by Josh Emmons
“She’s passed on now, but that one was taken out in Cutten, where she lived up to the end.”
“Did you take it?”
Prentiss nodded. “I had some photography courses in college. You want something to drink? Water? Guava juice?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
They turned back to the picture of a ninety-one-year-old black woman with thin white hair, almost translucent, combed out three inches. She was seated in a broad-backed rocking chair, with a book in one hand and a wide-meshed black shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her smile, if it was one, seemed to be just beginning, as if, had the picture been taken a few seconds later, it would’ve exposed a dazzling set of white teeth, both plastic and real.
“How you holding up?” Prentiss asked, turning to Elaine.
“All right.”
From a certain angle this was a difficult situation. Prentiss sensed that the enormity of her marital problem, their lack of prior confidences, the possibility of Steve coming back, their instinctive mutual regard, and a postprandial slowness would prevent them from openly discussing why she’d come. Could he even hope to comfort someone facing the end of her marriage, preparing to pack up and leave her romantic home? Would it help to say, I’ve been out on the street forever; you’ll get used to it? No, because that was a lie. Prentiss had never stopped looking for love, for someplace to live; he’d never gotten used to it.
“Did your mother pass away at home?” Elaine asked.
“In her sleep. She had all kinds of things wrong with her, but the doctor said it was old age got her at the end. A weak heart. It was her time.”
“The same thing happened to my father. He had a brain tumor, but he died because his heart just stopped beating one morning, and—Prentiss!”
He was startled by the change in her tone of voice and turned to look where she was pointing. “Yeah?”
Beside a shedding ficus tree and Ferdinand’s bed, a life-sized statue of him, Prentiss, faced them, a mute witness to their conversation. “What’s that?”
“It’s supposed to be me,” Prentiss said, as Ferdinand came in and ran a lap around the room. “It looks bad me having it out in the open like some kind of royalty who keeps an oil portrait of himself on display, so I’m going to move it. I haven’t decided where, maybe the garage.”
“Oh.”
“You’ll see from the good posture how it’s supposed to be a younger me. I slouch now pretty bad and it draws an unfavorable comparison.”
“You don’t slouch.”
Elaine either hadn’t looked closely or was being nice, because it was obvious that over time Prentiss had lost some of his stature. Had shrunk literally if not figuratively. The statue was a gift and he didn’t resent it—really he was grateful to Leon for remembering him—but Prentiss saw enough of himself in the five minutes it took to shave in the morning. He didn’t need an in-house wooden twin, especially one that called attention to his worsening posture. What he considered, though—what seemed a distinct possibility given his brief meeting with its sculptor—was that although he may have declined physically in the last ten years, and although there was much to lament about his future diminution, he had improved in a number of ways. He had weaned himself off of alcohol, for instance. Whereas the statue-era Prentiss was obsessed and compromised by his addiction, the current Prentiss standing with Elaine could comfortably never drink again. He owed the passage of time, the lateral moves he’d made since that night at the Shanty, his life. And wasn’t that, despite the emphasis it then placed on his loneliness, a reason to be grateful?
Elaine squinted at the statue and said, “Did you commission it?”
“No. The artist left it to me in his will.”
“Who was the artist?”
“Leon Meed.”
She took a step in the statue’s direction. “Were you two friends?”
“Not technically friends, I wouldn’t say that. We spent some time together once during the infamous disappearances. I was going to tell you that the other night at Mazotti’s, let you know that someone else had a peculiar experience with Leon. I should’ve done it; I apologize.”
“Thanks, but my trouble with Steve goes deeper than what happened between him and Leon.”
“I figured as much.”
Elaine looked at him and folded her hands. The base of her nostrils was wet. “I don’t suppose you could repeat what he’s told you about us.”
“Well, on a certain level he’s thinking that you’re about to move to Sacramento and leave him.”
“He doesn’t believe that.” Elaine wiped her nose subtly and crossed her arms.
“I won’t say I get the whole picture with him, because I think he doesn’t even know himself. Maybe that makes it worse for you, but to me it doesn’t seem he’s doing it out of spite.”
Elaine nodded and looked again at the statue for a moment. “It’s late. I should let you have some privacy.”
“You don’t have to go. You could sit and read till he gets back. Watch television.”
“Thanks, but he might be on call or in surgery.”
“Want me to give him a message?”
She moved toward the door. “No thanks. I’ll call him tomorrow.” With her hand on the doorknob she said, “I appreciate what you told me.”
The door closed and Ferdinand came to sit by Prentiss’s feet.
When Sadie heard the phone ring too early in the morning, she thought it might be Elaine returning her call from the night before. Pushing up her eye mask and running her tongue over her teeth, she clicked on her phone and heard a still, small voice say, “Dr. Jorgenson? It’s me, Joon-sup. I need to talk to you.”
“What time is it?”
“This is an emergency.”
“Seven? Is it seven yet?”
“Can I come over?”
“Now?” Sadie stared at the pixilated darkness of her room.
“Please,” said Joon-sup.
She reluctantly agreed and then went hungrily to the kitchen, where she poured herself a cup of cold coffee and sat dazedly in front of the previous day’s newspaper until her doorbell rang.
Five minutes later she and Joon-sup faced each other from two reclining chairs in the living room as sunlight striped in through the blinds. She’d offered him a cup of the same cold coffee she was drinking, assuring him of its continued potency and flavor, but he’d refused. Said that he was too jittery as it was. Said he couldn’t eat or drink under the circumstances, and she’d understand once he told her what happened. She erected an internal dam to hold back her boredom, hoping that however high her indifference rose she’d prevent its spilling over with her cement-reinforced professionalism.
“Have you left Justine?” Sadie asked.
“No, I’m here about Leon Meed.”
She moved a pillow from under her leg. “Because of the newspaper reporter and the threats?”
He shook his head. “My friend Eve got a statue from him and it’s ruining her life.”
In spite of herself she felt a prickling of curiosity; the dam thickened. “Is that right?”
“Yes. He left me a statue, too.”
“So that’s what the letter from Rasmussen & Wei is about.”
“You got one?”
Sadie hadn’t yet done anything with the missive that had come the day before and now lay facedown on her desk. She’d not bothered to guess what she was to receive. “How do you feel about your statue?”
“My feelings aren’t important. I’m worried about Eve.”
“What’s happened?”
Joon-sup squeezed his fingers together. “She’s decided to become a nun.”
Sadie didn’t owe it to a patient to discuss his friends, especially the religious extremists among them. She fought back a strong desire to pursue the subject of Leon’s leaving various people statues.
“Is Eve unhappy about her decision?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then why are you worried?�
�
“Because she doesn’t see the danger. She thinks she’s being freed from worldly attachments, and that she has to cut off ties to people and to Eureka and take vows. I called her last night because she’s seemed unhappy lately—in fact, I think she’s been a little unhappy the whole time I’ve known her—and she said that when we saw Leon ten years ago, she was wrong to take it as a sign from God to just become a Christian. Now she thinks it was really God telling her to go further, to become a nun. She says the statue makes this clear.”
“How does it do that?”
“In it, she has her hands clasped and her eyes closed.”
Sadie didn’t listen to the voice saying that this was Leon’s way of telling her why. Why. “So you’re worried about losing her as a friend.”
“That’s part of it.”
“What’s the other part?” She noticed that Joon-sup hadn’t blinked while telling the Eve story. He seemed full of indignation and concern. As though his anxiety were the missing ingredient for a cure to what had afflicted her for months, Sadie suddenly felt infused with energy.
“I don’t want her to make a mistake.”
“But if she doesn’t view it as a mistake?”
Joon-sup blinked uncontrollably for ten seconds and ran a finger down the center crease of his pants.
Sadie said, “Didn’t you once tell me her boyfriend died of a drug overdose?”
“Yes.”
Reformulating a truth she’d gone over a dozen times, and which required no thought, and which she should have resented repeating but now enjoyed going over, she said, “Losing a romantic partner is different from losing a parent. You carried on well after your mother’s death, but people who lose loved ones often feel a void that has to be filled. If religion works for Eve, you should be grateful to Leon Meed.” She felt uncommonly good.
“But she could fill the void in other ways.”
“Maybe she doesn’t recognize them.”
“Men ask her out all the time.”
“Maybe they can’t provide the love she needs.”
“Yes I can—”
Sadie finished her cup of coffee. Joon-sup looked like he’d run over a dog. There weren’t any clouds in the yellowing sky outside. Behind her dam the boredom level had completely evaporated. “Joon-sup, I’ve known you for ten years, and during that entire time you’ve been telling me about your plans to open your own restaurant.”
“So?”
“So I want you to do it. Now.”
“What?”
“If in two weeks you haven’t taken steps in that direction, I will refuse to see you anymore as my patient.”
He coughed and said, “Where is this coming from?”
“Go home. You still have time before work to get some sleep. There’s something I’ve got to do.”
Lillith was quartering a small semithawed onion bagel in the staff lounge of the Coastal Orthopedic Medical Group office when Steve walked in holding a personalized mug. She’d just poured all but the last few drops of coffee into her own cup and now glanced with embarrassment at the nearly empty carafe.
“Hi,” Steve said. His short gray hair lay in limp shiny swirls on his head, as though it hadn’t been washed or combed or even acknowledged that morning. Jowly and haggard, he scared her a little in his knee-length white surgical gown over tweed slacks and a dark purple dress shirt, the whole clashing ensemble uniformly wrinkled. The coffeemaker sizzled at him when he removed the carafe and held it up to see how little was left.
“I was about to make more,” said Lillith, rising from the table.
“Don’t on my account.” Steve sat down on the seat across from her bagel while she went to measure coffee grounds and pour water. Wipe up spilled imitation sweetener. Wonder how long she’d have to stay in the room before leaving wouldn’t appear rude. Steve said, “We haven’t spent much time together.”
Lillith hoped he was talking to himself and so continued cleaning up around the beverage area. Straightening cups. Arranging stir straws.
“I’d be afraid,” Steve continued, “to know what you think of me after that argument with my wife at the holiday party.”
Apparently he was addressing her, so she returned to her bagel. Picked up a quarter. Took a small bite. “When my parents were married,” she said, “they fought worse than you guys did.”
Steve appeared grateful for the information. “Are you seeing anyone romantically right now?”
She kept on chewing. Workmanlike. If only she’d risked minor inconsiderateness by leaving the room as soon as he came in! Surely he wasn’t about to ask her out. Surely. “Like you said, we haven’t spent much time together, and I don’t—”
“Because Prentiss Johnson is a good man. He didn’t ask me to talk to you, so don’t think of me as a messenger on his behalf. I respect his privacy and yours, and I’m sorry if it’s out of line for me to bring it up now. You must have your reasons.”
“Reasons for what?”
“Not calling him back.”
Lillith relaxed her shoulders and felt an incipient tension headache begin to recede. “I don’t know what you mean; he never called me.”
“You don’t have to make excuses. All I’m saying is that he’s extremely nice. Yet not boring. Not one of those bland guys who says all the predictable things. And he’s funny. You can ignore this if you want, but Prentiss is a wonderful guy.”
Before going to work that morning Lillith had stopped at the law office where her statue from Leon was being kept and asked that it be given away or destroyed. She didn’t want it. The lawyer asked her to at least look at it before ordering its destruction, and after refusing for a minute she relented. The statue was her at age sixteen, without embellishment or flourish or suggestion that she’d rescued its creator. It was plainly, simply Lillith. An ordinary girl. Unexceptional. Powerless. She felt the bitterness and contempt for Leon and her decade-old delusion that had been building since her radio show appearance. There was no Astral Plane. Wicca was a sham and Barry had been right to burn her at the stake of public ridicule. Almost out of spite she accepted the statue and, with the strained help of two short paralegals, tied it onto the ski rack attached to the roof of her car.
“Honestly,” she said, “I never got a call from him.”
“Then here’s his number.” Steve wrote it down on a Coastal Orthopedic Medical Group prescription pad, tore off the top sheet, and placed it in front of Lillith.
She folded up the paper and stuck it in her shirt pocket. “Thanks,” she said.
Steve nodded and left the room.
5
Martin had worked at the Times-Standard for so brief a period that omitting it from his CV wouldn’t make future employers suspicious. If asked, he’d say he took time off after graduate school to visit friends in Louisville before entering the job market. It would be as if he’d never come to Eureka or explored the Leon Meed story or gotten fired by an apoplectic editor in chief for creating what was referred to as a “public relations nightmare,” a ridiculous claim given that the people involved—Sadie Jorgenson, Steve Baker, Lillith Fielding, Prentiss Johnson, Eve Sieber, Barry Klein, Joon-sup Kim, and Elaine Perry—hadn’t pressed charges against the paper or drawn media attention to the matter.
This didn’t excuse his gluing himself to a Shanty barstool on the morning of December 24 and ordering successive gin and tonics so that by five in the afternoon Martin felt made of rubber and wire, but it was enough to quiet his conscience. Sitting next to him were a couple of old men with Walt Whitman beards and Will Rogers wisdom. The television above the bar played It’s a Wonderful Life and the wonderfulness—the life—hit vertiginous heights. At some point during the movie, he slid his credit card to the bartender. Food became a distant and important goal. His seat neighbors agreed that the Times-Standard wasn’t worth dick, so he placed their drinks on his tab and would brook no argument against his generosity. The men obliged.
Then it all went wrong. A hand landed
familiarly on Martin’s shoulder followed by the nasal pinch of Shane’s voice. “Martin,” it said.
Martin turned around and his companions, imagining a friendly reunion in progress, lifted their drinks in Shane’s honor. “I have a restraining order against you,” Martin said, too drunk to panic. “This is illegal contact.”
“Always the Boy Scout, huh?” Shane squeezed onto a seat beside him, ignoring the confused displacement of Will and Walt. “I wasn’t even looking for you. Can you believe that? It must be fate.”
“You know I live across the street. I could call the police right now.”
“Go ahead.”
Martin shouted out for the phone, which the bartender placed on the counter’s only dry spot. Shane grabbed and pocketed it while Martin was still trying to ascertain its exact location. “Let me have that,” Martin said, staring thickly where it had been.
Shane said, “Relax.”
“You are pure evil. Do you even know that?”
“Only God knows what we are.”
“You got me fired.”
“And you turned down my business offer. And had me thrown in jail. And have been rude and disrespectful to me since we met. If we were keeping score, I’d have beaten you a long time ago.”
Martin looked around for someone to share his incomprehension. “What do you want?”
“I want you to come with me.”
“No way.” Martin had barely spoken the words when his left arm was twisted behind his back and he found himself walking on buckling legs out the Shanty’s front door into an overbright, cold, misty, friendless day. This can’t be happening, he thought as he and Shane crossed the street in a tight embrace, Shane’s hand dug into his jacket pockets, and his key was fitted into the door leading to his apartment.
An hour later the Shanty’s atmosphere turned festive when six of the Eureka Free Clinic’s volunteer psychiatric staff came in and ordered pitchers of Bloody Marys. Sadie and her friend Bob were part of the group that pushed together two tables in the smokeless half-light of a corner by the video poker machines and began a conversation that was at first a polite garden in which only odorless stories about local and national news cropped up, although as the pitchers were emptied, shoots of inappropriate confessions and sexual innuendo sprouted. Someone described her patient’s recent sex change. Someone followed with the tale of a friend’s penile fracture. Bob, cultivating a rocky patch of self-deprecation, admitted that this was his first social night out in a year, and that it was lucky his patients didn’t know about his lonely life, or they’d want to counsel him and he’d never regain the upper hand.