Men in Black

by Scott Spencer

  “Oh well,” Elizabeth was saying, “that’s what I get for having a younger sister.”

  Elizabeth had always criticized Olivia for her life’s lack of direction. And until this moment, as Elizabeth finished the last of her eighth glass of water for the day and silently belched into her knuckle, and Olivia sat on the sofabed and felt its springs through the stingy mattress and the cold of the metal frame on the backs of her legs, somehow Olivia had always accepted the characterization. It was her fault; she was not as clever as Elizabeth, not as serious. But suddenly all that was changed. Elizabeth might have construed that Sam was for her, but nature would have it otherwise, and here Olivia was on the side of nature. Something was within her that drew Sam toward her. There was a Tightness to it, a sense of fate—though even at twenty, Olivia realized that everyone falling in love feels the hand of fate.

  Elizabeth forgave Olivia for falling in love with Sam and letting him fall in love with her, but Lillian cooled to Olivia after that. It was a remarkable blow to Olivia’s sense of her place in the world. The politics of the Wexler family were such that none of the children felt the complete ease in confiding in each other that they felt in opening their hearts to Lillian, and now, with Lillian angry with her, Olivia lost not only the approval of her mother but the person in whom she would naturally want to confide that loss as well. When Michael was born and the Wexlers were crammed into Sam and Olivia’s apartment, Lillian cuddled and bathed the baby while maintaining a little wedge of aloofness between her and Olivia. She even managed to give Olivia a sponge bath and feed her consommé and read an issue of The New Yorker to her and still keep that quarantine around their old easy intimacy.

  For quite a while, Olivia noted this development without feeling so awfully bad. She had her own life, and the love she felt for Sam sometimes made her feel lucky she had enough left over to give to her child. She adored them both; she accepted the richness of her life with a calm gratitude, as if it were an inheritance. She knew it was old-fashioned and probably a little nuts, but Sam thought she was his muse, and it was flattering. No, it was more than that: his adoration of her and his need of her went to the center of her being; it filled her and erased her, over and over and over, until she could not imagine herself without it. Even when the pressures of poverty and parenting began to take their toll, Sam sometimes crawled across the floor and kissed her feet; her sexual nature entranced him, the sounds she made, her taste and smell. He would sometimes just come up to her and touch her arm and breathe a sigh of relief, as if he had for a moment been afraid she was a figment of his imagination. He told her everything that ever happened to him; he wanted to hear about every moment of her life. He was insatiable; he would have driven a woman like Elizabeth mad. He would have driven a great many women mad. He showered her with presents, brought coffee to her bedside, wrote poems to her which he would read aloud over a bottle of wine and then throw away because they were not good enough to keep. When a child would awaken her in the middle of the night, she would have to extricate her hand from Sam’s.

  “I’m so in love with him,” she told her mother, on a visit to Chicago, after her parents had decided to move out to Santa Barbara and the children were invited to ransack the family house on Dorchester for keepsakes, photographs, old toys, baby clothes. Olivia was pregnant with Amanda at the time, and Lillian was kind, solicitous, aware of every possible discomfort Olivia might be feeling. But still the hedge of reserve was there, and Olivia quite consciously began to push at it with declarations of her love for Sam. Could Lillian, upon hearing the truth of Olivia’s feelings, possibly believe that Elizabeth would have been happier with Sam? Wouldn’t Lillian come to understand that Sam had gone to the daughter for whom he would do the most good?

  “For a while, I thought I loved him so much because he showed me such affection,” Olivia said, sipping a glass of ale, with her feet propped up on the immemorial ottoman, while Lillian maintained a metronomic rhythm of busyness, dusting the top of a Daniel Bell book, and then the top of a Durkheim anthology, and placing them in a packing crate. “But now I see that is just the beginning of it, my feelings.” She cringed inwardly. How could something that had such searing internal clarity come out so muddled? She forced herself to go on with it. “It’s that Sam lets me love him. I think that’s so rare, don’t you?” Lillian looked up at her—skeptically? Olivia kept her eyes on the window, at the budding maple dancing back and forth in the brisk Chicago wind. “All the love I ever wanted to give any man but couldn’t, I now can give to Sam. He welcomes it, and so I feel welcomed.”

  “You’ve been feeling unwelcome?” Lillian asked, a little sharply.

  “Maybe what I mean is underutilized.”

  “Your father always loved you. In fact, I’d say he adored you.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  “He is a person of enormous dignity. There could conceivably have been some confusion because of that.” She shrugged and went back to packing the books she’d been using in her course work for the past twenty years.

  “You know what your Sam once said to me?” Lillian asked, a note of humor in her voice—though this was not necessarily a good sign.

  “Am I going to like this?” asked Olivia.

  “He said that sociology was the American academic establishment’s answer to Marxism. Is he a Marxist?”

  Olivia shook her head no.

  “I didn’t think so,” said Lillian, and went back to her books.

  Olivia took a long drink of the ale. She had been raised on unrefrigerated beverages—it was one of her parents’ European affectations—but on her own she had become used to the icy American taste, and the tepid ale tasted like spoiled bread.

  “It’s hard for me to keep track of myself, sometimes,” Olivia said. Her voice was steady; she realized now what she had been wanting to say. “I think about Sam so many hours of the day—what he’s doing, how he might be feeling, the way he touched me the night before. I still get excited when I hear his footsteps coming up the stairs.”

  “That’s because you’re there, waiting for him.”

  “I know. I haven’t made much of my life.”

  “I don’t mean to say that.”

  “I realize that I’ve given my life over to love, and now to children. That never works out.”

  “Well, perhaps it will for you, Olivia.”

  Olivia put her glass down and folded her hands over her belly. She felt a stirring—the first. The child inside of her was alive, moving now for its own mysterious reasons. It gave her the courage she needed.

  “You’ve never really forgiven me for marrying Sam, have you, Mom?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

  “It wasn’t as if he and Beth were lovers. They weren’t even going out. It’s just been so crazy. And I miss you. We were always so close. Really. What have I done?”

  Lillian draped her dust rag on the side of the packing crate and turned toward Olivia. Suddenly she looked alarmingly keen. Lines appeared above her upper lips as if the skin had been scored by the teeth of a comb. “I always believed that women should support one another. God knows, I’m not a radical feminist, but I do maintain that simple courtesy and compassion ought to be the rule among women—especially sisters.”

  “I do, too.”

  Lillian had sadly shaken her head. “You’re my daughter, no matter what, if you want to talk about the bottom line.” It was a consolation prize. The resignation and finality of it shocked Olivia. She would come to wonder if the misery of that moment permeated her amniotic sac and marked poor Mandy forever.

  At eleven the phone rang. Michael. She knew from the sound of him that he was inside.

  “Hello,” was all he said.

  “Where are you?”

  “Mom. It’s okay.” As if he were being patient with her.

  “Is it? Where are you calling from?” She heard her own voice, shrill, helpless; she was becoming one of those people. She took a deep breath, looked out the ki
tchen window. An upside-down chickadee was prying out the last sunflower seed from the Hollands’ Lucite bird feeder. It was typical of them, thought Olivia, to lure the local birds with promises of ready food and then to let the feeder go empty for weeks at a time.

  “Everything’s fine,” Michael said.

  “Michael, nothing is fine.”

  “How’s Dad? How’s Amanda? You two ought to get off her case. She’s a great little kid. She’s just different, that’s all. But in a good way. You two think that everything has to be a certain way or else it’s all wrong, and then you get so freaked out and everything. But it doesn’t have to be just one way. What if Mandy never learns to read? So what? You know what I mean?”

  He was, Olivia decided, drunk. Or high.

  “You don’t sound well, Michael.”

  “I feel great. Can I tell you something?”

  “Yes.”

  “I met some people.”

  “What people?”

  “People.”

  “Where do they live? Are they your age?” She had no idea where her questions came from.

  “Some of them.”

  “Are you safe?”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes, of course I am.”

  “Yeah, well, whatever. I better hang up. I just don’t want you to worry.”

  “But I am worried. We all are. You have to come home.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “In the city. He had an important meeting.”

  She was going to explain this further, but she didn’t want it to seem she was making excuses. Sam was doing what had to be done—even though nothing on earth could have made Olivia leave Leyden with Michael on the loose.

  “Amanda in school?”

  “Come home.”

  “I’m okay, Mom. I promise you I’m safe. And I will come home.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know.” There was a silence, and then he said, softly, in a voice she knew could only tell the truth, “When I can.”

  “You can right now,” she said, inwardly realizing that for some reason he couldn’t.

  “No.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  “Everything.”

  “Michael…”

  “I have to hang.”

  “Michael…”

  “Don’t ask me any more questions, Mom. If I wanted questions, I wouldn’t be out here. Don’t you see? I’m here because I can’t answer your questions.”

  She sighed. Irritation rose up in her, like a swarm of bees. The boy was so fucking dramatic, but he came to it honestly: Sam’s emotions often ran toward the grandiose.

  “Michael…”

  “Bye, Mom. Sorry. Take care of yourself.”

  As soon as the connection was broken, Olivia called the police. It made her feel as if she were betraying Michael, and when the dispatcher answered the phone Olivia was so rattled she couldn’t remember the name of the cop they had spoken to Saturday night and Sunday.

  “This is Olivia Wexler,” she said. “I have a missing son?” Silence. The dispatcher patiently waited for her to say more. She pictured him there, a Drake’s Cake resting on its own cellophane next to a styrofoam cup of coffee.

  “Is there someone I can speak to about this?” she asked. “I have some new information.”

  “Is your son home now?”

  “No. But he called. And I have a theory.”

  “A theory?”

  “I think I know where he is.”

  “Where, Mrs. Wexler?”

  Another conversation going nowhere. She had nothing specific to tell, no address, no phone number, no hot tip, and so she would be ignored. Her intuition that Michael was living in an abandoned house was meaningless to the police; her sense that Michael wanted to come home but would now create circumstances that would make an easy return impossible would be not only meaningless but completely ignored. The sum total of everything she knew about Michael meant less to the police than would one number from a license plate.

  She placed the phone back into its cradle and looked at the blur of paperwork on her table. She rubbed her fingertips into her closed eyes. It felt remarkably good. It felt wonderful. She couldn’t stop. She felt the brightening jelly of her eyes beneath the silky sheath of their lids. The pleasure of it was sublime, and when she stopped and looked out toward the bright window the air exploded with circles, crescents; the world was oil on water. And when it clicked back into its customary intransigence she felt a surge of desire go through her; a flaming arrow of sex shot across the inner darkness. She did not want to be kissed or held; she did not want her nipples caressed, she wanted no tongue in the ear, no words of love: she wanted to be entered, filled, fucked. The brutality of this need startled her, and then, quickly, it was gone.

  The phone rang, and though she was normally shy, even phobic, about the phone, she picked it up before it was through its first ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Olivia? This is Sharon. Russ’s wife?”

  Olivia noted the centuries of female oppression in that form of identification, and then said, “What’s up?” She had a curt phone manner, partly out of annoyance with the instrument and partly in reaction to Sam’s telephone effusiveness—he always sounded so pleased when someone called.

  “Russ saw you at the school today.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “You must be so worried, Olivia.”

  “Michael called. Just a few minutes ago.”

  “Oh!”

  Of course, Sharon didn’t know what this call meant, and Olivia had no impulse to make it clear. The chickadee was back at the bird feeder, this time with five others from its flock. It was able to communicate where it had gotten the sunflower seed, but not that there were none left. The birds fluttered around the empty Lucite cylinder.

  “You must be so relieved,” said Sharon. “I’m very happy for you, Olivia.” Sharon’s conversation was slow, a little stilted; she hovered over every syllable she spoke, holding her accent at bay.

  Yet Olivia believed her, suddenly, rapturously, overpoweringly believed her. The simple goodwill of “I’m very happy for you” made Olivia swoon; she lowered her head, breathed heavily through her mouth.

  “This has been a nightmare,” Olivia said. “It should happen to Hitler, as my father says.”

  “I was wondering if you wanted to come over,” said Sharon.

  “I can’t now. Sam’s in New York.” That didn’t quite make sense, but no matter. “But thanks.”

  “It’s a business thing,” said Sharon. She said it with a slight flirtatiousness, as if doing business would be like drinking wine in the middle of the day, or going to one of those clubs where middle-aged women slip dollar bills into the Lycra jockstraps of male dancers.

  “What kind of business thing?” asked Olivia. She wondered if Sharon was being kind, getting her out of the house, away from her troubles.

  “Your business. You buy antiques, don’t you?”

  As soon as Sharon said this, Olivia knew it was about the Tiffany painting hanging over the Connelly fireplace.

  “Yes, I do. Is there something you want to sell?”

  “We think so. But it would be so helpful if you could take a look at it.”

  “Is it portable?” Twenty questions. Is it animal, vegetable, mineral, bigger than a bread basket?

  “I guess so.”

  “That would be better. I feel I need to stay near the telephone.”

  “Oh, of course. I’m sorry. It’s just that Russ and I are nervous, with so much going on.”

  “So much going on?”

  “There’s been many robberies. They don’t put it in the newspaper, but Russ has good friends on the police force. That’s why Russ wants to sell the painting.” Sharon paused, and then was somehow compelled to add, “It’s not that we’re desperate for the money or anything. It just seems a little foolish to have something so valuable in the house, with all that’s happening.”

/>   “How valuable do you think it is?”

  “Well, that’s what we wanted to get from you, Olivia. If you’re not too busy.”

  “If you’d like to bring it over, that will be fine,” said Olivia.

  “Thank you. I’ll come right now. I’m just taking some zucchini bread out of the oven. Do you like zucchini bread?”

  Do I like zucchini bread? thought Olivia. How the hell should I know?

  “It’s very dietetic,” said Sharon. “I use almost no sugar and only one egg.”

  “Okay, then. Thanks.” She tried to think of what else to say. She struggled for the next phrase, as if she were in France. “I’ll make some coffee.”

  When she hung up the phone, Olivia sat silently, motionless at the kitchen table. She thought about the painting, closed her eyes to remember it better. It was mostly sky and water, with the brownish plane of the river’s distant shore cutting the canvas in half. In the bottom of the painting, a farmer stood in his one-horse cart, slightly obscured by the gathering blue darkness. The cuffs of his undershirt were the same bright white as his horse’s-rear socks. The reins were slack in the farmer’s hands; his head was bowed in reverie. That was the sweetest part, that bowed head.

  At last, Olivia picked up the pen with which she had been writing checks. It was a stubby, maroon-colored ballpoint, bearing the name of the Wyndham Hotel. Wasn’t that one of the places Sam stayed when he was in New York? She no longer paid attention, not really. She turned the pen around in her hand and looked at it, mildly, emptily curious.

  CHAPTER

  7

  IT FELT SO GOOD TO BE IN THE CITY, STEAM POURED OUT of open deconstruction holes in Madison Avenue; taxis blared with murderous rage; a Sikh and a Chinese engaged in a shouting match while they unloaded boxes in front of a stationery store.

  I strained to keep pace with Graham, whose gait was driven by the pistons of urban anxiety. For all the meandering, meaningless chatter we indulged in while at his office off Union Square, once we were on the street and making our way toward Ezra’s office, Graham’s manner was suddenly grim.