by R. L. Fox
Typically, before awakening, at that death-like moment of forgetting, my dreams dissolve into particles of nothingness. For some months I’ve been unable to find the mental key that will bring the images of one seemingly recurring nightmare into consciousness.
I lie back and listen to Albinoni’s “Adagio in G Minor,” playing softly on my stereo.
Over my bedroom’s only window, the curtains blow in the breeze, and the light dances on the walls. I reckon that it’s late morning or early afternoon. I couldn’t care less about time, which seems to pass all too slowly.
I know my father has left the house, gone to work. My brother Mike has taken Julie, his wife, to buy a dress for her birthday party, to be held on Thursday evening. I’m alone in my father’s house, which sits well out of view and earshot from other homes scattered along the base of Rattlesnake Mountain. The Gables is situated on two acres dotted with orange, lemon and grapefruit trees on the south side. Wild grapevines grow on the north side. A large pepper tree oversees the backyard, on the east side, and beyond that stands the majestic mountain, elevation one thousand feet.
I’ve asked myself why I came back to this house, although I know the answer well. It’s my nature to search unendingly for truth, and I am wondering, with stabs of anguish, if my mother took her own life because of me. I had let her down by leaving Liz’s unbridled letters where she could find them. Since then, nothing was ever the same between my mother and I, or between the Rosen and Santini families. The ineffaceable guilt of my error has pursued me like a demon.
Everywhere in my old room vistas of adolescent experiences, imaginary and real, open before my eyes. It’s strange, I think, how a person can lose his innocence all at once, without knowing, until it’s too late, that he’s passed into another existence.
In the wee hours of a moonlit morning, I recall, I would wake in the shadowy darkness of my bedroom and lean out of bed quietly to look for the ethereal bar of light in the thin space beneath my parents’ closed bedroom door. If the light shone, penetrating the darkness to join our worlds, my heart would race fiercely, and with the covers pulled up I would lie ever so still, not making a sound—I was good at that. I would listen carefully, tensed and alert, my eyes open into the pillow.
Sometimes I would hear nothing. At other times I would hear my mother’s moans, not at all suggestive of pleasure, but more like the muffled distress of a child. Then, heavy breathing, my father’s, gasps of developing passion, and the steady, rhythmic thumping of their king-sized bed.
More often than not I would hear my mother pleading quietly, whispering, “Frank, no, not tonight. You’re hurting me. Stop, Frank, please ... stop ... it hurts ...”
“Shut up, bitch, you’ll wake Dan,” my father would hiss threateningly. The congressman, used to having his way, has always believed in the principle of might is right. I would hear my mother’s soft cries of unclothed pain, her broken sobs, as my father took his hatred of life out on her.
I didn’t know whether I should keep very still, or rush into their room before it was too late. And then what? As it turned out, I was always frozen stiff with fear, so I would just listen from my bed in a knot of reveled emotion. At times I felt like crying, but I would quickly grit my teeth and sink beneath the covers, eyes open. I dreaded, more than anything, the horrible consequence (the nature of which was actually unclear, beyond exposing my shame) of being found awake by my father.
Occasionally I was visited by burning erotic desires, and because it seemed I had no choice, I would take myself in hand. Disconcertingly, I would wrest from my mind the horrid perceptions I had formed of my mother being raped. Instead I focused on visions of Julie, which roused my carnal-mindedness to no end. Blond and blue-eyed with a Miss World figure and soft sexy voice, Julie even now elicits images of Marilyn Monroe playing Sugar in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot. Those sexual fantasies would send me into the fresh heaven of sin, and with the tension effectively released I might drift back into the safety of sleep, and if lucky, a dream would occur.
However, before I closed my eyes I would make a wish. I would ask God, from whom everything comes, including the death-camp murder of my paternal great grandparents by Adolph Hitler’s Nazis, to remove from the nostrils of humanity the stench of my father’s vile flesh. I would recast the grim incantation until I became drowsy. Then my heart would cry out with its silent promise to my mother: “I’ll find a way to stop him, Mom, and then I’ll make him pay!”
Often I had lain awake with eyes bulging until the sunlight entered my room like a trustworthy guard. Only then was I able to sleep. When I awakened later I would feel weak, as if I were recovering from a long illness.
In those days, each night before bed, I would pretend I was another boy, a boy soothed by the sounds of his mother and father communing privately, a boy who would fall asleep contentedly night after night, lulled to security by those sounds as by the murmur of a friendly mountain stream.
My “night trembles,” I recall, seemed to begin around the time Julie entered the family picture, when my brother married her. The night trembles never occurred, of course, when my mother was convalescing in Gardenview Hospital after an episode of depression, or when my father would travel to Sacramento or Washington D.C. During the worst of times, I hoped my mother would speak to me about her affliction, in the same tender voice I’d known in early childhood. But even with the bruises visible on her body she would just go about her daily routine, straightening the house, cooking, washing clothes and drinking alcohol to help uphold the fallacious sphere of normalcy.
I never raised with her or with anyone else the issue of my father’s mistreatment of my mother, out of fear, perhaps, that whatever I might have said or done would have been grossly inadequate or made matters worse. Or perhaps it was simply because I didn’t have the courage to face the problem.
Now, inhabiting my old room again, I have no choice but to work from within the narrow space my life’s errors have left me. I require a stake to get something started. I need my father.
* * *
Lying in bed I retrieve from the nightstand my red and black El Cajon Valley High School senior album, “Legend 2013.” Fortunately, I’d taken the album with me when I left home last December, just before mid-year graduation. I stayed with David, in his garage, which has been converted into a bedroom.
While I was away my father sold my Yamaha keyboard. He gave away my computer, my baseball cards and most of my books, including favorites Schindler’s Ark, The Jewish Study Bible, The Tao of Physics and Peter Pan, the definitive edition with complete and unabridged text by J.M. Barrie.
I turn to the senior photo section of the album, “Seniors Rule In ‘13,” and locate myself. I see a naïve sixteen-year-old (the photo was taken over a year ago) with oval-shaped face and large brown eyes, almost black. My black hair falls in unruly splendor to my shoulders. I smile at the image, finding it ridiculous. A stupid posing false face. I see myself as intelligent, creative perhaps. But I’m a solitary being, a loner, always will be.
At the top of the photo Liz has written “Mine” in black ink. Noted below my name is one of her nicknames for me, “Fur,” and below that the imprinted caption: “Daniel plans to go to SDSU and major in physics, with a minor in film studies. He dislikes any type of control over an individual’s liberties.”
I laugh aloud and then thumb to the back of the album, to the pages entitled “FLAMING YOUTH,” reserved for the silly scribbles of high school lovers.
I find the letter Liz has written. I’ve read it countless times; entire sentences reside in the pages of my soul, though the ink has grown faint, and with it the words that still create a magic spell in my heart:
Baby,
It’s been more than a year now and you’ve made me very happy. We have to concentrate on maturing and furthering our education. There are a lot of tall steps for us to climb before we’re married and settled. We must learn to be more conscious of the other’s feelings. Selfish
ness is a flaw both you and I have to fight against.
We’ve had such wonderful times together. So many things I could never again enjoy alone. Small things are vitally important.
I hope all that I’ve written isn’t confusing to you or ridiculous. You’ve done many kind things for me. I hope our relationship is an eternal thing. Everyone feels it’s made to be so. I can’t think of any more to write except I love you dearly and I’m glad you feel the same. May God bless us both (steady flames).
Love always,
Liz (neurotic flame, determined flame)
Boodie
Buda
Sugar & Spice
Itty Boo Baby! Liz Rosen
I close the album. From outside comes the flute-like coo of a morning dove. A classical piece I don’t recognize plays softly on my stereo. I remain lost in thought, like a boat drifting on a vast sea that appears calm, yet is agitated by currents far beneath the surface.
I’m looking forward to Liz’s dance recital Thursday evening after Julie’s birthday dinner, but I wonder how I can face her. Will she even talk to me? Can I forgive her? What about David? And poor Devon?
I listen for a moment to the tick tock, tick tock of the grandfather clock in the living room, and then it chimes once, twice ... twelve times. It’s getting late. I’d planned to wash my car and cruise to the beach.
My bladder is full, so I roll out of bed. As I look up at the bathroom door, I freeze.
Still afflicted by the residue of this morning’s dream, I see the door fly open, slamming against the windowsill as images from the dream rush into consciousness. The thrill of recognition rings loud and clear, like a spiritualist séance, where a dim, ghostly materialization suddenly gives sharp taps on the table. I experience the dream again with intense clarity: the monstrous fiend, my white goddess, the red book—
Yes, the red book! Suddenly I realize the significance of it, as I picture the red book from the dream and remember that my mother had kept a journal, a diary.
I’d discovered her diary, my first shadowy secret, at the age of twelve or thirteen, when I would sneak into my parents’ bedroom and open dresser drawers to see what I might find. While rummaging through my mother’s dresser I found the white box containing her diary. I didn’t open the box. My mother had taped a note to the box cover that read: “This box houses the private journal of Mary Rosen, a gift from my dearest Jonathon. If you should come upon it, your nose is where it doesn’t belong.”
I’d quickly put the box away and moved on to my father’s dresser. There, in a bottom drawer, underneath a thin stack of financial documents, I’d found buried treasure, my father’s collection of girlie magazines. In the days that followed I visited my father’s dresser often, forgetting all about my mother’s diary.
For a brief moment I wonder why Mr. Christie, who gave my mother the diary, has never mentioned it. Then I scurry to the bathroom door, open it, rush through the bathroom and grasp the knob of my father’s bedroom door, which doesn’t budge because it’s locked.
I turn around and walk hurriedly out of the bathroom, back through my bedroom and into the living room. I move quickly past the sofa and reach the other door into my father’s bedroom. I try the knob. Dude! This door is locked, too!
I drop to my knees and peer through the skeleton keyhole. I can see the edge of my mother’s dresser, which is fitted with a large rectangular mirror. In front of the mirror stands a small city of bottles: perfume sprays, creams and powders. I’m thankful to see that my mother’s things are still there, but at the same time I wonder why my father hasn’t removed her belongings. Why is he still sleeping on the sofa in the living room?
After leaving home, before my mother’s death, I would visit her almost every day. I’d catch a glimpse of her smile, a sparkle in her deep-set green eyes, which all too often gave way to the blues. My mother would spend her early afternoons seated on her bed, not even dressed for life, in an old robe and slippers. She would sit in front of the dresser mirror, rubbing facial cream into wrinkles, lining her eyes and powdering her face. I would remove my windbreaker and toss it over a chair, and she would put it on a hanger.
She always insisted on preparing a delicious meal for me, always wanted to fatten me up. She would work herself into a state whereby she called on God, praying quietly before we began to eat. After dinner she would gather up the dishes and brush the crumbs from the table with her hands. She would speak to me as she went about the business of cleaning the kitchen. When I rose to leave she would flutter her eyelashes and weep.
My mother had stopped asking me to attend church; I couldn’t bring myself to watch her at the communion rail, kneeling rapt before the altar with her rosary beads, constantly making the sign of the cross and kissing the old wood crucifix. Although God had sanctioned the infliction of all forms of misery on her, she feared she wasn’t doing enough for Him. My mother secretly hoped I would change my mind about church, and I lacked the heart to destroy that illusion. But how could I bring myself to worship such a God?
When it came to my father, my mother would tell me, “He has a bad disposition. You have to know how to treat him. You might be a little to blame, too, sometimes.”
“Why did you marry him?” I asked her.
“Well, we were young,” she replied, “and I became fascinated with him. He was handsome and strong and courageous, and because I love him. Nothing your father does comes solely from malice, and I still love him, I do. He’s my life, just like you are.”
Now, as I sit on my haunches outside my father’s bedroom, I miss the thock of my mother’s green sandals on the parlor floor.
I shrug. What I really need is to find the means to an undetectable invasion of the bedroom. As I peer again through the keyhole I experience a strange feeling: I sense my mother’s presence inside. I seem to catch just the faintest whiff of her Chanel No.5 perfume. I hesitate a moment, listening, and then call, “Mom?” But quickly I tell myself I’m behaving irrationally. Am I becoming delusional, or what?
From outside, I hear the noise of gravel crunching beneath car tires. I pad across the floor to a window on the other side of the living room and see Mike’s Ford Ranger stopped in the driveway, near the garage.
Then I see the note on the telephone table, from my father:
“Dan, Get a haircut, and call me later at the office or try my cell phone. I’m working on a couple of possibilities for you.”
I pick up the twenty-dollar bill, walk into my bedroom and close the door.
My mother had told me many times, “The strongest memory is weaker than the palest ink.” Perhaps I will find her diary and come upon a truth, something holy, a revelation that outweighs all my life, all my sexual and existential frustration. It’s like I’m private detective J.J. Gittes, played by Jack Nicholson in the classic film Chinatown, searching for the one clue that will unravel a mystery involving adultery and murder.
I believe my mother’s diary belongs to me. I can see now a way to discover the main impetus, the single event, if it exists, behind her suicide. I hope to make certain I was not at fault. For that recompense I will put up with my father—until I can prove to the world that the congressman caused my mother’s death. The idea of confronting my father is intimidating and seems potentially dangerous. This is not the time to approach him. Not until I’ve worked things out for myself. Then like a ravenous mountain lion I will tear him apart and leave him to bleed to death.
7
Sarah
Thursday evening, July 31
El Cajon Valley
I’m smiling uncertainly. When Julie, wife of Mr. Rosen’s eldest son, Mike, says she’s sorry I hardly hear her words and hardly know that I’m using my white cloth napkin to hold off the miniature flood of rum and lime juice headed in my direction across the tabletop. Instead I am concentrating my mind, which has taken flight somewhere above the clouds and absconded with my normal hearing and seeing functions, on the fact that I’m having dinner, in the main
dining room of Marechiaro’s Ristorante, with my future dad miles from the Island and only inches from his youngest son, Dan, who is seventeen.
I lean back in my chair, as a waiter hastily cleans up the mess. While studying Dan, I’ve blundered into eye contact a few times. I know we have a wavelength. Our eyes will meet, and I’ll smile, and he’ll smile back and then I’ll look away. With that self-consciousness of mine, I am a teenager drowned in self-interest, always acutely aware of new situations, new knowledge, blinded to all but each new moment’s tendrils. Good gosh, where did I read that?
I’ve searched Dan’s big, deep brown eyes, when unobserved, and caught a glimpse of ... of something that seems to shroud his real personality. Inside, he’s been wounded somehow. I might never pierce through, but I want to. I want the secret knowledge that will bring me closer to Dan. When a boy isn’t perfect, he’s a lot more perfect, I believe. Dan is just my size, in both mind and body. I don’t know how I know it, I just do.
As of this evening I’ve begun to think that romance is my mission in life. My heart, shaped exactly like a valentine, is telling me so. I can’t remember ever having met someone to whom I am so irresistibly drawn. Totally.
Daniel Rosen is flaming hot, I’ve decided, gorgeous cover-model hot. He’s mysterious, too, and I find my inability to read him alluring, exciting. Dan seems independent-minded. He’s spoken very little tonight, like he’s refusing a role in the dumb theater of the dinner table, pleasantly blasé. I can’t say for sure if these qualifications are good or bad, because I’ve never had a boyfriend. And that’s how I’m beginning to think of Dan. I’ve fallen in love with him, unconditionally and irrevocably. But, the problem will be that when my mom marries Mr. Rosen, Dan is supposed to be just my clunky big brother.
