by Ros Baxter
‘With the arrest,’ I bit out.
‘Oh, that.’ Mom exhaled a great sigh and beamed. She flicked a quick glance at Dad and sighed again. ‘Oh God, Lolly, we were worried you were going to talk about Wayne. And really, even though we love you and totally respect your decisions, we really just can’t bear to talk about it. Every time your Dad turns on the chess, he cries.’
Dad contributed a limp nod. ‘Absolutely, sweetheart. Couldn’t agree more. A hundred per cent behind you. But let’s not talk about it, eh? Breaks my heart. Let’s talk about more cheerful things. Tell us about the arrest.’
Oh. My. God. My parents were mourning him. My parents, who volunteer every spare minute at their local soup kitchen. My Mom, who teaches poor kids to read, and blockades and boycotts every other week. My Dad, who’s so smart he could’ve been a nuclear scientist but teaches math because he thinks it makes kids better. Like a Whitney Houston ‘I believe the children are the future’ thing. My parents, who told me since the day I was born that ‘everyone can make a difference and together we can change the world.’
These people were mourning Wayne.
Wayne, who gave his life to making rich people — and himself — richer. Wayne, who thought Doctors Without Borders was a pornographic film. Until I explained it to him.
I wanted to rail and scream at them. But I couldn’t. Not because I was worried about hurting their feelings, but because, if I did, my own wellspring of loss and aching might bubble over and drown me. So I told them about the arrest.
Only in my family would discussing arrests be considered cheerful.
‘Well, you know about the big case they’re hearing down at the Supreme Court? The death penalty thing…’
I told them about how carefully we’d organized it. About how we’d arranged camera crews to be there and how the plan had been to break in to the holding area and deliver care parcels of all-American treats to the plaintiffs who’d come up from down South.
Brownies and pecan pie and stuff.
At this, my Mom gasped. ‘Good God, I hope you didn’t bake them. Poor souls don’t need to be poisoned as well, they’ve got enough on their plates.’
I gritted my teeth. ‘That’s hardly the moral of the story.’
Mom took a breath, and I talked quickly to avoid the ritual re-telling of the Thanksgiving Turkey Story. ‘Look, someone else made them, okay? Home science major.’
Dad started to look more interested. ‘Yeah? So what happened to the goodies after the cops came and interrupted the action?’
I smacked myself in the forehead. ‘Dad. Really. It’s hardly the —’
‘Cops probably confiscated them. They’re probably all sitting somewhere now with their snouts in the trough of our daughter’s imagination and labor —’ Mom was building to a crescendo and had to be stopped.
‘Look, I don’t know where they are now. But, again, it’s hardly the point. Even if they did confiscate them, just imagine the headlines: ‘Cops Eat Dying Men’s Last Supper’. Et cetera. You want to hear what happened or not?’
They both nodded contritely. ‘Anyway, so we were scaling the fence —’
My mother’s head whipped around at this. ‘In that?’ she queried with her eyebrows knitted together in horror.
‘Huh?’ My brain hurt, as it often did trying to keep up with her.
‘You scaled a razor wire fence in that?’ She motioned to Monica’s dress. It truly was a beautiful thing, made of some gossamer material, like some springtime spider had spun the world’s most beautiful web.
I stroked the beautiful thing covetously, imagining for a moment I was the kind of girl who wore things like this. ‘Ahhhh…yeah. Well, not exactly, I was having a pretty hard time getting over. Then the cops arrived. But no-one made it over, actually. Some of the guys were almost at the top, the ones with the food baskets. A matter of seconds and we would have been over.’
Mom looked down at Monica’s beautiful dress and a dark cloud of consternation descended on her handsome features. ‘Not you, my darling girl. You would not have been over the top in that. What are you doing in it, anyway? The movement was supposed to have liberated women from torturing themselves for men’s ideas about female beauty.’
Oh God, no. Please not this sermon.
Dad patted my leg quickly and shot Mom a look. ‘A fantastic action, sweetheart. You always had a great imagination, even when you were doing that stuff at school.’ He turned to Mom. ‘Darling, we should —’
‘Mm.’ Mom picked up her bag.
‘Okay, darling. Well, call us when you get released and we’ll come down and pick you up. Oh, and I almost forgot,’ Mom gathered up her things, ‘Aunty Vera sends her love. She’s in Paris with what’s-his-name.’
We always call Vera’s boyfriends what’s-his-name. Not because we didn’t know their names, but because they’re generally so short-lived we all decided long ago there’s no point wasting emotional energy on them. Names just get you attached.
But Mom hadn’t finished. ‘I rang her as soon as you called, of course. I knew she’d want to know. Be so proud of you. She said viva le revolution. Must be the Parisian air going to her head.’ I laughed and Mom clucked in disapproval and turned to go, pushing Dad in front of her. ‘Oh, dear, just one other thing. We called Wayne to let him know where you were. Love you. Bye.’
I’d never seen her move so fast.
She didn’t even hear me as my stunned lips croaked out, ‘You did what?’
***
Like the predictable entry of a villain in a Disney film, there was a knock on the door.
I was on the attack before I wrenched it open.
‘Look, Wayne…’
But it wasn’t him. And I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
It was a disgruntled-looking Leprechaun, with Heidi and Steve behind him.
Word sure travels fast.
‘Visitors, Ms Murphy. Like I said last time, not usually allowed in the cells but…’
‘But?’ I challenged, pushing my glasses up my nose.
‘The meeting room’s full,’ he finished lamely.
Heidi was clutching flowers. ‘Your Mom called,’ she explained unnecessarily, glancing quickly up and down Monica’s dress.
I gave them a quick hug. ‘This whole visiting thing is weird,’ I say. ‘And the flowers. I mean, they’re beautiful, but I’m in jail, not the hospital.’
Steve weighed in. He was wearing the same blue jeans I’d seen him in almost every day since I’d known him, and a t-shirt with the Cookie Monster on it.
‘Well we couldn’t miss it, Lolly. So apparently they aren’t pressing charges, huh? I guess in that case we should go out tonight. Y’know, celebrate.’
Heidi, Steve and I shared an apartment. Monica the Stripper had only joined us recently. We got Steve from a billboard at the school, and I thought he was brilliant from the moment I clapped eyes on him. Heidi took longer to warm to him. She was like someone’s grandma, inherently distrustful of anyone too clever, too good looking, too nice. And Steve had all that in spades. But he absolutely made up for these faults with the comedy he brought to our lives through the utter chaos of his.
‘Good,’ Steve said. ‘So drinks after then?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I sniffed. ‘You know bad things happen when I drink.’
Steve clapped a hand on my shoulder. ‘That is only because you don’t do it enough, my little Einstein.’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘What do you reckon, Lol? Nine?’
I looked at my own watch. ‘Nine Steve time, or real time?’
Heidi looked at hers too. ‘Steve time I reckon.’
We all nodded.
Steve shot a little frown at us. ‘You know it’s not my fault, don’t you?’
We smiled back. ‘Of course, Steve,’ Heidi said. ‘You’re just a weird magnet.’
‘Exactly,’ Steve nodded. ‘Like the thing with Little Steve.’
I patted his arm. ‘You can’t just let a woman give b
irth in an alley alone.’
‘And that SWAT raid cockup,’ Heidi contributed.
‘I still can’t watch Law and Order,’ Steve moaned.
‘PTSD,’ Heidi sniffed. ‘Bastards.’ Then she seemed to remember where we were and wrapped me in a hug again. ‘You sure you’re okay?’
‘Guys, I’m okay, really. They’ve been treating me fine.’
I tried to extricate myself from the hug but Heidi clung on. When I finally pulled away, I saw a tear run down one of her cheeks.
‘Heidi,’ I said, shaking her. ‘What’s all this about?’
‘Well,’ Heidi said, with a pretty sniff. ‘It’s just, we wondered how you were really doing. I mean, you keep saying you’re okay, you’ve been saying that for two weeks, but…’
Oh great. Now I knew what this was about. ‘Well, I’m fine, thank you,’ I bit out.
But Heidi was on a roll. ‘Because, you know, it was only a year and stuff, but you guys seemed so happy. Well, okay, maybe happy’s not exactly the right word. You screamed at each other half the time. But so crazy about each other. And he was your first —’
‘Aha,’ I said, cutting her off. I didn’t need to think about firsts. ‘See? Screaming. People who scream at each other are not happy. Not meant to be together’.
‘Oh, Loll.’ It was Steve’s turn. ‘It wasn’t real screaming. Not I-hate-your-guts screaming. Or, worse, I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-you screaming. Or that other awful one. The you’re-such-a-loser-why-can’t-you-organize-your-life-better screaming.’
He stopped suddenly, realising Heidi and I were looking at him.
‘Wow,’ Heidi said. ‘Women really hate you, don’t they?’
‘Yep,’ he sighed. ‘But anyway, that’s beside the point. Point is, you guys screamed at each other in that getting-to-know-each-other kind of way. Passionate. Like...foreplay. Anyway,’ he sniffed. ‘You did most of the screaming. He only screamed back when you said something really mean. Or when you took a breath.’
I couldn’t deny it. Wayne and I had spent a large proportion of the previous year arguing. Usually when I was trying to explain something to him, and he didn’t get it, or disagreed with me, or, worst, asked questions I couldn’t answer or that kind of changed the complexion of how I understood an issue. ‘Look guys, I’m only going to explain this one more time. Some people are just too different. Hey, I know I’m not easy to be with. But there must be someone out there who gets it.’ Something squeezed inside me and for a moment I wondered if I might faint. I dug a fingernail into my palm. ‘Who gets me.’
Heidi looked beseechingly at me. ‘But Wayne was starting to get it, don’t you think? And it’s not like he thought you were stupid for believing the things you do. You could tell he actually really liked it. It’s like your Mom always says: “good raw material”.’
I glared at Heidi. She should know never to invoke my mother in an argument. But she charged right on. ‘Look, Lolly, he’d never been exposed to any of the stuff you believe before he met you. Man, you’ve had 24 years to become who you are. He only had one year to try to get up to speed.’
‘Yeah,’ Steve chimed in. ‘It’s like Rainman.’
I looked Steve right in the eye. ‘Just a warning, in this analogy you are about to use, Wayne had better be the Dustin Hoffman dude and not me.’
‘Course, Lolly. It’s like…he’s this guy whose mind works in a totally different way to yours. And he’s really brilliant, but he just finds it hard to understand your brilliance all the time, like how Dustin Hoffman found it hard to communicate with normal people.’
‘My God, Steve.’ Heidi rolled her eyes. ‘You can’t say “normal people”.’
‘Whatever,’ Steve returned. ‘But y’know what I mean. It’s like he speaks French and you speak American.’
‘English, Steve.’ Heidi interrupted. ‘We speak English. Geez, how many times do I have to tell you that? We live in America, but we speak English.’
She sat beside me, quiet for a moment, holding my hand. ‘Oh, remember the first time we met him? Remember, Steve? He invited us over and he made those pizzas…?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Steve agreed, smiling at Heidi and rolling his eyes back in his head. ‘With the cashews, and the green stuff.’
‘Spinach, Steve,’ Heidi berated him. ‘And then we played Pictionary ‘til three in the morning, and he beat us all with those crazy cartoons.’
‘Yeah.’ Steve again. ‘And Lolly was so pissed off, competitive bitch, because she’d teamed him with you, thinking he’d be useless at anything creative’.
Heidi laughed. ‘Oh, that’s right. And remember when he threw that drag party and then came as Josephine Baker the banana dancer, but by midnight he was tearing off bits of his costume to make banana daiquiris for everyone?’
‘Ahem.’ I cleared my throat. ‘I am still here, you know. And can we all please get some perspective?’ I sniffed. ‘I don’t have that many memories of my entire childhood.’
‘Oh, sorry, Lolly.’ Heidi smiled at me. ‘I thought you were off in Math World.’
God, they were even using his terminology. I don’t think I realized until that moment how completely Wayne had permeated our collective psyche. It hit me like a punch to the stomach. I had to get rid of them. I needed some air.
‘Ok, guys, look. You head off. I’ll call you when they release me, and we can go have a drink. A small one. Maybe you two should get a room in the meantime and work off all that pent-up Wayne love, huh?’ Neither of them said anything, but something sizzled in the air. I eyeballed them both, my eyes narrowed. What had I missed, between them, while I’d been all strung out on Wayne?
Steve broke first. ‘Ok, Lolly. Well, call us when you’re out. I saw this really cool place across the street. With karaoke and everything. Got a great happy hour menu. One of them was called Jailhouse Rock. First round’s on me.’
I took my glasses off and tried to wipe them with Monica’s wispy dress. ‘Okay, but just one. And if you get up and sing Please Release Me it’s the end of our friendship.’
They left, Heidi blowing kisses at me all the way down the corridor.
***
I looked at my watch but found it hard to focus on the numbers. I’d been picked up at the demonstration at noon, and it had been warm, for March in the City. Now it was 5pm and it was raining again. My senses were stretched to snapping point, waiting for the next knock on the door. When it came, I knew it would be him.
‘Wayne,’ I croaked, wrenching the door open with a snarl.
‘Nope, just me,’ Public Defender Guy said, rubbing his eyes. ‘I’m ready for you now,’
Poor guy. He looked beat. And he had such nice blue eyes and such floppy blond hair.
‘Okay then.’ I reached for my bag.
‘Wait just a fucking minute!’
The piercing shriek could only come from one person. It resonated with the authority of my mother and the undercurrent of pure bitchiness that had to have been passed down through the genetic chain from my grandmother.
‘Hello, Emmy,’ I said.
My sister was only halfway down the corridor when she emitted the shriek. The Leprechaun was tailing her with a look on his face that said this really was the worst day he’d had in a long, long time. And, coming up the rear, was my brother, Luke, scowling magnificently and swinging a briefcase like a schoolboy who’d just been elected head prefect.
I took a moment to register the small, unhappy conga-line.
Then everyone started speaking at once.
Firstly, the Leprechaun remembered he was the ranking officer and decided visiting hours were over. ‘I’m sorry, Ms Murphy,’ he said to my sister, ‘but visitors are not allowed back in —’
‘Dr Murphy to you, you fascist,’ she spat, rounding on him with eyes of pure venom. ‘And don’t think for a moment my sister is seeing this,’ she prodded Hugh Grant in the chest with a scarlet fingernail, ‘government limpdick until she’s spoken to her own lawyer.’
I started trying to explain that Hugh Grant Public Defender Guy was my ticket out of here. Emmy was snorting in disbelief and refusing to hand me over. The Leprechaun was making a reasonable fist of standing up to my sister. Luke weighed in, talking about due process and civil rights. And somehow, through the din, the quiet, authoritative voice of reason rang through.
‘Erh… Sergeant Burrows, perhaps we could give Ms Murphy some time with her representatives in the conference room instead?’ Public Defender guy sounded tired. He smiled disarmingly at Emmy and Luke. ‘But perhaps you could keep the conference brief? I do need to be out of here soon and Ms Murphy is the last discussion I’m scheduled to have tonight. I could grab a coffee and come back in, say, fifteen minutes?’
To my amazement, Emmy yielded, and the Leprechaun stood back to let us use the room. I glared at my brother and sister, imagining Emmy’s thinly veiled delight as she’d rubbed her hands together, called Luke and told him we needed to ‘lawyer up’.
‘Right,’ Emmy started. ‘First things first.’ She reached into her handbag and for one, wild moment I thought: Oh my God, she’s got a gun, she’s gonna kill someone.
When we were kids — well, she was 14 and I was ten — she actually blew up the mailbox of some guy who dumped her best friend. She wrote away to get a mail order bomb-making pack and set the whole thing up herself. I was with her and when I asked what we were doing she patted my head, told me not to worry and said we were rehearsing for the fourth of July. I was so gullible I believed her. I was always Vince Capone — the uptight, do-gooder sibling — to her Al.
This time all she pulled out was a brightly colored rectangle. She slid it across the table.
‘I stopped at Zuckerman’s.’
I considered the packaging. It was unfamiliar. ‘Swiss?’
She nodded quickly.
I toyed a second longer with the wrapping. ‘Fair traded?’
She clucked her tongue briskly. ‘For fuck’s sake, Lola, just open it so we can move on.’