Electric Elizabeth: A Novel

by Vincent C. Martinez

  Sometimes Maria would stop by and ask how I was doing, looking me up and down, asking, "How are you feeling, Milton?" Sometimes I'd hear knocks on the front door, and when I'd answer it, bags of groceries would be sitting on the porch and the rear end of Claire's sport utility vehicle would be speeding down the street.

  The cold winter passed into an early cold spring, and that's when I started having the same dream night after night:

  I am lying in bed. It's the large bed that Liz and I shared, the large bed that now sits upstairs in what used to be my parents' room. In that room, there is the bed, the nightstands on both sides of the bed, a small lamp atop each one—the lamps Liz purchased one afternoon on her way home. Somewhere in the room, a clock is ticking, even though we did not own a ticking clock. At the end of the room, the two dressers—mine and Liz's—are in their corners, standing like sentinels on either side of the large window that normally faces the town. The closet door is closed. Aside from the clock, the house is quiet; it is not creaking from settling; it is not popping from temperature shifts. There are no train sounds outside, no night whispers or wailing vapors. Everything is still.

  Outside the window there are no hilltop antennas, no hills, no townscapes, only endless stars on an ocean of night, and the bedroom is alight with deep blue. The walls, the opened curtains, my skin all awash in blue. The stars bob up and down, the room floating in night like a boat on rippling waters.

  I reach over to wake Liz, and she's not there, only her imprint in the sheets and pillow, both still warm from her body, the scent of her shampoo hanging in the air. But under the bedroom door, I see the light from the kitchen. . . .

  And then I'd awaken, jump from the bed, limp downstairs, and stumble into the kitchen. Sometimes I'd call out her name. Always I'd limp from room to room, turning on lights and checking each corner and closet, and then I'd limp upstairs and do the same, and then I'd limp up to the attic and check every shadow and behind every box.

  Eventually, I'd sit somewhere, usually at the kitchen table across from where she used to sit every morning, my head in my hands.

  ***

  Early May. Three months.

  The light outside was sepia as morning clouds from a slowly crawling storm system peeked over the Lackawanna River gap and dimmed the sun. As the sun rose, the clouds rose with it, keeping the town in a reddish-brown shadow, and the inevitable cool winds of clashing air masses rolled down the hills and into the town streets. I sat in the study watching dust roll around on the floor from swirling drafts, all around me the cables and radios humming with electric atmospherics. Pops, crackles, squeals. There was lightning somewhere, making frequencies spit static.

  On the computer behind me was a half-finished essay that was due for the Banner in two days. I'd run out of things to write about in my house. It was difficult to write about the darkness in the streets when one rarely emerged into the streets anymore.

  I showered and brushed my teeth and convinced myself that that made the day productive since I'd done neither for two days and spent the morning sitting in the chair in which Liz once sat, my back against the desk on which Liz drew hundreds of clouds on the blotter, staring at dust motes dance around textbooks in which Liz constructed an entire sky. Liz was all around me. In the bedroom, her vanilla perfume still wafted from her dresser. In the closet, her clothes still hung. In the kitchen, her old dishes filled shelves in the cupboard. In the driveway, her baby blue VW Beetle sat. At night I still wrapped my arms around her pillows, still pushed my nose into them, still stared at the long black hairs that clung to the fabric.

  As the clouds rose and the morning darkened, I began to doze, my head lolling back to the side or the back before snapping awake again. Almost every night for the previous three months, I'd slept little, my head turned in the direction of the clock radio tuned to a quiet area on the dial, or filled with dreams of floating among the stars in the bedroom with the sounds of Liz walking through the kitchen and living room. My eyes closed, body leaning to the side, drifting off to the warm hum of electricity.

  Until the speaker next to the tabletop radio purred and growled.

  The static rose like river rapids, slowly, quietly at first, and over the minutes as I slid closer to sleep, became a sharp crash of noise that rose to a squeal. I opened my eyes, the feedback-like squeal burrowing into my ears, and began to reach for the volume knob until, suddenly, the sound faded. The frequency immediately fell silent, as if someone had keyed a transmitter open and left it open. I leaned closer to the speaker, looked at the digital waterfall display on the radio and saw that something was broadcasting on the frequency, powerful, maybe close by. The waterfall twitched, red, blue, yellow, green smudges crawling down the screen. The transmission was continuous, but quiet, until there was a long breath drawn in, and soft words trickling out.

  "Milton. Don't sit there. Milton. Listen. Look. Find me."

  I picked up the radio direction finder that I'd dropped on the floor the previous night, turned it on, tuned it to the frequency of the transmission. The digital dial spun north, then south, dancing between the two directions until it rested gently to the east. I stood up, followed the dial's arrow until I was lined up with the source. Northeast. A straight line from my house to the eastern hills. A straight line to the antennas above The Heights, above Bentley Burke's house.

  "Look for me, Milton."

  I jogged down the stairs, limped to the front door, grabbed my coat, slid my feet into my boots, and waddled to my mother's car, pausing only to aim the radio direction finder at the hills again.

  I got in the car and turned the ignition switch four times before the Saturn's engine burped to life, blowing a cloud of blue smoke and a heavy smell of gasoline into the air. I threw the car into reverse until it spun onto the street, pushed the gear shifter into drive, and sped to the east, where the road curved into Vela Street, the street I used to run down after school, the street where Liz and I walked home from the Saint Hildegard Chapel, the street that turned sharply right and became a narrow potholed road that forked into Riverview Cemetery and also into a private road that led straight to The Heights.

  The car struggled as the road steepened, but I pushed on the accelerator, making the car gurgle before it downshifted for the hillside climb. The road was a series of gentle switchbacks that twisted left and right. Above me, the darkening clouds rolled over the hilltop, wrapping around the antennas, looming over the Burke home and the old hospital. I left the radio direction finder on the dashboard, eyeing it with quick glances as I steered. Like a compass locked on magnetic north, the arrow maintained its position on the source. Sometimes the finder chirped as the signal dropped strength, but it would again lock onto the transmission a split second later.

  Thunder rumbled, and glowing white wisps darted over the road and disappeared on the other side, leaving only a cold glow in the treeline. The road continued to twist, continued up the hillside, continued to The Heights.

  ***

  "Milton, what the hell are you doing up here?" Claire shouted as I pulled into the large man-made ridge cut into the hillside. The white-brick Burke home stood several yards from the road, its window shutters black, its front porch pillars high and Roman, simple, cylindrical, austere. Claire waved with both her hands, her red hair blazing in the sepia light. She had a cigarette in one hand, her brown barn coat wrapped around her torso, her jeans stuffed into a pair of black boots.

  I checked the finder, saw the arrow dance then settle on its direction again, still pointing to the hill summit. I circled the car, looking for an outlet that led to the antenna farm, but the only road was a hard-packed dirt and gravel path that disappeared into the trees, its entrance blocked by a heavy, locked black iron gate. I grabbed the finder and got out of the car, following the arrow.

  "This is private property, Milton, you know that!" Claire shouted as she ran up to me. "Bentley'll get so—"

  "How do I
get to the antennas?" I asked.

  "What? You want to get up there?" Claire asked, pointing to the summit. "You see that storm coming, Milton? Storms get really nasty up here, you know."

  "I need to get up there."

  "There's just the utility access road, but that's kept locked."

  I turned to the gate and walked toward it, holding the finder in front of me. Claire ran alongside and popped her cigarette into her mouth, taking a drag, then exhaling a cloud of burned tobacco.

  "Milton, come on," she said, "can't this wait?"

  "No, I have to get up there. I have to get up there now." Claire looked down at the finder in my hands.

  "Aw, hell, Milton, please—"

  "Claire," I said, "please go back home. Please, just . . . go." Claire stopped, and I kept walking. I turned only once to see Claire holding her hands up in exasperation and surrender and Bentley standing in a second-floor window. He waved, then closed the curtain.

  "You better know what you're doing," Claire shouted. "I really hope you do."

  I walked around the gate and up the pine-shrouded road.

  ***

  The road was steep, the gravel at times too soft, and often my feet sank, my legs shook, and I fought to regain balance before starting again. Winds funneled down the road and through spaces in the trees, pushing me back and to the side. The pines whipped wildly, their needles cutting the air with whispers that sounded like the rising and falling static that I'd heard for months. I thought of the walks Liz and I took through the town streets in the cold rains and the warm evenings, the darkened hallways of the Coxton College physics building where I first saw her, the dark nights of waiting by the study window for her headlights to shine over the driveway, her body beside me in bed, her hands in mine, her lips on mine, her last smile, her hand reaching to me before that explosion of electricity, her perfume on the air.

  The winds became icy, the clouds became rich with thunder and ozone.

  The road steepened, the sky darkened.

  The base of the antennas came into view, surrounded by a small field of tall brown grasses that slapped at the wind, grasses that rolled like waves on a turbulent sea, undulating in deep peaks and troughs.

  The trees parted, and the road ended at a chain link fence that completely surrounded the perimeter of the antenna farm. All three antennas looked like they'd been sheared in half by the low cloud cover. I stopped and looked at the fence gate. It had been opened, the locks scattered on the gravel, chains piled in what looked like a mass of frozen mercury. The radio direction finder chirped again, then stopped.

  Just ahead, at the foot of the central antenna, a dark figure stood dressed in a long-sleeve black dress, its hem flowing in the wind as if underwater. The figure stood, back to me, its black hair touching the tops of its shoulders, its feet in dark black ankle boots.

  I walked through the gate and dropped the finder on the road.

  The figure turned and looked at me. Its face was as round and soft as it had always been, its skin white, its eyes inky dark, its hands still porcelain perfect.

  "Liz?" I said.

  "I'm so glad you're here, Milton," Liz said, smiling. "So glad."

  ***

  I stood, frozen. Three months without her, without seeing her face, only hearing her voice through television or telephone or radio. Three months of being so far away from me, yet all around me. Three months of quiet hallways and empty rooms.

  Liz steadily walked toward me. "I knew you'd make it, Milton. You always do. You've always come through for me." She stepped up to me, grabbed my hands with hers. They were soft and cold. Sparks danced over my skin, and my hands jerked away. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm getting better at it. I really am. " She looked at me, her eyes glimmering strangely—as if speckled with stars. Her skin was perfectly smooth. Even the small chickenpox scar that she'd once had on the side of her nose was gone, and pores on her skin seemed to be burnished away.

  "Liz," I said, my eyes welling up, my throat tightening. "Liz," I repeated, wrapping my arms around her. Between us, static crackled like it did when we slept under heavy blankets. Her body was soft, but felt cold. She smelled of fresh air, ozone. I kissed her cheek and placed my hands on her face and kissed her lips. She kissed back lightly, then gently pulled away, placing her hands on mine and bringing them down.

  "I'd lift you up if I could," I said, "but the doctors don't want me lifting much of anything for a few months." I laughed, and tears trickled down my face. Liz kept a hold of my hands. She looked down at them, running her fingers over my knuckles.

  "I didn't think you'd get hurt," she said. "I'm so sorry, Milton."

  I shook my head. "It's okay."

  "No—"

  "It's okay," I repeated. "It's all okay. It'll get better. Everything'll get better."

  "I hope you do get better, Milton."

  "Liz"—I said, then stopped—"never mind. We should go. We need to go." I looked up at the heavy clouds that churned overhead. "We can get down to Bentley's house." I started to take off my coat to put around her shoulders, but she let go of my hands and stepped back.

  "I'm not going with you, Milton," she whispered.

  "We have to get off the hill, Liz. I don't want us to get hit by lightning again."

  "It won't hit us, Milton," she said. "I brought it with me. We'll be okay. You'll be okay."

  I stared at her, stared at her eyes that looked like pools of starry night. "You brought it with you? What d'you mean?"

  "More like"—she looked up at the cloud bellies—"hitched a ride. It'll be on its way soon. And I'll be on my way."

  "What do you mean 'on my way'?"

  "I mean I'm not going home, Darling," she said. "I'm leaving for good."

  We stood on the hillside, inches apart, the winds and the grasses swirling around us like the eye wall of a hurricane. Thunder rolled up one side of the hill and down the other, rumbling through my chest. I stood, mouth open without words, brain empty without thoughts as Elizabeth looked down at her feet and clasped her hands together.

  "I'm leaving Blackbridge, Milton," she said. "I'm leaving Pennsylvania." She lifted her eyes to meet mine. "And I'm leaving you."

  I stared at Liz, her black dress flowing on the air, her eyes narrowing, her mouth turning downward. Around us, the storm churned and threatened with deep thunder and rising winds as we stood in a calm pocket of breeze, as I stood wordless, a sensation in my stomach like that of falling in black space.

  Chapter Eighteen

  You know when I first saw you, Milton? It wasn't outside my optics class. It was on that woman's porch. It was when I saw you driving in your mother's car up that long, hilly road and stepping out and speaking to Ms. Krenetsky. I didn't expect to see anyone, Milton. I was just there, floating above you and her, and at first I didn't know how I was able to stay there. Usually, I'd found myself in streetlights and televisions. Just hopping from place to place without a plan, without control. I can't tell you when that started happening. It would happen in quick daydreams, where I'd be sitting at the kitchen table and then feel light, as if my body had become air. I'd see things, sparks in wires that looked like miles-long lightning bolts, electron clouds like dust bunnies, and then I'd be back where I was before. I thought it was daydreaming. I thought it was epilepsy. Until. . . .

  Well, until one day I was lying in bed at my parents' house, and those ugly yellow streetlights outside came to life when the sun went down. And I got up and walked to the window. I saw the old ladies on their porches and saw people stepping around the puddles of light. I heard my parents in the kitchen, heard them talking about how they could stretch the grocery money another week and how my mom could earn a few extra dollars by cleaning houses on the other side of town. And I felt this heaviness, Milton, deep and hurting, in my chest and in my stomach. I started crying, crying like I'd never done before, and I put a pillow over my face so my parents c
ouldn't hear, just heaved into that pillow as those streetlights got brighter and brighter until my whole room was filled with this yellow light.

  I thought about being stuck on that street forever and sitting on a porch or on a curb, smoking cigarettes and counting pennies just waiting for death. I just balled up my fists and held my breath, and then I found myself out the window, as if I'd passed between the atoms in the glass and the window screen, as if I'd attached myself to a strand of particles, and I felt myself wrap around the coils and wiring in the streetlights, and just—screamed. And the streetlights, all three of them, Milton, they popped like Fourth of July fireworks, little balls of plasma falling to the street where they danced and spun until the street was dark again.

  It took less than a second, Milton. And a second after that, I was back on my bed, shaking until I passed out. When I woke up, I was covered in sweat. I was tired, as if I'd come out of a seizure, and I thought maybe that's what it was . . . until I held up my right hand and ran my thumb over my fingertips, and these blue sparks danced between them.

  It kept happening over the months and years, this . . . falling out of myself. Sometimes I could make it happen for a few seconds, sometimes I couldn't. I started studying physics. I hoped there would be an answer in those books somewhere. High school. College. No. No answers. Just formulas, principles, axioms. I'd spend nights standing in front of the window, running my fingers over the glass, thinking I'd find that one single key that would show me what to do. That one single key that would launch me over the city and into the sky, that sky that seemed so untouchable when I was a little girl.

  Instead, I'd find myself rocketing over the street, through walls, through lamps, through telephone lines, ricocheting from antenna to antenna. I'd spin uncontrollably, as if it I was tied to something, and it was pulling me where it wanted to go, not where I wanted to go. The moments would last seconds, but I was traveling hundreds of miles, completing circuits from one end of the city to the other. I thought about wrapping myself in aluminum foil to make it stop, or wiring my room somehow so I couldn't escape. Something, anything. I thought about telling my parents, but then . . . I lost them. I was losing everything, Milton. My family. My life. My control. My days were spent trying to understand something that shouldn't have been happening, my nights were filled with worry that I'd fall out of myself and never come back, a random charge bouncing from ground to sky and back again.