Miriam's Well

by Lois Ruby

  “Come by tonight at eight,” she said.

  My mother was curled up in the family room reading. Knowing the power of Stephen King, I hoped I could slip by her unnoticed, but no such luck. With her face buried in the book, my mother sniffed the air around her.

  “You put bug spray on. Are you going out with Diana?”

  “No, I’m not going out with Diana.”

  “Whom do you have a date with, then?”

  “I don’t have a date with anywhom.”

  “You don’t drown yourself in that aftershave unless you’re hot on the trail of a lady. You can tell your mother.”

  “Why does my mother have to be the Grand Inquisitor?”

  She craned her neck to see my father, who had briefcase papers spread all over the game table. “What’s going on with your son?”

  “It’s privileged information, Abby. You’ll have to torture it out of him.”

  “Oh,” she struck her forehead with the heel of her hand. “The light dawns. You’re going to see that Pelham girl. Well, how nice of you.”

  What did she think, I was visiting Miriam out of pity? It was because she was driving me nuts. When I closed my eyes at night to let Diana’s face fill my imagination in the eerie time before sleep, more and more there was Miriam’s face butting in. I hated that. I had to get things straight with her, so I could get free of her and enjoy my old fantasies.

  “Poor girl, my toochas,” Dad said. “You should have seen her today. She could have won for senator. We should all be as healthy, when we’re dying of cancer.”

  “Wait a minute, she’s not dying, Dad. I’ve had her in class for two years, and I never saw her look so good.”

  My parents exchanged one of their looks. My mother kept her finger in Stephen King and said, “It’s just a matter of time, Adam.”

  “You guys both believe that?”

  “We’re realists,” my father said with a sigh.

  “Let me get this straight: You’re defending their right to deny treatment, but you think she’s going to die if the doctors don’t treat her?”

  “Law of averages,” my father said. “People don’t survive cancer any better today than they did in 1950.”

  “But what about this miracle healing? You were there. She had a mob of people believing it happened. She believes it.”

  “Aw, Adam, there are no miracles,” my father said.

  “You goddamned hypocrite!” I’d never talked this way to my parents before, and though my mother’s face looked stricken, neither of them said a word. I had to get out of there. I grabbed my jacket and ran, slamming the door so hard that the windows rattled. My parents were both standing at the window watching when I drove away in my mother’s Jeep.

  Miriam was just getting back from Sunday night church, so I parked across the street and waited. The bald-headed uncle got out and came around to open her side of the car. After five minutes or so, I went up to her porch. There was a small square of window cut into the door, but some kind of brown curtain hung behind it, and I couldn’t see inside. Before I could knock, the huge uncle opened the door. Glaring at me, he rolled his belly back to let me in.

  Miriam came up out of nowhere and brushed past him. “We’re going out for a walk, Uncle Benjamin. Tell Mama when she gets back from the store, okay?” She started sprinting up the street.

  “What’s the big rush?”

  “I’m avoiding you,” she said.

  I could hardly keep up. Damn wheezy allergies. About a half dozen houses up the block, she spun around and said, “I want this to be over.”

  “I just got here.”

  “Not you, it. The case. I’m sick of it. It’s all so silly, because I’m fine now.”

  I didn’t tell her that my father said it would take three months to settle the case, or about the dying part. Instead, I asked her, “What does your father say about all this?” By now she’d slowed down, and I could walk next to her without gasping for breath.

  “Is this what you were so desperate to talk to me about?”

  “Well, not really.”

  “So, what was it?”

  “What, you can’t guess?”

  “This conversation is going nowhere, Adam.”

  “Kind of like when we studied poetry together.”

  “You got a B+,” said Miriam, slowing her pace another notch. “Guess what, I got an A.”

  “So where is your father?”

  “How’s your girlfriend?”

  “Okay. She’s going to the Bahamas for Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh, mercy, the Feast of Thanksgiving’s coming up,” Miriam said forlornly. “I wonder if the doctors and court will let us have any kind of peaceful Thanksgiving.”

  Small talk; we were hurrying up the street with nowhere to go, and getting nowhere, but I was conscious of the minutes ticking away. I didn’t know how to begin.

  “In Portland, Maine,” Miriam said. “My father.”

  “Your parents are divorced?”

  “Oh, no. We don’t believe in divorce. But they can’t live together. He’s not in the church. He’s not a Christian. I mean, he’s not not a Christian the way you aren’t, but he doesn’t practice what Brother James preaches.”

  “How long’s he been gone?”

  “I’ve never met him,” Miriam replied. “He left before I was even baptized, and here I am.”

  “Listen, could we just park it somewhere?” I was gulping air like a beached whale. There was a thick log stretched across the corner of the Quik Trip parking lot. “This’ll do.” She sat on the log, and I straddled it, facing her profile. She had a delicate nose, round as a baby’s, and very small ears. Her hair was tucked back behind one ear and gently rolled on her back.

  “Satan didn’t send me,” I said. She sharply glanced at me, then turned away. “Honestly, I wasn’t trying to get you to do something against your religion.”

  “Oh Adam, I know you didn’t mean to, but you couldn’t help it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, what could you do? You’re of a different faith. Like my father,” she said.

  “So what? So that means I’m Satan’s first lieutenant? I’m not exactly the serpent in the Garden of Eden, you know. I’m one of the good guys. I rest my case.”

  “Don’t confuse me with your wit and clever debate rhetoric.”

  “It sure seems like you’re easily confused. If you’d been Eve, you never would have gotten the serpent’s message. The human race would have died of boredom in the Garden of Eden.”

  “You’re so glib. I happen to take the Bible seriously.”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot. The Gospel According to Brother James.”

  “It works,” she said simply, and then she jumped to her feet. “Adam Bergen, in case you haven’t noticed, I am perfectly well.”

  “Yeah, I know, I was there in the church today, remember?”

  “Look!” She did jumping jacks on and off the log. “How did I get this way? I prayed about it.”

  “Can’t we just have a normal secular conversation?”

  “Oh, I know, you think it’s low class and pea-brained to pray for healing, but I’m telling you, God made me well.” She leaned into my face. “Read my lips, GOD MADE ME WELL. Do I sound confused?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, listen to you! You’re the one who’s confused. You don’t know what you believe. And besides, we’ll never agree on anything.”

  “Hey, I have strong opinions.”

  “Name one.”

  “Capital punishment. Against.”

  “For.”

  “Abortion rights. For.”

  “Against.”

  “Mrs. Loomis. Against.”

  “For. I rest my case.” Her face radiated with satisfaction. I wanted to kiss her.

  “Okay, so we don’t see eye to eye on a few little things. Does that mean we can’t be friends?”

  “Friends?” she repeated, turning to look at me. Her
hand had inched closer toward me on the log.

  I covered her hand with my own and slid even closer. I could smell her shampoo, spicey-sweet. “The problem is, crazy as it sounds, I like you, Miriam.”

  “You shouldn’t,” she said, grasping my fingers and pulling them to her lips. “It isn’t right.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Told by Miriam

  Adam brought over a pile of newspapers, magazines, debate evidence books, rubber cement, stacks of 4×6 cards, a red marker, a ruler, a giant pair of scissors. “My weapons,” he said. “Cut. Paste. Let’s see if we can get a hundred cards done before the hour’s up.” We sat at the wobbly card table Mama had set up in front of the fireplace before she’d discreetly gone to take a nap. We knew her nap would be no more than an hour long, and after that, Adam would have to leave, because the men would be home from work.

  It was a crunchy autumn day, too warm for air-conditioning, but not quite cold enough for the heater. There was just a catch in my back, nothing terrible. I had an afghan wrapped around me. The skin on my cheeks felt tight from the fire.

  “I love to hear the fire crackle and pop,” I said dreamily.

  “Sounds like Rice Krispies.” Adam tossed a scrap of paper into the fire. He had to lean way back on the rickety chair to do it. Any minute now, he’d topple back toward the fireplace.

  “Adam, do you have to toss each paper scrap in? Why don’t you save them up, for one huge fire?”

  “No, this is symbolic. Each piece I toss in is one more debate opponent’s argument going up in flames.”

  “You’re so incredibly competitive.”

  “I’m not competitive. Diana’s the competitive one on the team. Hey look, I’ve got at least ten more cards done than you have.”

  “You’ve got a sharper pair of scissors to work with. It’s not fair.”

  “Listen,” Adam said, leaning back and tucking his hands behind his head. “I could use my Swiss army knife and work faster than you. I could use kindergarten scissors with round points. I could tear the evidence out of the paper with my bare teeth and get more cards done than you. I could—”

  “It’s a real pleasure working with someone who hasn’t got a competitive bone in his body.”

  He gave me a sort of embarrassed grin and tossed the hair back off his forehead. I’m sure he washed his hair every day. It was always clean and just a bit fly-away. In the glow of the fireplace, I found red highlights in his hair, and a spot under his chin where he forgot to shave. I knew the topography of his face so well; I could see each detail even when he wasn’t there.

  “What did you pick as outside reading for Mrs. Loomis’s class this nine weeks?” I asked. Keep it neutral.

  “Some Russian thing. I think it’s called The Brothers Kalamazoo.” He was concentrating intently, his eyes flashing, color rising from his neck. Under the table, I felt his foot tap-tap-tap.

  The kitchen door opened, and the men came in from the garage. So soon? I prayed they’d at least be polite to Adam, or that they’d never come into the living room and find us. I heard Uncle Benjamin put on the coffeepot and Uncle Vernon open the pantry, no doubt looking for Twinkies or Ho Ho’s. I knew them so well; I knew their habits and footsteps far better even than I knew Adam’s face.

  “Sit right there,” Uncle Benjamin said. Who would he be talking to?

  “And ’spose I wanted to sit over here instead,” came a teasing voice. It was Brother James!

  “Whelp, it’s a free world,” Uncle Benjamin replied. “You can sit up there on the window ledge if you want, James. Look pretty silly, if you ask me.”

  Adam whispered, “Oh, Jesus. Sorry. Oh, man, now we’re in for it.”

  “You want a Twinkie?” Uncle Vernon asked in the kitchen.

  “Sure, toss one.” We heard the soft thud in Brother James’s hand.

  Adam leaned across the table. “You want me to slip out the door?”

  “But that would be so dishonest,” I whispered back.

  “Then do we pretend we’re not here? Should we slide to the floor and act like we died of carbon monoxide poisoning?”

  “No, just act normal, but do it quietly.”

  “How can I act normal when he’s in there?” Adam asked.

  I placed my finger over his lips. “Just hush!” Partly, I wanted him quiet enough that we wouldn’t be noticed, and partly I didn’t want to miss a word of what was going on in the next room. I’d never heard anything quite like this. The men had such an easiness about them. They could have been three buddies coming home from a football game, replaying the game over a few beers, which, of course, they would never do. All that good feeling would be spoiled if they knew we were listening, but was it right not to let them know?

  “Benjamin, you make terrible coffee. A fly landing on the mug would die of the fumes,” Brother James said. “You’ve got to get yourself a woman who can make a decent cup of coffee.”

  Uncle Vernon said, “Wouldn’t work. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Ever hear that?” He chuckled.

  Brother James said, “You know I’m thinking about getting married. Am I too old to learn new tricks?”

  “Naw, you do what comes naturally, same as dogs.”

  “Well, Benjamin, that’s sort of a sour view of romance.” Brother James had such a playful quality to his voice. Gone was the resonance, the cadence, the near-whisper that bounded off the church rafters. “Marylou Wadkins, now there’s quite a girl.”

  “Woman,” Uncle Vernon corrected him. “That’s what they like to be called these days. No gal, no girl. Heck, they don’t even like lady anymore.” Uncle Vernon, the authority on feminism!

  “But what am I going to do about those babies?” asked Brother James. “At least one’s still in diapers. I’d be no good with diapers. I can’t even clean up after my dog.”

  “Me and Benjamin learned to live with it.”

  Adam pointed at me and laughed soundlessly.

  “Well, James, I’m telling you, you better make a move before someone else does,” said Uncle Benjamin, who, as far as I knew, had never made a move toward any gal, girl, lady, or woman. “I might like to raise a couple of babies myself,” he teased.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready, I just don’t know,” Brother James said. The men settled into a comfortable silence, the crinkling Twinkie wrappers filling the space left by their words.

  I motioned for Adam to quietly follow me out to the porch. We couldn’t risk being discovered now. We slipped out of our shoes and padded through the soft carpet. Not even a Siamese cat could have been sneakier.

  Later, two things stuck with me. One, that for the first time in my life, I’d heard Brother James called by just his first name, as if all the men were close friends, equals; yet they couldn’t be equals when Brother James was on a much higher plane than my workaday uncles. And when had they become such good friends without my noticing?

  And then, it was the first time in my life I’d heard Brother James totally “off duty,” and I realized that through the whole eavesdropping—God forgive me—I was scared he’d do something awful, that he’d cuss or say something lewd or take a drink of wine or even belch. Of course, he hadn’t done anything but the most ordinary of things. But I had never expected anything ordinary of him, either. I thought of the question in Mark: “What manner of man is this?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Told by Adam

  So, there I was with two women in my life, and it was getting pretty complicated. B knew about A, but A didn’t know about B, even though A and B knew each other. I was walking a tightrope under an electrical storm and over a pit of killer wasps, because A would eviscerate me (after she got over laughing) if she knew that I had a thing going with B.

  And I couldn’t tell Brent about B, because he thought B (AKA Miriam Pelham) was about as desirable as a lady mud wrestler. Not that Brent had any woman. After the poetry assignment, he even struck out with Ramona Ruiz, who would go out with an ibex.


  I couldn’t say much to my parents, either. I knew what they’d say. They’d tell me I wasn’t thinking straight, which is what they said on my sixteenth birthday when I announced I wanted to get my ear pierced.

  “You’re taking pity on that girl,” my father would say. “Believe me, she doesn’t need it.”

  “You’re thinking with your fly, not your noggin,” my mother would add. “Men are always panting after inaccessible women. It’s called the Madonna Complex or some such thing.”

  Like Siskel and Ebert’s low-brow movie choices, Miriam was my “guilty pleasure.” In a sense, she was the “other woman,” the one you meet in back alleys and restaurants on the cheating side of town.

  And then there was her family. The Uncles Grimm would gladly have ripped me into fajita strips if she’d said “sic!” I finally figured out which Grimm was which. The bald one was Vernon. In my rich vocabulary, he was Uncle Vermin. He was the one that almost nailed a bride, back in the days when women would marry anything that didn’t wear pantyhose. The other guy, Uncle Benjamin, was the Neanderthal one—tall, semi-dangling arms, brooding face. The one who couldn’t make coffee.

  Both the uncles, or “the men,” as Miriam and her mother called them, puttered in the garage with fix-it things, tools that Jewish men thought of as implements of the Inquisition—buzz saws, power drills, nail drivers. On Sunday afternoons, their garage sounded like a medieval dungeon. I stayed clear of the uncles. I didn’t want to be one of their do-it-yourself projects.

  But Miriam’s mother was the mystery. I know she didn’t approve of me, since I wasn’t a SATS guy (Sword and the Spirit). But she was always nice to me, brought me cookies or Twinkies and milk, gave Miriam and me a few minutes alone every so often, and did not ask questions like my mother, the Grand Inquisitor, did. Come to think of it, Mother Torquemada and the uncles should have gotten together to perfect their inquisitional skills.

  All of this goes to say, my whatever-you-call-it with Miriam wasn’t a normal heterosexual relationship. That is, it was hetero, but not sexual, despite its back alley overtones. We went nowhere, we did nothing besides hold hands now and then. We hid out from my friends, her uncles, my parents, her preacher, and anyone else who might recognize us and say, “Hey, isn’t she that religious fanatic, and isn’t he going out with Diana Cameron?”