Thy Neighbor Read Online Free Page A

self-pity, which was not welcome to me or to her.
    For her it wasn’t even in the repertoire.
    That was Monica. And there was I, being led, because I had no idea what to do with her or anyone like her, going as I had for so long, by gravity of impulse, down; the vertigo gaining in the turns, the spiral closing, faster and farther, heavy to the core with a collapse that never quite occurs.
    But almost.
    You say it with that reaching inclination in your voice.
    Almost
.
    And you get the torque of it close enough.
----
    On that first night, she sat by the window afterward, nude, and we finally squeaked out a few words, the first of which were just a bad joke.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” I said and laughed.
    It was what I wanted to know, and all I could really think to ask at first, maybe because it seemed I knew so much else already without asking. That was an illusion, of course, as it always is—the thinking I knew—but partly true as well, as it also always is. I knew the mood and the implications, but none of the details.
    The reverse of what usually happens.
    But I also had my hand inside her back, and my thumb and pinky in her sleeves, doing the mirror puppetry of all such encounters, making her up out of cloth, animating in accordance with my need.
    She made this easier by saying nothing, giving away nothing but the vague auguries of a confidence trickster.
    Belief does all the work.
    She could have been anyone. She was anyone, and then became the someone I had scripted for her. The empty actor, filled by an imaginary role, makes it real. But the role is only as real as our categories, like taking a sky full of stars and seeing shapes in them, and then traits, and charts of personality and influence. It was all use and projection, but that is all it ever is, until the gun goes off or the blade goes in, intimate and clean.
    Her voice was high and thin when she said her name, as if the sound was coming through a reed from a long way away.
    â€œMy name is Monica,” she said, still looking out, her face a sketch of shadows turned away. “And yours is Nick Walsh.”
    There was no bait in the way she said this, but I wouldn’t have taken it anyway. I was arrogant enough to presume that everyone at the Swan knew me, if not by name, then by sight and sordid reputation. She could have asked just about anyone and gotten the worst about me by rote.
    â€œYes,” I said. “I’m Nick.”
    She wasn’t coy in pursuing it. She didn’t ask me if I wanted to know how she knew me. It didn’t matter to either of us, and neither of us was pretending that it did. We didn’t say superfluous things. That much had been established already, and it was the best part. No parries. No feints. Only sharp points coming straight on.
    Just ask what you want to know and get an answer. Say what’s on your mind and take the same back, harsh as it would come. How many people can you do that with? I can’t think of one. Even Dave has to be humored with topical avoidance and kept in his sustaining myths like a pot roast trussed with string.
    But Monica was just bullish in her quietude, like a T-shirt that says, GO FUCK YOURSELF IF YOU CAN’T TAKE IT , except that she was much too confident to swear or need signage. The announcement made itself in slow moves and few words, and in her dancer’s posture, which, to be honest, was just a bit too this side of Mia Farrow unhinged for my taste, but not enough to tear me from the pull of her. There was something creepy there, no doubt, as if she had a plan and was taking her time, or like she knew she could have you killed with a nod, so why hurry? Why even raise your voice? It was weird, but good cult movie weird, and I liked it.
    I just did.
    It fit into the part of me that no one sees and that the foulmouthed clown in the polo shirt strenuously conceals. With her, I was coming as close as I ever have or can to being myself. Whoever