The Exquisite by Laird Hunt

isn’t looking out for it.
    I’m sorry, Aunt Lulu.
    Yeah, you better be sorry, Henry. I’m your aunt. I’m your Goddamn aunt, and I raised you, Henry. You’re the one who put an end to that. You’re the one with the special way of saying thank you. Don’t forget it.
    I am sorry, I said.
    She reached out one of her big fat hands and touched my knee with it. I suppressed a shudder.
    I’m sorry too, boy, she said.
    Why did you come, Aunt Lulu? I said.
    She pulled her hand back and, though her eyes were still shining, frowned.
    You know anything about these buildings falling down?
    They didn’t just fall, Aunt Lulu.
    She smiled. Extremely brightly.
    Call me Mother, like you used to when you were little, she said.
    I didn’t answer. I thought of her sitting slumped at the kitchen table, barely moving, that last time, her long, greasy hair covering her face. I thought of her in her dirty blue housedress feeding the cats, kicking the cats, washing the cats. Then I thought about buildings, buildings all over the city, falling down.
    The hospital called you, Aunt Lulu? I said.
    I told them I’m not paying a cent for any of this. I’m not paying a damn red nickel for you to live in a box and piss on the street and do bad things to people. I got nothing to do with it.
    They can’t make you pay anything, Aunt Lulu.
    I’m not, boy. Believe me. I’ve got bills.
    We sat there. My aunt’s big fat face was beet red and she was breathing hard and I thought she might lean forward and slap me again, maybe pull the old spoon out of her bag and apply it medicinally to my skin, but somehow she was still beaming, like a smiling virus had infected her face.
    I heard from that girl, she said.
    What girl?
    You tell her not to call me. Not ever. I got nothing to say to such as her. She was too fancy for you, Henry boy. The whole world you fell out of was too fancy.
    Wait, who called you?
    Aunt Lulu didn’t answer. Instead she smiled hard, winked at me, and began mumbling. As she was mumbling, Mr. Kindt poked his head in the door and gestured for me to come over. I pointed at Aunt Lulu. He threw his shoulders back, dropped his head, and began moving his lips and prancing around. I slipped out of bed. Mr. Kindt was waiting for me in the hallway.
    My aunt, I said.
    Ah, said Mr. Kindt. Well, I’m very sorry to interrupt. I just stopped by to see if you were interested in having a smoke. I was just sitting in my room remembering my Plato and thinking about justice and right conduct and so forth. I thought you might be interested in discussing it.
    Well, any other time, I said, pointing back into my room, where Aunt Lulu was still sitting by the bed, still mumbling.
    Of course, said Mr. Kindt. I suspect you are very happy to see her. What is her name?
    Lulu.
    That’s interesting.
    I raised my eyebrows, flared my lips a little, and started back into the room.
    One just wonders where all the wreckage gets piled, he said, where the dump trucks of history, as it were, unload the corpses they have accumulated, that they will keep accumulating. Right conduct or wrong, when a just or unjust man helps a friend or harms an enemy, the end result, if it is in any way remarkable, ends up in the dump truck. Everything else gets ground under the wheels.
    That’s a little grim, I said, pausing at the door.
    Oh, but it is grim, Henry, Mr. Kindt said. It’s very grim.
    I squeezed Mr. Kindt’s arm, smiled apologetically, and went back into the room. I managed to slip back into my bed without disturbing Aunt Lulu. It was strange to see her sitting there, strange and somehow reassuring. It was part of our curious fate, Mr. Kindt had said to me that very afternoon, that we should so readily keep company with our most resilient horrors.
    As I thought about this and looked at her, a familiar image came to mind, of Aunt Lulu and a friend playing pinochle. It was the week of Halloween and I was sitting on the little rocker in the corner looking at them through