by R. A. Nelson
Schuyler looks better than I expect, but it doesn’t help.
I touch his bent hair and stroke his temple. I’m trying to find places that don’t hurt and places that can still feel good.
“Sky, I’m so sorry,” I say.
He looks at me, doesn’t say anything.
“I nearly got you killed.”
He raises his arm to indicate something; it’s somehow been transmogrified into a telephone pole. He puts it back down.
“You’re the shittiest driver I’ve ever seen,” he says. “Excuse my Middle English.”
“Quarter.”
We laugh a little and it might be okay. I hope it’s okay. I can’t lose him.
“I’m stupid,” I say.
His ears go up and he shifts a little onto his side, where he can see me better. “That’s one thing you never will be. Mentally unbalanced, maybe.”
“Stupid.”
“Okay, yeah. But everybody is sometimes.”
“Not you. Not much. Does it hurt much?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie.”
“Okay. It hurts.”
A nurse comes in and does things with his arm. She says there are people outside I need to talk to. Police.
A look passes between us. Okay. Just get through it.
“Come back?” Schuyler says.
“Sure. I’ll sneak you something in.”
The police are here for the report.
There are two of them. Their uniforms are tight and harshly creased; their pants float above their shoes. They move slowly. One is large, with a shaved head. The other is not so large, with a shaved head. Both carry receipt books: whatever I say, my words will bleed through from white to pink to blue to yellow to green.
Which is the customer copy? I’ve paid enough.
I’m ready to tell them anything. They might as well know it all. Stalking Mr. Mann, the poetry reading, the crash. What good is anything I have ever done if I can’t tell it now? They’re ready, pens poised.
“It’s all my fault,” Mr. Mann says.
raining words
He’s there.
Standing across the room behind me. For how long? He comes to where I’m sitting. He’s wet and wrinkly, still wearing the clothes he wore at the Chan Auditorium. The paint is gone, washed away by the rain and flood. His left sleeve is soaked with Schuyler’s blood.
“Everything was my fault,” he says again.
He talks to the policemen. Says nothing about the poetry reading, nothing about us following him. He says it was his fault we ran off the road, an accident in the rain.
They believe him so easily. Why do older people seem more honest, dependable? But it’s true. People think lies are like the food pyramid or Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, broad at the base. What does a ninety-year-old have to fib about?
The policemen hand us our receipts, tell us where we can go to pick up copies for the insurance. Do I have a ride home? Mr. Mann says I do. They leave.
I sit across from him, trying to decide what I feel. Forget it. I’m too relieved, too tired.
“You okay?” Mr. Mann says.
I nod.
“Sure?”
Nod again. “So I’m not in trouble? You don’t want me arrested? What about the people at the auditorium?”
“I told them I’d never seen you before in my life. They figured you must be a nut, somebody off the net with a cross to burn.”
He laughs.
It’s the most horrible laugh I’ve ever heard.
He’s looking at me, but I’ve never felt so far away from anyone in my life. I’m standing on Titan, my feet wreathed in methane. He’s still laughing.
“What?” I say.
He stops laughing, comes back from somewhere far away. “Something I’ve just realized,” he says.
“What?”
“The mystery. There had to be a mystery. Something you could investigate, study. Figure out. I just realized what it is.”
“What?”
“It’s me.”
adoring machine
I stare.
Mr. Mann is speaking softly. I ask him to repeat what he said.
“The mystery is me.”
“I don’t understand.”
He pins me to the spot with his eyes. “That’s one of the things I love about you, Carolina. You figure things out. You find the answers. I love how sure you can be. You want so badly to understand, don’t you?”
He slumps in a chair with his chin in his hands, lets out a great shuddery exhalation. I sit across from him. I want to touch him, crush his head in my arms, but I can’t. My legs won’t let me. He lifts his face.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you. This is not that kind of mystery. Not the kind with answers. There is no figuring it out. There is no understanding. You want me to explain something I haven’t been able to explain to myself.”
“What?”
“Somewhere along the way I think maybe I stopped.”
“Stopped?”
“Something happened. Or maybe something didn’t happen that was supposed to happen. Something important. Anyway, somehow I got stuck. High school, junior high. Who knows?”
I nod as if agreeing. “So now you’re going to tell me your parents are all to blame for your arrested adolescence? Poor little misunderstood Ricky. All that moving around. So many schools, lost friends, sensitive little writer soul. Isn’t that convenient.”
“No. I blame myself. I don’t know why it happened, just that it’s something inside me. Something I never knew how to fix. Not that I didn’t try.”
He rubs his face with his hands and keeps going.
“I tried so many times to break out of it, to grow, move on. But no matter what I did, it was always a disaster with somebody my own age. I was too messed up inside.”
“Okay.”
“So I kept trying to rescue myself, turn things around. But the rescue attempt always failed. I never could follow through. I was stuck.”
“So what changed? You don’t love Alicia.”
He sits up. “Oh, but I do. That’s one of the things you don’t understand. I was utterly undeserving when she came along. There was no reason to ever believe in me. My track record was too awful. She loved the shit out of me anyway.”
“Maybe she was too young to know any better.”
I watch his face, but nothing changes. “It’s not what you’re thinking. She wasn’t a student of mine. I met her when she was already halfway through college.”
I know, I want to say. I just wanted to know for sure, wanted to hear you say it.
“So what happened? Why’d you ever break up, then?”
“I was in my old cycle. It was great for a while, then when things got serious, I got spooked. I used her father as an excuse. He’s never liked me all that much. Really I was just running away again because things had gotten too close. Just like I always did. And then I found you.”
“Victim number what—five? Six? More?”
Now his face definitely changes—goes slack, weary, sad. “It wasn’t like that. It really wasn’t. You were so different. And even then, I still fought against it.”
I give him a look.
“You’re right,” he says. “Not very hard, but I did. But you were everything I ever wanted. For the first time I believed it would be okay—I could just give in to what I wanted, finally. You were perfect. You were so young, but you were different. You were smart enough, mature enough to handle it. You were so focused, knew what you wanted. Nothing was going to stop you. But you were still growing, too. Maybe I wanted to see how you did it. Maybe I thought we could grow together. Maybe you could teach me.”
“That’s bullshit. Psychological bullshit.”
“You’re right. It’s bullshit. But that’s what I’m good at. Making people believe in bullshit. Things I can’t even believe in myself.” He covers his eyes.
“If you expect me to feel sorry for you, Richard, I don’t. I never wil
l. Save it for Oprah. Better yet, Jerry Springer.”
His jaw goes hard. He takes his hand away and looks at me again. “I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me. I’m telling you the truth. You more than anyone else.”
I try to run my fingers through my matted hair and fail. “Wow. I’m a lucky girl. Top of the heap in your stable of wannabes. How’s that poem of Emily’s go? Success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed—”
He winces. “I meant what I said. Everything.”
“I know. But I’m tired of talking about you.”
I stand, look around. The walls, the chairs welded in rows. Anywhere but Mr. Mann. Something about the light in this room is green. I’m in a space station. Everyone else has been killed by an alien virus.
“I don’t like hospitals,” I say after a while, still not looking at him.
“Who does?”
“Why can’t they just heal people outdoors?”
He shrugs, thinking I expect an answer. And I do. Just not the one he wants to offer.
“It’s better if you’re close to nature,” I say. “I don’t like buildings either. I especially don’t like cars. Not anymore.”
“Anything man-made?”
“Right. Man-made. Anything made by man. Look at what they do.”
I’m not looking, but I can hear the anguished smile in his voice.
“What do they do?” he says.
“They make things and make people want them. Then they keep them away from you or tear you to pieces. That’s what men do. That’s what—”
“She’s pregnant, Nine,” he says.
closing doors
“Alicia. She’s pregnant.”
The words are a needle. My lungs are deflating like pricked balloons.
Pregnant?
I can’t wrap my thoughts around the word, now that it’s something real, not just a weapon. Pregnant. That explains the flouncy clothes, the swollen ankles, the way she always seems to have a glow. He goes on.
“She came and told me. That’s what it was. I had to make a decision quick. Her father expected us to get married, had already been pushing her, arranging things. But she left the choice up to me. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. I knew it—”
I start to say something, end up only making a sound.
“I knew it would kill you,” he says. “I knew it would kill us both. But for once in my idiotic, selfish life I decided to do the right thing. For once I stopped trying to rescue myself and thought about somebody else for a change. And guess what? Somebody else did the rescuing for me.”
We look at each other. An ambulance screams up outside. Two paramedics hustle a gurney through the glass doors, bumping the handles. It’s an old woman with her hair bundled in pink curlers. She’s clutching her robe around her shins and speaking. I can’t make out the words.
A tightness comes across my chest.
“Were you—with her and me? At the same time?”
“No,” he says. “It happened when I was just getting to know you. I was desperately lonely. Stupid. I told her not to, but she came to see me one last time.”
I watch them shove the gurney through the Door. I’m trying to find the hate I’ve been carrying inside, see if I can piece it back together. Maybe it’s behind the Door. On the other side. I can’t get to it anymore.
I find his eyes. “So why didn’t you just tell me?”
He spreads his hands, palms up, moves them, trying to speak. I’m reminded of Boris Karloff in the old classic version of Frankenstein. Imploring his creator for food, light.
Love.
“There’s no easy answer,” he says finally. “At first I think it was mostly shame.”
“Shame?”
“Yeah.” Mr. Mann looks at the floor. “Shit, this is hard. It’s just—you meant so much to me, Carolina. I was finally over a really bad time in my life. I wanted to be good for you. I thought I was. I thought we were good for each other.”
“Okay.”
“But when I found out about Alicia—I told myself, enough. It stops here. Everything. Even if it meant I had to sacrifice you. Then when I saw the shock on your face, the hate—I couldn’t stomach myself. Couldn’t stomach you knowing why I did it. Maybe I was scared to death of making it any worse. I’m not as strong as you are.”
He looks at his palm, starts rubbing at the crease of his lifeline with his thumb as if he could wash it away.
“You said at first it was shame,” I say.
“Yes. In the beginning.”
“But what about after that? What stopped you from telling me?”
He stops rubbing his palm and lets his hands drop to his side. He doesn’t seem to know what to say.
“You’re so intense about everything, Nine. I’ve never known anyone as intense as you. I thought maybe someday I could tell you. But after what you did at the wedding, my apartment—I was afraid if I told you, you might go a little crazy on me.”
We look at each other.
My bandaged head. Schuyler’s blood on Mr. Mann’s sleeve.
“Crazy,” I say.
He laughs.
I laugh too. Now we’re laughing together. But it’s a good laugh this time. Cleansing. It takes a while to settle down again. Little bursts keep popping out like sneezes.
I’m cold. I pull the thin blanket around my shoulders. We don’t talk for a long time. I think about Alicia, the baby. In the middle of the silence, I realize I’m still falling, but maybe not so fast this time. It’s a controlled descent. The shields are holding. I think I’m going to be able to land. There’s a chance I can fly again.
“So. What does this mean?” I say finally. “We have to be friends?”
His face goes slack again. He breathes out. “Probably not. I don’t think we can. Not after what you’ve—not after what we’ve done to each other.”
Silence.
“I forgot to thank you,” I say.
“For what?”
“For saving Schuyler’s life. Saving mine.”
He looks down at his shoes. They’re muddy. His cuffs are starting to dry.
“You want a Coke?” he says.
I shake my head.
“Let me teach you something,” he says.
I give him a hard look.
“No, I’m sorry. Something I found out about hospitals. Did you know if you want a Pepsi, you have to go to a different floor?”
“No.”
“It’s true. This floor has nothing but Coke machines. If you want a Pepsi, you have to go one floor up. Coke and Pepsi alternate.”
My head is throbbing. I don’t say anything.
“I think I’ll get one,” he says. “It’s been a long day.”
He stands and heads to the elevator.
“What if I want a Dr. Pepper?” I call after him.
He stops and looks at me.
“I don’t know, Carolina,” he says. “I don’t know what you do if you want a Dr. Pepper. But I’ll see what I can do.”
He goes away getting smaller and smaller. The elevator opens for him. Closes.
Something has closed inside me. It will always be there, but it’s closed.
water days
Months.
Today I’m thinking about differences.
Wilkie Collins doesn’t feel so much different. His handling is a little more sluggish, if that’s possible. He still screeches and farts teal smoke. But his upholstery is new. Dad is a genius and an angel. I’m glad he didn’t look in the glove box.
Today I take Mr. Sprunk’s copperhead pistol out. I hold it by the tip of the handle between thumb and forefinger, a venomous creature. A swamp is a good place for a gun. It sinks in the mud with barely a bubble. I’m sure Mr. Sprunk has found another. For all those snakes out there in the world.
Mr. Mann’s chapbook is still lying on the floorboards, a wrinkly mess. I let it dry to read it; I’m surprised his poetry doesn’t do much for me. It feels complex, distant, not li
ke Emily’s at all. Maybe he was trying too hard. I remind myself that he was very young when he wrote it.
Maybe that’s what being young is, pushing too hard.
Back home I open my book of Emily’s poems. I’ve read this one many times before. It means much more to me now.
THAT I did always love,
I bring thee proof:
That till I loved
I did not live enough.
x-ray heart
The mall.
Another May.
I’m with Mom and Schuyler.
She’s let her hair grow out straight again. It’s brittle and mousy silver. Cleopatra with an AARP card instead of an asp. I like it.
We’ve been to Dillard’s and the Gap; she’s loaded me down with clothes, some I even like. I smile and let her take her time. She’s taken her time with me, hasn’t she?
“What, sweetheart?” Mom says.
“Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”
Schuyler’s ears go up. “I’ve got my license,” he says.
“No!” Mom says.
“Yep. Guess I’m just tired of being a freshman, Miz Livingston.”
“Well, good for you, honey! I know your parents are proud.”
I bump into him on purpose when Mom is out of earshot. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come with you.”
“And hexed me all over again?”
“—!”
“I’m kidding, Nine.”
“So what’s college got to do with it? Being a freshman?”
“Not just college. Everything. I guess I just want to be able to do things. Older things.”
I smile into his frown. “Are you getting tired of me?”
“No! No, not at all. You know that. It’s just. You know.”
“Sure. You just want to grow a little. Let your hair down.” I brush my fingers through his springy mop. “If you can.”
“Cut it out.”
We’re passing through the food court on our way to Sears. Everything smells of chicken. Spring sunlight is flooding the atrium through the skylights.
I’m thinking about Mars, how it’s gone away now. But Dad is helping me build a new telescope, a twelve-inch Dobsonian reflector. I’m tired of refractors, trying to see surface details. I want to go deeper. I want to gather more light.