Breaking Out of Bedlam

by Leslie Larson

  “Where’s Edward?” my ma and daddy asked. “You two had a spat?” They was used to seeing him a couple times a week.

  Most I could do was shake my head. “He’s busy,” I mumbled. “He’ll be round.” Ruby raised an eyebrow. She looked at Crystal and Jasper and snickered.

  He wasn’t at church the next week, either. His daddy was there, though. I figured Edward must be home with his ma. She must be having a bad spell, must need constant care. There had to be a good reason Edward was staying away. I just had to wait.

  Toward the end of that second week I stopped Ruby before she went to work in the morning. Calvin came and picked her up, drove her into town on his way to his own job. I couldn’t face another Sunday looking for Edward in church, wondering why he wasn’t there.

  “Listen here,” I said. “I need to talk to Edward. Will you go round to Denton’s and tell him to come out here?”

  Do you know that Ruby didn’t say a thing? Not one word. That was a miracle in itself, probably the first time in her life she held her tongue. I should have taken heed, should have known how far gone the situation was just from that.

  When she got home that night, I followed her to our bedroom and shut the door. She got a discount working in the department store and had real nice clothes. I still remember the outfit she was wearing that day: a taupe suit with wide lapels, navy blue piping around the collar and sleeves. She always changed her clothes as soon as she got home. We didn’t talk while she unbuttoned her jacket, while she took it off and hung it up, then unzipped her skirt and put it on another hanger.

  She avoided my eyes while she unfastened her stockings and rolled them down her legs. I could see the garters under her slip while she stood there in her bare feet. It reminded me of the movie I’d gone to that first time with Edward, how that finger of his had worked its way up the inside of my thigh.

  Finally, she turned and faced me. “I went to the drugstore and talked to Mr. Denton,” she said in a flat voice. “Edward lit out. He’s gone, moved up to St. Louis to go to pharmacy school.”

  RUMORS

  The rain woke me up about 7:30 this morning, pelting my window like buckshot. The clouds were thick and dark and the wind was whipping. You could tell it had blown all night because there was a lot of junk on the ground—fronds from the palm across the street, sopping cardboard boxes that blew off the loading dock, newspapers turning to mush in the gutters. What a mess. Everything was drenched—the sides of the buildings, the streets, the jacarandas along the curb.

  I watched the cars turn into the parking lot. Their headlights reflected in pond-size puddles. Their tires threw up a wake. The rain was letting up but the wind was still blasting, sending squalls across the puddles. Cooks and dishwashers, the girls who worked in housekeeping, the office staff and nurses’ aides—they jumped out of their cars and sprinted like gazelles across the asphalt. I wondered how it felt to have a job, a place to go to every morning.

  The blues came down hard. I missed Lulu, the way her eyes move behind her eyelids when she’s dreaming. I started sniffling thinking how her paws flick and her muscles twitch like she’s running. Sometimes she even barks. I wonder what she sees in those dreams, whether she goes back to wolf days and runs in a pack, bringing down a deer like on those nature shows. If it weren’t for her, I’d have lost my mind. I bawled in earnest when I remembered the look on her face when Dean tucked her under his arm and carried her out to the car. I’m going crazy worrying what she’s going through living with Dean’s jackass grandkids.

  One thing led to another and before long I made a list of everything that had ever been taken away from me. When I got to my crystal, I longed with all my heart to hold it against my cheek, or press the point into the pad of my thumb. You don’t know how much comfort I got from that thing, and how much I miss it.

  I was in such a state by breakfast time, I decided I needed to take special measures, so I tossed back a couple of pills. I been holding back lately, not taking hardly any, but my mood was feeling like the old, black times. I could barely drag myself to the dining room.

  Ivy picked up on it right away, like the vulture she is. Soon as I sat down she said, “You’re not looking so good, Cora. Is everything all right?” She never misses a chance to rattle my cage.

  I looked over there to see what Vitus was up to. Trouble is, there are so many women here, they swarm like piranha fish around a man. Even men who had to scrape the bottom of the barrel turn into Clark Gable the minute they walk through the door. Ten or twelve women swoon if those men so much as hiccup. And a man like Vitus—well, he can have his pick of anybody. Not just the old ladies, but the nurses and cooks and other women who work here. So I got to keep an eye on him.

  Ivy doesn’t miss a thing. She saw me looking over at Vitus, who happened to be talking to a woman at the next table. “I see your friend has a friend of his own,” she cackled.

  She likes to pretend that there’s nothing going on between us, that it’s all in my head. It drives me to the brink. Of course, she don’t come right out and say it. She’s got little ways of showing it, mostly with her eyebrows. Those damn drawn-on skinny lines can almost talk. They dance around on her big shiny forehead spelling out words that goad me to the quick. They’ve got a way of puckering up when I talk about Vitus that says she don’t believe a word I say.

  She’s one of them who gets in that van that takes people shopping. “You should have seen that Vitus, riding along in the double seat next to Violet McKay. You’d think they’d been together all their lives the way he had his arm on the seat behind her and the way he helped her down the steps,” she said, looking at me, of course. “They were shopping like honeymooners at the Save-On, giggling in the aisles, playing hide-and-seek, and filling a whole basket with treats that Violet paid for.”

  Well, my blood started boiling. I was ready to go wild, but I managed to control myself. “Now, Ivy, I have a hard time believing that,” I said as calm as I could. “I am at a loss as to why you have to make up those stories.” I started buttering my toast to show I wasn’t bothered in the least, but damned if my hands weren’t shaking.

  Oh, her eyebrows shot up to the crown of her head. She leaned over the table toward me and hissed, nasty as a viper, “You know, they say he’s been in other places before this. They say he was in two or three other facilities, and he was asked to leave.”

  I squeezed that butter knife until my knuckles turned white. How I wanted to bury it in her bony old chest! I leaned in closer and said, “You are full of shit, Ivy Archer! You don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground!”

  She gasped. “There is no need for that kind of language, Cora Sledge! I won’t tolerate it.”

  Carolyn Robertson, whose head had been swiveling back and forth while she listened to us, rolled her eyes, shook her head, and gave a little laugh. At least someone was enjoying the show.

  “Trouble with you is you’re jealous!” I let loose. “Green with envy.”

  That got her. She slammed her silverware down on the table. Even old Krol perked up. He raised his head and stared at her with his milky blue eyes. Those jaws of his didn’t miss a beat, though. He chewed with his mouth open, scrambled eggs sticking to his gums like moss.

  “That got your attention, huh?” I said. “The truth hurts, don’t it? You wouldn’t know what to do with a man like Vitus! You wouldn’t have the faintest idea!”

  I laughed right up in her pinched face. Oh, it felt so good! Her mouth dropped open and those damn eyebrows flew right off her forehead and disappeared somewhere up by the ceiling. She gasped again, and clutched her throat like she couldn’t get her breath.

  I leaned even closer, moving in for the kill. “And one more thing,” I said real low, pointing the butter knife to show I meant business. “If you don’t quit tormenting me and spreading those filthy rumors, you’re going to regret it, and I don’t mean maybe.”

  She squealed
like a stuck pig. That made me laugh some more.

  She commenced to flail her arms and hop around in her seat. “Excuse me! Excuse me!” she yelped, trying to flag down one of the boys who clears the tables. “Help, please! I need help!”

  What a ruckus. I just went on eating my toast like I didn’t have a care in the world.

  The big cheese, the woman who runs the place, was over by the entrance talking to the dietitian. She raised her head to see what all the commotion was about. Poison Ivy spotted her. “Yoo-hoo!” she yodeled, waving her arms like she was drowning. “Over here! Please! Help!”

  “You turn my stomach,” I said.

  The boss lady started toward us, threading her way between the tables—which was no easy task, seeing as she has a butt the size of New Jersey. Chairs fell like dominoes. Good thing the dining room had started clearing out, or she might have knocked a few heads off on the way over.

  She put her hand on the back of my chair and leaned toward Ivy. Her perfume made you want to retch. Up that close I could see that she’d gone outside the lines of her lips with orange lipstick.

  “Yes, ma’am. What can I do for you?” she said, breathing heavy from dragging that ass all the way across the room.

  Ivy puffed up like a hen. “Mrs. Sledge here insulted me.” She pointed at me with one of her scrawny fingers. “She used rude, vulgar language, and she threatened me with a knife.”

  “I did no such thing,” I said, cool as a miner’s ass. “Her mind is wandering.”

  Bigbutt turned to Carolyn. “What happened?”

  Carolyn shrugged. “Don’t look at me. They’re both crazy, far as I can tell.”

  “That was uncalled for,” I told Carolyn. “I didn’t appreciate that.”

  “Ladies, breakfast is over,” Bigbutt said. “What if we all ske daddle and go about our business?”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice,” Carolyn said. She backed up her wheelchair, spun around, and rolled away. Old Krol stood up and followed her, his arms dangling like a zombie.

  “If you don’t make her leave the table, I’m going to leave myself,” Ivy said.

  “Go on, then! We’re better off without you,” I shot back.

  “All right, ladies. That’s enough!” Bigbutt clapped her hands like she was breaking up a dogfight. “Let’s get moving, shall we? It’s time to leave!”

  WHEN I GOT back to my room, Vitus was waiting on the folding chair outside my sliding glass door. Since my money went missing I’ve tried to make sure all my doors are locked.

  You can bet I was ready for a cigarette, so I went with him to our little bench near the fountain. “I heard a rumor about you at breakfast,” I said after we lit up.

  He blew out a puff of smoke and turned to me with that easy smile of his. “What was that, Woozy?”

  “Well, there’s two, really. One is that you was cozying up to Violet McKay at Save-On. The other is that you’ve been in places like this before and got kicked out.”

  He nodded and took another slow puff. “Who’s Violet McKay?”

  He wasn’t the least bit ruffled, but I decided to test him. “You know damn well who she is. You had your arm around her on the shuttle bus.”

  “Sure it was me?”

  He smiled, the rascal. “People say all sorts of things, Woozy. I’m surprised you listen to them.”

  “I haven’t heard you deny it.”

  “Would that make you feel better?”

  “You know what? It would.”

  “All right, then.” He laid his hand on my knee. A jolt went up and down my leg, but I kept a straight face.

  “You heard wrong, Woozy. It never happened.”

  He sounded as sincere as all hell, and I sure wanted to believe him. But something more important was happening. He let me ask those questions. He acted like I had a right to them. We’d never talked about the two of us, him and me, and the fact that he didn’t get mad cheered me up.

  “She didn’t buy you nothing at Save-On?”

  He scratched his chin and tipped his head to one side. “Not that I recall.”

  He crushed out his cigarette and gave me a sly grin. I put mine out, too. I can’t get enough of that man. When I’m around him, my whole body feels like it’s covered with little mouths sucking in fresh air.

  “Let’s go inside,” I said. “Talk a little.”

  I’ve never been one to leave well enough alone. Soon as we were sitting down, I started in. “You know, a lot of these old bats get the wrong idea about you, Vitus. To them you’re fair game, spoils for the taking. I think it’s time we tell folks about me and you. Let ‘em know to stay away.”

  “Do you think so, Woozy?”

  “Yes, I do!”

  He gave me the smoothest smile. I reached over and gave him a little slap on the arm. “Listen here, quit teasing me. I’m serious. I don’t like these women licking their chops over you.”

  “I hardly notice them,” he said. “They’re nothing to me.”

  “Tell them, then! Let them know, so they’ll stay away!”

  Vitus is real smart. I’m not used to it, after Abel. A whole new world opens up when you talk to somebody like Vitus, but it’s got its drawbacks, too. You can’t pull anything over on him.

  “I wasn’t brought up that way, Cora. My mother taught me that a gentleman treats all ladies with respect.”

  “Well, that’s part of the problem. Just tell them to get lost. Tell them you aren’t interested, that you’re already spoken for. What’s the big secret? I want to shout it from the rooftops. I want the whole world to know.”

  Me and my big mouth. Soon as I said it, I knew I’d gone too far. But instead of shutting my trap, I asked, “Are you ashamed of me? You too good? Is that it? Or is there something you’re hiding? Something you don’t want me to know? Or is it because I’m fat and you like that, but you don’t want anybody else to know? What is it? Tell me.”

  Vitus kept his eyes focused on his lap and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and finger. I dug myself in a little deeper and commenced to bawling, snotting and spraying in all directions. Lord, I brayed like a jackass. Aw, it was the last thing I wanted Vitus to see, the very last. I hated myself to the core, but that just made me cry harder. I covered my face with my hands and turned it loose.

  Lord have mercy.

  “Cora, please,” he said after a little while. I felt his hand on my shoulder, coaxing, touching me soft. He rubbed real gentle, then he patted the top of my arm. I was afraid to look at him.

  “They said you got asked to leave,” I sniveled. I pulled a ratty little shred of Kleenex out of my pocket and blew my nose. “Lord knows why.”

  His hand stopped moving. “What are you talking about, Cora? What do you mean?”

  I wiped my eyes and turned toward him. I know I looked like hell. “That hateful one, Ivy, at my table. She said it. She said you was in places like this before, and you had to leave.”

  “People say all kinds of things, Cora. The woman at your table is lying. I don’t know why she’d make up something like that, but it’s not the truth.”

  “I know.”

  He talked in a soft voice, not mad at all. “Before I came here I was staying in a place like this, outside Phoenix. I left there because I didn’t like it. It didn’t suit my tastes. But as far as I know, that’s not a crime.”

  I wiped my eyes. “No, it isn’t.”

  He laid his hand over mine, even though it was gripping that nasty Kleenex. “I hate to see you upset like this.”

  A warm feeling washed over me. All the hard things inside—the rocks and claws, the hooks and hammers and broken glass—melted into warm, sweet jelly. It scared the life out of me to feel them dissolving, like being pulled out to sea by a powerful wave. I gave in, though. I took a deep breath and let them go.

  PIE

  Glenda showed up out of the
blue today, didn’t give a word of warning, just waltzed right through the door and sat herself down. I was writing here and had to slam this book shut and put it out of sight because if anybody gets wind of this while I’m still alive I’ll have a lot to answer for.

  She brought me some of the things I want. A nice outfit—pumpkin color with some gold in it—that buttons down the front. A floral print shift, kind of Hawaiian looking, and some maroon pants. “From Mervyns,” she says. “Aren’t they nice?” No sweatpants! And jewelry, too. A couple of papier-mâché bangles painted kooky colors, pink and orange and green. They slip over your hand and have earrings to match.

  “And guess what,” she went on. “I’m taking you out to lunch. To celebrate the new you. I just can’t get over how much weight you’ve lost, Mommy. How good you look.”

  I’m not bragging, but she’s right. All my life I’ve tried every diet known to man, ate nothing but birdseed or grapefruit or raw steak, and I couldn’t shed more than a few pounds. Now they’re just flying off me, and I ain’t even trying. I got to say, I feel a whole lot better. So I decided to take her up on it.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  She grinned. “You feel like pie? A nice big sandwich on a roll, then a piece of Marie Callender’s pie?”

  She knows my weakness. They got ham there they slice real thin and pile up so thick on those rolls you can hardly get your jaws around it. Spicy mustard and Thousand Island dressing, with potato salad on the side. Boy oh boy. And those cream pies. I was already running the choices through my mind, trying to decide whether I was going to have the banana cream or the chocolate cheesecake, when I happened to glance at the sliding glass door.

  Who should be standing there but Vitus?

  I jumped like I’d been caught red-handed doing something I shouldn’t. I tried to shoo him away, but he was already fooling with the latch. Glenda caught me looking and turned around. Damned if Vitus didn’t slide open the door and walk right in. He went straight over to the TV, snapped it on, and settled himself in the arm chair. Glenda’s mouth hung open wide enough to catch flies.