Homesick for Another World(17)

“Don’t touch that!” my boyfriend cried breathlessly, leaping over the bed and grabbing the skull out of my hands. “Great. Now I need to find a body of water to wash it in. I told you, don’t touch my stuff.”

“You never said I couldn’t touch it,” I said. “The pool’s right outside.”

He put the skull in a pocket of his cargo shorts and left.

? ? ?

The buzzer rang the next evening. I got on the intercom.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“It’s the Kowalskis,” the voice said. It was Moon’s voice. “We couldn’t wait. We’re here with cash and a moving truck. Buzz us in?”

My boyfriend hadn’t come home yet from his callback. He’d called to say that he was staying out late to watch the lunar eclipse and not to wait for him, and that he forgave me for touching his crystal skull and that he loved me so much and knew that when we were both dead we’d meet on a long river of light and there’d be slaves there to row us in a golden boat to outer space and feed us grapes and rub our feet. “Did my agent call yet?” he had asked.

“Not yet,” I’d told him.

I put on my robe and went downstairs, propped open the gate with a brick. Moon stood there with a manila envelope full of money. I took it and handed her the keys.

“Like I said, we couldn’t wait,” said Moon. Her husband was unloading their moving truck, lugging black garbage bags off the back and placing them in rows on the sidewalk. Those damned crows flew across the violet sky, perched on top of the truck, cawed quietly to one another.

“It’s late,” I said to Moon.

“This is the perfect time to move,” she said. “It’s the equinox. Perfect timing.” Her husband set down a moose head mounted on a shield-shaped piece of plywood. “He loves that moose,” said Moon. “You love that moose, huh?” she said to her husband. He nodded, wiped his forehead, and ducked back into the truck.

I went back upstairs and started packing, stuffed the money Moon had given me at the bottom of my suitcase, cleared out my drawer, my boyfriend’s makeup case, wrapped the shotgun in that terrible afghan, zipped it all up. Watching from the mezzanine as Moon carried in a large potted tree, her husband slumped behind her under a bag of golf clubs, I felt hopeful, as though it were me moving in, starting a new life. I felt energized. When I offered to help, Moon seemed to soften, flung her hair back and smiled, pointed to a woven basket full of silverware. I helped Moon’s husband carry the old mattress out to the curb. We set it up against a tree trunk and watched the tree veer back precariously toward the apartment complex. A cluster of crows sprang out from its leaves. “Gentle souls,” the man said and lit a cigarette.

When the truck was empty, Moon told me to sit down in the kitchen, rubbed the seat of a chair with a rag. I sat down.

“You must be tired,” she said. “Let me find my coffee pot.”

“I should get going,” I said.

“No, you shouldn’t,” said Moon. Her voice was strange, pushy. When she spoke it was like a drum beating. “Be our guest,” she said. “Want saltines?” That third eye seemed to wink at me when she smiled. She found a plate and laid out the crackers. “Thank you for your help,” she said.

I looked around at the walls, which were mottled and scratched and dirty.

“You can paint the place, you know,” I told Moon. “My boyfriend was supposed to have painted already. Of course he didn’t.”

“The manager guy?” the husband called out from the brown velour sofa they’d set in the middle of the living room.

“How long have you two been a couple?” Moon asked. She laid her hands down flat on the kitchen table. They were like two brown lizards blinking in the sun.

“Not long,” I said. “I’m leaving him,” I added. “Tonight.”

“Let me ask you one thing,” Moon said. “Is he good to you?”

“He beats me,” I lied. “And he’s really dumb. I should have left him a long time ago.”

Moon got up, looked over at her husband.

“I’ve got something for you,” she said. She disappeared into the bedroom, where we’d piled all the garbage bags full of stuff. She came out with a black feather.

“Is that from the crows?” I asked.

“Sleep with this under your pillow,” she said, rubbing her third eye. “And as you drift off, think of everyone you know. Start off easy, like with your parents, your brothers and sisters, your best friends, and picture each person in your mind. Really try to picture them. Try to think of all your classmates, your neighbors, people you met on the street, on the bus, the girl from the coffee shop, your dentist, everybody from over the years. And then I want you to imagine your boyfriend. When you imagine him, imagine he’s on one side and everybody else is on the other side.”

“Then what?” I asked her.

“Then see which side you like better.”

“You need anything,” said her husband, “you know where to find us.”

I went home and put on the yellow sports jacket. It didn’t fit me any better than it fit my boyfriend. I put the feather under the pillow.

? ? ?

That night I had a dream there was a monkey in the tree outside my window. The monkey was so sad, all he could do was cover his face and weep. I tried handing him a banana but he just shook his head. I tried singing him a song. Nothing cheered him. “Hey,” I said softly, “come here, let me hold you.” But he turned his back to me. It broke my heart to see him crying. I would have done anything for him. Just to give that little monkey one happy moment, I would have died.