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This is to certify that the
thesis entitled
TALKING TO THE SEWER MAN: A COMPILATION
OF SHORT STORIES

presented by

MARGARET ANNE HAERENS

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

M.A. . ENGLISH
degree 1n

 

 

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0-7639 MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

 

LIIRARY
Michigan State
a University

 

 

 

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DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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MSU Is An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution
czwmmtan-nt

 

__.,..-——__—.— .—---—- - — .___

TALKING TO THE SEWER MAN: A COMPILATION OF
SHORT STORIES

BY

Margaret Anne Haerens

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of English

1992

4% 3: 96

ABSTRACT
TALKING TO THE SEWER MAN: A COMPILATION OF
SHORT STORIES
BY

Margaret Anne Haerens
This thesis is a set of short stories about people and

relationships in contemporary America. It was written over a

two year period as partial fulfillment for M.A. requirements.

ii

Dedicated to Patricia, my mother
and best friend.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Dr. Arthur Athanason for inspiring
me to see something new. And special thanks to Dr. William
Penn, a man whose encouragement and advice was the light at
the end of my academic tunnel.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Valerie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Nathan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Gaining Momentum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Breakfast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Of Ruthie and the Real World . . . . . . . . . . . 36
The Sewer Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
The Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Cristina’s Mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Sea Turtles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

INTRODUCTION

This compilation of short stories was completed in two
years, the time it took to fulfill the requirements for my
M.A. degree.

If the stories have a common thread, it is the
determination of its protagonist to strive for something
beyond what they have, what they know. It may be subtle, and
it may be unhealthy, but still, these characters try to see or
feel something that. means ‘more. They' may fail, or' even

succeed, but the effort is what makes living worthwhile.

Valerie

"Your mother is so pretty," Angela said to Valerie over
her plate of hot dogs and potato salad.

"Yeah," said Valerie, watching her mother talk to Mr.
Barette from a hill overlooking the picnic.

"She sure is skinny. How does she stay so skinny?" Angela
asked, watching Valerie’s mother too.

Valerie leaned over her own plate which was resting in
the grass in front of her, and picked at a piece of barbecue
chicken. "She doesn’t eat, that’s how.‘'

"I wish I had that kind of willpower. I especially wish
my mother did." Angela looked over at her mother, a large
woman eating an icecream cone near the softball diamond.

"I think it’s the whole divorce thing too, you know, when
my dad was home she used to do all this cooking, but now that
she’s working at this place she comes home and she’s too tired
half the time," Valerie explained.

"Oh," said Angela quietly. Her parents had divorced when
she was only a baby.

They sat on the hill, looking over all the adults half-
drunk from the keg of beer, laughing like little kids as the

sun made its slow decline, leaving streaks of red and purple

 

 

    

 

 

above the trees.

"My mother is so embarrassing," Angela said, as Angela’s
mother chased Ben the messenger around the picnic table,
trying to taste his snow cone.

"One year my dad got really drunk and vomited all over
the buffet table."

Both girls giggled. Angela put her plate down. "Was your
mother mad?"

"She wouldn’t speak to him for days." Valerie smiled.
Angela lived on the next block and went to her junior high
school. She would have to watch what she said. Angela didn’t
need to know what a jerk her father was, that her mother had
to put a restraining order out on him just two months ago.
Then he left, just left without saying goodbye, her mother
saying that it was because he didn’t want to pay the child
support.

She didn’t want to believe that. Valerie could blame her
father for many things, like passing along his thin lips, his
coarse, dark brown hair, his square body. Valerie was already
bigger than. her :mothem' by two inches and_ she ‘was only
thirteen. It was her mother, tiny and petite and strong,
ultimately stronger than her father, that had to
share equal blame for the messy house and empty cupboards.

"My dad lives in Arizona," Angela volunteered. "He
remarried this older lady who lives in a trailer and they
bought brand new Harleys." She pulled her kneesocks up.

"That’s cool," Valerie said. She had never been to

4
Arizona, or ridden on a motorcycle before.

"Your mom start dating yet?" Angela asked.

"No," said Valerie, as if the question was the most
ignorant one she’d ever heard. "My mother is too busy with
this job to date. She just got a promotion, you know." Valerie
was proud of that. Her mother had put in long hours once she
had gone full- time, and Valerie knew that her mother had been
worried about money. But with the promotion, her mother had
been more relaxed, even happy.

"That’s cool," Angela said, nonchalantly. Her' mother
hadn’t gotten a promotion in a long time. She wondered what
her mother would have to do to get one. Her mother had been
there a lot longer than Valerie’s mother.

"Your mother sure is pretty," Angela said again, slower
this time, and Valerie heard her and looked down the hill
toward her mother once again. She was still talking with Mr.
Barette, their bodies close together, watching each other as
they spoke, and Valerie watched her mother’s head bow as he
leaned to her ear, and then her mother smiled, not an adult
smile, but the kind of smile Valerie saw on the pretty girls
at school when the boys came round. That her own mother would
remind her of these girls, girls that made fun of Valerie in
gym class and home ec, made her lay back on the grass on the
hill and look up at the sky.

"Your mom works for Mr. Barette, doesn’t she?" Angela
asked.

"Yeah, so?"

5

"He’s never been married. My mother says he’s one of the
best catches in the corporation." Angela ate the last bit of
hot dog left on her paper plate. "My mom would know too. She's
looking to get married again."

Valerie sat up slowly, trying to appear calm. "Not my
mom. She’s got bigger fish to fry." She stretched her shirt
out a bit, not wanting it to get caught in the folds of her
stomach.

"Whatever." Angela rose to her feet. "I’m gonna get some
more pop. Do you want some?"

"Thanks." Valerie handed her glass to her and laid back
on the hill. From her back she watched Angela waddle down the
hill, almost slipping at the bottom, and then Angela’s mother
call her.

"My mother doesn’t even know I’m here," she said out
loud. Two young boys, around seven maybe, ran up and down the
hill about twenty feet away from her. She propped herself up
on her elbows and saw her mother walking with Mr. Barette in
the direction of the bathroom near the parking lot.

Valerie sat up again, watching them getting further and
further away, until finally she got up and walked toward the
bathroom herself. She walked quickly and steadily, breaking
into a trot when she reached the trees. She looked for her
mother's little lavender sundress, sleeveless, and the cute
leather sandals that were perfect on her tiny alabaster feet.
But there were only other couples, nameless adults acting like

idiots, talking too loudly, laughing too easily, and Valerie

6
reached the bathrooms too soon.

She walked in, searching through the woman and girls in
front of the mirror, some of them smoking, laughing,
gossiping, and then she gasped when she heard a very tall
woman with short hair and glasses mention her mother’s name,
Lucy. Valerie stopped, waited, forgot to breathe, as the tall
woman bent forward to butt out her cigarette and said
something to a shorter lady in a long, brown skirt. Valerie
turned when she heard them laugh a laugh she recognized from
her crowd in junior high, a laugh she had laughed before:
jealous and accusatory.

Outside, the sky seemed more vibrant as Valerie stumbled
toward the parking lot. The gravel crunched under her feet,
and the rows of cars stood silently as she passed one after
the other.

"Valerie?" Her mother called from the next row.

Valerie turned and saw her with Mr. Barette, both shy as
if they had been caught doing something that they shouldn’t.

"I want to go home," Valerie said, looking past her
mother at Mr. Barette, his face so different from her fathers.
Mr. Barette was light, and small featured and confident. He
didn’t look away, even when Valerie repeated her demand, this
time narrowing her eyes with warning.

"Don’t take that tone of voice with me," her mother said,
but Valerie just looked from Mr. Barette to her mother, not
changing expression.

"We’re going to start the bonfire..." Mr. Barette began.

7

"Jim," her mother’s voice was flat, and Valerie didn’t
care about the damn bonfire or the damn tall woman in the
bathroom, she just wanted to go home.

"I’ll wait in the car." Valerie said, and walked through
the row to the passenger side of her mother’s car. She opened
the door without looking at either one of them. She wondered
where her father was. Valerie looked up, watching her mother
talk with Mr. Barette, it seemed as if he was trying to
convince her to stay, and she was listening, head bowed toward
him, and then her mother looked up smiling like she used to do
with Valerie’s father when they had been happy a long time
ago. Valerie held her breath as Mr. Barette reached out and
touched her mother’s arm, tenderly, seductively, as no man had
ever touched Valerie, and Valerie began to cry, not really
knowing why, feeling like an animal trapped in a cage watching

the people walk by, unhindered.

Nathan

The word got out around dinnertime; Nathan Appleman was
up in the tree and wouldn’t come down, even for his mother.
Joey Tirone said that he was so high up that everyone was
afraid the branches would break. That’s all the kids on the
block needed to hear- who cared about dinner when Nathan could
fall and break a leg or something?

I went over there with my little brother, Tommy, and
Rich. At first, Rich said it was kid stuff, and we were too
old to watch some eight year-old throw a tantrum. But I felt
I had to go, after all, I had been Nathan’s babysitter since
his family had moved in a couple of years ago, and maybe I
could talk him into coming down. So Rich said it was okay;
we’d only been going together for a week and he was one of the
coolest guys in school.

We could see the Appleman’s house from the driveway.
There was a ring of kids and bikes around the maple in the
front yard, and we could make out a dark shape pretty far up.
It was March, not too cold, but still not spring, and Nathan
had no leaves to hide him.

Even from a couple houses away, I could see that Nathan’s

mother wasn’t outside. She had asked me to call her Janine,

9
but I still couldn’t make myself do it; after all, I was only
twelve and a half and she was in her thirties. I tried to for
awhile, especially after Mr. Appleman (he said to call him
David) left and moved into an apartment near the mall.

It seemed that Nathan was so high up, he’d kill himself
if he fell. Nathan was small and light, but the branches up
that high didn’t seem strong enough for even his small frame.

I called to him, but he didn’t respond.

"He’s not talking to anybody." Joey Tirone was Nathan’s
best friend. "Not even his mom."

Rich squeezed my hand. "Oh man, he’s gonna splat when he
falls."

I hit him. "Shut up. He’s not going to." There were a
half—dozen or so kids around the base of the tree, all around
Nathan’s age or younger, and Rich seemed to tower above them.
They watched him cautiously.

"Does anybody know why he’s up there?" I asked, but no
one answered. "All right, how long has he been up there?"

"It’s been awhile." One of the kids answered. "All of a
sudden he just ran out and climbed up the tree, and his mom
was out here and everythin’, but he kept crying, and she kept
saying she was sorry."

I looked toward the house, and there was his mother, in
the front room, watching Nathan through the window, and I
don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so sorry.

"I’m going to talk to Mrs. Appleman, okay?" I let go of

Rich’s hand.

 

10

"You want me to go too?"

I looked up at Nathan, so small and so high up. "No,
that’s alright," I said.

Mrs. Appleman saw me cross the lawn and was waiting for
me by the front door. She looked tired, and thin, and she held
a kleenex and a drink. I could smell the alcohol the minute I
came into the foyer.

"Hi, Jane, as you can see, I have another small problem
here." She moved in short, nervous movements.

"I’m out of ideas. I really don’t know what to do." She
started crying, not making any noise, only tears, one after
the other. She took a drink.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Does anything really happen?" She spread her arms apart,
eyes fixed on nothing, asking a question to the wall. "I’In
sorry?" I asked.

She blew her nose and walked back to the window. "Well
you know that Nathan’s father moved out last month. It’s been
tough on all of us."

"So Nathan just went up the tree?"

She took another drink. Her hand was shaking, and she
spilled a little on the front of her sweater.

"Mrs. Appleman?"

She half-turned, her drink swinging up near her head.
"Janine, please." She smiled. "Call me Janine."

I shifted uncomfortably. "You don’t have to tell me what

happened, Janine."

11
"That’s better, isn’t it? It makes me feel better,
anyway. It would make me feel better to tell you what
happened. Although I’m not exactly sure what happened. Things
start out when you’re young, you know, you have all these
dreams... we got married when we were only nineteen... he was
so handsome then." She started to cry again, still silent.

"And then he brought me here and there’s a lesson in there

somewhere, I know there is," and suddenly she was almost
yelling, "you can never love someone enough to make them
happy."

"Oh," I said, and wished with everything in me that I
could leave.

"I’m sorry, you don’t need to hear this," she looked over
to me, it seemed as if she wanted approval, or permission, she
wasn’t making much sense, but I shook my head.

"No, that’s okay," I said as if it were.

"Do you want to see a picture of my wedding day?" she
asked. She picked up a picture off of the table next to the
bar, a framed picture of her and Mr. Appleman, her in her
dress, he in his tuxedo. I had seen it many times before, the
both of them looking like two totally different people, young
and happy and expectant.

"I’ve seen it, it’s a nice picture," I assured her, and
she put it down jerkily, as if the frame was too hot to the
touch.

"And you find yourself essentially alone," she was

shaking now, "helpless, really, unable to admit that you made

12
one hell of a mistake. Can you believe it?" And Mrs. Appleman
laughed, a choking, mean laugh.

"Wow, that’s awful," I said, not quite sure if I should
go over to comfort her, or stay.

"There are a lot of reasons why Nathan climbed the tree."
She drank again, emptying the glass and setting it down on a
front room table. "Just tell me why I’m punished for the sins
of his father? Why is it my fault that his father left?"

"Uh, I don’t know, I don’t think that you are." It seemed
that she needed an answer. "Maybe you’re just the closest
person around, and he has to take it out on someone."

"I am the closest person to him." She said it as if she
were realizing it for the first time.

"You’re his mother," I said, trying to make her feel
better.

She nodded. "I’m always the bad guy. Telling him to come
in. Do his homework. That his daddy isn’t coming home tonight.
I’m always the reason, the scapegoat. Don’t let that happen to
you."

"I’m only twelve and a half, Janine." I said, knowing
that this would make her smile, and she came over and hugged
me, smelling of gin and lime, and I hugged her back.

"I’m glad that you’re my friend," she said.

She looked very young, and suddenly I felt very old. "Me
too," and I felt sad.

As she let me go, I heard a car in the driveway.

"That'll be David. I called him on his car phone and told

13
him to get his ass over here to talk to his son." She paused
for a moment, taking a deep breath before opening the front
door, wiping her eyes with the ragged kleenex.
Mr. Appleman was already under the tree, talking up at

Nathan, and both Mrs. Appleman and I walked out onto the

porch.

"I’ll get a ladder and bring you down. I will, don’t
think I won’t." He looked over to the porch. "Hello Janine,
Jane."

"Hello, Mr. Appleman."

The kids around the base of the tree began to stir in the
near darkness; Nathan started to climb down quickly, agilely,
it was quite exciting really, watching him come down and
wondering what his parents would do to him.

When he reached the ground, Mr. Appleman grabbed him and
hugged him roughly. I could hear Mrs. Appleman behind me,
opening the front door and going back into the house. Without
really thinking, I followed her back inside. She was pouring
herself another drink at the bar in the front room, and turned
when she heard the door close, her eyes darting from me to the
door.

"Did you see that? He just comes over here and orders
Nathan to come down," her whole body was shaking and she
pointed out the front window, "and he just comes down." She
took a sip. "Just like that. A savior. A goddamn savior to
everyone but me." And she began to cry, weeping, and turned

back to the bar.

14

I just stood in the foyer, suddenly realizing that it was
almost dark. The light from the porch fell through the front
room window, illuminating the bar and the back of Mrs.
Appleman’s bowed head. Mr. Appleman burst through the door,
one hand on the back of Nathan’s neck. "Janine!" he yelled,
and then saw her, but she didn’t turn around at the sound of
his voice.

Nathan looked up at me, wordlessly, his eyes calmer than
I thought they should’ve been. I smiled, tentatively, wanting
to reassure him, knowing that my weak smile meant nothing.

"Goddamn it Janine," Mr. Appleman’s voice was a threat,
"what the hell is going on here?" He let Nathan go, suddenly
seeing me, "oh, Jane, you're still here."

I looked at all three of them, the light coming through
the front window, and the space between me and the door. "I'm
glad everything turned out okay," I said, then felt stupid.
Everything was not okay, and I turned in embarrassment, opened
the front door and stepped out onto the porch.

Rich was out front in the street, and under the porch
lamp I felt light-headed, I could hear Mrs. Appleman yelling
as the door closed, and I walked across the lawn to where Rich
was standing.

"He’s gonna get it, isn’t he?"

I considered my answer carefully. "Probably."

We started to walk back down to my house. The kids that
had been hanging around to watch Nathan were still out on the

street, still high on the excitement of watching Nathan in the

15
tree. We could hear them yelling to each other down the block,
and in the cold night air, their voices made Mrs. Appleman and
her wedding picture seem very far away.

"You want to go to the 7-11 and get a Big Gulp?" Rich
asked.

"I guess, but we have to tell my mother first. She’ll be
worried." I saw my house, the porch light on, and thought of
my mother inside.

"What’s going on in Nathan’s house anyway?" Rich asked.

I thought of Janine, h0w sorry she had looked, how out of
control she was at the end. I would never forget watching her
from the foyer, the light streaming through the window, her
head bowed.

"Nothing," I said.

Gaining Momentum

"I’m leaving. I really am this time," she said. Pete
didn’t even look up to see her leave. It was less than two
minutes to half-time and Minnesota was making a surge.

"Aren’t you even going to say anything this time? Not
even good-bye you stupid son of a bitch?" Dee stood in front
of the television. "How’s this?" She wiggled her butt and
started to unzip her jeans. "Watch this!" She turned her back
to him, bent over, and mooned him.

"Hon, if you’re on your way back to the kitchen could you
grab me another Blue Ribbon? And check to see if we need more
’cause Russ and Paul are coming over at half—time?" He smiled
expectantly, this was usually the point she came over to slap
him, or jump on him, or sometimes even kiss him.

She straightened and gave him a sarcastic smile over her
shoulder. "Do it yourself, you need the exercise."

Heck, her little tricks hadn’t caused him to miss any of
the game. If she was in that mood this would be a long- what
luck, he thought, still a lot of time left. If they could just
score before going into the locker room and get the momentum
back...that’s all they needed, some momentum.

It was then Carter fumbled the handoff, and the Eagles

16

17
recovered the ball. Pete sat on the edge of his easy chair and
moaned. "Arrrrghhh," he said.even.more softly, letting it roll
out of his mouth. Philadelphia now had a chance to score at
least a field goal.

"Oh, and you do need more Blue Ribbon. You’ve had at
least nine or ten out of that case." Dee grabbed one for
herself. Might as well, she thought, it looked like another
long, boring afternoon in front of the television. And Pete
just sat in that old easy chair, not even changing the damn
channel. It would never change, she thought, he would never
change.

Pete stood and trotted over to the refrigerator to survey
the beer situation for himself. Yeah, she was right as usual,
there was no way what was left of that case would last past
the third quarter, not with Russ and Paul coming, especially
if Minnesota was going to continue playing like this. No way.
A definite beer run would have to be made.

Dee’s soft footsteps came up next to him. "I’ll go. I’ve
got to get out of here for at least a little while. That t.v.
is driving me absolutely crazy."

He tried to give her money but she just pushed his hand
away. "No, that’s all right, I’ll take care of it."

But Pete didn’t want her to take care of it. He pulled
out a twenty dollar bill and forced it into her tiny,
manicured hands. "C’mon, they’re my friends. I mean, if you
want to pay for it, I won’t press the issue, but..."

Dee lookedtnpeu:him expectantly, nodded, and stuffed the

l8
bill into her jacket pocket and started for the door.

"Hey Dee," he called after her, "you are coming back?"

She looked at him as if from a great distance. He seemed
unsure and quite alone under the bright kitchen light. She was
seized with the impulse to run. "Don’t count on it," she said,
and managed a weak smile.

Pete watched her get into the car. She was a small,
petite woman with big platinum hair. She was quite attractive
really, the observation aroused him, and he walked quickly to
the window to call to her, but she was already gone.

He could see that the Eagles were still trying to get in
from the four yard line. The Minnesota defense was holding
on, there were only twenty seconds left, Philly had spent
their last time-out. Hold on fellas, he thought to himself,
just hold on ’till the half, if you can do it, so can I.

He could live with three points, that made the score
20-10, not an insurmountable deficit for Minnesota to make up.
He was confident, damn it, and opened another beer to
celebrate. A cool autumn breeze came through the screen door
and he crossed the room to greet it. The beer was cold,
predictable, not ornery like his wife. She was bored, he knew
that, but it was a good life, especially at times like this,
when the beauty of the land was unequaled by anything you
could find anywhere else. He walked outside, just to kill some
time before the guys came over, and stopped at the edge of the
creek that ran through his backyard. The creek eventually

became a river which ran over to town, it in fact paralleled

19
the road his wife was taking to get to the liquor store. He
could walk along the water, past the small, dirty houses like
his, then past the summer cottages and cheap motels that lined
the way. On the other side of the mountain were resorts and
chalets and luxury accommodations. He could just keep going,
past the multi-colored mountain, and into the valley. He could
keep going, get some momentum, right past everything he’d
known and find somewhere totally new. He could start right
now. But then again, he thought, Dee would find him on her way
back and probably run him over with the Bonneville. That would

definitely be his luck.

Paul and Russ pulled up before Dee returned. Pete was
still in his backyard, watching a flock of birds start south.
He was tall and wide and solid. But his face was lined and shy
and slightly smiling. He was comfortably handsome, and
well—worn.

"Hey, hey, how ’bout that defense?" Russ called out to
him as he got out of the car.

"Hey, hey, how ’bout it? We barely got out with our butts
intact." Everyone was mildly drunk, and the autumn chill was
invigorating. The arrival of’ his friends comforted, him,
somehow made him feel as if everything would be alright, that
this night would live up to its promise. The loneliness that
had surrounded him, the restlessness, was gone now, and he
involuntarily squared his shoulders against the cool air.

"Yeah, they got the momentum back," Paul said, nodding

20
his head.

They all went into the house. Russ and Paul settled onto
the worn furniture in the family room while Pete grabbed the
half-empty case of beer from the refrigerator. He tossed a
couple of bottles over the kitchen counter to them, and took
another one for himself.

Minnesota was getting ready to kick off to Philadelphia
for the start of the second half, and Dee still wasn’t back
with the beer. What if she really did take off, he thought and
then quickly reassured himself. No way, she'd never go. She’d
threaten until she was blue in the face, but she’d never truly
go. She loves me, he thought, everyone thinks about going, but
thinking and doing are two different things. He resisted the
urge walk out to the driveway to wait for her, he remained
where he was, he just strained to hear the car come up the
gravel drive, and was relieved when he finally heard it.

She walked up to the door with two big, brown bags. She
could see Pete still in the easy chair; the television was on,
but he was looking at her. The living room was welcoming and
warm.

Paul jumped up from the couch to open the door and help
her. Pete smiled, and she smiled back. He liked the way she
looked at that moment, in the doorway, away from the light. He
got up, just to be close to her, and helped her with her
jacket. "What’d ya get, Dee?" he asked. "Did ya get any
chips?"

"Well, they were having a sale down at the Stop-and-Go,

21
so I thought you guys would like a change for once." She
pulled a case of Miller Lite from the bag. Cans.

He stared at the case, trying to stifle the anger that
was rising within him. Cans, he thought. She couldn’t just get
what he wanted, it had to be what she wanted. She knew he
would drink anything, as long as it was in a bottle. Briefly,
he thought that she had done it on purpose, mad that he had
invited his friends over to watch the game. "Thanks," he said
half-heartedly, and he saw her smile disappear.

"Are you going to drink it?" she asked, and she really
cared if he did or not. He answered that he would, but he
didn’t want to meet her eyes, for a brief moment he wanted her
to suffer, to feel badly about her choice, and Dee was a smart
woman. She knew him, because she didn’t believe him.

"I’ll drink it Dee," volunteered Russ, and he glanced
back at Pete, "I like cans. Ginnie really likes that brand."

"Yeah, I’ll have some, I drink just about everything."
The guys were trying to get him out of trouble, but it wasn’t
going to work with Dee.

Pete kept his head down, no use adding fuel to the fire,
and he knew his wife was a bonfire once she got going. And she
would burn all night if he wasn’t careful.

"Fine," was all she said.

"Good, then I’ll drink. the rest of ‘the Pabst," he
mumbled, more to himself than anyone, but he realized that
everyone heard him and he turned quickly to see the back of

Dee's platinum head and pink jacket leaving the house.

 

 

22

"Shit," he said, exasperated but calm. "Why don’t I learn
to keep my big mouth shut?"

Pete looked over at Russ, who was staring blankly at the
screen as if he were having a hard time concentrating on the
game. Paul had opened a bag of tortilla chips from the bag he
had taken from Dee and caught Pete’s eyes. "I’d still like to
try that Miller Lite," he said, and put a handful of chips

into his mouth.

Minnesota was coming down the field, chipping away at the
Eagle defense with short screen passes and several runs. Pete
tried not to wonder about Dee, although he listened for the
car. She was walking around out there somewhere, probably
watching the sun go down over the water.

At the middle of the third quarter, the Vikings finally
scored on a touchdown pass that Carter almost dropped in the
end zone. It wasn’t pretty, but they had scored. On the
kickoff, Philadelphia fumbled, and the Vikings recovered and
quickly converted it into another touchdown.

Russ and Paul and Pete hopped around the living room and
yelled like a bunch of schoolboys. Hell, it was hard being
Minnesota fans in South Dakota, being so far away from your
team and all, and now they were only three points down with a
little more than a quarter left.

Pete went back into the kitchen to grab one of the last
Blue Ribbons from the refrigerator. From the window over the

sink, he could see the headlights from the Bonneville. Dee was

23
in the car, he could see the small orange light from the
cigarette she was smoking. He took one of the cold.Miller Lite
cans from the unopened case she had bought and carried both
outside.

The gravel scrunched under his boots as he crossed to the
Bonneville. She was sitting with her back up to the door and
had the radio tuned to a country western station. The music
was loud and she didn’t hear him coming.

"Hey," he said, gently tapping on the window to get her
attention.

She turned slowly and deliberately. Once again, he saw
her face like he had a thousand times, and he liked it. In the
shadows of departing light she was pretty in a way he hadn’t
remembered, as if nothing had come between them, and as if she
could be more tolerant about things. Especially about him.

She rolled down the window a little bit more and threw
out the remainder of her cigarette. Pete passed the can of
beer to her and she took it with one hand and grabbed his hand
with the other. She pressed her face against it. He was strong
and big and safe. But Dee realized that she didn’t want him to
take care of her anymore and she kissed his hand, then his
wrist and finally, his forearm.

Pete felt like he was being pulled into the car with her.
He was uncomfortable and even scared, no, terrified, by the
intensity of her affection. He knew deep down that she was
scared too, and he bent down to kiss her, to grab ahold of her

so she couldn’t get away.

24
"Sometimes I just need an excuse is all," she explained,
"ya know how sometimes you really want to do something, do
somethin’ else from what you’ve been doing, going somewhere
you’ve never seen before."

"Restless, is that what you mean?"

"Yeah, that’s it, restless like, that’s exactly it. And
I know that you don’t feel that way at all, you’ll be here
’til you die. Not that that’s wrong or anything. It’s just
when I see you so settled, so happy with everything, I feel
like we’re two different people. I feel it then more then
anytime." She dropped his hand to open the beer. The words
were spilling out of her, she was gaining momentum now, there
was no stopping her. And she wasn’t mad, at least not at him,
at least he didn’t think so, and he wanted her to keep on
talking as long as she wanted to. "I know you love me and I
love you but we’re two different people with our own lives, ya
know? Not that it’s not like we can’t share our lives but
sometimes it scares the shit out of me, everything just scares
the shit out of me. I just want to run."

"But you never really go." Pete reached out with a
tremulous hand and turned out the headlights.

"No, I never really go." She paused and looked into the
kitchen. She could see the windowsill lined with tiny
houseplants she’d grown from offshoots of others; and she saw
the bare, bright light directly over the sink. The kitchen was
small and yellow and glaring. "But that doesn’t stop me from

thinkin’ about it every now and then. I’d like a less domestic

 

 

 

25
life, is all."

Pete was quiet for awhile. He couldn’t accept this, he
couldn’t accept the realization.that Dee wasn’t happy with the
life he had given her. And maybe it was the cool fall evening
or that he was scared shitless, but he couldn’t stop shaking.
So, he took her hand again, this time more tightly, and felt
her tiny, bony fingers intertwined with his. "Maybe all you
need is a vacation. During Christmas we can go up to Canada,
or we could visit your friends in San Francisco."

"Yeah, maybe that’s all I need," she said quietly and
drained the rest of her beer. He knew that she didn’t believe
that, and he wanted to say something that would make
everything better, like it had been before. Yet something told
him that nothing he could say would change the way she saw
things. And in that instant, he felt his life drop away from
him, plummeting, uncontrollable.

"Why don’t you go back in. I’ll be there in a couple of
minutes." She looked back up to him and there were tears in
her eyes. He knew, he hoped, that she would come back in in
the end. She was not a woman to struggle against the odds. But
she hadn’t realized that yet.

And Dee was angry as she watched him hesitantly walk.back
to the house, she didn’t want to be, but she didn't want to
hear him anymore. She looked back in the window and saw him
put the empty cans on top of the refrigerator. He looked back
out at her and she thought, you can’t see me, it’s dark, and

she turned up the music. She tried to remember when it had

26
been easy and good. It had been, and sometimes still was. But
somewhere along the line she woke up and found herself in the
very situation she thought she’d never be in, and she didn’t
know what was important to her anymore. She closed her eyes
and imagined starting the car and following the creek past the
mountain and beyond, she didn’t have to know exactly where,
that wasn’t important, it was just the idea of beyond,
something beyond the game, the house, the mountain that
excited her. She was better than this, she thought, she used
to have plans. She checked herself in the mirror, felt the
alcohol hit her bloodstream, and saw her eyes, like the eyes
of a drugged lion. She closed them again, startled, more
afraid than before, and fought back the rising tears. When she

opened her eyes, Pete was gone from the window.

Neither team had scored in his absence, Minnesota was
still three points ibehind, but they' were: driving' toward
Philadelphia’s goal.

It didn’t take her long to come back in. A few minutes,
actually. She immediately went to the kitchen and got another
beer. He knew that she was embarrassed in front of Russ and
Paul for walking out, she didn’t know how to fit in and not
sure if she wanted to, but Russ and Paul were too engrossed in
the game to notice her arrival. She cracked the beer open
forcefully, as if her force meant something, meant she could

change something she hadn’t been able to before.

 

 

27

During a time out, he went over to her like a puppy
smelling another on the sidewalk: playful and apprehensive.
She had lit another cigarette and threw the pack on top of the
kitchen table.

He gazed out at the Bonneville alone in the dark and the
moon over the trees throwing light on the creek in his
backyard. "We’re just short of paradise, ya know?" he said
without warning and she looked over and smiled because that
was something he’d said to her before, several times really,
long ago. She reached out and put her arm around his back.

"Yeah, but only a little bit." She too looked out at
their backyard, and he knew she was thinking about the creek
and where it eventually led.

It was then that Minnesota scored to take the lead.
Everyone went crazy, even Dee, she let out a yell that
surprised them all.

"All they needed was momentum, that’s what I told you,"

he said, but no one was listening.

Breakfast

The menu was full of things that he used to eat. Most of
all, he loved the omelette with tomatoes and onions. I didn’t
particularly like onions, but I still loved him, so when the
waitress finally came, that’s what I ordered. I wish that he
was around. He would have been amused.

"You don’t like onions," Matt said from over his menu.

"How would you know what I like and what I don’t?" I lit
another cigarette and stared at him as he ordered. He’s losing
his hair, I thought. He’s losing his hair and he wears

glasses. He wears glasses and he’s not that great in bed.

The morning sun was bright. The reflection off of the
hardened snow made it even more so, and it cut through the
room in long, glaring strips full of falling dust. It annoyed
me to see the sun.

"Why the hell did we have to get up so early?" I squinted
at him and he at me. The waitress was gone, and I already
needed more water.

"Why do you have to smoke so early in the morning?" He
took another sip of coffee. "You’re making me sick."

"No, what’s making you sick is the twenty or so beers you

28

29
had last night." I tried to flag down the waitress. "You
should have just gotten stoned with the rest of us."

"No, it just makes me want to sleep. And when you stay
over, that’s the last thing you want to do. I thought smoking
weed is supposed to make you tired." He looked blankly at me,
and I at him. There was nothing to say.

Looking at him, I was suddenly very tired. I let my hand
fall and rest on the table. Very tired and very bored. At
least with him, him that was long gone, I was never bored.

"What are you scared of?" He asked suddenly."Are you
scared of me?"

"Do you think I am?" His slow, languorous movements
discomforted me.

"I don’t know anything."

Our breakfast came, and I started eating, but he just
stared. He stared until I had to look up at him. The sun was
reflecting off of his glasses, and his mouth was taut and
straight.

"Eat your breakfast, Matt. Don’t think too much, it
doesn’t suit you." I ate my omelette, and savored every one of
those damn onions. He would have loved it.

The last thing I wanted to do was spend a Friday morning
eating eggs with Matt. I never thought I’d be here period,
still in school, still smoking weed, waking someone up early
in the morning to have sex again.

"Done?" I asked. He had pushed his plate away and didn’t

look well. He got up and walked quickly to the bathroom. I

30
knew that he shouldn’t have had eggs on a hangover, but he had
this unequaled stubbornness that made him think that he could
change things. That by wanting it bad enough, it would come
true sooner or later.

I lit another cigarette. The inclusive light gave me a
headache. I could see cars speed by on the highway, fast and
silent, far away. The snow sat in dirty, icy drifts in the
parking lot. A young, blond girl in a black leather jacket
wrenched her arm away from a short, dark.man in a light trench
coat. She yelled at him in hysterical, desperate spasms.
Finally, she stopped and awkwardly lit a cigarette. The man
just watched her, he seemed quite a bit older, and then his
mouth moved, slow and constant, and she nodded and cried some
more.

Hey, don’t listen to him, I thought. He’s handing you a
line of bull. Don’t buy it. But she was. As a final defensive
maneuver, she turned away from him toward my window. Look at
me, I demanded silently, but her eyes remained downward. I
could see the dark roots of her hair, the streaks of mascara
under her eyes. She kept the cigarette close to her mouth,
almost as if she had to stop herself from saying something.

I wondered what he was saying to her. He was calm and
olive and confident. His body took up miles of sidewalk, it
was as if he blocked out the sun, and when she lifted her head
and squinted expressionless at me, I knew he’d won.

She righteously faced him again and.he stepped forward to

retrieve her.

31

"Hey, what’s up?" The girl in front of my booth had
bobbed, brown hair, no makeup, purple denim jacket. What’s her
name, I thought peacefully. After all, she didn’t know mine.
Jack’s apartment, I suddenly knew where I knew her from, she
was Jack’s old girlfriend, for Christ’s sake.

"Hey, how’ve you been?" I asked tentatively. "How’s
Jack?"

"I just saw him the other day, actually... he’s still
living over on Linden. I haven’t seen you in so long..."

"Yeah, since last summer, it’s been a long time," I said
and looked quickly for the blond in the parking lot. She was
gone.

She sat down halfway, one leg leaning on the cushion of
the booth, one still standing. "You remember Art Fair, when
Jack and Jake and who else? Was it Tamara?" She tilted her
head up, as if the ceiling would help her remember, and her
memories made me warm, her voice suddenly made me happy. We’d
had some good times together, this girl and I, and most
importantly, she knew Jon, him, and her memories made him real
once again.

"Tamara and Carol." I said, and smiled, wishing anything
I would recall her name.

"That’s right, you’re absolutely right," she was excited
now, "they all went to that farm in Saline and you and I and
Eric Robinson..."

"Rabbi! I haven’t thought of him in ages!" And it came

back to me, I felt the rush of being there, being drunk on

32
Jack’s porch, waiting for Jon to come back.

"I never thought we’d get out of that, trying to get the
cops out of there before they all got home." She nodded her
head, pleased, and leaned back into the booth.

"No, I didn’t either." It was as happy as I’d been in
months. It was the ghost of another life.

She zipped her jacket. "You know Rabbi moved to Chicago?"

"With Jon, yes, I know," I said nervously, we were
approaching sacred ground, something that belonged only to me
that she was demanding to see. The smile left my face.

She said simply, "Jon hasn’t moved," and it was as if
every muscle in my body wanted to jump, but they didn’t, I
just felt my eye twitch and my face get tingly, and then she
knew that I didn’t know, and I kept staring at her, she was
dying in front of me, she was wishing that she never came
over. I bet she would never do this again.

She squinted at me. "This is really weird." She paused,
and I fought the impulse to reach over the table, grab her
jacket, and shake her. "He’s living over at Graham’s
apartment, since probably about a month ago."

I searched every inch.of her face, her clothes, her body.
I waited.

"Yeah, man, that’s fucked. I asked him how you were and
I swear... he said that you guys broke up after he was
arrested that last time, but that he’d seen you and you were
fine. He was in bad shape, stoned, yeah, maybe even acid, but

I swear, that’s so weird." She stared blankly out into the

 

33
parking lot and shook her head. "You know that he stopped
dealing, don’t you?"

Matt came up behind her and stopped. She sensed him and
turned, getting up from the booth. "Hey," he said, and she
nodded, perhaps they knew each other, did it really matter? It
was if I’d forgotten to breathe.

"Well, I’ll see you," she said, raising her hand to wave,
still confused. Without thinking, I raised my hand too, and I
waved, my fingers closing inward and outward, like a little
girl. I watched her leave, walk out to her car, carrying her
secrets with her.

"How do you know her? She used to go out with a friend of
mine." Matt looked at me expectantly, drinking the rest of his
water.

"Jack Wesner." I answered, and I saw him, his face hit

full by the light, sickly and pale. "She used to screw Jack

Wesner."

"Oh. Well, she used to screw a friend of mine too." He
was staring again. "What a small world," he said, tired and
quiet.

II lit another cigarette. "Yeah, what 21 fuckin’ small

world." And I was happy, content really, knowing that Jon was
somewhere close» I could call around, make.discreet inquiries,
he had a lot of friends, and I could search them out, find
them, they’d tell me. I exhaled, and let the smoke wrap around
me, let it hit the window and bounce back at me. It danced and

cut the sunlight in spiral, upswept movements. It rose to the

 

34
ceiling and I inhaled and exhaled again to feed it. He did
stop dealing, I thought, felt my face warm, and said it to
myself over and over: he stopped.

"Hey, you’re really making me ill. I mean it. I was just
in the bathroom. So cut it, okay?" Matt was mad, his forehead
wrinkled slightly, and his voice had that disappointed tone.

I pushed the bill to him. Eight dollars and forty-six
cents. It wouldn’t break the boy from Oak Park. I knew that he
didn’t understand me and sometimes he didn’t like me at all.
But it didn’t matter. None of it did, it never did.

The cars still flew by on the highway. I looked one last
time for the blond girl and her boyfriend, but they were gone,
long gone, gone to find another parking lot in another town to
replay the same scene. Or maybe she’d get away this time.

The sky was winter blue, light and vivid, and the sun was
still bright and annoying. Matt followed me out of the
restaurant and put his hands on my shoulders.

"So, how about a nap?" he asked. "Just no sex. I’m
totally ill."

"Then go home." I stopped in front of his car.

"No way. What are you going to do?" He shielded his eyes
with his hand.

"I’m going for a walk." I took a deep breath of the mid-
morning air. He was really quite handsome, I thought, and
dismissed the urge to kiss him goodbye.

"Okay. I’ll call you later."

"No, don’t. I won’t be around." I kept walking backwards,

35
carefully setting my feet down and watching him watching me.

"Oh, okay. Whatever." And he wanted to ask me why, he
wanted to ask me a lot of things, but he knew that I wouldn’t
answer any of them, and I waved at him, fingers extending and
distending like a little girl.

I turned, and followed the road that paralleled the
highway back to campus. It wasn’t very far and not very cold.
I took another deep inhale and exhale and felt a passing car
give me a tailwind. I started to run, it felt great, I was
really out of shape but my heart swelled. I ran toward town
where he was. I didn’t know where, but he was somewhere here
and I would find him, and the girl in the parking lot flashed
through my mind quickly, the girl being pulled back into the
car by her boyfriend, but I dismissed it. She went because she
wanted to. Maybe she had to. Things like that happened all the
time, I thought.

It didn’t take long before I stopped and lit another

cigarette. I’d get there, I thought, I don’t have to rush.

Of Ruthie and the Real World

"So she’s really going to make a go of it this time," I
asked, "you’re saying that she is really ready?" I took the
drink from my mother’s hand and took a big, wide gulp. “This
whole thing with Cameron, living with his parents and all,
happened pretty quick. She might have another relapse or
something." I pressed the cold glass against my forehead and
watched her eyes follow it. "She’s still pretty fragile, you
know, "I said slowly.

"I know, I know, you just can’t give her any credit, can
you? Ruthie is your sister, I think you’d be happy for the
progress she’s made." She let her eyes wander from the drink
to my face. "There’s something you can do."

She wants this drink, I thought, it’s killing her. I took
another quick gulp and watched her watch me do it. She crossed
from the kitchen into my living room.

"What?" I asked half-heartedly. It was coming up on noon
and the heat was just unbearable. I had drawn all of the
drapes, but the sun had still found its way in slits and
unprotected corners. I could feel the sweat in the small of my
back and the tee shirt I was wearing stick to it.

"Come with me to the Clarks house." She sat down in Ted’s

36

 

37
old chair, but just on the edge. "I was thinking it would ease
the transition for her if we spent the first weekend there."

"I dunno," I said, then drank the last of her gin and
tonic, taking an ice cube to chew on. "What do the Clarks
think about this, mother?"

"You know, if you wanted a drink, I would have made you
one." She got up and took the glass from my hand.

"No, it’s not even noon yet, I just wanted some of
yours," and I smiled as she poured two drinks, both very
strong.

She gave me the cold, full glass. "We’ll leave on Friday.
Early. It’s not like you have anything to hold you back
anyway." She raised her glass to her lips.

"Nothing to hold me back," I said, letting it roll off of
my tongue. I closed my eyes and felt the alcohol hit my

bloodstream. "Nothing to hold me back," I repeated, smiling.

After Mother left.it became another long afternoon of gin
and tonics, which merged into an evening of gin and tonics. In
the ebbing heat of late night, I sat at my word processor and
composed yet another letter to Ted. Once again, I detailed his
betrayals and faults: the closing of our joint bank account;
moving out, leaving me with an apartment I could never afford
but never wanted to leave; taking my favorite flannel sheets;
and finally, the recent restraining order he had the court
deliver. I stopped after an hour and took some aspirin with

the last beer I could find in my refrigerator.

 

38

I dialed his new number, the one I had conned his
personnel manager into giving me, and listened to his
answering machine. My clock read 2:34.

"I know that I’m the last person you want to hear from,"
I started, haltingly, and stopped. I began to tear the beer
label off of the bottle. "Just an update, in case you’re
interested: Ruthie going to make a go of it in the real world.
You always had a soft spot for my sister, just thought you’d
want to know. She’s getting out of Glengale. Finally." I
laughed at my own slurred, slow words. "She’s moving to
Wisconsin." I sat with the phone in my hand for a minute
before placing it on its cradle. As soon as I hung up I

realized that I forgot to tell him that I loved him.

Mother and I went to visit Ruthie that Thursday at
Glengale, which was about forty miles north of the city, close
to the Wisconsin border. She’d been there for almost a year
this time, after a series of incidents, one of which was
threatening to jump off of my apartment building. Of course,
she had no intention of going through with it- Ruthie was
always afraid of death.

Ruthie was wearing colors: a yellow oxford and a long,
white skirt with large green, yellow and mauve flowers on it.
Her hair was still short and very dark with streaks of
premature gray, held back with two barrettes. She looked very
young, and yes, peaceful.

"I just felt like color," she explained. "I never feel

III;

 

39
like color, so I decided to go with it. That’s something my
therapist has been working on with me, going with it I mean,
I shouldn’t feel guilty about feeling bright and even pastel."
She paused to catch her breath, and then gave me an apologetic
glance. "I suppose it’s a cliche that colors can be a metaphor
for life."

"Umm, well, not always," I started.

"Well, you’re the writer, Patsy, you probably think that
that’s stupid," she said, clipped, suddenly losing her smile.

"Patsy doesn’t know everything dear. And.if you feel like
colors, than by all means..." my mother started, supportive
and slightly befuddled.

I had the urge for a drink. "Does this mean that you’re
getting rid of all your earth tones and black stuff?" I asked,
preparing for censure, "because I call first dibs on your
black trench coat." I smiled at Ruthie, and she smiled back,
an unexpected and honest grin that took me by surprise.

"Maybe. Maybe I’ll just give it to you to shut you up."
Ruthie sat down on the bed and put a stray strand of black
hair behind the barette. "Don’t get me wrong; I know I’m not
cured. It’s more like how I’ve learned to handle my
depression."

"Revel in it." I added. "You used to almost take pleasure
in your depression."

"Patsy, really," Mother protested.

"No, she’s right." Ruthie crossed her arms in front of

her. "I reread that article you wrote for Cosmopolitan a few

 

40
years back and you made that point very succinctly."

"Thank you, Ruthie." I wondered if she was stoned.

"I’m going to find some coffee," Mother said. "Anybody
want some?"

"Have you been doing any writing lately?" Ruthie asked.

"Okay," Mother said, "ignore me. I’m going." She looked
from Ruthie to me, exasperated, then left in search of a
coffee machine.

"Yeah, I’ve had to. I need the money." I said. I glanced
toward the empty doorway and lowered my voice. "Thank God
she’s gone."

Ruthie laughed. "Has she been riding you pretty hard?"

I nodded. "And I don’t want to talk about it, I want to
talk about you, you must be so excited."

Ruthie walked over to her bedside table. She lowered her
head, and picked up a set of silverware from her dinner tray.
"I’m all packed," she said, her tranquil tone slightly forced.

"Are you stoned?" I asked.

"Nope." She took the knife and began to play with the
remains of her dinner.

"Then what is it?"

Ruthie gathered her skirt with her free hand, bunching it
up near her waist. She had several dark bruises on her bare
leg. "I’m not sure. Desperation, perhaps. The feeling that if
I don’t make a go of it now, I never will." She pushed her
meat even further to the edge of her plate.

Her room at Glengale was almost empty. Only her plants

 

41
remained on the sterile white windowsill. A car alarm.went off
somewhere outside her window. Ruthie sat down on the bed.
"You’ll make it," I said. "I’ll help you any way I can."
I felt like crying.
Ruthie pushed the tray to the edge of the bedside table.
"I wish someone would get that damn alarm," she said,

absently.

It took us an hour and fifteen minutes to ride up to
Beloit Point, Wisconsin the next day. I’d met Cameron at
Glengale several times, but had never met his parents. Mother,
of course, knew the whole family. I’d noticed that they were
even on her speed-dialing list. I was glad that she
volunteered to make the drive; I just wasn’t up to telling her
I’d been taking the bus to her house all this time. I had to
sell my new Ford back in May because I couldn’t afford the
insurance and parking.

Late summer is beautiful in the Midwest. The Clark estate
sat right on Lake Michigan, framed by comfortable trees and
well-fertilized lawns. It was a big, portentous thing, an
intimidating blacktop driveway, white stucco exterior with
Swiss chalet designs. I began to think that Ruthie had it
made, that she was well-hidden, she could make it here.

Cameron’s parents came out onto the porch to greet us.
Oliver and Karen Clark looked like very nice people;
successful, genial, attractive, boring.

Mother self-consciously touched her hair as we presented

ll film-i.

42
our gifts: an awkward, but very expensive basket of fruit,
cheeses, and gourmet goodies wrapped in yellowish, crinkly
foil; and my contribution, an economy size of lemon—flavored
vodka. It had cost a pretty penny, but luckily, my mother
volunteered to pay.

"Thank you," Karen Clark said, “we don’t drink, only a
glass of wine on holidays and special occasions, but we like
to keep a well-stocked bar for our guests." Both she and
Oliver Clark looked at me a little strangely.

I knew right then I’d hate them.

"We just love Ruthie," Karen Clark said, gazing across
the lengthy, magnificent dinner table at my mother. "She is a
very special person."

"Yes, she certainly is," her husband concurred. "And
we’re looking forward to having her in our home." He raised
his water glass. "To the start of a new life for all of us."

I drained my glass. I had already been fortified with my
third vodka and water, and the candlelight, along with the
meal, had given me a fever. I felt the flush in my cheeks.
Everything was very vivid, and close. I should stop drinking
now, I thought. I need to go to bed early, I need to be sober
for Ruthie. I felt my eyes water.

"Do you need something, Patsy?" Karen Clark asked me
across the table, expectantly, a bit condescendingly, I
thought, and I wanted to tell her, yes, I need your help too,

I need your house, I need a place to hide and as long as

43
you’re hiding my sister, I need someone to help me, but I just
met her eyes across the table.
"How about another' drink, please," I said smiling,
catching the disapproval in her eyes, then across to my
mother, eyes downcast in embarrassment. I could feel my chest

tighten and nearly strangle me.

After the fourth drink, the rest of the night was a blur.
I remember speaking with Cameron for a prolonged period of
time, talking about Ruthie as a kid: the time she had been
caught shoplifting at the Supermarket: the time she had been
arrested for throwing things out of her apartment window in
Chicago; and when I had to drive up to Madison, Wisconsin,
where she was trying to finish up her undergraduate degree,
because no one had heard from her in weeks. Her apartment
manager and I found her in her closet, malnourished and
crying. That had been the first time she had been committed to

Glengale.

The guest room at the Clark estate was so hot and humid
that I stumbled down to the kitchen in my nightgown.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Mother paced up
and down the kitchen.

"I thought you went down to Glengale to pick up Ruthie."
I opened the refrigerator door and carefully laid down on my
back in front of it.

"It’s almost noon. They’ll be back in an hour." She

44
rifled through her pockets for a cigarette.

"Mother, why didn’t you just go with them?"

She lit it with a shaky hand. "I was concerned about you.
The way you acted. You wouldn’t stop talking. And then you
just put your head down, and," she inhaled deeply, "that was
it." She paced up and down next to my head.

I tried to remember, but I couldn’t remember but fleeting
images and details. My brain was about to explode.

"Stop," I begged. "Your footsteps are giant anvils coming
down on my poor, defenseless head."

She had no sympathy. "I cannot believe you drank that
much. Frankly, I am so embarrassed. I told Karen and Oliver
that you haven’t had a job in months and you’re being evicted
from your apartment."

"Oh, geez, ma, why did ya have to go tell them that?" I
pulled my nightgown over my knees. "It’s none of their
business why my life is going down the toilet. Is in the
toilet."

"Did you have to drink that much?" she asked.

"Yes, I did have to drink that much for your
information." I squinted up at her and grabbed her passing
ankle. "All that talk, that love talk, the new start pep talk,
it was starting to make me sick, and I had to drink so much
that I wouldn’t get up and shove that corkscrew through their
vulcan hearts." I gave her my best mischievous smile.

She didn’t go for it. "They' happen to believe in

Ruthie..."

 

45

"So do I ma, so do I, it’s me I don’t believe in
anymore.." For a second, I thought if I’d confide in her I’d
shut her up, she would see, she would help me, but she only
shook her head from way above me.

"Patsy, for cripes sake. You..."

"It’s Christ’s sake, ma. Not cripes." I should’ve known
better. Mother had one emotional cripple, it took years for
her to accept Ruthie for what she was. I was the strong one.

She looked down at me, startled. "I don’t like to swear,
especially to take the Lord's name in vain. Not like you,
anyway. Now let go of my ankle."

"Mother, you know I don’t believe in God, and I like to
swear." I let her ankle go. "For Christ’s sake, look at me, my
whole life is a swear word."

"Oh, not that atheist crap again." She walked over to the
well-stocked bar and poured herself a finger of whiskey. "What
do they have with this?"

"Water. And in some circles, crap is considered a bad
word."

"That's not the point. Your behavior last night is the
point. They probably thought you were crazy, all that talk,
that dirty laundry about Ruthie and you."

I rolled over onto my stomach. The cold air felt good on
my back. "All they did was look at me, with those watery,
placid eyes, absorbing it all. They’re pod people." I propped
myself up on my elbows. "No wonder Cameron was a drug addict."

Mother handed me the drink. "He’s such a nice boy, he

46
really cares for Ruthie." She had a warm, optimistic glow, and
I began to suspect that this wasn’t her first whiskey.

"Yes, he definitely does, but is that.a good thing or bad
thing in the long run?"

She just pointed at my drink. It felt as if the roof was
coming down on my head as I sat up to take an endless, warm
draught.

"And why did you have to make all those phone calls? I
hope they were collect..."

I brought the glass to my mouth once more as the room

started to spin.

Cameron was the first out of the car, tall and lanky,
dressed in baggy brown shorts and white tee shirt. "Patsy,
didn’t think that you’d make it up this morning. You were
looped." He smiled.

I had showered, grabbed some cereal, and at least felt
like I could hold my head up on my shoulders. "Yeah, sorry
about talking your ears off last night Cameron. I can be a
real drag when I’m suicidal."

"Don’t talk like that," he said, suddenly serious. "It’s
not funny."

Oliver Clark.began.taking Ruthie’s few suitcases from the
back of the Blazer. I could see my sister in the backseat,
looking through her purse.

"Sorry, Cameron," I said. "Like I said, I’m a real drag."

Mother came out onto the porch, slightly drunk. "I’ve got

47
lunch ready, I made sandwiches! "She said, her nose red,
smile wide, dishtowel in her hand.

Karen and Oliver Clark looked at each other, worried.
"Thank you," Karen said loudly, too loudly, and I smiled,
smiled at Ruthie emerging from the car, dressed in belted
black shorts and a subdued brown top.

I walked over to the car and hugged her. "Colors as a
metaphor for life," I whispered in her ear, laughing and she
laughed too, for I had on grey sweatpants and a black blouse.
She was beautiful, I thought, beautiful and fragile, and I
carefully hugged her again.

"I made sandwiches," mother said again, this time walking
toward Ruthie, and I retreated into the house, suddenly hungry

again.

"Do you need some aspirin?" Ruthie offered me the bottle.
"Wine always gives me a headache."

"But that’s red wine. This is white." I studied the
label. "It has something to do with the mold factor."

Ruthie looked out the window. "It’s always that damn mold
factor." We were standing in the Clarks’ kitchen, up against
the ample counter. The kitchen was warm, resplendent in shades
of brown, and the only room in the whole house that wasn’t too
cold or too warm.

"I guess you can give some more of that aspirin. I’ve
still got that hangover." I followed her gaze, scanning the

backyard beach. Karen Clark and mother were lounging in lounge

 

48
chairs, mother doing most of the talking. Oliver Clark and
Cameron had gone for a late afternoon boat ride on the calm,
gray lake. So Ruthie and I were alone, basking in the tired
sunshine streaming through the kitchen windows and drinking a
pretty good white wine.

"Yes, I heard about the vodka incident." She handed me a
couple of coated tablets. "You shook things up a bit."

"Good," I said, filling my glass. "They deserve to be
once in awhile." I took a drink and examined the thin wine
glass. "Maybe we should just get beer glasses for this wine."

"Maybe we should just get high," she said, smiling
mischievously. "You got anything on you?"

I grabbed the bottle back self-righteously. "No...let’s
just get rip—roaring drunk. How does that sound?"

It was the first time she had smiled all day. "Let’s get
drunk for all the wrong reasons, but wait, are there any wrong
reasons?"

I laughed, and took another gulp. "I don’t think so, but
then again, I’m the one with a drinking problem." I watched
for her reaction.

"Do you really have a drinking problem?" She looked and
turned toward me. "Or is this just symptomatic of a much
larger one?"

"Don’t you think that alcoholism is a big enough
problem?" I put down the wine with shaky hands and grabbed a
heel of French bread from the counter. I took a small bite.

Outside on the beach, Karen Clark stood on the edge of the

49
water, letting her feet get wet, shielding her eyes with her
hand, looking for her husband and her son somewhere on the
lake.

Ruthie spoke softly. "If you realize that you have a
problem, that’s the first step, isn’t it? Can’t you get
help?"

"No." I paused, taking another bite of bread. "I don’t
need help."

"I always thought that you were the stronger one, that
you had life by a string. Confident. Able. I guess it’s just
hard for me to realize that you’re not okay." She was quiet,
nonchalant, and she switched the wine from one hand to the
other.

I washed the bread down with wine. "Well," I started
calmly, my hands still shaking, "it’s all a matter of focus.
You’ve got to concentrate on short-term goals, like what
you’re going to watch on television at seven o’clock, and.what
kind of sandwich you’re going to have for lunch." I paused,
gathered my courage, drained my glass, "only by focusing on
things in the short-term can you virtually ignore the bigger
issues like being evicted from your apartment, like not having
a job in six months, not being able to write a decent sentence
even, being forced to sell your car and live with your mother.
A mother that isn’t happy with anything you do."

"Patsy," Ruthie said soothingly, and put her hand on the
small of my back.

"You see, Ruthie," I continued, for if I stopped now, I

50
would never, ever start up again, and Ruthie was the only one
that ever listened to me anyway, "I have that ability to
ignore the big things. You never had that knack, that absolute
gift, and as a result, you’ve had your problems. I would never
be expected to have any kind of problem, even after Ted left
me I pretended everything was alright, even though he left me
because I was no good, you see, and I couldn’t accept that."

"What do you mean?" she asked, and from her voice I knew
she knew what I wanted her to know, that I was in trouble, and
I needed someone to see it. In the backyard, Mother had gotten
out of her chair and was walking to the house, empty liquor
glass in hand.

"He took out a restraining order three weeks ago. I’ve
been calling him, you know, when I’ve been drinking a lot, and
he’s changed his number a couple of times but I’ve gotten it
again. He has proof, I guess the cops told him to turn over
the message tapes to them."

"Are you kidding?" Ruthie was looking at the side of my
face, horrified, she knew now, someone knew, and the weight of
it began to lift.

I heard the screen door open, and mother’s voice calling
for Ruthie.

"And I (don’t even remember‘ a lot of them." I said,
hurried, but solemn, wanting the full effect of this to sink
in for her. Outside, Cameron and Oliver Clark were nearing
the dock, Cameron was ready to throw out the line to his

mother.

51

"Damn," I said, it was too soon, they were all coming
inside to start preparing dinner, and I hadn’t told her
everything I wanted to tell her, things that only she would
know, would understand, only she could help me. I knew it all
along, that she was my best friend.

"You girls drink too much," I heard my mother say, and I
felt my chest constrict and suddenly the glass was in shards
in the palm. of ‘my Ihand, and. my face hurt. Ruthie 'was
screaming, and I thought, why is Ruthie screaming?

I looked down at my hand and it was red, it took me a few
seconds to realize that it was my blood, and I was thinking,
I still had things I had to say. "Damn," I said aloud, but my
voice was tinny and far away, and I looked out the window to
see Oliver Clark running and he stopped as he saw me, shocked,
and it was then I felt the room start to spin slowly, almost
carefully.

Suddenly, Karen Clark was behind me, grabbing my hand,
taking the glass embedded in my skin out piece by piece, it
was then I saw the blood drip from my face onto my blouse, and
I was faint, and I knew that everyone was going to know now,
I couldn’t hide it, they couldn’t ignore it anymore, and I
felt relief knowing it was out of my hands. Thank you, I tried
to say, thank you Ruthie, but my mouth wouldn’t work, and I
let my eyes close, closing to the real world, hoping I

wouldn’t hit my head on the way down.

 

The Sewer Man

I remember that morning distinctly because it was the day
that I saw the man kiss the sewer grating on the way home from
class. At least it looked like he was kissing the sewer
grating, his butt high up in the air and his mouth down low.
He remained stationary until I walked up behind him, the din
from Somerville Ave. hiding my approach, and didn’t flinch
when I asked him if he was okay.

"Shh," he motioned, and pointed down. His small brown
eyes darted from the sewer to me, and then to an older woman
walking by, bundled up against the unusually cold May day.

"What?" I asked. Maybe there was maintenance going on in
the innumerable underground Boston tunnels. Or maybe it had
something to do with the subway, or rats, or something else
that would captivate a young man on the middle of a Saturday.

"It’s the voice of God," he said, and I realized that I’d
have to stop by the liquor store before going home to face

Seamus.

Seamus was right were I left him, on the couch in front
of the television. His tall, lanky frame jutted in strange

directions, trying to fit between the confines of the arms. I

52

53
couldn’t see his face; he was all hair, long and black.

Our small, upstairs apartment smelled like cigarettes and
incense. I could hear Seamus moving aroumd on the couch,
sitting up, lighting another cigarette, listening to me in the
kitchen putting away the six pack of Bass I bought at the
liquor store on the corner.

I opened one immediately, before he could come in and we
would argue about whatever was available, and I sat defeated
at the table. The beer was cold, refreshing, and I wondered
where the sewer man was, where they had taken him. I took deep
breaths, feeling my stomach do flipflops, reviewing some of
the exercises from Art 132: Introduction to Oil Painting-
Landscapes. Stroke, I thought, stroke, as I listened for
Seamus on the other side of the wall.

He was watching cartoons— I could make out the nasal
whine of Tweety Bird from the television. If he could, that
would be all that he’d watch. They didn’t show six hour blocks
of animation back in Ireland. That was one thing he’d miss
about America, surely not his job as a bartender, not being
just another Irishman in Boston, not being away from Galway,
not living with me. No, after our year together he probably
wouldn't miss me.

He came in, unshowered and unshaven, and opened the
refrigerator without looking over at me. I looked from him to
the window, out at the large, majestic Somerville homes, all
split up into tiny apartments. I took my cigarettes from the

pocket of my blazer and lit one, quickly, secretly, watching

54
the smoke rise and twist away from.me. Talk.to me Seamus, tell
me something nice for once, I thought. You bastard.

I heard him close the refrigerator, open the beer and
then the cupboard above the sink.

"Where are the aspirin?" he asked. I could see him
looking at me from the corner of my eye.

I watched a small bird fly from one tree to another. Why
would any bird live in the city when they could live on the
Cape? I wondered if the bird knew that the city was dirty, too
populated, that there were better places. Did the bird dream,
like Seamus did, of somewhere quiet, of home?

"The bathroom," I answered absently. I didn't want him to
think that I cared why he needed them, because I knew why, the
same reason he didn’t come home until five in the morning, the
same reason why he didn’t sleep in my bed but on the small
couch that gave him.backaches. It was because he was drinking,
drinking with the other Irish bartenders and customers. That
was why his accent was getting thicker, his stories getting
longer, his eyes more distant when he finally got home to me.

It had been a month before that he announced he was
leaving, leaving Boston, leaving America, leaving me. And I
was glad, not because I didn’t love him anymore, but because
I brought him here and he wasn’t happy. Since then, I had
found out that I was six weeks pregnant. I found out the same
day he made plane reservations back to Shannon, then back home
to Galway.

He stood in front of the sink and held his head in his

 

55

hands, wanting me to ask him what was wrong, why the headache,
why he didn’t come in to our bed and wake me like he did in
the beginning, bumbling and funny, stinking of cigarettes and
whiskey, waking me to make love or at least try to before we
both fell asleep as the sun was coming up, both exhausted but
happy in love. Then at some point I woke up in the morning,
Seamus asleep on the couch with the television on. There had
been no announcement, and I placated myself with the thought
that he didn’t want to wake me, that I had to work and go to
school, he was homesick- but that he didn’t blame me. No, I
knew that Seamus loved me more than anything.

So he stood in front of the sink, head in his large
capable hands, waiting for me to acknowledge him, and I asked
him gently, headache? And he nodded, eyes closing, perhaps in
victory, his strong body helpless against yet another
hangover, and I got up, fully capitulating, walking to the

bathroom with purpose.

Later that day, not that much later really, Matthew came
over with some weed and I made spaghetti. Matthew was my
brother, but was more my friend, and grew marijuana in his
apartment. What he didn’t use he sold at a modest price,
enough to pay his half of the rent anyway, and was generous
especially with family.

So we sat in the other room in front of the television
and watched the NBA playoffs, Detroit v. Chicago, and took

bong hits all afternoon, only moving to go out for more beer

56
and cigarettes at half—time.

"Guess what happened to me today?" I asked well into the
third quarter, when Detroit was in control of the game and
Matthew couldn’t stop talking about some girl at his new job
at the movie theater in Allston.

"I came over and saved the day, that’s what," Matthew
said. "I’ve saved the day once more."

Seamus sat up long enough to light another cigarette.
"This is a vain one, your brother. He talks to much, Moira."

And I looked at Seamus from the floor, knowing that he
meant that I didn’t talk enough, and reached out until he
handed me his cigarette gently, letting his hand touch mine.
I brought it to my lips slowly, inhaled, thought of smoke and
the fetus inside me, and quickly exhaled.

"Headache gone?" I asked, all defenses suddenly down,
watching his beautiful face, his green eyes, his full mouth.

"Aye, finally," he answered, and smiled at me, and for
just a second, I wanted to tell him about the pregnancy, but
Matthew was there. I knew it would be wrong anyway. I didn’t
know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I couldn’t tell him
to keep him here. I couldn’t spend a lifetime of Seamus
sleeping on the couch, of him coming in at five in the
morning, wishing he was somewhere else.

So I let the moment swell and pass. I grabbed onto his
calf, gently, and smiled back up at him.

"I can’t believe that you’re leaving tomorrow," Matthew

said, nonchalantly, and I looked away before I felt the

57
despair rise up again, the despair I was becoming accustomed
to, and I squeezed his calf a little harder.
"I think the pain has come back again," Seamus said,
laughing, and I turned toward the game before I started

crying.

"No really, you won’t believe what happened to me today,"
I said again, this time a couple of hours later, still on the
floor in front of the television, game over. There were a few
more people in the room, Dennis and Felicia, a couple from
down the street. At least they had brought their own beer.

"I bet that I’d believe you," said Dennis, smiling,
putting his hand on Felicia’s knee.

I watched them from the floor, warm and safe, the waning
light cast shadows on the couch and the table, covered with
empty bottles and full ashtrays.

"What happened to you today girl?" said Matthew eyes
fuzzy over his cigarette, his voice patronizing.

"I called the police on a crazy man," and I laughed,
letting them think that it was that easy, that simple.

Seamus rolled over, eyes closed, half-asleep and
half-interested. "What does that mean?" he asked.

"There was a man on Somerville Ave. that told me heard
the voice of God coming from the sewer in front of Anthony’s
Pizza. So I called the cops. It didn’t look like he was about
to leave anytime soon." I rolled over onto my back: the

ceiling seemed far, far away.

 

58

"What did the cops do?" Matthew asked.

"Took him away. Seems that he walked away from a group
home near Davis Ave. and hadn’t taken his medicine in some
time." I began to laugh, feeling weak and dizzy, everyones
eyes on me. "He was pretty loopy."

"God’s voice coming from a sewer," mused Dennis. "How
appropriate."

"Was he certain it was God?" asked Felicia, and I saw her
hand flick across her face, moving her blond hair from her
eyes.

"Blasphemy," said Matthew, rising to go to the bathroom.
"Anyone need another beer?"

"What. did. God. say' to the jpoor' man?" asked Seamus,
suddenly awake, placing the palm of his hand on my forehead as
if he were taking my temperature, and I felt the pressure of
his touch and calmed.

"Help," I said soberly. "God asked him for help. He
didn’t like being at the bottom of the sewer."

"Excellent," said Matthew from the doorway. "I don’t
blame the poor bastard."

"Matthew," I called out to him, closing my eyes and
remembering the sewer man’s eyes from the backseat of the
police car, knowing and determined.

"What?" he asked, annoyed.

"Get me another beer, will ya?" I asked, opening my eyes
to see that nothing had changed, and that the ceiling was

still very far away.

59

"Oops," said Seamus, laughing, bumbling int0>the bathroom
and gently knocking me against the sink. "Sorry."

"Watch it," I said, not.a warning, but an invitation, and
watched him in the mirror, fresh from the shower, hair all
slicked back as if greased, eyes bright from the beer. I
applied my makeup languidly and thought once again of my art
class. He watched me with growing interest.

"That's nice," he said.

I bent over a bit more, let my behind out, watching him
watch me. I felt the tightness of my sleeveless black dress.
Seamus came up from behind, put his hands on my hips and
pressed himself up against me.

"How bold you are Mr. Kelly," I said, letting him move me
from side to side, bending over even more to increase the
pressure, watching his eyes cloud over, his head finally fall
back, his eyes finally close.

"Do you like me in this dress?" I asked, knowing full
well that it was his favorite but playing the game anyway,
putting the eye pencil down and steadying myself against the
counter, quickening the movements.

"Aye, even more out of it," he said, voice hoarse. He
bent over, still pressed up to me, kissed my upper back, my
neck, around to my ear.

"Oh boy," I said, feeling control slip, the alcohol and
desire blurring the room, his face. I moved his hand from my
hip to my breast.

"I’m crazy with you," he whispered, and I had to close my

60
eyes with the urgency of the need, feeling his breath in my
hair, his movements with purpose.

"Matthew’s still here," I said.

"I’ll tell him to go," he said, catching my eyes in the
mirror, face flushed, the front of his hair falling over, only
to be pushed back. He separated himself from me reluctantly,
leaving to find Matthew quickly.

I straightened myself, feeling desire move around and
finally wash over me. I could hear their voices in the other
room. Please, I thought, come back, come back, come back. I
couldn’t stand the sight of myself waiting, waiting for him,
and in one jerky movement I stepped forward and shut the light
off. I stood in the darkness, listened to their voices, at
last the door slamming.

Waiting for his determined footsteps, his formidable
frame blocking the doorway, his rush to me, arms around and
lifting me above him, so happy to even be near him, to know
that he wanted me. Sitting me on the counter with a groan,
kissing me hungrily, pushing my dress up and my underwear
down, breathing, moaning, suddenly clearing his throat,
kissing me again.

I wanted to tell him no, I wanted to be on the ground
with him on top of me, inside of me, feeling his weight move,
his hips spreading my legs, but then he was inside of me and

it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.

At the restaurant I moved around in my seat, trying to

 

 

 

61
get comfortable, savoring the soreness, smiling with the
knowledge it would only get worse later. I could smell him on
me.

"So Matthew’ll meet us at ten, yeah?" I asked.

"I reckon. He said he would." Seamus kept eating, one
mouthful after another. "Your brother can be a real pain."

"Oh, yeah?"

"He didn’t want to leave. He knew why I wanted him to
go." He looked up, seemed almost embarrassed. "He tried to
give me a hard time."

He ate silently. I watched his eyes, his mouth, his large
capable hands. I was overwhelmed with his beauty, overwhelmed
with his power, and I bowed my head, shielding my eyes with my
hand.

"He’s thinking of coming over to visit in the fall," he
said, his voice dropping off, realizing he was leaving in less
than twenty four hours, letting it drop like the last flakes
of a snowstorm.

Stroke, stroke, I thought. Brushtroke from right to left,
top to bottom. But it didn’t work this time, and I saw a tear
fall onto the white tablecloth leaving a small, wet spot.

"I’m sorry," he said.

I tried to tighten up, to regain some semblance of
control, but it was like giggling- once it started, it was
impossible to stop. Another spot, and then another, and I
wanted to tell him not to be sorry, well, only if he wanted

to, and I hated myself for crying and spoiling our dinner, our

 

62
wonderful evening out.

"Please, darling, don’t you know? I’m sorry." His voice
was soothing, useless.

"No, I’m sorry," I said. I got up clumsily, knocking the
table as I left.

"Moira," he called after me, but I was already walking
purposefully, looking around for the ladies room, trying to
avoid the curious eyes of other tables. Calm, calm, I thought,
keep calm.

The ladies room was empty, silent, a refuge. I took the
first stall, locked the door, and rested my forehead against
the cold of the bathroom tile. The tears had stopped. I let
myself inhale, then exhale. Calm, I thought once again.
Remember the trip to Seattle, last summer when everything was
new and he never thought about home? Everyday was a holiday,
no end in sight. Remember those days and it would all be
better.

I tried to remember the first time I met him, St.
Patrick’s Day in Dublin the year before. I had been drinking
all day with the other exchange students at Trinity, groups of
students and tourists all packed together in the college bar.
And then I saw him on the periphery of the group. I was on the
inside, looking out at him, his hair shorter then, wearing a
brown jacket with a wide collar. He was drinking pints at an
alarming pace, smoking Dunhills with gusto~ ‘What first struck
me was his eyes, green with long black lashes, his look at

first hesitant then confident, and.I waited placidly for every

63
one of them.

Then everyone stumbled. to the 'Van lMorrison concert
outside in the square, outside in the constant, methodical
rain. I kept trying to get close to him. Sharing a bottle of
cider with Deirdre, I caught his eye, again and again. I
remember thinking, if only he would talk to me, then suddenly
he did- just a simple, magnificent word.

"Hello," he had said, and then he smiled, and I knew my
life would be changed forever. Was it supposed to happen like
that? To see someone in a crowd, to hear one single word from
their mouth, and to know. To know that your life was changing
and you were helpless in the face of it.

Van Morrison only played five songs, but by the time he
walked off the tiny wooden stage in a huff, in the pouring
rain, I was in love and my future was inexplicably changed.

"Help," I said out loud to the empty stall, to the empty
restroom, and I began to cry, one tear after another, making

no sound, like a light fading from View.

We took a cab over to Corrigan’s Pub in Allston. Seamus
wasn’t the only immigrant Irishman or Irishwoman working
behind the bar; Corrigan’s was fully staffed with the
authentic thing. As a result, it was one of the most popular
pubs in town. Every first generation or second generation
Irish, or those who just liked to drink around the Irish,
especially the formidable college crowd, came to Allston and

packed the place.

64

When we arrived, there was a line that stretched around
the front and into the parking lot. It had turned cool, and I
pulled my blazer around me as we walked the length of the
building to the back entrance. I was overdressed and overdone,
and I felt self-conscious. Seamus protectively put his arm
around me as we jostled up against each other, and I thought,
how ironic, we’re out of sync.

"Hello Seamus, wasn’t sure if we’d be seeing you
tonight," Corrigan said at the back.door, holding out his hand
for him, then me. "And how is your lady tonight?"

I bristled, more at the thought of being referred to as
anyone’s lady than at the patronizing tone in which he said
it. He was from the old school, an old Irishman who had come
up the hard way and believed in the hard way with his whole
heart. He appreciated women the old-fashioned way, as little
girls or as mothers, and everything in-between was perplexing.
So, I think that he decided to treat me as a little girl, just
to be sure.

"Fine," Seamus said, maybe sensing my discomfort. Maybe
he was considering my crying jag at the restaurant or my
reticence on the cab ride over. I decided to just smile.

"Your father’s here," he said to me, almost as an
afterthought, and I fleetingly thought of the sewer man,
peering down through the sewer grating for something that
wasn’t there. I smiled at the connection, proud of myself. The
sewer man was an apt comparison to my father.

"I suppose he’s drunk?" I asked, just happy that he was

65
there, happy that I’d have someone to drink with tonight as
Seamus made his farewell appearance.

"You know your father Moira, he’s a good man.but he likes
his whiskey. "Corrigan smiled, and Seamus and I smiled back,
as if sharing a secret. Suddenly, I hoped that it was a good
drunk, a buy another round drunk- not his how I wish I was
back in Ireland tirade that indicated he had been drinking for
days already, his body sick of the alcohol and of him.

"Oh yes," I said, "I know it well." I looked around the
storage room, the kegs, the half-empty cases of alcohol, the
peeling paint. It was hot and sticky in the bar, I could feel
the humid air coming through. I looked at Seamus expectantly.

"Is Matthew here?" he asked, but Corrigan had already
turned away, so Seamus grabbed my hand and we walked though
the double doors carefully.

Someone immediately called for Seamus as we entered the
bar, a man’s voice, and he let go of my hand and put his
quickly into the air above his head, a greeting to whoever it
had been, and I looked for anyone, anyone I knew. Seamus would
be off soon, talking with his friends, and I didn’t want to be
part of that. I didn’t want to hear how nice it would be for
him to be back in Galway, how nice it would be to see his
family, to drink true Irish beer, to see Galway Bay once
again. I didn’t want to hear the goodbyes, not before I had to
say them myself.

I followed him up to the bar, his arm up once again,

ordering this time, and I felt the sticky heat surround me,

66
overwhelm me, and it seemed as if the crowd of people were
closer and brighter than I remembered, I looked around for a
place to sit, panicked. Relax, I thought, don’t pass out.
Whatever you do, don’t pass out here where half the bar knows
you.

I leaned up against his strong back, feeling the fabric
of his shirt, and I closed my eyes. He was fumbling in his
pocket for money, the muscles in his back working. I could
hear the conversations around me, the mix of accents, I could
smell of beer and cigarettes, and. I ‘thought. of’ my own
breathing. When I opened my eyes it would all be okay.

"Your money’s no good here," I heard Corrigan say, and
then Seamus’ half-hearted attempt to protest, only to be met
with groans. I opened my eyes as Seamus leaned forward to get
the pints.

"I was wondering when you two would get here," Matthew
said from behind us. "I thought that you’d end up blowing it
off, considering it’s your last night here." He clapped Seamus
on the back.

The room was still bright, the pint cold, my brother’s
face too large. I drank quickly, hoping the beer would give me
courage, equilibrium, oblivion. But it was just beer, and
every minute around Seamus hurt like a strong pinch on the
arm.

"Is dad here?" I asked.

"Yeah, he's by the darts with Mr. Anderson and Paddy

Mack."Matthew drank from his own pint, then grabbed ‘my

 

67
shoulder with his free hand. "And this is a surprise— he’s
faced. Completely. But it seems like a good one."

I looked toward the dartboards, seeing the usual group of
old men.

"Does he know that we’ll be here?" Seamus asked.

"Yeah, I told him. "Matthew said. "I don’t know if he’s
retaining information at this point, but I told him."

"Maybe I should go find him," I said, still queasy,
wanting to sit down somewhere, knowing that my father would
give up his seat no matter how drunk he was.

"You alright?" Seamus asked, concerned, and with his free
hand brushed a piece of hair back from my face.

I looked up at him, suddenly angry at the futility of the
question. Someone bumped into me from behind, knocking me
forward and spilling a bit of my beer. I felt the frustration
rise, boil over, and I steadied my hand. Don’t let it show, I
thought, don't let it show whatever you do.

"Steady," I heard Matthew say with a laugh, and for a
fleeting moment I wanted to toss the contents of my glass in
his face. He didn't know anything, he was my brother but
Seamus’ friend, and the peacemaker of the family besides. If
it suited Matthew to believe that drinking was just a harmless
pastime, he believed it. If it suited him to believe that he
was too smart to be caught selling weed, he believed it. If he
wanted to believe it, everything was okay.

I felt Seamus’ hand on my arm and I deliberately pulled

away. His gesture was to steady me, to comfort me, to possess

68
me. A perfectly acceptable gesture between two lovers, except
that one of them was getting on a plane the next afternoon to
go home, leaving the other alone, alone and pregnant.

"I’m fine," I said sharply, a bit too sharply, and I knew
if I looked up at him I would be lost, so I turned quickly and
began to make my way through the crowd of people near the bar
to the dartboards in the corner.

There was a crowd of people near the dartboards, some
sitting and some standing, and when I saw his old friend Paddy
Mack sitting on a stool, smoking a cigarette, I knew that my
father was not far away. It was near impossible to get to him,
with tables too close together and people standing in between
them anyway, so I stood at the periphery and watched a young
woman throw darts. She was very good, much to the
consternation and amusement of the older men that frequented
the corner, and with every toss she’d raise both arms up into
the air. That’s great, I thought, she celebrates every throw.
She’s saying fuck you. I searched the area again, thinking
that my father would love it, he would be the first to cheer
her on against his buddies. He always loved an underdog.

Then I heard him behind me, laughing nearby. I closed my
eyes and listened, bringing my beer up to my lips,
concentrating on his voice. When I was much younger, I thought
that everything was okay when Mick Maloney laughed. Every
crisis, all the problems- his marriage to my mother, his
alcoholism, his homesickness- meant nothing when he threw his

head back and laughed. But, of course, nothing ever got

69
solved, yet he was still laughing, and I listened without
bitterness.

"Here she is, my girl," I heard him say before he picked
me up off of the ground and twirled me around. I attempted to
keep my beer steady.

"Hello, Mick." He kept turning.

"What do you have to say for yourself, girl?" he asked.

"I say, put me down." He stopped, but didn’t put me down.
I could see Mr. Anderson, his friend from the housing
authority, watch us with calm eyes.

"Where are your manners?" His words were slurred and
slow.

"Please, Mick. Please put me down." I felt the room spin
and thought sarcastically, excellent, that was just what I
needed. I felt my the inside liner of my blazer stick to the
top of my back and arms.

He put me down, finally, and I let the room slow a bit
before I turned to greet him. He was grizzled, grey hair
uncombed, a significant growth of a beard. He was a short man,
around five and a half feet, with big shoulders and a big
chest. When I was little, he used to tell us stories about the
fishing boat his uncle had, and how as a teenager he used to
work alongside his father and his brothers in Connemara, north
of Galway. I can remember being very proud of him being a
sailor. But it was his eyes of pale green, almost grey, that
were his most striking feature. Matthew and I had inherited

the nondescript hazel of our mother, a nice color, but not as

70
nice as his.

His beautiful eyes were watery and unfocused, and looked
around me, confused. "Where’s your man Seamus?"

"Somewhere." I said, reassuringly. Seamus was one of my
father’s favorite people in the world, and he cried when I
told him that Seamus was going back to Ireland.

"Hello Moira," Mr. Anderson bellowed, thrusting his hand
out for me to shake.

"Good to see you sir," I said, grasping it tentatively.
He had the type of hands that were always clammy.

"Come sit down." Mick turned me around toward the group
of people around the dartboards, toward his oldest friend
Paddy Mack, and where there had seemed no room a minute ago,
there suddenly was plenty. My father had a way of making
things happen.

I sat down at the table and took my blazer off. I was
sweating from the humid heat, the proximity of people around
me, and I wished that I had a rubber band or a barette to take
the hair off of my face and the back of my neck.

"So your man is leaving tomorrow?" he asked, sitting down
next to me.

I nodded, taking another drink from my beer. I didn’t
want to talk about tomorrow anymore.

"Do you two need a ride to Logan then?" he asked,
sounding more lucid than before. There had been times that I
had wondered if he sometimes pretended to be drunker than he

was, to catch people off-guard, to say things that people

71

would write off because they thought he was really faced. He
never blacked out like other alcoholics did, he always
remembered what had happened the night before, much to the
embarrassment of his friends at the bar. And he never missed
work because of his drinking; even after a lost evening he
would get up the next morning as if nothing had happened.
For him, it was a matter of control.

"No, Matthew is dropping off his car tomorrow morning."
I put my glass down on the table.

He asked if I wanted another one, and I nodded
vigorously, maybe too vigorously, because he leaned over and
put his hand over mine. "Things’ll get better you know," he
said.

"Really?" I asked, unbelieving and perhaps a bit
patronizing.

He gestured to the barman for another round. "What are
you going to do then?"

"Nothing I can do." I said, calmly, suddenly feeling
pretty good despite the heat and claustrophobia, looking my
father in the eyes, seeing pity and picking up my beer to take
yet another drink.

"You can give him a reason to stay," he said.

I could tell him that I was pregnant, I thought, that
would be a damn good reason for him to stay, but dismissed it,
thinking of my father.

"If you had to do it over again, you wouldn’t stay." I

said. I knew that I was approaching untenable ground. He had

72

spent his whole adult life wondering what life would’ve been
like had he stayed in Connemara, still on the fishing boat
with his brothers and cousins, instead of leaving at eighteen
and meeting my mother, having two kids, working his life away
in the city, complaining and drinking until his wife finally
left him for an older man that worked in the deli on the
corner.

"I don’t know about that," he said.

"C’mon, Mick, everyone here knows that you’d go back in
a second." I finished my beer and slammed the empty glass on
the table sharply. "You’re not going to try to tell me that
you don’t have regrets."

"I don’t regret you, or your brother." The round came and
he searched for money in his baggy, black pants.

I took out a ten dollar bill. "Let me worry about this
round dad." I said, and handed it to him with a trembling
hand.

He nodded. "So am I the reason why you won’t ask him to
stay?"

I considered the question carefully, avoiding his pale
grey eyes, getting up the courage to answer. I felt like I
was in the bottom of a hole, looking up, trying to ask for
help— but no words were coming out.

But my father was the sewer man, up at the top, listening
when no one else heard anything. Did he need me to say it?
Didn’t the question answer itself?

"Seamus and I are two different people. And so are your

73
mother and you." He sounded quite sober now, and as he raised
his glass to his lips I looked into his eyes, dry and earnest,
and I shook my head heavily.

"I know that." I took a deep breath. "But if I have to
give him a reason to stay, I don’t want him. If he needs a
reason..."

Mick let it dangle, unanswered. He looked over' my
shoulder at the dartboards, smiling. "Did you see that woman
play?" he asked.

"Yeah, she’s good." I let my eyes wander around the bar
until I found Seamus, the most handsome man I’d seen all
night, and I held my breath. I would remember him just as he
was that moment, smiling, head back. And then he was looking
over at the dartboards, looking for me, and it thrilled me. I
waited until he found me and I smiled, full and yearning I
could see it in his eyes: love.

And then he turned away, as if he had revealed too much,
but I continued to watch him, knowing that he could feel my
eyes on him. I thought, what are you thinking, Seamus?

"What if your man decides to come back?" my father asked.

"He won’t," I said, finally turning away from Seamus. "I
can’t consider that as an option at this point."

He began to scratch the coarse hairs at the back of his
head, a sure sign that he had something on his mind. "All I’m
saying is don’t close the book on him. That boy loves you, we
both know that, although God knows why."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I said, knowing

 

 

74
what he meant, knowing that he was right, but needing to hear
it anyway.

"You sure don’t make it easy for him, that's what I mean.
You could try a bit of kindness, of tenderness, some sweet
words sometimes."

I took another drink. I wanted to tell him that at this
point, words didn’t mean too much. Words were just sounds,
they could never fully express the feelings you have.
Sometimes just by saying it out loud, you lost a little bit of
it, but I stopped before I said it, realizing that I was
nothing but a hypocrite. I wanted to hear those words from
Seamus, I would die to hear those words, but he stopped saying
them when he realized he would never hear them from me.

"It doesn’t take much," my father said. "That’s something
I learned too late in life. I don’t want you to make the same
mistake."

I looked out into the cigarette haze but couldn’t find
Seamus, he was gone from where I had seen him before, and I
raised my glass again.

"Toast," I said.

My father raised his glass. "To what?"

"To silence. Silence and betrayal." I said, smiling
sadly, knowing I was the dope, wondering if I could climb from

the bottom of the hole before Seamus left the next day.

It was late, I was still sticky and definitely drunk. I

wanted to stay in the corner near the dartboards and just

 

 

75
watch Seamus and Matthew up behind the bar. He was having a
good time, but I knew that he was concerned about me, and
occasionally I would go back up to the bar to get a drink and
let him know that I was still there, that I was okay, that I
knew he was there.

But.I was comfortable in the corner. Too many people knew
that Seamus was going home tomorrow, too many people were
wondering why he was leaving me. My reasoning was, if I could
effectively hide, they would let me be.

There were too many questions, questions that I didn’t
have answers to. So I sat in the corner, away from my father,
away from my brother, away from my lover.

"Don’t let it get to you," Corrigan said. He was bussing
tables near me, and I looked up at him with a smile.

"I’m alright," I said.

"You haven’t been paying for those, have you now?" he
asked. "You need the drinks more than Seamus does."

"Maybe not," I said, and I thought of the pregnancy.
That’s another thing I’d have to deal with at a later time.

Corrigan approached me hesitantly. "I shouldn’t be
telling you this Moira, but, I’ve known you since you’ve been
a wee one and it may ease your pain."

I tried to focus on what he was saying, to anticipate it,
but instead, I sat back and waited. I felt my legs start to
shake.

He started again, looking around to see if anyone else

could hear. "Tonight Seamus asked if there would be a job open

. I
In!

 

76

after Christmas. He’s thinking of coming back."

I let my drink sit. I was past pride. "Really. He never
told me that." I sat, still, letting it sink.

"I thought you ought to know." Corrigan began to turn
away.

"Thank.you," I said after him, as much as an afterthought
than anything else. I sat silently, legs shaking, finally

raising my drink once again.

"You’ve been a very patient girl. Do you want me to get
him over here?" my father asked, eyes glassy and watery once
again.

I shook my head. I was content to sit and let people come
to me, only getting up to go to the bathroom and back. Seamus
had been over a couple of times already, the bar was
officially closed, but on special occasions, Corrigan let the
customers out and friends stay. So we sat, still drinking for
free, and with most of the people gone I could see him from
across the room, moving fluidly, animated, happy- like he was
when he first came over with me a year ago.

"Why don’t you go over and get him?"

"Didn’t we go over this earlier?" I asked, and leaned
back in my seat. I thought of what Corrigan said and almost
smiled. "Let it go, Mick. He’ll come get me when he’s good and
ready."

He stared at the dartboards still behind me, now unused,

finally getting up, exasperated, fishing around for his dart

77

set in the pocket of his shirt.

I stood under the showerhead, letting the cool water wash
over me. I knew that Seamus was angry; on the cab ride home
his voice was strained and sharp. He had come over to me after
almost everyone, including Matthew and my father, had gone,
and.had just gestured, a pugnacious wave of the hand. He would
never yell, that wasn’t his style, but that wave of the hand
told more than any verbal diatribe ever could. So I had just
left with him, waving to Corrigan and Andy behind the bar, not
smiling, not speaking. There was nothing really to say anyway.

I let the water run for a few more minutes before I
turned it off. I would only have to face Seamus on the other
side of the bathroom door. It would be impossible to not say
anything to him at this point- but to just go to bed would be
to get up in the morning and face the day that he was leaving.

I wrapped a robe around me, still drunk. It wasn’t a good
time to say anything. I was emotional, I was liable to say
things that I didn’t want to say, not until he made a decision
either way. If he left, I wouldn’t stay pregnant and he would
never know. If he stayed, I’d tell him.

I felt better. The smell of the bar, the sweat, it was
all gone and I opened the door to an empty hallway. I heard
him in the kitchen, moving around, then the sound of a bottle
opening.

"Seamus?" I called, walking toward the kitchen. He was at

the counter, opening a bottle of wine from the refrigerator.

 

 

78

"Let’s have a toast," he said, turning to me, holding the
bottle above his head.

"It’s three o’clock in the morning," I said, and pulled
the robe tight. He was taut, visibly angry, and with a lurch
he came toward me, weaving across the kitchen.

"No, we have to have a toast dear," he said, and I
realized that it would be better to let him go. He poured the
wine into two waiting glasses sitting on the table, spilling
wine before setting the bottle down. I took one carefully. He
raised his high above his head.

"To you," he said with a bitter smile.

"Okay, to me."

He drained the glass and grabbed the open bottle to
refill it. "To you getting what you want."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

Seamus leaned up against the table as he poured himself
another full glass.

"I’m not going to play games, Seamus," I said, and put my
glass down gently.

"I’m going tomorrow. That’s what you want now, isn’t it?"
he asked.

"Is that what you really think?"

He stepped away from me. "Then say it. Say that you want
me to stay." His voice was calm, but challenging, and I felt
myself instinctively put my hand over my mouth as if to block
something from escaping. "Say it," he said again.

I stood and watched him in the kitchen, his body shaking

79

with emotion, and I felt something inside of me go cold. I
opened my mouth, but then closed it and shook my head.

"Your decision was made a long time ago." I felt my words
hang in the air between us, until Seamus turned away from me.

"Is that what you think?" he asked in a defeated voice.

I didn’t answer, only turning away when I realized that
he couldn’t face me, walking to the bedroom and closing the

door.

Lying in bed, I could hear him still moving around in the
other room. I knew that he wouldn’t come in the bedroom after
me, not until he was sure I was long asleep, so I stared up at
the ceiling, wishing I could at least cry. That would make me
feel better, or worse, instead of the nothingness that I was
feeling then. And.I thought about him standing under the light
in the kitchen, unable to meet my eyes, in so much pain that
he turned away. Maybe I would ask him tomorrow. Maybe I would
open my mouth and make everything work, or better yet, I’d
wake up and he’d tell me that he decided to stay because he
couldn’t stand the idea of leaving. And of course, we’d live
happily ever after, with baby, Seamus never regretting his
decision to leave Ireland and his family to make his future
with me.

What a strange day it had been, I thought as I began to
drop off to sleep. It started off alright, with art class- but
then that sewer man. I had almost forgotten about him. It had

been an omen, a curious, foreboding omen, finding that man

 

 

 

80
kissing the grating, watching the police put him in the car.
He was convinced that it was God in that sewer, that God
needed someone to hear him and help him and wasn’t it ironic
that I had felt that I had been at the bottom of that sewer
all day, mired in my own emotional filth, whispering for
someone to get me out. That is ironic, I thought, everything
fading into sleep, except no one is bending over the grating
to hear me. They’re just walking by, somehow hearing only

silence.

At first, his face was fuzzy. My eyes felt almost swollen
shut so I kept them closed, just feeling his hands all over
me. He didn’t say a word at first, just touched me, then he
brought his head down and kissed me, my face, my neck, my
stomach. Ilqnnzstill, half—asleep,1hungover, remembering only
when he was already on top of me that he was leaving, and what
had happened the night before. And then I was awake but kept
my eyes closed, trying to remember how it felt for him to be
on top of me again, maybe for the last time, and the thought
made me move more intensely, the pleasure building, the
emotion escalating.

"Look at me," he said, and opened my eyes with his
fingers. I saw his face, that he had been crying, I saw love
in his eyes and knew I would cry, I began to shake, and I
thought that I could ask him but then he gasped and thrust,
his head dropped to my shoulder, breath uneven and I looked up

to the ceiling.

81
"I love you," he said, still trying to catch his breath.
"I love you," I said back, holding him tight, but knowing

that I’d have to let him go. He still had to finish packing.

At the airport, at his gate, I was surprised at how calm
both of us were. It was only when his flight was called, the
point when boarding began, did I really believe that he would
leave. Somewhere inside of me, I held onto the hope that he
would never get on the plane, he’d turn around and profess his
love, but when he grabbed his case, I knew for certain he was
already gone.

"This is your last chance," he said, everything inside of
him contained in tiny packages, wrapped up nice and neat.

I smiled. "And yours," I said.

"Maybe I’ll come back after Christmas, I’ve been
thinking." He pulled his case closer to him.

"Maybe I’ll be here." I looked sadly at him, wondering
what the months in between would do, how things would change,
wondering whether I’d see him again, or if this goodbye meant
nothing but a minute in time.

"It would've been a lot easier if you’d asked me to
stay," he said, and I just nodded. It would have been easier,
but what did that mean, easier? So I kissed him and let him
go, let him turn away and walk into the doorway that led to
the plane that was to take him home. And when he was gone, I
let myself cry, not only for me, but for him, for my father,

for what could have been our baby, for the sewer man listening

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for something that was never there. I watched the plane pull

away from the terminal and felt relief.

 

 

The Gallery

Usually she was the wife. Today she was the connoisseur
of art, an astute aficionado, and she walked confidently into
the gallery. It was spacious and bright, and she examined the
expanse with a cursory glance. The gallery was full of people,
well- dressed, attractive people, sipping opening night
champagne, milling from piece to piece. Elizabeth could feel
her hands shake as she took off her coat.

"Let me take that," Mitch said from behind her, and
grabbed the coat with one hand. Tonight Mitch was her date,
she thought, not her husband, no, he was just her date, and it
could very well be that she would let someone else take her
home tonight. If only Mitch didn’t live with her, she thought,
if only Mitch wasn’t here.

Elizabeth loved art; or perhaps it would be better to say
that she loved the idea of art. To steady her hands, she
grasped her purse. She felt Mitch give her a slight shove, a
bit more than a nudge, and she took a deep breath and stepped
further into the gallery.

She heard someone call, "Mitchi", and a woman approached
him, smiling, embracing, and Elizabeth knew instinctively that

this woman had slept with him. They had been separated for

83

84
almost a year and had only gotten back together three months
ago, they had an understanding, and she tried to keep this in
mind as she searched the room for the man with the champagne.

"Darling, this is Teisha," Mitch had a hold of her arm
and almost physically turned her, "she sent the invitation."

"Hello," Elizabeth said, " and thank you, this showing is
is..."

"Wonderful, " Mitch finished.

Her husband was tall and handsome, although too hairy,
and the woman was dark, her face uneven and pale, but she’d
look good in the dark, Elizabeth thought, and she watched them
make small talk. How strange, they had been naked and sweaty
together. The thought amused her, and she laughed.

"You’re in a strange mood tonight," Mitch said, and
Elizabeth thought, you’re damn right I am, you’d better watch
out.

"Watch out Beth!" Teisha warned, and Elizabeth slowly
turned.to mercifully find the champagne man ready and waiting.

"It’s Elizabeth," she said, smiling as if she had smelled
something horrible but didn’t want to embarrass anyone, "not
Beth." She took a sip of her champagne, turned and glanced at
the nearest painting. A group of three people were in front of
it, two women and a man, and she watched the man touch the
elbow of the woman next to him. There was something vaguely
familiar about him, his movements, something soothing even.
She watched him laugh, tried to get a good look at his face,

but he didn’t turn around, and she found herself admiring his

85
broad back and wondering how it wouLd be to run her hands
across its width. Where do I know him from, she thought, how
do I know him?

She turned back to her husband; she hadn’t been missed.
Elizabeth noticed with a jolt that his hand was on Teisha’s
elbow, not sensually, but almost possessively, and.she drained
her champagne glass.

"Excuse me," she said with a forced cheerfulness, "I'm
going to walk around."

"You want me to go?" Her husband asked, obligingly, and
she shook her head, no, stay, don’t worry about me, but he had
already turned back to Teisha, his hand now on her upper arm.
I wonder how I’ll manage to ask him for a divorce, she
thought.

She found another champagne man, unburdened him of a full
glass, and began to examine the paintings along the nearest
wall of the gallery. She soon realized that she was spending
too much time at each painting, as if waiting for something to
happen, and she wasn’t keeping up with the flow of the other
beautiful, articulate people. She listened to their comments,
nodding along with some, carefully considering others, and
even rolling her eyes at a few. After another glass of
champagne, she began to see herself as self-contained.

She looked around suddenly for her husband, and found
that he and Teisha had been joined by two men, one very short
and stylishly dressed, the other very tall and thin. The men

should have made her felt better, but she felt nothing but

 

86
mild curiosity, and that realization made everything bright:
the lights, the brushstrokes on the paintings, the champagne
glasses, even the wedding ring on her finger.

Elizabeth walked a bit to her right, stood in front of
the last piece on the wall, and thought she would cry. It was
a simple painting, a slash of reddish-brown the focal point,
surrounded by the play of grey, like crystal, or even ice, she
thought, and.it was vibrant, powerful. Others walked.by behind
her, approved and disapproved, evaluated and corrected,
criticized and noted; they were fools. This is beauty, she
thought, this is it. She rarely came in contact with beauty,
and it was as if it had grabbed her by both elbows and shook
her.

"Quite a few guys from my firm are here," Mitch said from
behind her, but his sudden appearance didn’t startle her, it
seemed as if he was speaking from far away. "How’re things
going on your end?"

"It’s beautiful, isn’t.it?" She asked, and.hriefly wished
that he would put his arm around her. Just to feel someone,
she thought, and closed her eyes.

"Yeah," he said, "it’s alright," but he was already
looking around for someone else, there was nothing to say to
her, not really, nothing that would make a difference to
either one of them.

"I want this painting," she said.

"We don’t need a painting," he said, as if the thought of

her wanting anything exasperated him.

87

"I didn’t say we, I said I," she felt as if the
brightness of the light on the painting was blinding her. "I
said that I want this painting."

"There’s Alex," his arm went up, signalling, and before
she could say anything else he was gone.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and stood up as straight as
she could manage. I’m sick of standing up for myself in this
marriage, she thought, I’m sick of being the only passion, the
one that thinks beyond myself. I must get out of this marriage
or I’ll just come apart at the seams, I’ll bust into a
thousand small sharp pieces.

She bent over to read the information card next to the
paintimg. Blood on Ice, it said, by Louisa Daman, and it
would sell for five hundred dollars.

"I feel like if I reach out and touch it, I’d break this
glass or whatever this is, you know, it looks so fragile." And
as if to illustrate, the familiar man, the one she had seen
earlier at the entrance, tentatively reached out, his hand
half a foot from the painting.

"Yes, it’s well-done." She stared at his face, and she
knew for certain that she did know him. The familiarity
centered on the eyes, more brown than green; this man had a
thin, yet kind mouth, and.distinctive hands. Large, comforting
hands, she thought, as he dropped his arm and focused on the
piece.

"I like the juxtaposition of precision and the, ah,

violence of the slash here." His arm went up again, but

 

 

88
dropped almost immediately. He looked to her for approval.

"A metaphor for the human condition," she said, smiling,
because he had the same question in his eyes, he recognized
her, but didn’t know from where, and his arm came up again,
this time to point at her.

"We know each other." He said simply, and she liked that.
If he had put it in the form of a question, she would have
screamed.

She nodded.

"You were in the creative writing class over at the
Community College about a year ago." He waved his hand and
nodded with satisfaction.

"Yes, yes," Elizabeth was relieved, "yes, we went out for
coffee that night."

"That’s right, at the cafeteria." His head stopped and
his eyes focused. "And you never came back to class after that
night."

She kept nodding and smiling, for she remembered the kiss
he had given her after walking her to her car; it was a small
one really, but just enough to scare her, and she had decided
to drop off her final story instead of coming to class and
running into him again.

"Elizabeth," she said, offering her hand.

"I remember," he was nodding again, and he shook her hand
slowly. "I’m David, in case you don’t."

She held his hand a bit longer than necessary. I see what

I was so scared of, she thought.

 

 

89

"So, was that your husband? I seem to recall that you
were separated, you were thinking about getting a divorce."

"Yes." She dismissed the guilty urge to scan the room for
her husband. "We decided to try it again."

David looked back at the painting. "So that’s why you
didn’t come back." He laughed. "I was hoping that you’d at
least call."

"I wish that I had, believe me. Things were just too
difficult at that point." She avoided his eyes. Please, she
thought, please don’t leave.

"You don’t look very happy, Elizabeth." He said it
softly, intimately, and she wondered how she could have
forgotten him. He was just like this, probing, and when she
was out with him last year, right before her reconciliation
with Mitch, his questions discomfited.her, upset.her even. But
now, even in front of a gallery full of people, she was
aroused, ready, and she met his eyes.

"If I had to do it over again, I would," she said.

"What would you do differently?"

"I wouldn’t have gone home alone that night." She watched
his eyes widen, felt the adrenalin rush, the room brightened
once again, and she heard herself finish, "and that’s just for
starters."

"You might have to tell me more," he said, and as if in
slow motion, he reached out and steadied her.

"Truth." she said, but he didn’t understand, and slightly

off—balance, she said, "I will tell you about truth and

90
beauty."

He stood before her, tall, broad-shouldered, handsome:
she wondered when his hand had left her arm. He reached into
his pocket and pulled out a card.

"I hope that this doesn’t seem cliche, but here’s my
card." He offered it, she took it, and put it into her small
purse. "If you call me this time, I’ll.." (and he smiled) "buy
you this painting." He bent over quickly to find the price.
"It’ll be worth it."

"I don’t want you to buy the painting." She stood and
looked at him carefully. His mouth suddenly seemed too thin,
too repressive. The thought of him buying it filled her with
disgust.

"It was just a joke," he said, and then his brown eyes
were looking over her shoulder and she jerked around, seeing
the woman he had been with before over near the entrance.

"Call me," he whispered, "this isn’t the place, I’m with
someone," and she closed her eyes.

"I’m a different person from what I was then," she said,
but he was already gone. She touched her lips, and opened her
eyes. Mitch didn’t love the painting, and David just pretended
to, a ploy to pick her up in front of his girlfriend, no one
in the room loved truth and beauty as she did. She felt a
surge of emotion, as if she were going to cry, and she took a
deep breath. Whatever her marriage was, whatever her
encounter with David was, it wasn’t truth and beauty.

Mitch wasn’t around, but she wouldn’t have cared if he

91
was standing right next to her; in fact, a confrontation was
exactly what she needed. I’ll tell him after one more drink,
she thought. I’ll tell him about truth and beauty. I’ll tell
him that to stay with him would be to betray it, and to betray
it would break my heart. One more glass of champagne and I’ll
kick his ass.

It all happened so fast, she thought. Isn’t it amazing
how the course of one’s life can change in the blink of an
eye? She looked around quickly for the champagne man, couldn’t
find him, and turned back to the painting. It’s beautiful, she
thought. Elizabeth opened her purse and looked through her
wallet. She took out the business card, and threw it in a
nearby bin. I wonder if I have my credit card with me; I’ll

buy this damn thing myself, she thought, still a bit drunk.

 

Cristina's Mother

It was the fall of Cristina’s eighth year, and her father
was very ill. She knew that he was very ill, because he laid
on the couch, day after day, and never went to his job at Ford
anymore. Her mother talked in hushed tones to her aunts,
shielding her mouth with her tired hand when she talked on the
phone.

Cristina wasn’t allowed in the family room to watch her
afternoon cartoons anymore; instead, her mother told.her to go
outside and play. Her mother would wait at the door and take
her schoolbag, and turn her right back around.

"Please, Tina, your father needs some time to rest," she
would say, and put her hand on her head to comfort her.
Cristina wasn’t a little girl anymore; she knew that her
father’s illness was serious. So instead of arguing, she would
nod and give her mother her blue canvas schoolbag. Because of
her father, her mother was very unhappy, and often forgot
about Cristina and her brother Antonio. He was only three
years old and couldn’t go to school yet, but most days
Cristina’s mother would send Antonio out to play with
Cristina and her friends when she had been home for a little

while.

92

93

Her father’s illness seemed to last forever. In early
November he got up off of the couch and went into work for
three days straight. On the third day, a man named Martinez
dropped him off and talked to Cristina’s mother at the curb of
their house. Bar father walked into the family room, and
started to cough, not like he had always coughed, but
differently. These shook his whole body. Cristina stood.in the
hallway and saw her father take out a bunched up handkerchief
from his pocket and hold it up to his mouth. When he took it

away, she saw the black phlegm that remained.

He went into the hospital a few days after that. Cristina
came home from school and he was gone, even the blanket that
never left the couch was gone. Only her aunt Maria was there,
nervously pacing the kitchen floor and talking Spanish into
the phone.

"Where are my father and my mother?" Cristina asked.

"Tina’s here," said her aunt into the phone, and pointed
to the kitchen table. There were several store bought pastries
on it, but Cristina did not move.

"Where’s Antonio?" she asked.

Her aunt covered the mouthpiece with her hand and waved
her away. Cristina crossed to the table and took a bite from

an apple tart.

When her mother came home later that night, Cristina

could see that she had been crying. Immediately, she went over

 

 

94
and took her purse. Her mother stood in the middle of the
family room, almost precisely where her father had stood just
a few days earlier, and covered her face with her hands. Aunt
Maria came over and put her beefy arms around her.

"Is he dead?" asked Cristina, feeling very small and
alone.

"No," answered Aunt Maria, "but he is very sick. He has
a problem where he breathes," she pointed her heavily ringed
hand to her chest, "in his lungs."

"Oh," said Maria, and sat down on the worn brown chair
next to the hallway. She knew exactly what her aunt was
saying, and then meant her father would probably die. The
thought didn’t seem very real to her.

Her mother took her hands from her face, and Cristina was
surprised by the violent wave of anger that followed. Her
mother moved quickly, first to the end table where her
father’s cigarettes sat. She grabbed them, then checked under
the couch where another full pack waited. She was a tidal
wave, moving in and out of rooms, checking drawers and
closets. Aunt Maria’s impassioned voice followed, but her
mother was not to be quieted.

Cristina sat in the front room. I hope she doesn’t wake
Antonio, she thought, and gazed at the long strips of light on
the carpet that came from the streetlights outside. She got up
and stepped in and out of the light, listening to her Aunt
Maria talk Spanish, and her mother’s frantic movements tear

the bathroom apart.

 

 

95

Finally, her mother had finished, and nearly a dozen
packages of cigarettes were placed on the kitchen table next
to the store bought pastries. They all looked at the compact
boxes, some open and some not; Cristina watched her mother’s
face lovingly.

Aunt Maria sighed and pulled up a chair for Cristina’s
mother. "You must eat something," she said. She had been
crying as well.

Cristina looked at her Aunt, having never really thought
of her as her mother’s sister like she was Antonio’s sister,
and then she looked back to her mother, still watching the
cigarettes.

"We have beef stew," Cristina said, and her mother turned
around as if it were the first time she had seen her. She
reached out and kissed her, holding her very close.

"You must go to bed now," she said, in her stumbling
Mexican accent, "and I will tuck you in."

Cristina took her mother’s hand and led her mother to the
room she shared with her brother. Antonio had slept all day,
the sleep of a little boy that could sense tragedy and wanted
to avoid it. As she changed into her nightgown and climbed

into bed, she asked her mother what was wrong with her father.

Her mother pulled up the thick patchwork blanket and
kissed Cristina on the forehead.
"I’ll take you to see him tomorrow," she said, and

Cristina reached up to touch her thick, silky black hair.

96

"Okay," Cristina answered, and thought about her father
as her mother crossed the room to Antonio’s small bed by the
door. She watched her mother’s broad back bend in and out of
the light as she kissed Antonio, and Cristina realized her
father must be very sick. But he would not die, because he was
too strong of a man for that, he was solid like the Bible that
sat next to his bed and the thick arms that worked on the line
and held her mother on the porch just last summer. 80 Cristina
took comfort in these thoughts, and she fell asleep to her

mother and Aunt talking quietly in the other room.

From that day on, it was one relative after another for
the three weeks that her father was in the hospital. She
wasn’t allowed to see him after all, it was explained to her
that her father was in intensive care and couldn’t have her
there. So Cristina sat with the endless circuit of aunts and
uncles and cousins that took the bus or drove their cars over
to the house and she ate a lot of food, homemade mostly, and
listened to a lot of hushed conversations after she had gone
to bed.

When he came home, they were all there, and Cristina just
wished that they all would leave. Her father emerged from her
Uncle Pedro’s sedan, and Cristina couldn’t.believe that he was
the same man that had entered the hospital.

He walked haltingly up to the house, looked assertively
at everyone on the porch until he found Cristina and Antonio.

"My Tina," he said and she walked to him, slightly

 

97
afraid, wanting to be gentle. He put his arm around her and
started to walk up the steps, one at a time, waving Uncle
Pedro away and reaching out for Antonio. Cristina’s father
bent down to pick up his son and he started to cough, the same
wracking noise that she.had.heard before, and he withdrew from
Antonio like a turtle into his hard, green shell.

Cristina glanced up to see her Aunt Maria look down at
the ground, then make the sign of the cross furtively.
Cristina’s mother stood by her husband’s side and put a hand
on his back as if she was trying to prop him up.

It took a long time for him to enter the house. Cristina
didn’t enter with him, all the relatives followed him in and
forgot about Cristina and Antonio outside on the porch.
Antonio sat down on the worn brown couch and swung his legs
back and forth. Cristina looked over his head through the
front window, where a bunch of her relatives stood, concerned
about her father. She could hear him coughing.

"Papa’s sick," said Antonio, but did not look at her. He
watched. the kids across the street. play’ Red. Rover, and
Cristina followed his eyes. It had been the first time that
Antonio had said anything to her about their father, and she
went over to him on the couch and put her thin arm around his
tiny shoulders.

"It’s something'withihis lungs," said Cristina knowingly.
She didn’t want to say the word, because even someone as young
as Antonio knew its severity, and she felt like if she could

protect him, she should. She would have to be an adult,

 

98
especially if their mother had to take care of their father;
it wouldn’t be all bad, she thought, she’d just help out
wherever she was needed.

She reached into her pocket looking for money and found
a few pennies. The porch seemed very wide and was littered
with windblown dirt and fall leaves. During the summer,
Cristina and her father had repainted it, she had actually
been his helper, and she was proud to do so in her special
work clothes and hat. He had been very happy to have the porch
done.

Everything will be okay, she thought. They would paint
the porch again in the summer, just like the last. All he
needed was rest, and love, and prayers. Cristina would make
sure he’d get all that, and stay away from cigarettes, and
she’d be very quiet, a good girl. She felt better that day,
and watched the sun fall in the sky as her relatives talked

inside.

Thanksgiving came and went. Cristina went over to her
Aunt Maria’s, just as her family had always done, but this
time they set up a couch for her father. As the rest of the
relatives ate at the big, long table in the living room,
Cristina’s mother shuttled back and forth from her husband.

With the beginning of December, Cristina’s father seemed
to feel better. There was no talk of him going back to work;
instead, her mother announced one surprisingly warm day that

she was going to work. There had been a talk about how

 

99
Christmas was going to be less than last year, and about how
they should be happy just to be all together.

"Does this mean I won’t.get any presents?" Antonio asked.
"I want presents."

Cristina had never seen her mother so angry. She gave her
brother a warning look. He put his small hand on the back of
the kitchen chair.

"I have to go work. Do you understand that your father
cannot work anymore? You will be happy with what you get." She
struggled to hold back the tears.

"Thank God for insurance," Aunt Maria added. She was
there everyday now, helping her sister take care of her
husband.

"But he’s feeling better. He’s walking around. Why can't
he go back to work once he feels better?" Cristina was
confused. Her father spent most of the day off of the couch
now, and he looked stronger.

"Listen to me." Her mother lowered her voice to a steady,
fervent whisper. "Your father will never get better. He will
never go back to work. That’ll be the way it is from now on,"
and by the end, she was crying. Aunt Maria put her hand on her
elbow and Cristina’s mother stopped talking.

Antonio started crying then, loud, frightened sobs that
made his mother whirl around as if kicked. He clutched her
leg, not ceasing in his crying, and Cristina looked out the
kitchen window at the house next door. It was yellow and

solid. She looked at her mother and brother, both crying, her

100
mother trying to comfort him, and she wished that she was
young like Antonio. She didn’t want to believe that her father
was dying, that something so sure could suddenly be gone,
could wither away and die. Her mother was wrong- Cristina
would just pray more, be a better girl and things would go

back the way they were. Her mother had to be wrong.

Her mother started her job as a seamstress for a large
department store downtown. She had a sewing machine at home,
so they converted one of the tiny rooms upstairs to a sewing
room. During the day, Aunt Maria would come by to check on
Cristina’s father and wait for Antonio and Cristina to come
home from school. Sometimes she would take them shopping at
the supermarket. On those days, she’d also cook dinner.

Her mother was always tired now, coming home on the bus
with dresses and suits from her job, and disappearing after
dinner to work in her new sewing room. Cristina would clear
the table without asking. She also learned how to put away
laundry, vacuum and dust. She kept Antonio quiet. Her father
encouraged her, playing games with her when he felt good,
teasing her Aunt Maria and letting Antonio sit on the couch
and watch the news when it came on in the early afternoon.
They would wait for her mother to walk down the street
in her thick winter coat, carrying her work with her.

It was the Friday before Christmas and Cristina walked
home from school, feeling very happy. She had two weeks off,

two whole weeks to spend with her father and mother. She

 

 

101

planned all things she would do for her father, things to keep
him happy, special snacks she could make. It had been snowing
since the night before, and the school had let them out early.
Antonio didn’t have school at all. She cut through the alley,
a shortcut she usually avoided. Older kids that belonged to
gangs often hung out there and would sometimes cause trouble
for anyone that came through. Cristina’ 5 mother made her
promise never to walk in the alley. But today was different,
and the snow made everything seem so clean and new.

She swung her blue canvas schoolbag carefully, for inside
she had the presents she had purchased at the Santa’s Helper
Store the school had provided: a silver thimble and pair of
scissors for her mother; a thick coloring book for Antonio; a
pink feather duster for her Aunt Maria; and a set of
watercolors for her father. It had cost her five dollars for
all her presents, but she knew the greatest present she could
give would be the part she played in her father’s recovery. No
one noticed what a good girl she had been, but that was okay.
It would all be worth it when her father went back to work for
good.

She came to the back of her house. The back gate was
open, and she trudged her way through the tall, thick mound of
snow. Aunt Maria’s car wasn’t in the driveway, it was empty,
and Maria crossed the small backyard to the back porch.

Right before she opened the heavy back door, she heard
her father cough, a deep, prolonged hacking that came from

outside the house. She stopped to listen. Her father had not

 

102
been outside since Thanksgiving, he was too sick for the cold
air, and Cristina knew immediately that something was wrong.
She quietly descended the back stairs and walked to the corner
of the house. The coughing stopped. She peeked around the
corner carefully.

Her father stood against the side of the house, wearing
a winter parka that was now too large for him. She saw him
exhale smoke before she saw him actually bring the cigarette
to his mouth, slowly and determinedly, and inhale long and
hard. He stood there motionlessly for a moment, not exhaling,
now moving, taking the cigarette from his lips, but then
keeping it only inches from his mouth. Then he exhaled again,
and something caught in his chest and he coughed; he waited
patiently until it passed, and put the thin, half-finished
cigarette back in.

Cristina walked to the back porch as silently as she
could. She sat on the back porch and watched the snow fall.
She opened her mouth and tried to catch snowflakes. This is
not happening, she thought. I have imagined the whole thing.
If I stay here a minute, I can go into the house and wrap my
gifts and he will be on the couch, just as he always is, and
we’ll watch the evening news and maybe when Aunt Maria comes
we can make hot chocolate. We’ll put the tree lights on and
watch the snowfall. She picked up a handful of the powdery
snow and threw it as far as she could. It didn’t go very far,
just split up into individual flakes, blown by the crisp wind

back into her face.

 

 

103

Cristina heard the front door close and knew that her
father had gone back into the house. She sat there, brushing
the snow off of the stairs, finally putting a handful of it in
her mouth. What would her mother think, she thought. I must
never tell her. It never happened. She remembered her mother
the night her father had gone in the hospital, the night she
had rounded up the cigarettes and thrown them all away, and
Cristina knew that this would kill her mother. She would never
tell.

After a few minutes, she got up and opened the heavy back
door. She took off her wet boots and put them on the back
porch, along with her coat and leggings and mittens. She
couldn’t reach the hooks, so she left them on the floor of the
back porch to dry. She opened the door to the back stairway
and kitchen entrance, and found her father at the kitchen
sink, washing his hands with dishsoap.

"Tina," he turned to her, "how is my girl?" And he
continued to soap his hands at the sink, his emaciated frame
leaning against the sink for support, and she went over to him
and hugged him around the waist, loving him, smelling the
smoke in his clothing and hating him, feeling the thinness in
his legs and pitying him, finally wiping her tears on his
pants.

He stood still, his body shaking a little bit, until she
stepped back from him. "What’s wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," she answered, and stepped back again.

"Nothing." Cristina looked up at him, looked into his large

 

104
brown eyes and walked past him to her bedroom. She closed the
door and laid down on her bed, not coming out until she heard

her Aunt knock on the door for dinner.

Cristina did not play games with her father anymore, but
nobody noticed; shortly after New Year’s Day he went back into
the hospital. Her mother was never home anymore, she went
straight from work to the hospital, so Aunt Maria picked up
Cristina and Antonio from school and brought them to her house
closer to the suburbs. It was there that they had dinner and
did schoolwork until their mother came, sometimes as late as
eight or nine o’clock at night, and they all went home.

One day in late February, Cristina and Antonio waited
outside the school for Aunt Maria, but she never came. They
walked home silently, it was bitterly cold, and it wasn’t
like Aunt Maria to forget about them. They walked down their
street quickly, Cristina’s eyes looking ahead for their house.
She saW' it suddenly, Aunt. Maria’s car' was there, Uncle
Martino’s car too, and a few others that she didn’t recognize.
She knew right then that he was dead.

As they neared the house, Cristina’s mother came out onto
the porch, already dressed in black, face red and puffy from
crying, and Antonio broke from Cristina’s side and ran up the
porch. He already knew.

Cristina stood on the front walk, steady, and thought
that it all was like a dream, her mother and brother were very

far away, and her schoolbag felt very heavy. The wind was very

 

105
cold, and she wanted more than anything to go into the warm,
inviting house, but she didn’t want to pass her mother and her
relatives because she was ashamed. Ashamed that she could not
cry. Ashamed that she was not sad. Ashamed because she saw him
that day, on the side of the house, and she knew that they
could see it on her face.

She walked.in behind.her mother, eyes down, her relatives
right in the family room, and she walked past the kitchen
where her Aunt was putting lunchmeat out on a platter, and
into her bedroom. She put her schoolbag on a chair, along with
her jacket and leggings, and took her boots off one at a time.
She could hear Antonio crying and voices comforting him, and

she laid down on her bed and wished that it was all over.

After her father’s funeral, Cristina and Antonio would
come home from school, where Aunt Maria would be waiting, and
they would wait for Cristina’s mother to come home from her
job at the department store before sitting down to eat dinner.

Time passed quickly that winter. The days were short and
cold, and they spent a lot of time indoors. One day in early
March the weather warmed up enough to melt the snow that had
been on the ground for weeks. Cristina decided to get her bike
out of the garage, where it had been stored since early fall.

Cristina's family didn’t own a car; instead, the garage
was used for storage and her father’s workbench. It hadn’t
been opened since his death, and she felt the cold, stale air

as she opened the uncooperative door. Cristina’s mother had

 

106

given her husband’s clothes to charity and other family
members soon after his death, and the smell of grease, the
presence of his tools, the helmet to his old motorcycle
overwhelmed her when she stepped into the garage. A pair of
his old, dirty gloves sat right in the center of the
workbench, and she tentatively picked them up. Underneath,
hidden by them, was an open pack of Pall Malls.

Cristina stared at them for a minute. Only a few left,
she thought, he smoked almost all of them. She put them in her
pocket and walked out of the garage, closing the door behind
her. She walked up the back steps and through the back porch
to the kitchen, where Aunt Maria was preparing dinner.

She stared at her Aunt until she turned around. "Will God
punish you if you can’t forgive someone? I mean, is it a sin?"
She watched her Aunt wipe her hands on her apron, then asked,
"Will you go to Hell?"

"Hmm, well, that’s not an easy one. To be a good
Christian, you must turn the other cheek." She turned back to
the frying pan.

"But what if you can’t? What if you’ve really tried, but
you just can’t do it?" She fingered the pack of cigarettes in
her coat pocket. "How can you do it?"

Her Aunt turned.to her and smiled, and gathered her long,
black hair in.a ponytail with her hands, then reached into her
pocket for a band. "Did you get into a fight with one of your
little friends?"

Cristina hesitated, then nodded.

 

 

107

"Well, you have to ask Mother Mary to intercede for you.
You must pray. We pray to the Virgin because she is the Mother
of Jesus, and she will hear us and help." Aunt Maria opened
the oven and checked on the browning potatoes and peppers.
"Oh, and you should do it before Easter."

"Why?" Cristina asked. Easter was only a few weeks away,
and that wasn’t enough time.

"Jesus is resurrected, and we are reborn. You can't be
reborn with anger in your heart. Put yourself in your
girlfriend’s shoes and try to understand." She began to cut up
tomatoes, big, juicy ones, and offered a slice to Cristina.

"Even if this person brought it on themselves?"

Her aunt nodded.

"Thank you," she said, taking the tomato and putting it
in her mouth. Her fingers played with the plastic on the

cigarette pack.

The next day, Cristina went over to the church. It was a
very old, beautiful Catholic church, only a few blocks from
where she lived, and she opened the tall door with both hands.
The church was spacious and dark, the muted afternoon sun
dully lit the stained glass windows.

She knew where the statue of the Virgin Mary stood, to
the left of the altar. She walked down the aisle and looked at
it. The Virgin Mother stood, robed in light blue, her head
covered by a cream colored veil, her arms crossed in front of

her and her eyes loving and peaceful. Cristina knelt in front

108
of the statue, and bowed her head.

She stayed there for a minute, doing nothing, hoping that
the Virgin Mother would come to her, would know her, and she
would hear her voice in her head and all would be okay. But
nothing happened, and she raised her eyes to the statue once
again.

She heard a commotion behind her, and she stayed
perfectly still. It was above her, first a man’s voice, then
boys laughing, and finally voices warming up. It was the choir
from Notre Dame. Damn, she thought, and then looked up to see
if the Virgin had read her thoughts. But there was nothing.

The choir started to sing, an Easter song, and she
recognized it even though it was in Latin, and suddenly
Cristina knew it was an omen. She closed her eyes and prayed,
help me Virgin Mary, help me, and she heard the choir so
beautiful, and she felt tears coming to her eyes, help me, I
want to forgive him, and her heart hurt, everything in her
cried out, I want to forgive, I have to, need to, be forgiven.
And the music got louder, and her heart beat faster, and she
begged, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me...

The choir director’s harsh voice rang out through the
church, and the music stopped. Cristina could hear herself
breathe in and she held her breath, please, she thought,
please don’t go, and the choir director was yelling at
someone, and she could hear every word, and she sharply opened
her eyes, she was still in the church, and with an exhale of

breath she realized that the moment was over. The Virgin Mary

 

109
was just a statue with a chip in its base. The choir started
the song from the beginning. She got up and wiped her tears,
cold and bitter, and she started shaking. Nothing had
changed, she thought, nothing. She was not forgiven and she
would go to hell.

She fingered the pack, still in her pocket, and for a
second, she wanted to kneel down again, she had to have
absolution, she had to do penance for her sins, she couldn’t
leave without it, but she looked once again at the statue and
knew that she wouldn’t get it, not here, not anywhere, and she
walked away reluctantly from Mother Mary’s loving, comforting
eyes.

The day was gray and blustery, and the cold hit her as
soon as she left the safety of the church. She stood at the
bottom of the steps, her eyes getting used to the light, and
she thought, I will never be the same again. She put on her
mittens. The tree next to the steps swayed in the breeze, and
the first signs of life were budding. Cristina took the
cigarettes from her pocket and walked to the trashcan by the
curb. Cars passed by quickly, splashing water from the street
onto the sidewalk. She took the cigarettes out, but instead of
throwing them away, she held them over the trashcan with a
steady hand. She thought of her father on the side of the
house, coughing, dying, smoking, the porch that wouldn’t be
painted this summer after all. No, she thought. I’ll do it
myself.

Cristina put the full packet of Pall Malls back into her

 

110
pocket. She walked down the street towards home, trying to

think where she last saw a pack of matches.

 

 

Sea Turtles

He was already in our corner of the bar, reading a
tattered paperback held up to dusty light streaming through
the windows. I anxiously adjusted my bra before he caught
sight of me.

"Hell, Katie, where have ya been?" He hadn't even looked
up.

"Work," I answered. "I hope that you.haven’t been waiting
long."

I signalled to the waitress as I sat down. I ordered two
drafts. She waved in recognition. It looked as if he’d been
there awhile, but hadn’t ordered yet. Perhaps he was just
waiting for me to arrive; a more realistic view would be that
he was waiting for me to pay.

"Sometimes I hate people," he said suddenly. "Look over
there, at that young man trying to pick up that woman." He
pointed over to the bar. "Doesn’t he realize how conspicuous
he is?"

"You used to be him, at one time," I reminded him. I
pulled out a five as the waitress set down the beer.

"That was a long time ago. Long before I realized

everything beautiful in this world can’t last." He raised the

111

 

112
glass to his mouth and half his beer disappeared. "That’s why
our love is so special."

"Special," I repeated, and signalled.the waitress for two
more.

He took out a flask from his coat pocket, sluggishly
unscrewed the cap, and offered it to me. I took a shot, felt
the burn and involuntarily winced. I passed it to him, and as
he raised the flask, I tried to see the strength that had once
drawn me to him.

"Hey, you have to buy liquor in this here establishment, "
the waitress interjected, back with our drafts. "You’re not
supposed to bring your own."

"I apologize, Madam," he said. "Would you believe that
it’s medicine for my intestinal tract?" and he smiled.

"Naw. And I’ve got my eye on you." She pointed a long,
threatening finger at him. "You should.be ashamed." She turned
to me. "And why do you hang out with this guy?"

"Sentiment," I answered, and.took a‘voluminous gulp. "Why
don’t you bring us two shots of tequila, no salt, no lime."

She got a concerned look. "Okay, but I think he’s a bad
influence on you."

"Oh," I added, "and.a couple a more drafts." I smiled and
pulled my hair from my face.

"I like that lady," he said sarcastically as she left.
He’d almost finished his second beer. "She’s got a certain
something." He shifted to survey the whole bar.

I started my draft. "What do you see?" I asked him.

113

"A roomful of sharks," he answered, and as he shifted
positions again, I could smell bad alcohol and body odor.

"Sharks?" I asked.

"People are like fish. No really, everyone in this bar is
really a fish." He turned to look at me. "You, you are
something kind and.heautiful. Maybe a sea lion, or’a dolphin."

"I like that." I readied my money as the waitress
approached once again.

"Anything else?" she bent down, bringing her head closer
to mine. I shook my head and drained the rest of my glass.

"What if we refused to pay?" he suddenly asked.

Her hair shook angrily. "I’d throw your sorry butt outta
here," she said. "Wanna try me?"

"No, you just proved my point," he smiled. She took my
money, turned her back on us, and stalked back to the bar.

"She’s a shark. She has to be, you see?" He looked
intently into my eyes. His were cloudy, drunk, pained.

"Then what are you?" I asked, and raised the tequila in
a toast.

"A sea turtle." He caressed the shot glass lovingly and
slowly drank the shot. "I saw a documentary on them. They
start out as eggs on the beach. People search for the eggs and
smash ’em or sell them. If they’re lucky enough to hatch, they
have to scramble to the sea." He bent over the table, and his
foul, dead breath swept over to me. "They have to run, because
they’re prey to birds and people and crabs. Crabs that wait

under the sand and pull them down underneath." His chin

114
started to shake and I knew he was about to cry. "And when
they get there, after all that struggle and desperation,
they’re prey to other stuff: fish, sharks, whales, all kinds
of sea creatures. Leviathans."

He started to weep, convulsively, and he bowed his head.
I could see the waitress point him out to the bartender across
the room. I reached across the table to steady him, but he
was oblivious to me.

"They don’t stand a chance," he cried, louder than he’d
intended, and I sat back and took a drink of my beer.

"We’d better go," I said.

He got up, still crying, and got his bags together. His
tattered paperback went into his pocket. I left a tip on the
table and followed him out into the crisp, dark fall air.

We stood just outside for a minute. He stopped crying,
and put his bags into his cart.

"Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?" I asked.

He nodded, and looked up at me sadly. "You are so
lovely," he said, and wiped his nose with the sleeve of his
coat. "Same time next week?"

I nodded and took a twenty out of my pocket. I put it in
his hand. "It’s getting cold," I said.

He held it a minute, thanked me, turned, and led his cart
down the street. I watched him, trying to see him as he once
was, but I couldn’t. He was what I had always known him to be,
a sea turtle with a soft underbelly, and for a fleeting

moment, I had a compulsion to follow him. Follow him into the

 

 

115
mouth of the night. But all at once, he was gone, swallowed
whole.
I took a deep breath and exhaled, and watched my breath
disappear into the air. I walked back to the bar, opened the

door, and embraced the warmth inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

”Illlllllllllllllllllf