Strangers

by Mort Castle

  “She feels terribly guilty, Michael,” Beth said. “You know what she told me? When she saw Kim get hit by the car, she wished it was her.”

  But what had happened? Michael wondered. He asked and Beth proceeded to tell him, leaving out no boring detail: the police came for her, told her about the accident, they were so nice, such polite young men, they even brought Marcy’s bike home in the trunk, and, well Kim’s bike was ruined of course, and then they took them all back to the hospital… Damn, Michael thought, put one quarter in the slot and the goddamned jukebox plays all night! He tuned out babbling Beth.

  Later, when he was alone with Kim (Marcy was too young to be allowed upstairs, so Michael and Beth took turns staying with her in half hour shifts in the main lobby) Michael did learn what had actually occurred. Kim, who had scraped arms and legs and no other marks to show for the accident, and who wanted to know if they could rent her a hospital television for the one night she’d be there, excitedly, but clearly, told her father about it.

  The car struck the back wheel of her bicycle. Kim flew over the handlebars, landed on the highway, and “It was like I was doing all those somersaults.” She wound up rolling all the way to the grassy median and by the time “this old guy who zapped me” got to her, she was on her feet.

  Incredible, Michael thought, the miracle that the intern had called it. But perhaps nothing was incredible, when it came to kids. One little creep drowns in a tablespoon of water, and the next day, you see in the paper that a kid decided it would be fun to jump off the Sears Tower and did so without harming a hair on his empty head.

  Kim did want to know if she were going to be punished for riding across—well, almost riding across—394. Michael pretended to ponder the question a moment, then said, “Yes. As soon as you get home tomorrow, you’re on restriction. That means no bicycle riding.”

  “Dad!” Kim protested, “Very funny. You know my bike got all squashed!”

  “So I guess you can’t ride it, right?”

  Kim glowered, sitting up in bed. “That’s not fair!”

  Michael said, “Well, we’ll talk this over when we get you home.” He put up a hand, signaling the end of the discussion.

  Before he left so Beth could begin her visit, Michael said, “You know, I bet you weren’t even scared when you were whizzing through the air like Superman.”

  Kim’s face became serious and reflective. Quietly, she said, “No Dad, this one time I was scared.”

  There would be a next time too, the time when she would know fear and finality.

  That was The Stranger’s silent promise to himself and his child.

  They left the hospital at 8:00, the end of visiting hours, and, with a stop at Burger King—they were all hungry—they didn’t pull into the drive until a quarter after nine. When they stepped inside, the telephone was ringing.

  While Beth spoke to her mother—“Yes, Mom, yes, she’s okay now,” Beth sighed. “That’s right, Mom. You were right. No, I’m not saying you’re being an ‘I-told-you-so.’ I know you’re concerned, Mom…”—Michael told Marcy to get washed up and ready for bed.

  Fifteen minutes later, Michael knocked on the door of his daughter’s bedroom. “Marcy?” He turned the knob and went in.

  The bedroom, dimly lit by the lamp on the nightstand between the twin beds, was not so much a place the girls shared as it was two “half-a-rooms” divided by an invisible wall. Over the headboard of Kim’s, the bed nearer the door, was a poster, a close-up of soulfully ugly E.T.; above Marcy’s, a framed picture of three horses grazing peacefully. As always, there was the smell of pinewood chips and guinea pigs—Michael hated the insult to his nose—and in the aquarium—cage on the stand by the window, Kim’s brown and white cavy, Chopper, was whistling its unhappiness at being separated from his companion, Snowball, that Marcy was holding.

  “We have to talk, Marcy,” Michael said.

  Marcy slowly nodded. Wearing a pastel blue nightgown with a “rainy day umbrella,” design, she was sitting on her bed, her white guinea pig on her lap as she petted its head.

  A girl and her guinea, Michael thought. How goddamned touching.

  “Put Snowball back in the cage,” Michael said, thinking before I smash him against the wall and watch him splatter!

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  Both of them sitting side, by side on the bed, Michael said, “Riding out on 394 today wasn’t your idea, was it, honey?”

  Marcy shook her head.

  “I didn’t think so,” Michael said, “but you knew what you and Kim were doing was wrong.”

  “Yes, Daddy,” Marcy said, her voice only slightly louder than a whisper. “We shouldn’t have done it, and I shouldn’t have let Kim go there. I could’ve come right home and…” Marcy choked, “and told Mom and maybe Kim wouldn’t be in the hospital.”

  Michael slipped an arm around Marcy’s shoulder. “That’s right, you love your sister and so you feel bad she was hurt. And your Mom and I love you kids, and we don’t want you to get hurt. That’s why we make rules to keep you safe. Do you understand that, honey?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  Now how was that for a “Father of the Year” speech? Michael congratulated himself.

  “You broke the rules, Marcy,” Michael said, “so you’re going to be punished. I’m going to spank you.”

  In the Louden household, spanking was punishment for only the most serious misbehavior; that meant that every once in a while, Kim got paddled. Marcy, of course, never gave her parents cause to punish her that severely, and with Marcy a mere reproving word could bring tears to her eyes.

  But this time…

  “Oh, Daddy,” Marcy’s lower lip trembled and her eyes watered. “I really am sorry, so sorry…Please don’t spank me!”

  Oh, Daddy! Christ! He hadn’t heard her pathetic, puling “Oh, Daddy” in what had to be at least a couple of hours!

  He answered by laying her face down across his lap. Marcy whimpered tearfully.

  Before he spanked her, he couldn’t resist. “This will hurt me more than it does you,” he said, and, at the last of a half-dozen stinging slaps to her bottom, he had to add, “You’ll thank me for this someday.”

  — | — | —

  EIGHT

  IT WAS 5:30 in the morning when Beth awoke. The night had not been restful; she was too tense. She had slept, but it was an uneasy slumber that made her think she was seeing the oppressive, weighty blackness of the bedroom through her eyelids.

  What is it? she asked herself in the two detached and disoriented way of those who have just emerged from unremembered dreams. What is wrong, so terribly wrong?

  Lying on her back, Beth had the sudden, scraped-nerve feeling that she was being watched. She turned her head and in the dark, saw Michael on his side, facing her, his eyes awake and aware.

  “Michael?”

  How long had he been looking at her without her knowing it? she wondered—and why should that upset her?

  “Can’t sleep?” Michael asked softly.

  “I guess not,” Beth said. “There’s so much going through my mind, and every time I try to figure out exactly what it is, it all slips away from me.”

  “Want to talk, Beth?”

  “I think so,” Beth said, “but I don’t know what it is I want to talk about.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I’m a good listener. You know that. Say anything and we’ll go from there.”

  Beth thought. “Everything, well, everything seems to be going wrong somehow.”

  She paused. No, wrong was not exactly the word she meant, she explained. It seemed that suddenly everything was changing, changing in ways she did not understand. That frightened her. She had always felt secure, sometimes content, sometimes bored, but believing one day would be much like the next with its minor worries but no great fears, the ordinary small victories and defeats that made up life as usual. Now it seemed that the web of security that enfolded them all, the family—MichaelandBethandMarcyandKim—was
being torn away. Zeller’s dog, then, the very next day, Kim’s accident…

  But, Michael interjected; they had reason to be thankful, not fearful. After all, they’d come darned close to losing Kim, and, as it worked out, she’d be home from the hospital today, her own sassy, ready-to-raise-hell self.

  “I guess,” Beth said, but she didn’t feel relief. It was as though the killing of Zeller’s dog and Kim’s accident—the accident that Mom’s second sight, intuition, psychic gift, whatever! had forecast!—(And would Mom be providing new, dire predictions today, tomorrow, the day after?)—were inexplicably linked events in a chain of catastrophes destined to befall them.

  That’s how she felt, anyway, and she had to admit it was not rational. But feelings didn’t have to be reasonable to be real, to be true, did they?

  And. another change (for the worse, of course, of course!)—Marcy, their obedient, polite, model child—Beth was just sick, more over Marcy’s punishment than her crime. Beth believed in the disciplinary worth of a needed paddling, and a couple of times had warmed Kim’s bottom herself, not wanting to cast Michael in the “wait till your father gets home,” “Dad’s the one who hits” role, but physically punishing…now it was both girls—always upset her.

  “Come on, Beth,” Michael said. “Don’t make more out of it than it is. Even the best kid goofs sometimes.” Beneath the covers, Michael put his hand on Beth’s hip. “Marcy did and she took her licks and that’s that. Besides, as guilty as she felt about the accident, a couple swats and a few tears put things back in balance for her. She got punished, so she knows we forgive her and now she can forgive herself.”

  “I know you’re right. Everything you’re saying to me, I’ve already said to myself. But believing it is something else.” Beth sighed. “I guess things are okay and I’m letting my imagination run wild.”

  “Honey,” Michael said, “it has been a rough couple of days. That’s not your imagination, and with all the stress of what’s happened, you have every reason to feel kind of shaky. I understand that.”

  Knowing Michael understood and cared did help, Beth thought; it helped some, anyway.

  “I don’t know,” Michael went on, “maybe this is a period of change in our lives, for whatever the reasons, but there’s nothing written in the stars that says the changes are going to be all bad, is there?”

  Beth felt otherwise but she answered, “No.”

  “I mean, next week you’re going back to school. That’s a change for you, and it’s going to mean a change for all of us, but there’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “You’re right,” Beth said. He is right and I know he’s right and that is that, she told herself, working at believing it.

  Michael patted her hip. “I may not always be right, but I’m always the guy who loves you. Whatever changes come our way, we’ll handle them together, you and I.”

  “Yes,” Beth said. Saying that simple word was an affirmation that made her feel better.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “Being my early morning psychiatrist.”

  Michael laughed. “The psychiatrist isn’t supposed to be in bed with his client, but as long as I am, are you in the mood for some additional therapy”—Michael moved his hand to her belly, then down—“shall we say, a consciousness-raising experience in sensory awareness?”

  “You’re the doctor,” Beth said.

  Through her gown, he petted the mound of her womanhood. He said, “I prescribe a deep, intramuscular love injection.”

  “A wonder drug, Doctor?”

  “Wonder-ful, my dear,” Michael drawled, his hammy, overdone W.C. Fields impression. “It’s called… penis-chillin.”

  Their initial caresses were slow and, Beth thought, particularly gentle, moving to a lazy, relaxed union well suited to the early morning, Beth on her side, gown pulled up, Michael spooned to her, his front to her back, arm around her, cupping her breast, softly scissoring her nipple between the first and second finger of his right hand.

  “There! That’s good!” Michael’s words were carried on the warm breath that brushed her neck and cheek. Beth drew her knees higher, pushed her buttocks back to feel the regular rhythm of Michael’s hips and the smooth rippling of his belly at the small of her back.

  It was good to be held and loved, she thought, drifting in warmth and comforting pleasure. A part of her mind continued to think, however, refusing to let her descend into the realm of pure feeling. After all, they had to be relatively quiet—it was really rather funny—so she couldn’t let her keen enjoyment be expressed by the gratified moan that threatened to rise in her throat that might be a prelude to a squeal or even a sharp scream, because Marcy was right down the hall! Wake the child and uh-oh, that awkward instant feared by every parent: “What are you guys doing…oh!”

  It was Beth’s thinking mind that was invaded by the terrifying idea:

  If she twisted her head…

  Now, damn it! This is absurd and I know it and why do I keep coming up with this nonsense?

  …and looked at the man whose hairy chest was a silly tickle between her shoulder-blades…

  I’ve got to cut it out, stop dreaming up all this frightening, senseless garbage!

  …at her husband, lover, Michael…

  No, damn it anyway! Just stop it, Stopit-stopit!!!

  …She would not see him, but a stranger!

  The irrational thought froze her. She did not yield to it and turn her head, but she was no longer one with Michael, making love. She was cold and alone, and when Michael squeezed her hard, muffling his climactic grunt against her neck, she was glad he was finished.

  After breakfast, Beth telephoned South Suburban Medical Center to learn that “Kim had a good night,” and, “as soon as we have a final looksee,” she could be released, say around one o’clock or thereabouts. Standing at the kitchen counter, Beth realized she had been braced for bad news, and, as she put the receiver back on the cradle, she chided herself. There was no black cloud overhead, no seven years bad luck down the line, and no reason for this utterly unreasonable, melodramatic sense of impending doom that was plaguing her. She had signed up to be a student in the abnormal psychology class, not a case study for it!

  It was high time for a “return to normalcy” (she couldn’t recall if that phrase was remembered from high school history class or from her single year at college), and that’s exactly what it would be.

  Michael wanted to stay home, Vern Engelking would certainly understand, and they would all bring Kim home.

  No, Beth insisted he go to the office. Though she didn’t explain it to Michael, today, Beth wanted the satisfaction of “things as usual,” their more or less regular schedule.

  Besides—it was hard to admit to herself, but there it was—she needed to be away from Michael for a while, time to make sure she had that ridiculous “I don’t know him; he’s a stranger” delusion—I’ve got to call it that because that’s precisely what it is!—banished from her mind.

  So, at 9:30, later than usual, Michael left. Beth telephoned Belford, caught her mother before she left to open the library at 10:00, shared the good news about Kim, and deliberately kept the call brief so she had no disquietude talking with “sees all, knows all, scares me” Mom.”

  Then Beth busied herself doing “normal” things, taking note of how normal and immanently satisfying they were. She read the newspaper, dusted and polished the living room furniture, watered the indoor plants. After straightening up the downstairs rec room, she took a coffee break, listening to the portable radio in the kitchen. WBBM All-News reported that a man in San Francisco, annoyed by a the crying of his two month old son, had beaten the child’s head in with a ballpeen hammer. It was horrible, she thought, the act of a madman, shocking and sad, so very sad—and it and all the other senseless terrors that made the news from day to day had absolutely nothing to do with the Louden family of Park Estates.

  The weather was pleasant f
or a change, temperature in the mid-’70s, humidity not out of line, and late in the morning, Beth worked outdoors, Marcy accepting the invitation to help. At breakfast, Marcy had said little more than “Good morning” and then gone to her room. With both of them wearing “outdoor grubbys,” on their hands and knees in the garden, plucking tiny weeds that were at most an insignificant threat to the thriving flowers, Beth—surreptitiously watched Marcy.

  “The flowers were really something this year, weren’t they?” Beth said. The geraniums, campion, zinnias, morning glories, impatiens, were all still in lively, colorful bloom, and Beth had a flash of a lovely fantasy: Winter would come to the Midwest, the ice, the snow, but alongside the garage, her garden would, receive a special grace and be untouched by death-cold, the flowers always living, always beautiful…

  “Uh-huh,” Marcy said, and then, as Beth hoped she might, Marcy accepted the unspoken invitation to talk. “Mom, are you mad at me?”

  Delibately keeping her tone matter-of-fact, Beth said, “About yesterday?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “No,” Beth said. “I think I was mad, but I’m not any more. You and Kim both made a mistake, something bad happened that could have been much worse”—and remember, you’re talking to yourself as well as your daughter, Mrs. Louden!—“and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Mom,” Marcy said, “you always tell me you trust me. Do you still trust me?”

  Beth took a moment to think it over and then her honest answer was: “I sure do, Marcy, 100 percent.”

  “You know something, Mom?” Marcy said, her voice strikingly somber and adult. “You’re the best Mom in the world and Daddy’s the best father.”

  Just as seriously, Beth said, “And your dad and I have the best kids in the world.”

  The other “best kid” was released from South Suburban Medical Center at 1:30, but, with the paperwork—the insurance forms, the check for the deductible, the waiver of responsibility, etc.—it was 2:20 before they started home, Kim in the front passenger seat on the Chevette Scooter, laughing about having a ride down to the lobby in a wheelchair when “I didn’t even break my little toe,” Marcy in the back.