Mama Fish

by Rio Youers

  The guy turned around, saw me staring, and walked away. He bumped into a teenager who was playing a handheld video game and listening to an iPod.

  Everybody is wired-in …

  I looked around, and in the short time that Darlene and Jayson were in the video game store, I counted fifteen people talking on cell phones. Of these, four were hands-free, lights blinking, seemingly talking to themselves. They all shared the same dead-in-the-eye expression, despite the animation with which they were talking.

  That’s not all. There were even more people listening to iPods or other MP3 devices, wires trailing from their ears. I looked at the seating area outside Starbucks and counted three people hooked into laptop computers. I saw children a step or two behind their parents, fingers zapping on handheld video games—no comprehension of what was going on around them, or even where they were. There were teenagers sending text messages and taking pictures with their cell phones, men and women tapping the keypads of their BlackBerrys, an elderly man scrolling through magnified text on a Kindle, and three young women giggling at images on a digital camera. For one terrifying moment, I was literally surrounded by people who were, in one way or another, wired into a device.

  Technology is a twenty-first century god.

  “Hey, Mr. Beauchamp.” Darlene’s voice made everything normal. She made the world seem right again and I felt an incredible rush of love for her—just wanted to throw myself into her arms. “Everything good?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and put my hands into my lap so that she would not see how they were trembling. I looked at Jayson. “Did you get what you were looking for?”

  “Uh-huh.” He grinned beautifully, leaned on the hand rims of my wheelchair, and placed a sloppy kiss high on my cheekbone. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “You got it, kiddo. Happy birthday.” I ruffled his golden hair and looked at my wife. “Let’s go home.”

  You know, the technology is more advanced than it used to be. The world has turned into a machine, and its axis is made of binary codes and microprocessors and integrated circuits. Everybody is wired-in these days. Everybody. Technology is a twenty-first century god. It’s a monster.

  It wasn’t difficult keeping up with Kelvin Fish; he was dragging his left leg, trying to compensate with his right. The result was a loping half-run that put me in mind of Quasimodo. It would have been comical under other circumstances, but my head was still whirling with the impossible things I had seen. There was nothing funny about it at all.

  “Mama!” I heard him cry every now and then. He didn’t know that I was following, and I wanted to keep it that way. Twilight was seeping into the sky and I favored the shadows, trying to be invisible. I had no idea what I was going to do once I reached his house. I thought I would tell Mama Fish that I had seen the accident, in case there was need of a witness at some later point. I cannot deny, however, a burning curiosity to finally see where Kelvin Fish lived. His house, and his home life, had long been the subject of my daydreams.

  His left foot—without a shoe—scuffed and bumped over the sidewalk. His sock flapped loosely and eventually came off. I picked it up and saw that he had worn a hole in it, big enough to put my hand through (not that I did; Kelvin Fish’s sock smelled like a dead body, and I handled it with due circumspection). I tossed it aside with a girlish, mewling sound and considered, if he had rubbed a hole this large through his sock, the damage he had done to his foot. The thought seemed absurd given he’d just been trounced by a speeding Oldsmobile, like worrying about a broken window in a house knocked down by the wind.

  “MAMA!”

  Kelvin Fish loped and dragged for another seven or eight minutes before stumbling onto the driveway of an elegant Victorian property. He staggered onto the porch, his leg thumping up the steps. “Mama!” he wailed again. The front door opened immediately and I caught a glimpse of the interior before a matchstick arm reached out, grabbed Kelvin Fish by the shoulder, and pulled him inside. The door thumped closed and old leaves were buffeted through the porch rails. I stood on the sidewalk and watched as the basement lights flicked into life, throwing a pale blue light through the shutters and across the lawn.

  “Holy shit,” I said. My mind pounded with everything that had happened, and I inhaled shuddering drifts of air. I wiped sweat from my face and looked at Kelvin Fish’s house. It was beyond anything I had imagined. I had fancied either a diminished structure in a garden crowded by weeds, or a Gothic Revival mansion with bats hanging in the eaves and gargoyles projecting from the cornices. But this …

  I ran my hands through my hair and looked at the splendid house. Its dominant feature was an octagonal tower with tall windows in each of its facing sides. My gaze drifted from it, over the stout chimneys and dormers, down the canary yellow siding to the porch. It was furnished with bamboo chairs and potted trees, its roof supported by columns that had been painted to match the trim. I saw wind chimes making subtle rotations, catching curves of light with the meekest of sounds. Twirls of ivy trimmed the lattice beneath the porch, and the garden was immaculate. There were several apple trees, a fountain, and flower beds that would be alive with color in the summer. I half expected Uncle Remus to appear, whistling “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.”

  There was a Mercedes-Benz in the driveway.

  “Holy shit,” I said again, wondering if Mama Fish was a brain surgeon or a CEO, or even a movie star. I was young, but could still appreciate what I was seeing. I had expected The Addams Family. What I got was Ozzie and Harriet.

  Despite the idyllic exterior, I remained hesitant; there was something about Kelvin Fish, and the long, matchstick arm that had grabbed him, that made me reluctant to approach. I wiped my eyes, and as my hand passed over my face I saw the Cutlass Cruiser hit him again. I heard crumpling steel and the sound of the radiator being pushed against the engine block. I saw him slam to the blacktop and fold backward so that his legs curved over his head like a scorpion’s tail. My heart raced. I gritted my teeth and flexed my fingers. Lines of sweat trickled from my hairline.

  “Come on,” I said, looking at the dark windows in the tower as I considered my next move. I knew the right thing would be to talk to Mama Fish and explain what had happened, but what I really wanted—in the true, silent part of my heart—was to run away and forget it all.

  The wind chimes whispered. I let out a long, broken breath and remembered the way Kelvin Fish had jumped and jerked as he lay on the median strip. I also remembered the warm sting of tears in my eyes, and how I had told him that I needed a friend.

  I stepped onto the driveway. My heart slugged with angry rhythm and the air suddenly felt very cold. I walked past the fountain and the Mercedes-Benz and onto the porch. The front door was solid mahogany—no screen and no window, just an old-fashioned knocker that reminded me of the scene in A Christmas Carol where Ebenezer Scrooge first glimpses the spirit of his deceased partner. I reached for it, hesitated again, expecting the dull brass to morph into a likeness of Kelvin Fish and moan, Noom boolan … plag meen. I shook the thought from my head, grasped the knocker, and gave it two firm raps.

  I waited, listening for sounds from inside: doors opening or floorboards creaking, maybe a voice calling out … sounds to suggest the knock had been heard and someone would answer. The wind chimes made vague music. The porch boards groaned as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. The fountain trickled. Traffic purred in the distance.

  Not a sound from inside the house. Not a whisper.

  I knocked again—three strident claps that bounced back into the crisp, cold air … loud enough to start the neighbor’s dog barking.

  I waited, hands in my pockets to keep them from trembling.

  No answer. I sighed and turned around. Jack-o’-lanterns grinned in the windows of the house across the street. Halloween, I thought, and wondered if Mama Fish wasn’t answering the door because she thought I was trick or treating.

  “Maybe,” I said, but it didn’t feel right. It didn’t jive.

 
; Perhaps she’s busy. My exhausted mind reached for a reason. Perhaps she’s looking after her injured son.

  “Maybe,” I said again, but this didn’t jive, either; Kelvin Fish had been snagged by the shoulder, yanked inside, and the door slammed closed behind him—not the actions of someone who was cool and collected. But now the house was still and soundless. No sign of commotion.

  I considered knocking one last time, then shook my head, and stepped off the porch. The pretty house with its canary yellow siding and white trim loomed above me, and I was amazed all over again at how different it was from anything I had imagined. Even so, there was something, dare I say it … fishy going on. I was sure of it, but I was also too tired—too scared—to think about it now.

  “What’s going on in there?” I asked. My voice was fragile.

  I turned around and walked away. The fountain trickled with a sound like rain. The wind chimes sang to me.

  I didn’t sleep that night. I drifted, and my thoughts were crammed with those odd, tumbling shapes that made no sense. I got out of bed while it was still dark and sat downstairs, watching infomercials on TV in the hope of taking my mind off things. It didn’t work.

  It was Saturday. No school, which was a blessing, at least. My parents came downstairs after their clockwork bout of Saturday morning sex (the infomercials had given way to cartoons: Wuzzles cranked to ear-splitting volume). My mother sensed that something was wrong. I wanted to tell her, but my mind still struggled with those tumbling shapes. I told her I’d had a bad dream, which wasn’t far from the truth. She fixed me a stack of chocolate chip pancakes to make everything right. This didn’t work, either.

  By mid-morning, I was standing outside Kelvin Fish’s house, wanting an explanation for what I’d seen. It was easier stepping onto the driveway this time, although my heart still pounded. I walked past the fountain and the Mercedes-Benz without breaking stride, and took the porch steps in a single leap. I knocked but there was no answer, no sign of life. I knocked again, hard enough to make the solid door tremble in its frame, but there was nothing.

  I clomped down the porch steps and walked away, kicking dead leaves, occasionally turning to look at the house. And for one moment—a heartbeat—I thought I saw a shape, almost human, floating in one of the tower windows. It was tall, rake-thin … watching me.

  I frowned and wiped my eyes. When I looked again, it had gone.

  “Hey, baby. It’s okay … you’re okay now.”

  Darlene’s voice, and I reached for it—wrapped my arms around it and felt it in my soul as a rock: molded to my embrace and unmovable … towering from the ruptured crust of the earth, soldered from its core.

  “It’s okay. I’m with you.”

  I opened my eyes. Darlene was there and my heart ached with love for her. I touched her hair and her lips, and felt the soft pressure of her breast against my upper arm.

  “You were crying in your sleep,” she said. “You haven’t done that since rehab.”

  This was three weeks ago. I had just returned from a business trip to Massachusetts—spent some time in Harlequin while I was there. I had done a lot of thinking, and it had obviously spilled into my dreams.

  “Did I wake you?” I asked.

  “Just a little.”

  I gave her a wry smile, and then reached down to turn my legs, lifting my knee to get some air between them. I turned them three times a night, without fail, to keep from getting pressure sores.

  “You were talking in your sleep, too,” she said.

  “What did I say?”

  She used the side of her thumb to wipe away my tears. “You said, ‘Plug me in.’ ”

  I arranged to rent a car with hand controls when I was in Boston, and drove north to Harlequin. It was the first time I had been back since my father’s work moved us to San Francisco in 1987, where I live to this day. I barely recognized the town I grew up in, and this didn’t surprise me at all. The world moves fast, and so much can change in twenty years.

  New roads have been built and existing roads widened to cope with the influx of traffic. The population has increased by sixty percent, mostly city folk chased north to escape city prices, and it seems their U-Hauls were loaded with urbanization as well as furniture. There are hotels and factories where there were once recreational parks and hospitals. Subdivisions have exploded from the downtown district, each joined to the last like balls on a molecular model, and the houses are as identical as measles. Mom and Pop stores have folded beneath franchises like Blockbuster and IHOP and RadioShack. I was told that Uncle Cluck’s Chicken Farm, which used to sit on Pentucket Road north of Harlequin, laid its last egg in 1995. You’ll find a Wal-Mart Supercenter there today.

  Urban development: another small nip in the plastic surgery of the planet. The frightening thing is that you don’t notice it as much in your own town, when the buildings go up (or come down) one at a time. But when you come back to a place after twenty years and experience the change in one hit … it can take your breath away.

  Many of the changes in Harlequin are for the better: they pulled down The Shot—a ranch-style biker bar and hotbed of transgression. I remember reading about the stabbings, drug busts, and shootings almost every week in the Harlequin Crier. My mother sometimes cut out the articles before I could read them, in fear that I would become fascinated or stained. And she was probably right to; The Shot shimmered with mythical quality in my young mind, like a cave filled with trolls. Better it were razed to the ground and replaced with a state-of-the-art Gold’s Gym, where the only fighting is against calories.

  The Icon Drive-In has gone, and that’s no loss, either. It was an eyesore—a scrub of broken asphalt with bent, rusted speaker poles and a concrete screen that looked like the side of a bombed building. Its patrons were not interested in watching movies; they went there to fuck in the back seats of their cars or smoke dope or shoot-up. Zip Everett, who’d been running the Icon since it opened in ’55, would spend two hours the morning after each show cleaning the lot of spent condoms and dirty needles. I’m sure he was more than happy to shut her up and sell the land. The Adult Learning Center that stands there today is conversely picturesque. Sandstone walls and shaggy willows, statues and fountains, people reading on the lawn. You get the idea.

  The Harlequin town planners have tried for new urbanism, and the result, while clearly affected, is agreeable. Even so, I was saddened to see that The Rialto, where I first saw E.T. and Ghostbusters (four times), has been torn down and replaced with a Walgreens. And that Old Bear Park, where I used to play with the Rockets (and which was opened by Bobby Doerr in 1961), is now the east parking lot of the Harlequin Galleria: over a million square feet of consumer heaven, and home to a twelve-screen multiplex cinema and the biggest T.G.I. Friday’s in Massachusetts.

  Harlequin High is still there. A new wing has been built, and I am told that there are metal detectors inside the main doors, but for the most part it looks the same. I drove past it and saw a ghost of myself—with working legs—step off a school bus and walk, alone, up the front steps. I saw the same ghost sitting by himself on the bleachers. I heard them, too—phantom voices transmitted on radio waves of memory: Your homework tonight is to read chapters seven and eight; I looked over and saw a spider crawl out of Kelvin Fish’s nose; I pledge allegiance to the Flag … My hand grasped the lever that worked the gas and I accelerated away, fighting tears.

  I encountered many ghosts in Harlequin: I saw my parents driving their first new car off the GM lot on Red Bird Avenue; I saw my kid sister crying and holding her sprained left arm after falling from the monkey bars in Benjamin Playground; I drove past our house and saw our dog, Clarence, lying on the front lawn in a ghostly splash of sunlight; I bought a coffee at the Dunkin’ Donuts on Columbus Boulevard (built on the spit of land where I had seen Kelvin Fish flip his lid and beat the fizz out of Nick Janowski and Ripsaw Griggs). I rolled out and parked my wheels on the spot where I had been standing when I had seen the same boy get slamm
ed by the Cutlass Cruiser. The cars zipped down Columbus Boulevard—six lanes now—going fifty, sixty miles per hour. Fast enough to cause my wheelchair to wobble. I sipped my coffee and saw the ghost of Kelvin Fish get hit again and again. I saw him flop to the ground and fold over like the flap of an envelope. I saw the ghost of the man who had hit him … broken glasses, cradling the wayward shoe, crying.

  I considered driving past Kelvin Fish’s house, just to see if it had changed, but my soul trembled at the thought. That was one ghost I could live without.

  I finished my coffee and wheeled myself back to the rental. It was getting dark and a syrupy drizzle hung in the air. The weather forecast warned of heavy fog, so I decided to stay the night rather than drive back to Boston in the poor conditions. I checked into the first hotel I found, an Adam’s Mark, which happens to stand on the site of the old Lafayette Street Hospital, where I was born thirty-six years ago.

  I called Darlene and spoke to her for an hour. I told her where I was—literally on the site of my birth—and she cried and said that she wished she were there with me, and I told her that I wished for that, too. Our goodbye was long and hard, and when it was over, I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. There was a bizarre phantom sensation in my legs; it felt like they were bending beneath me, but when I looked I saw that they were straight, slightly parted, the weight of my feet pulling them to the left. I knew that sleep was a long way off, so I transferred to my wheelchair and went to the hotel bar.

  It wasn’t busy, and that suited me fine. There was a middle-aged couple in one of the booths, holding hands, drinking wine. A businessman sat at a table crowded with various papers, a laptop computer, a BlackBerry, a half-finished plate of nachos, and a tall glass of beer. There were three people at the bar: a young man—Hollywood handsome—talking to two beautiful women. They moved with flirtatious purpose, sinuous and gleaming. I watched both women check their reflection in the mirror behind the bar before I had even wheeled myself to a table.