Still Life with June

by Darren Greer

  As I writer, even a not-very-successful writer, I could probably have done better, had I been telling the truth. But I wasn’t telling the truth, not entirely. To write well about anything you have to be honest — not literally honest, but emotionally honest. And thirty is too old to tell yourself that one about omission not being a lie. That myth is one of the first things the Salvation Army beats out of you. Emotionally, I mean. Not literally.

  So I settled for uninspired prose rather than risk telling the truth. Even if I did tell them exactly where I was taking June I would still be lying. The Sisters Who Gave Good Hope and General Dawes just couldn’t win with me. They really couldn’t. If they didn’t let me take her, I’d be upset at them for being so mean; if they did relent and grant the pass, I would always secretly wonder how June, how anyone, could ever be safe at the Sisters Who Gave Good Hope if they were lax enough to let a stranger walk in and take whomever they wanted.

  General Dawes issued another humongous sigh and closed the file. He lifted his glasses, began cleaning them with a white handkerchief plucked from his breast pocket, and leaned back heavily in his wooden chair. “The issue,” he said, “is that despite the thoroughness of your application, I’m still uncertain about the purpose of this trip. I’m not sure what it would accomplish.”

  “Well, nothing I guess.” I said. “It’s not supposed to be educational or anything. I just thought it might be nice to get June out of this place for a while.”

  Dawes nodded. “That’s a good thought,” he said. “Quite noble, but perhaps not very practical.”

  True, I could have said. But pointless nobility has been the hallmark of human achievement and ideals so far this century, and we wouldn’t want to rock the boat would we? I didn’t say that though. It would have sounded too smart-ass for a man asking to take his retarded sister on a day trip.

  Dawes put his handkerchief away and left the glasses dangling uselessly from the chain around his neck. “My other problem is that we have no way of knowing if June really wants to go with you.”

  “She says she does,” I offered weakly.

  Dawes smiled, really quite a lovely, handsome smile for a man so big. If he had a wife, I bet she married him for his smile. “June says a lot of things. And I won’t be the one to say she doesn’t understand herself when she says them. I do know this, though. People with June’s mental capacity often have a clear idea of exactly what it is they want to do at this moment, but nothing beyond that. She might be happy to go with you for an hour or two. She might say she understands the concept of leaving the city. But when dinner time comes and she is not here, you might have a very upset woman on your hands. Have you ever seen June upset?”

  I nodded. I knew what General Dawes was getting at. Once or twice on our trips June had decided for some reason or other that she didn’t like how things were going. She could be impossible to handle — sobbing and flailing her arms and screaming. Once she threw an absolute screaming tantrum in the middle of the mall because I suggested we wait until after the movie for ice cream. When children get like this you just take them by the arm and pull them along with you. But June weighed over two hundred pounds. I had to try and take her aside, with everyone in the mall giving us a wide berth and staring, while June sobbed and flailed and screamed her displeasure. The memory alone was enough to make my face burn with embarrassment.

  “If that happens,” I told Dawes, “we’ll bring her home.”

  “We’ll?” he said. No slouch, this fat man. I had not told him that I was taking Julie with me. I wasn’t sure how he would like the idea of a strange woman accompanying us on our little trip. I thought of a way out of it quickly though.

  “Me and Bubby,” I said. “Sorry. Sometimes I think of myself as two different people around June.”

  General Dawes smiled that beatific smile again. “I see,” he said. “Well, I hate to reiterate so much Darrel, but ...”

  “Go ahead.”

  Dawes removed the handkerchief again, began polishing his glasses once more. It was a nervous habit. No problems playing poker with this guy. You could beat him dollar for dollar. Pound for pound, if you had the ante.

  He said, without looking up, “Since she was sixteen, June has not been out of this institution for any considerable length of time, except to have the BMD tests at the Sisters of Mercy and once when we had to renovate the building.”

  I knew about the renovations. A nurse told me. Asbestos. Every ceiling had been filled with asbestos, and shortly after the government figured out that it may not be the best thing to breathe, they moved all the patients into another facility across town for two weeks until they could remove it all and replace the asbestos ceilings with something relatively harmless like gyproc or polyurethane.

  “June doesn’t know what it’s like to leave this facility for an entire day with anyone, let alone to go outside the city. I’m still not sure it would be the best thing for her.”

  “Why does it say in the rules and regulations that she can go then?”

  I was a great one for rules and regulations. The Salvation Army Treatment Centre had thousands of them and I referred to them constantly. General Dawes sighed again. “Come on, Darrel,” he said. “Let’s not kid each other. You want to take June out for one Saturday, fine. It’s my job to make sure that when she comes back the nurses don’t have to sit beside her every night for a week because you didn’t do something right. June has a routine here. You must be aware of that. And that routine is very important to her. I’m willing to grant that it’s also important for you and she to spend some time together away from this facility. I’m just trying to decide which is more important. I’ve enjoyed the time we’ve spent talking these afternoons, and I’d like to continue them, but my ultimate responsibility lies with June. With June’s well-being. Do you understand that?”

  I nodded, and said nothing. Sometimes, even when there are a million arguments you could make, including a half-dozen really good ones, the best thing you can do is stay silent.

  “Well,” said Dawes finally. “I only ask that if there are any problems tomorrow, please call me at home.” He wrote down the number on a yellow post-it note and handed it to me.

  “So you’re letting me take her?”

  Dawes nodded. He was polishing his glasses again. “Please have her in by Saturday night at bedtime and try not to spoil her too much.” Dawes smiled at his own joke and wished me luck, and I left the office.

  CLXIX

  On Saturday morning I waited by the front desk while an attending nurse got June ready and brought her downstairs. The duty nurse smiled at me warmly.

  “I think it’s nice you’re taking June away,” she said. “I’m sure the two of you will have a good time.”

  I smiled back and thanked her, but felt guilty again. We were going to Three Rivers, and not on a day-trip to the south as I had told Dawes. Of course, part of what I had told him was true. June didn’t need to come. I just wanted her to get away from the Sisters Who Gave Good Hope for a day. Everyone needs a break once in a while, even from such good intentions.

  “Bubby!” I heard her cry, before she was half way to the bottom of the wide stairs, the nurse with her bag struggling to keep up. Before I knew it, June had swept me into her arms in a great hug while the nurse behind the desk laughed. I got a mouthful of the fake rabbit fur from the fringe of her hood, and had to pull away to keep from suffocating.

  “Okay. Okay,” I spluttered. “I’m here.”

  The attending nurse handed me June’s bag and June started tugging me towards the door, impatient as usual. I said goodbye to the two nurses. Outside, on the sidewalk, June asked me again where we were going.

  “On a trip,” I said, smiling. “Don’t you remember, June?”

  It was exactly as General Dawes had said. She wanted to come, but she had no idea where we were going. She wanted me to take her to the movies, or the Modern Art Museum, or for hamburgers to ruin her cafeteria supper.

  �
��Listen,” I said, while I dragged her towards the bus stop. “You remember when you had to leave and go way across town until they’d replaced the ceilings in your room? Well, it will be like that. Not as long, but a lot of fun, and without the asbestos.”

  On the bus, June could not stop saying that word. She kept repeating it over and over. After a while I got so tired of hearing it that I joined her. With everyone in the seats around us staring like we were crazy, we sailed across the city, chanting asbestos, asbestos, asbestos all the way.

  CLXX

  In anticipation of the long drive to Three Rivers, Julie had decided to liven things up by bringing Trivial Pursuit to play in the car. She realized her mistake almost as soon as June and I were let off the bus in front of BIG BAD DEPARTMENT STORE.

  As she arranged our bags in the open hatchback, she said, “I knew. I just forgot, I guess.”

  “Don’t worry about it. June won’t mind playing, as long as you don’t expect all the answers to be exactly right.”

  June was shy around Julie. She wouldn’t look at her, or speak to her, would only drop her chin to her chest when Julie spoke. It took me a few minutes to get her into the back seat. “June not s’pposed to go with strangers,” she told me.

  “But June,” I said. “I’ll be there. And Julie’s my friend. There are no strangers.”

  Julie stayed out of it, seated quietly behind the wheel of her blue Honda waiting for me to win the moral argument. It was not easy. Finally I used the old underhanded tactic, which I’d come to think of as my version of June’s shock treatment.

  “Fuck, June. Get in the car!”

  Someone said a bad word.

  Before we had driven out of the parking lot, June decided she had to go to the bathroom. Julie backed up, and stopped directly in front of the department store’s electronic doors. I opened my car door.

  “Come on, June,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “I don’t want to go with Bubby.”

  I was about to use the shock therapy again, but before I knew what was happening, Julie threw the car into park, got out, and managed to cajole June out of the back seat and steer her inside. I waited ten minutes for the two of them to come out again. When they did, June was chatting merrily to Julie.

  CLXXI

  It took us an hour to clear the city. We met in the department store parking lot because I hadn’t wanted Julie to meet me at the hospital, where I could be found out. She had offered to take her car instead of the bus, and I had agreed. June could be embarrassing on a bus. She had a tendency to fart on buses, great, explosive reports that never failed to draw a child’s giggle and a disgusted look or two from the adults. She farted in the car too, and giggled uncontrollably after each one, but since they didn’t stink, Julie and I didn’t mind much.

  “What in the hell did she have for breakfast?” Julie asked.

  I shrugged. “She’s always like that. The nurses say she’s unusually gassy.”

  “I’ll say,” said Julie, and asked me again what in the hell she was doing here.

  “I don’t know. I thought you could use a break. I thought June could use a break.”

  “And this town. It’s where June is from?”

  “And her brother Darrel.”

  Julie glanced over at me. “The dead guy you’re writing a novel about?”

  “Stories,” I said. “Interconnected stories, not a novel. Darrel was June’s brother.”

  “What are we going to do there again?”

  “Get a meal, I guess. Look around. Nothing much, I would imagine.”

  “Weird,” said Julie.

  “Think of it as research,” I said.

  “Still weird.”

  “Not as weird as premature ovarian failure,” I said.

  CLXXII

  June’s “natural gassiness” was all tapped out. She was sitting in the back seat, still giggling, and trying to force them. Maybe she was under the impression that Julie and I liked hearing what I thought of as June’s Intestinal Symphony Number Three. I turned around in my seat and disabused her of the notion.

  “It’s not nice,” I told her. “It’s impolite.”

  “Oh, let her go,” said Julie. “It’s an accomplishment, of sorts. At least they don’t smell.”

  “Thank God. The three of us would be dead by now.”

  June grew quiet, both ends of her. She clapped her mittens together, complained only once that she was hungry (June was always hungry), and stayed generally well-behaved. A couple of times, I caught Julie stealing glimpses of her in the rear-view mirror.

  “She’s a big woman,” she said.

  “Two hundred and ten pounds. You should see her when she really doesn’t want to do something.”

  “I’m surprised at you. I didn’t peg you as the type.”

  “What type?”

  “The type who would befriend someone like June.”

  I shrugged. “She’s less complicated than most people. And not as stupid as you would think. There are subtleties to her that take some time to figure out, but June will never lie to you, and she’ll never betray you. I’ve found a certain value in that.”

  I didn’t expect Julie — or anyone — to understand, but she surprised me by nodding. “June will never try to be someone she’s not,” she said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “June is always June.”

  It was a quality that both of us, Dagnia/Julie and Cameron/ Bubby, could very much appreciate.

  CLXXIII

  We stopped for lunch just outside the city at a roadside BIG BAD HAMBURGERS. June ate an enormous meal — six chicken nuggets, a cheeseburger, a large fries, an apple turnover, and a chocolate milkshake.

  “That should warm up the old intestinal symphony again,” I told Julie.

  I settled for a couple of cheeseburgers, the only thing I could bring myself to eat there anymore, and Julie had a small garden salad with no-fat dressing and a wax-paper cup of orange juice. “You’re not an anorexic, I hope?” I asked.

  “Aspiring,” she told me. “I don’t have the necessary discipline.”

  In the car, having gorged herself and dripped ketchup down the front of her blue parka, June fell asleep in the back seat with her head against the window and mayonnaise smeared over her lips. She snored ferociously. I had never been with June while she slept, and thought it was quite funny.

  “How the hell does her roommate sleep at night?” I asked.

  Julie shrugged. “People can get used to anything. Deviated septums must be one of the easiest.”

  Halfway there, with June still asleep, we broke out the Trivial Pursuit cards. Julie got angry at me and refused to play because I knew all the answers. At the treatment centre there was a game practically every night, and I usually sat in.

  “No one should know that there are three hundred and thirty-six dimples on a golf ball,” she said. “That question is not meant to be answered.”

  “Then why did they include it?”

  “I don’t know! Because they’re morons. Because they were trying to be cute. Because someone had a spare hour to kill in between cruising the Internet and looking for cybersex. Put it away!”

  I did, and Julie, as I knew she would, started talking about Dean.

  “I have a weakness,” she said. “Everyone has one, and Dean’s mine. He’s always been mine. He’s always been so rumpled, so good-looking, so goddamned hapless.”

  “He doesn’t seem hapless to me,” I said.

  “He is. Believe me. He comes across as confident and effectual, but in fact he’s neither of those things. You saw his apartment. What’s it like?”

  “A mess,” I admitted. “There’s stuff lying everywhere.”

  “Just like his life,” Julie said, nodding. “Stuff lying everywhere. When he was a kid, he was always in the hospital, did I tell you that? Once for gobbling down a half-bottle of Comet when he was three. That nearly killed him. And then again at five for getting in an accident with his bike and breaking his
arm, two ribs, and his hip. He ran into the brick wall of a grocery store, if you can believe it.” Julie laughed. A bit stridently, I thought. “I think he was expecting the building to move. Again at eight when he fell down a manhole. That one is almost funny. The open manhole was on the way to school. A guy had been down there working and forgot to close it, I guess, or he planned on going back down, whatever. I jumped over it, on a dare from Dean. Then he jumped. Didn’t even try to get across. Just jumped up and out and presto! Straight down to the fucking bottom. Broke his arm in two places. Mom threatened to sue the city, but couldn’t stay sober long enough to fill out the proper forms.”

  Julie sighed. “It was constant excitement, constant nerve jangling. In school the guys would beat him up because he was good-looking and the girls liked him. In high school he got beat up more often because he decided he liked the boys who beat him up too, and didn’t hide it. I caught him in his room once having sex with a guy from school. I screamed for two days over that one, and threatened to tell our aunt. He just shrugged and said he liked sex. Period. Didn’t matter who he was with, boys or girls. Sometimes he brought both home, when my aunt was at work, and I would have to sit and listen to the noises coming from his room.”

  “That must have made you happy.”