RSS 2.0 FeedThe Stairwell
The doorbell rang. Now what? thought Agatha, heaving herself up and out of the sweat-stained recliner where she had been dozing. Can't they leave a person alone? She crossed the room with labored steps. What a grimy dump this is. Whole damned neighborhood has turned to crap. Thirty years ago... She punched the intercom button. "Who's there?" she bellowed.
"It's Cora."
"Cora who?"
"It's Cora. Your sister Cora."
"Oh, it's you. Cora. Well...come on up."
Agatha pushed the button that unlocked the outside door into the vestibule. Then she opened her door and stepped out onto the third floor landing. Leaning over the rail, she looked into the stairwell that wound its way down three floors. Cora came into view as the heavy front door closed noisily behind her. She shuffled across the marble floor and wearily dropped her suitcase at the foot of the stairs. Pulling a handkerchief from her bodice, she wiped sweat from her face.
She's gonna be a pest. "I'm up here," said Agatha.
Cora looked at the narrow winding stairway and sighed, "Mercy, Agatha, what a climb."
"Well, pick up your suitcase and come on up if you're going to."
"How ever do you manage these steps?"
"The same way you will," snapped Agatha. "One at a time. Just keep coming. First thing you know you'll be here." What next? What the hell does she want? What does she expect out of me?
Arriving breathless at the top, Cora said, "Oh, Agatha, my older sister. It's so wonderful to see you. I do hope I can stay with you for a few days until I find a room of my own." Agatha backed into her doorway and stood arms akimbo.
"I'm just down on my luck with Gray having died. You got my letter?"
"I got it."
"I thought I'd move to Chicago to be near you and Gertie and Al. You're all the family I got now."
Agatha thought of the letter she'd received a few days ago. Gray is dead in New Orleans, and now Cora is falling back on us: two sisters and a brother that don't even talk to each other...full of resentment... suspicion...some family. What does she really want? She looked at the forlorn Cora, who dropped her suitcase on the landing. Gray made money in his day...wonder if she's got some of it? Better not throw her out 'til I know. Always cheerful...most normal one of the bunch...ha...normal in our family. He was a salesman...made money...a sap, we all knew that. We all scoffed...but maybe she has money. Can't tell...could work out. Probably thinks I'm a meanie. Way I'm lookin' her up and down
Cora stood there with a blank look. Wanting to smile, but unable.
"Yeah, come on in. I'll see if I can find a spot for ya," Agatha said.
"Oh, Agatha, you're so good. I just can't tell you what this means to me. Oh, you're just so good."
"All right, honey, you can knock off the sweet talk and put your stuff in the bedroom, second door down the hall on the left."
Cora walked down the dark hallway, careful not to catch her heel in the threadbare runner. In the room she lifted her suitcase onto the bed. There was a chest of drawers to match. She noticed all the furniture was from the '20s - in pretty good shape, but dusty. Everything was dusty, and it didn't wipe off easily; it had been collecting for years.
Cora walked back to the living room. "Well, Agatha, darling, the drawers in the dresser are full. What shall I do with my things?"
"We'll find some boxes for the crap in the dresser," Agatha said, "and throw them out or store them in the basement. And, Cora, I won't tell you again, that phony sweet talk of yours is gettin' on my nerves, and you haven't been here twenty minutes. 'Darling.' Christ."
"Now, Agatha, I've lived in the South for forty years. This is the way I speak. I expect that in a year or two I'll sound a little more like you all."
"Christ! A year or two. I can't understand why you'd come to Chicago - Southern ways ingrained in you the way they are."
"Oh, Agatha, life was so good all those years in New Orleans. So good. Gray was such a gentleman. Why, when he died, I was almost beside myself." She sank into an easy chair. "We had so few friends left. Most had retired or moved away. A few had died. Life truly took a turn for the worse. And I said to myself, Cora, you got to go to Chicago where your sisters and brother are. And here I am. And I'm glad to be here. Yes, I am, Agatha. Some day you'll smile about all this.
"But what I'd love right now is some sweet tea. Do you know what that is, Agatha?"
"Not exactly."
"When I go to the store I'm gettin' some tea and makin' sweet tea for you. I know you'll like it."
Cora was a doer. She set about getting her room in order and, as the weeks went by, sent for the few belongings she had in storage in New Orleans. She cleaned the apartment, even persuading Agatha to allow the furniture to be moved so the carpets could be rolled up and sent out for cleaning. Painting, however, was out of the question. Under no condition would Agatha allow strangers in the place, disturbing things that had been sitting just so for years. Cora took the grocery shopping under her wing, and for the first time in years wholesome smells came from the kitchen. More important than anything else, she insisted on helping with the rent.
One Monday Cora stood at the stove sipping sweet tea and brewing a pot of shrimp gumbo. Agatha sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee. She had come to like the gumbo, but invariably complained about it.
"Oh, Agatha, we must invite Gertie and Al to dinner a week from Sunday. I so want to see them after all these years. They know I'm here." She took the lid off the pot and stirred the soup. "I can't imagine why they haven't come to see me. Nothing but a phone call from Al and a short one at that, and not so much as an 'I'm happy to have you up here.' So I want to have them over."
Agatha's face darkened. "Those two? I hate 'em."
"Hate!"
"Don't you look at me like that," said Agatha. "There's nothin' wrong with hatin' people like them that deserve it. Once in a while Al stops by to complain but that's about all I ever hear from either of them. I haven't heard from Gertie in years. We don't talk. She's so damned high and mighty." She looked about the kitchen and through the door into the dinning room. Fact is, this place looks better'n it has in years. If the two of them get a look at it, they'll eat their hearts out seein' I've latched onto a gold mine. Least that's what they'll think...what I hope. "Tell you what, Cora, go ahead and invite 'em. What can the harm be? Kin is kin. Yeah, go ahead. What do I care?"
The following Sunday afternoon the mahogany table was polished nicely and set for four, and with food good enough to surprise both Al and Gertie. Al, all 300 pounds of him, arrived within minutes of the appointed hour. He lumbered up the three flights under the power of his one good leg and his cane, making what use he could of the game leg. It had been injured at the hip while busting broncos for the army some fifty years back, or so he always claimed.
Cora was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. "Oh, Al, my own little Al," she gushed, "but then you're not so little now, are you?" Cora threw her arms around her brother.
"What's this?" he grumbled. "Whadda ya tryin' to do, knock me down the stairs? Do we need all this show of affection?" Then he thought better of his gruff manner and produced what, for him, passed as a smile. All the while he looked his sister up and down, noting with disdain her cheerfulness and the direct gaze of her eyes. He said, "How the hell are ya, Cora? You always was the best lookin' one of the bunch and tall. You got our old man's height, you and Gertie."
He turned to the squatter Agatha, who, being broad across the hips and jowlier, resembled their mother. She fixed him with a glare and a down-turned lip as he passed his hat to her.
Al was an ill-tempered man, capable of explosive anger, and, although Agatha didn't fear him, neither did she go out of her way to antagonize him. This was her one concession to family harmony on that day. Being antagonistic was her deepest source of pleasure.
Gertie arrived by taxi about a half-hour late. Making her way up the stairs, she hardly revealed the fatigue of disease which lay within her long, lanky body and which would soon take her life. Cora greeted her effusively, "Oh, you look just the same as always. You haven't gained or lost a pound. Just look at you. My, oh my, if this isn't the day!"
Gertie, the taller of the two, looked down at Cora, assessing her with the keenness of one who had spent her life in a law office. She assumed an intimidating demeanor enhanced by her direct eyes, her hooked nose, and her narrow lips that seemed always on the verge of a snarl. This demeanor was reinforced by her natural posture which was to lean slightly forward at the hips, so that she seemed to be aggressively in your face. She wore a loose-fitting dress that looked like it had been bought in the'20s and a hat of the same vintage. The colors were faded, and the fabrics seemed to have taken on the hue of dust that had settled over the years and sunken in to become one with the garment. She smelled of layer over layer of stale tobacco smoke; the very cells of her skin were so infused with smoke that she had the look of being not quite fully alive.
"Hi ya, Cora," she said, pushing her way into the apartment. "I'm surprised to see you in the city after all these years. Didn't think anything'd pry you out of New Orleans."
She brushed past Agatha. They had not spoken in several years, and Gertie did not intend to speak now. Her sister was amenable to this situation, and the two of them fell into the general conversation, such as it was, without speaking to or even looking at each other.
Presently Cora set the food on the table, and they sat down. She had made a fried chicken dinner in the southern fashion. The food was delicious, but this did not prevent Al from grousing, "The vegetables are soggy, and the chicken's not as crispy as it oughta be. That's your fault, Gertie; you've never been on time for anything in your life. You don't give a damn how long the food sits around, or what it tastes like."
To this Gertie retorted, "That's right. And I don't ever intend to be on time. If you don't know by now to plan on that, then you'll probably never learn. There are people, you know, who never learn."
"And you're one of 'em," Al snarled.
"And how many meals got cold," Gertie shot back, "while you laid in bed hung over on a Sunday noon?"
"Well," said Cora. "Now, now, these things don't matter. What's important is that we're all together after all these years. Why, you all just have no idea what it means to me to be here with the three of you. It would make Gray so happy to know I'm here with my family. I do expect he does know."
"Don't be a fool, Cora," snapped Gertie, biting into a chicken leg. "Gray is dead. Dead is dead."
Cora sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap. Eyes downcast.
"Cora," Al growled without looking up from his plate, "you're better off to forget that damn guy. He was nothin' but a patsy. He didn't leave you nothin', or you wouldn't be livin' in this dump. So what the hell good was he?"
"Dump!" cried Agatha.
"Oh, Gertie! Oh, Al! How could you say that? And Gray not six weeks in his grave." Tears streamed down Cora's face. "Oh, please excuse me. I'll be all right in a minute or two." She got up from her seat and went to her room, softly closing the door.
"What the hell's the matter with her?" Al said.
"Pay no attention," said Gertie. "She always was a baby."
The two of them kept eating.
Agatha quietly gloated. They made enemies of her now. Now her and her money will stay with me. She laid down her knife and fork. With difficulty, she got to her feet and went to Cora.
Gertie went to the kitchen where she found an apple pie Cora had made. She cut a chunk for herself and one for Al, and they ate it together silently, and washed it down with coffee.
"We better get out of here," said Al. "The two of them are in there together. For Christ's sake, we didn't say nothin' but what is the truth about that milk sop. Come on, I'll give you a ride home."
That afternoon Cora's ears began to ring, and she began to get dizzy spells. The ringing and the dizziness got worse over the next few months; she became distracted. Living on little more than sweet tea, she moved about the apartment with one hand on the wall to steady herself; and she pleaded for Agatha to help her in her distress.
Agatha, who was weary with old age, was not able to undertake the care of so sick a sister. And she now discovered that Cora had only a few thousand dollars, and that this would soon be gone. She, too, became distracted and was beside herself.
On a Thursday afternoon Agatha called Al. "It's Cora. She's dead! Get over here fast as you can."
"What's happened?"
"You'll find out when you get here. Hurry!"
Al drove over to Agatha's place. Dead, Cora dead. How? What next? He rang the bell.
"That you, Al?" she said quietly through the intercom.
"Yeah, it's me. Open up."
The lock buzzed. He entered the lobby and started up the stairs, his breath coming short. A man could die on these damn steps. Three flights! She was waiting on her landing, motioned him to a chair, and then sat down heavily on the sofa, looking up with watery eyes.
"What's this all about?" Al questioned.
"You know her ears've been ringin', and she's had these dizzies. Sometimes closes her eyes to stop the room from spinnin," Agatha began. "Well, I was in the kitchen, hour or so ago, when the doorbell rang. So, Cora was in the front room and went out on the landing to see who it was. I told her a dozen times not to go out by them steps. But she wouldn't listen." Agatha was now streaming tears, something that she could do when needed. "She must of leaned over the rail and lost her balance and fell. I told all this to the police, and they seemed to think that was what happened."
Al saw relief in her face when she said that the police had found her story plausible. He had an uncanny way of listening to people. He heard every intonation and watched every twitch of an eyebrow, every curl of the lip. Being an accomplished liar himself, he knew when they were telling the truth, and when they were hiding something.
"Look, Agatha, this's too bad. You lost a sister. We both lost a sister. But that damn ringin' in her ears was driving you crazy - and her, too. Now she's dead, and no more any trouble to you - or to herself. It's just as well. You don't need her anyhow. Maybe you'll even get some of her dough."
Agatha looked up at Al, dried her tears, and smiled.
Dennis Beard spends his days reading fiction, writing stories, and trying to keep his wife's computerized embroidery machine running. The reading these days is mostly 19th century Russian novels. The writing includes essays such as An Ideological Lamentation.
He thinks stories ought to reflect the unpredictability of life, both the serendipitous and the maddening. Unexpected things happen, and people respond in ways surprising to themselves. The joyful, the melancholy, the placid, the chaotic, love, and animosity are part of living ─ he tries to reflect all of these in his stories.
Dennis was raised in central Illinois, but has lived most of his life in and around Chicago. He has been published in The Journal (a Northwestern University publication), Further Persons Imperfect (an anthology), Shotgun Sports Magazine, and Quilters Newsletter Magazine. His e-mail address: Dennis Beard