. He passed them over and over. Didn’t know he was married… Oh, he had a splitting ache for the guy, all right. He’d make a watermark on the pavement with Gray’s brain. He wondered what the laws here were.
The world teemed out there, unmoored. He plugged letters into the screen, felt less every moment, felt nothing, felt dull. The gift shop closed. Behind the glass sat the T-shirt and postcard set-ups, the beach equipment, scuba stuff, drown book, sand machine. He wandered down another hall. Found the restaurant. Empty, dim. Coat check in its cubby-hole. Tablecloths covering their four edges. The window had a view of the city. The hotel, perched on its rock like a rat, its head bobbing over the whatnot—the waterline of town, the sunk sun. A pattern of antennae on rooftops, pale lines of sky. Inside was orderly, milk-clean, as if implying that the mind could be like that, as if that drastic mess in the brain could be straightened. You could go inside and smooth everything over like a fresh roller of paint over dirty walls, hide the filth underneath, cover it over, shove it down in there, hard.
Sure, I’ll come. Where are you, Gray?
Above him, down hallways, doors shut. Guests performed their weary nightly series of floss, undress, sex. Clocks rocked to a stop for the dark hours. The doormen held their deadpan positions.
Myers believed in nothing and nobody, but somebody had an eye on him, must have, or else he would have paced all night. Somebody corralled him like a little mouse in, yes, a maze, lifting this wall, blocking that entrance, drawing a line down a corridor, an arrow for him to scurry over, a pellet at the foot of the door. And the night finally ended with him sitting down on the bed, at the edge of it, wedged into this country (how’d he get himself into this?), in the one room Gray obviously wasn’t (at least he was in the right country now), eyes closing, leaning back, his thoughts going along the edges, along the windowsill, the shower-stall ledge, along the night table, the edge of light and the space on the other side of the door, through it, over it, to the woman he’d left behind.
Chapter Six
It took a month for Myers to see that she was following someone else.
At first he noticed nothing but her. Her figure on the street filled his mind. He saw no one in front of her. Then he did. Once, twice. The same shuffle, the slouch in the crowd. At last it was plain: she was following a man.
Long jacket, briefcase in hand, hat. A man. A year or two younger than Myers. A little thinner, an inch shorter. Not so unlike Myers. He hiked along. People collected on the sidewalks. He drew into them and emerged without any special flair. He raised a hand to adjust the forward tilt of his hat in the same way Myers might.
That’s what she was doing. She watched from the corner or she sat on a bar stool a few feet away. She waited for the man to come out of shops. She followed him down stairs to the subway. In rain, she stepped his paintbrush line, slickered by Myers who had berated her into wearing rain gear that morning, knowing she’d be out in a storm following some goddamn man around.
And this: she did not know him . Or rather, he did not know her. He never bothered to look her way, nod or smile, never worked his way to her table to say hello, never held open the door if she was behind him. Now and then he pivoted and she swerved into his view. He did not take her in. His eyes went over her, unstirred, buzzless. She did not heap up his heart in any way at all.
The three of them were walking along like a shifty Simon Says. Myers tracking his wife tracking a stranger. The stranger was pulling them along like a string toy.
What the hell did she think she was doing following some guy all over
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