Mitchell Waldman’s fiction and poetry has appeared in numerous publications, such as Wind Magazine,
Moronic Ox Literary Journal, Five Fishes Journal, The HazMat Review, Innisfree, Poetpourri, The Advocate,
Mobius, The Parnassus Literary Journal, Desperate Act, Poetry Motel, Poetic Hours, Bold Print, Woven Worlds,
Long Story Short, Rochester Shorts, and in the anthologies, "Beyond Lament: Poets of the World Bearing
Witness to the Holocaust", and "Messages from the Universe". He is also the author of the novel, "A
Face in the Moon", and co-edited with his partner, Diana, the anthology "Wounds of War: Poets for
Peace". http://mitchwaldman.homestead.com
Moronic Ox Literary Journal, Five Fishes Journal, The HazMat Review, Innisfree, Poetpourri, The Advocate,
Mobius, The Parnassus Literary Journal, Desperate Act, Poetry Motel, Poetic Hours, Bold Print, Woven Worlds,
Long Story Short, Rochester Shorts, and in the anthologies, "Beyond Lament: Poets of the World Bearing
Witness to the Holocaust", and "Messages from the Universe". He is also the author of the novel, "A
Face in the Moon", and co-edited with his partner, Diana, the anthology "Wounds of War: Poets for
Peace". http://mitchwaldman.homestead.com
The Ring
He lies naked beside me, clinging to the pillow beneath his head. The thin white sheet lays over him,
covering only his lower portions — his feet, ankles, thighs. I reach down to the curve of his bare
buttocks, but stop myself from touching him, afraid that I'll wake him up.
I look at his face. In sleep the lines seem harsher now, the boyishness is all but gone, making way for
reality — the cloudy spots of gray, the sharp curve of his nose, the hairs growing out of the inside of
his ears, off the tip of his nose, the bags cutting deeply beneath each eye.
I look at his finger where the ring had been. He'd begun reaching, nibbling at my neck like it was some
kind of soft cheese, moments after he'd arrived this morning. I'd pushed him away gently. I'd told him
to stop. The feel of the gold had been too cold, too hard. He hadn't gotten angry. He'd just stood
back, startled, hurt. I'd violated our understanding. We weren't to talk about it. But finally he'd
shrugged and slipped it into the pocket of his corduroys. And instantly the shy smile had returned, and
then the reaching and the nibbling.
Now I watch him as he sleeps so soundly, peacefully, so unconcerned, so unaffected by it all. I get up
out of bed. The wood is cold under my feet and I hug myself to stay warm. I walk around to the
bedpost where his jacket and his pants are hanging. I reach into the pockets of the pants, searching
for it, jiggling keys, coins, and then find it, picking it out on my thumb. It makes me think of that
nursery rhyme, the one where "he stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum..." And I think, it's been a
long, long time since nursery rhymes.
I look at David, make sure he's still asleep. Then I toss it lightly, feeling the weight of the circle on my
hand. I slip it onto my ring finger, but of course it's much too big. Then I close my fist around it and
walk two steps to the bureau. I'm opening the top drawer when I look up to see this awkward figure,
this gangly-limbed girl standing there naked in the mirror. I bat my lashes, but for a second I don't
recognize the face, it seems like someone else's. I try to read the face, to determine what it's feeling,
but I can't. It's too tentative, too confused.
I stick my hands in the drawer, reaching, groping. In a moment I've found what I've been looking for. I
open the green hinged jewelry box with its gold-embossed heart, pull out the earrings — opals he gave
me last Christmas — and throw them into the drawer along with the mess of dead letters and greeting
cards I've abandoned there. Then I carefully place the ring in the box and snap the lid shut. Next I walk
three steps to the closet and find the awful blood-red scarf that my mother brought for me from Paris,
the one I've never worn. I wrap it tightly around the box, and then shove the whole thing into the back
of the bureau drawer, covering it with old mail. I push the drawer in and think that one of these days I
ought to go through everything in there, get rid of some of the clutter.
I walk back to the bed, light a cigarette and reach for the remote control. I switch on the TV, but keep
the sound off. A game show's on. A woman's jumping up and down and then the shot moves to the
audience. The people are sitting there in neat rows, smiling and clapping and nodding, and a picture of
a new car starts flashing on the screen, and then the picture goes back to the jumping woman, and
then back to the smilers and nodders and clappers. I lie there, staring dully at the TV, thinking this is
not real, nothing is real. After a while I find myself studying the orangeish glow at the end of the
cigarette, watching it burn down slowly to my thumb and forefinger.
That's how I am when David wakes up. Lying there, not thinking about anything. Just feeling, I don't
know, funny. He gets up quickly, whistles, picks up his shirt from the floor, throws it over his back,
buttons up all the buttons. I watch him dress and, after a while, say, "Do you really have to go?" Like
I'm supposed to, and he says, "Yes, I really do," like he's supposed to, and it's all done, we've said our
lines. He's not even looking at me, hasn't looked at me since he opened his eyes.
He's patting his hair into place, gazing into the mirror. He turns around then and says, "Do you think I
look all right?"
"You look wonderful," I tell him, but only because it's what he wants, it's what he expects.
In the afternoon I wash dishes, I do laundry, running up and down basement stairs, folding blouses,
jeans, socks, and underwear, putting them all in their proper places. I start letters to friends but wind
up tearing them up. They're so mundane. My life's so mundane. Except for him.
In the afternoon I don't know how many times I find myself back in the bedroom, back in that drawer,
reaching in and pulling out that circle, tossing it gently in the air, feeling its weight, its substance. I put
it against my lips, rub the cool metal surface against them. Then I get scared, I see myself in the
mirror, that image of me that I don't know. And with shaky hands I place the ring back into the box,
shut the lid, wrap and hide it away again.
In the evening I'm just taking the chicken out of the oven when David walks through the kitchen door
unannounced, his face red, the muscles of his neck taut like two cords of rope. I'm standing there with
an oven mitt on, holding a hot pan and he comes right up to me, six inches from me and stops,
holding his fist in his hand. He's breathing fast and I can smell the bourbon on his breath. "Where is
it?" He asks.
And I say, "Where is what, David?" He calms down a little then, mumbles something about losing his
mind and walks into the living room. I put the hot pan down, pull the mitt off, and follow after him.
He's already down on his hands and knees, running his hands through the shag carpeting. After each
brush he looks at his hand. Then he reaches up, rips the cushions off the couch and throws them onto
the floor.
I get indignant. I say, "You can't just barge in here any time you like and start tearing up the place. It
is my apartment, you know." He doesn't answer me. He just runs his fingertips along the inside edges
of the couch. "David," I say softly, "what's going on?" I go up to him, try to put my arms around him,
but his body stiffens, so I let go. He just stands there, staring at me like some sort of madman,
saying, "You don't understand, I've lost it. I've lost my ring." I'm not sympathetic.
"You did," I say. "Well, can't it wait? I was just about to have dinner."
"It's okay," he says. "You go ahead. You don't have to help... it's my concern." For a moment I feel like
taking David by the hand and leading him to the bureau, where his precious ring is. But I don't. I can
only think of her.
I step back into the kitchen, take a chicken leg out of the pan and place it on a plate. Then I sit down,
pick up the leg and bite into it.
"You're welcome to have some, David!" I shout out between bites.
"Already ate!" He yells back. I close my eyes and try to picture what their meals are like. But I can't. All
I can see is David sitting alone at a bare wooden table, staring at his hands.
I take my time, eating slowly, chewing carefully, counting my bites. When I finish I slide the bare bones
off my plate into the trash beneath the sink, wipe my mouth clean, and look to see where he's gotten
to.
I find him in the bedroom. He doesn't look good. His eyes seem wet, like he's about to start
blubbering. And his hair is sticking out in all different directions. He's pulled the sheets off the bed and
they're lying in a crumpled pile on the floor. He lifts the mattress and looks underneath it.
"I really don't see how it could have gotten under there, David," I say.
He looks at me with those wild eyes burning. "Think, think," he says, slamming his fist into his palm.
"Where did you see it last?" I think about the two of us cozy in bed together this morning, about
feeling close to him for an instant, a moment. And I stare at the pile of wrinkled sheets and then this
man that I don't really know. I wonder if he looks anything like my father, if there's really anything to
that.
"I've got it!" He says, snapping his fingers. "It was in my pants pocket. You made me take it off." He
looks around, then points to the bed post. "They were hanging there, right there." A regular Perry
Mason. He stoops down by the bedpost and feels around on the floor, at last reaching under the bed.
I walk over to the nightstand, pick up my cigarettes, my matches, and my Niagara Falls ashtray. Then I
sit down at the very edge of the bed. I set the ashtray on my knee and light a cigarette. Suddenly I'm
very cold. I say, "I think maybe I'm coming down with something." David doesn't hear me, even though
he's staring right at me.
"You did tell me to take it off, didn't you?" I'm looking at his corduroy pants and his corduroy jacket
with the patches and thinking how much I hate him.
He repeats himself, louder this time. "You did tell me to take it off, didn't you?"
"I don't know. I guess so."
"You haven't by any chance seen it, have you?"
I look at him now and think, I hate the sound of his voice, his smile, his smell. I hate his world that I'm
not a part of. I speak slowly: "Why would I have seen it? You said you put it in your pocket, didn't
you? A grown man and you can't even keep track of what's in your own pockets." I put my cigarette
out, stamping it down to nothing in the ashes. I leave the ashtray on the bare mattress and walk to
the bathroom slowly, counting my steps. I close the door, grab for the tissue, and place it under my
eyes, waiting. But no tears come.
When I come back out he's looking on top of the bureau, setting aside my jewelry, displacing and
carelessly replacing the bottles of perfume.
I don't know why I say it, but I do: "Which is more important to you, David, me or that ring?"
He starts, turns around, and looks at me bewildered, his eyes shining oddly.
"You mean you know where it is?" I don't say anything. I flick some cigarette ash into the ashtray.
"What, are you crazy or something? What does one thing have to do with the other? It's only a ring,
the ring, dammit, the ring I'm after!"
"Yes, the ring. You have your choice," I tell him. "What'll it be, David? The ring or me?"
He doesn't know what to say. He whispers my name softly, but I don't fall for it. He wants both, he
says, is that so hard to comprehend?
"You can't have both," I tell him.
"Why, for God's sake, why? It's only a goddamned ring we're talking about here. Come on. Be
serious." He steps over toward me, stands right in front of me. "Marcie, I don't understand. What's
happened? What's come over you?" He touches me then, just a touch on the arm, but I lose my head,
I become unraveled and start slapping him in the face with both hands as hard as I can, one after the
other. He's stumbling backwards, yelping like an injured dog. I follow him out of the bedroom, through
the living room, and into the kitchen, my arms still flying. I stop only when he's out the door, and he's
standing there on the sidewalk, rubbing his nose with one hand and pointing at me with the other,
saying, "Don't do this, Marcie, don't do this." A drop of blood trickles down from his nose onto his
white shirt. He wipes the nose with the back of his hand, stares at the streak of blood on it and in a
loud whisper says, "You stupid girl."
I close the door, leaving him out there.
About half an hour later I'm peering out from behind the curtains, half-expecting him to still be there.
But he's not. There are only the leaves which have fallen in his place.
When it gets dark I drive out to the mall. I drive into sparse clouds of fog that appear before the
headlights but vanish when I get to the spot where they seemed to be.
Inside the mall I walk past a man who looks like David, walking with his wife and pushing a stroller. His
wife's right there but he smiles at me anyway. I shudder and look away quickly, thinking of David's
touch.
I walk into a jewelry store. A boy of about my age comes up behind the circular counter and smiles. He
puts his hands on the glass counter top. He has nice hands, the skin smooth like a baby's.
"Can I help you with something?" He asks.
"Yes," I say, "I have something I'd like to sell." I reach into my purse, shuffle through the tissues and
lipsticks and scraps of paper and pens, afraid for a second that it's not there, that I've lost it. Then my
hand falls on it and I place it on the counter. We both stand there staring down at it for a moment, not
saying anything. But then, as he reaches for the box, I grab it back and tell him I'm sorry, I've made a
mistake, it's something I want to keep for a while. I put the box back into my purse and he smiles and
I tell him again that I'm sorry, I really am.
Driving home the fog has grown thicker. It's become a pillow that wraps around the car, that blocks all
sight, that smothers my breath. I have to drive very carefully, crawling behind where I think I see red
taillights ahead.
When I get home the first thing I do is take the package out of my purse. I unwrap the bloody scarf,
open the box and set it on the table. Then I go to the refrigerator, reach in for a leftover leg of
chicken. I pull out the milk carton, pour myself a cold glass of milk. I drink it too fast. It hurts my teeth.
I sit down at the table, stare at the ring, think of David, of her. I wonder what they're doing right now,
if they're warm and cozy in bed, if they're making love. I stare at the ring and I bite down hard on the
chicken leg, all the way down to the bone.
When I finish, I carefully wipe the grease from my lips, from my hands, and pick up the ring, take it out
of its box. I walk through the arch of the kitchen doorway, through the living room where David
crouches, running his fingers along the inside of the couch, into the bedroom, where he kneels,
running his hands along the bare wood floor under the bed, into the bathroom, where he does not
come, he does not follow. I stand there over the toilet with clenched fist, contemplating the water. I
feel weak now, but loosen my grip. The ring falls from my opened hand, entering the water with barely
a sound, disturbing the water's surface for just a moment before floating down to the bottom of the
bowl. Suddenly I feel dizzy, I feel the fog outside coming back, appearing first as scattered dots of light
which flash before my eyes, but then growing, the dots multiplying, overlapping until all I can see is
white light. I can barely see the water, the ring, the bottom. I feel myself falling but hold on, steadying
myself with one hand against the wall next to the toilet. Then I close my eyes, thinking of the soft
white hands of the boy at the jewelry store, and I reach down in my blindness, feeling with my other
hand for the stainless steel lever. I find it, take a deep breath, and flush.
He lies naked beside me, clinging to the pillow beneath his head. The thin white sheet lays over him,
covering only his lower portions — his feet, ankles, thighs. I reach down to the curve of his bare
buttocks, but stop myself from touching him, afraid that I'll wake him up.
I look at his face. In sleep the lines seem harsher now, the boyishness is all but gone, making way for
reality — the cloudy spots of gray, the sharp curve of his nose, the hairs growing out of the inside of
his ears, off the tip of his nose, the bags cutting deeply beneath each eye.
I look at his finger where the ring had been. He'd begun reaching, nibbling at my neck like it was some
kind of soft cheese, moments after he'd arrived this morning. I'd pushed him away gently. I'd told him
to stop. The feel of the gold had been too cold, too hard. He hadn't gotten angry. He'd just stood
back, startled, hurt. I'd violated our understanding. We weren't to talk about it. But finally he'd
shrugged and slipped it into the pocket of his corduroys. And instantly the shy smile had returned, and
then the reaching and the nibbling.
Now I watch him as he sleeps so soundly, peacefully, so unconcerned, so unaffected by it all. I get up
out of bed. The wood is cold under my feet and I hug myself to stay warm. I walk around to the
bedpost where his jacket and his pants are hanging. I reach into the pockets of the pants, searching
for it, jiggling keys, coins, and then find it, picking it out on my thumb. It makes me think of that
nursery rhyme, the one where "he stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum..." And I think, it's been a
long, long time since nursery rhymes.
I look at David, make sure he's still asleep. Then I toss it lightly, feeling the weight of the circle on my
hand. I slip it onto my ring finger, but of course it's much too big. Then I close my fist around it and
walk two steps to the bureau. I'm opening the top drawer when I look up to see this awkward figure,
this gangly-limbed girl standing there naked in the mirror. I bat my lashes, but for a second I don't
recognize the face, it seems like someone else's. I try to read the face, to determine what it's feeling,
but I can't. It's too tentative, too confused.
I stick my hands in the drawer, reaching, groping. In a moment I've found what I've been looking for. I
open the green hinged jewelry box with its gold-embossed heart, pull out the earrings — opals he gave
me last Christmas — and throw them into the drawer along with the mess of dead letters and greeting
cards I've abandoned there. Then I carefully place the ring in the box and snap the lid shut. Next I walk
three steps to the closet and find the awful blood-red scarf that my mother brought for me from Paris,
the one I've never worn. I wrap it tightly around the box, and then shove the whole thing into the back
of the bureau drawer, covering it with old mail. I push the drawer in and think that one of these days I
ought to go through everything in there, get rid of some of the clutter.
I walk back to the bed, light a cigarette and reach for the remote control. I switch on the TV, but keep
the sound off. A game show's on. A woman's jumping up and down and then the shot moves to the
audience. The people are sitting there in neat rows, smiling and clapping and nodding, and a picture of
a new car starts flashing on the screen, and then the picture goes back to the jumping woman, and
then back to the smilers and nodders and clappers. I lie there, staring dully at the TV, thinking this is
not real, nothing is real. After a while I find myself studying the orangeish glow at the end of the
cigarette, watching it burn down slowly to my thumb and forefinger.
That's how I am when David wakes up. Lying there, not thinking about anything. Just feeling, I don't
know, funny. He gets up quickly, whistles, picks up his shirt from the floor, throws it over his back,
buttons up all the buttons. I watch him dress and, after a while, say, "Do you really have to go?" Like
I'm supposed to, and he says, "Yes, I really do," like he's supposed to, and it's all done, we've said our
lines. He's not even looking at me, hasn't looked at me since he opened his eyes.
He's patting his hair into place, gazing into the mirror. He turns around then and says, "Do you think I
look all right?"
"You look wonderful," I tell him, but only because it's what he wants, it's what he expects.
In the afternoon I wash dishes, I do laundry, running up and down basement stairs, folding blouses,
jeans, socks, and underwear, putting them all in their proper places. I start letters to friends but wind
up tearing them up. They're so mundane. My life's so mundane. Except for him.
In the afternoon I don't know how many times I find myself back in the bedroom, back in that drawer,
reaching in and pulling out that circle, tossing it gently in the air, feeling its weight, its substance. I put
it against my lips, rub the cool metal surface against them. Then I get scared, I see myself in the
mirror, that image of me that I don't know. And with shaky hands I place the ring back into the box,
shut the lid, wrap and hide it away again.
In the evening I'm just taking the chicken out of the oven when David walks through the kitchen door
unannounced, his face red, the muscles of his neck taut like two cords of rope. I'm standing there with
an oven mitt on, holding a hot pan and he comes right up to me, six inches from me and stops,
holding his fist in his hand. He's breathing fast and I can smell the bourbon on his breath. "Where is
it?" He asks.
And I say, "Where is what, David?" He calms down a little then, mumbles something about losing his
mind and walks into the living room. I put the hot pan down, pull the mitt off, and follow after him.
He's already down on his hands and knees, running his hands through the shag carpeting. After each
brush he looks at his hand. Then he reaches up, rips the cushions off the couch and throws them onto
the floor.
I get indignant. I say, "You can't just barge in here any time you like and start tearing up the place. It
is my apartment, you know." He doesn't answer me. He just runs his fingertips along the inside edges
of the couch. "David," I say softly, "what's going on?" I go up to him, try to put my arms around him,
but his body stiffens, so I let go. He just stands there, staring at me like some sort of madman,
saying, "You don't understand, I've lost it. I've lost my ring." I'm not sympathetic.
"You did," I say. "Well, can't it wait? I was just about to have dinner."
"It's okay," he says. "You go ahead. You don't have to help... it's my concern." For a moment I feel like
taking David by the hand and leading him to the bureau, where his precious ring is. But I don't. I can
only think of her.
I step back into the kitchen, take a chicken leg out of the pan and place it on a plate. Then I sit down,
pick up the leg and bite into it.
"You're welcome to have some, David!" I shout out between bites.
"Already ate!" He yells back. I close my eyes and try to picture what their meals are like. But I can't. All
I can see is David sitting alone at a bare wooden table, staring at his hands.
I take my time, eating slowly, chewing carefully, counting my bites. When I finish I slide the bare bones
off my plate into the trash beneath the sink, wipe my mouth clean, and look to see where he's gotten
to.
I find him in the bedroom. He doesn't look good. His eyes seem wet, like he's about to start
blubbering. And his hair is sticking out in all different directions. He's pulled the sheets off the bed and
they're lying in a crumpled pile on the floor. He lifts the mattress and looks underneath it.
"I really don't see how it could have gotten under there, David," I say.
He looks at me with those wild eyes burning. "Think, think," he says, slamming his fist into his palm.
"Where did you see it last?" I think about the two of us cozy in bed together this morning, about
feeling close to him for an instant, a moment. And I stare at the pile of wrinkled sheets and then this
man that I don't really know. I wonder if he looks anything like my father, if there's really anything to
that.
"I've got it!" He says, snapping his fingers. "It was in my pants pocket. You made me take it off." He
looks around, then points to the bed post. "They were hanging there, right there." A regular Perry
Mason. He stoops down by the bedpost and feels around on the floor, at last reaching under the bed.
I walk over to the nightstand, pick up my cigarettes, my matches, and my Niagara Falls ashtray. Then I
sit down at the very edge of the bed. I set the ashtray on my knee and light a cigarette. Suddenly I'm
very cold. I say, "I think maybe I'm coming down with something." David doesn't hear me, even though
he's staring right at me.
"You did tell me to take it off, didn't you?" I'm looking at his corduroy pants and his corduroy jacket
with the patches and thinking how much I hate him.
He repeats himself, louder this time. "You did tell me to take it off, didn't you?"
"I don't know. I guess so."
"You haven't by any chance seen it, have you?"
I look at him now and think, I hate the sound of his voice, his smile, his smell. I hate his world that I'm
not a part of. I speak slowly: "Why would I have seen it? You said you put it in your pocket, didn't
you? A grown man and you can't even keep track of what's in your own pockets." I put my cigarette
out, stamping it down to nothing in the ashes. I leave the ashtray on the bare mattress and walk to
the bathroom slowly, counting my steps. I close the door, grab for the tissue, and place it under my
eyes, waiting. But no tears come.
When I come back out he's looking on top of the bureau, setting aside my jewelry, displacing and
carelessly replacing the bottles of perfume.
I don't know why I say it, but I do: "Which is more important to you, David, me or that ring?"
He starts, turns around, and looks at me bewildered, his eyes shining oddly.
"You mean you know where it is?" I don't say anything. I flick some cigarette ash into the ashtray.
"What, are you crazy or something? What does one thing have to do with the other? It's only a ring,
the ring, dammit, the ring I'm after!"
"Yes, the ring. You have your choice," I tell him. "What'll it be, David? The ring or me?"
He doesn't know what to say. He whispers my name softly, but I don't fall for it. He wants both, he
says, is that so hard to comprehend?
"You can't have both," I tell him.
"Why, for God's sake, why? It's only a goddamned ring we're talking about here. Come on. Be
serious." He steps over toward me, stands right in front of me. "Marcie, I don't understand. What's
happened? What's come over you?" He touches me then, just a touch on the arm, but I lose my head,
I become unraveled and start slapping him in the face with both hands as hard as I can, one after the
other. He's stumbling backwards, yelping like an injured dog. I follow him out of the bedroom, through
the living room, and into the kitchen, my arms still flying. I stop only when he's out the door, and he's
standing there on the sidewalk, rubbing his nose with one hand and pointing at me with the other,
saying, "Don't do this, Marcie, don't do this." A drop of blood trickles down from his nose onto his
white shirt. He wipes the nose with the back of his hand, stares at the streak of blood on it and in a
loud whisper says, "You stupid girl."
I close the door, leaving him out there.
About half an hour later I'm peering out from behind the curtains, half-expecting him to still be there.
But he's not. There are only the leaves which have fallen in his place.
When it gets dark I drive out to the mall. I drive into sparse clouds of fog that appear before the
headlights but vanish when I get to the spot where they seemed to be.
Inside the mall I walk past a man who looks like David, walking with his wife and pushing a stroller. His
wife's right there but he smiles at me anyway. I shudder and look away quickly, thinking of David's
touch.
I walk into a jewelry store. A boy of about my age comes up behind the circular counter and smiles. He
puts his hands on the glass counter top. He has nice hands, the skin smooth like a baby's.
"Can I help you with something?" He asks.
"Yes," I say, "I have something I'd like to sell." I reach into my purse, shuffle through the tissues and
lipsticks and scraps of paper and pens, afraid for a second that it's not there, that I've lost it. Then my
hand falls on it and I place it on the counter. We both stand there staring down at it for a moment, not
saying anything. But then, as he reaches for the box, I grab it back and tell him I'm sorry, I've made a
mistake, it's something I want to keep for a while. I put the box back into my purse and he smiles and
I tell him again that I'm sorry, I really am.
Driving home the fog has grown thicker. It's become a pillow that wraps around the car, that blocks all
sight, that smothers my breath. I have to drive very carefully, crawling behind where I think I see red
taillights ahead.
When I get home the first thing I do is take the package out of my purse. I unwrap the bloody scarf,
open the box and set it on the table. Then I go to the refrigerator, reach in for a leftover leg of
chicken. I pull out the milk carton, pour myself a cold glass of milk. I drink it too fast. It hurts my teeth.
I sit down at the table, stare at the ring, think of David, of her. I wonder what they're doing right now,
if they're warm and cozy in bed, if they're making love. I stare at the ring and I bite down hard on the
chicken leg, all the way down to the bone.
When I finish, I carefully wipe the grease from my lips, from my hands, and pick up the ring, take it out
of its box. I walk through the arch of the kitchen doorway, through the living room where David
crouches, running his fingers along the inside of the couch, into the bedroom, where he kneels,
running his hands along the bare wood floor under the bed, into the bathroom, where he does not
come, he does not follow. I stand there over the toilet with clenched fist, contemplating the water. I
feel weak now, but loosen my grip. The ring falls from my opened hand, entering the water with barely
a sound, disturbing the water's surface for just a moment before floating down to the bottom of the
bowl. Suddenly I feel dizzy, I feel the fog outside coming back, appearing first as scattered dots of light
which flash before my eyes, but then growing, the dots multiplying, overlapping until all I can see is
white light. I can barely see the water, the ring, the bottom. I feel myself falling but hold on, steadying
myself with one hand against the wall next to the toilet. Then I close my eyes, thinking of the soft
white hands of the boy at the jewelry store, and I reach down in my blindness, feeling with my other
hand for the stainless steel lever. I find it, take a deep breath, and flush.
Mitchell Waldman
