“They’re Egyptian crows,” I told him. “But I’m going to shoot them all.”
I figured they were weirdos and nothing I said to them mattered. From the way the man nodded and dove his squirrel-like hand back into the bag of potato chips, it seemed I was right.
“Now listen,” said the woman, squatting down with the clipboard on her knees, breathing heavily. “We’re selling our estate up north and we want to pay for a year’s rent in advance. That’s how serious we are about renting this apartment.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell the owners.” She stood and showed me the form. Her name was Moon Kowalski. “I’ll let you know,” I said.
The man wiped his palms off on his shorts. “Hey, thanks a lot,” he said earnestly. He shook my hand. The woman swayed from side to side and rubbed her third eye. When I got back to the apartment, there was a message from my boyfriend’s agent saying he’d gotten a callback. I went back to bed.
? ? ?
“I got you some ammo,” said my boyfriend. He put the box right in front of my face on the pillow. “So you can shoot the birds.” He seemed to have turned a corner. He seemed in high spirits.
“Call your agent,” I told him. Then I turned my head. I could not stand to see him roar and pump his fist and dance excitedly, thrusting his crotch in celebration.
“I knew it, babe!” he cried. He pounced on me in the bed, flipped me faceup, and kissed me. His mouth had a strange taste, like bitter chemicals. I let him peel my shirt up to my throat, twist the fabric until he could use it like a rope to pull me up toward him. He unzipped his shorts. I looked up at his face just to see how ugly it was and opened my mouth. It’s true I relished him in certain ways. When he was done, he kissed my forehead and knelt by the bedside table, index finger on his crystal skull, and prayed.
I picked up the box of slugs. I’d never fired a gun before. There were instructions on how to load and fire the shotgun in the box it came in, with diagrams of how to hold the butt against your shoulder, little birds floating in the air. I listened to my boyfriend on the phone with his agent.
“Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. Thank you very much,” he was saying. “Uh-huh, uh-huh.”
I really hated him. A crow came and sat on the sill of the window. It seemed to roll its eyes.
? ? ?
There were people I could have called, of course. It wasn’t like I was in prison. I could have walked to the park or the coffee shop or gone to the movies or church. I could have gone to get a cheap massage or my fortune told. But I didn’t feel like calling anyone or leaving the apartment complex. So I sat and watched my boyfriend clip his toenails. He had small, nubby feet. He collected the clippings in a pile by dragging his pinky finger neurotically across the floor. It pained me to see him so pleased with himself. “Hey, babe,” he said. “What do you say we go up on the roof, try the gun out?” I didn’t want to go up there. I knew it would make him happy.
“I’m not feeling well,” I said. “I think I have a fever.”
“Oh, man,” he said. “You sick?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think I’m sick. I feel terrible.”
He got up and ran to the kitchen, came back chugging from a carton of orange juice. “I can’t get sick now,” he said. “You know this commercial is gonna be huge. After this, I’ll be famous. You want to hear my lines?”
“My head hurts too much,” I said. “Is that your new hairstyle?” He was always putting gel in his hair and he was always squinting, pursing his lips. “Is that gel?”
“No,” he said, lying. “My hair’s just like this.” He went to the mirror, sucked in his cheeks, pushed his hair around, flexed his pectorals. “This time when I go in,” he said, “I’m gonna be sort of James Dean, like I just don’t give a shit, but sad, you know?” I couldn’t stand it. I turned and faced the wall. Out the window the palms hovered and shimmied and cowered in the breeze. I didn’t want him to be happy. I closed my eyes and prayed for a disaster, a huge earthquake or a drive-by shooting or a heart attack. I picked up the crystal skull. It was greasy and light, so light I thought it might be made of plastic.
“Don’t touch that!” my boyfriend cried breathlessly, leaping over the bed and grabbing the skull out of my hands. “Great. Now I need to find a body of water to wash it in. I told you, don’t touch my stuff.”
“You never said I couldn’t touch it,” I said. “The pool’s right outside.”
He put the skull in a pocket of his cargo shorts and left.
? ? ?
The buzzer rang the next evening. I got on the intercom.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“It’s the Kowalskis,” the voice said. It was Moon’s voice. “We couldn’t wait. We’re here with cash and a moving truck. Buzz us in?”
My boyfriend hadn’t come home yet from his callback. He’d called to say that he was staying out late to watch the lunar eclipse and not to wait for him, and that he forgave me for touching his crystal skull and that he loved me so much and knew that when we were both dead we’d meet on a long river of light and there’d be slaves there to row us in a golden boat to outer space and feed us grapes and rub our feet. “Did my agent call yet?” he had asked.
“Not yet,” I’d told him.
I put on my robe and went downstairs, propped open the gate with a brick. Moon stood there with a manila envelope full of money. I took it and handed her the keys.
“Like I said, we couldn’t wait,” said Moon. Her husband was unloading their moving truck, lugging black garbage bags off the back and placing them in rows on the sidewalk. Those damned crows flew across the violet sky, perched on top of the truck, cawed quietly to one another.
“It’s late,” I said to Moon.
“This is the perfect time to move,” she said. “It’s the equinox. Perfect timing.” Her husband set down a moose head mounted on a shield-shaped piece of plywood. “He loves that moose,” said Moon. “You love that moose, huh?” she said to her husband. He nodded, wiped his forehead, and ducked back into the truck.
I went back upstairs and started packing, stuffed the money Moon had given me at the bottom of my suitcase, cleared out my drawer, my boyfriend’s makeup case, wrapped the shotgun in that terrible afghan, zipped it all up. Watching from the mezzanine as Moon carried in a large potted tree, her husband slumped behind her under a bag of golf clubs, I felt hopeful, as though it were me moving in, starting a new life. I felt energized. When I offered to help, Moon seemed to soften, flung her hair back and smiled, pointed to a woven basket full of silverware. I helped Moon’s husband carry the old mattress out to the curb. We set it up against a tree trunk and watched the tree veer back precariously toward the apartment complex. A cluster of crows sprang out from its leaves. “Gentle souls,” the man said and lit a cigarette.