After Silence

by Jonathan Carroll

  It was my turn to talk. I didn’t care about backseat fucks, Marilyn Zodda, or twenty-one-year-olds having nervous breakdowns. They were momentous to Lily, the stars making up the constellation of her life. Telling me was her way of positioning them, ordering their past chaos so they would make sense for both of us.

  But I didn’t care, because I knew things now that she didn’t. In the end, it came down to a fundamental fact: She had kidnapped her son. Torn open the fabric of sanity and reached deep into the darkness behind it for an act she thought would save her from falling into that dark altogether. The horrors we’re capable of doing to save ourselves.

  In itself, it made everything else in life, much less her story, supremely unimportant.

  Later in passing, in anecdotes, in late-night confessions and midday conversations, I heard the rest of the story. She fled with the infant across Pennsylvania, often with it on her lap, the hum and bumping of the car over the roads a natural rockabye-baby that kept it quiet or gurgling happily. It liked to shake its hands or take her little finger in its mouth and suck noisily. It, he (it was a while before she thought of the child as a boy) enjoyed music and often jiggled frantically when rock and roll was on the radio.

  She “christened” him Lincoln after a week on the road. To pass the time while driving, she thought for hours about different men’s names. Twice when the weather got nasty she stopped at a cheap motel and spent a contented evening scanning local phone books and newspapers for names, then saying interesting ones aloud to herself and the child nearby on the bed. But “Lincoln Vincent” didn’t sound good. Since she had to change her last name now, she decided to find one that fit well with “Lincoln.” “Aaron” came to her somewhere near Pepper Pike, Ohio.

  At first she had driven west as fast as possible without breaking the speed limit. However, once across the border into Ohio, she moseyed around the back roads of the state, each morning poring over a map and then aiming toward towns whose names interested her: Mingo Junction, Tipp City, Wyoming.

  After buying the car, Lily began the trip with a little over six hundred dollars. She tried to spend it carefully, but there was gas and food and so many things to buy for Lincoln that her money was gone in three weeks. She stopped in Gambier, Ohio, and took a job at a combined occult bookstore/head shop that catered to Kenyon College students. She told the hippie who owned the place she was running from a junkie husband back East who beat her. The boss said only, “Bummer,” and allowed her to bring the child to work. She rented a tiny apartment near campus and, when not working, learned how to take care of a baby.

  From the beginning, people were kind and accommodating. She didn’t know if that was because her luck had changed or because they saw how happy she was with her radiant, chuckling child. Joy brings you quickly into the hearts of others. She knew what she’d done was monstrous, but she’d never been so happy. Her life had two exclusive purposes now which, miraculously, played against each other wonderfully and excitingly: she was a new mother, she was a criminal.

  Lincoln and Lily Aaron lived in Gambier almost two years. The small college town was the perfect place for them. It was rural but stimulating, liberal and diverse enough so that a pretty young single mother and her toddler didn’t raise eyebrows. Of course, she was careful about what she said. If pressed, only with the greatest reluctance would she tell the story of husband Rick back in New York who’d caused them to flee in the first place.

  When the bookstore went broke after a year, she began working as day manager and hostess at a steak house in town. That meant putting Lincoln in a day-care center, but the one in Gambier was a lovely light-filled place, full of teachers overflowing with a leftover 1960s-ish enthusiasm for the care and education of young children. At the same time, Lily was able to learn more about a business she had really grown to love. She made friends and for a short time had a boyfriend who was an exchange student from Vietnam. He was gentle and smart and an extraordinarily good lover. When he suggested she go back to New York, divorce Rick Aaron, and return to marry him, she left Ohio instead.

  On a hot, quiet Saturday in August when everyone was out of town or inside hiding from the sun, she and her stolen child got into the loaded Opel (which had been checked and tuned for the occasion) and drove away. She told Lincoln they were going on an adventure to someplace new and different, and if they liked it there, they’d stay. That was fine with him, so long as she was around. Whether it came from not knowing his father or an inherently unsure nature, Lincoln did not like to be separated from Lily for long. It was all right at the day-care center because he liked the people there and it was clear they liked him. But his mother was the undisputed center of his universe. It didn’t matter if he liked life here: if Mom said it was time to go and it would be fun where they were going, he was the first one in the car. So long as she was there, so long as he knew she was always an arm’s length away, it was okay.

  They drove north because of a man she had learned about and contacted in Milwaukee who could create false papers and passports for her and the child. Not having been near a big city for two years, she found the clash and clamor of it jarring. Once the forged papers were ready they headed north again, ending up in Appleton, Wisconsin. Lawrence University was there, and although it was a much larger town than Gambier, she liked it and they stayed.

  Portland, Oregon, was the last stop before the Aaron family landed in Los Angeles three years ago. Almost immediately after arriving, she saw an ad in the L.A. Weekly for a job in a restaurant. It had been placed by Ibrahim Safid.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you knew?”

  “Lily, if you were in my position, what would you have done?”

  “Run away long ago. But that’s because I’ve been running for ten years. The slightest blip on the screen and I’m outta there.” Naked, she sat in the lotus position facing me. “Have you told anyone?”

  “No one. Look at me! Believe that: I’ve told no one.”

  “All right. What can I say, I have to believe it. What are you going to do, Max? I cannot believe this; you know. You know about it. What are you going to do?”

  I put a hand on her throat and gently pushed her back down. Lifting myself, I climbed on top and, spreading her legs with a knee, slipped very carefully inside her vagina. Her eyes widened but she didn’t speak. I pushed until I was as deep as I could go, then moved her arms over her head and covered them with my own. Silently, we lay like that for some time. The moment and the knowledge between us transcended sex, yet I was very hard. Her mouth was to my ear when she spoke barely above a whisper.

  “I love you. No matter what you do to us, or me, know I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone.”

  “I do know that.”

  “It’s so tragic. This is all I ever wanted from life: you here, Lincoln sleeping in his room. I was just praying, but stopped because I didn’t know what for. Praying you won’t tell, praying you’ll never stop loving me. It’s all mixed up. And who am I to pray? What God do I go to for help? People say they want justice, but that’s not true. We only want things to work for us and no one else. Even now, a big part of me keeps saying I don’t deserve this ‘cause I’m a nice person. I do good things for others. Isn’t that crazy? Isn’t that sick? Oh, Max, what are you going to do? Do you know?”

  “Yes. I’m going to marry you and try to be a good father to Lincoln.”

  “Oh God. Oh God.” She began breathing oddly, as if she were panting. Our faces were inches away and we stared into each other’s eyes. Neither of us smiled, there was no joy in or near us. No matter how much she hoped for it, I don’t think she was prepared for what I had said. Keeping her unforgivable secret meant giving up most of what I believed.

  “You would do that? You’d do that for me?”

  “Yes, Lily. It wasn’t a hard decision to make.”

  She wrapped me in her arms and, rocking us from side to side, started saying, “Oh God. Oh God,” again.

  PART THREE. BEE HEES F
OREVER

  “Let us cover, O Silent One, with a sheet of fine linen, the stiff, dead profile of our imperfection.”

  —Fernando Pessoa

  Mary and I watched the three of them cross the front lawn and walk toward the house.

  “How old is Lincoln now?”

  “He’ll be seventeen in a few weeks.”

  “Good Lord, that’s all? He looks a hundred.”

  “I know.”

  “Good, clean living will do it every time, huh, Max?”

  If it had been anyone else, I would have snapped back something mean, but Mary did not need more meanness. Her husband had died two months before and, tough as she appeared, her core was melting down toward pure hopelessness.

  “What does his T-shirt say? Am I reading what I think I’m reading?”

  “ ‘Fuck Dancing—Let’s Fuck.’ It’s one of his favorites.”

  “Oh, Max, you let him walk out of the house in that?”

  “No. He walked out of the house wearing something different this morning. Probably had the shirt in his bag and changed at school. We used to fight about these things, but he wised up and does it all different now. Diversionary tactics; the art of the end run. Never, ever argue, but if you don’t like what’s said, figure out a detour around that lets you do exactly what you want. Our son is an expert sneak.”

  “And the leather jacket is Elvis Packard?”

  “Right. The girl is Little White.”

  “Why does that name sound so sinister? She looks like a woodpecker. What does her shirt say?”

  “ ‘Nine Inch Nails.’ That’s a rock group, in case you don’t have their album.”

  “I thought it was a manicurist.”

  The door opened and the three clomped in. They all wore oversized black combat boots that laced halfway up their shins. The rest of the uniform consisted of tattered jeans and T-shirts. Although it was cold outside, Elvis was the only one wearing a jacket. It was covered with oversized safety pins, chains, and buttons that said things like “You Disgust Me.”

  They shadowed through the room, making no eye contact, and would have passed without a word if I hadn’t spoken. “Lincoln! Mary’s here. Can’t you even say hello?”

  “Hello, Mary,” he said in a monotone, then made an exaggerated face at me as if to say, “Okay, are you satisfied?” As one, the gang smirked and kept going. A few moments later a door slammed at the back of the house.

  “What a bunch of criminals! How do you live with it? Are they here every day?”

  “Just about. They skulk into his room, lock the door, and turn on Carcass. Have you ever heard of Carcass?”

  “I take it that’s a rock group too?”

  “Yes. Want to hear some of their song titles?” I reached for my wallet and pulled out the small pad I carry to write notes on possible ideas for “Paper Clip.” “Here it is. ‘Crepitating Bowel Erosion.’ ‘Reek of Putrefaction’—”

  “Delicious. Hey, they’re not ‘Wake Up, Little Susie,’ but don’t kids always have their own music? We did. What one generation adores, the next thinks is stupid.”

  “Mary, for Christ’s sake, ‘Crepitating Bowel Erosion’ ?”

  “You got a point. What else do you think they do in there? Whose girlfriend is she?”

  “Lincoln told me both of them do her, but ‘none of us are really into fucking, ya know? So it’s just a kinda thing we do in between things, ya know?’”

  “Wow, he said that? Times have changed, huh, Max? We spent half our lives thinking about sex. You think that’s true, or was he only trying to impress you?”

  “He doesn’t want to impress me. Or anyone. He wants to lie on his bed and listen to Carcass.”

  “And do drugs.”

  We looked at each other. I chewed the insides of my cheeks. “What did you find, Mary?”

  “Names and places. I found what you expected.”

  “And?”

  “And he does lots of drugs. The girl usually buys them because she’s friendly with a guy in an East L.A. gang who deals. By the way, her human being name is Ruth Burdette. She got it because she was the girlfriend of a guy in a gang called the Little Fish. When you’ve screwed a Fish, you get to be called a Little.”

  The fact Little White had a real name and history surprised me almost more than the fact my son took drugs.

  “As soon as Lily and I got married, we started talking to Lincoln about drugs. He was always so afraid of them. A couple of times I remember he actually had nightmares where bad guys were chasing him around with giant hypodermic needles. What kind of stuff is he doing?”

  “Cocaine when they have money, crack when they don’t.”

  “Lily will go mad. She refuses to accept this. She only thinks he’s going through his rebellious period.”

  “You’ve got to change that. Get her to accept it and work on the problem with you. Otherwise the kid will die. Simple as that. Get some counseling, maybe check him into a drug program—”

  “You sound like a public health pamphlet. Believe me, it’s not so easy. He hates us, Mary. You don’t understand. Anything we do, say, or think, he gets a look on his face of pure revulsion. We’re the enemy. Us with our clean sheets, paid bills, cable TV… We can do nothing right in his eyes. Whatever we give him he assumes is rightfully his, but whatever we tell him he disregards.”

  “So he’s an ungrateful little shit. He’s still under age. Stick his ass in a rehab center and too bad if he doesn’t like it.” She lit a cigarette and flicked the match into the fireplace. “What the hell happened to that boy? He was the most wonderful child. Funny, charming… Remember how Frank loved him? You guys did everything right. He was loved, you gave him the right amount of discipline. Read to him, took him places… What happened?”

  “He grew up. When she admits to anything being wrong, Lily thinks it might be partly due to Greer.”

  “No way! I don’t believe that. Why would a little sister turn him into the Creature from the Black Lagoon? Knowing you two, you probably bent over backward to give each kid their share of love. Plus the fact Greer adores him. He likes her, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, I think so. He’s nice and gentle to her. They actually have whole conversations and once in a while he’ll even help with her homework. He seemed to be happy when Lily got pregnant. And you’re right—we spent a lot of time making sure each got their share, which wasn’t easy in the beginning because Greer was such a handful. You remember.”

  “I sure do! If you’d asked me then, I’d have picked Greer to grow up and look like that. She was a large pain in the ass.”

  “Yes, but look at her now. It’s like the house is partitioned between Us and Them. Aliens and earthlings. Lily, Greer, and I on one side”—I jerked a thumb toward Lincoln’s room—“the Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse on the other.”

  “What do you think they do in there? I mean, besides not screwing and listening to Car Crash.”

  “Carcass. They listen to music and watch horror movies. Every once in a while you hear a scream and other goofy sounds from those films.”

  “Yeah, but what else? Didn’t you ever look through the keyhole or… you know?”

  “I went in there once when Lincoln forgot to lock the door. That’s another thing. He put a lock on the door that could keep an elephant out. The only one of us he lets in is Greer.”

  “What did you see?”

  “That’s what’s strange; the place was spotless. He has no pictures on the walls, the bed was made without one wrinkle, carpets swept… It reminded me of a Marine barracks. It was too cleeean. Creepy clean.”

  “That doesn’t fit, does it?”

  I was about to answer when I saw Greer’s school van stop in front of the house. She got out, immediately dropped her school bag, bent over, and patted her fanny with both hands for the benefit of someone inside the van. Then she wiggled it, picked up her bag, and walked toward the house without once turning around to see if her performance had had the desired effe
ct.

  She wore red jeans, a white polo shirt, and black sneakers. Her hair went up off her head in two pigtails. The face was more mine than Lily’s but there was a lightness that brought it all together, an aura of combined humor and naughtiness that came only from her mother.

  Greer was five. Our miracle child. The child born when we thought there was no hope in the world of Lily conceiving. From the day she came into the world, she was trouble. Born premature, she gave the impression she was angry at having been brought in on our schedule rather than hers. She needed blood transfusions, experimental medicines. For a shaky ten days they thought one of her kidneys was bad and might have to come out. In her first weeks we thought and talked of little else. One night I had to tell Lincoln his new little sister might not survive. Perhaps that is when it started with him. He asked repeatedly if she was going to die. As calmly as I could, I told him I didn’t know, three different ways.

  “Well, why don’t you do something about it? You’re not just going to let her die, are you?”

  “We’re doing everything we can. The best doctors in the hospital are working to help her.”

  “So what? Why don’t you get the best doctors in the world, Max?” He began to cry, but when I went to hold him, he pushed me away. “What if that happens to me? What if I get sick? Are you guys going to let me die?”

  “We’re not going to let anyone die. We’re doing everything we can.” I was tired and frightened, but that was no excuse for what I said next. “I think it’d be better if you thought about Greer now and not yourself. It doesn’t look like you’re going to die anytime soon.”

  He was a little boy. Life had grabbed him by the back of the neck and shoved his face into its most vicious truth. He didn’t understand. He didn’t know how to handle it. Who does? All he wanted was reassurance that we would always love and take care of him, but stupidly I heard it as selfishness and slapped him down with a mean line.