The Gray House

Tabaqui fiddles with the tuning knob on the boombox and says, “If only you knew how many things you yourself are missing, you’d be a lot more reticent, but since you are not of that kind, do us a favor and elaborate.”

Smoker jumps at the opportunity.

“She’s abrupt,” he says. “Coarse. Unfeminine. The way she behaves would be appropriate for a twelve-year-old, but she’s not twelve, not by a long shot.”

“Oh wow!” Humpback exclaims, leaning down from his bunk.

Seemingly encouraged by his interest, Smoker adds, “She’s also messy. Hopelessly so.”

“Ooh, ooh.” Tabaqui sways, puckering his lips like a nervous chimp. “You’re talking such nonsense, Smoker. Can’t you hear it yourself?”

“She spends her nights in a room with six guys. Walks around the bathroom naked and doesn’t even bother to close the door. And supposedly she sleeps with Noble, except I wouldn’t be surprised if she does it with Blind as well, and I don’t know who else . . .”

Humpback tosses a pillow at Smoker, and Tabaqui immediately jumps on top of it, pushing it down as if he wants to squash Smoker flat. Tamps it thoroughly, lifts it for a bit, making sure Smoker is still breathing, and quickly covers him again. As they are shutting up Smoker in this unorthodox fashion I catch the image of Ginger that has so stunned and infuriated him. A flash—the spare boyish figure. Dark nipples on pink skin over protruding ribs, red tuft of pubic hair. Arms, legs, and almost nothing between them. She’s looking at me, or rather at Smoker, a faraway, completely impassive look. One arm is twisted, and there’s a reddish sore below her elbow. She licks it. Then lowers her arm, not even attempting to cover herself, and walks inside the shower stall. That walk is imprinted on Smoker’s retinas in a sequence of narrow snapshots, one sliding over the next. That’s what was making him blush so painfully. I understand. It’s not what he’s seen that hurt him, but the reaction to his appearance. Or rather the absence of a reaction. It is indeed unpleasant, to be looked at like you’re not even there, like you’re an empty space. This would be discomfiting even to someone much more balanced.

“She’s like an animal,” Smoker says, pushing off the pillow. “Completely shameless.”

“Horror of horrors,” Tabaqui fumes. “Humpback, all our efforts were for naught. He is irredeemable. He can only be exterminated.”

“They’re taking him away this Saturday,” Humpback reminds him from above. “You keep forgetting.”

“I do not. This thought is the only thing that keeps me sane. This one and a handful of others, similarly cheerful.” Tabaqui looks up and inquires plaintively, “Tell me, how is it any of his damn business who she does and doesn’t sleep with? When even Noble keeps out of it?”

“That’s the kind of cantankerous creature he is,” Humpback says as his head disappears over the edge.

Smoker is hugging Humpback’s pillow. The narrow frames with the naked girl walking away unspool before him rapidly, replacing each other as they fall. The last one is the slammed door of the shower stall.

I go out to the yard, to look for Ginger.

There’s this place where the walls of two buildings meet, a nook overgrown with weeds. The beginning of summer usually means stinging nettles up to the knees, but on the other hand they cover up the trash, making it temporarily invisible. Presumably the most private place in the whole House, because neither of the walls has any windows.

They’re there. Sitting in front of a small fire. Ginger made it in the old spot, the blackened, charred scrap of earth marked with a stone circle. This is where seniors always had their fires. It used to be much cozier back then, with chaises and old crates for chairs. No trace of them now. Could be they burned them all.

Tubby sits on top of Ginger’s coat, staring into the fire and droning softly. When the burning branches crackle he startles and grabs his cheeks. Such a cute girlish gesture, half fright, half delight. Ginger is whispering something to him. I can’t make it out. I come up to them and sit down. She just continues her monologue as if I’m not there.

“The important thing was to grab a space somewhere in the back, so they wouldn’t shoo you off, and look. Only look, without listening. That’s important. Because they would sing, play the guitar, bake potatoes in the fire, and so on, and it was very distracting, all that romantic stuff people do when they get together and want to prove to themselves that they’re having a blast. I liked to look at the fire, that’s all. This one time someone snatched a burning stick out of it and wrote something on the wall with the blazing end. I was almost blinded. A word that’s shedding fire. The burning letters of God. All that was left of them the next day was the black outline of a common swearword and a sooty smear, but still it had been a miracle, and I witnessed it.”

She throws a sizable chunk of dry wood on the fire. Sparks fly in the air, reflecting in Tubby’s bugged-out beady eyes.