Maniac Drifter

by Laura Marello

  Once I realized I had this specialized amnesia I refused to tell anyone, and wouldn’t let anyone find out about it. I refused to sleep with anyone for more than a night or two, the time it took to build up mutual knowledge, references to the night’s conversations, confessions, intimacies. That way I wouldn’t have to second-guess the right responses and get caught in a lie. Provincetown suited me because it wasn’t unusual to sleep around. But then I met Cedric and a few nights with him was not enough. I stretched it into a month, made too many wrong guesses trying to lie, and had to tell him what was wrong.

  He made me see some specialists at the Lahey Clinic in Boston. They recorded my full medical history, submitted me to a battery of tests, tried sleep experiments, hypnosis, even made me stay up all night and have sex during the day. But nothing worked. The minute I went to sleep I forgot it all. They told me I had Sexual Amnesia, one of those illnesses doctors had begun to study but people weren’t talking about yet.

  Cedric stayed with me for a while, but it was just too desolate for him to think that nothing that happened between us at night mattered, none of it accumulated or lasted, that it was all a waste, forgotten. He started seeing his old girlfriend again and eventually took up with one of the painters at Days Studios. I was afraid the same thing would happen with Gabe if I slept with him more than once. But I was too intrigued by him and unable to stay away. Now I had to tell him.

  Compared to some people with the illness, I had been lucky. I had never woken up with injuries, never been robbed, never found myself completely lost. Living in Provincetown helped. I knew who the locals were. The dangers were restricted to the three-mile area of town. Still, I didn’t want to go through the same ordeal with Gabe that I had with Cedric.

  “Doctors?” Gabe said. He was staring at the television set.

  I thought the mention of the doctors would give the situation some added credibility, but it only seemed to frighten Gabe. “I went to the Lahey Clinic. It’s a known condition, but there’s nothing they can do. They said sometimes it just goes away.”

  He still did not look at me. He stared at his knees and twirled the bottle of Tsing Tao in his hands. “So you can’t remember anything that’s happened between us?” he said. “Nothing at all? You mean you don’t even know what it’s like?”

  For a moment I felt sorry for him, as if I had just realized that he could love and I could not.

  He put his beer down on the table and touched the television screen, as if he half-expected to reach in and grab hold of the people inside. Then he withdrew his hand and rested it in his lap. “You haven’t told me how the promiscuity fits in,” he said. “This story is supposed to explain your promiscuity. Why would you want to sleep with anybody if you can’t even remember what happens?”

  I told him what the doctors had said — the inability to remember might prevent satisfaction.

  He went over to the wall where his sketches were pinned up, and looked at them with distaste, as if they meant something different to him now that I had confessed.

  “So why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Because I was afraid.”

  “Then why tell me now? Because of the note I sent you?”

  “I’ve done a lot of things wrong. People are mad at me.”

  “What have you done? Who’s mad?” He almost sounded defensive. I looked out at the water again. The wind had picked up, and all the lights seemed to be frolicking now. “Just blurt it out!”

  “Nichole is mad at me because she thinks I take her father’s side in their argument, and because I introduced Whitney to a woman who has become her girlfriend.”

  “Elaine Barry. They came in the restaurant.”

  “Right. You gave them the VIP treatment.”

  “You remembered.” He smiled sympathetically, as if he realized the joke was not altogether funny. “Go on. What else?”

  “I borrowed Mary’s car and didn’t return it in time for her to see her mother before she died. Grace is mad at me for that, and because I introduced Whitney to Elaine.”

  “Elaine’s her ex.”

  “Right. Everyone knew but me.”

  “Is that all?”

  I had caused Harper’s crates to be confiscated, and I had stolen the skin-suit man, but I couldn’t tell him about that.

  “And I haven’t kept my promise to you,” I said.

  He stood up and paced around the room for a while. He opened the refrigerator and looked inside, gathered stray shirts off the chairs, picked up some of the magazines and cut outs and arranged them in a neat pile on the floor.

  “Do you want to know what I think?” he said. “Do you want to know?” I wasn’t sure. “I think you’re an egomaniac” — and sat back down in the chair. “All this whining and worrying about your mistakes is a form of egomania, vanity, hubris even — to think you’re so important, to think you can have such an effect on people.”

  “But they are really mad, Gabe.”

  “Sure they’re mad, but not really at you. They’re just taking it out on you. Grace is just jealous. She doesn’t want anyone to go near Mary, or for Elaine to take up with someone else. You happened to be the one to borrow Mary’s car and make the introduction. Nichole isn’t mad at you. She’s mad that there’s so many gays in town, and she’s mad that her father disapproves of her when he did the same damn thing 20 years ago. You just happened to get between her and both those grievances. And Mary’s not mad at you. If she wanted to see her mother, she would have found a way. She probably didn’t want to see her die. You said yourself you watched your mother die, and you’ve regretted it ever since. I think you care about your mistakes more than anyone, but in a vain way, as if you’ve overestimated your importance. If you really cared, or thought what you did was so bad, you wouldn’t do it. You just wouldn’t do it.”

  I hadn’t watched my mother die. That’s what I regretted ever since. I couldn’t remember anything about my mother, except that she was Swedish, looked like Ingrid Bergman, had worked for the FBI, had smoked, and died of lung cancer. And I certainly did not remember seeing my mother die. I distinctly remembered not ever having been there.

  Gabe had put his hand on my arm. “Kate, Kate. Did I hurt your feelings?”

  I looked at him. It was as if I had left the room for a few minutes and had come back.

  “No,” I said.

  “You always space out when you can’t handle something. Hey, maybe that’s what the amnesia is about.”

  He sounded hopeful. “Maybe,” I said.

  “I thought you slept around because you didn’t want me to find out you were ordinary. That’s not really love, you know, that’s desire. So what do you think of these sketches?” He lifted up one of the sheets, and let it fall back against the wall.

  “I was wondering why you took it up again, when just last night you were happy you’d dropped it.”

  Gabe sat down on the floor and leafed through the magazines, as if he were reviewing their contents. “I don’t know,” he said. “I went into Ethan’s Pharmacy this morning, and I saw Harper on the cover of all those magazines, and I thought sure, part of what he’s doing is hype, a big part, I mean, I think he planned the whole arrest just for the publicity, but he’s really done something, he’s really influenced public opinion, and made an audience for himself, and — ” He put the magazines down. “I don’t know. It gave me a sense of efficacy, I guess. A sense of hope.” He got up, stalked around the room, then approached the wall and inspected his sketches again. “Anyway, I just enjoy doing it — graphic design, I mean. I denied that for a long time.”

  “So you might take it up again?”

  “I might.” He went over to the video machine and turned it off. He climbed the stairs to the loft, and then turned to see if I were coming. When he looked at me his face changed suddenly, as if he just remembered something. I followed him up.

  ***

  In the morning, when I woke up, Gabe was looking at me, and he wore that same
expression of fear on his face. He sat up in bed and laid his cool palm against my forehead as if I were his patient. “Will you try some tests,” he said, “to try and get your memory back?”

  “I’ve been all through that,” I said, “at the Clinic.”

  “I don’t mean at the Clinic. I don’t even mean doctors necessarily.”

  “Then what do you mean?”

  “When someone’s cancer is incurable they go to Mexico and get laetrile, or try macrobiotic food. You know. There’s got to be something like that we could try. Something the doctors don’t approve of. I don’t have anything in mind yet, but if I look into it, and find out something, will you try it?”

  “Depends on what it is.”

  “I’ll let you know then.” He took his hand off my forehead, and got up out of bed. The fear in his expression cleared suddenly, and he started laughing. “I could make up stories,” he said.

  I smiled at him. I was glad that he was starting to feel better.

  Chapter Four

  Thursday

  When I arrived at the law office Thursday morning, a crowd had gathered outside. The onlookers stood motionless, as if they had stopped to gape at an accident. Only the TV crews ran around stringing wires, carrying lights and cameras, but even they seemed stunned — in the frantic way they were angling for shots they appeared more anxious than persistent.

  Getz had positioned himself in front of the door, and stood there as if transfixed, with his legs spread at shoulder width and his arms crossed against his chest, like a wooden Indian in front of a dry goods store, like a warning not to approach. He stood aside to let me pass and, when I did, he whispered: “The collaborators weren’t indicted.” Then he winked at me.

  Inside the office Julie answered the telephone, asking each person to hold, until all the phone buttons were blinking. Presently someone would hang up and free the line for another person to get through, and she would have to answer again and ask the new person to hold, so that all the phone buttons would remain blinking. It was like a child’s game. Ruth rushed through the office hurling files into a box and briefcase, and pulling at her skirt and necklace, while issuing commands into a hand-held tape recorder. She kept glancing at her watch, then the clock on the wall, then the telephone, then the copy machine, then the enormous tail of a tuna that was mounted above the file cabinets. She had caught the tuna on a fishing trip with Angelo. Angelo was upstairs yelling questions down about which nylons, handkerchiefs and jewelry he should pack, and finally emerged carrying a suitcase.

  Ruth turned to watch Angelo descend the stairs and noticed that I was standing in the room, wondering what to do. “Thank God you’re here,” Ruth said. “I should take you with me.”

  “You can’t take her,” Angelo said. “You need her here.”

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  Ruth flipped the tape out of the pocket-sized recorder, and folded my hand over it, as if it were hush money.

  “Harper’s been indicted on U.S. Trade violations,” she said. “His art dealer hired some hot-shot New York lawyer and they want me there as a consultant during the pre-trial arbitration. They’re hoping to settle before it goes to trial.”

  “It won’t go to trial,” Angelo said.

  The phone rang again and Julie put the caller on hold. Angelo dragged the suitcase to the door and knocked to signal that they were ready to leave. Getz raised his hand and pulled on his earring to indicate that he understood. “All your instructions are on the tape,” Ruth said. “What to tell the investors, what to tell the press if they corner you. Getz is going to stay by the door after we leave until the crowd thins out.”

  “Do you have everything?” I said.

  “I think so.” She picked up her box and briefcase. “I may call you to express some documents to me, if I’ve forgotten anything.”

  “Enough of these long goodbyes,” Angelo said. “She’ll manage.”

  I didn’t know what to say. They were like desperadoes; Ruth and Angelo could have been Bonnie and Clyde, or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the crowd outside the 157th Cavalry, ready to gun them down. Ruth patted my hand — the one that held the tape. “Listen to that first,” she said, and they ran out the door, ducking under microphones and spotlights to the Cadillac Seville. Julie and I watched from the window until they drove away. Then the phone began to ring again.

  “You sure know when to show up,” Julie said. “You should have been here when she found out she had to be on the plane in an hour. She drove us all crazy trying to pack and get her ready. I made the plane reservation.”

  Julie rolled her eyes and tried to put the caller on hold, but it was her father, Jack Souza, from Provincetown National Bank, so she told him what was happening.

  Getz came inside, locked the door and shut the curtains. “Isn’t this fun?” he said.

  “When did they indict him?” I said.

  “Early this morning,” he said. He looked out the window briefly, and then turned to me and studied my face. “Don’t worry. It won’t even go to trial. They’ll settle out of court. He’ll get fined or something, not even a jail sentence. They don’t want more publicity for this thing. Really.” He checked out the window again.

  “Is he in jail now?” I said. I turned the tape over in my hand.

  “The lawyer got him out on bail.” He checked another window. “They’re giving up. They’re starting to get bored and go away.”

  “Is this lawyer any good? Will he be able to get him released?”

  Getz went over to me and took hold of my arm. “Hey,” he said, “stop worrying, okay? The Feds don’t want any more publicity from this than they have to. He won’t get a jail term.” He stopped and looked at me. “What are you, in love with this guy?” He tugged on my arm like a child who wants his mother to buy him a toy. “Well anyway, they’re not going to indict any of the collaborators. Harper is taking the full rap on himself.” He winked again.

  Julie hung up the phone. “You always show after the heat is off,” she went on. “You should have seen this place, people shoving microphones in the windows, Ruth running around trying to find the right files. Every time she asked me for something I kept telling her, Kate knows where that is, Kate knows where that is, and she kept yelling: ‘Where’s Kate? Why isn’t Kate here?’ I thought you went to see Josh at the Karate show or something.”

  “I decided to do some work for a change,” I said.

  “Well, it’s all over now,” she said. “Oh, and Dad says if you need any documents, just phone him.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I looked at the tape in my hand.

  “Can I unplug the phone now?” she said.

  “What the hell,” Getz said.

  She did. The phone upstairs started ringing. “That’s the home number,” she said.

  “We better check it,” he said, and winked at me. He took me by the hand and started upstairs.

  “Is Angelo coming back?” I whispered. I felt like I was in high school, and had been asked to make love when her boyfriend’s parents were in the next room.

  “He won’t stop here. He’ll go straight home.”

  “Hey!” Julie yelled. We stopped on the stairs. “Shouldn’t you listen to the tape first?” She smiled at us like an accomplice, her face full of treachery and cunning.

  We spent the day in bed; in the evening Getz turned the news on. “Do you think they’ll show the house?” he said. He wanted to see himself on television.

  When Julie heard the noise of the television, she yelled up the stairs that she was going home for the day, and reminded me to listen to the tape before I left. I said I would. Then Julie said she was sending the baby Puma up.

  “Puma’s here?” I said.

  “Been here all day,” Getz said. “She was installed on a window ledge when all the fuss was going on, and has been playing downstairs since. She amuses herself.”

  The baby Puma waddled in to the bedroom carrying an empty honey jar. She climbed on
the bed and into my lap. “Do you sleep naked?” she asked me. “Sometimes my daddy sleeps naked.” She sounded apologetic, the way an aunt might excuse her nephew’s embarrassing stutter or tick.

  “That’s glass,” Getz said gently, resting his fingertips on the honey jar. “You need to be careful with it or it will break.”

  Puma turned the jar over in her hands and gazed at it in wonderment as if it had transformed. On the television Dan Rather said that Harper Martin had been indicted on U.S. Trade violations, but no others had been indicted. An inset photograph of the defense attorney chosen for the case appeared on the screen. Dan Rather said that he was a former United States Attorney.

  Dan Rather said that the defense team had summoned Harper Martin’s Provincetown attorney, Ruth Allen Esq., to serve as a consultant in the pre-trial arbitration. The screen showed film clips of Angelo ushering Ruth to the car, and Getz could be seen in the background, guarding the office door. “You look like a mass murderer in that shot,” I said.

  “Home movies, Daddy!” the baby Puma said, and crawled down my leg to sit on my feet, closer to the television. Dan Rather said that both sides hoped to settle the case in pre-trial arbitration, and that the demonstrations for Harper Martin and against United States intervention in South America were growing. They showed film clips of more demonstrations, the slogans on the signs were the same: No Vietnam War in South America and Free Harper Martin. “Home movies, Daddy,” the baby Puma repeated, waving the honey jar at him, and then looking through it as if it were a telescope. “Home movies.”

  Getz reached across the bed and took the jar out of her hand. “That’s right,” he said. “Home movies.”

  ***

  The tape Ruth had made directed me to pay a visit to each of the investors of Maniac Drifter Inc., and inform them in person that Harper had been formally indicted, none of the collaborators had been indicted, and Ruth had gone to New York to assist the defense attorney with the pre-trial arbitration proceedings. Of course, the investors would have already heard the news, but it was a politeness and a courtesy, as the attorney for Maniac Drifter Inc., for Ruth to personally deliver the news, and since Ruth would be out of town, it was my job to do it. The tape also instructed me to tell the investors that Ruth would, as the corporate attorney in the case, do everything in her power to preserve the stockholders’ investments.