An Invisible Sign of My Own

by Aimee Bender

  I’m supposed to go to the hospital now, said Lisa, taking my hand.

  Ann said: I’m supposed to go back to school and get picked up for ballet class.

  Want to switch? Lisa asked, as we reapproached the park.

  Sure, said Ann. Okay.

  Lisa’s face lit up. Really? she said. Really?

  Ann burst out laughing, total revenge exacted for all the pirate suffering she’d endured in the last hour.

  No way, she said. I was only kidding.

  After I’d dropped Ann in front of the school and Lisa in the blue pooling reflections of the hospital, I went back to the hardware store to look for Mr. Jones. The door was still wide open, and the room filled with evening, shadows of tools shifting on the walls. Mr. Jones! I called out. Are you here? Hello? Everything was quiet, still. I went into the back room, piled high with brown boxes and the sawdust-sweet smell of broken cardboard and old apples, but there was no sign of him. Mr. Jones? I said again. I was feeling worried by now, he’d never been gone for this long from the store when it was open, so I walked over to his house, and knocked on his door for a good ten minutes. There was no answer. I needed the feeling of knocking on that fine oak so I stayed there for a while, just working out my whole day on the door, my worries about Ann’s parents, about Ann taking the 42 from Mr. Jones, about the approaching end of 50, about a tableful of coughing seven-year-olds, about Lisa’s mother stuck on the sixth floor of the hospital for the rest of her life, about the science teacher’s smile, the way he saved it and didn’t overuse it, and I knocked until it was too cold to stay. I waved at my parents’ house on my walk home. I didn’t go inside.

  part three 42

  20

  I had my first big success in track as a fifth-grader, and in fifth grade speed is a big deal. I was faster than the fastest boy. And he was fast. On that particular day of sprinting I really felt like I might kick into orbit, thigh up shin back heel high blast forward. During the race, seeing those other kids next to me, ahead of me, behind me, made me want to run faster just to leave them behind, just to race ahead like nobody’s business, and that’s what I did, and I was nothing but tight muscle and intent. When I won I was the most famous girl of all girls for a while, and the boys started insulting me and I knew that was good news and I ran again and I ran again and I sprinted again and again until it was clear that I wasn’t one-shot lucky. That girl can run, said my gym teacher. I went and stood at her hip. She saw I was there. You can RUN, she said. I felt like I might die with pride for myself and die of humility because I didn’t know how I did it, I just did it, and it made me want to give things to other people and I shared my dessert at lunchtime and when I came home from school I helped my mother lay out her brochure on History of the Highway and I thought secretly who needs a highway really when we all know I can run to New York City and back in five seconds.

  Excuse me, I have someplace to go.

  I ran track in high school for a year and I got it back for a bit, for a second I felt that crack-open of my lungs, releasing new lungs, infant-pure, a new heart, shuttling out from behind the old one, new bones, air shedding the skin off my back, molting and sleek, but my father had faded by then, and it never tasted as good as that one time before when I won and I wanted to win. That weekend, he and I went to the track so I could show my stuff, and he had the stride of a giant but still called me Miss Speedy and one time, once, I almost pulled ahead.

  At home, I stood on top of the dinner table. I am growing right this second, I told my mother. She laughed at me. Really, I said. I think I can feel my bones move.

  She poured me a glass of milk. Here, she said.

  We both watched the white liquid disappear, from the glass, into me: magic.

  Birthday 51 was now a week away.

  The nothing birthday. The number of nothing.

  Sunday, I grabbed the plant food to give my dad but walked downtown first to check on Mr. Jones.

  The hardware store was still wide open, but there was still no sign of him perched on his stool by the cash register, reading. Rows of hammers lined the walls, hard black worker hats on wooden worker bodies. I called his name and looked through the store again but no luck, so I left, unsettled. On my way out, I picked up a lug nut from the bolt bin and popped it in my mouth, sucking on the metal, sticking my tongue inside the ridged hole.

  I headed over to my parents’ house.

  Halfway there I spotted a tree with a beige tumor on its root. I would’ve passed it right by, not even noticing, sometimes trees have tumors on their roots, wondering where is that Mr. Jones, but as I got closer, the tips of the roots formed into angles and lines until my eyes focused and I saw that it was a wax 13 on a string, nestled at the base of the tree. My heart stopped for a second. I spit out the lug nut. Bending down, I picked the number out of the dirt and hung it from my arm. What did this mean? I stroked the hard wax. I kept walking, worrying that this was some kind of message from Jones to the world, not sure what the message could be, when I turned the corner and crossed the street and saw, strung on the side of a hedge, a solid wax 8.

  The edges of my skin shook into ice. This was wrong. This was not right. Behind me, some adults pushing a perambulator rolled down the block. When they turned the corner, I ran to the hedge, picked the 8 up carefully, warm and yielding from the sun, and unhooked it from the brambles. I held it for a second: 8. A bad mood, a short life. Then hung it next to 13.

  Over the next five blocks, I found more numbers, let loose like stray dogs, my heart shaking each time I saw that dirty string and angled glob of wax swinging off the back of a bench or hanging from the branch of a tree. 23. 37. 4. 11. All levels. All types.

  Ages and moods and deaths spread everywhere.

  I collected each necklace carefully, brushing off the dirt and hanging them over my arm. Where was Jones? Decaying on a beach? Starving on the highway? I slipped 23 over my head, wax bouncing against my ribs as I walked. I waited for a sense of harmony, but the truth was I felt much lower than 23, maybe more at about 10, and so it seemed false to advertise the wrong number and therefore disrespectful to Mr. Jones’s system. I took it off.

  I tried knocking on his door again but no one answered.

  At my parents’ house, I found my father in the backyard, on his knees, trying to pat down the grass that had not yet grown back from his failed Shape of Health.

  How are you doing? I asked. I was wearing beige. I knelt beside him, and handed over the plant food.

  He was ripping up dried blades. I could still see the open circle clearly, brown and distinct, the broken part of the arc filled with green grass.

  My father pulled out a few more handfuls, then put a palm on my shoulder. Thanks, he said, squeezing. He reached in the bag and sprinkled bits of plant food, like fish food, right on top of the burn marks.

  Nice to see you, he said. What else you got there? He looked at the tangle of wax and string on my wrist. I waited for him to recognize the numbers, advise me on what to do.

  Numbers, I told him, raising my arm slightly.

  He nodded, agreeable, and then stood and walked forward to the sliding door, back into the house.

  Mr. Jones had lived next to my parents now for over twenty years, grading my math tests and advising on plant food, but there hadn’t been even a flicker of recognition on my father’s face.

  This is a man’s heart, I said, quietly. I am holding somebody’s heart right here.

  We both went into the living room: me with that diary on my arm, my father sinking into the sofa; I called out a greeting to my mother, who was in the dining area, working. She grunted. I asked her if she’d seen Mr. Jones around town this weekend; she said no, come to think of it, and asked why. I said no reason. Air felt thin in my nose. My father wrapped himself in a blanket even though it was warm in the house, and clicked on the TV. He spent a few minutes resettling his throat while we sat together on the couch, flipping the channels around, finally settling on some sepia action mov
ie. It was yet another bank-robbery story, but he seemed to be enjoying it, and there were the bank robbers together running and there was the heiress with her long dress and long lashes and there were the guns and bam-bim-boom, commercial. I missed the science teacher hard, watching it.

  How’s school? he asked.

  There’s no one in the hardware store, I said.

  My father put his feet on the leather footstool.

  What do you need? he said. Toolbox is in the garage.

  I petted the wax of the numbers. I don’t need any tools, I said.

  He straightened the blanket over his legs. I wanted to know how he was doing, in a real way, but I didn’t know how to ask. Instead, I reached into the shelves over our heads and brought down the scrapbook of him running, him young, the black-and-white photos of a man who had not been black-and-white then. I looked at the ribbons, ran my finger over the curled satiny old blue. First place, first place, first place.

  Do you miss running? I asked.

  First place, second place, first place.

  The show was back on. Now the cops were in on it. Now they were all chasing each other in their cars. Race race race. Cops turn. Robbers turn. Screech and lean. Corners. Everything was very fast. The actors were of another time, with different bone structure, wider foreheads, wavier hair. My father didn’t say anything until fifteen minutes later at the next commercial and then he just turned to me and said Yes.

  I forgot what I’d asked and then, against my will, remembered. I tore a piece of plastic off a scrapbook page when I realized what he meant. I wanted to see what it would take to get him to move fast—A gun? A bomb? Me? I’d dash past him, lap the block four times, cheeks red from exertion, alive! alive! panting, done by the time it takes him to walk to the doorway and watch me go.

  I closed the scrapbook, which smelled faintly of mildew by now, blew some dust off its cover, and replaced it on the shelf next to the skin-disease books. The TV show was back on and I said bye as the sound of gunshots rang out. He smiled at me, closed his eyes. Afternoon was getting to him. I adjusted the numbers on my arm and went to say good-bye to my mother, who was immersed at her desk with photographs of snarled jungles next to clean text in white squares.

  She worked steadily and I stood over her, watching. She matched up the corners and lines. She drew the glue stick neatly along the backs of the papers.

  You know, I said finally, no one from here is ever going to go to any of these places.

  The yellow light from the lamp made her face yellow and she looked up at me, eyeglasses on the bridge of her nose. I felt mean. I waited for her to yell. I was wishing she would yell at me, her rude daughter, pack her bags, and prove me wrong, come back with defeated snakes curled up her forearms in scaled bracelets and a tan of dirt, her legs all fine thighs and lean savvy calves.

  All she said was: So.

  21

  Monday morning at school began normally.

  I made myself a cup of peppermint tea in a dented steel mug, and brought it with me into my classroom.

  The night before, I’d stored the wax numbers I’d found on some towels, nestled like jewels on terrycloth. That evening, I’d called all the Joneses in the phone book—there were twelve—but no one knew where he was and a few people didn’t even know who he was. One number had a different area code and I could hear cars and trucks in the background while I talked to the old woman, Mrs. Hilda Jones, living the last of her life in the big city. What’s his first name? she asked, in a rickety voice. I had no idea. Minehead? I ventured. Minehead Jones? She said no and have a good night dear, and when we hung up, I missed her. I missed the sounds of those trucks in the background, people out driving the grid of the city.

  At school, I sipped my tea and worried. The first grade was on a field trip with the reading teacher to some reading festival so I had a little extra time before the second grade marched in. Benjamin walked by once but it was too fast for either of us to say anything. I was staring at the door, formulating a vague plan of what to do if Ann did not have the 42 with her, when a group of parents entered MATH without knocking.

  They were all talking at me before I could even say hello.

  I recognized most of them. They seemed to be the parents of my second-graders. I thought, first, before I could understand their words, that they were citizens for Mr. Jones, that they knew about the 42 and the other numbers, and had put together a search team, bless them. Or I thought maybe they’d found Mr. Jones, and then I wondered if they were going to tell me how Ann DiLanno’s parents had both died in a freak dual poisoning accident, and then I worried about Lisa’s mother and then about my own father but finally my ears tuned in and heard what they were actually saying.

  —and besides it is flat-out in-ap-pro-priate to teach math using severed limbs, said Mimi Lunelle’s mother, her mouth loud and pink, fingernails flashing bright as a beverage. Mimi dreamt all weekend that a gigantic 1 was coming to strangle her, she said. I mean really. Whatever happened to buttons and blocks?

  Severed limbs? I said. I took a sip of my tea.

  Mr. Gustav Gravlaki’s mustache trembled from the tight pursing of his lips.

  We will not have Elmer doing mathematics with arms or anything else that has to do with war! he yelled. Mrs. Gravlaki jumped in agreement, wearing her housecoat, a blur of red buds and orange suns. Yeah, said another parent standing behind.

  I remembered the O’Mazzi arm then, that hopeful flower of a hand reaching up to the ceiling through the pane of blue glass, and felt confused and tired by their distress. I’d been so upset by the 42 that I’d forgotten all about the severed arm.

  Did it break? I asked feebly.

  No, it did not break, said Mrs. Lunelle. Don’t you get it?—It’s frightening for children to look at body parts in their math class!

  They loomed over me, righteous. I raised up from my seat and stood near the chalkboard.

  Well, I said slowly, trying to clear my head, I feel it was a good learning tool. In fact, it was our entryway into Multiplication and Divison. This is a very advanced class, this second grade, I said.

  They shook their heads in unison, leaning toward me—furious, but also tentative; everyone is secretly a little afraid of the math teacher. All you really need to do is write 100,000 − 56,899 on the board, and people will flee in droves, horrified by the sight of all those zeroes in the minuend.

  I was about to launch into a speech about gratitude toward war veterans when my boss, luckily, bustled in, wearing a green suit that looked more like Wednesday than Monday. I felt off schedule just looking at her. I stopped talking; I had very little to defend; I thought the severed arm had been one of the best Numbers and Materials all year. What you people really need to worry about, I wanted to say, is that Mr. Jones from the hardware store has vanished and could be eaten by coyotes somewhere and that there are death numbers strewn all over this town.

  My boss took the group outside to talk them down and then the bell rang and inside trooped the second grade, all seven in a row, greeting their parents, bewildered, delighted.

  What’s happening? asked Elmer. Why is my mom here in her kitchen clothes?

  Nothing, I said. Don’t worry.

  I shut the door behind them. Okay class, I said. Take your seats, don’t worry about the parents—

  So are you busted? Ann asked. They’re never here unless you’re busted.

  They sat right down in their chairs, expectant, except Ellen, who stood at the pencil sharpener, sharpening the second end of her pencil so it had two points and looked something like a hammerhead shark’s hammerhead.

  Ann tried to hear the discussion outside, but all we could get were low urgent tones. I was relieved to see that she looked like she’d had a normal weekend.

  It’s because of the arm, said Mimi Lunelle. I had nightmares all weekend.

  Danny’s eyebrows drew in. My arm? he said.

  Ellen, said Lisa, I can’t hear, will you stop sharpening your pencil alrea
dy?

  It’s not your arm, Ann said to Danny.

  Lisa had her hand over one ear. Whose parents are here? she asked.

  Oh, said Mimi, everyone’s.

  I interrupted to ask who had brought a Number and Material for class today but no one had; it was Monday, they admonished. I put some hard subtraction problems up on the board. 15 − 9. 23 − 16. The kids didn’t move, and Ellen remained at the sharpener, rrrrr, noise whirring on, then off.

  Lisa fidgeted in her seat, and after a minute, stood over Ellen, poked her shoulder, said, Stop it!

  Flip. Rrr.

  All weekend, I’d thought of Lisa, going to the hospital after wanting to get herself hit by a car, standing and looking at tubes and pumps and quiet machines. The lure of a death that is fast and loud.

  Outside the room, the parents were still in a heated, indecipherable discussion. Ann had her ear to the wall, eyebrows scrunched. Flip. Rrr.

  I can’t hear a thing, she said.

  Lisa twitched, still standing, and then dragged a chair to the bookshelf, stood on it, and lifting high on the balls of her feet, reached up and pulled the ax down from its hanging place on the wall.

  Let’s get the dumb parents really mad, she said.

  Lisa, I said, don’t mess with the 7.

  It’s not a 7, said Ann. It’s a hatchet. It never looked like a 7, ever.

  Put down the 7, I said. I walked over and plucked it out of Lisa’s hand.

  The parents are not dumb, said Mimi Lunelle. My mom is really smart.

  Flip. Rrr.

  Oh Ann, by the way, I said, did you bring back the 42? Did anyone happen to see Mr. Jones from the hardware store this weekend?

  Ellen’s lead broke and she gave a gentle sigh and stuck her rapidly shrinking pencil back in. Rrr.