The fat man’s voice soars. Black wings high above me. Circling and circling. Watching me inhabit his grief. Singing and singing.
Forget your troubles, c’mon get happy Ya better chase all your cares away Shout ‘hallelujah,’ c’mon get happy Get ready for the judgment day
The stage lights die. All except for a single spotlight shining on his black pointed shoes. Descending from the stage. Walking toward me step by step. Gliding black leather feet with their heavy, slippery soles. Whistling. Skipping toward me. Every step hurts my skin. Every step brings a new tear of his to my eye. Makes his heart thrash its tail in my rib cage. He crouches down before me until we are nearly face-to-face. His eyes so bright—the whites so white, the blue so blue, where once all was yellow and murky red. Cocks his golden head to one side as though I’m such a curious thing, this woman who is riddled with his unbearable pain. He lies down on the floor next to me, facing me, pressing his rosy cheek, his temple, against the cold stone. Gazing at me dreamily as though the vibrating, cold bar floor is a pillowy velvet.
It’s death. It’s death at last, I think. He’s somehow killed me with a mere touch of his hand to my wrist. Now he reaches a hand out again and I wince, but he just gently grazes my cheek. Caresses it softly. So softly.
There. There, there. There, there, there. Get happy, Ms. Fitch. All’s well.
CHAPTER 10
BRIGHT BLUE SKY in the window. My window. Afternoon, I can tell by the light. Is this death? A crow goes flying by the window, shrieking. I watch it land on a snow-encrusted branch, shaking its black feathers, making the snow fall all around. I watch clouds drift pass, and I can smell the brine of the nearby sea. I hear cars driving by on the street outside. Not death, then. I’m alive still. I’m in my body, which is my body. Breathing my own breath with my own lungs. No longer filled with that terrible black heaviness. Just my own pain. Familiar aches. Familiar concrete limbs. Familiar fists already tightening. It’s bearable for the moment. At least it’s just mine.
I’d love to show you a trick. Do you like tricks, Ms. Fitch?
How did I get back last night? I can’t remember anything after being on the floor, the fat man caressing my cheek. After that, black. But I’m in my bed, the blankets pulled up to just under my armpits. I’m not in my dress from the night before, but an old nightshirt of dark blue silk. I never sleep in my bed. I never sleep in this nightshirt. I’m always on the floor. Always lying in the sad dress and cardigan I’m too tired to change out of. Was I carried here by the fat man? Surely not. Surely I just found my way home alone, into this shirt, this bed. But I picture the three of them putting me to sleep. The fat man laying me down. The middling man pulling the covers up to my chin. The third man turning out the light. Shhhh.
I shudder.
Who the hell are you? I should have asked the fat man. What did you do to me last night? How did I wind up on the floor full of your pain?
I rise from the bed. Immediately feel the nerves in my legs seethe and hum. The muscles clench themselves into concrete. I recall John, gentle, sweet John, scratching his large head over the fact of my body. Prodding at it with a finger to “Nights in White Satin.” Feel that?
They break whoever they touch, Ms. Fitch. Your bank, your bones, your spirit.
My phone buzzes on my nightstand. Grace texting me from rehearsal. Fuck. I’m missing rehearsal as we speak.
Warming them up. Where are you?
Also, did you okay this???
Then Grace texts me a photo. A picture of a script she’s holding in her hands. I look at the picture of the script, and I burn. The title of the play is center justified. In block letters. The Garamond font. Not the actual name of the play, of course, but the title that is used in superstitious stead, because the name is just too charged for the theater. Bad luck, as the dean said. The Scottish Play. The name relights the fires in me, tightens every muscle in my body.
I think of the middling man looking at me with his bloody eyes, smiling at what the spider has spun. And now this business about Macbeth.
* * *
I drive to campus cursing Briana, January, the afternoon, every red light. I curse her burnished hair, her smirking triumph. Her pushiness that she won’t even bring to her portrayal of Lady M. No way. Not if I have anything to do with it. My hands grip the cold wheel. I am suddenly filled with a Helen-like resolve. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie which we ascribe to heaven. Remember this, remember this.
No parking anywhere on campus. I circle and circle the student lots, spouting obscenities at the windshield. At last, I give up and park illegally in front of the theater. Fuck it. I slip up the icy, endless stairs. I nearly fall a thousand times. No one helps, no one sees. Every smoking student is on their phone, smirking at their small screens, in the throes of their own dramas, their own little theater making.