by Jack Phoenix
“I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’.”
“There were three of them! They were dancing together! They were Ally, Meg, and Tessa or something! They had red hair and a big fucking snake!” Roderick wished he had chosen his words more carefully, shuddering at his own description of the snake.
“Pal, there ain’t nobody like that that works…” Bill couldn’t finish his sentence as Roderick grabbed him by the shirt collar. “Lisa, call the police!” he shouted to the bartender who ran for the phone.
Releasing him, Roderick roared, throwing his hands up, “Fine, fine! But I’ll find them, and I’ll find out what’s going on. When I do, you’re all fucked!”
He stormed out the door.
Chapter Thirteen
He was lying on the couch, eating potato chips and watching daytime television for nearly a week straight. Roderick had the rest of the week off work, and intended to take more. Salty crumbs were getting all over the cushion under his face, and he had worn the same armless undershirt for nearly five days, but it didn’t bother him to temporarily embrace a ‘white trash’ look, as he called it. He shoveled another handful of chips into his mouth, refusing to think about the occurrences of late. He didn’t want to think about his father, he didn’t want to think about mysterious strippers, he just wanted to be an empty shell for a while.
The blisters on his tongue had healed quite nicely, and the pain in his ass was reduced to a simple discomfort. However, when he had sat on the toilet the previous day, he could feel the strain, and it was a bitter reminder of an event he was trying so desperately to repress.
What bothered him more than the pain was the concern for his reputation. He learned from his father years ago that appearance is everything, and perception is reality. He had wrestled with himself for hours, trying to decide whether or not returning to the strip club to confront the responsible parties was a good idea. What if the owner started talking to people or what if the bartender did? What if word got out? He knew that in this gossipy suburbia, word would leak that something had happened. Pain he could deal with, but not humiliation.
He remembered as a boy coming home from school one Wednesday afternoon. His mother was making sandwiches for him and his sister, and he noticed the black and blue on his mother’s face. She assured him that it was nothing, that she had just had an accident. His father, who was passed out on the couch with the television on and a bottle of liquor beside him, must have come home early from work. His mother was apparently a very clumsy woman. There were several prior occasions before she finally left the family that he could remember seeing his mother with bruises and blotches. Cans were always falling on her from shelves, or she was always tripping and falling, or she was always running into something. She used a great deal of make-up to hide the blemishes; her husband generally looking her over to make sure that it was enough. Neither one wanted anyone to know how clumsy she was.
Roderick now felt like his mother must have felt. He and Elizabeth were due to make an appearance at a fund-raising ball for his political party the following week. His greatest concern before he began to feel better was that he wouldn’t be able to speak clearly or that he’d have to be sitting down very gently, which would just arouse questions from others in the community. They would ask such questions, not out of genuine concern, but out of sheer curiosity so they could have something else to talk about. He knew the world of the upper middle-class quite well. He’d have to come up with a plausible story about what happened to him in case anyone at the bar was a songbird.
Just as he thought this, an actual songbird appeared at his open window. He looked at the golden finch from the couch as it stood on the windowsill watching him. He shooed it away, waving his hands and blurting, “Git!” but it didn’t move. He decided to ignore it and continued watching his talk show about coprophiliacs and the women who love them. Immediately the bird decided to sing. He blasted, “Git!” again, but the bird kept singing.
Roderick Whithers detested birds. When Rebecca first began to act strangely, their mother gave her a pet bird. The blue parakeet would chirp and sing and whistle at her all day long, bringing a smile to her face every time. Little Roddy enjoyed the bird too. Its eyes, yellow and still, seemed like little orbs that were frozen in time with a type of ancient wisdom. Its movements were artificial, quick, and smooth, like flimsy joints loosely held each piece together. The creature was so fragile and delicate.
One night, the tiny bird wouldn’t stop screeching, even with a dark sheet over its cage. Rebecca had developed the uncanny ability to sleep right through it, but its noises were keeping little Roddy awake, so he snuck into her room and opened the cage. It hopped gleefully onto his finger and he carried it back to his bed.
He realized that the caged bird was just lonely, so he laid it next to him on his bed, petting its head with his fingers until he fell asleep. He awoke a few hours later but didn’t see the bird. A pillow was next to him instead. He lifted the pillow to find the little parakeet laying on its side, completely stiff and not making a sound. He snuck the lifeless pet back into his sister’s room, placing it at the bottom of its cage.
He awoke the next morning to the sound of his sister’s crying.
This golden bird’s whistling was nothing like the parakeet’s. It was unceasing with its song, and Roderick tried his best to drown it out by turning up the volume on the television. He saw his daughter’s head timidly peak into the room. She was drawn by the bird’s music, and a slight smile appeared on her face as she watched and listened. Its little wings spread open at exceptionally high notes, as though it were performing at an opera, and Samantha reluctantly giggled.
“It’s pretty,” she peeped.
“It’s annoying, is what it is,” Roderick scoffed, finally deciding to get off the couch to take a more direct approach.
As Elizabeth entered the room, Roderick swatted at the bird that, instead of flying away, flew right at his face. His hands waved in front him wildly and the bird left him and flew around the room, a little golden streak, continuing its song.
“Oh, how cute,” Elizabeth elated. “It’s beautiful.”
Roderick ordered, “Don’t just stand there, Liz, help me catch the fucker,” as he followed the bird around the room, his fingers ready to pounce.
“Sam, sweetheart, go get Mommy a shoebox, okay?” she said to her daughter who frowned and disappeared.
As she got a broom out of the closet, Elizabeth said, “I wish you wouldn’t talk that way around her.”
“What way?” questioned Roderick, his eyes still on the fluttering finch.
“You don’t have to call it the ‘F word’ right in front of her.”
“Well, that’s exactly what it is—annoying little fucker.”
Samantha reappeared with an old shoebox in her hands, and gave it to her mother.
“Thank you, Sweetie, now go to your room for a little bit so Mommy and Daddy can catch this birdie.”
“But I like it,” Samantha pouted, “it’s pretty.”
“I know it is, but it’s lost in our house,” Elizabeth told her. “We’re going to set it free outside, so it can go back to its family.”
Samantha, sulking, went upstairs and shut her door without another word, while Roderick followed the bird with the broom, swatting at it. Elizabeth followed with the shoebox.
“Are you trying to kill it?” Elizabeth piped when he took an extra strong swing at it. “Just try to drive it out the window.”
Taking his eyes off his quarry, Roderick turned to her. “Christ, why are you always nagging?”
Just then the finch came at him once more, his hands again flailing in front of him. With a final few whistles, the bird flew over his head and out the window. Letting out a sigh of relief, he dropped the broom and lowered himself gently back on the couch.
“So,” Elizabeth began, si
tting down on the arm of the couch and setting the shoebox next to her, “now that that’s over. It’s time we talked, wouldn’t you say?”
Roderick simply grabbed the bag of potato chips and shoveled a handful in his mouth, his eyes back on the television.
“I wanted to give you a few days to rest and relax before getting into it,” she said, “but you seem better now. I know you weren’t at Bob’s, but I would like you to be honest with me about what happened to you. You haven’t acted like yourself since.”
He ate more potato chips, regardless that the salt made them uncomfortable on his still-healing tongue.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I think happened. I think you were doing coke. I know that you do. I think you were doing drugs, and you got so fucked up that things got carried away. Am I right?”
Another handful of potato chips entered his mouth.
“Okay, I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. My next question is this—where does this leave us?”
Wet crumbs dropped from his lips when he replied, “Things’re fine the way they are.”
“Excuse me? Things are fine? Things are fine! Did you really just say that to me?”
“What do you want me to say?”
She shot up in front of the television, blocking his view. “I want you to be honest with me for once. This isn’t right, Rod, this is insane. This isn’t good for us, and it isn’t good for our daughter.”
He kept his eyes on the TV, making out whatever images he could from between her legs. “I won’t have our daughter coming from a broken home,” he pronounced.
“Oh good Lord, don’t you see that this home is already broken? Don’t you see that? You expect me to wear this smile on my face outside of this house, let everyone think that we have this wonderful normal thing going on here. This isn’t healthy, and it’s affecting Sam. If you really want what’s best for her, then we need to do the right thing. Just admit that this marriage is over.”
“I’m not giving you your fucking divorce so that you can take half of what I own.”
“How dare you! You bastard, I am concerned for our daughter and for us. For God’s sake, Rod, she’s a zombie half the time. She doesn’t smile, she’ll barely even let me touch her—she just mopes around all day playing with her dolls.”
Roderick finally looked her in the eyes. “And you think fighting like this is good for her? You think breaking her home apart is going to help?”
“Honestly, Rod, I’m not even sure if you mean that or if it’s just more of your bullshit. Sometimes I think you just see Sam and me as furniture—just more things that you own.”
His eyes turned back to the television as she sat back down, to calm herself. She said, “You may not believe it, but I do care about you, and I think I know what this is about. I know how devastating it was when your mother left, and I know that that’s when your sister collapsed. Are you somehow afraid that that’ll happen to Sam unless we stay married?”
He didn’t answer and kept watching the talk show. On the screen was a woman with missing teeth in a flannel shirt to whom it had just been revealed that her fiancé had slept with her mother. The burly woman launched a chair across the stage at her betrayers, nearly hitting the host. Elizabeth started laughing, a few tears in the corner of her eyes, while Roderick just kept watching.
“That’s where we belong, you know,” she said with a pathetic smile. “You probably think that you’re better than those people. But you’re not, Rod. We’re not any better, we’re just as fucked up as they are.”
He munched on more potato chips.
“Look, I don’t expect you to make a decision about us right now, but you need to think about it. Think about it very carefully. Your sister snapped because your father didn’t get her the help she needed. But you’re a better man than he is. We’re getting our daughter help, and what happened to Becky will not happen to Sam. She’d be happier, and we’d be happier. Just think about it, please.”
“I can give you my answer now—no.”
“That’s so sad, that really is, that you would choose this illusion over our wellbeing. It’s not that big of a deal anymore, you know, people get divorces all the time in this country.”
“I’m not other people,” he insisted.
She stood up, her hands dropping to her side. “Well, really, Rod, it doesn’t matter anyway. None of this does. Because I’m pretty sure that your infidelity and drug-use will give plenty of legal reason for a divorce and the whole thing will go down pretty smooth without your consent.”
It wasn’t how quickly he rose up or how much the floor shook when he slammed his feet to the ground that startled her. It was his face, a face she had never seen, one of seething rage, his blue eyes intense upon the burning redness of his skin. He grabbed her by the arm, his teeth clenching, “But I’m the one with the money, and I’m the one with the connections, and you’ll be a broken woman if you try to fuck with me. You’ll have nothing, Liz, nothing.”
“I don’t want your money, Rod,” she breathed, her voice trembling despite finding the strength to break from his grip. “I just want out.”
“Then try it. See what happens,” and he resumed his position on the couch.
Elizabeth, eyes twitching, went to their bedroom, fell to the bed and cried into the pillowcase.
* * * *
“Such pathetic creatures, surrendering their own freedom, creating their own cages.”
* * * *
There were always lights on at the Thornfield Institute of Living. Security and overnight nurses roamed the halls or sat at their desks playing solitaire on their computers, drinking coffee, and telling dirty stories. Never, not even for an hour, was the building ever completely dark. One might think a mental hospital, an insane asylum, to be a place of hopelessness where crazed minds lurk and darkness saturates. But here, there was always a light.
Rebecca lay peacefully in her bed. That day, doctor Flint had complimented her, telling her that her illustrations were becoming much more detailed, and then he noticed something else. There was writing on the pages. Rebecca had written whole words and sentences.
Sentences like, “I know who I am,” and “I am Becky. I am here.”
One word in particular appeared more than others. The word was, “Liz.”
Rebecca’s eyes slowly opened as Helena shook her shoulder.
“Hey, Becky,” she whispered, “I have another update for you.”
Chapter Fourteen
Elizabeth was a patient woman, and sitting alone at the restaurant waiting for Wade to show was not unnerving for her. She had learned to be comfortable with her own company, but it was a skill she’d had to learn the hard way. She took turns between looking over the menu and looking at the other tables. A couple occupied every table within her vicinity.
It was not even a high-class establishment, nor a place known as a dating hotspot. It was a simple bar and grill, with catchpenny, glitzy road signs and sports memorabilia along the walls. Yet still it had attracted all these men and women who were looking into each other’s eyes while they held hands or laughed at each other’s jokes or shared each other’s food or accidentally spilled each other’s beer during animated conversations.
Across from her table sat a man and a woman who appeared to be in their sixties, both wore wedding bands. Elizabeth fought the urge to ask them how they met, when they decided to get married, and why. She wondered if either one of them was faking it. Faking the smiles and the affection that they held for each other in their eyes or in the way that he passed her his extra napkin when iced tea came out of her nose because of something funny he’d apparently just said. Could one of them feel just as trapped as she did? Could someone last that long in a relationship feeling the way that she felt?
Elizabeth’s mother had always told her—no, warned her— to marry fo
r love and only love. She told her daughter that she had to find an equal. She told her that marriage is not a matter of convenience and that it can’t be the point where she’d begin her life. She taught her daughter that she would have to work hard and be strong and have a good life with or without a partner. When she did finally meet someone who augmented her own existence, she and that person could share a life together; not begin one.
That was marriage according to her mother; an equal partnership. That was love according to her mother; respect and admiration. Elizabeth wished she had heeded her advice.
Her mother was a widow. Her husband had died in a tragic car accident when Elizabeth was only three. He was a factory worker and she a high school gym teacher. After the accident, Elizabeth and her mother were left with a life insurance settlement, but her mother never touched it. No, she continued going to the job she loved every day, earning their food and utilities and clothing and toys and whatever else they needed. The life insurance money would be saved solely for her daughter’s education so Elizabeth could have the finest opportunities available.
Elizabeth was a sophomore in college, an expensive but prestigious private school, when she lost her mother too. She was diagnosed with breast cancer only months before. Instead of collapsing, Elizabeth continued with her education, dedicating her time and energy to becoming a teacher, so she could spend her days within the walls of school just as her mother had. She had only been teaching for three years when she met Roderick.
Elizabeth felt a sort of shame in her decisions now. She had always been a woman who felt disconnected from things, as though she were perched above and looking down upon it all, safe from everyone else’s standards. But now, she felt that her perch had been yanked out from under her. She no longer had the unique social vantage point in which she used to pride herself, but, rather, she felt as though she’d allowed her wings to be clipped without bothering to peck or scratch back.