Mr Hands

by Gary A Braunbeck

  She had been forced to leave state college one semester into her second year because her father had gotten laid off from the plant and her parents needed her help. Though the letter her mother sent wasn’t obvious in its manipulations, it nonetheless managed to push all the right guilt buttons. Two days after receiving it Lucy withdrew from school and used her last forty-five dollars to buy a bus ticket back to Cedar Hill. It was during the three-hour bus ride that she began to wonder about the price a person paid for so-called “selfless” acts. From the moment she’d stepped into the iron belly of the road lizard her throat had been expanding, then contracting at an alarming rate, finally forcing her to open the window next to her seat so she could breathe easier. Her chest was clogged with anger, sorrow, confusion, and, worst of all, pity. Everyone knew the plant was on its last leg, that the company had been looking for an excuse to pull up stakes ever since that labor riot a few years back, and when it happened, when the plant went down, so would the seven hundred jobs that formed the core of the town’s financial stability.

  More than anything Lucy didn’t, dear God, didn’t want to end up like every other girl in town; under- to uneducated, with no dreams left, working nine hours a day in some bakery or laundry or grocery store, then coming home to a husband who didn’t much like her and children who didn’t much respect her, wearing a scarf around her head all the time to cover the premature gray hair, watching prime time soap operas and getting twelve pounds heavier with each passing year.

  As she stepped off the bus she promised herself that, regardless of what eventually happened with the plant, she wouldn’t betray herself for anyone or anything. That alone was her hope.

  “I thank God for a daughter like you,” said her father, embracing her as she stepped through the door. “Come on in and sit down and let your mother fix you up something to eat. It’s good to see you, hon. Here, I saved the want ads from the last couple days, maybe you’ll find something...”

  She wound up taking a cashier job at the town’s only all-night grocery store. Lucy smiled at her late-night customers, and spoke with them, and tried to be cheery because there was nothing more depressing than to find yourself in a grocery store buying a loaf of bread at three-thirty in the morning in a town that was dying because the plant was going under and no one wanted to admit it.

  Still, Lucy smiled at them with a warmth that she hoped would help, from a heart that was, if it could be said of anyone’s, truly good and sympathetic.

  The customers took no notice.

  For eleven months she lived in a semi-somnambulistic daze, going to work, coming home, eating something, handing her paycheck over to her parents once a week, then shuffling off to bed where she read until sleep claimed her.

  Outside her bedroom window, the soot from the plant’s chimneys became less and less thick but still managed to cover the town in ashes and grayness.

  She read books on sociology, countless romance novels and mysteries, biographies of writers and film stars, years-old science magazines, and developed an understanding and love of poetry that had eluded her in high school. Of course she went for a lot of the Romantics, Donne and Keats and Shelley, as well as a few modernists—T.S. Eliot and James Dickey, Rainer Maria Rilke and the lyrical, gloomy Dylan Thomas. Cumulatively, they gave eloquent voice to her silent aches and hidden despairs.

  Crime began to spread through the town: holdups, street fights, petty thefts, and acts of vandalism.

  And in the center of it all stood the plant, a hulking, roaring dinosaur, fighting desperately against its own extinction as it sank into the tar of progress.

  Lucy discovered Jane Eyre in the library one day. Over the next month she read it three times; and the dinosaur howled in the night; and her mother, at day’s end every day, sat alone staring at the television or listening to her scratchy old records; and her father’s eyes filled with more fear and shame as he came to realize he was never going to be called back to work; and somewhere inside Lucy a feeling awakened. She did what she could to squash it but it never really went away. So sometimes, very late at night when shameful fantasies are indulged, she took a certain private pleasure as she lay in her bed, and usually felt like hell afterward, remembering the words to a nursery rhyme her mother used to read to her when she was a child:

  “Mirror, mirror, tell me true

  Am I pretty or am I plain?

  Or am I downright ugly?

  And ugly to remain?”

  No man would ever want her in that special, heated, passionate way. She was too plain, and the plain did not inspire great passion.

  Then Larry Parre, one of the stockroom workers, asked her if she wanted to go to a party on Wednesday evening, her only night off.

  She smiled, stunned (no one had ever asked her out on a real date before), then decided that she deserved to enjoy herself a little.

  She said yes, and Larry smiled, really smiled, and she felt wonderful, as if she were Miss Eyre meeting Rochester for the first time.

  She had managed to save a little over four hundred dollars from her twice-monthly twenty-dollar allowance, and spent nearly a third of it on a new outfit to wear to the party that Wednesday. The thought of having a date and meeting some new people, making some friends, having someone else besides her parents to talk to…well, for the first time since coming home she felt there was something to look forward to.

  She even sprang for some new makeup and perfume at the local K-Mart.

  Might as well do it up right.

  * * *

  The party had been nice enough, and Larry had complimented her on how she looked, and for a while Lucy had been able to forget about the desperate faces of her parents and the feeling that she was dying inside.

  After the party, when they climbed into his pickup truck, Larry leaned over and kissed her. It was so sudden, so abrupt and unexpected, that Lucy froze. Larry pulled back and blushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to just, y’know, surprise you like that.”

  “Oh it’s...it’s okay,” said Lucy. “I mean, I just didn’t expect it.” She laughed softly, shaking her head.

  “What is it?” asked Larry.

  “I’m just...sometimes I think maybe I’m really out of it. I mean, I didn’t think you even knew I existed.”

  “I noticed you.”

  “I noticed you, too.”

  “A lot of the girls who work in the store, they got this superiority problem. They think that just because they get to wear uniforms and deal with customers that they’re, I don’t know, better than us guys who work the stockroom, that because we don’t come to work in nice shirts and wearing ties that we’re low-class hicks. I don’t think it’s right, judging someone on account of how they dress or what kind of work they do. Do you?”

  “No,” she whispered, unable to meet his gaze. “Not at all.”

  Larry looked at his watch and smiled. “Wanna go on a picnic?”

  “Yeah, that might be nice. Maybe next week on my day off we could—”

  “I mean now,” he said, reaching behind the seat and pulling out a wicker picnic basket.

  Lucy stared at the basket. “You’re kidding?”

  “Huh-uh. Hasn’t anyone ever taken you on a picnic at night before? It’s pretty cool, out there on a blanket at night, chowing down under the stars. It’s only ten-thirty. C’mon, whatta you say?”

  “Did you plan to do this all along?”

  “Yeah. I would’ve brought you flowers but someone said you were allergic.”

  “I am.” She felt as if she’d awakened in some old Russian fairy story to discover that she was a princess.

  How could she have said no?

  They wound up on Horn’s Hill (a popular make-out spot in Cedar Hill) overlooking the abandoned rock quarry just beyond the county line. Another couple, Jim and Wanda, who hadn’t been at the party, were already waiting for them, a red and white checkered tablecloth spread on the ground and paper plates and plastic forks all set. They’d even brought along a portabl
e cassette player to provide music. Gordon Lightfoot. Larry introduced Jim and Wanda, and they seemed nice enough.

  They had brought wine and cheese and some sandwiches to go with the cold fried chicken in Larry’s basket. They’d also brought along some grass. Despite her more sensible instincts Lucy drank a little too much wine and took a few too many tokes off one of the joints and, after a while, began feeling light-headed and -hearted, the most relaxed and happy she’d been since coming home. After a few more swigs of wine she realized that Larry’s hand was resting on the inside of her thigh. She gently pushed his hand away and smiled at him, then after another hit of the joint began thinking maybe she liked having his hand there, and he asked her if he could put his arm around her and Lucy said YES that would BE FINE if you want TO and Larry said that he WANTED to because she was a NICE-looking CHICK and that made her laugh because wasn’t a chick a LITTLE thing you saw RUNNING around a barnyard? and Larry laughed at that and told her once again how he’d been watching her for quite some time and she told him I’ve noticed YOU, TOO from time to TIME, and that made Jim and Wanda laugh, and Larry laughed, then Lucy started laughing and took another swig and another toke and was feeling really good now, really fine, fine like a princess in an old Russian fairy story, and Larry started a fresh joint and offered it to her and she asked him ISN’T this EXPENSIVE? and he said yes, BABY, it is but you’re WORTH it, then ran his hand up under her dress and she giggled because, for some reason, she liked the feel of his hand on her body, then Jim asked if everybody was ready to get serious and party down hearty and took off his pants and Wanda took off her blouse and bra as Larry reached over and squeezed one of Lucy’s breasts and Lucy said PLEEEEZE don’t DO THAT it HURTS when YOU SQUEEZE like that, but Larry kept at it and soon had her dress unzipped in the back and she was feeling truly fine now and helped him to undress her and soon all of them were naked and rolling around on the blanket and smoking more grass and smiling as Wanda kept screaming fuckmefuckmeFUCKME in Jim’s ear and Lucy giggled and Larry asked what was so funny as he parted her legs and Lucy, thinking of her mother, said THIS IS BETTER than television because YOU CAN TOUCH, then Larry touched her and climbed on top and slid inside of her, hard and firm as they pushed together, and there was a moment of blinding pain as Lucy felt something tear and leak between her legs, up and down, up and down, he felt good there, deep inside of her, and she pushed up and kissed him through the sweet pain as his hands squeezed and tickled her all over, and she said That FEELS so good am I DOING ALL RIGHT I’VE NEVER done this before and Larry rammed in deeper and said she was doing just fine, fine baby, I’m gonna come, baby, hold on, and Lucy did, held on tight as she felt his hardness swell inside her and then she pushed up and felt the spurts as he came and came and came...

  * * *

  By the time Larry dropped her off in front of her house she was starting to feel nauseated but he didn’t seem to care because he just said something about how he didn’t know if he should apologize or not because he didn’t mean for it to happen like that sure he wanted to KISS her and STUFF and it was really great but ah hell I don’t know what to say maybe you should’ve said NO and not LET ME and then he drove away, leaving her by the curb, and she almost made it onto the porch before she vomited on the steps, then Mom was there, holding her up and asking what was the matter and all Lucy could say was Aren’t you GOING to MISS something ON the TELEVISION that YOU LIKE TO WATCH? then the world started spinning like a top and she felt dizzy as Mom put her into bed and she wondered if maybe she’d been a bad girl, and after her father had thanked God for a daughter like her.

  * * *

  Five weeks later she discovered she was pregnant.

  * * *

  Later, after the Bad Time ended in a protracted series of sputtering little agonies, she indulged in one instance of genuine self-pity, and—following the advice in one of the countless self-help books she’d accumulated—put the ugliness on paper:

  Dear Larry,

  I don’t know whether or not I’ll have the nerve to mail this once it’s finished, but according to most of these self-help books I’ve been reading (I’ve been reading a lot them lately), it’s supposed to be therapeutic to get your feelings down on paper. I feel like one of those characters in some corny play or movie who go to the grave of a loved one and talk to the headstone. I don’t much like it.

  I don’t know how to react to your card. I’d like to know who told you about it and why, after all this time, you felt you needed to contact me. I probably shouldn’t be writing to you at all, but—impetuous, impulsive, spontaneous.

  You ask how I’m feeling. I feel angry, hurt, very misunderstood, and not close to apologizing to anyone in this world except myself for the mess I have made of my life. I need love and very much resent that I do. I can’t find it in myself to trust anyone. I feel like a wounded animal in a cage. That’s a bad simile, I know. I’ve been trying to figure out how to say the things I want to say to you—the things I should have said to you a long time ago—but I can’t bring myself to write them down, it seems too cowardly. Mom understands, or seems to. It’s kind of creepy at times, the way she knows what I’m thinking or feeling without me having to say anything to her.

  I saw you a few days ago. You were coming out of the Sparta with some woman with red hair. The two of you seemed to be very close. Is it serious? Does the cook at the Sparta still make those wickedly delicious cheeseburgers? Do you ever think about what happened? I do. It was kind of weird, seeing you the other day. The moment I laid eyes on you, I felt grief. I looked at lost youth, innocence—mine! That evening on the hill for me was like a pleasant dream, an escape. But later—I suffered for it. Knowing the life I was in, the life I once had. Seeing you reminded me that I’ve lost the dearest thing in the world, the most precious thing I ever had.

  I feel that I’ve loved many people in my life but very few have truly loved me. Some said they did, but words are cheap. Especially when they come out of the mouth of a man like you. Because of you I now find most men to be slobbering, indecisive fools to whom love and sex are equivalent. I worry that I’ll feel that way for the rest of my life. I used to think that sex was a sacred thing, a joy, a fulfillment of life as God designed it to be. I’m still sure it was supposed to be that way—the purest physical connection a man and woman can make, echoing the spiritual connection, as well—but since that night I have learned what cruelty is, shame, degradation, ugliness. For the first time in my life I look down at the ground when I speak to people. I won’t look in mirrors. I feel dirty and inferior. I don’t laugh and I won’t smile. I’m aware that I’m not pretty, that I have a pudgy, sagging body, godawful hair. My dad calls me a whore. He even points at whores on the street when we’re driving and tells me the only way I’ll ever snag a man now is if I dress like a whore and wear makeup like one. Lots of lipstick and tight clothes, he says. He’s turned into such a bastard. You’d probably like him. Be the best of friends, you two.

  Everything about me that I always thought was good and kind or special has been ridiculed by him, scorned, criticized, and crushed. Still, I wonder why I’ve allowed myself to feel this way. To be compared by your own father to a common prostitute and come up lacking. Sometimes I almost believe his rantings.

  I don’t know if I want people near me anymore. I’m tired of the effort it takes to keep friends and loved ones. Yet I need love and friendship—and I fight that need. I want to drive everyone away. I don’t want to be hurt again, not like that. I don’t want what every other woman in this town has settled for, to be dominated by a man, to be told what to do and when to do it. If I ever subject myself to that again I’ll scream. I scream inside now and can’t wait for those times when I’m alone so I won’t have to hold it in anymore.

  And hate. I feel hate now as I never have before. Cold and calculating, not a normal heated rage that is spent quickly. A year of holding this rage inside has taught me well. Keep that guard up. I often find myself fantasizing about
revenge. Mom says, No, don’t be like that. Read your Bible and be Christian. I threw my Bible away. Christianity doesn’t apply here. I know that I’m wrong even as I write this, but don’t I hate as well as I love? The “old” me is so far away, so distant—I don’t think I’d recognize her if she were to come around. She really believed she was loved, cherished, and respected by everyone who knew her. She didn’t know that what I have lived even existed.

  It’s funny; I never used to feel sorry for the “bad” girls, the “loose” ones that all the guys mistreated. No, queen-angel Lucy felt they had it coming for their sluttish behavior. It wouldn’t happen to me because I was “special.” Ha! Talk about how the mighty have fallen. Some women just have to get affection any way they can. I wish I could find them, all of those girls I used to look down my nose at, so I could apologize to them for having felt superior. What they did, they did out of loneliness, even if they didn’t know it.

  I want to escape from this thing I’ve become. I desperately want to start over—to be virginal again in some way, any way. I want to change. I wish I could afford total plastic surgery—nose, eyes, chin, boobs, the works. And a name change too. I want the old Lucy dead, gone, her shame buried. I’m no longer that girl. I’m what became of her.

  Empty now. I just want to go to a strange place where no one knows me. I don’t know if I can feel anything of value now. Do I want to know? I can understand pain, fear, and rage intimately, even though I don’t want to.

  Strange thing happened to me yesterday. I was going through all my old high school stuff and I came across this paper I wrote for a psychology class. The assignment was to write a letter to your unborn child, introducing yourself to them. The teacher told us to pretend that our child was never going to see us, ever, so we had to tell them everything important in this letter.