The White Angora Rabbit
Wyclef lies on his mattress listening to the insistent disruption of calm that is a phone ringing. His cat, Salty, sits on his chest, breathing in her regular struggle. Filling her lungs with small breaths to catch and fall abruptly back down again. She’s purring and it mixes with his heartbeat to vibrate his rib cage. She has a crooked smile, that without she would be an exceptionally pretty cat. The machine answers the phone. He hears the familiar prompt, his own voice echoing through the room. Salty’s tongue is caught between her teeth, and is sticking out through her crooked smile.
Ruth, the old
lady with the white angora rabbit, calls out to him through the tape reel in
response to his pre-recorded urging of her to leave a message after the beep.
“Why Cleff deary! I know you’re hearing this so I’ll expect you at my house to
pick up
Wyclef sighs. His feet are cold. He pulls them under the covers, into warmth.
Not wanting to disturb Salty and trying to do so in the nicest way possible, he sucks in all the morning air left in his apartment to fill his lungs and throw her from her perch. He rubs his chest, feeling the warmth with his hand and the coolness inside that was left by her absence. Throwing off the covers, he places his feet gingerly on the cold floor, his left foot lands on a partially filled journal. He kicks it under the bed.
He brings his first cup of coffee into the shower with him. He pours himself a bowl of cereal, eats it in silence. Puts on a record of The Mountain Goats, feeds Salty to shut her up, and sits down with his second cup of coffee to listen.
The fact that today he may have to see Ruth, the old lady with the white angora rabbit, keeps working its way through the vibrating walls of music into the confines of his echoing mind. SHIT. Ruth had a way of getting into his day when all he put his energy into was avoiding such interactions. He was not supposed to see the owners of the pets he picked up. He used the key hidden under the mat, or the flowerpot, or magnetically stuck to the underside of the metal mailbox. He simply let himself in. Empty, quiet, lived in. He liked it that way. He saw their faces in family photographs, mouths smiling but wonderfully silent. He walked through their houses, wooden floors creaking warmly, carpet giving way underneath his feet—hoping that they didn’t notice that he didn’t remove his shoes—found their pet (usually dog and hopefully alive)—and took them out for a walk. But Ruth, oh how she liked to fuck with him. That he may have to converse with this woman makes it impossible for him to enjoy the routine of his morning. It makes him close his eyes and raise his hand to his face, pressing his palms to the lids of his closed eyes. Four songs have played and he hurries to turn off the music as the sounds of the fourth die away. He holds his pointer finger poised over the power button, he must press it before the next comes on to hold him there, preventing him from commencing his day because he cannot bear to stop it mid-song.
Breathing in the silence he takes his coat and leaves.
Downstairs.
Avery is at the bottom of them. Peeking around the corner, he is still out of
sight and could turn to climb silently back up the stairs into the relative
safety of his apartment. She is the clumsy girl from the apartment below his. He
can usually hear her knock something to the floor and curse. Her music blends
with his, always loud and different. Wyclef feels that he runs into her,
sometimes literally, in this awkward room for meeting and getting mail at the
bottom of the stairs, far more often then he ought to. Her key, attached to a
red painted wallet, is hanging from her mailbox keyhole.
Wyclef makes a
dash for the door. Keeping his head down, wishing for all the world that she
doesn’t choose to speak to him, or doesn’t even bother to notice him. That would
be better. Have interesting mail. Please.
Have interesting mail. He repeats over in his mind, quick and careful feet
carrying him to the outside.
“Mountain Goats this morning Wy, good choice.”
Fuck.
“Yes, it happens.” He moves past her, pushing against the heavy front doors.
“What happens? You making choices!?” She calls after him.
The whole time he is making his way over to Ruth’s house, he is wondering how to avoid seeing her. Three or four times he seriously considers getting off the bus, finding a pay phone and calling her to say that he can’t, he has to meet his mother at the train station. Or something to that effect. Palms pressed on eyelids, the aloneness of riding the bus comforts him a little. This was no small town, somehow he could have felt completely at peace with all those strangers around him. Going about their business, unwanting of contact just as much as he. Except for Ruth, willing him into retreat. But he does not, her white angora rabbit must be taken to the vet. He had found himself committed to these animals, and therefore for some reason had found himself committed to this job. He thinks his way up to the redwood gate of Ruth’s house, pausing there, hand resting on the latch.
Ruth sits, with her rabbit on her lap, working its hair into her knitting. The rabbit gave her its hair, she said, to make her hats softer. She had knit Wyclef one a few weeks ago. He wears it around his apartment when the space heater doesn’t do the job. But there she is, small and old, stroking the soft, little white hairs of the peacefully napping rabbit into the workings of the brightly colored yarn.
“Why-cleff! Sugar, wonderful of you to join us for teas.”
He is standing in the middle of her living room in his socks feeling terribly uncomfortable. They don’t match. The socks that is.
“I hadn’t…um…” Looking around the art-filled room for an escape. There are nothing but pillows, paintings, old photographs that could quite possibly not have been of anyone she knew, and lots of knitted things with traces of angora hair. So he sits. Reluctantly in the place she had been patting beside her with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
Next to her he sits, his teacup in the curve of one hand and resting on his belt buckle. The ceramic, pressing against a small part of his stomach, warms him. The sun pieces its way across his lap. Triangles of light. Separated by folds of fabric. Caught in sunlight, steam rises unfurling into the still air at his chest. Losing its curling body and dispersing, claiming space at his nose. Before, it tangled, twisting into and around itself and then unraveling again. In a dance of limitless grace of the rising, in a dance with itself that only leads to its end. Till it joins the air. Between the lightness of forms playing out before him in the air, he watches Ruth.
He takes a sip of his tea, he knows she can hear his breath echo in his cup. He watched the lines of tea at the bottom of his cup slide and settle again like sand.
Ruth watched him playfully. Waiting with a smile on her face.
“You and me dear, we grew up in the same place. Somewhere in Indiana. Yeah I don’t need to know where to know we have something in common. As long as it’s called Somewhere.”
God. No, no we don’t. Don’t start here. Not a somewhere place.
“Whoever we are. We both wanted out. Somewhere Indiana was not the place for you and me honey.”
Sitting back she looks at him. Looking for a reaction to this test of territory.
“So.” He is looking down into his tea, the steam parting around his face.
“I made a new place for meself sugah plum. You. You made a place in your mind. No I’m only saying this cause I’m tired of seeing those pretty eyes looking down. And back. Shit. Maybe you’re happy doing what you’re doing. Then keep on doing. But I just thought I’d give you a piece of my cookie.
“You’re a handsome man. I could tell you go out get married. I’m old fashioned but I’m not that old fashioned. Heck, I didn’t get married did I? I got my rabbit, white sheets, and my sunflowers.
“Get a rabbit, dollface.”
He is sliding out from under himself. Was there something in the tea or was it in her words? Black creeps at the edges of his eyes but he is already not seeing.
“I think it’s time for me to take Petals here to the vet,” is all he can say. He places his teacup carefully on the table in front of him. Picks up the white angora rabbit from Ruth’s lap and walks out the door.
Halfway down the walk, cold starts seeping through his socks. Socks. Shoes. He had forgotten his shoes. He turns around and walks back into the house. Shoving his feet into his shoes and shouting that he had forgotten them, he promptly leaves again.
The next morning he begins his routine as usual. Coffee, shower, cat, cereal, coffee, music, coat. This morning he decides to clean the glass on the shower door, too.
He doesn’t linger at the bend in the stair today and coming around the corner into the awkward room at the bottom of the stairs he stumbles into Avery. Clumsy girl from downstairs.
“Oh hey, sorry. I…moving quick, didn’t see you there…” One of his feet is still resting on the stair, his arm over her head is locked, pressing against the wall, keeping him from losing his balance and knocking her over.
“Well, now you do,” Trying to see around his arm. She smiles at him, out from under her hat. She makes him uncomfortable with the feeling in his stomach. Maybe he shouldn’t have cleaned his shower.
“Could I...” gesturing to get around her in an attempt to free himself. Save his balance.
“Oh, yeah. Sure thing.” She moves out of his way into the room. He passes and decides to go for the mailboxes.
“How are you?” he ventures.
“Oh!” she sounds surprised, like someone had stepped on her foot and simultaneously given her flowers. “Great, actually,” a smile spreading across her face. She leans, pressing her back against the notice board on the opposite wall.
“You broke something last night.”
“Oh yeah, knocked a bowl off the counter again. At least it was from the set I found on the street.” She shrugs.
“You break things a lot.”
“Hm I know, it’s silly. Though it’s other people too, you know.”
“I don’t really.”
“I mean people that come over to my place, people tend to drop wine glasses after they’ve had a few. And then if we’re roller skating…but that’s a whole ‘nother story.” She laughs to herself.
“That’s what you’re doing then, eh?” He has gathered his mail into his arms. Plastic wrapped magazines slipping. “Careful of those glass shards.”
And then he slips through the doors.
He knew what the outside would smell like because he could smell it lingering in the air in the awkward downstairs room. Avery must have brought it in with her. Caught up in that hat of hers, scooped into her forearms. His pinkies are cold.