Nautilus

Standing at the foot of the stairs I peer up into the claustrophobic stairwell.  It is just wide enough for two people to stand uncomfortably, shoulder-to-shoulder, with wood paneling on one side and plaster on the other. Covering the stairs is a nubbly textured carpeting of a tenuous brown—I suspect if there is a source of light the carpeting is absorbing it and my eyes will need to adjust to the saturated dark. There is no menace although I am in my grandmother’s stairwell—the ghost is not a presence here. This is something else. Silence.

The mission is the same each time and I begin without hesitation. I do not ask why. There are no What Ifs or Why Should I’s—that is a waste of time and I have to get going. Taking a deep breath I begin to bridge the vertical distance without aid of tread and riser. I will construct. I am driven and from this point on I focus on constructing a lever, one of the six simple machines I will build to get this done. How am I doing this? See the fulcrum? Its right there—the pivot point hangs from the ceiling, midway up, supported from an eyehook. This is a lever with which to pull myself up the stairwell, just like Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the earth with a lever,” or something to that extent. I have an approximate knowledge of many things.

Relying on the close proximity of the walls to use as supports with my bare feet, I will use a rope, string it through the pulley and hoist myself up slowly, laying down planks of toobafores as I go along. What rope? It’s right here—it’s an eleven-millimeter too, perfect for climbing. As I thread the rope through the pulley and begin to pull and tighten the slack I attempt to get a foothold along the walls. I have on my old school Adidas, navy with white stripes. My left foot gets a hold on the chair rail along the wall but I slip as my right foot has no support and my weight is held by the strength of my arms alone. They shake from the strain and I quickly free up my right hand in order to drop planks to wedge against the nose of the stairs, creating an inclined vertical plane. This leaves me with a scant 2 inches for my right foot but I can swing it.

My thigh muscles protest and I sweat profusely but I’ve managed to get myself up a good three stairs. The rope wrapped around my wrist several times is cutting into my flesh, the seat I’ve fashioned from the rope cuts deeply into me but I have layers of protective clothing. Blood begins to trickle down my arm and drips onto the treads, leaving a sanguine trail below. It doesn’t hurt, although the hot salty sweat dripping into my eyes does.

I continue to pivot and slowly move one foot at a time, dropping additional planks and wedges as I go. Occasionally I need to hammer the toobafores into the treads and wall so the struts are supported well. I stop to rest when I can but I am mindful of time. I breathe in dust and recycled air, feeling enclosed—tight. Take shallow breaths. Half way up the stairwell the pulley becomes moot, as the fulcrum will be below my current position and there will be no leverage, so I begin to cleave the plaster from the walls and rip at the paneling with my hands. I am furious and it feels good to rip and rend, the sound of nails squealing as they are being pulled from their beds of wood like teeth with a pliers. The plaster rips off easily into my bare hands and crumbles into dust. Lathing is revealed and this provides an excellent hold in order to pull myself along as I continue my path of frenzied clawing ripping rending. Water sluices down the risers in a steady current. There is no discernable source and it presents only another challenge. “Screw this,” I say and keep deconstructing and constructing at a mad pace—I am almost there.

I knock my head against the ceiling and strain to squeeze my arm in over my head to help support myself when I realize that the space is becoming compressed, more confining. I pivot to turn, and, looking down, I see that as I have been climbing the stairwell appears to have become circular and is narrowing as I reach the top. The bottom of the stairs is no longer visible; it has been lost within the channel of this vertical corkscrew. I fold and twist myself up like a sailor’s knot, drop two tracks of planks and use the wheels of my roller skates and the strength from my arms alone to pull myself up using the balustrades. I arrive at the back of something—there is no place to go forward the sound of my heavy breathing echoing and bouncing off of the narrow space I am encapsulated within    boom boom boom   BOOM!   What is that? It is a faint echo bounding rebounding and drawing near   boom boom boom   BOOM!  It is growing louder, a muffled yet distinct sound with a particular pattern. The hair on my arms rises—I know that—I KNOW that sound and for a second I feel happy about this sound, like an embracing or a homecoming and a small laugh escapes and fills the tiny void in my enclosure   boom boom boom   BOOM!   I close my eyes and try to focus, recall and remind myself—where AM I?

When I open my eyes I am crouched down at the head of the stairs, facing down to look at the grand marble stairwell from the Cornwall, regal and wide—all pale alabaster light marbled with ash and the bronzed balusters shined with spit and elbow grease. I am ten, in my ‘Didas, my blonde hair cut and shaped into a blunt bob, bangs sharp as a razor. I’m chewing gum. Grape Hubba Bubba.  I grasp the finial of the balustrade with my hand and stand up slowly. Looking to my left I see the door to 12A—the Dreeses. I look to the right, 12C—Schieder.

I am so happy to be here. This is a homecoming, indeed, and I have a sense of purpose. I know the sound and what it means I must do—the sound of the echoes from my childhood, the very rhythm that my heart beats in tandem with. I am one with this sound, this is me I own it. I look down the first set of stairs to the first landing—each floor comprising of stairs descending straight to a small landing, and then curving to a second, which leads to the final descent of straight stairs down to the next floor. Boom Boom Boom  takes you down the first set of stairs—and BOOM! to the first landing. The trick is to master this at great speed and never stopping NEVER stopping even if you think that you’re going to fall you have to increase your speed and when you turn that second corner there will be the need to jump as many stairs as you can and land on the next floor. The rhythm will always vary on the final approach depending on your bravery—just how many stairs could you jump? Courage.

I look, straighten myself and edge my toes out over the tread, grasping the baluster. This feels right. I am ready. I go! I take the stairs swiftly one two three four and revel in the magnificent sound I make with each exaggerated landing boom! Boom!  Boom! Boom! —I start slowly at first but it takes more energy to slow myself and I just let go and let myself run crazily down the stairs and BOOM! It’s all inertia and I’m on to the first landing and the friction of my hand dragging on the baluster behind me makes a light squealing that is good to hear and I just compel myself to continue and I become propulsion, I am propelled down the stairs never bothering to get dizzy boom boom boom   BOOM!  The small octagonal tiles of the hallway floors blurred from motion action fury! I jumped three stairs pussy! I can do better and I just keep going turning rounding jumping landing four stairs! That’s better keep it up don’t stop—

WAIT! —tenth floor. You have to walk quietly on ten. This is the floor that has the scary door that is always propped open a crack with a wedge. A heavy belt of coppery bullets is used as the wedge. How do I know that they are heavy? Jessica dared me to pick them up once. I thought I was going to die because the door is open but a crack but inside it is country dark. Perfect for someone to see out but you cannot see within. I remember panicking and running. Ten also smelled like something was cooking that you would never want to eat; something foreign and unfamiliar. Tiptoe tiptoe RUN! And I begin my rapid descent yet again boom boom  boom boom  BOOM! over and over the sound is in my ears and my mouth and my heart pounding blood in my ears grape gum in my mouth this is joy HEAVEN! bliss I am nothing but pure energy! over and over the sound over and over boom! boom! boom! the sound over and over the over and over the sound boom! boom! boom!   BOOM!  Five!

I am home. Eighth floor. Out of breath and full of rapture I tentatively turn and take the steps to approach my door. 8C in bronze Caslon initial caps, screwed into the green door centered immediately over the rheumy eyehole. I reach out my hand, its like I’m in slow motion, that little hand lightly touching the door and then pressing down my palm against the door thick with how many layers of industrial paint? How many colors lived underneath that green?

I am in my head. I hear my breathing, my heartbeat—nothing more as the door slowly eases open to reveal my home; my one true home—the one I will return to one day. I was made here, I was unmade here. Everything here is familiar, the grain of wood and the quality of light is mine alone to sense and breathe in and taste. I can smell chalk and I’m breathing right? This is so weird and I walk through the foyer, past the dresser that we kept there—we threw the mail on it and dropped our keys in the bowl. This dresser is in my bedroom in another life but we aren’t there we are here and I look to my right down the long hallway leading to the kitchen and bedrooms. I keep walking straight to the entrance of the living room—a room so vast and full of windows that you could see nothing but rooftops and river for miles this light and space it is like no other I will ever experience and I touch every surface I pass to anchor myself to it I need the permanence I once felt here and then turning left I am in my living room. My mother has hung plants from hangers in every window—Spider plants and ferns, strange succulent things all tended and cared for. The furniture was culled from myriad sources—picked up off of the street or given to us from a family member. Nothing matches, all of it incongruous but my mother is stylish and she makes this work. There are large ceramic squared off lamps in tints and shades of chartreuse, Marrimekko adorns the walls. Now I see.

My father is asleep in the armchair—he is sprawled out with one leg thrown over the arm of the chair, his head fallen back slack and his mouth drawn and open. He is lightly snoring; his skin is off-color and slightly waxy. My delirium is gone I am only deaf and dumb and numb and I wonder if Mom is up has she seen this? He is in his clothes still, faded jeans and loose suit shirt; one long sinewy arm extends straight out over the chair, his hand in a perfect study of Michelangelo’s Adam. But of course I don’t know this I see only the knuckles of that hand all torn and bloody, ripped open with scabs and coagulated blood congealing there                        It is so quiet Why is it so quiet I take a few steps back quietly as I should not wake him he needs his rest. As I step away from him I look down to measure my departure against the grain of the wood floor and I see the pool of blood drying there, directly below his perfectly pointed finger, its deep color seeping into the grain and forever staining it and I know that my mother is still asleep she must be worried I don’t know what any of this means so I just turn to go and—

—Turn it down

—What?

—Turn it off!

—What?

—Answer the phone!

I wake up on the other side of my bedroom; phone in hand—the sound of my stairwell and the heartbreak of battery wound up—echoing inside my head, echoing from the back of the shell.