The Evolution of the House

THE HOUSE
All is contained within. The whole world. A meeting of three oceans, all visible from the center point of the hall; shag carpets in three colors each meeting there. The dirty mauve of my room reaching out tentatively into the grass green of the hall, stopping at the navy blue of my dad’s bedroom, which spilled into the living room. I rolled along them, tumbling over myself. Ran around the hall post: pink, green, and blue. Navigating. All carpets ending, breached by the yellow linoleum of the kitchen.

THE KITCHEN
A scorch mark on the linoleum in front of the floor heater where I sat in the cold mornings while dad got ready: took his shower, cleared his throat while watching ‘Passe Partout’ on the small black and white T.V. that he put into a shelf of the linen closet like a secret. I could see him from the kitchen, his heels and the backs of his legs swelling out from the door frame. His black hair flashing as he tilted his head back to gargle. That gentle retching. I ducked my head to the side as he turned to drop his pants. All those early wet sounds. His feet thumping the same yellow linoleum in the bathroom. I stretched my toes out toward the burning grille. His coffee, boiling, equal parts milk and sugar. A sip or two for me. Him telling me I was done baking in the heat, pulling me up by one arm as I smiled at him like Dopey. Him calling me “canaille” as I dragged my footied pajama feet against the floor not standing up as he pulled me into the soft green carpet and sat me down on the floor in front of the coffee table for breakfast. The mornings of the two residents of the house, my dad and I.

THE LIVING ROOM
Cartoons on the massive wooden T.V. set. Him handing me a tan and crystal sugar pop tart or a sloppy joe. He often ate what I called a shoe. Peanut butter and fig preserves on toast. The figs we picked together on the farm in Kaplan on a frigid December Friday. In twin rubber boots. Mine, the miniature. The same.

THE BEDROOM
The blue carpet, arms raising me up, to the bed. Digging my fingers into dad’s ribs, his mouth on the back of my neck. Hide and Seek, pressing my back into his soft leather shoes. From a crack under the door, a beam of morning. The arms, and dad, and God hanging around me like dust motes in the light.

THE HOUSE
The house remained intact but shivered. Yawned, mouth open just wide enough to admit another. My not-mother. It’s true she fit, that the house was obliged to her. Though the air grew thinner. Schisms formed. New patterns of light and dark. The rooms re-arranged themselves. She pointed her finger and the walls became the dark wine red of her lips. She touched the old beaten furniture; she paced the rooms. Spaces shrunk. I moved accordingly. I felt new expectations of my feet and hands. I was obliged to her, but hid myself away at night, in all the old hiding places.

THE KITCHEN
We were admonished by her for dragging our feet against the linoleum. For waking her up. We stopped eating at home. My father pulled me into the car in the dark morning and brought me to the hospital with him until it was late enough for him to drop me off at school. I sat at his desk with a paper wrapped cheese biscuit from McDonald’s. Picking the melted cheese off of the wax paper. The kitchen was transmographied in those mornings absent of heat. The world broke off a piece of itself and I breathed deeply for finding myself still in it.

THE HOUSE
The house with walls too thin for sleep. With doors with no locks. With a watchful Jesus in every room. The schizophrenic house in which there were two kitchens, two bedrooms, two living rooms. One house with her and the other with me in it.

THE KITCHEN
The soup bowls with handles that I knew from early childhood with big red crabs painted on the fronts, along with a recipe for crab bisque, I had held one with two tiny fists in the picture in our old house, the one in the country. In the old world. I loved them then. Now the crabs must all face the front, even when closed into the cabinet. I would like to hide behind its doors. To find a nook for my growing body that I could not quite make disappear. When I was small enough I would hide under the Legustrum bush with my back against the chain link fence. In department stores within a rack of clothes. Under my bed. Inside my skin.

THE BEDROOM
I woke up in the dark with an upset stomach and stumbled out of bed and into the hall. Shaking and sweating I gripped the brass knob of my father’s door, forgetting in my sickness that the room was no longer the old one, but new and hers. A flash of ass, two white cheeks hovering mid-air. I slammed the door shut and locked myself in the bathroom all night. No one came. The next morning she placed in my hand a rag and a can of Endust. One must dust not only around her numerous glass bottles of perfume, but they must be removed and the mirrored glass tray underneath must be sprayed with streak free cleanser and wiped free of dust. The sheets required a hot cycle then a two slow cycles in the dryer. Windex the wedding pictures. The tops of electrical outlets must also be dusted. You will no longer kiss your father on the lips.

THE BATHROOM
There was a hook latch on the inside of the bathroom door. I sat in the tub while the shower pounded away scalding. I could not hear the banging on the door, the strangled words, the murderous silences. I made a note that the towels must be folded once in half and then once again.



THE KITCHEN
Was I a prop? Lifesized, mechanical, my pelvis against the hard edge of the sink, my hands submerged in burning soapy water, working a sponge into the corners of the glass dish. Really trying, really concerned, with removing the impossible blackness. As if I could pacify her. Silence the screeching around me. She called me “her little worm,” with others in the kitchen, “a future slut,” when we were alone. But not alone. My father standing in the corner averting his eyes.

THE LIVING ROOM
The couch, where we usually sat together unless I was sitting alone. Unless I had begged to be left home from church. These moments of soft blue peace. Escaping the nausea from riding in the backseat. Escaping choking on perfume and avoiding her blunt arms during praise and worship. I tentatively let my fingers into my shorts. I sat alone but did not feel alone. I sat alone and have been sitting alone ever since.

THE BEDROOM
The brush of the carpet on my feet, hands, and ass as I discovered myself, in the dark, safe from her, safe from Jesus. Lying on the magenta floor with my bare girl’s feet up on the door that wouldn’t lock, that had a large rusted keyhole. I stuffed it with toilet paper and later, always found it gone.


THE HOUSE
During a storm. A hurricane in the gulf. The rooms, with no lights. I stretch my arms in front of me, feeling the angles of walls and door jambs. A candle burning on the bathroom counter and the red light flickering in retinas. Planks covering the windows, pounded in. Safe from the wind. I could manage in the dark. Hide in it. My fingers sliding over faces, noses, and tongue. The close pressing dark, wet and warm, dripping down the walls. I knock on every wall of the house, make noise and take up space. I suck up the air, again and again. I fling open doors. I play hide and seek and find the ghosts of myself, under the bed, in the closet, buried in clothes. They remain untouched. I gather them to me one by one then open the windows to let them go. I feel my lover in the dark. Wet eyes and hands. Alone in the house. We fuck on the counter, the table, and fuck on the scorch mark in the KITCHEN; we fuck in the chipped tub, the cold linoleum of the BATHROOM; we fuck on the couch and on the television set in the soft blue shag of the LIVING ROOM; we fuck in the BEDROOM in my father’s and mine. We fuck on every lateral surface. We fuck in the house, we fuck in the house, we fuck in the air in the dark of the house. As the house twirls up into the sky; as the house sinks down under the earth.