Stacking in Rivertown

by Barbara Bell

  It’s Kat.

  “Beth,” she says. “It’s Katherine. You remember me.”

  “Yeah, Kathy. How’s the kids?”

  “Gone to the four winds.”

  I search her face and stare into her eyes. I follow the shape of her lips. Her voice fills me like the first time I heard it. I want to wrap her in my arms, desperate for touch. But she’s so thin. So drawn.

  Her clothing is something Kat would have never worn before. Two red scratches run the length of her neck, and inside one arm I see tracks, some fresh, some purple.

  “I was the first he ever took to the basement,” Kat says. “He had a small place in Brooklyn then. I met him at Columbia my second year at school. I didn’t have much of a family, just like you. He was always looking for that. But he got me to come to his place one night. I didn’t see the light of day for six months.

  “By that time, I was his. I’ve seen it work so many times. To survive, I learned to help him. And now, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go. I never imagined that Ben would be gone.”

  And looking at Kat, to remember her skin, her arms, I ache so sudden. And in my head it’s as if I see Miriam disappearing, turning her back to me as she walks away. I know I never deserved Miriam’s love. Yet before me sits Kat, my first love, anyone’s heart’s desire.

  But her eyes. God, her eyes are like Violet’s in Bates’ photos, having been drained of life, having siphoned down into the Dumpster. I notice for the first time how the human face is not a whole thing but an assembly of parts, easy to unmake.

  “I came because I wanted to see you so badly,” she says. “And to tell you I’m sorry for everything I did to you.”

  “No,” I say, interrupting.

  “Shh, Beth. Let me finish.” Now her head falls to the side. “I’m most sorry about that last day in the car. I just wanted you back safe. I didn’t want Ben to hurt you.”

  I think of her naked then, and how her skin was like milk, creamy and cool.

  “I’m going to talk to your lawyer. But I had to see you first.” Her eyes intensify. “I love you so, Beth.”

  I’m trying hard not to cry. “Don’t, Kat. I don’t care if I’m in prison. Wait for me. I want you to be free.”

  She smiles, but it’s a terrible thing, a face behind a face, having been kept secret within.

  “I want to make things right, Beth. From that first night I drugged you, I regretted everything. But then having you with me in our prison brought me such happiness. So I want to help you now.”

  My tears are running down my face. And the scent of her comes over me.

  “It wasn’t all bad, Kat. You taught me how to be a person. You taught me about the best things in life. I would have never written that book if it hadn’t been for you.”

  For one moment, I see that I’ve gotten through, that I’ve touched something inside of her. “I’m rich now, Kat. When I get out, I’ll take care of you.”

  She looks at me with the eyes that spent six months in Ben’s basement, those eyes that brought powerful men near to tears. She doesn’t say anything.

  A guard tells me time is up. Kat stands. I keep looking back.

  I remember her hands, how she pressed them together in front of her chest.

  Kat is arrested on her way out of the prison. There are also outstanding warrants for her arrest from New York in connection with Ben’s murders. Kat is sucked into the California system of so-called justice, disappearing from my view.

  “I’ve got to see her,” I keep harping at Cynthia. “She’s sick. I know how to help her.”

  She stares at me. “Becca, have you talked to the psychiatrist yet? I told you to do that weeks ago.”

  “She needs me,” I say again.

  Kat, arrested and indicted under her birth name, Alissa Moulin, gives evidence that verifies my story about the threats made against me.

  Cynthia is on cloud nine.

  Then Bates is taken off the critical list. He learns about Ben’s shooting, and how I’m being charged with murder. From what I hear, he blows a tube, of which he still has a few poking out.

  Now Cynthia’s ready to negotiate.

  They offer me second-degree murder and the baseline sentence of fifteen to twenty.

  Cynthia laughs.

  She begins to talk like we should go to trial, saying that the chance of me walking is now in my favor. I balk. I worry. The dangers get me.

  I’m certain that if I go to trial, I’ll lose. It’s been one thing after another, starting with Mandy’s appendicitis and ending with Miriam’s desertion.

  At this point, there’s nothing else it could be. She’ll write, I keep thinking. She’ll call Josh. But she never does.

  So I refuse to go to trial and order Cynthia to get me the best deal she can wrangle. “I spent ten years with Ben,” I say. “Prison is a walk in the park.”

  She stares into my eyes, but I look away. I don’t tell her that I’m terrified, that the great Clarisse Broder, who jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge, is scared shitless to be walking around free with only a memory of Miriam in her head.

  But I can’t stop myself from searching out news of Miriam. I watch while her CD goes up the charts and her sold-out concerts are given great reviews. As the weeks progress, she’s lauded, praised, and called a shoo-in for a Grammy.

  The cliff I’m dropping off gets a lot more treacherous. I stop seeing visitors. I don’t read my mail. I have periods when I can’t move at all, even if I try. I somehow manage to keep this a secret.

  Now I’m one of the ghosts flicking through, haunting the cells, where all my lovers lay, stacked, put away, like dolls flat on their backs, sleeping in Rivertown.

  Beloved lover.

  Then the final bargain comes through.

  Cynthia arrives and they usher me into the lawyer room. “Manslaughter,” she says, not smiling. “Three years including time already served, possibility of parole as soon as fifteen months.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  Cynthia paces. “As your lawyer, it’s my responsibility to do my best for you. I think the bargain is decent, but my advice is to go to trial.”

  I get my mouth open, but she interrupts, pounding the table.

  “You can beat this thing, Becca. With Kat and Bates on your side, I can shred their case. Everybody wants you to go to trial, Becca. Burt, Josh, Greg. They’re upset that you’d accept this plea.”

  I lie my head on the table.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m going to say it one time. Give evidence on Miriam. All you have to do is confirm she was up there that day. Then the police can force a fingerprint check.”

  Cynthia stops in front of me, one hand leaning on the table. “Why keep up the charade, Becca? She hasn’t done a goddamn

  thing for you.”

  I raise my head, my eyes burning, feeling for the first time that if I had a gun in my hand right now, I’d pull the trigger. Cynthia takes a step away from me.

  I lie my head back down.

  “Okay,” she says. I hear her packing up her stuff. “I’ll come back tomorrow. But I’m sending the prison psychiatrist over to see you this afternoon.”

  “The last thing I need is a fucking shrink,” I say.

  “I don’t think you’re in any state to know what you need.”

  I jerk my head up. “So who the fuck does? There isn’t anybody. Zilch. Zero. I’m sure the state would like to step in. That would be grand.”

  “Stop it, Becca. Stop it right now.” She glares at me. “You’re impossible.” She picks up her briefcase and folds her raincoat over her arm. “I’m sending the psychiatrist today. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  That afternoon, they take me from my cell and drag me to see the shrink.

  Just a nervous breakdown. Women have them all the time.

  When Cynthia comes back the next day, we argue again. This time it’s me pounding the table. “Do I have to fucking spell it out for you? I don’t want to ge
t out. I want to stay right here.”

  Cynthia’s face goes blank. She stops her pacing and sits, staring at me for a long time.

  “Okay,” she says at last. “We’ll take the plea.”

  Before she leaves, she steps behind me and puts both of her hands on my shoulders. “Things will get better, Becca. You’ll see. You’ve got friends who care about you.”

  I nod and put my head down. She leaves.

  The bargain goes through. A week later, I stand before the judge. I’m charged. I plead guilty. I’m sentenced.

  Three years. Fifteen months if I can keep my shit together. My thoughts now are fixed on Kat. In my mind, I tell her to hang on, that I’ll help her. Just fifteen months, I promise.

  Three days later, Cynthia shows up. Her face is splotchy. She sits and searches me with her round, brown eyes.

  “Becca, look at me.”

  I allow my eyes to drift to hers. But in my head, I hear the willows beating the air. I smell the heat off the mudflats. At times, I can forget I’m in a cell and locked up. I have moments where Miriam disappears altogether.

  “Becca. It’s about Kat. They were going to transfer her to New York tomorrow. She was facing nine counts of accomplice to murder.” She stops.

  I look straight through her.

  “She’s dead,” I say.

  Cynthia looks away. “Hung herself off her bedframe.”

  It’s strange how the river becomes so plain, like I’m standing in the grass again. The night presses close. The mists grow heavy. The frogs sing.

  I remember that one year I heard Daddy saying something to Mama about how a sudden surge of the river had swept off a whole herd of cows, and that parts of them ended up in people’s houses along with the muck. Daddy laughed. That was my first inkling that our houses were a lot like Dumpsters.

  But in this moment of Kat and the world of our secret suffering, I see how what I am is nothing more than a Dumpster, a receptacle for that which no one else finds valuable. I see how Kat is broken, like Violet, and perched upon garbage, her blanket drawn back. Strangers stare at her beautiful body. That body that I loved.

  I don’t cry. I stand and walk away, turning at the door. Cynthia hasn’t moved. She’s staring down at her hands resting on the table.

  “Claim her body for me. I’ll take care of her burial.”

  Cynthia closes her eyes and nods.

  I leave and lie on my cot, not making noise or bother. I think about the times when Kat and I used to act out Romeo and Juliet.

  I will kiss thy lips,

  Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,

  To make me die with a restorative.

  Thy lips are warm!

  Kat would be lying still upon her mattress, having died of poison. I’d kneel beside, clutching the bread knife we used.

  . . . then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger!

  This is thy sheath.

  I have no more room. My quotient of loss is filled too full. When weight has gathered beyond its limit, something must be removed.

  But will the soul do? Is it lighter than a feather? Would I find the film and slip through easy?

  The next day I wake, unable to remember some important things. When our cell door is unlocked, I sit on the edge of my bed, staring. The large black woman who was sleeping where Vin should have been is halfway out the door when she looks back.

  “Come on, honey,” she says, taking me by the hand.

  Things begin to blur out. The next thing I remember is that I’m sitting in front of the TV. I hear a voice that I remember. She’s a lovely woman. Oprah is smiling at her and acts like they’ve been chums for years. I keep staring at her face, trying out names, thinking that I know her.

  Oprah lays her hand on this woman’s arm. She’s thin, thinner than she should be, I think I remember. And for a moment, I catch a slight tremble in her hand. She hides it beneath her leg.

  “My guest today, as I’m sure everyone knows, is Miriam Dubois, whom all the experts say might walk out with an arm-load of Grammies tonight.”

  Miriam. That was her name. I knew a Miriam once. I loved her. And now I feel her hand along my back. Her fingers run through my hair.

  Oprah turns. “So let’s pick up where we left off before the break. I’m sure everyone wants to know the answer to this question.”

  The young woman’s eyes sparkle with a thing that I think I misplaced somewhere. When she smiles, the corners of her eyes are so tender.

  I want to touch just there, where the tenderness has come alive. And then perhaps to sit. Not near, but close enough to watch, to sense her presence in a room with me. I think I should die for that.

  Oprah leans close, like girls telling secrets. “So tell me, Miriam, there were rumors months ago that you’d found someone special in your life. I’d love to be the first to know.”

  Miriam laughs. My head tilts. I feel a thrill run through me.

  “Come on, girlfriend. You can tell me.”

  Miriam smiles. She shakes her head. “No.”

  I’m so attentive now, all of me hanging on her words. And I catch in the camera close-up of her face, the gleam of those eyes. “No,” she says again. “There’s no one.”

  I find that I’d leaned forward, and now I sit back as her words settle. Maybe they’re just sheets of paper, so thin you’d never know the weight of them. Weight is a tricky thing anyway.

  No. There’s no one.

  I can see why she’d say that. I understand. Yet I keep searching that face, those lips, looking for a slight sign. A giveaway. That she’s lying.

  But she’s so smooth. Her delivery so sure and unbroken.

  No. There’s no one.

  I know that. I know how she’s right. There is no one. No one at all. There’s no one.

  By nine, we’re locked in our cells. By nine thirty, my credit card-loving roommate is snoring up a storm.

  I rise from my bed and take out a piece of stationery that Josh brought me. I think I remember, like some long-ago dream, that I wrote a note like this once before. Only it was different then. At that time, I was only pretending.

  I write:

  Lovely Miriam,

  A Grammy would be nice for you.

  Someone asked me today whether, just in case I died,there was anyone I’d like to name as my beneficiary. I had to think. Then I said, No. There’s no one.

  I wish you the best.

  Becca

  I kneel and slip my knife from its hiding place. It’s so good to keep a weapon nearby. Just in case.

  I lie on my bed and read my note again, then let it drop on my chest. The knife isn’t easy to work. In order to get to the arteries in my wrists, I have to do some hefty slashing.

  And as I’m drifting, keeping my eyes fixed on the willow leaves trembling, I float with Vin and Mandy again, watching the banks ease by, hoping for a little rest.

  The night Vin and me sat by watching our house go to ashes, he wrapped his arms around me. Neither of us ever cried.

  I always wondered why we never even tried to get help. I think we’d already given up hope about something that should have been as natural as air.

  So by the time I’d gotten to the real meat of my wrist and exposed a bit of bone, it wasn’t Miriam I was thinking of anymore. I found that in the center of my body, lying silent and red along my skeleton, I’d kept that last memory of Mama, fresh as the day she died, and promising her over and over, I will be true. I will be true. And beside her apparition and below, was that prevenient groan, whose nature can be known only by its shadow.

  It is our lovers who cast us this shadow. How could we ever

  turn away?

  So it is Ben that I cling to now. Ben and his multiple wounds divine and bathed in radiance. I desire no other. Having seen the shadow plain, having guessed at its unseen nature, I shrink back, beaten down at last by that which I have carried secret and blind in my own broken body.

  PART III

  Rebirth

  1
6

  Stacking in Rivertown