by Barbara Hall
14
AMERICA IS A HARD COUNTRY, full of hard people.
It is amusing that anyone anywhere thinks of us as being soft and spoiled, privileged, lazy, unchallenged, or indifferent, pickled with happiness.
My father used to say that kind of thing to me, and I let his rants drift by my ears, preoccupied, as I was, with my own inalienable rights. I thought he was talking about himself, his own experience with extreme poverty, forced service in the Korean War, and a disappointing adult life full of things he did not ask for and did not understand. But as I grew older, I realized he was referring to something much bigger than I could ever grasp. Something bigger than his own personal history, bigger than the Depression, World War II, and polio. Bigger than his angry marriage and his obsession with fire, his need to conform and his wild desire to break the same rules he constructed and held dear.
I went through a phase in my life, my freshman year in college, when I became obsessed with reading biographies. I was hungry for the stories of other people’s lives. I was comparing them, I suppose, to my own, with a frantic desire to determine whether I had fared better or worse, whether I could learn from their failures and emulate their successes. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I just wanted to know.
I started with the biographies of musicians— Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Robert Johnson, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sam Cooke. I enjoyed the early years especially, the chapters that described their humble beginnings, during which time there was no reason to suspect that these people would amount to anything at all. In most cases it seemed these people were destined either for obscurity or for a life of crime. They were as surprised as anyone when things took a turn for the better. I skimmed the successful years, then got interested again in the long decline. One could argue that I was interested only in the bad news. But it was more serious than that. I was interested in the demons that haunted, it seemed to me, every living person. Certainly every person who had ever ventured into music.
It was clear how God felt about musicians. He kept killing them off, mostly in small planes.
My curiosity grew, and I started reading biographies of writers, politicians, dancers, generals, scientists. After a while it didn’t matter what the person had done to distinguish himself. I had discovered that every person had a story, and I wanted to know them all.
I read about Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Jefferson, Cole Porter, Daphne du Maurier, Diane Arbus, John Fante, Albert Einstein, Grace Kelly, Martin Luther, Meister Eckehart, Gelsey Kirkland, Isaac Newton, Edgar Cayce, Helen Keller, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, John Brown, Robert E. Lee, Picasso, Jung, William Faulkner, and William Shakespeare. I didn’t have to be interested in the person’s work at all. In fact, I didn’t care if the person had done anything of importance. I could have read the biography of my next-door neighbor, if it had been written in a true and dramatic style.
I loved stories of people. They were born to such and such parents, in such and such a place. They dealt with this hardship and the other. They had a childhood illness. They rescued someone from death. They turned to crime, away from crime. They nearly died, came back to life, worshipped God or the devil. They were happy, unhappy, successful, unsuccessful. Fell in love, out of love, were loyal, betrayed people, betrayed themselves, longed for something, got it or didn’t get it, and in the end, they died.
I was interested, I suppose, in the jagged nature of any person’s life. I was looking, I also suppose, for that time line, that linear path resulting in logic and satisfaction. However, I am fairly certain that if I had found it, I would have been disappointed. What intrigued me, even thrilled me in some dark way, was that none of these lives made any kind of sense. Every life seemed incomplete. Every life seemed random in its trajectory, contradictory in its purpose.
I liked that.
Any mediocre psychologist would say that I was filled with schadenfreude, or the desire to see others fail. That I was looking for something to justify my own emptiness, my own suspicion that my life had no real design, no clear purpose. But I don’t think so. That is too easy. I was looking, I think, for some evidence that a life is not supposed to have such obvious boundaries, such a clear narrative. Therefore it is really all right to feel completely lost inside your own circumstances. That we all arrive here disconnected and disconcerted and we just do the best we can, hitting and missing. Hitting more than missing, if we are lucky. And then, because God is merciful, it eventually stops.
It was through reading these biographies that I was eventually able to forgive my parents, then to forgive myself. Because we are all just feeling our way through the dark, I told myself in my biography days. There are just as many fascinating stories that are never told, because the person never got anything published, produced, recorded, awarded, or photographed. But these biographies were the proof I needed that no life really falls into place.
When I first moved to California, I forgot about the biographies, and my biography phase, because it seemed to me that life in Los Angeles defied that logic. I felt I was surrounded by people who knew exactly what they were doing. They knew where they had been and where they were heading, and anyone without a similar knowledge was left out in the cold. I didn’t mind being in the cold so much. But it was a paradigm shift for me. I went from believing that no one has the answers, to thinking that everyone has the answers but me.
After Hallie left, I started reading biographies again. I had to be reminded. I needed to know my part in her story. In any given biography, I show up around chapter twelve. I am the person who could have made a difference but didn’t. I am the person who met her at the crossroads of her life, gave her a little bit of helpful information, then let her down. I am the person who, when you get to this particular chapter in her biography, makes the reader shake his head and say, “Oh, well, that’s the one who let her get away. That is the turning point right there.”
But the thing that strikes me about these biographies, then and now, are the pictures. I loved the pictures most of all. In most good biographies, hidden like little treasures, like golden Easter eggs in the middle of the book, are the pictures. The pictures begin at the beginning. The mother and father with their child, staring at the camera in homemade clothes, all stoic and satisfied, determined and ready to face the future. They don’t realize, when the picture is taken, that they are holding some national treasure on their knee. The treasure himself (or herself) always appears detached, distanced, unrelated, ready to escape. You look at the pictures and you think, Well, no wonder. But it isn’t fair. Any family photograph would reveal the rebellious child who has other things in mind. Very few of them go on to distinguish themselves. Yet in every photo, there is the one who wants to get away.
And in the photo, this is how the parents look: tired, distracted, angry, compromised. Their eyes are dark and beady, their faces are thin and gaunt, or swollen, protruded, and defiant. In every picture the parent says, It was hard, getting here. It was so goddamn hard to arrive at this point. And no one will ever know. No one will ever know or care how hard it was to get here. You want a picture? I’ll give you a picture. A picture might tell a thousand stories, but it will never tell mine.
America is a hard place, full of hard people.
That is what the picture says. Even when the story says something else.
THE CALL CAME a month later.
Despite her threats, Hallie had been showing up for lessons, and we were keeping it all very professional. She didn’t seem to be curious about my sudden lack of interest in her. She seemed to prefer it. She didn’t talk about home, and her playing was improving.
I was too nervous to ask her anything. I didn’t know if the social worker had stopped by or not. I didn’t know if Social Services would involve her. I didn’t know if she would associate it with me. I just waited for her to let me know what was going on. In the meantime, I focused on her bowing, her wrist, the notes. It surprised me that she didn’t detect the dif
ference in me. And it made me wonder if she had ever really seen me at all.
I was just working in the store on a slow day, leafing through some trade magazine and checking my watch. I didn’t have anywhere to go, but there were times when I just needed different walls. I needed not to hear the crazy commotion of instruments being moved and tried or the inane chatter of my colleagues.
Franklin called me into the office.
“Phone for you,” he said.
“I could have taken it up front.”
“I think it’s serious,” he said. “It’s the police.”
My heart pounded. Visions emerged of Mark and Stephanie strewn on the highway, and when it was real, I couldn’t wish for it. Couldn’t believe I had ever pictured a demise. Wondered how I could have been so careless.
“Hello?” I asked in a shaky voice. Franklin stood by me, waiting.
The officer was calling from Santa Monica, and he wondered if I could come down to the station to speak about a matter concerning Hallie Bolaris. I asked if she was all right and he said that she was. But he wanted to ask me a few questions.
“Can I ask what it’s regarding?”
“We can get into all that when you get here.”
I wanted to ask more, but Franklin was standing there, watching me and waiting. I told the officer that I’d be right there.
I hung up the phone. My hand was visibly shaking.
“What’s all that?” Franklin asked.
“He wouldn’t really say. I think it has to do with some robberies in my neighborhood. I have to go in.”
“Is who all right?” he asked.
“What?”
“You asked if she was all right. Who is she?”
“A neighbor. He says she’s fine. Do you mind if I take off now?”
“Sure. You seem upset. Do you need me to drive you?”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
“Pearl, I’d be happy to.”
“Stop it. Stop being so concerned about me. I’m not as fragile as you think. Walking me to my car and all that. What’s it about, Franklin? I’ve been alone a long time. I think I can handle it.”
He looked wounded, and for the first time I realized he might actually care about me. Not in the way I hoped, but it was concern nonetheless, and I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten to the point where another person’s compassion made me feel so suspicious.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just unnerving to get a call from the police. I thought someone was dead.”
“But nobody is?”
“Not yet,” I said.
I drove without seeing the streets, and I didn’t let myself imagine anything. I listened to the songs on the radio and for some reason I thought about my lost cat, Roy. I wasn’t sure why except that I had let him go without much of a fight. I had let him get away. As I had let Mark get away. As I had hoped not to let Hallie get away. Los Angeles seemed stark and random as I navigated the streets. All the transients, all the people who didn’t seem to belong to anyone— I always felt like one of them. Rootless, disconnected. It was strange, but being called in to see the police made me feel anchored somehow, suddenly part of a community.
I announced myself at the front desk, and soon a uniformed officer who seemed not much older than Clive came to greet me. He was prematurely bald and his eyes were round and jolly. He introduced himself as Officer Mulligan and he touched my elbow as he led me back to his desk. It felt formal and considerate, like a date at a cotillion.
I sat on a folding chair next to his desk, and I was vaguely aware of all the activity around me. I felt as if I was on a TV show.
He took down my name and address, and he was slow writing it. He asked me my birth date and where I was employed. I struggled against my impatience. Finally he put his pen down and sat back in his chair and told me what was going on.
Hallie Bolaris, he said, and her parents had been in earlier to file a complaint. In fact, they were still somewhere in the building, talking to a social worker. He wanted to disclose that, in case I ran into them. I asked what kind of complaint, and he scratched his bald head.
He said, “You realize, we’re not accusing you of anything. We just have to check out stuff like this.”
“Stuff like what?”
He said, “It’s delicate, Miss Swain.”
“Just tell me.”
So he told me. A social worker had gone out to visit the Edwards family on a tip that Hallie was being abused by someone in the family, most likely her adopted father. I could feel the blood racing in my veins. I was afraid and euphoric at the same time. I had set something in motion. I had made something happen. But the careful way Officer Mulligan was talking to me was a warning that it hadn’t turned out as I imagined.
He said, “I’m not really supposed to disclose this, but the social worker couldn’t find any evidence of abuse. After an exhaustive search, there was just nothing to support it. They interviewed everyone in the family, including Hallie, and they all thought the charge was preposterous. Everyone was upset by it, but Hallie was the most upset.”
I said, “I imagine that’s how it usually goes. I have a friend in family law. She says the victims often recant, sometimes in court.”
“Yes, that does happen. But the social worker believed her, and she’s trained to recognize things like that.”
“Okay, but isn’t my involvement confidential? How did they know it was me?”
“Maybe they knew, maybe they didn’t. They suspected, let’s call it. The thing is, Miss Swain, Hallie Bolaris claims that something else altogether occurred.”
“What? What else?”
“Miss Bolaris claims that you took an unnatural interest in her.”
My stomach knotted and I felt crazy. The last time I had felt that crazy was when I knew Mark was having an affair and he wouldn’t admit it. His earnest protests had made me feel as if I were spinning a hysterical web of fantasy. But this was worse. So much worse because of the extremity of the lie and the fragility of the trust.
“Unnatural,” I said.
“She claims that you convinced her she was being abused and that you encouraged her to leave her family and come live with you.”
“Live with me? I live in a trailer. I don’t even have room for a cat.”
“The point is, she says you have become obsessed with her. She says you made certain gestures toward her.”
My dread hardened into a knot of anger, lodged in my chest. “Advances, you mean. Sexual advances.”
“She stopped just short of saying that you did anything. Physically. More like you emotionally persuaded her.”
Somehow I managed to override my fear and disappointment. I found the power in the anger that was now invading me and spreading through my body like a fever.
I managed not to give voice to the eruption. I calmly explained to Officer Mulligan that I had only cared about Hallie as a teacher. And that Hallie had confided in me, had as much as confessed that she was trading herself for music lessons. I told him about her pregnancy and how it had mysteriously gone away. I told him about her bruises and about my tense visit to the Edwardses’ home. I told him about my obligation, as a teacher, to report any concerns that I had. I had concerns and I weighed them carefully and consulted a friend before I made the decision to call someone. It had been difficult, I told him, but I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.
Officer Mulligan nodded with an understanding expression. Then he asked if I was married. I told him I didn’t think it was relevant. He asked if I had a boyfriend, and I told him that was really not relevant and then I demanded to know if I was being charged with anything.
“No, not officially,” he said. “But these are things you’ll be asked eventually. If you end up in court.”
“All you need to know is that I’m a teacher. I’m her teacher. And teachers take more than a superficial concern in their students’ well-being.”
“Well, the good ones do,” he admitted. “But the probl
em with teachers is that they are often left alone with their students. So sometimes it’s just your word against hers.”
“So is that how it is? These days, a concern is interpreted as an inappropriate response?”
He leaned forward. “The social worker just couldn’t find any evidence of what you’re talking about. Miss Bolaris is not pregnant. There’s no evidence that she ever has been. There’s no evidence at all of abuse.”
“Fine,” I said. “Then I was wrong. But you can’t blame me for wanting to know.”
He nodded and stared at me, twisting back and forth in his chair.
“Can I go now?”
“Sure, you can go anytime.”
I stood and he didn’t. I waited. He was looking at me in a way that I’d seen before. As if I were some kind of pathetic specimen, a relic from the past, something he’d glimpsed before and might never see again.
“I suspect this will all blow over. But if I were you, I’d stay away from Miss Bolaris.”
“That won’t be a problem.”
I walked through the bull pen, toward the place where I thought I’d first come in. The blood was ringing in my ears. When I got to the door, I was surprised to find Officer Mulligan had followed me. He opened the door for me.
He said, “You know, I’m a bit of a musician myself. Hacked around on the guitar when I was young. It was just never going to happen for me. My father is a cop, and his father was. This was always going to be my path. But I admire you people. I admire what you do.”
“That’s fascinating, Officer. You might have to find someone else to tell the story of your broken dreams.”
“Oh, I don’t think dreams really break, do they, Miss Swain? They just kind of move around.”
I was standing in the parking lot, trying to remember where I had parked, when Hallie and her mother came out. Hallie saw me and averted her eyes. Dorothy followed her gaze and wasted no time in coming up to me.