The first night, I slept. I woke frequently, but the illness was still with me, and I soon slipped back into the healing sleep my body demanded.
I slept until nightfall, when Sarah came home from work. She encouraged me to sit up and talk.
This was my first real view of Sarah, Samuel, and their environment. Her house was furnished with Indian-print cloths as wall hangings, window covers, bedspreads—one even billowed down from the ceiling. The brightly patterned cloths comprised her wardrobe as well. She wrapped them around her body and her short dark hair in comfortable fashion. The effect was slightly claustrophobic, but colorful and lively. Pillows of all sizes and descriptions were scattered about the carpeted floor and piled into mounds in the corner. Shelves of raw wood were separated by bricks; these shelves were filled with books on dance, movement, therapy, and mysticism. In one corner of the small living room was a mattress, neatly covered with a flowered fabric.
Sarah looked like an exotic mix of nationalities. I watched her move about her tiny kitchen as she brewed tea for us. She propped me up against the wall, helped me get comfortable; Samuel sat on the mattress and quietly watched us. His eyes were the same dark color as hers.
Sarah unwound her sarong to reveal a yellow leotard and tights. She sat on the carpeting in the middle of the room and began stretching exercises. I’d never seen anything so beautiful or fascinating in my life.
As she worked, she talked. She was thirty-four, taught dance in the high school, movement in the preschool, and spent two afternoons a week with the elderly in town, giving them gentle exercises to keep the ravages of age to a minimum. On Saturdays she helped in the physical-therapy clinic.
The local high school had put on a dance exhibition four years earlier and Sarah’s classes had danced, and so had Sarah. She danced with an invited guest: a handsome boy from San Francisco, who had come to dance and left behind a child growing in her womb.
“It was quite a scandal,” Sarah laughed as she lowered her throat to one knee, fingers gracefully holding one foot.
She spoke of raising a son, of teaching high school girls; with sidelong glances at my reactions, spoke of her love of life and the freedom of commitment to one’s own beliefs.
I could follow her for only moments at a time, and then my mind would sprint away, chasing a thought or an idea, and upon returning, the topic would be different and I would have to pretend I was following, until I caught up and she said something else that sent me running after a new concept.
It was exhausting work. I slumped in the corner, sick, still feverish, weak and unhappy, while in front of me a healthy, happy, well-adjusted woman exercised with a flushed face and a feminine sheen of perspiration covering her face and chest. She stopped and looked at me.
“Drink your tea,” she said. “It will help you heal.”
With a clap of thunder in my bowels, I realized I was not only different—I was inferior. I drank my tea and weakly made my way back to bed—Sarah’s bed, which she had generously given up for my use. She bedded down in the front room, on the mattress, with her son.
On the third day, we followed the same routine—I slept through the day and arose at dusk, when she came home from work. I reclined against pillows, and Samuel sat on his mattress and we both watched his mother end her professional day stretching. Only this time, because I was obviously better, Sarah began asking me of my life.
I told her lies.
She knew I lied, I could tell it by her movements, and it became a sort of a game to me, to tell her something terribly untrue and go on to the next question, my imagination taking me into strange realms. I didn’t even care if my stories conflicted with one another.
Sarah stopped asking questions. Samuel turned from me and put his thumb in his mouth. It was this action that made me stop. I stood and stretched, then showered while Sarah finished her exercises. She showered then, while I tried to play with Samuel, but he only looked at me with those liquid brown eyes and made it obvious he would rather amuse himself. So I packed, feeling vague resentment and remorse. She had been so kind to me and I had only lied to her. When Sarah had finished in the bathroom, I was ready to move on.
She saw me to the door, her eyes understanding and forgiving, and said, “When you learn to be true to yourself, Angelina, let me know.” I turned and walked away.
“It was at least six months, maybe closer to a year, before I got all the information about those three deaths in Westwater. When I found out the truth—like that the teeth marks were human—there was no doubt in my mind about Angelina being the one. The police were so freaked out that they concocted the wild-dog theory on the night that Danny’s body was found. They thought it better that the community believe there was a pack of murderous dogs roaming the streets than a homicidal maniac. When in truth, they’d found a towel tucked neatly around his wounds. Jesus.
“I couldn’t believe it, though. I mean, I knew it was true—if it was anybody, it was Angelina . . . but how could any person do something like that? God.
“Anyway, she was long gone by the time I put it all together. I was the only one who could know. No one else knew her attitudes, her . . . personality twist, I guess I’d have to call it. She was just a little bit different. No one else knew about the towel. I saw it right out of her closet, and then saw it again, covered with Mr. Simpson’s blood.
“I began to think about her. I wrote down everything I could remember about her, everything she said, and I began to subscribe to different newspapers, looking for something suspicious, some murder with her M.O., any lead to follow up on, any clue to her whereabouts. I stashed money and kept a suitcase packed and ready, just waiting for a lead. I slacked off at work, even took a demotion from construction foreman to flunkie so I could cut out at the whistle and go hang out at the police station. The cops kind of enjoyed the fact that I was so fascinated with the case.
“I knew that Angelina and I’d meet up again someday. And every morning when I woke up, I wondered if this would be the day, and I’d look at that suitcase waiting there by my bedroom door, and I prayed for it.
“But it didn’t happen. For almost a year, I waited.
“The more I thought about her, though, the more I began to dream about her, the more my imagination got carried away. There were times when I could have sworn I was with her . . .”
15
For five months after leaving Sarah’s cottage, serendipity pushed and pulled me around the West. I grew increasingly frustrated and angry over feelings for which I had no names. There were no definitions, no dividing lines, no labels for the torrents of emotion that ravaged my soul.
I knew I was special, I knew I had a purpose, a calling—but during this confusing time I hated it, hated the thought of it. I raged against God, against Nature; I thought of myself as a joke. There was nothing, nothing, for which I was suited.
I tried to keep on the move and away from Westwater, Nevada. It continued to haunt me; my weird attraction for Boyd continued to pull on me.
My life was a disaster. My memories of this period are foggy, like looking back through warped, smoked glass. I moved all the time, barely resting, barely eating. I dared not get caught up with anything, dared not become attached to anyone or anything. There was no joy in my life; there was no companionship. I heard no music, no words of sweetness were whispered delicately into my ear; I learned little, except about misery.
I kept thinking about Sarah and Samuel. The words “healthy” and “balanced” always came to mind. Sarah had made mistakes, even public ones, and she continued to live, work, thrive, in the same community. I tried to remember all the things she told me, but my shame kept interfering. I had lied to her, accepted her hospitality, and acted like a fool. Even more discouraging was the gentleness with which she let me go. She forgave me.
Someday, I thought, I will have balance. Someday I will
have health, and my skin will glow like Sarah’s and my eyes will shine like Samuel’s. Then I will return to Red Creek, New Mexico, and thank her for the profound influence she had on me.
Someday, I thought.
In the meantime, my skin was papery, my hair lifeless, my eyes either heavy-lidded or half-vacant. I tried meditating, whenever I stopped working long enough, but there was nothing, nothing.
I must have been insane, I thought, to believe that there was someone who loved me, someone who was committed to me, someone who would take care of me.
I couldn’t believe I had really killed those people. Three people. Three people! Three people and a lamb. And Earl Foster.
I must have been insane.
My nights were filled with bizarre nightmares. I dreamed about those three people in Westwater. I dreamed with sad tenderness about the old man’s retarded daughter; I dreamed about the young boy’s intended fiancée. I dreamed about the punk’s mystified parents. These dreams held over into the daytime, until at times I thought of the dead as characters I would occasionally play. Their memories lived within me and occasionally I answered questions as one or the other of them. I was losing my identity. Isn’t that part of insanity?
For five months after leaving Sarah’s, I worked at odd jobs for cash. I either worked or traveled restlessly, compulsively, during the day, and then fell into exhausted sleep at night.
And then, late one afternoon in mid-June, I walked into Seven Slopes, Colorado. I was tired, hungry, dirty, and discouraged. Though my emotions still raged out of control, I knew it was time to release them, stop feeling sorry for myself and do something positive. Settle down.
Settling down, I realized in a flash of wisdom, didn’t have to mean bondage. Again I thought of Sarah, and for the first time I understood that a routine itself could be liberating . . . If I didn’t spend all my time and energy looking for a new place to sleep every night, maybe I could successfully rest, or meditate, or—heaven knows—maybe enjoy something.
At the gas station I got directions to the laundromat, then walked through the quiet little town with its Swiss-chalet shops. As I walked, I admired, and as I admired, I felt my face relax, felt the scowl fade away. Seven Slopes would probably be as perfect a home as I could find.
Suddenly a lifestyle of normalcy was the most attractive thing I could imagine. I wanted yellow kitchen curtains, just as Alice had once had.
Seven Slopes, Colorado, was nestled in a bowl where six valleys converged. The seven slopes rose dramatically on three sides of the little town, and while they were green and pleasant in June, they surely were awesome snow-skiing territory in the winter.
A winter trade would mean transient outsiders from October through April. Tourists. Where a small town might get stale after a while, outsiders would probably sate my appetite for newness, freshness, aliveness.
As I walked, I noticed that the gondola ski lifts were still operating on one slope. Summer tourists. The quiet little townspeople in the off-season probably had their noses in each other’s pockets from May through September, but I could stay aloof, apart. I could have an orderly life without becoming overly involved. I could live here and enjoy the visitors. Year ’round.
I found the laundromat, and availed myself of the restroom to clean my body while the machines cleaned my clothes. When I was again tidy and refreshed, I hiked up the hillside to spend the night. I walked through waist-high grass and wildflowers, my boots kicking up a fresh, green smell. My heart felt lighter in this place; I was anxious for the morning. In the morning I would begin to settle down and make this magnificent setting my home.
I watched the sun set behind the Rockies, and felt the excitement of living. I barely had time to wonder where that excitement had been before falling asleep with the sweet smell of fresh mountain air all around me.
In the morning, I awoke to the song of the birds and the dramatic vision of the sun on the mountains.
I knew this was home. I felt it in my bones.
The apartment I could afford was a converted basement under a clothing warehouse. It was dismal, the only windows little push-out ones next to the ceiling along one side, but it had two bedrooms, a living room, bathroom and kitchen, and nondescript gray-brown carpeting throughout. The smaller bedroom and bathroom had no windows at all, but I loved the place. It was my first apartment, my first home, my first step on the road to responsible adulthood. After I paid the landlord, I walked through the empty space, touching the walls, and I felt proud.
Within the week, I had spent the last of my odd-job money scrounging the basics for my apartment—mattress, chest of drawers, linen, kitchen table, and chairs. I needed a job.
My luck was running. The first day out, I was hired as an operator for a telephone-answering service.
The weeks went by. A new life unfolded before me, and I began to understand Lewis’s point of view for the first time. There was pleasure to be found in responsibility. There was pleasure—almost animalistic pleasure—in nesting and feathering one’s nest. Other animalistic urges filled my dreams and much of my waking hours, but I had not forgotten the sickness with the medicated lamb, nor had I forgotten the feeling of inferiority when I sat, sick and confused, in the corner while Sarah and her perfect baby radiated such health before me.
I avoided the night. I was afraid, for the first time, of the night, of its hold over me, its relentless patience. I could see where I had been crazy once—seriously mentally ill—but I had put all that behind me. I had a chance to make a new start in life, and I was pursuing it. I had a life in the daytime; I wanted no part of the night tide that turned my mind.
I bought furnishings for my small apartment, bought new clothes for myself. I began to dress like a young lady, with nice summer dresses and jackets and slacks and tops that were becoming to my petite figure. My apartment began to assume a personality of its own, with draperies and creative use of some discarded materials and plenty of fabric. It was not fancy—it was just all mine.
The answering service consisted of five switchboards filled with message lights and holes, and we used old-fashioned cords, plugs, and headsets. I enjoyed my work, talking with the faceless population, taking messages. Three of us worked during the peak morning and evening hours, two during the daytime, and one at night. Mrs. Gardener and her secretary worked in the office on the other side of a glass window, where they kept an eagle’s eye on us.
Most surprising to me was how much I could enjoy the companionship of the girls with whom I worked. Eventually I even began to feel as one of them.
I learned to laugh.
In my off-hours, I explored the town, which seemed small only at first glance. Behind Main Street, with its facade and after-ski entertainment for the visitors, were the shopping malls and warehouses and little suburbs where the local people lived. There was little poverty. It was a pleasant place; it appealed to my latent snobbery.
One day it occurred to me that I no longer felt different. I felt like a person; I even felt that soon I would consider myself “normal.” The thought even passed through my mind that one day I would erase the past and find a young man and settle down to a family. The idea made me smile. It didn’t seem likely, but I felt my options widening; I felt it was important for me to leave the doors to my mind open. I was young.
I was very young.
The evenings turned cool. Soon the days shortened; the nights lengthened. I was afraid for my new lifestyle. I knew what could happen if the night took me again. I carefully guarded myself against it. At times I felt that since I would not go to the night, it was coming for me.
Strangers began to roam the streets; whole vacant areas of town opened up and made ready for the season. The answering service took on extra help, as did everyone else in town, and the air of excitement intensified. The lazy summer was over. The winter, and its a
ttendant darkness, was about to descend.
I guardedly enjoyed it all; I enjoyed the changes in the town, in the people. I felt happier and healthier than I ever had in my life. My dreams were of normal things, I thought rarely of Boyd. I busied myself planning a trip back to Red Creek, to see Sarah and Samuel in the spring, after the visitor season waned.
And then the first big snowfall came. The town filled to overflowing. Condominiums that I had never noticed before suddenly swept to life, and the mountains dazzled their white brilliance by both sunlight and moonlight.
Fashion ski wear was everywhere; even the clerks in the stores were so attired. Sunburned fresh faces with flashing white teeth were everywhere. Bars and restaurants were loud with celebration: music, singing, happy voices. Pairs of skis lined both sides of Main Street as they stood in racks, leaned against buildings and cars, were carried on shoulders, and on the sides of great huge buses. It was a fascinating spectacle, twenty-four hours a day.
All the girls at work were avid skiers; each was horrified to learn that I had never strapped a pair to my feet; each vowed to introduce me to what she considered the highest form of sport. I continued to excuse myself from their forays into the powder, but I could not keep my eyes off the main street of town.
It was the after-ski activity that fascinated me.
The sky was darkening as I finished work, and I plunged my hands deep into my pockets and hurried home, afraid to be out in the growing night, afraid of the attraction it held for me, afraid of the fascination that I had with all the parties. At times I would find myself standing in the snow, staring through the windows at the fireplaces, the colorful sweaters, the charming alcoholic glow on the sunburned faces, and I would have to shake myself and run home before the darkness turned me past the point of good sense, past the point of no return.
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