Betty's Desk

by Christine D. Allen-Yazzie

I have a recurring dream, have had it for years, since, I don't know, girlhood. It's about a thing unseen that seeps into my hands and under my skin. This thing is indomitable, it squashes the breath out of me like a bad lover.

The UC4839 won't finish printing for another fifty minutes -- time enough to dig out the typewriter. What with email, the Find function, and default saves, computers aren't safe anymore. Often I've begun something personal, a letter to the editor, a testament of good or bad will, a note to myself on my computer, and as it isn't really my computer -- it's Betty's, she's in sales here in the day -- Betty read all of it, printed it off, even, taped a note to myself from myself to the screen of the computer for everyone to see. One note went something like this: Get laundry. Dog, rabies. Rash. Tell the bast. to pick up the car. Some days I wish I could clear out, pray to God to tell me something I'd like to hear. It was embarrassing.

There is a cat living in the ventilation system -- Brian's cat, Dot. Brian is our buyer. The cat got stuck there almost a year ago and refuses to come out. Brian brings food every other day and tries to coax her out, but she's content to live in the basement and venting. Maybe she's got a tunnel to the outside -- god knows she has to relieve herself somewhere. Sometimes I forget about the cat, and the noises -- the clanking, the scratching -- invoke thoughts of the devil, thoughts of dankness, claustrophobic thoughts. It distracts me from my work, and I have to work.

Tonight I begin a letter like this: Dear Jeremy. But I'm not sure whether an endearment is appropriate. I'm thinking something more of a directive, a logical argument. I try a business -- letter format: Jeremy: But I end up with something more like a power of attorney: Letter to Jeremy, centered, capped.

Life is more of an agreement than an endearment or introduction, I think, and Jeremy and I agreed on something a long time ago: to get married. We married in 1986 and have managed quite well as a couple, a partnership. We bought a house in '88, he started a business -- it's a warehouse, they sell windows, specialty windows, not the Home Depot sort -- in '94. He and my boss have an arrangement. My wages serve as supplement, human interest. We have similar tastes when it comes to interior design. We enjoy theater now and then, not the opera, musicals are ideal, pumpkin pie. We've never had a savings, really, but we've always had enough to go out to dinner every Friday night.

Love is nice but it can be located in a landscape, an accomplishment, a hope. It need not be the sexual sort. More important is the pact -- an obligation to keep one's word. I can't say that I'm happy he's gay. Occasionally I like to think he loves me, only me, that if I were to doll up, put on a sharp-looking dress, who knows, maybe nylons or tights, he'd come after me as though I were a pound of king crab.

Is it not an agreement when you wait in the car as a pedestrian walks across the crosswalk? Everything is a negotiation. You agree on a price, you purchase a product or embark on an adventure.

There it is again, a scraping. That dirty cat. This building smells of dead mice. There is a wrenching. I fear for the cat.

And what if we were to lay love before social obligation? Would it be reasonable to run over pedestrians to hurry to a friend's deathbed?

Betty keeps a hammer in the bottom drawer of her desk. If I need it, I'll use it. I'm not afraid of Dot the cat. In fact, unless the noisemaker -- hypothetically not a cat -- were trying to kill me, I wouldn't pummel it to death. I'd simply like to know what it is, to feel at ease with my surroundings. No, what bothers me, what inhibits me, is the possibility that there exists in this building, along with Dot, the kind of stuff known to move in and out of walls, in and out of people.

I have a recurring dream, have had it for years, since, I don't know, girlhood. It's about a thing unseen that seeps into my hands and under my skin. This thing is indomitable, it squashes the breath out of me like a bad lover. There's no escaping -- it can seep through a crack in the window or simply emerge from a door. It's ruthless -- not even angry, just determined, detached, evil. Evil I'm afraid of, though I know it's untrue.

LETTER TO JEREMY

I understand your love for Brandon and let me make this clear: I am not asking you to fall out of love for him. In fact, if you'd like to see more of him, that's fine.

That is one concession I'm dubious about. Could I handle it? Could I invite Brandon to eat dinner with us? Could I know the two made love and smile with genuine feeling? Suppose I want to make love with Jeremy. I'm sure I will, I always do. There are infectious diseases to think of. There are bodily secretions, and I'm only comfortable with Jeremy's.

I call my mother and tell her I think I hear someone in the warehouse. I hear un-cat-like noises -- perhaps someone has broken in to steal inventory. She reminds me that she never wanted me to work in that hellhole, that pit. I've made my bed, now sleep in it, for all she cares.

"I didn't raise you to be some clerk in an office with Formica desks," she says. "The least they could do is install cubicles. That manager, James -- "

"John," I say.

"Whatever -- the bastard ought to quit stuffing his face with cream puffs and Excedrin and take a look at his life."

I tell her I'm hungry, please, please, Mother, bring me a sandwich. She agrees.

LETTER TO JEREMY

I understand your love for Brandon. I'm happy you've had a beautiful experience. But even love is a negotiation and someday you will have to agree to certain terms, terms that might not please you; you'll have to enter a sort of pact with Brandon. I could argue you have already agreed to terms with me, but I won't. Weigh the costs, love. What will those terms costs? White cells? Social disdain? Beatings, even? Walking hand-in-hand in public parks will never be the same. And what are the terms of our relationship? Sexual satisfaction is one among many

It doesn't read well to use one word so often, especially a word like term…sounds like turd, heard, perm, Kermit. Nothing pleasant. But pleasure is no foundation for agreements. I try it with a pen and a sheet of baby blue paper from Betty's desk.

Dear Jeremy,

Make love on our couch, for all I care, but we have years invested in our marriage. We have things, we have careers, we have plans. Plans, love. I can find a partner. I can find a sex toy. My love for you does not eliminate the possibility for

I unlock the break room upstairs for a Coke. The break room is frightening. It's dark. It's located at the end of a long tiled corridor. There are shadows. The broom closet in the back is not particularly appealing, and I have noted to the cleaning people that I prefer this door to be shut. So far they have obliged. But if I were running from someone, something, I'd rather run down the stairs from the break room than up the stairs from the basement. I don't run fast, I never have, my knees are in poor condition, they could buckle at any time, and I'm a little overweight, I'm sorry to say --

That might be the thing. I became overweight, Jeremy sought the simple pleasures of a tight, boylike figure. Personally I don't find Brandon's frame appealing at all. It's knobby, it's small, the bones in his chest protrude. I don't know this for a fact, but judging from the way his T-shirt hangs, as though his shoulders were ends of a wire hanger, I'd say he's malnourished. I like a little weight, a little flesh, something more artistic, something Renaissance. I like Jeremy.

The light switch at the end of the corridor is sticky. Sticky is good. Sticky is a very human sort of phenomenon. Sugary coffee, Coca Cola, chocolate-smeared fingers. And fortunately I can't hear the cat from the break room.

My mother lives close -- not so close she can hear the trains rambling down the tracks, but close enough she could get here fairly fast, say, if I were to call her right before a murderer started in on me. She could feasibly get through the seven stoplights, the three blocks north, nine blocks west to get here as I struggled. She could open the door and, calling my name, scare away the murderer, who'd escape through the back door, before I've taken my last breath. She could resuscitate me, call an ambulance. Or the murderer could kill my mother too. Well, that's not likely to happen, and especially not tonight, not when I'm thinking about it.

I wonder if Betty might have a Dixie cup in her drawer. She used to have several. I've partaken of more than a few napkins, reading Taco Time or KFC, some of them red, they came from Burger Bar, they make a good shake. Knowing Betty, she counts her Dixies and maybe the napkins too, but I don't care. What can she do, fire me? She doesn't even work in the same department. I'd like to see her print the SR9089 or the TB3788. None of these fools know how to work their own system. I'd have to train them on it, I'd refuse…

Betty's desk is a mess. It always is. She has files that are marked under the same topic. She must know this, I don't know why she doesn't marry the files, one to each topic, it's not like they're overly stuffed. Like one file will say Taxes and one will say Income Taxes and another will say IRS. They pretty much have the same copies in them, but one file might have a copy of, say, a 1996 Married Filing Jointly brochure where the others don't. Her tax guy Sullivan sends her these brochures, and they're filled with misinformation. I, on the other hand, have a great tax guy.

Under her pads I find the cups but I also find this: I find a note. It's my typewriting. All type jobs look the same, yes, but I like a narrow margin and a double space. Or I think it's mine. I unfold it -- it's in quarters -- and see that indeed it is my sheet of paper. It's a list, another list. My fingers feel flulike. I remember this list as something bad, then specifics come to mind.

1. A good education
2. Someone to tell me I'm pretty
3. A potty-trained chimpanzee with a mouthpiece and manicure
4. A good orgasm
5. Apologized

Where before I felt Spackled, waterproof, now I feel cracked. The apology is for my friend -- well, an old coworker -- Angie. Actually, for her little girl -- a foster child now -- and the rest of her family. I found out Angie's husband had terminal lung cancer and had decided not to tell her. I thought she should know, I thought she should be prepared, so I told her. The next day her sister found her and her husband black-tie and asphyxiated. She was twenty-six and had just won the prestigious Alan Delbin Entomologist Award in three different states.

My mother calls my name. Bothersome. I thought I locked the door. I fold up the list and stuff it into my pocket. Not that Betty would read it again. Not that it would matter. Not that I can tell the girl I'm sorry.

I can hear Mom's heels click down the fake-tiled front corridor. This place is all corridors and mismatched doors. It's the office of a huge door shop, pushed up against the side of an unshapely warehouse. With all the doors hanging around this place, you'd think they'd want to display the attractive ones for visiting clients. Instead they're plastic looking and none really fit in the doorframes.

"Kitten, I brought a salmon sandwich. That okay? Where are you?"

"I'm back here, Betty's desk."

"There you are. How long are you planning on staying here? There are homeless people out there. They're parked beside the fence along the railroad tracks. I thought that was for the movies, and here you are, in a bad episode of The Hitchhiker: 'She was a young woman, not yet a mother, but a daughter, and it all ended the night they found her dead in a boxcar.'"

"Mom, you have an addiction to TV. It's not healthy." Sometimes I just want to be mean. "Salmon sandwich? Salmon sandwich? Well, thanks. You get a haircut? It looks nice."

"Yeah, a week ago. What are you doing? Writing a letter? What kind of job is this? Writing a letter. You've got your résumé to think of. What are you going to say, data entrant? Printer? It's clear Faggy isn't going to be around forever to pay for everything."

"This is not data entry. It's a sort of accounting, computerized. You wouldn't know anything about that." I find something to staple and hit it hard.

"Faggy. How rude. He's not Faggy, he's Jeremy, and he's my husband. He's as warm-hearted now as he was when I married him, and just as masculine." I find something to file and slam the cabinet shut. "He installed your cupboards, your shelves, your windows -- all for you, all because he likes you. He's in love, that's all."

She looks at the three printers in the print room. "I guess," she mumbles.

"Thanks for the sandwiches," I say, stuffing a quarter-sandwich into my mouth. "Pretty good, salmon sandwiches."

"I've got to get going."

"No! No. Did you hear that?" I don't hear anything right now, but I'd like her to stay.

I think about the apology I'll owe her one day for all the ingratitude, the apology Jeremy will owe me for the promise he couldn't keep, the one I'll owe him for -- god knows what kind of ass I'll make of myself tomorrow. So far it has been a progression. Maybe my mom will even muster an apology or two before it's all over.

She inspects my computer, opens Betty's top drawer, takes a piece of Wrigley's. "His sperm never worked. Where are my grandchildren? Maybe you have damaged eggs."

I am grateful for her chatter, no matter what horrible thing she has to say. It covers the possibility of hearing what I don't want to hear. Maybe life isn't so much an agreement as it is an apology, a series of screw-ups for which you compensate with mean words, regret, and tears both true and false. God has screwed up all creation, what with ghosts, a population of wanderers whose faces are stricken with a yawn of insignificance, of realization, of knowing that one term can become something else with any given urge. Obligation without purpose -- what sort of negotiation is that?

"I stopped by Lydia's today. I noticed she's picked up a habit or two. She's so dirty, she's always leaving her closet wide open. I can see her entire bedroom from the kitchen window. It's too bad a person can't choose her own neighbors. Do you know what was in her closet? Sweetheart, tell me you're not gay. Tell me you're not some sort of S and M."

I hear it again, the scratching. "Jeremy is not a pervert and neither is Brandon. I'm not either. Lydia…she's always liked a little violence."

It's a dragging across the ceiling, which is my floor. It could be anything post-1874 -- that's when the building was erected. Hell, it could be worse. There could be remnants from the building that was or the building that wasn't -- a battlefield, a cemetery, a place of mourning, or a place of misplaced goods. General dissatisfaction. I take Saltines from Betty's desk and stuff them through the heat vent to appease Brian's cat.

"Well, I knocked on her door and of course she didn't answer. What is that -- is that the noise you heard? What are you doing? Are those crackers? Give the cat a sandwich, for hell's sake.

"I caught a flash of her through the sidelight -- is that what they call it, kitten? A sidelight? I don't understand these window terms. If it's dark out, then how is a window a light? She was naked, almost. Dripping from the bath. Can you guess what I saw in her closet last week?"

"Weaponry of some sort, I'd imagine. Leather. Let's not forget you let her baby-sit me."

"Yes, leather. What is that? What are you thinking? Is it the noises? I heard something. Yes, something. Doesn't sound like Dotty, the poor thing."

She strains. "Likely the furnace." She throws off her coat and pulls up her skirt to get on her hands and knees. She puts her ear to the floor. "It's something."

She gets up, straightens her skirt. "Your father won't let up on my weight. Says all my clothes fit me like this. And I am a fat cow, some sort of farm animal. Look at this." She pinches flesh coming from the top of her skirt. "Next time I'm just going to charge a new wardrobe. See how he likes that."

"You're not a fat cow. There are no such things as fat cows." To make her feel better I pinch my own flesh. "See?" I say.

"Well, I should go," she says.

"No, don't. Can't you stay another ten minutes? I'm almost done."

"Can't. L.A. Doctors."

"It's almost over."

"I'm taping it."

When she has left, I call home. Brandon answers. "Hi, Brandon. Could you let me talk to Jeremy?"

Brandon explains their busy day. They've been hauling garbage from the back yard. "Jeremy's sleeping," he says.

Sleeping -- I picture Jeremy coiled with a pillow between his legs (he has back problems), along with the smooth transparency of his shoulders. Brandon probably watches his shoulders rise and fall, as I did. I'm jealous -- I really am -- but also there is something beautiful -- something so familiar I feel like I should make popcorn and take a seat on the other side of my window. Then it's like I see myself through another window, a big window, and there's nothing coming, nothing going.

Let them have the house. There's an old concrete stairwell that leads to my basement. It's buckling because the water from the outside tap leaks all the time, causing pressure to build against this cement wall. It'll all come down eventually. I couldn't possibly take care of it. My bed -- my king- sized bed -- doesn't even smell like me anymore. I'll just keep the couch. And the pots and pans. The dog. The oak hangers. Of course I'll need the dining-room set. He might as well let me have the washer and dryer -- I didn't have sex with anyone else. And the Navajo rug. The china is mine. The books are all mine. As if he would have time to read on his little honeymoon. I wonder if it would take a plumber to get the claw-foot tub out of the bathroom? The stereo -- at least the CD player.

I am left with the crusts of two salmon sandwiches. I poke them into the vent. Maybe I should call Brian. He doesn't seem to get out much. Maybe I should have sex with Brian. Better yet, maybe Brian should have sex with Brandon.

I dip into Betty's stash of gin. I could have her fired. Of course, then I wouldn't have anything to soothe me at night. Soothing is good. "Here, kitty kitty. Here, Dot," I say. But the building is suddenly very quiet. Even the heavy file cabinets that often settle at night are perfectly still. Dot is out peeing or maybe she's full.

If I don't take the espresso machine, I'm likely never to wake up in the mornings. I definitely need the automatic pencil sharpener more than Jeremy does. And the wicker baskets. The Sinatra collection. God knows he doesn't need a blow dryer. The stamp collection. The drill. Crystal mugs. Food processor. Stratego. Trivial Pursuit. Can opener. One can never have too many handheld can openers. Tupperware bowls. Pepper grind.

-- CDA
© 2001 Christine D. Allen-Yazzie

Christine Allen-Yazzie finished an MFA (fiction) from the University of Utah in 1998 but has yet to deliver her thesis to the thesis office due to the highly annoying process of measuring margins and obtaining multiple copies of duplicate original signatures on watermarked paper. Her stuff is also published in Flyway Literary Magazine, Black River Review, Whiskey Island Review, Pif, Eclectica, rough draft, New Voices in Poetry and Prose, and the What There Is anthology. Christine is a tad psychotic but fortunately is an excellent copy editor so she keeps her three-year-old daughter in dance classes. She's married. October is her favorite month.