Chapter Eleven
Nell moves in with Cullen
Cullen
rode the bus from downtown to the University. This particular bus gave him the
sensation of flying. It was the
Fredericksburg Expressway Skip Stop.
It made four stops: downtown, at the intersection of
He
faced almost directly at a window pillar.
His right eye saw the cabin and the backs of heads, and his left eye saw
the strip malls give way to hi-rises.
He appreciated the symmetry of this view. People gave up trying to stay awake over
the engine drone and CO-laden air, and the City of
The
University stop was the last, and Cullen didn’t see that most people got
off at the
The
rush hour jam came into full swing about thirty minutes prior, so the bus would
spend three hours trying to backtrack a few miles to the
He
continued walking as nearly a straight line as he could muster, given the
haphazard layout of the building complex.
The studios were nearly empty.
Students had started taking early departures in the name of Spring
Break, so no one saw Cullen enter his studio. His long, straight black hair fell on
all sides of his head, and moved in sync with his steps towards his bungalow. His hair drifted last when he came to a
halt. He saw Nell Stanley.
She
sat on his steps, waiting as patiently as one would wait for the sun to
nova. Cullen’s brain tried to
process the chemicals that would make him feel that gentle kind of sadness. It tried to communicate to the being
known as Culhwch Esau that that sadness was the
knowledge that Nell’s presence, on those steps, was temporary. His house was temporary, as was the
studio, their lives, the earth, and the sun. Part of him that he didn’t know
about tried to tell him that what he saw right now was among the most beautiful
things that he would ever see.
There would be rare moments in his life, and that he had to cherish them
now, before he died and never experienced them again.
He
felt none of that. He felt
nothing. That made him, in the eyes
of people like Zaid, a monster to be fixed.
Nell
thought none of it either, even though she knew more about it that even Zaid could know.
“Hello, Culhwch.”
“Hi.”
“Mind
if I move in with you?”
“You
can.”
She
nodded and stood up.
“Thanks. When can I move
my stuff in?”
“Whenever you want.”
She
smiled, and held back tears. The
efficiency of this conversation became unbearable. She walked to Cullen, and just stood
there, smiling. She knew what it
must feel like for Zaid, to want to hug this man that
could not know what a hug meant.
She also knew why Cullen could not know, but Zaid
did not. She said, “I’m
going to live with you for at least a year. It’ll piss off Zaid
to no end to see us together.”
“All right.”
“I
feel like I have to say this, even though I know you’re the last person
that this needs to be told to, but…we’re not gonna
have sex. We’re not a couple,
and we’re not even going to sleep in this same bed. Despite that, I’m going to move as
much as I my stuff into the house, and then move it all out again. Can you move the house back to where you
got it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. When’s a good time to start moving
my stuff?”
“Anytime.”
She
nodded. “Let’s get
started.”
They
walked to the garage, and they drove each in their own car to her apartment. In her apartment, she told him,
“Move everything that can fit in your car. Start with the living room and move
towards the dining room.”
He
started with the electronics and books.
He moved to the cushions, blankets, and small pieces of furniture. Meanwhile, she knocked on a
neighbor’s door, and asked to borrow their pickup truck. With their keys and her toolbox, she
began disassembling bookcases.
Together, she and Cullen moved the couch down to the truck. When the truck had her bedroom and
dining sets, all in flattened into components, he resumed packing the rest of
the car, while she began packing all her clothes and personal items into her
car. They spoke only when it was
necessary, and the speed of their operation impressed her. The event had a feeling of evacuation
rather than moving, even though Nell realized that this was more like fleeing
than anything else.
When
all their cars were full, they drove back to school, and using Cullen’s
passageway, moved her stuff into his house. Her living and bedroom furniture
occupied one whole room. The dining
set went out into the interior courtyard, unusual for a bungalow, but given
what else he had done to the house, it was harmlessly pleasant.
He
remained at his house, working, while she drove back to the apartment, gave
back the truck, and drove her car back to school. The sun had set by this point, and she
felt exhausted. In maybe an hour or
so, it would be exactly twelve hours since her encounter with the Head of
Administration.
They
spent the evening in silence. He
clicked away at a school project on his computer, while she reviewed her own
schoolwork. None of it seemed
important now.
Her
mind focused on canceling utilities, getting a new cell phone, letting her
parents know—eventually—what she had done, and so forth. Then, a new thought entered her mind:
what to do after graduation? She
decided to confide in Cullen.
“Excuse me?”
Cullen’s
computer was in the living room, arranged so that he could see out the windows
into the rest of the studio. He sat
with his back to the kitchen and interior courtyard. The front entryway was to rear
left. He finished moving some walls
on his computer program.
“Yes?”
“Any suggestions, on what to do after
graduation?”
He
kept on working. “What do you
mean?”
“For me. Like,
working.”
“No.”
She
looked down at her books for a moment, then she looked
back at Cullen’s head.
“What are you planning to do for the summer?”
“Work.”
“Do
you have a job lined up?”
“I
have a job now, but if they lay me off, I will find another.”
“How
can you be so sure?”
“There
cannot be a doubt about working.”
His
words struck Nell as strong, though awkwardly chosen. She decided to be more personal. “Does Zaid
know?”
“About me working? She
probably does.”
“Do
you two talk a lot?”
“She
talks.”
“What
about you?”
All
he did was click away for a while, before responding. “Less so.”
She
went to bed after that. When she
woke up, she smelt eggs and bacon being cooked. She walked to the kitchen to see him
cooking. He had a gas line hooked up
to the house as well as power. He
cooked breakfast over a regular stove, like it was any other house. The windows were open, and he had set up
fans to create greater air flow. He
exhausted the heat through an opening in the ceiling as well. Without looking at her, he asked,
“Do you want some breakfast, too?”
She
raised her eyebrows. “Uh, yeah, sure.
I brought food from my old fridge.
Feel free to just fry up whatever you want to cook up.”
He
removed his breakfast from the pan, and walked over to the fridge to get more
bacon and eggs. He cooked the bacon
and scrambled the eggs, and added his old breakfast into the pan, to warm it
up. He walked over to the cabinetry
and got two plates. After he
divided the breakfast, he walked out into the interior courtyard. Nell followed him.
He
had a table and chair set. There
was room for six people to sit and eat, and to have potted plants around them
as well. She expected to feel a
cool, humid breeze and hear birds.
She got air-conditioning and the hum of the fluorescent lights. He left the courtyard and came back with
flatware and orange juice. His
hospitality surprised her.
“Thank you!”
He
sat down, and began to sort the bacon and eggs. “You’re welcome. I hope you like it.”
“You
don’t have to talk memorized phrases to me, Culhwch. I don’t know what kind of stuff
that class has you doing.”
“Mostly role-playing.”
“Are
you good at it?”
“I
can act very well.”
“So
you’re just playing a part, not actually changing the way you
live?”
He
ate some eggs before talking.
“The class confirmed something that I had been wondering about for
some time.”
“Oh?”
“The idea of roles. I read
about it in a sociology book.”
“I
think I read something like that, too.
What about it?”
“The
idea that, people…change based on who’s with them and where they
are.”
She
sipped some of her juice. “Naturally.”
“I
didn’t know that.”
“You
would have figured it out, eventually.”
“I
found out a few weeks ago, but it still hasn’t sunk in.”
“I
wouldn’t worry.”
He
breathed erratically.
“I’m not worried, but…I feel like people are keeping
secrets from me.”
“That’s
because they don’t consider them to be secrets.”
“I
don’t understand.”
“People
have…a way of…broadcasting their thoughts and intentions and
emotions without saying anything.”
“Zaid said something much like that.”
She
smiled. “I said it without
the drama.”
“Yes.”
“Anyway,
people do this broadcasting thing without really thinking about it. I have an idea; do you know about Carl
Jung?”
“I
read about him in psychology class.”
“So,
you know about the subconscious?”
He
was silent for a while. “A little.”
“The
subconscious has a way of influencing your conscious behavior without realizing
it. People communicate to each
other without realizing it all the time.”
“That
sounds inefficient.”
“On
the contrary: it’s very efficient.
People who are good at ‘reading’ other people can almost
read their minds.”
“Can
Zaid do that?”
She
laughed. “Sort
of. She’s better at it
than most, but she doesn’t see everything.”
“Does
anyone see everything?”
“Not that I know of.”
“You
made it sound like that some people do.”
“Sorry,
I don’t know any gods.”
He
ate a bit faster now.
“I’m going to ask something that you asked last
night.”
“OK.”
“What
are your plans?”
She
thought for a moment, and remembered the dream that she had. “I dreamt of peace. It was like I asked God how there could
be world peace, and he answered me by showing me a…vision…of a
discotheque.”
“Disco
is the answer to world peace?”
“No,
I don’t think that it was that literal.”
“What
does that have to do with your plans?”
“Before
I answer that, can you tell me, very briefly, how you got all this?” She extended her arms and gestured about
the courtyard.
“I
just took it.”
“You
just went and took apart somebody’s house.”
“Yes. It was up for demolition, meaning that
it was worthless, meaning that the owner wanted it gone anyway.”
“But…you
didn’t take it all at once.”
He
cleared his plate and held the glass of orange juice in his hand. “No, it took most of the winter
break.”
“So
how did you get away with it?”
“Nobody
had been by to actually demolish the house for almost six months.”
“You
mean, that the place was literally abandoned?”
He
nodded. “Yep, pretty
much.”
“I
had no idea that the city was that incompetent.”
“It’s
more complex than that. There is no
single thing called a city.
It’s a lot of departments ran by many people. Lots of them messed up, as did the
landowner.”
“So,
is what you did ethical?”
“I’ve
no room for ethics.”
She
felt a chill. “Yeah, so I was
thinking of de-annexing some land in
“OK.”
“And
open the discotheque there.”
“Why a discotheque?”
“I
want to see if I can do it.”
He
finished his juice. “It
sounds expensive. Where will you
get the money?”
“Zaid.”
“How
will you convince her?”
Nell smiled and turned away. Then, she looked back at him and made deep eye contact. “With my subconscious.”