December 22, 2022
Originally Printed in Edition 5.1
Fiction by Rob Crawford
Your Aunt’s Apartment
A famous director said, if you meet anyone with any real power run away as fast as you can. It’s good of you to meet me after so long, to walk our old streets on this unseasonable day, nearly a summer’s day. The relaxed bustle of the after-lunch crowd below these sidewalk trees always gave me a thrill, like a secret nook within the city, one quietly, mercifully off-center. That building over there, could that be the place?
Where we lived that summer. The city felt alive and vast yet proportioned to our pursuits. Could we see if she’s in for a visit? Her place. The screenwriter. But you have the key? You can’t know the good it would do. Just the silhouette of a lampshade could bring it all back. Let’s walk this way.
I’ve never been one for conspiracies or plots, but the popularity of certain island and desert resorts derives from their positioning at interstices in the energy fields of the earth. I remember lying on the bed, smaller than a twin, the edges of the blinds singed by the sun outside, my hand cool on the unseen wall, as a hundred ideas, the seeds of a thousand inspirations, paraded before my resting eyes.
Here we are. Childhood shapes or distorts us for life, they say, leaving some of us susceptible to the smallest distinctions. To strain every nerve just to function is something perhaps more than a few could understand. For a time your aunt's apartment lent me its adaptivity and verve; for three weeks I walked with an easy confidence, drawing life out of the future. When fall approached, I left and you stayed on to intern at the bank that now sends you around the world.
Is there anything I can do for you? My family would surely help if you were the one suffering. Let’s see that key.
I remember coming home to find the stairwell light still activated, and walking halfway up until it clicked off again, and then continuing, step by step, through the newly tactile dark. Her tasteful collection of shoes in the hall by the African masks, the low heels angled on the crossbars. Retrieving, in that casual visiting way, a cold apple from the refrigerator.
Five minutes upstairs, or you’ll never see me again. On my second night we dined at La Paloma across the street, breathing its energetic style, a restaurant replaced three times since.
To put it plainly I have certain needs relative to lying in bed and touching the wall, so I invited you to lunch after these years. If you don’t give me that key I’ll slice your abdomen open and slip your guts out onto your stomach. No, no, I’d never do something like that, although anyone could.
My hands are raw from tire wax and suds even on the off days. I dream of a lifeless pile of blouses and skirts as though an elegant lady were preparing for a voyage. It’s dangerous. I had several days of civilized peace six years ago, and it’s not enough. So can we go up now?