“The whats who eat what?”
“Spam. That’s what Mr. Jordan, my old boss, told me. He’d read that in supermarkets down in the South Pacific they have whole aisles that are devoted to nothing but Spam. The Americans tried to figure out why these island people liked Spam so much, and it turns out that nothing else approximates the taste of cooked human flesh like the salty porky taste of Spam.”
Don’s mouth hung open.
“We think of those jolly little Island people down there in their jolly little hula skirts and being oh so moral. But to them, cannibalism is perfectly moral, so it seems to me, Don Colgate, that morals are a pretty flexible little concept, so don’t go getting preachy on me.”
But it was Marilyn whose mouth was agape while walking through the sprays of cooked human flesh at Seneca. She was asked her name by a person inside one of the many biohazard protection suits swarming the site. She replied, “Susan Colgate is my daughter. I’m her mother. Have you seen her?” Marilyn’s shoes’ heels had broken. She was wearing a pair of pink women’s running shoes she’d found intertwined with a stereo headset a few minutes back when she’d scraped her shin.
At sunset a Gannett reporter named Sheila drove Marilyn to the local Holiday Inn and gave Marilyn her bed. Sheila filed her stories and bounced between her laptop PC, her cell phone and the TV. Marilyn called Don. He arrived the next morning. Both spent the day at the local ice rink, temporarily converted into a morgue. Skating music serenaded family members of crash victims who appraised what remains were “readable.” There were rows upon rows of limbs and torsos and shards, all covered in black vinyl tarps, arranged like 4-H projects atop plywood sheets that straddled sawhorses. Five days went by and still they found no trace of Susan. Marilyn donated blood samples for DNA testing, to help analyze those bodies too far gone for visual or dental identification. They returned to Cheyenne, their spirits fogged like wet car windows, their emotions on hold. Sheila called each day to see if an ID had been made, but no. This in itself became a story, and the local coroner, in conjunction with the airline and the civil aviation authorities, were at a total loss as to where Susan’s remains might have ended up. There hadn’t been enough heat for vaporization to occur, and all eyelashes and fingernail clippings within a half-mile radius had been DNA-cataloged. It was at this point that Sheila hooked up Marilyn with a prominent claims litigator, Julie Poyntz, who spent the next year winning her claim, arguing about the profound stress for family members arising from the airline’s losing the body of a passenger, a body that might very well be in the deep freeze of some psychotic fan.
“You just don’t lose a body, Mrs. Colgate—Marilyn.” It was early on in their lawyer-client relationship. “And I don’t want to dwell on the possibilities of what might have become of her remains, but . . .”
“What if she’s alive?” asked Marilyn.
Julie tsk-tsked. “You were there, Marilyn. Everybody on that flight was dead and/or severely mutilated.”
Marilyn squeaked.
“I’m sorry, Marilyn, but you can’t be squeamish. Not now. We’re going to win this. They know it. We know it. It’s only a matter of how much and how soon. It’s no compensation for losing Susan—who, I might add, was a role model for me from Meet the Blooms—but at least the money is something.”
Money was flowing into Marilyn’s life from many directions at that point, and each new development, or each new recently discovered baby photo of Susan was carefully brokered with all facets of print and electronic media. She bought two new cars, a Mercedes sedan for Don, and a BMW the color of homemade cherry wine for herself. She also took out a mortgage on a Spanish mission–style house and indulged herself with clothing and jewelry, her prize being a pair of genuine Fendi wraparound sunglasses which, not five minutes after buying, she wore as she snapped arms off the fakes she’d bought years ago at a Laramie swap meet. Marilyn spent like a drunk in a casino gift shop. There was no overall scheme to her buying—she simply thrilled with the burst of power each time a piece of loot that once belonged to somebody else suddenly belonged to her.
Yet for all this, Don and Marilyn didn’t speak much about Susan, mostly because long before the crash, back in 1990 after her TV show was canceled, Susan had eliminated them from her life with a finality that approached death. Marilyn truly saw no reason why Susan should be as angry about the money as she was. Hadn’t Marilyn done half the work?
They’d read of Susan’s marriage to Chris in the Arts & Lifestyle section of the local weekend paper. They met Chris only once, at a midnight vigil for Susan that Marilyn had staged in a Cheyenne town square (exclusive continental European photo rights to Paris Match, UK rights to Hello! magazine, U.S. and Canadian rights to the Star, film and TV rights reserved, as live footage was to be inserted into a possible A&E special about Susan to begin production the following year). Marilyn and Chris hugged for the cameras, lit candles, and bowed their heads for the cameras. All the while, Chris’s young fans chanted from across the square. Afterward, Chris left and didn’t speak with Marilyn again. (“Guess what, Don—I think Sir Frederick Rock Star is an asshole.”)
Then came Julie’s phone call one morning: “Marilyn, come to New York. It’s over.” When Marilyn found out the amount, she whooped with pleasure, then immediately apologized to Julie for whooping in her ear. She tried to find Don, and did, passed out in the back corner of his favorite seedy sports bar. So that afternoon she left for Manhattan without him. The next day, with Julie, she walked down the courthouse steps and spoke with the press. That afternoon she spent $28,000 while shopping on upper Madison Avenue.
The next day Marilyn went home to Cheyenne, and the day after that she got the call from a sparkle-voiced airline PR woman about Susan’s return to the living. She hung up the phone and reached for half a Shitsicle Don had left beside the phone book. Susan would be home the next morning.
Chapter Thirty-three
Back in Cheyenne’s outskirts, Marilyn lurked inside her motel room with the drapes closed, the TV blaring. Vanessa and Ryan were standing behind the rental car keeping sentinel on her, while Ivan and John headed to the lobby.
Ivan called Cheyenne’s airport about the jet’s overnight parking and then rented rooms for the group in case they had to watch Marilyn into the evening. John was looking out the window covered in grit and credit card stickers, also scoping the door to Marilyn’s room. The group reconvened at the car, where Ryan said, “I’m starved. We didn’t eat lunch.”
“Me, too,” said Ivan. “I’m going to go make a burger run. There’s an A&W a quarter mile back on the road.”
“Well, you can’t use the car,” said John.
“What?” said Vanessa. “As if Marilyn’s going to vamoose right now or something? We’re all sugar crashing. It’s a worthwhile risk to get ourselves properly nutrished. Get me a large fries—make sure they use vegetable oil, no lard—and an iced tea.”
John was too hungry to fight and he gave Ivan his order. As he left in the rental car, Vanessa walked up to the door of number 14, and knocked loudly. Even from a distance, the sound of blaring cartoons and commercials tumbled from the room, the windows rattling as if they possessed stereo woofers.
Vanessa’s unexpected charge shattered John and Ryan’s complacency, and they dive-bombed behind Marilyn’s BMW.
“Hellooo . . .” said Vanessa, and she knocked again, louder this time. “Hellooo—Mrs. Heatherington? Fawn Heatherington?” Vanessa rapped the windowpane and then a slit in the curtains, which were yellowed, nicotine-soaked and threadbare, fluttered open. The room’s door opened a crack. “Yes?” Bugs Bunny shrieked from within.
“I’m Mona. My uncle runs this place. Did you leave a twenty-dollar bill lying on the counter by mistake?” She held up the bill.
The door opened a notch wider. “Why yes, I did—how thoughtful of you.”
“Think nothing of it, Mrs. Heatherington. Wyoming hospitality.”
Marilyn plinked the bill from Vanessa’s
fingertips and mumbled the words “Wellthankyouverymuchgoodbye,” to Vanessa, but Vanessa stuck her foot in the door so it couldn’t close. “Excuse me?” said Marilyn in a forced huff.
“Sorry to disturb you even more, Mrs. Heatherington, but—”
“Fawn. Call me Fawn.”
“Sorry to disturb you even more, then, Fawn, it’s just that . . .” Vanessa’s eyes saw the aged curtains. “It’s just that for the past year I’ve been trying to get my uncle to buy new curtains for the units. See how ratty these are?”
“Well, I suppose, yes.”
“Exactly. If you could just mention this when you check out, it would sure help me build a stronger case. He’s kinda cheap.”
“Absolutely,” said Marilyn.
The door shut and Vanessa strode over to her room, number 7. She was followed by John and Ryan, who scrambled out from behind the BMW, then beneath Marilyn’s window. They came into the room and Vanessa said, “She’s not alone.”
“How can you tell?” asked John.
“I heard someone rattling about in the bathroom. Even through the cartoon noise.”
“Did you see anything else in there? Clothing? Books? Magazines?”
“No. It looks like an unoccupied room.”
Ryan asked if the room was the same configuration as the one they were in, and Vanessa suspected it was. “Then come back here with me,” Ryan said. “Let’s see if there’s some kind of escape route we should watch for.” They walked back to the bathroom and inspected the window beside the sink.
“I don’t know if that window is crawl-out-of-able,” said John.
“I think it is,” said Ryan. “Watch me.” He hoisted himself up, his stomach resting on the dusty and blackened aluminum slide rail.
“Ryan,” said Vanessa. “Get down from there.”
“No. I just want to see if—” He was cut short by the sound of Marilyn’s BMW charging out of the parking lot and left, westward, onto the highway.
“Shit,” said John. He kicked a hole in the door of number 7.
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” said Vanessa. “Ivan’ll be back soon enough. Let’s sit tight.”
“I bet she saw us behind her car,” said Ryan.
They waited outside for Ivan, and John was visibly falling apart. Vanessa asked him if he was going to be okay, and he wasn’t sure if he would be. The sun was still above the foothills off to the west, but only just. Wind whistled by, and John recalled the wind, back when he’d been lost. He remembered how it never leaves the air.
Ryan tried to atone for his having distracted the trio away from Marilyn’s exodus. He went up to the door of 14 and tried turning the knob. It did and the door opened. He inspected the room but found no clues.
“Gosh, Sheriff Perkins,” said Vanessa, “those darn crooks left a book of matches from the Stork Club. Look—there’s even a phone number written on the inside: Klondike 5-blah-blah-blah-blah.”
“A bit more support, a bit less sarcasm, Vanny.”
Ivan pulled in and the trio rushed into the car like puppies. “That way,” said John. “She has a two-minute lead.”
The car skidded out in a lazy spray of gravel. They flew west down the Interstate, back toward Utah and California, amid the truckloads of lettuce and hay bales and lumber that John thought seemed to never leave the roads, as if they existed in some sort of perpetual caffeinated loop.
An Exxon station lay ahead like a beacon. Ryan scoped it out with the binoculars. “She’s there,” he said. “Parked over by the tire pump.”
“Thank Christ,” said John. “Ivan, pull in, but not too far, because she might see us and bolt.”
Ivan veered into the station, then empty.
“Is she in the office buying gum or something?” asked John.
“If you’re like me,” said Ryan, “whenever you’re being pursued, your first impulse is to stop the chase and stock up on gum.”
“She’s probably in the bathroom,” said Vanessa. “I’ll go look.” She got out of the car and walked to the ladies’ room entrance by the side. She knocked on the door and Marilyn’s voice called out, “Yeah?” Vanessa faked a southern accent and said, “No hurry then, ma’am,” then gave the thumbs up to the men in the car, and walked back.
John got out and stood at the back of the car, absentmindedly eating a cheeseburger. “If we keep following her, we could be on the road for hours,” he said. “She could be driving anywhere.”
A black minivan drove by. Susan was at the wheel. She saw John and wrenched the van to a halt. Camper and Willy avalanched into the dashboard. She and John locked eyes, smiled. She recovered her wits.
“Shit, Susan,” Randy yelled, a drink spilled in his lap. “What the hell are you—?”
Susan plunged the minivan into reverse gear and made a crazy donut, then looped around and pulled up beside John’s car.
“Your mother is in there,” John said, pointing to the rest-room. “I found her for you. You were looking for her, weren’t you?”
Susan climbed out of the van, lifted her arms up to her mouth, and started to rock back and forth slightly, like a stick in the wind. She said, “Oh, John . . .” but her voice vanished, and instinctively Randy and Dreama, now out of the van, stepped back in surprise, as though Susan were a highway smash-up during rush hour. She took geisha steps toward the rest room door.
Vanessa quickly pulled back from the door, allowing Susan to approach alone. The others in the group formed a semicircle around her. A truck zoomed by on the freeway. The sun was halfway behind a mountaintop and their shadows were black ribbons. The dogs romped and yelped in the grass scrub behind the station. Susan knocked on the door. Marilyn shouted out, “Jesus Christ, I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying. I’m changing a diaper in here, okay?”
“Mom?”
Everybody felt the silence from within the locked bathroom. The last glint of sun went behind a hill and their shadows vanished and the air became that much cooler.
The station’s attendant rounded the corner to check out the crowd. Randy asked him, “Do you have an extra key to the ladies’ room?”
“No sir, just the one.”
From inside the door came a child’s crying. Instantly, Susan bolted toward the door and tried smashing it with her shoulder, unsuccessfully. She slammed into it again, then Marilyn opened the lock and Eugene Junior raced out. “He’s okay,” said Marilyn, then Susan grabbed him and swept him over to a small wall beside the propane filling tanks where she held him close to her chest. Marilyn sat down on the toilet in haggard defeat.
“Mom,” said Susan, “it’s okay.”
Marilyn didn’t come out of the bathroom. Her body deflated and she took a breath. The group’s eyes peered into the small, harshly lit room.
Chapter Thirty-four
Susan slammed the door of the house in Cheyenne, and almost immediately Marilyn felt as if she were on fire. But the fire didn’t go away. It burned within her, underground, flaring up hourly across the following months, and when she burned, she lost her head and said hateful, vengeful things, which finally drove Don away. She beetled about inside her clean, white petrified house with nobody to talk to and nobody to phone. She felt like her head was filled with larvae. Her doctor said it was “the change,” and Marilyn said, “Dammit, why can’t you just call it menopause?” The doctor said, “We look at things differently these days. This isn’t an end. It’s a beginni—” Marilyn said, “Why don’t you just shut the fuck up and prescribe me a suitcase full of pills and make this blasted fire go away.”
The fire didn’t go away, and pills were useless in snuffing it out. She cried and then she felt elated, but mostly she was bewildered and burning. And then the bills came due and all of the money was gone. She’d been proud, and didn’t want to give Susan the satisfaction of seeing her mother cash in on paid interviews, so she did no press after Susan had left for California. Yet at the same time she hoped that Susan would see her mother’s refusal to pocket some money and then
maybe, just maybe, Susan would forgive her. And if Susan forgave her, then maybe she’d one day allow Marilyn access to the brood of children she’d seemed suspiciously intent on mentioning.
In the end, Marilyn’s pride and hope had left her vulnerably broke. She phoned the networks, but it was too late, the Susan Colgate story stale. Marilyn offered no new angle.
Marilyn pawned what she could, yard-saled some more, and then rented a cheap apartment. She developed a phobia about touching her lower stomach. She was afraid of her fallopian tubes and her uterus, sure they’d dried out like apricots or chanterelle mushrooms, and she didn’t think she could cope at all were she to feel their lumpiness within her.
Fertility. Babies. Desirability. Love. These words were so fully joined together in her head, like pipes and wires and beams in a building. And now, suddenly she was barren. A houseplant.
As if on cue, parts of her face started to migrate and shift. Silicone injections from a decade ago became like rogue continents within her skin, and Marilyn ran out of supermarkets and convenience stores in the Cheyenne area because she had shrieked at the clerks in the stores for focusing even a blink too long on the inert sensationless bulges beneath her left eye, her right cheek or the bridge of her nose.
She lost her energy. She became unable to drag herself out of bed in the morning. And then the landlord’s henchmen gave her a month to leave her apartment. So she threw what she could into the BMW (which she refused to surrender) and sold what remained to a guy from a local auction house. She went out onto the road, like so many people had done before her, discharged from a world that no longer gave a damn if she burned or mummified or vanished or was sucked up into the sky by a spaceship.
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