All Fours by Miranda July

Author:Miranda July [July, Miranda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

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Each morning I switched the rubber band to the other wrist to keep the lacerations equal. I alternated between masturbating and cleaning. I bought special wood polishes and dusted behind the books in the bookshelves. I filled up eleven black garbage bags with everything I hadn’t worn in a year and a few things I wore every day but which were depressing: some clogs, my cheap pink bathrobe. Ten bags barely fit in the car. I would have to make a second trip for the eleventh.

It was on one of these cleaning days that a glossy, oversized real estate card came in the mail. We got a lot of these ads for houses on the market in our neighborhood, which used to confuse me—why would we want to buy a house a block away? But Harris had explained that it was to show us how much other houses were going for so we might get the idea to sell ours through them. Which was probably true. What did I know about the ins and outs of real estate? I’d never bought a house in my life. I put it in the recycling and started mopping again.

Then stopped. Walked back to the trash can. Took the card out.

It was our house, the house I was standing in right now. There was my car parked out front. A big asterisk next to “$1.8 million” indicated the estimated market value based on houses in your area. “Thinking of selling?” it said across the top. “Let’s talk!” I squinted at the picture. The printing wasn’t great, but there was plainly a woman standing in the window and it was me. I was wearing my old pink robe, the one I’d just given to Goodwill. When had this picture been taken?

Oh. The telephotographer.

I studied her little face. Even low-res you could tell she’d never held her hand in someone’s hot pee. She’d had crushes, but she’d never been a body wanting a body; she’d only fantasized and worked. But she’d made some good things! People liked them! Davey liked them. I pinned the card above my desk in the garage, next to the map with my route to New York, next to the note from the neighbor. I wondered if the telephotographer had even noticed me in the window and if I would ever masturbate about that kind of thing again or if it would be all Davey from here on out. In any case, mystery solved. No need to run the plates.

I cleaned around all our doorknobs with boiled dough made from an early settler’s recipe. I rubbed the dough all over everything like a big, soft eraser, kneaded the dirt into the dough and rubbed some more. When the dough ball became black it was time for a new one; they lay on a tray in the refrigerator, pale, inedible buns.

“You used to make cupcakes,” Sam said, poking a doughball.

“I’ll make cupcakes again.”

“When?”

“Well, depending how things go, maybe in a month.”

“That’s like a year for a kid.

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