Annie Oakley's Girl

by Rebecca Brown

  One evening in the middle of “Marcus Welby,” Jim announces, “I’m bored outta my tits, girls. I wanna have a party.”

  Mike, who’s been drooping in front of the TV set, sits up.

  “I say I am ready for a paaaaar-tay!”

  Mike says, “Jimmy boy, you’re on.”

  We OK it with Dr. Allen. Mike raids the stationery store on Broadway for paper hats and confetti and party favors and cards. We call everyone and it’s on for the evening after next. They limit the number of people allowed in a room at a time so Mike and and I take turns hanging out by the elevator to do crowd control. Jim shrieks, he calls me “Tonto the Bouncer” and flexes his arm in a skinny little she-man biceps. It’s great to see everybody, and everyone brings Jim these silly presents: an inflatable plastic duck, a shake-up scene of the Space Needle, a couple of incredibly ugly fuzzy animals, a bouquet of balloons. Somebody brings him a child’s watercolor set; it’s the only gift he doesn’t gush about.

  When I start to clean the wrapping paper, he says, “Oh leave it a while.” He likes the shiny colors and the rustling sound the paper makes when he shifts in bed.

  When anybody leaves, he blows a kiss and says, “Bye-bye cowpoke,” “Happy Trails.”

  He knows what he’s doing.

  I see it when I’m coming down the hall, a laminated sign on the door of his room. I tiptoe the last few yards because I don’t want him to hear me stop to read it, acting as if I believe what it says. It’s a warning, like something you’d see on a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of pesticide. It warns about the contents. It tells you not to touch.

  I push myself into his room before I can give myself a chance to reconsider. I push myself towards his bed, towards his forehead to give him his regular kiss hello.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  When he pushes me away, I’m relieved.

  “Do you realize they’re wearing plastic gloves around me all the time now? Face masks? They’ve put my wallet and clothes into plastic bags. As if me and my stuff is gonna jump on ’em and bleed all over ’em, as if my sweat — ”

  “Jim, that’s bullshit. This isn’t the Middle Ages, it’s 1984. And they’re medical people, they should know they don’t need to do that. Haven’t they read — ”

  “Why don’t you go tell ’em, Tonto? Why don’t you just march right over to ’em with all your little newspaper articles and you just tell ’em the truth.”

  “I will, Jim, I’ll — ”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, Tonto, they are medical people. They know what they’re doing.” He covers his eyes with a hand and says wearily, “And I know what my body is doing.”

  He holds his skinny white hand over his eyes. I can see the bones of his forearm, the bruises on his pale, filmy skin. He looks like an old man. The sheet rises and falls unevenly with his breath.

  I ought to hold him but I don’t want to.

  “Jim?” I say, “Jim?” I don’t know if he’s listening.

  Inside the belt-line of my jeans, down the middle of my back and on my stomach, I feel myself begin to sweat. I start to babble. A rambling, unconnected pseudo-summary of articles I haven’t brought him, a doctor-ed precis of inoperative statements, edited news-speak, jargon, evasions, unmeant promises, lies.

  But I’m only half thinking of what I say, and I’m not thinking of Jim at all.

  I’m thinking of me. And of how my stomach clutched when he said that about the sweat. I’m thinking that I want to get out of his room immediately and wash my hands and face and take a shower and boil my clothes and get so far away from him that I won’t have to breathe the air he’s breathed. Then further, to where he can’t see how I, like everyone I like to think I’m so different from, can desert him at the drop of a hat, before the drop of a hat, because my good-girl Right-On-Sister sympathies extend only as far as my assurance of my immunity from what is killing him. But once the thought occurs to me that I might be in danger I’ll be the first bitch on the block to saddle up and leave him in the dust.

  I don’t know what I say to him; I know I don’t touch him.

  After a while he offers me a seat to watch TV, but I don’t sit. I tell him I’ve got to go. I tell him I have a date. He knows I’m lying.

  I look around for Dr. Allen. She tells me she thinks this recent hospital policy is ludicrous. “It just increases everybody’s hysteria. There’s no evidence of contagion through casual contact. If these people . . .” But I don’t listen to the rest of what she says. My mind is still repeating no evidence of contagion through casual contact. I’m so relieved I’m taken out of danger. I realize I’m happier than if she’d told me Jim was going to live.

  I don’t listen until I hear her asking me something. I don’t hear the words, just the tone in her voice.

  “Huh?”

  She looks at me hard. Then shakes her head and turns away. She knows what I was thinking, where the line of my loyalty runs out.

  The next day before I visit him, I ask Dr. Allen, “Are you sure, if I only touch him . . .”

  It’s the only time she doesn’t look cute. She practically spits. “You won’t risk anything by hugging your brother.”

  Her eyes make a hole in my back as I walk to his room.

  I hug him very carefully, how I believe I can stay safe. He holds me longer than he usually does. He doesn’t say anything, when I pull away, about the fact that I don’t kiss his forehead, which shines with sweat.

  “Come here,” he says in his lecher voice, “Daddy’s got some candy for you.”

  He hands me a hundred dollar bill.

  “What’s this?”

  “What I still owe you for the TV.”

  “What?”

  “The hundred bucks I borrowed for the color TV.”

  Jim wanted to buy it for Scotty when all Scotty could do was watch TV. Jim wasn’t going to get paid until the end of the month so I lent it to him. He wanted to pay me back immediately but he kept having all these bills.

  “Dale withdrew it from the bank for me.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  He glares at me. “The Ranger is a man of honor, Tonto.”

  “OK, OK, but I don’t want it now.”

  He keeps glaring. “So you want it later? You gonna ride into Wells Fargo bank and tell them part of my estate is yours?”

  “Dale can — ” I close my eyes.

  “I owe you, Tonto. Take Dr. Allen out for the time of her life.”

  “Jim . . .”

  “Goddammit, it’s all I can do.”

  He grabs me by the belt loop of my jeans and tries to pull me toward him but he’s too weak. I step toward the bed. He stuffs the bill into my pocket.

  “Now go away please. I’m tired.”

  Was this a conversation? Was it a story?

  I wish Scotty knew how I felt about him.

  He knew.

  I never told him. I wish I’d said the words.

  He knew.

  How do you know?

  He told me.

  Did he? What did he say?

  Scotty told me, he said, Jim loves me.

  Did he really?

  Yes.

  Did he say anything else?

  Yes. He said, I love Jim.

  He said he loved me?

  More than anything.

  Is that true?

  Yes, Jim, it’s true.

  This is how I learn to tell a story.

  We stay away for longer than we ought. I tell him it’s time to go back, but he whines like a boy who doesn’t want recess to end. He chatters. For the first time since I’ve known him, he starts retelling stories he has told to me before, stories that lose a lot in the retelling. But finally he runs out of things to say and lets me wheel him out of Rex’s.

  There’s a traffic jam. Cars are backed up to Broadway and everybody’s honking. A couple blocks away a moving van is trying to turn onto a narrow street. People at the crosswalk are getting impatient. They look around for cops and when they
don’t see any, start crossing Madison between the cars.

  “I’m cold,” says Jim.

  He puts his free hand under his blanket. I lean down to tuck the cover more closely around his legs. His face is white.

  “I’m cold,” he grumbles again, “I wanna go back in.”

  “In a minute, Jim. We can’t go yet.”

  “But I’m freezing.” He looks up. “Where’s the fucking sun anyway?”

  I take my jacket off and wrap it around his shoulders. The cellophane of the cigarette package crinkles. I take care not to hit the drip feed tube.

  People start laying on their horns. The poor stupid van ahead is moving forward then back, inch by inch, trying to squeeze around the corner.

  “It’s moving, Jim. The truck’s going.”

  “About time,” he says loudly, “Doesn’t the driver realize what he’s holding up here?”

  Then the truck stalls. There’s the gag of the engine, silence, the rev of the motor, the sputter when the engine floods.

  “Someone go tell that goddamn driver what he’s holding up here.”

  People in their cars look out at Jim.

  “I’ve got to get back in,” he screams, “Go! Go!” He starts shooing the cars with his hands. The drip feed swings.

  I grab his arm. “Jim, the IV.”

  “Fuck the IV!” he yells, “Fuck the traffic. I’m going back in. I have to get back in.”

  “We’re going, Jim, the traffic’s moving now,” I lie. “We’re going in. Settle down, OK?”

  He pushes himself up a couple of inches to see the truck.

  “The truck isn’t moving, Tonto.”

  He kicks his blanket awry and tries to find the ground with his feet. “I’m walking.”

  “Jim, you can’t.”

  “So what am I supposed to do. Fly?”

  “You’re supposed to wait. When the traffic clears — ”

  “I’m sick of waiting. You said it was clearing. You lied to me. I’m sick of everyone lying. I’m sick of waiting. I’m sick — ” His voice cracks.

  I put my hand on his arm. “When the traffic clears I’m going to push you and Silver across the street.”

  “It’s not a horse,” he screams, “it’s a goddamn wheelchair!”

  He starts to tremble. He grips the arms of the chair. “It’s a wheelchair full of goddamn croaking faggot!” He slaps his hands over his face and whispers, “Tonto, I don’t wanna. Don’t let me — I don’t wanna — I don’t wanna — ”

  I put my arms around him and pull him to me. His head is against my collarbone. His cap falls off his sweaty head. I try to hold him. He lets me a couple of seconds then he tries to pull away. He isn’t strong enough. But I know what he means so I pull back. He grabs my shirt, one of his.

  “I don’t wanna — ” he cries, “I don’t wanna — ”

  I put my hands on his back of his head and pull him to my chest.

  “I don’t wanna — I don’t wanna — ” he sobs.

  His hands and face are wet. I hold his head.

  He grabs me like a child wanting something good.

  When we get back to his room he’s still crying. I ring for Dr. Allen. Jim asks me to leave.

  I pace around in the hall. When Dr. Allen comes out of his room, she says, “He’s resting. He isn’t good but he’s not as bad as you think. He won’t want to see you for a while. Now that you’ve seen him like this, it’s harder for him to pretend he’s not afraid. You can call the nurses’ station tonight if you’re concerned, but don’t come see him till tomorrow. And call first.”

  I want to tell her to tell him a story, to make him not afraid.

  But I don’t. I say, “I’m going to call his parents.”

  She looks at me.

  “Our parents,” I mumble.

  “He hasn’t wanted his family to know?”

  “Right.”

  “Call them.”

  I call his parents that night. They say they’ll fly out in the morning and be able to be with him by noon. I tell them I’ll book them a hotel a five minute walk from the hospital. They want to take the airport bus in themselves.

  I call him in the morning.

  “Hey, buddy.”

  “Yo Tonto.”

  “Listen, you want anything special today? I’m doing my Christmas shopping on the way down to see you.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “Who says?”

  “Santa says. I called Jean and Ange this morning and you’re going down there for the week. That remodeling you were supposed to help them with way back is getting moldy. So it’s the bright lights of Olympia for you, Sex-cat.”

  “Jim . . .”

  “You have to go. They’re going to pay you.”

  “What?!”

  “They said they’d have to pay somebody, and they’re afraid to have a common laborer around the priceless silver. So they want you. And it’s not like you’ve been earning it hand over fist since you’ve been playing candy-striper with me.”

  “Jim, they don’t have any money.”

  “They do now. Jeannie managed to lawyer-talk her way into some loot for her latest auto disaster and Ange is determined to spend the cash before Jeannie throws it away on another seedy lemon. So, Tonto, you got to go. It’s your sororal duty.”

  It was impossible to talk Jim out of anything.

  “Give my best to the girls and tell Trudy the Sentinal Bitch I said a bark is a bark is a bark.

  “Doesn’t Alice get a hello?”

  “Alice is stupid. I will not waste my sparkling wit on her.”

  “OK . . .”

  Were we going to get through this entire conversation without a mention of yesterday?

  “So Tonto, the Ranger is much improved today. . . . My folks called a while ago from DFW airport. They’re on their way to see me. Thanks for calling them.”

  “Sure.”

  “We’ll see you next week then.”

  “Right.”

  He hangs up the phone before I can tell him goodbye.

  I drive to Olympia. Ange is outside chopping wood. When I pull into the yard she slings the axe into the center of the block. She gives me a huge hug, her great soft arms around my back, her breasts and belly big and solid against me. She holds me a long time, kisses my hair.

  “Hi baby.”

  “Ange.”

  She puts her arm around my back and brings me inside. The house smells sweet. They’re baking. Jeannie blows me a kiss from the kitchen.

  “Hello gorgeous!”

  “Jeannie my darling.”

  I warm my hands by the wood stove. Ange yells at Gertrude, their big ugly German shepherd, to shut up. She’s a very talkative dog. Jeannie brings in a plate of whole wheat cookies. I pick up Alice the cat from the couch and drop her on the floor. She is a stupid cat. She never protests anything. I sit on the place she’s made warm on the couch. Jean hands me the plate. The cookies are still warm. I hesitate. It always amazes me they can, along with Jeannie’s law school scholarship, support themselves by selling this horrible homemade hippie food to health food joints.

  I take a cookie. “Thanks.”

  “How’s Jim?”

  “OK . . .”

  “Bad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He sounded incredibly buoyant on the phone, so we figured . . . we told him we’d come up to see him next week when we’ve finished some of this.” She nods at the cans and boards and drywall stacked up outside the spare room.

  “Let’s get to work.”

  “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

  Ange puts an old Janis Joplin on the stereo. We knock the hell out of the walls.

  They cook a very healthy dinner. As she’s about to sit down, Jeannie says, “Hey, we got some beer in case you wanted one. Want one?” Ange and Jean haven’t kept booze in their house for years.

  “No thanks.” There’s a jar of some hippie fruit juice on the table. “This is fine.”

  They look at e
ach other. We eat.

  I sleep on the couch in the living room. Gertrude sleeps in front of the wood stove. I listen to her snort. She turns around in circles before she settles down to sleep, her head out on her paws.

  Jim and I used to flip for who got the couch and who got the tatami mat on the floor next to the dog. I lean up on my elbow to look at Trudy the Sentinal Bitch. Only Jim could have re-named her that. In the bedroom Ange and Jean talk quietly.

  All the junk has been moved from the spare room into the living room. Some of it is stacked at the end of the couch. I toss the blanket off me and sift through the pile. Rolled-up posters, curling photographs. There’s a framed watercolor of Jim’s, a scene of Ange and Jeannie by the pond, with Gertrude, fishing. They look so calm together. They didn’t know Jim was painting them. They didn’t know how he saw them.

  I find one of all of us, three summers ago when we climbed Mount Si. Jim is tall and bearded, his arms around the three of us, me and Jeannie squished together under his left, Ange hugged under his right. All of us are smiling at the cameraman, Scotty.

  Two nights later the phone rings late. I’m awake, light on, blanket off, before they’ve answered it. When Ange comes out of the bedroom I’m already dressed.

  “That was Dr. Allen. His parents are with him. You should go.”

  They won’t let me drive. We all pile into the truck; Jeannie driving, Ange in the middle, me against the door. Jeannie doesn’t stop at the signs or the red lights. She keeps an even 80 on the highway. For once, Ange doesn’t razz her about her driving.

  I-5 is quiet. The only things on the road are some long-haul trucks, a few cars. We see the weak beige lights of the insides of these other cars, the foggy orange lights across the valley. We drive along past sleepy Tacoma, Federal Way, the airport.

  “Look, would you guys mind if I had a cigarette?”

  “Go ahead baby.”

  Ange reaches over me and rolls down the window. I root around in my jacket for Jim’s cigarettes. I’m glad I didn’t make that promise to him.

  We pull into the hospital parking lot. My hand is on the door before we stop.

  “You go up. We’ll get Bob and Dale and meet you on the floor in ten minutes.”

  In the elevator is a couple a little older than me. Red-eyed and sniffling like kids. We look at each other a second then look at the orange lights going up.