Come Destroy Me

by Packer, Vin

  • • •

  As he walked along Broad Street toward the library, Charlie studied his own image reflected in the glass of the store windows. Two or three times he looked up to say hello to people who passed him, and most of the time he saw himself. He saw himself angry and resentful, shown in the frown on his tanned face, in the dark V of his black eyebrows above his straight thin nose. He was angry, not just at what Jake had said, but at himself too, for feeling excited in his stomach when he recalled the way Jake said, “You and her keep the place open, just about.”

  You and her.

  You and her.

  It was true that he did not know her at all, hardly at all. She had been back in Azrael for a whole year now, and most of what he knew about her, he knew from what Mr. Lofton said.

  “She’s a fine young woman, and it’s a shame that there are no young men for her in Azrael.”

  He knew too that the kids from high bought their records at the Red Clover, and said she was crabby to them. Merrill Watkins, Charlie’s friend, said he could hardly blame her because of the way the kids sat in the listening booth all day and ripped through the place. But that was all Merrill had ever said about her. Charlie missed Merrill suddenly, and wished he didn’t go off to that camp in New Hampshire every summer. Merrill was his only friend, a quiet boy who collected stamps and jump-skied, and was sensitive because he had never grown an inch beyond five feet. Evie called him “the midget,” and that was just like Evie, but Charlie’s mother liked Merrill and said he was a good influence whatever that meant.

  It was not that he was lonely with Merrill gone; he had plenty to do. He helped his mother at the Gazette until three-thirty and he had to study for the boards. But Merrill was a boy and Charlie thought that so far the whole summer was taken up with women.

  ‘Nez thinks you’re sex-ee.

  If Merrill were around, he wouldn’t discuss this thing that was happening to him, but he wouldn’t think about it so much. He was thinking about it too much. He could not think back on when it had all started, but it had started the way a summer storm happens, quickly, without warning, so that there was no process of getting used to the idea. The storm was accepted as swiftly as it broke through the sky, and there was no time, or reason, really, to think why. It was there.

  Almost before he was aware of her, he was aware of the smell of her. The reading room at the library was small, with only three tables close together, and when Charlie had first gone there every night in the early weeks of June, he smelled that sweetness. It was like lilacs. It was different from the heavy aroma of Evie’s perfumes, and from the newsprint and machine odor he always associated with his mother.

  Lilacs … Sometimes he couldn’t smell them, and that was when he knew it was her perfume. Some nights she didn’t come to the library. Gradually, and long before he admitted it to himself, he began to miss her on those nights. He tried to imagine where she was and what she would be doing, and at the end of June he was saying her name to himself. Jill.

  Once he had a dream. He was standing on a hill with her watching the sky.

  He said, “I would like to go right up on that cloud.”

  She said, “Try.”

  He said, “Look, I’m not a bird.”

  “Try,” she said. “Try to fly.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Try,” she said. “I’ll push you.”

  He could feel himself moving off the ground. He circled low, reached his hand out for hers. He was afraid her weight would ground him, but it did not, and together they flew to the clouds.

  That morning when Charlie woke up from his dream, he knew he was in trouble. He went to his window and looked out and said to himself, “Not trouble — love!” and he had to laugh at that one. He had never even spoken to her. That was a good one.

  Charlie came to the end of Broad Street and saw the small gray stucco building and felt something inside him leap up. His knees got liquid and the drummer came in his chest, and he went up the stone steps slowly, prolonging the anticipation. He said good evening to Mrs. Whitmore, the wizened librarian, with her hollow eyes and yellow teeth, and he went on into the reading room.

  She was there. Lately, in the past few weeks, there was a tacit recognition between them. She looked up with her wide, pretty amber eyes and she watched him momentarily before she dropped her gaze back to the page of the book she was reading. Charlie could feel the heat rise in his neck, and he put his books on the table opposite the one she was at. Old Mr. Crocker, the town idiot, was in the corner looking at picture books and mumbling to himself, and on Charlie’s left, Jim Prince, a med student at the university, was reading from a heavy black tome. There was no one else in the room, and Charlie could smell the lilac and feel the heat run down the back of his head to his shirt collar, making it damp.

  Charlie did math problems because he could do those automatically, and he filled yellow pulpy sheets with his figures, several times not even bothering to check the answers. He was good at math. The sky outside, seen from the long framed windows in the room, got dark, and at eight-thirty Jim Prince sighed, slammed the book shut, and got up to go. Charlie watched him leave and stole a glance at Jill Latham, a fleeting glimpse of her, and he thought, I must be crazy, crazy, but he was not. She really was trying to get his attention. He got up and went across to her and his lower lip was trembling and he was afraid he might stutter.

  “Pencil?” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “I hoped you’d have an extra one. I left my pen home.”

  “Sure.” He fumbled in his pocket for the pencil, his fingers clumsy, shaking.

  “It was silly,” she said. She talked in a low whisper, watching him as he pulled the pencil from his rear pocket and handed it to her.

  She said, “Thank you.”

  “O.K.”

  She said, “I’ll return it at closing time.”

  “Nine o’clock,” he said, for no reason. He stood uncertainly, and then he started to go back to his own table.

  “Nine o’clock,” he heard her promise. “Nine o’clock.”

  Chapter Three

  Charles Wright’s average reaction to all questions was thirteen millimeters. He reacted very little to all pertinent questions. “Are you afraid of the death penalty?” only recorded five millimeters. “Are you sorry you killed?” only eleven millimeters. But to one question there was a definite response. “Did you know Mr. Russel Lofton is your defense counsel?” The needle swung to thirty-five.

  — From a report of the accused murderer’s psychogalvanic test

  EVIE THOUGHT Russel Lofton was handsome for an older man, handsome and almost buoyantly boyish, and she felt superior to him too. She felt as though she could manipulate him in any way she wished, and she decided she knew him far better than her mother did or ever would, for that matter. Her mother was always herself, that was the trouble with her. Emily Wright had no second selves, no acts, no games, no secrets. She served herself to people on a plain, ungarnished platter without apology. That was the way she was, and, Evie decided, that was the reason she had never remarried. That and the fact that she had lived her life in Azrael, Vermont, where single, attractive, rational men were rationed. Even if she had been able to interest one of these men, she would disenchant him eventually with her blunt, steady, matter-of-fact manner.

  Sometimes Evie wondered where she got her own warmth. It was more than mere warmth, it was a deep, aching desire to know all about someone, everything! What she wanted to do was to connect with someone, to be herself with someone, all her selves, and to find his selves, and to blend them all together in a grand bleeding passion that only they knew about — the two of them, Evie and this someone. That summer, when she had nothing to do but wait until fall and the new year at college, she thought a lot about Russel Lofton.

  “I’m dog-tired,” her mother said at the door, as Evie was leaving the house with him. “Don’t be late, Evie.”

  He said, “The meal
was tiptop, Em. Tiptop!”

  “I like to cook,” Mrs. Wright said. “Always have.”

  “Well, you do a good job, eh, E-venus?”

  “Real fine,” Evie agreed. “C’mon, let’s hurry.”

  She felt sorry for her mother then, sorry and tired of feeling sorry for her, and she felt glad too. She was all mixed up about the way she felt. Seldom did she have a chance to be alone with Russel Lofton, and she had seldom wanted the chance before tonight, but tonight something was singing in her and she decided that the way she really felt was wistful. Wistful.

  She wore a bright yellow sleeveless blouse with a black full skirt, the color of her hair, and straw shoes on her bare feet. Her dark eyes shone and she had a good white smile, with dimples in her cheeks that gave her face a coy, diabolical expression. Quickly she leaned forward to kiss her mother on the forehead, and then, grabbing Lofton by the hand, she said again, “C’mon.”

  It was dark outside. A row of street lights gave dotted illumination to the avenue, and Evie slackened her pace as they went down the wide cement sidewalk, and dropped his hand from her own. Then she was aware that they were alone, and she felt the one way she did not want to feel, like a young girl with an older man. She was not sure how she would talk to him.

  “Thought you were in a hurry, E-venus.”

  “I am. But it’s a nice night, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is. Who’s the lucky fellow? Jim Prince?”

  “Yes. I’m meeting him at Jake’s. I appreciate the ride.”

  “S’ O.K.”

  He held the car door open for her and slammed it shut after she was settled inside. Evie lighted a cigarette and drew the smoke deeply into her lungs. She thought that even her voice changed around him, and she never sounded as mature when she talked to him as she did when she talked to boys like Jim Prince. Yet to a grown man like Russel Lofton, she should be able to stay herself. She should be able to.

  He moved in behind the wheel and started the motor. Evie waited until they had driven a while before she said, “You know, you’re funny.”

  She called him simply “you,” because “Mr. Lofton” sounded queer then, and out of place. She had never called him “Russ,” and even though she was bold and forward usually to a point that exasperated her mother, she knew she would never have the nerve to say his first name when they were alone together.

  “Why am I funny?” he said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, why?”

  “You just are.”

  “That’s not fair, ?-venus — bring a subject up without finishing it.”

  “Well,” she said, “for one thing, you’re attractive for your age.”

  “By golly, I’m not an old man. Only forty-five.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said. Evie watched his profile. A nerve in his neck was jumping up by his throat, and it pleased her. She had a remote sensation of power that it made it easier for her to talk better. “And you’re cute,” she said, the familiar teasing note coming back in her voice. “You blush.”

  “You make me blush, ?-venus. By golly, the way you talk!”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

  “E-venus?”

  “It sounds silly. As if you think I ought to be all excited at being compared to a beautiful woman. As if you really think I’m just a kid.”

  Russel Lofton laughed. “Aren’t you?”

  “Do you think I am?”

  “I think you’re a very nice young lady,” he said, “and if I were a few years younger, I’d give that Jim Prince a run for his money.”

  “Jim,” Evie said disgustedly.

  “Thought you liked Jim.”

  “He’s all right. I don’t know. Sometimes I just wish I’d meet a real grown man, someone with sensitivity, who wasn’t just interested in mauling me.” Evie sighed and waited for him to answer, and when he did not, she turned and looked at him and saw that he was blushing again. “That’s sex in this generation,” she said, “and sex and love mean the same damn thing to most men.”

  When she spoke like that Russel Lofton had no retort, no answer, no connection even. He said foolishly, “You must like college, eh?” because he was thinking that she must have learned to talk that way in college. Certainly not from Em. Em claimed she was just going through a stage, and the more it was ignored, the sooner she would outgrow it. But Evie Wright was a pretty girl and someday she’d get in trouble. It was a darn shame, Lofton thought, that she never had a father. A darn shame. And when he thought it, he wondered what in the deuce a father could do about it.

  Evie ignored his question. “You don’t like me when I talk frankly, do you?”

  “I don’t mind, E-venus, if that’s the way you want to talk.”

  “Evie!”

  “All right, Evie.”

  “I know sometimes I sound silly, like when I tease Charlie and everything, but I think seriously about life too.”

  “You shouldn’t tease the boy.”

  “It doesn’t hurt him. He’s an awful introvert. In my psych course I learned all about introverts and extroverts. I’m an extrovert.”

  Russel Lofton said, “I’m sure you are.”

  “And I like to figure things out. You know — people.”

  At the bottom of the hill, the lights of the downtown streets shone in on them and Lofton steered the car over to the corner of Broad Street and put the gear in neutral.

  “Well, there you are,” he said.

  “Do you understand what I mean?” Evie did not move, or put her hand on the door handle to open it. Lofton felt embarrassed with the conversation, but not unwilling to pursue it. If it were only possible to pursue it. Often he wished there were someone he could talk to, someone he could tell his loneliness to who would understand. Every time he tried, he felt like an idiot babbling dull platitudes and clichés, and one night after he had confided in Em, he felt sick with himself when he thought back on it. He thought now, Why in the name of ten thousand red-striped zebras did I blab all that nonsense about the way I felt the night Dora died? Actually, he thought, reasoning it all out in broad daylight, he and Dora had been like a pair of tigers in the same cage, and all that he really missed was the habits they had formed together. He couldn’t explain it that way to Em, and what he had said was silly night talk, the things a person says late at night when he’s tired and self-pitying and asinine.

  He wished it were possible to talk seriously with someone, but Evie Wright was a kid. He looked at her suddenly, with the light coming in the car window on her coal-black hair, her ivory-white skin, and the bright blouse, and she met his look fully, openly, the way a woman would. Russel Lofton lost himself in her face for a fraction of a second before his arm hit the horn and the blaring noise alerted him.

  “Sure, sure, ?-venus,” he said, flustered and bewildered by the fragment of momentary awareness of her as someone other than Em’s young daughter. “Sure, I understand.”

  “Someday,” she said, “I hope we can talk about it more.” She pressed the handle of the door and it opened. “I’d like to.”

  “Sure, E-ven — Evie. I’d like to too.”

  “ ‘By, then.” She slammed the door shut and walked along the sidewalk to the entrance of Jake’s. He watched her go, watched the slimness of her hips and legs, and the outline of her bosom, and the classic profile of her face. She paused before she entered the store and looked back toward the car, smiling and waving. Russel Lofton waved back and waited until she disappeared from sight. Then he took his clean white handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face, crammed it back in with his change and keys, and leaned forward at the wheel. He shifted gears, pressed hard on the gas pedal, and gunned the motor of the car, lurching it at the start. Forty-five, he thought, was not old at all.

  • • •

  The jukebox was playing “Back Bay Ramble” and Jim Prince was sitting on a stool sipping a Coke, his long legs dangling to the floor, his sandy hair bleached white
from the sun. The fan over the counter blew cold wind in his face, red with sunburn. He had fair skin and freckled wrists, clear blue eyes and a stubborn pug nose. Stacked beside him were books and pencils, and he was frowning when Evie entered and swung herself up on a stool beside him.

  “ ‘Bout time,” he said.

  “Don’t start now.”

  “I left the library early to be on time. Got an exam, too. You know how tough summer-session exams are.”

  Evie said, “I know.” She liked Jim in a hazy, undefined way, but there was something missing with him. There was something missing with all the boys she knew, an abyss, really, a gap. She had a crazy yearning feeling inside of her that made her a million miles away, and she wanted to be near but she couldn’t stop dreaming. She didn’t know what about. Just dreaming and feeling far away. She went over in her mind all that she had said to Russel Lofton and what he had said back to her, and what she could have said, and what he should have answered. It made her restless and she wanted to do something different, something lost, the way she felt.

  “Your brother was at the library.”

  “That’s not news.”

  “I saw him talking to Jill Latham when I left.”

  Evie didn’t answer. She knew Jim was trying to be nice, and it made her angry that he had to try. Besides, she couldn’t concentrate too clearly on the things he was saying tonight. She kept picturing herself sitting on a stool with the jazz music playing and a cigarette burning in the ash tray on the counter, and the balmy summer evening outside. She thought of herself as standing on the outside looking in at herself, and wondering who that dark-haired, mysterious, attractive woman was, and what she was thinking. It was like the beginning of a movie. Something ought to happen tonight, she thought. It just shouldn’t peeter out into another week night with a Coke at Jake’s.

  Jake was sitting in the back of the luncheonette reading the paper and swatting flies, and there were a few young couples sipping soft drinks in the booths. Evie knew them, but she had no desire to smile and recognize them. She felt as though she were a stranger who had just come to a small town, right off the train, and stopped in here for a bite to eat and a cup of coffee. Evie didn’t like coffee too well, though everyone at college seemed to drink it. She didn’t know what she liked any more.