How to Talk to a Widower

emptied ourselves of words. Then we lie silent and still in opposing fetal positions, yin and yang, regrouping in our makeshift womb. I can feel heavy oblivion seeping into me like warm molasses, and the last thing I see before Claire’s light breathing lulls me into a black, dreamless sleep are the first pink stains of dawn, fanning out across the night sky like groping fingers.

33

    “WHAT THE FUCK?” RUSS SAYS. I’M STILL MOSTLY sleeping, so he clears his throat and says it again. “What the fuck?”
    It feels like all anyone ever does these days is wake me up. If only they would let me sleep, maybe I’d wake up refreshed, with a newer, healthier perspective, ready to take on my life and solve its myriad problems. Maybe the whole problem is not that I’m sad, or screwed up, or self-destructive, but just mired in a state of perennial exhaustion.
    “Go away,” Claire mutters, her voice barbed and frayed with sleep.
    “I am trying to come up with an explanation for why the two of you would be sleeping here in my room like this, in the same bed,” Russ says, still standing in the doorway. “I am trying, and I am failing.”
    “What time is it?” I say.
    “It’s just after eight a.m.”
    “Good. Come back tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow will definitely be too late.”
    I roll over and open my eyes, trying to achieve some measure of focus. “What is it?”
    “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to be moving in ahead of schedule. Unless there’s something twisted and wrong going on in here, in which case I’m going to have to leave town and join a cult and sell flowers at the bus station or something.”
    I lift up the covers to show him that I’m still in my clothing from last night. “Praise Jesus,” Russ says.
    “When are you moving in?” I say, rolling off the bed and onto the floor in a heap.
    Russ looks at his watch. “Now’s good.”
    “Too loud,” Claire moans, rolling into the wall and banging her head.
    “What happened?”
    “Bit of a misunderstanding with the paterfamilias,” Russ says, coming into the room to lean on the edge of his desk. I haven’t gotten around to replacing his chair yet, which is still lying in pieces on the front lawn.
    “How bad?”
    “Scale of one to ten?”
    “Sure.”
    He nods. “Fifty?”
    “That sounds pretty bad.”
    “You have no idea.”
    “Well, I think you’d better tell me.”
    “I will. After.”
    “After what?”
    Outside there’s the sound of car doors slamming and then the doorbell being rung repeatedly. Claire groans and pulls a pillow over her head. Russ drops down in front of the window and peeks over the sill like a sniper. “After you get rid of Jimbo.”
    I walk over to the window. I can’t see Jim but I can hear him under the eave below, pounding on the door. “Russ, you get your ass out here! I’m going to fucking kill you!”
    At the curb, leaning against her car, Angie watches her husband with a bemused expression on her face. As usual, she’s dressed like a teenager, in tight, low-riding sweats and a cut-off tank top, exposing her remarkable cleavage, toned abs, and sculpted arms, all tanned to her customary honey glaze. When she sees me in the window, she offers a sexy little smile and wiggles her French-manicured fingers at me, exactly as if her husband isn’t trying to break down the door directly below.
    “Russ!” Jim screams, and now I can see the neighbors in driveways and in windows, watching as yet another drama unfolds on their formerly quiet block. “Get out here!”
    “Will somebody please just shoot that motherfucker?” Claire whines, her voice muffled under the covers.
    “Jim!” I yell down from the window.
    He steps off the porch to look up at me. He’s unshaven, in jeans, slippers, and a dirty T-shirt, and it’s clear that whatever happened this morning has superseded his usual ablutions.
    “I know he’s up there, Doug!”
    From his spot below the window, Russ shakes his head and waves his arms at me frantically. “He’s here,” I say, and Russ throws his hands over his face in despair. “What’s going on?”
    “Just let me have him!” Jim shouts at me.
    “I’m going to come down to talk to you,” I say.
    “It’s none of your business.”
    “Suit yourself.” I step away from the window.
    “Doug!” Jim screams.
    “What the hell did you do?” I say to Russ.
    “I stole some discs from his porn collection.”
    I look at him. “He’s mad because you stole some