Peter Krumbach ~ Ten Shorts

The Clip

You have just buried your sec­ond dog. The after­noon is get­ting sticky. You put the spade back in the garage, kick off the boots and pour your­self two fin­gers of Gordon’s. You sit down and lis­ten to the neighbor’s guard geese. Are they con­sid­ered water­fowl? You sip and click on your phone. The man on the video is beard­ed and stout, dressed as a hunter. The voice is clear, accu­rate, almost aca­d­e­m­ic, some­what at odds with his cam­ou­flage appar­el. He stands in a win­dow­less room, pos­si­bly a base­ment. On the card table before him lie three dead bod­ies. A duck, a goose, and a swan. The birds are arranged accord­ing to size, each light­ly soiled with what appears to be either dirt or dried blood. The long necks are neat­ly fold­ed and the man points out their vary­ing num­ber of ver­te­brae, his thick hands sink­ing into the feath­ered bel­ly of each life­less tor­so he describes. His deliv­ery has a tran­quil, sooth­ing tim­bre that gives the scene a psy­che­del­ic air. He defines the dif­fer­ence in body vol­ume and out­lines the shade vari­a­tions between males and females. By the wall behind him, you can see a large refrig­er­a­tor, a tall cylin­der of rolled-up linoleum, and exposed steam pipes with sus­pend­ed hooks hold­ing a cross­bow, a bathrobe, a show­er hose and a gas mask. He nev­er men­tions whether the ani­mals were killed for the pur­pose of this pre­sen­ta­tion, for food, or for plea­sure. He con­cludes the one-minute-thir­ty-four-sec­ond video by express­ing hope the view­ers enjoyed the clip. You fin­ish your drink. The rose­wood out­side shiv­ers in the breeze. The thought occurs to you that per­haps the movers and shak­ers peo­ple keep search­ing for in out­er space have been all this time right here. You begin to revis­it the idea of get­ting anoth­er dog.

~

Douglas

I indulged myself in the feel­ing of looseness—breathing with pur­pose, pan­ning slow­ly across their faces, imag­in­ing I was a wolf look­ing at oth­er wolves. A cer­tain fond­ness spread over me. It wasn’t a rob­bery. Not an assault, either. They appeared to be in a kind of fever, strip­ping me of my slacks, pass­ing them around, snap­ping pic­tures. Who or what runs the the­ater inside the head? How does the unex­pect­ed hap­pen? It turns out they had mis­tak­en me for an influ­encer named Douglas. That was, at least, the ver­sion their attor­ney lat­er con­veyed to the sergeant, infus­ing the precinct with an air of rev­er­ence. Even the inter­roga­tor took a break from ques­tion­ing to comb the upper part of his hair. It was toward mid­night that the offi­cers sat us down around a long met­al table. I said I didn’t want to press charges. They point­ed where to sign and before we all left, the sergeant brought out a small tray to show us what looked like someone’s liver.

~

Mathematical Sister

There’s a man who runs back­wards through our block. My sis­ter claims he may be run­ning on a Mobius strip. She com­pares this to mov­ing along a band of non-ori­entable sur­face with­in which one can­not dis­tin­guish clock­wise from coun­ter­clock­wise. It is true that with every pass by our stoop, the man’s left eye appears to be his right, the right foot his left, even his mole migrat­ing from one cheek to the oth­er. If the man con­tin­ues with his pat­tern, my sis­ter pre­dicts it is only a mat­ter of time before the Mobius strip los­es its bound­aries and becomes a so-called Klein bot­tle, whose topol­o­gy folds onto itself. My ques­tion is: Will we still rec­og­nize him? If he enters a four-dimen­sion­al poly­he­dral Mobius, she says, we might per­ceive him as an origa­mi flexagon. It is close to five-thir­ty in the after­noon. It should­n’t be long before the man emerges again at the end of 14th Street. The August air quiv­ers on the black­top. We sit out front and sip spiked Cokes. How peculiar—we’re genet­i­cal­ly linked, yet I’ve always been much dim­mer than my sister.

~

The Tiny House

It was not much big­ger than a park­ing atten­dan­t’s hut. The sight of us all, packed into this lumi­nous cube in the mid­dle of what was by now a dead orchard, must have been of some inter­est to the locals who observed from a dis­tance, reclined on their porch­es among propane tanks and cages of live fowl. The invi­ta­tion had men­tioned that the new­ly deliv­ered Tiny House was ful­ly hooked up with elec­tric­i­ty and plumb­ing, ready for the event which would be as much Rip’s birth­day par­ty as a get-togeth­er for a few long­time friends who had, over the years, scat­tered to dif­fer­ent parts of the world. When the two of us arrived, we bare­ly fit­ted in, the space crammed with guests on pil­lows and tata­mi mats. Scanning across the faces, we only rec­og­nized Rip and his wife, Lark. Wine was poured with urgency, then Lark asked Rip to intro­duce each guest. When he rose, we all gazed up at him, but he just turned and entered the minis­cule bath­room. The qui­et that fol­lowed was quick­ly inter­rupt­ed by the roar of uri­na­tion he made no effort to dis­guise. I found myself admir­ing the bold­ness, a choice that reflect­ed a degree of equa­nim­i­ty I’d long strived for yet nev­er quite achieved. With noth­ing to say, we were all left to sit and lis­ten. A cou­ple of min­utes lat­er, when the noise of drilled water lost none of its inten­si­ty, I start­ed to won­der whether this was Rip’s way of cel­e­brat­ing, whether in the days lead­ing up to the par­ty he’d been vig­or­ous­ly hydrat­ing with­out allow­ing any flu­ids to leave his blad­der, only to final­ly let go on a sin­gu­lar occa­sion. I noticed you, too, seemed cap­ti­vat­ed. Meanwhile, a man sit­ting direct­ly in front of us had decid­ed the only avail­able space to rest his large socked foot was between your slight­ly spread thighs. He asked us some­thing in what sound­ed like Dutch, but the vol­ume of Rip’s stream made it dif­fi­cult to under­stand. Finally, Lark excused her­self and joined Rip in the bath­room. We could hear their hushed con­ver­sa­tion while the cas­cade con­tin­ued. No music, no bird­song, no dog barks, not even a hint of near­by traf­fic. There came a point where Rip’s tor­rent ceased. Swinging the nar­row door open, Lark emerged from the bath­room car­ry­ing Rip on her back, low­er­ing his body gen­tly onto the floor by the wall. His eyes were shut, lips arranged in a faint smile. Lark reached into the cab­i­net and pro­duced a small cake pierced by a sin­gle can­dle. She ignit­ed it with her Bic and we rushed through a har­mo­nized Happy Birthday. After the last note, every­one clapped, but Rip stayed motion­less on the pine floor, fac­ing the ceil­ing. You leaned toward me and whis­pered that per­haps we, too, could buy a Tiny House. I looked out into the dark­ness of the orchard, the dis­tant porch­es with fig­ures blued by bug zap­pers sus­pend­ed from eaves. “Are you lis­ten­ing?” you asked, breath thick with fer­ment­ed grapes. I nod­ded and we kissed. The Dutch man was, again, study­ing us, and from the cor­ner of my eye I noticed Rip began to move.

~

Ode to Anticipation

What’s that smell? Is it the cel­los? The bas­soons? Is it our keen­ness? Could it be the tim­panist in tails, adjust­ing the ten­sion of his skin? Now the pings, arpeg­gios and toots of tun­ing, the ions in the sold-out hall toy­ing with our spleens. This—yes, this—is why you came. Not mere­ly for the Mahler’s Adagietto and the pre­pos­ter­ous­ly youth­ful con­duc­tor about to sweep onto the stage, deliv­er­ing his enor­mous hair to the raised plat­form from which he’ll attempt to take flight. Something’s hap­pen­ing to the air, to the mur­mur from the orches­tra seats. Something about the plush arm­rests, the knees and napes, the coif­fures obstruct­ing your view. All that, plus a whiff of dis­sat­is­fac­tion, like the scent of thawed meat, pos­si­bly put forth by those who have been brought here against their will. The ones soon to plunge into pro­found uncon­scious­ness, roused only by the cym­bals smashed by the man stood beside the tim­panist. When the house­lights fade to leave the pen­guin-like instru­men­tal­ists gleam in their isle of lumi­nos­i­ty, you become a rock­e­teer see­ing the Earth from the Moon. The one you’re with squeezes your wrist. It has the qual­i­ty of an act viewed through a vase­lined lens. The mae­stro enters and you watch your hands clap. You feel old­er now. A bit guilty. Perhaps a cock­tail at the intermission.

~

First-Grade Substitute

Good morn­ing, chil­dren. Don’t raise your hands yet. That’s right, I’m fill­ing in for Mrs. Davis. Can I share a lit­tle secret with you? Yes? Well — I stayed up late last night. That’s right, very, very late. Why do you think I did? Take a guess. No… No… No… You give up? Okay. I was smok­ing, watch­ing my wife bake a cake. And we both had a taste of what’s called a sin­gle molt Scotch. You know, my lit­tle hearts, there’s a thing Mrs. Davis prob­a­bly hasn’t brought up to you yet. It’s called affec­tion. Remember the word. It’s what the moon’s grav­i­ty does to the goo in our hearts. Like a tum­my ache, but high­er in the chest. Just ask your par­ents when you get home. And while you’re at it, ask them about dis­ap­point­ment, unease, addic­tion and the hap­pi­ness of the dead. Now, if you promise not to tell any­one, we’re not going to read any­thing today. And we’re not going to write any­thing either. Can I hear you say Yeah? I can’t HEAR you! Say YEAH like you mean it! There you go! Okay, who’s hun­gry? Guess what’s in that box on my desk? It’s called Medusa’s head — my wife’s work of art. The eyes are maraschi­nos. The snake-hair is marzi­pan. Pass along those paper plates. And feel free to eat with your hands.

~

Monday, August 29th

One moment, I’m buy­ing shoes. The next, I’m lean­ing against my car, look­ing at them. My phone says it’s Monday, August 29th, the sum­mer almost gone. The sup­ple shoes make me drowsy. I open the door and lie down on the back seat, await­ing the state where things stop mak­ing sense. My uncle used to claim slum­ber gives us an after­life approx­i­ma­tion. I think of a pic­ture Vivian Maier took in 1950s New York of a man in a three-piece suit, lying across the front bench­seat of his sedan, the door ajar, a fedo­ra hung from the steer­ing wheel’s gear lever, one arm thrown over his chest, the oth­er on the stom­ach. We do not see his head. He might be sleep­ing; he might be dead.~~

~

Ode to the Audition

Could you take off your hat and step on the scale / now step on the oth­er scale / excel­lent / sit on that stool and look into the lens / good / tell us a lit­tle about your­self / okay that’s enough / we’re run­ning a bit short on time so in a few words your approach to nudi­ty / sure / what about feroc­i­ty / okay / now step on the scale again / any met­al in your body / good / the­ater-in-the-round / great / now look left / excel­lent / look right / cut / can you ride a horse / if you don’t mind Frank would like to mea­sure your hands / what is your prac­tice / when you say Bukowski do you mean Stanislavski / it says here you can sing / nice / what’s in that back­pack / we don’t allow ani­mals in here / oh that’s a child / okay we can give it some water / any screen­tests / would you show us the mak­ing-love-to-the-lens look / now the wound­ed look / bet­ter / we’re almost done / would you mind if Frank takes a few Polaroids of the child / sure we have a few sec­onds to hear about your fam­i­ly / okay that’s enough.

~

The Will

Reflected in the hard­ware store win­dow, I am a trans­par­ent man strid­ing through rakes, wrench­es and saw­blades, my lucky felt hat get­ting dark­er in the rain. I’m walk­ing home, think­ing of writ­ing a will. A com­po­si­tion whose style may bear a faint resem­blance to a sui­cide note, a pro­nounce­ment blam­ing too many people—my father, my ex, the German pope. At some point, it may become more of a ledger, list­ing fur­ni­ture items, the row­boat, my col­lec­tion of rocks. I might muse about the body’s com­pressed stra­ta of delight and grief, the unfath­omable amount of cop­u­la­tion endured since it crawled from the sea. How much solace can a will deliv­er to some­one’s heart? What should I leave to the small bird ring­ing from the porch, puls­ing its rus­set throat, its tiny mind ignit­ing a song? How to weigh the sweet inani­ty of being, the cache some­where in the cen­ter of the Earth, filled with bicy­cles of every­one’s youth? The cloud­burst has eased now, the wet branch­es clack­ing in the wind. A car speeds by, the wheels lift­ing pud­dle water into a crys­tal wall that advances toward me. It hangs in the air, unfurled like a fan fringed with lace.

~

Exit

After hear­ing the news, I pic­tured him on the oper­at­ing table, chest open like a Venus fly­trap. “His teeth were too big.” The five of us stood in the hall­way and stared at the surgeon’s mask. Since we couldn’t see his lips, we weren’t pos­i­tive he had just said that. Maybe it was a loud thought we thought we thought. We were wear­ing masks too. “His what?” I said. The sur­geon turned to Becky, per­haps unsure who’d just asked the ques­tion, and said, “I’m sor­ry.” Or did Ralph say that? We hunched in a semi-cir­cle, Ralph’s unend­ing fore­head fac­ing mine. You squeezed my hand, pos­si­bly a sig­nal. “If you’ll excuse me, I have anoth­er pro­ce­dure in two min­utes,” the sur­geon said, his head cov­ered by a pale-blue cap tied in the back with a neat dou­ble-looped string dan­gling gen­tly as he strode away, down the green-walled cor­ri­dor. “Fuck me,” I said. “Luther, please shut up,” said Web. “Let’s not fight,” said Becky, “we need to go sign the papers.” Becky, the voice of rea­son. Becky, the wear­er of latex gloves. “Okay, Becky,” I said, “let’s sign the papers.” The man at the recep­tion looked up from his phone and said he had no papers for us to sign. We kept walk­ing down the hall toward the auto­mat­ic doors that opened and closed every time a pigeon flew by.

~

Peter Krumbach is the author of Degrees of Romance (Elixir Press, 2024), the win­ner of The Antivenom Poetry Award. More online at peterkrumbach.com