by Aimee Bender
22
When I was a child, my mother read me all kinds of stories, but her favorites, and sometimes my favorites, were about things coming alive. And not just anything, but toy animals and dolls, especially, or drawings and sculptures of animals or people—specifically, objects that resembled something alive but weren’t. Things poised on the supposedly porous boundary. There was no shortage of options: Corduroy the Bear riding up an escalator to find his lost button, Jack Pumpkinhead sprinkled to life by magic powder in the Land of Oz, figures exiting paintings in the Harry Potter books, Clara’s nutcracker animating at midnight to take her on a journey to wonders. On a successful Saturday visit to the big Goodwill on Sixth, Mom found Toy Story 2 on VHS for a dollar, plus a VHS player for seven more, and that afternoon she and I sat on the ratty tweed couch and laughed and laughed when Mr. Potato Head crossed the street disguised as a traffic cone.
The Velveteen Rabbit that she’d read me just the week before our split.
Pygmalion’s Galatea.
Pinocchio.
* * *
—
But the lesson from the butterfly lamp, or the beetle paper, or the damask curtain roses, is this. It is fun to imagine in a story. It is terrifying in real life. One is a representation and one is life, and the two have nothing in common except a suggestion of group, a shared name. Pygmalion fell in love with his ivory statue, and then one day her lips grew warm and her pulse started throbbing. It is a story that has so caught the human imagination that it has been redone hundreds of times, in every art form. But it must be stated, or I must state for myself, that that is not actually possible. Statues can’t come alive. Lips warm from blood, and blood needs arteries; a pulse is the satellite of a beating heart that grew from the organic structure of an embryo. We live in different worlds, the people and the objects. And I am truly not trying to state the obvious; I am working as hard as I can to explain to myself the actual size of the leap. The butterfly I found in that water glass had to gain internal functions and an external structure, had to come out of an entirely different plane of existence to make itself, but somehow it did, and what I drank down with that glass of water had a body and legs and was real, had become real. It was an active psychosis. I swallowed psychosis.
According to all the doctors I have seen, and they are not few, I am okay in the brain area. I have taken tests over the years just in case, and run on treadmills for inexplicable reasons, and have encountered the inkblots enough times that I now can anticipate the shapes. I have, because of my aunt’s worry, and my mother’s worry, and my own, taken the MMPI-A, the MACI, the bipolar screen, and some anxiety quizzes. I pass them all with acceptability. “I just don’t see any signs,” said my aunt, digging through her purse for her keys to drive us home from yet another doctor’s appointment on an afternoon toward the end of my high school years after encountering the dead roses beneath the curtains at Deena’s house. This was just a few days after I’d gone up to Portland by myself and sent my mother over the back of the chair, and I’d come home from Deena’s house shaken, roses in my arms, a tremor in my hands, looking online right away to find a doctor who might see me, any doctor, whoever might fit, a neurologist in Glendale known for helping with unusual cases, telling my aunt in the vaguest way possible that I’d been seeing things I didn’t fully understand, and would she take me, could we go. She had agreed, as she always agreed; I was in my late teens, then, and beginning to step into the true territory of risk, although my whole twenties were in question as the girls broke later than the boys.
“Your mother had all kinds of clear symptoms at your age,” she said, after the appointment, as we approached the car in the parking lot.
“She did?”
“Sure, of course, similar to what happens with her now. Pacing in the middle of the night, sleeping for twenty hours, saying certain things are talking to her. You don’t do any of that.”
“No.”
“You’re so measured, thorough. That must come from your father.”
“Or you.”
“Ha. I suppose that’s true. Or me.”
We settled into our seats, and she turned up the air conditioner and backed out of the parking space. Extracted the parking ticket from where she’d wedged it in the sun visor. Placed her credit card in the slot with precision.
Still, none of it guaranteed anything, and when I had felt, at Deena’s, the familiar monstrous sensation, a feeling like something far underground was getting ready to shift and release, something I hadn’t felt in years, not since my train trip south and the entrances of the butterfly and the beetle, my mind had scattered, and I’d had trouble hearing what Deena was saying about some guy at school, like she’d fallen into a tunnel, and suddenly all the things on her walls, the posters of people, the bands, the wry unicorn T-shirts, the silkscreens of reptiles, seemed dangerous, volatile. I scanned her room, looking, dreading, but it was minutes later, on our way to get a snack in her kitchen, that I passed through the living room and saw the trio of dried roses lying so benignly beneath her mother’s heavy damask curtains. Those same roses, the same shade of mauve, the buds woven together exactly as the flowers intertwined in the curtain, but with brightness drained from the petals, thin and leathery from desiccation. There they were, resting on the rug. I picked them up with shaking fingers.
“What’s that?” said Deena, dipping a pretzel stick into a vat of peanut butter.
23
“Do you ever hear voices?” “No.” “Do you ever think anyone is following you?” “No.” “Do you ever think thoughts have been implanted in your mind?” “No, no. Really. It’s just the roses.” “Is there a history of mental illness in the family?” “Yes.” “Who might that be?” “My mother.” “And your father?” “Unknown.” “Can you recall any other moments where you have seen a vision like what you described?” “There have been no other moments except the ones I just mentioned. And it wasn’t a vision. My friend Deena saw them too.” “The roses?” “Yes.” “What did she think they were from?” “She had no idea. She was very surprised. Her family hates dried roses.” “You don’t happen to have them here?” “I do.” “They look like regular dried roses.” “They are regular dried roses. Except they are made out of nothing.” “And explain again how you know this?” “They were under the curtains.” “But surely someone might have just accidentally dropped dried roses under the curtains?” “Except Deena was shocked, too.” “Just by the presence of dried roses in her house?” “Yes.” “They dislike dried roses that much?” “They really do.” “Well, okay. Fine. Explain it more to me, then—what you think is that somehow the embroidered roses came to life and dropped out of the curtain and onto the floor and became dried roses?” “Yes.” “And when was your mother’s first psychotic break?” “She was seventeen.” “And you are?” “Seventeen.” “But you seem to understand that curtains cannot make roses?” “I do.” “Did you see the roses emerge from the curtains?” “No, no, not at all. I’ve never seen that part. They were just there on the floor when I walked by.” “So what do you make of it?” “Me? What do I make of it? That’s why I’m here.” “And your brain scan and testing all look fine.” “They’ve always looked fine.” “But then, Frann—” “Francie.” “Francie. Have you ever seen a psychotherapist?” “Yes.” “And?” “It’s not a metaphor.” “You mean the roses?” “Right. The roses are not a metaphor.” “But did it help?” “It just wasn’t enough.” “I understand. But I have to admit, I’m finding myself a little confused. If you don’t think this comes from your own mind, and you believe you’re witnessing some sort of phenomenon, and you aren’t demonstrating any other symptoms, why make an appointment with a neurologist?” “Who else am I supposed to see?” “To implicate the world in its own rupture?” “Exactly!” “I have no idea.” “And also, Doctor, to your earlier point—” “A priest?” “—if it was just a casual drop at Deena’s, why would th
ey match the curtain exactly? As in exactly, except dead? And what about the butterfly? And the beetle?” “Or a shaman? Some kind of transcendental monk?” “Are you making fun of me?” “Sorry. Just trying to brainstorm. Do you know how much time passed between each incident?” “The roses were two days ago. The beetle was a day after the butterfly, which was ten years ago.” “And were there any corresponding events in your life at these times?” “Excuse me?” “Were there any events in your life around the time of each incident that might connect?” “Why would that be relevant? It’s not just about me.” “Is it happening to someone else?” “Isn’t it?” “Francie? Have you heard of anyone else talking about anything remotely like this?” “I mean, the only thing—” “Yes?” “Just my mother not doing well, and me upsetting her, and her not being able to take care of me. It’s not really viable data.” “But has that happened each time?” “Possibly.” “Possibly?” “The butterfly, yes. The beetle was basically at the same time, so yes. The roses just happened.” “And?” “And what?” “And, how is your mother doing?” “She left her facility a few weeks ago and tried to get her own apartment to see if she could take me back.” “Did she succeed?” “She did not.” “Is she doing okay now?” “We had a bad visit. But I don’t see that there’s any clear link to any of that.” “What happened with the visit?” “I sent her over the back of a chair.” “You pushed her?” “No, no, I was talking to her about all of this stuff. About the butterfly. It was dumb. She tipped herself over.” “She’s all right?” “Physically, yes. Otherwise, improving.” “And you were really going to move back up there?” “I had no plans to go.” “Well, it seems notable, doesn’t it? All these events, around the same times?” “Not to me.” “There may not be a link, but—” “You’re just making random guesses.” “I’m just trying to gather information, Francie. Looking for patterns.” “But what could the patterns possibly be?” “Well, I’m not sure. Let’s review again for a moment. We’ll try another angle. What was the order again here? Butterfly, beetle, roses? Butterfly first?” “Yes?” “Beetle on the train?” “Two days after the butterfly.” “Roses just this week.” “Yes.” “So. Whatever may be happening, Francie, whatever this may be, one might also wonder if you are progressing from the entomological world into the botanical.” “Doctor?” “There haven’t been other categories, have there?” “What do you mean, ‘categories’?” “Such as rodents? Mammalia?” “Why do you keep treating this like it’s a real thing?” “Perhaps, Francie, the power is fading.” “It’s not a power.” “Perhaps, Francie, the incidents are fading.” “But they can’t be real incidents.” “Francie? Didn’t you just say that your friend Deena saw the roses too, and that you truly believe they came from the curtains?” “But they can’t actually come from the curtains, can they, Doctor?” “Francie? Are we even having the same conversation here?” “I just don’t understand how any of this can happen.” “They’re all dead?” “Excuse me?” “The things you find. They’re all dead?” “Yes.” “And are they dead in the picture?” “No.” “The roses in the curtain—?” “Are stitchings of alive, blossoming roses.” “And the beetle?” “Was from an illustration of a stag beetle walking on a twig for a grade school test.” “And the beetle you found was dead?” “Rigid as a rock.” “Well, that’s interesting.” “Yeah. I’ve wondered about that, too.” “What do you make of it?” “I don’t know. What do you make of it?” “I don’t know.” “It’s sad, when you think about it.” “Because…?” “Just to make that leap all the way into the living world, to make this miraculous leap, and then, blam.” “Does seem like a waste of a good miracle, doesn’t it.” “That first time, when I found the butterfly in the water glass, I actually thought it must’ve come alive and flown off the lamp only to somehow fall and drown in a water glass—” “That’s where you found it? In a water glass?” “Yes.” “Did you drink it?” “…yes…?” “Just a hunch. Did you eat the beetle?” “Disgusting. No.” “Go on.” “That’s it. Just that at first I thought the butterfly was alive for a little while, and then died. But now I think that’s wrong. They’re all dead. They arrive dead.” “It’s consistent.” “It certainly is. But, Doctor, what is the ‘it’?” “I guess that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” “I guess so.”
24
The tent has now bleached from the weeks and weeks in the sun. I’ve placed an old pillow in the back, another to sit on. There’s a little trash can I empty daily in case I bring in a snack. The hand fan cost seven dollars.
My days now revolve largely around the two tasks: make a living for myself by finding and mailing the objects, and remember that time. Remember it more. Re-remember. Find another detail. Look again. There’s no formal routine, so once I’ve awoken in the darkness and settled into my spot, I usually begin by recalling what I was thinking about the day before, trying to walk myself back into it, to mentally draw it as closely and with as much detail as I can, to include myself in it, to experience more fully. It’s okay, I have told myself, to go back over the same material. It’s okay to remember new times, new days. To speak it aloud formally, like a speech. To ask myself questions, like an interview. Still, it is difficult work. My mind wanders constantly. Scraps of old action TV episodes rear up out of nowhere. I make menus for lunch, or recite facts from high school government class. Song lyric intrusions. Waves of sleepiness. When I am able to focus, since I was so cut off from what was happening as a child, sometimes it is more than anything like walking myself through a blankness, and all I can do is try to measure the quality of the blankness, if it’s a fizzy blank, or a misty blank, or a fog blank, or a morgue.
But even with all that, for a lot of the time, there’s actually plenty to sort through. What Vicky, in her disbelief, may not understand is that even though I was barely aware of what was going on at that time, even though I was drifting through the events like some sort of person-ghost, it’s not like the whole self just turns off and floats into air; we always do some sort of compensation, and for me, my entire sensory set of equipment was on high alert even as the rest of me, the processing part, closed down. I felt no feeling, and at any time of day would burst into tears severed from sadness, a physical racked sobbing like my body had to wrench it out even if my mind could not, and I’d sit like a stone during tearjerker movies, and my mother’s wavery, tentative phone calls, but I can still tell you in extensive detail about the tight brown-and-beige weave of the cushion on the sofa in the principal’s office waiting room as I sat looking at the secretary’s rose-stoned ring on her hand with its raised central vein right before she, the principal, called me into her egg-salad-scented office with the peppery sound of jackhammers working outside to tell me behind those thick black plastic framed glasses that my uncle was flying in to take me away.
So, most of the time, there’s all that to deal with. When I’m done for the morning, I crawl out, zip it up as per the usual, and close and lock the glass balcony door.
For the paying work, my job is much clearer. The new tissue paper/packing area is working well, and I’ve gotten faster at the time from sale to doorstep. The weekend’s packed with the yard sale visits, and the week filled with activities such as post office trips, emailing back clients, photographing and keeping track of the goods, wrapping and addressing the boxes. The rusted trumpet that to one person has lost its allure or perhaps is tainted by death or disappointment is a fresh object of love and music for Edna in Knoxville, or Franklin in Alhambra, and I spend my yard sale tours trying my best to see these things that others pass by, to spot an object on a table that has lost all connection to its identity, or maybe a better way to say it is that it has been so flooded with someone else’s identity that it has entirely lost its own. This might include old framed pictures, or mountains of snarled jewelry, or half-used perfume, or a shirt that doesn’t look interesting in a pile, seems overworn, used, tired, spent, but once washed and ironed will flatter a woman’s neckline and suddenly be
come the favorite new selection of her closet. These are the items to grab, to get for extremely low prices and later, large markups. And there is no shortage. The world is filling faster with those kinds of dead objects than practically anything else. I want to empty them of their former layers and hopes, and I can; all I do is buy them, and if need be, wash them, but mostly just see them by the acts of purchase, and documentation. Then I put their fresh new photos online, and the cycle begins again. My own apartment remains extremely spare.
25
“It’s totally a cocoon,” Vicky says, visiting one Saturday morning, staring at the tent. “You are in some kind of homemade cocoon bizarre thing.” She has her hammer out, fixing one of the sides, which, earlier in the week, started to unpeel from the framework.
“Maybe.”
“Well, that’s how I’m going to think of it,” she says. “Otherwise Mom still will not stop about how worried she is that you’re going to jump off the balcony or something.”
“She says that?”
“She just doesn’t understand what you’re doing. Remember how you were so determined to have a balcony? She keeps talking about that. Like, why did Francie want a balcony so much? Why did Francie quit her job? Are you sure she’s being safe? Like that.”
She attaches the canvas to its wooden brace and neatens it up, while I stand to the side, holding the toolkit. I surely could have fixed it myself, but I am skittish around hammers in general, and she happened to have the morning free. They’ve just started rehearsals for Our Town, and she said she’s trying out different lighting cues, establishing the varying levels of blue. Is upstage pale blue more deathlike because of the suggestion of white light? Is deep blue better because the actors disappear into the darkness? The production will open in a couple months, before Thanksgiving.
