by Maggie Estep
“So what?”
“Who was the lucky stud?”
“Some rotten piece of crap.”
“Nice.”
“No, he wasn’t very nice.”
“That’s what I meant. Nice that he’s not nice. Who wants nice?”
I could tell Amy wanted to go on and on like this, but her endless appetite for sex talk had actually started to get tiresome. She never wants to discuss the things I am genuinely curious about, like her bicycle racing career, her mountain climbing expeditions, or even her high-powered job. To Amy, that stuff is all too personal. Yet she’ll gladly go into graphic detail about, say, a corpulent virgin she deflowered with her fist.
“Was there a reason for calling, Amy?”
“Yes,” Amy sighed, “I made you some more money.”
“Oh, thanks.” I felt slightly embarrassed. If the money grew enough, I’d have to do something with it. Have an extravagant spending spree. Give it all away. Something.
“Are you okay, Eloise? I know the Indio thing was awful for you. And it doesn’t seem like you’ve acknowledged that.”
“I’ve acknowledged it,” I said curtly.
“Okay. I’ll leave that one alone.”
“Thanks.”
“I suppose I will release you from the bondage of this call now.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I put the phone back in its cradle and it rang again. This time my sister, Alice.
“El, do you know any cops?” she asked after a cursory greeting and a brief inquiry into my emotional state.
“Cops? What for?”
“Do you know any?” Alice asked insistently. “Not that I’m aware of, Alice, no.”
“Shit,” she said.
“What is it? What did you do now?”
“Nothing,” Alice lied.
Alice liked playing this game. Getting me to extract information from her. In fact, she’d get downright furious if I didn’t. It was even more exhausting than detailing my sexual exploits for Amy. Why was everyone in my life so tiring?
“Alice, why do you want to know if I know any cops?”
“Clayton got into trouble.”
“The big oaf?” I asked. I was pretty sure the guy who’d been borderline stalking my sister for several months was named Clayton, but I’d never heard her call him anything but The Big Oaf.
“Let’s call him Clayton for now.”
“Okay. What did Clayton do?”
“I can’t tell you that. I was just wondering if you knew any homicide cops you could talk to.”
“Homicide? Shit, Alice, did he kill someone?”
“It was an accident. I’m just trying to find out if anyone’s pursuing the case. There was a little mention of it in the papers right after it happened, then nothing.”
“Jesus.”
“Don’t say Jesus, Eloise. Religion is too incendiary. I get angry just at the thought of it.”
“Alice,” I said, “what happened exactly?”
“I like Clayton a little.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. We shouldn’t talk on the phone. The line might not be secure.”
“Ah,” I said.
Alice had had a crystal methedrine phase in her early twenties. She and Mom had gone on a few speed jags together, Alice coming back to stay at the old apartment on Charles Street, before Mom moved to Woodstock and went into Narcotics Anonymous. The two of them would gnash their teeth and overzealously clean the house. Mom, of course, didn’t know when or how to stop and got so skinny she nearly died. Alice one day decided speed was unhealthy and stopped doing it. But she has a touch of residual paranoia.
“He pushed someone,” Alice said after a pause, during which she presumably wrestled with herself about her need to tell me what happened versus her paranoia about the phone line. Her need won out. “It was an accident. Guy fell on the train tracks and got run over by a train.”
“Oh my god.”
“Don’t say God, please.”
“Alice, I’ll say what I want. And I don’t need to hear about any more bodies right now.”
“I’m sorry, El.”
“Your oaf is a homicidal maniac.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“How do I know that?” I demanded. “The guy lives in a parking lot.”
“He’s living with me now. And it was an accident.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Alice. I don’t know any homicide cops. Or any cops at all.”
“What about your friend Dennis?”
“He’s a fireman, Alice, not a cop.”
“Oh yeah. Well. Shit.”
“How’s work going?” I asked even though I could never quite get used to the idea of gambling being my sister’s work.
“Fine. Holding steady.”
“Right,” I said. “Well …” I added to coax her toward hanging up.
“Okay then.”
Alice hung up. I knew I should have pressed her a little more about the Clayton thing. Tried to see exactly how worried she was, if she really cared for that big oaf. But I didn’t have the strength.
I crawled back under the covers.
The next few days blurred the way they do sometimes when I’ve gotten new fabric and am drawing up various trolls and beasts to render in felt and buttons and big awkward stitching. I drew, then I cut fabric and started experimenting. I had failed with my first dog-headed cockroach. The head was so enormous the animal couldn’t stand, even on the eight legs I’d given it. The new model was a slightly smaller-headed version and I was giving it thicker legs.
Between bouts of work, I walked Turbo. Some days, I talked to Amy Ross or to Mom or to my friend Jane who has four kids by four different fathers and lives in New Jersey.
One morning, I was in the bathtub with a Lyle Lovett CD playing as loud as Jeff from downstairs will tolerate. I was soaking in Epsom salts after taking Turbo for a six-mile run the previous day.
The landline rang, and for some reason, I decided to answer it even though it was probably a telemarketer. I scampered out of the tub, grabbed the cordless phone, then jumped back into the bath before answering.
“Good afternoon,” I said.
“It is, isn’t it?” the voice said.
“Yes,” I agreed. “How did you get my phone number?”
“You’re listed.”
“But I never told you my last name.”
“I looked in your wallet while you were sleeping.”
“That’s an invasion of privacy.”
“Yes. It’s even a little psycho. But you like that.”
“How do you know what I like?”
“Just guessing.”
“I’m going to hang up now,” I told Billy.
“Why? And why were you so pissed off at me the other morning?”
“You kicked me out. And it was 6 in the morning.”
“I’m an early riser. I had a lot of things to do. Besides, it was a quarter to 7 by the time you left.”
“You should have been savoring me.”
“I savored you all right.”
“Don’t be cocky.”
“That you don’t like?”
“Stop thinking you know anything about me.”
“Is your lip still fat? Those stitches were sexy.”
“I have to go now,” I said. I hung up without giving him a chance to protest.
I couldn’t do it. Could not open myself up to a man who had kicked me out of his apartment at 6 a.m. The kicking out, the willingness to potentially hurt my feelings, signaled to me that I could not trust him.
My lip, which hadn’t bothered me one bit since the day after I’d smashed it, started throbbing. Turbo had come into the bathroom and was licking up the puddles of bath- water I’d left on the floor when I’d gone to get the phone.
I got out of the tub, threw clothes on, and attached Turbo’s lead to her collar. My hair was wet and the air was cold. I didn’t care. I ne
eded to walk. I suddenly longed for my mother. My dead father. My lunatic sister.
I took Turbo to the dog run in Riverside Park. There were many well-dressed people with tiny designer dogs. They all stared at Turbo.
“She’s a very friendly dog,” I announced.
Within five minutes, all the designer-dog people had left and it was just Turbo and me and a thin old white man with an even older black Lab. Turbo went over to politely introduce herself to the Lab. The dog showed Turbo his teeth and she came running back to me and glued herself to my legs.
We left the park and headed toward Broadway where I decided to stop in at Irene and Sue’s, an upscale toy store that carries my animals. I’d see if any had sold and if the store wanted to order more.
The toy store buyer wasn’t in and the store’s cat kept giving Turbo dirty looks. We wandered back outside, into the unseasonably brisk day. I hadn’t dressed warmly enough and I was cold to the bone. Now, no doubt, I would get consumption.
I didn’t contract actual consumption but did get a severe cold accompanied by a bone-wracking cough. I spent three days under the covers hacking and sneezing and falling into a pit of depression. I turned the phone ringer off. I shut the blinds on the window facing the street. I didn’t watch TV or listen to Lyle Lovett. I didn’t drop in on my neighbor Jeff. I coughed and slept and, twice a day, took Turbo out for her business.
Several days into all this, the doorbell rang. I ignored it. It rang and rang and rang again. Then, after a while, someone knocked at the front door. I tiptoed to my peephole and looked out. It was my sister, Alice, standing there with her big oaf and Jeff from downstairs. I opened the door.
Turbo, who wasn’t getting nearly enough exercise, bounded into the hall, licked everyone, and tried to jump into Alice’s arms.
“Come in,” I begrudgingly waved them in.
“Not you,” I said as Jeff started coming in too, “I’m sick. I’ll give you germs.”
Jeff, a germaphobe, turned on his heels.
“I’ve been trying to call,” Alice said. “What’s wrong? You look awful.”
“I’m sick.”
“I’ll say.”
“There,” I said, motioning at my beautiful and expensive red love seat that no one ever seemed to identify as one of the few extravagances I’d allowed myself, “sit.”
Alice sat down, tucking her skirt under her, very lady-like. She was dolled up, especially for Alice. My sister is attractive but she tends to be a bit unkempt. Now, though, her long mouse-brown hair was actually combed and she was wearing a skirt and a tight sweater. Her skin looked nice, like she’d actually been outside somewhere other than at a racetrack.
“You look nice,” I said.
“Thank you.” She seemed like she felt guilty over looking decent.
The big oaf just sat there taking up a lot of space on the couch next to Alice. He wasn’t overweight but he had to be at least 6’4” with big bones and a big face and longish hair hanging in two curtains over his cheeks. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He put the palms flat on his knees, then two seconds later folded his hands together, then tented them, then put them back on his knees. They were huge hands.
No one said anything. I looked at Alice and Alice looked at the big oaf.
“I can’t offer you a beverage cause I don’t have any,” I said after a while.
“How are you doing with the Indio thing?” Alice asked.
“Fine,” I shrugged.
“You getting the dog out okay?” Alice looked at Turbo, trying to gauge her wellness.
We all have the animal sickness. Mom and Alice and me. We could be at death’s door and not give a shit for our own welfare, but if anything is slightly off with an animal, we’re frantic. Which is why I’d tried not to have any animals and just make stuffed animals instead. But then Hammie came in the window. Then Mom started making me take in her foster dogs. I surrendered to being an animal person.
“Yeah, she’s getting out twice a day. When I’m better I’ll take her hiking at Bear Mountain or something.”
“Oh.” Alice nodded, then asked, “Should I take her?”
“To Bear Mountain?” I’d never known my sister to go hiking.
“Home. To my place. Adopt her. I think my dog is lonely.”
I was aghast that Alice would consider taking Turbo from me. Turbo was up for adoption. Mom had her listed on Petfinder.com, and now and then someone would call making inquiries. None of these would-be suitors had passed the initial screening, though, since a massive pit bull with cropped ears often attracts exactly the type of human the dog shouldn’t go live with.
“But Candy is so small,” I said. This was true. Alice’s dog weighed about fifteen pounds. She wasn’t an offensive yapper, but she was small. Turbo might crush her by accident.
“She’s not that small,” Alice said defensively.
It was ridiculous, I knew, but I was wounded that Alice was trying to take Turbo.
“I don’t think Turbo is the right dog for you,” I told her. “But if you really want a second dog, tell Mom. She never got over how you rescued a dog through someone other than her.”
“It was through Mom’s own damn nephew. And it wasn’t my idea. The animal was foisted upon me.”
“Right,” I said. I’d never heard my sister say upon before. Where was she getting this? Surely not from the big oaf. Maybe she had another boyfriend. A guy who said upon. We would refer to him, in our sporadic sisterly chat sessions, as Upon Guy. If we ever had a private conversation again.
“So I can’t have the dog?”
“Not right now.” I wasn’t going to tell my sister that it had suddenly dawned on me that I was really partial to this dog. It would just make her want Turbo that much more. Alice is competitive. I don’t mind when this competitiveness is tuned toward outsmarting her fellow horseplayers at the racetrack, but I can’t bear when it’s pointed in my direction.
Alice stared at me. The oaf stared. I thought of the body he had generated. I thought of Indio’s body.
“So what’s with the murder case?” I asked.
Alice and the oaf both looked at me like I’d cattle prodded them. They glanced at each other, then Alice shrugged. “Nothing has happened. We’re in the clear. We think,” she answered.
“Well, that’s nice,” I said even though it wasn’t nice at all. They were two people with a murder hanging over their heads and Alice has been many things, but she’s never been someone who had to worry about murder.
I glanced at the oaf. This was all his fault. He was so oafish he’d murdered someone by accident. He was a nuisance and I wished he would go, leaving Alice and me to pick on each other for a while and, when we were done with that, talk about Mom and her dogs and her girlfriend who I imagined to have hairy legs because she’s German.
“Do you think Mom’s girlfriend has hairy legs?” I asked then, since I refused to listen to them speaking lightly of murder and couldn’t think of any other topic to bring up.
“What kind of a question is that? I don’t need to think about that,” said Alice. “And what if she does? There’s nothing wrong with hairy legs, Eloise, you’ve always been a little OCD about the hair-removal thing.”
“You’re the one who made me shave my armpits when I was like three years old.”
Alice rolled her eyes. Clayton looked like he wished the couch would devour him.
After a few more fits and starts of conversation, Alice said she’d just wanted to check up on me and that, since I wasn’t dead, she was leaving.
“You sure I can’t have that dog?” she asked. “I’m sure you can’t have that dog,” I said.
I walked them to the door. Some part of me, the part that wanted to be unconditionally supportive, wished I’d been able to make conversation with the oaf. The only thing he had volunteered was that he was thinking of renting a trailer in Florida. His eyes had gotten shiny when he said it, like the wished-for Floridian trailer was an exotic, hard-to
-attain thing. It broke my heart slightly. That this guy’s dreams were so small. That my sister was keeping time with a guy with small dreams.
I locked the door behind them then tried putting my sister, the oaf, and the murder rap out of my mind. Turbo looked at me so forlornly I decided to pull myself together and take her out for more than three minutes. I put on layers of clothing and could barely get her collar on she was squiggling so much.
My body felt atrophied and limp and I went into some sort of shock once I exceeded the three-minute mark of being outside. I got lightheaded and had to sit down on a bench. The cool air singed my lungs; the brightness of the sky hurt my eyes. Turbo waited patiently until my spell passed. I got to my feet and we walked east to Central Park, climbed up Harlem Hill, and crossed over the road- way. I took off Turbo’s lead to let her run ahead a bit.
I started taking extra care, watching where I put my feet as night was falling rapidly now. Which is when something very heavy hit me on the head. I stumbled and fell.
“What are the odds?” a voice said.
I looked up and there was Billy Rotten.
“With me, the odds are even money,” I replied, looking from Billy to what appeared to be a gallon jug of maple syrup that had fallen from the sky and hit me on the head.
“I meant, what are the odds that I’d find you here again. On the ground again.”
“That’s what I meant,” I said, rubbing the spot where the thing had hit me, waiting to feel a giant bump begin to rise there. “I am accident-prone and I frequent the same spots. New York is a very small town.”
Billy peered at me. The washy blue eyes searching for something. “But this,” Billy said, “seems unlikely even by your small-world-accident-prone standards.”
He picked up the jug of maple syrup and examined it. I stayed on the ground, dazed. I didn’t want to look at him. I had erased from my being any sense memory, any emotional memory, of that night. Looking at him threatened to waken it all.
Billy gazed up above my head. There was a tall tree there, and as I followed his gaze, I saw other gallon jugs suspended from branches by slender ropes.
“Did that fall?” A small, dirty-looking guy suddenly materialized and pointed at the maple syrup jug.
“Yeah, on my head,” I said.
“Sorry sorry,” he said, picking up the jug. “But you’re fine, right?” He examined his maple syrup, clearly more concerned about it than about me. He stared up at the other containers dangling from the tree, as though wondering if I’d somehow disturbed them too.