“He knows why,” Elle says.
“Oh for God’s sake, Ellie, please let it go. I’m just doing my job.”
“No, you are not doing your job. That is exactly what you are not doing.”
“Well, how about this? I’ll take care of things down here, and you pay attention to what’s going on under your own roof is what I think.”
Elle is suddenly serious. “What are you implying?”
“The kids. Your kids. People are talking, you know.” He crosses his arms.
“What’s new? People are always flapping their jaws. Nothing better to do.”
“Some of my street guys are actually afraid of them. Can you explain that?”
It’s like watching a game of Ping-Pong.
“Hmmm…” She taps her chin. “Easy scapegoating because you don’t know how to do your job?”
“People are still going missing, Elle. And funny thing is, lately your kids are always around when it happens.”
“Because they are out at night on the beach like every other teenager in town? Great sleuthing, Officer.” Elle points at Boner. “You watch who you tell that bullshit to. Those are good kids who haven’t had it easy, and I will lose my temper if anything happens to them.”
“You tell them to obey the law,” Boner says, “and we’ll be just fine.”
“And you keep your speculations and lies to yourself.”
“Hey,” Roxy pulls her shades down, revealing what’s left of her black eye, and Boner blanches. “Can you two cut it out?”
“My God, Roxy, what happened to you? Who did that to you?” Boner says, Elle forgotten.
“None of your business,” Elle says. “Now shoo. We’d like to have Rebecca help us make a report.”
Boner opens the gate into the desk area. “I’ll handle this myself.”
“We want Rebecca to do it.”
“Officer Jackson has work to do,” Boner says, tapping an index finger on Rebecca’s pile of folders. He swings his arm in front of him to show we should go back.
“Fine.” Elle sashays through the gate. “But I don’t want to hear any of your usual hoo-ha.”
Boner doesn’t seem afraid of Elle, but he also doesn’t seem like he’s going to be doing any more arguing. He’s in some kind of shock over Roxy’s face, is suddenly hovering around her like he wants to be close enough to take a bullet for her should the need arise.
“Sorry about this, Roxy.” Boner leads us into a small, windowless room. “It used to be quieter around here, but we’re right on the cusp between town and city now, and we haven’t had a chance to adjust. The hippies really fucked us over. And now we have some kind of potential serial killer loose in town? Ted Bundy’s in prison, but there’s always a new sicko there to take his place. We are this close to a curfew, and all the boardwalk shopkeepers are flipping out.”
The Gecko brothers were wrong. The cops do think it’s one person. Someone is out there right now, seeking out girls to take. Boner pulls a couple of folding chairs from the wall and sits down across from us at what amounts to a card table.
“Anyway, everyone’s overworked and cranky and all our interview rooms are full. I’m sorry we have to be in here. It’s the last space we have.”
Elle refuses to sit, leans against the back wall instead.
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Roxy says. “Santa Maria may always have been small, but it’s never been sweet.”
“So many drugs these days.” He eyes me meaningfully, as though I am probably on them and he is onto me. “PCP, acid, heroin, ludes.” He sighs. “Can’t even keep up. If the free-love people hadn’t drifted down here from San Francisco and set up camp, we might have been able to keep our little slice of American pie.”
“Don’t play stupid, Boner,” Elle says. “It’s just us here. The crime has nothing to do with hippies and you know it. Santa Maria is on a—”
“Vortex. I know, I know. Hang on a sec and I’ll grab my magic carpet so we can go for a little cruise.”
“Make fun if you want—”
“Fairy tales. Poppycock,” Boner says.
“Is it, now?” Elle says. “Why don’t you tell us more about this poppycock? Think back, Boner. Think real hard.”
“Elle,” Roxy says. “Please don’t.”
The room turns taut, pulled tight. The air conditioner overhead makes a noise like grinding teeth.
“Okay, then,” Boner says, ignoring Elle, looking directly at Roxy instead, “what’s going on here, and how can I help?”
“To be honest, I’m not really sure why I’m here,” Roxy ventures. She’s backing into herself.
“You’re here because Lyle—” Elle starts.
“We’re here because there was an incident with my soon-to-be ex-husband,” she says.
“He beat the shit out of her,” Elle finishes. “Not for the first time.”
Boner nods, gets that simpering look that all men get around Roxy, like they’re indulging her, going to protect her fragility. My hands ball up and I push my knuckles against my thighs.
“So your sister dragged you down here to file one of those reports she’s so fond of.” He leans back and the chair creaks. His biceps are too big. He must lift weights all the time. He must practically live at the gym, working on his physique and hanging out with those girls in striped tights with leotards that go up their butts. “Reports, by the way, Ellie, that don’t do a bit of good in the end. A person practically has to die before intervention. Hell,” he says, grinning, “I have guys who won’t even go near a domestic situation. People go crazy when they’re in love.”
“Boner, you fucking insensitive prick,” Elle murmurs. “You really call that love?”
He straightens, glancing up at her, then at Roxy. “Of course not. You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know what you mean, and I also know it’s bullshit.”
“Of course I know it’s important for us to take these things seriously. I’m just saying there are holes in the law when it comes to the goings-on between a man and his wife. There’s not much we can do. And Elle, you and your obsession with this paper trail? It’s not the answer. It just puts you in the system, on the books, you know what I mean? It can even work to your disadvantage. Questions come up. How long has it been going on? Why would you allow it—”
Roxy pinks up.
“Are you kidding?” Elle says. “You don’t have the first clue what it’s like to be a woman in this world. How dare you?”
“Elle, let me finish,” Boner says. “I’m not saying why would she allow it. Obviously most women can’t defend themselves against an abuser or control their behavior. I’m saying why would she allow it.”
“You know, I’m about sick of people talking about me like I’m not in the room, like I’m some dumb little girl,” Roxy says.
“No one’s saying that—”
“Yes you are, Elle, even by making me come down here when I don’t want to, making me feel like I have to appease you.” She turns to Boner. “I made some decisions and maybe they weren’t the best ones, but I did what I did. I didn’t defend myself because I didn’t know what would happen next and I didn’t want to come back here. Maybe that was the best I could do. But I’m here now.”
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Elle says. “I’m just trying to protect you. What if he comes here, tries to take you back?”
“He won’t do that,” Roxy says. “He’s got too much pride.”
He will come because he has pride, not in spite of it. I don’t know how she could really believe what she said, if she’s lying to herself or if I really know him better than she does.
Lyle St. James smiles sun
Teeth white and straight and shiny
Clenched against blood lust
“Roxy.” Boner makes a steeple of his fingers. “I’m going to give you my best advice here, okay?”
“Go ahead,” Roxy says.
“You do not deserve to be hit. Any ma
n who hits a woman or a child is subhuman and should be crushed like a cockroach, which is what he is. And especially to hit someone like you, like your kid.” His face is becoming more flushed with every word. “But I just want to make sure you get what’s happening here. This means you’re starting something, a trail. You need to be sure you’re willing to take that risk.”
“He’s never going to let her go.” The sound of my voice surprises me. “He’s going to come looking for her.” I’m shaking so bad. When I get mad I cry. I’m so mad right now the tears are pushing at the edges of my lids. “You don’t know him.”
Boner looks at me, at the pictures of Roxy and all her bruises on the table between us.
Roxy finds a smoke and lights it. Boner slides the ashtray on the table over to her.
“Just make the goddamn report,” Elle says.
Boner stares at the Polaroids for a moment.
Roxy takes a drag and puts her sunglasses back on. “Last time I saw you, things were bad, and now they’re bad again. You must think I’m crazy, that I’m just a mess of a person.”
“It’s not like that, Rox.”
“Sure it’s not.”
“I think you’re a sight for my sore eyes, that’s what I think.”
“Oh please,” Elle says from the corner.
“Your mother was the belle of the ball,” Boner says, I guess to me, but not looking at either of us, just staring at Roxy. “And then poof … she left all of us, just like that. Just like that, she was gone.”
Elle steps up to the table. I haven’t known her long, but I know enough about her to understand that she barely has hold of her temper. “Get the report,” she says, teeth visibly clenched, “and fill it out. Right now. Right now, Boner. Paper. Pen. Go.”
He looks to Roxy, who nods. “It’s for the best.”
Boner pulls a notebook and a pen from a corner file cabinet. “Okay, Rox,” he says, “why don’t you tell me what happened?”
I decide again that I like my aunt Elle very very much.
THIRTEEN
RAPE
When we get home, I need to be alone. Roxy too, I guess, because she takes a couple blue pills and disappears, and Elle goes into the garden. I find a quiet spot in my grandmother’s study, amongst all her books, and I pull the diary from where I’ve hidden it, behind Chaos Magic and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I open its pages, find my place in my great-great-grandmother Julianna’s story, and read.
I was raised in a small house in a big forest, with my father and mother. They knew the plants and the land and wanted nothing from other human beings, they thought people were a scourge. When they died of an influenza virus I somehow survived, I came down from the forest hill, and I found myself in a small boarding house. That’s where the director Alfonzo discovered me, when he was out looking for a fresh face for his play.
Your father was Romeo, and we were to perform at the Trident, the sea stage, the creation of the madman who had come from Spain to be the art darling of the entire coast.
A stage, he had said, that gives the impression of being in the sea.
It wasn’t in the sea of course, not exactly, but it was close enough to pretend. He bought the finest stage curtains, the most elaborate lights and chandeliers, and he built his stage on an inlet. Romeo & Juliet was the flagship play.
Your father came from a homesteading family, but he was an actor at heart. Still is. I catch him reciting his lines to the furniture. He was so happy with all the strutting and fencing and the sounds of the language.
By the second performance, I knew he loved me. Truth be told, I knew it the moment I met his gaze and found it burning. He held me at my waist and with Alfonzo sitting in the front row reciting every line along with us, hands gesturing wildly, and how soft his touch. I knew I would be his wife. I would bear him children and we would have a cat and work the land at the top of the hill that he inherited from his father.
He told me I was beautiful.
It never made much mind to me whether I was beautiful or not. In the woods it was of no concern. I didn’t grow up with mirrors or fancy dresses, but for him, I would be beautiful.
Your raven hair, he said, a little unoriginally, but with so much passion I couldn’t help but smile.
We would meet in the cave behind the stage where no one would look for us. We would let the water trickle from the wall. The sin was assuredly temporary. I knew he loved me with all he had to offer and would leave me with my reputation and dignity intact. It was for that reason I could forget that dignity entirely with him, forget everything as though there was no world and there were no brutalities, as though it was not a terrifying and daring thing to come down from the mountain without my rifle in hand, an orphan surrounded by the savagery of human beings. I want you to know how much love there was between us, how vast and innocent, and that some touch is kind even when it is passionate and of the flesh. I hope that for you: one love.
Julianna, you are a spitfire, my father used to tell me. What are you going to do with that spark?
I don’t know, I used to tease. Burn everything down?
That night, I was preparing for another visit from your father in the cave behind the stage. I brought a blanket though the ground was warm in the cave, for it was winter and the warmth of the summer theater days were behind us. I made some little cakes with delicate flower icing. I poured petals from fat peonies on the ground. I was so lost in my romantic vision, I didn’t hear the stranger’s footfalls. It was dark, and perhaps it was stupid, but I felt safe, as you do before you are violated and never again afterward.
I thought it was your father, but only for a moment. When the man hit the back of my head and I in turn fell to the ground, I knew I was going to die. He lifted my skirt from behind. He told me I was beautiful as your father had, and then he took everything from me. I never saw his face, though I felt him, his reeking breath.
It hurt. God be, it hurt. And that may be how you were conceived, though I have never wanted you to feel any less than Lawrence’s daughter, for that is who and what you are.
I was decimated by my lack of ability to simply leave. We are so trapped in these human bodies for the duration of our lives, even when our spirits are screaming to be let out. I did pray to die, and then I prayed to live. I could not make up my mind then, and I cannot now.
Juliet, he said.
This is the part I have always wanted to tell you, because I fear it will affect you, that you will have to pay for my communion with strange forces.
I performed witchcraft. I did. And in doing so, I think I cursed us both.
My blood dripped into the dirt below me. I staggered to the stream that had poured over us. It was cool going down my throat. I splashed it on my face, but I couldn’t hide my shredded skin and I let myself bleed into the dirt. Then, when I was strong enough, I went to the shore and found your father there, tied up, with a bump on the back of his head.
I went back the next day to search for clues about the man’s identity. Finding none, I prayed for the gods to destroy the place, to destroy the man who had hurt me. I raged. I did. I put my head into the water and I screamed.
And would you believe the very next day the gods sent an earthquake to rattle the Trident right off the earth, to sink it into the ocean. The whole stage. Gone. Just like that. I swear to you, I willed the earth to come apart as I had. And it did. On April 18, 1906, the earth did as I had asked and it took the theater and the stage down.
In San Francisco, three thousand souls lost their lives. Here, the only damage sustained was the Trident breaking off and falling into the sea. The land clean sunk, like an old pirate ship. For the longest while, I would go and look at the place it should have been, trying to understand how and why my prayers were answered.
And then I went back to the cave.
I knew right then that there was something about that water, my blood, my cries. After that, when I found the water and the cave intact and my belly growing with child,
I could feel that man. I knew just where he was and I found him. I went into his living room where he was taking his dinner, and I murdered him with no more than these two arms and these lips and left him with his cheek resting in his roast and potatoes. Imagine his surprise when he realized it was me. “Juliet,” he said again, and it was his last word.
The next morning, the crows came, and they have been with us since. I do not know why, but it cannot be coincidence. I fell into the cave’s arms accidentally, but now it is mine.
What I have gifted you is something I must apologize for even as I have placed it in your palm. Imagine my surprise when you went to it so naturally, when you drank and saw and took to it like it had always been yours. You tried to keep your discovery from me, but the sight makes it impossible. You shine differently from the rest, and there are no honeycombs for us. And so I knew. And I also knew I could never say anything to you about any of it.
We plant. We sow. If we mind what grows from our sorrows, we can only call this life mysterious and we can only hope to worship that mystery properly.
Don’t deny evil, Billie. Crush it. That is your duty.
Your eyes are strange, your voice filled with determination and spirit. Carry on.
Your mother,
Julianna
PART TWO
Take your man and curse you, too
FOURTEEN
SAND SNATCHER
I’ve barely seen Jason or Neve or Kidd in days. I had been having fantasies that we would be best friends, that we would be inseparable and I would never be alone again, but as quickly as I thought that, I found myself loafing around the house alone. Everyone sleeps all the time, Roxy in her old room with the door closed, the kids up in the attic. I get hard thoughts when I’m alone too long, remember too many things, let myself linger on Taylor, Texas, and Lyle and whether or not he’s going to drive up any second, so I stick close to Elle, who always has lots going on, taking phone calls and leaving at random to do her work with the women in the community, but who also picks lettuce and flowers and peruses the property.
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