steven j. mcdermott : “the renter”

For about a week, Davie, the student whose rent check was keeping the bill collectors at bay, had been getting up in the middle of the night and doing who knew what in the kitchen. I suppose I could have just gone out and checked on what he was doing. Instead, I decided to surprise him.

After he went to bed that night I gathered the down comforter and my pillow, then crept back to the living room. Making myself comfortable on the couch, I waited. I don't think I slept - partly in anticipation, and partly because it was a rare clear night and the moonlight shining through the uncurtained window made eerie patterns on the walls. As I lay there, snug in my clothes under the quilt, I watched the splash of white light drift about the gray room.

At 3:15 Davie's alarm clock rang into the silence, startling me even though I'd been waiting for it. The alarm stopped almost immediately: he had been waiting, too. Unable to move, I listened to the vague sounds he made in his room. Then his bedroom door opened and closed. My heart hammered against my jaw as the door burst open and Davie came into the room. He turned his back to me and closed the door. Three quick steps and he was at the kitchen door, where he stopped, hand poised on the doorknob. He stood there for a few seconds, not moving. Then, taking his hand off the knob, he turned slowly toward me.

The couch was against the wall directly beneath the window and thus was the only place in the room in complete darkness. Because he was looking into the moonlight I didn't think he could see me. But he must have sensed me. He took three slow steps and stood in the center of the room, the splash of light blazing against his feet and legs.

I peeked at him through my eyelashes. He had his boots on, but no socks. The hairs on his naked spindly legs were erect in the chill of the room. The only other thing he was wearing was a wool fisherman's sweater. I held my breath as he moved closer and stood beside the couch, close enough that I could smell his sickly sweet aftershave.

“Michael?” he said, shaking my shoulder. “You awake?”

“I am now.”

“Come with me,” he said, “I want to show you something.”

He turned abruptly and went into the kitchen. I flung the quilt aside, got up and followed him. He was standing in front of the sink.

“Look,” he said, nodding at the window.

I stood beside him and looked: in the pasture across the road were two Clydesdales.

“We're just in time.”

One of the Clydesdales reared up on its hind legs into the moonlight.

“Will you look at the size of that thing!” he said.

The steam shot out of its nostrils as the stallion leapt onto the back of the mare. She sagged, jumped forward a few feet, but he stayed with her and she backed into his loins. Davie stood gripping the stainless steel of the sink with his left hand, breath rasping in and out in time with the stallion.

{ issue zero