Stacking in Rivertown

by Barbara Bell

  I wake myself up talking, saying something to Ben like he’s there. My vision goes out again. I wait until it comes back. Then I peek outside the garage. It’s still dark. I slide on my holster and Walther and creep out, jogging, looking for a phone. I call Miriam. Her answering machine picks up.

  “It’s Beth, Miriam, I mean Becca,” I say. “I’m okay. I can’t come home right now. I’ll call again.”

  Then I call Tom. He’s groggy.

  “Tom. It’s Becca.”

  “Jesus. What time is it?”

  “I’m not coming back for awhile. I left a message with Miriam. She’s not answering. Can you go over and see if she’s okay? I’m worried about her.”

  “You sound bad.”

  “I’m fine. Just go check on her.” My vision wavers.

  “Where are you?”

  “It’s better if you don’t know.”

  “Come home, Becca. We can help you.”

  “Tell Miriam I’ll be in touch.”

  I have no idea what I’m doing. Get out, I keep telling myself, but this time I can’t get out. It was a snap to leave Jeremy. Love never figured in that equation for me. But now, I’m caught as good as a muskrat in a snap trap.

  You’re being crazy, I keep telling myself. How could Ben find me? Nobody followed me. Nobody knows I’m in Berkeley, not even Bates. Only Jill, and there’s no way he can trace her.

  I jog off again, heading back to the garage. I’m worried that Miriam might come looking for me there. So I put the Uzi in the duffel, sling the big bag over my shoulder, close up the car, hit the street, and start walking. The sky brightens. Cars buzz back and forth. I feel myself drawn to Miriam’s, but I fight it.

  After wandering all morning, I remember that I’m due at Tutti by noon. I call. Cinda answers.

  “Tutti.”

  “Cinda, it’s Beth, I mean, Becca.” I’ve got to get my name right.

  “Oh my God. Just a minute.”

  “Becca?” It’s Burt.

  “I’m sick, Burt. I won’t make it today.”

  “We’re worried about you, Becca. Miriam is a mess. You’ve got to come back.”

  Shit.

  “Tell her I need some time, Burt. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine.” This is what I get for making friends. “Tell me where you are. I’ll come and get you.”

  “I’ll keep in touch,” I say and hang up.

  Now I think I might start bawling again, or maybe throw up. I escape the phone booth and walk hard. I think I’m just going nowhere, not caring, but before I know it, I’m on the street in front of my apartment.

  I’ll hole up for a couple days, I think. They won’t check here But I’m afraid to go inside. Ben could be waiting there. He’s smarter than me. And he always wins.

  I walk to the nearest liquor store and buy two bottles of whiskey. As night falls, I hide myself behind a Dumpster in an alley. I have a good view of the door to the apartment building.

  That’s where I stay all night, sipping my bottle, watching the door. I don’t see Ben. I watch my neighbors go in and out.

  By morning, I decide to take a chance. I dart across the street and slip through the door. Then I pull out my pistol and mount the steps slow, fitting my key in the lock and pushing the door open. I check everything. My IDs are just like I left them.

  Getting out the bag I’ve kept them in since Cumberland, I slide in everything, the IDs, Mama’s picture, the letter I wrote to Miriam. I throw it in my duffel, taking out all the guns and ammo.

  Something cracks in me then. I start slamming things around. I pull the dresser drawers out, spilling my clothes. I rip dresses and skirts off hangers. I break my CDs. I throw what few plates I have against the floor, watching them shatter.

  I hate Bates with a white heat.

  Then I start on my second bottle of whiskey. I make a barricade by moving the dresser and the armchair to form a triangle with the wall. I bring in all my guns with extra rounds and throw my notebooks on the floor next to them. I sit drinking, pistol in one hand, watching the door.

  I wake up to the sound of someone knocking. I peek at the clock. It’s four in the afternoon.

  “Becca, are you in there?”

  It’s Miriam.

  “If you’re in there please answer the door.”

  She keeps knocking and calling. God, it’s killing me.

  “Go away,” I whisper. “Please go away.”

  Everything goes quiet. I begin drinking in earnest now, clobbering myself with liquor. I don’t know how much time passes, but the room is dark. The whiskey is in my eyes, and my vision keeps blinking in and out.

  I hear a sound at the door. The doorknob turns. I raise my pistol, my arms and hands shaking badly. Releasing the safety, I press my finger next to the trigger. I’ve practiced hour after hour for this.

  The door swings open, the hall light streaming into the room. Three figures stand there. The one in the center is very tall.

  “Get back,” I say. “I’ll kill you, Ben. Don’t fuck with me.”

  “Becca.” I know that voice. I shake my head, but the room’s spinning.

  “Give me the gun, Becca. It’s Miriam.”

  A figure starts edging toward me.

  I point at the heart. “I’ll kill you, Ben.”

  The other two are edging in.

  “It’s me. It’s Miriam.”

  I feel the gun wavering, my whole body quaking from the poison I’ve been dumping in.

  She crawls over the chair and kneels beside me. One hand circles my wrist while the other pulls the gun free. She gives it to Tom, who flips on the safety and drops out the clip. I feel her arms around me, her cheek against my head. Josh kneels down on my other side. He hands my guns and ammo to Tom, who empties all the bullets and pockets them. He turns on a light and closes the door. They move the furniture back.

  I’m too drunk to move, and I see that I’ve pissed again. They lie me back and remove my wet clothes. Tom and Josh carry me to bed. Miriam lies on one side, Josh on the other, both holding me. Tom loads the Walther again and sits in the armchair, guarding the door.

  13

  Old Friends

  When I wake, I see Miriam sitting and reading my notebook in the armchair. Tom’s conked out next to me. I smell like I’ve been rolling in whiskey and piss.

  I guess I have.

  I lie still, watching Miriam, thinking that for this moment, it’s all worth it, all the beatings from Ben, the basement, all the death and the running away.

  She looks up, catching me watching her. Her cheeks and lips are ragged, her eyes rimmed in red. I try to rise, but I slip and fall over the side of the bed. Miriam helps me sit on the floor, leaning back.

  “Why did you do this? Why didn’t you come home?” she says, tears streaming out her eyes.

  Home. The word in her voice like that makes me wish I could weep. I’ve wanted to come home for so long. But there aren’t any good directions, no maps, no travel brochures.

  “I need some water,” I say.

  She pours a glassful and helps me to hold it to my mouth since my hands are shaking so much.

  “He screwed me,” I say. “That fucking detective is as bad as Ben.” She kneels beside me, her touch bringing me back to her, away from Ben and Bates and all the memories that are eating me up.

  “He put Ben in the lineup. God. I was so scared Ben would follow me and find you. I was afraid he’d hurt you.” I start crying, and then I get the heaves again. The water I just drank comes spewing out.

  Now I smell like whiskey, piss, and vomit. And I feel like somebody just dragged me out of Ben’s box, like I’ve been screaming but nobody would undo the lock.

  “He made me tell him about everything Ben did. He made me talk about the basement.” Now my vision goes again, and I start quaking hard.

  “What do you mean, the basement? Becca? Jesus. Becca, can you see me?”

  “It’ll come back in a minute. It’s because of that
fucking basement.” As my sight comes back slow, I see Miriam waving her hand in front of my eyes.

  “I’m taking you to a doctor,” Miriam says.

  “I can’t go out. Don’t make me. He’s out there.”

  “It’s all in your head, Becca. You’re safe here. He doesn’t know where you are. God, we know where you live, and it took us days to figure it out.”

  She runs her fingers through my hair. “After I get you to a doctor, I’m taking you to a psychiatrist.”

  I don’t say anything. I want her to stay forever. I think at this moment, I would do anything for her. I’d jump off a fucking bridge.

  “Gatorade,” I say. “It’s what Ben always gave us after, well, you know. I can keep that down.”

  There’s a knock at the door. I twist away from her and crawl off, trying to hide. Miriam stares at me, looking sick to death. She goes to the door, checking first. When she opens it, Greg ducks in.

  He makes a face. “Josh is right. It stinks in here.”

  Miriam sends him down for Gatorade. She helps me stand and takes me to the bathroom. After undressing me, she gets me in the shower. Then I put on fresh clothes and make my way unsteady and near blind to the couch, lying down.

  Miriam picks up my notebook and lies my head in her lap.

  She continues to read.

  The next few days, I don’t move much except to hit the john. I suck down Gatorade and Seven Up. I refuse to see a doctor. By Saturday, I’m eating soft food again. Miriam stays except when she’s meeting with Johnson. Tom, Greg, and Josh split shifts so that there are always at least two people with me. I think they’re more worried that I’ll go off the deep end again than they are about Ben.

  Miriam starts making plans to leave for Seattle just after the New Year, which is a week from Sunday. Imagine, it’s Christmas Eve. I’m feeling so jolly. She decides that I’m going with her, packing up what few clothes I have left in the apartment. Before I know it, she dumps out my duffel bag.

  “My God,” I hear her say.

  I look over. She’s checking out my bag of money.

  “How much do you have in here?”

  “I don’t know, thirteen or fourteen thousand.”

  “You know, most people keep money in banks.”

  “I lived off it when I was running from Ben. I’ve kept it out in case I need to leave again.”

  “You won’t need to keep running, Becca. He’s not going to find you.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know Ben.”

  “So is this ever going to end? Because I can’t live with the idea that you might just disappear someday. Promise me you won’t do that.”

  I stare at her lips, so innocent of someone like Ben. She wouldn’t survive a minute with him. “I tried to leave you. God, I tried. To protect you.” I stare down at my hands, useless really. “I couldn’t make myself do it.”

  Miriam squeezes my arm. Then she sits counting the pile of money. “How does a prostitute come up with this kind of cash? Rob a bank?”

  “Very funny.”

  “I’m waiting for your answer.”

  “I’m just a little pack rat. I saved every penny.”

  “There’s more you haven’t told me, isn’t there?”

  “Think of it as a continuing saga. You have to wait until next week for the final chapter.”

  “I hate to wait.”

  “Just as I thought.”

  “Beth,” she says.

  We stare at one another.

  “That’s what you said on my answering machine.”

  I look away. “You don’t miss much.”

  “Not where you’re concerned. And I think it’s so smart of me, because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you need somebody to pay attention. Now tell me about Beth.”

  She does that thing again, softening all of a sudden.

  “That’s what my name was when I was with Ben,” I say.

  “Bates knows me by that name.”

  “Beth what?”

  “Elizabeth Boone.”

  She sits back on her heels, taking it in. But her attention turns to my zippered bag. She picks it up.

  “No,” I say. “Leave that.”

  She looks at me, calculating.

  “Pandora’s box?” she says.

  “In a way. When we get to Seattle, I’ll give it to you.”

  There’s a knock at the door. Miriam hesitates. When she answers the door, I grab the bag and hide it behind me. Burt comes in. He takes one look at me and shakes his head.

  “I freaked out one time,” he says. “It was about a year after my tour was over. I holed myself up in the woods somewhere upstate with about five guns. I thought I was in the jungle again, looking for Charley.”

  “Did you point one of those guns at someone you love?”

  “Leave it, Becca. Nobody got hurt, thank God. Miriam’s right. You should see a psychiatrist to help you get through this. And take as much time as you need before you come back,” he says. “Wouldn’t want you pulling a thirty-eight because someone orders a baked potato.” He smiles.

  I look down at the floor. “I’m not coming back, Burt. I’m moving to Seattle with Miriam.”

  He drops himself into the stuffed chair and sits quiet for awhile. “I expected as much,” he says.

  “You could promote Mark into kitchen manager,” I say. “As for the buying, you might have to pick that up yourself.” I sit and think. “I can come in Monday afternoon, then work half days until Thursday to get Mark started.”

  After that we talk about some of the suppliers that Burt doesn’t know that well. I begin to wear out, and I see Miriam give Burt a look.

  “I’ve got to get back,” he says. But when he’s almost out the door, he turns to me and says, “Are we still on for tomorrow?”

  I’d forgotten. Miriam and I are supposed to celebrate Christmas with Burt and his wife at Tutti. Larry and his girlfriend are coming, and so are Josh and Greg. I get into a sweat thinking about leaving the apartment and going out on the street.

  Christmas Day arrives. Thank God my stomach is almost back to normal. The only problem I still have is that my vision keeps going in and out. I try to keep it from Miriam.

  “You can’t see again, can you?”

  “No. But it will come back.”

  “What did Ben do to you?”

  I feel my arms and hands go numb. “Please don’t ask me to talk about it, Miriam. It’s why I freaked so bad.”

  She lies my head in her lap again. I bury my face in her.

  “I haven’t forgotten about the psychiatrist,” she says. “It’s non-negotiable as far as I’m concerned. Once we get to Seattle, we’ll find you one. And a therapist. And no more goddamn whiskey.”

  I sigh. How can I argue with her?

  She calls a cab and holds my arm as we walk down the four flights to the street. I start shaking. During the ride over, she cradles my hand in hers. I keep checking behind to see if anyone’s following.

  “I’ll get over this,” I say.

  She’s looking out her window, worn out by my paranoia.

  Larry outdoes himself on our behalf. After our meal, Burt’s wife, Loretta, hands out fruitcake so full of rum, we get drunk just holding it in our fingers.

  Later on, I give Josh the watch I bought for him, and for Greg I have an opal earring. The two of them give me a year’s subscription to Playboy (gee, thanks a lot), a Clarisse Broder wig (they’re really striking out), and an incredible bouclé sweater.

  Miriam gives me a computer with the works and loaded with memory. But I can’t see it until I get to Seattle since she had it installed at her place.

  I ask her if the loads of memory thing is some kind of a metaphor.

  “I just want to know what’s in that bag,” she says.

  “Patience is a virtue,” I remind her.

  “I’ve always hated that. I think some weird martyr made it up.”

  I give her a heavy bracelet of worked silver
, studded with rubies. She loves it. I picked it up on one of my pawnshop junkets in the city while looking for more firepower.