The Whore of Babylon, A Memoir

by Katrina Prado

  “Remember last time I told you that Petra was thinking of putting the baby into that baby contest?”

  “Mmm,” I try, unsuccessfully to recall that conversation.

  “Anyway, she won!”

  “That’s great,” I say, doing my best to inject a little enthusiasm into my voice.

  “Gerber called and they want Petra and the baby to fly to New York to film the commercial!”

  “That’s great,” I say again.

  She goes into painstaking detail about the “grueling” selection process, the “exhausting” day spent at the photographer’s studio, and the “fatiguing” effort required to complete all the paperwork. Next is the mind-numbing description of attire that Petra had to consider to adorn The Baby, until I just want to puke.

  “I mean, I know that the baby is the cutest little darlin’ on the face of the planet; we all do. Now the world will see too!” Gladys exclaims.

  Though The Baby is eight months old, I don’t think I’ve ever heard my mother use the child’s actual name. I’m not sure I even remember her name myself.

  “That’s really great,” I try varying my response so my mother won’t think I’m just reading from a single cue card.

  “How’s that little angel Robyn doing?” she asks. “Still captain of the cheerleading team?”

  I have made it a practice of lying to my mother about my daughter since we left Aztec. Gladys was so certain that uprooting Robyn from everything she knew would be the worst possible thing for her. To admit to my mother that she was right requires something that I just don’t have within me at the moment.

  Also, it hardly seems fair, between my nephew little Billy The Little League Phenom, and niece Cynthia, Flute Prodigy Extraordinaire, and now The Baby’s imminent ascendancy to movie stardom, that Robyn shouldn’t also have her own shining attributes. And now that we’re a thousand miles away it’s possible.

  “Yes,” I lie again. “She’s really doing well. And she made Honor Roll again.”

  “My, my. It’s plainer than a cow pissin’ on a flat rock; there must be something in that California water that agrees with that little girl.”

  I cringe at my mother’s Southern euphemism. She hasn’t lived in Tennessee in over a quarter century, yet she still talks as if she just got off the plane from Nashville.

  “Well-” I begin, trying to get off the phone.

  “Before you go, I just wanted to tell you not to worry; not one single, little, itty-bitty bit.”

  Here it comes: the health report.

  “Worry about what Mom?” I say, playing the game.

  “You know I been going to see that Dr. Dickenson, don’t ya?”

  “Um-hm.”

  “Well, I had to switch me doctors. Dickenson’s an idiot. If brains was grease, he couldn’t slick the head of a pin.”

  “Oh?” I ask.

  “You remember I had that cyst on my arm?”

  “I think so.”

  “You know; the one where every time I mash down on it, all kinds of puss come out of it?”

  I shut my eyes and cringe as my mother goes on to describe the excruciating particulars about the cyst and its deviant behavior.

  “Yesterday the thing got all speckled looking, like some kind of mutant bird egg or something.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that Mom, I really am. Well, I better let you go so you can get some rest.”

  “Oh darlin’ it’s fine as frog hair talkin’ with you.”

  She keeps me on the phone for a few more minutes, trying to tease out of me the exact date and time of my next visit to Aztec to see her. I tell her what I always tell her: maybe sometime next year, and finally I’m off the phone.

  I put away the food, such that it is, leaving the dishes in the sink and check my watch. Nearly eleven. I wipe down the counters with an old sponge that smells opaquely of mildew. Still no word from Robyn. We have fought before. No doubt we will fight again. I tell myself I am not worried.

  I move to the living room, flip on the television and channel surf. The mindless chatter from shows I know nothing about dribbles into the room. I check my watch so frequently that after a while my eyes fail to register the time. My eyelids begin to feel heavy and I feel myself fighting a losing battle. As I drop into a reluctant fog of restless sleep, my mind wanders over the names of Robyn’s other friends with whom she might be with, and I realize I know nothing more than a handful of first names.

  I awake with a start when I hear the front door open. The remote falls from my lap to the floor with a thud as I sit forward. But it is only Rob. Though he is across the room from me, I can smell him from where I sit. I check my watch, twenty after two in the morning.

  “You’re drunk,” I say.

  He waves me off, tossing his keys onto the small table near the door. They land with a clatter.

  “So?” His voice is belligerent.

  “Robyn took off,” I say.

  “Good for her,” Rob replies.

  The sarcasm in his voice launches me to sudden life.

  “That doesn’t worry you? Don’t you care?” I say standing up. “She’s only fifteen, Rob.”

  He gives me a look. His eyes are bloodshot and bulge, as if he drank so much he is now waterlogged. He holds his palms out in the air in a defensive position.

  “What do you want me to do? Call the National Guard?” He shrugs. “She’s probably at what’s her names.”

  “I already called Jenny’s house. Hours ago. They haven’t seen her.”

  Rob frowns.

  “Well then call the cops. I don’t know.”

  He stumbles into the kitchen. I follow.

  Rob reeks of booze and the sour odor of old sweat. His shirt and gray Dickies pants are grimy from a long day of working at the refinery. He pours himself a tall glass of milk. He grips the glass with a surprising intensity and knocks down the liquid in sloshy gulps. I don’t understand how he can drink milk at this point; the thought causes my stomach to hiccup with an acid flutter. I pat my sweats pockets for the Rolaids, but they are empty. I frown.

  “Why do you drink so much?” I say. It is out of my mouth before I have time to think what I’m saying.

  “Come on, Margot, don’t start.”

  “No, I want to know,” I say. “You said you had to work late. And then you come home so drunk you can barely walk.”

  I do not want to be carping on him like an old fishwife. But the lateness of the hour and not knowing where Robyn is has ground down all of my polite niceties.

  I think of his birthday gift. A new hairbrush with genuine boar’s head bristles. I completely forgot about wrapping it, and it still sits in the bag it came in, tucked away on the floor of our closet.

  “I worked my ass off today. I went out for one drink to celebrate my birthday. Is that a crime?” He wipes a patina of sweat from his forehead with his palm.

  “Did you go out with Dusty?” I ask.

  His face bunches into a look of disgust.

  “Oh criminy,” he complains. He closes his eyes and expels a sigh.

  “Never mind. I’m sorry.”

  We stand silent a moment. I see the fatigue on Rob’s face and am suddenly overwhelmed by guilt.

  “Happy birthday,” I say. “I’m sorry you had to work so late.”

  His face smoothes. His frown melts into a slack-jawed smile as he reaches an arm out for me.

  “I want some pussy,” he says.

  I cringe inwardly at his crudeness, but I force a smile and walk towards him, shutting off the kitchen light. How did we arrive at this place where needs and desires have been stripped down to their barest essentials? “Let’s go”, “let’s eat”, “let’s have sex”. As if gentility and its preliminaries are wasted effort.

  Rob draws me close, shoves a hand down my pants and coarsely reaches for me. It’s not that I don’t like sex; I do. It’s just the getting started part that seems impossibly difficult. When Rob and I first began having sex, he’d spend nearly an h
our stroking me, whispering into my ear and kissing my neck. Then he’d make his move, but invariably, I’d hesitate, falter. “I’m not quite ready”, I’d say, and he’d begin again. As the years have evaporated, so too, has Rob’s patience with me until now we have come to this phrase in time: I want some pussy.

  On the bed, Rob climbs on top of me. My hands go over familiar territory; my fingertips brush over his back, his buttocks. The closest I have come, in fourteen years, is to stroke his inner thighs. I cannot bring myself to touch his penis. It is such a bizarre and foreign thing to me. Like a specimen from outer space.

  He grunts his pleasure; his hands grab me on either side of my collarbone, nearly around my neck, pushing me down each time he thrusts upward. The smell of his sweat covers me. Somewhere deep in a place I cannot name I find this sensation pleasurable. As I begin to pant this is Rob’s signal that I am excited. His intensity rises and he growls, bear-like until he comes with a gasp and a long guttural groan. Did I have an orgasm? I’m not sure. I guess so. I must have.

  Rob rolls off and lies next to me. We are barely touching. He sighs.

  “I’m not happy,” he says.

  I roll towards him, prop myself up on one elbow. My heart is suddenly pounding in my chest.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Our sex life,” he says. “I’m bored,” he adds.

  I’m not quite sure what to say.

  “Bored?”

  “It just seems like it’s the same every single time.” He sighs. “Wouldn’t you like a little variety?”

  “What do you mean, like me on top?” I ask, trying unsuccessfully to picture this acrobatic feat.

  “Well, what about getting some movies, or maybe toys or something.”

  His voice is dry and quavers; he is nervous. He has been thinking about this for a long time.

  Pornographic movies? I don’t want to even begin to imagine what a sex toy might look like. A tickle of disgust crawls across my skin.

  “Oh Rob, I don’t know,” I say, hesitating. My mind is on Robyn. Where she is; when she will be home? I don’t want to get into all of this tonight.

  “Whatever,” he sighs. “It’s only our marriage.”

  “Rob,” I begin, my stomach flops and then tightens. I fall back onto my pillow and stare into the inky darkness.

  “I’m tired,” he interrupts.

  The flare rises into my throat again, beginning from the angry, broiling cauldron in my abdomen. My hand reaches, instinctively, to my nightstand and the half empty roll of Rolaids. My fingers go through the familiar motion of peeling back the outer paper; then the soft, flimsy skin of foil to reach their prize. I pop a tablet into my mouth and chew hard. The chalky texture coats my tongue and teeth and throat.

  I want to cry or to scream but feel girded only by worry over my daughter. My husband and his carnal desires seem trivial, at best.

  “I’m worried about Robyn,” I say, my voice wavering.

  “She’ll be fine,” he says.

  August 5, 2002

  “Like I said, I hope to be in before noon, Carmelita,” I say, trying very hard to keep the anger out of my voice. Why can’t this woman give me a break?

  “There are mistakes on several of the vendor lists,” Carmelita says over the phone.

  “What?” I say. “What do you mean mistakes?”

  “Some of these purchase were in oh-one, I think. I don’t remember any of the associations having capital purchases this year. But you show that Alliance Heating and Cooling was paid five grand in March,” she says.

  Carmelita is wrong, of course. Three homeowner associations out of the forty-five plus that we manage did have capital purchases. How on earth would a purchase from last year be posted to 2002? But I can’t think about that right now.

  Right now I am thinking that it is nine-thirty on a Friday morning and my daughter is still missing. She never came home and the school called half an hour ago to report her absence. She has never, not once, been gone this long. I do not want to get into all of this with Carmelita.

  “The payables have to go out this week. And I think you’ve used up all your PTO,” Carmelita warns.

  I grit my teeth, knowing she is right. “I’ll be in the office in a couple of hours to check those accounts,” I say, my mind racing ahead as to what I need to do next.

  After at last extricating myself from the phone and Carmelita’s disapproving tone, I sit for a moment in the kitchen. The refrigerator hums. A car honks in the distance. I detect traces of cold cheese soup in the air, from the dishes still piled in the sink.

  The timer on the coffee maker clicks off, and the sudden noise jolts me into action. I head to Robyn’s room, my eyes taking stock. Nothing has changed since last night. Clothes are strewn across the floor. Dresser drawers stick out like tongues, and her bed is unmade. I make my way through the chaos to the dresser, scanning the surface for any evidence that might give me a clue as to where she has gone. Only the usual paraphernalia is here: barrettes, a Seventeen magazine, and a crumpled up bra. With an instinctive haste I snatch the bra from the counter and press it to my nose. Closing my eyes I am overwhelmed. Robyn’s scent, a carnation sweetness, floods my brain. I remember a day at the park when she was three or four; her running into my arms after a frightening tumble off the slide. How I had pressed her flesh close, inhaling the sweet perfume of the sweat in her hair, knowing with a luminous clarity that I would never love another human being with the same fierce abandon as I loved this child.

  I clench my jaw, checking my tears. Stumbling over memory lane right now will not help my daughter. I fold the bra in half, letting the straps neatly nestle in the concave petals for cups and open her top drawer tucking the bra away. I rummage through all of her dresser drawers but find only clothes shoved in heaps, a few CD’s, the names of groups I’ve never heard of before, and in the bottom drawer, beneath an old pair of l.e.i. jeans, a battered VHS tape of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast; her favorite movie when she was young. I lift the dust ruffle of her bed but find only more dirty clothes, shoes, some socks, as well as the torn fishnet stockings she wore on her birthday a month and a half ago.

  Her study desk holds two different brands of hair spray, a can of something called ‘hair wax’, and lastly, a few books and a couple of binders. I thumb through the books and binder paper looking for something that might have names or phone numbers on it. I mentally kick myself for not being a more involved mother. Why didn’t I insist on meeting all her friends? Calling their mothers? I rack my brain for names that Robyn has mentioned in the past, but besides Jenny, I come up empty. I swallow down a bolus-sized lozenge of panic and prepare to leave when, in the corner of my eye, I spy her trashcan. It is heaping to overflowing the wadded up papers, old magazines, and tissues. I drag it over to the bed and sit down, hunching over the paper sprawl.

  One by one, I pull out every single paper, every note, and scan through the magazines. Near the very bottom, I find a scrunched up ruled piece of white paper. I unfold it, smoothing out the wrinkles. In the upper right hand corner is Robyn’s name, the date and below that, the word ‘Math’. On the front are numbered problems in Robyn’s handwriting. Several problems, whose solutions have been scratched out and re-figured appear on the front of the page. The last problem has nothing written next to it. I turn the paper over and see what looks to be hand written messages from two different hands, probably passed back and forth during math class. I read the messages:

  “But what do you really think of her?” writes Robyn.

  “Jenny thinks she’s bad because she’s rich. I think she’s a bitch.”

  “She gets all the guys…”

  “Yeah well, anyone can get guys if they’re willing to do nasty things… you know that!”

  “ But Jenny likes me.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Come on Krista, don’t be such a bitch.”

  And so on. Out of it I have a name: Krista. I take the paper and stand up,
heading for the telephone. I call Jenny’s house. I first ask if there’s been any sighting of Robyn, but Jenny’s mother tells me no.

  “Have you ever heard Jenny talk about a girl named Krista?” I ask.

  There is silence on the line a moment and I feel my heart flip-flop in anticipation.

  “No,” she finally says. “I can’t say as I’ve ever heard that name.”

  I thank her for her time and then call the school. The school receptionist is particularly unhelpful when I inquire about information concerning my daughter’s math teacher. I eventually learn that his name is Mr. Thornton who is located in room 312. The receptionist asks if I would like to leave a message, but I decline the offer. I check my watch, just after noon. School gets out on Fridays at 12:45; if I hurry I can be down there before the kids get out. I look down at myself. I’m still dressed in my sweats and cruddy T-shirt from last night, but there isn’t time to change. I grab my purse and hurry out the door.

  The end of the school day is a parade. Kids that look like really young versions of adults abound everywhere, laughing, running, and calling out to each other. In the parking lot, parked diagonally are two cars; souped up muscle machines with more gleaming silver than a pair of Boeing 747’s. All four doors on both vehicles are opened and a deafening hip-hop beat rolls through the air like a war cry. Young men, chests puffed out, swagger around the cars like prideful lions. Some have taken their shirts off and the oversized jeans make them look stockier than they are. Heavy chains ornament necks that will, I think, someday be burdened by even heavier broken dreams.

  The hallway smells like reheated sloppy Joes, and the floor is covered by scuffmarks and spots of old chewing gum worn to the color of soot. At the end of the hall a cell phone chirps to the theme song of Winnie the Pooh and a young girl’s voice answers with the predictable, first words, ‘I’m still at school,’ fading away as I round the corner to find room 312.

  Inside the classroom there is one student, a tissue thin young man with short cropped blonde hair and ears the size of potato chips stuffing books into a ragged brown backpack. At the front of the room, sitting behind the desk is whom I assume to be Mr. Thornton. He’s also thin, medium build with rakish red hair and sunken cheeks. Large, 1980’s style aviator framed glasses balance at the bridge of his nose. He stands to greet me, his movements turtle-slow.