Someone wants a stack of lottery poppers. Someone else needs a refill on Jack and ginger. Someone yells that the john needs more t.p. and the whole bar finds that hilarious. Dallas handles all these situations. You sip your beer. Your hand shakes the tiniest bit, not so anyone would notice but you.
You guess that Dallas wouldn’t lie about this. To the cops, maybe, about a joint in the car not being hers, but not about something of this magnitude. Anyway, she doesn’t know about your husband and his heart attack. You don’t go around telling people because it only confuses them. Thirty-seven-year-olds aren’t supposed to die, especially not from heart attacks. You’re too young to be who you are: a widow.
Dallas returns to her spot behind the bar and jumps back into her story: “So I was out. And I swear to you I saw the bright white light, just like they say, glowing at the end of a tunnel, shining like a Christmas tree. Right in the middle, there was my big sister surrounded by that white light, her face whole and peaceful, looking like she did before the car crash, just beautiful. Like an angel. I couldn’t stop staring. She was the one out of us lucky enough to take like Mom and her side—everyone else, including me, got Dad all the way, and he’s a pit bull. Not Janie. She held four red roses across one arm, like she was prom queen, and the sweetest little smile on her face, like that painting, whatsit, you know the one: mysterious but calm. You’d never see a smile like that in real life. I’m walking right for her, aching to hug her, but she straight-arms those roses, like to stop me, like a wall, and says, ‘You gotta go back. It’s not your time, Cookie,’ which was what they called me when I was just little, and I was all, ‘No,’ not that arguing at her when she was alive did any good, so why think I could because she was dead? ‘They need you back home,’ she says, and that’s for sure, those three boys of mine are hell-raisers, and God knows I gotta yank their chains every day. But my sister looked so still and so damn pretty. The light was bright, but not like sunlight—it was soft—and the smell . . . that’s how I knew it was real. Every drug I ever did, every hallucination or whatever under the influence of everything (and I do mean everything), out of all that, nothing ever smelled. But this did, heaven did: it smelled fresh, like cement after a good summer rain. It just was . . . the most amazing smell I’ve ever smelled. I can’t describe it really.”
She pauses, twists at the waist, putting her shoulder and triceps in view, so you see a tattoo of four roses twining up the back of her arm. “We each got the same one on my birthday,” Dallas says. “On our arms. Three days before that wreck on 29. I would’ve stayed to be with her. But she said to go back. Then there was my kid going, ‘Mom? I love you.’”
You’re supposed to say something, but nothing you’ve seen or read or thought in your life prepared you for this moment of hearing this story. You’ve heard on TV variations of the “white light” before, but a story is more believable when someone stands in front of you in a bar in Nebraska, and when you want—desperately—to believe it. When you want it to be true. Wow, you say, feeling stupid, and to complete the stupid feeling you repeat the single, stupid word: Wow.
She gives her head a quick shake, shattering the mood. “It’s just something that happened to me,” she says. “Two years ago already.”
“Two years?” someone down the bar leans forward to ask.
Dallas nods. “And eight years since Janie passed,” she says. “Time sure fucking flies.”
“Now that you’re back to life,” someone else says, “grab me another Bud Light. Or is that a Bud White Light?”
But no one laughs. Indeed, bars are never actually quiet, but this one is for the spare moment where Dallas leans against the counter, tilts her head so she’s gazing up at the pressed tin ceiling, a tiny grimace fluttering her lips. You know that look. The lost sister, the one who wasn’t sent back, the one who was, the one who sits here. The, why, why? You never stop pretending that question might get answered, but by who? Your brain insists there is no answer.
And yet. Things align. Surely things align.
This place isn’t Brooklyn, her story isn’t on a cable talk show, it’s not her night off; you are sitting here alone, it is beer and not scotch, the carved graffiti in the wooden bar does misspell “asshole.” It’s not two years ago, or eight years ago, or ten years ago that morning you found him on the kitchen floor, it’s now.
You want to thank her for the story. You want to tell her about your dead husband and his heart attack and how there wasn’t a happy ending, unless this, right now, is a happy ending of sorts, ten years later: that maybe you will believe the picture in your mind. Him seeing that white light. His grandmother, his childhood busia, reaching out, enfolding him in a hug. Her whisper in Polish, “I’ve been waiting for you,” and he understands exactly though he never spoke Polish. You want Dallas to know how much it means to know—to know—that someone flesh and blood, someone in Nebraska, has seen heaven and believes in it and that heaven smells nice. You hope that’s true. You hope heaven smells like pizza.
You don’t say any of these things, or any of the things you wish you knew how to say, and there are many of those. Dallas lets her fingers rest lightly on the beer tap, eyes snapping to the door as it whooshes open. “Another?” she asks.
But it’s time to go. You push over a twenty, a big tip on a five-dollar tab. Maybe now she’ll remember you, too.
WHAT I COULD BUY
What I could buy with the insurance money they gave me when you died:
One Ferrari, red or black, assuming V-8 instead of V-12, assuming premium gas, assuming insurance, assuming no major breakdowns or repairs, assuming no superlong driving trips, assuming street parking, assuming ironic fuzzy dice to dangle off rearview mirror. Or:
Four separate world cruises, assuming 107 days at sea, assuming Queen Mary 2 on the Cunard Line, assuming supplement for a single room, assuming balcony, assuming one glass of wine per night, assuming no more than twelve land excursions as arranged by the cruise ship personnel, assuming winning at the casino, assuming Internet access, assuming laundry service. Or:
Two years at Harvard Business School, assuming acceptance, assuming Cambridge sublet, assuming books and fees, assuming ramen noodles and pizza for most dinners, assuming public transportation, assuming roommate, assuming no significant social life. Or:
One thousand water buffalo as purchased through Heifer International to help one thousand families in the Philippines become self-sufficient, assuming the charity is legitimate, assuming 75 percent of donations are used for the program mission as stated in the most recent annual report, assuming Charity Navigator ranking of three out of four stars and 55.66 out of 70 is correct and considered worthy of financial support. Or:
Seven in-ground swimming pools, assuming no diving boards. Or:
Two shares of Berkshire Hathaway, assuming no sales commissions, assuming modern market volatility. Or:
One-third of a moderate vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, assuming water but not ocean frontage, assuming parking for two cars, assuming three bedrooms and two bathrooms plus outdoor shower, assuming eat-in kitchen, assuming built-in bunk beds, assuming deck refinished by sellers, assuming hurricane insurance. Or:
410 nights at the Fairmont San Francisco, assuming room tax rate of 15 percent, assuming room service breakfasts, assuming five-dollar daily tip for housekeeping, assuming free shoeshine, assuming no luggage storage, assuming one lost umbrella, assuming one stolen bathrobe, assuming no valet parking. Or:
3,333 sweaters, assuming 100 percent cashmere, assuming post-Christmas sale at the mall, assuming one coupon for 15 percent off entire purchase, assuming sale items not excluded, assuming assortment of colors and styles. Or:
One Patek Philippe ladies watch, assuming platinum, assuming moon phases subdial, assuming water resistant to thirty meters, assuming purchase in a state where sales tax is no more than 5 percent. Or:
8,928 breakfasts, assuming 1,785 packages of bacon, assuming twelve ounces, assuming thick cu
t, 744 dozen organic grocery store eggs, 1,339 cartons of orange juice, and 595 pounds of coffee from Starbucks, assuming black coffee with no cream or sugar. Or:
8,000 bottles of Johnnie Walker Red, assuming mixers necessary, or 1,250 bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue, assuming served neat, assuming different friends to appreciate each. Or:
1,086 massages at the spa, assuming 20 percent tip, assuming free sauna, assuming free parking, assuming eighty minutes, assuming aromatherapy, assuming one post-massage product purchase every other visit. Or:
Eighty-four purebred Labrador puppies, assuming two annual vet visits per puppy, assuming Iams dog food, assuming responsible breeders and no puppy mills or pet stores, assuming one chew toy per month, assuming leashes and collars. Or:
11,904 movie tickets, assuming six-dollar buckets of popcorn, assuming five-dollar Diet Cokes, assuming four-dollar boxes of Junior Mints, assuming equal alternation between popcorn and Junior Mints, assuming the concession stand never runs out of Junior Mints. Or:
71,428 packs of cigarettes, assuming purchased in North Carolina or Virginia, assuming never purchased in New York City, assuming Camels. Or:
100,401 boxes of tissues, assuming Puff’s Plus Lotion brand, assuming decorative boxes, assuming an assortment of designs. Or:
1,851 sunrise hot air balloon rides, assuming the premium package with the bottle of champagne and breakfast croissants, assuming commemorative flight certificate, assuming souvenir photo. Or:
Sixty-five Super Bowl tickets, assuming reputable ticket broker, assuming lower level end zone, assuming frequent flyer plane ticket to city, assuming round trip taxi to game, assuming three beers at stadium, assuming one hot dog, assuming two night’s stay at Hampton Inn. Or:
252,525 tubes of Chapstick, assuming strawberry flavor. Or:
291,763 tulip bulbs, assuming delivery for fall planting, assuming no reprise of the 1637 Dutch tulip mania, assuming long-stemmed red and yellow, assuming half the bulbs will be eaten by squirrels before spring. Or:
62,656 frozen Stouffer’s dinners, assuming none are on sale, assuming no coupons, assuming no tuna casserole. Or:
10,879,000 pieces of paper, assuming white, assuming twenty-four pound, assuming ninety-four brightness, assuming laser printer quality, assuming delivery. And:
Assuming this money isn’t tainted, assuming this much money is about right for what a human life is worth, assuming I don’t drive off a bridge in my grief and my guilt, assuming I can live with myself, assuming I can live. Assuming a lot.
TRUTH-TELLING FOR ADULTS
When I read out loud to the class, I’m way too fast, though I try to speak slowly. But the words take over:
“One Monday, I was driving to work through the usual bad traffic on Route 1 in Crystal City. In the grassy median a Latino man cradled a Weedwacker in the curve of his arms, holding it loose and low, at his hips, his weight shifted onto one leg. The slouch; the baggy pants and boots and dark, straight hair; the slack but affectionate grip on the machinery—this was the silhouette of any of the three men who robbed us at gunpoint in Guatemala, on our honeymoon in 19—. You wanted me to love traveling the world the way you did, so you handpicked countries to introduce me to, looking for good food, interesting history, pretty landscape, colorful crafts—and safety—and in 19—, you choose Guatemala.
“Now, nearly twenty years later, the photos blend and blur—Mayan ruins, marketplaces, wooden doors, bright flowers, secret courtyards, churches—but not that night in Antigua, the popular tourist city, when we walked from our small inn to a well-known restaurant on the square. We were seated up front, close to the open air, amid scattered tables of Americans, all older and better dressed—couples who looked as though they owned houses with enough rooms so one was ‘the sun room’—and we sorted through the Spanish words on the menu, churrasquito, chuleta, pepián, amid the leisurely swirl of the dark-haired waiters carrying sweating drinks on silver trays. Something imperceptible shifted; I noticed it the way a dog will suddenly stare hard at a closed door. The waiters slid through the shadows at the far end of the restaurant as three men sauntered in, M16 assault rifles slung at their hips, loose and easy, the way a man on a street median in suburban Washington, DC, might hold a Weedwacker. ‘Money, money, money,’ the three men chanted in singsong, so that it took a moment to understand we were all being robbed at gunpoint.
“Who was I? No world traveler. But I leaned forward to let my baggy sweater and the tablecloth conceal the black fanny pack strapped frontward on my waist. With one quick thumb, I spun my ring so its small diamond faced my palm and I rearranged my left hand under my right. You were the world traveler, you were the one who handled situations. I only thought about my wedding ring.
“A gunman strolled to our table, as if he carried a violin to play or roses for sale, not a gun, and you pulled Guatemalan bills from your pocket, careful and methodical; you slowly unstrapped your Timex watch and let it dangle as the gunman delicately cupped it. A pause. Our gunman’s attention flickered, listening to his cohorts at another table, and I captured your left hand under my right, covering your wedding ring.
“But two tables away tension thickened as a hulking American brayed, ‘Is this a joke? Is this a joke?’ as the men demanded his knuckle-size gold ring, his flashy, not Timex watch—‘Give it to him,’ his wife urged; give it to him, I thought—but he kept insisting, ‘I’m an American, I’m an American,’ and the guns, the guns steadied, but finally, the ring was pocketed and the watch and a tremendous wad of cash, and abruptly, yet without rushing, the three men ambled into the plaza, dispersing into darkness, and the waiters reappeared, carrying plates of food on silver trays, which they set before us: pollo en crema, chuletas fascinante, arroz. ‘Are you calling the police?’ the American brayed. ‘What kind of joke is this?’
“We jumped up, you and I, grabbing hands, and ran through deserted streets back to our inn, tumbling through the thick wooden door into the walled courtyard, where we told ourselves we were safe, we were lucky. Later, much later, ‘I’m an American,’ we mimicked, when we felt safe for real, back in America, ‘what kind of joke is this?’ We told our story at parties.
“That man with the Weedwacker, that casual slouch—those men, that trip, you. I drive Route 1 to work every day, every day, and now, every day both memories confront me: the ghost of the man with the Weedwacker and because of him, there—superimposed in this unexpected place, on an unremarkable median—stands one more ghost of you.”
I finish reading my piece, and the class stirs, dropping pens, slurping lattes, straightening posture. (Apparently no one wants to be mistaken for a slouching gunman.) We’re in a class I secretly call “Memoir for Dummies,” though the official name is more poetic, referring to a line from Emily Dickinson that no one else in the class seems to recognize: “Tell It Slant: Memoir and Truth-Telling for Adults.” The teacher is an intense, and intensely thin, thirtyish woman with waves of dark hair that she curtains over her face while we read our assignments, like sending semaphore signals: hair draping one eye = good; hair shoved back with one hand = irritation; hair flailing wildly = beware. At the start of each class, she stacks five Triscuits next to her water bottle and nibbles each down to an edge; at the midway break, she drops five Triscuit rims in the garbage can.
The class was advertised in a cheap paper catalog that came in the mail: $350 for six meetings. We’re at meeting number two, reading aloud from an in-class exercise: write about fear. “What if we’re too afraid to write?” asked the man with the shaved head who everyone realized would be nonstop annoying back in week one.
The teacher, Jinx (not her real name, I’m guessing), said, “Use it. That’s exactly the kind of fear that’s honest.”
Well, I don’t much like thinking about fear, whether honest or dishonest, but no refunds, so I scribbled out my something. The rule is that you can pass on reading out loud once during the six classes, and I already passed during week one, which suggests that maybe I do kno
w something about fear.
This is the first writing I’ve read out loud to anyone, ever. The class lunges at my words like they’re red meat, which is a cliché that would draw Jinx’s ire and a curtain of swishing hair. There’s no focus, someone says, and someone else thinks I might be racist because I used “Latino” instead of “Hispanic” (or maybe the other way around; I got confused), and the man with the shaved head pontificates about point of view for five minutes before Jinx shuts him up, and the lady who is always knitting says that she must have liked something about my essay because she dropped a stitch. Jinx nibbles a Triscuit. Then she says, “Are you being honest?”
I nod. “That was how it all happened,” I say.
“That doesn’t equate to being honest.”
The man with the shaved head snorts. His “writing about fear” assignment was about his sailboat tipping over in the Potomac, and I’m positive he made up the whole thing. He’s too impatient to be a sailor. I can tell that he’ll never pass on reading, that he wants everyone in the world to know everything about him.
This Angel on My Chest Page 15
