A Ship Made of Paper

the house is slate black.It means they are asleep.In bed.Together.Daniel’s hands tense, he lowers his head until his forehead touches the steering wheel.Go home,he says to himself.

Yet a competing inner voice also weighs in on the matter, a sterner, hungrier, more focused selfthat he has somehow managed to keep at bay for his entire life, and this voice wordlessly wonders:All around you life seethes, grasps, conquers, and here you are, thirty feet from what you desire most and all you can do is quake, all you can think about is Go home.

He pulls away.He switches on the radio.Van Morrison singing“Here Comes the Night.”

Upstairs, in bed, Hampton sleeps in his customary pose ofnoble death: flat on his back, his legs straight, his toes up, his arms folded across his chest, his fingertips resting on his shoulders, his face waxy and unmov-ing, his breath so silent and slow that sometimes it seems not to exist.

He dreams ofthe train.He is getting on in NewYork, at Pennsylvania Station, presumably on his way up to Leyden.TheAmtrak conductor who directs him onto one ofthe cars looks familiar, a white guy, the guy who is always on Chambers Street selling souvlakis and hot sausages from his steam cart.Here you go, Mr.Davis, the conductor says, gestur-ing to an open door.Steam pours up from the tracks, onto the platform.

Hampton walks through the steam and steps on the train, and he won-ders why the man has called him Mr.Davis.Has he mixed him up with somebody else, or is that just the conductor’s idea ofa black name?

In the dream, Hampton is wearing a Hugo Boss pin-striped suit, a Burberry raincoat, with the lining, a scarf, gloves.The train is hot.Every-one else is dressed for summer;most ofthem seem to know each other.

Perhaps they are some club on their way to a lake somewhere.He is sweating.He feels sweat in his eyes, feels it rolling down his ribs.Oh my God, he thinks, and presses his elbows in, as ifhis armpits were the source ofthe most terrible stench.He scans the aisle for an empty seat.

And he notices a few rows to the rear a couple ofblack men, real back-country, old school all the way, one dressed in overalls, the other in a yel-low velvet double-breasted suit and a purple shirt.They are passing a bottle ofbeer back and forth and laughing at the tops oftheir voices.

Hampton does not even want to make eye contact with them, but they make it impossible for him to ignore them.Hey, man, come on over,says the one in the velvet suit, and Hampton has no choice but to march over to them and say,You’re not just representing yourself on this train, you know.And as soon as he says this, he notices his mother, sitting primly on the other side ofthe aisle, with her hands folded onto her lap.She purses her lips and nods, as ifto commend his job well done.

Next thing, the train has started and he is sitting beside a white woman, who seems to have moved as far from him as the seat will allow.

She leans against the window as ifthe train has taken a sharp turn.He continues to keep his elbows pressed against his ribs.He thinks,I wish they’d turn the air conditioning on,but not only is the air conditioning not working but the reading lights are sputtering offand on.He looks out the window.They have left the tunnel.The late afternoon clouds lie along the horizon like broken stones, red, orange, dark blue.The river is dark lavender, the prow ofa rusting tanker parts the waters in a long lumi-nous chevron.Beautiful, beautiful,he thinks.And then he says to the white woman,My stop is an hour and a half from here.She smiles at him grate-fully, she knows he is trying to reassure her.I’m just going to close my eyes for a few minutes,he says.She looks at him, and then shakes her head.Is she warning him not to?

And then he sees Iris.Like everyone else, she is dressed for warm weather.She is wearing a sleeveless blouse, shorts, sandals.She is walk-ing right past him, carrying a bottle ofclub soda and a bag ofpretzels from the refreshment bar.Somehow, he knows he must not say anything to her.She sits in a seat three or four rows back.She is traveling with a white man, who looks familiar.He takes the bag ofpretzels from her, tears them open, but before either ofthem can eat one ofthem they begin to kiss, passionately.First one long kiss and then another and now the white guy is practically climbing on top ofher.Desperate, Hampton turns to the woman next to him.Get a load of that,he says to her.And as soon as he says this to her, she claws at his face with her long fingernails.

He awakens, frantic with confusion and anxiety.He is not used to nightmares;normally, he isn’t even aware ofhis dreams.It takes him a mo-ment to realize that he is safe, at home.He props himself up on his elbow to guard against falling back to sleep—that world, that terrible dream world ofthe train is still there, waiting for him to tumble back in.He forces his eyes open, looks to Iris’s side ofthe bed.It’s empty, the sheet in her space is cool.He is about to call out to her but then he sees her, stand-ing at the window.She is wearing a baggy pair ofmen’s boxer shorts and a once-redT-shirt from which most ofthe color has been bleached.

There is a glow out there, rising up from the headlights ofa car.

”Iris?”says Hampton.

She turns quickly.“You’re awake,”she says.

The light in the window is caught in the back ofher hair.He can’t make out her features, but he senses from her voice and posture that he has interrupted her, or startled her.“Who’s out there?”he asks her.

“No one.”She turns, looks out again, as ifto check her own story.

“No one.”

“I just had a nightmare,”he says, reaching his hand out to her, beckoning her to bed.He knows that he should not be so commanding—Iris has even told him as much—but the gestures ofthe favorite son, the always-sought- after man, come from the deepest part ofhim.To change these things would be like changing his voice, it would take constant vig-ilance.She finds him arrogant, but he doesn’t feel arrogant.It just seems to him that his being found attractive is a part ofthe natural order of things, and when Iris resists him, or is slow to respond, it irritates him, not because he is a potentate and she is his lowly subject, but simply be-cause a mistake is being made.

The sight ofthose long, outstretched fingers illuminates Iris’s nervous system with a rage that ignites like flash powder.She wonders ifshe ought to hold her ground or go to him.Sometimes she has the energy to resist him, but each time she does she enters into the conflict with the knowledge that it will extend through the night.

Hampton switches on his reading light.His cranberry-colored pajamas are streaked with night sweats.He sits up straighter, arranges his pil-lows, and then reextends his reach for her.

“Are you okay?”she asks.

He pats the sheet on her side ofthe bed, indicating where he wants her to be.Sometimes she thinks about the men who have wanted to go to bed with her and whom she refused, the good men, handsome, clever, large- hearted men, and how strange it is that life would deliver her to this point:treated like a little dog who is being beckoned to hop up onto the sofa.

Okay, ifthat’s how he wants it.She bounds across the room, leaps onto the bed, falls forward onto her hands and knees, facing him.Then, completing her private joke, she lets her tongue hang out and she pants.

He counters with excruciatingly contrived tenderness.He strokes the side ofher face.“We have to sleep,”he whispers.

This is night language, code;somewhere in the blind, improvised journey ofmarriage, sleep has come to mean sex.It has come to mean let me lose myselfwithin you, let me begin the fall into the silent heart ofthe night between your legs.“Are you tired?”has become an invitation to make love;a loud yawn and a voluptuous stretch ofthe arms are sup-posed to function the way once upon a time his coming behind her and pressing his lips against the nape ofher neck did.

She continues to pant like a dog, until his frightened, confused expression is replaced by a frown.She takes her place beside him.She lies flat, she feels her blood racing around and around, as iflooking for a way to leave her body.Each time it makes its orbit around her, she feels warmer and warmer.

“I can hardly wait for you to finish your thesis and for us all to move back to NewYork,”Hampton says.This is meant to be a kind ofsweet talk, signifying that he misses her, that he cannot carry much further the burden oftheir weekly separations.But Iris knows what he isreallysay-ing:I hated those people tonight.

“I’m sorry it’s taking so long,”she says.She’s tempted to go back to pretending to be a dog, but she thinks better ofit.She feels his long, hard fingers closing around her hand.He lifts her right hand and very care-fully, emphatically, ceremoniously places it on his penis, and then he presses down on the back ofhis hand and lifts his hips up, as ifrespond-ing to her, though he is only responding to himself.

She pulls her hand away from him—but before he can complain, she rolls over, drapes her leg over him.Lifting herselfup on her elbow, she looks down at him and says,“Pretend you’re raping me.”