Margaret Karmazin's credits include stories published in over seventy-five magazines, Rosebud, The Iconoclast, North American Review, Potomac Review, Confrontation, Mobius, Taproot and Aim Magazine. My stories in The MacGuffin, Eureka Literary Magazine and Words of Wisdom were nominated for Pushcart awards and Piper’s Ash, Ltd. published a chapbook of my sci-fi stories, Cosmic Women. I helped write the introduction for and have a short story included in Still Going Strong, (Haworth Press) and my novel, Replacing Fiona, was published by eTreasures Publishing. My story in Virginia Adversaria is included in an anthology by the editor, Ten Twisted Tales.
Skeletons (September 20, 2011. Issue 31.)
Cody Hammond viewed things straight and simple. What was right was right, what was wrong, wrong. He couldn't understand why people had difficulty with that concept.
People he hung out with generally supported his beliefs, especially his friend, Zack. The two often discussed these issues over beers after work. Zack was a city police officer and Cody a building contractor. They'd grown up together on the south side of town and were like brothers.
Zack was already leaning on the bar when Cody arrived at Perry's. It was a Friday and Cody was meeting his girlfriend there later.
"You on tomorrow?" he asked as he signaled for his usual. The bartender slid a bottle over the slick wood and he caught it neat.
"Not off till Monday," said Zack. "Big plans this weekend?"
"My sister's having a cookout. The whole family. Said she has an announcement to make."
Zack moved away from the bar. "Let's get a table," he said. "I'm starved."
They sat in a booth and Maureen, one of the waitresses sidled over, bare midriff and a ring in her belly button. Zack had spent an afternoon with her once, took her to his parent's house while they were away on vacation. He did that sort of thing now and then as if he were playing some kind of suspense game with his wife Patti. Cody, if he allowed himself to think about it, would not approve, but he didn't think about it. It was Zack after all.
"You busy these days?" said Maureen, clearly probing for why their assignation had not been repeated.
"Not since I sprained my groin," said Zack. "I'll have the regular cheese steak with spicy fries. What'll it be for you, bro?"
Cody ordered and Maureen sulkily took off. He knew better than to question Zack about it. It was bad enough attending social events and having to deal with Patti as if he didn't know anything about her husband's extracurricular activities.
"So what do you think your sister is going to announce?" said Zack.
Cody shrugged. "Don't know. Couldn't be that she's knocked up. They tried for five years, went to one of those clinics and gave up after bad news. She can't have any; bad eggs or something."
"Maybe they're going to use one of those surrogates," said Zack.
"I don't think she'd go for Mike's sperm hooking up with some stranger's egg."
"Well, maybe it's something else then," said Zack, losing interest. He spotted something in one of the other booths. "Will you look at that," he said, his mouth askew. "Disgusting."
Cody turned to see. A man and a woman held hands across a table, looking into each other's eyes. The woman was a freckled redhead and the man African-American. "Shit," said Cody. "You see that all over the place now, right out in the open."
"Yeah," said Zack, "I wanna puke every time I see it."
Just then Cody's girlfriend appeared, as if she had popped out of midair. "Hey," Cody said. "Order something. Here, I'll flag the waitress." His hand shot up and once he'd gotten Maureen's attention, he pulled Sarah close and kissed her.
Every time he saw her, he thanked his lucky stars she was his. Too smart, too pretty for the likes of him. What she saw in him, he couldn't imagine. His mother didn't like her though, said she was a flake. Okay, so Sarah had a few weird interests, hypnotism among them, so what? His mother liked to spy on people with binoculars out her bedroom window. Everybody probably had a quirk or two. He and Sarah didn't agree on politics or religion, but they got along fine if they avoided those areas. The sex was great.
Zack gave Sarah his usual variation of flirty/sarcastic greeting. "Cheating on your boyfriend yet?"
Sarah shot him a subtle look of distaste. "Not yet."
Cody said, "You still coming with me to my sister's?"
"Of course," she said. "Can't wait to see what she's got up her sleeve."
"Yeah, Cathy likes her mysterious surprises," said Cody.
The day of the cookout opened with perfect weather. The entire Hammond clan arrived in their picnic regalia, which included several intricate tattoos revealed by sleeveless T-shirts or halter tops and a few sullen looking teens attired in revolutionary black.
Cathy's husband, Mike, was nowhere to be seen. Their mother, Sharon, was ensconced in one of the Adirondack chairs, a cold beer in one hand, burning cig in the other. She looked a bit haggard - skinnier and crepier than usual. Sometimes, and Cody would never admit this to anyone, he hated her.
"Okay, everybody's got refreshments?" asked Cathy after waving her arms to get their attention. "Let's get this show on the road."
"Hear, hear!" yelled the already lit boyfriend of a cousin.
Cathy cleared her throat. "Well, most of you know that Mike and I have been trying to have a baby and, well, nothing has worked. We didn't say anything to anybody, but we put in for adoption and a week ago, they called and said they had a a little girl for us!"
She looked happy, but kind of agitated too.
"So, we went and picked her up Thursday and kept it a secret so we could introduce her to everyone today!"
There was a short silence before people starting clapping or whistling.
"So..." she went on, waving her hands for quiet, "Mike will bring her out. She's six months old - there was a problem with some legal stuff for a while, that's why we didn't get her newborn, but we're glad to have her now."
She turned toward the kitchen sliding door and raised her hand. "Here she is, folks, the newest Hammond-Richards, Melissa Cathleen Richards herself!"
There was a hush over the crowd as Mike emerged from the kitchen holding the baby. People crowded forward to look. Then Mike held her up so everyone could see, an infant girl, feisty arms and chubby legs kicking with chocolatey brown skin and fuzzy black hair.
Cody's mother pulled her skinny body up with the energy of a wired teenager and gasped. "She's a spook! What the hell were you thinking?"
Cody felt Sarah's nails dig into his arm. He misinterpreted her reaction and said, "Holy shit. Leave it to my sister to make stupid decisions."
"Stupid?" said Sarah, her voice thick.
"Yeah. I'm for equality like the next guy. I'm not prejudiced. You know I have a couple black friends - Bobby and Lynel. But equality isn't the same thing as mixing the races. They aren't meant to be mixed - it just leads to trouble. Why you think God made' em in the first place? If He meant for everybody to mix, He woulda make them all the same!"
"You think so, do you?" said Sarah rather viciously.
Cody's mother teetered on her bony feet, three beers already down, and had to be helped to wherever she was going, which turned out to be her car. "I'm outta here!" she yelled, waving randomly. "I got idiots for kids!"
"Why's she including me?" asked Cody to anyone who would listen, but no one was except Sarah, who was backing away.
The sullen teens in the crowd perked up. Any action was better than none. They crowded toward the baby and next thing Cody noticed was that Sarah was with them. He moved forward and saw her cradle the infant, kissing her little forehead. One dark little arm shot up in the air as if making a statement.
Not long after, as he drove Sarah home, he felt her freezing him out. "What?" he said, glancing over. Oddly, when she was upset, her own skin seemed to darken. He didn't want to think it was a flush of anger, though he suspected it was.
"I thought I understood you," she began, "though I should have known that with a friend like Zack, what hope was there?"
He stiffened. "What's wrong with Zack? What do you mean?"
"What's wrong with Zack? Are you kidding? He's a narrow minded, chauvinistic, bigoted moron! I've tried to be nice to him, with extreme effort, but after what I saw today, I'm fed up with everything. You reacted to your sister's new baby just like that moron would do and quite frankly, Cody, it sickens me!"
He was shocked. She had never before raised her voice to him. "But, Sarah, he's my best friend, he's a good guy,. And I just feel that the races should stick to their own. There's only trouble when they mix. For instance, how can Cathy raise a black kid? How would she know what to do?"
Sarah turned and looked at him as if he were an ape in the zoo. "What's your IQ there, Cody? Sixty? I'm through. Sorry, but you showed your true colors today and they weren't on the outside!"
Her expression was scary, hard and shut. He reached to touch her, to try and stop this, but she'd gathered her stuff and had the car door open. "Don't call me," she said, climbing out. She stumbled a little, but caught herself, grabbing the roof of the car before slamming the door. He fumbled madly to lower her side's window but she was already halfway to her apartment building.
He got out of the car and was running to catch her just as the door to the building closed. To get inside, he'd have to press the button and have someone let him in. He hesitated, his finger in the air, then backed away. He couldn't believe this was happening.
The drive home seemed to be in fog.
"I thought we'd end up getting married," he told Zack on Monday. They met at Perry's for lunch. Cody could manage a couple hours off as he had two men on the job besides himself.
"She wasn't your type; I coulda told you that. Thinks her shit don't stink."
Cody didn't say anything. His beer was flavorless. He'd ordered a burger, but the thought of eating made his stomach flip.
"You need someone from your own background," Zack went on.
"What's that supposed to mean? She grew up two blocks away."
Zack shrugged. "Her parents were rich compared to you and me. She went to college, blah blah blah."
"Just two years, big deal," said Cody. "Hell, I went one."
"And you flunked out, didn't you?"
Cody couldn't deny that, but he knew the reason hadn't been his intelligence level. He shot Zack a look, remembering suddenly how his friend had encouraged him to party and drink, which had pretty much led to his failing the courses.
Zack said, "I can set you up with somebody really hot. You know Kristin; she's got a couple of friends."
"I don't want anybody else."
"Ya know, sometimes you are really a dumb ass," said Zack.
Cody stopped by his sister's. She'd always been someone he could talk to. Of course now there was the black baby issue. He kept forgetting her name.
Usually, Cathy smiled a lot, yanked at his hair, mock punched him in the gut, even if they were supposed to be adults. Today, she was cold. She didn't jump to get him a cup of coffee either.
"Sarah and I broke up," he told her, taking his usual place at the kitchen counter even if Cathy didn't offer him anything. He heard the baby cooing in the living room.
"Hold on," Cathy said. "I need to feed her." She disappeared to return holding the baby. The little girl's brown arms contrasted intensely with Cathy's pale peach skin.
Seeing this made Cody's blood boil. This whole thing was going to embarrass their entire family. He could already hear the remarks his friends would make, especially Zack. He had failed to mention it to him on Sunday and fortunately Zack had forgotten to ask what his sister announced at the cookout.
"I don't know, Sarah," he said now, shaking his head.
She got what he meant and turned magenta. "You know what, Cody? You're an asshole. You know what else? I'm not the least bit surprised Sarah dumped you." She paused to straighten the baby's shirt. "Do you know, she was here yesterday? Came over to give her support. She's way too good for you!"
He felt like punching a hole in the wall. "Well, for your information, Mom agrees with me!"
"That's because she's a bigoted idiot and you inherited all her tendencies!" yelled Cathy.
They glared at each other a moment before he stood up and left, slamming the door behind him.
Work was peppered with snafus. Supplies not available or they delivered the wrong stuff. Employees suddenly wanting vacation time, ripping shoulder muscles or spraining ankles. Customers became impossible to please, demanding unreasonable changes, developing allergies to materials. It was as if someone had leveled a curse upon all that Cody tried to do.
He missed Sarah terribly, the nights were the worst. No cooking dinner together, or he sipping a beer while watching her chop veggies, no more conversations while they lay in bed analyzing their day, coworkers and friends. His sister wasn't speaking to him and Zack was boring him. That had never happened before.
He felt a tension building inside him that threatened to explode, maybe cause some kind of serious trouble.
"You need to get laid," said Zack, predictably.
Cody snapped, "What? You think that's the cure for everything? Think it'll cure cancer too?"
"Fuck you," said Zack. He wasn't used to anybody contradicting him.
Cody received a brochure in the mail for adult school, which was held in the local high school. Why they'd sent him one, he couldn't imagine, then remembered that Sarah occasionally taught a class and put him on the mailing list. Hands shaking, he found her on there. She was teaching a class called "Hypnosis to Past Lives."
She had not returned his phone calls, nor did she call to thank him for mailing her a box of her favorite chocolates. One of his friends mentioned they'd seen her having lunch at Red Lobster with a man. Was it one of her gay guy friends? What if it wasn't?
It hit him in the middle of the night as he lay staring at the ceiling. What if he were to take her course? She couldn't stop him, could she? He had the right to sign up, same as anyone else.
The class met at 6:30 on Tuesday evenings. He was so nervous before he went that he stopped by his mother's to steal a Xanax from her medicine cabinet. Sarah wasn't yet there when he walked into the classroom. She soon arrived, carrying her laptop, and pulled down the screen for projecting images. It wasn't till she'd arranged all her paraphernalia that she noticed him and froze.
She looked beautiful. His heart pounded, his stomach fell to the floor. The teeth in his mouth dried up; there was a buzzing in his ears.
He watched her stumble through the roll call, so had some satisfaction, not much, in knowing that she was nervous too. But if he had hoped for any special attention, he hoped in vain. "Mr. Hammond?" she read off the list in the same tone she used for all the other names and during the class, she neither favored nor ignored him. He was reduced to any John Doe. It was embarrassing, yet simultaneously calming.
"How many of you believe that we live more than once?" Sarah now asked the class, which consisted mostly of women. Of the two other males, one was old and eccentric looking and the other flamboyantly gay. Clearly, this was not a manly sort of subject.
Of the sixteen in the class, twelve hands shot up.
"Well," began Sarah, "some religions include a belief in reincarnation. I will be discussing those beliefs and showing you research on the subject by such persons as Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia and Dr. Helen Wambach, to name a few. We will also cover anecdotal reports from around the world and share any personal stories you may have regarding the subject. The last three sessions we'll be using group and individual hypnotism to see if we can bring out any of your own past life memories."
Bunk, was what went through Cody's mind, but he tried to keep his expression neutral. Apparently, one had to endure humiliations to have even a remote chance with Sarah. God, how he missed her. She was so sexy up there in her position of authority, dark bangs falling in her eyes, silky looking pants showing off her sweet little rear. He'd go along with whatever crap he had to.
The classes were interesting, if far fetched, and he found that he was enjoying them, though Sarah had not thawed. Of course, he was missing some evenings he would normally have spent with Zack, which resulted in stingers tossed his way, such as "You turning into a queer or something?" or "Boy, has she got you pussy-whipped."
The day arrived when she planned to actually hypnotize someone and called for volunteers. Cody's hand shot up, seemingly without permission from his brain.
She looked at him, hesitated, then got that adorable look of defiance he loved. "All right, Mr. Hammond then."
He walked to the front of the room. "Sit down," she said, indicating a chair. She moved another one to face his, sat down and scooted closer.
His heart thumped as she looked into his eyes. He could smell her cologne which he feared might give him an erection.
"I will be taping this," she warned and clicked on an old cassette recorder. "Please try not to make noise," she told the class. "Would someone please turn out some of the lights?"
To Cody, she said, "Close your eyes. Focus entirely on my voice and nothing else." She paused, then spoke in a soft, droning tone. "You are walking barefoot over smooth stone. The stone is cool and pleasant to the touch. You are very relaxed as your feet move over it. You enter a cave and see inside a stone stairway that has twenty-five steps leading down into the earth. You take the first step....twenty-five...the next step, twenty-four...you're becoming very very relaxed, the next step, twenty-three...."
After a while, he remembered nothing.
When she uttered some magic word, he awoke to a class on the edge of their seats, muttering among themselves. She pressed a button on the recorder and asked the class, "Any comments?"
"Amazing!" said one woman. "You should take him on TV or something."
"They could probably make a movie out of that!" said someone.
"Huh?" said Cody, glancing round at the avid faces. "What happened?"
"It's all on tape," said Sarah. "I'll make you a copy while people discuss. You can go back to your seat, Mr. Hammond. And oh, by the way, next week I'll be interested in hearing what you thought of the tape." She wore a faint smirk.
Cody returned to his seat while hands shot up. "That was awesome," said a large women in the back. "And just awful when the master raped her!"
"Yeah," said a small blonde in the front row, "then she gets knocked up and dies anyway. Just tragic. What a bastard that guy was. And his wife so mean when it wasn't even Sophie's fault!"
Cody, of course, understood nothing and no one bothered to enlighten him.
"Must have been an ectopic pregnancy," said the gay guy, who had told them earlier he was a nurse. "Very painful untreated. Of course nothing they could do in those days."
"Or appendicitis," said someone else, "and ditto."
"Oh, it was definitely an ectopic pregnancy," insisted the nurse.
"So exciting that he was a different sex then!" the blonde said.
Cody felt dizzy, almost sick. What the hell were they talking about? Wasn't class ever going to end? He managed to stand up. "I have an appointment," he said in a startlingly loud voice. The recorder made a loud click.
Sarah, not missing a beat, said, "No problem. But take your copy of the regression with you." She walked over to him and handed him the tape.
By the time he got to his car, he was lightheaded and sweating. "Deep breaths," he told himself and managed, by driving like an old geezer, to make it home. He had to lie down, didn't want a beer, didn't want anything. Even lying down, he felt dizzy, strange. His hands shook. He fell so deeply asleep that he never turned over once during the night.
The next morning he listened to the tape in his car on the way to work. What he heard was so shocking that he had to pull the car over.
Who exactly was speaking? The voice was higher pitched than his own, yet the timbre of it definitely his. It sounded female. It told a story of being a "house-nigga" to a Mr. Leroy Forrest and his wife, Missa Jane. There were tedious descriptions of soap and candle making, cleaning some birds the men brought in. Then one rainy night while the Missas was entertaining friends, Mr. Forrest awoke her from sleep in the cubby hole they allotted her under the eaves on the third floor.
"Now, Sophie," he said in his sickening, slow drawl, "I'm just gonna get in with you here. Make room now."
"Please, Mr. Forrest, please, Sir, please don't! Oh, please, oh no, no..." which degenerated into sobbing.
All this took place somewhere in Georgia when Sophie was sixteen years old. And she didn't live long after that terrible night.
It seemed to be coming back to him now, her feeling of being kept like a wild animal, going from a world where she'd been sure of the sun and stars and what made everything work to this alien place where nothing at all made sense and most everybody hated her. And now this stinking, hairy, grunting man on top of her, pushing his filthy seed into her private place, nothing she can do about it, no help from any direction. And all for what? The color of her skin, just that, and nothing more?
He remembered it then and sat there, a twenty-nine year old man, hanging on the steering wheel sobbing. Was it a trick of some kind? Had Sarah pulled a trick on him? He doubted that; it all felt too intense.
He managed to pull himself together, drove back out onto the highway and got off the next ramp to change direction. It was just after nine when he parked in front of his sister's house. She was feeding the baby on the porch.
"I'm sorry," he blurted. "I was an idiot."
She made room for him on the old fashioned metal glider. He touched Melissa's soft brown skin, gently rubbed one finger along her tiny, tootsie-roll arm. So velvety.
"You want to hold her?" asked Cathy, removing the bottle.
He nodded and soon found his arms deliciously full. Amazingly, this didn't feel strange and as he peered into the suddenly attentive dark eyes of his new niece, it seemed that he already knew her.
Edwin spotted them the moment he got off the train. They were all lined up on the platform like show dogs vying for Best of Breed.
Mama, in an electric blue, polyester pantsuit, her swollen feet in too tight shoes danced nervous baby steps of anticipation. Her white knuckled hands twisted themselves into knots. Sweat rolled down her face from her dyed black hair held back in a ponytail by a glittering red scrunchy.
Marlin, shorter and heavier than he remembered him. His oldest brother was and always would be a demented bully. His belly hung over the belt of his work pants and that untrimmed beard wasn't doing him any favors. Did he really just spit a big stream of chew on the platform? Almost hit the bejeweled flip-flops of the heavyset blonde with the split lip and thighs like smoked Virginia Hams encased in jean shorts. Had to be Marlin's wife.
Curtis was next in line. Couldn't miss Curtis. Six foot-five, probably only weighed one- eighty-something. So thin he struck some as sickly but Edwin knew he had a grip on him that could snap a man's neck like a toothpick. His wife was a timid looking, mouse–like woman. Small pointed mouse teeth and nose. Grey-brown mouse colored hair and eyes. Like Curtis she was taller than average and could have used a little more meat on her bones. Mouse meat, thought Edwin and smiled. If you squinted a bit she seemed to blend right into the background.
A gaggle of urchin children were bunched up against their parents. He supposed they'd get sorted out for him sooner or later. Or not. Only his mama looked him directly in the eye. The rest of them could have been waiting for the next train to arrive.
Welcome home, Edwin, he thought, but no one said. They were all staring at his chocolate colored linen slacks, snow-white linen shirt and Gucci sandals. How was your trip? Oh, not too bad. The train was okay. You know I don't fly since 9/11. The person I loved most in this world was crushed into unidentifiable dust on that day. Remember? We're all so sorry for your loss.
Not one of them had a uttered a word as he approached them. He guessed he'd have to go first.
"Well now. Hey, everyone." Mama squealed, and made small beckoning gestures with her untwisted hands. God, this was going to be painful.
****
Edwin, Marlin, Curtis and a sister, Dottie were raised poor. Tattered, faded clothes, broken toys and worn out shoes that never fit. Strict discipline was meted out by their father who used a razor strop to ensure obedience from the boys.
Dottie, who lived in the clouds of dandelion dust and bumblebees that inhabited her fair-haired head, was stolen from them by the Red Fox River when she was eight years old. Whirled under the fast moving water while trying to follow a giant snapping turtle that would have had her leg for lunch if it had turned around and seen her. "If only she'd been paying attention," Mama wailed, when the deputies pulled her only daughter from the Red Fox. "She never did pay attention."
Dottie was her father's favorite child. Tender with her where he was tough on the boys, once she was gone he began to disappear. He fought the years of chronic emphysema - brought on by smoking unfiltered cigarettes since he was ten years old - with his usual three packs a day. He ate less, slept hardly at all, and within six months of Dottie's death he was gone.
He'd been unemployed at the time of his death and the boys all had part-time jobs to supplement their mother's meager income from quilting. That plus their Dad's disability checks had been not quite getting them through the month. When the checks stopped, Marlin quit school having squeaked through seventh grade by a hair and assumed the duties of head of the household.
It took less than a month for every one of them, even Mama, to be scared to death of Marlin. He had always been big for his age. A tall, lumbering, mean kid who took pleasure in doing things like pulling the back legs off squirrels and watching them scratch and pull their way across the dirt as they bled to death. With his father gone he assumed a new persona. He became a thirteen-year-old tyrant. All these years he'd hidden his most depraved acts from his family. Now, his absolute control over each of them and his always-limited intelligence fed his worst instincts. He tormented the critters and his brothers in plain sight.
Marlin found work running questionable errands for the nefarious men who laid about at the general store. In addition, he ran the house. Told his mother what to cook and when to serve it. Sent her to bed, poking her in the behind with his daddy's rifle, when he got tired of her trembling and weeping. He beat his younger brothers with anything he could lay his hands on if they dared challenge him.
Curtis found some old tools that had belonged to his father and kept Marlin from selling them only by learning to use them to do odd jobs for others in the mountain community. He fixed broken porch steps, repaired leaky faucets and built bookshelves and other small pieces of furniture to sell.
Edwin's mother used what little leverage she had to protect him from Marlin. He was a smart child, full of dreams and small for a ten year old. His mother taught him to make bread. He picked fruit and vegetables and learned how to stew preserves and can green beans. She kept him with her in the kitchen - as far away from Marlin as possible.
Curtis built a roadside stand and dragged it down the hill to the main road. There Edwin sold his fresh baked loaves, jarred preserves and seasoned vegetables. He carted them down to the road in a wooden wagon that Curtis had made for the carrying. He was proud to be helping his mama and surprised how much he like the cooking and baking.
He and Curtis plotted and planned their brother's demise on a daily basis. But never in front of their mama. No use giving her anything else to worry about. She already had a pretty full plate.
As the years advanced Curtis grew lean, hard muscled and tall. At sixteen he was too busy working to care much about school. He was a quiet loner and that itched at Marlin now eighteen and growing fatter and lazier by the minute. Marlin ran his mouth about Curtis's acne- scarred face, his thin, stringy hair and his lack of a girlfriend whenever he dared.
By this time Edwin was doing well in his first year of high school. He now did most of the cooking and was about as happy as some one who was kin to Marlin dared to be.
Edwin had turned in to a handsome boy. "Too soft looking and girly-like" as Marlin often commented. The word faggot was tossed about by Marlin like a threat of some kind. He probably would have loved to beat on Edwin until he "cried like a little girl" but he didn't dare lay a hand on him now.
"Leave off him." Curtis said low and serious, slapping his heavy-duty tin snips in the palm of his hand. Over the years, he had become his brother's protector, sensing a difference in Edwin that he didn't care to put a name to. A difference that Edwin himself was only vaguely aware of.
The two events that changed Edwin's life forever could not have been foreseen.
The first came when Curtis was putting a new roof on the Jankowicz house. He made an ill-advised grab for a dropped hammer sliding off the tarpaper and the next thing he was aware of was the sound of the ambulance siren as he was being transported to the county hospital twenty miles away. He had injured his back to the extent that the doctors could not tell him exactly when he'd be going home.
The other thing that happened was Edwin, now almost sixteen, developed a friendship with a new boy at school. Danny liked the same books and music as Edwin did. They slow walked home each day from the bus stop talking the whole time about shared interests. Danny wanted to be an artist. Edwin thought, not for the first time, that he might like to cook for a living. Danny was the only one he'd ever told this to. Neither one of them cared much for hunting or sports, the local pastimes.
Edwin was generally well liked by every one at school, both teachers and students. But he'd never had a best friend before. He started going to Danny's house after school to study and do homework. One afternoon the boys were lying on the floor in Danny's room planning a shared history presentation. As Edwin reached for a pack of five-by-seven note cards his hand accidentally brushed Danny's arm. The hairs on both their arms stood at attention. They looked at each other neither one saying a word. At last Edwin had a clue about the "otherness" that trampled through his dreams and worried his waking hours.
"So," Danny said, "we should get back to work, huh?"
"Yeah," said Edwin, "we better."
But they lay on the floor just holding hands until it was time for Edwin to walk home.
As Danny and Edwin grew closer they began to spend more time together. They discovered they both had dreams that extended far beyond the little town they lived in. The boys began to care for each other in a way they knew would never be condoned by either of their families and they dreamt about moving to a place where their relationship would be accepted and their talents appreciated. Danny became the most important person in Edwin's life.
Edwin never invited Danny to his house. There was no way he would ever expose him to Marlin. Marlin in turn became suspicious of where his youngest brother was spending so much of his time.
He made it his first order of business to find out just what Edwin was up to.
It was when he did find out, a few months later, that all hell broke loose. The first thing he did was beat Edwin unconscious leaving him out cold on the kitchen floor. Then he got blind drunk and just about destroyed the house breaking furniture and smashing his mother's treasures. He threatened to burn the house down with Edwin in it. His mother annoyed him with her non-stop wailing and sobbing and calling for Curtis who was still in the rehabilitation center at County General so he locked her in her room.
"Useless old bitch," he mumbled as he staggered his way down the stairs, then out back to the shed, looking for kerosene.
When Edwin came to it was dark. He was hurting bad and thought more than one of his ribs might be broken. He knew for sure his left arm was. He could hear his mother pounding on the floor upstairs and screaming his name. He dragged himself up the stairs then down the hall to her room. He lay down on the floor and kicked at the old door with his shoes while she pounded on the lock with a rock shaped like a bear that she had found in the woods out back. Between them they got the door open. Edwin told his mama to call the Sheriff. Carrying his daddy's rifle against his right side he found Marlin passed out in the shed. He thumped him on the head once with the stock of the old twenty-two just to make sure he stayed down until the law came.
Curtis was discharged from the rehabilitation center a week after Marlin tried to kill Edwin and he decided to move into an apartment in town. Edwin spent a few days in the hospital after Marlin came unglued and when he left the hospital he just plain disappeared. Betty Lou Polk convinced Marlin the baby she was carrying was his and he figured he might as well marry her. He needed somebody to keep house for him since Mama had moved in with Curtis. They lived on in his parent's house and let it get so run down that Mama wouldn't even go out that way anymore.
She was happy in town. Everybody made over her and her misfortunes like they didn't have a one of their own. Only her loss of Edwin caused her heart to ache so bad sometimes she'd get to crying and couldn't stop. He'd written to her that he and Danny had taken the bus to Chicago and they were happy together. Edwin was doing prep work in a restaurant kitchen and Danny was hanging wallpaper. They were both trying to finish school at night.
****
Time passed as it always does. Curtis married Joani Tipper, the dental assistant for the only dentist within forty miles, and built a nice little place for her and Mama and him toward the edge of town. He hired someone else to do the roof. Marlin and Betty Lou had four kids they couldn't afford in quick succession. Marlin was driving eighteen-wheelers and gone a good part of the time. When he was home, the neighbors complained constantly about the yelling and screaming going on at his and Betty Lou's house but the Sherriff seemed disinclined to haul Marlin in when it came to what he considered "family matters'.
Danny opened a small gallery in the River North section of Chicago and his work was always in demand. Edwin realized his dream of "cooking" for a living - the owner of two serious Chicago restaurants - the executive chef at one. They were so proud of what they'd accomplished. Both had worked hard, accumulated a fair amount of money and talked about adopting a child.
The two men traveled around the world together. Edwin experimenting with ingredients and recipes from places like the Middle East, the Pacific Islands and Asia, while Danny painted and photographed all the things they experienced.
The love between them was a living, breathing thing that others could not fail to notice and, for the most part, revel in. Neither one could envision a life without the other.
Mama wrote non-stop notes to Edwin begging him to come visit her, and he kept in touch with her and Curtis, but could not envision a return to a time and place in his life of so much pain and ignorance.
Edwin's loss of Danny on 9/11 - he was in New York negotiating a display loan of some of his most important works with one of the corporations in the Twin Towers – brought him to his knees. No trace was ever found of Danny and for a long while Edwin was positive he could not go on without him. He withdrew from his friends, his businesses and life. He felt lost, anchorless and without purpose. It was in this fog of depression, anger and loneliness that he decided to make the trip home.
****
Edwin had come home intending to visit a while with his mama and Curtis. He hoped to spend some time explaining how much Danny had meant to him and how the loss of him had left him adrift. Edwin knew they both loved him enough to make an effort to understand. But, at the sight of all of them standing there waiting for him his stomach twisted around itself. His head filled with the awful memories of the past and when he weighed them against the loving force his life with Danny had been, he knew what he had to do.
He forced himself to stand up a bit straighter. He stepped toward his mama, wrapped her in his arms and held her close for a few long moments, as she cried and said his name over and over. She was so old now, his heart ached for her and the life she had endured.
Edwin moved on over to Curtis, shook his hand, hugged him hard and whispered, "Thank you." Curtis, nodded and shoulder bumped Edwin.
Marlin swaggered forward a foot or so like he was preparing to say something. Edwin looked him straight in the eyes, knowing exactly what he wanted, and with a half smile and not a word, let him know he was getting nothing. No mercy and no money. Marlin's jaw twitched as he moved back.
Edwin turned around, shaking his head, walked on down the platform and got back on the departing train.
Seniors at Lunch (January 20, 2011. Issue 24.)
“You know what’s hilarious?” Faye says. “I had a story rejected from an editor because he said, ‘This doesn’t sound like how older people talk!’ Can you imagine? I write a basically true account of our trip to Brazil with the characters speaking as we actually talk, and the smart ass says it doesn’t sound realistic!”
“Ha!” snorts Denise. “Does he imagine we say ‘the cat’s meow’ or what?”
“I have no idea. It makes you wonder what his parents are like.”
“Maybe he was created in the lab,” laughs Roberta.
The waiter appears and holds up his pad, pen clicked and ready. “I’m Justin,” he announces with a small twitch of his hips. “And our specials today are Spring Mix, Chicken Salad with Feta and Pecans, Shrimp and Bacon Quiche, and Turkey Gruyere Melt. We also have-”
Faye breaks in. “Are you from Ohio?”
Justin is startled. “Yes! How did you know?”
“You have a soft, drawn out pronunciation, a little bit like Southern but not quite. My cousins live in Ohio and they sound like you. I love it.”
He brightens, clear now that she isn’t insulting him. “Well,” he smiles, “should I give you ladies more time?”
They order.
After he’s gone, Denise says, “I wish I had a gay son. I’d really cherish him. All you mothers out there disappointed if your sons are gay, send them my way! What could be better than someone like Justin, there for you if you freak out for whatever reason? He’d understand a good hissy fit.”
“Is ‘hissy fit’ one of those expressions old people are supposed to say?” laughs Faye. Denise ignores her.
“My neighbor has a gay son but he has psychiatric problems. He works out of his room, wearing only thong underwear,” says Roberta.
“Were his parents mean to him?” asks Faye.
“Well, his father left after he figured it out. The kid was only in fifth grade.”
“See?” says Faye.“They gave him a complex and ruined his life. If they’d played their cards right, he’d be successful now. He’d have a gorgeously decorated loft and invite them over for gourmet dinners. But no, they had to act like imbeciles. The father is probably spending his evenings in a lowdown neighborhood bar and she’s slobbing around in fat sweats, watching reality shows, right?”
“Opinionated, are we?” laughs Denise.
“You usually don’t reach sixty-three still kissing ass, honey.”
Justin brings a martini for Faye and Riesling for the other two.
“Your editor story reminded me of one of mine.” Denise writes sci-fi. The women, in fact, originally met in a writer’s group, Roberta being a poet. “I recently did a humorous one with a Nigerian protagonist. The guy was an interplanetary salesman and while I don’t say what century it is, you can figure it’s at least the twenty-second. This editor replied that I shouldn’t be writing about a Nigerian if I don’t actually know any Nigerians, blah blah blah.”
Knowing Denise’s past, the other two women guffaw.
“Did you let him have it?” asks Faye.
“Her, it was a her. Sure, I snapped back that I’d spent two years in Nigeria in the Peace Corp and had several Nigerian friends. Besides, any lingo that people, including Nigerians, would use in the far future when salespeople are hacking their wares on other planets is beyond our present speculation. Apparently, this overly PC editor believes Nigerians are different from other people and even though space traveling, will be wearing loin cloths and pounding on drums.”
“Upside down discrimination, is it?” asks Faye.
“Are you referring to the idea that anyone Third World should be treated with kid gloves since everything they do wrong is the fault of First World nations?”
“Yes!” says Faye. “Implying that they’re backward idiots. All this under the guise of extreme respect for their native culture from a hundred years ago.”
“Well, anyway,” continues Denise, “never heard back from the editor. Not that I expected to.”
Justin sets down a tempting bread basket with a dish of whipped butter. “Your lunches are coming,” he smiles.
“No hurry,” says Marlene, enjoying her martini.
“You know,” says Denise, “I find myself suddenly annoyed with younger people. For a long time I wasn’t. You hear about jealousy of youth, which I don’t really feel except I wouldn’t mind having my dark hair back.”
“Color it,” says Roberta.
“I know, but my skin has lightened. I hate that garish look older people get when they dye their hair dark. Take Bert Reynolds. For a while there, he looked like something dug up from the crypt.”
“Besides,” she adds, “since Eddie died, I couldn’t care less about being pretty. I keep myself well groomed, but beyond that, who cares? I’m just saying that when I look at a young person with intense coloring, I feel jealous. That’s all I’m jealous of though. Well, not entirely true. I’m jealous about not having Eddie still with me.”
“Yeah,” says Roberta quietly. “Young people have no concept of what it’s like to see so many people you love get seriously ill or die. They have no idea how it wears you down. They even joke about it. Like becoming decrepit is hilarious.”
“Just give them time,” says Roberta. “Time, if they live long enough, will sober them up.”
“On my street,” says Faye, “three people have cancer, one ALS and two died the past year. I remember my dad saying if you live long enough, you have no friends left.”
“When we were young, we never even thought about this,” says Denise.
“Actually, I’ve always been a hypochondriac,” says Faye.
“Yeah,” says Roberta, “but now it’s for real.”
She speaks in a soft, sad voice. Out of respect, the other women grow serious.
“You have had a terrible year, hon,” ventures Denise.
“Yeah,” Roberta sighs, looking away. Her husband has been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and though he isn’t yet too bad, everyone knows where he’s headed. Two years before, around the same time as Denise’s husband died, Roberta had a lumpectomy in her right breast followed by radiation.
“This is the part I have trouble with,” says Roberta. Her blue eyes look young and vulnerable, though her face has gone saggy this past year. “This realization that the game is up.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” says Faye. “Don’t jump down my throat, but while it’s true I haven’t lost my husband and I haven’t yet suffered a serious illness, don’t think for a minute I don’t know Pete and I are standing on the edge of a cliff. It’s all I can do to get my mind off it. I wake up at three am and where I used to fool myself back to sleep by playing little mental games, now they don’t work. Fantasizing doesn’t hold much power when wolves are circling.”
Justine chooses that moment to appear with their orders, which he happily places with a flourish in front of each. His exuberance lifts the mood, which has definitely taken a tumble.
“If you need anything, ladies, just flick a finger and I’ll be right over,” he says.
“Think he’d want to be my pet?” asks Denise.
“Probably not. He probably has a full life packed with wild sex and possibly plastic surgery.”
“You think his ass is silicone?” asks Roberta.
They giggle. Denise lifts a long, only partly arthritic finger and just as he promised, Justin appears. “Forgot to renew the Riesling!” she chirps.
“What the hell,” says Faye. “Another martini. You two will have to help me walk out of here.”
Roberta doesn’t reorder and no one comments. She doesn’t drink much since her bout with cancer.
“How’s Pete?” she asks as they tuck into their food.
“He’s good,” says Faye. “They put him on another blood pressure med. He refuses to exercise, even with that gym membership I got him. It pisses me off. There I am pounding away with Leslie Sansone and he’s spread out in his recliner. I can’t figure people out, even my own husband. Do they want to live or not?”
“I know what you mean,” says Denise. “Don’t think I didn’t have similar issues with Eddie.”
“Well, did you ever ask him the question? Did either of you ever ask anyone that question? Do you want to live or not? And if yes, why won’t you put out some effort?”
“I asked,” says Denise.“You think I never asked him why he kept smoking when they were screaming to quit from every ad on the planet?”
“And what did he say?”
“‘What’s the point of living if it’s no fucking fun?’”
“Yeah, well my neighbor’s husband said the same thing and he’s dead now too,” says Faye.
“They do have a point,” Roberta says quietly. “I mean did.”
The other two consider this.
“It seems a bit cavalier,” Faye says finally. “I mean what about the wives of men who say this? Don’t they matter?”
“Maybe,” says Roberta, “a person can only take so much even if they do love their mate. Maybe a person is just who he is and can’t see outside the box to change himself. I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s just plain laziness,” says Faye.
They eat, obviously enjoying it, yet are subdued since the turn in the conversation. Justin seats a young couple at the next table. The girl has three visible tattoos and the guy four. He wears ear black plugs.
Denise shakes her head.“Have any of them ever actually seen what tattoos look like on ancient, wrinkled flesh? Creepy old skin hanging, the tattoo gone blue and mottled. Makes you want to hurl.”
“What about those ear plugs?” puts in Faye. “He thinks it’s cool now but when he’s forty and trying to look professional, it’ll be hard not to laugh at him with big holes in his ears.”
“I’m not against pierced ears on a man,” says Roberta.
“Well, me neither,” says Denise, “but pierced is one thing, plugs another.”
“Of course all of them will be growing old at the same time, so plugs and tattoos will look perfectly normal.”
“Honey, nothing looks normal on old flabby flesh. They just don’t realize they’re headed that way. I guess they imagine they’ll always be firm and supple.”
“I used to think that,” laughs Faye. “I remember being super judgmental towards an older friend of mine, saying I’d never let myself go like that and why didn’t she make more of an effort to stay slim? Then when I got to her age, my metabolism slowed down just like hers. Boy, did I eat my words then.”
“Yeah,” says Denise, “remember when you could cut back for a week and drop an easy five pounds? Now it would take me a year to get off two.”
“Remember how you could stay up all night partying, then sleep till the following afternoon and completely recover? Now, if I stay up till eleven, I’m ruined the next day.”
“Yeah,” says Roberta, “the last time I went to a party and danced, took me a week to recover. All those old rock stars hopping around on stage now, how do they do it? I can’t imagine.”
“Speed maybe? Who knows.”
The tattooed young man says to his companion, “My boss is such an asshole. He sends me up to Scranton as an assistant to Frank on some pathetic porch job when I could’ve done the basement remodeling here on my own. I’m wasting my time around there. Gino got some really cool work at a boatyard in Seattle. He says come on out, maybe he can get me something.”
The girl says, “That sounds interesting,” but anyone can hear the hurt in her voice.
He says, “Gino’s making forty thousand and that’s with time off a month in the winter. “Course they don’t have winters like we do.”
The girl perks up, seeing an advantage. “It rains all the time there. They rarely see the sun, I heard.”
“I don’t care, I like rain,” says the boy. “There’s something sexy about it.”
The girl looks stricken. She is, undoubtedly, picturing all the sexy times the boy will be having out there in Seattle, times with somebody else.
“I can’t bear it,” says Denise. “Look at that girl’s body language. All that angst. Thank God that’s over for us now.”
Faye nods. “Those nights crying into your pillow, the anxious waiting for the phone to ring. All that female passivity. But it’s still here, even with all their Twitter and texting.”
“Yeah,” says Denise, “waiting for the text back now. I’ve even heard of people breaking up by texting. Can you imagine? It’s not you, it’s me, sorry. ISLY though.”
“What’s ISLY” asks Roberta.
“I still love you,” explains Denise. “My niece emailed me a texting dictionary.”
“Even worse than a dear John letter. At least they went into detail.”
“Her brother who’s twenty-three now apparently texts people all day long from work. Ed had texting employees who really pissed him off. Another guy answered every call on his cell when he was supposed to be working. Ed was paying these idiots as much as thirty dollars an hour and they were talking on his time. I would have fired them on the spot.”
“I drove my fifteen year old grandson somewhere recently and the entire time he was texting his girlfriend,” says Roberta. “No conversation with me at all. Apparently, they text off and on all night too. How can they stand it?”
“I know what you mean,” says Faye. “When do they get time alone? Do they ever sleep the whole night through? When does a girl get to spend an evening reading or visiting with a friend without her pain in the ass boyfriend having to know what she’s doing every second?”
“You’d think they’d have some self esteem,” says Denise. “I’d be embarrassed to be seen as so needy.”
The boy at the next table says quite loudly, “You ought to go back to school, Serena. You could have your degree in two years and get a much higher paying job.”
“Oh, God,” whispers Denise, leaning in closer to the others. “The final nail in her coffin. He’s definitely getting rid of her. Can’t she see it?”
“She feels it, but she doesn’t see it,” says Roberta.
“You see, that’s the difference from being twenty-five and sixty-five. At our ages, you feel it and you see it,” says Denise.
“How long did that take us, do you think?” asks Faye.
“Took me till I was maybe forty-five? That sound about right?”
“I saw it before then,” says Roberta, “but didn’t have the guts to express it till after menopause. Menopause opens your mouth.” She chuckles.
“It opens the frickin’ floodgates,” says Faye. “Blinders are stripped from your eyes!” “All of a sudden, people are shown for what they are, both good and bad. All the bullshit that’s been there all along is suddenly plain as day.”
“And you’re no longer afraid to point it out,” laughs Denise.
Justin appears, seemingly out of nowhere. “Dessert, ladies?”
“Oh, bother,” says Denise, not convincingly. “The last thing I need.”
He rattles off the list and Denise and Faye order carrot cake. Roberta abstains.
“What gets me,” says Faye finally, glancing at the couple, “is that they have no idea. I remember being just like them. You’re so in the present, so confident in it lasting, then before you know it time speeds up like an anomaly out of Star Trek.”
“And,” say Roberta, “you look in the mirror and you turn into an old woman and death is rushing at you like a freight train.”
“Wow,” says Denise.“You don’t mince words, woman.”
“And you realize,” says Faye, “that while you thought you were special when you were young and even middle aged, you’re not. You’re just another tiny life among billions, all the ones that live now, that lived over the centuries and will live in the future. Just one among billions.”
“That is indeed disheartening,” says Denise, looking at the couple.
“I think,” says Roberta, “that nature designs it so. Because if those two there knew the truth, they’d be too depressed to procreate!”
“Speaking of sex, Susan Dietz got asked out by some retired doctor she met at her gardening club dinner.”
“Did she go? What’s he like?” asks Faye.
“Oh, she went, but now she’s keeping it a secret from her kids.”
“Why?”
“They don’t approve. Her dating someone is an ‘affront to the memory of their father.’”
“What nerve!” snaps Faye. “As if her self-centered offspring have to right to sentence their parent to loneliness! What about her needs? How dare those little smart asses tell the person who brought them into the world and wiped their dirty asses what she can or can’t do!”
“Wow, hit a cord there, didn’t I?” says Denise.
“Happened to a friend of mine. She has to hide her boyfriend, this, mind you, after they’ve been together two years! From her asinine, right-wing, religious brother who wouldn’t approve of the guy because he’s twice divorced and from her son who believes she should wear widow’s weeds for the last third of her life! She is, mind you, a very attractive woman with needs of her own, if you know what I mean. Like that little shit she produced would go without female companionship should his own spouse kick the bucket!”
“I know,” says Roberta. “The young can be extremely arrogant.”
“Well, if anything happened to Pete,” says Faye, “I most likely wouldn’t date, and I don’t have any kids, but boy if I did! One criticism like that out of their mouths and I’d change my will. They’d never know till I kicked.”
Justin, looking flushed, presents the bill. “Ladies,” he says, and nothing else.
“What’s wrong, Justin?” asks Denise. “You look distraught.”
“It’s nothing,” he says, then blurts, “My ex, it’s my ex! He comes here knowing full well it’s my shift and brings his new skanky bitch!”
The women pull him down into their fourth and empty seat. “When’s your shift over?” asks Denise.
“Not till four! Look at him over there,” he snaps. “Not in my area, but still!”
Roberta slips off the wide gold band she wears on her right thumb, her deceased father’s wedding ring. “Here,” she says. “Put this on your left hand and pay a visit to his table. Make sure he notices it. Just chat away happily till he does.”
“But, what if he asks about it?” says Justin.
“Just smile and say that you’ve been very busy. Then dart away and back to work.”
Flashing them a nervous grin, he slips the ring on and whisks away.
“I’m leaving a big tip,” says Roberta.
“Me too,” says Faye, and they all open their wallets.
“Next week, same time?” asks Denise.
“Yeah, but let’s try that Lebanese place you were talking about, Denise,” says Faye. “Then the week after, back here to see how Justin’s doing.”
When he returns to pick up their bill, he hands Roberta her ring and laughs. “You’re brilliant, girl,” he says.
“Such a dear,” says Denise, as they slip on their coats and file out.
“Next week, then!” They air kiss outside the restaurant.
“Assuming we’re all still here,” says Denise.
They laugh.
His Place (October 20, 2009. Issue 10.)
Liza pulled to the curb and opened her glove compartment to dig around for her map of the city. The directions he gave her weren’t working.
Men never understood directions. They’d say, “Take 54 to 11 and go east till 330, etc.” A woman knew to say, “Get on 54 at the Philmont Diner and go three lights till you see Beaumont shopping strip on your right. Turn right there onto Rt. 11. That’s east. Go five and a half miles till you see 330.” Real, actual directions. How was she supposed to know if she was going east back there? The sign didn’tsay. No wonder men were so fond of GPS.
Space aliens could take over the planet by just jamming the GPS’s. Men would be jumbled all over the highways, unable to figure out where they were.
She flattened the map on the steering wheel and snapped on the overhead light. It took her a while to understand where she was. “How on earth did I get over here? He says right here at the top of his directions, he says, ‘I’m on Greene Street in the Quarter.’ Well, I’m on the other side of the city from the Quarter!”
No way did Fourth Street lead to the Quarter! Yet (she stabbed at the paper he’d given her) he distinctly says, “Make a right onto Fourth!”
Fury washed over her. Hadn’t Aaron always done things like that? Been so cheerfully vague, so good-naturedly cavalier, while his opaqueness just led to frustration for others? How had that characteristic of his slipped her mind?
Then she remembered that no matter how irritating his peculiarities, once she was in his presence and smelled his perpetually summery scent or caught sight of the smooth skin on his neck or hands, their importance slipped away. She would forget what had annoyed her until lying in bed that night listening to him snore the rattling snore of the innocent.
What had made her snap that final time? Liza couldn’t seem to recall. Was it because he never gained weight, even if he pigged out? She could still picture his eyebrow raised just slightly to express his disapproval of people (such as herself) who expanded just by staring overlong at chocolate. Or possibly that way he had of letting his eyes slide toward younger, pretty women, while slyly pretending she hadn’t noticed?
She did remember what she had on as she shoved her belongings into suitcases and hauled them bangingly down the steps and out to the curb - a bikini. That was ten pounds ago and she’d been shiny with sweat. There was nothing hotter than a hot day in the city.
A man with wild hair walked past her car, then backed up to peer inside. She reached for her .38 revolver in the glove compartment. While she had a license to carry, it did not apply to within city limits, but she often kept it in the car nonetheless. She pulled it out and held it so the man could see it. He shrugged and walked on. She put it back in the glove compartment.
She’d turned a bit tough lately, weary and bored with the things men did - not just romantically and sexually, but with their love of war. Always some war going on, big or small, always inventing new weapons of mass destruction. She was fed up. If only she were a lesbian, maybe life would be easier. Of course that was a dimwitted thought. Lesbians had all sorts of problems.
She checked out the street. It was still light out, but in twenty minutes would be dark. On the corner was a deli. She seemed to remember that particular deli, had bought something to eat there once. A tuna fish on pumpernickel, she thought, and it had been quite good. Zoë Genoa, a coworker at the bookstore, had been with her.
Okay, that meant she was east of where where she was supposed to be.
She pulled onto the street, picturing how Zoë used to look with her lanky figure and long, black hair. Though Italian, Zoë looked a bit Native American and had played that up with turquoise jewelry and fringe. They’d had a good time together. That was before Liza met Aaron, in fact not long after she arrived in the city, wide open to possibilities. Just divorced and only twenty-six, she could waste a night, day or even a week - what difference did it make? There were thousands more coming. If one job sucked, there were others. New friends appeared everywhere. Should one man disappoint, there was a seemingly endless supply.
Of course all that was illusion. She understood now that time was very limited, and that the line of supposedly eligible men was composed mostly of eccentrics, wackos and homosexuals. Of the few left, what small percent would be attracted to her? Her illusions of being fatally alluring were long dead. Thusly, when she ran into Aaron at Sapphire’s Pub, she was ripe for his cheery invitation.
She had never expected to see him, at least not right away. The city was enormous. Probably she would run into him eventually or possibly never. But there he’d been holding court at a table of five. Were they friends or sycophants - writers with manuscripts doing what they had to? She did not find out.
“Hey, hey!” he yelled when he saw her. He stood up and rushed to meet her, then grabbed her upper arms and held her out so he could look at her. “My God, you look wonderful,” he said. “I could eat you up. (He was a bit drunk). What are you doing here? What are you doing in the city?”
“I’m moving back,” she said, after a pause. “They hired me back at the bookstore, only in a different position.”
“What? Not managing?”
“No, as an office associate. Just to get my foot in till a better opening comes up. One of the assistant managers might be moving. I just have to hang on.”
He smiled. She felt a thump somewhere in her groin. After everything, he still rang her chimes.
“Where are you staying?” he asked.
“I sublet the friend of a friend’s apartment. You don’t know her.”
He gave her his famous, all over stare that penetrated to her bones. “Where is it?” he said.
“Clancy. It’s on the edge of town.”
“Hey, why don’t you come over tomorrow night? For dinner! I’ll make you African groundnut stew. You always loved that.”
She still did. Although she hadn’t eaten it since walking out on him. She hesitated. What was the point of going over there? It occurred to her that he might live with someone else now. Being the old girlfriend would be embarrassing. It would make both herself and the new one uncomfortable.
“Are you with someone?”
An expression she couldn’t interpret flashed across his face. “No, not really. It would be just you and me. Like old times.”
Why did he have to add “like old times?” How complicated and icky.
Her heart raced. She had a sudden flash of them in bed, one of the better times. He was a great cuddler too. He knew how to please women in bed.
“Are you still in the same apartment?” she asked, against her better judgment.
“Hell, no,” he said. “I bought my own place.” That was when he wrote down the botched directions and with a flourish, handed her the paper. “Tomorrow night, six o’clock. I’ll serve you like a queen.”
He probably meant more than just food. Her feelings at that idea were so garbled she hadn’t the energy to examine them.
Here she was now, forced to study that damn map while her stomach growled. She turned shaky when she got too hungry. God, she hated to eat late. People always told you to come at six, then didn’t feed you really till eight. They put out canapés and plied you with wine so that by the time you got to the food, you were a thousand calories in and too full to eat. Why had she ever agreed to go? Her stomach was contracting insistently and she had to pee.
Her tires crunched over something she hoped wasn’t broken bottles as she rolled slowly toward the deli to check the street sign. It was missing. An empty pole where the name of the street should be. Idiots.
She speeded up till she came to a corner with a name: Miner’s Street. Okay, she could look for that on the map now, but there were six scary
looking, jiggling men standing on the street, some of them staring her way. She speeded up. Three more blocks before she could find a place to pull over, only now she was in front of a sex toy shop. Nervous, she checked the map.
Miner’s Street was a good mile from Aaron’s. She would need to turn around, then backtrack seven blocks till Eleventh. Turning around was not a simple task, what with all the one way streets, but she managed. She was going to be late. Was there any food in the car? She was starving.
Nothing but orange TicTacs. She popped a pile into her mouth and crunched ferociously.
Tyler Avenue, what she was currently on, was supposed to run into to First Street. If she went too far, she’d come to River Drive. Didn’t want that - River Drive merged onto a super highway and then she’d be whizzing off in a traffic nightmare. She drove slowly, eyes darting about for street signs. The light was growing dim. Five minutes more and she’d dig out her cell. Had he left his number on that paper?
She scrambled for the paper and yes, he had, but was that was a six or a five? A one or a seven? Why did he scribble? It was like those people who mumbled on the answering machine and you couldn’t make out the number they left no matter how many times you replayed it.
Ah, there was First Street, but oh no! It was one way and the wrong one. She made a left onto it when she wanted a right, intending to turn around first chance she got, which did not arrive for two more blocks. A time when she and Aaron got stuck on a one way street came to mind. She suddenly remembered so well that she could smell the fresh bagels they had in the car.
They’d been together eight years, living together six with no sign of marriage. Aaron avoided the subject, using verbal gymnastics and when he wasn’t permitted to avoid it, would cough in his sneaky way and say simply that marriage was only for child rearing by choice. He would emphasis that word. And thus, since he had no intention of having children, he had no reason to marry. Which would leave Liza shrinking to the size of a cockroach and yearning to escape under the baseboard in a cockroachish manner.
Those occasions usually happened in the presence of married friends. The women would shoot her sympathetic looks; their pity tangible. Even when Aaron spouted those words to rowdy and independent singles, it was embarrassing since they all knew that Liza very much wanted to be married.
She tried to explain to him what she meant by marriage, why she wanted it. “I’m not a romantic,” she insisted. “I want what my aunt and uncle have. They’re in their seventies and they’re best friends. I want that.”
“You don’t have to be married to have it,” he said, as he slowly peeled an orange.
She wanted to smash that orange all over the countertop, let it drip down the side of the cupboards onto the floor, then smear it with her shoe. “Yes, you do,” she said. “You certainly do.”
He had not replied, had silently bit into an orange slice.
She wasn’t as sure now that you needed marriage to enjoy that fine old companionship, but she had refined her position. Whether others did or did not need it, she herself did. It consoled her some that the aunt and uncle she’d used as an example had married each other in their forties, so there was time. But she just felt so tired.
So now she was on First Street, going the correct direction. Take it five blocks, according to the map, to Munston then make a right onto Sixth, then a quick left onto Wayne. That should get her to the Quarter. She ate another TicTac, leaving only three in the box. Her stomach growled rigorously.
Hookers were starting their work shifts, strolling along the street two or three abreast. A crowd of twenty-somethings pushed and shoved outside a club called Purple Grease. She kept her eye to the right for street signs and made the turn onto Munston only to find a detour claiming a bridge was out. What bridge?????
They must be referring, she guessed, to the one on River Drive, but that was blocks away. Why would they assume that everyone turning onto Munston wanted the bridge?
Spitting out expletives, she whirled the steering wheel in a U-turn at the next intersection, catching the eye of a cop who’d been hidden behind a van. While he signaled her to pull over, she tried to decide what role to play. Dazzled, befuddled farm girl come to the city? Maybe too old for that one. Worried about someone on his deathbed in the hospital? Having pains in her gut and about to poop her pants?
When he arrived at her window, she gave up. “Sorry, Officer, I was an idiot. Saw the bridge out sign and freaked. Someone gave me these terrible directions and the bridge thing really threw me off.” Her legs were jelly, but she managed to smile, winningly she hoped.
He wasn’t amused. “You could have killed someone.”
“Yeah, now I realize that,” she said, making herself small.
“Step out of the car, please.”
Oh no, he was giving her a breathalyzer test.
He got out his gear and held it to her face. “Breathe into this for five seconds,” he said.
She did as directed and watched as he checked the readout.
“You’re clean. Look, I’m going to let you go this time. But think next time. How would you feel if you killed some kid pulling a stunt like that?”
He was right. She felt herself chastised, lowdown, a piece of human garbage.
She climbed back into the car (at least it was pointed in the right direction now) and drove slowly, looking for a right turn somewhere, anywhere. A man was waving from the curb. At first she thought it was to her, but realized he was waving to anyone who would notice. He was wearing a sign that said, “2012, THE END OF TIME.”
That got her to thinking. Suppose it was true, that Mayan calendar business? It wouldn’t matter then that Aaron refused to marry her. All the happy people would be annihilated just the same as herself. All their cozy coupleness and sunny little kids would be sucked under the ground or into outer space or burnt to a cinder just like Liza and all the other miserable rejects of the world. She smiled in satisfaction.
Somehow she ended up on Sixth Street, just where she wanted to be. And there was Wayne Avenue, right where it should be. She signaled and turned left. She ought to call him. By now she was a good twenty- five minutes late. Of course, how many trillion times had he made her wait? Her cell phone wasn’t turned on and she didn’t feel like messing with it now. Wayne Avenue was supposed to run right to the Quarter. She drove on, more confident now.
That 2012 man and his end of the world carried her to other fringe topics, including more serious studies of the paranormal she had enjoyed reading about and tried to share with Aaron.
“Oh, Liza,” he’d said, his tone the sort one used on third graders after they’ve spouted something absurd and adorable. “You’re much too intelligent and educated to go for that Enquirer stuff, aren’t you?”
“I’m talking about serious studies done by serious researchers!” she snapped.
But Aaron’s expression continued to be amused, his eyes twinkling. She wanted to split his head open with an ax. Making fun of her as if she were an idiot who thought space brothers were talking to her through the fillings in her teeth!
Up ahead was a road block. NOOOOOOOOO! Something going on with the police. She inched closer to the car in front. In the distance, a cop was waving his arm. After five minutes, she got out and walked up a couple of car lengths. A man opened his car door.
“What’s going on up there?” he called. “Do you see anything?”
Someone from ahead yelled back, “Accident! They hit an old man!”
She heard a siren. It was a good ten minutes before they let the traffic move. She figured she definitely ought to give Aaron a call and turned on her cell. Why were there no bars? Searching for a network, searching for a network....in the middle of a CITY? She shoved the phone back into her purse.
After that, it was smooth rolling to the Quarter. But she drove with her head lowered in the manner of a bull about to charge. She’d suddenly remembered when Aaron had thoughtlessly dismissed her worries over having dizzy spells. Her immediate thought, of course, had been of her cousin Rachel who had died from a brain tumor. Rachel started out the same way, little dizzy spells, then progressed to deafness and finally went blind. A hideous death at only twenty-eight. So what if Liza’s own dizziness had turned out to be just an inner ear problem, it remained that Aaron hadn’t known that while making light of her troubles! It was then that she’d decided he didn’t really love her. Why she had lingered another year only illustrated her pathetically low self-esteem.
There it was, the Quarter. She glanced at the clock - she was almost forty minutes late. Aaron hated when people were late, especially when he was cooking, though he always had a valid excuse for being late himself when others were cooking.
She saw the street now and heavily and slowly, as if moving through jello, turned onto it. Why was she moving so sluggishly? What was wrong with her?
The numbers of the houses flashed by and there was Aaron’s: 124. A narrow two story townhouse all shiny new with brass fixtures on the blue front door and a colonial style lantern above it.
She sat, staring vaguely at the steering wheel. She felt frozen. She moved her hand; it moved all right. She dropped it back onto her thigh. Aaron would be inside there, in his neat, clean, fancy new house, the table all set with his blue plates arranged artfully, his brown batik napkins, his oversized wine glasses and wooden handled flatware. There’d be a salad in the center of the table, field greens, thinly sliced red onion, Greek olives and feta and a cutting board holding a small loaf of German black bread. The African stew would be on the stove, it’s thick groundnut gravy bubbling. On the counter would be a fresh fruit pie or homemade carrot cake. A meal for a queen.
But...though this meal for a queen waited inside, and though she was ravenous, she could not seem to climb out of the car. The minutes ticked by. After a while, she pulled back out onto the street and slowly drove away from the house. She caught a flash of light out her side window, Aaron’s front door opening, but she pressed on the gas and speeded up. Her tires screeched as she made a sudden right turn and she kept her foot on the gas till she was several blocks away. The traffic lights were all working with her, a sign from the Universe. She kept driving till she saw a friendly looking restaurant. There was an empty parking space right in front.