There Is No Year by Blake Butler Page A

tried again. He signed another, this one in big block letters that more resembled hieroglyphics. The father barked. The father’s hand was cramped and jiggling and he could not hold it still. With his free hand he gripped the wrist of the one he used for writing and in long forced crooked half-strokes he this time finally felt his hand scrawl out his given name, syllables for years he had been stalked by, concentrating, pressing hard, causing small hash marks on the mother’s skin, and underneath, the vessels breaking, giving blood.
    When he looked again, it still was not what he’d intended. He’d made a mess of rods and dots, some of it written not upon the paper, but the mother’s clothing, and through the layers, on her skin. He looked and looked at what he’d written.
    That really is my name, he said aloud. His voice was soapy, like a car wash.
    He put the pen down and closed his eyes and moved and heaved the mother from the stool, into his arms.

COPY SPEECH
    Clordbedded ahst forb, said the father, alone upstairs. He had his head against the bathroom wall. He could not remember how he’d gotten through the house back to the bathroom. Froth hung in long ropes from his mouth. Blossbit ein vord cloddut, he said, choking. Cheem cheem murd bot. Loif oissis oissis oind.
    There was a music in here with him, all of woodwinds and deep bass. He could feel the pen inside him, writing.
    Unk barnitt weedumsissis, quoth the father, eicheit undit pordrondoid blerrum misht. Misht eichlitt leichord nord ip beebit. Juinfurr hossis, mekkum dha.
    He could not feel his hands.
    On the other side of the wall, in the guest bedroom, someone had hung a picture of the father. A pleased pre-father father at a party in nice clothes, surrounded by bodies, openmouthed. They were together singing or saying something.
    Behriddit meemle boikend, the father said. He could remember that night inside the picture like it was this one, in his skin. Borkind. Borsis borsisisis. Messalond.
    Through his voice, in replication, the father heard now someone pounding on the door. Pounding so hard the house around him wiggled. The father stood straight up and looked around. He’d stripped. His pubic hair was bright white. His thumbs were bleeding and on the floor around his feet he’d made a symbol out of toothpaste. The small twitch inside his eye again. A party .
    The person at the door struck four times, four times, four times.
    Fine. I’m fine. Logborsis, the father shouted. He wiped his thumb blood on his gut. Busy cleaning. Nothing’s the matter. Go on a minute. Slarsords. Almost done.
    The father turned toward himself therein reflected, in the mirror, through the wall. He saw himself seeing himself, and then himself seeing himself seeing himself, copied, copied, on. His eyes inside his forehead looked so small—surrounded. Inside, his skin went on for miles.
    In the bathroom the father saw his many selves reach up to turn the lights off, and the father saw the dark.

BELL CHORDS
    The doorbell rang again all through the morning and into gloaming. The mother ran in fits. Each time she went to the door expecting— him, he, that one, which one, who? —and each time found someone other, someone new. Folks arrived in line with checkbooks, holding hands. Sometimes there’d be several families waiting. Each, as the mother brought the door opened, walked in proud, already home. Though the mother felt strongly about the couple’s offer, she gave tours anyhow. She showed. She baked scones with black molasses and passed them on tiny plates, which the people took and smiled.
    By the time most people left, their expressions had scrunched and darkened. They went from bubbly to still. Though nothing particularly bumming happened—no carpet sizzled, no paintings moved, the rooms’ wallpaper did not peel—as soon as any buyer had been through one or two rooms apiece their eyes began to swim with blank foreboding. Their cheeks sunk, glazed and pocky. Good