by Sara Lewis
I must have stayed in there for over two hours because when I came out, I could hear that the kids from next door were home from school.
I got my keys and went outside. The oldest of the neighbor kids, a skinny girl with hair the color of wet straw, was nine. I knew this because she had recently had a very noisy Saturday morning birthday party that woke me up at ten o’clock, hours before I was ready. Her name was Elise, pronounced “A Lease.” Mike was a few years younger than Elise and stockier, with their fathers brown hair and eyes. Then came Maddy, a girl who had curly brown hair, followed by Ray, who looked like Elise, long and thin with light hair. He was still in diapers. No, wait, checking him out now, as he scooped a shovelful of dirt into his empty shoe, I saw that he wasn’t wearing a diaper. Maybe he hadn’t been for a while. Their mother, Robin, must be inside, watching from a window. Their father used to live here, too, but he’d moved out some time ago.
Elise was loading Maddy and Mike into an orange plastic wagon, while Ray added more dirt into his shoe. The two passengers jerked backward and then forward as Elise took off too fast. There was a slight slope to the sidewalk and she started to trot down it, with the two of them screaming with joy. They were getting awfully close to the end of the sidewalk, I noticed, craning my neck and taking a deep breath. But just before she reached the stop sign and the traffic, Elise turned the wagon sharply to the left. Maddy and Mike tumbled out onto the sidewalk and started to cry.
Elise said, “You guys didn’t hold on! I told you to hold on tight!” She dropped the wagon handle, crossed her arms, and started to walk back to the house. “Babies!” she snarled over her shoulder. Then she lifted her eyes and saw me.
Elise went back to Maddy. “Are you OK, honey?” she squeaked in the voice of a girl playing mother to her dolls. She patted Maddy s back. “I’ll get you guys some juice.” She hugged Mike hard, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that I was getting this.
I looked at the mailbox, walked to it, opened its door, and removed a pile of crap addressed to me, “I’m not the kind of adult who will get you in trouble,” I wanted to tell Elise. “You’re thinking of real grown-ups—parents and teachers, not me.” I looked through the mail, put it back in my box, and closed the little door.
I put on my helmet, got on my motorcycle, and took off as though I had a destination.
I ended up at a shopping mall in a part of town that I hardly ever visited. Everywhere I looked today, there seemed to be children. Since the last time I came here, they’d put in a fountain, a thing that shot water up out of the pavement in unpredictable squirts that seemed to invite kids to get their clothes wet. And there were all these stores that specialized in cartoon characters and tiny clothes and toys.
I walked into the Discovery Channel Store and wandered around, picking things up and putting them down. There was music on, of course, the way there was music everywhere these days. I had a problem with this. The song playing in the store was Sinéad O’Connors “Nothing Compares 2 U.” And right there, in the middle of the store, I had what I called a music-induced flashback. It happened all the time. I had strong associations to most pop songs going all the way back to the sixties, I heard a song and everything that was going on at the time came pouring into my head.
Diana happened to love this song. She had blond hair that she washed every morning. Her conditioner smelled really excellent. Her parents lived in Encinitas. She didn’t like mushrooms or any kind of nuts. She was extremely ticklish. Right before she left, we had a horrible fight. She cried. I remember what she said. I remember all of it, and now with this song playing, there wasn’t any way in the world I was going to be able to get her words out of my brain. She said, “Are you ever going to buy a car? No, you are not. I don’t believe you will ever, ever buy a car. Your whole life. You should get a better place to live and some different clothes. Why on earth do you have to buy your T-shirts, socks, underwear, jeans in quantity once a year at Kmart? Couldn’t you just go shopping at a different store every now and then? A normal store? Does every single shirt have to be a pocket T from Kmart? And why would a talented person like you waste his life being a bartender? I really want to know. Really.”
Here she waited for me to say something. She was crying. I didn’t say anything, so she went on.
“Why can’t you just be normal?” I think she asked me that. But maybe I just remember it from knowing what she meant. I didn’t have any satisfactory answers to any of her questions. She left. I thought she was coming back. I really did, and I planned to explain myself to her. I was going to sit her down for a long talk. I would start from the beginning and not stop until I got up to the present day. I thought she would be gone a few hours at most. She left a turquoise sweatshirt that said GAP on it; a book she was reading, opened to page 261, her toothpaste, shampoo, and some of that conditioner I liked.
She didn’t come back. I was wrong about that. I still had her stuff in a bag from Trader Joe’s in an upper kitchen cupboard. The conditioner had probably completely solidified by now.
As I was looking at a small fountain suitable for use on a coffee table or desktop, “I’m a Believer” came on. With a song like that, I had a double-decker dose of memories. First came a flash of the Monkees’ version and the pin-striped bell-bottoms I had in seventh grade. Then came this new Smash Mouth version that I heard for the first time over at my sisters place. She was depressed about her job; we were eating minestrone. It’s not necessarily a pleasant experience to continually rewind your own life and the history of rock and roll and watch it again and again in unrelated sections as you walk through grocery store aisles or wait in line at the bank or fill your tank with gas or watch a car commercial on television. I took earplugs with me wherever I went, and I wished they worked better. I wished they were 100 percent effective, because to be honest, there wasn’t much about my life that I want to relive.
Just then in the store, I saw something that seemed to be exactly what I had been looking for. I picked it up. It was a lightning maker. Inside a glass bulb, flashes of purple lightning were happening over and over again. How did they do that? I wanted it. I put the sample back on the shelf, picked up one of the boxes, and walked to the counter with it. I pulled a wad of one-dollar bills out of my pocket—tips—and counted out the right number.
“Would you like to join our Discover Club?” the boy behind the register asked me.
“What? Oh. No,” I said.
“It’s a really good deal,” he told me. “See every time you—”
“No,” I said. “Really, no, thank you.” I didn’t plan to make a habit of this. Besides, I wanted to get out of the store before another song came on.
I walked out with my lightning ball. I was going to put it on a shelf next to my bed and watch it at night when I couldn’t sleep. I was looking forward to not being able to sleep.
four
By the time I got home, it was dark. I’d used a bungee cord to strap the lightning maker to the back of the seat for the ride home. Bags are a problem on a motorcycle. The trick is not to buy much. These days, I had a car too, but it was parked on the street. I didn’t use it very often. It had surprisingly few miles on it for an old car. I parked my bike on one side of the garage next to Robin’s car.
I was going to go inside, but at the last second, I decided not to. Instead, I walked down to the 7-Eleven to get some ice cream. There was music on, of course. This one had strong enough associations to require earplugs, but I decided to Just grab something quick and hurry home as fast as possible. The song was “We Can Work It Out” by the Beatles. As ever, it brought an instant lump to my throat. First, there was the song itself, a guy trying to convince his girlfriend to stay, because life is short. Then there was the image of my brother and a new guitar that he had saved up for. He could play very well for a ninth-grader. There was no doubt in anybody’s mind that he would one day be every bit as good on that guitar as George Harrison, his favorite Beatle. I defy you to get through even
one day of normal life without hearing some version somewhere of some Beatle song. If you think you’ve done it, you probably were not paying attention. Whether you acknowledge it or not, those songs are in you, and even on the rare day when you don’t hear one on a radio or a PA, you hear it in your head, your heart, your soul.
Now I had a pint of Heath Bar Crunch in one hand and a pint of Mud Pie Madness in the other, and I was telling myself, “Decide!” when a bright orange shape caught my eye. It was Jeanette, my elderly upstairs neighbor. Tonight she was wearing a ski parka, even though it was only slightly cool. The jacket was a castoff from some kid, judging from the look and size of it. She was leaning on her aluminum walker and staring intently at a can of nuts, concentrating so hard that she didn’t notice me. I backed up and went around the magazines to the cashier so I wouldn’t have to talk to Jeanette and could get away fast from the song.
I was just getting my change when her sharp voice zinged right through my eardrums. “Well, don’t say hi or anything!” I nearly jumped out of my skin. Jeanette’s voice was another reason for earplugs, which were lying unused in my pocket. I think the last time I heard that phrase was junior high.
I turned around and acted surprised. “Oh, hello, Jeanette! What are you doing here at this hour?”
She held up the can. “Have to have my peanuts! I was all out! Midnight snack! Had to make sure they’re not low-salt! They’re not!” She said everything loudly, as if every sentence were a surprising announcement, like “I won!” or “It’s twins!” She hurt my ears. She smelled like a combination of fabric softener and green Life Savers. It wasn’t a bad smell, just distinctive.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Well, good night!” You had to be abrupt with Jeanette or before you knew it, you were in the middle of a long, long story about something that had happened in the 1930s on the way to her piano lesson or about the trash the gardener found in the bushes this morning. Jeanette had a lot of material to draw on. I picked up my bag and started quickly for the door. I still had the lightning maker with me, and I was eager to get home and plug it in.
“Wait a second!” said the girl at the register. I turned around, expecting to find that I’d left my wallet on the counter. But there was nothing, Just the cashier glaring at me.
“What?” I said. “Me?”
“You have to walk her home! God! It’s dark. Don’t you guys live, like, right by each other? Walk her home!”
“Thank you,” Jeanette said, smiling at me, as if I’d offered.
I glared at the girl. She busied herself straightening the packages of beef jerky standing up in a jar and didn’t look at me. Next time I was in here, I would make sure to tell that girl that Jeanette was more than capable of walking home or any number of other places with no help from anybody. And furthermore, the girl had no business inflicting neighbors on one another. She had no idea, none whatsoever, how many long, pointless, boring stories Jeanette had up her baggy old sleeve. In seventeen years, probably more years than the girl had spent on this planet, I had listened to way more than my share of them.
I waited for Jeanette at the door. I held it open for her with one foot. The Beatles were finishing up, reminding me again about life being short, but they obviously had never met Jeanette. As she was shuffling through the door with her walker, I glared back at the girl behind the counter, one more try at punishing her. She was busy looking through a magazine about hairstyles and refused to look up and take the wrath of my burning stare, even though she knew she had it coming. All the way home, Jeanette told me about the school she had worked in for thirty years. She had walked this very same way every morning and evening on her way to and from work. “This was before the fitness craze! We only had one car! My husband took it to work! Every day, rain or shine, I’d walk! I didn’t mind it one bit! Some of those kids, even the itty-bitty ones, are grandparents now! Can you believe that? And here I am walking down the very same street. I’m lucky, that’s what! Lucky to be healthy and living on my own all this time!”
Whenever she’d pause, I’d think I was supposed to say something. I’d say, “You sure are” or “That’s right.” And then she would go on. One time I didn’t say anything, just to see if it had any effect on the conversation. It didn’t. After about the same amount of pause time, she went on with her story anyway. So I didn’t bother anymore with the filler comments. Jeanette didn’t need me at all. If I had managed to escape from the store, she might have told these exact same stories without me. When I first moved in, I thought of Jeanette as an old, old lady. She would be outside in a giant straw hat, squatting in the dirt, planting flowers in front of the house. Back then, I used to think that she would die any minute because she looked so ancient. She was in her early seventies when I first moved in. Now she rarely came downstairs, let alone planted anything. Her children were in their sixties. As the kids in the neighborhood grew bigger, Jeanette seemed to shrink. Her dresses were baggy, loose things now that she had to fold and cinch with a belt. She didn’t even have a cane when I first moved in, and now she had a walker.
She used to be the secretary of the public elementary school down the street. I think that was how she got so good, at watching and listening to everything that was going on, staying informed without being told anything. If you bought anything new, Jeanette would call down from her door, “How much did you pay for that?” as you carried it in from the car. After you told her, she would let you know where you could have gotten it cheaper, if only you’d come to her first. If you brought anybody home, Jeanette would provide an uninvited assessment: “The prettiest ones don’t stay, you know” or “She’s going to starve to death if she doesn’t eat something. And I mean today!” Often, she had instructed me, “Just pick one and marry her. One of these days, if you’re lucky, you’re going to be as old as I am. And believe me, you won’t always have so many to choose from.”
Finally, we reached the house. It seemed like hours since we’d left the store. “You’ve been awfully quiet,” she said. “The strong silent type! Now, run up there with my walker, would you? Thank you, dear.”
I did. I didn’t actually run. I took the steps two at a time, though, as I wanted this to be over with as soon as possible, and it had been annoying to walk so slowly.
When I got back downstairs, Jeanette was only on the second step, grasping the banister with both hands.
“See you, Jeanette,” I called without waiting to hear her answer.
By the time I got into my apartment, my ice cream was squishy.
Without turning on another light, I plugged in my lightning maker. I stood watching it, eating my ice cream out of the container.
five
I was having dinner with my sister, Ellen, again, I had brought frosted brownies from the Vons bakery, which she wouldn’t eat. She always asks me to bring dessert and then she tries not to eat it because of the calories.
“So how’s work?” I asked her, dipping a fork into the brownie pan. My sister was a lawyer.
“Are you going to eat that whole thing?” Ellen asked me. “Don’t you want to put it on a plate?”
“I might eat the whole thing. I’ve done it before, and nothing bad happened,” I said.
“I hate to think how much fat is in that.”
I got a knife out of a drawer and cut a corner piece. “So how’s work?” I asked again. My sister hated her job, and usually we avoided this topic.
“Work is the same as ever, busy and complicated. Why?”
“I was just wondering what kind of stuff you’re working on. What kind of cases do you have right now?”
“The usual stuff. You know, a little carpal tunnel, some back injuries. A neck thing. Why? Did you get injured at work? Do you need representation?”
“No, not that. I was just wondering if you ever had any of those cases where, like, a mother of a kid sues the father, even though they were never married and maybe he didn’t even know about the kid.”
My sister froze and looked at me.
“Uh…,” she said. “You know I don’t do that kind of thing.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I did know that.”
“So… are you trying to tell me something? Is someone—did something happen?”
I didn’t say anything. I swallowed because my throat suddenly felt thick and tight.
“Tom?” she said. “What’s going on?”
I looked up at her and still didn’t say anything.
“Is somebody suing you?” Her eyes narrowed. She was willing to go to battle for me; I knew that.
I shook my head. “No.” The word came out as if someone had both hands around my throat.
She waited, just sitting there, not saying anything, just like a therapist would. There were all these dishes piled up all over the table, and I looked at them, as if I were taking inventory.
“I think I have a kid,” I said. “Kevin told me. There was this girl. Woman. I was seeing her for a while. A long time ago. She left. She moved. Now she’s, you know, back. In San Diego. And I think she had, you know, I think we—”
“OK, OK,” Ellen said. “So she hasn’t contacted you directly. It’s just that Kevin said—what did Kevin say?”
“He said she had a ten-year-old boy who looks exactly the way I looked in fifth grade.”
“Oh,” she said, thinking. “OK. Well.”
“Well, it’s good that she hasn’t asked me for anything,” I said. “Don’t you think that’s a good sign?”
“I guess it is.” She nodded slowly. “I guess it could be. Wait. What do you mean? A good sign of what?”
“I meant that if she hasn’t contacted me, he’s probably not my kid?” I was asking her, not telling her.
