The Doubt of Future Foes

The Doubt of Future Foes

13 October-22 November 1991

21 years old

I’m lying here in our two-room efficiency, on my bed, watching the spider make his web in the corner directly above my head. I’m on my back watching this thing, and I can hear my roommate Tanna talking to her current boyfriend, Paul, on the phone. They’ve been talking for nearly two hours, now, and I’m feeling kind of woozy and sick because of all the wine I had, and the four Reece’s Peanut Butter cups I ate all at once. My New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly lie beside me, unread. I can do nothing right now but lie here and watch this spider. Rain is falling outside, beating a soothing tattoo on the window pane, comforting me. The scent of jasmine and rose incense permeates the air, mixing with the faint odour of Tanna’s perfume.

If I close my eyes, I can imagine myself outside of this room, in the rain, and I can almost shut out the sound of my roommate’s voice, her laughter sounding like chimes, or music, in the stillness. I know that if I look over at her, she’ll smile and roll her eyes like she’d rather be doing something else, her hand a poppet’s mouth opening and closing. He talks too much, she’s saying to me. But I know better. I know that despite all her protestations that he’s geeky, boring, a read nerd, she enjoys the attention. Who wouldn’t?

But I don’t turn my head to look at her. Instead, I open my eyes and stare again at the spider. Work. He works so hard and to what end? To have a twenty-five-year-old woman lift a can of Raid to it, squealing, making faces of disgust as she presses the nozzle. But that’s not me, no. I’m just lying here, watching it do its job. Work, work, work. All work and no play. It can’t be bothered with pleasurable side trips of camaraderie; it’s got a job to do. No interruptions, please, until it is complete.

And such is what I’ve been told by dear ol’ Mama. Over and over and over again.

“Did you find a man yet, Saera?

“No, Ma…”

“Well, why not?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just don’t have what it takes.”

“Nonsense, Saera! You’re a bright, attractive young woman. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to find a man.”

Then she’d pause.

“Well, no matter. Your guardian angel must be looking after you: You’ve got a job to do and can afford no distractions. Work before pleasure, you know…”

I hate it the way she has to justify that I haven’t yet found a husband by rationalizing that I have a “job” to do. According to Mom, the reason why I’m not married and have a horde of children clinging to my apron strings is because my existence on earth at this point is servicing a nobler, loftier cause. One that will most likely include a learning experience, or a fulfilment of qualifications that will enable me to pass into a higher plane of existence or consciousness, somewhere along my stagnant, sloth like journey through life. Does that make any sense at all? No to me, either, but that’s what Mom thinks.

A job to do… I have yet to figure out what exactly my job has been for the past five years since the end of my last serious relationship. To tell you the truth, I’d really like to know, so that I can get on with things and do my job, so that when I’m done (which is hopefully soon), I’ll find someone who’s also finished with his job, and we can start working on a new job together: making babies. Boy, wouldn’t Mom be happy, then?

Tanna is off the phone now and leans back in the chair, stretching. She sighs loudly and exaggeratedly.

“Oooooooh, my!” She stands, grinning a Cheshire Cat grin. “That was Paul, again. He wants me to go with him to pick up his laundry at the ‘mat.”

She snatches her coat and shrugs it on, now looking at me sideways. Her Cheshire grin has morphed into a conspiratorial smirk. “Don’t wait up for me.”

Don’t worry, I think. I won’t. There was a time once, a long time ago in a kingdom far, far away, when I would have waited up for her to come home. Just to make sure she was safe. We meant enough to each other then to do things like that. But then again, in that far away kingdom, neither of us went out, anyway. Our evening centred around each other, staying up and talking and baking cookies till all hours. We were close, then. I don’t know what’s happened since, but a couple of years ago, things started falling apart for no reason at all. It seemed that all of a sudden, she was in demand by every male in the city. And still is. All of them vying for her attention, hoping upon hope that she’ll bless them with a gland, a look… God.

When she leaves, I crawl into bed and turn out the light. I wonder briefly if she’ll bring Paul home tonight, and if, while I’m sleeping, the spider might perhaps fall on my face or in my open, snoring mouth. But I know that neither of these things is going to happen. When I close my eyes, I know that the spider is still busily spinning his web, doing his job.

Today, I’m cutting Tanna’s hair. It’s long, way below her waist and the ends are gross and frayed. She asked me to cut it this afternoon, after she woke up and showered. I have decided, without telling her, that I’m going to cut off about a foot or so of this mane of hers. Twelve or fourteen inches should to the trick, I’m thinking. I’m tempted to just grab a handful of it and hack it off with my dull utility scissors, but I don’t. Instead, I separate it all into nice thin layers and cut it all evenly, starting from the bottom layer and working my way to the top layer.

I realize almost immediately that this project is fast becoming a lot more tiresome than I thought. Her heavy black hair is thick and wavy, and seems to be nothing but a big pain—more trouble than it’s worth. I just want to cut it all off, not taking care to do a nice neat job, and have done with it. But I figure that I have to live with this person, and I’m going to be in a lot of trouble as it is, and I guess I don’t want to make things worse. I guess.

I’m cutting in nice straight lines, and at my feet is a growing pile of hair, each strand about a foot long.

Against my will, my eyes steal to the corner of the room and upward, and there I see the spider, sitting proudly in his finished masterpiece. His job is done and he gets to reap the harvest of his efforts, now. I sigh. I’m wondering still what my job it, what the purpose of my existence is and why I am forced to be alone. I wonder briefly what logic that spider used in building his web there in that particular corner, above my head and sleeping head. What sense? There are no bugs that crawl there, no flies or mosquitoes, or anything—it’s too cold now for those. He’ll starve there, I’m thinking. And for a moment, I’m almost happy. I don’t know why. I just am. Almost.

It’s really late, about two in the morning, and Tanna’s fumbling around outside the door. I’m lying in my bed in the dark, listening to the tinkling of her keys and the clink-chink of them against the metal keyhole, missing their mark. I can hear their muffled voices through the door, her highs and melodic, and Paul’s deep and resonant. I love the sound of Paul’s voice and often lay awake at night, in bed, waiting for them to come back simply so that I can listen to him talk with her in the kitchen, or whisper to her there in the living room that also is our bedroom.

After Paul takes the keys from Tanna and opens the door for her, she stumbles in, giggling and shushing, but only to herself because Paul is quiet, and is saying nothing to her now. I sense that he’s kind of pissed at her. She gets obnoxious when she’s drunk.

The light from the hallway shines on my face, in my eyes, and I shut them, more reflexively than out of any real fear of being caught awake and in wait for their return. In that split second, though, before my eyes nap shut, I can see Paul’s silhouette outlined against the brightness, and I imagine that I can see his eyes as they meet mine, and his full sensual mouth curving upward into a small discreet smile, expressing a secret desire for me. Of course, that doesn’t really happen, but it’s nice to pretend. I like Paul.

He quietly closes the door behind them and hurries before her to flip on the kitchen light.

“No,” she whispers. “The TV.”

I hear him sigh and the red glow of the kitchen light through my eyelids disappears. He gropes in the darkness and turns on the television. As he pulls the knob, the tube flickers on and the sound is very loud—Tanna watches TV all the time with the sound turned way up, so this happens frequently because she likes to do her boyfriends by its light. I can hear him swear softly, “Shit,” before he turns the sound down completely. I wonder why he hasn’t learned by now; he’s been doing this every weekend for about a month.

“Don’ worry,” Tanna is saying. “Don’t worry about waking her up. She sleeps through everything.”

Of course, it seems that she should know. I’ve been hearing this quite regularly for a couple of years now. But even so, when I hear her say this for the umpteenth time, I still flinch, because I feel as if I’ve been caught in a lie and she’s defying me to reveal myself. But she means nothing to me anymore. She’s just a roommate to me now. My best friend disappeared a long time ago.

I’m wondering if maybe I should move, maybe make a noise or roll over or something. I wonder if I’ve been too still for too long, given the noise that they’ve been making. But I don’t want to move. I don’t want to be honest and loyal and roll over like a dog, to turn my back to her bed as she pulls him down to it, on top of her, kissing him wetly. Let her think I’m faking it, I’m thinking. But I know that they’ll be too absorbed in each other to give me much notice. I open my eyes and watch.

I’m sitting on my bed now, in our empty apartment. Tanna left this morning, for what I don’t know. Probably running errands. That spider is still in the corner. It’s been a long time since he’s spun his web there, about two weeks, and I’ve named him Stanley. I think it’s a great name for a spider. Stanley the Spider, Web Maker Extraordinaire, Spinner of Fine Silk. A name fitting for the ambitious, like a travelling salesman, going door to door hoping for a sale, eternally optimistic. But the trouble with my Stanley is that no one is buying. He has sat there for two weeks waiting to lure some unfortunate, soulless creature into his trap. For two weeks, poor Stanley has gone without food.

I’ve been sitting here for a long time and I haven’t seen him move, and I’m wondering if he’s dead. I stand on my bed, on my pillows, and my neck is craned backwards, peering up at lifeless Stanley. I take a breath and gently blow on him, trying to get him to move, but e doesn’t. I blow a little harder, but not too much because I don’t want him to fall on me. I watch as the web undulates, once a shiny clean work of art, now a dusty neglected relic. Stanley moves, he scampers a little father upward. So he’s not dead. I hate to think that maybe he crawled down from his web to feast on me, late at night, in my sleep. He does seem to look la little bigger, now that I think about it. I try not to think of the little scratchy bumps I occasionally wake up with in the morning. Do spiders like to eat blood?

Since the web is totally devoid of tiny little insect carcasses, I decide to go to the pet store to get a little aquarium for Stanley to live in, and some crickets or something to fee him with. I have this vision of Stanley growing up to be just a little bit too big for my comfort, to be living directly above me, to feed on me at night. Besides, it would really unnerve Tanna if I kept him for a pet.

I jump from my bed to Tanna’s, bouncing up and down, then to the floor. I’ve mussed her bed, but so what? I think I’ll leave it that way. I go to get my jacket and keys, checking the pockets to make sure I have enough money. Not much, but I think I can deal with it.

At the pet store, I’m very careful about which aquarium I want to buy for Stanley. I finally decide on a small square on with a mesh cover so that he can’t get out. The crickets I choose are really tiny—I’m thinking that maybe they’re babies, but probably not. They’re probably adolescents or something, and the idea amuses me. Adolescent crickets. The clerk scoops a bunch out of their own aquarium and puts them in a baggie. He says that if I want, I can put them in an empty margarine tub and stick them in the refrigerator when I get home.

“Make sure you label it, thought,” he’s saying. “You don’t want to spread chilled crickets on your toast!” He snorts laughter through his nose. I guess he thinks he’s funny. I pay him and leave.

“At home I pick up some leave, green and orange ones, from the trees. I also scoop up a bunch of small stones from the walkway and a little rock, not much bigger than my palm. I put these in the aquarium along with some twigs. I’m kind of excited to start arranging Stanley’s “furniture” when I get inside. He’s going to like his new home.

When I get back to the apartment, I can hear that Tanna’s home again, rummaging around in the kitchen. I set my things on the table and look for a minute at her butt sticking way up in the air, her head and torso stuffed beneath the sink. I feel a vague sense of distaste. I don’t ask her what it is she’s looking for because I don’t want to know. I don’t really care.

I turn my back to her, taking off my jacket, and start organising the things around in the aquarium. Soon, Tanna gets up and walks into the other room.

“Oh, you’re home,” she says, as if she really cared anyway. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

I want to say, “I do. I hear you come in every Saturday night. I hear you and I watch you. I see you everything you do.” But I don’t say it. I don’t say anything at all.

Soon I hear the spraying and at first I don’t think anything of it. But it just keeps on going and going. Just one long pssshhhh... All of a sudden, it’s like I know, and I drop whatever I have in my hand to run into our bedroom-slash-living room and I’m standing next to her. She’s on my bed with a jumbo can of Raid in her hand aimed right at Stanley. I’m too stunned to move at first. All I can do is stand there and watch as she keeps spraying, spraying, spraying.

I watch in horror as Stanley lets go of his perch and drops down lower and lower, hanging by a single strand of silk, until her falls to my pillow. Only then does she stop spraying. I watch my poor Stanley stagger slightly, glistening wet with Raid, and die. I can smell it, the Raid, strong and flowery sweet. Little droplets sparkle on his web, outlining it like dew, the last vestiges of his existence.

I can feel the anger and the hate rise up within me. My hands clench into fists and my face contorts into a grimace of wrath. AS if a part of my consciousness disconnects itself from this previously submerged primal being, I watch myself as I turn on my roommate, lunging at her.

“How could you! How could you do such a thing!”

I’m screaming it over and over. I can’t stop. I can see the question in her eyes. Do what? She’s thinking. How could I do what? But I don’t tell her. She wouldn’t understand. She never understood anything.

I’m clawing at her face, pulling at her now-short hair. All I can think of is murder. I just want to kill her, to snuff out her life, like she did Stanley’s. But she gets away and rushed for the door, grabbing her keys and purse. She’s yelling at me but I’m not listening. I think she’s telling me to get out, to leave. I lunge toward her one last time, but only to scare her away. It works. She runs out, slamming the door behind her.

I pick Stanley up with a Kleenex and bury him in the dirt of one of my plants. I put it on the sill of the window that looks out onto the ocean, the window that gets the morning sun. I think Stan would like it here.

I find my duffle bag and start stuffing things into tit, clothes, toothbrush, toothpaste, a hairbrush, my journal. IT’s time for me to go. All of a sudden, I realise that I don’t have any money. Not even enough for bus fare. I don’t know where I’m going to go, but I know that it’s far from here. I just need money.

I start rummaging through Tanna’s desk and in the back of one of the drawers I find what I’m looking for. It’s a General Food International Coffee tin, and inside is a fat roll of bills, odd money I know she’s been saving for years. I stuff most of it in my duffle bag and the rest into my jacket pocket.

I put on my jacket and head for the door, but before I leave, I run back to the kitchen and grab the baggie of adolescent crickets from the table. Through the thin plastic I can feel them hopping around and it makes me feel a little squeamish. I walk over to Tanna’s bed and hold back the covers as I pour the brownish-black creatures onto the sheet, then under her pillow. I replace the covers and jump on the bed, but not too much. I don’t want to crush all of them. I shake the ones that stuck in the bag onto the floor. Maybe they’ll mate and reproduce. I hope so. There’s nothing like the ceaseless chirping of a cricket to keep one up nights.

Then I leave, not bothering to lock the door behind me. My job, I know, is to get out of here and start over. I’m sick of this, sick of it all, and I hate it here. I hate this apartment, I hate Tanna, I hate the life I’ve made for myself here. It’s finally time for me to leave. What took me so long to get to this point I’ll never know. I guess I just wasn’t ready. But I’m ready now, I know. I know it like I know my own name. Saera. Maybe I’ll change it. I don’t feel like Saera anymore, so good and saintly, loyal like dog, always there for you no matter how hard or how often you kick it.

I wonder what it’s like, to start over. I hope it’s not too late for me. I’d hate to become just another of the Stanley’s of this world, thwarted in my efforts before given a chance, defeated before getting to put up a fight. I square my shoulders.

I will not be defeated, I determine.