“No,” I said, and started walking back the way I’d come. “I just wanted you to know.” I waved the sheaf of my own poems at him. I’d brought them along thinking of praise and fulfillment and shortcuts to the realization of affinities. Instead I went home to feel glum in the chaise. I lay there with the weight of unspecified darkness, contemplating suicide, and hoping for an interruption.

Rennel came then. I heard his feet on the stairs. I jumped up before he could knock. He spoke his affected “Hullo,” his klutzy imitation of the lowbrow romantic lead.

“How have you—? I’m so glad to see you.” I was so surprised I could only offer clichés.

“Happy birthday! We’re supposed to go over to Sam’s for dinner.”

Why was this the beginning? Because it was when we opened onto each other. Before that we were each enclosed and entertained each other without lasting effect. Just as my goldfish in their jug know of me only vaguely, and entertain me with movements they would have made without an audience. I could smash the jug. In the last gasp of a gill, they might finally see me, or my shoe, at least, descending upon them. And I in my small house, with my dressing gown and watering can, take in the milk when the bottles clink and invite inside the few who ring the bell. I will listen and regale as long as the coffee is hot and the cookies are being consumed at a steady rate, as long as the forms are preserved and enough is said to give the impression of saying everything.

Lance Sterling fires his cap guns, Omar takes a bath

The first problem was cat shit. The smell hit me on the sidewalk in front of Sam’s house. By the time the door opened my eyes were watering. The shit lay in thin, stiff smears on the carpets. Sam had put down newspapers so he could walk, but the cats shat on them. He put fresh papers over the soiled ones. Walking was tricky. The papers shifted and were noisy under my feet. Nobody knew how many cats there were. Nobody claimed to own them. They came with the house. There were bowls on the floor with dusty puddles of milk in them, plates with crusts of moldy cat food. After a few hours the smell didn’t hurt my nose anymore. It made me sleepy.