by C. S. Lakin
“Mine fell under the front seat,” Reuben said, bending down and trying to reach the floorboard.
“Ouch!” Simon pounded on Reuben’s back. “You’re smooshing me!”
“Well, scoot over.” Reuben shoved Simon into Levi’s car seat, which triggered a loud cry from her youngest son.
Leah gripped the steering wheel with such force she thought her knuckles would break. With a sharp pull at the wheel, she inched out of the slow lane and into the emergency aisle that ran alongside oleander bushes, then pressed on the gas pedal. Branches snapped at the side of the car, and Leah heard paint scraping as she sideswiped the vegetation trying to fit the bulky Plymouth between the pileup of vehicles to her left and the hillside to her right.
Horns honked, like angry geese, but the liberating sense of flight energized her and she drove even faster, until she managed to arrive at the wide lane exiting onto Wilshire Boulevard. For a brief instant, she calculated which street to turn left at, to cut down to Pico, and then right four blocks to the doctor’s office. Then she loosened her grip and set her compass to the one place she knew could alleviate her rising panic.
A buzzing germinated in her head, and strains of music wrapped around her, tight, like a shroud. She’d played that Styx song the last time she was at the club, oh so many ages ago. “I’m sailing away. Set an open course for the Virgin Sea, ’cause I’ve got to be free, free to face the life that’s ahead of me.” The buzz grew to a cacophonous ringing and Leah strained to see the streets and the traffic lights and in a trance riveted her attention on the bumper of the car ahead of her, gripping the wheel with the whole world dissolving around her in a smear of color—hot, brilliant color that branded her brain with the image of rippling, soothing water. Blue, blue, cool blue.
A great thirst overtook her, so great her mouth parched and her throat ached. She thought she heard voices, perhaps her children, far-flung and beyond reach. The thread of music turned into a lifeline, and someone pulled on it, drawing her closer, reeling her in on a sharp hook. She held on for dear life. “On board, I’m the captain, so climb aboard. We’ll search for tomorrow on every shore. And I’ll try, oh Lord, I’ll try to carry on . . .”
Time slid out from under her. Soon she recognized the palm trees, turned right on Ocean Avenue, down the incline to Highway 1, inching, barely moving, red taillights glaring from the car ahead, from the poles above. Stop, stop, stop, they yelled at her. She put her hands over her ears so she could hear the song, so faint, dwindling under the grinding machine of traffic hemming her in.
She came to a stop, midway down the incline. Flashing lights ahead, people standing by a steaming car, hood up. Police arguing with a man waving his arms in the air, tossing arguments like confetti.
Leah blinked. “A gathering of angels appeared above my head; they sang to me this song of hope and this is what they said, they said, come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me . . .” She unbuckled her seat belt, pulled up the door lock button, swung open her door. Stepping onto the road was stepping into freedom. All she had to do was move one leg in front of the other. Cross the street, down the steps to the sand.
She drew in a sudden breath; she could see the sea gesturing to her.
“Lady, what are you doing?”
“Get back in your car! Are you nuts?”
“Look, there’re kids in there. One’s pounding on the window.”
“Hey, are you crazy or something? Lady!”
“There are kids crying in there. Imagine, in that heat.”
“Hon, go get that cop. She can’t just leave her car parked in traffic like that.”
“Hey, officer, officer!”
The voices and honking horns and grinding gears and screeching brakes receded behind her on a slack tide and as she touched the sand they vanished altogether. She pulled off her shoes as she headed toward the water’s edge. There was only herself and this beach and the hot sun above and the cool water beckoning. Her clothes stuck to her skin, matted down from sweat, itchy, restricting. This is what separated her, the barrier that set her apart, made her foreign to the world beneath the water. Why hadn’t she understood before?
She unzipped her shorts and dropped them to the sand. Her underwear and shirt followed. The seductive lulling sea wrapped around her ankles, took her offerings and pulled the pile of clothing under the waves as Leah looked at her feet, placing one foot in front of the other, as she merged, bare and empty, her hands held out in supplication, in surrender. Waves smacked against her waist, then her chest, delicious water drinking of her skin, saturating her with its lifeblood, nourishing her.
The depleting thirst now gone, her throat no longer dry and raw, the words spewed from her mouth as from a fountain in sweet song, as water inched up her neck and the next wave crested over her head.
“I thought that they were angels, but to my surprise, we climbed aboard their starship, we headed for the skies, singing, come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me . . .”
1979
Crazy Love
Tonight I’m gonna break away
Just you wait and see
I've never been imprisoned by
A faded memory
Just when I think I'm over her
This broken heart will mend
I hear her name and I have to cry
The tears come down again
It happens all the time
This crazy love of mine
Wraps around my heart
Refusing to unwind
Ooh, ooh, crazy love.
—Poco
Leah ducked as the dam of small boxes gave way and avalanched on her head to the floor. Shoeboxes full of photos popped their tops and scattered their contents around her feet. She reached back and yanked out the suitcase jammed in the back of the high closet shelf, then let it crash to the floor. When she looked down, Simon was looking up at her. She regained her balance on the chair, then stepped down.
“What are you doing, Mom?”
She ruffled his hair, memorizing the wild spark in his eyes. Then remembered the Polaroid camera in the kitchen drawer. “Simon, go get the camera. It’s in the drawer below the silverware.”
As her son ran off she studied the photos scattered like dead leaves around her feet. Snapshots froze bits of her family in the halls of time, where they smiled up at her, empty, silly smiles as if trying to convince the world they were happy. Eight years of her life portioned out and pasted on thin pieces of paper. Milestones, landmarks, signposts pointing the way, start to finish. She could lay them out, establish order, stick them in a book with neat little labels and dates, put them in their place. But her family did not fit so neatly in such conventions. And it would take more than a roll of tape and a bottle of glue to put things right.
She stepped over her history on her way to creating her future. By the time Simon returned, she had the suitcase nearly full, centered on her bed, clothes for all seasons—who knew where their tour would end up, what new opportunities would present themselves once they hit the road? Leah could barely contain her excitement. She glanced up at the clock, gauging how much time she needed to throw together some mac and cheese, clean up, wash the dishes. The least she could do. Jake would walk in about six. Reuben could hold things together a half hour; she had told Barry exactly five-thirty.
“Here, Mom.” He handed her the camera and she saw it still had half a roll of film in it.
“Oh good. Stand still, smile.” Simon obeyed, confusion in his eyes. The flash popped and Simon blinked.
“Why are you taking my picture?”
She laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “Because. You’re just so cute, that’s why!” She handed him the camera. “Hey, why don’t you try it? Go take some pictures of your brothers and sister. Hold it steady; click this button. And after each picture, you slide this metal bar, see?”
Simon stood with the camera in his hand. “What’s that for?” He pointed to the suitcase on the bed. �
�Why are you putting clothes in it?”
“Simon, just go take pictures, okay?” She watched him leave the room draped in reluctance. Her heart swelled. She would miss her Simon, miss him most of all, so fiery, always hot, needy. Only her smooth, gentle water could cool him down and she didn’t allow herself to dwell on the conflagration that would follow, the burning trail he would blaze in his hurt and bereavement. She could only hope that in time it would peter out, that he’d run out of flammable material, that he wouldn’t leave the Abrams family in ashes. She would take him if she could, but a life on the road with a band, moving from city to city, gig after gig, late nights, high exuberant nights of music and intoxication and freedom, didn’t give an inch of room for parental concerns. And Jake would have cause to chase after her with the law hanging on both arms, arms that could drag her back, even lock her behind bars. No, she would leave Simon, knowing his seven-year-old broken heart would mend in time.
Lines from her last poem, penned to Simon, surfaced. Brushfire raced across the wide expanse / what is left is a barren landscape / and hunger, gnawing hunger. / I want answers but all I see spreading over the smoldering terrain are wisps of smoke / a burning bush but no voice of God.
She felt around in a bottom dresser drawer, pulled out the envelope of cash she had carefully hidden, almost three hundred dollars, ones and fives pilfered out of Jake’s wallet over the last year, tips thrown into the hat from her performances, kickback change from selling a bag or two here and there in back of the stage. It would be enough. And if they ran out of money and had to stop and earn more before continuing on, she could waitress and Barry always found ways to deal, such a smooth operator, that winning smile. And the other band members had their savings and trust funds and welfare and food stamps. After slipping the envelope and her folder of songs into the suitcase, she fingered her notebook bulging with poetry. Poems and prose that commented on life with Jake from the day she had met him until now. A memento she would leave for him, a legacy for her children. Maybe one day he would understand, and maybe her children would forgive her. She hoped.
She rolled the suitcase to the front door, positioned it next to her guitar case. Then walked back down the hallway and with her hand swept up the pile of photos and tossed them back into the boxes. A young Reuben stared at her from the top of one pile, unsmiling, holding Jake’s hand as they stood on the beach with water at their feet and a sand castle off to the side, already the tide chewing at its walls, crumbling the fragile edifice, erasing its existence, implying her husband and son would be next if they stayed where they were, exposed to the unrelenting forces of nature.
She studied her husband’s face; his expression neatly matched their son’s. She tried to remember when she had taken that picture, that gray gloomy day. It was in January—that much she recalled. And Reuben, only two, or three or four, already adopting his father’s stern face, this son of his that didn’t seem to be hers, that never felt close, a hard rock, unmovable, stuck, in the way. That was how she always saw him, no fault of his—she guessed those traits would serve him in life, if he didn’t break apart and crumble under pressure. He should be more like Levi, malleable like soft metal, impressionable, adaptable to extreme temperatures.
She hesitated, sifted through the pile, pulled out three snapshots, one recent one of Dinah with her flyaway hair in braids, wind lifting the hem of her dress in a flutter, her wistful smile staring somewhere far off. One of all three boys on swings, Jake pushing. And one of her and Jake, a photo someone else had taken back when they first met, back in those long-ago days in Santa Monica, when their small apartment had been filled with dreams instead of babies and the war raged in a foreign land, not in the confines of their lives.
Leah moved through the kitchen with efficiency. Made dinner, set the table, even folded the laundry and put clothes in drawers, clean towels in the bathroom. A simple penance in advance, a gesture, hopefully one that would soften the blow. Although she knew it wouldn’t. Nothing would. But she couldn’t let herself think on it. Survival was paramount. If she remained, death was certain—if not literal, then emotional. She’d weighed choices over and over until they became too heavy to hold any longer. She had a fleeting opportunity, had to grab it with both hands or she would miss the golden ring; it would fly past her, irretrievable, and she would languish with longing, regret, the bitterness ebbing away at her until nothing remained.
She called her children in to eat, checked the clock again. Five minutes.
That Paul Simon song came to mind—“Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover.” You just slip out the back, Jack. Make a new plan, Stan. Don’t need to be coy, Roy. Just get yourself free. When her children were situated at the table, she looked at each one, putting their sweet faces to memory. She went into the bathroom, brushed her hair and washed her face, came out, checked her purse. She took out her prescription bottles; she wouldn’t need those happy pills anymore. Pills that mollified and simplified and verified and nullified.
Just hop on the bus, Gus. Don’t need to discuss much.
Simon had set the camera on the table. She put it in her sweater pocket. Reuben only looked at her as she stood by the door and rummaged through her purse.
Just drop off the key, Lee. And get yourself free.
A honk from the street. Leah looked out the window and saw the band van—an old VW bus, orange and white, with a pop-up camper top. Denny waved from the front seat, sitting next to Barry, who was driving. Five-thirty on the dot. She deposited her key ring on the little shelf. She wouldn’t need them anymore—those keys that opened doors and started engines and kept her world running on empty.
Simon ran over to her, grabbed her arm, searched her eyes, demanding to know what she was doing, where she was going. She could tell from his face that he knew she was leaving, the way he always understood her, felt her moods as subtle ocean currents. She would not be able to lie to him that easily, but she would this one time, to stave off the inevitable, the unbearable, the unthinkable. She could not let anything buck her resolve, unsure how strong the tensile strength of her nerve.
“Sweet Simon, I’m just going to play some music.”
“No you’re not. You’re taking all your clothes. You’re leaving us!” He body-blocked her, his back against the front door.
Leah closed her eyes, imagined cool water putting out his frenzied fire as his cries erupted, flare-ups of ignited fear encircling her, the lava threatening to burn her from the toes up.
“Simon, I have to. Go. I’ll write. I’ll be back.” She gulped as the worst word emerged from her throat. “Soon.” Followed by two more horrible, evil words, but she had no choice; they must be said.
“I promise.”
She couldn’t look at him, touch him, hug him good-bye. Couldn’t look at any of them, the house, their things, this composite life whose elements had defined and held her together with flimsy string all these years. She shook it off, a dead molted skin, pushed Simon away from the door, pulled it open against his feeble resistance. “Reuben, hold Simon. Don’t let him outside. That’s a good boy.” She held the door half open until Reuben came and took his younger brother by the arm, tugged him away from the door as Simon wailed, his cry so pathetic and terrible Leah wished she had no ears. She caught Reuben’s hurt splattered all over his face, knew he wouldn’t challenge her, her good dutiful trusting firstborn son.
Be a rock, Reuben. Barricade the door. Keep Simon in and reality out. Until your father comes home. Then you can crumble into dust.
She hauled her suitcase and guitar outside, where Denny grabbed them and put them in the van, leaving her the front seat to sit beside Barry. She didn’t look back—up the walkway to the front door, at the window where Simon would be staring out, restrained by his brother. At the life she was leaving behind, the lives she was churning in her wake. Churning up into bits, pieces that would be hard to put back together, just chum for the sharks. She consoled her guilt by reminding herself Jake would be better off witho
ut her. Less heartache in the long run. Long may you run. As Neil Young sang: “Although these changes have come, with your chrome heart shining in the sun, long may you run.”
Run, Jake, run, she whispered as the van pulled away from the curb, as she laughed in wild abandon with Barry, as he passed her the silver flask and she drank and hot liquor burned her throat, alcohol to sterilize the open wound, flush out the dirt and contamination and debris so healing could begin.
The road beckoned; traffic parted like the Red Sea, and she watched in the rearview mirror in her mind the last eight years drown behind her. They were on their way, the future unrolling with a clatter of gangplank, and she would race down it, toward bright lights and intoxicating nights, running as fast as she could, while the past, flotsam and jetsam, bobbed on the current, lost in her wake, dropped farther and farther back until it faded from sight. And, hopefully, memory. Out of sight, out of mind.
Long may she run.
Jake felt their penetrating gazes at his back. The overly sympathetic smiles, the type people pasted on in lieu of having anything appropriate to say, to cover the discomfort of it all. Reuben held Jake’s hand in a fearsome grip, afraid Jake would let go and Reuben would be lost, more than ever lost in this crush of parents backstage, with the teacher trying to shoo them all to their seats as the recorded music began playing in the auditorium and the house lights dimmed.
Jake spotted Simon in one corner of the stage with his class. Simon glared at him and Jake looked away. He could only take so much anger and blame each day. Therapists assured him Simon’s anger would subside in time; only a few months had passed since Leah had left, and surely she’d either be back soon or else time would heal all wounds. He thought it more likely time wounded all heels, he being the foremost one.
He straightened Reuben’s shepherd costume, tightened the white rope belt tied around his waist, gave him a pat on the shoulder. The babysitter was home with Levi and Dinah, a new one, and already he could tell she wouldn’t last long either. Both Levi and Dinah had thrown fits when it was clear they would have to stay home. But he’d wanted to give Reuben some special attention this night. Sheep bells jingled around him and he recognized “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” playing over the speakers, fuzzy and tinny.