WORK BY JESSICA TREAT

JESSICA TREAT

Walking

Not long ago I dreamt of him: I was walking down the street and suddenly he was right beside me. I was surprised - after all these years - but he didn't seem to be. He held my arm and laughed, before moving away again. There was a force and directness about him I hadn't associated with him. I hadn't thought of him at all until then - truthfully I'd forgotten all about him. But I began to remember: that he never wore socks, how he wore his watch around his ankle.

At the time we were neighbors. His apartment was the same as mine only backwards, a mirror image. He used to say hello to me, then stand in his doorway, awkwardly, as if he wanted to invite me in but didn't know how to. I thought him odd: besides his watch, there was his hair that stood up in the back, like he'd just woken up and hadn't brushed it properly. Still I was curious. We would stand in front of our doors, two guards who didn't know how to change places. I had a cat who would rub against my ankles and would sometimes venture over to his. It seemed to make him nervous.

"Is that your cat, then?"

He had a slightly British accent. I know I must have asked him where he was from, but his answer was evasive. Or he told me and I can't remember. There was a conversation about the Indian Ocean, a place where the warm water met cold, and because of this, there were always crazy weather patterns, constant shifting.

Did he invite me in? I seem to remember sitting at his table and drinking beer from a bottle - it was what he had to offer. Was it because I could see the unmade bed in the next room (mattress on the floor) that I began to imagine myself in bed with him? It wasn't beautiful to watch: awkward and urgent, too much like a quick hard burst to be satisfying.

Once in my own bed in the middle of the afternoon I couldn't get the picture of him, his pale, too long body, his mattress, the two of us attached and groping, from my mind. After spending myself on him and not falling into the lazy nap I usually did, I decided to do something. I don't know why - maybe because I felt I had to get some fresh air, have it breathe sense into me - I came up with the idea of going walking. I knocked on his door, loud and hard, as if it were urgent business instead of an idle invitation. He opened finally, looking himself as if he'd just gotten out of bed (though it was after 3:00): hair standing up, shirt half-open.

"Oh, it's you . . .²

"Do you want to go for a walk . . .² I blurted.

'What? Is it nice to walk around here then?"

Walking was obviously a foreign occupation.

"Can we walk later? I mean, can you check back in an hour or two? We could go then."

I decided to go without him. We lived in an abandoned warehouse section. There wasn't much to see: low brick buildings, faded block lettering for tile factories, and then square lots with rows and rows of tires, used mostly. I began to imagine the barrels of chemical waste I'd read about stored in lots and buried in the neighborhood. I could feel it swirling down below, bubbling up to the surface. Why was I living here? Rent was cheap - that was the best and only explanation.

When I got back to the apartment I made my uninteresting meal of macaroni and cheese. I'd gotten the wrong kind again: too orange and much too smooth a consistency. It was still early so I lay in bed and tried to read one of the books I'd started. I had five or six by my bed then. I would try one and then another, not getting very far with any of them, until it seemed like a substantial amount of time had gone by and I could turn off the light and sleep.

I didn't see him the next day, but then that wasn't unusual - days could actually go by before we bumped into one another. But I remember sort of looking for him. I thought, since he'd asked me to postpone my invitation and I hadn't approached him again, that he might approach me - for a walk, or a beer, whatever.

I began to notice that he wasn't coming or going from his apartment. It wasn't as if I was sitting at my window watching. I had a job to go to after all, for a few hours in the morning - at the time I was working for this woman who made cards and stationery; she had her own little company. So maybe he came and went while I was away; I couldn't have known, though his door and mail box slot looked suspiciously like they hadn't been opened and the dust on our hallway floor looked exactly the same as before (only more so). I might have even sprinkled a little dirt on the floor outside our apartments, just to see if he'd been through - I'd know if there was an imprint. But for a long time nothing seemed changed.

One day I decided I ought to do something about it; or rather, one day I found myself investigating, without thinking: I was suddenly trying the knob on his door. It turned easily, and with a push, the door was open. I should have said "Hello!," after all I was trying to find him; it would have been proper. I didn't though. I stepped in quietly, surreptitiously. There was the smell I hadn't thought about but had associated with his apartment: a little like overcooked broccoli. There was the table we'd sat at, the low stools, the stove. I peeked around to see into the other room. I saw his mattress. The bathroom was off to the right, just as in my room (though in mine it was to the left), and I looked to see if he was there, though I knew he wasn't. And then, maybe to think things over, to study his room - I sat down on the edge of his mattress. He had a sort of desk against the wall opposite, a door really, turned on its side to make a desk for him. Without thinking about it (I was tired I guess) I lay back on the mattress. I was careful about my shoes; I didn't want to dirty it. The sheets smelled pleasant, they were real cotton ones I could tell, worn from hundreds of washings, and though the last wash had probably been some time ago, I liked the way they smelled. We had always used real cotton sheets at home and they smelled so fresh; I nudged myself into a corner and buried my face in them.

I woke in the dark in a room like mine, only backwards. He was lying next to me, naked (I could see his clothes in a heap on the floor), his face buried in the pillow. Had he seen me? It was possible he hadn't turned on the light; wouldn't I have woken if he did? I lay next to him, feeling trapped and uncertain. His skin was too white, even in the dark. I sort of lay my arm next to him, just to see what his skin felt like. And then because I couldn't really tell, I moved closer to him. He felt warm against me. In a way I wished I were naked. He shifted a little in his sleep. I touched him again, this time on the bottom of the ear, where his ear lobe was; it was soft, like a baby's skin. I had the urge to kiss it. I brought my lips close; I don't remember if I actually did it. I got up out of bed then. Quietly, very quietly, I tiptoed out of his apartment.

Not much longer after that he moved. I hadn't asked him to walk again, and he hadn't offered a beer. But once we caught each other in the hallway, like before, standing awkwardly in our doorways, and my cat rubbed up first against my legs and then against his, and I asked how he was and he answered.