Enjoy!

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After the night that I forced Walter to sleep in the same bed with me, he must have realized that some other human being actually wanted him in her life and that this was no folly. He was stuck with me and would find no easy way out without a fight. All along he had believed what I told him, what I felt for him, and what he felt in return despite the difficulty it had taken to overcome those internalized walls and hatred for the female sex. When I said that he would not bother me with his insomnia, I was right; I could fall asleep moments after being awoken in the middle of the night as he descended to the ground floor and again upon his return to the bed hours later. His changes of mind settled into a single pattern until he reasoned out within himself what he was and was not comfortable with, what he dared to do, to say, gradually not holding back, finally, finally knowing that my feelings for him would not waver.

Walter left work in the small shop to transfer to a larger garment factory, claiming that he had begun to feel too claustrophobic when his boss was around. Maybe he had been fired, maybe he had had one last scuffle before being thrown out like every other menial worker. He said he wanted a larger workspace, the silence when by himself was driving him mad, the factory was closer to his home…. Whatever his matter, he gained more hours and more pay, able to save up for his next apartment come May and the rare times he treated me to dinner.

The place where he worked was a large and stench-ridden brick building with too many roaches; the faulty track lighting and high-positioned windows that let down bright streams of sunlight only at high noon gave no boost to the workers' morale and caused several wide-mouthed yawns during the day. If I ever saw Walter before he had a chance to bathe, I experienced the reek of dyes, coworkers, and stale sweat; the factory was not well ventilated and everyone worked in close proximity to the next seamstress or furrier or stitcher. There were at least two people of any subgroup of the "garment-worker" profession there and I found it fascinating to pass by the men and women hunched over machines and needles, meticulously fastening buttons and hemming fabrics to create what would later be shipped out by the crate-full.

I had no reason to submit any more mending requests; my funds had run low so all I could afford was the occasional meal for two. I still dared to visit during his brief lunch breaks on weekends where we hid behind his station, sitting on wooden stools and ate and spoke about the day, exchanging bits of frustration softened with honest eyes and understanding nods. An obnoxious coworker strode past every so often, making obscene comments and if the supervisor was not around, Walter would threaten the man with a hard punch to the nose. "Pigs," he would huff back.

"Maybe I shouldn't come anymore," I said.

"Don't worry about it."

But another day, the gaggle of gossiping skirts left for lunch with cringes and piercing eyes as they passed Walter and me.

"Who is she?" I heard them say.

"Why is she visiting him?"

That night he suggested I stop visiting on the weekends; it might be better if I came at the end of his shift. "Obnoxious. Don't like them. You shouldn't have put up with that just for me."

Shaking my head adamantly, I refused on the basis that he shouldn't let them irritate him; they were just more stupid women and ignoring them would get them to shut up eventually. The same went for the few men that looked at me with haughty mouths and lecherous gazes. "There will always be people like them. You know that. Ignore it. Can't go around smashing heads into machinery in broad daylight whenever you want, Walter."

He settled on this but requested that the weekend lunches be the only time I make an appearance instead of also waiting for him in the cold as I had done a couple times before. Doesn't want anyone thinking we're too close. We still have to be careful… I didn't mind.

Over the course of a couple months, I asked more than once for Walter to stop by the school again, just to say hello, to sit in the back of the classroom as a guest; more than once he refused and I stopped asking. In a desire for company, Walter visited my apartment once a week after a long day, three times during the bouts of nasty weather, for a meal and rest as I worked in the dark on papers and projects. The hesitations he had expressed early ceased as I had demanded of him and we fell into casual and rare displays of affection which lacked anything more physically intimate than a tight embrace. (I dared not act as anything more than a sister when visiting in the factory.) And it was not that the desire for sex didn't exist, masked behind our placid facades, but that it was unnecessary during our times together. As we settled into this new routine, time seemed to slow and repeat in a cycle. One night over, two days apart, one day lunch, three days apart with minor variations.

Unlike our Christmas holiday, Valentine's was nothing special. It passed like any other, no exchange of chocolates or kisses, no flowers, not even the wilted rose that I imagined Walter placing in my mail slot. I helped to chaperone the sixth grade dance for a few hours after school and Walter was working overtime finishing up orders for evening restaurant patrons. The pin on my collar was my date that night and we dined on two-day old leftovers with a lopsided candle on the kitchen floor.

On the evening of March twelfth, four months since this something had begun, Walter agreed to meet me in the Park for a night of nothing. He found me in the shadow cast by a lamppost and we walked until settling within sight of one of the many bridges. It was still cold out and a brisk breeze swept through debris on sidewalks as we sat on a bench in the shadows enveloped tightly within ourselves, my head lightly on his shoulder.

"Tomorrow night - stop by and I'll make something," I said.

"Okay. You'll be alright?"

"Yeah, little tired is all. I'm sorry I've … gotten into the habit this past week of not seeing you. Parent-teacher conferences. They're frustrating."

"It's okay."

It was okay because we were not the couple that had to hear each other's voices every moment of every day, incessantly calling or dropping by or going out on public dates. Although his visits continued to be a surprise, never at the same time of day, never lasting the same amount of time, never promising a conversation, and always dependent upon Walter's mood, they were important and a relief from daily stresses.

This hour in the Park was enough to hold us over until the following evening when I made a green-bean casserole and we shared a pitcher of tap water.

"This is amazing, thank you," he muttered post-forkful.

"No problem, babe."

… Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He stopped mid-bite with wide eyes and lowered his utensil from his mouth.

I sighed and thoroughly shook my head in an effort to dismiss my mistake. "I'm sorry. That, uh, that slipped out and I won't do it again. Glad you like the food, Walter. You can take home the leftovers tomorrow if you want."

"I will," he said softly, still in amazement that I dared let a term of endearment slip out. I usually called him something in my head, something so sweet his face would burst from cringing if I said them aloud. 'Dear', 'honey', 'sweetie', 'snookiepie' - it made me laugh to say those words to myself while looking at a blank and stoic face.

He said my name.

"Nothing…. This really did turn out well. I'll do it again sometime." Stuffing another bite, I bit back a smile and looked away. We finished in continued silence until I picked up the plates and Walter volunteered to help with the dishes.

"I - okay. Okay, yeah, you can dry. Here." I tossed a rag at his chest.

Growing more tired by the moment as we digested and cleaned in silence, I considered not going into the factory tomorrow. Perhaps Walter could use a break from the jeers and stupid remarks; honestly, I was surprised he ever allowed me to visit him in the first place, hesitant as he was to be with me in public. But when he asked for my permission to make himself lunch with the food in my refrigerator, I couldn't refuse. I wondered if that let me off the hook, if I could stay home for the day.

"Walter?" Tread lightly. These are shallow waters. "Is there ever a day that you rather I leave you alone?"

"Do you mean at the factory?" He shook his head, mouth slightly parted and eyes playing across my face. He was absently running the cloth over the edge of a glass. "You don't want to come anymore?"

"No! I do. I'll keep coming."

"You said they didn't bother you."

"No, no, that's not-"

Softer, he said, "I want to see you."

No excuses. I nodded, noting a flicker behind his eyes that would have to kindle until this chore was complete.

Once we were done with the dishes and Walter tossed his completed sandwich back into the refrigerator to hibernate until morning, I returned to the table to grade a couple papers in order to give myself a free weekend. Instead of retreating into the living space as usual, Walter stood behind me and reached with a calloused forefinger to touch the nape of my neck. Goosebumps flooded over my entire body, fine hairs pricked up and my breath caught in my chest. I shut my eyes as he applied a second finger, trailing them down and up until my flesh tingled only where he touched; like car tires that gradually wore down unpaved back roads they burned alongside the top of my spine. The fingers broke into full hands at my shoulders and squeezed once, twice, a beginner's massage. Then he removed his hands, as if peeling his flesh from moist clay. He motioned to step away after brief contemplation but I stopped him with an utterance of his name.

He turned back with half-lidded and tired eyes as I stood and placed a chaste kiss upon his lips. Something more passionate gradually ensued in which we stumbled back and smothered ourselves in the shabby cushions of the sofa, breathing in rhythm with police sirens and barking dogs and overturned rolling trashcans as hands held tight above heads on the sharp armrest, imprinting a firm red line and blotchy patterns on the backs of my forearms. Removing only what was necessary, we inhaled each other's utterances and guttural outbursts. After almost two and half months since our first experience, the waiting clock had finally stopped ticking as we extracted a half hour from our routine.

Walter squeezed shut his eyes as he came; how could any of this be real?

Sedated as quickly as aroused, I held tightly to the man against my chest whose emotions, and libido, could best him. I sighed and Walter turned his head on my chest, his stubble itching through my blouse. His eyes met mine, the light from the kitchen illumining one side of his face, casting a shadow down to spill into the floor.

"You're tired," he observed.

I laughed. "You're not?"

Retracting from his position to look down at me fully, he smiled. Not an ear-to-ear grin that could slice his face in two, nor a foolish one slapped on by hormonal teenage boys in a brimming afterglow, but the barely parted upturn of the lips that invited more kisses and shameful words.

Instead, it disappeared and he ordered that I go to sleep. Just as well, I thought as I rolled out from under. I wouldn't dare extract more than necessary for tonight.

Almost to the stairs, I asked, "Do you…?"

A small shake of his head with hands already halfway down the buttons of his shirt.

"Tomorrow," he said. And then, "Wait." He barely looked back over his shoulder as he spoke in hushed tones. "I didn't mean this to seem like I…. Was out of nowhere…. Since then I wasn't sure -"

"Walter," I said, silencing him. Quick steps over to where he sat and I lurched him back against the sofa, hands on shoulders, forcing him to strain to look at me upside-down as I leaned over. "I don't care. It's what people do, that's what happens in our situation. It does come from nowhere. But if you want something to rest on your mind tonight in place of that, think of this:" I gripped his face tight in my hands and with as much assurance as I could to quell my sudden trembling, I said, "I love you."

Withdrawing and stepping back as he bent his head back up, I assured him that he could pretend I had not just said that, that I expected nothing to be said in response, but that "I just wanted you to hear it." Those words had become an unbearable weight that needed to be discarded before I snapped and screamed at him. I had hoped to wait longer, not for any day in particular, but one in which Walter had not just said something that resembled a doubt.

Looking at his still back thoughtfully, I considered adding more words to drown my new fear that I had just planted a seed of anxiety.

Turning on my heel, I wished him a good sleep and ascended to bed where I feebly prayed for Walter to join me.

He did not.

…..

Saturday night and Sunday came and went with no disturbance, rising moons and suns observed our exhausted forms within a perfectly-made bed as we all but exchanged words during the night. He expressed distaste for his current job, nothing I hadn't witnessed while there with him, cursed his supervisor and coworkers vividly, and admitted to finally having punched a man after hours for disparaging my appearances at the factory.

"What did he say?"

Walter curled tighter into himself away from me. "Never you mind."

…..

St. Patrick's was that Tuesday and Walter was relieved of work for the day. We sat on someone's apartment steps around the corner of the parade route and watched the celebrants from a distance. No one noticed us. Unlike the entirety of Manhattan which was drunk by noon, we were rife with boredom within an hour, escaped to a diner for lunch, and departed our separate ways for the remainder of the day.

I recalled that this weekend was Walter's birthday, another touchy matter since he was not the type to want to take the day frivolously. Therefore, I visited as usual during his lunch shift with an extra sandwich and promised another casserole tonight. The lightest smirk of contentment upturned his lips when I left.

By the time of the following Saturday, I had not heard from or seen Walter all week. This was not unusual but my mind was trying to attribute this lack of contact to my sudden confession. I considered going over to knock on his door but stayed put, my heart rapping with unnecessary insistence that I do something. Still, I did not call or appear at his workplace until my nerves finally and relentlessly tugged my legs to his apartment late on the twenty-eighth.

Sitting out in the darkness, accompanied only by wandering bums, sewer emissions, street clatter, and the pin on my collar, I waited, occasionally knocking at the door behind me. It was so late, there was no way he was still at the factory. It was long past closing, unless Walter was using the machines for personal reasons, but never once since meeting him did I see a new shirt on his back or trousers on his legs. I shuttered to think that something might have happened, but if anything did happen, it would have been to the person that Walter encountered and not to Walter himself. I waited in silence, a casual observer to the nightly dangers that lurked in this area, until it was well past an hour since I had first arrived. I stood, giving one last hard rap at the door before stepping to the sidewalk.

I was only a half block down when I heard my name called.

I scurried back to Walter who was crossing the middle of the street. I was ecstatic but still curious where he had been when he asked if I had waited long. "Dangerous. It's late." I noticed that his voice was softer than usual, trailing, his eyes slightly glazed over as he led me inside the building. Every footstep and turn of his key was meticulously enacted, as if he had never tread here or placed his hands upon the metal doorknob before.

I clicked the door shut as quietly as I could behind me, afraid to startle him. I did not turn on a light for the same reason; we stood in the familiar black darkness with trembling shadows that reacted to every minute movement outdoors.

His back towards me in the open entryway, Walter was silent, stoic; I couldn't even hear him breathing, no rise and fall of his shoulders and he made no motion to remove his hat.

As I placed a hand around to his arm, Walter tensed and withdrew, as if awoken from a daydream, and passed over to his mattress without even taking off his coat or shoes. He sat down and I approached to kneel at his side, hands clasped tight in my lap. I waited and watched. Walter slowly withdrew a clump of white fabric from an inside pocket, like a dove from a cage, turning it over in a fist and revealing black splotches in the spaces between his fingers.

Is this the material? This was featured on the news, wasn't it? I didn't think… how…

As if reading my mind, Walter spoke, his voice low. "You remember, don't you. You asked if I ever worked with this." He balled and stretched it and then I realized that the blotches were moving. "Belonged to her. The woman in the paper."

The paper? What? Yesterday. The woman in the paper. The only woman in yesterday's paper … I recalled vaguely that Walter had made something that someone didn't like… "The woman that was murdered two weeks ago? Is that who you're talking about?"

Not hearing me, he continued, "Said once I could do it. Be a vigilante. I said no, didn't want to."

Peeling my eyes away from his worn face, absorbed in the feel and hypnotizing liquid motions of black on white, and back to the fabric in his hands, he stretched it again completely. It was a mask that sent a quiver down my back into my toes because it formed those patterns they give people to test personalities and emotions. People could see the strangest things in those.

Walter slipped a hand up into the mask and took off his hat with another.

Don't put it on. I had to know why first.

I clamped a hand around the wrist that did not hold the mask and told Walter to look at me. He would not. "Walter, I'm glad you want to do this. I always thought you should. You should…. But why this material, why now?"

"Shame. Ashamed for humanity who let that happen. Did you read?"

I nodded. 'Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police' in the NY Times. I think I still had the paper laying on the floor someplace at home.

The same question rested in the back of my mind that parents ask their children who want to join the military. Why you? Why do you feel you have to do this? He had to. Because of his father, because of his mother, because of every injustice spat out by disgusting men to make them feel empowered. Walter felt the pain and confusion of the masses and wanted to know why anyone would willingly watch and do nothing while a woman was stabbed, screaming. If Walter had been there, he would have done something.

Selfishly, I wondered if I had any effect on this man at all. He loves me to the highest degree he can feel love. But his decision was even more important and I felt humbled.

I knew the rest even before Walter had to tell me. The last two nights he committed to designing and sewing the mask, stopping once briefly to reconsider, but he knew that this had to be made. The fabric was for him, meant for him, and he would cover his real face with this one.

"Otherwise I won't be able to look at myself anymore."

"Walter," I said, my hand still around his wrist, thumb lightly trailing back and forth along the freckles. If I kept rubbing, they might fade away. "Can I - still look at you?"

The eyes that met me then were filled with a desire to be forgiven for future transgressions, for time spent apart, for past hesitancies; they wavered on a fine balance between the man he was and that which he now aspired to be.

"I hope you don't ever have to see me with this on."

"So when you get the shit beaten out of you, I'll know immediately. Good. I'll have the alcohol ready."

A light smirk.

"Do you have a name for yourself?"

Blank eyes returned to the flexible latex encased around both his hands, his fingers following the blobs from within. He nodded and only said one word. "Rorschach."