City Fishing Read online

  The street seemed to get steeper and steeper. Occasionally they would hit a flat place in the road; the car would make a loud banging noise, bounce, and then seemingly leap several feet into the air. The car was going faster.

  His father laughed out loud and honked the horn once.

  It was black outside, so black Jimmy could hardly see. The two fathers were singing softly again. The car was picking up speed with every clank, bounce, and leap. Bill was crying and moaning. Jimmy couldn’t even see the sky anymore, the buildings were so tall. And so old! Bricks were falling into the street even as they passed. Stone fronts were sagging, the foundations obscured by piles of powdered rock. Beams were obviously split and cracked, some hanging down like broken bones. Windowpanes were shattered, curtains torn, casements grimed. Jimmy couldn’t understand how the buildings held themselves up, especially when they were so tall. Miles high, it seemed. If he hadn’t been taught better, he would have thought they hung down from the sky on wires.

  He was bouncing wildly up and down in the seat, periodically bumping into Bill, who was crying more loudly than ever. The car was like a train, a plane, a rocket.

  A loud clank, then something rattled off to his left. He turned and saw that a hubcap had fallen off and was lying in the street behind them. Shadows moved in a side doorway.

  The car was groaning. Bill’s wails were even more high-pitched.

  “Daddy … daddy. Bill’s afraid!”

  His father stared at the windshield. The car dropped another hubcap.

  “Daddy, the hubcaps!”

  His father remained motionless, his hands gripping the wheel. A brick fell and bounced off the car. A piece of timber cracked the windshield.

  The car squealed, roared, and dropped further and further into the heart of the city. They seemed to have been going downhill for miles.

  It suddenly occurred to Jimmy they hadn’t passed a cross-street in some time.

  “Daddy … please!”

  The car hit a flat section of pavement. The car body clanked loudly, the engine died, and the car rolled a few feet before stopping. They faced an old building with wide doors.

  Jimmy looked around. They were in a small court, faced on all sides by the ancient buildings which soared upwards, completely filling the sky. It was so dark he couldn’t see their upper stories.

  He looked behind them. The steep road rose like a gray ribbon, disappearing at the top. It was the only road into the court.

  Everything was quiet. Bill stared silently at his father. The dead crow had been trampled almost flat by Bill’s agitated feet. The floorboard was filled with feathers, pieces of skin, bone and blood.

  There were shapes in the darkness between buildings.

  Jimmy’s father turned to his friend. “Bottom. We made it.” He began rummaging in his knapsack.

  He was handing Jimmy the rifle, smiling, laughing, saying “That’s my boy!” and “Today’s the day!” when the dark and tattered figures began closing in on the car.

  THE PAINTERS ARE COMING TODAY

  “What was that?” He lowered his newspaper, exposing two bloodshot eyes. Marcia noted his thinning hair almost with surprise.

  She stared down at her knitting. “I said that the painters are coming today.”

  He laid his newspaper into his lap and twisted his body around to face her chair. “What painters?”

  “I don’t know, Walter; you hired them.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Marcia looked at him quizzically. “They called this morning, said they’d be out to paint the outside of the house this afternoon. You didn’t hire them?”

  “I didn’t hire them, Marcia.”

  “I thought you hired them.”

  “I didn’t hire them!”

  “You are a very irritable person, Walter McKensie.”

  The painters arrived in the middle of the afternoon. Walter watched them through the thin lace curtain.

  “What are you doing, Walter?”

  “I’m trying to figure out what they’re up to, exactly what their game is.”

  “What are they doing now?”

  “Well, they’re removing several buckets of paint from their truck, some brushes, and one of them just unbolted a ladder.”

  “Then I guess they’re going to paint the house, Walter.”

  Walter stared at her sullenly.

  One of the painters had already leaned a ladder against the side of the house before Walter went outside. The other painter was down on his knees mixing paint, and Walter almost tripped over the kneeling form as he came down the sidewalk.

  “Watch it, buddy.”

  “Now see here, just what do you…”

  “It isn’t a difficult job,” the man on the ground interrupted, “I would say no more than a couple of hours.”

  “I didn’t hire any painters.”

  “Of course, we want to do a careful job, want to make sure it’s of an even thickness, no lumps or runs. Say, two coats to start with.”

  “Is this some kind of con? I didn’t hire any painters!”

  The painter by the ladder walked over. He appeared to Walter to be quite tall. “We ain’t just ordinary painters, Mac.”

  “I don’t care. I didn’t call any …”

  “In fact, we’re pretty special.”

  “I’m not going to pay for …”

  “We were sent.”

  “You were …”

  “We were sent; it’s our job.”

  “But who…”

  “Oh, I think cerulean would be a nice color, don’t you, Walter?” Marcia had come out of the house. She was standing behind him.

  “Marcia!”

  “Sky blue, ma’am? Fine color.”

  “Marcia, we’re not going to let these crooks …”

  “Of course, Mrs. McKensie is it? Of course, I’ve always been partial to robin’s egg blue.”

  “I don’t care if …”

  “Well, you do know your business, don’t you, Mr… Painter? I’d be glad to let you …”

  “WILL SOMEBODY LET ME FINISH A SENTENCE AROUND HERE?”

  They all stared at Walter.

  He took a deep breath. “I didn’t call you two jerks. I didn’t want my house painted. I’m not going to have my house painted!”

  “Walter, you just have no sense of the, the … nice!” Marcia stamped her foot. “Is this what we’ve come to, Walter? Evenings at home, the newspaper, your irritability, ugly old paint?”

  Out of the corner of his eye Walter could see one of the painters swiping at the side of the house with a paintbrush. “Hey you! Just a darn …”

  Walter stared at the house. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t speak.

  Where the painter had brushed there was nothing. No wall. Not even the living room beyond the wall. Walter could see grass, dirt, and the tree behind the house.

  “There’s nothing …”

  “There are painters and there are painters, you know.” The shorter of the two was speaking.

  “I can’t see …”

  “Take Frederick Mason now. There was a house painter.”

  “Where did the house …”

  “Originated the minimal school of house painting you see.”

  “It just vanished where he …”

  “Mason felt that it was what you couldn’t see, what was suggested, that was important. More than what you could see.”

  “We ain’t your ordinary painters,” the tall one said.

  “We were sent. It’s our job,” the shorter one said.

  Walter was sputtering now, Marcia slapping him on the back. “Walter? Speak up, now.”

  He turned suddenly and grabbed her by the arms. “I tell you it’s disappearing! What are they doing here?”

  Marcia pushed his hands away and stepped back, eyeing Walter suspiciously. “Walter, please.”

  Walter turned to the painters angrily. “What are you?”

  “It’s our job. We were
sent,” they chimed.

  Walter made a lunge for the tall man’s brush, and grabbed the bristle end.

  Four fingers disappeared. Walter examined his hand silently.

  Marcia noticed the chunk missing out of Walter’s hand. “Oh … good,” she said, her fingers to her lips.

  The shorter painter walked over to Walter, who stood statue like in the middle of the lawn looking at his now-absent hand. The painter began brushing his clothes, his other hand, and his exposed throat. Walter was slowly disappearing.

  “Oh, let me try.” Marcia took the brush and finished Walter up to his head. Walter stared at her sullenly.

  “Oh … good,” Marcia said as she removed her husband’s ears. Then his nose. Then his balding pate. She tweaked the remaining fatty cheeks. The eyes winced.

  Marcia finished Walter off.

  “Oh, that was fun,” she said.

  She whirled around giddily, and danced over to examine the house. She could see the sky through a wide brush stroke near the top of the painters’ ladder. “Hmmm, cerulean.”

  Marcia looked down at the painter tickling her legs with his brush. Half gone. She smiled at the painters. “Me too?”

  “We were sent. It’s our job.”

  She looked around her. Dozens of painters’ trucks were parked at her neighbors’ houses. Painters were setting up their equipment, removing wide swatches of house with each brush stroke.

  “We were sent. It’s our job.”

  She suddenly grinned at the painters. “Oh. Okay.”

  Both of the painters worked together, finishing her off in seconds.

  “Good job,” the shorter one said.

  “Sure was. Gettin’ better all the time,” the tall one added.

  They finished off the house. They wiped away the tree in the McKensies’ back yard.

  Then they started on the lawns, a thousand painters humming as they worked.

  A MASK IN MY SACK

  I carry a mask in my paper sack. A Halloween mask, I think, bearing the face of a witch or a ghost or a vampire. I don’t know. I’ve never looked into the sack. I’m too afraid.

  For some reason the streets here seem familiar, although I know I’ve never visited this city before. It is a colder climate than I like; I know I would never visit such a cold place under my own free will.

  I was married, once, I think. But no more. Something happened to her. Maybe she died, but I don’t think so.

  Or perhaps I have never been married. I do not know.

  I have a mask in my sack. And as I think these things, it must be grinning.

  No one is out on the streets at this hour. Perhaps it is because of me the people remain indoors. I have a mask in my sack. And it is grinning.

  It is past curfew here, I suspect. People are hiding from the bombs, or the disease-bearing winds, or the armies with their tanks. I do not know this to be the case, but I suspect it is the same here as everywhere: people locked up in their cellars, drinking quietly with relatives and friends, hiding from the bullets.

  A leaf falls gently into the rubble-covered street. But when I approach it I discover it is a dead bird, fallen suddenly from the sky, bearing no wounds.

  I have a mask in my sack. I know it must be grinning.

  This city resembles all the other cities. Windows are shuttered, doors barred or boarded. Few lights burn within. The buildings are usually tall, stucco or cinderblock or textured cement, the first floors having heavy entrance doors reinforced with decorative ironwork. Windows are often bricked in. In many cases the recitation of a password is required before entry can be obtained.

  The mask seems to shift eagerly in my sack.

  I can hear dogs howling in the distance, their cries echoing off the canyon walls of the empty streets. As in the other cities, the people can’t feed them, so the animals are reduced to roaming the streets in packs, seeking other, weaker animals, the intoxicated, the elderly, the lost children. I am suddenly nervous, and look around for some quick entrance.

  But the mask shifts eagerly in my sack.

  I have seen no police officers, no officials, and no semblance of authority. I do not know if such officials have left the cities, or if they are hiding in the cellars with the rest of the citizenry, or if the people have had them all killed because of their incompetence.

  I never know anything of a city more than what I am able to witness with my own two eyes, and that is usually very little.

  Even during the day it seems after sunset here. The shadows blur together; a gray light creeps from wall to wall.

  I feel I shouldn’t be here; these people don’t want me here.

  As always, the streets have sustained considerable damage from shellings. Smoke stains the buildings like the shadows of giants who might once have walked this city, but who have gone now, leaving only these gray and black shapes behind.

  Store windows have imploded, leaving a layer of broken glass on display shelves. Amputee mannequins dangle obscenely over the sidewalks.

  Every building is patterned with bullet holes. Jagged beams protrude like bones. Piles of crumbled brick in every corner. Paint has peeled in abstract designs from blistering, man-made heat.

  Somewhere someone is crying.

  Inside my sack the mask is grinning.

  I’m not sure what will happen next, although it must be the same thing that always happens. But I can’t even begin to guess what that might be.

  The mask grins and grins and grins.

  Someone has left a door slightly cracked. A child’s small pale face peers out at me from the narrow opening. Large dark eyes in the pale face. Pale red lips.

  I wonder if it always happens this way, but I really can’t remember. I walk to the door and open it a bit more, but for some reason I try not to open it too far. I open it just enough to allow my entrance, careful not to open it any farther. I hold my sack behind me, as if I were ashamed of it, the mask grinning inside.

  As if I don’t want the child to see it prematurely. But I’m afraid to open my sack. I’m afraid to look at the mask.

  The child stares at the sack for a long time.

  Inside my sack the mask is grinning.

  I hear other voices in the house. I step quickly into the closet and pull the hanging clothes around me. With my old and well-traveled clothes I am indistinguishable from the hanging garments.

  An empty sleeve jostles me. A cap and scarf suspend awkwardly over a wrinkled coat. Darkness stares at me from the eyeholes in a ski mask.

  Inside my sack the mask is grinning.

  The old man and old woman sit quietly with the boy. Or perhaps they are younger than they seem. Most of the people in the cities are younger than they seem. The dim fire leaves yellow shadows flying across their faces, like age moving in and out of their skin.

  I wonder if I have ever had such a family. I think I should have had some sort of family, but I can’t be sure.

  Inside my sack the mask is grinning.

  The parents retire early, leaving the boy to sit and stare out the window.

  Inside my sack the mask is grinning.

  The boy comes to me when I step out of the closet.

  Inside my sack the mask is grinning.

  The boy turns his face up to my own, reaches out his hand. And touches my paper sack.

  He looks at me with dark eyes, pink lips in the pale, sheet-white face.

  And again, I open the sack, and am afraid to look. I don’t want to open it, to take out the mask, but the boy has forced my hand.

  I raise the mask to cover my face. But I will not look at it; never will I look at it.

  And the boy grins to match the mask’s grin. And the boy turns paler; his skin grows dry.

  And the light leaves his translucent skin as he closes his eyes.

  I leave the house quietly, the mask once again safe inside my paper sack, the mask I’ve never seen, never seen. But I still know it is grinning, grinning.

  Somewhere out in the city someone c
ries. Followed by another, then another, another still.

  THE POOR

  The poor are grinning in his waiting room.

  Waiting in his room are the poor grinning.

  The purposes of his office are to help and serve the poor.

  To serve and help the poor are his purposes.

  They come every day, mobs of them. Some get in line at six in the morning, knowing he won’t arrive until nine. He has driven by that early, after reading about their early arrival in the newspapers, just to confirm it for himself. There are hundreds of them, some days thousands. All waiting to see him.

  He reads in the newspapers that he has money to give away, jobs, coupons exchangeable for food, gift certificates, and new toasters. But the central office never sends him these things. The poor frequently tell him all about new benefits being offered, but he never sees them. The poor know much better than he himself how his office is run.

  In his evenings at home his wife asks him how things went during the day, what he did, if he accomplished anything, and how the poor people in line were, if he had been able to do anything for them yet.

  He doesn’t know how he will pay for his son’s college tuition next semester, how they will be able to afford a Christmas like last year’s, how they’ll be able to maintain their standard of living in general. And she asks him about the poor.

  He cannot imagine how the poor can live, how they can live at all. How do they meet expenses? How do they keep up with the rising cost of food?

  He sometimes wonders if the poor are real at all, or actors hired by someone who hates him, hired to disturb the regular pace of his day, to corrupt his dreams with their thin faces.

  Or perhaps they’re an illusion, and he simply minds an empty office all day. For why else would the central office ignore him, all his letters requesting funds, his many phone calls?

  You worry yourself sick, you don’t enjoy life, his wife tells him. You’re brooding about them all the time. Them? he asks. You mean the “poor.” Can’t you even say the word?

  His marriage is falling apart. What if he told them that? Then would they stop lining up outside his office?

  He decides to arrive early each day. Talk to them. Get to know them. Show them he wants to understand their many needs.