The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin'

by Lamb, Wally

  Annie’s a big deal in the art world now; the only time I’ve seen her since that day they took her away was in a magazine photo. It was back when I was doing time at Gardner, maybe four or five years ago. I’d gone to the prison library to get myself something to read and, by chance, had picked up a dog-eared Newsweek from the “help yourself” pile of old magazines. And there she was, in a story about some fancy pants New York art show. It was the name that made me stop turning the pages: Annie Oh. Annie O’Day. . . . I kept staring at the picture of the middle-aged woman posed in front of these “assemblage” things she makes. Different person, I figured. But the more I stared at the woman’s face, the more I realized it was her—that this was who she’d turned into. What had I expected? That she’d look the same as she had when she was six or seven? I read the article two or three times before I could wrap my head around what, by chance, I had discovered.

  Or was it just by chance? Maybe it was a message from that Higher Power everyone was always talking about in the Twelve Steps meetings I went to whenever I needed to get the fuck away from the tier for a while, or when the ridicule about my missing eye got to be too much for me to take. I kept looking at the artwork in back of her which, to me, looked more like a bunch of stuff from the dump than high-priced art that had gotten fuckin’ Newsweek’s attention. But what did I know about that whole world? I tore out the page, took it back to my cell, and taped it to the wall. From that day until the morning I got released, Annie’s face was the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing I saw before lights-out. I have that picture still—keep it folded up inside my wallet so I can look at it when I want to. Sometimes, still, I’ll sit down in front of a piece of paper and, pen in hand, write her name over and over: Annie, Annie, Annie

  The night I tried to kill myself? I’d gotten out of Gardner and was finishing the rest of my sentence at a halfway house for guys who, like me, are listed on the sexual predator Web site—the kind of home that the Welcome Wagon lady never bothers to go to. I’d been struggling for weeks to resist a new little girl I’d been scoping out. You ever watch those nature shows on cable? Where they show you, say, the way a cheetah will sit and wait, undetected by the herd of deer he’s scoping out? And then he’ll start focusing on just one of them? Hyperfocusing until, in his mind, it’s just him and the one he’s decided he wants? And then, when the time’s just right, he goes for it. Runs at it, pounces. That’s what it’s like for me. It’s just nature, you know? My nature, anyway. Except the difference between me and that cheetah is that he’s going to walk away licking his bloody chops and looking for a soft place to lie down and take a nap, and I may be looking at the walls of an eight-by-ten prison cell. . . . It would have been easy in this particular case, too; the kid’s mom was a coworker on the janitorial staff down at the mall, and from what I could see, she was asleep at the wheel, parenting-wise. But if I went for it and got caught, they’d send me back to that hellhole or another one just like it for a lot longer than I’d been there the first time, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle that. So it was like a war going on inside of me: my wanting to have this kid and my fear of having to go back if I got caught. And sharking that kid was driving me crazy. Exhausting me. All the shrinks I’d been to over the years, all the meds they’d put me on, and the truth was that I wasn’t fixable. And because I wasn’t, I was universally hated. The only person in the world who had really ever loved me was my dead mother. And Aunt Sunny. That’s the worst thing in the world: not to have anyone who loves you. And it wasn’t even my fault, really. It wasn’t like I had chosen this life; it was more like it had chosen me. So I started thinking, fuck it. Why bother? I just didn’t want to take it anymore. That was when I hit on what I thought would be a permanent solution. I walked down to CVS and bought a pack of single-edge razor blades. In the Twelve Step program I was in at the group home, they kept talking about making amends. My sponsor was a former priest and fellow deviant. He liked little boys. I sat down and wrote two letters, one to him and one to all the girls I’d ever “trespassed against.” I put both letters on my bed where they’d find them. Then I picked up one of those blades and sliced the veins in both my arms. I cut them vertically instead of across because I’d heard somewhere that that was the way to do it if you were really serious about making the lights go out. But sitting there and watching myself bleed out started scaring me. If there was a hell, I was headed there sure as shit after everything I’d done, and maybe it would be worse than prison. And so before I passed out, I picked up the phone and called Father Joe. Sobbed into the receiver that I was scared to die. I guess when push came to shove, I preferred the hell of living inside my skin to the hell of what might come once I slipped out of it.

  I spent nine days in the psych hospital. I was depressed, they said. After the new meds kicked in and they released me to the outpatient program, they assigned me to this shrink named Dr. Ronni Banks. There was a motorcycle helmet on her desk and a Honda Gold Wing out in the hospital parking lot. You can never tell about biker chicks. Some of them are dykes and some of them aren’t. I wasn’t sure which way the wind blew with Dr. Ronni, but I knew halfway through our first session that I didn’t like her. I was in the middle of telling her about my fucked-up childhood: how my father had bailed when I was a kid, how Irma Cake’s daughter had “emotionally disregulated” me down in their basement, and that that was the reason I was the way I was. “Wow,” she said. “You can really talk the talk, can’t you? But let’s focus on the future rather than the past, shall we? Let’s work on how you can manage your compulsion out in the community. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” I said. After I left her office, I asked around about her and found out that she played on the all-girls team.

  During our next appointment, she said, “So help me understand then, Kent. First you tell me your actions are impulsive and involuntary. Then you describe a modus operandi that relies on patience and premeditation. So which is it? Can you control these urges or can’t you?”

  Now that I knew that neither flirting nor playing the sympathy card about my traumatic childhood was going to work on her, I decided to play the fear card instead. “Jeeze, I don’t know, Doc,” I said. “I guess I’m like that snake in the Garden of Eden.”

  She cocked her head. “How so?”

  “Well, I’ll see some innocent little girl waiting for the school bus, or sitting by herself in the food court at the mall, wearing short shorts and one of those little midriff blouses. And I may start slithering her way. But I know I’ve got to play her first. Convince her how sweet that apple’s going to taste before I can claim my prize.”

  The skin between her eyebrows buckled with professional concern. “So you’re saying that you think of your victim as some sort of . . . reward?”

  “Sure. You can relate, can’t you? When you rumble up to some lesbo bar on that hog of yours, walk in, and scope out some chick you want to—”

  She held up her hand like a traffic cop, but I kept going.

  “I mean, ’fess up, Ronni. Are you thinking of her as some fellow human being you can have tea and conversation with, or as that night’s lick job?” I pulled my shirtsleeve up to my shoulder so she could see my cobra tattoo. Stuck out my tongue and flicked it up and down at her like a fucking snake.

  Dr. Ronni managed to maintain her professional demeanor, but her blinking gave her away: once, twice, three times, four. “We’re not discussing me, Kent. We’re discussing you,” she said. I nodded, smiled. Flicked my tongue at her some more. She glanced at her clock and told me we’d have to continue this discussion next time because our time was up. “No, it isn’t,” I said. “According to my calculations, we have another seven minutes.” Which we did. She stood up anyway, walked to her door, and opened it. I walked out laughing.

  When I went to my next appointment, I learned that I’d been reassigned to a male therapist whose name I don’t even remember. He was a queer, too—you’d be surprised how many of these jokers in the �
��helping professions” are—so I was back to flirting. Running my fingers through my hair while we chatted, stroking the insides of my thighs while I played true confessions. At the end of our first meeting, while we were shaking hands, I stroked his knuckles with my fingertips. Just for a second or two. Just enough to stoke his fantasy. With any of these shrinks, you’ve got to locate the chink in their professional armor so that you can take back some of the power they’ve got over you. Because if you don’t, some of them will go for the jugular. And the next thing you know, instead of telling them a sob story, you’re sitting there sobbing for real. And believe me, when that happens, they’ll take your vulnerability and run with it.

  When I do those girls? It’s not that I want to fuck with their heads. It’s just that, when it comes over me, I want what I want when I want it. And it’s not as if they don’t get over it—not as if I’ve ruined their whole lives. Look at Annie. She sure as hell bounced back. That Newsweek article said she was married, living in Connecticut with her husband and kids, and that her work’s in demand with art collectors around the country. Which, I assume, means that she must be rolling in the dough by now.

  One of the conditions of my parole is that I stay away from the Internet, and you can probably guess why. But not long after I got out of Gardner, I walked from the halfway house to the library downtown, and there it was: an open computer station, far enough away from the front desk for anyone to see what I was looking at. I sat down, my heart racing, and typed in the names of some of the kiddie porn sites I liked. But this filtering software came popping up. It figured: they’d blocked them. Next, on a whim, I Googled “Annie Oh,” and all kinds of shit about her art career came up—notices about openings, reviews of shows. I kept clicking on stuff, and eventually I found her street address and phone number. Took her picture out of my wallet, unfolded it, and wrote them down on that old Newsweek article.

  The first time I called her, I lost my nerve and hung up as soon as it started ringing. The next several times I tried, a man answered—the husband, I figured. That was when I started thinking that maybe, instead of calling and talking to her on the phone, what I might do was hitch a ride over there to Three Rivers and show up at her door. As far as Parole was concerned, I was being a good little boy: staying put, going to work every day, making my curfew. So they took off my ankle bracelet, which more or less gave me the idea. So much had happened since we were kids. I figured she might be glad to reconnect with her long-lost cousin—may have forgiven and forgotten by now. Because, yeah, she was pretty young back then, but hey, I was just a kid myself. Didn’t know my ass from my elbow. Plus, I had saved her life that night. And I never did tell anyone who was really responsible for Gracie’s death; I’ve kept our secret all these years. I’d like to think those two things count for something.

  But another part of me was afraid that, as soon as she answered the door, she’d slam it in my face. And I couldn’t take that. Because out of all the little girls I’ve done, the only one I ever really loved was Annie. And yeah, the sex was part of it, but so was the closeness we’d shared. To this day, my body remembers what it felt like that night to pull her out of the water and up onto that roof, and then when the two of us were up in the tree, to zip her up inside my jacket to warm her body against mine. And what it felt like to wake up in the hospital the next morning and feel her sleeping against me for safety’s sake.

  So I decided to risk it. Because I had her address, and hey, she might not close the door on me. She might open it and tell me to come in. Make us some coffee and tell me she’s glad I came—that she’s missed me, too.

  I’ve been there four different times. I go on my day off from the nursing home—Mondays, most of the time, but the last time I went was on a Tuesday. I’ve got the routine down at this point. I get off at the bus stop downtown, then hoof it out to their neighborhood. Trudge up that big hill where they live, get to the house, and ring the bell. Each time it’s been the same: no cars in the driveway, no lights on inside. So I sit on the front steps and wait for a while, an hour or two. Then I give up, walk back down their hill and back to the bus stop. Catch the two o’clock bus back to the group home.

  And then? Yesterday? I expected to hear what I’d heard so often when I’ve called her number—the four rings until the machine kicked in. Instead, someone picked up the phone. Not the husband this time. A female. She has daughters—teenagers, they must be by now—but this was a woman’s voice, not a kid’s. Annie’s voice; it had to be. She was there.

  Which is why, this morning, I’m on this three-quarters-empty bus heading over to Three Rivers again. I think my patience may have finally paid off. Because how often do I get a Saturday off? Almost never. And yesterday, it was her voice I heard. She’s there. So all the ducks are lining up. And if my luck holds out, no one else will be around when I get there: the husband, the kids. It will just be Annie and me, the same as it used to be.

  Looking out the window, I catch my own reflection smiling back at me. It’s all good, Kent, it seems to be saying. It’s all good.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Andrew Oh

  Aw, what’s the matter? Does the twerp have a big head this morning? Gee, I wonder why.”

  “Shut up,” Marissa says. Clunks her head down on the table, just missing the bottle of Advil. Ariane shoots me a look. Hey, why should I shut up after what she knocked down yesterday?

  Minnie puts a heaping platter of scrambled eggs on the table, and a plate of English muffins, toasted and buttered. It’s like we’re in some old black-and-white movie from the 1950s: the colored maid waiting on the white folks. “There ain’t no jelly in the ’figerator,” she says. “None that I could see.”

  Ariane says there might be some in the cabinet and gets up to look. Comes back to the table with a jar of strawberry jam and hands it to me. “You want to do the honors, He-Man?” I unscrew the lid for her. “My hero,” she says. Marissa snorts into the tabletop.

  “So, Minnie, how did you guys make out last night?” I ask her.

  “Made out good,” she says. “Them motel mattresses were so comfortable that when Hector come by to take Africa for breffest, I had to wake him up.”

  “Where’d they go?”

  “To that IHOP near where we stayin’ at. Last time I took that boy to one of them IHOPs, he ate so many chocolate chip pancakes, I thought they were gonna start comin’ out of his ears.”

  “He’s a cutie,” Ariane says.

  “He a handful is what he is,” Minnie tells her. “I just hope Hector don’t let him eat so many pancakes that he make hisself sick.”

  Minnie’s standing at the counter, grabbing some breakfast, too. I hook my foot around the rung of the empty chair and pull it away from the table. “Come sit down with us,” I tell her. “Take a load off.”

  “Nah, thass okay. I’m good right here, thanks.”

  “So what time do we have to head over there for the big event?” I ask. Ariane glances at the clock on the wall. In about an hour and a half, she says.

  “And what’s the plan? Are we all driving over together?” Ariane shrugs, but Minnie knows. She says Hector’s picking her up after she’s done here—that he’s bringing her and Africa to the ceremony and I’m driving my mother and sisters. I wonder what Minnie thinks about this lesbian wedding she’s going to witness. I read somewhere that, statistically, blacks tend to be less tolerant of gays than whites are. It’s true of the guys in my company; that much I know. “Don’t ask, don’t tell, and don’t shower anywhere near me,” LeRoy says whenever the subject comes up, and it never fails to get a laugh. And Donyel told me one of his homeys is doing time for beating a tranny within an inch of his life after he realized the woman he was in bed with was a guy. But who knows? Maybe black women are more tolerant. Either way, Minnie’s got to be cool about it, I guess, given who signs her paycheck.

  Ariane reaches for the eggs and scrapes most of what’s left onto her plate. Takes another muffin, loads on the jam
. “This is the most I’ve eaten in three months,” she says. “Hooray for me. My appetite’s back.”

  “Back with a vengeance,” I kid her.

  Ari laughs, swats me on the arm. “Still a wiseguy,” she says.

  “Still an asshole,” Rissa mumbles.

  “You’ll feel better if you eat something,” Ari tells her. “Coffee and Advil on an empty stomach? Not good.” Yeah, it’s no wonder she’s gotten so skinny. Too skinny, in my humble opinion. Bony arms and legs, tiny little waist.

  Marissa raises her head. “Did someone mention coffee?” she says, holding up her mug. Minnie walks over to the table, carafe in hand, and refills it. I slide mine over to her, and she warms me up, too. For the next several minutes, no one says anything. I guess the three of us are all mulling over what’s in store a little later on. Then, out of the blue, Ari asks me how my fiancée is doing.

  “Casey-Lee?”

  “No, your other fiancée,” Marissa says. I ignore her, but Ari’s waiting for an answer.

  “She’s good. Busy.” I’m going for nonchalance, but I’m not sure I’m pulling it off. Why haven’t I told my sisters that the engagement’s off? I was going to when we were driving down from the Cape yesterday, but then I didn’t. I guess I wasn’t up for the third degree that would follow. I’ll tell them, though. Tonight maybe, after all the hoopla’s over with. “Lots to do. You know? At the beginning of the school year?”

  “Is that why she couldn’t come?”

  “Hmm? Yeah. Yup.”