by Bruce Wagner
Marj broke into a lurching run.
When she got to the 76, the man in the glass booth (just like the one at Wells)—he wore a turban and looked Indian—told her the bathroom was broken. She said it was an emergency and he saw how crestfallen she was. He said she could use the mensroom, and slid a key attached to a wirehanger into the metal tray. She stood there until he waved his arm showing which way to go.
She went around back. A door was open. She ran into the darkness. She couldn’t find the switch but as her eyes adjusted she saw a wood board over the bowl, and a sanitary napkin dispenser. She was in the ladiesroom. She hobbled to the men’s, jiggling the key in the lock but it was broken and she tried again, about to run to the Indian, when the door gave way. It wouldn’t shut but she was in trouble, again no light, this room darker, she managed to find the toilet by the indirect hard fluorescence the banks above the gas pumps cast through unclosable metal door and high tiny window over the bowl, nature calling, no time left to even check if there was paper, hiked up her dress, sitting on the cracked, sticky bowl, and everything splattered out. The room so filthy and malodorous but she was grateful, she thought of Mother Teresa then almost with shame at how much wealth and ease she, Marj Herlihy, had experienced in this life, what was this but a minor discomfort, and how soon she would be home, at the Taj Mahal, the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers, the simple comfort of a clean cot was all she would ask for, all that she needed, there she could reach out to the poorest of the poor, their world so much worse than this ruined powderroom, gut now settling, relieved, panting from the effort, she would reach out from the Taj as Jesus did from Orissa, yes, not many people knew it but Jesus had been mentored in India and spread the gospel there, he had even been to Benares where bodies are burned and thrown in the river except for children who are wrapped. So this dank little lavatory would not trouble her, she would not let the debacle of outhouse smells intrude, she would spin them into perfume, they were afterall nothing and would soon be a memory. She hadn’t even thought about where she would go—when she finished her business. She would ask the Indian man. They were a friendly culture, like an enormous family, why, it might turn out the man behind the glass knew Riki (whom she’d be sure to mention), and if he didn’t, perhaps he’d have heard of him because of his martyred, somewhat notorious death. They might establish a bond that way.
She heard someone at the door and thought it was the turban’d gentleman. “I’m in here!” she shouted. “Someone is in here!”—because she wasn’t yet done, cramping again and splattering, at the same time groping with her eyes because they had failed to adjust enough to find tissue paper—on that front she had not had much luck. There was a big box stuck to the wall that was supposed to have seat covers but it was empty.
He burst in, not the Indian but someone else, she knew it wasn’t the Indian because he stank, and scuttled like a bony spider before she might even gasp, there was no turban and he tore her off the seat, she was on the cold floor, numb, face slammed hard and cold where the jaw had been injured, pain seared through, she tried to speak but he slapped and the corrosive pain jabbed at the still-healing fracture, he ripped off the blouse and stuffed it in her mouth and she was thinking how can he why would he I haven’t even cleaned myself I am so old—she felt pain down there and splattered and peed and that made him angry but she couldn’t hear the words he was saying, he was trying to mute himself, mindful, she thought, that the door could not close and perhaps someone, the Indian, or passersby, might come, and while he kept on she distracted herself by thinking again of the work she would do once she got home to the palace in Bombay, the work she would do with men like him, spidery men who’d known nothing but sorrow and horror and disease, bereft men who descended like locusts on children and missionaries like herself and burned them or mauled them like sick wounded tigers, empty dank men who knew not what they did, and she was not there, she was no longer there for the longest time, she smelled his breath and his vomit, an alcoholic man, a drunken drug-addicted man, then somehow she was on her feet with the green Jil Sander wrapped around her, spiderman gone, of a sudden she was outside, a person pumping gas into their car stared, the turban glimpsed her through the glass, gesticulating, she realized he wanted the key back but she kept going and was not really there, kept walking until she came to a group of homeless smoking and laughing and she wondered if they were the ones who threw the empty cans but she wasn’t there and 2 of them were women and they made jokes at 1st like the girls that night at Rite Aid then grew warm and concerned and saw she’d been hurt, called her Mother, Moms, Poor Mama, one of them was hurt as well and they took Marj along, pied piperwalking it seemed forever but telling her all the insufferable way they would soon be there she knew that her journey had begun and when they reached the tiny building with wire fence and neatened closecropped lawn—more like a cottage, same size as the Beverly Hills bungalow—they were met by a kind lady in a white coat, nurse’s coat, caregiver’s coat, a clean, middleaged gal in whites, ethnicity undetermined, and the kennel-like barking of dogs, they barked and barked, a stern, confident, friendly chorus, the clean white-coated lady seemed to know all of the people Marj traveled with, the ones who had come to her aid like missionaries themselves, and the white-coated lady didn’t really see Marj at 1st, she looked at the other sick one and said, That arm is infected, it is abscessed, she would give something for the infection, the dogs kept barking and then the white-coated lady suddenly saw Marj and was taken aback (as if only used to seeing this street tribe without her, solving their troubles best she could, kindly middleaged gal a true Christian, what Marj aspired toward), when she saw the old woman with hammered swollen face and bloody shitsmeared legs trying to cover her modesty she gasped and said, My God, what happened to her, Mercy, and the others said they didn’t know but found Old Moms near the 76 and she was in a bad way, looked like a rich lady, and White Coat spoke in such sweet delicate overtures, did someone abduct you, but Marj was beyond words, she couldn’t understand, did someone assault you, she was so tired, still silently distracted with thoughts of the Taj Mahal Palace, she wasn’t really there, she was in Bombay, not there with the tribe, and the dogs kept barking and the lady said she would call 911, Marj needed real attention, “hospital attention,” and the police, they would have to be—it was a police matter, at the very mention of the word some of the gaggle peeled off and vanished, but the one with infected arm helped put a blanket on Moms, who the middleaged woman said was in shock and she went to call while the others gathered round and the dogs barked and barked and barked and barked
LXXXV.
Joan
until the call finally came. The PI recommended by the detective had learned about Mrs Marjorie Herlihy’s whereabouts from LBPD.
She was in the ER at St Mary’s.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh Oh Oh
God.
Oh! Oh Oh oh God!
Barbet—
He met her at the bungalow and they took a Town Car. She cried in his arms most of the way down. Her mother had been assaulted in the mensroom of a Long Beach gas station. How! Why! That’s what she kept saying—shouting—to Barbet. Of course he had no answer; had more sense than to even attempt. They were in the realm of No Answers, where her mom had been living for months upon months. All he could say, and Barbet thought it OK (because it was true) was that what had happened to Marjorie was like something out of the Inferno. What happened to Marj Herlihy in the last ½ year was literally Hell. Joan clutched at him and sobbed, he felt the heat of breath and body, even the heat from her eyes. He said he would be with her through all of it, he knew how hard—no, he amended that he didn’t, he couldn’t, couldn’t imagine—but wanted her to remember she had another life to think of now, the one “growing inside” (everything sounded like a horror film!)—and that she had to be careful, about her own health—not to suggest she could or should be doing anything other than what they were doing this very moment, and not to suggest she could or should be doing any
thing other than exactly this—urging her to take deep breaths and know that she had his love and support, along with that of so many others. Joan tried to smile. She tried to smile at him. The driver stole glimpses in the mirror. She solemnly nodded because she knew Barbet was right and the baby would—have to—keep her centered, it was just that she wasn’t used to thinking of anyone else (especially something growing inside), now there was this unformed Nautilus shell, this hairless membranous wingless be-winged being already nudging her toward a selflessness that might even help her to stay sane through ordeals neverending. (Maybe that was a selfish thought; miscarriages and dried-up millions danced through her head like sugary caffeinated demons. She couldn’t withstand another Lost Coast.) No, she would keep it simple: she needed to stay intact so the child would at least be born healthy. She wouldn’t be able to bear a Medical Incredible, a kid with major organs born outside his body. A kid with a face like a rotten cantaloupe. That would surely make her world come tumbling down.
When they got to St Mary’s, the PI was waiting and why not, muttered Joan to her friend, He should be fucking offering hors d’oeuvres for what I’m paying. She was moody and distraught and unraveled until Barbet gave a gentle dis/course correction: “He’s on our side, Joanie. He helped find her.” At this, she wept, and Barbet said darling why don’t you go to the bathroom and wash your face? Get it together before seeing Mom.
A really good idea.
She thanked him, then thanked the PI as well.
Joan did as she was told, and stared in the mirror. The thought of that bathroom where her mother was attacked made her shudder. How could someone do that? What kind of monsterworld was this? Who decided that Marj Herlihy, a kind, gracious, intelligent lady in the autumn of her life, would be courted, cheated, robbed, beaten, and burned from her home? And this—it was too much! She threw more water on her face, drying herself with rough paper toweling. She started to leave but got dizzy and went to sit in a stall.
All was water. She rubbed the belly where her baby floated. Remembered the story of the 6 year old boy in New Orleans who led younger children to safety through the parish floods. To sanctuary: Darynael, Degahney, Tyreek, Zoria…why did the names stick in her head and what the fuck was up with black people and their baptisms? It was like something out of a Dave Chappelle sketch. Deamonte was separated from his mother but shepherded them to high ground. (The bastardization of diamond. Wasn’t there a Diamond Sutra? She thought she’d seen a copy of it among Esther’s books, in Napa. Buddhists always spoke of “diamond-pointed” this and “diamond-pointed” that.) His last name was Love. They finally reunited Diamond-Pointed Love with his mother, and her name turned out to be…Katrina. The world was an ecstatic poisoned mystery. All was Katrina and Kali, all was Durga, the Great Mother and Great Destroyer, all was Love and Money and Diamonds and Rust.
She breathed, like Barbet suggested, for the baby’s sake. Inspired. She didn’t want its tiny spirit toxified by this night’s madness but how on Earth would that not be possible? How could Joan stop her body from strafing the womb, mutating her baby’s blood cells, altering rhythm of soul and heart?
She rejoined Barbet and the PI in the waiting room. An officer who’d responded to the call was chatting with them—he knew the PI, at least by name, duly impressed by the reputation, as is said, that preceded him.
Joan was introduced.
Then, just like a TV show, the handsome doctor walked in, asking if she was Mrs Herlihy’s daughter.
HE took them to a room just beyond the examination areas.
“Your mom’s going to be all right. But I want to tell you, straight out: she was raped.”
Joan crumpled.
Barbet grabbed her under the armpits.
He told her to breathe.
The doctor asked if she was OK.
She said yes.
The doctor paused until Joan gave the go-ahead.
“There was some damage. Some anal and vaginal tearing—I really think minimal, in that we’re dealing with a woman of her age and the violence of the assault.”
“Don’t. Don’t say that,” said Joan.
There was quiet, and then she told him to go on.
“She’ll have to be tested down the line for HIV whether they find the assailant or not. She’s in shock but she’s comfortable. There’s no question she needs to be admitted—of course, that can be to a hospital of your choice. Whether someplace closer to home—Cedars or UCLA or St John’s”—implicit in the remark was a winking knowledge of Joan’s rarefied economic strata, which she assumed the canny MD had grokked by her dress, Barbet’s pedigree (she was certain he thought her partner was queer), the well-heeled presence of the PI, etc—“for observation, fluid intake, all the goodies. Again, because of her age. How are Mom’s cognitive functions? Is she generally lucid? Does she hold up her end of a conversation?” Joan stared at him blankly. “Because she’s a little out there—not making a whole lot of sense right now, part of that’s the morphine and part of that’s—it may be trauma, it may be a host of things. That would be another reason to do a more extensive work-up. You’d be surprised, but people can be remarkably resilient. They bounce back. Before you see her—and she doesn’t look too bad, considering what she went through—I want to tell you that she was helped enormously by a group of homeless folks she encountered sometime not too long after the incident. In particular, she was ministered to by a lady who’s with her now, kind of a legend around here. Dottie Ford. She’s a vet.”
“From the war?” said Joan, smiling surreally.
“A veterinarian. Dottie has an animal hospital not far from where your mother was attacked. We have a fairly large street population in Long Beach (we’re not proud of that), most of whom don’t have ready access to medical care for a multitude of reasons, not excluding budget cuts stemming directly from the wisdom of our current administration. To our chagrin”—he actually used the word—“many rely on Dottie for ‘outpatient’ care. She has a big heart and of course refers anything to us she doesn’t think she can handle.”
“My mother…my mother saw a vet?” said Joan, in disbelief.
Barbet let a smile creep to his lips as he and Joan locked eyes. Another ring of Hell, but what could you do?
“She wasn’t treated, but Dottie made sure she was warm and comfortable until the paramedics came. She gave her a compress to stop some of the bleeding, which again, was minimal. Probably prevented her from going further into shock. So the world does have good people in it.”
“The world is good,” said Joan. She meant to sound sarcastic but hadn’t the energy to give it that spin. “Well, cool. I mean, so long as Mom doesn’t say ‘Woof’ when I see her.”
The men grinned, glad to see that Joan was all right.
“Shall we go in?” asked the doctor.
SHE phoned to tell him what happened.
Chess sounded flat. He asked When and she said, A few days ago. (Joan didn’t think he’d get huffy about the time delay, and she was right on. He was probably relieved not to have been involved, and sounded too loaded to put on a show.) Her brother kept saying, I can’t fucking believe it, which, after the 1st few times, really got on her nerves. What was there not to fucking believe, dickwad? She found herself thinking less and less of him as a human being; each time Joan thought she might be motivated to share something real—her baby, their father, whatever—Chess revealed himself to be a narcissistic stoner she wanted nothing to do with.
