Lemon

by Cordelia Strube

  ‘She’s not calling anybody.’

  ‘Pick up the phone, Zippy,’ I order. ‘Now. Pick it up now.’ She does and holds the receiver as if it might catch fire.

  The ape tries to snatch the umbrella but I keep swinging it the way Doyle swung the golf club. The ape retreats but of course has to say, ‘Don’t bother showing up at the store tomorrow,’ before he slams the door. Zippy puts the phone down and squats on her pouffe.

  ‘Where’s Jesus when you need him?’ I say.

  ‘You hurt people and you don’t care,’ she says. ‘You’re destructive. That’s what they’ve always said about you.’

  ‘I care about you.’

  ‘No you don’t. You just lost me my job.’

  There’s no point in saying she’s a whole lot better off without the ape plugging her orifices. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

  ‘No you’re not.’

  I don’t argue. She starts rocking on the pouffe, humming some hymn.

  ‘I want you to leave in the morning,’ she says in a voice that doesn’t sound like hers, more like the Almighty’s. This is not good. I was planning to lie around eating crumpets with my ass held high.

  ‘I’m still feeling a bit feverish,’ I say.

  ‘Please leave in the morning. You must leave in the morning.’ She runs her hands over the scar tissue on her wrists from all that self-mutilating. She won’t look at me.

  ‘If that’s what you want,’ I say.

  She closes her eyes and talks to Jesus.

  30

  I don’t stomp but walk carefully with my secret inside me, staying far from school and the mall where I might be detected. I talk to her in my head, tell her about all the fun we’re going to have, all the places we’re going to see. I sit in a park and watch the children, awed by their freedom and wonder. I watch the old people, gnarled and broken. What happened to their freedom and wonder?

  I sip steamed milk, slumped on an overstuffed chair at a Starbucks. The milk warms my womb as the wired around me fiddle with their techno-gadgets. A woman wearing a ponytail so tight it looks like it’ll rip her face off speaks heatedly into her cell. ‘I’m confronting you as a mature man. Am I wrong in presuming that you would like to be treated as a mature man?’ Outside the window a little shaggy dog is watching her with its tongue hanging out. ‘I thought you could handle this,’ the woman says. ‘Clearly I was mistaken. It’s obvious you’re putting that up as a block.’ The dog yaps and paws the glass. ‘That’s baloney. That is absolute baloney. You are so not the man I thought you were.’ Who is? I want to ask. Who is who we thought they were? Didn’t we make it all up?

  I linger in the baby store, press my face into fuzzy sleepers. Two hugely pregnant women can’t get over the news that some teens glued broken glass on slides and monkey bars. ‘They could have seriously injured somebody,’ the squatter one says.

  ‘What’s the world coming to, I ask you,’ the other responds. I could tell her, but she wouldn’t listen. She’ll buy albatross-killing plastic baubles for baby and speed off in her guzzler, not believing that Junior could grow into a teenager who glues glass on slides and monkey bars.

  I only have eight bucks on me, not enough for cute little slippers decorated with animal faces. I decide to choose a pair anyway. Kittens or puppies? What about bunnies? The saleswoman hovers. ‘Can I help you with anything?’

  ‘I’m just looking, thanks.’

  ‘How old is the baby?’ She has pencilled lips and tweezed eyebrows.

  ‘It’s not born yet.’

  ‘Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?’

  I want her off my case but act dull-eyed because I want to stay here where it’s warm and fuzzy and pink and blue. Full of potential.

  ‘Because we have some really cute unisex slippers in green,’ she says. ‘Do you like turtles?’ She holds up turtle slippers. I smile like a good cretin. ‘And these are skid-proof,’ she says. ‘You’d be amazed at how many baby slippers aren’t skid-proof.’

  Saved by the bell. She gets on the phone to plot with hubby. He’ll take Kyle to hockey, she’ll take Emma to gymnastics. Dinner plans cause friction, nobody has time to stop at the store, to cook. ‘Fine, we’ll have pizza again,’ she snipes. I sense the chat drying up. I stuff the pink bunny slippers in my jacket and exit before she hangs up.

  I walk softly, cradling the slippers. I take them out of the plastic and rub their fluff against my face. I sniff them, trying to smell Kadylak. I think of Mischa and Sweetheart the penguin on the bed waiting for her.

  White vans without rear windows pass me by. I scan the licence plates. kwr 395. Don’t know what I’d do if he were in front of me. Couldn’t stand it if he looked away.

  I withdraw my last twenty bucks and sit in the library, staring at baby books while desperate folks reeking of the street nab the seats around me. Can’t stand the photos in the books, everybody happy happy happy, plus all the rules about looking after baby – doesn’t baby make the rules? I pitch the baby books and read Emily Dickinson:

  I stepped from plank to plank

  So slow and cautiously

  The stars about my head I felt

  About my feet the sea.

  I knew not but the next

  Would be my final inch –

  This gave me that precarious gait

  Some call experience.

  She became a recluse, never left her house, died at fifty-six. Childless. The way Drew’s headed.

  ‘Have you seen my umbrella?’ a hyper Jamaican woman demands.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I left it right here.’ She points where I’m sitting.

  ‘I didn’t see it,’ I say.

  ‘I left it right here. Did you see it?’ The cuffs of her jacket are frayed, buttons are missing. I look behind and under my chair, go back to Emily.

  The earth reversed her Hemispheres –

  I touched the Universe –

  And back it slid – and I alone –

  A Speck upon a Ball –

  Went out upon Circumference –

  ‘Have you seen my umbrella?’ the Jamaican woman demands of another bottom-feeder. ‘I left it right here.’ She points at me again and I know she thinks I’ve swiped it. ‘It was striped.’

  ‘I can’t see it anywhere,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I left it right here. Striped.’

  The movie theatre should offer peace. I buy popcorn and sit at the back, try to get interested in a romantic comedy about some blond and a stud with get-rich schemes. He thinks she won’t want him unless he’s rich. She thinks he doesn’t like her because he never asks her out. She’s educated, he’s streetwise. How many times have we seen this movie? I try to catch some shut-eye before they discover they truly love each other and get naked. But movies are so loud these days and there’s the inevitable spit-swapping going on a few seats over. I move up, keeping an eye out for geezers with hands down their pants. I hook my knees over the seat in front of me to tilt my ass up. The streetwise stud is stalking the blond in the rain. She meets up with a male co-worker who our hero takes to be a rival. He festers with jealousy in the rain while the blond and the co-worker grab a latte. I close my eyes and try to make a plan. I could steal from Drew. I know her pin. If I can sneak in without her, or Treeboy, noticing. Around three in the morning. Take out the daily max till it twigs that her card’s missing. Find some cheap digs and buy myself some time. Sleep. Research the soap thing, maybe track down that human-rights lawyer, offer myself as an apprentice. Move to the country. Let baby grow. I’m so tired. Should get some prenatal vities. The books say the early stages are crucial, need that folic acid.

  An usher hustles me out. ‘This is not a shelter,’ he says. His stitched harelip gets me thinking about those Chinese baby girls in orphanages deemed unadoptable because of harelips. Grotty rooms full of growing girls with broken mouths. They’re sent away at sixteen, no doubt into slavery. Or the sex trade. Sick Topics.

  More time to kill before nightfal
l and the burglary. And no money. I count it. Enough for a juice, stay away from coffee, not good for baby. Time crawls when you’re homeless. But I’m calm, at peace, looking forward for once. I see her learning to walk, chubby with golden curls, grabbing hold of whatever’s in reach, stumbling, crying. I pick her up and kiss the salt off her cheeks. I tickle her and she starts to laugh, big belly laughs like Bradley. I know he’s dead. It doesn’t take them long to die. Like Kadylak, he just let go. They don’t hang on like the grownups. They who have so much to lose let go too easily.

  I sip an oj very slowly, avoiding eye contact with the servers who must be figuring out I’m a street kid. I try not to watch the clock, try to think positively, think of a good role model with a life purpose. Florence Nightingale. Everybody thinks she just hopped over to Crimea to bandage soldiers, but the fact is she was one of the first people to tell doctors to wash their hands, gowns and surgical instruments. They ignored her, of course, kept mutilating one person after another with their dirty knives. Patients were dying from infections but this didn’t faze the doctors. Bloody smocks and blades were badges of honour with these duffers. Florence changed nursing care, made it respectable. She fought for the poor not only in England but in India where old Victoria was named empress. Millions of Indians were starving while old Victoria was gumming crumpets, pining for dead Albert. Florence was always in poor health, and got no support from her family who disapproved of her humanitarian efforts. They wanted her to marry a gent with cash and settle down. She died alone and blind.

  Maybe I’ll call her Florence.

  It’s 1:37 a.m. I stare at a paper, more adults in a flap over cyber-bullying. I look for ads for baby stuff, strollers, Exersaucers, high chairs. Although we won’t need all that crap. We’ll live like peasants. Grains and beans. Slung on my back she will feel safe. I will feel safe. I use the back door, don’t turn on lights, grope and creep, bumping and squeaking. It smells different with him here. All that slop cooking. I feel my way to the front hall, stumble over the table where she leaves her purse. I stop and listen. Just fridge noise. I dig around for her wallet, take out some bills but can’t see which is her bank card. I sneak to the basement, close the bathroom door and switch on the light, shove the cash and card in my back pocket. Wouldn’t mind taking a shower but it’s bound to wake Treeboy who’ll show up and stare, offering profound insights like you can’t let them see your fear. They don’t need to see it, dickhead, they can smell it.

  I wash my hands and face, squirt toothpaste on my finger for my teeth. I’m in no rush to go out there again where striped umbrellas vanish. At least not until dawn. I can snooze here, on the bath mat, dream of baby Florence, watch her running through fields of buttercups. I take out her slippers and hold them against my face, promising to take her to forests and meadows, to show her wild animals and sparkling fish in rocky streams.

  I pull down my pants to piss and see blood.

  All is quiet, the last person on Earth. I alone a Speck upon a Ball.

  It’s different from the busted hymen blood. I watch it swirl in the toilet bowl. I wad toilet paper and hold it between my legs. It has to stop. It will stop. I lie on my back with my feet on the toilet seat and beg Jesus. ‘Please, Jesus, don’t take her, I’ll stop rebelling against the truth, please don’t take her.’

  Dying babies, the preemies in the neo-natal unit plugged with tubes and electrodes, forced into an existence they tried to avoid, squirming on their backs like fallen featherless baby birds, destined for a life crippled by brain damage. Kadylak’s falling from me, limbs awash in blood. ‘Please let me have her, Jesus. I know I have sinned. She’s all I have, please … ’

  The blood conquers gravity, volcanic gushes of useless uterine lining soaking the toilet paper and dribbling down Damian’s ass. I do not deserve to live, conceived in plaster dust by the Witch and the Slug. Loveless, soulless, destructive, an embarrassment. Grotesque. I will not live trapped inside this body that is not my own.

  I scrabble back upstairs, dripping blood, grab her Xanax, which she never takes. I chew a few and feel around for her keys, gulp tap water en route to the garage. It stalls, of course. I try again with purpose. The engine awakens and idles soothingly. I take her notepad and pen out of the glove compartment. I write down everything Bonehead and company did to me, every humiliating detail including dick in mouth and beer bottle. I write it down so Doyle will have a defence. I don’t mention Rossi. I date and sign it and leave it on the dash. I open the windows and turn on the jazz station but they’re off the air. It’s just the usual all-night pop drivel. I switch it off and sing, ‘Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars.’

  I’ve taken her anxiety drugs before, they take forever to kick in. My dead baby floats in the toilet bowl, bloodied chunks of flesh, curls, tiny severed hands. She’s gone. Never was. As the blood oozes from me so does salt water. My lungs are filling with ocean. I push the seat back and feel the tears dripping into my ears.

  ‘I hate you, Jesus,’ I croak while I’m drowning. Try to hum, keep my mind off the blackness. Stay calm. Float. I’ll be with her, won’t I? She’s waiting for me with her arms outstretched, isn’t she? I’ll bury my face in the soft curve between her neck and shoulder. We’ll build Lego houses with doors in case somebody nice comes to visit.

  Starting to breathe the carbon monoxide finally. Slow going with a low-emissions vehicle. Still no drugs kicking in. Not like in the movies. I try the radio again. Céline Dion yowling. I switch it off. Slide my fingers into the tiny slippers. The preemies are constantly in crisis, constantly being resuscitated. Let them die, why can’t they die? The parents stand on the periphery, believing the doctors are helping, not torturing, not disabling their beloved baby. Why life at any cost? Why can’t we die? Who says we have to put up with this shit day in and day out, these lies, these betrayals? My eyes and throat are burning. I’m so thirsty. So tired. She was so tired. Where’s the man in black? Come get me, you fucker. I’m so thirsty. So tired. Fly me to the moon.

  31

  Massive headache. Can’t move. Mask gripping my face. Where is she? Can’t kick, scream. Scared shitless. Fluorescents obscure, curtains swish. Mouth tastes of ashes. They’ve squirted charcoal down my nose, the fuckers. Tired, so tired. Where is she? Find me, come find me, the fuckers have hooked me up, can feel it, iv, oxygen monitor pinching my finger. A whitecoat is jabbing at my wrist, sucking more blood. Can’t lift my head, scream. So tired, sick, choking on vomit. Can hear the ecg monitor beep beep beep. Fucking heart pumping. So tired. Let me die, Jesus, please let me die.

  ‘Lemon, can you hear me?’

  Don’t rise to the surface. Sink where they can’t find you.

  ‘Lemon, please nod, love, if you can hear me.’

  What’s she want? Get out go go go go.

  Yak yak yakking at my feet. Shut the fuck up, you meddlers. Can’t move my arms. Where is she? She was here with Mischa and Sweetheart. I saw her.

  ‘Lemon? Please nod, love, if you can hear me.’

  My botched suicide got her out. She sits there like a gargoyle. Get out of my face, go go go go.

  A broken heart can kill. The adrenals go berserk, blasting an overdose of stress hormones. Please let me die. She was here. I could smell her, touch her. Why won’t she take me with her? Every time I surface she’s gone. Must stay down, down.

  The meddlers won’t leave me alone. Have to escape. Must act grateful to be alive, won’t do it again, doctor. It was a cry for help, you understand. Just write me a scrip and I’ll take my antidepressants like a good little girl.

  ‘Lemon, can you hear me?’ the gargoyle asks. ‘Please nod if you can hear me.’

  I nod because I need an ally.

  ‘Lemon, listen to me, you can’t act crazy or they won’t let you out. You were pulling at the tubes, that’s why they tied you up.’ She leans over the bed rail, her eyes deranged, and whispers, ‘I’m serious, they’re like the cops, they can throw away the key. I read your note. No
body else has. You can pretend you never wrote it. I’ll burn it if you want me to. I haven’t told these morons anything.’

  She’s right. I have to act normal before I can sleep in front of a train. They’re not far from her house, always toot-tooting, uselessly, endlessly coming and going.

  A woman moans on the other side of the curtain.

  ‘I tried to kill myself once,’ Drew says. ‘I hated my rescuer. She was our cleaning lady, a little Italian who hardly spoke English. I wanted her dead. You probably want me dead.’

  Just get out of my face. Go go go go.

  Close my eyes. Sink. Where is she?

  A resident who looks like a boxer pulls off my mask. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘I guess you’d like us to remove the restraints.’

  ‘Hell no, I enjoy them.’

  ‘You’re doing great,’ the boxer says. ‘You’ve got a good ticker. We’re going to have you assessed. Obviously the concern is that you might try this again.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Do you think you might try it again?’

  ‘Absolutely not. Not worth the hangover.’

  ‘That’s the spirit. Well, Dr. Fireman should be here shortly then we’ll talk more.’

  ‘Can’t wait.’

  The boxer trots off. The gargoyle strokes my forehead.

  ‘Did he say Dr. Fireman?’ I ask.

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Where’s Dr. Policeman?’

  ‘Guess he’s busy.’

  ‘I have to get out of here.’

  ‘Then act normal, and don’t be a wiseass.’

  ‘I’m thirsty.’

  ‘They’re allowing you ice chips.’ She hands me a Styrofoam cup.

  ‘What was your method?’ I ask.

  ‘Same as yours. Except gasoline had lead in it in those days, packed more of a punch. They thought I had neurological damage, wouldn’t let me out. Hospitals weren’t quadruple-booked back then.’