Free Circling the Drain by Amanda Davis Page A

without question. Her heart thunders but her hand is steady.
    The angel’s wings flap a little, birthing a gentle breeze that flickers the candlelight. Then the angel tilts his head at her and his features melt into Billy’s and Ellen begins to cry.
    You bastard, she spits at him. You fucking bastard.
    All at once the anger and the loneliness, the unstoppered fury and rancid desolation comes rushing out, and Ellen weeps openly, her hands clenched in fists, her body choking out air.
    And the angel just stands there, flapping his wings and staring, but he doesn’t touch her. He stays by the door.

TRUE STORY
    Â 
    I once lived with a painter named Lina who was unable to hear things. By this I don’t mean she was deaf, but that she didn’t seem to understand things people tried to tell her. Certain messages were simply omitted.
    Lina’s hair was dark and thin, her features sharp and angry. Late in the evening on the day that I moved in, we sat sipping hibiscus tea in her grimy living room. She was curled in a tiny knot on the couch and I sat across from her in an uncomfortable wooden chair. There was a more comfortable chair nearby, but a sticky gray stain covered most of its seat. When she wasn’t smiling, Lina looked like a mean little yappish dog but she spoke in a soft, pleasant voice.
    She told me about her boyfriend.
    I’m in love with a sailor named Ernie, she said. But a long-distance relationship is so difficult.
    I nodded my agreement. Near one pale, putty-colored pillow the cloth seemed to rustle and writhe and I was a little concerned there might be bugs in the sofa, but I fought the urge to squirm.
    How long have you been seeing each other? I asked.
    Three years, she said softly, and exhaled, pulling her black cardigan tighter around her bony shoulders. Though he says we can’t be together. I have such a hard time with that.
    What do you mean?
    He says he’s dating someone else, that things are not happening between us. It’s hard to be your girlfriend, I told him, but he just shook his head and said stay away from me .
    She closed her eyes. So now we have this long-distance thing. But it’s so hard.
    I nodded. Lina picked at the pink fabric covering the battered couch. She looked tiny and forlorn. All around us hung her paintings: portraits of bugs—of fleas and flies, of beetles, roaches and silverfish. Recently she’d stopped painting them and moved on to canvases covered in genitals, hundreds of purple cartoon genitals with tiny bared teeth.
    Everything about the place was filthy: coated with a film of dust or grime. The room was also full of boxes—hundreds of small painted boxes covered every surface. I thought I saw one move, but I tried to be polite about it. I drew my knees closer, smiled and nodded.
    I was determined that this should work out, if only because I wanted to worry about the adventure of living my life and not housing. I hadn’t brought very much. Until I could afford a mattress, I slept on an inflatable raft taken from my parents’ basement. I kept my clothes in a plastic milk crate. I painted the walls of my room green and the ceiling blue, so that it felt like a clean, fresh place that belonged to me.
    Â 
    I soon discovered that Lina was convinced the police were looking for her. When I woke she appeared in my doorway and asked that I not leave the apartment.
    They’re out there, she said, pointing towards the front door. They’ve come for me.
    I didn’t understand what she was getting at, and said so.
    I got a jaywalking ticket and gave a false name and now they’re after me.
    That’s ridiculous, I told her. I’m sure they’re not looking for you.
    I headed for the door but she blocked it with her body.
    No, they’ll find me, she hissed.
    I pushed her aside and poked my head out in the hall. There was no one around.
    Â 
    A job opened up at the restaurant where Lina cooked and I was hired