Homebodies

by Joan Schweighardt

  Sherri starts again, slower, but just as loud. She sounds like she’s talking into a loudspeaker. She sounds like she has the mouthpiece in her mouth instead of beside it. Jake can picture her doing that; her mouth is that big; it would probably fit. Sometimes, when she coughs, you can see all the way back to her tonsils. She is the only person he knows who sticks out her tongue when she coughs. She says, “WE WERE IN THE HOTEL ROOM! THEN HE NEEDED SOME SMOKES!”

  Pete says, “What kind of smokes, Sher. Regular cigarettes?”

  Sherri answers, “NO! CAMELS!”

  Liz is in the background yelling, “What! Was she smoking pot?”

  Sherri takes another deep breath. “THEN HE WENT OUT OF THE ROOM TO BUY SOME!”

  Pete asks, “The hotel room?”

  Liz cries, “Hotel? What were they doing in a hotel?”

  Duh!

  Pete says, “For crying out loud, Liz. Would you let me talk to her! I can’t talk to two people at once.”

  Liz replies, “Oh, really? I would have thought that something you could handle.” There is an edge in her voice, as if there is something else making her angry besides him not telling her what Sherri is screaming about.

  Pete is silent for a moment. Jake figures he must be giving his mother the look, which is when he lowers his head and looks up at you over the top of his glasses. Then Pete says into the phone, “Go on, Sher. He left the room to buy some Camels. Then what happened?”

  “THEN I WAS SITTING ON THE BED! THE DOOR WAS OPEN A LITTLE AND I WAS LOOKING AT IT ’CAUSE I DIDN’T WANT NO ONE TO GO BY AND SEE ME IN MY UNDERWEAR! THEN THE DOOR OPENED. BUT IT WASN’T GEORGE. IT WAS SOME OTHER GUY WITH A WINTER HAT ON AND TWO EYES CUT OUT OF IT!”

  “Oh my God!” Pete whispers.

  Liz screams, “What happened? What happened?”

  Sherri cries, “THE GUY WITH THE HAT CAME IN FAST! HIS HAND CAME OUT AND PUNCHED ME IN THE FACE! THEN HE TOOK MY PURSE AND MY CLOTHES OFF THE BED AND RAN OUT FAST! IT WAS LIKE ON TV!”

  “Are you okay?” Pete asks. Jake likes him just then, because there is genuine concern in his voice.

  “Yeah,” Sherri says in her regular voice.

  “Let me talk to George for a minute, Sher.”

  Jake moves the phone closer to his ear to get ready for George, but then Sherri screams, “HE AIN’T HERE!” and he has to move it away again.

  The pitch of Pete’s voice rises. “What do you mean, he’s not there? Did he go for the police?”

  “I DON’T KNOW!”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “HE DIDN’T COME BACK SINCE HE WENT FOR SMOKES!”

  “He never came back? That … that … that … friend of your sister’s was in on this?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t come back.”

  “Okay, let’s be calm,” Pete says, though he sounds more upset than Sherri now. “Are you still in the hotel room?”

  “Yeah. I got no clothes on ’cept my underwear!”

  “Okay, okay. I’m thinking. Is your door locked?”

  “No. The guy with the hat left it open.”

  “WELL, LOCK IT! RIGHT NOW! Do that first. Are you locking it?”

  She must be locking it because she doesn’t answer. Pete says to Liz, “She’s locking the door.” Liz doesn’t respond.

  Pete yells, “SHER?”

  “What?” she answers.

  “Did you lock the door?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. Now tell me where you are.” And to Liz, “Go get my keys. I think they’re on the mantel. And a coat too. A raincoat or something.”

  Liz says, “A coat? For God’s sake, why?”

  Sherri says, “A hotel with a McDonald’s across the street.”

  “Is there a number on the phone?”

  She reads it to him. Then he asks her the room number, but she says she doesn’t know because it’s written on the other side of the door. Pete says, “Don’t open it to find out. They’ll know at the desk. Now listen carefully. I’m going to call the number and find out where you are. I’ll tell the person at the desk what happened and they’ll call the police. In the meantime, I’ll be on my way over. You can’t be that far away. You haven’t been gone long enough. But if the police get there first, and they probably will, make sure you see some identification before you open the door. Tell them to slide it under the door. Do you understand?”

  Sherri says, “Hurry up. I need smokes. My smokes was all in my purse.”

  Pete says, “I’m leaving this very second, as soon as I call the front desk. I’ve got my keys in my hand.”

  Sherri screams, “I NEED SMOKES! I DON’T HAVE NO SMOKES!”

  Jake is unprepared for the blast. It nearly breaks his ear drum. He waits for Pete to hang up then hangs up himself. He wants to go with his father. He wants to find the guy who did it to her, George himself, he suspects, and pop him right in the face, but he doesn’t know how he can tell his father that without admitting that he was eavesdropping.

  He waits for Pete to conclude his call to the hotel and then runs down the stairs. Pete is just moving toward the door with Liz right behind him, asking a million questions. Jake says, “Where you going, Dad? Can I come too?” But Pete doesn’t hear him over Liz. “This is your fault,” he says as he goes out the door. “This George … damn.”

  Liz turns from the door and stares into space. Her hands dangle motionlessly at her sides and her face is as white as paper. She looks two-dimensional, like one of Katie’s cutout dolls. “It’s my fault,” she whispers. “I told him she was vulnerable. I practically set it up.”

  Jake is angry. His father is right, for once; the whole thing is her fault. Anyone could see this guy George was dangerous.

  Liz’s jaw muscles tighten so much that her jaw begins to tremble. She looks like she’s having constipation pains, or like she did right before she went to the hospital to have Brigit. He is just about to say so when her mouth opens and she begins to move toward him, slowly, with one hand outstretched. He thinks maybe she is coming for comfort. He’s afraid; he doesn’t know how to comfort his mother. He’s never had to do it before.

  Liz is breathing through her mouth, sort of gulping in air. Her nostrils are flaring out as if she still can’t get enough, and her jaw is still quivering. It’s like something out of a horror movie. Jake backs up the stairs, but Liz keeps coming. When she gets to the foot of the stairs, she collapses in a heap.

  At first Jake thinks she fainted and doesn’t know what to do. But then he sees her shoulders bouncing and she begins to cry, softly at first, and then louder. She sits up and begins to rock herself, like she did when Maddy died.

  Jake is baffled. Usually when she’s sad, she just finds a book and goes somewhere quiet to read. He realizes that she is mumbling stuff between her sobs, crazy stuff—he can’t understand her—something about feelings and loneliness and separating herself so she wouldn’t seem to be one of them.

  One of who? He is torn between going to her, maybe patting her head, and running away. He’s never seen her act so weird before. She is howling like a lunatic now, crying loud and crazy like a real psycho. He stays where he is, not able to get his body to move in either direction. It’s as if he’s paralyzed. He listens for Brigit and Katie and hopes Liz won’t wake them up. He doesn’t want to have to go deal with them and leave his mother alone.

  The phone rings again, but Liz doesn’t even hear it. Jake thinks it may be Jane, but he doesn’t see how he can talk to her just now.

  It’s probably only about an hour and a half until Pete comes home, but it seems like a day. He leaves the door opened behind him, enabling Jake to see his aunt out there on the stoop blowing smoke-rings. She is wearing Pete’s rain coat and her high-tops. In between, her bare calves are thick and white. Liz is still collapsed on the stairs. Jake himself is sitting now, a few stairs up from her, sort of watching out for her. She hasn’t said a word to him. He wanted to say something to her, but by the time she stopped
mumbling all that crazy stuff, he was afraid he might say the wrong thing and set her off again. Pete says, “What happened?” sharply, as if he thinks whatever happened is Jake’s fault, as if he thinks Brigit or Katie got hurt or something.

  Jake says, “Mom freaked out after you left. Nothing happened. She just plain freaked out. That’s all.”

  Pete’s eyes drop to Liz. She is still sobbing, but softly now, her face hidden between her arms.

  Pete steps toward her, but then he stops. His eyes sweep from Liz to the stoop where Sherri is finishing off her cigarette, sucking it in as if it’s the last one she is ever going to have. Jake sees her flick the butt over into the rose bushes. As soon as she comes in and sees that Liz is there, she screams, “OH NO! WHAT’S SHE DOING HERE? GET HER OUT OF HERE! I DON’T WANT HER HERE! YOU PROMISED ME SHE WOULDN’T BE HERE! WE HAD A DEAL! SHE’S CONTAGIOUS! SHE’S GOT BAD BLOOD!”

  Pete says, “Sher, she’s suffering. She didn’t mean for all this to happen.”

  Sherri screams, “WE HAD A DEAL! YOU CAN’T GO BACK ON A DEAL! IT AIN’T ALLOWED! GET HER OUT!”

  Jake slides down a step and gets close to Liz’s ear. He whispers, “Mom, do you want me to take you upstairs before Aunt Sher wakes the kids?”

  Liz’s face comes up slowly out of her arms. It is red and puffy, and all her lines look deeper, as if she’s aged ten years in the last hour and a half. She looks sort of like Brigit does when she’s worked herself into a tantrum. She looks up at Jake as if she doesn’t remember him. Then she looks at Pete, who is sort of twitching his lips at her. Liz snaps, “What the hell are you looking at?” She has to yell it because Sherri is still carrying on about Liz’s bad blood.

  Pete says, “You’re emoting, Liz. That’s good. I don’t know what it’s about exactly, but I think it’s probably good.”

  Jake can just about hear him over Sherri’s ravings. Liz doesn’t seem to hear him at all. She just keeps staring at him. Then her head turns slowly towards Sherri, as if she is only just noticing her standing there shouting her lungs out. Sherri’s screaming gets louder. Her eyes widen. She could be watching the wolf-man turning into the wolf. Jake thinks he can hear Brigit crying over his aunt’s voice. Liz screams, “What do you want me to do, Sher? Do you want me to bleed? Is that what you want?”

  Liz gets up, her thin arms quaking. Jake feels dizzy. He doesn’t know what she’s going to do. He feels himself moving too, in slow-motion. Liz goes right up to Sherri, gets right in her face. Jake is afraid his aunt will throw a punch, but except for her mouth, she remains perfectly still. Then all at once Liz breaks into a run, a fast shuffle really, and takes off for the kitchen.

  Jake runs in after her and finds her at the knife drawer, jerking it open. He lunges forward, grabbing her wrist. Pete comes in too. When he sees what’s going on, he rushes over and tries to close the drawer. All six hands get tangled up together. Pete and Jake glance at each other, Pete’s eyes questioning. Jake thinks he knows why, but he doesn’t know the answer. He looks away from Pete, at Simon, who is, miraculously, asleep in the corner, then at the six hands, two of which are caught in the drawer. He realizes one is his and pulls it out.

  Liz isn’t really pulling on the drawer anymore or trying to break loose from Jake’s and Pete’s grip. She’s sort of just standing there, like she’s forgotten what she came in for. She looks at Jake and then at Pete with a blank expression. Then she looks down at their jumble of hands and snorts a little laugh, as if she finds it funny to see the six hands—all white at the knuckles—right under her nose. Her eye travels up from where Jake’s hand is on her wrist to her forearm. There is a big scab there, about the size of a crayon, from where she burned herself taking grilled cheese sandwiches out of the toaster oven a few days ago. It is purple, dry, and puckered in the middle, like a mountain range in miniature. She smiles at it. Sherri is still screaming in the living room.

  Liz shakes herself free of Pete and Jake and turns aside. They both step up to stand on either side of her in time to see her sliding one fingernail under the lower edge of her scab. She pulls. The blood bubbles up thickly. Pete says, “Liz,” in a little voice, but she doesn’t pay any attention. She squeezes her arm so that the blood begins to flow. Then she takes off for the living room with Jake and Pete a step behind her. She goes right up to Sherri and holds her arm up in front of her face.

  Sherri’s eyes bulge at the sight of the blood. “IT COMES BACK!” she screams. “IT COMES BACK! YOU TAKE IT OUT AND IT COMES BACK!”

  Liz lifts her arm higher, to eye level. Sherri’s head retracts, cobra style, but the rest of her remains rooted. “IT COMES BACK,” she screams. “YOU TAKE IT OUT AND MORE COMES IN TO TAKE ITS PLACE. IT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SLEEP!” She is screaming hysterically, louder than ever, trying to convince herself, it seems, of whatever it is that she’s trying to say.

  Liz threatens Sherri by moving her arm closer yet. Jake hears his father say, weakly, “What are we trying to do here?”

  Sherri pants. “TAKE IT AWAY! I DON’T WANT TO SEE IT! I’LL BE GOOD! I’ll be good. Take it away.”

  Liz lowers her arm. Sherri closes her mouth. Now that she isn’t screaming anymore, Jake can see how blue and puffy her cheek is, from where the guy punched her. Pete takes a deep breath.

  Liz stares at Sherri and chews the side of her mouth as if to stifle a laugh, as if she is quaking with the kind of laughter that happens on the inside when you don’t let it out. Sherri arches her brows and rolls her bottom lip over the top one. A smile appears. Liz begins to snicker. Sherri begins to laugh. She throws her head back, her wide-opened mouth parallel with the ceiling. Jake thinks his aunt sounds like a seagull when she laughs, maybe a flock of them. Pete’s lips stretch and retract, stretch and retract, as if he can’t decide whether he should be terrified or laughing along with them.

  The phone rings again. Jake doesn’t want to leave to answer it, but Pete says, “Get it,” and gives him the look.

  Mrs. Bowker says, “Is everything okay over there? I heard screaming, I thought.”

  Jake can’t stand the old lady. “Yeah, we’re all fine,” he says and hangs up. He is on his way back to the living room when the phone rings again. He picks up the receiver and sighs into it. Jane says, “What’s happening, Stud?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Jake answers. “Not in a million years.” He has to talk loud because his aunt is still laughing.

  He peeks around the corner. His mother is smiling and shaking her head. Pete is backing away from them, toward the stairs. He yells up to Katie to get back into bed. Jake says into the phone, “You want to marry me? I’ve got to get out of this fucking place.”

  Jane laughs. “Yeah, I know what you mean. You get number ten on the math homework?”

  “Sure, hold on. I’ll get it for you.”

  Jake anchors the receiver between the rungs on the back of one of the kitchen chairs and goes into the living room. As he is mounting the stairs, he runs right into Pete, who is just coming down. Pete puts his hand on Jake’s shoulder as they pass each other. Jake looks up in time to see that his father’s glasses are crooked on his nose and that his hair is all sticking out like it does when he’s had his hands in it.

  Jake gets to the top of the stairs and turns. Pete turns from the bottom at just the same time. He smiles a smile Jake has never seen before. It is the kind of smile you bestow on a baby or some other mindless creature. Jake looks away quickly. The whole family is going mad.

  PETE

  At the onset, Pete told himself that watching TV game shows in the evenings would bring him closer to his two older children, especially Jake. But now he is able to admit to himself that his real motive is the avoidance of his wife; if he sits in front of the TV long enough during the time that was once slated for their conversations, she will find some project to busy herself with or go out on the porch to sew until it is time for bed. It’s not that he’s angry with her; he just doesn’t know what to say to her anymore. And rea
lly, she doesn’t seem to mind. He doubts she’s even noticed.

  What is astonishing is that he has actually come to enjoy the shows. Thanks to all the research he’s done in recent years, he is a match for even the most astute contestants. And what a relief it is to have something other than his increasingly lewd fantasies and his vivid recollections of days gone by to occupy his mind. He has even begun to toy with the idea of becoming a contestant himself. And thus, one night when he finds himself dreaming that he is one, he is neither surprised nor displeased—until the woman with the golden hair steps up to him and explains that this show will be different from the ones he watches, that here he will be asking the questions instead of answering them.

  This is unbelievable. Pete raises his eyebrows at her, but she only smiles, and before he can ask, assures him that he heard her right; he can ask anything at all. And he will be provided with the answers.

  “What kinds of questions?” he begins. But then someone says, “Three, two, one,” and the woman pushes him out onto the stage where the curtain is just opening.

  But what is this? There’s not a man in the audience! They’re all women, women dressed in pants and work shirts rolled up at the sleeves, or jackets and ties. Some of them have loosened their ties and are holding their jackets across their laps.

  The emcee clears his throat to get Pete’s attention. He is a tall, gaunt man dressed entirely in black. Pete mumbles, “I can ask you anything I like?” The tall man nods. Pete forces a smile. “And you know all the answers?”

  Pete speculates for a moment. Then his smile widens and becomes authentic. He has one for him then, something he’s wondered about all his life, a question whose audacity will amaze the audience, put them on the edges of their seats. “Is there a God?” he asks in a confident voice, and he turns his triumphant expression toward the audience. But except for the few who are snickering, they are shifting restlessly in their seats, pulling at their ties or hammering their thumbs together impatiently. He turns back to the emcee, who shrugs. “I don’t know.”