Free Spectacle: Stories by Susan Steinberg

What if I made up the bird.
    And what if I was holding the book like this. And what if I was standing there like this. And what if I made a face like this. And what if I felt like a zombie. And what if I felt like an animal. And what if I felt just like a guy. And what if he opened his eyes like this. What if he looked at me like this. I said to my brother, You have never seen terror like this.
    I should have started with this: After my boyfriend hit me in the face with the book, everything stopped. And followed with:
    I mean the rain and every blade of grass and every leaf on every tree and air and light and time and
    I should have started with this: After my boyfriend hit me in the face with the book, everything started. And followed with:
    I should say there were good times with my boyfriend. The morning after he ran to the street, we laughed pretty hard. We laughed at his saying, They want me. And at my saying, No one wants you. And we laughed at the sound the tires made. And at the person who screamed. And at his dumb-as-shit questions. And my dumb-as-shit answers. We laughed pretty much all morning.
    But one day I would be at my brother’s again. I would have another mark on my face. The mark would be on the same side as the other mark. But it would be flatter than the other mark. It would not be from a book this time. And I would know something then that I hadn’t, before that day, known.
    And on that day, as my brother stood to leave, I would tell him the unsolved puzzle. I would hope that he would solve it. I would hope his brilliance would return. I didn’t want my brother to be my father. I wanted him to be my mother. The question, I would say to him, is how. How, I would say, but he wouldn’t care. He would leave his place. He would find my boyfriend. And I would sit there, waiting.
    But before that day was this day, and it seemed the rain would never stop.
    And streets would flood and bridges would fall and people would die, and no one ever predicted all that rain.
    And did you want to hit him, my brother said.
    I was not that type of girl.
    I was my father’s daughter, not my father.
    I didn’t hit him, I said.
    And the rain would fall for thirty days, and it seemed the rain would never stop.
    But did you want to hit him, my brother said.
    And a day would come that would be the last.
    Not the last of the rain, but the last of the days.
    And no great man would come to save us.
    No great man would ever come.
    And I would hold up my hand for a high five.
    And my brother would hold up his.

UNIVERSE
     
    One does not start with mourning doves.
    One cannot start with doves surrounding the bedroom.
    One starts with the trip to Sausalito, the quick ride over the bridge, the city shrinking in the side-view.
    One starts with the trip, as the details of the trip are simple: Mexican food, espresso.
    The details are simple: houseboats and the theater where one remembered seeing a film on a first date, a blind date, some years back.
    The date himself, one remembered, was beautiful, the night itself, and if one felt to sleep with him on the first date, one would have gotten, one would guess, the second date.
    The film was foreign, fine, two perfect people falling in love.
    One cannot start with mourning doves surrounding the bedroom, several in windows sitting on branches, making their hollow sound.
    One cannot start with doves looking through the windows to where one lay in one’s bed, still, too late to be lying still in one’s bed.
    One starts with something lighter, light, the Mexican food, the espresso, and, walking past the theater, one told one’s friend about the blind date from years back, how beautiful his face was; how sentimental the film; how one fell for it, still, the perfect people falling in love; how after the date, one went back to his place; how one was asked to take off one’s shoes; how one was asked to lie in his bed; how one did not go all the way on first dates; how that was back then; how