The Old Fake
The Goddess who knew though I knew not hath caused darkness . . .
AKKADIAN PENITENTIAL TABLET, bef. 17th cent. B.C.
I believe you should be critical of yourself but not overcritical. The latter inhibits you too much.
JUDY GARLAND, 1946
1
When the retired policeman disembarked from the Amtrak in Martinez, his swollen ankles were pulsing with pain until he longed for them to burst. If I live another couple of years I’ll have to buy something to lean on, he thought. Maybe I can find a sword-cane at the Berkeley fleamarket, and modify it . . .—Ignoring the conductor’s outstretched hand, he shifted his right foot down onto the plastic stepping stool, then heroically plunked down his left, and finally, holding his breath against the pain, achieved the platform itself. Crossing the track, he trudged through the tiny station and spied the blue 2007 V6 Pawnee Plus Desalb of his ex-sister-in-law Betty Connover, the only one of his former in-laws who had taken his side in the divorce. As J. Edgar Hoover put it so well: No one can defy the laws of our civilization year upon year and atone for it mainly by refraining from criminality for a few months. And that summed up Betty, who for the eleven years of his marriage had snubbed, insulted and humiliated him at every family holiday, then stood up for him, and finally forgotten him. All the same, he owed her one; and furthermore, when he had called to ask for the loan of her car she had been sweet to him, as if he were nearly back in the years when he was young and could have lived in three dimensions. Upon hearing that his destination was Vallejo she even offered to drive him, although that might have been because she distrusted his driving ability, not that he had ever been held responsible for the most negligible fender-bender.
He got into the passenger seat. Betty was chewing gum.
Hiya, he said, buckling his seatbelt.
Been a long time, J. D. How’s your health?
Great, he answered savagely.
I saw you limping. What’ve you got—fallen arches?
Neuropathy, he said.
Betty giggled.—You always were a walking encyclopedia.
She started the ignition.
How’s the family? he asked.
Well, Roger’s diabetes is worse. He won’t take care of himself, and Annabel doesn’t know what to do. And then Mona’s in trouble again—but Doris might not want you to know—
What about you? he said. You’re the one I care about.
Oh, you know, said Betty. Just the same. After awhile, a gal just sort of gives up and . . .
73664 Triumph Drive, he said.
Was that 64 or 664?
73664 Triumph Drive.
Okay, it’s in the GPS. You always were goal-oriented, said Betty. But frankly, J. D., I’m worried about you. You look like a mess. Are you taking care of yourself?
After awhile, he informed her, a guy just sort of gives up.
Oh, she said. So that’s how it is.
Turning off the freeway, they now rounded two corners of the high school’s long white shedlike buildings, whose accompanying wrought-iron fence he dated at two or three decades after Karen Strand’s teenaged days—since our prosperity index now incorporated mass shootings—followed Nebraska Street past the stadium, and then turned left onto Broadway, presently passing the boarded-up Jingle’s Bar, from which an old man now carefully crept; turned left again into a neighborhood of curtained Mission style houses going down Amador past the First Church of Religious Science, then left on Capitol, past the two grey bungalows; left and left again on Florida where acacia trees partially occluded the sky with their great yellow-green flower-clouds as Betty inquired, glancing at him in the mirror: Are you dating anyone?
Sort of kind of, he said.
Who is she?
His name’s Frank, but he calls himself Judy. Worst of both worlds.
Oh, J. D.! Are you coming out after all these years? After your divorce Annabel said to me—
I’m not anything, he said. An old fake, just like Frank.
That’s not so.
All right then. Just a pervert working on cirrhosis.
What’s that supposed to mean? J. D., I love you. We all love you still. Why do we never hear from you? Oh, now I’m getting upset . . .
Look, he said. What do you want out of life?
She drove awhile, then said: I wish I knew.
Exactly, he said, wishing he could switch on the radio.
They parked at the curb in front of Mrs. Strand’s house. He said: If you want to come in, don’t say anything. Just say hello and then keep quiet, so I can—
Never mind, said Betty. I don’t wanna rain on your parade. You take your time and don’t worry about me.
What will you do?
Text my grandnieces.
Thanks, he said, managing not to groan while swinging his legs out of the car.
Betty said: J. D., you’re so brave. Don’t you ever get afraid?
He proudly said: Honey, this is my life. This is what I do. Let’s say I’m on gang detail. Twenty dudes hang out in some asshole’s front lawn every day, I’m the type of guy that’s gonna walk up and smoke a cigarette with ’em and see what the fuck is goin’ on.
You’re my hero, she said.
He patted her thigh and she squeezed his hand. Then he stood up, closing the door behind him. An octagonal window watched him.
He climbed the brick steps to Mrs. Strand’s house (ten of them and after a right turn seven more steps) onto the shaded porch and rang the bell. The woman opened the door almost at once. She was still more elegant than elderly. If I were into pussy maybe I could see my way into doing her, he decided. But not even Betty turns me on. I wish she did, because I love her. And incest would turn me on. And Judy’s gonna fuckin’ leave me.—Mrs. Strand, somewhat more decrepit on close inspection, had small but very alert eyes. Her mouth resembled her daughter’s, never mind the sagging corners. But I still like her, thought the retired policeman. There’s something about her I relate to. Go figure, Sherlock.
She had colored her hair brown and left it long and loose around her shoulders; it was grey at the roots.
I’m afraid my daughter was always terribly unhappy, said Mrs. Strand. There was a period where I hoped . . . Well, Karen’s therapist called it pseudoadjustment to life. I’ll always remember that.
Well, he inquired, and was she born that way?
Oh, I don’t know. She seemed . . . Well, there was always something withdrawn about my Karen.
Uh huh, he said. I mean, do tell.
Well, I’d call it a talent for acting, said Mrs. Strand. You know, I used to take Karen to movies all the time, even though we really couldn’t afford it. We did her hair and bought her pretty clothes. But she was such a needy child, and ultimately . . . Sorry, Mr. Slager, but when I get to thinking about Karen I just . . .
Did Karen have a favorite actress?
I think I’m going to say Natalie Wood. Have you ever seen Miracle on 34th Street, where that cute, cute little girl is sitting on John Payne’s lap, whispering in his ear while he puts his hand on her darling little knee? Well, Karen would have done anything to be that girl. Oh, and do you remember Natalie’s bubble bath scene in Driftwood? What innocent little eyes she has, and those bubbles cover just enough of her to . . . They say she was actually wearing bloomers, but you can’t tell. Now what about you, Mr. Slager? Would you take a little bourbon?
I sure would. Thank you, ma’am; that hits the spot. Yes, that’s perfect. Well, I won’t lie to you. I’ve always been a Judy Garland fan.
Oh, yes! But did you ever see Natalie Wood playing Alice in Wonderland? What was that film? I’m drawing a blank—
Wasn’t it that TV special? proposed the charmingly helpful retired policeman.
You know, it was! And you could just kind of see her little
ankles peeping out of that ruffled pinafore with the checks on it; she was almost sitting on Norman Kraft’s lap, and the way he was looking at her . . . ! Undressing her with his eyes, I should say. Rather comical . . .
Thank you, Mrs. Strand. You have fine taste in bourbon.
Oh, do you really think so? It’s Atkins Number Seven Reserve. You’re such a nice man. Well, and would you like to see some albums of my little Karen?
Sure would. You know, I just love little girls.
Now in this one I think she looks sort of like Natalie Wood, don’t you? I once had her hair waved in the same style, not that she . . . Look what a sweet, sweet smile she had! Such a good little girl . . .
So where exactly is little Karen? he inquired.
I like to say, somewhere over the rainbow.
Well, well, he said to her. You old fake!
I beg your pardon! What did you just say to me?
I said you take the cake for best metaphor anywhere. You’re a very intelligent woman, Mrs. Strand.
Oh. I thought you said something else.
You really do take the cake, ma’am. I mean it. I’ve never met a woman like you.
I’m the only one who’s ever understood Karen. She always was a terribly lonely child; maybe something’s wrong with her hormones. Then she ran away. Well, I’ve done all I can for her, and now I just don’t know.
When did she run away?
Many years ago. It was actually on July 27, 1983, when my Karen left me. On the anniversary I always get so sad—
And where did Karen go?
She wouldn’t say. She’d been in some kind of awful relationship with, with this person, and then she . . .
And have you seen her since?
Oh, yes. My little Karen comes home every now and then. But she’s always been secretive. She tells me almost nothing about her life. And sometimes I feel so shut out, Mr. Slager; oh, you wouldn’t believe . . .
When was the last time she visited you?
Well, let me see. It wasn’t long ago. Maybe about three months.
And when’s her birthday?
Well, that’s another date I never forget. Little Karen came into this world on September the third, 1964. When I think back on that, it doesn’t seem so long ago, but of course . . .
So your little Karen would be fifty-one years old.
Well, I guess she would be. Hard to accept that, somehow. It’s not easy for a mother, watching her child get old.
Would you say that Karen looks her age?
What a question to ask a mother! Really, Mr. Slager—
May I pour you a little more bourbon?
Oh, such a gentleman! And please help yourself. What brand do you normally drink?
Mrs. Strand, I’m an Old Crow man, and not ashamed of it.
Old Crow! But isn’t that what the—
It is. But on the force, that’s what we drank. After a tough night on patrol, before a tough night on patrol, you get my drift. I remember one time when a young girl was shot in the head with a twenty-two, and I had to tell the mother.
How awful!
Yeah, it was quite a slaughterhouse. Not just one shot, you see. Pretty well unlocked the good old cranial vault. Well, I don’t mind telling you that I ducked into the bathroom and took a nip of Old Crow.
I see, said Mrs. Strand.
Now, ma’am, I have to tell you that we have concerns about your dear little Karen.
What on earth do you mean?
I’ll repeat my question. Karen is fifty-one years old. Does she look fifty-one?
Well, she . . . She’ll always be my little girl.
He smirked at her. Then he reached past her and topped himself off with Atkins Number Seven Reserve.
Mr. Slager, what are you implying?
When a lady gets to fifty-one, she might look sixty and if she’s lucky she might look forty, or with good genetics and a moderate diet maybe once in a lavender moon somewhere around thirty-five, but she’s not going to look nineteen, is she?
I don’t know, said Mrs. Strand, all in a flutter.
Well, he said, reopening the last album. Here’s little Karen at her graduation. Very pretty girl, I have to say.
Well, thank you, but I don’t see what you’re—
Now here’s a photo we took of Karen last week.
Oh, my God! What’s that horrible place?
It’s a bar which I’m sorry to tell you is notorious for perversions. We arrest somebody there almost every night. Now, is that Karen?
I’m afraid so. Oh, oh!
And when she comes to visit you, that’s how she looks?
Well, I, yes, it is. Is Karen in any kind of trouble?
Now, Mrs. Strand, your dear little Karen of 1982 looks exactly like your postmenopausal Karen of 2015. How do you explain that?
But the woman, finally realizing him to be an enemy, glowered at him. Pouring himself another generous measure of Atkins Number Seven Reserve, he said: Mrs. Strand, we can do this the easy way or we can take it to the next level. It’s all the same to me.
What do you want?
I hate to suggest this, but could Karen have been put out of the way?
Are you trying to tell me that she’s dead?
Well, is she?
No, Mr. Slager; she most certainly is not, and I’m not sure I appreciate this turn in our conversation. As you can see for yourself, she’s exactly the same Karen, and I do know my very own daughter.
Fabulous, he said. Exactly the same Karen. For the third time, how do you explain that?
She hesitated. She swigged her bourbon. She reminded him of the forty-eight-year-old mother who drugged, restrained and pillow-suffocated her four-year-old boy; when the story hit the newspapers the attention thrilled her. She said: You win, Mr. Slager. I confess I’ve noticed it. And I don’t understand it. But there’s a lot I don’t understand about Karen. And, as I said to you, what mother wants to see her daughter get old? To me it’s a blessing. Do you believe in God?
Oh, I’m right with the Lord.
Oh, you are? Well, I’ve never mentioned this to anybody but you. Karen has not changed—
And she doesn’t visit anyone else in town?
Not to my knowledge. My poor Karen never made any real friends, and she doesn’t like to go out. So we just stay in. We watch television, and I make her all her favorite dishes from when she was a child. And I don’t question it, because—
You’ve never asked her why she looks so young?
No. I’ve already told you that my Karen is very secretive.
Have you ever quizzed her on something that only the real Karen could know?
But she is the real Karen. And we have lovely chats all the time about when she was a little girl, and—
And what?
Mrs. Strand said proudly: You wouldn’t believe how affectionate she was.
2
Well? said Betty.
It’s a complicated case, he said.
3
Perhaps not all of us have done something we remain ashamed of throughout our lives, and those of us who have prefer not to think of whatever bad thing we have done, so that for years it pretends not to exist, and we hold our heads high. But eternal secrecy is superhuman. It requires not only an obvious fortitude, but also a less obvious foresightedness. The one who has done the bad thing may not at first recognize how bad it was. He thinks himself still to be clean, and perhaps, because doing evil sometimes feels unpleasant, he unburdens himself to a friend, as any clean person might do. Yesterday his friend told him his troubles; today he pays back the favor. But just as he begins to feel eased, his friend looks at him in a strange new way and says: I wish you hadn’t told me that.—Then it begins. He and his former friend never speak of it again. In time they are friends no more. Ye
ars go by; his former friend marries an unknown woman and divorces her. One day by chance one-time confider meets the ex-wife and greets her kindly, in memory of his old friend; she gazes on him in cold watchful disgust, and at once he knows: his friend told her. His friend told the woman this thing which for so many years now had not existed, and is now back in the world, never to be gotten rid of. And then five or ten years later he falls out with another woman who as she is leaving him says coolly: By the way, I heard that you did this thing.—It isn’t true, he says, and she says nothing.
What was it for the retired policeman? Well, who even cares? He’s hardly a character in this book. Actually, it was his honorable vocation to find out what it was for the rest of us—especially for Neva.
Once upon a time in the Y Bar, whose foreground was then dominated by the tourist girl whose stunning legs looked even more naked than naked in the stockings which decorated them right up to the fringe of her cut-off short-shorts, I overheard him say to Neva: One time I put the cuffs on a charmer named Summer Marie who’d been appointed as her grandmother’s financial guardian. Dementia, about as bad as it gets before they chain you to your shit-stained mattress. Well, Summer Marie started selling off the old goner’s jewelry right away. Next she drilled into her safety deposit box. Karen, are you getting me?
I think so, said the lesbian.
She opened up eighteen charge accounts in the grandmother’s name: National Dollar, Junie’s Bridal, you know, all the big names. She was a real fuckin’ entrepreneur. When I busted her there were bite marks, a black eye, two broken ribs and a bloodied mouth on old Granny! You see, Summer Marie wanted more, and Granny would have given it to her, but she was too senile to remember where she used to hide the cash. You’d never go that far, would you?
No, said the lesbian.
What if it was your mother?
I love her.
You love everyone, don’t you?
That’s right, said the lesbian.
Well, the real Karen Strand has got to be an old bag. I mean, she’s older than Judy. So who got killed?
You like this, said the lesbian.
Smiling, he said: That’s right.
Then you can do it as many times as you like. But right now it’s Holly’s turn. Do you want to come over tomorrow morning and do this some more?
The Lucky Star Page 58