by Mary Leo
“Not anymore. We threw them away. We’re all grown up now,” Sharon said as she flipped her hair off her shoulders and pushed out her chest. Mom’s eyes flashed down on Sharon’s newly sprouted breasts, but they didn’t seem to cause as much of an impact on her as they did on the altar boys in church. Ever since Sharon grew breasts, daily communion was never quite the same.
“Just like that? That’s all it takes?” Mom was grinning now and looking directly at Sharon, listening to her every word. I liked that about my mom. She listened.
“Yep, just like that,” Sharon said. “I wear a bra and Lisa got her period last month. Mine should be coming any day now. I’m feeling very crampy.”
Mom laughed and tried to say something but before she could, the switchboard lit up again. She had to calm herself in order to speak.
While she answered one call after another I was distracted by some voices out in the hallway. Two nurses walked out of the hospital administrator’s office. The nurses laughed and joked with one another, but I couldn’t understand them. I thought they must be exchange students. Mom said that the hospital brought in several nurses from the Philippines. One of the girls smiled at me. I smiled back. She had the most shiny black hair I had ever seen. She was so pretty that a couple men stared at her from down the hallway. She ignored them and continued laughing at something the other girl had said.
“Okay, you can stay, but keep inside the tent,” Mom warned. “Don’t be walking around in the dark. Your dad wouldn’t like it. There’s no telling who could be out there. And—” Mom’s switchboard lit up again. This time it was a hospital emergency, a Code Blue, and Mom had to announce it over the loud speaker. The two nurses ran down the hall. Everyone was in a panic. Mom didn’t like us to be around during a Code Blue so we left before she had any more warnings to give us.
We walked straight back to Sharon’s and set up the tent for my sleep-over birthday party. While we were out in the side yard, our German sailor walked out on Pauline’s front porch. It was going to be a perfect night, after all.
My name is Merlita Gargullo.
The only thing the men in America wanted to know was “did I have a boyfriend?”—then they would tell me how pretty I was. I didn’t care. I just wanted to return home and date the boyfriends I already had, but I had agreed to a two-year nurses exchange program and I was stuck.
I didn’t want to ever leave Mindoro Island in the Philippines, but I knew my father, a doctor, would be very proud of me if I did. And so, I went.
Once in Chicago, they put me into a small two-story apartment, something called a townhouse. It was crowded with five American students, two Filipino nurses, and one bathroom. The Filipino nurses were nice to me and made me feel comfortable. The American girls weren’t very friendly. They thought we were spies for Josephine Chan, the director of nursing, just because she was Filipino. How silly! Also, they didn’t like the smell of our food, and didn’t understand our customs, like cleaning up after yourself, but that was all right. I didn’t like some of their customs. Like their need for pizza. What kind of a person would eat cold, smelly pizza for breakfast? It made me sick sometimes just to look at it.
I had decided that I could never last two years, so each night I prayed for guidance. Then, after a wonderful Fourth of July party with some new friends, I began to feel a little more comfortable. Maybe it was better to have friends in both worlds. Especially Americans who liked to dance to rock’n’roll. Music was the universal language. There were no cultural lines when the rhythm was pounding and feet were tapping. Everyone could communicate. It was great fun.
I thought maybe I would even marry an American man, a not-so-tall American man, who was a musician. I would have liked to sing with him and teach our children about music. Of course, I would have had only two children, not like my family. Nine is too many even for America. But my plans were not to be. Richard Speck, a soft-spoken, tall man erased those dreams.
Each time he left the room we tried to tell the American girls that he was evil, that we should scream, or throw something out of a window, but they argued away our logic. They said he only wanted money and would not harm us; they knew how to handle him.
Richard Speck carried me out of the room with my hands and feet bound. I could not struggle, could not fight back when the knife went into my neck for the first time. I could only cry out that it hurt. “Masakit!” I yelled, but the American girls could not understand me.
Chapter Seven
September 8, 1987
“You want to get something to eat?” Mike asks on our way out of the prison. Compassion colors his voice. Mother Mike always trying to comfort the child.
“Here’s the thing, I just spent the last few hours lying on a scratchy sofa locked up with a thousand murderers while some lunatic woman forced tea down my throat. All the while I’m puking up everything that’s in me and now you want to know if I’m hungry? No, I’m not hungry. I’m sick. Sick to my stomach. I don’t want food. I want a bed. I just want to go back to the motel. Okay?”
Even though Chicago isn’t that far away, the film office provides us with motel rooms and last night Mike decided we should take them.
“Don’t jump down my throat. I’m not the bad guy here. He’s locked up tight for the rest of time. I just thought…want to talk about it?”
“About what? About Speck? No. Not now. Not ever again. All I want to do is soak in a hot tub.”
A wide grin flashes across Mike’s face. “I like the visual. A little champagne, some candles, easy listening on the radio, me giving you a back massage. Might make you feel better.”
“You never give up, do you?”
“Why should I?”
“Because, I’m not your type,” I tell him without emotion. My stomach still churns with acid…hate.
“But that’s where you’re wrong. We’re like Fred and Ginger, Bogie and Bacall, Lancelot and Guinevere or better still Antony and Cleopatra.”
“That’s a strange mix. For one thing, most of those characters were pumped up by the Hollywood fantasy machine. And Cleopatra was a love-struck-dumb-shit who lost her empire because of Antony and then killed herself when she couldn’t have the bastard.”
“Ahh, but for what reason? Love.”
We get into my Corvette and I start the engine. I can’t wait to get away from Mike. He’s in one of his Camelot moods. Says he saw the movie eighteen times when he was a kid. He and his sister followed it from theater to theater the year it was released. He can recite lines for most all the characters, lyrics from the score, and even knows how to block it for the stage. Played Lancelot while he was studying acting at the Goodman. While I was in rehab. Sometimes he’d show-up at my door in costume and sing to me. If Ever I Would Leave You, was his ballad of choice. Got me every time. I was weak then. Gave in to his charm. Not anymore. Not today.
“You’re crazy, you know that? Who would love somebody enough to give up everything, even their life? That kind of deranged love doesn’t exist anymore. Haven’t you heard? There’s only one kind of love now…the love of money. Greed is in. Love is out. Isn’t that why I’m stuck inside a prison for the next few weeks? The job is worth a lot of money…I believe I’m quoting here.”
“Okay, so maybe I was wrong about taking this movie. I didn’t know it was going to make you sick. You’re usually the one who can go up to the slime of the world and ask them if they want to be in a movie. When we did Color of Money you signed most of those hard-ass dudes yourself, and liked it. Got some kind of charge out of dealing with tough-guys. I thought this was just another job for you. I never knew you met Speck when you were a kid, and I didn’t know he was inside Stateville until we were standing outside of the place. It’s just some weird coincidence. So maybe they don’t keep him locked up every single day. It was probably some special deal that he was in that tunnel when we were. It’ll never happen again. He’s a killer. They don’t get to just walk around in there. Now about that bathtub…” Mike reaches over
and caresses my cheek. His hand feels warm against my skin. It would be so easy to let him in, let him love me, especially now. This minute. To cry on his shoulder. I’m almost tempted to let it happen. But what good can come out of it. More hurt feelings.
I push him away.
On the drive back to the motel, Mike rattles on and on about how good the day went. “All things considered we signed up a lot of nasty-looking characters. Some of them were fairly cool. Wouldn’t want to run into them out on the street, but all the better for the movie. Studio’s gonna love ‘em. Captain Bob’s a friendly guy, don’t you think? And that Vivian—”
His one-sided conversation just proves how naive he really is, with his head up in the sky somewhere; never seeing what he’s looking at, always shading it with perfume and roses. I can’t stand to listen to him. I drive faster. Mike doesn’t notice because he’s too busy convincing himself that he did the right thing by taking this job.
We pull up in front of our motel, a Triple-A classic with green metal chairs out front and a rectangular pool jutting out into the overcrowded parking lot. The pool is enclosed by a chain-link fence, where pubescent boys torment their skinny little sisters, while their already sun-ravaged mothers douse themselves in yet another coat of Coppertone and scream ignored threats over the continual sound of splashing.
I turn off the engine, grab my stuff and get out of the car. Mike sits there for a moment as if he’s waiting for some kind of apology for my bad behavior. I don’t have one. I ignore him and walk to my room.
Can’t stand to be in my own skin. Feel dirty. Feel sick.
Once inside, I turn on all the lights and double lock the door. I lean up against the back of the door to give the room the once-over.
He stood right next to you, Carly. Could you smell him? So close. His breath. Was there whiskey on his breath? I remember the whiskey.
“No,” I yell out, covering my ears. They’re early today. “Not now. Go away. I’m not ready for you.”
I stand right where I am, hesitant to enter for fear that someone may be hiding under the bed, in the closet or behind the shower curtain.
The shaking starts. I go through the room like a cop entering a crime scene, carrying whatever weapon I can find. Today it’s my full bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
His hands, Carly. He has such strong hands.
I thought I had gotten over all of this fear. Worked hard on coming to grips with my neurosis. Pushed through the terror, gotten a handle on dark thoughts. But seeing Speck up close again just reminded me of what a moron I’ve been. How those shrinks work on your mind and fool you into thinking that you’re cured, corrected like a grade school spelling test. That you can go out and live a normal life. As if a normal life is the end-all to existence.
After a detailed scoping out of my room, and confident no one is hiding in a dresser drawer, I open the bottle and dump a few shots into one of those motel room glasses. I down most of it even before I can take off my shoes as I head for the tub.
I begged him not to hurt me, Carly. But he kept forcing the knife in again and again.
Pushing the shower curtain back, I turn on the water full blast and strip off my clothes. I pour another glass, filling it almost to the brim this time. Why mess around? By the time half of it drifts down my throat I’m starting to chill from the first couple shots. Real smooth.
The pillow…I couldn’t…he turned me over and….
The room steams up just the way I like it, so that I can’t really tell I’m in a cheap motel room. I’m just here, in this moment, taking in air.
I can’t go back to that place. Just can’t. Speck standing not more than two feet away from me. Alive. Smiling at me. Walking under my blue sky. A killer. How can that be? Where’s the dark pit that he’s been living in for the past twenty years? Why didn’t he squint in the sunlight? Where were his open sores? His scars from his many beatings? The deformed foot, leg or hand?
All these years I’ve clung to the vision of him suffering through each day like some exiled villain living in a bug-infested dungeon. Now you know the truth… Okay, so this is the eighties and there are no more dungeons, but at the very least, I thought the man would be confined to his cell and have minimal human contact. That’s what you needed to believe…
What sick bit of fate brought us back together? That smile. That same twisted smile.
Wiping off the steam on the mirror, I have a conversation with the woman staring back at me. She’s my mirror friend. The older, wizened woman I confide in: hair slicked back in an unattractive style, dark circles under her eyes, broken blood vessels on her nose, tiny lines that torture her forehead and surround her mouth, no smile, no sparkle, none of the magic in her eyes that she used to have every time she thought of the future. She’s just my mirror friend now. Somebody to confide in. Somebody who listens, like my mother used to listen. “Why is that bastard still alive? Why is he allowed out of his cell? What kind of justice system do we have in this country?”
As usual, I get no answers so I go on. “I don’t want to go back. I’ll just leave tonight, after my bath, after another drink. I’ll call Mike from the City. From New York City. I need a vacation. A nice long vacation.”
I can hear the kids fighting out in the pool. A woman yells at them to stop. I slip into the tub. The water shelters my body from the day. The Jack Daniel’s shelters my mind. I feel real again. Whole.
Another glass of Jack and then maybe another. I lose count. Soon the kids’ voices outside become a song. If I slide under the water their chants overpower every other sound and become a mermaid’s serenade. Shhh!
Such a soothing melody.
Divine.
“Carly, Carly open the goddamn door.”
A harsh male voice resonates from under my enchanted sea.
“Carly! Carly!”
There it is again, some kind of sea monster interrupting my calm. I come up gasping for air. It fills my lungs as if they had been empty. It’s a strange feeling. Had I been under that long? I start to cough. Water sprays from my mouth. How strange.
It’s Mike pounding on my door. But why? “Go away, Mike. Leave me to my song. I’m on vacation.”
I slip back under the water.
He continues with his battery. Always the nuisance. Always the thorn pricking at my thoughts.
I sit up. “Coming,” I yell, but the word drowns in my throat as the coughing starts again.
Somehow I make it out of the tub and to the door, but why is he so insistent? What does the little shit want now?
“Go away,” I say while standing in front of the door.
“Let me in, Carly. Open the goddamn door.”
Who does he think he is pounding on my door like this? Causing a scene. Acting like a spoiled brat.
“Shhh! Somebody’s going to call the police on you. Go away,” I whisper.
Water drips from my body and pools around my feet as I try to turn the knob. Suddenly, I realize that I’m naked, but it’s too late. The door bursts open. Evening sunlight pours in and Mike takes me into his arms.
The room starts to spin as darkness drapes itself across my eyes. I’m back in South Chicago. Speck is throwing something off the bridge. Once again I’m tangled up between the past and the present. I want to let it go, to sleep, but Mike keeps talking to me, trying to get me to concentrate on his words, walking me around the room like I’m in some sort of drug fog. At least he has the decency to find my robe and wrap it around me.
He says, “This is not what I intended. If you had just let me rub your back like I wanted.”
“Why don’t you leave me alone?” I tell him.
“I can’t. Believe me, I wish I could.” He wipes the water from my forehead with his hand and moves my hair away from my eyes, “My life would be so simple if I could leave you, but I can’t. Not now, anyway. Not this way.”
“You mean there’s hope for the future?”
He spins me around and holds me by my shoulders and stares a
t me. “Why do you have to make everything so hard on yourself? I love you. Isn’t that enough?”
I can’t form the words to answer him. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say and somehow I can’t remember what we’re talking about, but I like his blue eyes. “You have such wonderful eyes. Did you know that? They’re really quite wonderful. A woman could get lost in those eyes.”
Suddenly, we’re walking again, and while we walk, he makes me drink about a gallon of water, only he doesn’t even let me pee by myself. He has to come watch, like I’m some toddler getting potty trained by an overzealous father. Okay, so maybe I did put my head down and try to fall asleep on the pot. What’s the big deal? I’ve done it before. And maybe I did vomit all over myself. I’ve done that before, too. Mike is just overreacting to a simple case of an upset stomach.
“What’s the big deal?” I whisper into his sweet little ear, trying to tickle it with my tongue. It’s such a cute ear.
He pushes me away. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
What a grump.
He says, “I want you to go home as soon as you’re feeling better. Take some time off. This whole thing was a mistake. Sorry I forced you into this. As of right now, it’s over for you. Okay?” He strokes my hair and face. His hand feels good against my skin. I nod in agreement, or at least I think I’m nodding.
• • •
I open my eyes. The world is blurry for a moment but then comes into focus. I’m staring at a white cottage cheese ceiling. Where am I? Did I fall?
Mike sits next to me in a straight-back chair while I lie on the bed, under the covers.
I remember now. Stateville. A motel.
I don’t know how much time has passed since he burst into my room, but my hair is dry and my mouth feels thick, like I’ve been sleeping all night.
I have a real need to pee.
Sitting up, I put my feet on the floor. My head wants no part of a vertical position.
“Where you going?” Mike asks, as if I’m on my way somewhere. I’m wearing a long T-shirt with no underwear. Maybe he thinks I’m going out to catch a movie.
