Broken Glass

Good neighborhood, bad neighborhood. Somebody had smashed a beer bottle on the bridge. Why could she never cross an urban bridge without riding over broken glass? Rose ended up carrying her bicycle for half a block over a smashed bottle.

The lock on the apartment building was broken. She carried the bicycle up the stairs and pounded on the door. Hey, Dorrie, it’s me, she said.

Rose heard movements. Who is it?

It’s Rose. Ben’s wife. I’ve brought you scones.

A rose is a rose is a rose, Dorrie said, half-smiling as she opened the door. Dressed in old sweatpants and a giant T-shirt, she looked wispier than usual. In one hand she held a glass of water, in the other she held three pills.

Rose knew they not called pills. Meds. As in, “Here are your meds.” Rose knew the lingo. Rose looked at the innocuous meds, yellow, white, and pink, two round, one oblong. Would they anaesthetize? Dorrie was in more pain than most. But anaesthesia could be dangerous.

I wasn’t expecting company, said Dorrie. Sit down. She gestured at the mattress on the floor, draped in thin blankets topped by an Indian bedspread.

Rose sat on the mattress and took a bag of fresh scones out of her backpack. She had baked them this morning because she needed an excuse to visit Dorrie. It was never fun. The halls stank of beer and urine. Sometimes there were needles on the floor. The one-room apartment was stark. Peeling wallpaper, a sagging ceiling. No furniture except for a mattress and a box fan.

Dorrie did have piles of library books, though. She often camped on the floor in the poetry stacks of the library and read for an hour or two. The librarians knew and tolerated her and often conversed, or listened to her rattle on about Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson or the poet of the moment. They tried to guide her to the comfortable chairs in the lounges. But she seemed to prefer sitting on the floor and usually packed up rather than lounge in the stained orange chairs .

I hate chairs, she once told Rose. You sit in a doorway and the steam whooshes up through a vent. That’s good. Or on church steps. Where you meet nuns. Chairs are no good for meeting people.

The nuns? Dorrie’s non sequiturs were hard to follow. But she was a Catholic who attended Mass several times a week and seemed to know several nuns. Rose gathered that nuns ran the lunch program at the shelter. Nuns no longer wore habits and shared apartments rather than convents. The nuns were out there, wearing pant suits and butch haircuts, according to Dorrie. Who was, of course, more out there, more naive and vulnerable, than any of them,

Sitting on the mattress with her little cold and discontents, Rose felt petty. Dorrie lived the life of a saint. Mass and poetry, kneeling and psychosis. What had this daughter of God done to deserve her doom? What’s more, how could Dorrie continue to worship a monstrous God?

Rose pretty much hated God. It wasn’t that she was an atheist. She believed. She had had embarrassing revelations as a young woman, which she refused to think about. She just wasn’t wild about the world this sick-o God had created. What had Dorrie done to him or her? Why couldn’t He or She just leave her alone? Let her sit on chairs again, for God’s sake. Get her out of this crime-ridden neighborhood and marry her to a guy who would love her and take care of her.

Rose pulled out a shiny new paperback of RICHARD III and handed it to Dorrie. Just a little present, she said.

Dorrie’s face lit up. Oh, lovely. You know, I saw Ben yesterday. He said he was directing the play.

That’s why I’m here. Ben sent me. He wondered if you would play Queen Margaret. I know it’s short notice...

Dorrie laughed. Does he really want me? Old Bennie Ben? I’d love to. But I don’t think this is Ben’s idea at all.

It’s a very good idea. And he thought it was good as soon as I suggested it.

But you don’t have to give me the book. I could get it at the library, you know.

No, we want you to have the book. Really. And if you want to come over and hang out at the house, we’d love to see you. I’m taking some time off from work. I’m doing that “finding myself” thing all over again.

Well, I have my routine, said Dorrie. I can memorize better at home. When is the rehearsal?

Oh, someone would pick you up and take you home, of course, Rose said. Here’s the schedule.

Dorrie nibbled a scone. Maybe I’ll come by and recite my lines to you. I’ll call first.

Rose handed her some change for the phone.

When Rose left the building, some tough types were leaning against an old Corvette on cinder blocks. A splinter of glass punctured her tire. They laughed as she wheeled the bike down the sidewalk. As soon as she reached the bridge, she spat. No reason. It made her feel tougher.