Trip Wire

by Charlotte Carter

  And clearly I wasn’t alone in this. I could read it on their paralyzed faces—Beth’s, Cliff’s, Taylor’s. Jesus Christ, they were all thinking. Somebody just walked into our building and murdered two people. We’re not safe here. Talk about dumb, stoned-out hippies.

  I had an even worse thought then, something I bet hadn’t even occurred to the others—yet. If somebody was out to get us, maybe Mia and Wilt hadn’t really been the first victims. Maybe Dan Zuni had already been got. Could be he’d never made it into the woods or wherever he was headed. I didn’t even dare voice that fear. We were already freaked enough.

  It had been barely sixty seconds since I’d righted the telephone. Now it was ringing. Cliff picked up the kitchen extension, listened for a few seconds, then hung up.

  “Who was that?” Annabeth asked.

  “Some guy from the Sun-Times.”

  “Take it off the hook again,” she said.

  Oh, sure. A reporter after the inside story of the scandalous hippie murders. Look what’ll happen if you let your children become free-love dope freaks.

  “Hey, Sandy,” Cliff said, holding on to me. “You okay? You look weird.”

  “I’m just so cold.”

  “Yeah, man, it’s freezing in here,” Barry said. “And I’m so hungry I could eat lint. Damn, I wish—” At least he had the decency not to finish that sentence. I wish Mia was here. That’s what he was about to say. How about some scrambled eggs, Mia? Wait a minute . . . oh, yeah, right. She’s dead. “What? Don’t look at me like that. What are we supposed to do?” he said. “Starve?” He popped up from the chair and rubbed his hands. “Let’s go get some grub. We’ll go to Chester’s. I’m buying, as usual.”

  “I guess he’s right,” Annabeth said. “It feels like I haven’t had anything to eat in two weeks.”

  We milled around stupidly, suddenly loath to lose sight of one another. It seemed to take forever to find our coats and scarves. Then, when I opened the front door, the real chill set in. I saw four angry eyes rolling around in their sockets. A black fist poised to knock on the door. It was all I could do not to scream. Facing me were my aunt and uncle.

  2

  My aunt Ivy is what some people would call prim. She is a small woman with a lovely, willowy figure. It was willowy, anyway, before she was hospitalized earlier in the year, and nearly died. Now she is just plain skinny. But the superpale complexion and the sunken cheeks and perfect red lips suit her, too. Closing in on sixty and in poor health, she is still a beautiful woman. Nor did the illness take anything away from her impeccable manners and her modulated way of speaking.

  “Damn you, Cassandra, I don’t know whether to kiss you or beat the living shit out of you.”

  That was not the way Ivy usually talked.

  “Do you know what you put us through, child? Waking up this morning and hearing about this disaster on the radio. I said, ‘Woody, have mercy, Jesus, isn’t that the address where Cass is?’ And then when we called and called and couldn’t get an answer on the telephone—Lord, Cass. The police are circling like flies downstairs. I thought you were—Do you know what we’ve been through? Answer me!”

  But I couldn’t, because Woody started in with his own version of Do You Know What We’ve Been Through. It was full of threats and ultimatums, and it rang through the corridor like the voice of God in a bad mood.

  I had always suspected that my self-made, self-educated uncle Woody was attached to the numbers racket in his youth. My grandma only dropped hints about the shrouded past of her sister’s dapper husband Woody Lisle: Maybe he was a rumrunner and maybe he was a gambler; maybe he was once the “business partner” of the notorious South Side criminal Henry Waddell. But with him standing in the doorway like that, booming at me in that commanding, whiskey-lined voice, I felt like a nickel-and-dime gambler who had welched on a debt and was ignorant enough to think he could get away with it.

  “You march back into this goddamn apartment and pack your goddamn bags, young miss,” was the way Woody’s tirade ended.

  I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I simply held my face in my hands.

  “I guess this is your family, huh, Sandy?” Cliff asked.

  I began to giggle insanely.

  When I recovered, I asked them in. Ivy’s manners won out, after all. She was coolly gracious as I introduced her to all my roommates. Woody, on the other hand, was barely civil as he looked at one after another of my rumpled friends. His long, thin frame remained tight almost to the point of snapping.

  I was finally able to put a few rational words together. “We’re all hungry. Nobody’s had anything to eat.”

  “You what?” Ivy fell back into outrage. “You mean between the five of you, you can’t manage to put any food on the table?”

  “No, no. I don’t mean it like that. It’s—never mind. Please, just sit down a minute. Will you please?”

  I settled my aunt and uncle in the front room and told the others to go on without me. “That your old man?” Barry asked on his way out.

  “More or less.”

  “That old dude is clean. I love those kicks he’s wearing.”

  I hadn’t noticed Woody’s shoes. But then, I didn’t need to. I knew he was always shod in something English. He polished them every night before going to sleep. Like it was some kind of manic ritual for him.

  From the hall, I watched Woody and Ivy for a few minutes before joining them. I could see, mixed in with their fear and anger, their distaste at the messiness of the room. This sure wasn’t how I had envisioned their first visit. A far cry from me serving them sherry and Mia’s almond cookies and introducing my buddy Wilton to them. I took a long breath and then walked in. “Don’t say anything,” I announced, startling the hell out of them.

  “Cassandra—” Woody began.

  “Don’t say anything,” I bellowed. “I’m not leaving here until they find out who killed Wilton and Mia. I’m not ditching on my friends. And I am not going back with you.”

  “You most certainly are,” my aunt said.

  “No, Ivy. No way.”

  She placed a restraining hand on Woody’s thigh. He was about to spring up at me.

  “Look,” I said. “You don’t understand. Wilton meant the world to me.”

  “Cass,” she said, “why wouldn’t we understand that? You mean the world to us.”

  “This is different.”

  “You mean you were living with that man,” Woody said petulantly.

  “Yes. No. I mean, I loved him in a different way. Kind of the way I feel about the other people who live here, only stronger.”

  “Not stronger than you love your family, Cassandra,” he said. “You don’t love strangers more than your family.”

  I tried to choose my words carefully. “Okay. You’re right. In a way. But I can feel close to other people—strangers, if that’s what you want to call them—in a way I can’t feel close to family. They just get things that you don’t. We’re all going through the same stuff.”

  “Cass, no one is saying you can’t keep these people as friends. But that doesn’t mean you have to live in the same house with them,” Ivy said. “You can feel just as strongly about . . . these people . . . living at home.”

  “I am at home, Ivy.”

  “No, you aren’t, honey.”

  “You’re not getting it, are you? I moved out of your home. This is my home.”

  “There’s been some killing done in your precious home,” Woody shouted. “You had a safe place to live with us, girl—with your own. Everything you needed. But you had to run off to be with these people. You’re not like these white youngsters, Cassandra. They got the way paved for them from the day they were born, and they still live this foolish kind of life. Now just look what it got them. You must be out of your mind to stay here after somebody’s been murdered.”

  “Goddammit, stop calling him ‘somebody.’ He had a name.”

  He stood then, spent a few seconds attending to the crease i
n his trousers. Then he fixed me with one of his terrifying looks. “Cassandra, I have had just about enough of this nonsense. Get your bags.”

  I guess the totality of the thing had finally undone me. I was only 50 percent coherent when I started shrieking at them.

  “You are driving me crazy. Suffocating me. You’re fucking tyrants, both of you. You don’t respect me, you don’t listen to me, and you don’t love me unless I do what you say. Where’s that at, huh? You think you’re the police? Is that it? You think I care about your bullshit neighborhood association and your corrupt Uncle Tom friends? I hate them and I hate the stupid way you live.”

  “Get your things, gal.”

  “You go to hell, Woody. I’m not going anywhere until I see some kind of justice done for Wilt and Mia. Just leave me the fuck alone.”

  The gallant Woody Lisle bent to help his lady to her feet. “Cass,” he said, “if you were a man, I’d try to kill you.”

  Then he pulled Ivy, her mouth agape, out of the apartment. She slipped around the open door like an old silk scarf.

  3

  My face was hideous. I blew my nose, swiped at the residue from that hysterical bout of crying, and tore into the fried egg sandwich that Cliff had brought back for me.

  “Don’t cry, Sandy. I’m staying if you are.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I just called home,” he said. “My mom’s acting just like your people.” He held a big Dixie cup full of chocolate milkshake for me to drink through the straw. “Taylor says the police wouldn’t let me go home now even if I wanted to.”

  “Your mother’s in Connecticut, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought Connecticut was a place for people with a lot of money. But Wilt said you’re not rich. He said your mom was working class and she raised you by herself.”

  “She did. Well, not exactly. My brother kind of raised me, too.”

  “You liked him a lot, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  I realized too late how dumb it was of me to ask about Cliff’s brother, Cary, who had been killed in Vietnam last year. Still raw from the loss, Cliff would sometimes watch the evening news coverage of the war in fascinated disgust until he could take it no more. Then he would get up and leave. Mia said a couple of times she heard him crying in his room.

  Desperate to change the subject now, I asked, “Did Barry leave?”

  “No. Where’s he gonna go? Nobody wants him.”

  “Did you see Jordan?”

  “Not yet. I wish I could bring him over here, but I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

  “Yeah. Better not.”

  “I’m gonna go to Crash and Bev’s, see if he’s okay. The police have been there asking him questions.”

  “About us.”

  “Yeah. And those two assholes are mad at him for bringing heat into their house. Like the cops don’t know they’re idiot junkies.”

  Cliff continued to hold the milkshake for me, as if I were an invalid. I was sucking up the last drops when Taylor came in to tell me Nat Joffrey was on the line.

  I figured Nat was worried about me. “I’m not here,” I said. Making truth out of the lie, I told Cliff, “I’m coming with you. Let’s go.” And I grabbed my bag and coat.

  I hated Nat. I knew it wasn’t fair, but, just for five seconds, I let myself hate him.

  I snatched the front door open, frantic to get away. I can’t imagine anything in the world that could have halted my forward motion other than what I spotted out of the corner of my eye. The silver peace sign that hung from the giant ring that held Wilton’s keys. There it was on one of the pegs of the coatrack. I snatched it off and kept right on going.

  I took the stairs two and three at a time, leaving Cliff behind.

  I knew how that goddamn conversation with Nat would have gone. I’d sooner be buried alive than endure his fatherly solicitude now. No matter what kind words he might have had for me, the real message behind them would have been “I told you so.” And if he’d dared suggest that Wilton somehow brought this terrible violence down on himself, I’d have gone over there and broken something over De Lawd’s woolly head.

  4

  “Jordan’s father. Why do they call him Crash?”

  “I don’t know,” Cliff said. “I guess it’s something he thought was cool to call himself.”

  “You know what?” I said. “I know they’re terrible parents and Jordan would rather be with you than live with them. But he must talk to them sometimes, right?”

  “Talk about what?”

  “About what he sees at the commune. He’s seen Barry with a lot of dope, right? Maybe he’s seen him with a wad of money, too. You think he could have told Crash and Bev stuff like that?”

  “They’re behind what happened to Mia and Wilt? Is that what you’re thinking? What—they broke in, tied up Wilt like that, tried to get him to tell them where this big wad of money was?”

  “Look, Cliff. Like you’re always saying, they’re asshole junkies . . . end of story.”

  “Yeah. Okay. But they’re too stupid to do anything like that. And too strung out.”

  “Maybe. But what if they pump the kid for information and then sell it—like snitches—to other addicts who’re more together than they are? Maybe they tip off people which apartments are easy to break into, who’s holding a supply of pills or grass or whatever.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t see it, Sandy. I don’t see Jordan telling them much of anything. He’s pretty cool for his age. And besides that, he barely even talks to me. Can’t you see what a fucked-up kid he is?”

  No point in ringing the doorbell at Crash and Bev’s place. It probably hadn’t worked in years. What you did was stand on the sidewalk and yell their names until one of them heard you and came to the window. The key was then tossed down in a filthy sock.

  It was Jordan who threw the window up and looked down at us. His eyes were big and terrified.

  Cliff hurried up the stairs. “What’s the matter?” he said as soon as the boy opened the apartment door.

  Bev, his mother, lay shivering on the couch, eyes way back in her head, her lips cracked and sore-looking. She was trying to talk, but only croaks came out.

  “Shit,” I said, “you think she overdosed?”

  “I don’t think so.” Cliff placed his palm on her forehead. “She’s sick, though. Got a real fever.”

  And she stinks, I thought as I pulled the stiff army blanket at the foot of the couch up around her shoulders.

  “It’s freezing in here,” I said.

  “Jordan, get some matches,” Cliff ordered. “See if the space heater works, Sandy.”

  “I hope they paid the gas bill,” I said.

  I got the heat working and then found a packet of dry soup mix, not happy about rooting around in their nasty cabinets. I boiled water and brought the hot drink over to the couch.

  Bev could sit up a little by then. No light in her eyes, but even in the ruin of her thin face you saw how pretty she must have been once. She sure wasn’t interested in that chicken soup, but she was too weak to lift her arm and push the cup away from her lips.

  I took the cup away from her mouth for a minute and was startled when she spoke. “Still trying to heal me, huh?”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. She began to slide back onto the sofa cushion, eyes flickering.

  “Something happen to your mom, Jordan?” Cliff asked. “How long has she been sick?”

  He was standing in a corner of the room, back to the wall. All he did was shake his head.

  “Where’s Crash?” Cliff said.

  “I don’t know. He went out.”

  “She looks awful, Cliff,” I said. “What are you going to do?”

  “. . . sweet girl . . . ,” Bev mumbled. “Only ones who ever help us out, you and that Indian man of yours. He’s fine.”

  Cliff and I looked at each other. “Indian. You think she’s talking about Dan?”r />
  “She must be delirious,” he said. “She thinks you’re Mia.”

  I lifted Bev’s head again, which was heavy with sleep. It was then that I realized the smell coming off the blanket was not run-of-the-mill BO. I pulled the blanket away and saw the blood soaking into the couch seat.

  “Call an ambulance, Cliff. She’s bleeding out.”

  The ambulance driver told us Bev had had a miscarriage. Malnourishment and what looked like pneumonia—to say nothing of the heroin usage—didn’t exactly make for the healthiest pregnancy. By the time they were loading the stretcher into the emergency vehicle, Jordan was hysterical. When the county social services people turned up and informed Cliff they were going to keep Jordan until his father returned, Cliff went into his own set of hysterics.

  Ain’t grown-up life grand? Blood and death. Just the kind of thing I bargained for when I left Ivy and Woody to strike out on my own.

  I got Cliff calmed down enough to go back home. But I didn’t go upstairs with him. I’d had enough of my comrades for one day. And I’d had enough of bearing up and taking charge. I swear, if we’d found any heroin in that apartment, I might have taken it myself.

  I ran along the avenue, zigzagging around the deadly patches of ice. Coat collar open. No hat or gloves. The cold was deep inside me now. Rattling around in there with my grief and confusion. No, I wasn’t going to turn to heroin. But I did need a drink.

  5

  Strung with lights on a lonely corner of Willow Street, the Tap Root was our neighborhood bar. It was an old German beer garden that brought together a hodgepodge of white pensioner drunks, folkies and blues men from other North Side bars, college kids, journalists, the aged Wobblies from the IWW hall on Lincoln Avenue, even a few tourists who had read about the landmark watering hole in their guidebooks and were maybe hoping to meet Studs Terkel.

  They served the best franks and sauerkraut at the Tap Root. Wilt and I had lunched there many a time, and as we ate, he always extracted the same promise from me—“For Christ’s sake don’t tell Mia. I can’t take another one of her raps about preservatives.”