Heaven
12/6.
The neighbors stomp. Every night they stomp; unceasing, unyielding, a constant drumbeat inside my head, but Hammie says I was asleep so when her black-soled shoe came through the ceiling. I didn’t wake up, but she peeked her head through the hole—I see her with the light shining about her and the splintered wood panels like rays of sunshine around her neck—and, later, she told me she said, “o, hi!” anyway with that voice now that I can hear whispering through my ears like honey-butter melted, dripping through my fingertips because, yes, o, yes, she didn’t want to be rude, she said. How could someone possibly be so rude?
They haven’t fixed the hole (of course, of course). “Because,” Hammie says, she knows—and I say, “I know,” she knows—that I am “completely alone and have never not been.” So, “harm is none and done, my dear,” she tells me, and a star-studded rug is placed over the gash above my bed so when their parties go on late into the night-times, it shines like phosphorescent butterflies, and I fall asleep with white stars dancing behind my eyelids because I am alone and have never not been.
12/7.
The rug is red and white and blue, but it is not a flag. The stars are white on a backdrop of blue with a band of red around the outside. It looks quilted.
In the day, the rug is dark and the splintered wood around the hole shines like streaks of sunlight coming through gray storm clouds. At night, I can see shadows moving above it as it glows, covering the light for a moment—just for a moment—before blazing bright again as the sun. I can hear nothing, smell nothing, but I know Hammie smells of maple and vanilla like the scent of sleep when awakening, and I like to think that, in the late morning, I can smell her dozing and dreaming.
But I am lying here now, and I smell nothing. It has become night as though by the snap of fingers. The moon is shining through the windows white and blue, streaming across the wood floor because I haven’t yet bought drapes. I can hear Hammie laughing upstairs, and I’m trying desperately not to fall asleep.
12/9.
Still, I haven’t met Bobby, but Hammie tells me of him every day, lying on her stomach on my hardwood floor (because she damns the couch, she told me once) with her golden curls floating around her cheeks and her glittering red-polished fingernails tucked underneath her chin. She’ll lie there and say, “Oh, you’ll love him, darling—just wait until you see him.” (Told me she was that particular type of person that’d rather lie on the floor and “damn every couch and chair between heaven and hell” so long as someone else was lying down beside her. [I thought Bobby must do that, that their apartment was bathed in sunshine, not a piece of furniture in sight.] I said, “Yes, that is a very particular type of person.” [And the first time I’d met her even, she hadn’t sat on my sofa—hadn’t sat down at all, hovered like a hummingbird in the air. “I’m Hannah,” she said, “But they call me Hammie, they do.”
It was just a week into my knowing her, my mattress still bare on the floor, that she rolled all the way down the apartment steps like a log to my door—I heard the steady thump . . . thump . . . thump . . .that drumbeat inside my head—and, invited in, she sat on the brown floorboards, damned my bed, the desk chair, the sofa puking out its fluffy entrails. She sat there crisscross-applesauce, asked me to join her on the floor, my apartment door creaking in with cool October air. But I didn’t. I don’t.]) And I’ll tell her, lying on my bed, “I’m sure he’s wonderful. I’d die to see him actually.” (Because I know if I ever touch the floor by her, I will crumble and melt, I’ll just die: fall apart [and sometimes I’ll just lie down alone on the floorboards and think, Damn the couch, damn the chair.over and over and over, seeing her sitting there away from me, damn the couch, damn the chair.the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen].)
Hammie talks of him fondly. The very first day I met her, she spoke of Bobby so affectionately, standing in my doorway on my threshold with cherry pie encrusted with sugar, talked like I should already know him—this grand creature just upstairs. She said something terribly ramble-y like, kept pawing curlicue strands of hair out of her eyes. She seemed to throw his name in whenever she had the chance as though he were famous. (Carlos said it was because she wanted me to know she was off limits. Annamarie exclaimed she was ten years older: Oh! the nerve!) But I came to picture Bobby this big burly, unruly fellow—this tall, wide, giant; dark haired and hirsute, so very butch and manly, wild in plaid and army greens (so that I’d never dream of little Hammie in any form or capacity), despite the flowery description his girl seemed to give.
I still haven’t met him yet. But when I woke up today, now just three mornings after Hammie’s foot came through the ceiling, I went out to fetch the mail and discovered three pieces of yellow, blue-lined paper all in a row taped to the chocolate colored wood of my door in as straight of a line as I have ever seen. The writing upon it was so sweet and curly I thought it must be Hammie apologizing for her foot broken through the veil of heaven since she’d never really said she was all that sorry. But after grabbing the mail downstairs (which, to my disappointment, was only a bill and a coupon for a department store), I didn’t read the letters—still haven’t done it. I glanced over them quickly enough just to see if Hammie spelled her name with a heart over the ‘i’ before I hurried back inside, but instead I saw printed there,
Deepest & Sincerest of Apologies,
Bobby M. Chester, Apt. 3N with the silver dragon door-knocker.
with no heart in sight.
12/11.
They played “I Love You For Sentimental Reasons” eight times last night.
I can’t complain.
Hammie kept laughing and I could hear the soft tiptoeing of her feet as she swayed back and forth in Bobby’s big hairy arms above me. I could see them floating around the room in my head, waltzing like angels bowling around that hole in the floor. I saw Bobby tower over her petite frame—pictured her this tiny, white butterfly in the calloused palm of his calloused hand, dancing with his thumb as he spun so lightly around the room, despite his immensity as delicate as a chocolate rose. I thought of Hammie as a butterfly flitting around my throat, butterfly kisses on my eyelids. “Damn the couch, damn the chair.” She landed on my mouth, flew away. I dreamt I danced with her until my ankles bled—until the balls of my feet were raw, until my neck began to crack, until my knees gave way, until my fingers became a part of her waist, until we melted, and Hammie said, “Damn the couch, damn the chair.” and Bobby flew around us, an orange butterfly with a big man’s big head until the breeze his wings created blew us away.
12/12.
“I’d complain,” Gayle said, for when Annamarie came, her mother did, too, and her husband waited in their Morris Miner smoking chocolate cigars, claiming, when his wife came back down, that the smell of smoke was only from a passing car. (And three blocks down—I didn’t yet know—Carlos was waiting for Anna [his “girl,” so often he would boast], drinking coffee in the nearby department store.)
“Isn’t there a board? Or a super?” Gayle said, “I’d write a note. I’d complain. You could slip it under their door or put it on their car.” She shook her head disapprovingly, her hair pulled back into a tight, low cinnamon roll bun, not a hair falling out of place. “It isn’t right. Isn’t it sorude?”
And I said, “Well, maybe I will complain,” but Annamarie knew I wasn’t going to—that I couldn’t—and she stared up at the rug peeking through the ceiling, splinters around the edges, the stars so dark and so dull.
Gayle left.
We watched out the window, the bare tree branches obscuring her head. She waved a white-gloved hand, we could see her breath. She got into the car and they drove off. And then Annamarie said something about dancing— “Or a movie, maybe?” I told her I’d make some tea, we could go walk a bit, how was school? How was work? How was Carlos? (I always forget how much I love her until I’m with her again.) She said something about the tea being rather good, wasn’t it? But it wasn’t, and when I dumped mine down the sink, she laughed, gulping hers—scorching hot—down. (I imagined her throat cherry red and blistered like ornaments on a Christmas tree.) She asked me about the writing: how was class? How was school?
I said I hadn’t anything to tell her. “My life is boring. Seriously.” And then she said something about us going to the department store.
12/13.
She’s staring up at the ceiling with her head thrown back, kind of tilted to one side, resting on her shoulder just so, leaning on her right arm so that she is stacked up like fruit at the grocer’s. Her slim fingers tap the floorboards and she rubs her temple with her other hand, her palm against her chin, her middle and forefinger moving in slow, violent, little circles, her skin twisting like a ripple by her eyes.
“Got a headache?”
“No.”
Her hair is shining in the sun, tinted like copper.
“Want some water?”
“No.” She looks like a cat cleaning her fur, bathing in the sunshine. “That’s alright.” She closes her eyes, opens them. She doesn’t look at me. She’s humming Vera Lynn, I think. “I’m fine.” She wears a white shirtdress with three big, brown buttons down the middle and puffy shoulders, her collar pressed down flat against her chest. Her stockings have a run in them, up the calf, exposing that white skin there beneath like milk glass. The sun streaming through the windows looks warm and orangey against her skin, like the tint of summer polaroid pictures lingering around her frame.
Suddenly, she flicks her head back to look at the rug coming through the ceiling and says that Bobby won’t let her wear her character shoes in the apartment anymore. “He thinks I’m going to make holes all over the floor,” she tells me, “And that then we’re going to fall down into your room.” She laughs, “I said you wouldn’t mind. Of course, you wouldn’t, would you?” She lets her head fall from her shoulder to look at me, her smile upside down, her curls gliding over her shoulders, swaying at her cheeks. “What are you writing now?” she asks.
“A to-do list,” I lie. The sun has gone away from the window. All at once, I feel guilty.
“Ah.” She watches me. I see goosebumps rise upon her arms. She nods and smiles at something far off and away. “Coffee?” Hammie says, getting up from the floor.
12/16.
dAmn the COuc H, daMN tHE ChaIr. DaMn tHe c Ouch, DAMn THe cHair. Damn thE CoUCh, Da M NthE CHAiR. dA m n T hE c o u c h , damn tHe c H A I R . CHAiR T H E damn, cOUcH T H E Damn. couch the DAMNeD, chair the sav ed . CoucH the man- chaIr, mon chéri. Mi aMOUr, m on aMI, the f l o o r. DAMn THe COUCH, DaMN the fLOo r . DA MN the Cha Ir, thE cOuCH, thE wawlLS. dam the floor damn the floor damNthe floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the flor
12/18.
She called me, the warm bustle of something around her, and said, “There’s a party on Sunday. I know I haven’t been around much. The sun’s too hot here, I can’t wait for the cold. 3N, door with the silver dragon knocker—you know the place. You’ll come by, won’t you? I’m sure all my plants have died, but stop by, won’t you? Lots of writing material, parties—you’re always writing, you’ll need new material soon. Never see you without that silly pencil behind your ear or that ugly notebook under your arm, I don’t know how you do it. So, stop by, okay? I’ll have Mikey make a pineapple upside down cake and we’ll play games”—A bang-bang against the phone-box—“o, I’ve got to go now, alright? Someone else waiting for the telephone. Okay. I’ll see you Sunday. Okay. Good-bye.” She hung up the receiver without letting me say a parting word.
12/22.
11steps to the table from my bed.
15steps to the sink from my bed.
13steps to the door from the sink.
24steps to Hammie’s door from mine.
72hours since I last saw her.
26 steps back to my door from Hammie’s.
19curses in a minute from behind Guy’s door.
7seconds for Straight Rob to lock his door.
3 steps back to the bed from my door.
26seconds without breathing.
47hours until the party.
50days since I moved in.
12/24.
I hovered like some lost dog beside her. I wanted every minute with her—to soak up every single moment with her, every breath and every fragmented sentence. I wanted her to stand close to me—so close to me—to say she loved me,yes, she loved me, and I’d tell her I knew because of the way she spoke, the way her eyes looked, the way she sat on the floor and stared up at the hole she’d punctured through the veil like it was the greatest thing she could ever do for me.
But she bought chocolate milk instead: vanilla extract, sugar cubes, purple carrots, broccoli, pineapple in a can (“For the cake, darling,” she said), shampoo in a bag, hot sauce, soy sauce and dough in a cardboard tube, piled up in her red plastic basket so full she leant to one side and wouldn’t let me help her. I wanted to help her.
We went for hot cocoa afterward. She asked for sugar cubes and we waited for them to dissolve as we stood at the window bar in the coffeehouse with her grocery bags sprawled out around our feet. Snow was falling outside, lying softly on the ground like powdered sugar on bushes and trees. I watched the steam from her drink float up toward her face in beautiful white swirls, kissing her cheeks. I wanted to say something because it felt as if something had to be said, but Hammie looked at me out of the corner of her eye—smiled as if to say “Aren’t you lovely, aren’t you justlovely?” and we sipped our hot chocolate in silence because I was afraid what words might escape me if I were to let the simplest one free.
12/25.
I thought Sunday would be a good time to tell her that I feel—in the marrow of my bones, I fear—that she’s going to be the only decent thing I ever write about; that I’m never going to get her voice out of my head, that I’m going to drown here thinking, Damn the couch, damn the chair,over and over and over in this silly little apartment, lying on the floor until I rot away. I thought Sunday would be a good day to run and fall to her: to collapse at her feet, to hold her hands, to kiss her face, to say, “Hammie, I love you, I love you—you are the most important thing to me.”
But I didn’t. I didn’t go.
I left.
I wandered to the grocery store a few blocks away. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go—to be. I trekked through the snow in slippers that now I see are faded and blue, and then I stood in the canned-goods aisle and stared at the pineapples on the shelf under the florescent lights as the people moved around me, the Christmas tunes played and children laughed, and I thought, Damn the couch, damn the floor,over and over and over. I saw Hammie sitting there at my feet on the white tiles, looking up at me with her big black eyes like a doe. I thought, Damn the couch, damn the floor.My arms were cold and they were useless, entirely useless, hanging loose at my sides—suddenly I knew with every certainty that my fear was true: I would never craft a thing better than her, I could never capture her, I could never be anything more than her, and then this pimple-faced boy came up to me, squeaking, “Please, man, you’ve got to leave. We’re closing now.” so I bought a can of pineapples because I felt bad and a can opener, too, and I stumbled out and left as the lights flicked off behind me.
I shuffled back home and alone, and all I wanted was to cry, to grieve and fall apart and let the ground swallow me. I wanted not to exist. I wanted finally to be stopped, to be silenced so I stuffed tasteless rings of pineapple into my cheeks to muzzle my tears and wept quietly—like a child (so grown and the loss of all our innocence)—stumbling back to my apartment, her: home. I wanted to let it all fall away from me, but all I could think of was her—her—and everything I could never allow myself to tell her, everything I could never allow myself to be because of her.It began to snow, and I held my eyes open wide so the cold could sting them and blur the red headlights, thinking, Damn the couch, goddamn the floor, over and over and over.
Katie Johnston is a creative writing undergraduate at Columbia College Chicago. She has been an editor for the Columbia Poetry Review, a production editor for Hair Trigger Magazine, and her essay “The Barriers Faced by Female Writers” was published on the Fountainhead Presswebsite and won the Excellence Award at the Student Writers’ Showcase.