by Janet Capron
Meanwhile, Maggie had run out of the park, as it turned out, to call the police.
“If it were a man taking a snooze on a park bench on a warm afternoon, do you think anybody would be throwing him into the nuthouse? Oh yeah, and look at me: I’m dirty and smelly and I’ve got a crack on my head and blood on my skirt, so I must be nuts, right? When a man becomes totally violent, they throw him in the drunk tank overnight. When a woman misbehaves, gets out of line even just a little bit, they lock her away forever. Watch out boys, female at large! Woman on the loose! Whatsa matter, do I scare you? Do I threaten you?” I screamed at Fred and George. Then I spit in their smug faces.
“A woman—that is a white woman—stretches out on a park bench, and they come right down on her. Can you dig what they’re doing to me?” I was addressing the crowd now. “You’re not free until I’m free!” I yelled, twisting and turning in the surprisingly strong grip of the two doctors.
Maggie came sailing back then, flanked by what looked like a squadron of cops. They pushed their way through the crowd.
“All you pigs for one little defenseless chick?” I said, laughing a hollow laugh.
The knife was still in my hand. Fred had not been able to get it away from me. A cop came up and took it. Several others eased the doctors away and assumed their place. I had at least three or four of them restraining me. When I heard the ambulance, I struggled again, just to register one final protest, and then I gave up, letting the cops shove me along. Maggie was already seated on one of the narrow benches lining the back of the ambulance.
“You sons of bitches. Nobody’s gonna fuck with me,” I said after they pushed me inside.
The cop riding with us sat up straight. “You better simmer down, sister,” he said.
But he and I both knew this last expression of my outrage was merely a formality. It was just that I did not want to remember myself riding along to my doom without even a whimper.
I focused my narrowed eyes on Maggie, who was sitting very tall, her mouth set in a hard, thin line. She looked self-righteously hellbent on remaining in control. In control of everything, I thought. I would have liked to beat her phony composure clear out of her, to knock those thick glasses off her face and smash them.
“I thought you didn’t want to have anything more to do with me,” I said.
“Janet, I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked. “I had to do this.” She started to cry.
“Oh, shit, I don’t know why you’re crying. They’re not putting you away. Mother, stop them, you don’t know what it’s like. Stop them before it’s too late!” I yelled.
She turned her head.
The ambulance pulled up to a red light. Through the back window, I could see the two doctors in their Lincoln Continental tailgating us in the rush-hour traffic. Meanwhile, the two of us and the cop were all traveling for free through the streets of New York. A five-dollar cab ride at the very least. I felt pampered riding in the ambulance. But the gods, fair-weather friends that I knew them to be, had disappeared. I was stuck inside the crush of three dimensions one more time, in a paddy wagon with the woman who had always been out to destroy me. She had hunted me down and trapped me just because I was a wild thing.
The ambulance began to move again, crawling slowly up the avenue. There was no air where we sat. My bleached-dead hair was plastered with sweat. My whole body ached. Now Maggie was crying again.
She was embarrassing me in front of the cop. ‘I travel in the company of fools,’ I thought. Oh well, you had to forgive her. She didn’t know what she was doing. I sank back on the hard bench. Then, without warning, I burst into tears: real salt tears covering my contorted red face, the mucus running from my nose. Everything obliterated. I began to sob convulsively; I had been seized with a revelation of grief. Maggie staggered across the rocking ambulance, sat down, and put her arms around me. She held me and patted my back awkwardly, not sure what to do, as if I were someone else’s strange, small child.
“There, there” was all she could think to say at first, but then, as if she had suddenly gotten the word, she added, “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.”
We continued to ride like that, me weeping silently and peacefully on my mother’s shoulder until we got to Bellevue.
Bellevue
An “old-timer”—someone with long-term sobriety—once said after hearing my story, “This disease takes you where it wants you to go.”
It took me finally to Bellevue, where they—in this case the faceless, inaccessible hospital authorities—pumped me full of the newest and strongest narcoleptic, Haldol. After about two hours, I was vibrating and twitching in the unfurnished dayroom beside the other quivering outcasts, all of us staring at a restless TV picture that jumped and rotated along with us. That night, I had to sleep on a rubber sheet. The following morning, I was forced to take a cold bath in the one tub everyone had to use, but forbidden a towel because, the warden of the bath said, there were no towels to be had just then. After I bathed and dressed in front of the warden, who glared at me the whole time, I was released back to the dayroom.
A shrunken, toothless, little white woman turned crone too soon by the street approached me slyly in that human warehouse and pressed something into my hand. It was a raised, satin-faced picture of the Virgin. Her robe was a shimmering cerulean blue, her dress underneath was the color of a robin’s breast, and her face peered up through a gilded halo. I made good use of my gift, praying to Mary more or less constantly for the next few hours until Maggie showed up.
She marched across the visitors’ room to where I was standing in front of the big windows covered in wire mesh. I was vibrating from my morning dose of Haldol and otherwise amusing myself watching the gridlock on First Avenue. Maggie looked like she had come on serious business. She was wearing a navy-blue miracle-fiber suit and sturdy black heels, and had combed her flyaway hair back behind big gold earrings.
“Janet, why didn’t you tell me about Rayfield? Don’t you think I would want to know? I never would’ve had you put in Bellevue if I’d known!”
“Well, Mom, I thought about it, but then I was pretty sure you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Of course I would have believed you. Janet, nobody would make up something like that.”
“So who, especially at seven in the morning, would make up being raped?”
“Oh.” Maggie swallowed hard. “Oh. I’m sorry. But now what are we going to do? Poor Janet. We’ve got a real situation on our hands.” She looked sheepish. “How am I going to get you out of here? I signed that paper, you know.”
“Mother, don’t give me that helpless bullshit. Call your two buddies, Fred and what’s-his-name, George. Call the fucking shrinks. They put me in, they can get me out.”
“Yes, yes. Of course, I’ll call them right away. I’m sure it can be arranged once they know the circumstances.” She paused. “We do have a little time. Betsy is waiting until Saturday to have the funeral so the children and grandchildren can make arrangements. Thoughtful as always. She’s handling everything all by herself. She was the strong one in that marriage.”
“All right, Mom. Cool it. The old man just died.”
“Of course, you’re right. You’ve been through a lot these past few days, Janet, too much. And I haven’t been much good to you, have I? But I was trying to save your life. You do understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes. Anyway, nobody should have to, but people around the world go through hell and worse every day. I don’t know that a choice of horrors didn’t help somehow. One thing distracted me from the other and vice versa, you know? But this little Bellevue episode is a bit much to handle, even for me, Mom.”
I then told her everything that was going on, including the ice-cold bath and no towel. I knew that detail would get her.
“Oh my God, it’s worse than Olivia de Havilland in The Snake Pit! Oh Jesus, Janet, I’ve got to get you out of here. Just be brave. It won’t be long.”
“Hurry up, please. And,
Mom, you have to get word to Eddie.”
“How do you expect me to do that? You don’t own a phone.”
“Please, it’s imperative. Those guys who raped me are going to kill him. It’s a matter of life and death. Maybe he’s safe with Evelyn on City Island, I don’t know. I hope so. But if not, then what? Please. Anyway, I want him to know I’m OK. Won’t you go to our house and slip a message inside?”
“No. I refuse to go down there by myself. It’s too dangerous. Eddie can call me if he’s so worried.”
I almost asked her to get in touch with Evelyn but then thought better of it. “OK then, could you maybe just call the Monterey Bar and Grill? Tell whoever answers to have Eddie call you. Mom, please.”
“All right, I can do that.”
“Right now, today? Promise?”
“I promise, Janet. Don’t get so excited.”
Maggie did leave a message at the Monterey with old Doc himself, but she never heard back from Eddie. That night on the six o’clock local news she found out she never would. She just caught the tail end of it, the part where they showed the original footage of Donna Vickers, clearly shaken, being escorted out of her saloon, Chester’s. Donna was blinking in the morning light, trying to shield her eyes from both the rising sun and the cameras. Then they showed footage of Arthur O’Rourke earlier that afternoon when he was released from the police station. He made no attempt to hide his face. He just stood there and gazed into the camera. He was tall with a drooping moustache and appeared surprisingly dignified under the circumstances, inconsolably sad. Maggie had never seen him before, but she knew the name: one of Janet’s men, Arthur from the Alamo, old Arthur.
I didn’t get to watch the local news, because the consensus on the floor at Bellevue was that news was boring compared with Starsky and Hutch reruns. The vertically rolling TV picture, even though it moved slowly down the screen, made talking heads hard to follow. Car chases, for some reason, lent themselves better to that format.
After what Maggie saw, she wasted no time getting in touch with Donna, who volunteered to come see me the following day. Visiting me in a hellhole like Bellevue didn’t faze Donna. Most of her oldest friends and best customers had ended up on the flight deck at one time or other. In any case, it had happened on her watch and she wanted to be the one to tell me.
I went and stood in front of the bank of wire-mesh-covered windows. The sun poured over a sooty group of related hospital buildings across First Avenue. A few people scurried along the street below. It was afternoon, around two, and traffic was moving. I watched the free world carry on, oblivious. I turned and stared at Donna. I kept peering into her face. The big beauty mark above her lip fascinated me. Even without any makeup, her coloring was vivid and her features well defined. She was conventionally pretty. But Donna ignored this fact in order to live like a man. She had no personal vanity, as if, having chosen the life of a professional rummy, she had decided it would violate her code to pay attention to her looks. I wasn’t thinking at all about what she had just told me. Instead, I was contemplating all of this when she cupped my face in her hands and said, “OK, Janet, let’s sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit right now. I want to stay by the window.”
I felt my stomach tighten up and a dull weight descend right on my solar plexus. A longing for Eddie kicked in immediately, which surprised me.
Donna thought I should know how it went down. She turned her back to the light and parked herself on the windowsill.
“I was sitting there at the bar after closing waiting for Arthur to come by for a drink.”
She saw the expression on my face.
“OK, yeah, Arthur and I occasionally get it on. Never mind. I was sitting there, I don’t know why in the dark, sipping my drink. I wasn’t doing lines or anything, just sitting listening to the quiet. It was soothing in the dark. Then Eddie knocks on the window. Of course I let him in. Why wouldn’t I? You know I loved little Eddie, Janet. You know I did.”
Her voice broke a little.
“He starts waving this piece in my face. ‘We’re going down to the safe,’ he says, ‘and you’re going to give me all your money.’” She sounded incredulous.
“‘Eddie, what’s the matter? You don’t need to point that thing at me. Eddie, you and I are true friends, asshole buddies. I’d never let anything happen to you if I could help it. I’ll give you whatever you need. Just put down the gun.’
“He starts shaking. He says, ‘No, man, you don’t understand. I can’t take that chance. Let’s say I do put the gun down and then you decide to change your mind about helping me—I’m fucked. The people I owe, if I don’t pay them now, it’s not like they’re just gonna break my kneecaps. Yeah, sure, you and me used to be tight, but I can’t afford to have friends anymore. That’s over. Take me down to the safe now, capiche? Otherwise I’m going to hurt you.’
“OK, so I had no problem believing him. Janet, he was gone, out of control. His eyes were wild. I’d never seen him like that, or anyone really. I was fucking scared. But I kept talking. I figured if he could just hear a calm, reassuring tone, like a mother, you know, someone who would never hurt him, who would only help him. It’s a blur now, but I remember we were in the basement, right across from the stairs in that little room where the safe is. I was still talking, telling him to put down the gun. Take everything in the safe, but for God’s sake stop pointing that thing right at my temple. Eddie or no Eddie, he was like a stranger. It was driving me crazy, I was so scared. I was shaking, trying to get the combination lock to click. And then we both hear someone on the stairs. Eddie starts to back out and turn around, still holding the gun. The next thing I know, I hear a shot. Eddie collapses on the ground. That was it, Janet. Instant. It was horrible, terrible. God, I’m sorry.”
Donna started hugging herself. Then she put her head down and turned her face away from me. Still looking away, she said, “At least he didn’t suffer. I don’t think he ever knew what hit him, if that’s any consolation.
“Anyway it was Arthur, the gunny sergeant, the sharpshooter. He come by to see me and stepped inside because the door was open, heard me pleading with Eddie to put down the gun. Obviously he didn’t know who I was talking to. Arthur went behind the counter and got my Saturday night special, the one I picked up in Florida, out of the drawer underneath the cash register. He knew just where I kept it. So does everybody. It isn’t a secret. He went to the head of the stairs and pointed the gun down in the direction of Eddie. When Eddie backed out like that I’m sure Arthur still didn’t know who it was—didn’t have time to know—just a guy with a piece ripping me off. Well, I mean, you get what happened. It really was all a terrible accident, Janet.
“Poor Eddie. I gotta say it. For a smart kid, he could be incredibly stupid. None of this ever should’ve happened. You know, Janet, I would have given him the money, all of it in that safe, whatever he needed, no questions asked. It was just a couple of nights’ worth anyhow. I loved Eddie. OK, he was crazy. Hell, I knew that. I knew he was a junkie. Who didn’t? But Eddie, he was special.”
The sun all of a sudden dipped and made a beeline for my eyes. It hurt. By this time Donna was patting me on the back, and then she put her arm around me, because it had finally hit me for real, and I was crying. My whole body just seemed to give out and I started to faint. Donna grabbed me, steered me to the long table and sat me down. She called over a nurse’s aide.
“Get her something to drink. She’s just had some very bad news.”
We waited a long time for the aide to come back. Donna mostly held me while I cried. I just couldn’t stop. Physically couldn’t. Every time I tried to stop it was like a force backed up inside and then broke through. I gave up trying. Donna told me to let the tears come. It did feel good, the grief pouring out of me. I kept picturing little Eddie the first time I saw him sitting in the tree. I could hear him calling after me, “Janet, don’t go.” If only I hadn’t walked out the door.
I felt that I h
ad let him down that night and in some basic way a long time ago. Maybe I could have done something. Been stronger. Stood for something other than willful self-destruction. I felt that I just let him die. Donna was crying now, too. I think to some degree she felt the same way. It’s like we were both watching Eddie kill himself, and we did nothing. In fact, we were entertained by it really. Of course, neither one of us were doing that much to take care of ourselves either. But Eddie was the most spectacular. He went higher than anyone.
Finally the aide showed up again with a young doctor in tow. The doctor had a lot of straight black hair that kept falling over his forehead. He would occasionally brush it back with his hand, almost flirtatiously, while Donna explained, with a hostile edge in her voice, that I needed to leave Bellevue and go home to my mother. First she told him my father just died. Then she told him about Eddie. He actually was familiar with the news story. I don’t think a death in the family necessarily would’ve moved him, but all of a sudden, he linked my being locked up in Bellevue with the big news event. Maybe he thought he smelled yet another suit against the city and the beleaguered hospital, this time incurred on his watch. He could see the headlines: “Police Drag Grief-Stricken Girlfriend off to Bellevue.” Anyway, he agreed with Donna right away. I was amazed. He instructed the aide to bring me some coffee while he went back to the office to call his superiors as well as my mother. I got sprung a few hours later.
“There’s not a lot left to lose,” I said to myself.
The Wake
The Episcopal minister hired to say a few parting words about Rayfield apologized for his brevity, but he never knew the deceased. “You’re not the only one,” I thought. Rayfield’s offspring in particular all seemed to wear the same faintly eager look, as if, given the chance, they would have been glad to learn something about the departed. I met one half sister for the first time and also renewed my acquaintance with the three other older siblings, two of whom I barely recognized from the faded photos gathering dust in Rayfield and Betsy’s spare bedroom. They were nice kin. One of them had traveled clear across the continent. They were quiet and well behaved, uniformly tall, I remember. But I was trying so hard not to drink, I couldn’t concentrate. And I couldn’t help but compare it with Eddie’s wake the day before, which was crowded and noisy.