Crush

by Laura Susan Johnson

  To this day, I stare at the only pictures I have of Jamie Pearce, the small black and white portrait in the freshmen section of my yearbook, the group picture of the choir, of Jamie standing next to Stacy.

  I wonder how he's doing, where he is, what he's up to. He's probably long gone from Sommerville, married, maybe even a father, though I can't honestly picture it. I'm pretty sure he's gay. He's doubtlessly with a guy, a guy who's nicer, better looking, more successful and more deserving of him than I've ever been.

  I will myself to pick up the phone and call him, ask how he's doing.

  Tell him I think about him every day.

  Ha! I think about him constantly.

  He visits me in the night. Every night. In my dreams. He kisses me. He touches me. He holds me close. And I'm not lonely.

  Until I wake up and see.

  He's not here.

  I left him without an explanation or even a goodbye.

  My shame won't let me call him.

  I've made a few visits to Mom and home in the past sixteen years, each lasting a weekend or a day or two, and our fractured relationship is on the mend.

  But I haven't seen Jamie or Stacy around town anywhere, not once. I go to The End, and I ask the regulars.

  "Oh no! They're still here! Old Reliable!" And they laugh heartily.

  "Old Reliable?"

  "Yeah," one jolly, pickled local grins. "Whenever those two can, they get up there and wow us! They oughta have a record deal!"

  I go to church with Mom, hoping to catch sight of them there, but the only people I see from school are Yvette and Benny and their three kids. I wish Jamie was sitting here, and that the pastor would request prayer.

  When I ask Benny if he ever sees Stacy or Jamie around, he replies, "Now and then, but they keep to themselves. Don't come to church much anymore. They're backslid."

  Though things have vastly improved since my high school and early college days, my life as a whole has been as empty and meaningless as the dozens of fastidiously plotted encounters I have had with blameless women.

  I never should have left home. I ran away from home. I miss everyone and everything familiar.

  I ran away from Jamie when I ran away from home.

  It's sixteen years since I've seen him. I fucked up royally, but I'd love to see him again.

  Blue eyed baby.

  Red liquorice.

  The beatific scent of his skin.

  The smell of sweet, sticky red fructose.

  The way he kissed me in the checkout line.

  The way he kissed me in Ray's drive.

  After all this time, there's no such thing as time.

  I'd love to...

  Around the 9th or 10th of December, Mom calls. She's fallen and hurt herself and is in the hospital.

  twelve:

  jamie

  (up until now)

  Lloyd dies right after my thirty-first birthday in April.

  I've just come home from a double shift and he's sitting at the kitchen table, where he always sits, eating cream of wheat for breakfast. He's only sixty-six.

  The night before his death, he doesn't sleep well. Misty, the mama cat we've recently adopted, has gone missing a day or so before, and he's been up all night, worrying about her and giving her week-old kittens milk from a dropper. We give no thought to the idea that if they die, there will be four less kittens in the world to feed and worry with. We're cat lovers. Every time we see a cat, even if it's not one of ours, we try to talk to it, approach it, pet it. At one point we have twelve cats living on our premises. Over the years, they come and go. They wander away, they die. The neighbours dub Lloyd the "CatMan", because he never hesitates to take in any stray that needs his help. He leaves food outside and cardboard boxes all over the front porch, hoping cold kitties will seek shelter in winter. It's a universal belief that cat lovers are eccentric by nature, and we are, Lloyd and I. We watch TV, eat, talk and even sleep in our living room, surrounded by cats. I love this life. With each passing year, I've become increasingly accustomed to things being the way they are, and I feel safe and warm in Lloyd's cocoon.

  But his once olive complexion has faded to a dusky grey. He's been retired from the force for about four years now, and the doctor has diagnosed him with dangerously high blood pressure and diabetes. He is supposed to take the pills the doc ordered him, but Lloyd's a very adamant anti-pill guy. I have to browbeat him just to get him to swallow Tylenol for everyday aches. I try to convince him that it's extremely important, mandatory, that he take those blood pressure pills, exactly as prescribed. But he's in denial, saying he's not as sick as the doctor thinks. He takes a pill whenever he feels bad, even though I keep insisting that he needs to take one daily for them to be effective.

  I come in from my double shift and find him smiling pleasantly. "Misty's back," he says. "She's in there feeding the kids." He stands up. "I'm making a doctor appointment as soon as they open." It's about a quarter to eight. "Not feeling good." A tremor of trepidation dances through me as he heads toward the bathroom. In slow motion, he falls, facedown, to the kitchen floor. Grabbing the portable house phone, I kneel beside him, dial 9-1-1, search frantically for a pulse.

  I apply my CPR skills, but it's different when it's your own dad lying there rather than a stranger. The five minutes it takes the ambulance to arrive feels like a year. Lloyd's eyes fix toward the ceiling. His face contorts gruesomely, and I can hear his teeth grinding. The paramedics take over and work him over for half an hour until finally, one of them says, "No, I can't raise a pulse." I ride along in the ambulance. They don't flash the lights or use the siren.

  At the graveside service, Stacy sits beside me and holds my sweating hand as I wrinkle my nose at the potent scent of the white roses surrounding the pretty white urn, made of milk glass, sitting up by the microphone. Pastor Sellers recites a few nice words about Lloyd, his life, his role in the community, the goodness of heart required for him to take in an orphan. Pastor looks bored, keeps glancing at his watch.

  Lots of people show up for the memorial, Officer Pete Bloom, Lloyd's old partner, Stacy, Lydia and my friends from school, Ray's mom and dad, Mrs. Cooke, the lady from the bakery, and people I've seen at The End, most of whom I know by face rather than by name. They come up and shake my hand, offering kind words that don't help.

  I recall a bible verse about the dead knowing nothing. I want it to be true. I don't want Lloyd to see me as I quietly fall apart. I drive his ashes to Fort Bragg, on the coast, where he and I used to go on spontaneous road trips when we were both younger:

  He comes home from work on Friday nights and says, "Let's go!" And we throw a few things together and get in the car and take off. By the time we get there, it's always night time. We go to the Motel 6 or the Travelodge, order from a local pizza place, and just veg out, watching The Silence of the Lambs or The Fugitive or whatever's on TNT or USA. In the morning, the cold, clammy coastal fog like a cape over our backs, we comb the Glass Beach, gathering round pieces of seafoam, baby blue, rose and peach-coloured glass, leftover from smashed beer and pop bottles, whittled over years by the sand and the pounding waves. I have several jars full of beautiful, smooth glass beads.

  Now, I let Lloyd's ashes fly into the wind and they distribute gently over the rocks and sand. When I return to our home, I bury myself in the quilt his grandmother made, the king sized one we always shared in front of the TV, pale yellow with colourful stripes. I cry on the little shoulders of our cats, Misty and Sam. I listen to cassettes and CDs of Lloyd's old radio comedies. At night, I listen to Tammy play his '80s rock songs and sometimes I forget. I turn my head, and say, "Remember that song, Lloyd?"

  And he's not there.

  I refuse to answer the front door to people wanting to lend their comfort and support. They leave food and flowers on the steps outside.

  Pete Bloom, who is pushing seventy, his sandy blonde hair replaced by silver grey, asks me if I'd like to move in with him, the wife, and their two young gra
ndchildren, whose parents are deadbeat dopers in San Diego. "Of course, you'd have to give your kitties away," Pete says. "Maggie's allergic."

  I appreciate him, and I tell him how sweet his offer is, and that I'm okay. I promise to let him know if I need anything. I'm far too used to Lloyd's enduring quiet to deal with the noise and vigour of small children, and I'm not about to give up our kids. I meet with Lloyd's probate attorney and learn that the house is now in my name. I begin planning extra work shifts so I can make the annual property tax and insurance payments.

  I have to do something, so I get online and begin building a website in memory of Lloyd. I write about his life, how he saved mine, how he loved cats and cared for them, and I provide links to the Humane Society and the ASPCA websites.

  Eventually, I let Stacy in, and I face her with red-rimmed eyes, telling her that I'm going to save money, sell the house, and move to Fort Bragg. "Forever," I ramble, manic because I haven't slept. "This valley's too hot... there's too much pain in this house... too much pain in this town... want to start fresh somewhere else... it's not the same without him... I love the ocean... I've always wanted to live there..."

  Stacy's stunned, but she's not judgmental. She could say, "His ashes won't care whether you're there or not," but she doesn't.

  I want Lloyd back. I want him walking around dumping food into the cats' dishes. I want him fiddling with old VCR movies. I want him hugging me so hard I can't breathe. I want him telling me the police beat before anyone else reads it in the paper. I want to hear him laughing at my funny work stories.

  And I can't have what I want.

  I can never have what I want.

  My fragile mental state worsens in the weeks and months following Lloyd's death. I feel unsafe in this house, always imagining someone breaking in and attacking me. I can't sleep. I don't want to sleep. I start taking more double shifts, and after we clock out, I stay out all night at The End, with Stacy and whatever boyfriend she's with, filling my empty stomach, lungs and spirit with vodka, tobacco smoke, and spirited music. At first, Stacy's thrilled. She always likes it when I'm with her on "dates" regardless of what the guy thinks. Jamie's going to be fine, she thinks. Grabbing life by the tail and holding on.

  As she observes my mourning more closely though, she begins to see—and worry. I can't eat. I don't want to eat. My refrigerator is empty except for sodas, bottles of water, a few old eggs, leftover canned cat food, and a jar of dill pickles. I don't know how it works. It just does. I'm tired of crying every time I realise Lloyd is gone, forever. Staying empty soothes me somehow. I'm in control. It's taken a while to become accustomed to chronic hunger, to become able to discount the ongoing, persistent quiet shrieks issuing from my stomach. I smoke more now than I ever did, painfully aware that Lloyd is no longer telling me that I'm going to croak from cancer or emphysema.

  As my body melts, Misty's kittens grow old enough for new homes. I give two away and keep two, an orange tabby stripe boy I name "Tigger", and the sweetest, most beautiful orange and white kitty who ever lived. His face is mostly white, like the little monkey in Outbreak, and he has dark, sad little button eyes. I name him, "Ginger".

  The days begin to shorten and the air begins to cool, and the increase in humidity makes my right arm ache. In early-mid December, on an overcast evening about eight months after Lloyd's passing, I spot Tammy Mattheis in one of the aisles at Safeway. I'm terrified and filled with ardour all over again. That long dormant desire flares back to life as I huddle against a cereal display and watch him in the checkout line.

  The song "Déjà Vu" by Dionne Warwick plays on the speakers up above.

  I suddenly get a cloying whiff of red liquorice...

  Dressed in a nondescript solid dark green pullover shirt and dark jeans, he's divinity personified. To say the years have been good to him is absurd. The passage of time has made him rougher-looking, a little worn, and therefore a trillion times sexier and more magnetic than he was in high school—his neatly cropped dark hair, straight, strong nose, obscenely full lips, deep, dark green eyes... I didn't think perfection could be perfected, and I feed feverishly from my hiding place as he takes his grocery bags and exits.

  I feel him seizing my life again...

  I've just gotten used to Lloyd being dead. I've just become complacent in my solitary, ordered existence. I've just come to the decision that I don't need love. I've been without it all these years, and I've survived.

  And now he's back. Should I cry... or cry?

  book two:

  miracle

  Split

  You felt safe

  I know

  In that little space

  Laced with love.

  Your cocoon

  You called it

  Warm

  Warm.

  I cried with you

  When it split.

  Oh, safe

  Cannot compare with sky.

  I like you so much better

  As a butterfly.

  ~Carol Lynn Pearson~

  thirteen:

  tammy

  (early-mid december)

  It's been raining a lot this month. At a church fellowship in West Sac, Mom has slipped on the wet sidewalk in front of the church and landed hard and painful on her rear. They call the ambulance and by the time I'm in town, she's been at Saint Paul's Hospital, flat on her back in a skinny cot, for two days.

  She's off to a bad start there. Her orthopaedic surgeon, Dr. Mumy, thinks at first that her hip is broken. So she gets x-rays and they come back saying her hips are fine. So they yank her up out of bed and make her walk down the hallways, several times a day. All this time, she's crying, in excruciating pain, begging them to let her lay back down. She insists she can't even get up to the toilet, that she'd rather have to lie on a cold silver bedpan. I hear one of the nurses call her "lazy" and I'm ready to bring the house down on all of them.

  Mom says, "No, they're not all jerks. There's one nurse here that I love. He's so sweet."

  "Sweet doesn't mean he knows what he's doing," I grumble.

  "No, he's wonderful. He's very careful, and he knows what he's doing. When he gets here I want you to meet him. He's the only one who seems to know anything. They don't listen to him of course. I hate it when he's not here."

  A few minutes later, she points outside her door. "He's here! Thank God!"

  I can't look or get up. I'm frozen when I hear a disturbingly familiar voice saying, "Well, I've tried to tell Dr. Mumy that it's probably her pelvis, but they've been harping on and on about her hip and 'We can't find anything wrong with her hip!' She's in so much pain, and you guys are still making her get up and walk, and nobody's really checked to see if she has a fractured pelvis!"

  I hear the female nurse who called Mom "lazy" say, "Well, that's up to the doctor. I'm only following orders!"

  I stand up and peer out the door to the nurses' station, feeling an unmistakable current rippling through me as I inspect the shock of wavy, golden hair above the dark blue scrub shirt and the small, slender physique wearing it.

  I can't believe it.

  I've got to get out of here. Now. My hands shake and sweat as I stammer, "I've gotta go, Mom. See you tomorrow."

  "Honey, wait! I want you to meet my nurse!"

  "Tomorrow!" I bluster as I dash out of the room. Out of the corner of my eye I see him, facing away from me, getting his report from the nurse who's going off duty. I all but trip over my own feet in my effort to flee.

  As I sit in the dark of Mom's living room, I wonder why I can't face him.

  Why I ran just now.

  The same reason I ran before.

  My feelings for Jamie are as perplexing and intense as they were the last time I saw him. I didn't even see his face tonight. I didn't have to.

  It's as if no years have passed at all.

  I still love him.

  And I still don't know how to handle it.

  I don't sleep worth a shit, and I return the next mornin
g at around five, thinking I can avoid him, but there he is. He's pulling a double shift. Oh my God...

  Mom gives me the latest news. During the past evening, Jamie's managed to persuade Dr. Mumy to order another round of pelvic x-rays and Jamie's been right all along. There are two large cracks in the pelvis and her tailbone is broken. She's on strict bed rest, like she should have been in the first place. She'll be in the hospital for at least another couple weeks, and she'll be unable to leave her bed for anything. She's mad as hell. "Those old biddies!" she gripes. "Too busy looking down their noses at me to listen to a thing I have to say! Jamie's the only one who pays any attention to what's going on with me!"

  I'm sitting across the room in a beige vinyl chair, nodding, only half listening, feeling him coming toward Mom's room, willing him not to.

  But he disobeys me. When our eyes meet, I'm the first to look away. I'm engulfed in fire. Perspiration streams down my back. A fine tremor shakes my body. I pray he's too busy to notice.

  Mom chirps, "Jamie, this is my son, Thames."

  I cringe at the silly name she gave me. "Tam," I correct her.

  "Hi," he whispers in a tremulous voice. "I remember you."

  I can't look at him. Oh, my God, you divine little thing, you. If only you knew how I've never forgotten you...

  "Hi," I whimper, closing my eyes, burning alive.

  My eyes are on the floor, but I swear I'm watching him as he assesses Mom from head to toe. I can see him using his stethoscope to listen to her lungs and heart.

  Mom asks, "Are you alright this morning, hon?"

  He checks her pulse. "Sure," he half-whispers. "A little tired, but I'll be off in a while. Need something for pain?"

  My eyes lurch away from my wilful grip to look up at him, and I feel my breath catch. He's still small and slim in build, too thin in fact, and it makes his eyes seem bigger and bluer. There's a difference in his face, the tiniest tracing of crow's feet around his eyes, but it's of no consequence, not with a face like that. He's a man now, and he's beautiful, more beautiful than I remember, more beautiful than anything I've ever seen in my life. There's nothing about him I don't love. I even love the way he looks in his dark blue scrubs. (A nurse, I sigh...) For the first time ever, I'm seeing his hair in its natural colour, like dark wheat. I love it. As he bends close to Mom, I see a few dark blonde little wisps of hair on his upper chest...