by Adam Golaski
Though he was now very interested, he was also frightened. “From what?”
“The dark. I get scared in the dark. But with a boy… you can hold my hand.”
“It gets dark?”
“Darker. But you’re a boy.”
Misguided pride took him landing to landing, which, thankfully, were each lit by a single bulb.
The pair arrived on a landing that was wet. The lip of the landing was crumbled, exposing iron rods and a wooden framework. The next set of steps were wood. Abigail took Joseph’s hand. “You’re so brave,” she whispered. She did not look at him. She led them down the wooden steps to the next landing, which was also wood, weathered, unpainted, warped up at the edges.
“How much further do we have to go?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
They walked down another set of wooden steps, which creaked, and halfway down, canted slightly. They froze, then went forward, down.
There was no light bulb in the wall at the next landing. Joseph said, “It’s dark.”
Abigail squeezed his hand; his was clammy (beneath his fear, he was embarrassed by this); her hand was warm and dry.
At the next landing, which was lit by a greasy yellow bulb, the stairs became spiral. Black iron, narrow, a corkscrew into the ground. From where they stood it seemed as if there was light below, but from no identifiable source. The pair continued to descend. Joseph’s mind whirred. He thought of his parents and how worried they might be (what time was it was it close to dinner time?). He wondered about this girl, who was older and quiet. She scared him. He kept one hand on the banister, one in Abigail’s. And then—
“The banister,” he said.
His hand slipped off the end of the banister. He stopped. Abigail tugged at him and he nearly lost his balance, but he pulled back and stopped her. He felt for more banister—perhaps only a link in the rough iron rail had fallen out. He gently pushed Abigail forward, cautiously looking for firm footing. “The banister is gone.”
“We can be careful.”
The light was only enough to cast a glow over Abigail’s white dress and white skin. Where her hair fell, black. The narrow spiral staircase was black. Joseph looked up, and saw that the light behind him was feeble. He would not have gone further, but Abigail slipped her hand from his, and continued down: his fear of being left alone in the dark overcame his reason: he saw white faces before his eyes.
He learned the shape of each step. Though there was nothing to catch him from falling over the edge (and what was below and where?), the outermost end of the step was widest. There were no risers, so his ankle hit the hard lip of each step as he sought to establish its contours. The metal rung with each step. Abigail moved too fast and was vanishing. “Abigail, wait.” She would slow, then move on, and he would have to call to her to wait again.
She stopped. “Abigail?” Joseph, slow, caught up with her. “Abigail?” He whispered her name into her ear.
“Shh. Listen.” Joseph stood still. The air smelled like mildew and—he smelled his own sweat.
And he heard a sound coming from below. “What…”
“Shh.”
The sound was like the rumble of an empty dump truck. The scrape and grind of the shovel-end of a front lifter dragged across pavement. The scrabbling of crab legs?
“What is it?”
“We have to go back.” There was the lilt of panic in her voice. “It’s coming up.”
Hopeful, he asked, “Your dad?” To Joseph, the thought of her father—any parent—was reassuring. But she was so scared and upset—it couldn’t be her father. The dull thump of a heavy book dropped on thick carpet, the sound of a boot sucked at by mud. Joseph had the impression, too, that the sounds were moving up and gaining.
She pushed at him. “We have to go fast.”
Just turning around on the spiral staircase with no banister made Joseph panic. She put her hands on his waist to turn him—he didn’t like that—he got over his fear and moved—still slow, though, careful to firmly find his footing. He focused on nothing else and that helped and it was easier to move up than down, so he did move quicker, but not fast enough for Abigail, who slapped and punched at his back and butt.
When he found the railing, he was able to go much quicker. Her blows landed less often.
Behind them, the noises boomed, clicked and scratched, faster. They gained on the pair.
When he came to the first landing—below the greasy bulb—he could run. He could see and the stairs were straight and wide. They rocked beneath him, his legs burned, he was soaked in sweat, but he could run and he ran.
The sound like a squall like a piano lifted and let go.
His shoulders grazed the cement walls as he hit each landing and turned to run up the next flight of stairs. He tried to glance back, to look for Abigail and to see if the monster (he thought of it as a monster now) was behind them was so close its face could be seen. But he couldn’t slow down to twist his body around.
He saw the night sky framed by the cellar doors. He felt sharp air blow down and around him. He couldn’t tell if the whine—a tinny screech—was a noise the wind made or a cry from behind—Abigail or their pursuer.
The deep snow made Joseph stagger, but he did not fall, and he built up enough momentum to crash through the lilac bushes into his own yard. He stopped to look behind him and saw that Abigail was not with him. He crouched forward, wheezing. He kneeled on the snow, peering through the bush-screen of sticks, listened for sounds from the open cellar. He heard his own labored breathing. He tried to hold his breath, to silence it so he could listen for footsteps, for the grinding, drumming noise, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t even draw enough breath to hold.
Still, Joseph was able to hear the train, which must have run underground, below Abigail’s house. Announcing its arrival, the train’s whistle blew, and the sound filled the air like wind.
Joseph fell onto his side in the snow. He couldn’t breathe. He blacked out. That was when the memory of the stairs going down and of Abigail buried itself, to emerge only years later, prompted by a nightmare.
“After I remembered the stairs that went down and the little girl who led me, I became driven to deal with what my mind at eight would not let me deal with. Without turning on the light in my bedroom I found clothes I’d let fall on the floor, dressed, grabbed my keys and left my apartment, determined to go to Marion, to see the cottage my parents had rented for the off-season, the shed, and Abigail’s house.
“Of course, I had no way to get to Marion. I didn’t have a car. I was a student then and had no money—I couldn’t take a cab or a bus. I ran to a pay phone and called a friend who had a car—this was at four, five in the morning. This friend got out of bed and met me in front of her apartment building with the keys to her car and a cup of coffee in a go cup. She wanted me to better explain what I was doing with her car and why I needed it so suddenly, and I think I tried, but I’d run to her place, was out of breath and too focused on my need to get to the cottage.
“With a map I purchased at a gas station spread out across the passenger seat, and the coffee cup between my legs, I drove to Marion. Once in the town—though I’d only lived there a few months—I was able to find the cottage without thinking. By then the sky was growing light—the sun would come into view in an hour. I parked the car on the street.
“The cottage itself looked the same. The tree in front had been cleared away. I walked to the side yard and the shed was still there. Behind it I could see the yard. Someone had removed the lilac bushes. Abigail’s yard and mine now merged seamlessly. I walked past the shed about half way across the yard—the trees which once marked this halfway point were gone too, cleared away for the hoops and wickets used for croquet. But I knew where I was because of the bunker. I looked on the ground for the railroad tracks but of course the grass had grown over the hole I’d dug when I was eight. I walked to the cellar doors and saw that they were padlocked.
“I decided tha
t I wasn’t going to let that stop me, so I went out into the yard looking for something I might smash the padlock with. Walking toward the shed, where I thought I might find a hammer or a sledge, I stumbled over a brightly colored, wooden mallet. With this mallet in hand, I walked over to the cellar doors, took careful aim and swung at the lock.
“The sound was outrageously loud and I accomplished little. Still, filled with a feeling akin to rage, I swung again and again. The lights in the house I was attacking came on, as did the lights in the cottage behind me. I kept swinging. As a man appeared—holding a flashlight and with a jacket on over his pajamas—the mallet head shattered. ‘Goddamn it,’ I shouted.
“The figure turned and ran back toward the cottage, and it dawned on me what I was doing and that I was going to be arrested if I didn’t get away. I dropped the wasted mallet, ran to the car and drove.
“Just before I reached the highway, I pulled the car over. I was exhausted and shaking. I took my seat belt off and opened the car door. I swung my legs out, put my feet down in the grass. I leaned over my knees, and vomited. Bile came up without effort, in a single great gush, and splattered onto the ground. I swung my legs into the car, leaned back in the driver’s seat and began to cry.”
Joseph was done telling his story. Marguerite was on the bed next to Joseph. She was uncovered, still naked, her back to him. The ironing board had been left set up, a shirt out for ironing but the iron up and cold—Joseph had unplugged it when Marguerite had stood staring at him, her face full of concern and, gradually, distress. Now, at the end of his story, he regretted telling it. Had he been fully awake, he would not have. It was not the kind of story he told to Marguerite. In his full consciousness, he felt the brunt of the wicked guilt he had felt while hammering at that padlocked bunker.
Marguerite was off in another place. Marguerite knew what the story meant, of course, because her father had raped her night after night while her mother lay awake in her father’s room.
THE ANIMAL ASPECT OF HER MOVEMENT
Brian
Sun caught the chrome bumper of the little red car that cut in front of me, my eyes drawn, then dazzled, and for miles that little red car seemed to settle in, locked into my line of sight. I only kind of noticed, my mind stuck on the failed sales call I’d made an hour earlier. I guess I really started to pay attention to the little red car when it signaled for an exit, seconds before I signaled, and I thought, that little red car has been ahead of me for a while.
Better than worry over my customer’s dismissal (“I’ve never heard anything about your company”), I played a game with the little red car. I sped up to pass; the little red car blocked my advance in the passing lane. I slowed, to let another car in between us; the little red car slowed till we were nearly bumper to bumper. I changed lanes without signaling; so did the little red car. Odd, but not outrageous. Nonetheless, and backwards, surely, I felt followed.
A sign for a scenic turnout (three miles) presented a course of action. From the leftmost lane and at full speed I’d exit without warning, let the little red car get far ahead, get gone so I didn’t have to think about it anymore. Determined not to give myself away, I moved only my eyes, from odometer to the little red car to the dirt and pine along the right side of the road. A quick scan of my mirrors—
and the little red car crossed the highway traffic and exited. So. Simple enough. All I needed to do was not exit. But I did exit, unable not to, unable to change my plan.
And there was the little red car, parked, stopped for a while so its driver could enjoy the scene, valley, river, mountain. Whatever. The sky. I parked alongside the little red car, afraid, adrenaline-jittery, eyes forward, a bird, some raptor, its path, down. I was in that little red car, years ago. The nose of my car touched the wood guardrail set a few yards from the lip of the cliff that fell to the valley bottom. I remembered, I knew the little red car. A few folks had spread a picnic across a shaded wooden table. They paid us no mind. I’d been a passenger in the little red car many times. I became aroused.
The driver-side door of the little red car opened. A girl, seventeen years old, emerged from the little red car. She stood at the guardrail like anyone would who stopped at a scenic view on the way to… on the way to wherever. I didn’t get out of my car. I was too afraid. But I didn’t turn the engine over and escape, either. The girl stepped over the guardrail—her skirt, very tight, very short, rose and stretched. Near the cliff-edge, she kicked at the dirt. Dust rose up around her feet. In heels, her action was horse-like, only, she was far too delicate to be a horse, she was more like a fawn. Finally, my hands fists pushed hard against my thighs, the girl turned her back on the valley and I saw who I knew she must be, Marianne Ferris, and—impossible. Marianne Ferris was in my high school graduating class and so should be thirty-four, or thirty-three, or thereabouts. My age. Instead:
seventeen year-old Marianne Ferris returned to her car, shut the door, turned on the ignition, drove through the wood guardrail, and over the edge of the cliff.
I followed. With deliberation, I backed up and drove my car through the gap she’d made in the guardrail, across a few yards of crumbling dirt, over, down. I caught a glimpse of the picnickers, a delightfully absurd sight, as my stomach laughed its way up my throat to my brain. My car hit the dirt, nose-first. The river loud, a short distance from my shattered windshield.
The little red car lay on its back, to the left of my car. Marianne drove the little red car to school every day. I rode with her many times.
I was unharmed, awake, alert. The engine and other under-the-hood-inner-workings of my car were shoved into the passenger seat beside me, stinking hot oil. My legs were free, the driver’s side foot-well untroubled by the impact. I unbuckled my seat belt and clumsily tumbled out of my car. Marianne’s dusty high heeled shoes; she stood over me. Marianne smiled and tilted her head—just a hair, as she’d often done, a gesture she may once have cultivated but by the time I met her was her own, a gesture I loved. I got up on my knees and she sprinted, her skirt (I recognized that skirt) rose and stretched as it had before, rose high and tightened around her buttocks as she ran, accentuated the animal aspect of her movement. She ran through the grass that grew tall along the river’s edge, followed a secret path.
I raised my right leg, angled forward, my instinct to run after her—I resisted, planted my feet, dug into the soft of the muddy river’s edge. A while—Marianne gone, the tires of her dead car still—sirens and people shouting down at me. I couldn’t understand the words.
I was later coming home than expected.
And I expected Janie to be worried, to have called and left escalating messages on my phone (lost in and with the car), but when I parked the rental in our driveway, the house was dark. The car clattered as it cooled. Janie must be asleep, I was relieved she was asleep, I hated when she worried, her worry made me feel guilty, and I wasn’t sure how to explain why I was late or why I didn’t call because I didn’t know what had happened that morning. Marianne, Marianne Ferris, I’d thought of her often, grown erect and sleepy with nostalgia on long drives, remembering her as she was, as somehow she was still.
Janie was in the backyard, I caught her movement at the corner of my eye.
Janie was my wife. Her name was Jane and no one, not even her mother, called her Janie. Except me. It’s a babyish thing to call a woman, I suppose, but I did once and it stuck, for us, she gave me permission to call her Janie, and from that permission came a pleasure hard to quantify or explain.
Janie stood in the yard, at the far end where the grass met a small stretch of trees. My mouth opened to call to her, but something about the way she moved—slightly, with her hands up in front of her face—caused me to shut my mouth.
As quietly as I tried to approach, Janie spotted me before I was halfway across the yard. Beyond her, something large and hidden among the trees, quickly moved away. Janie’s body relaxed; her head dropped, her stance made it look as if she were sleepwalking, but she c
alled my name, so I knew she wasn’t. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt. I asked, “What are you doing out here?” She didn’t reply right away, but walked to close the gap between us. She put her arms around me and pressed her face into my chest (except for her breasts, she was very small). Her hair was wet and it glistened. She’d just showered, the perfume of her shampoo. “Are you okay?” I asked. She nodded. I put my arm over her shoulder and we walked toward the house.
“Whose car is that?” she asked.
“It’s a rental.”
“Where’s our car?”
“Our car is totaled.”
She stopped and looked up at me, eyes wide.
“Janie, I’m fine. Look at me. I’m fine.”
We resumed our walk to the house. The grass shushed as we moved over it. A branch snapped—Janie tensed, relaxed. She asked, “How did our car get totaled?”
“It fell off a cliff.”
Janie laughed, then stopped mid-stride. “You’re serious.”
“I am.” I told her the official story, which while more reasonable than the true story, didn’t add up, didn’t explain why next to my car was an abandoned little red car, or why I was unharmed after driving my car off a cliff, but the police didn’t seem to want to know, didn’t ask a lot of question and, when I think back, they supplied more answers than I did. Ultimately, the official story became: “I stopped at a scenic turnout to enjoy the view. Something in the car malfunctioned. The car accelerated on its own and drove through a gap in the guardrail.” Janie interrupted and stumbled out an, “Oh my God.” I squeezed her shoulders and urged her to keep on toward the house. We walked up a slope to the driveway. She touched the rental car as we passed. I continued: “The police think that the car was angled just so, and so while the front of the car was crushed, the driver’s side was largely undamaged and me, I mean, I was undamaged.”
In the kitchen, Janie squeezed me around my middle, squeezed tight enough to expel breath from my lungs and that felt good. She released me, a little, arms still around me, and we went upstairs to our bedroom where I took off her clothes (she’d worn no underwear) and we made love, quick, not great sex but good, and I thought of Marianne Ferris as I’d seen her today, exactly as I remembered her. Janie and I lay side by side, eyes open in our dark bedroom, eyes to the humming white ceiling, and I asked, “What were you doing in the yard?”