by Sally Mandel
The next time Jake showed up to visit Dutch, I found myself hanging around to stare at that muscular body, which was often wearing only jogging shorts and a T-shirt, even in the cooler weather. After all, there was a precedent. Back in our midteens, we had taken a wild trip into Manhattan to get tattoos. We drank some, and on the way home we took a walk on the beach and one thing led to another. It was Jake’s first time, and he wasn’t happy with his performance. I needed him as my buddy, not a lover boy, so although it took a couple of weeks for us to get past the awkwardness, pretty soon it was as if nothing had ever happened. We never talked about it.
“What’s with you?” my father wanted to know. I stood in the doorway watching Jake massage Dutch’s shoulders, which got sore from doing so much of the work for his helpless legs.
“I thought maybe I’d get a few pointers from the expert,” I said. Usually I was out of there the second Jake showed up, especially on my night off, which it was. We were always so eager to get a break from Dutch’s evil moods.
“You can leave any second,” Dutch said, meaning: Get lost, this is man time.
“Okay, I’m history,” I said. “Jake, you want to stop by the porch on the way out?”
“I don’t like interrupting when you practice,” he said. I could see the tendons ripple in his forearms as he dug into my father’s flesh. If Jake wasn’t my co-best friend, I was thinking, I would have been more aware of how great-looking he was, with those sky blue eyes against his tanned face. He’d always had a great smile, a little shy but with more than a touch of mischief thrown in. One of his front teeth had a little chip in it which suddenly seemed very sexy. My plan was seeming more reasonable with every second.
“Come see me,” I said, and whirled out of there. I went out to the screened-in back porch to play Amadoofus, the old battered upright that had now been shoved out there to make room for Dutch’s hospital bed. Instead of Beethoven, I found myself punching out some jazz tunes. I wished I could pop a pill that would counteract the insanity going on in my body. It wasn’t only between my legs. Every part of me felt like an erogenous zone, even stuff that was supposed to be dead, like my toenails. I think my split ends were tingling. I think I was running a fever, I was that hot. What a pathetic situation. Here it was my night off, my big chance to get some relief, and time was running out. I felt like going in there and hauling Jake away by the scruff of his neck.
After what seemed like a year and a half, Jake came out on the porch, leaned over my shoulder, and played a mangled chord. I could smell his aftershave. “What’s up, Stallone?” he asked. “You were jumping out of your skin in there.”
I stood up like I was jerked to my feet by a string. “Lookit, Jake,” I said, “I’ve got to get laid and it’s got to be tonight. Will you do it?”
His mouth dropped open. I could see that chipped tooth.
“I guess that wasn’t exactly subtle,” I said.
“Not hardly, no.” Jake was looking at me like I’d just asked him to perform a magic healing on Dutch, maybe with newt’s teeth and pigeon guts.
“I’m going wacko,” I explained. I took his hands, which felt so cool in mine. “I can’t even distract myself with TV anymore. We were watching water beetles do it on the Nature Channel and I thought I was going to pass out. Even the supermarket’s a problem with all those bananas and zucchinis. You’re my best friend, Jake. You’re supposed to be there when I need you. Will you help me out here, please?”
His face was doing all kinds of unfamiliar things. He’d gone from shock to anger to something I couldn’t even figure out.
“What? What?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Bess. I’d like to accommodate you, but…”
“Would it be so terrible? It’s just sex. Can’t friends have plain sex without it being a huge deal?” It was tempting to mention that other time, but I restrained myself. Besides, he looked like he might be weakening. “Maybe if we just went over to your place and had a drink we could talk about it? Angie and Mumma have your phone number.”
He was quiet for a minute. “Okay,” he said. “But I’m not promising anything.”
In the front seat of Jake’s truck, I could tell by the bulge in his running shorts that the idea was beginning to appeal. I watched his hands on the steering wheel, how strong they were, useful hands that did good things for my father, for kids on the high school team, and maybe for me. The trouble was, they kept turning into David Montagnier’s hands. I shoved the image out of my mind and crossed my legs.
“You still volunteering at the nature preserve?” I asked by way of relaxing us both.
He nodded. “Four times a week now. I’m thinking of changing my degree so I can work there permanently.”
“What kind of degree?” But don’t think I’m getting side-tracked here, buddy, I was thinking.
“Forest management.”
I smiled. “Well, that seems appropriate.”
He glanced at me. “You are in a very bad way, Stallone.”
“Tell me about it.”
When we got inside his apartment, which was above his cousin’s garage, I put my arms around him. “Do you think the drink is really necessary?” I asked. No way he needed it. He leaned down and kissed me. Now, that was extremely strange, especially since it was a very fine kiss. Sex would be okay, but not kissing. That was just too peculiar between friends. He wanted more of that, but I turned my face aside and gave him a gentle push toward the bedroom, unbuttoning and unzipping as we went. When we lay down naked on the bed, he looked me over from head to foot. “Oh, Bess …” he said. It sounded like he was in pain.
“That bad?” I said.
“You’re beautiful.” He ran his hands along my body.
“I can’t hold out for a lot of preliminaries here, Jake. You’ve got to come inside, right now.”
He did, but that was only the first round. He was generous, a lot more expert than I would have thought and of course, he had that amazing body. The first few times, it was like fixing something that was broken. Jake basically repaired my transmission so the car could run again. After that, though, I started thinking about David and it got spooky emotionally. I had the eeriest feeling that David was hanging around beside the bed, watching and not approving, as if he had any right. I fought him by exhausting myself with Jake. Finally, I lay back beside him. “I have to say in all fairness that I wasn’t the only horny person in this room,” I told him.
“Remember the night we got our tattoos?” he asked. I knew exactly why his mind went there.
“Sure. You still got yours?”
“Yeah.”
I shoved him a little so I could see the back of his shoulder where it said “Rocky B” inside a small heart. “I’ve always wondered, how come there’s a heart? You love Rocky Beach so much?”
“Well, maybe not now but that’s the trouble with tattoos. Let’s see yours.”
I lifted my foot in the air so he could see the Chevy logo on my ankle. “I’d still commit a major crime to own a ’fifty-seven Belair convertible,” I said.
“It looks good. You look good, Bess.”
I didn’t say anything.
“So is this going to be a regular thing?”
“Nah, I’ll be okay now,” I said. “You really did a number on me. Thanks.”
He was quiet for a while. I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep.
“Is there something I can do?” I asked finally. “By way of repayment?”
“If we’re counting up favors here, you might as well just forget about it,” he said. “I’ll always owe you big-time.”
“Oh, come on, what have I ever done except annoy the hell out of you?”
His voice dropped so I had to lean closer to hear him. “You stayed with me every day at the hospital when my mother was sick. You helped me pick out her stone. You arranged for the wake and the funeral. You met me at the beach more than once in the middle of the nig
ht when I couldn’t sleep on account of losing her…”
I put my finger on his mouth. “That was different.”
“My mother died when you were getting ready for your jury at Juilliard. Don’t tell me it was no big thing, Bess.”
We lay there in silence for a while.
“So how are we going to deal with this?” he asked finally.
“It’ll be fine. Remember that Seinfeld episode where Jerry and Elaine did it as friends? And what about The Big Chill when the guy fucked his wife’s best friend to give her a baby, and with his wife’s blessing?”
“Hm.”
“You don’t sound convinced,” I said, and flipped over so I could see his face better. He had that funny unreadable look again. “I hate it when I can’t tell what you’re thinking,” I said.
He grabbed a lock of my hair and gave it a tug. “Don’t sweat it, Stallone. You’re absolutely right. It’ll be fine. Put some clothes on and I’ll drive you home.”
And he was right. Other than sharing a little smirk the next time he stopped over, it was as if that night never happened.
Things settled back to the dreary routine. Wait on Dutch, listen to Dutch yell, argue with your sister and your mother, dream about a man who’s on the other side of the world, try not to think about what might have been. My one great comfort was Amadoofus. Every day I found at least twenty minutes to sit down and play. It was like a visit with an old buddy and it sustained me and kept me at least partly sane. Of course, those sessions also reminded me of what I was missing. Sometimes Angie would grab a moment to stand and listen. In fact that’s what she was doing the morning that all hell broke loose.
“It sounds like a heart breaking.” Angie was leaning against the door as Amadoofus and I wandered through some Grieg. “I don’t know if it’s yours or mine,” she said. I stopped playing and got up. We just held on to each other for a while. “We’re trapped, Bess,” she said.
“It’s only temporary.” But I didn’t believe a word of it. Angie smelled like damp leaves. They were starting to fall off the trees, and she’d been out raking our yard, which was roughly the size of your average hanky.
“Even if Dad ever gets better, it’ll be too late for us,” she said. “There’d never be enough money for me to go to school even if they still honored the scholarship, which they won’t. And David Montagnier will find somebody else.”
“I’m sure he has already.”
“I was scared to ask if you’ve heard from him.”
“Last I knew, he was in Europe.”
Dutch shouted for his pain medication.
“You stay here with Amadoofus,” Angie said. No eighteen-year-old should wear such a dried-up old lady’s face. Dutch yelled again, something about that goddamn piano, and I grabbed Angie’s arm.
“Flip you for it,” I said, calling tails a fraction after I saw my quarter show heads. “I lose. Go make yourself a cup of tea and I’ll deal with the emperor.” But then I heard the front door slam. “There’s Jake. Get him to take you for a walk on the beach. I mean it. You’re out of here.”
Dutch had hoisted himself off the couch and into his wheelchair. He was sweating and the veins in his neck were bulging red. “I’m sick and tired of you ignoring me so you can pound on the piano with that moody shit.”
“If I don’t, I’ll pound on you instead,” I said, reaching for a comb to fix his matted hair.
He batted it out of my hand. It went sliding across the floor. “I thought I heard Jake. Where is he?”
“With Angie,” I answered as he pushed past me in his chair. “And you’re going where?”
“For a fucking stroll in the park.” He balled up his fists and slammed them hard against the door frame. “Goddamn it all, Bess.” Looking back, I should have realized he was at the end of his rope. There was blood smeared where he’d hit the wood.
“Let me through. I’ll be right back with your pills,” I said.
We kept them up out of reach on a shelf in the kitchen. Dutch’s mood swings had been so crazed we figured we’d better play it safe. I gave him the medication with some tomato juice. He didn’t want to get back on the couch, so I left him sitting in front of Guiding Light, the only soap opera that was on in the mornings. When I went out of the room he was growling at the screen. “Come on, Lil, show some spine for once and tell him to screw off.”
I closed the porch door behind me and sat down on Amadoofus’s old cracked bench. In my mind, David was looking at me across the glossy surface of his piano, hearing every note I played so that his entrance was seamless, so that we were speaking in one voice through the music. My left breast ached like I’d pulled a muscle, but then I realized it was my heart that was hurting. I began playing my part of the Scaramouche, not galloping the way it was written, but like a blues riff, real slow and sad. I started getting into it, closing my eyes and hearing David partner the dance inside my head, remembering that during those perfect hours with him I hadn’t felt alone.
I don’t know how long I played, but it was one of those magical times when Amadoofus transported my fingers to a place where misery couldn’t touch me. The jolt back to the real world was sudden and brutal. First came a howl like a battle cry followed by the crash of splintering wood. My eyes snapped open to see my father’s hatchet shattering the dried-up timber of the piano casing. I sat paralyzed as Amadoofus shuddered under the blows. With each swing of the axe, Dutch roared like an animal, the force of his powerful arms raising him up out of his wheelchair. There was rage in his voice, but oh yeah, I could hear the joy, too. He swung high above his head and brought the blade down on the upper section of the keyboard. Fragments of yellowed ivory flew in the air. One piece sliced across my cheek, leaving a burning track. The sounding board was exposed like a rib cage and when my father struck again, the strings begged for mercy with a discordant twang.
I leapt to my feet and lunged at my father. I jumped on his shoulders and reached for the hatchet.
“Get off! Crazy bitch!”
I was pounding him and trying to grab the axe. He just kept swinging.
“You’re finished with it now, girl!” I couldn’t believe how much strength he had, stuck in the chair like that. He flicked me off him like I was a bug.
I landed on the floor. “You can never take it away,” I said even though he wasn’t listening. “It’s in my blood.” I held up my wrist and pointed to it. “It’s in there. You want to get it out, you’ll have to kill me.”
At that point, I couldn’t have cared less if he split my head down the middle as long as he spared Amadoofus. But he raised the axe again and dealt the piano a deathblow. The keyboard came crashing down onto the pile of splinters. I heard myself screaming. It took me a while to stop. My father tossed the hatchet aside and said, “Now maybe we’ll get some peace around here.” Then he wheeled out. A few seconds later, I heard his bedroom door slam.
Jake and Angie came home to find me lying on the floor with my head on the piano’s shattered body.
“What the fuck?” Jake said.
“Dad.” Angie knew.
Jake reached out to pick me up but I slapped his hand away and spread myself across the remains of Amadoofus. Pitiful sounds kept rising from the twisted strings, as if he wasn’t quite dead yet.
Jake knelt down on the floor. “Come on, Bess. Your face is bleeding.”
“Please go away.”
After a while, they left. Pretty soon there were shouts from the other end of the house. I’d never heard Jake raise his voice our whole lives. Some commotion, but I couldn’t have cared less. I sat up and started picking through the pieces, trying to fit them together. All the king’s horses and all the king’s fucking men.
They couldn’t get me off the back porch. Mumma came home from work and left a plate on the floor beside me like I was the family dog but I couldn’t imagine eating. Beethoven was inside my head, the Adagio movement from the Seventh Symphony. Jake’s lips we
re moving at me, but nothing was getting through except that majestic dying heartbeat.
I slept beside Amadoofus’s corpse. The next morning, my mother came out with a warm washcloth and washed the blood and grime off my face. That felt good. She didn’t say a word, just left coffee and toast. I was almost hungry until I thought about Dutch and then the hate twisted my stomach into sickness again.
Angie waited until Mumma left. They must have had their hands full with my father but I couldn’t go near him to help. I was imagining a thousand different ways to kill him, mainly using parts of Amadoofus’s mangled body. I could strangle him with the strings or choke him with the keys or batter him to death with the sounding board. I knew it was risky to go near Dutch when I was in this state. If I went to jail for murder, what would happen to Angie?
My sister crept over and sat down on the cement floor. She didn’t say anything at first, just took my hand and stroked it.
“I love you, Bessie,” she said finally.
I didn’t answer, but salt stung in the wound on my cheek.
“She didn’t stay in their bedroom last night,” Angie went on.
I didn’t get what she meant at first.
“She slept on the couch,” she said.
Then I looked at her.
“I heard her tell him that if he wasn’t crippled she’d leave him.”