Requiem, Mass.
Page 20
The Bathtub
WHILE WE WERE enjoying our cozy and affable Christmas down South, Mom left the hospital and made her way home. There was then, and there remains, some confusion as to exactly how she executed her escape. My best guess is that she simply woke up, got dressed, shoved her valuables into her purse, took the elevator down to the lobby, and walked out the front door while the hospital’s skeleton staff was busy entertaining the patients with carols and cookies in the rec room, and the duty nurses were sipping eggnog at their stations, and the receptionist was trying to explain yet again to an addled mother-in-law how to follow the yellow lines to the maternity ward. Mom walked home, or she rode a bus, or she hailed a cab. She took the extra key off its hook in the shed and let herself in. She would have turned up the heat a bit, checked the fridge, maybe called out our names. She might have noticed that the pilot light was off on the stove and figured she’d call Blackie later to light it.
She went down cellar and hauled a five-gallon jerry can upstairs and poured the gasoline into the bathtub. And then she took the second can and did the same. No one would be using the lawn mower till April anyway. She undressed, put on her shower cap, and settled into the tub. She closed her eyes against the fumes, tried taking shallow breaths through her nose. Already she could feel the gasoline washing away the stink of her rotting flesh and suffocating the maggots that were eating away at her skin and her muscles. Before she could relax, though, she needed a cigarette. She remembered the opened pack of Pall Malls she kept for emergencies in the cookie jar on top of the fridge. She stepped out of the tub, wiped her feet on the bath mat, tiptoed to the kitchen, got the pack, tapped out a smoke, and popped it in her mouth. She rummaged through the junk drawer for matches. No matches, but an ashtray. She looked under the sofa cushions, under the sofa. She looked behind the TV. She swept the magazines off the coffee table. She moved the ottoman. She scoured through her closet and found a book of matches with a bluebird on the cover in the pocket of a ski jacket.
Upstairs, Nunzie clipped on his Knights of Columbus cufflinks and straightened his tie in the mirror. He slapped on some Canoe, lifted his chin, and checked his profile. He wet the tips of his middle fingers and smoothed back his eyebrows. He asked Caeli if she smelled gasoline. She did, now that he mentioned it. She pulled the blankets up to her neck. Nunzie, who was supposed to be dropping off a fifth of Johnnie Walker Red to the monsignor at the rectory, bent over and kissed Caeli on her forehead. She held his wrist. He told her he had to get home before the kids got too antsy, and before his brother-in-law, Paulie Mook, and family showed up for cocktails and lasagna. He said goodbye and left by the front door.
Downstairs, Violet had one of those headaches that starts behind the eye and shoots straight back to the base of her skull. Through all that gray matter like an arrow. She closed her novel, The Minister’s Confession, and shut her eyes. She put her head back. Red popped open a can of Narragansett and put his feet up on the coffee table. He stared at the football game on the tube. Blackie couldn’t figure out where the smell of gasoline was coming from. Now it sounded like someone was moving furniture upstairs. He followed his nose to the back porch and up the stairs. The door was opened. He called out to Rainy. “You home?”
Frances said, “I’m in the tub.”
“You smell gasoline?”
“Well, yeah…”
Staging
OF COURSE, we didn’t know about Mom’s disturbing adventure as we drove through the dark toward Monroe. Dad would hear the news in a phone call long after we kids were all tucked away in bed and dead to the world. But before we return to the morning after the drive and after the gasoline bath, I want to jump ahead to last night and to the conversation I had with a real estate client, a gentleman from Columbus, Ohio, named Martin Abbott.
The housing market here in South Florida is in the doldrums, so Annick tells me. There are any number of million-dollar-plus homes for sale on the Hollywood Lakes, and they are simply not moving. This situation has local Realtors in a panic, which turns out to be good news for Annick, who, as I mentioned, augments her theater income by staging houses, expensive houses. What Annick does is she makes the houses irresistible to the prospective buyers, helps them, in other words, see themselves living there, relaxing, entertaining, loving, growing old gracefully in this luxurious and thoroughly charming new home.
Most houses are sold in the first ten minutes, Annick says, so first impressions are crucial. Appearance is everything, she says. I say, That’s pretty shallow, isn’t it? She says, It’s love at first sight or it’s a no-sale. And this makes me think about the first time I saw Spot. There he was in his kennel out in Belle Glade with his mother and his brothers and sisters. Spot was the setter puppy with one ear flapped over his head and his tongue lolling out. He was the one puppy not at Mom’s teats. He saw me, yipped, jumped up, and fell over backward. I whistled to him, and he ran to me, kind of sideways, and slammed into a pole. Then he sat in a dish of water and yipped at me some more. I said, That’s the dog for me. The first time I saw Annick in a bookstore, I thought she was adorable, but she thought I was a stalker until I convinced her to have a coffee with me and turned on my not-inconsiderable charms. When even that didn’t work, I begged for her phone number. The first time we kissed, we were on Hollywood Beach, and as my lips met her lips, a gust of wind blew the Panama hat off my head.
House shoppers, like editors, are looking for a reason to say no. So you don’t give them a reason to say no. You transform that property into a home, a home owned and loved by a close-knit, prosperous family with impeccable taste just like the potential buyers’. You get rid of all the clutter, all the detritus of the former owners (a clown painting, what were they thinking?), and you call the Maid Brigade to make the place shine. You have the landscapers mow the lawn, trim the hibiscus, plant the bougainvillea, sweep the terrace, and prune the goddamn oleander. You see that the rooms are well lighted. You put some Mozart on the sound system. Maybe you see that the rectangular ebony extension dining room table, which you bought at Restoration Hardware and move from house to house, is set for two. The beeswax candles in their pewter holders are lit, as are the wall sconces.
When even all that magic didn’t work on the house at 500 Adams, Annick had a brainstorm. She’d hire actors from the theater company to play the Andersons. The Andersons own the home and truly regret having to move, but Bob’s being transferred to the Tokyo office. The faux-Andersons will model loving family behavior and show the prospect all the amenities of the house until that excitable prospect and his cautious wife finally agree that the house is a bargain at any price. But last night the actors couldn’t make the showing because of a rehearsal for The Fantasticks, and the potential buyer was in town for just the one night, so I was recruited. I was Bob Anderson. Annick made me get a haircut, and not at Supercuts as usual, but with Rudy at the Elite Group. I looked sharp, she said, distinguished. I said, You’re lying through your teeth. All right, you look better, she said. Frazzled. You got this Keith Richards kind of thing going. He’ll think you’re rattled and motivated to sell. This’ll work. So the lie was that my family, Marianne, Bob Junior, and Roberta, are already on their way to Tokyo, the wife settling the kids into the American school and getting the house in shape. I’m here tying up loose ends. I answer the door, say hello to Sissy Stroczek, the real estate agent. I shake the gentleman’s hand. “Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr….?”
“Abbott,” he says. “You can call me Martin.”
While Sissy walks Martin through the house, I sit, as per my instructions, in the leather chaise in the den, reading cartoons in an old New Yorker. I’ve got a snifter of Hennessey V.S.O.P. on the maple side table. Go easy on the cognac, Annick told me. Remember, you’re Bob Anderson, and Bob Anderson is a man of taste and moderation. Like I’m not, I said. I can hear Sissy pointing out the unique architectural details of the house: the Dade County pine floors, the pilastered doorframes, the egg-and-dart molding, the
recessed lighting, the louvered interior shutters. All I hear from Martin, though, is the occasional Uh-hum. I wonder what’s wrong. Why is he here when it seems obvious he doesn’t want to be? Why is he leaving Ohio? Early retirement, maybe. In one of the cartoons, Charles Dickens is sitting across the desk from his editor, and his editor, looking at the manuscript, says, So why can’t you make up your mind? Was it the best of times or the worst of times? I know that the real Bob Anderson is moving into new digs up in Boca. He’s bought a mansion across the street from Yanni. He’s divorced and childless.
And then Sissy realizes she’s left the paperwork for the house back at the office. She slaps her forehead. She’ll just scoot on over and get it—be back in ten. This is all part of our script. The ten will become twenty. I’ll chat with Martin so that he feels comfortable here. I’ll fashion some kind of compelling narrative about the Andersons and their beloved house, so he’ll be ready to sign on the dotted line when Sissy returns. Martin says, sure, he’ll join me for a drink, and we move out onto the deck. I take the bottle. I say, Martin, can you see yourself in this house? He nods, but not convincingly. I change the subject. I say, You’re going to love it here in winter. Trust me.
He says, “My son died.”
“I’m sorry.” I’m hoping I heard wrong. “How? What happened?”
“Dallas was twenty-seven. It was so odd, so unnecessary, so unfair.” Martin sips his drink. “He was crossing a playing field on his way home from work. He’d been living with us again ever since his divorce. Moved back into his old room. Anyway, there were kids out playing soccer in the field. The ball rolled toward Dallas, and he figured he’d give it a boot, bend it like Beckham, you know, but he sclaffed the kick, hit the hard dirt a few inches behind the ball, and broke his great toe.”
“Ouch.”
“And then he made it worse, no doubt, by walking home.”
This isn’t in the script, of course, and I’m feeling like a shit, pretending to be someone I’m not while this man is pouring out his soul. I don’t say, I’m not really an investment banker, Martin. I’m a writer, and I’m going to steal your story. I just listen.
“There’s nothing they can do for a broken toe. No cast, nothing. It stays broke.”
I ask Martin if he has a photo of his son, and he takes out his wallet, slips the picture from its plastic sleeve, and hands it to me. Dallas is wearing a party hat and has a noisemaker in his mouth. He’s smiling and his arm is around someone’s shoulder. Someone you can’t see. Like an ex-wife, maybe. New Year’s Eve, I figure. His eyes are red dots. I say, “Good-looking boy,” and give Martin back the photo.
“He kept his toe elevated as much as he could.” Martin sips the cognac and looks up at the full moon above the coconut palm. “Elevated the foot, iced the toe. But, of course, he had to work.”
“What did he do?”
“Reference librarian. Columbus Metropolitan Library. Main branch downtown. He bought himself a cane at a medical supply store to take the stress off the toe. Then his back started hurting. Evidently the spine was all out of whack, what with trying to compensate for the toe and all. Saw a chiropractor for a while. He wore a slipper on the right foot now. Shoes hurt too much. So he was running an errand for his mother, picking up a jar of paprika at Meijer’s, when a car pulls out in front of him. Dallas slammed on the brakes, must have crushed his toe, and the pain shot through him, and he shut his eyes or lost control or something. Smashed into a big-ass maple tree. Jaws of Life. DOA.”
“Jesus, Martin, I’m so sorry.”
“His mother. She can’t live in that house anymore.”
I want to tell him the price is negotiable.
“Dallas was our one and only.”
We can work out a deal that’s good for both of us.
“That kick, that was the beginning of our end. The end of the Abbotts.”
I’m thinking Martin and his wife will carry Dallas with them wherever they go.
“You’re a lucky man, Bob.”
“I know.”
“Don’t let anything happen to those kids.”
“I won’t.” I tell him, no, I don’t have any pictures of the kids, and I’m wondering if he thinks I’m a no-account dad. I see a picture of the two of them in my head. If he asks, I can describe them, right down to Roberta’s braces and Bob Junior’s mole.
“Coming here tonight was my way of telling myself not to surrender to the darkness, you know.”
“You’ve got your wife.”
“You’ve been kind to listen to me.”
“Your days will grow lighter, you’ll see.”
“It’s the nights I can’t handle.”
We hear Sissy at the front door. I tell Martin I’ll get rid of her, and I walk inside. Sissy says she can’t just leave me here. I say you just did. I’ll lock up. I’ll call. I think I can seal this deal. She says she’ll give me a half hour. Thanks, Sissy. You’re welcome, Bob.
When I go back to the deck, Martin is gone. At first I figure he’s in the bushes taking a leak. Or he’s just checking out the grounds. I call his name. I sit and wait. He hasn’t left a note or a business card or anything. I check out front and see that his car is gone. I figure I’ll finish both our drinks. I think about the loss of a child, how devastating that is. Maybe that’s how my mother felt. Maybe that’s what drove her nuts. She was crazy with grief for her abducted children. And we two imposters in the house even made it worse. Never mind that she hadn’t lost us—it was enough that she believed she had. How does a mother survive the disappearance of her children?
A Door, A Jar
WHEN MOM TOLD Blackie that she was luxuriating in a tub of therapeutic gasoline but not to worry, she knew what she was doing, she’d even cracked the window, Blackie asked her if she was decent, but then he thought, What the hell difference does that make? He knocked at the bathroom door. I’m coming in, Frances. And a good thing he did. Mom had the unlit cigarette in her mouth and the matches in her hand. Blackie snatched the matches away.
“What a gentleman,” Mom said.
“I’m not lighting it for you, Frances. Jesus H. Christ Almighty, you could have blown us all to smithereens.”
She said, “Define decent.”
He said, “Not now, Frances.”
She said, “Oh, Blackie, if you had only waited another minute, all my problems would have been over.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She told him how she was rotting away from the inside out, how she was basically just a shell and all her organs were so much decomposing mush, and how the gasoline would cleanse her flesh, or the fire would finish her off, and she didn’t much care which way it went.
“You’re not dying, Frances, but you almost did.” Blackie helped her out of the tub and into her robe. He drained the tub of gasoline. “We’d all be dead now. Charred slabs of smoking meat. What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t going to drop the match in the gasoline. Not at first.”
“It’s the fumes that burn, Frances, not the liquid.”
Blackie led her downstairs, where Violet got her into the shower with a can of Boraxo and a sponge. Red nearly had a seizure. He was hyperventilating and dribbling his beer. Blackie called for an ambulance and let the hospital know the situation. He called Caeli with the news. Red called the fire department just in case. Send the inspector, he told them. When the ambulance arrived, Mom was sipping tea at the kitchen table, her hair turbaned in a towel. She said the gasoline had done the trick. “Just what the doctor ordered. Fit as butcher’s dog.” She looked at the paramedics, held out her hand. “To the ball, gentlemen.” On her way out the door, she said, “Don’t wait up for me.”
Red looked at Blackie. “There’s something wrong with her.”
“Yes, there is.”
“She’s mental.”
“She’s getting help.”
“We can’t have her living upstairs.”
“I know that.”
They each had this uncomfortableness in their temples, not a headache exactly, more like a swelling, a tightness. Blackie noticed that he couldn’t smell the gasoline anymore. Neither could Violet or Red. But it was there. That’s what the fire inspector said as he waved his hand in front of his face. How can you stand it? Blackie figured you smell something long enough and something about that smell or within that smell makes you not smell it. Every smell has an anti-smell. Or maybe the smell carries paralyzer cells that go to work on our nasal neurons or something. Blackie told me all of this on the phone.
I’d called Blackie the day after Christmas, after Dad gave me a report of his middle-of-the-night conversation with Blackie. Blackie said they stayed awake all night in the kitchen with the windows opened a bit and two oscillating fans circulating the air. They ate the rest of the Christmas goose and played Parcheesi. “Johnny, your mother can’t be living here.”
“Not till she’s better.”
“You two and your old man, fine. You understand?”
“Yes.”
I wanted to leave for Requiem right away and said so. Dad said there was nothing we could do till Mom was back being peculiar and inexplicable again and not morbid and suicidal. Then we’ll see. He called Four Crowned Martyrs while I sat there beside him. He held the phone away from his ear so I could listen in. The nurse, or whoever it was, told Dad that Mom had scrubbed her body raw with steel wool trying to scrape away the rotting skin. That’s what she told us, the nurse said. And now she’s demanding to be buried. She’s convinced herself that she’s dead and doesn’t understand why we can’t smell the decay. The nurse told Dad that they had Mom on a new medication, and they were hopeful it would work. Dad thanked her and hung up. I said maybe if she had her family…But even I didn’t believe what I was going to say.