Jenny wakes a little after eleven as the deadbolt slides into place, pats the empty space besides her, still slightly warm from where Ken had tossed and turned. Jenny appreciated the effort. Ken had tried, and now Ken was out looking for whatever the hell it was that Ken looked for. Jenny crept through their apartment in the dark, careful not to step on the few creaky spots in the floor. It always made her smile to think of the day she and Ken had been living there a few months, new to New York City and already nose deep in their first mortgage, flat broke, barely making it by, and how happy it had made them to spend the day with a few bottles of two buck chuck pressing their feet on every square inch of their warped wooden floors finding every single troubled spot. Hopping around, tripping over one another in a drunken mapping dance, dashing between the creeks and the counter where they would refill their glasses and mark the spots on the floor-plan. She chuckled in the dark. All that ruckus and chaos in the hopes to avoid making noise in the future. That was what she loved about Ken, it didn't matter how broke they were, it didn't matter how stressed she was, Ken always found a way of making the most normal day seem like a special occasion, Christmas in May without all the presents, but with twice the magic. Ken was her magic... but tonight it was black magic.
She dialed Compass's number from memory as she looked out the window and down at Riverside Park. Two rings and her anticipation were met with the comfort of a thick Irish accent, “Compass Bar and Grill. This is Alistair. 'Ow can I help you?”
“Alistair, its Jenny.”
“Ken coming on over?”
“Just left.”
“I'll call you as soon 'E's ear.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“I ever let you down?”
Jenny smiled weakly, wishing this wasn't even an issue, “Never. Thanks. You know I appreciate it.”
“Try to get some sleep. 'Kay?”
“I'll try. See you at the party on Friday?”
“We'll be there.”
Placing the phone back in its cradle, Jenny wished she could just do what she used to, drink a few glasses of wine, dance around the creaky places in the floor, and remember only the good times. Instead she laid back in their bed, staring at the ceiling. Ken was always staring at this ceiling, she never knew what exactly at what. All she could see where the beautiful patterns made by the circular sweeps of the plaster being swept on. She danced with the sweeps, following their movements like the forbidden foot holds in the living room, stroking her belly lightly with her finger tips, until finally she drifted off to sleep.
She dreamed of the first night that she had ever seen Ken. Transported on the wave of hormones and memories, she was swept back into college, passing the over-sized water pipe around the circle of giggling girls, their music blasting out the walls of the dorm room. Not that anyone really would care, not like the creaky floor in her future where they had to know where the bad spots where as to not incur the wrath of their down stairs neighbors, if you made noise on campus no one noticed, because they were making plenty of their own. Friday nights were about partying, unwinding, putting off the studying you should be doing because really, the assignments weren't due until Monday, and she painted so much more organically with a solid buzz. Bong was followed by bottle. It went too quickly, and being the only one slightly sober, Jenny was the one to cross the empty campus in the dark to the liquor store and buy a few more bottles.
In the dream it seemed so real, the little buzz from the wine, the sedation from the pot, making every breath in the cool California night seem so important. Taking them in slowly, loving the way that if she concentrated she could feel the difference in temperature down into her lungs. She closed her eyes as she walked out of the Residential Community of new modern buildings, knowing her way as long as her bare feet kept hitting smooth pavement and ended in soft, lush new lawn. When she had found the grass of the Quad, she opened her eyes. Spanish Style white buildings that made up the classrooms surrounded the new landscaping. The University used to be a mental institution up until the 1970's, one of California's last state run hospitals, and even though a lot of new buildings had been added like the residency, the modern mammoth of a library and a shopping plaza, the classrooms were still in these old rooms. It was so strange to be listening to a lecture, feeling so trapped when you would rather be anywhere but in the tiny desk/chair combo, to look up and actually see bars on the windows.
Up and to the left was the path that exited the Quad, led past the library and into the shopping plaza where the liquor store would be open another hour or so, and then off to the right was the path that connected to the older side of the campus where not much remodeling had been done yet. Both paths connected to the main road, which would lead to her destination, eventually. It occurred to Jenny that she had never really explored any of those older buildings. She had only been here a semester, and was just now getting comfortable, meeting new people other than her roommates and immediate classmates... had just started seeing the multiple worlds that existed on this small, young campus. The pot had such a calming effect on her mind, that she decided to go and explore. She had plenty of time, the girls had plenty of pot, and they could wait a little longer for the wine.
The breeze stared to pick up, as Jenny wandered down the first long hallway, on either side were staff offices, bulletin boards filled with announcements fluttering against their restraints, creating the slightest of whispers in her ears. The pavement under her toes was no longer well kept and clean. Jenny's toes caught on cracks, and grit found their way between her toes, the hallway led to a smaller courtyard with only one other exit. A few of the windows that looked into it had plants on their sills, or knickknacks that made offices feel more like bedrooms then work places. In other windows you could see cobwebs. She went on, the mist in her mind starting to fade just a little, making the shadows deeper, the night air a little thicker those barred windows a tiny more threatening. What had been kept in those rooms? Again she was along the main road, to her right there was the buildings, and out to her left the vastness of nothing, miles and miles of southern California fields, not a light to be seen between her feet and the beginning of the step hills that rose up to start the California mountains. A sickly sweet smell crossed her nostrils on the wind, cilantro and strawberries growing side by side, all fertilized with fresh manure.
A sharp cry rose up behind her and Jenny's skin jumped off her bones, whipping around to face the dark, an owl flew into from the tree by the road and into the next growing inside the courtyard opening up behind her. She followed it with her eyes until it was out of sight, and then started walking closer, back towards the stark dirty white of the old buildings. Those walls seemed to call to her, she knew it was the high, but it called nonetheless.
In this courtyard no work had been done. Walking straight ahead, she felt she had been here before, the courtyard looked just like the last, but older, wilder. The only grass under her feet was planted long ago, and it was more coarse thrush anything. Jenny was certain this was a place that no one came. The walls were caked with the dirt that was blown over off of the fields, little plants grew out of the cracks in the walls, their vibrant color leading her eyes up to the window glass broken behind the bars, their paint dull and cracked, more rust than red. The glass beyond them had rows of scratches, like an animal had been trying to escape. Stepping closer, the room beyond it an inky black of utter abandonment, she gazed at that flurried repetition of clawed etchings, “Oh God. What happened here?”
“Just the usual death and insanity.”
Jenny had never screamed so loud in her life. If she wasn't sober the second before, the second after the voice she was utterly scared sober as she spun around and dropped to the ground, her back hitting the plaster wall, her finders digging into the wild weeds beneath her.
In the far side of the rectangular yard, in the darkest of the night's shadows, sitting just like her with knees to chest, back to the wall, was Ken. Hair longer back in those days, but eyes just as bright. Jenny knew for second this was all a memory of a dream and it seemed so strange that Ken should look this way, not dressed in usual suit and shined shoes, but in flannel and jeans, scuffed checkered vans, so young, so instantly different from anyone else Jenny had seen before.
Just like it had happened though, she watched slightly shaking as Ken rose, dusting the dirt off, and hustled over to her side, offering a hand, “Sorry, I thought you saw me when you walked in here.”
“You're not a ghost are you?”
“Haw! Nah, there are ghosts on campus I am sure but I'm not one of them. Just a journalism major.”
Jenny let Ken help her up, “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Out for a walk. I like to walk.”
“At night?” Jenny asked.
“Mostly. I don't sleep much.”
“Are you high?”
“No. You?”
“I was. Not anymore. Fuck!” She pushed Ken playfully, “You came out of nowhere.”
“Well, um, sorry,” Ken smiled, “I just don't see people around here that often. Wanna go?”
“Yea.”
“Want me to walk you where ever you're going?”
“Sure. Oh, I'm Jenny. You?”
“Ken, Kenny, whatever you prefer.”
“Ken? Really? That's actually your name?”
“What's wrong with it?”
Jenny gave Ken the once over, and then laughed, linking arms and started walking back the way she had come. The night did not seem so scary anymore. Ken seemed startled looking at her with thick lashed large eyes, having to hustle for a second to keep up with Jenny's long strides despite their tether, “It just doesn't look like you're a Ken. I could see you as a Kenny, maybe, but I just met you. Now all I know about you is that you have a weird name, and take walks at night in the creepy part of campus. Maybe when I get to know you more it'll suit you.”
Ken's arm stiffened, and Jenny leaned against it slightly as she directed their movements back to the dorm, wine long forgotten, “Well, I guess it’s more a nickname I just started trying out freshman year. Not like I really got to chose my name before but you know when they call attendance they ask what name you preferred to be called by, and yah. The first semester I was here that just stuck in my craw, I started to think about it, and I don't like my actual name. Sure its my name and all, but I never really liked it. So the second day of class I told the professor to call me Ken, and now everyone does.”
“How long have you been going here?”
“It’s um, it’s my third year. You?”
“I'm a transfer student, I wanted to, you know, try something different. I got my AA at the city college and now this is my second semester.”
“You like it here?”
Jenny shrugged, “I do. It is different. I'm from New York, and, well this is just a total culture shock. I'm used to be being surrounded by a couple million people, and here there's like what, maybe a thousand on campus.”
“Yeah, Not much here. More than where I grew up. My whole school had maybe five hundred students.”
“Where was that?”
“Northern California,” Ken said, “Little town out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Sounds nice.”
“Its not.”
“Oh,” Jenny said, right as they got out of the little maze of the new and back to her familiar territory of the Quad, “Well, thanks. You want to come back to my dorm with me. My roomies and I are, or where, smoking and listening to some music on YouTube. Nothing thrilling, but it might be more fun than hanging in the courtyard.”
Ken looked around, like there might be someone else Jenny was talking to, squinting slightly, “You sure?”
“Yeah,” she grabbed Ken's hand giving it a little squeeze. She didn't let go either. There was definitely a spark in her stomach when they touched, “I don't know why, but this is the most fun I've had all semester.”
“Yeah?” Ken looked down at their hands. By the shock on Ken's face jenny was certain she was wrong, hadn't there been some flirting there? But Ken didn't let go, “And you didn't even see any of the ghosts.”
The shrill cry of the telephone woke Jenny again. Stumbling to the kitchen, she hears the loud joyous sounds of a typical late night bar, “Hello?”
“Ken just showed up.”
Jenny looked around, eyes not yet adjusted to the tiny flickers of light around the apartment. The clock on the oven said two in the morning, “Good. Just make sure Ken gets in a taxi when you close up. No more walking.”
“Ya got it. E'll be 'ome round fourish I bet. Ya know the drill, 'less ya want me ta close early.”
“No. No. Don't bother.” Jenny wanted it, but knew better, “It just helps to know what's what.”
“Kay. E's drinkin slow. I'll keep an eye out.”
“Goodnight Alistair.”
“Night.”
Jenny clicked the phone shut and went back to the window, looking out onto the river beyond the trees. It wasn't as cute anymore, Ken's late night walks, as they had been at first. She opened the window to let in the breeze in.
It felt just as good now as it did then. But her hair was long now, no longer a little pixie college girl cut, and Ken's was shorter. They used to have little parties with her roomies all dying their hair funny colors, and now Ken hardly wore any products other than what was expected to look professional. They had become a couple almost instantly, where official in a month of meeting. Ken went for walks at least once a week even back then. Mostly when stressed. It was every night during finals. The last few years it had gone to only every other week, depending on what was happening at work, and now.... well this was the third time this week. She stroked her belly with her fingertips just lightly enough to give her shivers. Married for five years, dated for three, lived together almost that entire time, and she still didn't know what she had wanted to ask Ken that first night: what was so wrong that you'd walk around like that. Some things you just can't ask people.
“Well,” she said to no one at all, or maybe to the baby in her belly, or maybe to those old ghosts, she just didn't know, “You can ask, but can't make them tell.”
I enjoyed it. Very much so.
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