“Who was that nice young man?”
“A shoe salesman,” his dad answers.
“No, not him. That other one. The one with blond hair.”
Ted works into the evening planting white and purple petunias in the front beds, potting geraniums. His expert hands work the mix of potting soil and peat moss. He bought more hot red geraniums than he knows what to do with. With Ted, more is more. His own backyard garden, an overgrown Eden, sprouts erotic blooms every half-inch. He lines the geraniums on the broken stoop, two to every step, both sides. Standing back to survey his effort, he glances toward the Redmond house. A lamp glows softly in that front bedroom. He sees now that there are portholes along the sides of the iron lung, hinged, so someone’s hands can reach in to make adjustments. The whole thing reminds him of a bad scene from an S&M movie, the body held motionless while hands creep along its sides.
He feels in the pocket of his jeans for his car keys, pats his hip to make sure he’s got his billfold. Before he goes back inside to face his parents, he heads downtown to the Waterhole. As soon as he opens the door of the pool hall, he’s struck in the face by a heady atmosphere of smoke, the pock-pock of balls shot from cue stick to corners, men’s laughter and hunkered quiet. There are only two women, one sitting at the bar, another at a booth in the corner, both with men whose hands play on the women’s shoulders and necks while their eyes stray around the room.
Ted asks for a beer, Bud on tap, and sits on a barstool. He lets the alcohol soothe his throat, drinks a little too fast, orders another. He’s working on a memory, his mother laughing up into his face. She puts her arms around him, and they dance in the living room. He’s seventeen and spinning around the room with his mother when someone jostles his elbow.
“Sorry.” Ted looks up into a meaty male face, scythe-shaped scar on the left cheek, hair dull brown and lank.
“Don’t recognize me, do you?” Only the right side of the man’s mouth moves. Ted struggles to see past the scarring to a face he might have known years ago.
“Junior? Junior O’Malley?”
“You’re good.” The man lifts his glass to Ted, tips his head, and drinks. Sets his empty down on the bar, motions to the bartender to give him another. “You always did have a good eye.”
Ted gathers his body away from Junior, turns slightly on the bar stool, shifts his weight to rise. He’s not up to hearing how Junior’s life got wasted by a run-in with a drunk cowboy on the rodeo circuit. Now that he thinks about it, he’s sure it was Junior who suggested the boys try out the coffins at Willenbeck’s. Junior showing off. Even then, out to prove something.
“Heard your mom was sick,” Junior says.
Ted turns partway back. He studies Junior for some sign of the old swagger. Junior rubs the back of his hand across his closed mouth. Slams his fist on the counter. Ted flinches. He’s positive, now, that it was Junior who closed the lid on that coffin. Ted gets to his feet, tosses a ten-dollar bill on the counter.
“It’s a bitch. My mom died two years ago.” Junior stares straight ahead, seeing something ghastly from the look on his face. Ted wants out of here, badly.
“Cancer,” Junior says.
Ted stands, unsure what to do. Junior’s still facing over the bar. His belly, pendulous, snuggles up against it. He used to be a handsome guy.
“Take it easy,” Ted says. He turns away, his feet headed toward the door. He hesitates with his hand on the doorknob. She made great ginger cookies. He could say that to Junior. Your mom made great ginger cookies. He glances back, but Junior’s already into his next drink, his back shielding him from the door.
After parking his car in front of his parents’ house, Ted makes a detour on the way up the front walk. He steps over the low hedge and stalks toward the Redmonds’ window, open to let in the breeze. A night-light glows from a plug-in halfway up the wall, casting an eerie glow. This is the bedroom window from which Mildred Hampton used to show off her body. Mrs. Redmond has no body, only her head protruding from the hard, mechanical tube. The lung takes up most of the space, diagonal in the room, the feet toward the near corner. The head of the lung—Mrs. Redmond’s head—is positioned so if she turned or was propped up, she could look out the window. Now her head is flopped to one side, toward Ted, mouth agape. Mr. Redmond must sleep elsewhere, on the other side of the house. Ted stares a long while, until his legs feel numb, waiting for something dire, but nothing happens. She goes on sleeping, and finally he turns away and rustles through the grass to the back door of his parents’ house.
Lying in bed, Ted pulls the sheet up to his neck, then rests his arms down at his sides. He lies pinned to his bed, conscious of his breath heaving in and out, timing himself to see how long he can take it before feeling claustrophobic. Ten minutes. Twelve minutes. Not hours. How do people get used to this kind of confinement?
The next day, Mrs. Redmond appears in her yard. She walks haltingly to the knee-high hedge between their houses, and Ted rises to meet her. He stands with a trowel in his hand. She’s wearing cotton pants, tan, a blue shirt. She looks normal, although she wouldn’t win any races. White hair crowns her with light. Her skin, wrinkled like crepe paper, looks soft and downy. Ted wants to touch her, the way you want to pet a fluffy dog. They say hello. Ted can’t think of what comes next, so he says the first thing that pops in his head.
“Still sleeping in the lung, Mrs. Redmond?” Immediately, he regrets mentioning it. Does she know he’s been spying on her?
She pauses, cocks her head. Ted looks down, embarrassed.
“How’s your mother?”
Ted shrugs.
“Got a nice young girl in your life?”
“Not hardly.” Ted laughs. Too loud. He still can’t look Mrs. Redmond in the eye.
“Your parents haven’t given up on you, you know. They want grandchildren.”
Ted winces. It still gets to him, the way his parents lie about him. Mrs. Redmond drops the marriage talk, and they discuss a program on orchids they both saw on PBS. He watches Mrs. Redmond struggle to breathe, listens to her list methods of cross-pollination, and thinks that he’d like to graft her to his mother. He’s come up with hybrid roses this way; why not people? With his luck, he’d get it backward and end up with a mindless mother who not only couldn’t breathe but also wouldn’t remember to use the iron lung. Instantly, he’s ashamed of himself, so he offers to prune Mrs. Redmond’s hedge.
Over the next few days, Ted dusts, vacuums, scrubs floors, wipes down every inch of the bathroom with disinfectant. He fills the freezer with Healthy Choice frozen meals. He cooks dinner each night. He’s a regular hive of activity, knowing none of it will make much difference in the long run. One morning after breakfast, he insists on changing his mother’s dirty blouse.
“Leave her alone,” his father says.
“C’mon, Mom. Let’s get this nasty thing off you.” Ted tries leading her from the table to the bedroom, but she balks.
“What does it matter?” His father hangs on to the table for support.
Ted drops his mother’s arm for a moment and turns to deal with his father. He’s suddenly frightened that his dad might drop dead of a heart attack, so he keeps his voice calm. “She’s entitled to some dignity, Dad. That’s all.”
“You don’t like looking at her. But this is the way she is.”
“No. This is not the way she is. This is the way you allow her to be.”
Ted coaxes her away then. He sweet-talks her into letting him change her blouse. This simple task takes forty-five minutes, and he’s wrung out by the end of it. His father finds him flopped in a reclining lawn chair.
“She’s resting,” his father says. He doesn’t sit. He stands by Ted’s chair and rocks side to side.
“Dad, why do you have to do this by yourself?”
His dad runs his fingers over his face, ends by cupping his jaw in his hand. He looks to all four corners of the yard before he turns to face Ted.
“I can’t give her up, T
eddy. I can’t be without her.”
“The nursing home is only blocks away. You could visit every day.”
His dad looks at him, presses his lips together, and says nothing.
“Why not hire someone to come in?”
“Strangers? It upsets her. You see that, don’t you? It’s worse having her upset. Takes me the rest of the day to calm her down. She still knows me most of the time. I wish you’d just leave us alone.”
That night, Ted sits up late reading, trying to quiet his mind before worry sets in for an all-night visit. He’s exhausted by being here. On their nightly phone call, Harvey hears the fatigue in his voice.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. I’ll tell you when I get home. I’m leaving in the morning.”
Restless, Ted steps outside to look at the night sky. He misses this panorama of stars in his life in the city. Searching for Orion, then the Big Dipper, he hears a soft moaning from Mrs. Redmond’s window. Spent and wanting only to be alone, he convinces himself he imagined the sound, or a stray cat is patrolling the neighborhood. The sound comes again. Louder. Unable to resist, he moves over to the neighbor’s window. Mrs. Redmond’s head rolls side to side, a moan escaping here, there, and once, Ted’s sure she calls her husband’s name. Will. Where is the man? Why doesn’t he answer? She’s clearly distressed, her breath ragged.
Ted has no idea what he’s doing, but he moves toward the screened porch in back. There’s a hook on the screen door, but one good yank pulls it open. Doesn’t anybody in these small towns ever think about burglars? It takes Ted only a few seconds to reach Mrs. Redmond’s room. Knowing he will startle her, he steps around where she can see him and whispers her name.
“Mrs. Redmond.”
Wild eyes, and he quickly stammers.
“It’s Ted. I stepped outside; I couldn’t sleep. I heard you moaning. Shall I get your husband?”
With clamped lips, she shakes her head no. She tries to speak, but her breathing is labored, and because he doesn’t know what else to do, Ted steps to the top of the lung and places both hands on the sides of her face. He bends low and intones, “Shhh, all right now.” He croons to her until she quiets and her breath evens out. When he’s sure she’s settled, he removes his hands, runs his fingers down the sides of his jeans.
“I should . . . I’ll go now.”
“No.” She says it sharply, though her voice is barely audible. “Please. Don’t. Not yet.”
“Is there something . . . should I get you some water?”
She shakes her head. Tears pool at the corners of her eyes, run down her temples to spill on her pillow. Ted spies a box of tissues atop a small table, stretches his hand to grab one, wipes her eyes.
“Sometimes . . . I get panicky.”
“Do you want out of there? Do you need help?”
She shakes her head again. “It’s better . . . better tomorrow if I stick it out. There’s a chair, there. In the corner.”
Ted pulls forward a straight-backed chair and sits where he can see her face. He smiles. The chair is hard, uncomfortable, the back bordered with decorative knobs that gouge his back, but nothing compared to what she’s dealing with.
“Mrs. Redmond . . .”
“Call me Flora.” She raises one eyebrow and smiles. “I think we’re on a first name basis, don’t you?”
“Okay. Flora.”
“I had . . . a bad dream. It comes, sometimes.”
“The same dream?”
“Always the same.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
Her eyes probe deeply into his. There’s an intelligent light there.
“Too tired.” She sighs and closes her eyes.
“Will you be all right, now?” Ted starts to rise.
“Talk to me.” She says it plaintively, a request. “You have a lovely voice.”
“So I’ve been told,” Ted says.
“I’ll bet you have.” A low chuckle wends its way out of her wracked body. She must have been a hell of a woman in her heyday.
“Talk about what?” he asks.
“Anything. A bedtime story. Tell me about your life.”
Ted talks. He tells her he lives in Minneapolis. Owns a coffee shop. At first, she murmurs from time to time, her eyes flicker open, but it’s not long before her breathing deepens. If he stops talking, she stirs all over again, so he tells his life story. He doesn’t forget testing the coffins in Willenbeck’s Mortuary, the closed lid, though he leaves out the part where he compared the coffin to her iron lung, in case she’s still listening. He mentions that he’s gay and that his parents know but pretend not to. He came out to them during college. He’s partnered with a wonderful man. His parents don’t want Harvey in their home, and they won’t come to Minneapolis. Even if they could, which they can’t now, they wouldn’t. His mother’s sick. She doesn’t know him. She doesn’t know anything about him. Once, in Omaha, when he was young, he met a fellow in a bar and went with him to a hotel down by the Old Market. The guy made love to him, then beat him up, tied him naked to the bed, robbed him, and left him there. Too embarrassed to call out, he was there two days before a cleaning woman found him. He had to have stitches in his face. He was naïve and stupid and, well, ashamed. Of course, he didn’t tell his parents. Harvey’s Jewish, did he mention that before? His parents don’t know that, either. Ted collects Polish glass ornaments. The first Christmas he and Harvey were together, Harvey made him promise he wouldn’t put up any religious ornaments. That’s okay, because he’s not religious. But the new collectibles that year were the Three Kings. He drooled over them, but Harvey reminded him of his promise. He said, “Look, Harvey. Look at that ermine cape, the glittering jewels. What straight guy do you know who’d wrap a gift like that? Those aren’t kings, Harvey. Those are three queens.” They laughed and bought the ornaments. Isn’t that a great story? But he can’t tell his parents. They miss out on so much. They’re waiting for grandchildren, but he’s their only child and they’re missing his life.
Certain that Mrs. Redmond is safely asleep, Ted stops talking, stands, and peers down at her. He’d like to kiss her brow. Touch her face one last time. He does neither. Feeling composed and strangely cleansed, he moves quietly from the room, gently closes the back screen door and under the canopy of stars and night, crosses over the lawn.
Ted has just eased himself under the sheet when he hears his parents’ door bump open, recognizes his mother’s shuffle in the hall. He gets up to check on her. Thinking this night may never end, he pulls on his jeans, buttons the fly while he looks in the bathroom, in the kitchen. He glances through the window at the house next door, the bedroom faintly glowing. He’s glad, for some reason, that he can’t see the iron lung.
He finds his mother standing in the middle of the living room, arms lifted, elbows and wrists slightly bent, fingers delicately curved. She’s silhouetted against the window and the streetlight outside. Through her summer nightgown, sleeveless and sheer, Ted can see the sag of her breasts, her pillowy stomach, and yet, he’s knocked out by her beauty. Afraid to disturb her, he stands and watches, and then she begins to sing: “Irene, good night, Irene, good night.” She turns in perfect rhythm to the waltz. Somehow she misses the coffee table, the floor lamp. Ted knows it’s only a matter of time before she bashes a shin, falls and splits open her head or, worse, breaks a hip. He knows he has to do something, but he loves seeing her like this, half in shadow, where he can remember the mother he once knew. He moves forward and lays both hands on her shoulders, his face inches from hers. She doesn’t flinch, leans her weight into his hands, docile and smiling. If only she could die right now, while he is here, holding her, something painless and fast. He closes his eyes to conjure up a bolt of lightning, offering himself as the conduit. He discovers he’s holding his breath when finally the need for air overcomes him, and he gasps. She shies, suddenly not trusting him, so he opens his lips and sings, “Good night, Irene, good night, Irene, I’ll see you i
n my dreams,” while he takes her by the hand and leads her down the hall. At the doorway to her bedroom she stops, but Ted begins the song again, and they move in time, their bodies knocking together, to the side of the bed where he gentles her into sitting, then lying down, and lifts the sheet to tuck her in, lingering to make up for wanting her dead and because he doesn’t want to let her go. Even like this, he longs to be near her.
His father snores on the other side of the bed, his face and body cling to the edge away from her. Ted stands and looks at the two of them lying there, rafts drifting apart on an ocean, an invisible filament binding them together, for better and for worse, and by God, if they haven’t had it all.
The next morning, Ted rises early, makes himself coffee and toast. He kisses his sleeping mother on the cheek and hugs his dad in the doorway of the kitchen. He’s cheerful because it’s easier to leave that way. He gets all the way out to his car, stuff thrown in the trunk, when on impulse he goes back and picks up two potted geraniums. He crosses his parents’ yard and moves over the grass to the Redmond house where he sets the two geraniums on the front step. He feels he should say something, a benediction, but he can’t think of anything that doesn’t sound trivial, so he stands a moment in silence, and then he’s gone.
Normal
As an auctioneer’s wife, Teresa Bailey thought she’d seen it all. Still, she’d never had a client whose household goods included an iron lung. Their best bet for a sale would be the Internet. Somebody, somewhere, would make an offer. Secretly, Teresa hoped for Steven Spielberg or some other movie mogul, who would pay outrageous sums for an authentic prop. She loved movies, herself. She and her son, Otto, sat many a Friday night watching films they rented. Otto, at fourteen, read all the reviews online. He didn’t go in for action blockbusters, like most boys his age. He liked independent films, dark and twisted. Teresa worried about him constantly.
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