She was always careful to finish with the scale before looking into the mirror, because mirrors were not to be trusted. There was the matter, for example, of the doubling. For every thing reflected, the mirror fabricated two images: the one in the surface and the one in the silvering. You will see if you ever touch a mirror that as your finger approaches, a ghost-finger appears around it, and even with your fingertip to the glass, you will not have reached the finger trapped beneath. Nor should you count on your eyes. The world is actually upside down. Regan would be feeling sick now indeed. Sick like sex with a fever, with a stranger. Sick like slick, wet shame.
She pinned back her hair. She knelt by the porcelain bowl. She saw her shadow in the water and closed her eyes. Pulling the trigger, the Chi Os used to call it. It had been a sort of club, at first, you walked out of the powder room feeling you had proved something. On the radio, a doctor who wasn’t a doctor free-associated about the garbage strike. Rats bit babies in East Harlem. There were lines for gasoline in Jersey and for water in Biafra. How many gallons were wasted every five minutes the faucet stayed on? She sometimes thought she heard footsteps in the kitchen making the lid on the cake stand clatter. This would be Will, roaming the apartment in long, urgent arcs, having intuited that she did in fact have something to hide. She would wait for his feet to go away and she would close her eyes and she would work her index finger past her teeth and the wet lining of her tongue and into the hole at the back, almost sexual, almost like being an infant again, plus the brief distress signal that made her want to bite down, hard, but what had she proved if not that she was tough, that she was in control, the thing men feared because they could not touch it, reach it, hurt her, her fingertip’s tip was on the trigger, she swallowed the sound, prim, a cat coughing.
The sick came up out of her so fast it was a good thing she’d practiced. She’d get the finger aside just in time, and even in the hot acid swoon make sure her head was over the toilet, where another self swam and muddied as the water did. She was such a good girl there was no sound but the plop of liquid into liquid but it hurt like hell to keep it quiet. Another spasm. Little tears in the inside corners of her eyes. And then it was done, her temperature had spiked, a fine postcoital sweat was on her skin. Her forearms made a chord across the cold front of the bowl, a misericord to rest her forehead on, the smell would go away soon.
Then came the deep listening, in which she could hear each layer of sound, and beyond all of them, the wind grieving over the edges of the hole she’d now cleared in herself. Like the edges of a tarp stretched over a hole in a roof in Buffalo. The saddest part, maybe, was that the seconds that followed were the best part of her day. The ceiling would lift off the room and its walls would telescope toward the sky like a great funnel and she would feel her lost child out there, the angelic sisters, her mother departing from her. Her dear dead mother plucking at the neckline of her cosmic sweater and turning away. “No matter where you are, she sees you,” Daddy had said that day, squeezing her hand and looking down into the coffin. He’d meant to comfort. It was practically the only mention. And then came the ten seconds in which Regan hated herself more than ever. Time to tear two squares of toilet paper and wipe down the bowl’s rim and the bottom of the sink. To brush teeth with a nerdle of Gleem. To flush again and fill the Listerine cap half-full of Listerine and half-full of water. To gargle and drink a glass from the tap, unpin the hair, glance in the mirror again. Window down, radio off, light a match. Do not risk a third flush. And sometimes, while the tank refilled from the second, she would hear socked feet scurrying off toward a far corner of the apartment, as if in flight.
65
SUMMER IN NASSAU COUNTY was fireflies and bottle rockets and cats getting it on in the shade of parked cars and playing cards clothespinned to bike spokes—all that Norman Rockwell crap—so you can bet people freaking loved the Bicentennial. Through the windowscreen of his basement room at midday, Charlie could already smell the sulfur trails of sparklers. It was funny, though, if you thought about it: those elegiac little flags flapping on the neighbors’ lawns were just advertisements, basically, planted by a local life-insurance salesman whose name was printed on the poles. To get anywhere near the real heirs of the Revolution, the punk rockers, you had to go into the City. Not that he’d ever have put it this way to Mom. Instead, he told her he wanted to go see the tall ships. With friends, he said—an alibi she was only too eager to accept. They hadn’t discussed how he’d be getting there; later, he could claim there’d been a miscommunication. But she’d wanted him back by eleven. “Even if the fireworks run over. Eleven—repeat it back to me, Charlie.”
“Geez, Mom. Mellow out.” He’d left the room before she could change her mind. That was yesterday.
Now, in the upstairs bathroom, he used scissors to attack his head. Cutting your own hair was harder than you’d think, and he almost wussed out at the sight of the first clump stuck like a reddish thistle to the slope of the sink, but then he pictured Sam’s grin when she saw him. With the faucet running to cover the sound, he plugged in his dad’s old electric razor and prayed it still worked. The motor whined. Hairs snowed crimson onto the formica. It came across so tough on the sleeve of Brass Tactics, which he’d set on the counter for reference—the strip of uncut hair sprung defiant from the scalp—but in the mirror, with the bucolic drone of some homeowner’s lawnmower and the pop of early firecrackers in the background, it looked like a starved rodent had collapsed atop his skull.
He used some balled toilet paper to sweep the hairs from the counter into the bowl of the sink, and thence down the drain. Then he knelt to check the tiles for strays. Before he’d finished, a splashing sound made him turn around, and what he saw almost gave him a heart attack. The sink was overflowing. Shit. He grabbed a towel from the towel-rack. By the time he reached the faucet, runoff had snaked across the sloped floor, under the door, out into the hallway. Fucking shit. In his haste, he’d taken one of Mom’s monogrammed towels, but there was no going back now. He did his best to soak up the water and then fished in the drain, trying not to register the gunked texture of the pipes. He came up with an evil little Hitler moustache of hair. He wadded it in Kleenex and flushed it down the toilet.
Out in the hallway, towel in hand, he stood listening for Mom. Abraham, age three, appeared in the doorway of the room where the twins should have been sleeping. The blameless mouth widened as Abe took in the water on the floor and his brother’s ruined scalp. He clapped a hand to his cheek and pointed just to make sure Charlie knew he knew. “You rat me out, I give you a bruise,” Charlie said. “Now go finish your damn nap.” It was no fair, having brothers too young to be mad at. And this was their lawn being mowed outside; Mom must have gotten tired of waiting around for Charlie and decided to do it herself. He dropped the towel and swabbed it around with his foot and balled it up at the bottom of the linen closet. He waited for the mower to move into the backyard. Then he bolted down the stairs and out the front door, snatching Mom’s car keys off their hook en route, hoping like hell she wouldn’t see him.
THE WAY SAM TALKED about her dad made Charlie kind of scared of the guy. So, notwithstanding the prommish scenario he’d envisioned—ringing the bell, being invited in to wait in the living room until Sam emerged blushing from the back of the house—he idled at the curb and honked until she came out. If she was thinking of this in date-like terms, you couldn’t tell it from her clothes. She wore her same old Television tee-shirt. She did, however, say his hair looked amazing, which instantly made everything pretty much worth it. She’d brought their jointly owned eight-track of Horses, and on the way in they listened to it twice through, singing along as they descended the back half of the Q-Boro Bridge like a bomb lobbed at Midtown: Coming in / in all directions, / white, / shining / silver …
Charlie was worried about Mom’s wagon getting stolen if he left it parked for eight hours in the Village, so they took a spot above Fourteenth and headed down on foot toward where a friend o
f Sam’s was supposed to be getting off work. She’d been nipping from a brown-bagged bottle. He reached for it and, after checking for cops, took a swig. “This is one of those guys from your record-store photo shoot we’re meeting?”
“His roommates are the ones having the party. They’ve never even let me see their place, so you should feel honored I scored you an invite. You know who I heard might be there? Billy Three-Sticks.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious. Sol’s friend Nicky knows everybody, allegedly.”
They ambled south, passing the fiery bottle of O’Shakey’s Irish Whisky. The city that day was like a carnival: sailors in white uniforms clotted on corners, sidewalks so crowded tourists were walking in the actual street, irritated drivers laying on their horns. Every dozen yards or so a density of pot hit him right in the nose. Hooray, America. Everyone, even the most down-and-out people on Third Avenue, which was like the world capital of down-and-outness, seemed to be wearing red, or white, or blue.
Everyone, that is, except Solomon Grungy. They found him in front of a restaurant south of Houston, sweeping what looked like a windshield wiper across the plate-glass, leaving comet-trails of discolored foam. He was taller even than Charlie, but burly and weathered and so pierced as to be almost perforated, and it didn’t look like underneath his bandana he had any hair at all. “Wait here a minute,” said Sam, so Charlie hung back, settling himself on an iron stoop to wait for the signal to come over and be introduced. His inhaler tasted bitter. Soon Grungy was disappearing into the basement restaurant, and she’d rejoined Charlie. “Change of plans.” She had to yell to make herself heard above ten thousand motorcycles that were just then passing a block away. “The dishwasher walked off the job, so they’re going to give Sol a crack at it. It means it’s going to be another few hours before he clocks out.”
“What is he, an all-purpose washer? Like, you name it, I’ll wash it? Windows, dishes, whatever?”
“He needs the money, Charlie, okay? It’s either that or keep stealing. We should go somewhere and wait.”
Washington Square Park, where they ended up, was a fucking zoo. Hippies playing guitar in the dry fountain. Kids everywhere. The sun over Jersey was medium rare. On a bench overlooking the playground, they ate hot dogs from a cart. Then she dug a frowsy plastic baggie out of her pocket and shook what looked like bits of dried Play-Doh into his hands. “Magic mushrooms,” she said. Color Charlie intrigued—but also hesitant, having heard somewhere that it was impossible to tell poison mushrooms from the edible kind. As he watched her bolt her own handful, he wanted to warn her. But she seemed okay, so he downed half of what she’d given him and when she wasn’t looking pocketed the rest. They washed away the sawdusty taste with some Coke into which she’d mixed the O’Shakey’s and then leaned back on the bench.
“I remember I used to go out with my dad and his guys on the barges to help fire the Fourth of July show, once I was big enough,” she said. “He would have wanted us to come, but he’s not doing the city’s fireworks this year. Couldn’t make it cheap enough.”
“That stinks,” Charlie said.
“Yeah, but probably for the best. It’s just a button you push, not a lighter or anything, and you have to wear these stupid goggles. Besides, can you imagine being that close to fireworks, tripping? There’s supposed to be a roof at this party tonight everybody can watch from.”
A mood of general benevolence massaged the nerves that should have tightened here. Or maybe it was the mushrooms. The yellow-pink sky had reached down to run a thumb across her cheek, and there was blue just below that, by the nose-ring. Her whole neck-and-shoulder area, in fact, was emitting little glycerine swirls of color as she watched tiny patriots conquer the slide. He touched her shoulder. She turned as if to say, What? but then their eyes met. Hers were no longer brown, as he’d thought, but goldish-green, like light in the springtime—liquid, lickable sun. “Holy shit,” he said. He could actually see her feelings.
“I know,” she said. As if she could see his, too. Assuming there was even any difference.
They sat for several lifetimes watching kids like flowers sprout over the playground equipment under the breathing trees. They became these kids, somehow; they didn’t have to talk about it. Sam took his hand with her sweaty hand and he just knew exactly what she meant. Then the streetlights came on, reminding them about the fireworks, and how they should head back down to Sol Grungy. She wobbled a bit on her feet, crossing Houston, but Charlie helped her.
It was dinnertime now, and the picture windows of the garden-level restaurant were full of long-necked creatures in summer suits, but Charlie could see they only looked vicious because they were lonely. Inside, classical music was playing. Classical music was amazing! He felt like a golden beam, turning surfaces translucent, seeing down to bone. With his sword of light he parted the dining room and Sam headed through the breach. Ignoring the waiters, they pushed into a corridor. She poked her head through a curtain into the kitchen, where three people whirled furiously. “Pssst. Sol!”
“Who the fuck is this?” someone said. “Get these two the fuck out of my kitchen.”
Charlie whispered, loudly, “We’re Sol’s friends.” Sol stared for a second at the bellowing steaming silver box at which he stood. Then he peeled off his rubber gloves and redundant hairnet and came out into the hall.
“Jesus Christ. I told you it was going to be a while. I hardly started and you’re going to get me fired.”
“So?” she said, slurring. “You hate this shit. Let’s go party.”
“You see how busy we are? You can’t be in here.”
“Listen to yourself, man. ‘We?’ ”
Charlie hummed along with Vivaldi, or whoever, unconcerned that Sol was looking for a way to get rid of them. “Look. You guys come back at ten, someone’s supposed to be relieving me. I’ll take you to the thing.”
“But we wanna see fireworks. And I wanna meet this Captain Whatsis of yours.” Charlie had never heard her like this before, wheedling, whining, her forehead beaded with sweat.
“I’m serious. You stay around here, I’ll kick your ass. Both of you.”
Out in the street, there was nothing to do but finish the whisky. It couldn’t touch Charlie anymore; he was too powerful. But Sam kept belching and, when they reached the corner, put hands on thighs, leaned forward, and blew chunks into the gutter. A woman in a long skirt muttered something in Yiddish Charlie should have understood. Sam’s elbow felt cold and thin to his hand. He couldn’t see her feelings anymore. “Are you okay?”
She sat down hard on the curb, right there in the middle of everything. Her eyelids were heavy, her lips gray (though maybe that was just ’cause it was getting dark). “Come on, Sam. Hey.” She stood woozily, collapsed against him. Something was definitely wrong. Usually she could mix beer and pot and pills in a single afternoon and still be fine by dinnertime. It was Charlie who had to watch himself, or be squired on her arm to Penn Station to catch the 7:05 home. He led her back to the restaurant. The stereo was between songs or something. The hostess was ready this time, and stepped in front of him as a diner behind her made a crack about his hair. “Look, we can wait outside,” Charlie said. “Or we can sit right here, your choice. But you better go get your new dishwasher.”
Sol met them out front, under a shorted-out streetlight. He looked ready to take Charlie’s head off, but Charlie preempted him. “I really think there’s something wrong with Sam.” Hearing her name, Sam smiled but didn’t open her eyes. Sol squatted to inspect her.
“Shit. What did you guys eat?”
“I don’t know. A hot dog, chips.”
“No, asshole. What did you eat?”
“Uh. We took some mushrooms earlier?”
“You ate the mushrooms?”
“Just a little, though.”
“How little? Caps or stems?”
“Just stems, I guess, for me. Just the tiniest bit.”
“Christ. I told her to
wait.” Solomon Grungy stared at Charlie. “Well, I can’t fucking walk off without getting paid. You’d better take her ahead to the house, it’s not far. Keep her away from the roof. Get her down to the basement, give her some water, see if she’ll throw up again. She can crash in the bed when she’s done. I’ll come find you.”
“Isn’t there a party? How will people know we’re invited?”
“What do you think it is, a country club? It’s a fucking party, man. You just walk in.”
Charlie half-walked and half-dragged Sam to the address he’d been given. Inside, there were people shouting, music coming from the upper floors, a black-lit parlor in which all you could see were kegs of beer lined up against a plasterless wall and gleaming teeth attached to Mr. Potato Head heads. The smoke was so thick he had to reach again for his inhaler, but at least no one noticed them come in. He found a stairwell and lugged Sam down to the basement. He had to stoop to keep from walking into pipes. The windows were dark. The fireworks would be starting any minute. He meant to put her to bed, but when he turned on the only lamp he could find, a dim bulb without a shade, there was still puke on her face, and he couldn’t let her sleep like that.
A bathroom the size of a phone booth had been built out in one corner of the room—that’s what the pipes ran to. Maybe a shower would help. He turned on the water and waited until there was steam and then arranged Sam on the toilet lid. “I’m going to leave you alone in here. I want you to get in the shower. And don’t drown.” Amazing, how authoritative he could sound.
But as soon as he let her go, she slumped against the wall. “Donleavmeere.” The skin of her eyelids was almost translucent. You could see the contours of the eyes beneath.
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