My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Heidi stammered, “Are you c-crazy? What did you d-do? I—I might have k-killed you…”

  Skyler stared at his bleeding hand. He’d been cut?

  “It’s okay, it isn’t a deep cut. It doesn’t hurt, much.”

  “But you’re bleeding! It must hurt.”

  “Really, no. It’s fine.”

  “I’m sorry! But you m-made me do it…”

  With the magnanimity of a heroic man of action, and not a punk kid astonished and stymied by what had happened to his hand, Skyler tried to smile. Skyler assured the alarmed girl that his wounded hand was his own damned fault: “I provoked you. You were only defending yourself.” Skyler examined his hand noting that several shallow cuts ran horizontally across the width of four fingers plus a nasty slash in the soft flesh at the base of his thumb. Skyler said, “Hey look: this isn’t bad. My thumb might’ve been decapitated, but it wasn’t.” Weird and light-headed and transported by a powerful adrenaline kick to the heart and adrenaline coursing through his veins as Skyler hadn’t felt in—how long?—since the meltdown in the TV lounge at Hodge Hill when a thousand pounds of brute macho force had been required to subdue a single skinny kid.

  Female instinct roused Heidi Harkness to fumble to remove from a pocket a wadded pink tissue that looked as if it had already been put to use. Contritely she said, “This is all I have. Here.”

  “Hey, it’s okay. I hurt myself all the time, worse than this.”

  “Please. Look how you’re bleeding. Don’t—don’t wipe it on your blazer sleeve. Here.”

  Light-headed Skyler wasn’t coordinated somehow, fumbled the tissue so Heidi was obliged to take hold of his shaky wounded hand, dabbing at the cuts with the pink tissue. Skyler stood very still and unresisting. Except for medics, nurses and physical therapists, and a quick handshake with his old playdate Elyot Grubbe who’d come up to him on the first day of classes at Basking Ridge, Skyler had not been touched in a very long time. A sensation as if he was standing at the edge of a precipice looking down into an abyss much deeper than he’d imagined…

  Head bowed in concentration, muttering to herself in commingled alarm, sympathy, and exasperation, Heidi was obliged to stand close to Skyler. She was nearly his height, but downlooking now, her forehead creased with worry. Close up, he saw more clearly the coin-sized bare spot at the edge of her hairline. He saw that most of her eyelashes had been pulled out as well. The self-picker, self-punisher. Your favored nails were the sharp ones. She is like me. She is one like me. She must know this.

  At sixteen Skyler Rampike—“Sly” in his new guise—gave off so sour and truculent an air that he appeared years older. Here was an individual whom others were not likely to approach. Surrounding him like a reverse magnetic field was a space which could not be invaded without upsetting Skyler considerably, yet now, in total obliviousness of this reverse-magnetic space, was a girl, Heidi Harkness, suddenly close. And so tenderly dabbing at Skyler’s bleeding hand…The hostility in her fierce flushed face seemed to have vanished. She was speaking in wonderment, regret: “Oh God, I shouldn’t have taken out that knife! ‘Actions have consequences’—I know. That Swiss army knife—my father gave me. But he shouldn’t have, not to bring here. ‘The Academy at Basking Ridge’—I’m a ‘probationary student’ here. A knife is ‘contraband’ and I could be expelled. If anyone f-finds out about this—”

  Quickly Skyler assured Heidi Harkness that no one would find out. He certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone. She would not be expelled. If anyone inquired about his hand, Skyler would say he’d had an accident, he’d hurt himself. “I’m ‘accident-prone’ as hell. APSD—‘Accident-Prone Spectrum Disorder’—it’s in my medical file. They have our complete medical records in this place, ‘the Academy at Basking Ridge’ is a prep-school/clinic and we’re all patients. We’re all insured, if ‘something happens.’” Skyler was deeply moved to see that Heidi Harkness had another tissue for him, to fashion a crude bandage for Skyler’s hand, secured by a rubber band. Impulsively Skyler wanted to kiss the coin-sized bald spot at the edge of Heidi’s hairline; but he laughed instead, a little crazily.

  Reprovingly Heidi said, “What if the knife had gone into your—heart! You wouldn’t be laughing now.”

  Skyler laughed, suffused with tenderness.

  “Maybe it should’ve happened that way. Couped-grass.”

  “You are crazy! Why do you say such—terrible—things!”

  The tone of voice in which Heidi spoke, exasperated, confounded, seemed to Skyler a familiar tone: that of parental disapproval. Again he thought She must know, she is one like me. He heard himself say, like a magician drawing a shimmering crimson scarf out of the very air, “Some things are just ‘fate.’ Some meetings. See, our lives are ‘contingent.’ That means, not ‘predetermined.’ If you could rewind time—turn time back to the start of ‘organic life’—the first single-celled life-forms—” improvising now in the voice-cadences and with some of the bright-Jew-boy facial expressions of tutor Rob Feldman, “—Homo sapiens would never emerge a second time. This is so! Scientists say this! Too many factors are involved in the evolution of so weirdly developed a species, and all of them ‘contingent’—like the Ice Age, or asteroids crashing into the earth. All you can say for sure is that what happens is. Life is an acte gratoot.”

  Heidi Harkness smiled uncertainly. “‘Acte gratoot’—is that like ‘acte gratuit ’—something that happens for no purpose? Like, sheer accident?”

  “That, too. Right!”

  Mistrustfully Heidi Harkness regarded Skyler Rampike as if she had never seen anyone like him before in her life. In her left eyelid there was a twitch that mimicked, by pure chance, a chronic twitch in Skyler’s right eyelid. How beautiful Heidi was! Those hazel-sun eyes, such beautiful eyes Skyler could not look away from them. In so strange a state, a faint roaring in his ears, and the throb of his wounded hand, he had but a vague idea where he was. From somewhere close by, the trickle of the creek through scattered and parched-looking boulders. A nameless creek that flowed along an edge of the Basking Ridge school property. High overhead in the tops of tall trees—unnaturally tall trees they seemed to Skyler, with straight smooth trunks, Skyler had no idea what such trees were called—clumsy dark-winged birds were thrashing in the foliage, emitting short sharp cries as in a drama of enigmatic intensity. Skyler knew the names of no birds, Skyler was a stranger to such woodland scenes. Thinking now in astonishment and part-dread Is this a nature scene, I have stumbled into? A nature love-scene?

  He hadn’t been marked for love. No one had loved him since Bliss. And since he had abandoned Bliss, no one had loved him. There was justice here, and logic.

  All this while, Heidi Harkness stood regarding Skyler with quizzical eyes. Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest so that it looked as if she were hugging herself, to the point of pain. It was a posture, a mannerism, unconscious, unnerving; like Heidi’s furrowed forehead, and her way of gnawing at her lower lip. Like Skyler, Heidi was wearing school-regulation clothes: blazer, long-sleeved white shirt, tie. The blazer was “heather” in hue, the school tie “heather” with “royal purple” stripes. Like Skyler’s clothes, Heidi’s clothes looked as if they’d been flung on carelessly, without the benefit of a mirror. As soon as Skyler had left Babbitt Hall he’d tugged at his damned necktie, unbuttoned his shirt at the throat; and so had Heidi.

  “Okay. I’m going now,” Heidi said abruptly, “—good-bye.”

  Quickly Skyler said, “I—I’ll walk with you,” and Heidi said sharply, “I walk out here to be alone. I need to be alone,” and Skyler said, “Well—me, too,” and Heidi said, “I—I need to be alone if I am going to endure this terrible place,” and Skyler thought This place? Terrible? Compared to what? though saying, “I know. Me, too,” and Heidi said, “It’s nothing personal, I just need to be alone. Being with other people too much confuses my head,” and Skyler said, “Right! That is exactly right,” and Heidi said, irritably, “I need to not t
alk to anybody. It makes me nervous to be talked to,” and Skyler agreed; for Skyler would have agreed to anything this fascinating girl uttered. Thinking You can’t stop me now, Mummy! No more little man. Heidi said, relenting, “If you want to walk with me and not talk, we could do that,” and Skyler said eagerly, “Good. Let’s go,” but Heidi said, with a nervous flutter of her eyelids, “Except, I can’t walk back that way,” and Skyler said, perplexed, “You can’t? Why not?”—for Heidi had indicated the way they’d come, directly from campus. Evasively Heidi said, “I just can’t. Good-bye.” The twitch in her lashless left eyelid had become more visible.

  Then Skyler understood: this had to be one of Heidi Harkness’s things.

  If you were ROCD, or only just OCD, you had your things.

  Things were rituals. Behavior-rituals. Making your way through the treacherous maze of each waking day without tripping a land-mine. The way might be a damned long way around but it was your way. Your thing.

  Like being compelled to wash your hands—vigorously!—three times. Like brushing your teeth—vigorously!—to the point of making your gums bleed—within minutes of having eaten (and if Skyler was prevented from brushing his teeth at such a crucial time, there teetered Skyler on the Brink of Ballistic). From Bliss he’d acquired the habit of walking exclusively on the carpeting on any floor that had a carpet, or on stairs; as there was a perfect way out onto the ice, that would make possible, though it could not assure, a perfect performance, so there was a perfect way into any space, and out of it again. Unlike Bliss, Skyler had learned to monitor his own bed and bedclothes. Defiantly slovenly in other regards, Skyler never failed to make his bed—vigorously!—with tight-pulled sheets and briskly shaken pillowcases—within a few seconds of getting up: for there is shame and disaster in an unmade bed. Unlike Bliss, Skyler had learned to prepare his school lessons carefully: assignments to be read no less than three times, homework always checked three times, long memorization-lists Skyler’s specialty. And prayers to God in Whom you did not believe muttered under his breath a dozen times a day no matter where no matter when no matter the futility Help me help help help me and my sister Bliss if only You would help us in the name of Your son in Whom I don’t believe either AMEN.

  Skyler winced at the risky prospect of taking a different route back to the campus for Skyler’s OCD thing took the, to him, supremely logical form of a compulsion to return to a place by the identical route you’d taken to get there: following such logic, how could you ever become lost? (You could not become lost!) (Not as Skyler had become lost, with such grievous consequences, in the labyrinthine corridors of Univers, Inc.) In the interests of accompanying Heidi Harkness, however, Skyler gave in.

  Reluctantly, or was it shyly, Heidi Harkness extended her (right) hand, squeezed Skyler’s hand and released it in virtually the same instant. Narrowing her eyes and in a flat voice saying, “And I am—‘Heidi Harkness.’”

  There was a clumsy pause. For “Heidi Harkness” was not this girl’s name; and Skyler felt that he had to acknowledge the fact, without offending her. For like a skittish deer she was poised to flee through the woods at the slightest provocation, and Skyler would have to limp after her. Trying for a confiding air he said, “‘Sylvester Rampole’ is the official—weird!—name they call me here. But ‘Skyler Rampike’ is my actual name. Maybe you’ve heard the name—‘Rampike’?” Skyler’s voice lifted in dread.

  Heidi Harkness frowned. “‘Ram-pike’? No.”

  Yet then some minutes later as they were making their way, with some difficulty, along an overgrown path beside the creek, through tall grasses and rank-smelling rushes, and vicious prickly bushes that tore at Skyler’s clothing, suddenly Heidi said, in a neutral voice: “‘Ram-pike.’ Maybe yes, I have.”

  BATTA! AS BIG-DADDY BIX WOULD EXCLAIM.

  Reader, I know: you are dismayed at this scene, for its lack of irony. All that has been recorded here took place in exactly this way on that afternoon in early autumn, in the scenic hilly countryside north of Basking Ridge, New Jersey. Two “teens”—mawkish, sentimental, silly-sad, and achingly real. As Skyler nervously foresaw, he and Heidi Harkness did become lost on their way back to campus; as Skyler might have foreseen, his wounded hand soon began to throb with pain. (For which his new friend kindly presented him with her “emergency meds”—two one-hundred-milligram capsules of the painkiller OxyContin which Heidi kept carefully wrapped in aluminum foil, in a pocket—“I love Oxies. But it’s a dangerous love. Oxies are for my rainy day.”) Skyler, whose previous painkillers (Dopex, Dremzil) had been non-opiate, gratefully swallowed the Oxie capsules dry and imagined that, within a few minutes, the pain in his hand began to fade.

  Pain fade out, love fade in.

  They would return to campus late. Missing supper in the dining hall and so obliged to rummage up a meal from vending machines. By this time, it had been revealed to Skyler that, on the insides of his new friend’s slender arms, there was a map of old/healed wounds and new/part-healed wounds, knife-cuts not unlike those knife-cuts in his fingers, like an exquisite Braille Skyler wished to draw his fingers over, to read.

  And kiss. A few nights later.

  WHY’D SHE WANT TO HURT HERSELF—“CUTTING”—NOT JUST HER arms but (Skyler would discover) her belly, her breasts and the insides of her thighs—he had to ask though knowing why, for hadn’t Skyler wished to hurt himself, in a fury wishing to hurt himself and in fact Skyler had hurt himself, and would hurt himself again It’s just something that feels right. Feels good.

  STAY WITH ME! BUT DON’T TALK.

  DON’T LOOK AT ME! I’M UGLY.

  I’m ugly. Not you.

  You?—you’re not ugly. You’re beautiful.

  That’s ridiculous. You make yourself ridiculous saying ridiculous things, please will you stop.

  It isn’t ridiculous to say that you’re beautiful and that I love you.

  Well. I love you…I guess.

  I HATE IT, THEIR EYES. THE WAY THEY FOLLOW ME WITH THEIR EYES. Whispering together That’s her! That’s Leander Harkness’s daughter.

  …the way they look at me thinking That’s him! Bliss Rampike’s brother.

  Do you want to talk about it?

  Do you?

  No.

  YET ONCE, BURSTING INTO TEARS IN SKYLER’S ARMS, HOT STINGING tears that spilled onto Skyler, grabbing Skyler’s neck as a drowning swimmer might grab the neck of her rescuer, Heidi spoke in a voice of childish hurt and grievance He didn’t! What they are all saying he did, he didn’t! I will never believe he did.

  (SO HEIDI HARKNESS BELIEVED THAT HER FATHER WAS INNOCENT! Skyler felt a pang of envy, he could’ve believed anything of anyone in the Rampike family including Skyler.)

  THROUGH THAT AUTUMN AND THAT WINTER OF 2003 AT THE ACADEMY at Basking Ridge the young couple was observed: “Sylvester Rampole” and “Heidi Harkness” sitting together at mealtimes, with their fellow-exile friend Elyot Grubbe; side by side at school assemblies, programs and films; strolling together as if defiantly oblivious of their surroundings, fingers entwined, hips/elbows/shoulders lightly nudging, frequently kissing, in low urgent voices conferring. Yet it was so, as no one of their observers would have believed, that “Sylvester” and “Heidi” rarely spoke of their family disasters.

  Murmuring I love you. A dozen times a day, uttered like an incantation I love you.*

  Skyler was protective of Heidi and would never have upset her by saying the wrong thing. Taboo subjects were many, you could tell by a stiffening of Heidi’s jaw, the twitch like a frantic little pulse in Heidi’s eyelid, the clenching of Heidi’s fists. Nor did Skyler wish to bring up the taboo subject of his own family, the now-notorious Rampikes of Fair Hills, New Jersey. (From vague remarks made by Heidi, Skyler understood that she knew that something disturbing had happened in Skyler’s past, when he’d been a little boy; but she didn’t seem to know about Skyler’s sister, or to remember. Like Skyler himself, Heidi had been only nine at the time of Bliss’s death.
) By contrast, the (alleged) murders of Heidi’s mother, her (alleged) lover, and luckless pet poodles Yin and Yang, by Heidi’s father, and the much-publicized trial in Nassau County, Long Island, had taken place just the previous spring and still what Bix Rampike would call O current in the media.

  In fact, Skyler knew very little about the Harkness case. He had not been a boy-baseball-fan, as we know. By the age of eleven he’d acquired the instinct to avoid so much as glancing at newspaper headlines; in stores that sold tabloid newspapers he swiftly looked away, as Heidi had more recently learned to do, from any display of such publications, full-page photos and banner headlines. In dark glasses, face grimly set, there was Mummy pulling at Skyler’s arm Don’t! Don’t look! It is Satan’s revenge upon us.

  A few times, he’d looked. This had been years ago. Yes he’d been sorry.

  Difficult to think of Skyler Rampike as an “American adolescent”—at least, difficult for me!—but more or less, that’s what he was, and with little interest in that staple of adult conversation: News. Sixteen-year-old Skyler’s awareness of what is called the “Mideast Conflict” was no more than the vague malaise a medieval European peasant might have felt for something called the Black Plague, or the Hundred Years’ War, or a frenzy of witch-persecution rumored to be heading in the direction of his village. “Iraq”—“Iran”—“Israel”—“Madagascar” might’ve been squeezed into the same geographical space in northern Africa, or western Asia, or the steppes of Tibet, for all Skyler knew, or cared. At the schools in which he’d been enrolled, and particularly at Basking Ridge, history instructors discreetly avoided references to contemproary American history, foreign policy, and politicians since relatives of the most affluent students were likely to be involved in government, clandestine or otherwise; among Skyler’s fellow students were sons and daughters of disgraced politicians and lawyers, businessmen, lobbyists, bribe-takers and -givers. Who these young people were Skyler didn’t know and had no interest in knowing as the proverbial ostrich with its head buried in the sand shuns all interest in other ostriches with their heads buried in the sand.