Stacking in Rivertown

by Barbara Bell

  “It’s everything,” she says. “I hate that stuff where I’m made into something I’m not. It gets me all turned around. And when you were gone for so long, I thought you didn’t care about me. But it was Johnson, wasn’t it? He took you away.”

  “Yes. He wants me gone, Miriam. That’s why he let me know you told him about Violet. I felt like I couldn’t trust you.”

  I take her head in both my hands and make her look at me. “I love you, Miriam. I love you hard and violent. I love you willow, willow wand, redfly and blubberbee. I love you way beyond Rivertown.”

  Her face looks like it might disintegrate again. “Even after what I just did to you?”

  “God, Miriam, on my scale of reference for damage, that didn’t register a bleep. The worst was that it was you that did it to me. And that you’d go behind my back like that with someone like Johnson. Let’s forget about it. Let’s start someplace new.”

  She cries some more and lies her head on my shoulder, kissing my cheek soft.

  “What did all that mean? Blubberbee? Rivertown?”

  I smile at her. “You said you’d wait until I was ready.”

  “Okay. Yo u’re right.”

  I kiss the top of her head, smelling her hair. “You remember about the river, right?” She nods, keeping her head against my chest. “I’ll tell you about Rivertown.”

  So I say, press of the heat beneath the live oak. I say, rustling leaves. And little stone houses. I say, laid out on shelves like dolls flat on their backs, the rich man’s stacks.

  Stacking in Rivertown.

  Watching the tooms.

  Cottonwood tremble. Shush of the river and mud of the river.

  Whisper willow willow wind.

  Miriam falls asleep in my arms.

  * * *

  I wake feeling Miriam kissing me. Opening my eyes, I see sunlight. Miriam stops kissing me long enough to whisper, “Stacking in Rivertown.”

  I think of Mandy squishing in the mudflats, and I laugh for the first time in a long time. Then we make love so tender. I promise myself that I’m going to start talking to Miriam about everything.

  We cut down our hike to half a day since we’re both exhausted and bruised from our tangle last night. After we’re done hiking, we fall into the Taurus and explore some of the back roads, trying out gravel and dirt drives, diving into the woodland, sometimes ending up nowhere.

  As we come out into a grassland that slopes away toward the distant sea, we see an abandoned cabin with the roof still intact. We park and walk over.

  It looks a lot like that old two-room down by the river. I keep walking around it, peering in the windows, like I might see Mama in her rocker or Daddy taking a swig of white lightning.

  Miriam comes behind me as I stare into the cabin. “It reminds you of something, doesn’t it?”

  I shake my head yes. “It reminds me of Mama.”

  She’s listening.

  “Mama would sing in the evenings sometimes. We lived in a place no bigger than this. It was right on that river.” I close my eyes and breathe in.

  “What is it?” she says.

  “Can’t you smell it? The mud of the river. The yaupon crowding the bank. I can hear the bugs in the weeds, the slither of the coachwhip, and the screech owl screaming. That would scare you right up off the floor.” Then I remember the smoke over me. I feel tears coming, but I don’t want her to see.

  And that memory of Mama and the smoke brings me back to that place I know so well. “This would be a good place to commit suicide,” I say. I don’t look at her, afraid I’ll see Violet painted all over.

  “Don’t say that ever again,” she says.

  I gaze over the sea, which is picking up the sun, gleaming. “Okay.”

  And while I’m looking that way, she takes a picture of me with that shitty camera. I turn to yell at her, but the look in her face stops me.

  “You’re so beautiful,” she says. “And now, if I can’t see you while I’m on tour, I can still remember how you look.”

  After we leave, I write down how we got there, just in case I’d ever want to go back. Then we drive to the hotel and have a gorgeous bottle of Margaux with a meal that would have made Larry so jealous, he would have wrecked the kitchen.

  The next morning, we drive to Berkeley, with Miriam in some kind of latent vacation bliss. Every now and then she rouses herself as if she’s dreaming and talking in her sleep. She looks over at me to get my attention and says, “Watching the tooms,” or, “Laid out flat on their backs.” She reaches over and takes my hand, then looks off again.

  I’m driving, haunted by Violet, knowing what I should do about Bates, but too scared to think about it.

  I remember them bringing Violet into the room. I remember her misery. Her hands were cuffed behind, and the man presented his dick to her, not helping. The music boomed crazy in my body.

  Violet took it in her mouth, eyes closed, her face looking to me now like she was already dying. I saw how she’d been going slow since the day we brought her out of the basement, how Ben and his plays were sucking the life out of her.

  She worked him, but he didn’t moan, didn’t tremble or shake. He stared down at her face. I felt the dangers like they were crawling my skin, like they were tunneling into my eyes. I began to berserk, trying to scream at the video eye. Nothing happened.

  Then came the first slap. He knocked her head to the side. Another. He took hold of her neck with a black-gloved hand so big that his fingers almost touched in back. And with his other fist, he beat her back and forth, back and forth on the face. Then he stopped. She slumped, being held in place by his hand on her throat. Then with the other hand, he grabbed her hair.

  I don’t think I saw the knife in his hand. It was like a magical thing, how suddenly Violet came apart, like a seam ripped, as though something from within had to leap out. And my first thought was, yes, this is how Violet is best, her wounds the truer wounds of a life shed years ago.

  In that moment, I thought her face the most beautiful ever, for as his hand swept along her neck, she opened her eyes. They were empty of everything but surprise. A kind surprise, as though all was forgiven, forgotten, and let go.

  And then she went to sleep, her blood squirting in my face and over my breasts until her heart weakened, sighed, reducing its flow to a silent, feeble bubble.

  I wailed. I cried. But the gag kept me muffled. The man swept his magic hand along her stomach. Out poured pieces of Violet.

  I watched her disappear. I waited as all signs of what she had been melted down into the red pool widening its reach to my feet.

  Only then did I remember that he was there. I noticed the gym shoes on his feet, surrounded by red. I recognized the pattern of red across his coat, which Violet had painted there. His dust mask was spotted in a streak.

  Behind his sunglasses, between the red drops, I knew he was letting me know and see everything.

  Now that Violet had gone to sleep, he was thinking of me.

  12

  New York

  We get back to Miriam’s place around noon and unpack the Taurus. I leave her there, telling her I’m going to bring a few things to my place, park the Taurus in the garage, and return later.

  I buzz into Oakland and dial Bates.

  I’m shaking. “Okay,” I say.

  He lets out a sigh.

  “When do you want me there?”

  “Monday should give us time to get set.”

  “What time?”

  “Come in early afternoon. We should be done by seven or eight.”

  “I thought this was just a lineup. That shouldn’t take more than an hour.”

  “I want to talk to you face to face first. Go through everything you remember.”

  I’m trembling head to foot. “This is scaring me.”

  “I know. I’ll be there with you the whole time.”

  “Somehow, that doesn’t work for me.”

  “Where do you want me to pick you up?”
<
br />   “I don’t know yet. I’ll phone you after I get travel arrangements figured.”

  We hang up.

  I drop some guns at my place and park the Taurus. Then I catch a cab to Miriam’s.

  “You all right?” Miriam says when I get to her place.

  “I’ve got to talk to you about something.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I’ve got to talk to you, too.”

  We stare at each other.

  “I’ll go first,” she says. “Let’s sit down.”

  We sit at the table in the kitchen.

  “Johnson called. I’m wrapping up here.” She says, “In a week or so, I’ll go home to Seattle. Things will get wild after that. I haven’t said anything to you before, but there’s a long tour planned. And of course all the promos, interviews, a lot of media.”

  She takes my hand in hers. I can feel the blood draining out of my face.

  “I want you to move to Seattle with me,” she says. “There are plenty of restaurants in Seattle where you could work. We can get you an apartment, but I’d like to talk about you moving in with me. What I’d really like is if you don’t get a job at all, but just go around with me. Interviews and touring are hell.”

  “So,” I say. “You’d keep me?”

  “Don’t put it like that. What would be so bad about it? We’d keep you away from the cameras, which seems to suit you fine. We’ve got time to talk it out.”

  This is looking to be a tequila day.

  “Now, what do you want to talk to me about?”

  I wet my lips. “I got a letter from my sister. I have to go see her for a day. Next Monday. I’ll leave in the morning and come back late, maybe not until two or three in the morning.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “She’s sick.” I need to brush up on my lying.

  She turns my face to her and looks in my eyes. “You’re lying to me.”

  Why does she have to be so smart? I pull my hand away and lie my head on the table for a minute. Then I look at her again.

  “The detective wants me to see a lineup to try and finger the guy that stabbed me.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No.” I hit the table with my hand when I say it and stand up, pacing. “It’s too dangerous. I don’t want you involved. If you got hurt, it would kill me.”

  “Why would I get hurt? What aren’t you telling me? God, you look terrible. Will you come back here?”

  “No,” I say and start pacing with a vengeance. I glance at her. The look in her face hurts me.

  “This is the shitty past part, isn’t it?”

  I take a deep breath. “When I was there, in New York, I was a prostitute.” I watch her face go pretty damn white. “The pimp got me when I was sixteen. I was a runaway.” I open the fridge and grab a beer, twisting off the top and drinking half the thing in one long swig.

  “You wanted to know about the other scars,” I say. “They were from him. He whipped me. I was with him ten years.” I chug the rest of the beer.

  “Those are whip marks? Jesus, Becca. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know. I was afraid you’d leave. And I hate to remember about all of it. There were things that happened, things he did to me.” I find myself edging back. I hit the refrigerator. “Things that happened,” I try again. Miriam stands like she’s going to come over. “No,” I say. “Let me finish.”

  She sinks back down.

  I force myself to walk to the table and sit down in front of her. I take both of her hands. “He let me go for five years, but then he made me start working for him again in June this year. He beat me the last time, and then gave me eight hours to get my stuff and come back to him so he could reacquire me. The fucker’s in love with me.” I see Miriam’s eyes shut.

  “So I ran away. That’s how I came to Berkeley. I was getting ready to take off again when I met you. That’s what I was doing in that camping store the day we ran into each other again.”

  I bow my head, then look back. “If that pimp finds me, I’ll never see the light of day again. And if he knew that there was someone that I loved, he’d hurt you just to get me.” I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so much panic in anyone’s face. I reach up and touch her cheek.

  “I’ve thought at times that I should leave you so that you’d be safe, but I love you so much, I can’t do it. So you have to stay here. I’m just flying in and back out. I’ll cover my trail the best I can.”

  She’s quiet. “Rebecca’s not your real name.”

  “No.”

  “What is it?”

  “That’s anyone’s best guess.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I’ve had so many names, I get confused.”

  “What if you don’t come back?”

  I wait a moment. “Do you want me to come back now that you know I was a prostitute?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t care about that. Don’t you know that I love you?”

  I sigh, trying not to cry. She touches my face. “Then I’ll be back,” I say. “I’m getting good at this kind of thing. But I’ll give you the name and number of the detective. Call him only if I don’t show up by, I don’t know, noon the next day.”

  “He calls you?”

  “No. That’s why I read the Times every day. He puts an ad in the personals for me. To Tut from Beefy.”

  She laughs. “Beefy?” Then she starts crying.

  I walk behind her and hold her.

  “That’s how you got stabbed,” she says. “As a prostitute.” Her voice is hoarse.

  “Yes. We were working a play.”

  “A play?”

  “That’s what he calls it. Ben is his name. It’s like theater for the rich and famous. God, could I tell you stories about some famous people. We were prisoners there. Most of the time, it didn’t seem too bad. But sometimes, for punishment, he did terrible things.” I close my eyes. Lights are shooting off all over the room. “Violet was one of his, too. We were in the same room working the play, but I was tied. I couldn’t move. I saw it all.”

  “And the guy stabbed you.”

  “I don’t remember that part. For a long time I didn’t remember anything. I thought I had an appendectomy.”

  She turns and clings to me, crying again. Then she stands and drags me upstairs onto the bed. We lie together.

  “I’ll come back. I promise.”

  “How did you get through all that? Ten years? I think I would have curled up and died.”

  “I didn’t have any other choice. He beat the shit out of us. He whipped. He fed us drugs. He had this box just big enough to fold a person up in. He’d lock you up in that for awhile. You just make yourself get through it somehow.” I’m seeing the ghosts now. They’re all over the room.

  She’s quiet, but leaning over me, her fingers playing in my hair.

  “I’ve got to make a phone call to get the plane flight worked out.”

  She lies down while I sit on the edge of the bed and pick up the phone. I dial Jill’s number, feeling nostalgic about those days in Monongahela. They seem so set apart now, as though they were easy. But then the trout began to rise.

  Jill answers the phone.

  “Jill,” I say.

  “Becca. How are you? Did you get the package Daddy sent?”

  “It was perfect. Tell him he has my thanks, but I could use another favor.”

  She waits.

  “Do you think I look like Rob?”

  Silence. “Is this a trick question?”

  I smile. “No. I mean it. I think we’re close enough. The ticket people at airlines never look you in the face anyway, right? I could say I’d had a face-lift since the ID was made.”

  She laughs. “Now that you mention it, I think you could slip by, maybe, if they’re not paying attention. You should buy a trout vest.”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “So where are you planning on flying using Rob’s face?”

  “I’m com
ing in to New York to look at a lineup. Could you make the reservations under your name? I’ll wire you money.”

  She doesn’t hesitate. “What do you need?”

  “This Monday. A flight from San Francisco to arrive in Philly in time for me to catch a train into Penn Station. I need to arrive in New York by one. Return train from New York to Baltimore, leaving around nine. Then a plane back to San Francisco.”