VICTIMS

She poked her pinky through a hole in her sweater and wiggled it around like a worm exposed by new mud. I was the first one to use the word, and when I did I regretted it and tried to go back and make it less.

"It's probably not a baby yet. It's just a potential…baby."

Then I shut up. I feared saying something permanent. If she started to cry, I decided I would do the same. I knew I could do it. As we sat in my tiny Brooklyn bedroom, all I would have had to do is feel genuine, and tears should have come naturally. She didn't cry. She pulled her finger from the sweater and looked up at me, and then around the room. On top of the cluttered desk there was an empty bottle of water. She picked it up and slapped her palm. "You're right. We can't have this thing." She didn't cry. Neither did I. It was getting late. We were hungry and went and ate breakfast, and then got drunk. It feels now like we were trying to poison it. At the time, though, it felt like we were the ones who had been tricked.

"When do you think it happened?" I asked in my kitchen the day before going to see the doctor.

"Does it matter?" Her voice was cold and empty. We had been drinking for the three days since she told me. The night before, we had sex in the bathroom of an East Village bar. She followed me when I went to take a piss. She pushed me into a stall. When hidden from view, she jerked around and thrust her cheek against the puerile graffiti scribbled on the cracked tile wall. I leaned over to be close, but our eyes would not meet. She leaned forward. I felt her leg raise and perch on the rim of the bowl, and when I looked down her skirt was already pulled up. I was to enter her from behind. I put my fingers inside her. The thought of touching it made me begin to go limp. When I was done I pulled out and came on the floor.

"What? Should I not talk about it? Everything is so…different. It seems too easy to act like it doesn't exist." We were drinking black coffee. It was getting harder for us to recover from drinking that much.

"It's all we've been talking about. It's done."

"We haven't talked about it since you told me."

"But it's all you've been thinking about. You act like I did something wrong."

"Nobody did anything wrong. It just happened."

"Then why do I feel like this?"

"Nobody ever feels good when things like this happen."

"There are no other things like this. Forget it. I told you I didn't want to talk about it. It's better this way."

"Ok." I was reluctant to let it go but relieved that she was willing to let it pass. She put her coffee down, walked to the window, and stared out at the backyard three stories down. She stood in the place I usually stand when I look down. There are clotheslines that are always bare, and a plastic shed that sways when the squirrels jump on top of it from the tree in the neighboring yard.

"Are you going to leave me?" she asked without taking her eyes from the yard. "You don't have to do me any favors, you know." Then, while tracing an invisible shape with her finger on the windowpane, she calmly added, "You're right. These things happen."

"Now it sounds like you want me to go. You're making me feel like I did something wrong."

"Maybe we both did."

"Maybe."

"I can't take this waiting."

"I know."

"Do we have anything to drink?"

"Are you sure that we should be drinking this much?"

"Why?" Neither of us answered. "It may seem like a good idea," she finally said, "but we can't keep it." She walked away from the window and stood in front of me. No answer seemed safe. Instead, I hid from saying anything I might be asked to commit to later, and mumbled, "I know." It was all I believed I was capable of offering.

Now it was my turn. I moved away and resumed guard over the yard. I watched two squirrels struggle for possession of a crumpled paper bag. In the window I could see her diaphanous reflection as she tuned and faced me. "You're going to leave me, aren't you?" I shifted my focus, resumed watching the squirrels, and found myself wondering if they lived in the old shed, and could we afford a two-bedroom.

"Maybe we will leave each other," I replied.

"That sounds like the same thing." She turned and opened the refrigerator.

"Maybe, but at least it doesn't make anybody an asshole."

"Or a victim you mean."

"Yes," I sighed. "Or a victim."

She had found a bottle of four-dollar sparkling wine in the vegetable crisper and pulled the cork. It popped loudly, but there were no bubbles. "Come to bed," she said.

"What then?"

"Just come to bed and have some champagne."

We went to the doctor the next day. I tried to read in the waiting room. When it was over I went downstairs and got a taxi. On the way home she remained turned away from me. Her eyes were closed, and her hands were tucked deep into her coat pockets. I watched her. She looked different. At a stoplight she opened her eyes and gently smiled. She had caught a glimpse of a squirrel scrambling over a church fence. In its mouth was a large pizza crust. Then it was out of sight. The light turned green and the taxi lurched forward. She closed her eyes again and the smile left. For the first time I doubted it was mine.

Gabriel Check is the author of thinkingthroughmorning, a travelogue about making his way to Mongolia to catch a fish. His stories have appeared in the journals "Ten Tons of Black Ink" and "Contrary Magazine" and in the short story collection A Landscape for Any Evasion published by Hypocrite Press. Check earned his MA from the University of Chicago in 2005, and after a brief stint a writer of celebrity drivel happily makes a living as a construction worker in Brooklyn.

Return