Lenny looks at me and gives the slightest little nod of his head, as slight as it could be and still be seen.
“Sure,” I say, casual as a cat. “I’ll stick around for a while.” So Lenny sits down on his bed and I take the rocker beside his bed, settling in for a period of more silence.
After a while, Lenny reaches out for my hand and he tugs on it, pulling me to sit beside him on the bed. I sit and he looks up at me, lifts his hand and runs it over my frizzy hair. No sooner have I gotten over the shock from that, than he lays his head down on my shoulder, and Lord, I don’t know what to do.
First of all, I’m not supposed to be in his room. Second of all, I’m sure not supposed to be sitting here on the bed with his head on my shoulder. I mean we’re not, you know, doing anything, but what if a nurse comes in, or Mr. Martin? Would they know that? I guess the main thing that bothers me, though, is that I don’t know what Lenny is feeling. Is he just needing to get close to someone? Does he see me as a mother of sorts? Look here, baby, right here, see, come on, now, be sweet baby. Or is he going to want to do something more than put his head on my shoulder, despite he is only fifteen?
I haven’t long to wonder, for within seconds he is putting his hand up to my breast. So very lightly it lays on me, perched there like a butterfly—not like Sheriff Tate’s old hands that felt like snakes trying to wrap around me—and I sit motionless for fear it might fly away and never return, after this small miracle in communication.
“Look, Elizabeth, honey. See? Wanna touch? Here . . .” That’s all. Just me and her. And broad daylight. On the bed. No more than that. But it plays over and over again, like a record player needle hung up in a scratch on a record. “Look. See? Look.”
For what seems like forever I sit there with Lenny, me just looking down at the smooth, white hand, and wondering, “Lord, Lord, what havest Thou me do?”
And, finally, the Lord sends Mr. Martin, who havest me leave Lenny’s room. I am first relieved, then sad, thinking that Lenny would return to his drawn-up shell and never come out again. But he goes with me to the library, although his head hangs down as we walk down the hall like he’s been caught doing something criminal and he has to be mightily ashamed. I want to tell him I know about feeling ashamed, and that it doesn’t ever go away, that you carry it around with you like a piece of heavy luggage for the rest of your life. But I just can’t bring myself to talk about that stuff. Not even to wonderful Dr. Adams. Whatever would he think about me, if I told him what really happened?
Once Lenny and I get to the library I go straight and take down the Heart of Emerson’s Journal book that I have grown so to love, and we sit down on the green plastic sofa, Lenny and me. I read for a while to myself, but soon I can’t keep inside me what I am reading.
“Listen to this, Lenny,” I say. “Just listen to this!” And I read:
“At sea, Sunday, Sept. 8. A man contains all that is needful to his government within himself. He is made a law unto himself. All real good or evil that can befall him must be from himself. . . . The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself.”
It is just like Dr. Adams has been asking me. “Who are you?” time after time, “Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?”
“Lenny,” I say, feeling that at last my eyes are opening, that like Alice I had been blind, but now I am beginning to see, and it is the sweetest, not sweetest, ah, what’s that word Aunt Lona says . . . exquisite, that’s it, the most exquisite feeling I have ever known. “Lenny, this is what Dr. Adams is getting at. Don’t you see? Who are you, Lenny?” I say, turning around to him and since he won’t look at me, I reach up to turn his face toward me. “Lenny, look, Lenny, this has to be why we’re here, don’t you see? This is it! It’s all in here,” I say, jabbing at the book, “This is what we have to figure out. Lenny, do you know who you are? Well, do you?” And of course, Lenny just frowns at me. “Well, maybe not, no, of course you don’t. But Lenny, we’ve got to find out. That’s what we’re here for, don’t you see? We’ve got to acquaint ourselves with ourselves. You hear that, Lenny?”
Lenny looks at me, neither frowning nor smiling, neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, just like I have felt most all my days on this earth, lukewarm. And just as quickly as I feel all elated and wonderful, I again feel absolutely awful, knowing that God would spew them out of his mouth, those who are neither hot nor cold but just lukewarm. What is even worse, I feel ridiculous, sitting here thinking I can help Lenny, when I haven’t even helped myself. But, I think, if I can only do what this Emerson says, if I can acquaint myself with Elizabeth, maybe I can become something besides lukewarm. And, yes, hot, I’d rather become hot than cold. But even cold might be better than lukewarm. But, no, hot . . . hot is the thing to become.
The next day, when I go in to visit with Dr. Adams, I tell him about Aunt Lona’s letter and how crazy Mama is acting. “So, I’m going to call Aunt Lona,” I say, “and tell her just to come on down here, with or without Mama. Mama’s been offered an invitation to come, and if she doesn’t want to, that’s her problem, not Aunt Lona’s.”
“Is this Elizabeth I hear?” Dr. Adams says in a pleased way.
“This is Elizabeth you hear, I think.” And we both laugh. “Really,” I say, “I think it’s Elizabeth, but I don’t, you know, really know if it is, but I think this is how the real and true Elizabeth would sound. Don’t you think?”
“Well, hello, Elizabeth,” Dr. Adams says. “I’ve always wanted to meet you, and now that I have, I’ll be looking forward to getting to know you. Meanwhile,” he says, pulling out a slip of paper from the silver-backed notebook, “I’ll get this permission request filled out and give it to the nurses so you may call your aunt.”
“You mean I have to get permission to call home?” I ask. “I’m not a child, you know. And I’m no angel. I’m real, see? I’ve got hands . . . with fingers on them. They can feel. They can touch. I can dial the number, don’t you think?”
Dr. Adams looks up in surprise from his writing. “You keep talking like that, and you’re not going to need me anymore.”
Maybe I am beginning to talk more like the real and true Elizabeth, I don’t know about that, I’ll just have to wait and see what is me and what isn’t. But Dr. Adams is very wrong on one thing. I do still need him for a while longer, but I don’t realize exactly how much I need him until I make that telephone call, and learn that Aunt Lona still refuses to come down.
Even when I ask her directly to come down, she still says she can’t. Even when I tell her it doesn’t matter to me what Mama thinks, she still says she can’t. Or won’t.
“Beth, dear,” she says, “I’m so glad to hear you’re thinking more for yourself and speaking up for yourself. And I would never do anything to hinder that. If I come down without your mother, she’s going to think . . . well, I didn’t want to get into this, but I may as well be frank, since I’m sure that’s what you’re encouraged to do there.”
There is a long, quiet time before Aunt Lona speaks again, and I can feel the telephone cord stretching out between us so far it might have been across the whole country.
“You see, dear, your mother feels that I have always been trying to, well, I hate these words, but they’re hers . . . she’s told me more times than once, ‘Lona, you’re trying to steal Elizabeth away from me.’ That’s what she thinks, Beth. I know it’s crazy. It sounds like, well, I don’t hardly know how to put it, but it sounds like a lover, or something: ‘trying to steal you away’? But it’s what she’s thought forever. I’ve just always tried to ignore it, because I know and you know that your mother has problems. But I was determined I wouldn’t allow her problems to interfere with my relationship with you. I’ve cherished you too much to let that happen.”
Aunt Lona pauses, I guess to give me a chance to say something. But I can’t say anything, because for the first time ever I feel terribly awkward with Aunt Lona, like I don’t know what to say, when I have always and forever talked free a
s a bird with her, and I just want to hang up that black, plastic receiver, go to my room, and bawl my eyes out.
“Elizabeth?” she says. “Are you all right, dear?”
“If I were all right, I wouldn’t be here,” I say rather smartly, and maybe it isn’t right of me to say it that way, but that’s the way it comes out.
“I’ve hurt you,” she says. “And, you know, my heart aches for you. For your mother too . . . and if I come down, I can’t imagine what she might do . . .”
She keeps on talking, but I can’t listen, I just feel the telephone cord stretching longer and longer, my lifeline, winding away from me, all the time my heart crying out, “Aunt Lona, Aunt Lona, why are you forsaking me?”
8
. . . . . .
In the beginning was Mama and the word was with Mama and the word was Mama. All things were done through her and without her there was not anything done that was done.
And Aunt Lona came and said let there be light. And there was light.
And Elizabeth saw the light that it was good. She separated the light from the darkness. And the light she called “Aunt Lona” and the darkness she called “Mama.” And the light shined in the darkness, although the darkness knew it not.
And the evening and the morning were the first twenty-eight years of her life.
9
. . . . . .
Of course Aunt Lona has not forsaken me, but it sure did seem that way for the longest time. And even though I get a letter from her every few days, I just can’t get my mind in the right notion to writing her back, since I’m not yet over the shock of her not coming to see me. The strangest thing about that shock is that it seems to divide my mind into two halves. One part of it understands what Aunt Lona was saying, because, well, I wasn’t born yesterday, and I’ve been hearing Mama put Aunt Lona down forever for no reason, except for Mama’s own troubles with herself.
The part of my mind that doesn’t understand is the trusting part. And that part just won’t turn loose of me. It keeps on and on with things like, “If Aunt Lona really cherished our relationship, like she said, she would come on down to see me, no matter what Mama thinks.” And “Maybe Aunt Lona just really doesn’t want to come down here; maybe she, too, like Mama, is ashamed that I’m down at the crazy house.” But then the worst thing of all that keeps coming at me is, “If you can’t trust Aunt Lona, then who can you trust?”
Then no sooner does my mind get through turning on who can you trust, than here comes Miss Cannon singing her theme song, “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His word.” And I get so sick of hearing her droning on that I can’t take it anymore. “Don’t you know,” I say, “that you can’t trust anyone? Not even Him? Haven’t you learned in all of your years that you can’t depend on anyone? Not a single soul?”
Just as I decide there isn’t a single person on this earth I can trust, I get a postcard from Daddy. And just seeing his trembly writing, knowing how hard it was for him to write with his hands shaking so, that just tears me up inside. Daddy . . . I hadn’t even thought about him in deciding who I could and couldn’t trust. Maybe it’s because he’s never, ever done wrong by me. Daddy, well, he is just Daddy, and not someone to wonder about if you should or shouldn’t trust.
Anyway, the postcard, once my eyes were clear enough to see it and read, is almost as good as reading Emerson down in the library. He starts off, I think, right clever. “Here goes Shakespeare,” he says, “‘to be or not to be.’” He goes on to say how nothing much is happening around home, and then he ends it by saying, “There is nothing good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.” It sounds just like something Emerson would come up with, and I wonder if that’s where Daddy had found it, in his Emerson book.
No matter where it came from, it makes sense. And that Shakespeare thing, I’ve been hearing that for years, but up until now, thinking hard on it, I never did think it could be talking about me, Elizabeth. But is Daddy sending me a message? Is he saying, “Look here, you’ve got to decide if you’re going to be Elizabeth or not be Elizabeth?” Since that is the only thing in writing I have ever gotten from Daddy, I treasure it, as if it is the gospel.
Now Mama writes letters all the time, reminding me to fear God and to go to chapel services and to write to her every week. And Mama, well, what can I say? Mama is Mama, just like Daddy is Daddy, and she’ll be Mama from now and forevermore. Nothing I can ever do or say will take back all that’s gone on between us. So, I just have to take Mama’s letters as they come, with a grain of salt. Except the one where she tells me about Caldwell getting real sick; that one bothers me real bad, and it keeps on bothering me until I get the next one where she has tucked inside Caldwell’s obituary.
Caldwell dead. I just can’t get it through my head. Who will I talk to when I go back home? The way I want to talk, that is. I will talk with Aunt Lona, of course, but sometimes it’s good to have a man to talk to, a man you can just say anything to, like I’ve been doing here for the past month. It’s been almost like having a half-dozen Caldwells all in one place, for you can say anything that pops into your mind, and nobody thinks the worse or better of you for it.
Take this Mavis, this jewel of a roommate I got stuck with. Lord, she’s so uppity you can’t get her to answer a thing you ask her. Besides that, she won’t even look at you, no matter what. “How long you been playing that guitar?” I’ll ask her, and she stares off into space, like I haven’t said a word. And it’s not that she’s like Lenny, who for some strange reason can’t talk. She just won’t talk. Too good to talk to ordinary folks. That’s how she acts, sitting there on her bed strumming stuff on that guitar the likes you’ve never heard before. First it’s fast, then slow, then the tune goes ever which way, up and down and all over the place, like it can’t decide where it’s going.
And Miss Cannon says, just like always, “Honey, play something we can sing, why don’t you, something like ‘Amazing Grace’ or ‘I’ll Fly Away’.” And that’s when Mavis puts her guitar up.
Although I’m not all that fond of Miss Cannon, I don’t like seeing Mavis treat her that way, not even answering her simple request. And I feel I’ve just seen Mavis act that way too many times to too many people around here.
“So you think you’re too good to play songs like that, huh?” I say. “You’re getting beyond your raising, that’s what it is. Getting too good to play something for Miss Cannon here. Why, I bet you don’t even eat gravy and biscuits for breakfast, do you? I bet you eat that old cold bought cereal that tastes like cardboard, don’t you now?”
That’s when Mavis walks away casual as a housecat that’s turned over a flowerpot.
Two days later she goes into her room, packs up all of her things, and just as casually walks out the door, not once ever looking back, as if she’s glad to be getting out at last. That’s when I find out Mavis was “dismissed,” you know the way the preacher dismisses the congregation at the end of the service on Sunday. That’s when I find out people don’t leave Nathan voluntarily or unvoluntarily, as they come. And that scares me bad. Mainly because, well, maybe I am crazy after all, but I am feeling better and better about being here, and, too, thinking about Mama and Daddy back at home, I am starting to feel all kinds of ways about them.
Some days I feel very grateful for them and miss them something awful. Other days I feel like it’d be fine with me if I didn’t go home ever again. Besides, what would I do if I did go back home? Live with Mama and Daddy and work in the pants factory for the rest of my life? Live with Mama and take care of her just like she hadn’t never done a thing to me ever? Just pretend it never happened at all?
So, if people are just dismissed, what if the doctors decide to dismiss me and I’m not ready to go? What then? The next time I talk with Dr. Adams, he tells me not to worry, that people generally stay until they and the doctors think they are ready to leave, especially if they cooperate and really want to help themselves. And that relieves me a lot, because I th
ink surely Dr. Adams can see I am cooperating and really want to help myself.
But when I meet again with Dr. Johnstone, I get awfully confused about what is cooperating and what is not. Dr. Johnstone seems to me something like a Father in one of those churches that you visit and talk through a curtain to and confess your sins. I’ve seen Dr. Johnstone only once since I’ve been here, whereas I’ve talked with Dr. Adams most every day, or played the piano with him or played Ping-Pong or something. And I’m getting quite excellent at Ping-Pong, but nowhere good enough to beat Dr. Adams, although I can almost win over Hemp now and then.
But Dr. Johnstone is like a saint, and it’s not easy talking to saints. Especially when it comes to what he wants to talk about, which is sex. I can say that word now, okay, without flinching, you know, and I am glad that I’ve read the Worry Column in the paper every day, so I at least knew what Dr. Johnstone is talking about. The Worry Column doctor talks about sex a lot, and until I started reading him, I thought I was the only person in the world who didn’t know about things you ought to know about along that line. All I knew about sex was that it was bad. Ugly. Dirty. Something to be ashamed of.
Still, talking about it and reading about it are not the same. And I feel my face go red as Daddy’s tea roses when Dr. Johnstone says, “Elizabeth, honey, have you ever had sex with anyone?”
At first, I stare at the pictures hanging on the wall above him, and the longer I look at them, the more I am certain he put them there on purpose to get people in the mood to talking about things like this. The pictures are actually photographs, big, blown-up photographs, in living color. One is the inside view of a conch shell, you know that you can put your ear up to and hear the ocean roar, at least that’s what people say it sounds like, though I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never heard the ocean roar. And the lips of the shell, all peachy pink and soft looking, would have to make anybody normal or not think of a woman’s you-know-what.
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