She's Come Undone

by Wally Lamb

  “Who, me? Domingos.” He laughed.

  “What’s that—Spanish or something?”

  “Portuguese. Cape Verde Islands. Remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.” Wherever they were. In school I had always thought geography was irrelevant.

  Back on the highway, I watched the back of his neck. It was the exact same color as the coffee I was sipping. I began another doughnut. If I reached out and touched that neck, he’d probably have an accident, drive us right off the side of whatever bridge we were crossing.

  “Can I ask you something?” I said.

  “Sure.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Me? Twenty-four.”

  “Oh. I thought you were about that.” Halfway across the bridge, traffic slowed, then came to a standstill. “What bridge is this, anyway?”

  “I’ll give you a clue,” he said. “Wooden teeth.”

  “Wooden teeth?”

  “Father of our country. . . . Dollar bill.”

  “How old would you say I am?” I asked him.

  “You? Geez, I don’t know.” He looked into his rearview mirror. “Twenty-six? Twenty-seven? It’s hard to tell.”

  “Why? Because I’m so fat?”

  He didn’t laugh. He didn’t say a word.

  “I am twenty-seven,” I lied. “You’re right.”

  “You give up?” he said. “George Washington. The George Washington Bridge. You ever been over it before?”

  “Not that I know of,” I mumbled.

  “Well, now you can say you have.”

  “Are you married or anything?”

  He laughed. “Me? Nope. I ain’t married.”

  “Were you ever?”

  “I almost got married once.”

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, it’s a long story.”

  “What does that mean—she dumped you?”

  “No. It means I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay, fine. Excuse me for breathing.” I finished my doughnut, tried a cinnamon.

  I imagined us crashing through the chain link, falling to the water below. I shivered from the sensation.

  “By the way, I remembered the name of the town I’m going to. It’s Wellfleet,” I said. “That’s where my friends are meeting me.”

  “I know where that is,” he said. “That’s pretty far up. Hey, that town was on the news last night! I seen it on Huntley-Brinkley. These crazy whales keep heading for shore and killing themselves. Nobody knows why. Except me, that is.”

  I held my breath and waited.

  “Yeah, I got that whale problem all figured out. It was that guy walking up there on the moon, see? That Neil guy. That astronaut.”

  The weekend of Ma’s death. Mr. Pucci and me on the couch, sitting numb before the TV.

  “‘One small step for mankind.’ He screwed everything up, that guy—even those poor whales.” Then he laughed. “If you ask me, that is.”

  Miles went by. Time.

  “New England and East.” “Welcome to Connecticut.”

  My stomach felt nauseous every time he slowed for a toll, tossed a quarter into the exact-change basket. It should have been me, not Ma. Next month would have been her thirty-ninth birthday.

  “Old Lyme.” “Mystic.” “Fishermen’s Cove Next Exit.”

  I wondered if Old Lady Masicotte was still alive—still drinking Rheingold beer and buying boyfriends. I tried to remember her dog’s name—that fat, blinking cocker spaniel who loved cookies.

  “I used to live near here,” I said. “When I was little. If you can imagine that: me, little.”

  “Hey,” he said. “I was thinking of stopping for a sandwich, maybe—stretching my legs a little. It’s almost noon. You want to stop somewheres near here?”

  “This is the last place in the world I want to stop,” I said. The second-to-last, really. In another hour, we’d be driving past Easterly.

  “Okay,” he said. “You’re the boss.”

  But it was a good memory that returned, full-blown: a prize I’d won in fourth grade for reading more books than any other kid in my class—a glass paperweight. Inside it, a scene: a tiny Swiss girl—Heidi?—waving in front of a cottage. It snowed when you shook it. It had sat, displayed, on Mrs. Rickenbaker’s desk for weeks. Everyone in the class had wanted it—even the boys. When I got my award, I’d had to go up on the auditorium stage with Mr. LaRose, our principal, who was crippled. I trembled and looked down at kids and teachers, applauding. . . .

  His excitement was what woke me.

  “So she says, ‘Hurry! Hurry! Get me there! I can’t wait.’”

  I opened my eyes. “What? . . . Who?”

  “That lady that was having the baby. I just been thinking about her. We get halfway to the hospital and she starts screaming, ‘Stop! Stop!’ I thought she was yellin’ for me to stop, see, but after it was over, she tells me she was talking to the baby—talkin’ to her own pushing. Next thing you know, the cab’s up on the sidewalk and I’m saying Hail Marys and there’s all this water and blood and I pull the baby—well, you know—right out of her. This beautiful little girl. All three of us crying. ’Cause it was, you know, kind of scary. Doin’ that.”

  I sat, dazed. Listening.

  “But—you know—a miracle, too. Me and this lady I ain’t ever seen before and this new little baby. This miracle.”

  I leaned forward toward him. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Don’t ask me nothing about babies,” he laughed. “ ’Cause that was my only experience.”

  “That summer you were staying at Cape Cod? With your relative? Did you ever see a whale?”

  “A whale? Nah. I seen a dolphin once, though. Ain’t they cousins with whales or something? This little dolphin swam right alongside the boat, keepin’ us company for miles. Had a face like he was smiling at you. I kept throwin’ him mackerel until Augusto got mad. Told me I was bad for business . . . But anyways, that’s my story about delivering the baby. What do you think of that story, huh? Remember, you was asking about it before?”

  I shifted and closed my eyes again, too tired to fight the drowsiness. “You woke me up,” I said.

  * * *

  I lay half-awake, half-asleep, listening to the sound.

  “Yoo-hoo,” Domingos called. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty?”

  Behind his voice, the thump of water. Smell of ocean.

  Fumbling, I sat up and opened my eyes, squinting in the bright sun. “What time is it?”

  “It’s three-thirty.”

  His answer scared me. “I thought you were going to stop for a sandwich.”

  “I did. Two hours ago.”

  We were in some parking lot, amidst cars and pickups and looming banks of sand. “Where are we?”

  He laughed. “Route Six.”

  “Where the fuck is Route Six?”

  “Take it easy. You had yourself a nice long nap, been sleeping over three hours,” he said. “Route Six is the Cape road, goes all the way up. Hey, listen! You know those dead whales I told you about? I stopped for gas down in Orleans and a guy told me another one got stuck this morning. Right on this beach here. Come on, let’s take a look. I’ll help you up the dune.”

  I shook my head. “I’m paying you good money to take me to what-do-you-call-it—Wellfleet. I don’t appreciate surprises.”

  “That’s what I’m telling you—we’re at Wellfleet! Come on and see that whale.”

  “I don’t want to see it,” I insisted. “Who died and made you boss?”

  “Well, I’m just gonna have a look then. A short one. I ain’t going to come all the way up here and not see in person what I seen on TV.”

  I pulled my arms across my chest. I was the first to look away. “Fine,” I mumbled. “Suit yourself. You will anyhow.”

  He shut the door. “Just a quick look, that’s all,” he said.

  I watched him hustle up and over the sandbank. Each of his steps left a funnel-shaped dent.


  An old man on a bicycle drove down the narrow road and parked hastily, hurrying up the path like he was late for an appointment.

  A helicopter chugged in the sky: CBS NEWS. It dipped down toward the ocean, its bottom half disappearing behind the steep dune. There was another TV-station van parked in the lot. I lit a cigarette, drew in, held the smoke in my lungs. I thought of Ma’s accident on TV that weekend: her wrapped-up body being loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher, on the hour, over and over.

  Two middle-aged women appeared at the rise and walked down the path toward me. They stopped at a nearby car and poured sand from their sneakers. “I don’t know, I just can’t fathom it,” one of them said. Then she laughed. “No pun intended.”

  After the helicopter flew away, the parking lot took on an eerie quiet. Sand ticked against the cab in the wind. Over the dune, the ocean thumped its rhythm.

  The smell of fish and salt was stronger when I opened the car door. I stuck my feet out and got my bearings, lifting myself off the backseat. My legs felt stiff. One foot was asleep.

  Climbing the dune was like my dreams: running from Jack Speight at a plodding, dangerously sluggish pace. When I reached the top, I was out of breath.

  Its mass was what threw me first—a black rock ledge of life. My hands fanned out and I fell back against the cold sand. My heart pounded from the climb and the sight of it.

  The whale lay surrendered on its belly, its head pointed out to sea. Most of its body sat stuck in shallow, red-clouded water, but the massive black tail reached up onto the beach. Incoming water lapped and channeled around and over it. The larger waves broke against its face.

  Seagulls walked the whale’s back and rocked in the water around it. Twenty or thirty people—most on the land, some in wet suits in the water—watched and talked and circled. Two men jabbed at its side with an oversize syringe. Electrical wire ran from TV equipment to some humming machine perched in the front seat of a jeep. The ground was strewn with people’s stuff.

  Domingos saw me and waved, hastening up the dune toward me. Wind whipped his hair and jacket. He looked shaken.

  “Why don’t they do something?” I said. “Try to push it back in or something?”

  “Too big.”

  “They could at least try. Instead of everybody standing around gawking. Jesus Christ.”

  He shook his head. “It’s dead, Dolores. Died about an hour ago. Some of these people been here all day with it.”

  But it wasn’t dead.

  From out in the water came noises: clicks and sighs and heavings—the sounds of despair. The gulls rose off its back and into the air. On shore, the spectators jumped and shouted. The whale’s living had taken us all by surprise.

  “Dios mio,” Domingos whispered to himself. He took me by the hand. “Come down,” he said. “Come see.”

  I pulled my hand away. “I don’t like this,” I said. “I want to go.”

  Out in the water, it grunted loudly and writhed, then suddenly mustered the strength to shift itself onto its side. “Ohh—!” we all said together, as if some miracle was about to happen. Its colossal tail scraped against the wet sand, carrying along a trail of it in its sweep. Its stiff flipper pointed straight up in the air. A miracle: as if that flipper was a wing that could lift it back out to open water. As if its other flipper weren’t lying crushed and folded beneath its weight.

  It fell back on its belly again, cracking against the water, raising sidewalls of white spray. The huge, muscular tail thudded, up and down, up and down against the beach—so thunderous in its suffering that the vibration reached up into my throat.

  I clapped my hands over my ears, trying not to hear or feel that thudding. “I can’t . . . Get me out of here!” I screamed.

  Domingos was down the bank, halfway between the whale and me. The others stared up at us. He ran back, took my arm, and guided me away, back down the bank toward the cab. He put me inside, sat next to me, whispering comfort, wiping at my tears with the palms of his hands.

  The motel we pulled into had a crushed-clamshell parking lot and a dead lawn bordered with rocks painted white. They gave me the room next to the soda machine.

  Domingos brought in my knapsack and the doughnut bag and asked if he could use my phone to call his cousin. He had apologized over and over about stopping to see the whale. My behavior had made him afraid of me.

  I sat on the bed, smoking, as he yakked on and on in Spanish or Portuguese, whatever it was—in a happy tone of voice he hadn’t used once during our whole trip up. Honeymooners, ha! What a pathetic fucking joke I was.

  “Okay, that’s all set,” he told me. “Augusto’s wife’s already frying up the linguica.”

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “It’s sausage,” he said. “I ain’t had any in—”

  “Your cousin sounds nice. I’d really love to meet him.”

  His face went scared. “Oh, well—”

  “Not now. I meant sometime. Did you think I meant right now? God, I was just trying to be polite.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Right. And plus you got those friends you’re meeting, right?”

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “If they ever find me.”

  He laughed, embarrassed, and moved backward toward the door. “Well,” he said. “I guess I’ll see you then. I enjoyed meetin’ you and, you know, talking to you. Sorry about that whale.”

  “Yup.” I looked at the wall, not him.

  “Thank you very much for those doughnuts you bought. And that coffee.”

  “No problem.”

  “Don’t forget, now, I’m going to say a little prayer for you. ‘Saint Anne,’ I’m gonna say, ‘you help this lady out now ’cause she’s a very nice lady.’”

  “Yup,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “You have a nice vacation now. If that’s what this is—a vacation.”

  “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

  * * *

  The wall decorations were dusty metal lobsters and faded pictures of ships. The bedspread had cigarette burns. Inside the nightstand drawer were a complimentary pen and three postcards. “Vacation Dreams Begin at the Coastal Dreams Motel.” I went out to the machine and got a soda. The sun was going down; the sky was orange and pink.

  The TV only got two boring stations. I watched the end of some old movie. Golf. I kept changing the station, over and over around the dial, but all I got were those two channels, or snow. I had spent half my life watching TV.

  I thought again about the paperweight. I’d had it less than a week when I shook too hard and accidentally sent it flying across my bedroom where it hit the floor and cracked. Leaked, became useless. At the time, it was my biggest tragedy—breaking that paperweight.

  The worms go in, the worms go out, the worms play pinochle on your snout— A song Jeanette and I used to sing. . . . And then the pus comes oozing out. Mrs. Nord would get mad when we sang it and make us stop.

  I lit a cigarette and held the tip to the musty bedspread, made a fresh burn. . . . I could smash the drinking glass and follow the line of the scratch I’d made, cut deeper. Or use the curtain cord—strangle myself like Anthony Jr. Suddenly I saw my brother’s discarded baby furniture, on the pile at the dump that day with Daddy. Felt in my stomach our wild escape away from there, Daddy, in his anger and loss, gunning the pickup truck over ruts and bumps. I’d looked back and watched that shrinking pile of furniture Anthony would never use. Saw again the pile of my ruined belongings that Eric had made. I’d lost the painting. Lost everyone.

  I snuffed the smoldering bedspread cloth with my thumb. I was afraid to die in this ugly motel.

  When I reached inside the doughnut bag, I found three hundred of the four hundred dollars I’d paid him to take me here. I began to cry: all my life, the best people left me—just drove away. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to live, either.

  After dark a car pulled into the parking lot.

  Not Domingos, like I’d hoped. A man
and woman in their thirties.

  In the glow of the soda machine I recognized him: the scientist they’d interviewed for that newspaper article. The man with all the theories about whales.

  “You want anything?” he called to the woman.

  “I don’t know. Fresca, I guess. We still have vodka left, right?”

  “I think so.”

  The cans clunked down. He walked toward her and handed her her soda. “Oh, man,” he said, “I’m exhausted.”

  She reached behind him and touched the back of his neck, a gesture so natural it filled me with aching. “Plus you’ve had zilch for sleep,” she said.

  They walked to a room three doors down from mine and went inside.

  Postcards, suicide notes.

  I lay back on the bed and tried to decide who to send them to. Grandma? Domingos? . . . The one I really wanted to write was Ma’s. “You didn’t deserve what happened. I did.” I thought of that photo of Ma and her friend Geneva Sweet—the one on Grandma’s stairs. The two of them, happy and young and pretty, their arms locked, forever.

  I pushed myself back up and wrote two of the cards against my leg.

  Dear Grandma,

  I just couldn’t take it anymore. When you remember me, try to think of me as a person, not some big fat mortal sin.

  Dear Geneva,

  You’ve never met me, but I feel almost as if—

  They sounded stupid, so I ripped them up. Lay back again. Closed my eyes . . .

  * * *

  In the dream, Jack Speight and Eric and Daddy had me out on the ocean in a rocky boat. It was snowing—thick snow—a blizzard. I’d never seen snow on the water before and wanted to just sit and look, but they kept leaning over, jabbing at my feet with the edges of their oars.

  “Cut it out!” I yelled at them. “Stop it!”

  I jumped into the dark, choppy water. Then I was swimming beside a baby dolphin. Fast and smooth, we glided. The snow had stopped. When I looked back, the boat was far away.

  The dolphin’s face looked familiar. Then he wasn’t a dolphin anymore, but a little boy with a dolphin’s smile. Dottie’s little dead boy. He swam away.

  * * *

  I woke up thirsty. The office was closed and I’d used up all my change. The sink water tasted warm and poisonous. I didn’t like touching that slippery drinking glass.