A Ship Made of Paper

and convincing her that the little red radio in her room will afford her some entertainment.When Ruby is finally out ofearshot, Kate makes a martini for Daniel and hands it to him with a certain force-fulness that tells him he had better accept it, though, in fact, he would like to remain coldly sober, so as to defend himself ifKate should turn her intelligence against him, and also to continue trying to figure a way he could leave the house, make it back into town, and see Iris.

“You know when I told you about those men coming into the house last night…”

“I thought you said they were boys,”Daniel says.

”They were men,”Kate says.“Maybe some asshole lawyer could argue they were juveniles, but they were thudding around here like a herd ofelephants.”

He wants to sayBy“asshole lawyer”I assume you mean me,but why borrow trouble?

“And ifthey had found me,”Kate is saying,“then I promise you it wouldn’t have been some boyish prank.”

“Well, thank God they didn’t,”Daniel says.He takes another sip of his martini and realizes that he has practically drained the glass.

When Kate veers closer he eases away from her.He is sure that he still reeks oflast night, and then it strikes him that he ought to do some labor, something that might work up an exculpatory sweat.“I’m going to bring in some wood for the fireplace,”he says.She looks at him a little strangely.

The sky is a deep blue, almost purple, with a crescent moon bobbing up and down in a stream ofpassing night clouds.The temperature is mild; with a fire in the fireplace, they’ll be warm enough inside.Daniel stands for a few moments on the porch, where oak and ash logs are stacked against the gray clapboard ofthe exterior wall.The stillness and clarity of the evening are almost unbelievable—how could such tranquility follow such chaos? Daniel takes a deep breath, spreads his arms out:Iris.Twoof the three old locust trees in the front yard are down, one has been split in two, the other has been completely torn out ofthe ground, its taproot unearthed.A few scattered stars pulsate, diamond chips in the velvet.He wonders ifshe is okay.She cannot bear the cold.She might have low blood pressure, she should have it checked.Maybe the road crews have al-ready cleared out the center oftown, maybe she’s already up and around.

Maybe the power has been restored on Juniper Street.He hopes so.She shouldn’t be sitting alone in a dark house.He wonders ifHampton, learn-ing the extent ofthe storm, has returned to his family.

He brings in several armloads offirewood, and places them all carefully in the large iron ring near the fireplace.The air is dank in the house.

The smell from the fireplace is pleasant, however, and the three ofthem sit on the floor in front ofit, enjoying its warmth and the comforting light.Kate continues to drink, though Daniel doesn’t know exactly what’s in her glass, and he doesn’t feel able to ask her.But watching her drink makes him want to get drunk—despite the risk—and he makes his way into the kitchen, holding a candle that drips wax onto his knuckles with each step.He comes back with halfa glass ofbourbon and sits down on the hooked rug in front ofthe hearth, where he and Kate have been play-ing Uno with Ruby.Normally, playing with Ruby like this is one ofthe things that make Daniel feel life is worth living, and the same could be said for sitting in front ofa successful fire, getting a little loaded, even go-ing to bed with Kate after she’d been drinking.But tonight, everything seems fraught and dreary.How can he be here, stuck, trapped, put into a position in which every word out ofhis mouth is a lie? How can he be go-ing through the motions in this sad and threadbare life, a life that now is—he hates to think it, but he must—little more than a terrible obstacle between him and simple human happiness?

Later that night, Daniel waits downstairs before going to bed, poking at the logs in the fireplace and hoping that Kate will have fallen asleep before he ar-rives in their bedroom.He extinguishes his candle when he is halfway up the stairs;all he can see in the darkness is the beady red lights ofthe battery-powered smoke detectors.He feels his way along the wall, down the hallway, and as quietly as possible into the bedroom.He takes his shoes offand gets into bed in his clothes—a pair ofcorduroy pants, beneath which he wears long underwear, two shirts, and a sweater, all ofwhich he must wear for warmth, but which he also hopes will quarantine whatever evidence his body wants to give oflast night’s frenzies.He is operating on three hours of sleep, which he doesn’t fully realize until he quietly slides into bed and an overpowering sense ofexhaustion comes over him in slow, relentless waves.

And Kate is not asleep.She rolls next to him and drapes her leg overhis.

“What were you doing down there?”she asks.

”Hitting a log with the fireplace poker.”

“Oh, you man, you.”

“That’s me in a nutshell,”he says.She presses herselfagainst his hip, and he feels panic rising in him.Because it would seem strange and pos-sibly even brutal not to, he puts his arm around her, though the very act makes him feel compromised, and even jealous—ifhe is capable ofcom-mitting these little endearments, then Iris could surely be doing like-wise.At this very moment.

“Do you really think I shouldn’t call the police about those runaways being here last night?”Kate says.

“I don’t know.There’s not much they can do about it right now.”He really doesn’t want to talk, and he also senses that somewhere within this particular line ofinquiry there lies trouble.

“You’re a tiny bit on their side, aren’t you?”Kate says softly, as ifit were possible to lure him into believing she is not furious at the idea.

“Ofcourse not.I hate that that happened.It was obviously terrifying.

It terrifies me to even hear about it.”

“Then what are you saying?That I should stop talking about it?”

“Kate.Ofcourse not.”

“But it is.That’s what you’re saying, that I should stop talking about it.”

“Well, it’s not what I meant to say.”

“But it’s what you said.”

“Kate, I don’t know what to tell you here.You’re doing the subtext?”

“Yes, I’m doing the fucking subtext.”

“Ah, thefuckingsubtext.”Shut up shut up,he tells himself.But exhaustion, the bourbon, and acute sexual claustrophobia are having their way with him.He forces his eyes open.For a second he feels he might fall asleep—right in the middle ofan argument.

“What?”

He tries to scramble back into the conversation, desperately.“If you want to call the police, call them,”he says.“Or I will.I’ll call DerekPabst.”

“Derek Pabst is an idiot.”

“Then I’ll call someone else.I’ll call the attorney general.”

“It’s a big joke to you.”

“No.It’s not.I don’t know what you want.”

“I want you to care about what happened to me.”

He wants to say that nothing really happened to her, but he manages to control himself.She continues with such vehemence, he may as well have said it.

“It’s because they’re black, isn’t it?”she says.“You feel protective toward them.Like they’re the victims, and the people who try to keep them under control are the bad guys.”

“That’s not what I think.”He digs his elbows into the mattress to raise himself, but he doesn’t have the strength.

“You’re going to turn into one ofthose ridiculous white guys who secretly think they’re black,”Kate says.“Where’s this coming from any-how?You want to tell me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.I don’t think I’m black.”

“But you wish you were.”

“What I wish I was is asleep.”

“It’s like the Simpson case.When did you start believing that fucking O.J.is innocent?”

“I don’t think that.”

“Really? Do you think he’s guilty?”

“I don’t know! How could I know? I don’t have all the facts.And the trial’s still ongoing.”

“The trial’s still ongoing?The man butchered his wife, a poor girl who told her friends,‘Ifanything happens to me, O.J.did it.’Every rea-sonable person inAmerica knows he’s guilty, including his own lawyers, and all you can say