Writing Exercise #1 - Bryr Ludington

Jesus woke. Two, three times too often that night. And not just when doors slammed down the hall, back and to the right of where his head lay on the limp pillow, or the infant screamed, below the far left corner of the room, in some lonely muffled place. And not just with the memory of a hard-on, or a headache, or to piss in the pot of the dead palm by the window. His eyes would spring open at the sound, the feeling, and then close again. Jesus ground his teeth and wrung his hands in his sleep, wrapping the sheets in great knots around his fists. He wrung his feet too, causing the thin blanket to ride up his calves and the tattered mattress cover to spring loose of the lower corners. But these movements seldom woke him. In the shower the next morning he would suck on aspirin and stare at his chapped wrists and ankles, grind his knuckles into the muscles of his jaw. He’d stand over his bed, holding a dishtowel to his crotch as filmy light from the window yellowed the room, and wonder what it meant, the knots and wrinkles, the tears and damp spots. But that night, that first night, something else woke him, though he wouldn’t remember it at first. He opened his eyes momentarily, heard a light scratching sound, and then drifted off again. He woke that morning as usual, showered, pulled the mattress cover back in place, flattened the sheet and blanket over it, and turned the pillow over. In his clean shirt and dirty trousers, pleats sinking in against his sunken hips, he stood at the window and watched the bank marquee flash the time and temperature. He picked up the watch from the windowsill, buckled the engraved words against his red wrist and brought it in time with the bank clock. It lost seventeen minutes every day. The shriveled palm dropped two papery leaves at his feet. Jesus kicked the pink pot, kicked one of the roses she had painted with the ball of his foot where the sock was worn away, but the other leaves stayed affixed. He sat on the end of the bed to put on his shoes. The baby cried below and to the left, beneath a pile of dirty clothes. A woman’s voice rose, clipped and shrill, and the baby began to sputter. There was a knock on a door in the hall. Jesus looked to the sound, through the pale rectangles on the wall. Another knock, a door opening and shutting. He fumbled with his laces, fingers swollen. In the hallway, he passed a girl who sat against a closed door, thin naked legs pulled up to her chest, a cell phone pressed against her ear, her hair over her face. She watched him as he passed, said nothing into the phone. That night Jesus took off all his clothes before he stood over the palm in the flashing red light from the marquee. It stung to piss anymore, it made his balls ache, to will those droplets through. He watched them strike the leaves, roll down the stalk to the soil below. Sink away to the roots. It had pleased him once to see it pool in the pink dish below, only to be sucked up later by the thirsty plant. When he was finished, he drew that burn back into his body and crawled into bed. That night Jesus woke in silence, the blood rushing in his ears. He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead to wipe away the traces of a feathery touch that had tingled there seconds before. No cries, no shouts, no sirens. The palm cast a thin shadow that stretched across the bare floor to where his pillow lay on the floor. He snatched up the pillow and rolled over, wrapping it around his head. When Jesus leaned close to the filmy mirror the next morning, he saw a tiny red line running from the hairline above his temple to the inside corner of his eye. He could not rub it out. When he passed the girl again in the hall, he raised a hand to cover the marked. She pressed the phone more tightly to her ear and drew her bare feet up out of his path. The cut burned in a light sweat that that sprung from his forehead. Jesus opened his window that night, struggling against the sticking frame. The breeze that slipped in tossed curling palm leaves across the floor to where they rested again the closet door. Dust lifted in swirls and retreated under his bed. Jesus closed the window again.