Being lonely was a female sickness for which the cure was the tattoo freak & the tattoo freak was also the sickness.
That Saturday in early October Me drove them in the borrowed van on the lookout for old cemeteries which sometimes they visited, & flea markets & auctions which were places of treasure where Me’s face brightened like a little girl’s & she could squander $5 on an armful of old needlepoint cushions, jars of buttons, bald-headed dolls & cracked china & rusted old jackknives. Evidence of lives lived! Me declared, as if some strangers’ lives, no matter who, were more important than our own.
Wolfie shook his head, all this escaped him. Who gives a damn about such crap?
The open-air flea markets were jammed with customers on Saturdays, mostly women. There was a brisk trade in junk & you could see in certain faces that expression of tenderness & shrewd bargain-hunting combined.
Me poked Wolfie in the ribs. “Where’s your air of romance? wonder? hope? Not just you’re a prude, kid, you’re a miser, too.”
It was true, Wolfie obsessed about finances. Wasting even $5 made him cringe. In both Montana & Minnesota, Me’d had to borrow emergency cash & hadn’t been proud of her transactions.
When they left the Wawa, where Wolfie’d kept them as long as he reasonably could, the tattoo freak was gone from the front steps but there he was a half-mile up the road, which was a country highway amid cornfields, squinting in the sunshine & raising his thumb for a ride. Farmers in pickups rattled past. Who’d stop for him? You’d have to be crazy Wolfie was thinking, with a sinking heart.
“No, Me, come on!”
“Why’re you so uptight, you? Think there’s danger, like on TV, in broad daylight on Route 78?”
Sure enough Me brakes the van to a skidding stop & calls out the window, “Hey, where ya going?” The tattoo freak (who’s possibly a little younger than 30) blinks & grins like he just won a lottery he hadn’t known he was entered in, & says, “Hell, it don’t matter, anywhere north, closer to the lake.” This guy would’ve climbed into the back with our purchases & accumulated junk except Me said quickly, all urgent & courteous, “Wolfie, hon, you crawl over the seat & let this man sit up front here? He’s got long legs.”
Wolfie was so disgusted, he turned speechless. Did what Me said without a single-word commentary.
So the tattoo freak rode to Olcott with us! This stranger who might’ve been carrying knives of his own in that duffel bag, if not guns. This guy who might’ve been just released from prison or worse yet a psychiatric hospital. A Mongol type Me picked up for the hell of it & would claim afterward it was doing a good deed. Shit! Wolfie had to listen to Me asking this character questions like a girl TV reporter & this guy saying he used to live right on Olcott Beach where his dad had a concession a while back. Me in her freaky 100-watt mood, Wolfie knew! Her faded-gold hair matted & flattened down by a grimy baseball cap, & she’s wearing a T-shirt of Wolfie’s & her sexy jodhpurs & she’s kicked off her sandals to drive barefoot. What the tattoo freak makes of Me, Wolfie has to wonder. The guy’s got to think, for one thing, she’s this kid’s mom! From the rear the guy’s got a muscled neck the color of grime & his profile shows a melting-away chin & coarse-pored nose & on his knotty left bicep a cobra tattoo quivering with slimy intentions only a few inches from Me’s right, bare bicep. But the more Me talks & the more excited in her 100-watt way telling the guy about our place in Olcott by the lake & the wind at night & the Ferris wheel lights in summer, the quieter the guy is, & subdued, & by the Olcott town limits he wants to get out. “This is great, ma’am. Right here.”
Me says, disappointed, “Don’t you want me to drive you home?”
“Naw, ma’am, thanks, this is great.”
So that’s it. Wolfie doesn’t know whether to be relieved as hell, or let down. He guesses that Me was debating asking the guy to stop in for a drink, or God knows, it’s a sunny autumn day, in the 60’s, a picnic on the beach. A nude swim! But the tattoo freak climbs out of the van hauling his duffel bag & you can see he’s a youngish guy eager to escape & Me’s got no choice but to continue on driving just her & the kid, the kid-that’s-proof-she’s-no-kid-herself, & now Me’s subdued too, like a life-size balloon deflating, & chewing her lower lip, Wolfie’d like to tease her about “ma’am” but won’t, they’re bumping down the sandy rutted lane to the dead end, to the asphalt-sided bungalow we’d gotten in the habit of calling home.
Life is to be LIVED.
But not in the HEAD.
& above all not FEARED.
Life is to be LOVED
& remember: YOUR SON.
In a dark time remember
YOU MUST LIVE FOR HIM.
This note, printed in green ink in Me’s schoolgirl block letters, Wolfie was once shocked to discover taped to the inside of one of Me’s bureau drawers. He knew it was a message from Me in a state of radiant revelation to Me in a state of despair.
He knew it was the reverse of a suicide note.
He shut the door as if shutting it on a snake. Hid his eyes, & ran to hide. If he was the only reason Me stayed alive, was her life his fault?
THERE WERE SECRETS Wolfie kept from Me.
He’d known from an early age he had to protect her.
True, Wolfie sometimes showed up bruised at school. (Or, bruised, didn’t go to school that morning.) But Me bruised herself, worse. For every hurt dealt to her son she loved, Me dealt herself a dozen.
“Baby, it won’t happen again. I swear!”
Always, Wolfie knew this statement to be true.
Another secret was how in Coldwater, Minnesota, in fifth grade he (Ralph L—) had been called out of class, & in the principal’s office there was a whiskery-cheeked man in a soiled camel’s hair coat who stooped & tried to grab him in his arms, & he backed away, & the man was his ex-father who’d tracked them down across three states as he said excitedly, & more loudly than the principal was accustomed to hearing. Mr. L—, the principal said, you led me to believe this was a family emergency? Wolfie stood like a stone boy. Even his heartbeat stony. Thinking how Ralph was their name & it was not a name Me would utter. Ralph, Jr. & Ralph, Sr. If Wolfie was surprised & even interested seeing at last Ralph, Sr. who was his ex-father he gave no sign for Me’d coached him strenuously, the enemy can appear at any time, don’t allow the enemy to intimidate you & especially don’t allow the enemy to touch you.
This dialogue, like TV:
“Hey, little fellow, y’know me, eh? Your dad.”
(Not a glimmer of recognition. Wolfie’s mouth shut tight.)
“You know your dad, Ralphie, don’t you? C’mon!”
(Wolfie was backing up, though. Against the woman-principal’s knees.)
“He knows me, ma’am. Sure he does. Ralphie, you’re getting to be a big boy. How old?—ten? Oh Jesus.”
(Stony Wolfie like a graveyard angel. Unsmiling & staring.)
The principal was saying to the ex-father that she was afraid he’d have to leave. The child didn’t appear to know him.
The ex-father exploded, “Fuck he doesn’t know me! His bitch of a mother who’s a certified nut has poisoned him against me.”
At this cue Wolfie spoke. In a small-boy earnest voice as Me’d coached him to remain calm in the presence of the enemy. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t know him. I want to go back to class.”
The ex-father was getting excitable. Others entered the office to subdue him. In that flushed face emerged the rage that had been hidden. Wire glasses with smudged lenses & behind these the eyes glistened bloodshot. If somebody hadn’t prevented this desperate man from stooping & lunging he’d have grabbed the child in his arms & run with him. It might’ve been like TV, cops shooting rounds of ammunition.
Wolfie laughed to think how mean a kid he was, not to know his own father. & before witnesses! It was of a meanness you couldn’t explain, like grinding a tiny featherless fallen bird on the sidewalk beneath your heel, or smashing a window with your fist just to smash it & instead of
crying because it hurt, laughing like a hyena.
Such were the secrets Wolfie kept from Me.
THAT SATURDAY NIGHT in Olcott there was a strong wind & pelting rain & Wolfie was awakened at about 2 A.M. by a sound of broken glass & his mother screaming. “Get away! God damn you! Get out of here! You fucker!” Wolfie thought: It’s a man. The tattoo freak. There’d been a signal between them Wolfie hadn’t comprehended, the guy must’ve come after Wolfie was in bed & Me had let him inside, in secret, as sometimes Me did with guys, & Wolfie stumbled in pajamas into the hall outside his room, already he was smelling whiskey, spilled whiskey, this was a smell he knew though he hadn’t smelled it yet in Olcott. Wolfie heard a sound of struggle, another scream of Me’s, & a deeper angry voice he believed he heard, & heavy footsteps, & more breaking glass, & standing in the doorway of her dim-lighted bedroom there was Me naked holding a sheet against her sweat-gleaming body. Me’s hair was disheveled & her mouth appeared to be bleeding. Seeing Wolfie she screamed, “No! Don’t come in here! It isn’t safe in here.” Wolfie was so scared the hairs lifted at the nape of his neck & his bladder pinched but he couldn’t see any figure other than Me, unless the guy was hiding in the closet or bathroom? In Me’s room lamplight spilled strangely against the ceiling & walls, the lampshade was knocked askew & still trembling. It looked as if a wind had blown through the room churning bedclothes & dragging the mattress partway off the box springs. There was an overturned whiskey bottle amid the sheets, & the smell of whiskey was sickening to Wolfie’s nostrils, it had associations of which he didn’t want to think & would not. He saw that the closet door was wide open, & nobody inside. Me’s clothes on the floor looking as if they’d been yanked off hangers. Where was the guy? Was there a guy? He might’ve escaped by the broken window, maybe he’d climbed into Me’s room through the window? (But why wouldn’t Wolfie have heard anything until now?) Me was sobbing angrily & bleeding from cut fingers & cuts on her face & her eyes were so dilated Wolfie thought she must be blind. Staring at him & stammering words he couldn’t comprehend. He saw, on the floor by the bed, a long-bladed knife glistening with blood. Me’d been stabbed! Wolfie tasted panic. Me was furious & not seemingly in pain & when he approached her she screamed at him to stay away, it was dangerous to touch her. “Call an ambulance! Call the cops! I’ve been attacked for Christ’s sake! The fucker tried to kill me!” Me tripped in the bedclothes & threw the sheet down in a rage & Wolfie saw to his horror that she’d been cut, stabbed, in her breasts, her belly, her thighs, & narrow rivulets of blood were running swiftly down her body. Wolfie was in terror that Me would die, & ran to the telephone to dial 911 but Me changed her mind & rushed at him & knocked the phone from him saying it was nobody’s business but her own, she didn’t want fucking cops barging into her home, rather bleed to death than invite cops into her home. Wolfie managed to walk Me into the bathroom & with badly shaking fingers dabbed at her wounds with a damp bath towel & Me sobbed quieter now, breathing swiftly & shallowly as if she’d been running, & her hair dark with sweat. Seeing that Wolfie was scared, his face pinched & dead-white, Me grabbed the bloody towel from him & tended to her own wounds, impatient, cursing. Wolfie tried to ask was it the guy they’d given a ride to? the guy with the tattoos? & Me said, “Who the fuck d’you think it was? That bastard, I’m gonna get a warrant for his arrest. I saw his face. I can describe him to a T. I can sketch his likeness.” But Wolfie had to wonder: had there been a guy? Any guy? An intruder? The knife on the bedroom floor was one of Me’s knives from her collection, & how’d a stranger get hold of it? Unless Me flashed it, first? & he got it away from her?
Wolfie wasn’t going to ask.
Me was bleeding from a dozen knife wounds. Most were just surface cuts, though they bled a lot. The deepest were in the fingers of both hands as if she’d shut her fists hard around the blade and squeezed. By this time, now the worst was over, Wolfie’d begun to cry, nervous & scared, for if there’d been a man in Me’s bedroom, & a man who’d beaten & cut her, & Me wouldn’t call the police, what was to stop this from happening again?—& if there hadn’t been a man, that was worse, Wolfie’d have to wonder if Me would be hospitalized to prevent harm to herself & others, & where would that hospital be? & where’d Wolfie be, then?
Even beyond 18, he could foresee he’d be responsible.
OR, MAYBE, NO: he’d hitch-hike West. Soon as Me was stable again. He’d seen photos of the Rockies, the Grand Canyon & Zion National Park & Yosemite. He’d get a job with the National Park Service he’d been reading about, maybe as a fire ranger. Emergencies that had nothing to do with him.
AT AGE 13 Wolfie was too young for even a driver’s permit in New York State but he could drive any reasonable vehicle, & had driven, spelling Me in the Chevy van on their long, mostly nighttime drive from Minnesota, & so that morning, a few hours later, Wolfie drove Me to a hospital in Newfane where in the emergency room, nearly deserted at 6 A.M., a young doctor treated her wounds & stitched the deep cuts in her fingers. The doctor was shocked & suspicious asking what had caused these cuts? & Me shrugged & murmured what sounded to Wolfie, some feet away, like “Life.” Wolfie came quickly to join Me. He was anxious, protective. He’d talked Me into coming to Newfane for medical treatment (he knew about infections) & now he was worried that even in her moderately subdued state, not exuding the actual stink of mania, Me yet gave off an odor any professional could detect, as dogs are trained to sniff out illegal drugs. Wolfie said, “My mom’s a sculptor, she carves things & cuts things up, like drift-wood & metal & stuff like that. Sometimes she hurts her hands.” This was such an inspired answer, & even proud, & that word mom at the core, Me brightened & smiled at Wolfie, & Wolfie saw that it would be O.K. The dice were being tossed again, & it would be O.K. “What about these other lacerations, on your body & face?” the doctor asked, & Me said with her most winning smile, like even with her stitched & bandaged fingers she was stroking this guy’s thigh, “These’re the hazards of being an artist, doctor. But I could use some painkiller.” A nurse completed Me’s treatment, putting gauze & bandages on Me’s wounds, four on her face alone, & giving Me a tetanus shot, & Me insisted that her son be given a shot, too—“There’s so much danger for kids these days. Even good, normal kids.”
The hitch-hiker from the Wawa store was never mentioned again between them. Calling the police, or not-calling, was never mentioned again. Though in one day in November they’d see a motorcyclist on Route 78 who resembled the guy, straggly hair & sideburns, but it wasn’t him, & both Me & Wolfie would glance away, wordless.
AFTER THE EMERGENCY room & the stitches & bandages that made Me laugh when she looked at herself in the mirror, it was a double 100-watt mood, Me & Wolfie both. Now she doesn’t have to hurt herself for a while, Wolfie reasoned, & not me, either. A few days later driving along the windy lakeshore they discovered an old cemetery behind a stone church, in a place called Heartwellville, & as usual at such times Me was interested only in the more neglected graves, some of them covered in tall grasses & weeds & if there were flowerpots set before them, the flowers were long dead & the pots were cracked. Me could work herself up to actual tears at such sights amid rows of well-tended graves. “You never think of it. How you die twice. Once when you’re dead, & then when nobody remembers.” Wolfie laughed & said, “Oh, how d’ya know, Me? Some dead person told you?” Me said, “I wouldn’t want to be forgotten.” So Me knelt in the tall grass & stuck herself with prickles, clipping weeds with a rusty shears at the gravesite of Sarah Eliza Burd born 1891 & died 1946,& the grave overgrown & the pink marble marker badly cracked, a melancholy sight Me said. Wolfie got drawn into it, too, tearing out handfuls of weeds, & seeing that no one else was in the cemetery he prowled about the rows of gravestones & came back with a pot of real-looking pink geraniums to place by Sarah Eliza Burd’s grave. There was justice to this: you had to figure that the tended graves would go on being tended for a while at least, but the untended, no. Their time was past. Me’d get worked up
at such labor & would come almost to think that the dead knew of our effort & were grateful & who’s to say they were not? Wolfie sneered, but that was Wolfie’s way, Me expected it of him. “Of us two, I’m the idealist. That’s ’cause I look oblivion in the face & make a choice: to persevere.” Me & Wolfie were intrigued that in cemeteries there are family gatherings, sections of the cemetery like little neighborhoods, as in Heartwellville there were numerous Blackhulls, Dykemanns, Lindemanns, Epps. Yet, after a certain date, no more, as if the family’d died out, or the young ones moved away. This was sad, huh? Or was it? Me, wiping her forehead with her baseball cap, smiled at Wolfie, struck by a revelation. Despite her face-bandages that made her look like a car-crash victim. No matter that what she said now contradicted what she’d been saying a few minutes before. “God, Wolfie, doesn’t it make you feel good, that we don’t have some massive ‘extended family’ spying on us? All these people! Every one of them with their idea of you. Thanksgiving & Christmas & goddamn presents to wrap & unwrap. Just you & me, Wolfie! We travel light.” This sounded good to Wolfie, too. The other was unimaginable, like being forced to wear layers of heavy clothing on a warm day, or eating ten times as much food as you wanted.
It was part of cemetery-visiting to bring lunch, & we had peanut butter on whole grain bread, hardboiled eggs, yogurt & wheat germ & McIntosh apples & Cokes, sitting amid the Heartwellville Lutheran dead, eating like pigs, especially Wolfie, for cemeteries whetted the appetite & it was a bright damp-sunny October day. Me’s idea, Wolfie hadn’t gone to school that morning, for what (Me would explain in her note to the school principal) were family-religious reasons. Later we stood on a crumbling stone wall behind the church looking out toward the lake, & what more beautiful sight, how happy we were we got to laughing, seeing the lake that, though we’d been living by it for weeks, was nameless to us, not a lake but an inland sea, stretching out west & east beyond our eyesight, & a hazy floating horizon, said to be the Canadian shore, where we’d never yet traveled, just visible to the north.
I Am No One You Know: And Other Stories Page 8