Judith and Gretl are roommates but not especially friends. They met when Judith answered Gretl's ad for a roommate. That they feel no special affinity for each other pleases rather than disturbs them. They are both self-contained people.
They live in the top half of an old duplex in a chic but crumbling part of the city by Mr. and Mrs. Sandhorst, who own the whole house. Mr. and Mrs. Sandhorst are old, and Mrs. Sandhorst is an invalid of some kind. Neither Judith or Gretl has ever seen her, but they can hear her laughing. Mrs. Sandhorst watches TV every evening and laughs through the programs. She laughs in a monotonous low chuckle. Huh-a-huh-a-huh-a. But she doesn't laugh at the commercials. The chuckle pauses for three minutes at twelve minute intervals. Judith has timed it. Judith pictures Mrs. Sandhorst sitting in a wheelchair with a blanket over her knees and a shawl over her shoulders. (The house is cold because Mr. Sandhorst is cheap.) Mrs. Sandhorst folds her hands on her knees as she listens to the commercials in reverent silence, but her wrinkled cheeks jiggle when she laughs at the programs. Judith pictures Mrs. Sandhorst as wispy and withered despite her fat healthy chuckle. The contradiction pleases her. Judith calls Mrs. Sandhorst a wierdo.
Judith is a connoisseur of misfits. ``I hate wierdos,'' she says often, with dark enjoyment. Her hatred drives her to seek them constantly. She gloats over deformities and revels in stupidities. Judith is addicted to contempt. It has a rich and bitter flavor.
Hers is a secret vice. To herself she calls it her ``collection''; but it is not on display. With most people Judith is quiet and withdrawn. She listens and observes. Only the faint contraction of muscles about her mouth and flatness of her eyes hint that Judith is adding to her collection.
Judith drinks pickle juice and olive juice, another addiction. Once a week she buys a jumbo can of olives and a king size jar of dill pickles. She sits in the living room in the overstuffed easy chair with the saggy cushion and the threadbare armrests, the pickle jar on one armrest and the olive can on the other. She eats the olives first, balancing them one by one on her lips and sucking them in with sudden soft plops. She fishes the pickles out of the jar and stuffs them beneath the cushion, and she drinks the pickle juice in one long swallow, tipping the jar above her mouth so the translucent green fluid flows in a graceful arc. Last of all she drinks the olive juice. She forgets the pickles. They are usually found by Gretl the next day. Gretl wraps them in paper towels and throws them away. Gretl never sits in the easy chair because she doesn't like the smell of pickles.
For the next three days Judith has diarrhea. The diarrhea smells bad even to her; an acrid brown smell so pungent it has a taste, and clogs her throat. She leaves the bathroom gasping for air, sometimes forgetting in her hurry to flush the toilet. Gretl does it for her and does not complain.
Gretl is not German or Scandinavian despite her name. She is Heinz 57 American. Gretl is vague, almost bland; but, mysteriously, forceful. She absorbs mannerisms and gestures from other people and regurgitates them as expressions of her own; they appear foreign yet somehow Gretl. Gretl does not drink pickle juice, or olive either. When she sees Judith doing so, she mock gags, her shoulders jerking inward in a peculiar mannerism borrowed from Judith. Thus it seems that Judith disgusts herself. Possibly this is Gretl's intention.
Gretl and Judith see Mr. Sandhorst regularly. Mr. Sandhorst is tiny and bent, with slithery pale eyes. Gretl sees him when she pays the rent, which he insists be paid weekly, every Monday at noon. In person. Gretl pays the rent because she has a regular salary. Gretl works for the city as a middle level administrator. She is forced to make a special trip home every Monday at noon to comply with Mr. Sandhorst's demand. For some reason she does not resent this. On Mondays Gretl's eyes slither like Mr. Sandhorst's.
Judith buys the food, which can be bought anytime. Judith's money comes in drips and spurts. Judith works three afternoons a week as a counselor in a battered women's shelter, and other times as a free-lance photographer. She is good at her jobs even though she says she hates them both. She sees a lot of wierdos.
When Gretl comes home Judith tells her about her day. She describes the new wierdos she has found, dissecting them with relish, making Gretl a present of her contempt. Judith feels that her collection is somehow safe with Gretl. Gretl absorbs Judith's corrosive ramblings in silence. Judith is not sure she is listening; Gretl never comments. Her eyes are flat and blank.
At night in bed Judith relives her day and savors the new additions to her collection. She sees again the man she saw on the bus that day. He was reading the National Enquirer, nodding with approval. His pants were brown polyester and his shirt had come partially untucked, showing his jockey shorts. (Judith knew they would have skid marks.) He had pimples on his face that he had picked, shiny red. He had missed one pimple; it was a plump white globule of pus underneath his nose. How had he missed it? It was the most noticeable one on his face. Right under his nose, in fact.
Alone in her bed Judith chuckles, sounding like Mrs. Sandhorst. She pictures this nerd, this wierdo, coming into her bedroom, fumbling at his fly. In the semi-darkness his pimple glistens, white and shiny like a black man's teeth. She sees him take his prick out of his fly, not taking his pants off. His limp prick is silhouetted against brown polyester. He leans down to her, lying on the bed. Her eyes are bright and flat, a lizard's eyes, watching him. His prick stiffens suddenly and goes off a second later. It spurts greenish white semen onto her breasts. At the same time the pimple under his nose erupts and pus dribbles onto her face. Her orgasm courses sluggishly through her. Her skin is damp and sticky. She falls asleep.
Judith sees Mr. Sandhorst regularly too. She sees him every night around 2 a.m. when he sneaks upstairs to search through Judith and Gretl's garbage. His wispy footsteps sound like scattering mice. They wake Judith up. She steals quietly into the bathroom which is next to the kitchen and watches him through the partially opened door. Mr. Sandhorst kneels painfully on the kitchen floor and opens the cupboard under the sink, inching it open stealthily. He has a large flashlight beside him. His eyes slither over his shoulder from time to time as he slides the bag of garbage onto the floor.
Judith enjoys watching as the finicky little man carefully extracts each morsel of garbage from the bag and arranges them on the floor. He shines his flashlight to examine them one by one. He flicks his fingers lightly over them while he makes delicate moos of distaste. Judith doesn't know what, if anything, he is looking for. She doesn't care.
Judith hides little surprises for Mr. Sandhorst in the kitchen garbage. Erotic photographs, used Tampax, cat shit, even once a voodoo doll one of her clients gave her. She observes Mr. Sandhorst's expression change in subtle ways that probably only Judith would recognize. His mouth opens slightly and his fingers flick faster through the garbage, betraying his excitement.
Mr. Sandhorst always puts everything back into the bag, carefully and in the same order that he took them out. Even the coffee grounds and cigarette ashes are swept up into his hand and placed delicately back into the garbage bag. He slides the bag back into the cupboard and creeps out of the kitchen. Judith goes back to bed and dreams of Mr. Sandhorst among her garbage.
One night Judith has a special surprise for Mr. Sandhorst. Just before two o'clock she sneaks into the kitchen and hides in the cupboard under the sink. It is an uncomfortably tight fit; Judith is not a small woman. She manages it by sitting cross-legged, hunching her head and shoulders over as far as she can, her arms circling the bag of garbage which she holds on her lap. Luckily she doesn't have to wait long.
Judith hears Mr. Sandhorst shuffle into the kitchen. Her mouth curls in anticipation. She hears him kneeling slowly outside the cupboard. His knees creak; Judith can hear the tiny popping sounds. Mr. Sandhorst opens the cupboard and sees Judith. His mouth falls open and his eyes dart rapidly away. Judith flicks an onion skin at him, hitting him on the nose.
Mr. Sandhorst reaches into the cupboard. His fingers are pale and thin; they look like the bones of some small bird. Mr. Sandhorst gently clutches Judith's arms. She can feel his fingers trembling. Mr. Sandhorst tries to slide Judith out of the cupboard. Judith has to help. Judith and Mr. Sandhorst sit facing each other on the kitchen floor. She still holds the bag of garbage on her lap.
Mr. Sandhorst takes a butter wrapper out of the bag. He sticks it on Judith's arm. Judith reaches into the bag and pulls out a Coke can. She pours the last drops of Coke over Mr. Sandhorst's head. He smears day old gravy on her chin. She puts carrot gratings in his ear.
They decorate each other. Mr. Sandhorst's mouth hangs loosely open. Judith's eyes are feverishly bright and her upper lip twitches on one side.
When the bag is empty they begin to rub the garbage into their skins. They caress each other through the garbage. Mr. Sandhorst's tiny white fingers flit furiously over Judith's body. She begins to pant. A soft whine escapes Mr. Sandhorst's lips.
At last they lie entangled, dripping with slime, on the kitchen floor. Exhausted, they fall asleep.
Gretl is the only person in the house who ever gets up before noon.
When she goes into the kitchen she finds Mr. Sandhorst and Judith asleep in the garbage. Mr. Sandhorst's head is flung back, his mouth wide open. A lettuce leaf, oozing green juice, hangs partially in his mouth and flaps with his breath. Judith's head is pillowed on Mr. Sandhorst's lap; she is drooling in her sleep. Gretl cleans up the mess.
She works efficiently, rapidly flicking the garbage off Judith and Mr. Sandhorst, who do not wake up. Gretl leads Judith, semi-conscious back to bed. She carries Mr. Sandhorst downstairs and places him gently outside his door. Mr. Sandhorst curls into a ball and goes on sleeping. Gretl goes back into the kitchen, sweeps up all the garbage, puts it into a new bag, and places the bag under the sink.
Gretl leaves the house to go to work. She looks placid and
satisfied. She is smiling with one corner of her mouth. She
notices some coffee grounds still adhering to her skirt. She
lightly brushes them off with her plump fingers. She doesn't
notice the stain of olive juice on her sleeve. When she does she
will clean it.
According to Kim Pearson fiction is much easier to write than
bios, but here goes anyway. ``Although I have been writing all my
life, until recently I have been struggling through the jungles
of the electronic industry in pursuit of the almighty silicon
dollar, and writing on the side. I have had some success in the
latter; my short stories have appeared in literary and regional
magazines. Currently I am on sabbatical from `real work' (my
mother's term) and am in the process of completing my first
novel. How's that?''
For a copy of the issue that this story
appeared in please use the on-line order
form or email sott_backissue@unclemarkie.com
and ask for Volume 3, Number 2.
The cost is $5.00, plus $2.00 shipping and handling for each
order.
| Return to top of story | Return to SOTT Home Page |
| Move onto other stories in this issue | Move onto other stories in this volume |
©1987-1996 Studio 403. All
rights reserved.
For reproduction or retransmission rights, please email sott_rights@unclemarkie.com.