No One Belongs Here More Than You. Миранда Джулай

and I didn’t put on pants because who cares. Maybe he would be half naked, too; maybe he would be headless and covered in blood. I stood in the doorway of the stairwell, on the top step. It was darker there than in the bedroom, and I felt blind. I stood and waited to die or for my eyes to adjust, whichever came first. Before I could see anything, I could hear him breathing, he was right in front of me. I leaned forward, I could feel his breath. I could smell his sourness. It wasn’t good, he wasn’t good, he did not have good intentions. I stood there, and he stood there. He breathed out the bitter air that makes women doubt everything, and I breathed it in, as I had always done. I expelled my dust, the powder of everything I had destroyed with doubt, and he pulled it into his lungs. My eyes were adjusting and I saw a man, an ordinary man, a stranger. We were staring into each other’s eyes, and suddenly I felt furious. Go away, I whispered. Get out. Get out of my house.

      After we pulled out of the gas station, we drove to a restaurant that Kevin thought I might like. But I was still thinking about the boy with the squeegee, and I systematically did the opposite of everything that Kevin wanted. I didn’t order dessert or wine, just a little salad, which I complained about. But he did not give up; he made jokes, ridiculous jokes, in the car on the way back to my apartment. I steeled myself against laughter; I would rather die than laugh. I didn’t laugh, I did not laugh. But I died, I did die.

       The Sister

      Many times people have asked if I would like to meet their sister. Some women never marry and don’t fuss much with their appearance, and the years don’t tiptoe around them. These women, they have brothers, and the brothers of such women often know a man like me, an old man who is alone. Men alone often have one or two large things wrong with them, but these are things that the brothers think their sisters should be able to live with. An example of such a problem is: still being in love with one’s deceased wife. This wasn’t my problem; I had never been in love with anyone, dead or alive. But this is an example of the type of problem that men like me have, sizable. We are often introduced to people’s sisters. Sisters come in all ages; this took me a while to realize. I have no siblings, but I remember boys in school talking about their sisters, and so I always imagined sisters being of a certain age, school age. Did I want to meet their sister? At first I was taken aback to see such a tall, elderly sister. But of course everyone is old now, even the beautiful sisters of the boys I knew in school. It has been so long since I met a little girl. Men like me, men alone, we are the least likely people to be introduced to little girls. And I can tell you in one word why this is. Rape.

      Almost all the purses in the world are made at the one place, Deagan Leather. Even if they have different tags on them, even if one of them says MADE IN SRI LANKA and the other one says MADE WITH PRIDE IN THE USA, they were both assembled in Richmond, California, at Deagan. When you finish your twentieth consecutive year at Deagan, they throw you a party with hula punch, and you automatically get free purses for the rest of your life. Victor Caesar-Sanchez and I are the only two people who’ve gotten the party so far. We play a game called What Good Thing Can You Make Out of Unlimited Purses. An example of a good thing is a leather house, or a leather airplane that actually flies. I didn’t know the name of Victor’s wife until she died last year: it was Caroline. I guess she wasn’t Mexican like him; I had pictured her Mexican this whole time. And I did not know he had a sister until he asked, Do you want to meet my sister? Her name was Blanca Caesar-Sanchez. Again I made that mistake of imagining her a teenager. A teenager in a white dress. New little breasts. I did want to meet her.

      He arranged for Blanca and me to meet at an AIDS benefit party. Many of the people there were in their twenties and thirties, and I wondered if they were Blanca or the friends of Blanca. I went out of my way to be tolerant of them. There were also people in their forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies, and these people had a chance of being Blanca, too, or the parents of Blanca, or grandparents or even great-grandparents of Blanca, if Blanca was a child. There were a few children running around, sisters of brothers, who could be Blanca or Blanca’s grandchild. The evening wore on. Many times I saw Victor and he told me that he had just seen his sister but lost her again. Then he said that he had in fact sent her over to my table not fifteen minutes ago to introduce herself, and had I not met her? I had not.

      Well, what did you think of her?

      I didn’t meet her!

      Oh, I thought you said you had.

      No, I said I had not, I had not.

      Well, that is a shame. I think she left. She told me she liked you.

      What?

      She said she wants to see you again.

      But I never met her!

      Watch it, that’s my sister you’re talking about.

      I am six foot three. I weigh 180 pounds. I have gray hair that is receded. I am not fit, but I have a naturally fast metabolism, so I am skinny. Except for my stomach.

      Blanca came in and out of my life over the next few weeks, but she never came in far enough for me to see her. I failed to meet her in so many different ways that I began to know her anyway. I knew the qualities of her particular absence. I dressed up for it. I wore a suit that I had never gotten the hang of in the seventies, but now it felt all right. It’s an unusual suit because it’s light beige, almost off-white. You don’t see that color much in big amounts, suit and jacket both. It became my uniform for not meeting Blanca.

      Was she at the Tiny Bubble Lounge last night?

      She was! Did she introduce herself?

      No.

      I told her you sometimes go there. She’s been stopping by regularly.

      I’d like to meet her.

      And she’d like to meet you.

      Victor, she’s gotta introduce herself. I see her in my dreams.

      And what does she look like?

      She’s an angel.

      That’s Blanca, that’s the one.

      Is she blond?

      No, she’s dark-haired, like me.

      A brunette.

      Well, I don’t know about that.

      You just said she was.

      Yeah, I just don’t like to hear my sister talked about that way.

      Brunette? That’s nothing bad.

      Yeah. But it’s how you said it.

      “Brunette” said by a man who has to use two hands to jerk off each night, that’s what she did to me. I knew when she was near because I started breathing harder. The whole feeling in the room changed: her smell wrapped itself around my face, and I just knew she was there and I couldn’t stop thinking she was a teenager. Even though it made no sense. The bar was full of smoke and men, but I could see her, behind someone, just out of view, in tight jeans and tennis shoes, chewing gum, with pierced ears and some kind of band holding her hair back. A ribbon or some kind of plastic band. And pierced ears. I said that already. Okay. That’s what I saw. Some may say that such a girl is not ready for a relationship with a man, especially a man in his late sixties. But to that I say: We don’t know anything. We don’t know how to cure a cold or what dogs are thinking. We do terrible things, we make wars, we kill people out of greed. So who are we to say how to love. I wouldn’t force her. I wouldn’t have to. She would want me. We would be in love. What do you know. You don’t know anything. Call me when you’ve cured AIDS, give me a ring then and I’ll listen.

      There were many times a day when I needed her. When I walked or took the bus to Deagan, when I was in motion, and when I was still. When I was inspecting purses and all of them were perfect, down to the last grommet. Day after day, no flaws, just a building tension, a growing fog that could be cut only by a backward strap or a missing buckle. Some people go on forever without flinching, without crying out. But I cried, Blanca!