As She Climbed Across the Table

31

I felt responsible for the blind men. It couldn’t be Alice, not in her state. And Cynthia Jalter didn’t live with them. They’d given me warning, too. I’d heard them yearn for a divorce from a reality that, despite their tabulations, always slipped through their grasping fingers.

I got back in my car and searched for them, pretending I didn’t believe Lack. I followed the route of their walks across campus, and into town. I felt sure I’d turn a corner and see them, in their twin black suits, cocking their heads at a sound, or arguing the location of some phone booth or bus stop. But I didn’t. The darker it got, the more possible it seemed that Lack was telling the truth. That he’d gobbled the blind men.

I exhausted the routes, but I kept on driving, repeating my path. I was mapping. It was like an incantation to bring them back.

Finally I drove back to the apartment. Alice was gone. I didn’t care. I went in and turned on all the lights, trying to chase out the silence with light. I switched on the television and sat on the couch. No one came home. No moths were drawn to my little flame. The refrigerator hummed into activity, a life-support system for mildewed cottage cheese, stale muffins, encrusted, forgotten spreads. Outside, students walked the pathways, shattered by their attempts at last-minute term papers, pacing off the effects of powdery drugs consumed in the cause. I curled up on the couch and slept.