by Jenna Blum
She points to the floor, indicating Charles’s lair beneath it.
“Of course,” snaps Siri. “Why else?”
“It’s just—” stammers Karena. “I didn’t know—I didn’t expect—Oh jeez.”
She fans her face, her heart scrambling in her chest. This is not good. This was not in the program. What Karena came up with—just this morning, in the shower, it hit her—was that she should tell Frank about Charles taking the pills, and Charles would go back to the Mayo. Not ideal, but better than jail, and maybe Dr. H could find something, anything that could help Charles. But when Karena went to Frank’s office this afternoon and stood in the doorway and said, I’m worried about Charles, last night he tried to hurt himself—like, permanently, she thought Frank would drive Charles to the clinic himself. Or maybe orderlies would arrive in an ambulance to take him there—but not this. Not the sheriff! This is a disaster. What if Sheriff Cushing knows about Motorcycle Guy? What if he looks at Karena and intuits her involvement? That’s what he’s trained to do, isn’t he? Plus, even if the sheriff doesn’t know—yet—the second Charles sees him he’ll blurt it out, assuming Karena has tattled and the sheriff has come to take him away.
“What is wrong with you?” Siri says. “Stop fidgeting.”
“You know, Ma, I’ve been thinking,” Karena says, “maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all. I might have been mistaken. About Charles—”
“What are you talking about?” Siri says.
“I mean maybe I just imagined—”
But it’s too late. The screen door opens, and the front door with its louvered glass slats, and then Sheriff Cushing is in their living room like a bear in a house trailer. His whiffle cut nearly grazes the Hallingdahls’ living room ceiling as he says his hellos, during which Karena’s stare fastens on his giant black shoes. Normally she likes Sheriff Cushing—everyone does. He’s the youngest sheriff ever elected in Foss County, and although Tiff, who prefers more sophisticated men, has declared him a typical no-neck New Heidelburg bullet-head, the sheriff has always been gentle with Charles, which Karena appreciates. But if she looks at him now he’ll surely know what she and Charles have done. Right? How much does a Minnesota sheriff know about a hit-and-run down in Iowa? Would he even be aware of something like that?
“Karena, the sheriff’s talking to you,” Siri says.
Normal, Karena thinks, act normal. She gives Sheriff Cushing a huge grin.
The sheriff looks a little startled. “That’s okay, Mrs. H,” he says to Siri. “I know everyone’s kind of distracted right now.”
He smiles nicely at Karena.
“So, college girl now, eh?” he says. “You going up to the Cities then?”
“That’s right,” Karena says. “Next month.” It’s the first time she’s realized it takes work to smile, that it requires actual muscles in the face.
“That’s great,” says the sheriff. “Good for you. That’s real exciting.”
Then, the niceties accomplished, the four of them just stand there. The silence thickens, punctuated only by Frank clearing his throat. The fact that they’re all here, in this rarely used room with its fireplace and knickknacks and the prized desk with the relatives under glass, feels like they’re participating in some awful, formal ceremony nobody quite knows the rules to. From outside they probably look like a diorama, Karena thinks, like the pioneer days scenes she saw once in the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument Museum on a field trip. Except in this case the exhibit would be called Family In Trouble, 1988. Maybe they should move into the kitchen.
As if he’s having something of the same thoughts, the sheriff says, “Well, folks, should we get this show on the road?”
But nobody answers. They all remain where they are, rooted in dread. The atmosphere in the room continues to gather, tightening like a fist.
The sheriff’s walkie-talkie squawks in a burst of static. He checks it, then asks, “So where is Chuck tonight? Is he here?”
“Downstairs, in his lai—his room,” Karena says. “Do you want me to get him?”
At the same time Siri says, “Doug, I noticed you’re on foot. Did you bring anyone to help? Just in case?”
“Sure,” the sheriff says, “they’re parked in back, over on Cedar Street. I figured we’d go out through the back, spare you folks any gawking.”
He looks at Karena.
“You think it’d go easiest that way,” he asks, “if you bring him up?” Frank clears his throat.
“AHEM!” he says, “no, she’s been involved enough,” and Karena thinks of him praising her not an hour ago in his office, saying, You’re a good girl to have told me, Karena. A good sister.
“I’ll get him,” Frank says.
“No way, Frank,” Siri says, and Karena counters, “You can’t, Dad, he’ll know in a second something’s up—”
But while they are all debating who should get Charles, he solves the problem for them by loping up the steps from the cellar. He stops at the top, wiping his mouth. He’s been sleeping, deeply from the looks of it. His face is flushed, red pillow lines crisscrossing the fresh scratches on his cheek. His hair is flat on one side and sticking up in the back. And as they all turn to look at him Karena feels the pity she does when she sees cows being loaded into the perforated trucks for the slaughterhouse. Run, Charles, she wants to shout. Run!
But she just makes a noise in her throat.
Charles blinks at them, disoriented.
“Wow,” he says, “quite a party, everyone’s here, even Pops. What’s going on?”
Then he sees the sheriff. His eyes widen, his nostrils flare. Karena feels in her stomach the cold bolt of shock that rises in his, and for a second she thinks he’s going to make a break for it.
Then he looks at her and smiles.
“You bitch,” he says. “You fucking bitch.”
Karena shakes her head as Frank clears his throat and Siri says something and the sheriff says, “Now let’s not have any of that.”
Karena locks eyes with Charles.
“I didn’t tell, Charles,” she says. “I didn’t tell them about anything except the pills, you hear me? Just about last night. Just about the pills. Only about that.”
But Charles backs away from her, clutching his head.
“Oh my God,” he says, laughing. “To think I trusted you. I can’t believe I trusted you—”
Then suddenly, so fast she doesn’t have time to move, he lunges at Karena.
“I trusted you,” he yells in her face. He’s got her by the upper arms, his fingers digging in. He shakes her back and forth. “I trusted you! You betrayed me! You totally fucking betrayed me!”
Then he goes flying backward, the sheriff yanking him off Karena from behind.
“That’s enough, Chuck,” he says. “Calm down now. Can you calm down? Your sister’s just trying to help.”
Charles bucks and thrashes in the sheriff’s grip, his bare feet scrabbling on the carpet. His face is brick red.
“Oh yeah, she’s really trying to help,” he pants. “She’s trying to help me right into a jail cell—”
“No!” says Karena and she steps forward. Her biceps throb where Charles grabbed her.
“Listen . . . to . . . me,” she says into her brother’s face. “I just told them about the pills. That’s all. You are not going to jail. Just where somebody can help you. Where they can protect you from—things like you saw last night. Okay, Charles? Okay?”
She nods and maintains eye contact and thinks at him as hard as she can: I did not tell them about Motorcycle Guy, Charles. I would not do that. I will never do that.
Charles continues to struggle, but he looks uncertain. Slowly, he stops. He stands still. Then his face crumples.
“Oh, K,” he says.
He begins to cry, those raw gut-sobs like he’s retching, and lowers his head. The sheriff is still holding his arms and he can’t do anything to wipe his face.
“It’s all right, Charles,” K
arena says. “It’s going to be all right. Trust me.”
“She’s right, buddy,” says Sheriff Cushing, low and soothing. “Everything’s going to be okay. Can you tell us what happened? Your sister told us you tried to hurt yourself last night. Is that true?”
Charles nods. Tears drop to the carpet.
“I guess,” he says. “I guess so. Yeah, I did. I took a bunch of pills. I should have used a gun or something, but I was too much of a wuss to do it. She stopped me,” he says. “K did. She made me throw up.”
“Okay, good guy,” the sheriff says softly. “Now we’re just going to go somewhere to talk, get you some help. Can you do that, Chuck? Can you come with me calmly?”
Charles raises his head and looks at Karena.
“Don’t make me go, K,” he says. “Don’t let them take me. Don’t let them take me away. Please.”
Karena can’t hold it back anymore. She puts her hands over her face and cries very hard for a couple of seconds. Then she looks squarely at Charles.
“It’ll be okay, Charles,” she says. “It’s not like jail, remember. It’s a place where they can help you. I’ll come as soon as I can.”
“Promise,” says Charles.
“I promise,” says Karena.
“Okay, buddy,” says the sheriff, “it’s time to go now.”
Gently he starts to turn Charles around.
“K?” Charles says, his voice breaking.
Karena nods.
“It’s all right,” Charles says to the sheriff. “I’m calm now. You can let go.”
They walk through the dining area, Sheriff Cushing still holding Charles’s elbow, and Karena wants to shout Wait! The word building up inside her as involuntary as a sneeze. No, wait, bring him back, please! I was wrong, I’ll do better, I’ve changed my mind—
But she stands watching the sheriff and her brother move down to the sunporch, where he’ll be escorted out through the back and spirited off across the back lawns so nobody will see, although of course they all will. The Clarences, the Zimmermans and Schmecks, they will all have noticed the prowler on Cedar Street, they will all be at their windows to watch that crazy Charles Hallingdahl get taken away. Again. At the screen door Charles stops, and Karena hears the sheriff murmur something like, Just a couple more steps, buddy. Just a little farther. That’s right. Charles looks back at Karena, weeping, terrified. He tries to smile. Then they are through the door.
39
The Black Wing Asylum for inpatient care is a former elementary school perched on the bluffs of the Mississippi, halfway between New Heidelburg and Rochester. A few days after Charles has been taken away Karena makes her first visit there, stepping timidly through the corridor she’s been directed to, clutching a slip of paper with Charles’s room number on it in one hand. Her brother has been a good patient so far, the nurse at reception said. He hasn’t given them any trouble, hasn’t even had to go to lockdown once, so he’s been assigned a Level 3 Room. Karena has no idea what this means. She’s totally lost and incidental in this place that has sucked in her twin. She doesn’t know how anything here works. She tiptoes along consulting the room numbers, trying not to see the other rooms’ inhabitants: a man listing in a wheelchair, a woman making barking noises, a girl pulling her own hair. The walls are Depression green below the waist, the ceilings high, the very tall windows reinforced by bars and chicken wire. But at least they have windows in this unit.
Charles’s room is 327, and at 325 Karena stops. She is alone because Siri is at the Back-to-School Bake Sale, and Frank, of course, is in court. They have all agreed it’s especially important to put on a brave face at a time like this, to go about business as usual. At the moment, though, Karena dearly wishes Siri were with her, or even Frank. She takes a deep breath, knocks on her brother’s door, and pushes it open.
But then she sees there’s nothing to be afraid of, because it’s Charles, after all. Just Charles. He isn’t straitjacketed or bound in any way, not spread-eagled in restraints as Karena had feared. Just sitting Indian-style on one of two beds in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms, his elbows balanced on his knees, his hands dangling from his wrists. Looking out the wired and barred window at the lawn.
“Hey, brothah,” Karena says, buoyant with relief. She walks to the other bed—empty, thank God—and sits. “Here I am, as promised, in the flesh. How’re you doing?”
But Charles doesn’t answer or turn, and Karena feels a little chill of fear. She ducks her head so she can look into his face, and then she sees the difference, all right. Her brother is a zombie. His mouth hangs open slightly, his eyes half closed. His hair looks oily and matted. One of his hands ticks, jumping over and over. He stares dully out the window at the pallid light of the overcast day.
“Oh, no,” Karena whispers. Oh, Charles, she thinks. What have they done to you?
She moves over to the other bed and sits next to her brother. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t smell like himself, of Irish Spring and fast food, but of rubbing alcohol and urine. Karena’s heart breaks—she can feel it, a literal pain in her chest, her throat. She moves closer still, her hip against Charles’s, and pets his stiff hair.
“Hey,” she says softly. “It’s me, Charles. K. Can you hear me? I’m here.”
Slowly, slowly, Charles turns his head. It seems to take him five minutes to look at her. His mouth twitches at one corner, and Karena realizes he is trying to smile.
“Hi, K,” he says. “Iss . . . you?” His voice is low, slow, draggy, a 45-rpm record played on the 33 speed.
“It is,” says Karena. “It’s me, Charles. Here I am.”
What have they got him on? she thinks. What the fuck have they put him on? Karena is used to seeing Charles on different medications, but she has never seen him like this. Charles is drooling a little, his chin wet. In that infinitesimal slow motion, he lifts his arm, up, up. Wipes his mouth. Gazes at his hand.
“K,” he says. “I guess . . . they got me. Pretty . . . drugged up.”
“A little maybe,” Karena says. “I guess they’re trying you on something new. How are you feeling?”
Charles is still examining his hand, but at the question he raises his head, with enormous effort, and looks at Karena with his half shut eyes. His head wobbles back a bit on his neck. A runner of spit starts to come from his mouth, stretching and dangling, and Karena is reminded of Silly Putty, how she and Charles used to grab one end each of the stuff and pull in opposite directions until it spun out into airy nothingness.
She looks around for Kleenex, but seeing none, she is about to wipe Charles’s mouth with her sleeve when he sucks the spit up himself, like a strand of spaghetti—fsoop!
“Sorry,” he says. “ ’M . . . so gross.”
“No,” says Karena. Her throat aches and aches. “You’re not, Charles. Never.”
He lets his head tip back a little more so he can see her.
“C’n . . . I ask. A favor?”
“Sure. Of course, Charles. Anything.”
“My . . . ledger,” he says. “My . . . storm. Ledger. Could you . . .”
“Bring it?” Karena finishes for him. “Sure. Right away. Do you need anything else?”
But Charles’s head swings sideways, and after a minute the rest of him follows. He turns toward the window again.
“Charles?”
Charles gazes out at the lawn, or maybe at something only he can see, or maybe at nothing. His chin droops toward his chest.
“Okay, Charles,” says Karena.
She gets up and bends to kiss him. She is crying a little.
“I’ll be right back,” Karena says.
He is struggling to say something, and Karena leans closer.
“What? What’s that, Charles?”
“Pruh,” he says. “Pruh. Pruh. Promise.”
“Oh,” says Karena, straightening. “Of course. Yes. I will. I do, Charles. I promise.”
She waits for a minute in case he says anything else, then kisses him and ba
cks out of the room.
Once she’s out in the hallway, Karena starts to run. She sprints through the corridor as if someone’s chasing her, bursts through the unit’s doors, explodes into the lobby.
“Hey,” the nurse behind the desk calls, rising. “What’s going on? Everything all right in there?”
But Karena doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have time to. She is on a mission. She has to get that ledger to her brother. She runs down the front steps, jumps into Siri’s Jeep, guns it out of the lot. Then she is turning onto the River Road and speeding back up through the bluffs and Looney Valley to the plateau, the farmland on which New Heidelburg sits.
It should take a half hour to get home, maybe forty minutes; that’s how long it took Karena to get to Black Wing, but she was going the speed limit then. Now she is driving seventy, then seventy-five, eighty. The speedometer really jumps up once she hits Highway 44. She blows past slower vehicles, sedans and pickups, giving the finger to a startled farmer on a Harvester who doesn’t get onto the shoulder fast enough. She passes an Amish buggy with enough speed to rock it on its wheels. She chain-smokes and looks at herself in the rearview—face tight and patchy from crying, hair wild in the humidity—and presses her foot to the accelerator. “Get out of my way,” she yells at the other vehicles. “Get out of my fucking WAY!”
She lights another cigarette. God, what have they done to him? If Karena didn’t know better she’d think they gave him a lobotomy—or God, oh no, was it electroshock therapy? Was it? The thought makes her screech off onto the shoulder and throw the door open, to vomit. But when she just retches and retches, her head hanging over the gravel, she pulls back in and gets back on the road. No. It can’t be. They wouldn’t do that to Charles, would they? Karena would have known, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t she have felt it, something so drastic, Charles’s fear and terror and panic as they strapped him down, inserted the bit between his teeth like a horse, then threw the switch?
Although maybe they did, since Charles is so resistant to medication, refuses to take it—and no wonder. The lithium, what Dr. H had him on initially, nearly killed him with its side effects, the cure almost worse than the disease. First the blackheads, massing across his forehead like thick pepper. Then his stomach, attacks of diarrhea so bad Charles was afraid to leave the house, to venture more than a few feet from a bathroom. Then his inability to concentrate, to read, to think. It’s like my thoughts have to squeeze through a little door in my head, K, he told her during the first week. They’re so slow. I just feel so stupid. I am not myself.