“It doesn’t matter” pushing her foot down harder on the gas pedal. And it didn’t. Not really.
“No point in looking back,” her mother always said. “You wouldn’t like what you see and you can’t change it anyway.”
No point in looking back, but Charlotte couldn’t resist taking just one more look behind her at the back seat.
It was empty of anything save her fears. But just as she opened her mouth to sigh in relief . . .
∗ ∗ ∗
“She never even looked,” the driver told the officer. “I saw her coming and slowed down, but I couldn’t move over—not that fast and besides, there was a tractor-trailer next to me! Where could I go? Why can’t people be more careful? And she was speeding and not even looking where she was going!
“I saw her face, you know,” and he started to shake, seeing those eyes, that mouth wide open, again in his mind. “She should have been paying attention, not looking behind her! Not on a freeway! After all, anything can happen!”
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Let me just say at the outset that, in the words of the immortal Bard, this is all much ado about nothing. I pay my taxes—well, I used to pay them when I had anything to pay taxes on—anyway, the taxes I once paid supported public institutions. Like the library. Which means, I maintain, that the aforementioned library—and its roof, in particular—is as much mine as anyone’s.
So if I choose to spend one summer night on the asphalt shingles nailed to the library roof, it’s entirely my own right and affair.
Besides, I had such a perfect view of the fire from there.
I have always searched out places where I could enjoy some privacy. I believe a person needs time to be alone, to appreciate life and nature and all the wondrous happenings in the world. One night, for instance, I even drove 25 miles out to the country, just to revel in the silence and solitude.
(This was before they took my car away, of course—a punishment I found inconvenient, not to mention most unfair. After all, how was I supposed to know the man wouldn’t stop for me? The road was built for cars, not pedestrians—crosswalk lines notwithstanding. And he probably wasn’t even blind.)
As I was saying, I drove out to the country. It was dark, just a few stars pricking through the black velvet sky. So silent you could hear a pin drop—provided you didn’t lose it in the long grass where it wouldn’t make a sound that could be heard no matter how quiet it was.
The meadow was lined along one side with tall oak trees—very big, with lots of scratchy bark. Oak trees are so strong, so immovable—just the ticket when the earth suddenly began to rotate a bit faster than normal. I wrapped my arms around the rough trunk and waited to see what would happen next.
Something always happens, it seems.
The rotation built up speed like a merry-go-round out of control. I held on tightly so I wouldn’t spin off into the darkness—a helpless victim of centrifugal force. It was frightening but quite exhilarating as well.
I think I stayed like that for hours, my body pressed against the rough skin of my rescuer, while the earth spun away in the darkness. And the mad twisting didn’t slow until dawn broke over the hillside and cars began appearing on the roadway.
Was the world just tired of turning? Or was it all those bodies that slowed it down, exerting some kind of magnetic force against the wild revolution?
Personally, I think it was the people. It has been my own experience that strange things quit happening when other people are around. Sometimes, it can be very disappointing.
But I digress. As I stated before, the library roof is mine. It’s my last stop each evening, after I have let myself through the trapdoor on the grocery store roof to do my nightly shopping.
“Man does not live by bread alone,” you know. Milk and eggs and butter are nice to have, too. And since my little home in the woods (actually a large packing crate “borrowed” from a warehouse, but “a rose by any other name . . .”) has neither electricity nor heat, I have to shop every day. If I don’t want to starve, that is.
There are some who would call this stealing. But I am not one to get caught up in semantics. Especially when I’m in the mood for a nice ham and cheese on rye topped with a large deli pickle.
The store is quiet at night. I like that. I can hear the voices so much better when it’s quiet. They’re clearer, more distinct.
I used to be afraid when I would hear them. After all, no one else could. I thought it meant I was, you know, crazy.
(You see, I can use that word. “Crazy.” “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Although I do remember giving my second-grade teacher a concussion when I hit her with a particularly large edition of Webster’s Dictionary. Does that count?)
But then I thought about it—hearing the voices, I mean. After all, you don’t get scared when you turn on the radio and disembodied voices come out of the little speakers, do you? Of course not! Then why should I worry because I have mastered the ability to hear voices without benefit of speakers or wires?
Actually, I think it’s pretty clever. But I doubt if anyone would agree so I’m keeping this talent to myself. “Discretion is the better part of valor.”
About the fire—now there they have it all wrong. I certainly didn’t set it. Why would I?
It’s true I do harbor some resentment because I wasn’t allowed in the store any more. Accused of causing a disturbance, I was. How ridiculous!
I was just trying to do my shopping (and I intended to pay for everything I took, even the bag of frozen peas slowly defrosting in the pocket of my pants). And I can’t help it if, every time I needed to ask the voices for advice, I had to find a deserted aisle so I could hear the answer.
But I certainly wasn’t talking to myself. That would be silly.
I could have argued the point with the store manager but “he who turns and runs away lives to fight another day.” Not that it makes any sense, when you think about it. After all, what’s the point of escaping if you only have to go through it again at a later date?
But I absolutely, categorically did not set the fire. (That’s sixteen syllables’ worth of denial, in case anyone is counting.)
One does not bite the hand that feeds one. And the store indubitably fed me—and all winter long, kept me warm as well. There is a space behind the water heater on the second floor just large enough for me. I don’t take up much room, you know. As a matter of fact, I think I’m growing smaller each day, just like the incredible shrinking man. Not that I’ve been exposed to large amounts of radiation or dangerous chemicals. At least, not that I know of. On the other hand, do we really know what’s out there?
I tried to explain all this to the police, who of course refused to believe me. And to be perfectly fair, it may have looked a tiny bit suspicious. I did have a rather large supply of matches on me. And my hands did smell a bit like lighter fluid.
Of course, had I been wearing a three-piece business suit and carrying a briefcase, no one would have accused me of anything. Clothes do “make the man.” But just because my clothes are a bit ragged and my face is scratched and dirty, everyone is willing to entertain the notion that I could be a firebug, an arsonist, a pyromaniac who stayed to watch the building burn.
But my reason for remaining was perfectly understandable. I found the whole scene quite exciting and more than a little entertaining, especially when it became apparent that the fire was getting the best of the firefighters.
No matter which side the fire truck rolled to, it was a safe bet the flames would burn more fiercely on the other side. And how the firefighters ran for cover when the gas line ruptured! Certainly better than anything offered on television, and definitely worth the applause I awarded it.
But I was not laughing insanely on the library roof, nor did I shout “Encore!” “Encore!” when the flames died down. Those damned reporters are notorious for exaggerating the truth.
So now they are keeping me here “under
observation,” while they search out the cause of the blaze. And since they won’t release me, I’ve decided not to tell them anything—not my name nor where I live—no small piece of information that they could twist to their own advantage.
I refuse to make it easy for them. Let them work at their job and earn their pay.
But I really would like to get out of here. There’s so much noise that I can’t hear my voices any more. People are laughing, screaming, crying. There’s nowhere to go to have any silence.
And I badly need their advice—my voices, I mean. They help me so much. You know, if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have known how to make a small bonfire from rags and kerosene to simultaneously celebrate Midsummer’s Eve and cook foot-long hot dogs.
It was an excellent idea. And if I hadn’t gotten sidetracked in the produce department (so many ears of corn to choose from just to find the perfect one to roast!), I’m sure I would have made it back before the flames had gotten too far out of hand.
But I didn’t. Obviously. So now I am operating on the “least said, soonest mended” principle. I hope it works. Once I’m out of here, I’m sure I will be able to hear my voices again. My life will get back to normal and I can forget all about the padded walls and straitjackets (not even in pretty colors) and long, sharp needles.
I have always been very good at forgetting unpleasant things. Once I get away from them, they are buried and forgotten.
After all, you know what they say—“Out of sight, out of mind.”
Misconnections
They blamed the airplane crash on “equipment failure.” Some little cog or pin or cylinder had failed to move when it was supposed to, and so the connection was not made in time.
Mechanical misconnection. Crash. Burn.
I had purposely avoided watching any part of the televised reports because I was afraid I would dream about it. But the information could not be avoided. The news was everywhere: on the radio, in the paper, part of everyone’s conversation. And so the dreams came.
I was watching rescue workers at the scene of the plane crash. One woman, dressed in a starched white nurse’s uniform, white hose and shoes, was bringing from the wreckage small stained bundles that turned out to be dead infants.
I remember the sticky film of blood and body fluids as she unwrapped them, and I wondered why there were so many dead babies on the plane.
When I arose the next morning, I saw the bedsheet was stained with pink, and I realized my period had come—unexpectedly, but not undesired. We didn’t want any more children. We had agreed on that. That was why the IUD scraped me clean with efficient regularity.
No babies to be born, no eggs connecting to a nutrient-filled lining.
Disconnection. Removal.
So why the dream?
I have never had much luck understanding the hidden messages behind my nocturnal imaginings. Sometimes, I can brush them off in the light of day like so many cobwebs—vague and insubstantial. Others are not so easy to dismiss. They linger, like a damp fog chilling my bones.
Some, like the dreams of phone calls from some unnamed person, return again and again to haunt me.
I can remember one of the dreams: “What now, Anna?” the voice reaching to my ears through the wires.
As I held the receiver, a hand snaked out of the mouthpiece to fasten around my wrist. The fingers were cold and unyielding.
“What now, Anna?” insistently, and then the line went dead.
When I awoke, I was lying rigid, my fingers clenched together, my body drenched with sweat. For a moment, I thought to awaken my husband. But he wouldn’t understand.
I have asked my husband if he dreams, but he says he does not. I have watched him, on those nights when I can’t sleep, and seen his face change and his eyelids twitch, and wonder where his mind is roaming. But he says he does not dream.
My children dream. I know this because, from me, they have inherited the ability to walk and talk in their sleep, carrying on conversations and moving from one room to the next with the stubborn irrationality of the somnambulist.
Sometimes, as I guide them back to bed, tuck them in and close the door, I wondered what kind of dream world held them captive, what possibilities existed for them in their night-time fantasies.
When I was young, my dream-life was so active my parents fastened extra chains to the doors to keep me in the house. I was always trying to leave—go somewhere, see someone. The world held so many possibilities that daylight hours were not sufficient.
Now I dream of sorrow, loss, pain. I have killed off and buried every member of my family in my dreams: been present at their funerals or received the news second-hand through the phone wires. My father alone has died three times that I can remember.
After the last dream, I called my parents, but heard only the message on the answering machine: “We aren’t in right now. Leave your name and number and we’ll call you back.”
I wanted to say: “Are you alive or dead?” but my parents are in their seventies, and I didn’t wish to alarm them.
So I waited until they returned from what was yet another road trip. By now, they have crisscrossed Florida so many times that tracing their journey on a map would result in a cat’s cradle of pencil lines.
And, after so many trips, their roles are carefully delineated. My mother packs, unpacks, re-packs. My father carries suitcases out to the car, checks his watch, and sighs loudly enough for my mother to hear. Other people have alarms to keep track of the time. My mother knows the time by the length of my father’s sighs.
In the car, my father drives and my mother talks. One activity is totally unrelated to the other, and they are both satisfied merely with the other’s physical presence. I know from experience that there will occasionally be cross words, arguments even, revolving around the adjustment of the air flow, the speed of the car, the amount of stops between origin and destination.
But these are merely misfirings of an otherwise well-tuned engine. After all the years together, there are enough working connections to keep the motor running.
Once they were home, I called again: “How was your trip? Were the roads busy? Are my nephews taller?” (Are you still alive, or have you died and no one has told me yet?)
“The trip was fine,” my mother said, and my father grunted in the background. “Of course he drove too fast—you did, dear, even the patrolman said so!—but the scenery was beautiful. You should drive down someday with the children.”
But we do not make car trips—not after the first and last vacation we took. The children fought all the way—an endless eight-hour bickering. Their motors were racing, and there was no way to slow them down.
All during that endless drive, my husband gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white, and his lips were set and tight.
On the return journey, it was more peaceful. The children, tired after eight days of beachcombing and swimming, occupied themselves with souvenirs. In the quiet, I could hear the radio station playing a song my husband and I had once danced to.
He glanced over at me, and then reached out to hold my hand—an unaccustomed gesture of affection. But my fingers were greasy from the fries I had been eating, and, after a moment, he released me.
Equipment failure.
That night I dreamed again of the airplane crash. This time, there was a girl-child, not more than three or four, wearing only white training pants. I remember especially her short golden curls, tangled around her face.
She walked, with the precision the young sometimes show in unfamiliar territory, until she came to an empty stretcher waiting on the stony ground. For a long time she stood in front of it, one finger probing inside her mouth, and a look of intense concentration on her face.
There wasn’t a mark on her: no scratch, no scrape, no burn. Yet I knew she had been on the plane, and somehow crawled unharmed from the wreckage.
Finally, her probing fingers found what they were searching for, and she drew out
of her mouth one very small baby tooth, loosened perhaps in the crash. Carefully, she laid it on the stretcher, and then stood up, gazing at it, waiting, I suppose, for the Tooth Fairy to bring her some coins.
Only the young can hope like that—without reason, without proof. If I once held that much hope in my heart, it has faded away. Now I only believe in what I can see and taste and feel with my hands. That is what’s real—not hope, not dreams.
And yet, as I stirred my coffee in the early morning hours, I wondered if she was waiting there still.
Dreams—even the truly dead cannot escape my dreams. I bring them back to life: where we talk and embrace, exchange love and words, re-connect after years apart, only to say goodbye in the end.
When I awake, they are still dead. That is the trade-off I am granted: the alive remain living, despite my dream-murders, but the dead must stay dead.
Lately, I had been waking with sleep-induced headaches and heavy eyes. My doctor prescribed small blue pills “to relax me.” They took away the dreams, leaving my mind empty and washed clean, like the land after some terrible flood.
The feeling would remain into the daylight hours, and I found I was losing track of what day it was—what week, what month. Sometimes, last year and yesterday seemed interchangeable, all indistinct as faraway trees in a gray fog.
I didn’t feel tired anymore. I didn’t feel anything anymore.
So I stopped taking the pills, preferring the exhaustion of my dreams to the terrible emptiness.
During the day, I do what thousands of other women do. I shop for groceries, wash clothes, make beds. I dust the furniture, run the sweeper, plan the evening meal. I watch the afternoon soaps, the six o’clock news, the evening sitcoms. I go to bed with my husband of fifteen years, lying down on the cotton sheets and feather pillows.
Traveling Left of Center and Other Stories Page 8