by Paul Lederer
‘Eric….’
‘Shut up, Edward.’
‘That’s your mother.’
Eric said, ‘Yes, and that is my father. And Sarah is his daughter.’
‘Eric….’
‘And I am their son,’ Eric said, wheeling on his brother. His eyes were cold, his voice brittle. ‘But my mother made me pay. My father’s sins were visited upon me.’
Edward saw his mother curl up more tightly into herself, and he believed he was slowly beginning to understand.
Eric began to laugh crazily then abruptly broke off. The gun’s muzzle continued to drift about from one point to the other. Eric stepped nearer to his brother, reeking of alcohol, puke and madness.
‘Yes, Edward. I can see it in your eyes. You understand now, don’t you? Raymond was the one who raped our sister. Daddy is the one who begat that deformed creature buried in our basement. The thing Mother and Aunt Trish smothered to death one night and buried without a solemn ritual or a single muffled prayer.’
‘You’re crazy!’ Raymond shouted. He stood, his fists clenched, his body bent forward aggressively.
‘Am I? Am I, Mother?’
Ellen still would not speak. There seemed to be nothing left of her but a hunched skeleton draped in a rumpled winding sheet.
‘You came home drunk as usual, Raymond. You climbed into Sarah’s bed and raped her. She couldn’t cry out, could she? The bed was bloody and you had wandered off, stumbled to your room and Mother cleaned up after you – tell them, Mother! And Sarah was sobbing in bitter silence and I went to her to hold her for a little while to comfort her. Mother! And you came and found me there in the morning. Daddy!’ Eric’s voice had become a labored panting. ‘And then, Raymond, you beat me for your own crime. And Mother…’ his voice became a soft whisper in a long tunnel, ‘just let you do it. She was that afraid of losing you. Your faithful bitch was willing to sacrifice one of her whelps, the least favorite.’
‘God, Eric!’ Edward moaned.
‘God, yourself, you fool!’ Eric backed against the wall beside the door. Behind him still the fog rolled and still neon burst silently against it. No one had come to their door to see what the shouting was about. The pistol had grown heavy in Eric’s hand, and for a moment he lowered his arm, but when Edward made a slight movement, he raised it again.
‘That was the culmination, you see, Edward?’
‘The culmination of what?’
‘You stupid bastard! Are you really that blind, Edward, or did you just choose to be – like Mother? It was always Raymond – Daddy – wasn’t it, Mother! Raymond who had begun creeping into Sarah’s bedroom when she was only four? Helping her dress and bathe in private. Yes, Edward, Daddy is the reason behind it all, behind Sarah’s sickness. Sarah loved her Daddy, didn’t she! How could she tell anyone that he was bad! And so she chose to say nothing at all.’
‘That’s all a bunch of….’ Raymond began, but it was in his eyes. Not even shame, really; the look in a captured criminal’s eyes when he must lie, yet has no real hope of being believed.
‘Mother!’ Eric demanded. ‘Tell them! Tell them how you let it go on like that, how you let him live on while Sarah and I died as unborn and malformed as the baby in the cellar! Mother!’
‘All right! It’s true!’ Ellen screamed. Uncoiling and coming to her feet in one movement, she shouted at Raymond. Her eyes were penitent, but her apology was not to Eric but to his father.
‘I loved you, Raymond! I do love you.…’ A pathetic hand reached weakly for Raymond’s arm.
‘Christ,’ they heard Edward murmur as he turned away to face the wall, leaning his forehead against the cold plaster.
Eric felt no triumph. His legs felt rubbery, the gun in his hand impossibly heavy. His mother had sunken to her knees, clinging to Raymond’s legs. Eric felt as if he might be sick again; bile coated his throat. There should have been some joy in his heart, some sense of release, but there was only infinite disgust. He had only managed to make himself feel unclean. Raymond’s eyes still challenged him, slapping at his son’s weakness. If he could free himself from Ellen’s arms, he would beat Eric again … and again. Where there should have been a swelling of triumph, Eric felt only a flood of panic. The same ancient fear! Terror. Raymond would surely beat him to death and then go on his way, Mother tagging along – if he would have her.
‘Well,’ Raymond said, ‘are you satisfied now?’
Eric’s terror had become uncontrollable. His mouth was dry. His knees quivered, his hand shook.
Raymond, stern and terrible – inexorable – took one hobbled step toward him and Eric pulled the revolver’s trigger.
The ancient gun misfired for the second time that night.
Eric howled in frustration, a keening animal wail. Raymond made a furious lurching move toward him, but came up short as Eric careened against the door jamb and ran off wildly into the night and fog, Raymond’s curses pursuing him.
In the motel room, it was incredibly still for a moment. Ellen sat on the floor, her skirt over her raised knees, her arm flung over the bed, murmuring indistinctly. Raymond stared out the door for a long minute and then walked back to the other bed where he sat down, lacing his shoes.
Edward picked up his briefcase. He found no words at all to offer either of them; none of shock, horror, shame or censure. Not even of goodbye. He started silently for the door.
From beyond the parking lot the gunshot rang out with the roar of cataclysm.
Edward dropped his briefcase and without waiting for the others, without caring if they followed or not, he ran in the direction of the sound.
Lights were coming on again in the motel rooms; doors were being opened. A sailor in a pea coat and watch cap yelled and pointed.
‘It came from over there … I just saw a guy with a gun.’
Edward ran on, stumbling through the night. The sailor was at his heels. Already a siren was sounding in the distance.
They found Eric in the alley. The back of his head was only a fragmented memory of existence smeared across the cinder block wall, where he sat, slumped, his eyes open and oddly peaceful. The pistol lay on the asphalt beside his outflung hand.
Edward stood over his brother. The sailor was asking excited questions. Edward did not answer. He suddenly believed that he could not answer.
He did not speak at all as he sat against the damp pavement, and as the sirens and the lights drew nearer, he took his brother’s bloody body onto his lap and stroked his ravaged head, and for the first time in his memory began softly crying in the long and inexpressibly futile night.
All the people bustle around her, the men and women in their white smocks, and there is the sound of metal utensils clinking into metal bowls and they make soft sounds as they bend over her, so near that she can feel their breath on her skin. The injections make her so sleepy that they all seem to be moving behind a gauzy veil. The lights are so hot and bright that she cannot look up, and somewhere on the other side of the curtain, a child is crying and a woman is praying very loud, perhaps thinking that if she prays very loud God will hear her. They put her in a funny gown that ties in the back, and one nurse who keeps saying, ‘Oh, my. Oh, my,’ under her breath, uses a little sponge and warm yellowish water to wash her scalp. Another nurse has unwrapped Mother’s hastily applied bandage and swabs her arm with green, strong-smelling stuff that stings a lot.
Another doctor comes. This one is very dark with a long name on a brass plate pinned to his white coat. He never looks at her face, but only at her arm and the only time he speaks is to ask, ‘Can you move your fingers? Can you make a fist, Sarah?’ which seem like very funny questions. His accent is very funny too. He looks like a gypsy. He takes her hand as if he were going to tell her fortune…. One nurse gives her another shot in the arm and then the dark doctor bends very low and starts sewing on the arm like an ardent tailor. It doesn’t really hurt, but still she doesn’t want to watch him sewing her flesh together so diligently.
> They brought her here through a night filled with spinning colored lights. A siren wailed. She was strapped down on a bed with wheels – that part was scary; she did not like being strapped down. One ambulance man who was black and very gentle kept saying, ‘You’re OK. We’ll get you to the hospital.’
Sometimes there were fragments of conversation she was not meant to hear.
‘What d’ya have?’
‘Female, twenties….’
‘Attempted suicide?’
‘Family says accident….’
‘Well, they always do, don’t they?’
‘Nasty lacerations … still, she’s lucky.’
Sarah didn’t like being the center of so much attention, and her arm had hurt so bad at first. Then they had given her the injections and everything had become almost dreamlike; it was all happening to someone else.
Later, they took her to a room where it was very silent. There were four beds in a row, separated by curtains. She was placed on one of them and a cool sheet drawn up to cover her. A little while later, a small nurse with quick movements came in and hung a bottle on an aluminum stand beside her bed. The nurse stuck a needle in the back of Sarah’s hand and taped it there. She patted Sarah’s shoulder and went away, her skirt swishing, leaving Sarah alone in the drowsy night.
Several times people came by. A man who was not a doctor stood over her. He had a small black notebook in his hand.
He asked, ‘Can you hear me, Miss Tucker? Can you tell me what happened? Why were you trying to kill yourself?’
Sarah smiled at him. Why in the world would she ever want to kill herself? As to what had happened – why, she was a silly girl and a clumsy one. Mother had told her to stay in the room and she hadn’t minded. She had gone out instead. The sidewalk was very cold, and it was very slick. She remembered that. Somehow she had slipped and fallen through the window.
Later, a nurse with a huge bosom with a small gold watch pinned there, came in followed by a tiny, worried-looking nurse. The big one looked at the chart fastened to the foot of Sarah’s bed and said, ‘Tucker. Yeah, when Dr Dalhousie releases her, she’ll be transferred to the Psych Ward.’
Then they went out and Sarah wasn’t disturbed the rest of the night. She worried briefly that Mother would be angry with her for being so clumsy and causing such a fuss, but the drugs soon took over and she fell off into unhaunted sleep.
Don March was clammy with sweat when he ran up the steps of Northshore Hospital and into the reception area. He had run all the way from the motel to Jake’s house, pounded on the fisherman’s door until Jake answered and, in a torrent of words, told Jake what had happened.
‘I’ve got to get to the hospital, Jake. I need the station wagon.’
‘All right,’ Jake had said, studying the pale, perspiring man on his porch, ‘but I’ll take you. You’re in no condition to drive.’
That was the way they had done it. The road seemed interminable. Don didn’t say a word the entire way. He sat leaning forward, staring ahead, willing more speed.
Now he crossed the white-tiled lobby and waited impatiently behind an older man for his turn to speak to the nurse behind the glass partition.
‘Sarah Tucker?’ he asked excitedly when his turn finally came. ‘They brought her in here about an hour ago.’
The nurse, a cold-eyed redhead wearing half-moon glasses eyed him with caution. He probably looked like a madman. Don nervously wiped perspiration from his face with the back of his hand.
‘Was she taken to Emergency, sir?’
‘Yes … she would have been, yes.’
The nurse was doing something with her computer. It seemed to take forever.
‘Yes, I have her as admitted.’
‘Where do I go?’
‘Are you family, sir?’ the nurse asked. Don noticed that she smelled like baby powder.
‘Yes, I’m her brother. Edward Tucker.’
‘I see. Have you identification?’
‘I was in such a hurry….’ Don patted at his pockets. ‘I mean, when there’s an accident, you don’t think of these things.’
‘Well, Mr Tucker, you see…’ the red-haired nurse began, but a second nurse who had been on the telephone now hung up and swiveled to face him.
‘Did you say your name was Edward Tucker, Sarah’s brother?’ she enquired.
‘Yes,’ Don answered. ‘I am.’
‘I congratulate you, Mr Tucker,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘On possessing an ability many of us must envy – the ability to be in two places at once. I was just speaking to Mr Edward Tucker on the phone.’
‘You don’t understand! I have to see her,’ Don said. He was nearly shouting; several people turned to stare. A nearby janitor stopped his mopping to glance that way.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the redhead said stiffly. ‘We have our rules, you understand.’
‘OK … all right. Just tell me her condition, OK? Please.’
‘Family members only at this time,’ the nurse said and there was steel in her voice now.
The other nurse spoke up again, ‘If I could make a suggestion, Mr Tucker? Perhaps you could contact … Mr Tucker.’
Don saw a uniformed guard moving slowly toward him, and he spun away furiously and stalked toward the front doors. Reaching the foyer, he was forced to detour around the janitor who stood there, mop in his wheeled bucket. The man, surprisingly, touched Don’s arm as he passed.
‘Hey man,’ he said. ‘That girl? A dark-haired girl about twenty, her arm cut up pretty bad?’
‘That’s right.’
‘She’s OK, man. They sewed her up and took her to the second floor and put her to bed.’
‘Thanks!’ Don said with relief and gratitude. ‘I mean it, thank you.’
‘It ain’t nothin’, man,’ the janitor said with a shake of his head. ‘We’re all people, got to treat each other like it.’ Then he got back to his mopping, leaving Don to go on his way.
Jake looked up expectantly as Don crossed the hospital parking lot and approached the car.
‘That didn’t take long,’ Jake said, as Don climbed in.
‘No. It doesn’t take long when they slam the door in your face,’ Don replied bitterly.
‘Like that, was it? Well, it figures. I understand their rules on that. They can’t have everybody barging in.’
‘Let’s get out of here, OK, Jake?’
‘Sure. In a minute.’ Jake turned in the seat, arm draped over its back. Facing Don, he asked, ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
Don’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean about what happened tonight.’
‘I don’t get you. I told you everything, Jake.’
The fisherman nodded toward the dashboard, ‘It was on the radio, Don.’
‘I don’t understand you.’
‘I guess you don’t,’ Jake said, sounding perplexed. ‘Hell, why would you lie to me? OK, they found Sarah’s brother dead tonight.’
‘That can’t be. Edward was just on the tel—’
‘Not him. The younger brother.’
‘Eric!’
‘Yeah. That’s the name they gave.’
‘You’ve got to be mistaken, Jake. He wasn’t even there when it happened.’
‘There’s no mistake. It happened beside the motel.’
‘Jesus Christ! Was it his father, or…?’
‘They’re calling it suicide.’ Jake turned and started the station wagon’s motor. ‘You’re right, let’s get out of here.’
Don, stunned, waited until they were back on the forest-lined highway, virtually alone on the road at this hour. The headlight beams cut white fans against the dark pavement.
‘What did the radio say?’ he asked finally from the shadows.
‘Just what I told you – he blew his brains out in an alley beside the motel. They mentioned that there’d been some kind of disturbance there earlier.’
‘Poor S
arah.’ At least she hadn’t witnessed that.
‘Yeah.’ Jake dimmed his headlights as a pair of big-rigs slashed past them, heading inland on an all-night run.
‘One thing,’ Jake told him. ‘They said his revolver had four bullets loaded, like he was going to use one on each family member.’
‘Christ!’
‘It was just a theory some cop had,’ Jake shrugged. ‘Anyway, he did end up using one of the bullets.’ He glanced at Don. ‘I thought you might have had some clue as to what was going on.’
‘I didn’t know Eric Tucker any better than you did, Jake.’
‘No, I guess not.’ They drove on a silent mile through the pines beside the road. Now the fog had lifted and the trees cut jagged silhouettes against a starry sky.
‘What are you going to do now, Don?’
‘Get some sleep, I hope.’
‘Cut it out. You know what I mean. Are you going to give up on the girl?’
Instead of answering, Don asked, ‘What time’s the sun supposed to come up tomorrow, Jake?’
‘Why, around 6.15, I think.’
‘I’ll tell you what, then. If it still hasn’t risen by noon, I’ll consider giving up on Sarah.’
‘Fair enough,’ the bearded fisherman said with a grin.
Don grinned in return, but there was no real humor or confidence in his heart. None at all.
He rode on in silence through the bleak and formless night, feeling impotent and more than a little foolish.
They only spoke once more before making their separate ways home to bed. It was after Jake had put the station wagon away in the garage and they had said goodnight in the alley.
Don asked his friend, ‘Jake, that little storage yard behind your place, where Pat was keeping his boat, is it still empty?’
‘Sure. Do you need it?’
‘Yeah. I could use it.’ Because although it wasn’t much of a start – no more than a gesture – really, tomorrow seemed like a good day to go and get Poppsy.
Nine
‘SAD-LOOKING CREATURE,’ was all Jake had said upon seeing Poppsy, and then he had trudged away, hands in his jacket pockets, leaving Don March to try commiserating with his new charge.
