Silence returned, and torn between wanting to open the door again to see and my panic over what might be there, I listened at the keyhole. Only the respiration of eight sleepers, quiet as kittens, soft as a baby’s foot. A round of fierce coughing punctuated the new tranquility, and I pictured my thirsty father in the bathroom and a cloud of downy feathers swirling in the air, floating to the bath mat, sucked up to the fan, settling in the sink and commode. Right, the whiskey. Each step of the descent, I could not shake the image of those women. The sharp dissonance of patterns on the blankets, the swell of breasts and roseate nipples, a triangle of hair, a derriere turned and split perfect as a peach, faces flushed with warmth, eyes popping open as if they sensed my presence and suddenly sprang to life. The last woman, whose body lay outside the swirling colors, turned her face to the wall, and in that half-life made a crescent moon of her naked back. A film of perspiration clung to her dark skin. She resembled someone I knew quite well, though I could not place her name. Her utter mystery confounded me more than the others, whose faces revealed in the splendor of those few seconds some vestiges of intimacy. Yet I could not remember how they had arrived, what led them to my bed, why they had stripped themselves, where those richly hued covers had originated, and what, if anything, happened when I got up to empty my bladder a moment ago.
Each step seemed to take forever, as if my mind and body traveled at two different speeds. At several points along the journey, the goal escaped me, and once or twice I stopped, bound by a fog of confusion. The mental image of the bedful of naked women plucked at my cerebral cortex, but rather than clarifying meaning, the girls persisted as enigma. At the foot of the stairs, I stood still for a few minutes, trying to decide which way to turn and why. In the shambling gloom, a dark living object moved like a shadow met by shadow. A few seconds later, the cat unfurled himself against my bare leg, sending the thrill of memory straight from skin to spine. I whispered his name, and he mewed and ran away, a void in the blackness.
All the liquor bottles looked ancient and untouched, caked with a film of grease and dust. One shot short of full, the whiskey in brown glass sparkled with life when held up to the dim kitchen light. The skin around the circumference of the wound at the back of my skull stretched and tightened, as if the hole could close on its own, but the constriction produced a small double pain. For medicinal purposes, I took two glasses from the cupboard. On the way back to the staircase, I chanced upon my orange tabby cat again, eyes reflecting the moonlight. He purred at me from atop the DVD player, his tail roped over the glowing clock. I called his name again, and he whipped his tail, just enough for me to see the numbers 452. With a fingernail, I tapped the crystal of my watch.
Passing by the closed door that led to the bare ladies, I held my breath and could hear the cadence of their slumber. A floorboard creaked. Someone sighed again. A vision of mad ecstasy fluttered across my imagination. I tiptoed past the fortress and into the bathroom.
Motionless on the edge of the tub, the figure of my father sat in the exact spot. A tiny pinfeather stuck out like a flag from the prodigious wrinkle of his brow. He did not drain his glass in a single gulp as might be expected of the parched. Rather, he held the tumbler to the light, judged the liquid’s clarity, sniffed its bouquet, rinsed his palate with a mouthful, and only then swallowed. The whiskey warmed him, brightened his eye, and raised the flow of blood to his pale skin. He sipped another mouthful and the dryness vanished from his breathing, and he looked almost alive. When he cleared his throat again, no feathers flew out of his mouth.
“Feeling any better?” I inquired.
With a sweeping arc of his free hand, he bade me sit down, so I rested myself on the closed lid of the toilet, face-to-face with the old fellow, our knees nearly touching. Between sips of his drink, he took me in with his stare, and the more he drank, the clearer his gaze became, so that by the time he reached the whiskey bottom, his eyes were as blue as fire at the heart of a candle flame. He iced me with that gaze, froze my brain, locked my tongue behind the prison of my teeth. I could do nothing but stare back stupidly and wait, just as I had as a child, until he deigned to speak the first word.
“The question is: are you feeling any better? That was a nasty blow to the brains.”
I reached behind my left ear, but the wound had completely closed. Just old smoothness of skin and bone where once had been a hole. I strummed the spot, and it felt as if nothing in the world had happened. My father shook his head. The blood, too, had been cleaned off the floor, and only red spots on my robe left evidence of the assault. I pulled back my fingers and checked for blood, but they were as dry as bones. My day was becoming more complicated.
“I’m feeling much better, thank you.”
“Still,” he said, “quite a crack to the noggin. Are you sure?”
“Tell you the truth, I’m not sure about anything. This whole day has been one inexplicable puzzle.”
“The whole day, really? From the moment you woke till now? Until … what time do you have?”
“I’m afraid my watch has stopped.”
“No matter.” He poured himself another drink. “But you know, patience is its own reward, as you may have heard on more than one occasion.” A low chuckle followed his remark as if he celebrated an original thought.
He had me there. Instead of stretching back in time, my power of recollection seemed cemented in place. I scratched my head, wondering if he had asked me a question. He poured himself another drink and said nothing. I thought to ask him how he came to be here, in my bathroom, a dozen years or more since we buried him, but I was afraid of his several potential answers.
At last he spoke again. “What do you make of the naked women?” He frowned at my perplexed stare, shook his head, and raised his bushy eyebrows. “Surely you remember those naked women in your bed?”
“Please don’t tell me there’s more than one.”
“There’s seven,” he said, a randy grin curled across his face. “I counted.”