by A M Homes
“I hope so. You’re running up a real tab.”
“What exactly is in your mix?” I ask the recipe only to distract him from the subject of my bill.
“A bit of this and that,” he says, tapping his needle against my door.
Again, I’ve been locked in, a box within a box, how degrading. Where do they think I’d go?
I mount my mouth against the hole. There is a dull pain in my jaw and all down my neck. My left side in general seems not to be working well. I slump to the floor and arrange to have Henry shoot me on the right.
“Can you do it?” I ask.
“I am a magician, a sorcerer, I can do anything.”
The needle is in. I am out. Henry is gone.
Pounding, pounding, just like yesterday, there’s a pounding at tne door.
“Is that you?” I ask.
Guards: cuffs, shackles, belly chain. Again I am on parade, led limping through the corridors, my left leg dragging languid, lazy behind me.
“Sorry I’m so slow,” I say, apologizing for my sluggishness. My speech is slurred.
The day has a certain clarity, an absence of aggravation, of anxiety.
A clock on the wall of the committee room reads ten of ten. I sit. The members of the committee file in, get their coffee orders straight. For some reason I’m surprised to see the same three people again today. I don’t know why, but I imagined that each time it was different.
“Are you feeling well?” the black woman asks.
“Better,” I say.
“Did you sleep last night?” the white-haired lady adds.
“Did you sleep well?” Mama says. “Dream a pleasant dream?”
I smile. Fumes escape my mouth. I didn’t brush my teeth. I run my tongue over my incisors and bicuspids. They have the texture of moss, the flavor of mold, of fungus run amok. In fact, I don’t remember when I last brushed my teeth. I don’t remember ever having a toothbrush in this place.
“Yesterday, we were reviewing the events.”
“And then you lost it,” the old woman says, as if she’s required to remind me.
“We need to discuss the options,” the man says, speaking softly. And then I think I hear him say medication, castration, and I mean to ask if that’s really in their repertoire, but a flash of internal lightning, a pain, divides my chest.
“Tell us about Alice,” the black woman asks.
“What more can I say?”
“How did you feel about her?”
“Fond. Very fond.”
“In a letter to the court, her family claims you tried to kill her, to drown her in the lake,” the little old lady says— and I hate her.
“I saved her.”
The lake, the boat, why do you make me repeat myself?
I bring her home, give her back. Breathless when I reach the porch, I kick at the back door, until finally Gwendolyn, in curlers, answers.
“The boat, the lake, her head banged.”
“Mother,” Gwendolyn bleats. “Mother, come quick.”
I lay little Alice across the backseat of their car.
Gwen raises the edge of the tablecloth and covers Alice’s exposed breast. “She looks too old to be skinny-dipping.”
“I’ve brought her back,” I say as the mother comes running out. She looks at her daughter and flies fast into the front seat.
I could have taken her home, kept her for myself, but I brought her back—is that what she would have wanted?
“She banged her head on the bottom of the boat.”
“Damned lake,” the mother says, turning the ignition. The engine grinds, is slow to turn over. “Damn it to hell.” Gwendolyn pulls the car door closed. I am out on the side of the road. The car backs away.
Alone at night, I don’t sleep at all. I lie on her side of the bed, my head against the pillow where she usually rests. I turn my face into the pillow and breathe the scent of a little girl who bathes infrequently, sweet dirty sweat. Still hooked to the bed frame are strands of her hair; I take them into my mouth, sucking them. What to do? What to do?
In the morning I pack. If nothing else, they will want me gone. If I’m lucky, they will simply send someone to say that given the circumstances I should leave. I take my boxes from the storage shed and fill them carelessly with the exception of the gifted butterfly collection, which I wrap carefully, using my summer clothes as padding.
I hate this place. This damned lake.
Before dawn, I have filled the trunk with all but the essentials. And then I begin to wait. I cannot leave before I’ve been given the signal, before someone says go. If I jump the gun, it will seem as though I’m running, as though I have something to hide.
For four days I sit in the house waiting for word. No one comes. House arrest. I sit, I stand, I walk from bed to chair, to table, to desk, imploding, exploding, going entirely insane.
Finally, there’s a knock on the door.
“Yes,” I call from inside the house. The moment has come, and although I’ve been waiting, suddenly it’s unexpected.
“It’s Gwen,” a voice says through the door. “Sorry to interrupt.”
I open the door. “How is she?” I ask, fearing that I seem all a fraud.
“It’s Gram,” she says. “Gram’s not well. The doctor thinks she’s had a stroke. We’re flying her to New York. They’re taking her to the airport in an ambulance, but our car’s not starting and, well, could you give us a lift?”
“Of course. Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Let me just get my wallet.”
At the house they’re already loading the beloved Gram. She’s propped up on a stretcher, a green plastic oxygen mask over her mouth, well tended, tucked in with many blankets, her gray hair wrapped like a crown around her head.
“They’re taking her to Columbia Presbyterian,” Gwen says, jumping out of the car, running to help Penelope with the bags.
I get out and open the back doors, nodding in the direction of the mother, who’s talking with the attendants. She ignores me.
“The trunk is full,” I tell the girls, who then pile their bags into the back. I look around for my beloved, but she’s nowhere to be seen, there’s not even a hint of her. And then finally she comes out the back door, overnight bag in hand, restrained, even sheepish. I’m flooded with a rush of affection. My blood swirls, races to hot spots.
“I did it,” she whispers as she’s getting in the car. “I told her about you and it killed her. Now, I’m a murderer, too.”
Fear that she’s really spoken such grips my chest, grabs my heart, nearly stopping it. My knees buckle. I lean against the car.
“Alice dear,” her mother says, “don’t cause trouble.”
We follow the ambulance out.
“Sorry you weren’t able to meet Gram,” Gwendolyn says to me.
“She’s not dead yet,” Penelope adds.
“Well, she can’t last forever,” Gwen says.
“If you don’t mind,” the mother adds. “She is, after all, my mother.”
“Sorry.”
They are quiet. The mother turns to Alice. “While we’re in New York, maybe we’ll have you checked. Make sure there’s no real damage.”
“My head still hurts,” Alice says.
“They said it would for at least ten days.”
In my rearview mirror Alice seems small again, a girl, not a monster. She clutches the overnight bag on her lap as if it holds something precious.
At the airport, the plane is waiting. The grandmother’s stretcher is carried up the steps. The two older girls and the mother follow. Alice refuses to go.
“I can’t,” she screams, suddenly stricken. “Just go without me.”
“There isn’t time for this,” the mother says, coming back down the steps, taking Alice’s hand. “Get on the plane.”
“No,” Alice shouts, pulling away, throwing herself down on the tarmac and having a tantrum befitting a two-year-old.
“Watch your
head,” her mother says. “Don’t bang your head again.”
Alice kicks and screams most embarrassingly—not only for herself but for all of us.
“I’m going to have to call a psychiatrist,” the mother says. “But I can’t right now, so just pick yourself up and get on that plane. Gram’s inside and we have to go.”
The engine starts. The propeller spins. There’s wind in the air. Gwen and Penelope stand at the top of the steps. The mother starts to cry.
“Would you like me to carry her up?” I ask.
“Is that what you want?” her mother says. “To be carried like an infant?”
Alice weeps and shakes her head.
“Ridiculous,” the mother shouts. She pulls at Alice, who’s made herself into cement.
“I can’t fly,” Alice howls. “I can’t fly.”
Although I’m trying to stay out of it, I feel responsible. “I could drive her to New York,” I say. “We could leave immediately and meet you there this evening.”
A man from the airport comes and speaks to the mother. “We have to go,” the mother says to Alice. “Are you coming with us?”
Alice shakes her head. “No.” Snot is running down her face, her hair hangs down past her chin.
“Then will you go with him in the car to New York?” the mother asks, gesturing toward me suspiciously.
Alice nods. I’m surprised, but secretly pleased.
“No shenanigans?” the mother says.
Alice nods again.
“I trust you to behave.” The mother says to me, “Columbia Presbyterian. And if you’re not there by ten o’clock, I’ll call the police.” She is up the steps, the door is sealed. Alice stands aside and the plane pulls away.
We’re alone on the tarmac.
“Well, it’s good to see you,” I say.
She doesn’t speak, but climbs into the car, claiming the backseat for her own. I’m her chauffeur, servant, slave. I drive her away.
“I lost the ring,” she says after a while. “In the lake. It must have fallen off.” She stops. “Does that mean we’re divorced?”
I shake my head.
“You must hate me.”
“No.”
“Well, I hate you.” And then she is silent. Hours pass. I stop for coffee, she declines to get out. I stop and buy myself a fresh shirt, a new toothbrush. I ask her if there’s anything she needs. She pats her case. “I have everything.” Every time I leave the car, I watch her out of the corner of my eye, afraid she will bolt, run away, and leave me in deeper trouble.
Near North Chelmsford, we stop at a roadside stand. “What’ll it be?”
“I’m not hungry.” She’s in the backseat, doing her nails. The sedan stinks of polish.
“Yes, but you should have something anyway.”
“Then just bring me the usual. And a vanilla milk shake.”
“We’re a little south for clam rolls.”
“Hot dogs then. With relish.”
I’m so glad to see her, so terrified and terrorized.
“Don’t ever leave me again,” she says when I get back in the car.
“Why?” I ask, meaning Why did you jump in the lake, why did you try to leave me, why can’t I leave you? Why? “I have no one else.”
“Your mother, the sisters, Gram.”
“It’s not the same.”
At every turn, every cash register we pass, I buy her something: postcards, comic books, candy. All the while she stays in the car, except twice to pee, asking me then to take her to the ladies’ room, to wait just outside.
“My head,” she says. “It’s not all right.”
“You seem more or less like yourself.”
“Less,” she says. “Less all the time. Everything is changing. I’m changing. It’s awful, disgusting, and I can’t make it stop.”
Despite the fact that visiting hours are over when we arrive at the hospital, they let us go up. The pale hues of the walls, the silence, cling like a death mask. The grandmother is tucked in, the girls and the mother are saying good-night. The stepfather from Scarsdale stands in the corner.
“Who’s that now?” Gram asks, her speech slightly impeded.
“Alice,” Gwen says. “And the man from the cabin.”
“Send them in.” And although we’re already in the room, we step closer.
The grandmother looks at me, her eyes still piercing beneath their cataracts. I smile feebly. She knows. It is as if my fly is open, my member out and aimed like a directional arrow at her granddaughter.
“You missed dinner,” she says.
“I’m terribly sorry. I had the date wrong. But when you’re better, I’ll cook a meal for you. What’s your favorite food?”
She makes a face shooing me away, then bends a bony finger and beckons the young one near. “Once I had a friend,” she says in a papery voice. “He soon died.”
“Gram, we have to say good-night,” the mother says, interrupting. “Rest now. Sleep tight.”
Alice holds my hand. She slips her palm into mine. No one says anything. To tame a child, to take and train her, is to charm a snake. The music of the seduction is the um-pa-pa of a carousel, the twist of a fairy tale, everything is in the believing.
“We’ve taken rooms at the Plaza for the night,” the mother says. “It was all I could get. I took the liberty of making you a reservation. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to Scarsdale. I’ve no idea what your plans are.”
We are walking down the hospital corridors. It is close to midnight. The shift is preparing to change.
“I have no plans.”
“Perhaps then you’ll go back up to the cabin.”
The guard opens the front door and we are out in the New York night.
“Frankly,” she continues, “if I never see that damned lake again, it’ll be too soon.”
The feeling is mutual.
We’re out on the street. The air, hot and tired, has nothing to offer. I drive the six of us to the hotel and am deeply relieved to watch little Alice being led off to bed in her mother’s company. “Night,” Alice calls.
“Night.” I go down the hall to my room, wanting nothing more than to be left alone.
Fitful sleep. I prepare to depart before dawn. Leaving the mother a note at the front desk, I say how sorry I am about the circumstances and how much I’m wishing Gram a speedy recovery. I pay the bill and arrange to leave the car parked until evening.
Seven-thirty A.M. I’m in Central Park. My mind races, skips from thing to thing. Giddy. I break into a run, anxious to get as far away as I possibly can. At the center of the meadow, I stop to catch my breath. Around me pass dog walkers, standard poodles and the odd Great Dane, nannies with baby carriages, and the party boy who hasn’t quite gotten home. The world is filled with possibilities. I can begin again. Start fresh.
Bethesda Fountain. The shallow boating lake. Carousel. I am all over the place, wandering drunkenly. In a diner on the Upper West Side I have breakfast: juice, eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, all of it delicious. My tongue tingles from the salt. I sit back and read the New York Times and the waitress refills my coffee cup.
Later, I go to the Metropolitan Museum. There is calm in there, a certain fixedness. Making my way down Fifth Avenue, the film Bonnie and Clyde is playing. A matinee. A dark theater. Killing time. Escaping the heat, I sink into a cushioned seat.
Near dusk, I return to the hotel for the car, stealthily sneaking through the lobby, making every effort not to be seen.
I drive north, upstate, knowing I’m not going back to New Hampshire. I drive north knowing I should be going south. Tomorrow I’ll turn around and go back the other way, but for now I’m just driving.
It begins to thunder, to lightning. An hour out, the traffic is thinning. Two hours, I’m hungry, haven’t eaten since breakfast. A red neon sign, a great white structure, a place for the night. “Motel.”
“Checking in?”
I nod. “A room, please.”
“You and your f
amily?”
“Just me.”
“Funny,” he says, pulling out the paperwork. “I thought I just saw a little girl go by.”
My breath catches. I smile, checking the impulse to whirl around, to look behind me. He must be imagining things or seeing someone else. The world is filled with little girls.
I fill out the registration card, giving New Hampshire as my permanent address, and ask the clerk to recommend a restaurant.
He tells me the name of a place and sketches a map on the back of a postcard.
“Thanks,” I say, taking the room key. I walk across the parking lot. The air is filled with humidity. It is almost dark, the trees stand out against the night.
Opening the door to the room, a wave of inexplicable depression sweeps over me. The room is regulation, ugly, orange plaid. I don’t go inside. I close the door and tell myself that once I have something to eat, I will feel better and then it will be only for a night.
Light evaporates from the sky. The air is heavy. Every breath is taken with hesitation and great suspicion. One tries not to move too quickly. The early promise of the day has faded. I’m tired now and a little bit afraid. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m traveling without knowing where I’m going, or what my future will be. I’m going, knowing only that it must be different.
“Could we see the photographs?” the man asks.
“I don’t need to see anything so explicit,” the whitehaired woman says.
“They document the event,” the man says.
“I feel like I already know what happened,” the old woman says.
“It is our job to review everything,” the black woman says. “Let’s have the photographs.”
The secretary opens a big brown envelope. “There are two sets,” she says.
“The three of us can share one. Let him look at the other.” The man nods in my direction. The secretary hands the guard a pile of eight by tens. He holds them up in front of me. Glossy.
“This is Alice,” the man says.
Instinctively, I turn away.
The restaurant. Booth. Menu.
“What’ll it be?”
Meat loaf.” There can be nothing better than a thick slice of meat loaf, with mashed potatoes, carrots, and peas.