by Bruce Wagner
She told Mom she was going home for her robe and toiletries and was there anything else she needed. Marj said, with a feeble smile that stabbed Joan’s heart, that all the jewelry was gone, even the wedding ring Hamilton designed. Joan said not to worry, not to worry about anything but getting better, everything was insured, and that she was here now, her daughter was here, and wouldn’t leave her, all she wanted was that Marj use her energy to get better, that was the only thing that mattered. OK, Mom? So is there anything else you need? Anything you can think of? Marj said there were a few books by the bed, one about Jesus and his visit to India, another about Christian missionaries. Also, if she’d keep an eye out for her addressbook because she wanted to phone Cora and check on Pahrump but couldn’t for the life of her remember the number. Joan said she had it in her Treo, she had Cora’s number, and Stein’s too, and anyway she’d just seen Cora and would give her the message when she went back to Beverlywood. But did she want a special blanket or quilt? Something homey? Marj just smiled and shook her cracked, distended head, thanking her. You are the most wonderful daughter. Joan knew that she wasn’t and it broke her heart all over again. They cried and hugged. Marj said to be careful with the addressbook because tucked inside was a fortune cookie message “with important numbers” that she used whenever she bought a lottery ticket at Riki’s. Joan smiled and said, “Your secrets are safe with me, Ms Morningstar.”
THE house was musty. She opened a window. Then, suddenly mindful of the violent, mysterious intruder, slammed it shut; the glass trembled and paint flecked off the old wooden frame. She would get the detective’s take on all of it—who was this person, and was he likely to come back? Shouldn’t they be dusting the car for prints? That sort of thing.
A dress was on the bathroom floor, crumpled and soiled. There were new bags from Neiman’s and Barneys, with extravagant receipts inside. That seemed uncharacteristic. The tub was filled with dirty water. Stockings and underthings floated like ratty, lifeless swamp creatures. Everything smelled of excrement. Joan wrung them out and drained the bath.
She wandered from room to room, each one somehow permeated by her mother, as if she were walking through Marj’s body itself, and even though Joan had been there recently, it was such a long time since she’d actually looked with her eyes and her heart, so long since she’d stepped outside the castle of Self to consider Marjorie Rausch Herlihy née Donovan as a separate, living being, fading balletomane, frail and mortal, with longings, dreams, and desires, who’d suffered abandonment by one husband and death by another and the abandonment/death of her children too. Shame washed over her; Joan no longer recognized who she was. She may as well have been the thug who had violated the woman who bore her. Here and there were things from India she’d grown up around and still remembered from girlhood. Here and there were photographs, her father, Raymond, carefully excised, the technique divorced women sometimes favored, memories halved or quartered, images of Joan and her brother at an early age without either parent, when the proper editorial couldn’t be surgically achieved. There were unopened boxes of incense, and little wood-and-copper Buddhas that she liked to give away as “friendship” gifts.
On her mother’s nightstand, a tidy stack: The Life and Works of Jesus in India, The Da Vinci Code: The Illustrated Edition, The Automatic Millionaire, and Die Rich and Tax Free! Joan smiled when she saw a picturebook of the Taj Mahal, and decided to bring that along; maybe they’d make the trip afterall. Is that her consolation prize for the beating? You wretched cunt? You are such a cunt. Who are you who are you who are you—
It took longer to find the addressbook. The fortune cookie adage was indeed tucked within. Tiny lottery numbers—the last digit altered by Mom’s quivery cursive—were printed beneath: LOVE IS AROUND THE CORNER.
WHEN she returned to Midway, the detective was already talking with Marj—though it was hard to understand her through the clenched jaw—who was propped on pillows, and seemed animated, enjoying the company of a gentleman. Joan shook his hand then kissed her mother on the forehead and showed off the little suitcase she’d retrieved. (The same one Marj had packed for New York.) She pulled out the addressbook too, with a corny magician’s flourish, eliciting a broad, pained smile; then set everything down beside the chair. Joan noticed the IV had backed up with blood and rang for a nurse. Just then, the old woman was brought a liquid supper. (The fracture had been scheduled for repair tomorrow afternoon.) Joan said she was going to have a talk with her “gentleman caller” and would be right back. A volunteer, close to Marj’s age, helped arrange the tray on an overhanging bed table.
Detective Whitsell had a folder with a few phony documents Marj had been given by the people who had drained her savings, and assaulted her—he was convinced they were one and the same group. He shared everything he’d been able to piece together to date, which, in such a short time, seemed quite a bit: the initial, elaborate “Blind Sister” lottery scam; the “reload,” where Mrs Herlihy was asked to virtually empty her accounts; the “recovery room,” with an FBI twist, promising justice and restitution—the victim even brazenly asked to participate in capturing those who defrauded her; and finally, the blackmailing that began with the impersonation of Joan herself, the chaotic traffic accident and “miscarriage,” the superfluous on-scene personal injury attorney, and so forth, ending with the robbery of precious jewels and aberrantly sadistic beating of the helpless mark. The detective had only meager remnants of the gang’s handiwork (he’d worked a case 10 months ago that bore a striking resemblance)—receipts and other effluvia tucked in Marjorie’s pocketbook; she’d handed them over when he arrived—and doubted that a search of the house would reveal much more because the team would have wisely erased the paper trail, covering their evidentiary tracks. They were very, very good.
Joan hyperventilated as she listened, unable to suppress her rage and her soul sickness. She told Detective Whitsell that she had spoken with the lady at the “bank” and been completely fooled. He said the gang excelled at “phonework,” even using sound effects to make it seem like they worked out of large agencies or offices. He called them “stormchasers,” elaborating how they exploited any form of natural disaster or human weakness. For example, he knew that a splinter gang associated with the group that fleeced her mother was still working Katrina, siphoning money from bogus Web sites. “You can’t tell their homepages from the Red Cross’s. Some are Aryan Brotherhood, believe it or not—extremely well done. They’ve got viral embeds: click on ‘Hurricane Rebuild Update’ then Zap! your personal info is history. Your identity’s gone and you’ll never get it back. One guy set up a site before the storm hit Louisiana! (They should have made him head of FEMA.) Other scams are a little ‘dirtier,’ like the Nigerian stuff we see, the ‘419s.’ Misspellings, boldface pleas for money—is it boldface or baldface?—it’s baldfaced, right?—‘I lost everything including my wife.’ That sort of deal. I’ve even heard of crews going down there to pick through garbage. And I don’t mean Mardi Gras ‘krewes.’ What they’re looking for are water-logged bank statements, Social Security cards, driver’s licenses, and the like. Hell, a buddy of mine caught one up at Lindy Boggs—the hospital? They go right in the nursing homes and pick through patient records. It’s pretty much beyond the pale.
“But we have individuals out here who are just as imaginative. You might have read about a fellow in the paper who gave a donation of a hundred-and-12,000,000 to a little college in Northern California. They were so thrilled, they gave him a 1st edition of The Origin of Species—and arranged for the guy to be blessed by the Pope! A convicted felon! Of course, the pledges turned out to be completely spurious. The human animal has a primal need to believe. It’s very important to believe, and there are folks out there who take advantage of that. I think it was St Mary’s—St Mary’s College. So at least your mom’s in good company.”
SHE stayed overnight at the hospital. Barbet stopped by. They had coffee in the cafeteria and commiserated.
&nb
sp; After he left, she watched television while her mother slept. The usual reports of bombings, bird flu, and mass burials; anchors spoke of Death’s details—always sketchy and sexily half-baked, like a stairwell dry hump—with a breathy, erotic edge to their voices. She zoned out and tried to read. It was after 10. There was a segment about a former TV journalist who’d recovered from cancer and now devoted his life to helping others who were disabled or trying to recover from catastrophic illnesses. The feature ended with a visit to a quadraplegic who spoke with the aid of a synthesizer. When the retired newsman asked the quad how he would now describe his life, the electronic voicebox replied, “I—am—happy—always.”
She thought of Mom’s fortune cookie (love is around the corner) and collapsed in silent tears.
LXIX.
Joan
SHE punched in the destination—Detective Whitsell was kind enough to get her the exact address—and followed the yellow brick Mercantile Road to the City of Industry.
It was funny to her that a robotic female voice (I am happy always. Love is around the corner) guided her from point A to point B, point B to point C, and so on. The Woman was relentless and unwavering, automatically lowering the volume of her CD (a haunting Rachmaninoff chorale) to tell her to hold fast to this or that lane of this or that freeway; the Woman cut into phone conversations like a switchboard gossip, ordering Joan to exit, turn left, go a quarter of a mile to this street or avenue, keep right—a warmly disembodied automatrice, shepherding a 4-ton machine over subex-urban grids until Joan reached the heart of the heart of the matter, the apartment complex fixed in ever-mutable nonnegotiable space and time where her supposed biological father allegedly resided, reverse paternity, aging mitochondrial DNA/GPS entity, who, like Mom, had recently been assaulted (unwarranted warrants) under true/false colors of authority, all interchangeable now, good cop/bad cop neverending.
The Woman said, “Your destination is ahead on the right. Your route guidance is now complete,” and Joan laughed.
Oh, is it really?
She scoped her father’s building then turned tail. Found a liquor store and bought Marlboro Lights, a Diet Coke, and a jumbo bag of Lay’s chips (she hadn’t smoked in 5 years). Sat in the car listening to Rachi then shut it down for a reality check. The symphonic backdrop for her own personal opera was overkill.
Drove back to the apartment and sat some more.
Took a cigarette out, didn’t light it.
More scoping: a cheerless but well-kept area.
Left her car. Walked upstairs to the 2nd floor.
(Must be a haul for an old guy.)
Saw a brightly painted door, different than the others—replacement for the one they kicked in?
Got closer till she was staring at it.
Some heavy breathing on her side—#203B.
Heard the television: loud.
(Probably losing his hearing.)
I better just do this.
Because it was too easy to walk away: because she was effulgently depressed: because she was prone to hair-trigger tears: because her mother and the baby and the hormones had kicked her ass ragged, and broken down the doors of her own house.
Knock. Knock knock. Knock knock knock knock knock.
(She had lost, she was lost, I am lost.)
He stirred.
Stood.
She saw bearish shadows slowly moving.
Her heart snagged.
Ray greeted her—a dusty, frazzled screen now between them. He looked at her and smiled. She lost it. He was startled. Joan said she was sorry. He laughed with befuddlement while she wiped her eyes and shoved down tears. He opened the door. You OK? Asked how he could help. He’s kind. She said—again, with sobby strangled self-conscious actressy laugh—I think you—I think you are my father. I think you are my He took a not unfriendly step back. (Literally taken aback.) Oh. What is he going to do. He asked her in, surprising. Pungent smell of Indian leftovers. Are you…Joanie? She nodded and sobbed and he offered his semi-fancy easychair. She couldn’t take it. She needed something upright so’s not to slip into a dream. My Lord, he said, not thinking to turn down the TV until he appeared cudgeled by its blare. My Lord My Lord My Lord
She told the old man her friend had read about him in the paper, a friend who was aware of her “other name.” The Rausch name.
Oh my Lord. Oh my Lord.
Neither knew where to start but had already begun, brought together by the fates and the CG and the GPS, matchmade and ready-to-order by adenoidal androidal I am happy always.
(Love was just around the corner.)
Joan asked if he was all right, a good neutral question, meaning she heard he’d had a heart attack, or actually read about that, it was in the article. Yes he was, he said, eyes moistening now, hand trembling too, yes, he was all right.
Somewhere a dog squealed, cowering behind a chair.
Why, that’s the Friar, he said, that’s Friar Tuck. We call him Nip/Tuck, Nip for short. It gets a little complicated around here. She cautiously put her hand out but the dog lowgrowled and hunch-hunkered. He’ll get used to you. Best not to pay any attention, that’s what Cesar says. Don’t lookim in the eye. Doin a helluva lot better, that one. Did he get shot? I mean they said, I read, he got shot. The man—her father!—said yes, the cops “put a slug in him” by mistake but he was much better, had a surgery, now he was just about 100%, tough old coot. Outlive us all.
The Friar waddled over and licked her hand and she saw the shaved patches, Raymond Rausch said for some reason the hair wasn’t growing back in, and Joan thought of her mom—his ex!—and the awful beating she took, and again: wave of lipquavering tears. The nice thing being that a certain awed politesse had mercifully overtaken and they rested in quiet ancestral reverie not much different from the folksy, civil calmness between strangers who meet in extremis, no hurry, no worries, there was time, unbridgeable time, too much to speak of, no catching up to do in the usual sense, only a kind of tacit, preternatural, subterranean filling in, the homemade soupy soak of skinspirit and lineage, cellular charades, boardgame of the secret society of genomes, conditioning and destiny, of double helix and timespace serendipities. It was understood that for now there’d be no discussion of wife or mother, brother or son. For that, again, there’d be time and opportunity, at least that was the mutual assumption, which was, afterall, part of what was nice, nicely nice and relaxing. He did say, “What do you do?” and was pleased and nonplussed by her answer.
Once Joan got most of her tears out and Raymond leaked some more as well, he offered her tea—she liked that, he could have said how about a beer or pot of coffee, which would have been fine, actually, any of it would be fine, what was she saying, what did it matter, fuck my endless judging, still, tea was what he suggested, jasmine, saying that his girlfriend I hope he doesn’t have a young girlfriend, she’s probably younger than me oh shut up shut up hadn’t been well, she was “in hospital” (OG Victoriana-sounding phrase) adding with wizened not uncharming sprightly twinkle that his “gal” was “Preg. Nant” oh God she’s probably like 17 that made Joan cry then later laugh at the thought she could or should have blurted out I’m pregnant too! and also how surreal that maybe soon she would have a sister she had always wanted a sister, the tears not as heavy now as when she 1st arrived but still in shock. Watching her cry, for a million reasons Raymond Rausch sweetly seemed to feel bad for her, or with her, bad about that, about everything, and wishing/not knowing how he could help. She thought maybe he thought maybe he’d said too much? or the reference to a baby on the way Baby On Board
was insulting because of the fact she had been a toddler he’d discarded. But how nice that was, really, at his age, that’s what her sunrise smile showed him, all unspoken, how nice though at his age ancient daughter suddenly materialized before him, how nice and mystically twisted the multiplicity of lives, the knot of this life, all life, their life he was trying to remember what he used to call her, what was the nickname and said it
had taken him by surprise—the pregnancy—and she wasn’t a young woman—the girlfriend—what does he mean by not young—and that she had to go to hospital and stay put awhile on doctor’s orders.
She asked if there was anything he needed. I guess this is my time. To ask of my parents what is needed. My time to caregive. No, he said, he was going to have a nap (she could see him in his frailty and that her visit had packed a wallop). He thought he would lie down, she knew he meant the bedroom not the easychair, but Joan was welcome to stay and watch television, he made the invitation to be cordial, and that was lovely, truly, it was genuine, she stanched the tears again, saw he was knocked out, her visit knocked him out, knocked both them out. Her father was an old man.
Your route guidance is now complete.
They embraced when she left and she wept again and this time for some reason was embarrassed, Ray sensed it, she took a hard look at him now, all this time not having bothered to age him up in her head the way computers did on CSI, adding 70-odd years to the dad she hardly remembered, no, nothing, she saw nothing, she looked for Chess in his bones as a last resort but no, nothing, she would need to visit Beverlywood, maybe there existed a single photo Marjorie hadn’t sheared but Joan wasn’t sure; she flashed on movies about people who find lost loved ones that turn out to be impostors, arthouse films and even Vertigo (one of Pradeep’s favorites), and in the same instant she thought, Stanford grad-student mode again, it’s the idea of it, Myth of Reintegration, regeneration, that’s what mattered—instinctively Joan thought, No, this isn’t the case, he is no impostor. This is my father, Raymond Rausch—and there would be time to tell him everything that had happened since he left, though she would ask nothing in return, ever, wouldn’t care to hear his explanations (if he had any), both too old for that, the porno cliché that Now was all that mattered was true, if he wanted to share it would be at his pace, the pace of myth, or maybe at the pace of what she, Joan Hennison Herlihy née Rausch could take, that was how to go, how they would do it, slowly but surely they’d turn, no urgency, competition/animosities long past, she had given the Memorial her best shot, the commission awarded to someone else, and now she was building something in her womb that needed no plan, committee, or ruling, no client permission, persuasions, consensus. There was nothing to decide. The site was selected and end-date affixed…