The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors

by Michele Young-Stone

  Finishing the letter, Winter scratched her face. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”

  “Not really.”

  She dug into her stew. “He’s a bastard,” she said, “and it sounds like he’s judging us. What nerve!”

  Buckley and Paddy John sat across from each other eating Shake ’n Bake pork chops and applesauce on a red checked tablecloth, and Buckley said as nonchalantly as he could, “I know where Tide is living. It’s only two miles from here. What if we sent him to one of those drug treatment places?”

  “Pass the salt.”

  “Or we could have one of those interventions?”

  “Tide is old enough to do as he pleases.”

  It was hard for Buckley to watch anyone kill himself, let alone Tide, but Buckley was only a boy of thirteen when he’d first met Tide, and Buckley didn’t know then and he didn’t know now that up until he was five, Tide lived with his “unfit” mother, Judy, in a three-room dump. Buckley didn’t know that Tide remembered sleeping on a dirty Coleman sleeping bag while his mother, high on heroin, had sex with Big Lime, her supplier, in the next room. Buckley didn’t know that Tide ate dry cereal and cold Franco-American Spaghettios almost every day for a whole year and that he still remembered their metallic taste. He didn’t know that Tide, desperate for his mother’s love, sometimes went into the room while Big Lime was on top of Judy.

  Big Lime grunted, and his mother’s eyes rolled up white, and Tide sat down beside her on the mattress, the coils squeaking, her breasts lolling one to each side.

  Tide didn’t know enough not to be there beside her, and he still remembered the smoky, moist smell of her brown hair. He remembered Big Lime telling him to “get the fuck out,” but Tide kept coming back. Finally, Big Lime gave in and let Tide stay.

  Even while Big Lime sweated and heaved and grunted on top of Tide’s mother, Tide held her hand.

  Like Buckley, Paddy John didn’t know what Tide had seen, but he knew there was a time to let go of the past, and he thought it was well past time for Tide to let go of his.

  In Galveston, Judy McGowan, fifty-four this month, still worked at Trina’s whore house. She took her methadone. Some habits you don’t break. You only replace. She no longer serviced Big Lime or any other man unless he paid cash up-front.

  She didn’t want to see or know her son, Tide. She carried the guilt only a mother can carry, and she never wanted to confront it.

  Excerpt from

  THE HANDBOOK FOR LIGHTNING STRIKE SURVIVORS

  Some people can’t be saved. If you administer CPR but the brain has been severely damaged by lightning, the victim will probably die or exist in a vegetative state.

  [40]

  Starving, 1994

  In 1991, Becca moved to East Ninety-ninth Street in Spanish Harlem. On the weekends she walked Central Park to breathe in something other than bus fumes and turpentine. She did not graduate from the School of Visual Arts, but dropped out three credits short. If you asked Becca why and she liked you enough to tell you the truth, she’d say, “Degrees don’t matter. Jealous egomaniacal professors make students jump through hoops, and for what? For what? So you can get some job working for some advertising firm after you graduate, doing what you never wanted to do in the first place, or so you can kiss so much ass trying to get your work seen and get so wrapped up in so much bureaucratic bullshit that you forget why you started painting in the first place?” That’s what Becca would say if she liked you. That’s what she explained to her mother.

  Becca stopped taking her father’s money and took the subway to and from a full-time job at the Corner Drugstore on Fifty-seventh Street. She worked days as a cashier, catching the grimy coins tossed across the narrow countertop. She said, “Have a nice day,” and sold Fleet enemas and candy bars and cigarettes. She wore a blue smock with a name tag, REBECCA embossed with a plastic label maker. At the beginning of each shift, she used the handydandy label maker to give herself a new identity, like CATHERINE for Catherine the Great. Her manager, Spencer, who took his job far too seriously, told her, “It has to be your real name. You’re not ‘Joan of Arc’ or ‘Catherine the Great.’” Becca didn’t care. He could fire her. She could get another low-paying job.

  At night, she painted in her one-bedroom apartment and listened to her neighbors, Jose and Maria, shout at each other and their two kids. She couldn’t imagine four people living in a space not much bigger than the space she occupied.

  She kept in touch with Jack and Lucy, but neither of them came to visit. (“Spanish Harlem,” they said, “is a little too close to the Harlem, and a little too scary all on its own—what with all the Latinos and the gangs and those bandannas they wear. And what’s with those creepy Jesus candles they sell in the bodegas?”) Mostly, they just spoke on the phone. Lucy still got bit acting parts. Things hadn’t worked out as well as she’d anticipated with Johnny Depp. Her speaking role got turned into a nonspeaking role, and she didn’t get to spray him with cologne. Jack was still happy about not living in Newark. He still worked at Macy’s with Paulo, who made a habit of visiting Becca Burke. Paulo latched on to the talented whenever possible.

  Her paintings sold. For a pittance, much of the time, but they sold. To Paulo, Becca was the quintessential starving artist. He said, “If my father were rich, I’d take him for every penny he’s worth. You should absolutely do that. You should consider what he owes you.”

  Sometimes it was hard to talk to Paulo. She said, “I don’t want his money. He’s a liar.”

  “All the more reason to take it.”

  Her father called once a week to ask about her paintings and to offer money. Oftentimes she said, “I’m just on my way to work.” Oftentimes she lied. He asked if there was anything he could do to help. Her answer: “No.”

  She telephoned her mother in Chapel Hill and said, “I don’t know how you ever put up with his shit. No wonder you drank.”

  Her mother said, “I don’t know how I put up with him either.” Of course, Mary knew. She’d been in love with the man, and love is a scary thing. If not reciprocated, it can turn a person into a monster. Mary had recovered, but the wounds ran deep.

  Each year, like clockwork, Becca showed her work at Sue’s in Soho. She wasn’t the star artist anymore; in fact, most years she was relegated to a back corner of Sue’s, where she could hang only a few paintings. Each year, she sold one or two, and Sue took fifty percent, but still, she was painting, and that’s what she wanted to do. That’s what she needed to do. Occasionally she saw Roderick Dweizer—the man who had given her her big break—but he was no longer interested in her paintings. She wasn’t painting fish anymore. Instead, she painted black men, dogs, old women, and hillside funerals. Not for him, but thank you.

  Becca knew from eavesdropping at the gallery that there was a buyer from North Carolina who bought one of her paintings each year. She assumed it was Buckley R. Pitank, but there was no way to find out. Not without traveling to Wanchese, North Carolina, and she had no intention of leaving New York. Nor did Becca have fond memories of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Additionally, she didn’t really know Buckley R. Pitank.

  Paulo said, “You should go. Take a vacation. He told you to look him up.”

  “I can’t afford it.”

  “Yes you can. I’ll come with.”

  Her father was in agreement. He knew Peggy at the Seaside Gallery. Becca should send Peggy some photos of her paintings. Becca didn’t want her father doing her any favors. “That’s okay, Dad.”

  “But it’s about your paintings, Becca. It’s not about me. You should call her. She doesn’t take fifty percent. She takes thirty.”

  Becca worked days at the Corner Drugstore. She painted at night. Life is good without waves.

  Then Sue telephoned. “I’ve known you a long time, so I won’t beat around the bush: I don’t have the room this winter, Becca.”

  “Not even for one?”

  “I don’t want to seem harsh, but your paintings b
order on pastoral. There are all these farmlike images. I’m sorry. There’s the guy in North Carolina who we can count on to buy one, but to be honest, I don’t want the work in my space. It’s not worth the check. I’m sorry. You need to do something new. Something exciting. Do you remember Johnny Bosworth? He used to be my assistant.”

  No response.

  “He’s painting Russian prostitutes overlaid with fairy images. It’s fascinating. Remember Lightning Fish? That was fascinating.”

  The next day at work, Becca’s manager, Spencer, said, “You took thirty-five minutes at lunch. You need to stay five minutes past six.” He was short and bossy, with mousy brown hair, a fat wife, and a fatter kid.

  Fucking breeder. “I don’t need this,” she said.

  “You don’t need what?”

  “This!” She took off her smock. About to drop it on the counter, she remembered her name tag. This morning, she’d used the label maker, becoming WONDER WOMAN. She slipped the name tag into her pocket and stuffed the smock in Spencer’s hands. “I quit.”

  Excerpt from

  THE HANDBOOK FOR LIGHTNING STRIKE SURVIVORS

  “I was struck while golfing at the White Hill Country Club in Schubert, Indiana. After the incident, no matter what I did, I couldn’t stop feeling like I was going to die. My heart raced, but when I went to the cardiac specialist, he said my EKG was normal. He said it was anxiety and prescribed Valium.

  I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I couldn’t swallow.

  I’ve never been an anxious person.

  I wasn’t badly injured. There were no marks and no burns on my body, only bruises. The lightning shot me ten feet from my golf clubs, rendering me unconscious. My heart didn’t stop. I didn’t think I’d been hit until someone told me what happened. I was embarrassed. I’m still embarrassed. It’s only because of the wife that I went to see the doctor.

  After one month, I left Schubert. I was tired of feeling strange and sick. Now we live in Eugene, Oregon, and I do feel better. I gave the Valium to the wife.”

  Account by Daniel P.

  [41]

  All about the paint, 1995

  Mary picked up the telephone. “Hello.” Silence. “Hello.” She thought, Fucking telemarketers.

  “Mrs. Burke.”

  “Can I help you?”

  “It’s Carrie. Um, Carrie Drinkwater.”

  “How are you, Carrie?”

  “I’m all right. I was actually calling to see how Becca’s doing.”

  On March 25, 1995, Carrie Drinkwater Kingsley drafted and redrafted a letter to her old friend Becca Burke. The letter she finally sent read:

  Dear Becca,

  I know it’s been a long time. I just wanted to check in and see how things are going. I think about you every year around this time with your birthday coming up. Your mom told me you’re painting and doing well in New York. I’m glad.

  Mike and I are getting divorced. He’s suing for custody of our daughter, Alice. There’s not an easy way to write that.

  I know it’s been a long time since we’ve spoken, and I wanted to call you, but I didn’t know if you’d want to hear from me or not. I would really like to hear from you. I hope you’ll call. Maybe the next time you’re back home we could go for a cup of coffee or something and just talk. I miss you.

  Your friend,

  Carrie

  In New York, Becca read and reread Carrie’s letter before picking up the phone and calling her.

  “Hello.”

  Becca heard the TV in the background.

  “It’s Becca.”

  Carrie tried not to cry, not right away at least, but succumbed just the same. Then Becca started. They talked about their lives, the highs and lows. Becca talked about her art. They laughed about stupid Kevin Richfield. Carrie said, “I hate that guy.”

  Becca said, “Yeah. Me too.”

  “I can’t wait for you to meet Alice.”

  “Me either.”

  It was like they’d never been apart, except there was a new person, a next generation, in their midst.

  Becca handed her mother a paint roller. Her father leaned against the plate-glass front of the Seaside Gallery. “Can I help?”

  “We’ve got it,” Becca said.

  Between rolling zigzag strips of white paint on the gallery wall, Becca gawked at eight-year-old Alice, the spitting image of Carrie at Alice’s age. Becca still remembered that first day she met Carrie, her insta-friend, the little girl with the grape Kool-Aid smile, the little girl Becca had loved more than anyone.

  Alice bounced a rubber ball on the concrete floor and blew a pink bubble, which popped on her bottom lip.

  Rowan said to Carrie, “I could take Alice to get an ice cream next door.” The Seaside Gallery was in a strip mall on Beach Road. It was not what Becca expected, but Peggy, the owner, was only taking thirty percent and she promised a good turnout, a good crowd. She was nothing like Sue in Soho. She said, “This is your show. It goes how you want. You’re in charge.” Becca swept an annoying curl from her face.

  “Can I, Mom?” Alice asked. “Can I get some ice cream?”

  “Sure.” Carrie dug into her shorts’ pocket.

  “It’s on me.” Becca’s dad pulled the door open. “I like butter pecan.”

  “I like mint chocolate chip.”

  “Becca liked mint chocolate chip.”

  Becca thought, You liked mint chocolate chip. I liked vanilla.

  After the door closed behind Alice and Rowan, Becca cleared her throat and said, “I can’t believe he’s fucking here.”

  “That’s your dad,” Mary said.

  “This is why I didn’t want to do this. It’s got to be his thing.”

  Carrie said, “He’s not so bad. I think he wants another chance.”

  “A little too late.”

  Mary didn’t say it, but she thought, It’s never too late, Becca. Never. She wasn’t thinking about herself and Rowan. It was much too late for them, but for Becca and her father, there was still time. Mary wished her own father had made some effort. Anything. Even if she hadn’t forgiven him, to know that he had tried would mean something. But he hadn’t.

  Rowan, like Becca, thought it was a little too late. He was old. There were no more chances. His daughter didn’t approve of or like him, and he knew it. When he looked at his own life now, he felt regret. He wondered What if? every day. What if he had stayed at UNC? What if he’d tried to work things out with Mary? What if he’d spent more time with Becca? What if he hadn’t slept with Victoria the attorney? He’d still have his Patty-Cake. He pined for that woman.

  Every day, he felt like crying.

  His therapist said, “What if gets you nowhere, Rowan,” but Rowan couldn’t help it.

  His therapist said, “You have your photographs,” but Rowan countered, “My claim to fame is Atkins and Thames. I caused the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of smokers. After all, it was my additive. No mistaking that.”

  His therapist said, “You can’t beat yourself up,” but Rowan didn’t know how to stop. He got up every morning, took his prescribed antianxiety medication, and tried to feel better. The pills only made things bearable. Besides, his need for the drugs was the ultimate weakness. Rowan would agree with Becca: It’s too late. I ought to start smoking.

  The caterers were late the Friday night of the opening.

  In a yellow daisy sundress, Becca paced the concrete floor. It never got easier. The jitters were always there.

  In South Nags Head, Buckley fumbled with his tie. Paddy John looked at Buckley in the mirror. He untied and retied Buckley’s tie, his wrinkled hands working the yellow silk. He said, “I’m eager to meet your friend.”

  “She’s not really my friend.”

  “She sounds like a friend.”

  Buckley said, “She read my book. She’s a lightning strike survivor. I told you that.”

  When Buckley read that Rebecca Burke, “a successful painter from New York,” was sh
owing her work at the Seaside Gallery in Kill Devil Hills, he could not believe it. Joan and Sissy were visiting from Galveston. Buckley told them about meeting Rebecca in New York, about her wonderful paintings of the fish and lightning. “She wrote to me,” he told them over and over.

  Paddy John turned Buckley to see himself in the mirror. “You are a handsome young man.”

  Thirty-six-year-old Buckley touched the silk tie. “I look a lot better than the last time I met her.”

  “You look good.”

  Paddy John wore a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. He was too old to dress up for anybody. Buckley didn’t mind.

  He and Paddy John could hear Sissy and Joan Holt in the living room, quarreling over who should drive. Sissy was saying, “I’ll drive,” and Joan Holt was saying, “I’m tired of riding around with you. You’re like to kill me. Let Paddy John drive.”

  “I’m a good driver,” Sissy said.

  “Says who?”

  Buckley and Paddy John laughed. Buckley said, “You should drive.”

  At the Seaside Gallery, Becca’s paintings were hung with wire from picture molding. Her father said to her, “This is my favorite collection.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “It’s like your soul’s in the paint.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Your soul: It’s in the paint.” He pointed to one of her paintings, a graphite drawing of a man washed with turpentine, faint splashes of yellow ochre, and sap green.

  Becca said, “I’m going to get some air.”

  “Let me know if I can do anything to help.”

  Outside the gallery, Carrie was smoking a cigarette. “You doing okay?”

  Becca took a smoke from Carrie’s pack. “I don’t get the big sudden interest in my life. I can’t deal with my father.”

  “Do you have to get it? He’s taking an interest.”

  Becca’s father knocked on the glass to let Becca and Carrie know that the caterers had arrived. At the same time, Becca’s mother and Peggy entered the gallery through the back door.