Clara at the Edge

by Maryl Jo Fox

  They burn down the highway a little ways to warm up the Camaro before doubling back and crunching into the huge vacant lot. This has got to be quick. Unfortunately, it’s daylight. Slowing down to avoid undue attention, they pull up to the shabby little white house perched on the flatbed trailer. Dawson’s mind is teeming. Stupid woman bothering him, bothering his girlfriend, setting him on edge, her life savings in a shoe, that’s where it is. He’ll teach her all right. Not even her son cares about her. He’s always gone, leaves his mother wide open.

  19 days left.

  chapter 14

  Anxiously looking at herself in the mirror, Clara seals the lavender net all around the neck opening again. She’s a veiled woman. Wasps can’t get in there. He’ll be safe. Her unease about the abortive show last night has been replaced with giddiness. She’s been dithering all morning in anticipation of her son’s promised visit.

  Suddenly sober, she looks in the mirror again and realizes he might not want to wear this contraption. Even if it keeps him safe.

  And she might not blame him.

  It does look kind of silly—a T-shirt like a shroud, a face obscured by net.

  But she’s got to make her son safe.

  Surely he can understand that. Safe with whatever she has at hand.

  Someone knocks.

  Frank, at last.

  Peering through the netting, Clara opens the door, smiling triumphantly.

  It’s Dawson and Edie, drunk, stunned, hooting at Clara and her headpiece. “Edie, will ya get a load of this? Crazy old lady! What the fuck.” Transfixed, Dawson starts feinting blows right and left, as if to box with her. “Whadaya think—she wanna play hide-and-seek in that getup?”

  Astonished, frightened, Clara leaps backward to dodge his blows. Her breath catches; she can hardly breathe. He swaggers into her kitchen, leaving Edie at the door.

  Edie stares blankly at Clara. “She’s playing hide-and-seek all right. But I can see that face, yes I can-n-n.” She chants in a singsong voice, pushing Clara aside as she too marches into the kitchen. “First thing on our playdate here is food.” She opens the refrigerator, her deformed arm ablaze with black tattooed roses. She guzzles from Clara’s bottle of Cran-Apple juice, leaving purple lipstick marks all over the lip. She finishes it off, tosses the plastic bottle into the sink. Then she starts in on the cottage cheese, dipping out great mouthfuls with her fingers. She hates cottage cheese, but she’s so hungry she’ll eat anything.

  She remains stone-faced, as if she thinks all old people wear strange T-shirts over their heads when they’re home alone. At the same time, Clara’s fright and obvious confusion almost makes Edie lose her resolve. The young woman glances at Dawson, who looks hard, without pity. OK then, she’s got to stay strong too, and bring this thing off. They need money all right. She stares at Clara’s headpiece as if she’s hallucinating.

  Clara stands paralyzed by this turn of events. Her mind has gone blank.

  One by one, the wasps gather on the counter. Soon the wasps circle in a wild blur above everyone’s head.

  Edie looks up, frightened. “Jesus Christ, Dawson, she’s got wasps in here!”

  Dawson ignores Edie as he rifles through the kitchen drawers, trying to find money, trying to recover from the shock of Clara’s getup. Seeing her look so ridiculous, so vulnerable, so grandmotherly, opens, against all reason, the unquenchable loneliness he has run from his whole life. “I won’t abandon you.” Who said that? Did she say that? What’s the matter with me? This friggin’ woman is a nutcase, for Christ’s sake. He’s embarrassed, furious. The way she makes him feel is intolerable. Why did he even talk to her that day in the restaurant?

  Clara just stares, unable to believe Dawson and Edie are inside her house. Where are the wasps? she thinks dully, looking around. The wasps have formed a tightly packed circle over her head, flying so close together, making such a racket that it’s as if they’re shouting, planning something. The purple wasp leaves the circle and individually taps each wasp’s wing, as if to enforce the importance of following some special instructions. Clara is bewildered. What are they waiting for?

  Suddenly Dawson picks her up, all one hundred pounds of her, and sets her roughly onto a kitchen chair. Her involuntary shuddering angers him more. Roughly he ties Clara’s wrists to the chair with clothesline from the Camaro. Dawson’s ripe liquored breath surrounds her.

  Licking the last of the cottage cheese off her fingers, Edie nods at Dawson—no words, just a nod of approval at him. Her little smile makes him swell with nervous pride. He can deal with this nosy old woman. He can tie her up. He’s in charge here.

  Dawson snatches the index card with Clara’s new cell phone number from the wall and stuffs it in his pocket, a smile spreading on his face. If it’s her number, he’ll call her in the middle of the night. She’ll wish she never laid eyes on him. But where’s the cell phone? He looks around, sees only the charger.

  Clara sits in terror, her eyes tightly shut as Dawson and Edie slam through the house, yanking out drawers, rifling her purse, cupboards, closets. Everything is happening so fast it can’t be real. She’s bound to wake up soon. She tries to free her hands. A hot bud of anger grows in her.

  Finally the wasps—filled with fury to see their fragile mistress tied up, taunted, bullied, slammed onto a chair—go after the invaders, arcing wildly around Dawson and Edie’s heads. The wasps dive-bomb their necks, arms, faces, Edie’s bare stomach. She screams, tries to swat them away, but the wasps keep coming. The purple wasp and a squadron of supporters lead the fray, urging the others to greater ferocity as Dawson and Edie yell and curse. Usually the regular wasps do all the stinging. Purple wasps sting only in extreme circumstances, like when Clara threatened to chicken out of this whole trip. The stings above her eyebrows throb badly right now, as if she just got stung, or as if her stings are in touch with the chaos around her. She can’t understand it.

  Dawson swats at the creatures with a fly swatter, which angers the wounded insects in their death throes. Still the robbers stay focused on unearthing her meager treasures. The kitchen door is wide open. The wasps fly outside, circling furiously around the door. Dawson mutters, “She doesn’t even have much cash.” He’s found sixty-five dollars.

  The escaped wasps again gather forces and sizzle back inside in a dark cloud. Clara has never heard them buzzing so loud. The wasps sting the invaders on every bare skin surface, which on Edie is significant. Her corpselike white skin is blemished with welts. The young people scream anew; the purple wasp is busy indeed.

  “Go get ’em!” Clara cries, unable to resist her fury. “Get ’em good!”

  The robbers doggedly find Clara’s few pieces of jewelry, including her wedding pearls, Frank’s extensive coin collection, $110 in cash. They dump everything into two paper shopping bags from under the sink.

  The wasps are still on the attack, but some find the allure of the open air too much to resist. Despite the purple wasp’s frantic corralling buzz, maybe a third of the wasps rise in a small cloud and disappear into a pale sky.

  “Stay! My babies!” Clara yells in despair. She’s beside herself that she’s tied up and can’t close the door.

  Stunned, Dawson and Edie both think she means for them to stay. Edie is instantly close to tears. For a moment, she stops pillaging to stare at Clara. An impossible vision of Gidget’s parents embracing her—she claps her hand to her mouth, remembering the fragrant rhubarb pie her Aunt Donna in Idaho took from the oven the last time Edie and Neil visited.

  At the same moment, Dawson stops rummaging through bookcases for hidden money and involuntarily approaches the bound woman in the kitchen. Again Clara cries, “My babies! Don’t leave!” He’s mortally embarrassed to see her addressing a bunch of wasps that have landed on the kitchen table.

  Clara stares at the young people, suddenly understanding what they thought. She’s shocked, moved by their rank neediness, their rich body odors, their unhealthy pale skins. They need a mother, a
father, a family, her. Nothing makes any sense at all.

  Dawson shakes his head, cursing his own weakness. No way would she want them to stay. Still dancing from the painful stings, he jumps off the flatbed, followed by Edie, who swallows her tears, swats the furious creatures away from her ashen belly, and runs toward the car.

  With a mighty tug, Clara at last unties her wrists and rips the netted T-shirt from her head. She’s free. Dawson had tied her up carelessly, no doubt thinking she was too old and feeble to get loose. Blinking in confusion, she hears liquid spattering outside. She’s got to get the wasps back! Panicked, furious, she marches down the steps, stops in disbelief.

  Dawson is splashing gasoline from a five-gallon can high onto the siding and eaves, all around her house. Clara stares at him, then at the wasps. The purple wasp is flying around Dawson’s head but isn’t stinging him! The other wasps aren’t either! How can this be?

  She tries to wrench the gas can from his grip. “I’ve lived in this house for forty-nine years—do you hear me, Dawson? Forty-nine years!” Enraged, she wrestles him. “Give me that can! I won’t have it!” He’s a good nine inches taller. She’s no match for his taut string-bean muscles. Suddenly she releases him. “You do these things, and you’ll get thrown in jail, and you know it, Dawson. Call it off right now and just straighten up. Get yourself a decent life.” Eyes brimming, she pelts him in a fury of blows. “For God’s sake, just settle down. Your mother abandoned you, but I won’t, even after this. Stop wrecking your life, do you hear me?”

  He laughs, stunned. She’s crazy; I’m crazy. “I won’t abandon you.” I knew it before she said it! His brain, her brain are mirror-image motherboards, united by a cable that flashes the same teeming signals to each brain. He hates her, loves her, wants her to care for him as if he were still that abandoned boy so long ago. But he can’t tolerate such a thought: He’d be pudding. Coughing from the gas fumes, he realizes the only way to save his manhood is to burn down the house, burn her.

  Furious, he splashes gasoline on her—on the back of her gray hair, on her Levi’s, her long-sleeved blue blouse, her faded red Keds. As he’s splashing, he roughly embraces her to make sure he gets gas on her back. He’s nauseated, near to sobbing. She’s wreathed in stink.

  He’s out of his mind. He pours this noxious liquid on her, yet he dares to embrace her? “No!” she shouts, slapping his face hard. Her brown eyes water with fury.

  He throws down the can. Again, she’s stopped him cold. He’s truly on the verge of tears now. Clara sees this and her own eyes fill. “My boy,” she says quietly. “For God’s sake, what are you doing?”

  Edie, watching this exchange, can’t believe her eyes. He’s chickening out! Shaken, she tosses some matches from the glove compartment toward him, shouting, “Just do it, Dawson! She’s caused us enough trouble!” Swept up in pure action, Edie wants some grand finale, some way to just get out of here. On a sudden impulse, she opens the trunk and gets out a second five-gallon can of gasoline and runs inside Clara’s house. Clara and Dawson barely notice her, so engrossed are they in their own drama.

  He can’t fail now. Clara stands still as if to dare him. He opens his flimsy match folder with the Firestone Tires sign on the front, lights a match, and throws the match at the gas-soaked siding. It flames up with a roar, spreads quickly.

  Clara gasps. Still the wasps do nothing. They’re just flying around Dawson’s head. He lights another match, this one for Clara. He steps back, pauses before her. Time slows. His throat gorges. His eyes water with rage and some uncontrollable inhibition. He cannot this moment harm her further. He hates himself, hates her.

  For a moment, he thinks to light himself afire. Why not finish the job? His life has been nothing but torment. He is filled with fury and sadness. He had no way planned a fire, only a robbery, and then he just grabbed the gas can. Now flames lick all around the little house in a fast swoosh, rising higher and higher on hungry siding that bubbles and blackens. The match burns down to his thumb and forefinger. Dazed, he drops the match and the pack of matches on the ground. Clara stands blankly looking at him, her arms useless at her sides. She glances at the burning house and quickly looks away. She can’t move, can’t look, can’t absorb what he’s doing to her house. In a mighty show of strength for his girlfriend, Dawson calls Clara one final name and runs to the waiting car.

  But Edie’s not there. She has run down the hall to Clara’s bedroom. Once there, she stops, transfixed by the scattered family photos blanketing the dresser, some still inside a manila envelope. Riotous, joyful, playful pictures—the family on a wild coast, running into the waves, a father carrying his kids piggyback separately, the family playing badminton, singing, laughing at a birthday party, everyone wreathed in crowns of lilacs. Underneath this profusion are the framed pictures, hovering together like a shrine. A much younger Clara in a wedding dress standing close to her husband, two young children smiling and happy, the whole family picnicking among big lilac bushes on a summer day.

  Edie’s passion explodes on these pictures meant for Clara’s eyes alone. In great swoops of the gas can, she defaces the whole dresser top with gas, then sprays the bed, throws a lighted match onto the dresser, and runs back down the hall, sloshing gas in every room as fast as she can, running hard to outrace the flames that try to catch her before she runs out of gas in the kitchen. Dawson looks on in astonishment as Edie bursts from the house. He’s already in the car. She barely escapes the flaming house. She throws the empty can into the trunk, bolts to the passenger side. They take off in a cloud of exhaust as Edie weeps.

  The old lady is Gidget grown up.

  Reeking of gas, Clara sits cross-legged on the bare dirt. Flames lick the dry siding and rise toward the overhanging roof. She can’t look. The rumpled traces of lilacs in the paint are surely gone now, their delicate tracery, her soul’s imprint, replaced by charcoal smears and singe. Flames, wild in the desert heat, threaten the rafters. She covers her eyes.

  She’ll get up in a minute. She has forty gallons of bottled water in Samantha’s room. She will put the fire out; yes, she will. But right now, she moves like molasses. Sitting on the ground, she watches a chain of ants busily carrying particles of sand, touching each other as they go.

  Maybe the house should burn down. All that pain and history, why not just let it go? She finds the abandoned pack of matches, rips out a match, savagely lights it, and throws it toward the house before realizing she risks an explosion with her own gaswet clothes. She runs a hundred feet away. Looking back, she sees the match has fallen short and sputtered out. She sits back down on the ground and covers her face with her hands.

  PART TWO

  Clara pours warm water over herself in the bathtub as she sits in waist-high water. Watery tendrils drip down her upper body, her pores soften as if she were thirty years younger. Her silky chin-length gray hair is brown again, long; her lungs are supple balloons. A pot of ivy raises its leaves in the humid air. The steamy bathroom air hangs like suspended net, blurring everything into mist. It’s as if she’s near-sighted, but she is not.

  She rises, towels herself off, walks outside into the evening rain that feels like a baby’s breath. Next to the huge lilac bush blooming in the backyard, her husband Darrell stands waiting for her—young like he was before he died, a cowlick on his forehead. Beside him are their two children—Samantha, before she died, and Frank, still with her. The children are eleven and nine. She crosses the yard toward them in an uptake of breath. Arms around each other at last, they embrace in a close circle.

  They are naked and homesick.

  They are homesick, yet they are home.

  The door is open, but they cannot go inside.

  chapter 15

  Clara sits in shock on the ground, staring dully at a broken fingernail. Frank, Stella, and Scotty come running across the highway. Grimly silent, they spray their fire extinguishers along the siding until the propellant runs out. The fire got a deadly head start before someone at
Desert Dan’s saw the burning house in the empty vacant lot. Scotty calls the Jackpot Fire Department on his cell phone. Frank tries to check inside the smoke-filled house, but flame and smoke drive him out. Coughing, he grabs Clara’s purse and her Greenpeace mug, parked on the kitchen counter. The purse is unzipped, no doubt rifled. Dazed and furious, he runs back outside. All three bedrooms, the hall, and the living room are crackling. He can’t believe it—the house she fought to bring here! His heart pounds. Why would anyone do this? She’s a harmless seventy-three-year-old woman.

  Frank, Stella, and Scotty mill around, unable to sit or be still, waiting for the fire truck. Their movements gradually penetrate Clara’s stupor. “The wasps!” she cries. They stare at her. Frank runs back inside, runs out again. He sees the wasps swirling crazily in the sky. He forgets about the wasps, becomes dimly aware that the kitchen was spared. Badly shaken, he just wants his mother to be safe, wants to know what happened.

  The fire truck whines in the distance. He promises himself he won’t fight her any more if she can just recover from this. At the same time, he hasn’t talked with Stella since the post-performance party. Things are unsettled between them. He and his lover exchange pained looks. Their discussion will have to wait.

  Scotty is winded and sweaty. “What happened, Clara?” His voice is weak. He looks down at her as she sits on the ground.

  Slowly she answers. “Robbery. Young people.”

  “Which way did they go?” Frank asks.

  Her voice is labored. “North. Not sure. Maybe south. Black Camaro. I didn’t get the license number.” Arms wrapped around her knees, she lapses into silence, too tired to say another word. She sits facing away from the house. She doesn’t want to see it.