Gifts for the One Who Comes After

by Gifts for the One Who Comes After (v5. 0) (epub)

  I slide my fingers up the silky surface of her stockings. I can feel the muscles underneath. I dream I can feel her pulse. My thumb catches on the hook.

  She’s just a way station, I think. Just a pit stop.

  She is beautiful but now her eyes are black. Whatever it was that’s underneath her skin, that coldness, that oily sweet smell, it’s getting stronger. I don’t know what she is. It’s starting to scare me. But I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. I want to touch her. I want the feel of her stiffening nipple between my fingers, the clench of her legs around my waist. . . .

  And that’s when the door to the house busts open.

  Because I have left the phone off the hook.

  Because Juney has been worried. But pleased too. Pleased about me pouring all the booze down the drain. And she don’t want me to fall off the wagon. Not this time. Because this is my last chance. I know that. I know I can only break her heart so many times. And Carl knows that too. Carl knows how close Juney is to the edge. How close to breaking she is with that shit-drunk husband of hers.

  None of this is a mystery novel. None of this takes much guesswork.

  So he hears the noises coming from the bedroom. He knows what those noises mean. And he knows Juney’s still on shift at the Dunkin’ Donuts.

  And, best of all, he knows where the Colt is.

  Carl’s got a sour smell to him. Like sweat mixed with old bacon. I can smell him.

  There’s a hot breeze that’s tugging at my hair.

  I can feel the muzzle of the Colt pressing into my back.

  “Turn around slowly,” he says.

  I’m struck because I have heard this line so many times. I want to ask him, “Is this a stickup?” I want him to say, “Reach for the sky, pardner!”

  I can’t help it. I let out a snort, and he hears it. When I turn—slowly!—his face is running from stunned to hurt to angry.

  “I can explain,” I tell him, but now that we’re face to face, I know I can’t. What do I say? What part of this can I tell that would make sense? Carl’s not a smart man. Carl’s not a forgiving man. Carl won’t buy whatever line of bullshit I want to sell him.

  I open my mouth. I close it again. He leans in closer. His teeth’re pressed tightly together, the little nubs of them rubbing together. He’s angry, but I think he’s also curious about what I’ll say. A dull curiosity. The same look he gives the flies as they bumble around the inside of the jar. How long’ll this one last?

  When my mouth opens the second time, I’m just as curious about what’ll come out.

  Because a drunk’ll say anything to get a drink. And a cheat? A cheat always has a happy tune to whistle.

  “I can explain . . . ” And I surprise myself. “No. I can’t. I love her,” I say. “I love Juney.”

  “I know,” he says and his mouth twists. There is something that goes across his face—and if I stared hard enough I could catch exactly what it is—but I’m not looking that hard. I don’t what to know.

  Because by then I’m moving. Because, then, I think, he has moved in close enough. There is just enough room. If I’m just fast enough I can—

  And then there’s a noise like a thunderclap.

  It’s late when I find myself back in the house. I don’t know what time. Close to dawn because Juney has just got in. Her hair is mussed. Silvery-grey strands coming undone from her neat bun. Her Dunkin’ Donuts uniform is creased a little. She somehow looks pretty. Worn, but pretty.

  My Lady of Half ’n’ Half. My Lady of How Do You Take It?

  “Smiley,” she says. “Did you just get in?”

  I allow that I did.

  “And are you sober?” she asks.

  “Yeah, Junebug,” I tell her. “Sober as a priest.”

  And it’s the truth.

  “Good,” she says. And then: “You look good.”

  She’s dead on her feet. I can see her swaying a little, her hands on the kitchen table, keeping her steady. But she’s smiling and that makes me happy. I’m glad for that.

  “Come to bed,” I tell her, and take her in my arms. I can feel her weight sagging into me.

  “S’cold,” she says, but I don’t say anything. Somewhere off Route 66 my body is waiting for the sun to scorch it crisp and black. Somewhere Carl’s washing the blood out of his shirt. He is careful. Gentle, even. But there’s a part of me that is here. Maybe the better part of me.

  I take Juney to our bedroom. I help her peel off the uniform. I kiss her gently on the forehead where she still tastes like icing sugar and cinnamon.

  I want to tell her about Carl. About how she must be careful around him. How there’s bad news coming for her. I want to tell her so much it’s burning up like bad liquor in my gut but somehow I can’t. Maybe it’s cowardice. Maybe it’s just that I can’t stand the thought of that forehead of hers creasing, that same old fight we spent twenty years on, same as every other fight.

  Maybe I shoulda. Maybe.

  The thing is, the dead can’t see the future any better than the living. They have to drive down that same road. One mile at a time.

  And this is just a pit stop for me. Maybe. A way station. I can’t stay.

  I don’t want to.

  There is something growing in me. Something cold. Something heavy and black as tar. Is this death? Or is this something else?

  And it is cold. And she is warm. I lie down next to her. I don’t want to touch her. I can’t help wanting to touch her.

  “G’night, Smiley,” she says.

  “G’night, Junebug,” I say.

  “. . . we love you, Angela Clothespin Jacket. You know what it is like to live in the dark, just like we do.”

  LESSONS IN THE RAISING

  OF HOUSEHOLD OBJECTS

  Mommy asks me how I am doing, and I tell her that I am afraid of the twins.

  This is true. I don’t know who the twins are. In fact, the twins aren’t anybody yet. In fact, the twins are quite probably dead. Mommy tells me I don’t really know what dead means, but I most certainly do know what dead means. When Scamper forgot how to wag his tail on my fourth birthday, Daddy told me that meant that he had died, and I said “Oh,” and he said, “So now you know what dead means, that’s good, that’s good, sweetheart, you’re growing up.” So I do know what dead means, it means when you stop being what you were before.

  Mommy doesn’t like that I am afraid of the twins. She tells me it will be the same between us, even with the twins there, that the twins will not make me different. Mommy insists that I press my head up against her belly until her little poked-out bellybutton fits right into my ear. It feels strange there, but it also feels normal, as if bellybuttons were designed for ears.

  Then there is a kick, and then there is another, and I know that the twins are mad at me, so I start to cry. I don’t like crying very much but sometimes you can’t really help crying. It’s just something you have to do.

  Mommy pats me on the back and she says. “It’s okay, darling, honey, peanut, Miss Angela Clothespin Jacket.” My real name is Angela Chloe Jackson, but I like that other name for me better even though it isn’t real.

  “I don’t want them, I want them to stay there, I don’t want them to come out,” I tell her, but I am still crying so she doesn’t hear me. The thing about Mommies is that they can’t hear what you’re saying whenever you’re crying, and so I hate crying, but like I already said, sometimes it’s just what happens.

  But, anyway, that isn’t quite what I meant because I don’t want them to stay there. I don’t want them to stay anywhere, but maybe inside Mommy is better than outside Mommy where they will have to roll around with their lumpy flesh and the tangled-up arms and legs like Daddy showed me in the black and white picture.

  Mommy says, “But Angie, Mommy’s tummy will get too big. They can’t stay in there forever.”

  And I think, yes, that is exactly the prob
lem.

  I decide that I will be a good little girl, and I will practise loving the twins.

  Mommy says it is important that I love them and that I am nice to them because they will be very fragile when they come out. “Like a lamp?” I ask. I have broken the lamp in my room more than once, and then I have to sleep in the dark because of it so that I will learn. Daddy calls this an object lesson.

  And Daddy says, “Like the lamp except even more fragile than that.”

  “If you’re very good,” Mommy says, “I’ll let you hold them.” I wonder what it will be like to hold these things.

  “But what if I break them?” I ask, and Mommy just purses her lips in that way and says, “You’ll have to be very careful, Angie.”

  Mommy asks, “Do you want to feel them kick again?” and I say, “No,” because how can you love something that is trying to kick you? I must practise first on something easier to love than the twins.

  I find two cans of tomato soup in the pantry because tomato soup is the thing I like most, ’specially with toasted cheese. Tomato soup will be easy to love. Even without the toasted cheese.

  I am not supposed to go in the pantry by myself, but I think Mommy and Daddy will like it if I learn how to love the twins so I do even though it is dark and I am worried about the shelves and all the other things there are in the dark.

  I name one of the cans Campbell. I name the other Simon because I cannot name both of them Campbell. I decide that Campbell must be the older of them, but I think, deep down, that I like Simon better. He is better behaved. And besides, he doesn’t have any dents. His label is crisp and new.

  Campbell and Simon must stay with me if I am to learn how to love them. Sometimes I watch them. They are not very interesting to watch. I decide that it is probably because Simon is too well behaved, and so I love him a little bit less for that. I try rolling Campbell down the stairs. I can hear his insides sloshing around. Afterward he is slightly more dented than he was before, and I decide that this is what Daddy calls an object lesson. Simon says nothing.

  “You’re supposed to say something, Simon,” I tell him. “You shouldn’t let me roll Campbell down the stairs, not if he’s a baby.” And Simon starts to cry so I can’t hear what he’s saying, and I decide that I don’t love him at all. I tell him I like cream of broccoli better. I tell him I like chicken with noodles, and why couldn’t he be chicken with noodles? In fact, why couldn’t he be real and filled with guts and things instead of soup? Simon is crying even more now, but that’s what babies do. They don’t ever say anything, they just cry.

  Finally I give Simon to Mommy who always helps me when I am crying. Later on Mommy gives me tomato soup and toasted cheese for lunch. I look at Campbell with his dented rim and his sad, sad face. I hope that this has been an object lesson for him.

  The problem is that Mommy is not getting bigger because the twins are getting bigger, but Mommy is getting bigger because the twins are thieves.

  The morning that Mommy came home and said to me, “Darling, baby girl, Angela C., you’re going to have brothers!” was the first time I knew they were thieves. She was smiling so much that her face looked like another person’s face, and Daddy’s face looked like another Daddy’s face and both of them were hugging each other and hugging me. But after all the hugging was over with, I noticed that my hairbrush was missing, the one with the pink handle that I have used since I was a baby even though it is too small for me because it never hurts.

  “No,” Mommy tells me, “it wasn’t the twins,” but I know it was anyway.

  I have come to a decision about Campbell. Well, we have reached the decision together.

  The decision is that I will not eat any more tomato soup because Campbell says it is cruel, and Campbell will help me to catch the twins who have now carried off not only my hairbrush but also my flower fairy which I only left out to see if she would like the rain and also the bunny-eared hat that I was given at Christmas. I do not mind losing the flower fairy and the hat so much but that was a really good hairbrush and Mommy says they don’t make them anymore, so now I have to use a grown-up hairbrush and grown-up hairbrushes pull and pull and pull until I am crying all over again.

  So I will leave Campbell out on the bookshelf next to my bed, and I will keep on the nightlamp so that he can see properly even though I am now fully too old for it, and nightlamps are stupid anyway, but Campbell gets scared of the dark and besides how else will he see the twins?

  Mommy and Daddy come and kiss me goodnight, and Daddy smells wonderful, like cinnamon and coffee and chocolate, but Mommy doesn’t smell like Mommy at all. When she sits on my bed I can feel her tummy moving as the twins go kick, kick, kick. I think to myself, or rather, I say to Campbell, “Look, you can see them kicking, just you wait and see.” But Mommy doesn’t like it when I talk to Campbell, and Daddy has to say, “No, honey, it’s okay, we won’t take Campbell away,” and then I stop crying.

  In the morning, Campbell is sitting in exactly the same place, and my stuffed Adie is gone who I liked best because one eye was blue and one eye was green and dogs don’t normally look like that.

  “Campbell,” I say, but Campbell is still asleep and so he doesn’t answer me.

  This is how the twins come out, I think.

  There is a hole in Mommy’s tummy. I have seen it because that’s what the bellybutton keeps all plugged up, and that’s why her bellybutton points out now, because the twins are pushing on the other side. I wonder if I came from the other side of the hole like the twins, or if I came from somewhere else. I am afraid sometimes. What if I don’t have guts and things behind my bellybutton?

  At night, when Mommy is under her covers, I think she cannot see her bellybutton anymore and anyway just like Campbell she has to fall asleep. That is when the twins come out. Daddy says that the twins are still quite small so I think they must be able to still fit in through the bellybutton.

  Sometimes when I am sleeping I hear noises. I think it must be the twins and I want to say to them, “Go back inside! You’re supposed to be dead still!” But I don’t think they can hear me very well. Maybe that is because I am whispering it to Campbell.

  It is scary when the twins are outside of Mommy and sometimes I have to hold Campbell very close to me. I don’t love him yet, but I think I might be somewhere close to loving him. I say it is okay if he falls asleep and he says that he loves me very much.

  “They are taking things, I know they are,” I whisper to Campbell and we are both afraid together. In the morning things are a little bit different than they were the night before and Mommy’s tummy is a little bit bigger. I think they must be building a tent inside, filling Mommy up with hairbrushes and flower fairies and bunny-eared hats and Adie.

  The next time Mommy asks me to listen to the twins, I put my ear against her tummy. I think I feel the shape of the hairbrush and I think I can hear Adie barking, so I bite Mommy’s bellybutton until there is blood because if I can get in then maybe I can get them back. Now Mommy is crying though, and so I can’t understand what she is saying, and Daddy is so mad that he puts me in my room and he turns out the light and he takes away the nightlamp and he takes away Campbell.

  So now I am sitting in the darkness, and I have the blankets close to me and I miss Campbell which makes me think I must be starting to love him a little, but I am also thinking that this must be what it is like for the twins inside Mommy’s tummy.

  I don’t know where Campbell is, and when I go into the cupboard there are other cans of soup, but they aren’t Campbell and so I cannot love them.

  I wonder if maybe the twins have taken Campbell too, or if maybe they are in cahoots with Mommy and Daddy.

  “Mommy,” I say when she opens the door at last and is standing in the doorway and there is light all around her so that it hurts my eyes. “Is Campbell inside you?” I ask, but she just squeezes her lips until they aren’t lips anymore they are just a
single line that she cannot speak out of, and then she closes the door again.

  I am trying not to think about Campbell anymore. I am trying to pretend that there has never been a Campbell, and so in the morning I eat cereal and I think to myself, this tastes nothing like tomato soup and that is a good thing.

  Mommy is still hugging Daddy but neither of them wants to look at me properly so I just eat my cereal. I pretend that I can’t see Mommy’s tummy moving when the twins kick. But I am thinking to myself, “I know that you are in there, I know that you are all in there,” and Mommy has no idea that I can see all of the things that are starting to poke out of her because she is not big enough for all the special sequined purses and shoe racks and televisions and nightlamps and Adies and bunny-eared hats and flower fairies and Campbells that she has inside of her. Maybe this is the secret truth: maybe all the people like Mommy and Daddy have worlds and worlds inside them, and only some of us are filled with soup.

  There, right there, I can see the spokes of my brand new ten-speed bicycle poking out of her, but she has no idea and neither does Daddy when he hugs her.

  I don’t know how the twins have done it but they have taken Daddy too.

  Last night he was here and kissed me on the forehead and he read from my special book, the only book that is left now, and he said, “where are your other books, Angie?” and I said, “the twins have taken them, Daddy.” Then he touched my forehead very lightly like a butterfly, and he said, “You can’t keep doing this, honey, peanut, darling. The twins are coming and they are coming soon.”

  Daddy doesn’t understand, but now Daddy has gone too, and I am afraid he is deep inside Mommy and we won’t be able to get him out.

  But I have a plan.

  This is my plan. I will lay a trap for the twins. I will catch the twins and then maybe I will be able to give them what Daddy calls an object lesson so they will know that they can’t keep doing this anymore.