Borderlands

by Unknown

  “You have family, though.”

  Anne’s crossed arms drew in closer. Family, yes, she did.

  God knows what wonders she could have accomplished had it not been for her beloved family.

  “A mother,” she said. “An older brother.”

  “What are their names?”

  “My mother is Audrey. My brother…” Suddenly Anne was acutely aware of the utility sink behind her. She could see it brimming with water, cold water, stopped up and ready…. “My brother’s name is Philip.”

  “Are you close?”

  Anne’s shoulders flinched at the nearness of the sink. Dark water; thick, stinking, and hungry water. Eager. She swallowed, then looked down at her hands. Pathetic things, she thought. She flexed them. Goddamn it all. She looked up at Stephen. His forehead was creased, with a barely discernible shadow over his eyes.

  “Sure,” she said. “We’re close.”

  Then Stephen went to sleep. Anne stared at the dust ball and at the tubes running from beneath Stephen’s ribs. And her fingers, wanting to move forward, were stopped, and were locked onto her lap like a colony of trapped souls.

  Janet Warren was chuckling as she ushered Anne into the office. “It’s no big deal,” she said, obviously seeing through Anne’s tight smile. “Honestly, I just want to talk with you for a minute.”

  Anne took one of the chairs that sat before the desk; Janet sat on the edge of the desk.

  “It’s Julia,” Janet said.

  Anne recrossed her arms and frowned slightly. “Julia? What’s wrong with her?”

  “Now, don’t get me wrong. Sorry, I don’t need to talk with you like that. You know what you’re doing, you know how people react sometimes. I’m sure you’ve had clients freak out during sessions, things like that.”

  Anne said, “Certainly.”

  “Julia went a little crazy after your last visit. She started throwing things; she even threatened bodily harm to herself if you came back again.”

  “Mrs. Warren, certainly you don’t think—”

  “I don’t think anything, Anne. We’re in this together, remember? Julia has always been easily set off. It seems you remind her of someone she hated back when she was a child. In school, somewhere back then. You’ve done nothing wrong. As a matter of fact, you seem to be making real progress with Michael.”

  Anne tapped the rug lightly with the ball of her foot. “Michael likes to joke around. I seem to be a good receptacle for that.”

  “So be it,” said Janet. “That could be just what he needs at this point.”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “So what I wanted to say was just forget about Julia for the time being. I’ll get another volunteer assigned to her. With your own work at the association, I’m sure a smaller volunteer load won’t disappoint you.”

  Anne nodded, stood, and started for the door. She turned back. “Mrs. Warren, what do you know about Stephen?”

  “Stephen?”

  “Michael’s roommate.”

  “Ah, yes,” Janet said. She slipped from the desk top and went around the desk to the swivel chair. She did not sit. “It may sound bad to say that we assigned Michael to that room because we didn’t think any other student could tolerate Michael and his moods. Stephen’s in a coma; you probably already how about that. We have brain waves, and they seem quite active, but who can figure what kinds of unconscious states the human can fall into? But whatever it is, Stephen is not to be disturbed. I would appreciate it if you would remind Michael to stay on his side of the curtain.”

  “Of course I will,” said Anne.

  “Thanks.”

  Anne looked out the office door, toward the activity in the main hall. Several wheelchaired students were talking with visitors; family, possibly. She looked again at Janet. “Before Stephen came here, who was he? I mean, what did he do?”

  Janet sat and dug her fingers beneath a pile of manila folders, in search of a particular one. “What? Oh, music, he was a musician. A pianist. On the way up, I was told. Into classical concerts, things like that. A pity.”

  It felt as though cold water had been poured over Anne’s lungs. She held her breath and slid her balled fists into her pockets. “And what,” she began, “happened to him?”

  The phone burred on the desk, and Janet raised an apologetic hand to Anne before picking up the receiver. She dropped to her seat with her “hello,” and Anne left the office.

  Michael seemed glad to be out of the infirmary. He waggled his eyebrows at Anne as she came into the room and raised himself up on his elbow. “Miss Zaccaria! Did you miss me?”

  Anne sat in the visitor’s chair. “Sure, Michael. Are you feeling better?”

  Michael snorted. “Not a whole hell of a lot better, but enough to get me out of there. God, you should see the nurses they have for us sick students. The old ones all look like Marines, and the young ones look like willing virgins. Like going from hot to cold and back to hot again all the time. It’s enough to pop your nads, if you got some.”

  “Are you well enough to start back into the electronics program? You haven’t done anything for nearly a month, and you know you can’t stay unless you are working toward a future.”

  “I’ve been sick. I had my emotional problems, right? I mean, you can vouch for that. That’s why you’re here.”

  Anne scratched her calf. “You have to look at your goals, Michael. Without goals you just stay put in time and don’t make progress.”

  “I got a goal.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To get my butt scratched. You ever scratch your butt with a hook?”

  Anne shook her head.

  “You scratch my butt for me, Miss Zaccaria?”

  “Michael, don’t start—”

  “I ain’t trying to be gross, honest. I just got an itch.”

  “Michael, it’s not my place to do that. There are nurses.”

  “Tell me about it. Okay, then my back. You scratch my back? Please?”

  Anne felt her hands catch her elbows. She sat straight, shifting as far from Michael as she could without getting up from the chair. “I’m not supposed to.”

  “Why?”

  “I just can’t. It’s not professional. Therapists aren’t supposed to touch clients.”

  “I’m not talking like you being my shrink now. Just my friend. Please. My back itches.”

  “No, Michael.”

  Michael was silent for a moment. He looked away from Anne, and studied a faint spot on his blanket. When he looked back, his face was pinched. “I ain’t trying to be gross,” he said softly. “How about my face? Can you scratch my nose for me?”

  Anne, slowly, shook her head.

  “Please,” he said. “Nobody ever wants to touch me.”

  “I can’t,” said Anne.

  Michael watched her, and then with a quick motion, he reached out and jabbed the play button on his tape player. Shrieking music cut the air. “Fine,” he cried over it. “Sorry I asked. I didn’t mean it, anyway. It was a joke. A butt scratch, shit, I just wanted a butt scratch for some jollies is all.”

  And then the nurses came and threatened Michael and he turned the music off.

  “One of the last sets of visitors I had was quite a long time ago,” said Stephen. “But it is one I’ll never forget.” He blinked, and his dark brows drew together, than apart. A strand of black, curled hair had been moved nearly into his eye, and Anne wondered what it would be like to reach out and push it back. “They were from a church. Pentecostal something. Holiness something. Young people, all of them. Neatly dressed, each in a pure white outfit that made me think of angry young angels. Even their Bibles were white. They didn’t want to be here; I could hear them whispering behind the curtain. They were very frightened. But the leader, a young girl of about eighteen, quieted them, saying ‘Even as you do it unto the least of the flock you do it unto Jesus.’ And in they came, smiles flashing. The girl told me I needed to turn my life around, I needed to
turn to the Lord. I told her I wasn’t turning anywhere, couldn’t she see that? She became flustered with my responses, then furious. I believe I was supposed to shake in the presence of their godly and bodily wholeness. Her face was as pale as her dress. When she finally ushered out her little group, she told me, ‘You better accept the love of the Lord. There isn’t anyone else in this world who would love something like you.’ ”

  “Christ, Stephen.”

  “No, it’s all right,” he said. His eyes closed, held, then opened slightly. “It was a long time ago.”

  “You said one of the last sets of visitors were the church people. Who were the last?”

  “Two insurance salesmen. I saw who they were, and went to sleep. I think they were more than relieved. I’ve been asleep most of the time since.”

  “Stephen.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Really.”

  Stephen shut his eyes. Anne watched his face. The nurses had done only a fair job of shaving. There was a small red cut on his chin. Then Stephen looked at her.

  “Why wouldn’t you touch Michael?”

  Anne started. “You were listening.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t. It’s not part of the job, you know. People might take it the wrong way.”

  “Why are you a counselor, Anne?”

  “So I can help people.”

  “There are lots of ways to help. Doctors, physical therapists, teachers.”

  “Yes.”

  But-they have to touch people. I can’t touch, not now, not ever. Philip touched me. Sweet God, he touched me and touching is nothing but pain and…

  “Your family hoped you’d be a counselor?”

  “No, I don’t think it mattered to them.”

  …anger and disgust. Touching is filth, degradation. It is losing control.

  Anne’s feet were planted squarely on the floor. She was ready to run.

  Touching is cold and hateful, like putrid, black water.

  “Tell me about your family.”

  “I already did.”

  “You have a mother. A brother.”

  “I already did!” Anne’s hand flew to her mouth and pressed there. She had screamed. “Oh, God,” she said then.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right.”

  Anne’s throat felt swollen. She swallowed and it hurt.

  “I didn’t mean to shout. It was rude.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Stephen,” Anne began, and then hesitated. She inched herself forward on her chair. Stephen’s eyes watched her calmly, and they were not eyes of a blue and frightening ocean, but of a blue and clear sky. She saw an understanding there, and she wanted to reach out for it.

  She wanted it, but knew the only way to have it was to touch it.

  She sat back. “Good night, Stephen,” she said.

  “Good night,” he answered. And he slept.

  Randy was being released from the center. The staff threw him a good-bye party, complete with balloons and ridiculous hats and noisemakers which Randy pretended to hate but obviously loved. He made a point of hooting his paper horn into the ear of everyone present. Randy had landed a job in the camera room of the local newspaper. His going away gift was a framed, fake newspaper front page, complete with the headline “RANDY MYERS, AKA CLARK KENT, SECURES POSITION AT DAILY PRESS.” Beneath the caption was a large black-and-white photo of Randy, cigar in teeth, leaning over the billiard table. A cue stick was in his hand.

  “I taught him everything he knows,” said Michael, as he looped about among the partiers. “He ought to take me with him, or he’ll just make a mess of things.”

  Anne left in the midst of the hubbub and went down to the pond behind the administration building. The sky was overcast, and mist covered the algaed water.

  Water, the dark trough of fears.

  She stood beside the edge. The wind buffeted her.

  Her mind, wearied, could not hold back the rush of memories.

  Phillip, as a boy, touching Anne in secret. First as a game, then as an obsession. Anne growing up; Phillip growing up ahead of her, and his touching becoming even more cruel.

  Elis body heavy and harsh; his immense organ tearing into her relentlessly. Anne crying each night, knowing he would come to her and would have no love for anything except the sensation of his own explosive release. Philip swearing that if she told anyone, he would kill her.

  Anne, promising herself over and over that if she was not killed, she would never let this happen again. She would not touch or be touched.

  And then came the night when Philip decided blood would make it more rewarding. He was tired of the same old thing; he said he was going to change Anne just a little, like a sculptor changing a piece of clay to make it better. With the door locked and his underwear in Anne’s mouth, he carved. He took off her little toes, stopping the blood with matches and suturing with his mother’s sewing kit. He decorated her abdomen with a toothed devil face into which he rubbed ink from Anne’s cartridge pen. Across her breasts he etched, “Don’t fuck with me.” The ink finished it off.

  The next morning, Mother wanted to know why there were stains on the sheets. She accused Anne of having a boyfriend in at night. She shook Anne until the confession was made. Anne took off her nightgown and her slippers. Mother shrieked and wailed, clutching her hair and tearing hunks out. Then she said, “The grace of God has left you! You are one of those deformed creatures!”

  Mother confronted Philip.

  Phillip killed Mother in the tub that evening with scalding water and an old shower curtain.

  Then he had found Anne, hiding in the garage.

  Anne doubled over and gagged on the bank of the pond. She could still taste the sludge and the slime from so many years ago. She drove her fists into the wall of her ribs, and with her head spinning, she retched violently. At her feet lay brown leaves, stirred into tiny, spiraling patterns by the wind and the spattering of her own vomit.

  She wiped her mouth. She stood up. Her vision wavered, and it was difficult to stand straight.

  She made her way to Michael’s room.

  Michael’s tape player was on the bed table. Michael had left it on, though softly, and as Anne picked it up she could feel the faint hammering of the percussion. The player was slender and cool and Anne could wrap both hands about it easily. Much like Phillips’ cock, when she was just a young girl. With a single jerk, she pulled the cord from the wall. The table teetered, then crashed to the floor. The music died in mid-beat.

  Anne hauled the player, cord dragging, to Stephen’s side of the room. There was sweat on her neck, and it dripped to her breasts and tickled like roach legs. She ignored it. Stephen was asleep. Anne threw the player into the sink and it shattered on the dulled enamel.

  “This is for you, Stephen,” she said. “No more music. You won’t have to suffer it anymore.”

  She ran the water until the heat of it steamed her face and stung her eyes. She grabbed up the pieces of broken player and squeezed them. Sharp edges cut into her hands and she let the blood run.

  “And this is for you, Phillip. Goddamn you to whatever hell there is in this world or the next.”

  She looked at Stephen’s bed. He was awake, and watching her.

  “Anne,” he said.

  Anne wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Blood streaked her chin.

  “Tell me, Anne.”

  “My brother killed my mother. Then he tried to kill me.”

  “Tell me.”

  Anne looked at the dead player in the sink. The hot water continued to run. Anne could barely catch her breath in the heat. She stepped back and licked the blood from her hands. “He tried to kill me. He was fucking me. Ever since I can remember, he was fucking me, hurting me, and enjoying it like any other boy would enjoy baseball.” She turned to Stephen and held out her wounded hands. “Touching is wrong. And he knew it. When Mother found out, he killed her. He took me down the back r
oad to the water treatment plant and threw me into the settling pool. It was not deep, but I could not swim, and the bottom was slick with sludge and it was rancid, Stephen. It was sewage and garbage, and I slipped under and under, and every time I came up Phillip would lean over the rail and hit me with a broom handle. It was night, and I could no longer tell the difference between up and down, it was all black and putrid and I couldn’t breathe. Philip kept hitting me and hitting me. My blood ran into the sewage and when I screamed I swallowed the sludge.”

  Anne moved closer to Stephen’s bed, her hands raised.

  “Someone heard us. Philip was stopped and arrested. I spent a good deal of time in the hospital, with concussions and infections.”

  Stephen watched between her bloodied hands and her face. “I wanted to help people,” Anne said. “I don’t think I ever can. Philip has seen to that.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “Tell me, Stephen. What can I do for you?”

  Stephen sighed silently, his chest lifting then falling. His head rolled slightly to the left, and he stared at the light above the bed.

  “Love me,” he said finally.

  “I do, Stephen.”

  His eyes blinked, the light reflecting tiny sparks. He looked back at Anne. His mouth opened, then closed. His jaw flexed and he licked his lips with his dry tongue. “Love me,” he said.

  Anne hesitated. Then slowly, she lowered the side rail of the bed. She knelt beside the bed and put her head onto the pillow beside Stephen. For a moment she held still, and then she brought her hand up to touch Stephen’s lips with her fingers. They did not move, yet she could feel the soft blowing of his breath on her skin.

  She moved back then. Stephen watched her. Then he said, “You knew about my music.”

  Anne nodded.

  “My dreams are different now.”

  Anne nodded.

  After a long moment, he said, “Anne, love me.” His voice was certain, kind, and sad.

  Anne touched her face and it was hot and wet with the steam and her own sweat. She touched Stephen’s face and it was fevered. She traced his cheekbone, his chin, his throat, and the damp, tendoned contour of his neck. She let her palm join her fingers, and felt slowly along his flesh among the myriad of tapes and tubes and wires. When she reached his heart, she pressed down. The beating quickened with the pressure, and Stephen moaned.