1
The Changing Room
By Elizabeth Savage
The Changing Room was the only place you could get your
ether and sundry barbiturates on a consistent basis. To call it
smoke saturated would’ve been a gross understatement: you
could barely see three feet deep. She was careful to slump her
t shoulders as she glided through, breathing shallow, anxious to
keep the outside out and her insides in. The sound of a
heartbeat, superimposed over rhythmic metallic clangs and
screeches, muffled the sound of people, glasses breaking,
everything.
She placed both hands upon the bar. She felt like she
was wearing ice skates. She leaned over.
“I WANT TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER.”
“WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?” The
password.
“RED, SOFT RED.”
The barkeep folded forearms like big raw slabs of
horse-meat, hiked tiny black eyebrows a little higher on a
glistening dome of forehead. He leaned over to her ear,
pressed his lips against it, said,
“You’re a smart girl...w hy...”
“PLEASE.” He handed her a key the size of her
hand.
She swam past the dead, let herself be swallowed into
the small passageway, sucked deeper and deeper until finally
there was no smoke, no noise, only a tiny white room and
clean softness. Her brother sat in a hanging chair, cross-
legged so he looked like he was suspended in a water droplet.
In his lap he held a small plant. He was on the phone. He
glanced up without recognition.
“Billy.”
He covered the receiver. “Please don’t call me that
around here.”
“I’m sorry. Clay. Um, how are you? You look....”
“What do you want.” She studied the eerie regularity
of his features, and wondered again if it were true. That
would make him only her half-brother. That would make
more sense. He wore small oval glasses, although he could
afford to have his vision corrected. He could afford anything.
It was just him. Her brother had alw ays had glasses, along
countenance of subzero. These things were holdovers, tributes
to a time when he couldn’t afford anything else.
“How’s business? Business good?”
"It’s fine. What do you want.” She wondered if Billy
had any friends around here, and if he talked to them this way.
She wondered what his lovers were like. Quiet, probably. And
clean. She didn’t think he hit any. He wouldn’t have to.
“I’m looking for someone.” She waited. “You know
him.”
‘This isn’t about that.... Bndgeman character, is it?”
“Y es...that’s right.”
He allowed himself a disappointed glare, and spoke
into the phone. “Search for Bndgeman, first name...” He
looked at her distractedly. He didn’t even remember.
“Sam.”
“Samuel. Yes. Yes, that’s what I thought. No,
that’s fine.” He hung up. “What did you want to know, if you
could clear his debts? More charity work?”
She nodded. Her mouth hung open.
“You’re too late. He was sent away a few weeks
ago.”
“Where?”
“Northern Territory. He’s been put on watch. It’ll
help clear his system.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”
Clay’s small hands removed the glasses from his
smooth round face and began to clean them with a small white
cloth. The manicured thumbs made slow circular motions on
the small glass ovals. He squinted down at the hands as if he
had never seen them before. The room now consisted entirely
of Clay Martin and his fingers, of Clay Martin and the act of
cleaning glasses, which, for all intents and purposes, could
take him all night. She backed out of the room, careful not to
make any sudden movements.
. She found herself in an alleyway, standing on a
piece of sewer grating. Steam rose up around her. If Sam
were dead already, she’d know. Her insides would know.
Somewhere in the duodenum or the Golgi apparatus, there
would be a flip of something very much resembling a light
switch, complete with the words on and off. The switch, of
course, would be from on to off,, at which point everything
would change. She began to walk, hands clenched in the
pockets of her thin, useless jacket, the left arm of which bore
the insignia of one of the old armies. It made her think of
another time, of strength and purity, squinting men with big
square chins, large hands, high ideals, maps and plans, the
color green.
When she tripped she fell in the dirty gray slush, her
chin scraped against the curb. Her left side was soaked
through. For some reason that made her feel as if she should
wait for someone to come along. After twenty seconds of
paralytic stillness, during which time slowed and was
punctuated by her deliberate, steaming breaths, she realized
that no one would. She could wait there all night, the muck
seeping deeper and deeper until it soaked through the skin and
muscle and into the bone and cartilige and on to her internal
organs. It could do that and still no one would come.
Grudgingly, she lifted herself up; the rest of the walk home,
she tried to hum all of the Christmas Carols she could
remember. That was only seven.
Home looked the same as always, the yellow
streamers still shouted CAUTION, DO NOT ENTER, the red
ones, POLICE LINE, DO NOT CROSS. They shouted these
things over and over, without beginning or end, so that the
sentences bled together (caution-do-not-enler-caution-do-not-
enter), (police-line-do-not-cross-police linedo-not-cross). In
parts, the red streamers said CROSS POLICE, and in parts, the
yellow ones said ENTER CAUTION. They negated
themselves through repetition, they were meaningless. She lit
candles in the room she inhabited, out of which she had
created a bedroom (a mattress) and kitchen (a coffee maker,
some non-perishables.) The rest of the house remained as she
found it. She had allowed herself one risk: an antique audio­
tape-player/ radio. Of course the radio didn’t work, but the
tape player did. She had found it in a pile of rotting clothes
and toys. She kept to one room of the slouching, burnt-out
mock-Victorian; she could not bnng herself through the
doorways of the other rooms, or worse, up the steps to the
second floor. The house was brimming with the ghosts of
whoever had lived here before. They still had pictures on the
wall, everything. She knew that there might have been
valuables left behind somewhere, but she felt wrong about
looking. It had been bad enough clearing this room (the living
room) out, making the smell go away, covering the ugly
wallpaper with old newspaper, anything so long as it wasn’t
theirs. Funny, then, that she was able to listen to the tapes:
Mozart, Wagner, and Chopin. Their music belonged to a
distant past—it was the scribbling of madmen with funny hair
and fine clothes and no inkling that their music would be
heard in this future, by this family. The Larsens: it said so on
all their mail, scraps of which was spread all over the hallway.
The pictures she tried not to look at were so beautifully
normal, so remote. Soccer team, spelling bee, camping trip.
It made her feel sick.
Moving slowly to a nocturne, she peeled off her
clothes, feeling wretched and cold and unhappy. She slipped a
nightshirt over her head. / wish I had a picture o f Sam. I f I
only had a picture, that would make him real. Now I have no
proof that he ever existed.
It was true. He had left no clothes (he only ow ned
one pair) but he had taken his notebook, too, and that was
what made her think he had known he was going away. But
why wouldn’t he have told her if he had known? It couldn’t
be possible that it was his way to leave the woman he
supposedly loved...silently, and without warning. She sunk
onto her mattress, breathed his smell as her face touched the
pillow. So that's still here. But soon that, too, w'ould be gone.
She considered taking off the pillowcase and placing it in
some kind of airtight container. Ten years from now, if she
were still alive, she could sneak into the closet, crack open the
container, inhale deeply, and Sam would be back.
Or maybe he would come back inside the month, and
be changed, healthy, and clean. But that’s so ridiculous. Ever
since you 've known him, he's been a variation on waxy white:
sometimes more yellow, sometimes more blue, sometimes
green. He's always freezing, h e’s emaciated, there are big
dark hollows where his eyes should be. He's the saddest thing
you've ever seen. He needs you, terribly.
She pulled the covers over her shoulder and rolled
over, pulling her knees to her chest. She pictured her huddled
form from outside the bed: an embryo. From across the
room: a kitten. From down the hall: a potato bug. She
pictured the outside of the house from across the street: a
rotting carcass. From down the street: a doll’s house. Really,
there is no one to talk to.
From a mile away: a speck of dirt. No one at all.
C RECON COAST
SUPPORT C RO UP
R .O . B O X 9 0
C A N N O N B EA C H
O R EC O N
• ? » IO
DUEBER’S
SANDHPER
SQl l/\RE
SANDPIPER SQUARE
Women's Boutique
436-1718
A Gift Store
f o r the Entire Family
436-2271
SANDPIPER SQUARE
Comfortable, Classy
Clothing
f o r Men A Hitmen
436-2366
DUEBER
SANDPIPER SQUARE
Home Gift Boutique
436-2723
F A M IL Y
STO RES
X Little Bit o f the Best o f Everything
Wednesday on the bus.
By Klew
Wednesday was yet another uncharacteristically cool and gray summer day here
in Portland...at least that’s what I told myself as the number 14 bus pulled away
from the curb. Actually, that’s what I ’ve told myself every cool, gray summer
day for the last 25 years. I’ve lived in the Willamette Valley for a long time
now, but some primitive part of me still remembers lurching around the
Serengeti under the African sun, busily growing a larger brain case, twiddling
newly opposable thumbs and learning how to walk on two legs without falling
over. Humans evolved in warm places damn it, and, at 48, how did I end up
living here in the damp of Oregon for longer than I haven’t? The answer is, of
course, that I like it here, for the most part, and I want to be near the people I
love, many of who live here abouts.. .and that’s how that conversation always
ends. In reality, sulking about the weather is just a game the curmudgeonly part
of my personality likes to play, except for the days that the weather really
annoys me. On those days, I can take “sulk” to new heights...or is that lows?
As the bus lumbered along, I stared out the window, another desk jockey
disgorged from the glass and brick canyons of downtown heading over the
river towards home and a cold beer. In the seats behind me, one of those
parent-child conversations was unfolding. The topic’s never really clear,
but the structure of the dialogue was unmistakable. Man-child whines, “But
Daaaaad...” You can hear the tension in Dad’s jaw twisting the words: “That’s
not what your mom and I agreed to when I picked you up. Enough.”
Yikes, maybe it’s time to move. Traveling regularly on the bus. I’ve heard
far too many conversations that start like this and go downhill really fast.
Some days I hate mass transit.
At the next stop a crunch of commuters climbed on board, filling the bus.
Damn!! I ’d waited too long to make my escape. Behind me, the conversation
had paused for a moment of stony, sullen silence; across the aisle, a
newspaper rattled. “Hey, can I look at the sports page?” Dad’s voice was
full of relief...he’d probably heard somewhere that good parents should
distract tired and whiney children rather than allowing the conversation to
escalate into a quarrel. After all, it’s past five — the kid’s probably
worn-out and hungry, just like everybody else on the bus. The newspaper
owner rattled about a bit more before sharing, “Now, I’ll want that back
when I get off.”
Well, I don’t do the sports page except during baseball season. And
baseball is why I remembered Wednesday’s sports lead. At a news conference
the day before. Cal Ripkin announced that he is leaving baseball after 18
years with the Baltimore Orioles. I remembered the article and the photo of
Ripkin, blue-eyed and graying. But Dad didn’t mention Cal. Instead, I
heard the little crunchy noises of paper being folded against itself, and
then Dad said, “Look, these are the box scores. Let’s read ’em.” And he
slowly read through the scores with his son, picking various players to use
in explaining the terms, the initials, the numbers. The kid must have been
paying attention, because he asked good questions, the kind of questions
people ask when they are interested but totally unfamiliar with what they
are asking about.
They worked their way around the page, their voices fading into the
background as I spaced out. I remembered my Mom listening to baseball games
on the radio when I was a kid. Her eyes would move to follow the plays as
she stirred something or other that was supposed to feed four but had to be
stretched to feed seven. That woman still loves baseball with a fierce and
determined passion.
501 4 1 « 0 1 2 7
O i 2 4 8 48SC&
FA X 2 0 2 2 4 8 7 / 1 f r
DUANE JOHNSON
F IM . ESTATE
“Every sentence I utter
must be understood not as
an affirmation, but as a
question.” Niels Bohr
With such a mother, you’d think I would have been a baseball fan from the
get-go, but it wasn’t until I moved to Eugene, and started watching the
local farm team play in one of the loveliest civic stadiums in the country,
that I grew to love the game. It was an old-fashioned baseball stadium,
with a wooden shell arching over the bleachers along the first and third
baselines. A ten-foot plywood wall covered with advertisements from local
sponsors kept the king grounders that sneak through the holes in the
outfielders’ gloves from rolling on into Amazon Creek and floating off to
new adventures. When you sat in the stands with a cold Rainer in your hand,
looking out over home plate towards the Cascade foothills, the warm golden
light of an Oregon afternoon spilling across the field, shimmering in the
dust raised by a slide into second base...well, life was very, very good. And
the fact that the Ems rarely won never mattered. I was raised to root for
the home team, and root I did.
Dad finished up the baseball lecture, unfolding and refolding the paper,
getting ready to hand it back. He said, “Now look at this . Cal Ripkin is
retiring. This man is a great ballplayer, a great human being.” The kid
said, “Yeah, he was in the box scores, huh Dad.”
..""
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John Steinbeck
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