There Is No Year - Blake Butler [13]
The man knelt down beside her. The man had on a yellow dress shirt buttoned all the way up and no tie, the shirt’s neck loose around his throat as if it’d been tugged at, itching. Long black gloves hid his forearms with silky sheen. His pants were deeply pleated, like theater curtains. The pants comprised a pattern, wavering in the repeat as would a wall of heat. The mother caught herself staring into the pants transfixed, as in the toning. The mother’s head filled up again with liquid. The man grinned. He stood back up. He came back down. He licked his thumb and touched the mower. He was very near the mother.
With long, thick fingers, the man lifted the mower and peered into its mottled belly. He blew a silent breath into the engine, a simple trick. He stood up again and the mother stood up with him, in cohesion. The man was saying something. He had long hair like a woman, the mother noticed now, as had the father once. How had she not noticed this at first? When the man pulled the cord the mower roared. He pointed at it, two long nails.
The mower’s clamor seemed to nudge the sun. The air around them rippled.
The man began to mow the lawn.
A VERY LONG HALLWAY
The son had the TV up as loud as it would go. He’d hoisted the glowbox off the stand into his lap. He’d wedged himself between the wall and sofa. From most major angles a person passing would not see him in the room. When the screen went black between certain scenes or before commercials, the son could see his head reflected with a warp.
The son had spent all morning brushing his teeth and gums and tongue and still couldn’t get this certain taste out of his mouth. There were matted knots in the son’s hair the size of horse apples, though usually the son’s hair was beautiful and straight.
The TV had a name but no one ever called it by it.
The son kept pressing the volume up button though he already knew it was as loud as it could be. He’d tuned into a certain movie on a certain channel that for some reason came in clear. On the screen, there was a woman, pictured only from the back. She wore a dress, tight and red like the fabric on the sofa. The dress was slightly translucent in a way that caused the son to feel aroused. The son did not understand arousal. The woman was walking down a hall. Her strange shoes clacked on the tile so loud around the woman and the son that he could feel it in his chest. The hall’s walls were long and dark and smooth. The woman did not pass any windows, any people, hangings, doors. The skin of the woman’s legs was bruised.
The son stayed in the TV room for three days, days counted unnamed. He felt air or fabric move around him, but he did not get up to see who or what was there. The son could not get up. All that happened was he watched the woman walk down halls. The TV movie did not break for commercials. The son had to think to even breathe. The son knew he wanted a roast beef sandwich but could not bring himself to get up and go make it—his stomach speaking words—writing words along his flesh inside him—ageless, lightless. The son could feel the TV’s weight and heat burning deep and deeper through, warping layers, peeling skin. No one came looking for the son.
Over several hours the son managed to slip his fist around the TV’s extension cord. With concerted effort and metronomic breathing over several further hours, he used his will to tug the cord out of the wall, the tendon of his arm meat seething with the heat of the cord curled up around him and the electric flood sent there inside it through miles of wires through the outlet to the screen, which when