A Study for a Haunted House
by Don Bapst
A man begins speaking in the blackout.
When you first meet him in that dark place, you try to pretend not to notice that he may be the one.
He has the deep brown eyes that actually look at you, the strong but delicate hands that actually touch you, even here in the darkest of places where you're not supposed to find him but do.
Deep inside you believe there is a “one,” though you say such a person can't exist.
You'd rather believe there's no one. That explains why you are so alone.
Lights up slowly on the man dressed in flannel shirt and jeans and boots.
But you also want to believe in him because you don't want to be lonely, but mostly because he looks like he's worth believing in.
He has a wide mouth that speaks directly. He claims he's vulgar, and you think “in a good way.” He wears plaid flannel without trying to be butch. When you tell him you like wine, he says he hates it and grins. He has clumsy feet. His cock isn't so big, but it's beautiful.
You make love all night and call it fucking, but already there's a softly lit place inside your mind with big fringed pillows where French love songs are accompanied by exotic eastern instruments. You call it “memory” and laugh it off, but inside that place it's all fluffy and warm, and you could snuggle right in.
You taste each other's mouths in the morning before the mouthwash, and they taste good together. You go to breakfast and talk about each others' lives.
Two weeks later, a new toothbrush has appeared in your medicine cabinet where your spare once resided. Across town in his bathroom a complementary transformation has occurred. You cuddle nightly now.
One night, he has a nightmare that wakes you. You find yourself holding him, telling him it's okay as he rides it out, jerking in his sleep. Your lips form the three words you'd promised you wouldn't speak again, at least not so soon. But you don't give them volume. Not yet. Instead, you curl up in that room with the chansons and the pillows, and you revise all your rules.
The man sings in French.
Soon, you're moved in. Your friends say you're like lesbians. You are charmed by the place he calls home—the country-style furniture, the leafy plants in the window, the oversized dog on the back porch. You would never decorate this way, but you love watching him paint a room with those hands that still touch you when they touch you. He plays music you would never listen to, watches movies you would never watch.
An actual droning noise begins to assert its presence.
From a tiny place in your mind—a mere closet off the plush room with the sentimental music—comes a faint droning, like the sound of a major appliance in bad need of repair. It's the sound of wondering if the two of you shouldn't have more in common. You decide you love him for having such strong opinions and ignore the persistent whirring behind the closed door.
The man sings in French over the droning sound.
Now you're completely settled in and have spoken the three infamous words numerous times to each other. You snuggle nightly in the bed the two of you assembled in the room he painted the color you chose together at the hardware store where he wore his flannel without planning to.
And then one night, for the first time, he touches you without touching you, and the little sound in the closet in your brain gets louder. Or maybe it's just that you actually listen to it for the first time. Only you don't want to hear it, so you turn up the corny music, but that infernal sound keeps swelling…
The man sings in French, visibly struggling to drown out the droning noise, which continues to grow louder and more alarming. He removes his shirt and shoes as he sings as if he is somehow stifled by them.
And there's a pounding on that little door in your brain now, only the door is not in your brain but somewhere in the house—which is no longer your house because it always was his house—and you know you have to find the door and open it because there's something unspeakable inside. And so you go into the kitchen and rustle through the cutlery drawer. You get the biggest goddamn butcher knife you can find.
The man picks up a large butcher knife and uses it to gesticulate as he continues.
You go down the long dark hallway, a frantic Shelley Duval, past all the things of his that made you love him because they made him so him: the posters of rock stars you always hated, the curled photos of his family in frames you'd have advised against, the ones of his ex-lovers whom you could have never loved yourself, the baskets of dirty clothes that reek deliciously of him. His bedroom door is shut and the sound is coming from in there. But you can't bear to know yet. Because right now, you still need to believe he loves you.
The man sings—or rather cries—in French, always competing with the droning noise. He removes his pants and cuts off his undershirt as if frantic to be rid of them. He runs the blade of the knife caressingly against the bedroom door he seems to imagine before him.
So you go into the living room to try and relax and decide what to do. There's still some of that stupid music playing somewhere but you can barely hear it with that godawful noise. And then, on the coffee table, you notice the open bottle of wine with two full glasses barely sipped from. A trail of discarded clothes leads to the bedroom door. They hadn't even finished their wine before ripping the clothes off each other. And, wait a minute, hadn't he always hated wine?
And the sound is the sound of them together. The sound of them laughing together as he explains away his “crazy roommate” in the other room. It's the sound of them fucking. The sound of the toe curling sex you haven't had ever since he stopped touching you each time he touched you. And you can't stand another second of it. You're going to go right out of your fucking mind. And then you see yourself standing there pounding on the door with the butcher knife.
The man drops the knife, and the droning noise stops as the blade hits the floor. He whispers the rest of the French song with an ironic shrug as if noticing how ridiculous the song really is.
And you open the door, but there's no one inside, just a note saying he couldn't take the accusations anymore. Saying he had to put some distance between the two of you. Saying he couldn't love you the way you obviously needed to be loved. Saying he really thought you were the one but that you couldn't have been the one. And all the sounds are dead now, and his house, which is the house in your head, is cold and silent and empty. And all the doors are shut. And you know that he was the one. As much as any of them were the one.
The lights fade to black as the man removes his underwear. He is naked as he finishes speaking in the dark.
And so you go back to the dark place where you tell yourself you no longer hope to find the one who is the one. And this time you almost believe yourself.
Don Bapst (www.donbapst.com), editor of Swell, is the author of three full-length novels, several dramatic works, two collections of poetry, an original tarot deck, numerous essays, and many articles and features. He has performed original solo work in venues across the country and is a regular contributor to blue magazine. In 2005 Don's play The Bar was staged by the Newtown Writers in a reading directed by Lisa Scott.
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| Photo by Robert Klein-Engler |