CHORUS & DANCERS: WOMAN HUSBAND LOVER/LOVE OBJECT Diners, College Students, Furniture, Bank Tellers & Customers (5 or 6)
SceneChange I: A glittering dinner party of masked participants (CHORUS). WOMAN takes off her mask and gazes about in a bored way. At exactly the same moment by a kitchen screen a waiter holding a tray (LOVER) takes off his mask. They gaze at one another. He advances forward setting down his tray in front of her and slowly, deliberately removes his glove to draw his hand along her arm, removing her glove. Other diners too animated in their conversations to notice.
He removes his other glove, then her glove. With each of his sway-backwards motions she rises from her chair until he turns to flee behind the screen and, pulling up her skirts, she pursues.
SceneChange II: The CHORUS build their chairs into “trees” pursued and pursuer dart between; the dining table becomes “steps” upwards. CHORUS build themselves into a hall of “doors”; only the LOVER’s door is ajar.
SceneChange III: CHORUS build themselves into a “bed” and a “window”. LOVER removes his shirt, opens up his arms. He and WOMAN dance as she is helped out of her clothes. They simulate slow and passionate sex in front of the “window”, sitting upright on the “bed”. As they lie in each other’s arms the “window” shines its light on them. WOMAN rises, gathers up her clothes, dressing very inexpertly, runs into the hall in a panic.
SceneChange IV: CHORUS rebuilds “doors”. WOMAN wanders up and down the hall as if lost while college students (inverted masks) peek at her from behind their “doors”. Then light hits the “steps” and she runs down, performing a sensuous, joyous dance. DARKNESS.
SceneChange V: WOMAN’s bedroom. CHORUS approximates an “armoire” spilling feminine objects, a “cheval glass” (Mirror) and a “bed” piled with pillows. HUSBAND and wife simulate sex in wheelbarrow position, he wearing suspenders and a tie, holds her legs upwards. Her face is buried in pillows, her arms grasping upwards to…nothing. It does not look fun.
“Mirror” tries to position itself camera-wise to capture the action. Alarm Clock sounds; HUSBAND stops what he is doing, puts on pants and jacket, grabs a briefcase and does a robot dance out the door. WOMAN flounders in pillows, finally gets herself upright but he is gone. She tries on a variety of outfits and seems displeased by all of them (the Armoire and Mirror happily offer alternating possibilities.)
WOMAN dances a self-soothing dance with her different clothes while the Armoire and Mirror sway helpfully and supportively, until she is finally in a good mood again and feels beautiful. Makeup, hair,
shoes… and it is back through the TREES, up the STEPS to the HALL of DOORS.
SCENECHANGE VI: She knocks on each and every door. (There is one door with no one behind it). Each door she knocks at, an opposite door opens, a snatch of music is heard and someone leans out, only to retreat when she looks in his direction. Finally she is able to synchronize movements to grab hold of a masked student and pull him out.
He plays dumb, shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders, just doesn’t know WHO or WHAT she could POSSIBLY be talking about. All doors open, all students look out and engage in a head-shaking, shoulder-slumping stupidity contest of No Such Person. WOMAN tries to peek beneath one of the masks, student slaps her hand away. She gives up. With crossed arms they watch her leave down steps. DARKNESS
SCENECHANGE VII: A BANK with old-fashioned tellers’ cages. WOMAN stands first impatiently in line, finally gets to a window, opens her purse and evidently tries out a series of identity cards and bankbooks in an effort to get money. Teller shakes her head, gets another teller over, then manager; they repel all books, all cards, shake their heads, cross their arms NO.
The WOMAN starts dancing out the story of her love, unmistakably acting a passionate tale of romantic awakening. CHORUS of bank customers are drawn into this story – swaying and touching themselves in supportive echoes; the two tellers clutching, dancing, then finally sobbing together.
They open up both bank drawers and shower her with money which she stuffs in her huge Designer Handbag. Customers congratulate her, throw confetti, produce balloons, champagne, blow party horns and dance together in celebration of her triumph as they send her on her way, back up the “steps” to the Hall of Doors.
SCENECHANGE VIII: WOMAN knocks and knocks on the LOVER’s door. He’s sitting behind it all right, with his back against it, arms crossed (no mask) but not answering. He looks annoyed. She sinks to her knees, keeps speaking, wheedling, repeating as many of the gestures of her Romantic Bank Dance as she can manage on her knees, to no avail.
They are very close together, both pressed against the door. Mirror-play. All the other doors keep opening and closing with peeking tenants until finally they just loiter out to frankly stare. She begins to push money under the door. He looks at the money – interested, then disgusted – pushes it back.
There is a frantic pushing back and forth of money while the other students gather around – holding out their hands and offering with pelvic thrusts and unbuttoned shirts to take over and fill in. WOMAN flees down the hall, bumping back and forth between them, down the “steps”. DARKNESS.
SCENECHANGE IX: A street scene. Everyone is masked, (including WOMAN) as they stroll, walk pets, wait for buses. The WOMAN lifts her mask just a little bit to peek at each passerby. None are to her taste. A Pretty Young Man, unmasked (THE LOVE OBJECT) sits on a park bench reading a book. She chooses HIM. She takes off her mask and casts it onto his book.
This gets his attention; he looks at it as if it fell from outer space. She takes off her scarf, drapes it over his head. Now he gets that there’s a human being involved; he looks up at her, startled. She unbuttons her blouse and does an unmistakably sensual, sexual dance that gets him very hot under the collar. He rises from his bench to follow her. She leads him on slow chase through the TREES, discarding clothes & shoes which he gathers up.
SCENE CHANGE X: The TREES become GRAVESTONES – they are in a cemetery. LOVE OBJECT a little scared now, all by himself. Owl hoots, day darkens. He shivers as he looks around but he is still game. WOMAN has vanished.
He drops to his knees before a “gravestone” to pick up an item – a lacy thong – holds it up wonderingly. On the scrim behind him the huge shadow of a naked woman appears, seeming to fill the sky. He looks up, terrified. The scrim is thrown over him, snuffing him like a candle. DARKNESS
When I heard my brother-in-law was dead, I thought my sister had probably done it. Apparently I was the only one who thought so, because my sister, an aggressively born-again Christian, is a Perfect Person. A martyr. St. Hayley. I recalled a conversation we’d had years ago, when I’d been needling her about her newfound identity, reminding her of all the things she couldn’t do. “No more adultery,” I said, although as far as I knew she’d never been unfaithful to that unfaithful bastard.
“True,” she’d remarked.
“No more lying. Not even tiny social lies. You’ll have to tell everybody the plain, unvarnished truth. No more friends.”
“That’s not true,” she’d said. “There’s a wider truth we must be faithful to. It’s spiritual dishonesty we have to fear. Spiritual dishonesty is a splinter in the body of God.” Hear that? I call that “Jesuitical”. That kind of “I know better” reasoning can justify anything. My husband talks like that, but he’s a lawyer. He says there’s no truth, only juries. “How about justice?” I’d demanded and she smiled at me with that superior smile. “God’s in charge of justice.”
See? A person like that could justify murder! Then she made it worse by talking about how there’s always both forgiveness for sin and sin. If you can be forgiven at the last minute, no matter what you’ve done, can’t you ultimately get away with anything? It bothers me because it’s so obvious, but I can’t get anyone to agree.
“Think she did it?” I asked my husband.
“Hayley? She’d have to stand in line,” Simon.snorted. “Plenty of people had a bigger motive than she did.”
That wasn’t true. There was all that insurance money, plus she’d had to live with him every day. The screaming, the vomiting, the violence. Dave was a piece of work. Now she was free to do whatever she wanted. Sell the house, take a cruise, live abroad. Of course by her lights she couldn’t have sex without marrying someone, but maybe that doesn’t matter either, with forgiveness shimmering eternally on the horizon. On the other hand, that kind of money brings parasites. I’ve heard women in abusive relationships are closet masochists. Right out of the frying pan and into the fire. “If she did it, would you defend her?” I asked my husband.
“Nah,” he said, knotting his tie. Busy guy. Always on his way to somewhere, looking like a fashion plate as always. “Shouldn’t have a relative for a client.” He considered. “Unless she couldn’t get anybody else.”
“If I murdered you, would Al defend me?” I teased.
“That would be tougher.” He laughed. “You wouldn’t be ridding the world of an incubus, you’d be robbing the universe of a first class litigator.”
He has an answer for everything. Litigators “She did it,” I said. “I know.”I don’t know why I kept after him. Maybe I have to.because it’s so rare that when he looks at me, he’s thinking thoughts with me in them.“I doubt she’d have the strength,” he told me. “Somebody gave Dave’s head a pretty good pop.”
“So she hired someone. Of course she’d be in that person’s power forever.” Masochistic, right? “Or somebody did her a favor,” my husband returned. “Danger invites rescue. You think chivalry is dead?”
He’s supposed to be the cynical one!
At the funeral I searched Hayley’s face. I don’t know what I expected to see. The Mark of Cain? What I did see was a person tired and worn, who hadn’t been sleeping. No makeup, hair a mess, black jacket and white skirt — at a funeral? She looked more the way she looked when Dave was acting up. Of course maybe getting your head bashed in behind a bar is the ultimate act-up. She gave me a hug. Can’t ask a person if they’re a killer, not in the receiving line. I was forced to move on. After the receiving line she rushed upstairs. I saw a friend of hers from Al Anon take up a plate of food and what looked like a glass of wine. Why not? She wasn’t the one with the problem. I chose a seat with Simon and the lawyers. Telling war stories as usual. Simon’s partner Al waved a sandwich at me to acknowledge my presence.
“Good eats,” he said. Like I had anything to do with it. Woman equals food in his equation. I took advantage of the pause in their conversation to revert to my favorite topic. asked.
“Think they’ll catch the guy that did it?” I “If he’s dumb enough to use the credit cards,” said Al. “You’d think he would have taken Dave’s car,” I suggested. “Clean getaway.”
Al shrugged. “Must have had a car of his own.” “Some “desperate thief”, then. What was Dave even doing there? The bartender said he wasn’t even drinking in that bar.” “So he got loaded somewhere else,” said Al.
“Those guys always lie,” said Simon, wiping his mouth with the hand that wears the law school ring. Ugly bulky tacky thing. “Bartenders. They don’t want trouble.”
See? No joy for me in this situation. Everyone was celebrating Dave’s death. Good riddance, they were thinking. I imagined our situations reversed, with me the widow and Hayley attending Simon’s wake. Simon’s family is Italian, there would be a lot of screaming and crying, I can tell you. He supports everyone. Would Ihave the nerve to disappear, the way Hayley had done? No, I’d have to stay to be pawed over and criticized. Everything I do is wrong. Thank God I only see those people once a year. If Simon died, I’d take a cruise first thing. Although I should probably go to the gym for a year before putting on a swimsuit. We have a family membership but only Simon uses it – who has the time? Hayley is thin enough but those stretch-marks of hers make her look like she’s been clawed by a tiger. She needs surgery but of course she can afford it now.
I got the idea at the super market. I was standing in line, scanning the impulse purchases, and they had a stack of those lined tablets people who never write letters buy when they have to write a letter. Of course I‘d need one of those untraceable self-stick envelopes: no DNA. Use gloves. Simon says they get fingerprints off paper, now, all the time.
It was so much fun. I wrote the letter with my left hand. No way they could trace it to me. I wrote, I SAW WHAT YOU DID AND YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH IT and signed it GOD. A hoot, right? I used a “Love” stamp (nice touch) and the address was one of those return stickers my sister puts in her Heart Association collection drive packets. Must be tons of those around! Then I mailed it at the box closest to her house – it’s on my route to the hairdresser – I didn’t even have to get out of the car. Just thinking about it gave me pleasure for days, although I wished I as there when she opened it.
Two days was all I could stand. I called her right before lunch.
“Hayley? It’s Maxine. How are you holding up?” “Better. First night without pills.”
Maybe she hadn’t opened it. I cursed the Heart Association sticker idea. If she thought it was a donation maybe someone else opened it. Didn’t tell her, threw my letter away. “Anything I can do? Need food?”
“God, no. The freezer’s groaning.” She hesitated. “You could come over tonight and pack up Dave’s things for Goodwill. My women’s group is coming. I warn you – there will be praying.” Great! “No thank you,” I said stiffly. “Anything but that.” Dave wouldn’t have allowed her “witches” anywhere near his house. I imagined lengthy ceremonies to evict his drunken, aggressive spirit. Possibly they would even try to intercede for his sodden, bossy soul. Ugh. Let’s face it. Dave belongs in hell. But he won’t be alone there.
“Could you take Kevin and Deanie for the weekend? I’m going on retreat.” “Sure,” I heartily agreed. “No problem. James and Heather love being with their cousins.” “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll set it up.”
Now aren’t I a good sister? But when I got home Simon had strewn our marital bed with suits and shirts. Packing for a trip. It’s a kingsize so I still found a place to perch.
“Hey,” I said, “I just agreed to take Kevin and Deanie for the weekend.”
“Not like they’re any trouble,” he told me, carefully matching socks and ties. He’s fussy about his clothes. He always looks good. A litigator is an actor, he says. “Trial Lawyers Association. Gotta go. The kids’ll be fine with movies and pizza. Video games. Isn’t that all they care about?” He has no idea in hell what looking after four kids single-handedly is like. “Back Sunday night,” said Simon. “I’ll be at the Helmsley Palace.”
The Helmsley Palace! That’s where we had our honeymoon! Such a wave of erotic longing washed over me I almost came all over myself then and there. Simon was such a good lover, and I was a virgin. But every time I told him to stop he stopped. It took us technically – a whole week to become man and wife. But what a week! Had I felt such arousal since? God knows where Simon got such control – I didn’t know and I didn’t ask. Both of us have tried telling our kids during “facts of life” discussions that you don’t have to go “all the way” to achieve the sexual nirvana MTV is telling them is out there, but I suspect it’s falling on deaf ears. Along with everything else we say. Single-parenting is not for sissies. The video was plugged in, the pizza was ordered and I was making popcorn when Deanie came in to tell me she’d forgotten her retainer. Perfect. Of course I said I’d go, telling Jamie in the garage — he was showing Kevin his dirt bike — that he was in charge for an hour and giving him the pizza money. They’ve got my cell number.
Felt a surge of independence climbing into the car and driving down the darkened street. No wonder Simon loves leaving us behind, all warm and cozy, headed off to his other life. Well I have another life too! I’m an Anonymous Letter Writer. Plus now I’m Maxine, Girl Detective, searching for the bloodied sledgehammer or the hitman’s threat note: Pay Up or Else.”
Hayley’s house was substantially different without Dave’s dark spirit. You could just feel it. That hideous den of his was emptied of its ugly sports memorabilia and beer signs; repainted and furnished with chintz and wicker. You could just see the church ladies sitting down to their cups of tea.
But when I entered Hayley’s bedroom I got the worst shock. It was completely empty, carpet torn up, furniture gone. Like she was running away. Except there were ladders and tarps and paint swatches. She was erasing him from her life. Who could blame the lucky bitch? But my problem is, where to search when your suspect has no desk, no bedside table and everything’s in boxes? I’d waited too long.
She’d moved into the guest bedroom, a monastic cubicle with a cross above the single bed. But there was a bedside table, and the table had a Bible, and the Bible was stuffed with papers, and that’s where I found what I was looking for.
It didn’t have an address, it didn’t even have a signature but I hope I know my husband’s handwriting. He said he respected her decision but his feelings would never change. That he would always be “there” for her. He said, “I want you to know there’s someone on this planet who loves you utterly.”
When I took the letter I was blind with pain and rage. It was like he’d killed something in me with that letter. Something in me was stillborn because it needed another person to bring it to life and I had never had that person. Because my own husband was “there” for someone else. Was she “rewarding” him right now at the Helmsley Palace? Was she speaking to his hands the way I used to, saying “here” and “here” and “here”? Faster, slower, deeper? And whose fault was that? Not mine, because I had always done everything that was ever expected of me. I took the letter because I knew then I could make him finally speak the truth to me. But what happens if the truth is that I’m alone and I’ve always been alone and I’ll always be alone? Where’s the justice in that?
I guess you could say that when my mother died, I came out of the closet. And – unfortunately for me – so did she. Different closet, naturally.
I’m one of those people born gay. It’s not just something I chose because there was nothing better on offer. And honestly, it had NOTHING to do with my mother. When I talked to the first lawyer he seemed to think that living with your mother until you’re forty and going to bed with women have to be two facts that have some sort of relationship. Not the case. Far from it.
So I have to make the point that my mother wasn’t sexual to me. I doubt that she was ever sexual to anybody. People who think of their mothers sexually must have mothers a whole lot different from mine, that’s all I can say. You don’t think about the body under the apron on the person nagging you to finish the food on your plate. At least I don’t.
I was a late-bloomer — over thirty before the penny finally dropped. I had rubbed bodies with girlfriends before, but I really didn’t think anything of it. If they had orgasms I sure as hell couldn’t tell. But then I was thirty-two and I met Eva. Eva was ripe. Eva was rich. Eva was honky-tonk come to life. She bleached her pubic hair with the reasoning that then it would become invisible and then she wouldn’t have to bother to shave. (NOT). That’s what drew me to her – this amazing woman with an explosion of Orphan Annie hair – a curly mirkin – coming out from under her bathing suit. I mean, you had to look inside, you know?
So I was the aggressor. I let it all hang out, and she liked that. Constant sex is my recipe for love. I was amazed to discover – this was after three months of me doing everything to her – that she was a masseuse, for Chrissake. Her job was rubbing people’s bodies. (And she was not one of those whore masseuses. She had a degree and all that.)
But when I was working her over I didn’t have those kinds of thoughts, hey, breasts just like my mother’s, a slit just like I came out of. I mean, that’s the furthest thing from your mind. But Eva and I were a short term thing.
I lived with my mother because she had that huge house and because it was convenient. Check the “get ahead” literature and they’ll all tell you to get yourself a wife. Well, this was the best I could do. When my brother died, I became my mommy’s only kid. The rest of our relatives really didn’t want to have anything to do with us. According to Mom it was because of the divorce. Everybody dumped us. She didn’t take it well. Not too strong to say she flipped out. But there’s a lot of that going around as well as a lot of divorce. After the right to marry the right to divorce tags right along behind.
My father’s family was no day at the beach, let me tell you. Too much emphasis on who sits where, who serves what and whether you have help in the house. Bunch of snobs. We were better off without them.
My mom wasn’t better off in the technical sense, because she insisted on staying in that house. Must have been worth a half a mill ; more, with work done. Without me, no way she could have paid those bills. But I wasn’t handy, and I wasn’t making enough money. I was too thirsty for poontang.
I do collection work and I enjoy it. You live on the phone. You find out things about people that are interesting to know, and yet you stay anonymous. Lots of secrets in this universe. First off, there’s no tiny subculture separate from the Real World because there is no Real World. Everyone’s got an act, and the only people who get to find out are the doctors and the lawyers and the guy who has to fix the corpse so Granny won’t be shocked and me. Who gets to see both sets of books.
My mother was a limited person, even though it’s me that says it. She probably thought no woman getting three tasty nourishing meals a day would even be interested in sex. I do remember she had arguments with my father about it. There was time we went away for vacation to some shrine in Connecticut. We used to be very good Catholics until the pope instituted liberalities and he lost Mom. (Which turned out to be good for us because she stopped trying to make us go to church.) But now I’m wondering – if she had been more spiritual, would any of this have happened? Who knows?
Anyway, when we got back from the shrine it was pretty obvious Dad had been “entertaining” while we were away. The woman must have been a smoker because her lipsticked butts were everywhere – but worse, there were condoms lying around like exploded balloons from a party we weren’t invited to. It was plain from my mother’s outraged screaming that he should be getting his sexing the back seats of automobiles like a normal person and bringing his floozies across her threshold was a sin so vile he would writhe in hell for eon upon eon. So I’m not likely to ask my mother’s opinion if a little snatch after work is OK. I had a pretty good idea what she would say.
Then Mom got cancer, the basically curable kind that if you just spread your legs for a doctor occasionally you could totally avoid. But she wasn’t that “easy” so by the time they found out about it, sayonara.
I had one night a week reserved for myself. Not too much to ask, right? I used to tell her I was going to the “club” – she wasn’t to know Rape of the Lock was a gay bar. They always had stuff — poetry readings, treasure hunts, mini-plays. Performances calculated to make the gals hot and horny, and a good time had by all. That’s where I met Klea – she was one of the bartenders there. She always claimed to be working towards an MBA but frankly I never saw any signs of it. She was stuck in a tense living situation too – living over a garage for free for a couple she was supposed to “caretake”.
Blurry job description leads to lots of complaining. She wasn’t supposed to have any roommates – this couple was afraid that the outside world would find out they had a house loaded with QVC collectibles. What with Snoopster Mom Klea couldn’t visit me and the only way I could visit her was by sneaking. I climbed the trellis on occasion. Heavy drinking, heavy sex, heavy trellis climbing – romance killers when you’re looking forty in the face. Ask any actuary. We were primed for new life. For a short window of time there I was busy with my work and Klea, and Mom was busy with hospitals and ladies’ clubs and life was doable.
Then there was another period where Mom was in the hospital and I could have Klea over. That was tense in some ways and better in other ways. It was better because it gave us an idea what it might be like to live together.
We felt we were through the period where you try to make the other person jealous – just to prove you can – and we were talking about selling the house right after my mother died – “as is” condition, of course, but at least it was free and clear – and opening our own place. Not a bar – no trying to keep horns clipped — more of a café. We had both reached exactly the same time in our lives where we had to make up our minds: keep babysitting the straight world, or shape our futures the way we wanted them to be. We were dreaming.
Klea worried Mom would “find out” and leave the house away from us. She kept nagging me to “come out” to this cancer-ridden lady. I told Klea she was being hysterical. The real problem was keeping Mom from finding out I was going to sell the place. If she’d been able to think in terms of progress and reward, her life wouldn’t have been such a shambles. Let me say right here that in her own way, Mom loved me and I loved her. If we loved “stylized” versions of each other – that’s family. So how do I explain what came after?
My conclusion that a person’s ghost is that person’s worst self. When you die, the good part goes to heaven or whatever, and the bad part stays here to torment us. Get it? We’re hell. That guy who said, Hell is other people? Bingo. Hell is being at the mercy of a dead person that’s shed its conscience. We’re like nightmares dead people keep having. And they’re ours.
The worst part was when the hospital sent my mother home to die. I think they were just trying to make things easier on themselves, but Mom was a willing participant. Home. That’s what she wanted. Hospice idea rejected right out of hand. So there I was with a nurse by day and a nurse by night. Hard on me, going without sex just when I needed it most. I had to have Klea back. I needed sex to relax, sex to get to sleep, sex to clear my head, sex to digest my food. You know how it is. Mom was confined to a hospital bed. So why couldn’t I get that support?
I told Klea to only use the back stairs and never the front part of the second floor, where Mom was. But the noises she made! You could say Klea haunted Mom before Mom haunted Klea. Mom actually decided — because of Klea — that the house she’d lived in for forty- five years was haunted. My dead twin, Uncle Andrew – her own mother – people I’d never heard of like “Carla” and “Mrs. Myers” – I had to listen to hours of crazy ravings about everyone who’d ever nurtured a grudge against Mom. Who knew there was such a long list?
They taught me to give her the morphine shots – made me practice with an orange – and I just kept upping the dose so she’d be out of it most of the time. Everybody does it. The nurses don’t mind so long as it isn’t them. Towards the end there’s a very fuzzy line between life and death and everyone understands that, but the law, apparently, still operates under the Old Testament scapegoat system. That’s all I can deduce.
I was with her when she died. It was right between nurses,by coincidence, just at dusk. I had given her that last shot, and I was sitting there listening to her breathing go raspy. Definitely a death rattle – I had to leave the room. Then nothing. Hallelujah! I’d swear mom was relieved too. Now she was free. No need to Stepin Fetchit, I decided to wait for the nurse, who was late, by the way. So I called Klea down for a beer. Watching someone die is an unsettling experience, I can tell you. It’s Miller time.
Klea wanders around in the nude by choice, but when the nurse is around she will make the concession of long shirt and jean-shorts. But her feet were bare. Halfway down the stairs she doubled up with pain and started screaming. Stepped on something. “Jesus!” she yelled. “I’ve been stabbed!”
I sort of half carried her upstairs where I could lay her out on the bed. “It’s a hat pin,” I told her. “It’s really in there. I’m going to pull it out.”
“No, no, no!” she screamed, grabbing my hand. “Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Promise you won’t touch it!”
“Klea, stop being a baby about this. I can call the paramedics but when they come, you know what they’ll do? They’ll pull it out. Or we can wait for the nurse – to refuse to work on you — and who knows how long that will be? “
“Please,” she whined, clutching me so desperately her face bones turned white and stuck out of the skin like a skull, just like Mom’s before she died – “Don’t do it yet! Give me some morphine!” I could hear myself explaining to the nurse why there was so much morphine missing with Klea zonked out upstairs. Recipe for trouble.
“Relax. I’m going to pull it out real fast. It’ll be just like a bandaid. Don’t look at it.”
But she held my hand. “So don’t give me a big dose. Just a little. You know they won’t miss it.” “Klea! Morphine to take a pin out of your foot! What an infant!” “You don’t know how it HURTS,” she wailed. “It hurts and I’m scared.”
Well, it was in pretty far. Long hatpin. God I hoped her tetanus was up to date. What was it doing on the stairs anyway – in that position? Tell me how likely is that? My brain was scrambling. “Ok,” I said. “Be a pussy. Be a drug addict.”
I tell you what decided me. I had a feeling this nurse wouldn’t do anything – she’d call the paramedics anyway. She was one of those people very worked up on only doing exactly what they’re paid for. I squirted plenty out because obviously she wouldn’t need as much. But since I got rid of it, how could I prove it? I shot the inside of her elbow, and it hit her pretty fast. You could see her blink off like a light. Went right to sleep, but her breathing was good.
I hadn’t expected her to lose consciousness, but you better believe it helped me. Pliers got that thing out of there. I had the wound all dressed before the nurse arrived, so we could make the Mom calls together. Death certificate, doctor, funeral home. Then I got that Miller, long overdue. I had no idea Klea would be such a five year old. I’ve seen her handling drunks twice her size, which is nothing I’d line up for.
She didn’t open her eyes till next morning. “So how’s my little junkie this morning?” I asked her. She was lying in bed – clothes askew, hair spilling everywhere – it would make the pope horny.
“My foot’s sore,” she said. But she smiled. Looked like herself again. Pulled me on top of her. “So….” she whispered, “Is the place ours?” She probably shouldn’t have said that. “What’s for breakfast?”
“I got a better idea than breakfast,” I said, rubbing her hard, flat stomach and trying to get my hand under her jeans, “How about deep, deep tissue massage? Guaranteed cure-all.“
That’s when it happened. I was trying to unzip her jeans, wiggling that zipper up and down – and she started screaming again. Pushed me away, screamed I’d zipped her skin. When I realized what it was, I got the scissors and I cut the pants off her. But it was difficult because she was fighting hard the whole time. She was so upset she pissed on herself in the bed. God, it was like taking care of my mother all over again! And then to get blamed for everything. She was bleeding all right, but it was a tiny wound – just a little of the loose skin on her gut. It would grow back. It’s not my fault she wears her jeans so tight. Definitely no need for morphine here.
“Here’s the culprit” I said, trying to show her the zipper with its played metal teeth.
“YOU DID IT!” she hissed. “Don’t go blaming my zipper that never did that before! And it was your pin, too!”
I was so taken aback I really didn’t know how to defend myself. “Hey, I fixed it,” I said. “You mean you fixed ME!” she said. “You sure did! I’m getting the fuck out of here before you slit my throat and offer to stitch it up for me!” And she shot out of bed and started pulling on sweatpants – my sweatpants.
She was flying out the door before I had a chance to warn her about the stairs. I took up the rug and the stair rods so they could take out Mom and her hospital bed and I hadn’t replaced them yet. I mean, I get tired too. Mom waxed and waxed those goddamn stairs. My hair used to hold the smell for days. Klea would have been fine if she wasn’t going a hundred miles an hour. But I heard the thump, the slam – I swear I heard a crunch – and when I got to the bottom of the stairs, there was my second corpse in a two-day period.
But I knew at that point that it was my mother who killed Klea — to keep us from living in her house! Of course! Bad anger, competitiveness, rage, resentment – they’re killers.
Don’t you see I’m next? This way she gets us both. It looks so bad, what with the missing morphine, the extra morphine in Mom, the wounds on Klea, even her piss in my bed – and I can’t find a lawyer who will treat my story with respect!
The way I see it is, it’s too late to apologize to a dead person. Too late to say the things I should have said — so she died and left pure rage behind. As a sort of default mode. What I need to know from you is, can a hant get a person convicted of murder? Because if that’s possible, we should all give up right now. Nobody’s safe.
Alysse Aallyn 