My psychiatrist is Dr. Salinger, a gray-haired man with a short-cropped beard. He looks, I think, the way a psychiatrist should look. He strikes me as insightful, intelligent. I tell him that I believe my wife suffers from a personality disorder. I tell him that she is in some way damaged. That she carries a malignant gene. That she passed this rogue gene on to our son. I tell him that I wonder sometimes if they both—my wife and son—might not be better off dead. Rachel out of her misery, free of her tormenting mood swings, and Albert saved from the constant darkness.
Dr. Salinger seems not at all surprised by these unwelcome thoughts that fill my head. Thoughts that, I tell him, reverberate in my skull, picking up speed until they are bouncing back and forth like atoms reaching a critical mass.
“Yes,” he says. “I see. I see.” I tell him I cannot see. I have been struck blind.
TWELVE
Rachel’s father, Benjamin Lawson, my employer, dies suddenly and unexpectedly of a stroke a year later. His entire estate is left to Rachel. We are rich. The death strikes yet another blow to Rachel’s fragile world. She deteriorates rapidly. She refuses to leave the house. Any suggestion of venturing outside is met with hostility. Her doctor, who must come to the house to see his patient, prescribes yet another antidepressant, but if the drug has an effect, I cannot see it. Her drinking escalates. Rather than blur her scrutiny of me, the alcohol intensifies it. I am her world.
Years pass and nothing changes. Occasionally I make gestures of fortitude, to gauge if her vehemence has lessened or if my weakness has improved. One day, I find her in Albert’s room. The room is still decorated with children’s furniture, finger paintings Scotch-taped to the wall. Rachel sits beside the bed in a rocking chair. An overflowing ashtray rests on the bedspread that is bright with cartoon figures. A cigarette smolders between her fingers, a glass of raw scotch nestled between her legs. The rocking of the chair threatens to spill the scotch. She pulls at her hair. Twirls long strands of it. I see small bald spots and crusty scabs in her scalp.
I do not like it when she brings her sickness into Albert’s room, mourning for a son who is not dead but may as well be. I open with a mild accusation. “This place smells like a barroom.”
“That’s because I’m drinking and smoking.”
“You’re not supposed to drink with Prozac.”
Rachel thrusts her hand into her pocket. Pulls out a prescription bottle. She dumps the pale green pills into her drink. She waves the glass at me in a bitter toast and swills the mixture down. She spills most of it. She picks soggy pills off her blouse and inserts them in her mouth. “Fuck it.”
“Look what you’ve become.”
“‘Look what you’ve become.’ I haven’t become. This is what has been done to me. I miss Albert. I want to see him.”
“Why don’t you go see him, then?”
“Fuck you. I can’t, you know I can’t.”
“How long has it been since you’ve left this house?”
“I repeat: Fuck you. Bring my boy to me.”
“Not with you like this.”
Somehow, I’ve struck a chord. Rachel lowers her head in acquiescence. She sobs. “Go see him. Tell him his mother loves him. Please, Adam, go see him for me.”
THIRTEEN
I go to see Albert. Alone. There is some secret, I think, that he is withholding from me. I do not know what it is, only that it is vital.
His room is, appropriately, on the bottom level of the institution. I do not alert the staff to my presence, but go straight to his room. Outside his door, I hesitate. What am I doing here? What are these thoughts of secrets, of solutions? What can this visit bring except pain for me and confusion for Albert? On the door is pasted a piece of poster board with Albert’s name finger-painted on it in a deep mauve color. Rachel taught him how to do that, I remember.
From inside the room, I can hear Albert’s deep-throated moans. I push the door ever so lightly, and it swings silently inward. Albert lies on his bed, a prone giant. He is naked with the bedcovers pulled down just below his waist. An attendant—not a nurse, but a nurse’s helper—stands over his prone body. She is an attractive girl, the attendant. Straight black hair falls over her eyes. I look down and see that her hand moves rhythmically back and forth over Albert’s groin. She holds Albert’s sex organ in her small, pale hand. It is engorged with blood and angrily red. Just as I allow myself to comprehend what it is she is doing to him, a loud gasp escapes Albert’s throat, and then the girl is wiping the viscous fluid from her hand and from Albert’s belly with a clean white towel. She looks up at me and smiles. There is no sense of shame in her expression. No sense of having been caught doing something wrong.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
“I’m Albert’s father.” I can think of nothing else to say.
“Really! Well, it’s nice to meet you.” She offers her hand to me. “I’m Violet.” I stare at her hand. “Oh, I guess I should wash up first.” I couldn’t believe this was happening. My mind couldn’t process the information quick enough. I had just caught this girl molesting my son, yet nothing seemed wrong.
“What were you doing?”
“Oh. Well. It helps him sleep. See?” Indeed, Albert was sleeping soundly. “He doesn’t know how to do it himself, and it doesn’t seem right that he should have to go his whole life without . . . you know. Does it bother you?”
“No. No, it doesn’t bother me.”
“Plus, you know how Albert can get agitated sometimes? Well, this helps him with that, too. A lot of the other attendants are scared to work with him because of what he did.”
She was referring to the suitemate Albert had killed.
“How long have you been working with Albert?”
“Not long. I hope you’re not mad.”
“No, not at all. I understand. I’d like to talk with you about Albert.”
“Gee, I don’t know if I could today. I’m getting off in a few minutes. Maybe you should talk to the head nurse.”
“No. I want to talk with you. The nurses don’t even come down here, do they?”
She shook her head.
“You would know more about Albert than any of them would. Let me buy you dinner, and in exchange, you can tell me about Albert, about his life here. A nice dinner.”
Violet looked uncertain, then nodded her head.
FOURTEEN
“So it really didn’t bother you, what I did?”
“At first, but now I understand. How did you think of something like that?”
“My mother.”
“Your mother?”
“Yeah. She told me that when my little brother was a baby, and he would cry for hours, that’s what she did to get him to stop.”
I had taken her to the nicest restaurant I could afford without using a credit card or writing a check. It was in the same town as the Hendrix Institute, but I didn’t worry about being seen with her. My home was in another county.
Violet was impressed with the food and the opulent—to her—atmosphere. After the meal, we talked. At first, our conversation was stilted—we were from different worlds, after all—but we soon picked up a comfortable rhythm.
“That’s incredible,” I said. “What do you feel when you do it? Is it like any other duty, or do you feel something?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
All of this, of course, was crazy. I had no business here with this girl. She looked cheap and unintelligent, but all the same, I was drawn to her. And seeing what I had seen had aroused me. It had aroused me deeply. I realized now that I had never been attracted to Rachel. We had sex, and I performed adequately, but I was only playing a role. Doing what I knew was expected of me. Doing, in the end, what I had to do in the institution of my marriage.
“I mean, do you get any satisfaction from it?”
She stared at me for a long time. I was sure she was going to get up, walk out. But she didn’t. She drank from her water glass. “Sometimes.”
&nb
sp; Later, in the car, Violet wrapped her pale fingers around me. I could feel each of the gaudy rings she wore as she moved her hand over me. She cupped her mouth over mine. As I exhaled, she inhaled. We were as a single unit, our air circulating as one. And her hands were not human to me. They were beyond that. Something beautiful and strange working over me. My climax was the most intense I’d ever known. It erupted like a fountain of light. The semen went everywhere, and I thought, Not this one, Rachel. This is mine. You’ll never steal it from me. This time, I win.
FIFTEEN
In bed that night, I would not give in to Rachel’s advances. She cajoled me, but I would not give in. Her sleep that night was fitful. Periods of restless breathing broken by spasmodic jerks of her body. I slept not at all.
The next day, she was laconic, speaking only to complain. I would not go near her, not touch her. When she idly caressed my face, I imperceptibly moved from her. She took out her cigarettes, smoking one after the other.
“Maybe you should slow down. I can hardly breathe in here.”
“This is my house. I paid for it.”
“Yes, I’m very aware of that.”
“I raised our son in this house.” This was, of course, her trump card. She played it at every opportunity.
“Well, our son doesn’t live here anymore, now does he?”
Rachel ran her fingers through her hair. “You don’t love me, do you? You’ve never loved me, and I’ve loved you more than I love myself.” It was true; she loved me brighter than the sun burned.
“I love you. You know I love you.” I simply said it. The same as I had said it thousands of times before. It was a statement, neither true nor untrue.
“You blame me. Don’t you? For Albert. Look at me!”
I couldn’t look. It was true.
“You hate me. Wish I were dead. I can tell. I’m not crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“Yes you do! I can see it in your eyes. Right now you’re afraid I’ll do something crazy. You’re scared of me.”
“Rachel, I’m not scared of you. You’re my wife. I love you.”
“No you don’t. You can’t love me. You’ve never thought of leaving me?”
I remained silent.
“See! See! I knew it! You want to leave!”
“No. You asked me if I’d ever thought about it. Of course I have. All men think about it at one time or another.”
“Well, let me tell you, you’ll never leave me. Something bad will happen.”
She turned from me. Her shoulders were shaking. Then the stringent smell of burning flesh filled the air.
“Rachel! Rachel, what are you doing?” I turned her to me. She held the burning end of her cigarette to the flesh of her forearm. Ground the hot embers into her skin. “See! This is how much I love you! How much do you love me?”
Once again, I gave in. I held her in my arms, took her to our bed. Gave her her trophy.
At that time, I considered myself, too, to be mentally ill, so I never considered censuring Rachel for her psychotic episodes. I never thought of leaving her. How could I? What chaos might ensue? Would she kill herself? Would she acquiesce, bide her time, then hunt me down and murder me? But most of all, I knew that I could never cause her that much pain. No matter how much I had grown to fear her, I could not inflict that kind of pain on her.
SIXTEEN
I met with Violet every week. I think I must have seemed just another patient to her. She took care of me in the same way she took care of my son. We took hotel rooms. Our relationship grew. It grew only because of familiarity. Love was not involved. For her, I was a diversion, a rich man who took her to nice places and gave her what she thought were extravagant gifts. For me, she was an unknown element. A link to my son, yes, and I confess to eroticizing her relationship with my son. She was our secret. A forbidden flower in a secret garden. She was ours together.
For our relationship to seem to Violet to be a normal one, she expected it to grow in traditional ways. She was aware of my wife and accepted the obvious limitations that imposed; in fact, she relished her role of mistress. She had seen the part played out countless times on countless television dramas. She knew what was expected of her and was aware of what she could expect in return. I admired her for this, and reciprocated by playing my role of adulterer to the hilt. In fact, this idea that we were merely actors in a grand and clandestine play appealed to me immensely. To propagate the illusion and to keep her secure in her role, I bought her gifts. As the drama unfolded, the gifts grew more extravagant. I bought her a finely tailored sable coat that hangs in the closet of her ramshackle mobile home and is worth more than five times the value of her trailer. She knew that as a mistress it was her job to make unreasonable demands of my time. It was my part to object but eventually give in. We planned a weekend excursion to the mountains. There was a cabin there that had belonged to my parents and had since passed to me and Monty. We spent several summers of our childhood there, perpetrating what evils boys might perpetrate. This weekend would be no different. I expected to end my relationship with Violet during this weekend. By then, she would have outlived her usefulness.
When I arrive home after an evening with Violet, Monty is waiting for me in the living room. He stubs out his cigarette in the same ornate crystal ashtray that Albert had used to crack his mother’s skull.
“Where is Rachel?” I ask, alarmed.
“It’s good to see you, too.”
“Sorry. Where is she?”
“Upstairs, asleep. She was very upset.”
“Not exactly unheard of around here.”
“She was upset about this.” He tossed a sheaf of legal papers across the coffee table. “And frankly, so am I.”
The papers were a guardianship agreement. They named Monty as the legal guardian of Albert should something happen to Rachel or me.
“I would think that you of all people would recognize the necessity of these papers,” I said. “If something happens, I don’t want Albert to be forgotten in some basement somewhere. Like us.”
“You know I understand. You know that. And you should know that you don’t need papers for me to look after Albert. I would do it regardless.”
“Then I’m failing to see the problem. We seem to be in agreement here. Rachel and I want you to be Albert’s godfather, and you’ve accepted. Let’s sign the papers.”
“Rachel refuses to sign. And I refuse, too.”
“I don’t understand. It’s for the best. You said yourself—”
“You worry me, Adam. If you had come to me a couple of years ago and wanted to do this, I would have been all for it. Hell, a couple of months ago even, but lately you seem preoccupied. More than that, you don’t seem yourself. I worry about you. And now you come to me with this guardianship idea just out of the blue. It’s like you’re thinking about death. I worry about you.”
“Why? What have I done that is so unusual, so bad?”
“You’re changing.”
“Not for the better, I take it.”
“I don’t know, you tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Monty lit another cigarette and appraised his little brother. We both know that I will always be his little brother, and even where a parent or a spouse can’t, the big brother can always spot the lie. And why shouldn’t he? He taught the little brother how to lie.
“You’re having an affair, aren’t you?”
“Are you my brother or my wife?”
“Rachel has already asked me.”
“If I’m having an affair?”
“Sure.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“That you aren’t capable of something like that. That you love her.”
“You told the truth.”
“Now you tell me the truth. You can’t lie to me, you never could. Are you?”
“No.”
“You’re different, Adam. Something about you. Tell me.”
“With who?”
“A psychiatrist.”
“A shrink? You? You’re the most levelheaded person I know.
“Sometimes I don’t feel levelheaded.”
“Yeah, well, none of us do all the time.”
“I have bad thoughts.”
“Me too. Very bad. So what?”
“Unhealthy thoughts.”
“Okay, okay. Look, if things are really getting that bad, come to me, I’ll help you. You know that I’ll always help you. I always have.”
Yes, I thought, like what you did to Denise that summer; that was a big help. What you did to that girl. What you did, you did for me. Helped me to become the man I am today.
“I always will.”
“I know,” I said, but it was all a lie. I pushed the papers across to him. “Here, take these. At least think it over some more. I’ll talk to Rachel. We’ll get it all settled. For Albert’s sake.”
Many unpleasant things can happen in our childhood, and mine and Monty’s was no exception. I do not blame him for the tragedies of my life, and he has in fact saved me from many of these tragedies. I hold no ill will toward my brother. I could never hurt Monty. I love my brother.
SEVENTEEN
That Friday, I make a trip to the institution, but not to see Violet. I go to retrieve Albert.
I had spoken with the doctor at the Hendrix Institute. Laid the groundwork. Albert’s behaviors were under control through medication. Thus he was presumably no longer a danger to himself or to anyone else. I plead my case, spoke of the void in my family, Rachel’s deteriorating psychiatric condition that now precluded her leaving the house, our need for this. I ended by saying a home visit could afford Albert some sense of connection. I said it could give him a degree of normalization and the doctor’s eyes brightened. He consented.
A Very Simple Crime Page 3
