—even as Skyler dazed and dizzied and queasy from the dregs of whatever left-behind drinks he’s been swilling on the sly is made to realize The party will never end, we are trapped here forever, I can’t protect Mummy from hurt and I can’t protect Bliss, I can’t even protect myself.*
QUICK CUT TO: DADDY.
Must’ve been just a few minutes later, as Skyler lurches/limps in frantic haste into one of two downstairs guest bathrooms (ordinarily off-limits to Skyler, as it is off-limits to Bliss, for Mummy does not want her expensive, specially scented miniature soaps in the shapes of seashells, turtles, and tiny birds and her delicate Irish linen hand-towels to be despoiled by her children’s grubby hands), and pukes up a disgusting mixture of acid-liquids and pulpy-masticated puffy pastries, spicy sausages, and stuffed mushrooms he hadn’t known he had devoured in such quantity, emerging then shaky but clear-eyed and “sober” and drawn by braying male voices to observe Daddy in a corner of the dining room near one of the full-service bars, in the company of several men among whom Bix Rampike is the youngest and what a presence he is, Bix Rampike! Big-shouldered, craggy-faced, blunt-good-looking American guy, quick to smile, quick to take offense, give you the shirt off his back, punch you in the gut if you insult his kids, his wife, his flag, his corporate employer, his God. An earnest crinkle to Bix’s brow, flash of “brown-soulful” eyes, he’s wearing an expensive camel’s hair blazer that’s endearingly rumpled. On all the men’s wrists are what appear to be Rolex watches but Bix’s Rolex is the least showy, as Bix is the youngest of these burly men, head cocked at a respectful angle as he listens to the indignant rant of his Scor Chemicals mentor-friend Mel Hambruck as flush-faced Morris Kruk, six-foot-three “Howie” O’Stryker and an unidentified other (Caucasian, youngish middle-aged) man emit those grunts and vehement head-nods that mean Yes! Right! I am listening. Sneering Mel Hambruck says, “—‘global warning’—biggest damn hoax since the Holocaust but know what?—you say so, you get crucified by the left-wing Jew press. So, mum’s the word! We know what we know, eh?” There’s a pause as the men lift their glasses to drink, possibly to brood, or possibly in the festive party-din there is no need to brood, comes Bix Rampike to the rescue saying, “‘Global warming’—I think you mean ‘warming,’ Mel—actually there is something to it, Mel. I’m reading all these science texts, I subscribe to Scientific American, you can see the charts. ‘Polar ice caps’—‘Caspian Sea.’ Except what they leave out is: global warming is a fact of geology. Remember the Ice Age—it preceded Homo sapiens by millions of years. Homo sapiens has only been around about fifty thousand years and the big deal with us is, we have ‘opposable thumbs’—plus we walk upright—and we learned to grow our own damn food, not chase it bare-ass naked through the jungle as they are still doing, ‘ab-originals,’ in parts of the world. Now, fifty thousand years is but an eye blink in Time! In the galaxy, Time is relative. It’s like half-cooked spaghetti twisting back on itself, coiled and tangled. There’s no forward, or backward. It’s both. So, if things had not warmed up after the Ice Age, where’d we be? Homo sapiens wouldn’t have fucking hatched. Is that a profound fact, or not? Sometimes I think, waking in the middle of the night and I think Jesus! We might’ve not made it, our very civilization is hanging by a thread. So ‘global warming’ is just the way things work, in nature. It’s what Darwin meant by ‘evolution.’ And we are what Darwin meant by ‘evolution’—I mean us, in Fair Hills, New Jersey—‘the fruits of natural selection.’” Young Bix Rampike has spoken so convincingly, and so eloquently, his companions have only to grunt in vehement agreement, for what is there to add to Bix’s remarkable speech except, as Howie O’Stryker says, impressed: “Just what I was going to say, friend. I’ll drink to that.”*
And they did.
Quick cut to: solarium, rear of house. Mummy’s favorite room she has decorated with white wicker furniture, cushions and pillows in bright parrot colors, rubber plants and orange trees in ceramic tubs. For the party, the solarium is candle-lit but most of the candles have burned low and a few have gone out and no one is here except Skyler who has drifted away from the now-waning party, way past Skyler’s bedtime but the wily child has managed to escape attention. Skyler has an uneasy feeling that Bliss is waiting for him upstairs in bed, Bliss sleeps with the Mother Goose lamp burning through the night for Bliss is afraid of the dark though her room is still the nursery with a door opening into Mummy and Daddy’s room, Bliss is feeling sad and lonely and her ankle has been hurting but Skyler isn’t going to think guiltily of his little sister, not right now. Swallowing down a mouthful of red wine out of one of the glasses—a mouthful of white wine—Skyler coughs, chokes—keeps swallowing—Skyler seems not to have learned his lesson about scavenging alcoholic party drinks—he has heard boys at school boasting of getting drunk on party leftovers like this—damn! Skyler wishes he was friends with Fox Hambruck, good old Foxie would appreciate Skyler’s boastful tale of how he got drunk not once but twice undetected by his parents—hearing someone approaching outside the room, awkwardly he crouches behind a wicker rocking chair, at the doorway there’s a couple whispering and laughing together, Skyler has a glimpse of a tall man, a woman with blond crimped hair and a throaty chuckle, the man’s hands are kneading the woman’s mostly bare back and even an asexual runt of nine understands that these two are not married to each other—
Jesus are you beautiful when can I see you
damn you didn’t call back last week
honey I’ve been traveling
Bix come on if someone sees
Say your car has broken down I’ll drive you home
Are you crazy? what about Cal
Fuck Cal he’s here? didn’t see Cal
Of course Cal is here he’s drunk
Can’t drive you home if he’s drunk can he
Can’t leave him here for heaven’s sake Bix
Crazy for you honey
And what about your wife
What about her?
QUICK CUT. ANYWHERE OUT OF HERE!
The Skater. In the nursery in the night floating in the little-girl bed with the white satin headboard decorated with pink and gold satin tiny girl-skaters, Bliss is sleeping. Not a quiet sleep but a twitchy sweaty moaning sleep for Bliss is skating in a place that is unfamiliar and inhospitable and a harsh spotlight is following her, if Bliss swerves suddenly on the ice, cuts her blades into the ice to turn in an unexpected direction yet the spotlight leaps after her, in fact the spotlight leaps ahead of her, uncanny and rapacious as a living creature. Bliss’s eyes are blinded, Bliss’s eyes fill with moisture, Mummy has been noticing lately, others have noticed, Bliss’s eyes seem to be filled with moisture much of the time, tears spill from her eyes and streak her face though she isn’t crying. Bliss what is wrong with you? Mummy pleads and there is no answer, Bliss has no answer turning to skate away, shutting her eyes to avoid the blinding spotlight. Though Bliss is six years old and no longer a really little girl yet Mummy has insisted that Bliss remain in the nursery close beside Mummy and Daddy’s bedroom with the door in the wall between the rooms that can be locked on one side (on Mummy and Daddy’s side) but not on the other. Mummy has had the nursery repainted and refurnished so that it has become a very pretty young-girl’s room with pink ruffled organdy curtains and white wicker-framed mirrors and on the pink and cream walls are framed photographs of Bliss’s skating triumphs, in chronological sequence beginning with now-historic Tots-on-Ice 1994 where the little-girl skater is a tiny figure between Mummy beaming with happiness and massive lizard-faced Jeremiah Jericho in his gaudy tux. In sleep Bliss has a habit of grinding her back teeth, breathing harshly through her mouth as if panting, for there is something wrong with the ice beneath her skate blades, the ice isn’t smooth but coarse and rippled and the glaring spotlight makes her eyes hurt. She has been zipped into a skating costume tight as a swimsuit, is it the white-sequined-swan costume with the fluttery white feathers, is it the red-sequined-Boléro costume with the ( just
slightly) padded bodice and slit-skirt, peek-a-boo black-lace panties beneath?—Bliss is beginning to sweat inside the costume Mummy has zipped her into so tightly, Bliss has begun to sweat inside the cosmetic-mask Mummy has applied to her face like putty, or maybe it’s bedclothes that have become twisted beneath Bliss, her pink flannel nightie that has become twisted between her legs. There is a twitch in Bliss’s left eyelid, a sudden stab of pain in Bliss’s left ankle, that familiar pain, it is Bliss Rampike’s left ankle that will betray her. Mummy has said We must keep this a secret! Our rivals would gloat. Except for sweet cherry pop and a few appetizers from the tray she’d been carrying, Bliss has gone to bed hungry, the more frantically she skates the less hungry she will be, turning on her skate blade, turning too sharply, the audience is murmuring somewhere in the shadows, or is the sound coming from the other side of the wall, voices through the shut door, it is very late, even in her sleep Bliss understands that it is very late now, her parents’ guests have gone home at last, car doors have been slamming, cars have departed, the loud gay laughing voices have departed, the uniformed servers are gone, the Marias are gone, Daddy has been away somewhere in his car and Daddy has returned stumbling on the stairs muttering to himself and in the big bedroom Mummy is awaiting him How could you! humiliate me! at such a time! in front of our friends! I hate you! even as Bliss skates to the very rear of the ice rink, trying not to hear the voices on the other side of the door, determined not to hear, skating/gliding/turning/though her left ankle has been throbbing with pain, and her head is throbbing with pain, and her cheeks are damp with tears, and her mouth is very dry, and, oh! that sensation in the pit of her belly that means danger, her bladder is pinching, but she can’t stop skating, must complete her routine, Boléro is accelerating its rhythm, ever faster, faster, as the audience begins to applaud, like a deafening waterfall the audience begins to applaud, Bliss feels her bladder burst, can’t wake from sleep in time to stop the first hot spurt of pee soiling her pink flannel nightie, soiling her pink-and-cream bedsheets, and the mattress beneath, this is the bad thing Bliss has been taught not to do, not since she was a little little girl being potty-trained bad girl! bad Edna Louise! you are bad on purpose aren’t you, you are not trying are you, what a dirty child, whose dirty child are you, Oh! look at the bad girl shame on the bad girl Edna Louise nobody wanted you in this house, Mummy and Daddy will send you back dirty ugly Edna Louise! but she is Bliss now, she is Bliss and not Edna Louise, waking confused in her bed, frightened and guilty in her bed, for the wet is rapidly becoming cold, and smelly, and her mattress is soaked, and her bedclothes and nightie, and there will be nowhere to hide, that Mummy will not find her.
* Well, Mummy, Daddy, and Bliss are “smilingly posed” while little Skyler at the edge of the photo stares at the camera with frown lines in his eight-year-old forehead and the twisted smile of a stroke victim.
* Will you listen to this! Big-Daddy-bullshit! It would take me years to track down this quote, only just discovered by accident in a poetry anthology at the Basking Ridge Academy: the lines are from “A Prayer for My Daughter” by William Butler Yeats.
* Anyway, something like that. Among the bitter dregs of memory, Big-Daddy-bullshit can be recalled only in quick takes. In a woman’s romance novel of the kind that sell, in both hardcover and paperback, millions of copies annually, it would be observed A fateful glance passed unmistakably between them, the tall handsome gringo homeowner and the dark-eyed exotic Little Maria or some hopeful crap of that kind but, to be utterly truthful, as I’ve vowed to be, if a glance did pass between my father and the young Maria, Skyler missed it, Skyler had not a clue, Skyler hid in his clothes closet waiting for the quake of Daddy’s footsteps to fade.
* Are there any readers who will admit to an interest in country clubs? “Exclusive”—“prestigious”—private clubs like these? If so, this melancholy crap is for you. (To learn whether Bix played his cards shrewdly, or unwisely, and won, or lost, a bid to join the Sylvan Glen Golf Club, you’ll have to keep plowing on here, into the next chapter or so.)
† Brutal assailant of his own six-year-old daughter. Can this be? Did I really write these terrible words? Obviously, I wrote them in a burst of rage, and should remove them now, and yet—I think that I will leave these words in. And if Daddy wants to sue his estranged son, let him sue. The tabloids await new Rampike scandal.
* The skeptical reader recoils in disbelief: “What the hell? A kid of nine, medicated, half-drunk, isn’t capable of such a profound ‘epiphany,’ this is bullshit.” But I assure you, dear reader, skeptic as you are, that this is exactly how Skyler Rampike felt watching his little sister sign a wrinkled cocktail napkin.
* Bix Rampike should’ve run for political office, you’re thinking? State senator, eventually U.S. senator on the Republican ticket? In fact, Morris County Republicans did approach my father, more than once, in the waning years of the Clinton administration, sensing a seismic change to come, but Daddy demurred: there was far more money in the corporate world and you didn’t have to get elected to any office, you just took office.
BAD GIRL! I
WETTING HER BED.
Trying to hide the evidence.*
SLEEPWALKING.
Rising from her little-girl bed in the nursery, in the night.
Open-eyed yet sleeping—not seeming to know where she was, what she was doing—as she’d claim afterward—“like a dream”—“something was making me, not me”—prowling in the darkened house colliding with things, recklessly descending the stairs, falling on the (carpeted) stairs to lie stunned and whimpering on the first-floor landing mistaken then for her bed—“where I was meant to sleep.”
Were the sleepwalking episodes more prevalent when Bliss was preparing for a skating competition?—when Bliss was practicing at the ice rink for more than three hours a day?—so it was asked, by one or another of the child psychologists/neurologists/therapists to whom Bliss was brought, in that final year of her life.
DISAPPEARING.
Skyler where is your sister? Oh where has that bad girl got herself to now?
Mummy laughed, though Mummy was agitated: for Mummy had to know that, though Bliss wasn’t in her bed, wasn’t in her room, wasn’t in her bathroom or in any of the rooms in which Mummy had looked, nor beneath beds in those rooms, or sofas, or behind drapes, yet Bliss had to be somewhere in the house, for no one had broken in to kidnap her, Mummy had to know.
To worry me! To spite me! To make me upset! She does it on purpose that bad girl!
Yet sometimes Bliss was in (almost) plain sight, for instance curled up asleep like a little animal in a children’s storybook, in the shadowy alcove beneath the front staircase. And sometimes curled up on the homely nubby-fabric sofa in the basement family room never used by the Rampikes, like a room belonging to a ghost family that shared the house with us, whom we never saw: open the door and there’s Bliss sleeping, her wan little face upturned, disheveled hair, she’s breathing raspily through her part-opened mouth, barefoot and twitchy and her pretty pink embroidered nightie disfigured by stains.
Bliss’s strangest hiding place: the smutty floor of the furnace room where twin furnaces like great beasts throbbed and vibrated in cold weather.
My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike Page 18