stare, her tightly coupled thighs, her shy, crimped side-part. I placed a bleary lipsticked kiss on the back and left it on what I hoped was the right France Street doorstep.
“I don’t want to interrupt your writing,” Casey said. He laced his long fingers through the gate’s ornate ironwork and looked in at me sitting in bed with my laptop. Since that first day when he’d read aloud what was on my screen, he’d been very careful to respect my privacy. He held up the card. “I got your message.” He smiled his sheepish smile, half his mouth curling up and fading away like smoke.
“That’s okay.” I replied, hitting Save and shutting off the computer. “I’m about ready for a break.”
He invited me back to his place, a small shotgun shack about two blocks from me where he lived rent-free in exchange for doing construction work—specifically, constructing an actual floor for the place. The front door looked sturdy enough, but when he flipped the key and swung it open, there was only—where you might expect to see boot-scarred baseboards or a bongwater-stained carpet—a murky, scabrous pit. He charged right in and marched down and up the hilly terrain, like a stubborn cartoon character undeterred by obstacles. I followed him by skirting around the center ditch, teetering on remnants of concrete foundation that jutted up out of the mess at odd angles. The anteroom, a chamber behind the floorless main room, was more or less level, paved with a layer of old newspapers. This served as bedroom, kitchen, and art studio. Casey referred to it as “the birdcage.” As far as I could tell, the only effort Casey had made toward reflooring was about twenty penciled diagrams that were push-pinned to the walls like butterflies, still barely flapping their intricate, patterned wings. The drawings were lovely, lined up like little windows, though I couldn’t tell their purpose. Didn’t he have to pour cement or something? Shouldn’t there be iron rebar and dumptrucks involved? There were clothes neatly folded and stacked in milk crates, next to a twin futon mattress made up with Spider-Man sheets. Empty pizza boxes were tucked next to the stove, and beer bottles rolled on the kitchen counters. Casey grabbed two beers from the refrigerator, took my hand and led me through the screen door onto the porch.
We sat on the steps and gazed out at his small backyard. In the dim light, I could see down the block of backyards, a line of ten or twelve identical little sheds spaced about twenty feet apart. Casey’s shed held a potting wheel and a few assorted street finds, like a pair of black patent leather thigh-high boots that he hoped had belonged to a prostitute. I asked to see one of his pots, but he said he was just learning and had had to break all his creations to look inside and see what he’d done wrong.
Later, after he’d unbuttoned my shirt and played itsy bitsy spider on my belly, after I lay back on the cool porch in the dark and time stopped while he sculpted my breasts with his eager, rough fingers and kissed my nipples like they were made of whiskey, when he finally sprang up and announced, “Whew! Gotta piss,” I rifled through the pile of ripped-open mail on his kitchen counter and found out that his name wasn’t really Casey, it was Robert. I felt a flare when I saw that Lafayette Electric bill addressed to “Mr. Robert Hilliard Jr.”—an electric tingle ran through me fast and hot, a spark that entered through my eyes and flamed its way straight down to my groin. I’d been fingered by an imposter, whispering and moaning a lie. Casey had stolen his own name.
My arms ache and my belly feels confused, as though I’ve been eating balloons. I’m dizzy but infused with oxygen, and I’m sure I am lighter than I was when I got on this swing. I slow down by dragging my heels in the dirt every time I hit the bottom of my arc, creating two slightly-darker-brown stripes in the sandy earth beneath me. The sky
“I don’t want to interrupt your writing,” Casey said. He laced his long fingers through the gate’s ornate ironwork and looked in at me sitting in bed with my laptop. Since that first day when he’d read aloud what was on my screen, he’d been very careful to respect my privacy. He held up the card. “I got your message.” He smiled his sheepish smile, half his mouth curling up and fading away like smoke.
“That’s okay.” I replied, hitting Save and shutting off the computer. “I’m about ready for a break.”
He invited me back to his place, a small shotgun shack about two blocks from me where he lived rent-free in exchange for doing construction work—specifically, constructing an actual floor for the place. The front door looked sturdy enough, but when he flipped the key and swung it open, there was only—where you might expect to see boot-scarred baseboards or a bongwater-stained carpet—a murky, scabrous pit. He charged right in and marched down and up the hilly terrain, like a stubborn cartoon character undeterred by obstacles. I followed him by skirting around the center ditch, teetering on remnants of concrete foundation that jutted up out of the mess at odd angles. The anteroom, a chamber behind the floorless main room, was more or less level, paved with a layer of old newspapers. This served as bedroom, kitchen, and art studio. Casey referred to it as “the birdcage.” As far as I could tell, the only effort Casey had made toward reflooring was about twenty penciled diagrams that were push-pinned to the walls like butterflies, still barely flapping their intricate, patterned wings. The drawings were lovely, lined up like little windows, though I couldn’t tell their purpose. Didn’t he have to pour cement or something? Shouldn’t there be iron rebar and dumptrucks involved? There were clothes neatly folded and stacked in milk crates, next to a twin futon mattress made up with Spider-Man sheets. Empty pizza boxes were tucked next to the stove, and beer bottles rolled on the kitchen counters. Casey grabbed two beers from the refrigerator, took my hand and led me through the screen door onto the porch.
We sat on the steps and gazed out at his small backyard. In the dim light, I could see down the block of backyards, a line of ten or twelve identical little sheds spaced about twenty feet apart. Casey’s shed held a potting wheel and a few assorted street finds, like a pair of black patent leather thigh-high boots that he hoped had belonged to a prostitute. I asked to see one of his pots, but he said he was just learning and had had to break all his creations to look inside and see what he’d done wrong.
Later, after he’d unbuttoned my shirt and played itsy bitsy spider on my belly, after I lay back on the cool porch in the dark and time stopped while he sculpted my breasts with his eager, rough fingers and kissed my nipples like they were made of whiskey, when he finally sprang up and announced, “Whew! Gotta piss,” I rifled through the pile of ripped-open mail on his kitchen counter and found out that his name wasn’t really Casey, it was Robert. I felt a flare when I saw that Lafayette Electric bill addressed to “Mr. Robert Hilliard Jr.”—an electric tingle ran through me fast and hot, a spark that entered through my eyes and flamed its way straight down to my groin. I’d been fingered by an imposter, whispering and moaning a lie. Casey had stolen his own name.
My arms ache and my belly feels confused, as though I’ve been eating balloons. I’m dizzy but infused with oxygen, and I’m sure I am lighter than I was when I got on this swing. I slow down by dragging my heels in the dirt every time I hit the bottom of my arc, creating two slightly-darker-brown stripes in the sandy earth beneath me. The sky
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