Glen Pourciau ~ Two Stories

Roundabout

Mike looks at me like I make him sick. I may have done some­thing to make him mad, but I can’t remem­ber what. Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t, or maybe he wants me to believe I deserve to be scorned with his eyes. I don’t like him try­ing to make me feel guilty for some­thing I didn’t do, assum­ing I didn’t do it. He may believe I look down on him for being unwashed and unshaven and wear­ing the same clothes for days in a row. I don’t know what ideas he’s talk­ing to inside his head.

Every time I walk out the door of my apart­ment I fear I’ll see him com­ing out his door at the same time or walk­ing into his apart­ment as I’m leav­ing mine or on the side­walk in any num­ber of places. As far as I know, the only thing he has to do is walk. He needs air and he appears to have no par­tic­u­lar des­ti­na­tion. I need air too and being with­in eye­shot of Mike is not a good place to breathe in the air I need.

I emerge from my door, peer­ing around for him. I don’t see him and keep mov­ing. I’m in view of oth­ers before long and try to remem­ber where I intend­ed to go. I set­tle on the notion that I did not intend to walk in any par­tic­u­lar direc­tion, or if I did I don’t know what it was. I have a sense of free­dom when I’m out­side, though with that free­dom comes a feel­ing of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, a fear that some­thing or some­one could come at me. Odd fears pur­sue me even in my apart­ment, such as the fear that Mike will be glar­ing out at me from my bath­room mir­ror. How could that be pos­si­ble? He has nev­er even been in my apart­ment and like­ly has no inter­est in chang­ing that.

I steady myself as I tilt to the right on a sec­tion of side­walk that tilts to the right. I decide to seek new vis­tas, to walk in areas I’m not famil­iar with, neigh­bor­hoods where I could nev­er afford to live. I have a right to walk on the side­walk and I am going to exer­cise that right. I find myself in a land of shiny SUVs parked in dri­ve­ways and lined up along curbs. How much do those beau­ties cost their own­ers? I’d be ter­ri­fied to dri­ve one. I haven’t dri­ven a motor vehi­cle in many years. I can’t guess how many. I’d rather huff and puff and strain my lungs than race around in an enor­mous vehi­cle. I see jog­gers and peo­ple walk­ing their dogs. The dogs look more healthy and exu­ber­ant than a lot of peo­ple. They lunge and bark at me, and their own­ers restrain them with the leash. I can under­stand their fear of me, though I wouldn’t like them jump­ing on me. I feel some incli­na­tion to think to myself about my under­stand­ing, with­out hav­ing any idea what I would think. The peo­ple who lay eyes on me appear to sus­pect I don’t belong in the neigh­bor­hood and to won­der why I’ve rout­ed myself off course. I pre­tend not to know they notice me.

I grow short-wind­ed and fig­ure I should begin to return to my place. I stop. What streets did I take here? How much ground will I have to cov­er? Where did I come from, an over­whelm­ing ques­tion that has dis­turbed me for years. I piv­ot and walk back where I had been walk­ing, and at the first cor­ner I don’t know what to do. Did I turn here before and where do the streets at the inter­sec­tion lead? I don’t see a busy thor­ough­fare in any direc­tion. I stay straight, on the look­out for a house or a per­son I passed as I was walk­ing, but I don’t recall see­ing any­thing that sur­rounds me. I have my address writ­ten on a piece of paper in my pock­et. I stick my hand in my pock­et and touch the paper. At this time, I have no one to show it to. Am I walk­ing far­ther away from my address or am I slight­ly nearer?

I sit on a curb to catch my breath and to wait for a fel­low walk­er to pass by. My alone­ness clos­es in, and a fear that a force could col­lide with me occu­pies my mind—an SUV with a dis­tract­ed dri­ver at the wheel, a falling tree limb, an angry dog off its leash. I’m about to heave myself up and take my chances when I see a young man approach­ing, swing­ing his arms, his gait express­ing an almost aggres­sive con­fi­dence. I stand and raise my hand to see if he will stop. He does, gaz­ing into my eyes as if I’m from a dis­tant world. I show him my address and tell him I’m lost. He pulls a phone from a front pock­et of his shorts and taps its screen. Soon, he shows me a map with a dark crooked line on it. I ask him what it’s say­ing to me. He puts his hand on my shoul­der and walks with me to a cor­ner. I assume he has good inten­tions, but I don’t want him walk­ing all the way with me. At the cor­ner, he points to our left. He tells me the name of the street where I should take a right. I for­get the name as soon as he says it and can’t recall the rest of what he says. I thank him. He smiles and leaves me.

I don’t take my eyes off the desired street and when I reach it I don’t rec­og­nize the name. I turn right and con­tin­ue walk­ing. After two or three blocks I rec­og­nize a small gro­cery store. An elec­tric sign in the win­dow has two let­ters that aren’t lit. It reminds me of myself.

I take a wrong direc­tion. I sweat it out and get back on track. I see my apart­ment build­ing ahead. Is any­one famil­iar near­by? No, and noth­ing com­ing toward me, no eyes bear­ing down on me. Should I stay out­side awhile, stay on my feet? I’ll go in and drink some water, eat, catch my breath. I can decide then if I’ll go out again.

I almost run into Mike com­ing around the cor­ner as I turn toward my door. He stops straight in my path. Is he imply­ing I should step aside? I can smell him.

“Did I do some­thing to you?” he asks.

“Did I do some­thing to you?”

He chuck­les at me. Does he think I’m mak­ing fun of him? Is he mak­ing fun of me?

“If I did, I don’t remem­ber it,” I tell him.

“If I did, I don’t remem­ber either,” he says and walks by, mut­ter­ing and bump­ing my shoul­der on the way.

~

Cred

Bayless and Francine were bring­ing us up to date on their daugh­ter, Molly, with Bayless express­ing relief that her new boyfriend had what Bayless called a real job. We were gath­ered around their kitchen island, munch­ing gra­nola in soymilk, the first morn­ing of a two-day stay. Lucinda, my wife, and Francine had been col­lege room­mates, and though we lived far apart they made an effort to see each oth­er every cou­ple of years. Francine, Lucinda, and I were read­ers and shared book rec­om­men­da­tions. During con­ver­sa­tions includ­ing the four of us, Bayless, a retired busi­ness­man, often had his lap­top open, his hands on its key­board, his eyes on the screen as we spoke. In pub­lic, his phone would appear on the table­top or near his face. Both devices divid­ed his atten­tion, but not enough to keep him from cor­rect­ing mis­pro­nun­ci­a­tions or what he saw as mis­state­ments of fact.

On this morn­ing, Bayless had no elec­tron­ic buffer. He stood, hold­ing his bowl of gra­nola chest high as he spoke of Molly’s for­mer boyfriend, Tom, whom we’d nev­er met.

“Tom liked to present him­self as a mem­ber of a well-known band,” Bayless said, “but he was nev­er more than an occa­sion­al side­man who played at some of their gigs and record­ings. He’d nev­er tell you, unless you pressed him, how lim­it­ed his role was or that his most notable pro­fes­sion­al achieve­ment was as an extra gui­tar play­er for this band. I con­front­ed him about it, forc­ing him to own up to being a mediocre musi­cian. He want­ed to have a seri­ous rela­tion­ship with Molly, and his real self, as opposed to his fraud­u­lent fan­ta­sy self, need­ed to be exposed.”

“Is Tom a decent per­son?” I asked.

“He didn’t like me one bit, so I wouldn’t say he was a nice guy.”

“You argued with him,” Francine said. “That’s the rea­son he argued with you.”

“He wasn’t the per­son he said he was and that sit­u­a­tion shouldn’t be tolerated.”

“Tom’s not around any­more,” I said, “so why say all this about him?”

“He popped into my head talk­ing about Molly’s new guy.”

“Did you won­der if I’d take Tom’s side?” I asked.

“Bayless and Tom had a per­son­al­i­ty con­flict,” Francine said. “I’m glad it’s over.”

In vis­its past, Bayless had asked me prob­ing ques­tions about where I’d pub­lished. He’d want­ed to know the cre­den­tials of edi­tors and the loca­tions of mag­a­zines and pub­lish­ers, look­ing to esti­mate pres­tige. He’d asked why I would choose to pub­lish in mag­a­zines the aver­age per­son had nev­er heard of and how long I expect­ed to remain at my cur­rent “career lev­el.” He’d asked me how much I  made from what I wrote, and when I reluc­tant­ly told him he asked: “What does that tell you?”

“It sounds like more than a per­son­al­i­ty con­flict,” I said.

“In Tom’s case, as I told him, I thought his artis­tic efforts orig­i­nat­ed from a delu­sion­al ide­al and were a prod­uct of van­i­ty. Do you ever have doubts that make you think along those lines? Does your work serve any high­er pur­pose or does it express thoughts that could just as well be left unex­pressed? So many peo­ple who under­take artis­tic pur­suits achieve noth­ing sig­nif­i­cant, and I assume there’s a rea­son for it. Don’t you agree?”

“Have you ever heard Tom play the guitar?”

“I’ve seen him on TV, but I couldn’t sep­a­rate his sound from the rest of the band.”

“You don’t know how well he plays then. You can’t say he’s mediocre.”

“His achieve­ments are mediocre, which tells me how much peo­ple with a finan­cial stake val­ue him as a musi­cian. I’m not an expert and wouldn’t be able to judge his tal­ent any more than I could judge the gifts of lit­tle-known poets whose writ­ing I don’t understand.”

“Then why should you dis­par­age his desire to play the gui­tar? Did you ask him ques­tions sim­i­lar to the ones you’ve asked me, about income and career level?”

“Similar ones,” he admitted.

“And we’ve heard your opin­ion of him, which implies the ques­tions you’ve asked me are insult­ing. Did you try to make him feel worth­less in front of Molly?”

“You may be tak­ing this too per­son­al­ly,” he said.

“What do you think you’re dri­ving at with these questions?”

“I’d like to know what you’re dri­ving at with your work.  One way you’re dif­fer­ent from Tom is that you don’t rep­re­sent your­self as a big­ger suc­cess than you are.”

“I’d like to meet Tom and have a con­ver­sa­tion with him.”

“You might be disappointed.”

“We need to get cleaned up before we go out for the day,” Lucinda said.

We stood and nod­ded at our hosts. Francine walked to our side of the island and hugged and kissed us. Bayless with­drew to the mas­ter bedroom.

We climbed the stairs, and I closed the door when we were both in our room.

“How bad was it?” I asked. “Any chance he’ll give us the boot?”

“Only in his mind. The line about want­i­ng to meet Tom could have been omit­ted. But I can’t blame you. Sounds like he stands up for himself.”

“I’d rather not stay here again.”

“You need to be ready to look them in the eye.”

“My face will say the sub­ject is closed.”

~

Glen Pourciau’s fourth sto­ry col­lec­tion, Under, is forth­com­ing in 2025 from Four Way Books. His sto­ries have been pub­lished by AGNI Online, New England Review, The Paris Review, Post Road, Witness, and others.