And Sometimes Why

by Rebecca Johnson

  “What’s that?” Miranda asked, looking at Helen’s wallet.

  Sophia told them every thing about Louis Carone, except the part about the sugar in the motorcycle gas tank. She told herself it was because the detective had made it sound so inconsequential—why give her family one more thing to worry about?—but it also had to do with Sophia’s own confusion about the news and its consequences. Could such a childishly malicious act really cause an accident? And what sort of mind would think of such a thing? A vicious simpleton. A vexed child or, as Carone hinted, a jealous woman. When Sophia was done with her story, the only sound in the room was Monty’s heavy breathing.

  “What kind of crimes did he do?” Miranda asked.

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “Why did he change his name?” Darius asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sophia,” Darius said.

  “I’m sorry. I see I didn’t ask any of the right questions. I was in shock. The sight of her wallet and keys, they just…Anyway, he left a card.” She took the card out of the pocket in her cardigan sweater and put it on the table. Nobody touched it.

  “Well,” Darius said.

  “I know,” Sophia nodded, understanding what he meant.

  “Do you know what this is?” She pushed the Schlage silver key to the center of the table.

  Darius held the key up to the light.

  “Could it be a school key?” Sophia asked Miranda. “To a locker or something?”

  “They don’t let you lock things up at school anymore. You’ve got to carry every thing with you and get scoliosis by sixteen. A kid in Buena Vista is suing over it.”

  “It looks like a house key,” Sophia observed.

  “Maybe it’s Roy’s,” Miranda said. “Helen used to feed their cats when they were away.”

  “Right,” Sophia nodded, relieved to have the mystery solved. When she had a chance, she’d slip it under the door of the house.

  12

  in the month since he’d been fired, Anton’s days had followed a similar pattern. He’d wake early, steal his neighbor’s newspaper, read it, carefully refold it so it fit in its bag and return it to the stoop before the neighbor, a bartender who kept late hours, woke up. After two cups of strong Central American coffee, the kind that came in a can and was often on sale at his local Ralph’s supermarket, he would sit at his computer to work on his latest script, King Lear set in Silicon Valley. The king was the CEO of a Fortune 100 software company, his three daughters worked for the company. After a stroke that left his mind intact but his body twisted like a grapevine, the board of directors pressured him to step down. Instead, he turned the company over to the girls who eventually forced him out. When Anton began the project, he’d been filled with enthusiasm for its potential, but his agent’s lack of enthusiasm had made the work hard going.

  “Office politics starring old people?” she said over the phone. “What happened to your romantic comedy for teens?” In the background he could hear the click-click of a computer keyboard. The bitch was multitasking! He tried to work up some outrage but it lacked muscle. Whatever heat he’d had coming out of film school was cooling fast, being fired from the hottest game show in America didn’t help, and, frankly, she had a point. Scene after scene, he found himself laboring to make typing exciting. In an effort to be original, he had deliberately set out to ignore the one piece of advice he’d heard over and over in school, “Film is visual.” Office politics are not visual. The computer industry is not visual. Old men are not visual. Since the conversation with his agent, he’d been trying to enliven the story by injecting a romantic interest for the Lear figure—maybe one of those older actresses desperate for a role would even put up some money for the production? But his mood had stayed dark. He was lonely. Staying home all day was no fun. He had always done his writing in between something else—a job or school—and had never experienced the crushing boredom of his own personality for such an extended period of time. Day after day, it was the same thing. Words written. Words erased. Words rewritten. And in the end, something that wasn’t total shit. Hopefully. He missed school. He missed knowing people and seeing them every day. Even a bad television show had provided some semblance of community. There was that cute cashier in the cafeteria who smiled at him when he bought his banana and coffee. True, she had politely declined an actual date with him but there had never been any hard feelings after that. If anything, she had seemed a little friendlier. Once, she didn’t even charge him for the banana, though that could have been an oversight. Then there was that lady with the rats who liked to talk about how misunderstood vermin are. Actually, scratch that, she was a bit of a bore. But the security guard who always said, “Hey, man, how you doin’?” never failed to make him smile. They were small nothings, little points of recognition, but taken together, they added up to something more than sitting alone in your room parsing the degree of disinterest expressed by one’s agent.

  His gloom was made worse by the dwindling of his bank account. Already, he’d cut out the nonessentials—coffee to go (cheaper to brew his own), movies in the theater (cheaper to rent), and driving (cheaper to bike). He’d canceled his gym membership and downgraded his cable package to the bare minimum. There wasn’t much more fat to be cut, but still the money disappeared, which was why he finally sucked up his pride and made an appointment to apply for unemployment benefits.

  Even though he had left his house at seven a.m., there was a long line of people ahead of him when he arrived at the building where the interviews were held. A uniformed guard gave him a number—87—and told him to watch the board. He took a seat and stared at the board. His favorite deli had the same system. He’d take a number and wait his turn to place an order for a sandwich. For some indiscernible reason, the numbers here were not in sequence. The number 96 would light up, followed a second later by 14. Also, the time in between the numbers’ lighting up was much longer than the time it took to make a chicken salad wrap. He could imagine the logic of the bureaucracy—what else did unemployed people have to do with their time? But it was like playing an excruciatingly slow game of bingo. He needed to go to the bathroom and would have liked a cup of coffee but was afraid of leaving. If they called his number while he was gone, how would he know? And what would happen when he came back, if his number had been called? Would he have to start over with a new number or would they take him right away? An hour and a half later, his number lit up. He jumped out of his seat. A woman with the turned-up nose and beady eyes of a horny toad lizard told him to see Mr. Dumond in room 312.

  Anton wandered down the hallway. Like the numbers on the board, the offices also were out of sequence. Room 308 was followed by 319, then 312.

  “Cyrus Dumond.” A large black man with massive hands stood and extended one toward Anton. Feeling his own hand swallowed by that massive envelope of flesh made Anton feel uncomfortably vulnerable. If he wanted, Cyrus Dumond could smash Anton’s fingers with one squeeze. His hand suddenly freed, Anton handed the man his application and sat down.

  “Film director?” Cyrus read aloud. Anton recognized a faint Southern accent in the way the man pronounced “film,” with a long e, instead of a short i. Feelm director.

  “Well, you know, someday,” Anton answered, chastened even more than usual by the gap between the scope of his ambition and the reality of his situation.

  “Have you ever worked as a feelm director?”

  “I don’t expect to be one right away, but it’s what I studied in school.”

  Actually, he had thought he would be one right away. It was only lately he had begun to have his doubts. Whenever he calculated the chances of him, or anyone he knew, actually becoming a feelm director, he was stunned by the overwhelming unlikeliness of it. Once, sitting in his agent’s office, he had seen a piece of paper listing the names of the top movie directors working in America at that moment. He had always assumed that the A-list was a metaphor, but there it was, right in front of his eyes. The A-lis
t. It included Oscar winners, action directors, comedy directors, and a few foreigners who had managed to cross over. What they all had in common was one thing. Success. But there were only forty of them. Thirty-nine, actually, since a promising young video-turned-feature director had suddenly dropped dead during a game of pickup basketball the week before. When Anton thought of all the would-be directors in his film school, then multiplied that by all the other film programs scattered around the country, then multiplied that by the years the programs had been in existence, and then factored in all the other screenwriters and actors and set designers and costume makers and valet parkers and God knows who else who nurtured the dream of becoming a director, what were the odds? Ten thousand to one? One hundred thousand to one? It was exactly the kind of reasoning his father, a professional chemist, had used to try and dissuade him from his chosen profession.

  “What do you want me to be?” Anton had shouted back. “A loser living a lost dream in a loser city in a loser state?” The memory of that fight always made his cheeks burn. He’d always been proud of his dad’s profession—at least his father knew how to do something useful. What was he but a person who took pictures?

  “Anyway,” Anton said to Cyrus, “a person can dream, can’t he?”

  “Oh, yes,” Cyrus said with a laugh, “a person has got to dream. But a person has got to eat, too. And so has a person’s wife and children.”

  “I don’t have a wife,” Anton answered.

  “A single man.”

  Anton nodded his head.

  “A lone wolf. An island.”

  “Not really,” Anton answered, “just waiting for my ship to come in before I, you know, make a commitment.” God, he hated that word, commitment. He was committed to his art, what was wrong with that?

  “Well, don’t wait too long,” the man said, “you know what John Lennon said, ‘Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.’”

  Anton must have looked surprised.

  “I know you don’t think I wanted to work in the unemployment office when I was a young man,” Dumond asked, head lowered like an ironic bullfighter.

  “No, no,” Anton answered, looking at his massive hands and wondering what he had wanted to do.

  Dumond cantilevered his considerable weight forward in his chair to reach the leather wallet in his back pants pocket. With a surprising delicacy, he thumbed through its contents, extracting a business card and handing it to Anton between two sausagelike fingers.

  CYRUS DUMOND

  Pianist Extraordinaire

  Specializing in Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, Funerals, Birthdays, and All Occasions Requiring That Something Extra

  “Cool,” Anton said.

  Cyrus nodded. “You know the Hyatt out by the airport?”

  Anton didn’t, but nodded anyway. Didn’t every airport have a Hyatt?

  “Friday nights, seven to nine. Fiesta night. For fourteen-ninety-five, all the fajitas you can eat, plus my music. Stay away from the pork, though you didn’t hear it from me. If you ever do settle down, you should think about having live music during the ceremony. My rates are surprisingly reasonable. All things considered.” Anton glanced again at his massive hands, wondering if that was what he was referring to.

  “Now,” Cyrus said, changing his tone into something more businesslike, “you’re entitled to six months of unemployment benefits not to exceed sixty percent of your past income. A check will come every two weeks to your home address. No P.O. boxes allowed. In order to continue receiving benefits, you must prove to this office that you have made three efforts per week to look for work.”

  “How do I do that?” he asked.

  “You provide us with the names of three businesses or three business contacts with whom you have discussed employment in the previous week.”

  “Won’t that be kind of embarrassing for me, you calling them to check up on me?”

  Cyrus raised his eyebrows at Anton. “I did not say we call them to check up on you, but it could happen. If we find you are not ‘actively looking for work,’ we will be well within our rights to revoke your benefits.”

  “Has that happened?” Anton asked. Cyrus slid a piece of paper toward him. “Sign here to attest that I have fully explained all the laws regarding unemployment compensation under Article 456 of the California State Constitution.”

  Anton signed where Cyrus had made a big sloppy X.

  “I’m not saying it has happened, and I am not saying it hasn’t, but I don’t think you want to be the one to find out?”

  “No, sir,” Anton answered. It wasn’t like him to use the word “sir,” but something about Cyrus inspired it in him.

  “Good luck, son.” Cyrus held out his hand to signal that the interview was over. Anton hesitated a moment before entrusting his own, suddenly puny fingers to the man’s monster grip.

  13

  —Hi Helen. I am sure you can probably tell from my voice who I am. But just in case, this is Anya. I’m here with Siri.

  —Hi, Helen.

  —And Magda.

  —Hey, Helen.

  —And Louisa. They won’t let us visit you yet, so we thought we’d make you these tapes so you would be able to keep up with what’s going on. Not that there’s anything exciting happening beyond you. I mean, I don’t mean it’s exciting what happened to you, I just mean, it’s out of the ordinary.

  —You wouldn’t believe all the attention you’ve gotten. The first day it happened, like, ten television vans came to school. Mrs. Denberg made an announcement over the loudspeaker that we weren’t supposed to talk to any of the reporters but some of the kids were, like, “That’s a violation of my right to free speech” so they were, like, claiming to be your best friend.

  —Jeff Cummings was on Entertainment Tonight.

  —Isn’t that pathetic? He barely knows you.

  —And Hope was on the local news. What a phony.

  —Meanwhile, we, your best friends, didn’t say anything because we thought it was really gross the way those people were, like, cashing in on their fifteen minutes of fame.

  —But don’t worry, every body said nice things about you.

  —Even Jeff was, like, “Helen is the nicest person in the school. Blah, blah, blah.”

  —Like he knows.

  —Tell her about the mural.

  —No. Gross.

  —She’d want to know.

  —You tell her.

  —Somebody had the idea that the whole school should sign one big get-well card that you could read when you woke up, so Miss Brainard from the art department, you know that teacher with red hair who never wears a bra? Well, she took this long roll of white paper and put it up on the first floor, outside the gym. And then she hung, like, Magic Markers from strings. The first day every body was, like, “Get well soon.” “We love you.” Like when you were a kid and broke your arm and people signed your cast. But then some total loser decided it would be funny to write some gross stuff.

  —It wasn’t that bad, it was just, like, “Helen McMartin is hot.”

  —But not nearly so civilized.

  —Yeah, I mean, it was really stupid. Because then somebody else drew pictures of, like, these big, like, well, you know, dicks. They looked like banana splits or something.

  —The one I saw looked like a rocket. Only instead of sparks coming out of the end…

  —I think that’s more than she needs to know.

  —It was so retarded.

  —Miss Brainard was really upset. I think she tried to cut the bad parts out but then it had, like, all these big holes and it looked kind of suspicious. Like, what were they trying to censor? So the next day they took the banner down.

  —And then some students were, like, you can’t censor people. Art for art’s sake and all sorts of stupid stuff.

  —I think Miss Brainard is keeping it, so if you ever do want to see it, you can.

  —Did you know somebody wrote, “Miss B’s tits hang low”?
/>   —Are you serious?

  —Totally.

  —What else can we tell you?

  —I lost five pounds by cutting out all bread, rice, and pasta.

  —Fascinating.

  —Right. And every thing you say is so riveting.

  —The point is, every body misses you, and we think about you every day and we can’t wait for you to get better so we can crash the totally queer senior prom and get meaningless, low-paying jobs at the mall and flirt with surfer losers at the beach.

  —Bye, Helen. We love you.

  —Big smooch.

  —I’m sorry this tape has been so trite. Next time, it will be much deeper. I promise.

  —Does that mean you won’t be coming?

  —Very fucking funny.

  —Why are you so defensive? It was just a joke.

  —Can we erase that last part and start over?

  —I don’t…

  Click.

  14

  sophia was sitting next to Helen’s bed, trying to care about the latest issue of ArtForum, when she realized that the patient in the room next door—an eighty-two-year-old woman in advanced stages of Alzheimer’s—had just died. Nobody cried, raised their voice, or even walked faster than usual, but having spent every day of the previous month there, Sophia had begun to absorb certain truths about life in the intensive-care unit. Death was signaled by a great deal of unhooking—tubes, machines, sterilized bags. From where she sat, she could see the flotilla of stuff passing Helen’s open door. Next came the housekeeping staff, young women in white outfits and latex gloves who wordlessly bundled the sheets off to central laundry and spritzed the room with a pleasantly lemon-scented antibiotic. It wasn’t all that different from checking out of a hotel.