The Shrine at Altamira

by John L'Heureux

  Emory finished his meal. “Go on,” she said, and he went into the living room to watch television while Ana Luisa washed the dishes and put them away. She sponged the counter and wiped it clean. She polished the stove.

  “I’m going now,” she called, and let herself out the back way. As she was getting into her car, she looked up, and as always Emory was standing at the front door, staring after her. She waved, and he waved, and then she drove away.

  She laughed to herself. This had to be the strangest relationship between a man and a woman in the history of the world.

  “It’s just to the zoo,” Russell said. “I’ll have him back by five, I promise.”

  “Where were you when he needed you? When he was sick, you were nowhere around.” Maria balanced the phone against her shoulder while she lit a cigarette.

  “That was a long time ago. That was years ago.”

  “Only two. Not even two.”

  “Well, I’m here now. I’ve turned over a new leaf.” Russell waited for her answer and felt himself growing hard. He put his hand to his groin.

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “I’ll be there at ten in the morning. Saturday.”

  Maria thought about it. John was six now and ought to have a father in his life. It wasn’t natural for a boy to grow up with just a mother and a grandmother. He needed a man’s influence. And after all, the court had said Russell could have visitation rights two weekends a month, so she really couldn’t prevent it if he insisted. Still, Russell was so crazy, so unpredictable. He had disappeared for a year, almost two, offered no child support, nothing, and then all of a sudden he wanted to take his son to the zoo.

  The truth was he’d never gotten over her, and she knew it. So she might as well let him see John. What harm in it?

  When Russell came by on Saturday morning, they felt strange together, oddly formal and polite. John, too, was strange. He seemed afraid of his father and was distant, quiet. John got in the car with Russell as if he were being taken to the dentist.

  Maria spent the day shopping. It was a beautiful September day, warm but with a cool breeze, and she should have been having a wonderful time, but she couldn’t stop worrying about John. What if Russell had one of his angry fits? What if he didn’t have John back on time? What if …? She refused to let herself think this way. She bought a new dress, maroon paisley, and she window-shopped, and she dawdled over tea.

  By four o’clock, though, she was home, waiting.

  Russell was right on time. At five, he dropped John off in front of the house, waved to Maria, and kept on going. John was excited, for once, and happy. And so now was Maria.

  Two weekends later, Russell showed up once again. And again the visit went off well. John seemed glad to be with his father, and Maria was glad to have a day free for herself. By late November his visits were a regular thing. Every second Saturday, John was his.

  Ana Luisa knelt before her shrine and offered prayers of thanksgiving.

  . . . . .

  Russell asked if he could have John overnight. They would stay in a motel. They would have two days at Great America, sort of an early Christmas present.

  Maria said she would think about it, and then she said no.

  But Russell had already told John his plan—providing your mother says okay—and John was at her constantly. “I want to go. Why can’t I go? I never have any fun.” And later: “Other kids go all the time. I never get to do anything. Everybody’s been to Great America except me.” And: “You don’t even let me see my own father. I wish I was dead.”

  Finally Maria said yes, he could go.

  On the Friday before the Great America trip, Russell waited in the parking lot until Maria left her office building. She was wearing a new black coat and carrying a new black briefcase, and there was a man by her side. He walked her to her car where they stood chatting for a while. They seemed to have trouble saying goodbye. He was short, with dark hair and gold-rimmed glasses, and he seemed to find everything funny. He waved his arms around, imitating somebody, and he thumped the hood of the car as he made some point, and they both began to laugh. Even from this distance Russell could hear their laughter, hard and brittle, exaggerated. The skinny little shit was coming on to her.

  They stopped laughing, and he said something, and something else. She hesitated. After a moment she put her briefcase in the car, locked up, and, smiling, they walked off arm in arm.

  Russell was stunned. He was falling from a scaffold and there was nothing beneath him except empty air. He tried to get out of his car, but he couldn’t seem to manage it. The door wouldn’t open at first, and then he couldn’t get his feet on the ground. The pavement gave way beneath him. He turned his ankle. He half knelt at the open door until his head began to clear, and then he pulled himself up and looked around. Maria and her boyfriend had disappeared.

  She had a boyfriend.

  Perhaps a lover.

  Russell couldn’t get his breath. He couldn’t see. He stood bent over, leaning on the car door until his vision cleared a little, and then he took off after them. At once pain shot from his ankle up into his stomach. He stopped for a moment and then hobbled over to the parking lot fence and rested against it. He could see them—Maria in her black coat, the little shit with his arm at her back—as they paused outside Riordan’s, said no, said yes, and then went inside. Laughing.

  Russell stood for a long while leaning against the fence, thinking. Perhaps they were only discussing business. Perhaps they were only having a drink. He saw Maria’s dark hair against the pillow. She was smiling up at him. Laughing with him. What was she doing out with some other man? Perhaps he was touching her hand across the table. Perhaps their legs touched. Maria grinned and gave a dirty laugh, twisting her body beneath his, and Russell wanted to choke the life out of her, he wanted her dead. He put his hand to his chest and traced the rough X he had carved in his body. He should have slit his throat instead. He should have slit her throat.

  When they came out of the restaurant, it was very dark. They walked back to the parking lot, talking, not laughing now, and Russell could see that the boyfriend had his hand lightly on her shoulder. Not an embrace, really. Just a proprietary gesture that was more than friendship. Perhaps they were not yet lovers. At her car, they paused for a minute, and then she held out her hand. The boyfriend took her hand, but then he leaned close to her, and Russell could not see exactly what was happening, but he seemed to be kissing her. They stood there, close together. They kissed. He was sure they kissed. So perhaps they were already lovers. She got into her car and the boyfriend stood nearby while she backed out and pulled away. He stood, looking after her car. Then, jaunty as hell, the boyfriend walked across the lot and got into his own car, a red Mustang, and roared out into the street.

  Russell stood in the shadow of the building, not moving, not even breathing, and then with his back to the wall, he slid to a sitting position and rested his head on his knees.

  He was cold and the night was cold and he continued to sit there, knowing now what he would do unless something happened to stop him.

  But nothing happened.

  The next morning at ten, when he came by to pick up John, Russell had dark smudges beneath his eyes and his voice was sharp and broken. Maria looked at him closely. She was nervous about letting him take John overnight, and she still wasn’t sure she could trust him, but his face was closed to her. She could see nothing there to worry about, no signs of his craziness or anger. Maybe he was just tired.

  “I’ve got five dollars,” John said. “Look!” He held up five ones.

  Russell knelt down by his son and smoothed his hair. It was the same color as Maria’s. “Are you all ready?” he said. “It’s gonna be a very exciting two days. Did you bring your pajamas?”

  John was shy suddenly and moved close to his father’s chest. “You know what?” he said. “Grandma gave me five dollars and”—he whispered—”I’m gonna buy Mommy a present with it.”<
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  Russell hugged him close.

  Maria watched and, for the moment, she felt reassured.

  “There’s pajamas in here,” she said, “and a change of clothes, and a sweater for tonight. It gets chilly.” She handed Russell a TWA flight bag. “And his toothbrush and stuff.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Let’s go, John-o.”

  “Russell.” She put her hand on his arm. He turned and really looked at her for the first time this morning. Suddenly she felt empty inside. “Russell,” she said again.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “Please,” she said, and to cover the pleading sound in her voice, she said brightly, “John, come kiss your mommy goodbye,” and she gave him a loud smack. John squirmed away and ran on ahead. Russell smiled at her, and still she could see nothing in his face. At the car they waved goodbye.

  They had been driving for only a short while when Russell pulled off 101 and took a number of rights and lefts and parked his car in front of a ratty motel just off El Camino.

  John gazed out the window and said, disappointed, “Is this it?”

  “Almost,” Russell said. “We just have to stop here for a short while.”

  “Why?” John asked.

  “We just have to. Now, you be a good boy and wait for me here while I go see the man inside. I’ll be only a minute.” Russell made sure the car doors were locked, and then he waved to the boy and walked across the gravel to the motel office.

  Inside the office, the clerk watched Russell coming, but as soon as he opened the door and approached the desk, the clerk got busy shuffling papers. Russell knew the type. He was one of those old farts who like to play I’ve Got the Key.

  Russell waited him out.

  “All right now, what’ll it be for you, young man?”

  Russell asked for a room with twin beds.

  The clerk leaned forward with enthusiasm. “I can give you twins,” he said, “or I can give you a double. You’ll have to make up your own mind. A double will save you a couple bucks—two twenty-five, to be exact—and it’s cozy if you’re with the little woman. Of course, twins are better if you’re used to sleeping alone and you want a good night’s sleep, though personally I think it’s a damned shame. I think a lot of the divorces in this country happen because people sleep in twin beds.” He paused meaningfully. “But of course everybody’s different.”

  “Twins,” Russell said. “It’s just me and my son.”

  “Been traveling all night? You’ll have to sign right here.”

  Russell signed the book.

  “So, you been traveling all night?”

  “No. Well, for most of it, yes. We need a rest.”

  “Sure. Going to Mexico? The Baja?”

  “No.”

  The clerk was about to hand over the key, but now he stopped, the key still dangling in his hand. “No?” he said.

  “L.A.,” Russell said. “To see relatives.” He reached out and took the key.

  “I been to the Baja last summer … for the fishing, you know. Abalone. I tell you, you’ve never seen some of the fish like they’ve got down there. Squid. Big fellows, but nice and tender, not like they have up here. And then there’s the abalone, you know. You scrape them right off the rocks, eat them raw. Very sweet and delicate. Now there are several kinds of abalone, most people don’t know that. You take your basic abalone …”

  Russell turned and left the office, letting the door slam behind him. He found himself beginning to get angry, and he could not afford to get angry. He could not afford any emotion at all.

  “Come on,” he said to John, “and bring your bag.”

  John followed him to the motel room. “But what about Great America?” he asked. “Aren’t we going?”

  Russell sat down on the corner of the bed and drew John to him. “I said we’re going, didn’t I? Don’t you trust me? Don’t you trust your own father?”

  John looked down, and his face began to get red.

  “You’re supposed to love your father. Don’t you love your father? Hmm? Don’t you love me?”

  John nodded his head.

  “Of course you do.”

  “And Mommy too,” John said.

  Russell stared into the boy’s dark eyes, touched his forehead, his cheek, his chin. It was Maria’s face.

  “And she loves you,” Russell said. “Mommy loves you more than anything in the world. More than me, even.” He pressed the boy, hard, to his chest, and his body shook with the love he felt for Maria.

  After that, he put aside all feeling, and though things went very slowly, they didn’t seem to be going fast or slow; they seemed to be happening out of time. He was himself but not himself. It was as if he stood outside his body, calmly, uninvolved, and watched this other self give John the sleeping pills and put him to bed. “But it’s still morning!” John said. And Russell listened as he heard himself say, “It’s still morning, John, but we have to take a nap before we go.” He sat beside the boy until the pills took effect, and then he went out to the car and got the gallon can of paint thinner he had put there hours earlier. He watched himself as he soaked the mattress with the thinner, getting it in close to the boy’s body but careful not to wake him. John twitched as the cold fluid soaked into the mattress and spread beneath him, but he did not wake up.

  Russell stood there waiting. He sat on the side of the bed and watched John sleeping. He moved over and sat on the other bed, giving someone time to come to the door and stop what was about to happen. He waited for the phone to ring, for an earthquake, for a lightning bolt. But nothing happened, and he watched himself waiting.

  Finally he got up and went to the little desk. He had not brought matches. He was trying to leave this to chance. If there were no matches in the desk, he would wake John and they would go to Great America and ride the rides and then go home. But there was a matchbook in the desk, a single match inside. The cover said “Can you draw me?” above the silhouette of a pretty girl.

  He had delayed long enough. He walked to the foot of the bed and took one last look at his sleeping son. John’s leg twitched and he frowned a little.

  At once Russell drew the match across the striking pad and tossed it on the bed. There was a whooshing sound, and a sheet of fire leapt up, blue and then orange, and the boy was enveloped in flames.

  Russell walked from the room and lay down on his face in the shade of the motel sign. The grass was cool against his cheek and he felt, finally, that it was time for him to sleep. Distantly he heard the hollow roar of the flames, the sound of feet running, screams, and then the fire engine and the ambulance and the hospital emergency crew.

  His son’s face rose before him, but it was Maria’s face, full of love for him, and he closed his eyes and slept.

  THREE

  Houses burn down in the night. Teapots get knocked over. A child pulls a tablecloth and brings the scalding coffee down, or it’s the saucepan on the stove, or the boiling water. A baby chews on a live electric cord. Cookout fires, charcoal lighter, a hot gas ring, pokers, candles, a single match left lying on the coffee table—and the baby burns. Sometimes it is not an accident. The mother burns the child. Or the father does.

  The nurses at the Burn Center had seen all of this, and Peggy, who had been there longest, had seen even more. When John was brought in, Peggy looked at him and looked away involuntarily and then looked back. She had seen worse cases than John, but of course none of them had lived.

  It might be better, she said to Dr. Clark, if John didn’t live either. Dr. Clark said nothing. He was not God. He was just a doctor, and it was his job to do whatever he could. He began to assess the damage.

  The mobile unit had given the child excellent care. They’d reached the motel only minutes after the clerk’s frantic call—“There’s a kid on fire here!”—despite his inability to say where he was calling from. A quick survey of the body indicated second-degree burns on forty percent—chiefly the trunk, an arm, a hand, a leg—and full-thickness burn
s on perhaps twenty percent, with particular devastation to the face. The child, male, appeared to be five or six years old. They radioed this information to the Burn Center, where the online physician that afternoon happened to be Dr. Clark. Did these burns, Dr. Clark asked, seem compatible with life? There was silence on the line, and then a brief discussion, and the orderly replied that the child was breathing and in shock, or at least borderline shock, but the burns were extensive and most likely incompatible with life. Nonetheless Dr. Clark dispatched a team of paramedics to the site and gave instructions for basic life-support systems: oxygen and airway maintenance, fluid protocol, intravenous lines with Ringer’s lactate to compensate for dehydration. They placed the body on a board, put compresses on the minor burns, and covered him with a sheet. Only the child’s face remained exposed, though none of them could look at it. In twenty-seven minutes he was at the hospital and very near death.

  In the emergency room, they were ready for him, more or less, and he was dragged back into life.

  Dr. Clark checked the oxygen and the fluids. Mucosal burns of the mouth and pharynx had caused edema that could lead to blockage of the upper airways, so—gently and with some difficulty—he inserted a soft-cuffed endotracheal tube until the edema should subside. It was a risk, of course, but better than having to perform a tracheostomy later if the edema got worse. You could never be sure with burns to the mouth and nose. The nose was bad. Full-thickness skin destruction, burned cartilage: there’d be major deformity. And there was no skin on the forehead to let them reconstruct a nose, so they’d have to use the stomach or the underarm. That would come later, though, so he’d have to think about it later. Right now he had more immediate worries. He scraped the crusts from where the nostrils had been, and then he moved on to the ears. The ears were good. Only the helix was burned and, with luck, the cartilage might not be exposed and there might be no chondritis. With chondritis, the pain would be unendurable. The eyelids had swollen, but edema had not yet set in, and he was able to examine the cornea and eye for lesions. The cornea was hazy, but he could see the iris details, so he flushed the eye with saline solution and applied Chloromycetin ointment. The prognosis for sight was fairly good, barring infection.