Matthew Licht

Overheard, Overlooked

Mother didn’t waste any time when Father took off and left us. Her taste in men deteriorated sharply. That was only my opinion, however. To judge from the sounds that emanated from her throat and other orifices, and her room, which was uncomfortably next to mine, she enjoyed her new mate with considerably greater volume and vigor than I’d experienced when life at home was still normal. 

The neighbors upstairs could hear. Maybe the ones around the block as well.

Though I knew it wasn’t possible, I was sure the other girls at school could hear her too. They’d say, my mother would never make sounds like that. And I was mortified for no reason.

He never made a sound, might as well not have been there. I can’t say what would’ve been more disturbing, his presence with, or his absence from her.

He claimed to be a writer, although I never saw him write anything, or even do so much as pick up a pencil. He wasn’t famous, and was most likely unemployed, otherwise he wouldn’t have had so much time to spend with Mother in her boudoir.

At other times, he sat in the living room and pretended to think. Stared into space so anyone present might suppose he was involved with plot and character. Mother said not to disturb him. Clearly, I alone saw through this charade. 

Some time after he’d installed himself, when it was obvious I wouldn’t dematerialize or go away on my own, he made various approaches, in the form of recommendations of books he thought I ought to read.

He stopped after I told him what I thought of his proposed sacred texts, Naked Lunch and Lolita. 

He never behaved inappropriately, however. He was trying to be friendly. Which was even creepier.

One evening he suggested we go out for dinner and a movie. He wanted to see The Shining. The reviews were panegyric.

“Stephen King,” I said. “Now there’s a real writer.”

He shot me a strange and knowing look. 

To my disappointment, the movie was nothing like the book. Some people’s innate ability to speak silently to those similarly gifted, and to hear the thoughts of others, living and dead, is incompletely explored. But I identified strongly with the weird little boy, who was nothing like me, and the hysterical freak who was nothing like my mother. The writer on the screen was the identical twin of the fellow who’d occupied my father’s spot on their loudly complaining mattress, and I told him I thought so. “You’re just like him. Except for the typewriter. You don’t even have a typewriter. I bet you don’t even know how to type.”

“Well you’re right about that. So…you think I’m crazy, huh?”

“Yes, I do. And no doubt even worse than that.”

He smirked, raised an eyebrow exactly like a frame from the movie we’d just endured. A shudder ran through me, which he caught.

“Not too smart, to tell someone whom you think might be insane that you think he’s nuts. Especially if he’s a writer.”

“You’re no writer. Stephen King’s a writer. He works hard, and sells millions of books. And I hope that scary bear from the final scene comes and devours you so I never have to hear…so I never have to see you again.”

He looked at Mother, who tried to seem appalled at my outburst. “Hear that?” he said. “She wants the bear to eat me.”

He growled like a bear, and licked his teeth with his repulsive tongue. Mother giggled. I covered my ears, closed my eyes and shook my head.

That night, the apartment echoed with bestial roars and moans from the depths of my worst nightmares.

From that horrible evening on, whenever he suggested restaurants or the cinema, I said I felt unwell. 

Since he’d failed to influence my taste in literature and film, he might’ve thought he could push his crude aesthetics my way. 

One of Mother’s friends had been awarded a show at a gallery located on an avenue known for really important art galleries. We were on our way to join her there for the opening. 

Some contemporary art charlatan had filled one of the gallery shop windows with a rotten mattress dredged up from the river, covered with greenish-brown stains and remnant sewer-weed. He or she’d tied it in half, so it looked like what the hippie girls at school see when they give themselves gynecological exams with their handmirrors. 

He noticed I was looking at this thing and must’ve read my thoughts. He stopped, pointed, leered. “Hey what’s that remind you of?”

Didn’t even think about it. “Your face,” I said. 

A moment passed, in which I thought he might pull a cleaver from his coat. Instead, he laughed maniacally. 

“That’s good,” he said. “You’re ready to face the world.”

The writer took off not long after that incident. Mother was inconsolable. Disgusted with men, she bought a dog, and called him Culo.

Culo was unusual. Unusually large, for starters, and he tended to stare at one. Without even opening that big slobbering mouth of his, which looked disturbingly like an engorged, diseased vagina, he told me, “You’re the writer. Don’t worry if you can’t think of what to write. I’ll tell you.”